Aristotelian logic

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The Organon is the name given by Aristotle's followers, the Peripatetics, to the standard collection of his six works on logic. The works are Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics and Sophistical Refutations.

Constitution of the texts

The order of the works is not chronological (which is now hard to determine) but was deliberately chosen by Theophrastus to constitute a well-structured system. Indeed, parts of them seem to be a scheme of a lecture on logic. The arrangement of the works was made by Andronicus of Rhodes around 40 BC.¹

Aristotle's Metaphysics has some points of overlap with the works making up the Organon but is not traditionally considered part of it; additionally there are works on logic attributed, with varying degrees of plausibility, to Aristotle that were not known to the Peripatetics.

• The Categories (Latin: Categoriae) introduces Aristotle's 10-fold classification of that which exists. These categories consist of substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, situation, condition, action, and passion.
• On Interpretation (Latin:De Interpretatione, Greek Perihermenias) introduces Aristotle's conception of proposition and judgment, and the various relations between affirmative, negative, universal and particular propositions. It contains Aristotle's principal contribution to philosophy of language. It also discusses the Problem of future contingents.
• The Prior Analytics (Latin: Analytica Priora) introduces his syllogistic method (see term logic), argues for its correctness, and discusses inductive inference.
• The Posterior Analytics (Latin: Analytica Posteriora) deals with demonstration, definition, and scientific knowledge.
• The Topics (Latin: Topica) treats issues in constructing valid arguments, and inference that is probable, rather than certain. It is in this treatise that Aristotle mentions the Predicables, later discussed by Porphyry and the scholastic logicians.
• Sophistical Refutations (Latin: De Sophisticis Elenchis) gives a treatment of logical fallacies, and provides a key link to Aristotle's work on rhetoric.

Influence

The Organon was used in the school founded by Aristotle at the Lyceum, and some parts of the works seem to be a scheme of a lecture on logic. So much so that after Aristotle's death, his publishers (Andronicus of Rhodes in 50 BC, for example) collected these works.

Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, much of Aristotle's work was lost in the Latin West. The Categories and On Interpretation are the only significant logical works that were available in the early Middle Ages. These had been translated into Latin by Boethius. The other logical works were not available in Western Christendom until translated to Latin in the 12th century. However, the original Greek texts had been preserved in the Greek-speaking lands of the Eastern Roman Empire (aka Byzantium). In the mid-twelfth century, James of Venice translated into Latin the Posterior Analytics from Greek manuscripts found in Constantinople.

The books of Aristotle were available in the early Arab Empire, and after 750 AD Muslims had most of them, including the Organon, translated into Arabic, sometimes via earlier Syriac translations. They were studied by Islamic and Jewish scholars, including Rabbi Moses Maimonides (1135–1204) and the Muslim Judge Ibn Rushd, known in the West as Averroes (1126 - 1198); both were originally from Cordoba, Spain, although the former eventually moved to Muslim North Africa.

All the major scholastic philosophers wrote commentaries on the Organon. Aquinas, Ockham and Scotus wrote commentaries on On Interpretation. Ockham and Scotus wrote commentaries on the Categories and Sophistical Refutations. Grosseteste wrote an influential commentary on the Posterior Analytics.

In the Enlightenment there was a revival of interest in logic as the basis of rational enquiry, and a number of texts, most successfully the Port-Royal Logic, polished Aristotelian term logic for pedagogy. During this period, while the logic certainly was based on that of Aristotle, Aristotle's writings themselves were less often the basis of study. There was a tendency in this period to regard the logical systems of the day to be complete, which in turn no doubt stifled innovation in this area. However Francis Bacon published his Novum Organum ("The New Organon") as a scathing attack in 1620 ^[1]. Immanuel Kant thought that there was nothing else to invent after the work of Aristotle, and a famous logic historian called Karl von Prantl claimed that any logician who said anything new about logic was "confused, stupid or perverse." These examples illustrate the force of influence which Aristotle's works on logic had. Indeed, he had already become known by the Scholastics (medieval Christian scholars) as "The Philosopher", in large part due to the influence he had upon Aquinas. It was not until the early modern period that Aristotelian logic fell out of favor.

Since the logical innovations of the 19th century, particularly the formulation of modern predicate logic, Aristotelian logic has fallen out of favor among many analytic philosophers. Though predicate logic is predominant in much of analytic philosophy, defenders of Aristotelian logic remain: for example, Henry Veatch.

Notes

¹ Hammond, p. 64, "Andronicus Rhodus"

References

1. ^ The Teaching Company - Birth of the Modern Mind

• Edghill, E. M. (translator) (2007), written at The University of Adelaide, Categories, eBooks @ Adelaide, <http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/categories/>.

• Edghill, E. M. (translator) (2007), written at The University of Adelaide, On Interpretation, eBooks @ Adelaide, <http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/interpretation/>.

• Jenkinson, A. J. (translator) (2007), written at The University of Adelaide, Prior Analytics, eBooks @ Adelaide, <http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/a8pra/>.

• Mure, G. R. G. (translator) (2007), written at The University of Adelaide, Posterior Analytics, eBooks @ Adelaide, <http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/a8poa/>.

• Pickard-Cambridge, W. A. (translator) (2007), written at The University of Adelaide, Topics, eBooks @ Adelaide, <http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/a8t/>.

• Pickard-Cambridge, W. A. (translator) (2007), written at The University of Adelaide, On Sophistical Refutations, eBooks @ Adelaide, <http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/sophistical/>.

• Bocheński, I. M., 1951. Ancient Formal Logic. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
• Couturat, Louis, 1961. La Logique de Leibniz. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung.
• Hammond and Scullard, 1992. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-869117-3.
• Jan Łukasiewicz, 1951. Aristotle's Syllogistic, from the Standpoint of Modern Formal Logic. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Parry and Hacker, 1991. Aristotelian Logic. Albany: State University of New York Press.
• Parsons, Terence, 1999. 'Traditional Square of Opposition'. Article at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Rose, Lynn E., 1968. Aristotle's Syllogistic. Springfield, Ill.: Clarence C. Thomas.
• Smith, Robin, 2004. 'Aristotle's Logic'. Article at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Turner, W., 1903. 'History of Philosophy'. Ginn and Co, Boston. All references in this article are to Chapter nine on 'Aristotle'.
• Veatch, Henry B., 1969. Two Logics: The Conflict between Classical and Neo-Analytic Philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press.

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Organon

• Aristotle article at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Aristotelian Logic (PlanetMath's entry)
• "Aristotle's Logic" article by Robin Smith in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy