Aristotle's modal syllogistic has been described as "incoherent," "a failure," "a realm of darkness." Even the gentler critics claim that it is inconsistent. I offer an interpretation according to which validity in the modal syllogistic is always obtained by substituting modal terms in the nonmodal syllogistic, and restricting the principles of modal conversion. In this paper I discuss the apodeictic syllogistic, showing that the restrictions I propose are powerful enough to do all the work Aristotle requires and, in fact, are (...) supported by a close analysis of Aristotle's text. The upshot of this is that there is for Aristotle no separate modal syllogistic. (shrink)

This is a brief note that looks at the problem presented by the traditional rendering of the modal syllogism Disamis XLL. In two recent articles, I argue that we should not attribute Disamis XLL to Aristotle. The purpose of this note is to provide textual support for my claim.