Aristotle's Logical Works and His Conception of Logic

ABSTRACT: I provide a survey of the contents of the worksbelonging to Aristotle’s

Organon in order to define their nature, inthe light of his declared intentions and of other indications (mainlyinternal ones) about his purposes. No unifying conception of logiccan be found in them, such as the traditional one, suggested by thevery title Organon, of logic as a methodology of demonstration.Logic for him can also be formal logic (represented in the main bythe De Interpretatione), axiomatized syllogistic (represented in themain by the Prior Analytics) and a methodology of dialectical andrhetorical discussion. The consequent lack of unity presented by thoseworks does not exclude that both the set of works called Analyticsand the set of works concerning dialectic (Topics and SophisticiElenchi) form a unity, and that a certain priority is attributed to theanalytics with respect to dialectic.

1. Introduction

In this paper I intend to raise some general questionsabout Aristotle’s logical works, starting with the fol-lowing: is there any unity among these works? If anyunity can be found, is it to be understood in the lightof an inclusive but definite conception of logic? Whydoes Aristotle introduce a distinction between analyticsand topics or dialectic? Are there further branches oflogic that he recognises? Is there a priority of theanalytics among these branches of logic?

These questions are not only general but also ratherelementary. Usually, when offering an exposition ordiscussion of Aristotle’s contributions to logic, they arenot explicitly raised, either because it is assumed wealready have a satisfactory answer to them or becauseit is assumed that giving an answer to them is not ofgreat interest. However, if we are interested in under-standing those contributions from the point of view ofthe history of thought rather than in evaluating theirusefulness for a handbook of logic, they cannot beignored. The supposition that we have a satisfactoryanswer to them, unless it is backed by clear and explicitstatements by Aristotle, could turn out to be unjustified.

But Aristotle himself does not say very much about hisintentions in writing his works of logic. In fact, as weshall see, sometimes (and with limitation to certainworks) in a single work of logic we find statementswhich throw some light on his intention in writing thatwork but no statements of more general application.

Notoriously, the works on logic which fall under thetraditional denomination of Organon were not puttogether by Aristotle himself. Even this denominationwhich is given to them is not used by him, nor does heuse any alternative denomination.1 He fails even to giveindications of a recognition that these works standtogether. Beyond this, we miss any general denomina-tion for the field or discipline to which these worksshould be supposed to belong, such as our “logic”. TheGreek logike used by itself (but with techne or epistemeimplied) is not to be found in his writings. Theadjective logikos is often used by him to qualify someinquiry as dialectical, thus is used in a somewhat restric-tive way, even if with some accentuation of the formalaspect.2

On one occasion, in Topics I 14, he goes beyond this,for he treats the propositions and problems that can beof concern for both dialectic and philosophy asbelonging to three distinct fields, since they are calledethical (e.g. “Should one rather obey one’s parents orthe law, if they disagree?”), logical (e.g. “Is knowledgeof contraries the same or not?”) and physical (e.g. “Isthe world eternal or not?”). Yet it does not seem thatthis could lead to a distinction internal to philosophyin three fields, comparable to that adopted by the Stoics,since the distinction which prevails, and makes itsappearance in the same book of the Topics (talking ofpropositions, cfr. ch. 11), is that between theoretical andpractical philosophy. And this is a distinction that doesnot leave space for logic as a distinct field of philos-ophy. On the other hand it does not seem that the“logical” propositions of Topics I 14 can be made to cor-

Aristotle’s Logical Works and His Conception of Logic* Walter Leszl

Topoi 23: 71–100, 2004. 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

respond to the third class of propositions which areintroduced in ch. 11, viz. those which are taken asinstrumental (sunerga), thus suggesting an instrumentalconception of logic. These propositions in fact are thereregarded as constituting a field of philosophical inquiryon a par with the other two classes, and the logicalproblem there quoted as an example (“Is knowledge ofcontraries the same or not?”) seems to be of interestfor philosophy.3 Further, the propositions that in I 11 aresaid to be “instrumental” probably are not supposed toconstitute a third indipendent class but two classes ofpropositions subordinated to either the theoretical or thepractical ones.4

It could also be argued that the traditional concep-tion of logic as an “instrument” (organon) is in con-formity with Aristotle’s point of view because he doesnot give a place to it in his three-partition of the sciencesand arts into theoretical, practical and productive (forwhich cfr. Metaphysics VI [E] 1) and because he admitsthat familiarity with the methodology which isexpounded in his logical works is propaedeutic to theacquirement of those sciences and arts.5 That one cannotdraw such a positive conclusion from the first, negative,point, is something that I shall try to show in whatfollows. As to the other point, there is no complete coin-cidence between the educatedness (paideia) whichenables one to judge of the correctness of the procedureadopted in each field and the contents of Aristotle’sworks on logic. Aristotle, in fact, in one passage (thatof Metaphysics IV [

Γ] 3, 1005b2–5), speaks of a morerestricted paideia concerning the analytics, presumablybecause he admits a competence in methodology whichdoes not involve the whole of logic. Further, there is asimilar recognition on his part that one can possess apaideia that is not general but concerns a given fieldof inquiry (cfr., again, De Partibus Animalium I 1,639a1 ff.; Ethica Nicomachea I 1, 1094b20 ff.). Andthis recognition itself must be based on the convictionthat the paideia in question, when it is not general butrestricted to a given field, involves a capacity of judge-ment regarding contents and not only method, becauseit is based on the appropriate experience (this is sug-gested by the passage of EN I 1, by the parallel passageof Eudemian Ethics I 6, 1216b35–1217b17, and, at leastimplicitly, by Politics III 11, 1282a3–7). Certainly, toexclude that there is a complete coincidence betweenthe educatedness which concerns the sciences and artsand the possession of the techniques provided by logicis not to exclude the existence of an overlap. This point

of coincidence is given by methodology, thus leads tothe conception of logic as an organon. It is only thatone has to admit that this conception cannot cover, forreasons that should become more clear in what follows,all the contributions of the Stagirite to logic.6

What can be said is that Aristotle shows awarenessof the fact that certain investigations are topic-neutral,because he points out that dialectic (and rhetoric in sofar as its procedure is dialectical) is ‘neutral’ both in thesense that it can elaborate arguments that go both ways(either in favour of or against the same thesis, or infavour of contrary theses) and that it has no definitesubject matter of its own like any other science or art(cfr. Rhetoric I 1, 1355a29 ff.; I 2, 1356a30–33; I 4,1359b8–16). Had he recognised the unity of all theinquiries which possess these characteristics, he wouldhave been able to adopt a common denomination forthem all, and probably the word logike would haveappeared appropriate to him, since he does use the wordto point out that a certain procedure does away withthe principles appropriate to a given subject-matter andis very abstract, especially as it does not rely on sense-perception (cfr. e.g. De Generatione et Corruptione I2, 316a8–14; I 8, 325a13–16; Physics VIII 8, 264a7–9;De Generatione Animalium II 8, 747b28 ff.). Aristotlehowever does not come to this recognition, for reasonsthat must be conjectured. In spite of his having con-tributed a good deal to the elaboration of a conceptionof validity and of logical form which shows that logicdoes not depend on contents, he must have remainedof the conviction that the relationships studied by logichave some basis in reality, so that we cannot whollyignore the complex articulation of the world around us.Further, logic is supposed by him to have instrumentalvalue either in view of reaching knowledge of reality orin view of elaborating arguments for the practice ofdialectic and for rhetoric, but these aims are too dif-ferent to suppose that, in its approach, logic remains thesame in both cases.

The ancient commentators of Aristotle couldmaintain that his works on logic constitute an Organon,that is to say, are methodological works, because theysupposed that the work which deals with the method ofscience, which means, primarily, with demonstration,constitutes the centre of the system. This work is thePosterior Analytics, to which the Prior Analytics wasput in close association. Little independence was attrib-uted to the Topics and the Sophistici Elenchi, for it wassupposed that their main task is to show how to avoid

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sophisms and fallacies. The Categories and the DeInterpretatione were regarded as ancillary to theAnalytics.7 As I shall try to show in this paper, there issome justification in attributing a priority to theAnalytics with respect to the Topics (+ SophisticiElenchi), but the commentators’ very restrictive con-ception of the purpose of this work cannot be accepted.It is equally reductive to regard the other works as ancil-lary to the Analytics, and some autonomy must be attrib-uted even to the Prior Analytics with respect to thePosterior Analytics, for syllogistic is studied for its ownsake and not only instrumentally. The commentatorsthemselves, in establishing a connection among theseworks, have recourse to a conception of logic asinvolving the admission of an increasing complexity(from terms to propositions to syllogisms) in its subjectmatter, but this is a conception of logic that is differentfrom its conception as a methodology. Some scholars,in recent times, have adopted a similar conception ofAristotle’s logic as a methodology, putting however atthe centre of the system not the Posterior Analytics butthe Topics, in the conviction that dialectic constitutesthe method of his philosophical inquiries. I will arguethat this account is open to objections of the samekind.

An attempt to give a picture of the AristotelianOrganon as a whole on these lines is provided byBurnyeat 2001, ch. 5 entitled The Organon As ‘Logical’.He regards the Organon as having a certain internalunity, for he believes that it consists of “two largemethodological treatises, Topics and Analytics, and twosmall works, Categories and De Interpretatione, ancil-lary to the first” (op. cit., p. 111). It will be seen that Icannot accept this account of the “small works”, whichin the case of the De Interpretatione is based exclusivelyon Whitaker’s interpretation. He also believes that “thefour works belong together, not only stylistically, butalso conceptually. They are all, in one way or another,devoted to methodology, to preparing the student forsubstantive knowledge: primarily in the theoreticaldomain, to a lesser extent in the practical” (ibid.). Thesecond statement seems to me to be only partly true,and in any case to be a simplification, for it is not basedon much discussion of Aristotle’s intentions, and it isnot so indifferent to what “substantive knowledge” awork is preparatory; but on the issue of the use of theseworks in relation to the rest of the Aristotelian work Ido not intend to take a definite stance, as already stated.The first statement is based on the remark (of p. 94)

that these are works “that begin, in a way no otherAristotelian work begins, by assembling apparatusfor the sequel” (that is to say, by defining the termsused and so forth). The remark is well grounded, butBurnyeat himself explains this common characteristicwith the fact that their author is “creating a new subjectmatter rather than charting one that exists already” (op.cit., p. 94); hence this point of contact does not showthat they belong together, for it could hypothetically beextended to any work in which Aristotle breaks newground (in fact a partial parallel is given by Politicsbook III in relation to Politics books IV–VII: therehe explains the concepts of ‘constitution’, ‘citizen’,‘equality’, etc., which will be employed in those books;Burnyeat himself admits that a similar partial parallel isgiven by the initial part of the Rhetoric in relation tothe rest). Certain shrewd observations he makes leadhim to conclusions that in my view are largely unac-ceptable.

It is no doubt of importance, in trying to determinewhat logic was for Aristotle, to keep in mind that atthe time he set out to write his works the only logicthat was conceivable was a sort of methodology ofdialectic. This is evident from the works of Plato, asall the contributions he has to offer to what we wouldcall logic belong in fact to the methodology of dialectic,on the assumption that there is a coincidence betweendialectic and philosophy. This is also evident fromwhat we know of the titles of the works by Antisthenes(cfr. Diogenes Laertius VI 16–17) and from the (ratherlittle) we know of the contributions to logic by him andby the Megarics (on Euclid and his successors seeDiogenes Laertius II 106–112). Even after Aristotle,most philosophical schools admitted some form ofcoincidence between logic and dialectic, and, if theytook notice of the contributions by Aristotle and thePeripatetics, would put them under dialectic. It is onlythe Peripatetics that, following the Stagirite, made adistinction between dialectic and analytics. But this isan important innovation that cannot be played down inany way.

That Aristotle’s position, in introducing an analyticsthat is distinct from dialectic, is rather an exception inthe ancient tradition of logic is a fact to which usuallylittle attention is given in histories of logic, becausethese works assume a conception of formal logic whichimplies more continuity with Aristotle’s analytics thanwith dialectic as conceived by him or by any otherauthor in antiquity. (Of course Stoic logic has an impor-

ARISTOTLE’S LOGICAL WORKS AND HIS CONCEPTION OF LOGIC 73

tant place in those works, but often its dialectical inten-tions are disregarded and emphasis is placed instead onthose contributions which can be seen as relevant toformal logic.) Another reason for this situation is thatancient dialectic, with all its developments as a philo-sophical method, remained primarily an art of con-ducting debates according to certain rules, but theconnection that on this ground there was between logicand a certain practice of discussion is not obvious tous any more.

In trying to clarify Aristotle’s point of view thefact then that he thought there were reasons for intro-ducing a distinct discipline, i.e. analytics, requiressome attention. And it is probably not an accident butsomething that must at least partly be understood in thislight, if he is most explicit about his intentions in hisworks dedicated specifically to analytics and todialectic. (His works on dialectic, i.e. the Topics and theSophistici Elenchi, are usually quoted by him under thename Topika, but occasionally also as works “ondialectic”.)8

Thus we come to two of the questions formulated atthe beginning (i.e. those concerning the analytics andits relationship with dialectic), to which it is relativelyeasier to give an answer because Aristotle does revealsomething of his intentions. We will have to see howfar this can help us in attempting to answer theremaining questions as well, for which we have no com-parable direct declarations. The suggestions I shall makeon all these points must be regarded as tentative andincomplete, because of the limits of the evidence andbecause I intend to concentrate my attention on theworks belonging to the Organon, leaving out widerissues such as the role which the methods associatedwith the analytics and with dialectic have in the scien-tific and philosophical works by Aristotle.9 It is alsopossible that a closer analysis of the contents of thelogical works than the one I have provided in the limitsof the present paper could give further clues for a betterunderstanding of Aristotle’s intentions. The same canbe said of a discussion of the origin and the composi-tion of those works, which is not given at all. Finally,it is not my intention to offer a synthesis of Aristotle’scontributions to logic, though it is unavoidable to touchupon questions of contents. For such a synthesis I canrefer the reader, with some reservations,10 to the chapteron Logic by Smith 1995.

2. Formal logic and the

De Interpretatione

A conception of logic that is traditionally traced backto Aristotle considers it as formal logic (rather than asmethodology) and is based on the admission of a seriesof degrees of complexity in the discourse which is thesubject matter of the discipline. One starts in fact withthe single terms which constitute sentences, distin-guishing between noun and verb; one passes then to thewhole sentences themselves, making a distinctionbetween those which are either true or false (and whichare called “apophantical” by Aristotle) and the others(which do not receive any closer consideration), recog-nising that these can be either affirmative or negative,can be quantified in various ways, and involve differentmodalities (necessary or contingent, etc.); on this basisit is also recognised that there are certain relations thatcan be established among them, such as those sum-marised in the so-called logical square; one ends withsyllogistic, which defines the relations between propo-sitions (taken as premisses) on the basis of which validconclusions can be drawn.

Tracing such a conception of logic back to Aristotleis not arbitrary, because this sort of schema is to a largeextent to be found in his De Interpretatione, and itseems plausible to admit that the syllogistic dependson the account of noun and verb (as terms in proposi-tions) and of proposition which is given in that work.11

It is assumed in fact that the premisses of syllogismsare ‘atomic’ propositions made up of two terms whichare in a predicative relationship one to the other,12 thesepropositions being either true or false. The questionhowever is whether Aristotle himself would have beenwilling to put this schema at the centre of logic as heunderstands it. One immediate and obvious difficultywhich we meet is that it is not easy to give a place tothe contributions to dialectic in the Topics and SophisticiElenchi, for these concern methodology and not formallogic so conceived. Further, even the contributions tothe methodology of science in the Posterior Analytics,though certainly depending on the treatment of syllo-gism in the Prior Analytics, do not fit well into thepicture.

If we look a little closer at the contents of DeInterpretatione, it can be said that part of its contentsare a contribution to what can be called (as is done byBochenski)13 logical syntax, and coincide with the studyof connectives that is to be found in certain recent hand-books of logic (I mean connectives such as ‘and’ and

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‘or’, and signs of denial), with the exclusion howeverof those connectives (such as ‘if ’ or ‘if . . . then . . .’and ‘because’) which are of use in inferences. (In brief,with this reservation, it coincides to a large extent withthe section on Statement Composition in W. V. O.Quine’s Elementary Logic.) It is sufficiently clear thatAristotle’s intention is to identify the basic bearers oftruth and falsity, which for him are the simple proposi-tions, to which all other propositions should be reducedas being complex ones (that is to say as being the com-bination of more than one simple proposition kepttogether by a connective, in Greek sundesmos, cfr. ch.5). These propositions themselves are analysed in asubject-term or name (onoma) and in a predicate-termor ‘verb’ (rhema) which are taken as semantically basicand syntactically simple. This analysis is given, in themain, with the purpose of making clear how proposi-tions (and sentences in general) are compounded,by recognition of an asymmetry between name and‘verb’,14 for there are no great semantic developments.15

Conventionalism is accepted without any discussion, butonly in so far as it does not exclude an identity for allmen of the “affections in the soul” of which spokensounds are the symbols or signs.

It is likely, rather, that Aristotle, in chapter 1, talksof underlying “affections in the soul” that later are pre-sented as objects of thought (noemata) because he wantsto introduce his view of truth and falsity as dependingeither on the composition or combination or on theseparation of indivisible objects of thought (of noematathat are adiaireta), corresponding (in the case of truth)or not corresponding (in the case of falsity) to a similarcomposition or separation of objects in reality.16 And itis this theory of truth and falsity, coupled with theadmission that the basic facts in reality are mirrored inpredicative relations, that leads him to adopt the pro-gramme of analysing every complex proposition as amolecular compound of simple propositions each con-taining one name and one ‘verb’, even if its realisationis not without difficulties.17 The natural consequenceof the account he offers, namely the existence of asimple relationship of contradiction between an affir-mative proposition (that involving combination betweentwo indivisible noemata) and the corresponding negativeproposition (that involving separation between the sameindivisible noemata), so that each of these propositionsmust be either true or false and one of them must betrue and the other false, is drawn in chapter 6. The restof the programme developed in the De Interpretatione,

from chapter 7 onwards, depends on the recognition ofthe fact that this simple picture of the relationshipbetween propositions must give way to one that is agood deal more complicated once we take into accountquantification (‘some’, ‘every’, etc.), as is done inchapters 7 to 10 (and beyond), and, again, once we takeinto account modality (‘possible’, ‘necessary’, etc.), asis done in chapters 12 and 13. A schematic summaryof the relationship between quantified propositions isgiven in what will be called (after Aristotle) the logicalsquare of opposition. Some of the remaining contribu-tions in this part of the work, such as the well-knowndiscussion of future contingents in chapter 9 (which hasto do with both modality and contradiction), are moreor less closely connected with the main contributionsto the programme. These contributions correspond tosome extent to the propositional calculus of contempo-rary logic.

One can see that among the contributions of the DeInterpretatione there is a reasonable degree of unity andthat they belong to what can be called ‘formal logic’,even if it is not pure formal logic, because languagewhen assertive and in its predicative structure issupposed to reflect reality in certain general features.18

The unity of purpose in this part of the treatment is sug-gested by Aristotle himself, who at the very beginningof the work makes the following statement: “First wemust settle what a name is and what a verb is, then whata negation, an affirmation, a proposition and a sentenceare” (Ackrill’s transl. modified), and in its final chapterrecalls the view that spoken sounds are the symbols of“affections in the soul” (cfr. 24b1–2). That the inquiryhe pursues in this work has its peculiar nature is clearlyrecognised by him, since he says it is different fromthe study of the “affections of the soul” that is reservedto the treatise about the soul (cfr. ch. 1, 16a8–9), fromthe consideration reserved to language by rhetoric andpoetry (cfr. end of ch. 4), and from any treatment thatcan be given of the unity of a definition (cfr. ch. 5,17a13–15),19 but unfortunately he does not try to char-acterise it in a more positive way.

It would have been possible to select and organisethe other contributions in the works of the AristotelianOrganon in such a way as to constitute the naturaldevelopment of this programme, starting of course withthe syllogistic of the Prior Analytics.20 Further, in thistreatment of the matter one would have found somejustification for putting an “analytics” at the centre offormal logic, for the overall procedure in the treatment


of propositions is certainly analytical, beyond the factthat the reduction of complex propositions to simpleones is an analytical operation. Yet this is not whathappens, and in fact when there is a mention of“analytics” in the De Interpretatione, this is a referenceto a distinct work, namely the Prior Analytics (cfr. 10,19b31).

That Aristotle himself is not pursuing the programmedescribed above beyond the De Interpretatione is shownby the difficulties which emerge if we try to establisha close connection between this work and the PriorAnalytics. In spite of there being certain points ofcontact, since, in some way, the account of propositionsgiven in the first work is (as has already been pointedout above) presupposed in the second, there is noreference back to the other work in the Prior Analyticsand there is no looking forward to syllogistic in the DeInterpretatione (the mentioned reference in 10, 19b31,is to something more specific). One can add that ourwork appears to be rather isolated in the whole of theAristotelian production, since no references to it areto be found elsewhere either (while it itself containsreferences to various other works).21

Any strong continuity between its contents and thoseof the Prior Analytics is excluded for two main reasons,which concern two innovations to be found in this otherwork: (1) Aristotle in most cases does away withconcrete examples and adopts letters as term-variables,while still admitting that every proposition is composedby two terms (this innovation was perhaps suggested bythe already established use of letters in geometry);(2) instead of using the simple form of expression ‘Bis A’ he usually adopts the more complicated forms‘A belongs (huparchei) to B’ or ‘A is predicated(kategoreitai) of B’. One reason for adopting these otherforms has to do with the position of the “middleterm”, i.e. the term that is common to the two premisses:in the syllogisms of the first figure it actually appearsas a middle term,22 since it is the second term (that ofwhich the ‘belonging’ is said) in the major premiss andthe first term in the minor premiss, instead of being atthe extremes (first term in the major premiss, secondterm in the minor premiss).23 And it would appearthat this is also a reason for supposing thatsyllogisms in the first figure are “perfect” or “complete”in a way in which those belonging to the other figuresare not. This is a distinction to which I shall returnlater.

For the moment it should be noticed that these inno-

vations receive no explanation in the Prior Analytics butconstitute a break of continuity with the contents of theDe Interpretatione. It has to be added that Aristotle, inthe initial part of the work, gives some explanation ofwhat he means by terms, by premisses, by syllogism,etc., without any reference to the treatment of terms andof propositions in the other work. It is a rather briefexplanation, which would gain by being completed withcertain more detailed contributions to be found in thatwork, but the fact is that even the terminology used isnot the same (the Greek for ‘term’: horos, does notappear in the De Interpretatione; protasis does appearin 11, 20b23 ff., but only in connection with dialectic;sullogismos is absent).

The conclusion is that the De Interpretatione is notrelated to the Prior Analytics. I think that this condi-tion of isolation is the same with respect to the otherworks belonging to the Organon, for, as I shall try toshow later, there is no sufficient basis for the sugges-tion advanced recently by a scholar (C. W. A. Whitaker)that it must be put in connection with the works ondialectic. If this is right, the further, plausible conclu-sion that can be drawn is that the contents of this workwere tacitly taken by Aristotle as representing a distinctbranch of logic, without, certainly, giving any hint asto what relationship there is between this branch and theothers.

3. The Analytics

If we now consider his works entitled Analytics, wefind, this time, that Aristotle’s intentions are stated byhim in an explicit way, though at a rather general level.At the beginning of the Prior Analytics he says that “wemust first state what our inquiry (he skepsis) is aboutand to what <discipline it pertains>, <saying> that it isabout demonstration and pertains to demonstrativescience” (24a10–11). Unfortunately the passage isambiguous and the Greek could also be rendered asfollows (adopting R. Smith’s translation): “We must firststate what our inquiry is about and what its object is,saying that it is about demonstration and that its objectis demonstrative science”. It would seem that two ques-tions are asked: (1) what is the inquiry about (peri ti),and (2) what is it of (tinos), and the more natural wayto justify this distinction is to adopt the first of the twotranslations now propounded. On the other hand it issufficiently clear that by “demonstrative science”

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Aristotle means not the science which deals withdemonstration as its object but the science which appliesdemonstration or which operates by means of (dia)demonstration (cfr. Posterior Analytics I 2, 71b20 ff.,with what precedes; I 4, 73a21 ff.; I 6, 74b5 ff.; II 19,99b16–17, quoted below), and science thus understoodis the subject-matter of the Posterior Analytics. It islikely that Aristotle wanted both to associate demon-stration and demonstrative science and to make theirdistinction obvious, and to this purpose was induced toadopt a rather misleading formulation.24

At the beginning of chapter 4 of the Prior AnalyticsAristotle makes a new statement about his intentions,as follows: “Having drawn these distinctions, let us nowsay by what means, when, and how every syllogismcomes about; subsequently we must speak of demon-stration (apodeixis). Syllogism should be discussedbefore demonstration because syllogism is the more uni-versal: demonstration is a sort of syllogism, but notevery syllogism is a demonstration” (25b26–31). Fromthis passage it becomes clear that demonstration, whichwas mentioned as one of the two main topics of theinquiry in the initial passage of our work, cannot bedealt with immediately, because its treatment must bepreceded by a treatment of ‘syllogism’. In fact it is suf-ficiently obvious that it is only in the first chapters ofthe Posterior Analytics that Aristotle makes clearhow demonstration (apodeixis) differs from the simplesyllogism, namely in that it is a syllogism with premisesthat satisfy certain restrictive conditions. In the presentpassage he states what project he has in mind in thefollowing chapters of the Prior Analytics. In fact heundertakes to determine all the ways an argument “inthe figures” can come about (chs. 4–22) and then arguesthat every deduction or proof without qualificationcomes about through an argument in one of thesefigures, that is to say, he tries to establish the com-pleteness of the syllogistic system (ch. 23). One noticeshowever that in introducing the discussion in chapter 23he goes back directly to the account of the reduction ofsyllogisms to the “perfect” ones in the first figure whichwas given in ch. 7. It appears that the account of modalsyllogisms which is given in chs. 8–22, whether or notit constitutes a later addition,25 is an enlargement of theoriginal project which concerned categorical syllogisms(the conclusion of ch. 22 is evidently the conclusion ofthis part, though it also recalls the contents of chs. 4–7,thus duplicating the beginning of ch. 23). Chapters23–26 complete this original project, for, from what

Aristotle says at the end of chapter 26, it is clear thatthe task of determining “how every syllogism comesabout” is accomplished within that chapter.

From the beginning of chapter 27 it results thatchapters 27 to 30, with 31 as a polemical appendix onthe inadequacy of division as a procedure alternativeto demonstration, have the double task of showing howwe are to be well provided with syllogisms to prove anygiven point, and how we are to find the suitable pre-misses (in the recapitulation at the end of ch. 30 onlythis second task is recalled, evidently because the twotasks are in close connection). This is justified with theassertion that one should not only study the genesis ofsyllogism but also have the capacity (dunamis) of con-structing them (cfr. 43a22–24). A further transition is tobe found at the end of chapter 31 and at the beginningof chapter 32 (the whole passage goes from 46b38 to47a9): there is a general recapitulation of what precedesand the announcement of a third project, concerninghow to reduce (anagein) any argument to a syllogism“in the figures”, this being “the part of our inquirywhich still remains”. For, he adds, “if we should studythe genesis of syllogisms, and also should have thecapacity (dunamis) of finding them, and if, moreover,we could resolve (analuein) syllogisms which have beenproduced into the aforementioned figures, then ouroriginal project would have reached its goal” (47a2–5).Clearly this is a summary of the three main tasks fixedfor the whole work (on the first two tasks the passagerecalls 43a22–24). In fact a similar summary is to befound at the beginning of book II (cfr. 52b38–53a3).Further, at the end of this third part, which goes fromchapter 32 to chapter 45, there is the following reca-pitulation: “from what has been said, then, it is evidenthow syllogisms should be reduced (anagein), and thatthe figures are resolved (analuetai) into one another”(51b3–5). (Chapter 46 falls outside this scheme.) Allthis suggests that Aristotle followed a clear project inwriting down the Prior Analytics, but that this projectdid not include book II as we have it.

There is no possibility of subdividing book II in theway it was done with book I, on the basis of Aristotle’sown indications, for he is not following a clear project.26

One can probably distinguish two main groups ofchapters inside the book. (I) Chapters 1–15 deal mainlywith theoretical issues concerning the syllogistic, thusgo back to the first part of Book I. For instance, chapters2–4 discuss the possibility of drawing true conclusionsfrom false premisses, and are of importance because


they make clear that the validity of syllogistic reasoningis to be kept distinct from the truth (or falsity) of thepropositions involved. Chapters 5–7 discuss the possi-bility of “proving in a circle”, thus have something todo with the exclusion of founding a science on such aproof which is made in APo. I 3. Chapters 8–10 dealwith problems of conversion, and probably have to dowith this practice in dialectic (cfr. Topics VIII 14,163a29–36), but these problems are discussed in ageneral way.

(II) Most of the remaining chapters are concerned,rather, with the applications of syllogisms and ofconnected techniques. Some of the chapters clearlyenvisage the use of syllogisms and connected argumentsin fields different from demonstrative science, especiallyin dialectic and in eristics, but also in rhetoric, and evenin arts like medicine (medical examples are introducedin ch. 27 on sign). Topics of interest from this point ofview are petitio principii (discussed in ch. 16), “falsecause” (discussed in ch. 17), fallacy in general (dis-cussed in ch. 18), “countersyllogisms” (discussed in ch.19), refutation (discussed in ch. 20). Further, chapters24, 26 and 27 are dedicated to techniques of inference(example, sign, enthymeme, etc.) which belong todialectic and rhetoric and to other disciplines as well.That he is also more generally interested in the acqui-sition of knowledge is shown by his discussion of induc-tion (epagoge) (in ch. 23), reduction (apagoge) (in ch.25), and the possibility of error in passing from uni-versal to particular knowledge (in ch. 21). In most casesAristotle is interested in explaining what these proce-dures are rather than giving practical advice.

If we have a look, now, at the Posterior Analytics,we find that at the beginning of the last chapter of thework (i.e. II 19) Aristotle provides the following reca-pitulation: “Concerning then syllogism and demonstra-tion, it is manifest both what each is and how it comesabout, and at the same time <clarification has beenobtained> concerning demonstrative science, for thatis the same thing” (99b15–17). Clearly this passagerecalls, in a most synthetic way, the subject matter ofthe Prior Analytics, namely, syllogism, what it is andhow it comes about, and that of the Posterior Analytics,namely (and symmetrically), demonstration, what it isand how it comes about, with the complication that theinquiry conducted in the second work extends to“demonstrative science” (episteme apodeiktike). Thispassage fully confirms the impression one gets from thepassages, quoted above, from the very beginning of the

Prior Analytics and from the beginning of its chapter 4(book I): the Prior and the Posterior Analytics areenvisaged by Aristotle as belonging to one and the sameenterprise. The first work is centred around a treatmentof syllogism which is given in view of the treatment ofdemonstration and demonstrative science provided inthe second work.

This impression of continuity between the two worksfinds both internal and external confirmation. There arereferences in the Prior Analytics to passages of thePosterior Analytics which give the impression that theauthor takes the second work as its continuation (cfr. I1, 24b14 and 3, 25b24–25, which refer to APo. I 4–12as “in the sequel”, and cfr. I 27, 43a37, which refers toAPo. I 19–22 with the expression “we will explainlater”). Conversely, in Posterior Analytics I 3, 73a7 ff.,it is said, about a technical point made there: “It hasbeen shown that the positing of one term or one premiss[. . .] never involves a necessary consequent [. . .]”.The passage contains a reference to a passage of thePrior Analytics (probably to I 25, 41b36–42a40). Thepassage of the Posterior Analytics is immediatelyfollowed by a similar one in which the reference isexplicitly to the “discussions about syllogism” (73a14;a reference with the same formulation is to be found inI 11, 77a34). Similar references are to be found in thefollowing passages: I 16, 80a6 ff., where the referenceis to APr. I 5–6, and I 25, 86b10–11, where the refer-ence is to APr. I 4–6.27 What is significant about thesereferences is that they do not contain any specification(such as the mention of a title or some formula likeen heterois) which would give the impression thatthe reference is made to a work which is different fromthe one containing the reference. Only in the case ofthe passage which contains the specification “in thediscussions about syllogism” is it unclear whetherwhat is meant is a part of the same work or a differentwork.

A further confirmation of the existence of a conti-nuity between the two works is given by the fact thatthe references that elsewhere are made to them using atitle are (with the exception of the two, in fact internal,references to “the discussions about the syllogism”) allreferences to the Analytics in general, without the dis-tinction to which we are accustomed between Prior andPosterior Analytics; and these references can be indif-ferent to the first or to the second work.28 Also thesereferences show that Aristotle regarded them as just onework.

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The question remains, which kind of work is this forAristotle? However, before attempting to give a replyto this question, there is another question whichdeserves attention. How can Aristotle maintain that thetreatment of syllogism in the Prior Analytics is given inview of the treatment of demonstration in the PosteriorAnalytics, when he recognises, as we have seen, thatsyllogism is more universal than demonstration, for notevery syllogism is demonstrative? He is in fact moreprecise than this, for in chapter 23 of book II of the workhe explicitly talks of dialectical and of rhetorical syllo-gisms (cfr. 68b8–14), as he does also (with restrictionto the rhetorical ones) at the beginning of the PosteriorAnalytics, and, as we have seen, he devotes somechapters of that book to techniques of inference whichbelong to dialectic and rhetoric. It is undeniable, then,that he is aware of these non-demonstrative applicationsof syllogism, apart from the fact that his overlookingthem would be surprising. I can see no other answer tothe above question than that he is convinced that thetruly important application of syllogism is that in thefield of demonstrative science, while all the other appli-cations are secondary. The other mention of dialecticalsyllogism which appears in the Prior Analytics is to befound in book I, ch. 30, and there he points out thatthese syllogisms work from premisses that are in con-formity with opinion (kata doxan), and he keeps themdistinct from the syllogisms (evidently those that areof interest for philosophy) which work from premissesthat are established in conformity with truth. A similardistinction of types of syllogisms on the basis of theepistemic status of the premisses on which each restsis propounded also in the first chapter of the Topics(there the demonstrative syllogism is said to proceedfrom premisses that are true and primary, while thedialectical one is said to proceed from endoxa), andalways seems to involve a devaluation of the syllogismsthat are not demonstrative.

This sort of approach naturally leads to the admis-sion of a priority of analytics to dialectic. However,before ascertaining if there are further elements to befound in Aristotle’s logical works which support thisconclusion, it is better to see if further clarification canbe obtained concerning the Analytics by attempting tofind an explanation (or some explanations) for theadoption of this denomination.

4. Analysis in the Prior Analytics

The concept of analysis certainly is present in the PriorAnalytics. We already met two passages in which theverb analuein is used, one at the beginning of chapter32 (book I) and the other at the end of chapter 45 (bookI). In the first passage he introduces his programme ofreducing or bringing back (anagein) any argument thatcan be formulated to a syllogism “in the figures” and,in this connection, the operation of reducing is alsopresented as an operation of resolving (analuein), thusadmitting an equivalence between analuein and anagein.Similar occurrences of the verb or of the substantive areto be found in chapter 38 (49a18–19: “this is how res-olution [analusis] comes about,” said of an illustration;there immediately follows another illustration aboutwhich it is said that “it will not come about”, with “res-olution” understood), in chapter 42 (50a8: “resolutionsare also to be produced in this way”, said of a generaldescription of the procedure), and in chapter 44 (50a30:“it is not possible to resolve [analuein] these either”,said of certain hypothetical arguments). In chapter 44there are occurrences of anagein as well, with the admis-sion of the same equivalence between this verb andanaluein which is admitted in the passage of chapter 32.

As to the recapitulation at the end of chapter 45,this must first be recalled: “from what has been said,then, it is evident how syllogisms should be reduced(anagein), and that the figures are resolved (analuetai)into one another” (51b3–5). The first operation herementioned, using the verb anagein, is the one just con-sidered: the recapitulation applies to the contents ofchapters 32–44. The second operation is the one that isconducted in chapter 45, where it is shown how andwhen syllogisms in a certain figure can be reduced tosyllogisms in another figure. In this chapter too thereis an equivalence between anagein (or, rather, thevariant anagagein) and analuein, because this operationis introduced by using the first verb (cfr. 50b6, b18,b27), which then is replaced by analuein (cfr. 50b33,51a2, a3, a22, a26, a 27, a28, a34, a37, a40) or by thesubstantive analusis (cfr. 51a18–19, a32), but anageinrecurs in 51b1.

There is some difference between the programme ofreduction that is pursued in this chapter and that whichis pursued in chapters 5–7 of book I of the PriorAnalytics, for there the reduction is always in one direc-tion, since it is based on the admission that only syllo-gisms in the first figure are “perfect” or “complete”, and


that those in the other figures are in need of “comple-tion” (hence the operation in those chapters is also pre-sented as a “completing” of the imperfect syllogisms).In chapter 1 of the work Aristotle presents those syllo-gisms as perfect which are not in need of a “comple-tion” “in order for the necessity to be evident” – apresentation which is not very explanatory (cfr. 24b22–26). From what he says elsewhere (esp. ch. 4, 25b32–35,see also I 15, 33b35–36) it seems that he believes thatthe relationship of inclusion which subsists among theterms of a syllogism in the first figure has an evidencewhich is missing in the case of syllogisms in the otherfigures. (We have seen that this view is favoured by theformulations he uses, cfr. above, note 23. He also drawsattention to the existence of a relationship of part-wholeamong the terms of a syllogism in I 25, 42a9–10, andin I 41, 49b37–50a1.) The validity of the syllogisms inthe second and third figures (the only figures recognisedby Aristotle in addition to the first) is not in question.Further, Aristotle admits a priority of the universalmoods in the first figure (Barbara and Celarent) on theparticular moods in the same figure (Darii and Ferio),and this leads him to prospect the reduction of allsyllogisms to the universal ones in the first figure (cfr.I 7, 29b1–2, and I 23, 40b17–20). In any case, the“imperfection” or “incompleteness” which is attributedto any syllogism in the second and in the third figureleads to the adoption of the programme of making it“complete” by construing a syllogism in the first figurewhich turns out to be equivalent to it because obtainedby means of certain logical operations such as the con-version of premisses. This operation is presented notonly as a “completing” but also as a reduction (the verbsanagagein and agagein appear in ch. 7, 29b1, b16, b18,b23, b24), in view of the equivalence that is establishedbetween the syllogism in the first figure and those inthe other figures.

From a strictly logical point of view it is not onlypossible to reduce syllogisms in the second and thirdfigure to syllogism in the first figure, but also to do theinverse operation, or to do further similar operations(such as reducing syllogisms in the second figure tosyllogism in the third figure), and this is precisely whathappens in chapter 45 of book I. The outlook is dif-ferent, because the idea of an epistemic priority of thefirst figure plays no role any more, but the operationsby means of which the reductions are done remain thesame, and there is a coincidence in terminology as faras the use of anagagein and agagein is considered. The

absence, then, of analusis and analuein in the chapters5–7 of book I should not be a fact of importance, fornothing in those chapters excludes the equivalencebetween these terms and agoge and agagein (+ ana-gagein) which is admitted in the later chapter.

One gets the impression that for Aristotle there is acontinuity between the project, pursued in the chapters32–44 of book I, of reducing non strictly syllogisticarguments to syllogisms “in the figures”, and theproject, pursued in chapter 45, of reducing syllogismsin a certain figure to syllogisms in another figure (let uscall them project A and project B respectively). In factthe starting-points are different, because project A ismeant to show that completeness of the syllogisticsystem which was asserted by him at the beginning ofchapter 23 (that purpose is stated there and at the begin-ning of ch. 32). What he does, in various cases, is toshow that the arguments considered are not formulatedin a satisfactory way and need reformulation. (To someextent this becomes a detection of fallacies that can beused in dialectic and eristics, so that this part of thetreatment can have some practical import.)29 In somecases, on the other hand, he is obliged to recognise thatthis cannot be done, the argument being valid as itstands but not reducible to a proper syllogism. Thishappens in the case of arguments from a hypothesis,whose non reducibility to syllogism is recognised byhim in chapter 44.30

There seems to be, however, some ambiguity inAristotle’s attitude to the matter. On the one hand heexpresses the conviction, at the end of ch. 4, that every-thing that one wants to prove (“every problem”) can beproved through the first figure, because any sort of con-clusion (with universal and with particular quantifica-tion, positive and negative) can be obtained through it.And this is a way of stating its adequacy to constitutethe whole of the syllogistic system rather than simplyits perfection (or its special evidence). On the otherhand, if the attempt to reduce arguments such as theones from a hypothesis were successful, its effect wouldnot be to show that they must be replaced, as if theywere badly formed, by pure syllogisms, but would ratherbe to find an equivalence between the non-syllogisticargument and a syllogism “in the figures”. But, if thisis right, project B cannot be restricted to the version ofch. 45, but must include the version of chs. 5–7, whichin fact is the more important of the two, because it isbased on the assumption of the perfection of syllogismsin the first figure.

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5. The title Analytics

What, then, can be said, after all this, about the titleAnalytics? Ross, who is one of the few scholars whodiscusses Aristotle’s reasons for adopting it, maintainsthat it finds its exclusive justification in project A.31

His suggestion is not new, because it was already givenby some of the ancient commentators on the Aristotelianwork,32 who presumably are influenced by their con-viction that the main purpose of the work is to offer auseful method and that therefore its denomination mustderive from this fact. Ross is followed by Striker 1998,who says that the title “refers to this part of the treatise,not to the formal theory set in its opening chapters”(p. 211). Their suggestion goes against the evidence thatAristotle recognised some continuity between project Aand project B (in its variations) and takes into noaccount the use of analusis and analuein in I, ch. 45.One also gets the impression that project A by itself isnot so important (compared with “the formal theory”of the opening chapters of the Prior Analytics) as tojustify the extension to the whole work of a denomina-tion (supposedly) appropriate to it alone. Further, thesort of denomination (to which Ross rightly drawsattention) for the Prior Analytics that is used at thebeginning of Posterior Analytics II, ch. 5, viz. “in theanalysis concerning (peri) the figures”, is not likely tohave a specific application to the contents of chs. 32–44both because of its evident generality and becauseproject A responds to the more specific denomination“analysis in (eis) the figures” (cfr. the beginning of APr.I 32).

Still, one is induced to wonder how Aristotle can talkof analysis in the case of operations like that of reducingsyllogisms in the second and third figure to syllogismsin the first figure, for it cannot really be said that whatis going on is some sort of resolution or decompositionof those syllogisms. I think the answer must be that,though it is true that what is going on is not a properanalusis, Aristotle is inclined to use this term (or thecorresponding verb) in this connection because analysisfor him is the bringing back of something to what canbe regarded as constituting its element (stoicheion). Thisis sufficiently clear in the case of the physical elements,in which all composite bodies can be divided or‘analysed’.33 But Aristotle, as is shown by the explana-tion he gives of the word stoicheion in Metaphysics V(∆) 3, is willing to admit that even syllogisms in the firstfigure can be called ‘elements’ with respect to the

remaining syllogisms. There in fact, after mentioningthe physical elements, he adds that “in a similar way wespeak of the elements of geometrical demonstrations(diagrammata) and, in general, the elements of demon-strations (apodeixeis); for the demonstrations which arefirst and which are present [inhering: enuparchusai] inmany <other> demonstrations are called elements ofdemonstrations; of this sort are the first syllogisms withthe three <terms> which proceed by means of onemiddle” (1014a35–b3). It is likely that in this passagehe is referring to syllogisms in the first figure, thustreating whole syllogisms (and whole demonstrations)as elements of other syllogisms (or other demonstra-tions). (The passage seems to suffer from some excessof condensation, for it is natural to suppose that theelements of geometrical demonstrations and possibly ofdemonstrations in general are the principles of a sciencelike geometry, and these are formulated by propositionswhich are the basic premisses of the demonstrations;then, without a transition, Aristotle mentions wholesyllogisms as the ‘elements’ of demonstrations.)

It has to be concluded that the syllogistic as definedin the Prior Analytics is regarded by Aristotle as anaxiomatic system, though an axiomatic system suigeneris, since it is characterised by the adoption asaxioms not of propositions but of syllogisms – thosewhich belong to the first figure. The epistemic priorityattributed to those syllogisms and the fact that all theother syllogisms are in some way reduced to them arethe proper features of an axiomatic system.34 It is notunlikely that his consciousness of having elaboratedsuch a system induced Aristotle, in a passage of theRhetoric to be examined later, to talk of a “science ofthe analytics” (or “analytical science”). Of course it isnot only the axiomatic system alone, but the whole treat-ment of the syllogisms in a theoretical perspective,describing and classifying them and giving an accountof each of them, that is to be regarded as constituting ascience. Particularly significant is the attempt in chs.4–6 of book I to prove that all combination of proposi-tions different from those which are given by the pre-misses of the syllogisms in the three figures cannot beconclusive.35 The Prior Analytics include of coursesome methodological parts (for instance the chapters27–31 of book I and some of the chapters of book IIare methodological), in addition to being closely con-nected with the Posterior Analytics, which also, and toa larger extent, include methodological parts (somedetails later). But its core is scientific, not method-


ological. And, being scientific in the way just described,it is not a work of formal logic in the strict sense.

Aristotle pursues an ideal of scientificity whichmakes a large appeal to perfection and to evidence. Inmodern and contemporary treatises of logic all syllo-gisms are put on the same level, because they are allvalid, without any distinction between “perfect” and“imperfect” syllogisms. His implicit rejection of a fourthsyllogistic figure is probably influenced by the same sortof considerations (the first three figures are charac-terised by the fact that, in the first figure, the middleterm has a middle position, in the second figure it isthe predicate-term in both premisses, in the third figureit is the subject-term in both premisses, that is to sayits position is always at the one or the other extreme,36

in the fourth figure the position of the middle term isthe reverse of that in the first figure, and this must havebeen regarded as unsatisfactory, given that already itsposition in the second and in the third figure is takenas a sign of “imperfection”). This attitude is extendedto the treatment of science in the Posterior Analytics.37

In I 14 he claims that of the syllogistic figures “the mostscientific” one is the first. The implicit requirement isthat, in doing science, one should try whenever possibleto formulate the results by means of syllogisms in thefirst figure. He also claims, in I 24–26, that universaldemonstration (i.e. demonstration by means of propo-sitions that are universally quantified) is superior toparticular demonstration (i.e. to demonstration involvingparticular quantification), that affirmative demonstra-tion (i.e. one that excludes any use of negative propo-sitions) is superior to negative demonstration, and thatdirect demonstration is superior to indirect demonstra-tion (i.e. to reductio ad impossibile).

Completeness, perfection and evidence play a rolein this work also in other ways. Aristotle expects thatthe demonstrations of demonstrative science go in onedirection, starting from propositions or premisses thatare true, prior to, better known than, and explanatory(or causative: aitia) of, the conclusions drawn fromthem (cfr. I 2, 71b29–33). Certain propositions aresupposed to be “better known” because of the evidencethey present, since the basic propositions of any sciencecannot be demonstrated. He explicitly excludes (in ch.3) that demonstrations proceed either in a circular wayor leaving open the possibility of an infinite regress.Finiteness is also obtained by the admission that thepredicates which the demonstrations in each sciencehave to do with constitute a limited chain, with the

categories at one end and particular things at the otherend (cfr. I 19–22 and APr. I 27). The result is theadoption of a foundationalist conception of science.

It should be added that Aristotle, in the PosteriorAnalytics, is offering, according to his intentions, notonly an account of demonstration but also an accountof demonstrative science. According to his ideal ofscientificity, science (episteme) must be kept separatefrom opinion (doxa) (cfr. APo. I 33), involves knowl-edge of what is the cause or the explanation ofthings or events (is cognitio rerum per causas, cfr. I 2),and concerns what is eternal (cfr. APo. I 8, andNicomachean Ethics VI 3, 1139b18 ff.) (this last restric-tion becomes somewhat less strict later in the work).His point of departure is the admission of the existenceof an irreducible plurality of sciences, each concernedwith a well-defined field of study called a genos (thisthesis is stated and discussed in APo. I 28, but is takenfor granted in the first chapters of the work and madeexplicit at the end of ch. 6, leading, in ch. 7, to theexclusion of a passage from one genos to another). Acomplication is given by the existence of sciences andeven of arts or empirical inquiries which are subordi-nated to other sciences (cfr. I 13). But he wants toexclude the existence of a universal science which dealswith the principles of all the other sciences (this seemsto be the most plausible interpretation of what he saysin I 9). Still, the account of demonstration as an appli-cation of syllogistic, and the account of science asdemonstrative science (thus of science which makes useof syllogisms which are scientific), cannot be separatedone from the other in Aristotle’s eyes, and one cannotsay that the second is dominant with respect to the first.For this reason it goes against his intentions to deal withthe contents of the Posterior Analytics under a headingseparate from that of the Prior Analytics.38

It can be seen that the overall approach of the PriorAnalytics, book I, and that of the Posterior Analytics,book I, are similar, for the general requirements ofscientificity remain very much the same in the twoworks, and the differences depend mainly on the dif-ference in subject matter: the system of syllogistic,hence a piece of logic, in the first work; certain scien-tific disciplines (especially the mathematical sciences)taken as paradigmatic in the second work. And it canbe suggested that the contents of these two works arelargely determined by the convergence between thisapproach and the assumption that our language, in itsbasic features, reflects a reality which in its broad struc-

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ture is intelligible. This broad structure of reality is thatwhich finds its reflection in the finite predicative chainswhich are envisaged in the passages of both worksreferred to above, as it finds its reflection in atomicpropositions in which one term is predicated of another.The assumption that our language reflects this broadstructure of reality plays a role in other works as well.It certainly plays a role in the De Interpretatione. Thecontents of this work, however, are not particulary deter-mined by the adoption of an approach influenced by theideal of scientificity just described. On the whole it iscloser to a modern contribution to formal logic. Theassumption about our language plays a role also in theTopics and in the Sophistici Elenchi. But these works(which I shall say something more about later) are stilldifferent, because they are primarily methodical, beinga sort of handbook for dialectic, comparable to theRhetoric as a handbook for oratory. There is no overallunity in the approach which these works apply and inthe intentions they reflect.

6. Again on analysis and the title Analytics

The explanation now given of the meaning of Analutikaapplies primarily to the Prior Analytics and only byextension to the Posterior Analytics. The question there-fore has to be raised if Aristotle had some independentreason for adopting this denomination for this otherwork. In this case a discussion of his uses of analusisand connected terms is not helpful, for the only signif-icant occurrence of one of them, namely of the adverbanalutikos, to be found in the Posterior Analytics servesto distinguish a procedure used there that is regardedas ‘analytical’ from one that is regarded as ‘logical,’that is to say, presumably, dialectical, but this is toospecific to permit a general conclusion about the title ofthe work.39 This time it is helpful, I think, to considerthe explanation given by one of the ancient commenta-tors, Philoponus. I quote rather extensively the relevantpassage:

Given that there is one sort (eidos) of analysis, by means of whichwe analyse what is known <leading it> towards the principles andthe causes from which it has its existence and its being known,it is according to this sort of analysis that apodictic (heapodeiktike) is called analytic (analutike). (It is in fact by analysisthat we find the principles of this [= of apodictic, more exactlyof demonstration] starting from those things that are first for usbut are caused and ascending to the things that are first by nature,

viz. the causes. In the first place, in fact, we know by sensationthat the moon is eclipsed; successive intelligence (dianoia) witha careful examination discovers the cause; it says in fact: “Themoon is eclipsed, its being eclipsed is by obstruction, hence themoon is obstructed”. This is the analysis which starting from whatis caused proceeds towards the cause. Successively the demon-stration starting from the cause descends towards what is caused:“The moon is obstructed, what is obstructed is eclipsed, hence themoon is eclipsed”. [. . .]) Hence it is for this reason that he entitledthe book Analutika, or because in demonstration the middle termis the main one, but the middle term is the definition of the thing(pragma), and the definition is discovered by analysis. (InAnalytica Posteriora II, prooemium, 335.7–16, 21–23)

The two explanations of the title given at the end ofthe passage need not be alternative one to another, sincea definition, at least in certain cases, can be regardedas the account of the cause of the thing (cfr. APo. II 2,and 8–10). Philoponus, one can see, gives an accountof analysis which takes it as the procedure which is thereverse of demonstration, namely the search for the prin-ciples (this same account, talking however of sunthesisrather than of demonstration, and using mathematicalexamples, is given by him in his commentary onPosterior Analytics I 12, 78a6, p. 162.16–27). Whatanalysis is for ancient Greek thinkers is notoriously acontroversial matter, for the statements they make aboutit are not easily reconcilable. The most plausibleexplanation of this discrepancy is that given byPhiloponus himself, namely that analusis is said in morethan one way (legetai pollachos),40 of which the oneillustrated above is avowedly one sort (eidos). He in factseems to be aware that analysis understood this way isnot quite the same as analysis used in connection withthe reduction of syllogisms (the inverse of this proce-dure is not demonstration or sunthesis).

To show that the explanation given by Philoponusof the meaning of Analutika used mainly about thePosterior Analytics can be defended one would need tooffer evidence that Aristotle had in mind this conceptof analysis and would have been ready to apply it to thatsearch for the premisses of a certain demonstrationwhich is, at the same time, the search for the explana-tion of a certain fact (e.g. that the moon is eclipsed,adopting an example which is given by Aristotle himselfin APo. II). This would require a rather long-winded dis-cussion that goes beyond the limits of the present paper.I limit myself to point out briefly how Philoponus’ sug-gestion can be rendered plausible. There are twopassages in the Ethics, in which Aristotle discussesdeliberation using the procedure of the mathematical


sciences (or of the theoretical sciences in general) asan illustration (cfr. Nicomachean Ethics III 5, 1112b11–24, and Eudemian Ethics II 10, 1227a5–18). The pointof contact between the sphere of deliberation and thatof mathematics lies in the fact that all deliberation (asis suggested in the passage of the Nicomachean Ethics)is also a search (zetesis) and search, in mathematics,coincides with analusis (in the passage of the EudemianEthics deliberation itself is called a skepsis, cfr.1227a11–12). Aristotle, then, is willing to admit a coin-cidence between analusis and search or inquiry, whichis precisely what Philoponus’ account requires.

We cannot, however, apply what he says aboutanalusis in these passages to what he says about thesearch for the middle term (which represents the cause)in Posterior Analytics Book II, because the procedureinvolved in deliberation is not regarded as a search forthe cause, if the cause is supposed to coincide with theend. Aristotle in fact makes clear that deliberation isabout the means, not about the end. And it is sufficientlyclear, from the indications that we get from thesepassages and from other passages as well,41 that the‘search’ or ‘inquiry’ involved in deliberation proceedsfrom the end to the means (cfr. EE II 10, 1127a16–18)and that the “first principle” that is reached in this wayis the beginning of an action (cfr. EN III 5, 1112b15–20and 23–24). What is done, in relation to action, is towork backwards from the end to the means of obtainingit. In so far, then, as this account goes, the searchproceeds in a direction which is contrary to the oneexpected.

This account is not sufficient, for there is the com-plication that, as Aristotle recognises in De PartibusAnimalium I 1 (esp. 639b21 ff.) and in Physics II 9 (esp.200a15 ff.), necessity (and demonstration) is differentin the field of the theoretical sciences such as mathe-matics and in the field of nature where certain condi-tions or means are related to an end; but what is true ofthe field of nature (as the first passage shows) is alsotrue of the field of action and of production. Given theend (the “hypothesis”) those conditions are necessary,but the inverse is not true, since the existence of the endis a consequence of the existence of its conditions (it iswhat he calls “hypothetical necessity”). In mathematics,on the other hand, there is a necessity which descendsfrom the basic postulates (“hypotheses”) and whichapplies to their consequences. This necessity, in additionto being absolute, is somehow the reverse42 of the neces-sity in those other fields. Demonstration will reflect this

necessity. Thus analysis, when it is presented as thereverse of demonstration, will proceed in the directionof the principles, as happens in the field of astronomy(from which the illustration of the eclipse of the moonis taken) but also in the field of natural science whenabsolute necessity and not just hypothetical necessityis applicable.43 In mathematics, however, given the con-vertibility of mathematical propositions, analysis canalso proceed the other way round, and this permits thesuggestion of the closer parallel that Aristotle has inmind in the passages from the two Ethics, given that theillustrations there are taken from this field.

Once, then, we have this whole picture before oureyes, it can be seen that Philoponus’ suggestion is plau-sible, since Aristotle is willing to treat analysis as a sortof search and tacitly admits that in the theoreticalsciences this can proceed from what has to be explainedto the principles of explanation. And it is sufficientlyclear that a substantial part of book II of the PosteriorAnalytics is dedicated to the topic of search, for a lotof the formulations used go in this sense (there is talkof search, often using the substantive zetesis or therelated verb, sometimes also using equivalent termssuch as skepsis and skopein or heuresis, from the verybeginning of the book; also the procedure sometimesused of asking questions as an illustration or raisingaporiai reflects this attitude). It can also be observedthat, while he is critical of the use of division fordemonstrative purposes, he accepts this technique as aheuristic device, as shown by the discussion dedicatedto it in chs. 13–14. Also the mention of “problems”(problemata) to be solved (or propositions to be proved,tasks to be set) in chs. 14–16 goes in the same direc-tion. The discussion of definition which occupies somechapters of this book (esp. chs. 3–10) is to some extentsubordinated to this general purpose (since definitioncan serve to give the cause or the principle of explana-tion), though no doubt Aristotle pursues this topic alsofor its own sake. Similarly the topic of causality dis-cussed in chs. 11–12 and resumed in chs. 16–18 is notindependent either, for there is the admission of a coin-cidence between the cause and the middle term thatmust be searched for and also between the cause andone type of definition.

I cannot enter into a detailed discussion of thecontents of this book. What should be pointed out, toavoid misunderstandings, is that Aristotle, in the main,is not illustrating a methodology of empirical research,but rather takes its success for granted and asks himself

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how its results are to be formulated. He does talk of asearch for the cause, e.g. for the cause of an eclipse ofthe moon, but he says little or nothing at all about howthis cause should be found out empirically (by whatobservations, etc.). There is a sort of overlap betweenthe search for the cause and the search for the middleterm of the syllogism (for this motive see II 2, 90a5 ff.;90a24 ff.; II 3, beginning; further, II 8, 93a3 ff.; II 13,95a35 ff.; II 17, beginning), but searching for the middleterm is in fact asking how one should formulate thesyllogism which gives the cause, and this is not anempirical quest. It is a methodology of research, butof a research which is mainly intellectual, and whichassumes that most of the empirical research at least hasalready been done. Further, though he no doubt illus-trates a methodology of research, Aristotle’s mainconcern is to specify certain rather general requirementsthat it must satisfy rather than explaining, with illus-trations, how it should be conducted. He wants to clarifywhat science is rather than give practical advice.44

It can be seen, at this point, that the task that ispursued in this part of the Posterior Analytics is not sub-stantially different from the double task that waspursued in Prior Analytics I 27–30: showing how weare to be well equipped with syllogisms to prove anygiven point, and how we are to find the suitable pre-misses. There he was thinking in the main, but notexclusively, of syllogisms that are useful for dialectic(and it is not surprising that at the end of ch. 30 hemakes a reference to his handbook on dialectic, thoughin the same chapter he also talks of what happens inastronomy), while in book II of the Posterior Analyticshe is thinking of syllogisms that are useful for thesciences. But the approach is not substantially different,as shown by the fact that the motive of the discoveryof the middle term appears in that part of the PriorAnalytics as well (cfr. 28, 44b38–41). Given the closeconnection between dialectic and rhetoric, it is possibleto draw a parallel between this procedure and theinventio of rhetoric. It would seem that Aristotle iswilling to admit that a moment of inventio is present inevery art (cfr. Topics I 3).

The interest that prevails in this part of the PosteriorAnalytics, and in the corresponding parts of the PriorAnalytics, is methodological, and this is suggested (ifthe interpretation now given is right) by the very denom-ination of Analytics. This same denomination howeverhas a different meaning when it is applied to the‘axiomatic’ system of the syllogistic that is illustrated

in the Prior Analytics. It must then be admitted thatthere is a certain duality of purpose which is internalto both works.

7. The Topics and the Sophistici Elenchi

Aristotle’s Topics is much more of a handbook for con-ducting dialectical debates than the Posterior Analyticsis, even with a limitation to book II and with the aboveillustrated restriction to intellectual research, ahandbook for doing science. This practical purpose isstated in a sufficiently clear way already in its first lines,which I quote: “The goal of this study is to find amethod with which we shall be able to elaborate syllo-gisms from acceptable premisses (endoxa) concerningany problem that is proposed and – when submitting toargument ourselves – will not say anything inconsistent”(100a18–21, Smith’s translation modified). Already inthe formulation that is used in this passage it is clearthat he is thinking of the roles that one can play in adiscussion: one can either conduct it (by asking ques-tions) and thus elaborate the appropriate syllogisms, orplay the role of the respondent and thus try to avoidfalling into contradiction. How these roles are played ina discussion and what techniques should be used to besuccessful is the main topic of book VIII.

It is convenient to quote a passage from Smith’s pre-sentation of this book in Smith 1995, p. 59: “Book VIIIof the Topics clearly presupposes structured contests,with rules and judges, and Aristotle assumes that hisreaders know a good deal about the nature of theseencounters – making things worse for us, who wouldbenefit very much from a little more explanation. Inthese contests, one participant took the ‘Socratic’ roleand asked questions, while the other responded to them.The respondent chose, or was assigned, a thesis todefend; the questioner’s goal was to refute the thesis. Inorder to do this, the questioner would try to get therespondent to accept premises from which such arefutation followed. However, the questioner couldonly ask questions which could be answered by a ‘yes’or a ‘no’, questions like ‘What is the largest city inLacedaemonia?’ were not allowed”. (However suchquestions were not allowed also because they wereabout matters of fact, see below.)

Of the remaining books, book I is introductory, whilebooks II to VII contain a rather miscellaneous collec-tion of commonplaces or locations (topoi), that is to say


of certain rules used in dialectical arguments (forinstance the statement ‘If A belongs to B, then thecontrary of A belongs to the contrary of B’ is anexample of a topos).45 Here again it is convenient toquote a passage from the same chapter by Smith:“Aristotle provides a collection of argumentative ruleshe calls topoi: ‘locations’ or ‘places.’ The term probablycomes from ancient systems in memorizing lists byassociating each item with a standardized set of imag-inary places; in any event, these are what give theTopics its name. Each of these rules is a device for dis-covering premises from which to deduce a given con-clusion. They rest on a classification of conclusionsaccording to form: each gives premise-forms fromwhich a given form of conclusion can be deduced.However, there is nothing approaching a systematicclassification of all valid arguments, nor is Aristotleconcerned to prove that the rules he offers are correct”(p. 61). It could be shown that certain of these rules findtheir application in the ‘Socratic’ dialogues of Plato.46

As to the way in which the material is collected in thosebooks, it can be said that it is collected under a few mainheadings, with further distinctions, but that, on thewhole, as remarked by Smith, there is little that is sys-tematic here, and certainly there is no attempt to showthat the survey is exhaustive. Yet, in spite of thedeclared practical purpose of the work (on which moreis said below) Aristotle offers rather little, in terms ofpractical advice and illustrations, about the use to whichthe topoi must be put, perhaps because he expected thatthe capacity to apply them would be acquired throughpractice and imitation or perhaps because this part ofthe work is missing for some reason (for this secondsuggestion see also below).

The other work on dialectic by Aristotle is theSophistici Elenchi, which is much shorter. This offersa treatment of those refutations, used in dialectical (oreristical) exchanges, which are apparent, that is to saywhich involve some fallacy. In the first part of thework we find a classification and a discussion of thesefallacies. In the second part the way in which thesefallacies can be solved by the respondent in the dialec-tical exchange is explained (in other words, its subjectmatter is the lusis of these fallacies). There are chaptersdevoted to connected issues, such as the ways in whichthe questioner or the respondent should play their roles,and the nature of a variant form of dialectic which ishere called “peirastic” and which applies particularlyto Socrates’ practice.

The work is very much a handbook like the Topics,but there is a greater effort on Aristotle’s part to besystematic (the classification of fallacies is clearly theresult of much reflection). It is sufficiently evident thathe regarded it as a sort of appendix to the Topics andnot, in any case, as a wholly independent work. Itsclosing chapter represents the conclusion of both works,the (rare) references he makes elsewhere to this workare under the title Topika (cfr. De Interpretatione 11,20b26, and Prior Analytics II 17, 65b16), and thereferences from the Sophistici Elenchi to the Topics areas if they were to the previous part of the same work.It must be admitted, on the other hand, that, thoughdealing with fallacies must be regarded as one of thetasks of the dialectician (see SE ch. 9, end), nothing inthe Topics shows that Aristotle had the project in mindof writing this other work.47

The closing chapter of this work is important tounderstand Aristotle’s intentions. Some scholars believethat this chapter offers a conclusion not only for theworks on dialectic but for the whole of the Organon,48

adopting an interpretation that goes back to antiquityand that probably encouraged collocating the work atthe end of the collection. The reason for maintainingthis is that, nearly at the conclusion of the chapter, theStagirite makes the following statement: “Moreover, onthe subject of rhetoric there exists much that has beensaid long ago, whereas on the subject of syllogism wehad nothing else of an earlier date to speak of at all,but were involved for a long time in labouring attentative researches” (184a9–b3). After this statementhe concludes that he should be excused for the imper-fections of the ‘method’ he offers and, at the same time,we should be grateful for his discoveries. If this con-clusion had this general application, he would be implic-itly asserting the unity, if not of the whole Organon, atleast of some important parts of it, namely the workscontributing to dialectic and those contributing tosyllogistic, which means, given the unity of Prior andPosterior Analytics, both these works. (In fact evenconceding this makes no small difference, for the DeInterpretatione and the Categories would be excluded.)Yet, apart from this general statement, the chapter refersexclusively to the contents of the two works ondialectic.

The initial part of the chapter, which I quote, clearlyoffers a summary of the contents of the SophisticiElenchi: “As to the number, then, and kind of sourceswhence fallacies arise in discussion [= chs. 4–11], and

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how we are to show that our opponent is committing afallacy and make him utter paradoxes [= ch. 12];moreover, by the use of what materials solecism isbrought about [= ch. 14], and how to question and whatis the way to arrange questions [= ch. 15]; moreover,as to the issue of what use is served by all argumentsof this kind [= ch. 16], and concerning the answerer’spart, both as a whole in general [= chs. 17–18], and inparticular how to solve arguments [= chs. 19–30] andsolecisms [= ch. 32] – on all these things let theforegoing discussion suffice” (183a27–34, Pickard-Cambridge’s transl. modified).49 After this passageAristotle says that he wants to recall the originalpurpose, and this he does with the following words:“Our purpose, then, was that of discovering a facultyof elaborating arguments (dunamis sullogistike) aboutany problem set before us from the most generallyacceptable premisses (endoxotata) that there are. Forthat is the task of dialectic in itself and of the art ofexamination (peirastike)” (183a37–b1). Here he clearlyis referring back to the very beginning of the Topics,with the innovation that besides dialectic he is alsotalking of that art of examination or peirastic which isdiscussed only in the Sophistici Elenchi (especially inch. 11). In what follows he adds, going somewhatbeyond what we find at the beginning of the Topics, thatit was also said how, in standing up to an argument, oneshould be able to defend one’s thesis by means of themost generally acceptable premisses in a consistentmanner (cfr. 183b1–8).

Then he says what follows: “(A) We have made clear,in the course of what precedes, the number both of thepoints with reference to which, and of the materialsfrom which, this will be accomplished, and also fromwhat sources we can become well supplied with these;(B) we have shown, moreover, how to question orarrange the questioning as a whole, and the problemsconcerning the answers and solutions to be used againstthe arguments of the questioner. (C) We have alsocleared up all other points that belong to the samemethod of discourses (methodos ton logon). (D) Inaddition to this we have been through the subject offallacies, as we have already stated above” (183b8–15,Pickard-Cambridge’s transl. modified). It is easy to seethat, in this passage, (A) is referring to books II–VII ofthe Topics, that is to say to the part of the work whichcollects the topoi, (B) is referring to book VIII, that isto say to the part of the work which deals with thepractice of dialectic (with the distinction between the

role of the questioner and that of the respondent), (D)is referring to the contents of the Sophistici Elenchi, thusadmitting that they belong to one and the same projecttogether with the Topics. Less specific is (C), whichrefers to other issues discussed here and there (espe-cially in book I), making clear that what the treatmentis all about is a “method of discourses”. There are noreferences, either in this part or in what follows inthe chapter, with the possible exception of 184a9–b3quoted above, to the contents of any of the other logicalworks.

Aristotle’s main purpose, in what follows, is to pointout how innovative his contribution to dialectic is, for,according to him, there had not been developments com-parable to those which had taken place in other fields,exemplified by rhetoric. “Of this inquiry (pragmateia)[. . .] it was not the case that part of the work had beenthoroughly done before, while part had not. Nothingexisted at all” (183b34–36, Pickard-Cambridge’stransl.). The justification he gives for this assertion isthat training given by the paid teachers of contentiousarguments (eristikous logous) was comparable to thatgiven by Gorgias in the field of rhetoric: to providearguments to be learned by heart, thus to impart theproducts of the art but not the art (techne) itself. Therefollows the conclusion that has been partly quoted andpartly summarised above. It is surprising that he shouldsay of this treatment of the matter (his pragmateia) that“nothing existed at all” before it, for this does not evencorrespond to what he himself has to say about eristics.His making such an extreme statement is in fact onereason why some scholars have been induced to supposethat he is referring to his syllogistic, for the claim thatthis constitutes a complete innovation would have morejustification. Yet the fact that Aristotle is propoundinga parallel with rhetoric which at some points is ratherclose (in 183b38–39 he mentions in succession “rhetor-ical discourses” and “questioning discourses”, clearlyintending by the second type of discourses argumentsin the form of question and answer, thus dialectical dis-courses) excludes this possibility, for this parallelbetween the two disciplines is envisaged also at thebeginning of the Rhetoric, where rhetoric is said to bethe counterpart (antistrophos) of dialectic.50

What then about the reference to syllogistic in184b1? Is it or is it not to the syllogistic in the PriorAnalytics? The reply, I think, must be both yes and no.On the one hand it is sufficiently clear that Aristotle,in the previous part of the chapter, had said that the task


he had set himself was the discovery of a faculty ofelaborating arguments (dunamis sullogistike), intendingby this the same method (methodos) of elaborating argu-ments (sullogizesthai) which he mentioned at the begin-ning of the Topics.51 On the other hand there is thesimple fact that a method of elaborating arguments thatsatisfy the definition of syllogism which is given inTopics I 1, 100a25–27 (“A syllogism is an argument inwhich, certain things being assumed, something dif-ferent from the assumptions made results of necessitythrough them”) and which coincides with that given inPrior Analytics I 1, 24b18–20, is not to be found in theTopics itself. (Not even one chapter is dedicated to anexplanation of how conclusions are drawn in a syllo-gistic way. By comparison he says a good deal moreabout the enthymematic method of rhetoric in theRhetoric, in spite of the admission that rhetoric dependson dialectic. His concern in Topics I is only with findingthe appropriate premisses, and, as already remarked, noteven the way in which the topoi are applied in argu-ments is explained with illustrations, as one wouldexpect.) Perhaps the statement belongs to a stage inwhich Aristotle had not yet decided to devote a distinctwork to the syllogistic, but expected to incorporate whatis relevant for dialectic in the work which was devotedto dialectic and which gets its name Topics from thecontents of its main part (i.e. books II–VII) but not fromthe whole. Some of the chapters of book II of the PriorAnalytics and even of book I could have been writtenbefore the decision was taken of dedicating a specialwork to the syllogistic. Whatever the explanation, itshould be admitted that the elaboration of a syllogisticin some technical sense marked, in Aristotle’s eyes, animportant progress with respect to the previous contri-butions to the treatment of dialectic.

The conclusive chapter of the Sophistici Elenchigives rise to the question whether Aristotle regardedhimself as the inventor of dialectic (in addition to thesyllogistic). What he says there can give the impres-sion that he wants to deny that, before his own treat-ment of the matter, dialectic could be regarded as an art.And this denial seems to involve the exclusion that thepractice of arguing dialectically followed well-definedrules. What he says in Topics VIII 5 about the absenceof such rules in the case of the practice of arguing thatis conducted in view of exercise (gumnasia) and puttingto proof (peira) or inquiry (skepsis) seems to confirmthis impression, for this practice corresponds to dialecticas defined by Aristotle. On this basis Dorion gives a

positive reply to the question. However this positionclashes with the fact that Aristotle himself, in otherworks, was willing to admit that Zeno, Socrates andPlato had given a substantial contribution to the con-stitution of dialectic. There is also the difficulty raisedby the impression we get in reading the Socratic dia-logues of Plato and the Euthydemus in particular52 thatdialectic or eristics as conducted by Socrates or bycertain sophists was an activity which followed rulesthat were recognized by the persons involved even ifperhaps they were not fully codified. What Aristotlesays of Socrates in the Sophistici Elenchi suggests thathe practised “peirastic”, that is to say a variant ofdialectic (contrary to what Dorion seems to claim, hecannot be assimilated to the mere practitioners or menin the street [idiotai] mentioned in SE 11, 172a30). Toexpress my opinion in an inevitably brief and dogmaticway I would say that Aristotle was willing to admit thatthe practice of eristics was an activity that followedrather well-defined rules, for the references to it in SE34 suggest that it was a recognized activity which hadreceived a certain development, and the reservationexpressed in Topics VIII 5 concerns arguing in view ofexercise etc. but not eristics. Dialectic diversifies itselffrom eristics, but shares with it the two basic aims ofthe questioner and of the respondent: refuting therespondent for the questioner, avoiding to fall intocontradiction for the respondent. In the case of Socrates,Aristotle could have maintained that his practice was avariant of eristics rather than proper dialectic. In facthowever there is some ambiguity in his whole attitude,since he has reservations about calling eristics an artbecause of its negative aim and he is not making a cleardistinction between the invention of the very art ofarguing dialectically and rendering ‘technical’ a certainpractice with recognized rules, by expounding itsmethod in a handbook.

What clearly distinguishes the present pragmateia,as is shown both by the use of the parallel with rhetoricand by the various indications Aristotle gives about itsnature in this chapter and elsewhere, is its practicalpurpose. Rhetoric and dialectic, he claims in RhetoricI 2, 1356a30–33, and I 4, 1359b12–16, are not scienceswhich study some reality, but are faculties or capaci-ties to elaborate discourses (and these discourses includesyllogisms, cfr. I 2, 1358a4). In the case of the secondthe ‘faculty’ to be discovered (according to the asser-tion at the beginning of the Topics) is a capacity ormethod of using arguments in asking questions and

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giving answers in dialectical debates, and this amountsto a techne that has to be acquired by those interestedin practising dialectic in the same way as the art ofrhetoric must be acquired by those interested in makingpublic speeches. The pragmateia receives the shape ofa practical handbook for doing dialectic, and this makesit different from the pragmateia of the Analytics.

If we adopt the traditional distinction of rhetoric, asa capacity to elaborate discourses, into inventio (orheuresis), dispositio (or taxis) and elocutio (or lexis),we can say, of dialectic, that as a capacity to elaboratediscourses it involves both inventio (the discovery orproduction of arguments) and dispositio (this being firstof all the taxis in framing questions, cfr. Topics VIII 1,155b3–4 and 17–19, and SE, ch. 15, with the referenceto it in 183a30–31), while elocutio plays little or no roleat all. But if we look at the treatment of syllogism inthe Prior Analytics, there is no general suggestion thatwhat is involved is a capacity to elaborate discourses,and, if we want to find some point of contact withrhetoric and dialectic, this lies in the main in thecapacity to discover or produce syllogisms which isintroduced (using the same word dunamis) in APr. I 27:it is a sort of invention the consideration of which issaid to be only one of the main tasks of a treatise onsyllogism. One cannot regard the Prior Analytics asbeing primarily a handbook for producing arguments,while this description is not inappropriate for the Topics.As to rhetoric itself, it cannot be associated with thelogical writings (though this association was accepted,and even extended to the poetics, by some of theancient Aristotelian commentators), precisely becauseit includes elocutio, that is a part which concerns dis-course independently of its being either true or false,53

and because it depends on politics for its contents. It istrue that the rhetorical syllogism, i.e. the enthymeme,has an interest for logic, but it is sufficiently clear, frompassages such as those mentioned in the next section,that the task of dealing with it is supposed by Aristotleto belong to dialectic and not to rhetoric itself, even ifde facto no such contribution is to be found in the Topicsand some discussion of the enthymeme is to be foundin the Rhetoric.

8. The relationship between dialectic and analytics

Is there more that can be said about the relationshipbetween dialectic and analytics as parts of Aristotle’s

logic? Certain indications that can be found on thismatter in the Rhetoric have not received sufficient atten-tion by scholars. The admission that rhetoric is the coun-terpart of dialectic does not exclude its also beingregarded as subordinated to dialectic. In a passage ofbook I, ch. 2, Aristotle says of rhetoric that it is “acertain offshoot (paraphues) of dialectic and of theethical study (peri ta ethe pragmateia) which is rightto call politics” (1356a25–27). It is sufficiently clear,from the context in which he makes a reference to theTopics for the distinction between enthymeme andparadigm (cfr. 1356b12–14), and from other passages,where he makes a reference to this work for the treat-ment of the topoi (cfr. I 1, 1355a27–29; I 2, 1358a29–30, and II 23, 1398a28–29) or for some connectedreason (cfr. II 22, 1396b3–4, and II 24, 1402a34–37),that this subordination of rhetoric to dialectic concernsits method.54 The techniques of which rhetoric makesuse are an adaptation to its field of techniques in useby dialectic. This is true of the enthymeme and of theparadigm as the rhetorical equivalents of dialecticalsyllogism and of induction, just as it is true of refuta-tion (the latter is discussed in II 24–25). And rhetoric,just as dialectic, makes appeal to the topoi (those whichare common, being the same for rhetoric and dialectic,are discussed in II 22–24). As to the subordination ofrhetoric to politics, this concerns rather its contents.

This picture is made more complicated by the factthat Aristotle in some passages of the Rhetoric admitsthat rhetoric depends on the analytics rather than on thetopics. There are some references to the work on ana-lytics which are comparable to the references to thework on dialectic because they concern questions ofmethod, having the syllogistic mainly in mind.55 Further,there is the following passage in which he mentions thesame dependence of rhetoric on the analytics whichelsewhere he had stated there is on dialectic: “for whatwe said earlier is true, that rhetoric is a combination ofanalytical science (analutike episteme) and of politicsconcerning characters (ethe) and that on the one handit is like dialectic, on the other hand like sophistic dis-courses” (I 4, 1359b9–12). He adds that it would bewrong to treat dialectic and rhetoric not as capacities(dunameis) but as sciences which deal with somedefinite subject-matter. The reference back is clearly toI 2, 1356a25 ff., where he also had stated that thesetwo disciplines must be treated as capacities and not assciences. But there rhetoric was seen as a combinationof dialectic and of politics, not of analytical science and


of politics. The suspicion that the passage contains amistake induced the copyist of a manuscript56 to correctit into “dialectical episteme” (where episteme is equiv-alent to techne), and some recent translators and com-mentators adopt this correction.

Yet, with this correction, the passage would containa sort of repetition, for he goes on to say that rhetoric“is like dialectic”, which is something too obvious tostate if it derives from dialectic. The passage is notisolated, because, as we have seen, there are referencesto the Analytics on questions of method just as there arereferences to the Topics. Thus the replacement ofdialectic by analytical science must be due to Aristotlehimself and must be significant of his trend of thought.

If we exclude that he is confused or contradictinghimself, one can explain this change from one passageto the other suggesting that he admitted a doubledependence, of rhetoric on dialectic, and of dialecticon analytics, with an indirect dependence of rhetoricon analytics. The admission of this double dependenceinvolves the recognition of a hierarchy of disciplines,with analytics on top, dialectic in the intermediateposition, and rhetoric at the lowest level. That analyticsmust be put on top is suggested by the very fact that itis called “analytical science”. Since in what immedi-ately follows Aristotle is concerned with excluding thatdialectic and rhetoric can be treated as sciences, herethe Greek episteme is likely to be used in its proper orstrict sense, and not as an equivalent to techne. Thereis then a passage in the corpus aristotelicum, though aunique one, in which he is willing to regard as a sciencea discipline which does not directly study some fieldof reality. The analytics is recognized as having a ratherspecial status, which, in any case, makes it superior todialectic.

The ascription of this superiority to analytics withrespect to dialectic receives some confirmation fromthose passages in the Topics which contain referencesto the Analytics, and precisely VIII 11, 162a11, VIII 13,162b31–33, and VII 3, 153a11–15 and a24–26 (here thereference is not explicit, but the only relevant passagesconcerning the issue of definition are to be found inthe Posterior Analytics, and this is the only work thatis referred to in the Topics). All the passages tend tosuggest that a more exact or complete treatment thanthat offered there is to be found in the Analytics. In thepassage of VIII 13 there is the suggestion (which isrepeated, but without explicit reference to the Analytics,in I 14, 105b30–31, and also in APo. I 19, 81b18 ff.)

that the procedure there is according to the truth, hereaccording to opinion (doxa). From the fact that onedeals with opinion rather than with the truth it is notnecessary to infer that the method must be inferior froma logical point of view, but it seems that Aristotle isinclined to make this inference. This conclusion con-verges with the suggestion given above that the appli-cation of syllogism beyond the field of science wasregarded as secondary and as inferior.

If one considers that the Topics is a handbook fordialectical debates, it can be seen that this involves alimitation in relation to the search for the truth. Aristotlein fact is convinced that the procedure of dialectic isdetermined by the purpose of dealing with an opponentin discussion, so that one will pursue the inquiry onlyin so far as this is useful for prevailing in such a context.He is rather explicit on this point in Topics VIII 1, atthe beginning of the chapter, where the philosopher andin general anybody who does the searching for himselfis kept distinct from the dialectician because he candevelop the consequences from premisses which are trueand well-known whether or not they are conceded bythe partner in a discussion. Similarly in De Caelo II 13,294b6–13, he stresses the limitation that is involved inpursuing the difficulties up to the point at which aninterlocutor (who can be an imaginary one) has nothingto say against one’s conclusions, for “this is habit thatwe all share, of relating an inquiry not to the subject-matter but to our opponent in argument” (Guthrie’stransl.). It is true that he admits (especially in Topics I2) that the pragmateia which is the object of the Topicsis useful also for scientific and philosophical inquiry,but it is likely that he is thinking of an indirect useful-ness: the practice of debates, in obliging one to developarguments on both sides, avoids the risk of the unilat-erality that lies in pursuing a certain train of thoughtwithout thinking of the possible objections. (As alreadystated above, I leave out a closer discussion of thispoint, which would lead rather far, limiting myself toremark that this view of dialectic is adopted by anumber of scholars who have a great familiarity withthe Topics.)57

9. Are the Categories preparatory to the Topics?

A further discussion of the collocation that is given todialectic by Aristotle would have to go beyond the limitsof an examination of the main contents of the logical

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works and of the intentions expressed by Aristotle inthem (or in texts like the Rhetoric which are closelyconnected with them). Some attention however mustbe given to recent attempts to show that two worksbelonging to the Organon, viz. the Categories andthe De Interpretatione, must be put in relation withdialectic. If this sort of interpretation were right, itwould have the consequence of attributing a moreimportant place to the works on dialectic than the onewhich has been recognised above.

In the case of the Categories this is the result of anattempt to give a new life to an old title that was givento the work, Pro ton topon or Pro ton topikon (this titleseems to have been older than the title Categories whichalso was given to it in antiquity58 and possibly accordswith an alternative ordering of the logical works alsoadopted in antiquity, with the Topics before the PriorAnalytics). Probably one reason for this operation is thenegative one that it is hard to accept the traditional viewthat the Categories, the De Interpretatione and the PriorAnalytics should be put in a sequence as the first dealswith terms, the second with propositions (i.e. com-pounds of terms), and the third with syllogisms (i.e.compounds of propositions). We have already seen thatthere are difficulties in finding a sequence between theDe Interpretatione and the Prior Analytics. Concerningthe relationship between the Categories and the DeInterpretatione, the difficulties are even greater. Muchof the treatment of terms which is of interest for thetreatment that is given to propositions in the DeInterpretatione is to be found in this work itself, withthe distinction between name (onoma) and ‘verb’(rhema). This distinction does not appear in theCategories, nor is it replaced by any comparable treat-ment of terms from a logical point of view. The dis-tinction that is put forward in ch. 4 concerns theircontents and not their logical form. The successive treat-ment of the categories, taken one by one, does notinvolve any direct reflection about terms.

Given that this traditional account cannot stand, onemight be tempted to adopt an alternative which is alsobased on an ancient tradition: that of treating the workas preparatory to the Topics. Some justifications can begiven for this suggestion. I quote those given (but in aproblematical way) by Frede 1987, p. 20: “Clearly,defenders of this title relied on the close connectionbetween our treatise and the Topics. The fact that Cat.4 has its closest parallel in Top. I 9 must have been espe-cially conspicuous. In fact, on reading Top. I 8 and 9,

one could easily come to think that, as a preparationfor the Topics, one really needs a discussion of predi-cables (which Porphyry then provided) and a treatmentof the categories. Chapters 4–9 of our text, without adoubt, were closest to this among the surviving writingsof Aristotle. Some of the remaining material may wellhave also seemed useful for the Topics – for example,the distinction between homonyms, synonyms andparonyms, or the doctrine of opposites, but also thechapters on priority and simultaneity. It certainly wasnot completely misguided to regard our treatise as anintroduction to the Topics”.

It has to be observed that, on the whole, there ismore justification for treating the last part of theCategories, that is to say, chs. 10–15, usually called thePostpraedicamenta, as preparatory to the Topics. (It isperhaps not superfluous to recall that, according to onesource,59 some people used the title Pro ton topon forthese chapters.) This part of the work probably wasnot originally associated with its first part and, anyhow,has a rather loose connection with chs. 1–9, so thatregarding it this way would have no consequences forthe rest. But even in this case it would be restrictive todo so, for the Postpraedicamenta is a miscellaneouscollection of material which can have many purposes:the notions of opposition, of priority and of simultaneitymake their appearance in many works by Aristotle.(Further, as Frede notices there, it is “difficult to seehow the notions of motion and of having are especiallyrelevant to dialectic”.) It is more plausible to talk of acommon ground between these two works, which is tobe extended to some of the ‘entries’ in Metaphysicsbook V (∆), to some of the contributions of book X (I),and probably even to a lost work sometimes referred toby Aristotle: the Selection of Contraries.60 One cannotmaintain that the treatment in the Topics presupposesspecifically that given in the Categories, when noreference to it is made.

As to the Categories taken without thePostpraedicamenta, it is true, in the first place, thatthere are various points of contact between the firstchapters of the work and the Topics, starting with thedistinctions between “homonyms” and “synonyms” andbetween predication and inherence which are introducedin Categories 1–2. Yet, in some cases, the treatmentwhich certain questions receive in the Topics is largeror more complete than that given in the Categories, sothat the scholar who recently has given the mostcomplete survey of these points of contact, viz. R.


Bodéüs,61 is induced to recognise a dependence in theinverse sense62 and, though considering the title Beforethe Places (or Before the Topics) more satisfactory thanCategories, maintains more prudently that the workbelongs to the same field as the other work, that is tosay to the field of dialectic (cfr. op. cit., pp. LXIV andLXXX). Only in some cases could one argue, as alreadydone by Husik,63 that the treatment in the Topicsreceives some light from that given in the Categories,but this claim seems to be plausible, in the main, forthe distinctions that are introduced in chapters 1–2and cannot be extended to the contents of the centralpart of the work. Even so they cannot be said to bedistinctions of exclusive interest for dialectic, for, in aform or another, they appear not only in the Topics butalso in other works of Aristotle, starting with theMetaphysics.

It is true, in the second place, that one can see a con-nection between ch. 4 of the Categories and I 9 of theTopics. It is however one thing to say that the distinc-tion of the categories, in its general outline, is of impor-tance for dialectic, and another thing to say that thedetailed treatment of each of them which is providedin Categories 5–9 is equally relevant. Aristotle rightlythinks that in dialectic one must be able to distinguishthe various senses of words like ‘good’, ‘being’ and‘one’ (cfr. Topics I 15, where however ‘good’ and otherwords, but not ‘being’ and ‘one’, are mentioned), andone way of making this distinction is that of connectingthe various senses of general words like these to a dis-tinction of types of predicates. (Again, it should not beoverlooked that distinguishing the various senses ofthose words is of interest for philosophy in general, notjust for dialectic.) Thus in Sophistici Elenchi, chs. 10and 33, he points out that certain fallacies can be solvedby noticing that one of those words has been used equiv-ocally, just as they can be produced by using themequivocally. The need to give attention to equivocityis stressed in Topics IV 3, 123a27–28, and variousexamples of equivocity are considered in other passagesof this work (e.g. II 3, 110b16 ff.; VI 2, 139b19 ff.; VI10, 148a23 ff.). Similarly, in considering the fallaciesof “figure of speech” (para to schema tes lexeos), inSophistici Elenchi 4, 166b10–19, and in ch. 22, Aristotlepoints out that one can fall into the trap of believing thatthe verb ‘to see’ means an activity in the same sense inwhich ‘to run’ or ‘to cut’ mean activities, because oftheir superficial grammatical similarity, while a dis-tinction of types of predication can help to understand

that this is not so (that we must have before our mindsthis distinction is stated explicitly at the beginning ofch. 22). Two sources of fallacies are thus pointed out,and, to avoid them, attention must be given to the under-lying difference in the predicates involved.

On the other hand fallacies do not arise because wecould confuse a substance with a quality or a qualitywith a quantity quite directly (i.e. not because misguidedby language) and therefore are in need of some test todistinguish one from the other, as is claimed by S.Menn,64 who maintains that the propria introducedabout each category in the Categories (accepting con-traries, accepting differences of degrees, having a cor-relative, etc.) provide such tests. The difficulty with thissuggestion is precisely that there is no need of a testfor keeping one category distinct from another, nor aresuch tests ever used by Aristotle in connection with thefallacies illustrated above, which are detected once theapplicability of the distinction of the categories isrecognized in the given cases. Further, the indicationsgiven by him about the propria for each category arenot as simple and straightforward as to be appropriatefor providing tests for dialectical discussion.65

What has to be admitted is that in the Topics hemakes some use of those tests in order to obtain the rightclassification of a certain object. Thus one rule that isintroduced there is that of checking whether, in the caseof certain qualities, both the genus (e.g. virtue) and thespecies (e.g. justice) allow for degrees, for, if this isnot so, either the first term is not the proper genus forthe species or the second term is not the proper speciesfor the genus (cfr. IV 6, 127b18–25); similarly, if thedefiniendum is a quality it must allow for degrees, butif the definition given of it is not of an object whichallows for degrees, clearly it is not the right definition(cfr. VI 7, 146a3–12). And it is true to say that to getclarification on this point one has to look at the treat-ment of qualities in the Categories. But this concessionmust be qualified in two ways. First, it cannot be saidthat the treatment of a certain category in each of thechapters (from 5 to 8) has no other purpose than theintroduction of a set of propria. Second, the topoi arepragmatic rules that are of interest more for dialecticthan for science, but it cannot be said that they are ofno use at all for science at the stage of research.Aristotle himself seems to be admitting this fact inTopics VIII 1, 155b7–10, and his methodology reflectsthis attitude (e.g. a whole set of rules about definition,some of them coinciding with those provided in the

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Topics,66 are to be found in APo. II 13). Moreover, whatunderlies a topos like that of the more or less just exem-plified is a truth that is of interest to science and not justto dialectic (e.g. the distinction of more and less, thoughnot referred to quality, is explicitly used for distin-guishing animals that belong to the same genus fromthose which are related only in an analogical way;67 butscience will at least assume, just as dialectic does, thatgenera and species satisfy this requirement in the caseof qualities).

Surely, the treatment of each of the categories whichis given in the central chapters of the Categories is con-ducted for its own sake, in a much more detailed waythan is necessary for the purposes of dialectic. It is noteven stated, in the Categories, that the categories aretypes of predications which are involved in the use ofwords like ‘being’ and ‘one’, with the consequence thatthese must be in some way ambiguous. Nor is there anyattempt to show that the distinctions which are intro-duced in each of the chapters devoted either to substanceor to quality or to quantity or to relation can be of helpto disambiguate words when used in dialectical discus-sions. The title Categories that is traditionally given tothis work is certainly not wholly satisfactory when onetakes into account the Postpraedicamenta, but is notinadequate for the rest, since the first chapters can beregarded as introductory to those devoted to theexamination (apparently left incomplete) of each of thecategories.

Even conceding that the Categories are in some waypreparatory to the Topics need not have the consequencethat its contents must be assimilated to dialectic.Concerning in fact the collocation of the work it is notsuperfluous to remark that asserting that the Categoriesprovide the theoretical background for dialectic does notimply asserting that it belongs to the same type ofinquiry. For instance physics, according to De sensu 1,constitutes the theoretical background for medicine, butis a discipline of a quite different nature. Similarlynautical astronomy, mentioned in Posterior Analytics I13 as a discipline subordinated to mathematicalastronomy, is an art that must be kept distinct from thetheoretical discipline to which it is subordinated.(Indeed already Plato, in the Charmides, shows aware-ness of the fact that a science that has the other sciencesas its object cannot be the same sort of science as thosesciences, and, in other dialogues, that a directive artcannot be the same sort of art as a productive one.)Further, it should be recalled that Aristotle is willing to

admit that the subject matter of the science of being quabeing coincides with that of dialectic,68 hence the factthat the study conducted in the Categories concernsnotions that are of interest for dialectic does not excludetheir being of interest also for the science of being quabeing.

The scholars who adopt this position69 are persuadedthat the Categories must in any case be associated withthe other works belonging to the Organon and not betaken as a contribution to “first philosophy”, at least inthe sense of being an early treatment of the same topicsthat are treated in the Metaphysics. The reason theyadduce for this collocation of the work is the negativeone that first philosophy is conceived by Aristotle asan explanatory science, one that will discover the prin-ciples and causes of being qua being (cfr. MetaphysicsIV [Γ] 1; VI [E] 1, 1025b3–10; VI [E] 4, 1028a3–4),but the Categories contain little or no explanation,hardly any talk of causes. However, even if they werequite right in this claim, it would not prove that thereis a genuine affinity between the Categories and theother works belonging to the Organon. One would haveto expect it to be ‘logical’ in one of the ways I havetried to distinguish above, either as being (like the DeInterpretatione) a contribution to formal logic or asbeing a contribution to the analytics or, again, as beinga contribution to methodology (like the works ondialectic). None of these requirements is satisfied by thecontents of the Categories, which, at least in its centralpart, is not a contribution to logic at all.

It has however to be objected as well that the con-ception these scholars adopt of “first philosophy” israther restrictive, for it involves an assimilation ofontology (the science of being qua being) to theology.Ontology is not explanatory in the sense of determiningthe causes of what happens in the world in the way inwhich theology70 and physics are explanatory. The fieldof being qua being is not a field of events which wouldnot take place or of objects that would not exist (at leastnot exist in the form they do) without the causes thatare adduced for their explanation. What are the causesthat can be adduced in the treatment of the principle ofcontradiction, in the second half of book IV (Γ) of theMetaphysics, or in the treatment of the ‘one’ in book X(I)? One must think, in this connection, of “principlesand causes” in a rather different sense from this, as Ihave tried to show long ago.71 It is certainly true thatthe Categories were not written by Aristotle having inmind the programme he pursues in the Metaphysics,


since for instance they contain no attempt to analysesubstance into its ‘constituents’ (form and matter) andto show that all other things can be said ‘to be’ only byreference to substance as the first category. Yet the treat-ment of the categories other than substance is of interestfor ontology, and this treatment is to be found only inthe work entitled Categories, not in the Metaphysics.For this reason I do not think there is sufficient justifi-cation for rejecting the view I expressed there72 that thework has to be understood as being primarily a contri-bution to ontology. In conclusion, the Categories, in itscentral part, does not contribute to logic in any not tooinclusive sense of the word and its traditional colloca-tion in the Organon cannot be right.

10. Is the De Interpretatione preparatory to the 10. Topics?

The view that the De Interpretatione is preparatory tothe Topics is a recent one, and has been advanced, onthe basis of a detailed interpretation of the work, by C.W. A. Whitaker in his book of 1996. He maintainsthat the work cannot be regarded as “preparatory forthe Prior Analytics. The central subject of the DeInterpretatione is not the assertion, seen as the basicelement of the syllogism, but the contradictory pair. Thetreatise is orientated towards the Topics and theSophistici Elenchi, which deal with the proper askingand answering of dialectical questions, with the aim ofrefuting a thesis. By underpinning the nature of refuta-tion, marking out which contradictory pairs violate RCP[for “Rule of Contradictory Pairs”],73 and showing howassertions of many different kinds may be arranged intocontradictory pairs, Aristotle provides us in the DeInterpretatione with the essential theoretical backgroundfor dialectic” (op. cit., p. 182).

Even if one accepts this presentation of the contentsof the De Interpretatione as concentrated on contradic-tion and therefore as having in view the practice ofdialectical discussion, completely excluding that it maybe taken as preparatory for the Prior Analytics is to takea rather narrow view of the contents of the latter work,for part of the treatment of syllogistic and of relatedmatters is conducted having dialectic in view and notonly demonstration. But Whitaker can also be accusedof another form of narrowness, still concerning thisother work, when he posits as an alternative for inves-tigation assertion and the contradictory pair, assuming

that the latter can be of interest only for a study whichoffers the “theoretical background for dialectic”, whileassertion as the basic element of the syllogism is ofinterest for the analytics. When one looks at whatAristotle has to say about the premiss, one generaldefinition he gives of it is as follows: “A premiss isone or the other part of a contradiction,74 one thing saidof one, dialectical if it takes indifferently either part,demonstrative if it determinately <takes> the one thatis true” (APo. I 2, 72a8–11).75 In the first chapter of thePrior Analytics one meets a similar formulation, asfollows: “A demonstrative premiss is different from adialectical one in that a demonstrative premiss is thetaking of one or the other part of a contradiction (forsomeone who is demonstrating does not ask for pre-misses but takes them), whereas a dialectical premissis the asking of a contradiction. However, this will makeno difference as to whether a deduction comes about foreither man, for both the one who demonstrates and theone who asks deduce by taking something either tobelong or not to belong with respect to something”(24a22–28). This passage shows that Aristotle did notsuppose there is any fundamental difference, from alogical point of view, between the deduction of the onewho demonstrates and the deduction of the one whoargues dialectically. Both passages show that he thoughtthat even the one who demonstrates has an alternativebefore him, that is to say, gives a tacit reply to aquestion he sets himself, but, before coming to thedemonstration, must have reached a decision by exclu-sion of “one part of the contradiction” (possibly on thebasis of some evidence, anyhow because he believes itis false). It would be strange if science, at the stage ofdoing research, excluded asking questions and adoptingone of the two parts of the contradiction which is envis-aged by each question that is asked. (It could be addedthat Aristotle is inclined to see some affinity betweenaffirmation and negation in the case of thought andpursuit and avoidance in the case of wish, cfr.Nicomachean Ethics, VI 2, 1139a21 ff., and De AnimaIII 7, 431a9–10, and that he often asserts that knowl-edge of opposites is the same. All this tends to suggestthat for him when one makes a judgement one has inmind not just the simple assertion or the simple negationbut makes a sort of choice between the two. If onefollowed Whitaker’s reasoning to its extreme conse-quences one would have to maintain that the discus-sion of the principle of contradiction in MetaphysicsIV is of interest for dialectic and not for science, but

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this is nonsense, for consistency must be respected inmaking deductions.)

Once a too narrow conception of the contents of thePrior Analytics is avoided, it is not difficult to recog-nise that there are points of contact between this workand the De Interpretatione. One of these points ofcontact is signalled by Aristotle himself, if the referenceto the Analytics in 10, 19b30–31, is his and has not beenadded by an editor.76 In any case, the reference is clearlyto Prior Analytics I, ch. 46, and is quite appropriate, forwhat is at issue in both texts is the way in which certainpropositions (containing a negation) are opposed toothers. Another point of contact lies in the discussionof propositions involving possibility, contingency andnecessity, that is of propositions that are modal asser-tions, for a rather developed treatment of modal logic(concentrated on modal syllogisms but not restricted tothem) is to be found in Prior Analytics I chs. 3 and8–22. It is hard to maintain that all the discussion ofmodal propositions found in De Interpretatione, chs.12–13, is elaborated with the intention of providing the“essential theoretical background for dialectic” (apartfrom the fact that, as already remarked, the relation-ship with dialectic could be indirect, via the treatmentin the Prior Analytics). In fact Whitaker does not claimas much, but makes the weaker claim that thosechapters, together with ch. 10, concern propositionswhich can be used in dialectical debates because theyobey the Rule of Contradictory Pairs. A similar weakclaim, but in the contrary sense of registering an excep-tion to RCP, is made about the contents of ch. 9, whichnotoriously discusses propositions about contingentevents in the future (e.g. the naval battle tomorrow). Itis hard to believe that Aristotle discusses these propo-sitions not because he is particularly interested in theissue of fatalism but just in order to register an excep-tion to RCP which should be noticed by the dialecti-cians. Even if we accepted this, at least for the sake ofargument, there remains the objection that normaldialectical disputes do not concern propositions aboutfuture events like those mentioned in that chapter. Adispute as to whether a naval battle will take placetomorrow would be settled the next day by empiricalevidence, but the very possibility of settling it this wayrules out its being a dialectical dispute, as is sufficientlyclear from what Aristotle says about dialectic in Topics,book I (especially ch. 11, where it is excluded that onewould dispute about whether the snow is white) andfrom the fact that no examples of such a supposed

dialectical dispute can be found either in Aristotle orin any other ancient author who discusses dialectic.

It can be conceded without difficulty that there are afew chapters in the De Interpretatione which concernissues that are of particular interest for dialectic. Itseems to me that this has been shown to be the case ina sufficiently persuasive way by Whitaker in the caseof chapters 8 and 11, while the matter is less clear inthe case of chapter 14, and one should not overlook thefact that the issue discussed in those chapters, when aproposition is really one proposition (because involvingtwo simple terms one of which is predicated of theother), is fundamental for the whole of Aristotle’s logic.In any case, one cannot maintain that the whole workwas written with these few chapters in view. In factWhitaker rather tries to maintain that chapters 1–6contain “the preliminary discussion” which is “neces-sary for the real work contained in chapters 7–14” (op.cit., p. 182). He does so because he believes that thecentral theme of the work is that of contradiction (in thedouble sense of the Greek antiphasis: the contradictionthat there can be between propositions and the contra-dictory pair of propositions), this being what is dis-cussed in the later chapters. The discussion of theproposition and of its parts in the first chapters isregarded by him as merely preparatory. This does notseem to me very satisfactory. To suppose that everythingthat is discussed in chapters 7–14 has to do with con-tradiction is very reductive. And, in so far as contra-diction is in fact a main topic in those chapters, it isnot a topic that can have a priority to the discussion ofthe proposition as such, for they are on the same level.In reducing (as Aristotle appears to be willing to do)all propositions to simple ones, which are either affir-mative or negative, one brings in contradiction, becausefor each affirmative proposition there is a correspondingnegative proposition; but noticing a contradiction wherethere should be none is itself a way of making it evidentthat a proposition is simple only in appearance.77 Atleast this is Aristotle’s initial approach in the work,which gets modified when dealing with quantification.

In conclusion, Whitaker falls victim to his assump-tion that Aristotle is willing, for certain purposes, toconsider the single proposition just by itself, or inrelation to other similar propositions, as if it did notbelong from the beginning to a contradictory pair ofpropositions, and that only when concerned withdialectic he comes to admit its non-isolation. This is nota plausible reconstruction of Aristotle’s way of thinking,


for in discussing affirmation and negation, just as indiscussing truth and falsity, one immediately brings incontradiction.

11. Conclusion

I have some hesitations in trying to draw a general con-clusion, for this, being rather schematic, can appear tobe both too definite and too definitive than my previousdiscussion allows. The attempt to provide a survey ofthe contents of the works belonging to Aristotle’sOrganon has clearly been made at the expense of a morecircumscribed analysis in depth. I feel more confidentabout its negative results than about any positive result.The main negative result is that one cannot talk ofAristotle’s conception of logic (my concession totradition in the title of this paper), because a pluralityof conceptions are involved in his logical works, thoughof course there are points of contact among them. Thisis the main reason why Aristotle himself never suggeststhat those works form a unity. Interpreters, commenta-tors and editors disregarded this fact, because they wereinfluenced by the following two assumptions: (A)Aristotle’s contributions to logic have no place in thethree-partition of the sciences and arts into theoretical,practical and productive, hence they must have acollocation of their own as an ‘instrument’ for all theother inquiries; (B) any discipline which contributes insome way to the provision of such an instrument hasitself the same collocation (outside the three-partition)which is taken by the instrument. On the basis of theseassumptions it seemed reasonable to draw the followingconclusions: (1) logic must reside in methodology; (2)there are two main methodologies that are recognizedby Aristotle, that of demonstrative science and that ofdialectic, but these have a common ground and one ofthem has a priority on the other (though there is noagreement among interpreters as to which has thispriority), hence they belong to one and the same enter-prise; (3) all other contributions to logic that can befound in the works belonging to the collection calledOrganon constitute a theoretical background or are insome other way a condition of the methodologies, hencethey, too, belong to the same enterprise to which themethodologies belong.

Aristotle however did not make those assumptionsand had no reasons to draw those conclusions. It is truethat he recognizes those two main methodologies and

that one of them (that of demonstrative science, as Ihave tried to show) has a priority on the other, but theircommon ground, the syllogistic, is not itself a method-ology, hence the methodology of demonstrative scienceand that of dialectic do not belong to one and the sameenterprise. Syllogistic in its core is not a methodologybut a science (episteme), even if a science sui generis(for it does not deal with one definite field of reality),hence it is an enterprise that has an affinity with thetheoretical sciences. The same can be said of the meta-science which is provided in the Posterior Analytics.Aristotle never assumed that a discipline which consti-tutes the theoretical background for a methodology mustitself belong to methodology; on the contrary, he showsawareness of their difference. This negative conclusionhas to be extended to the other works belonging to thecollection called Organon: even if it were true that theCategories and the De Interpretatione provide thetheoretical background for either the methodology ofdemonstrative science or the methodology of dialectic(and this is true, though only to some extent, as I havetried to show), one cannot assume that their contribu-tions belong to the same enterprise to which a method-ology belongs. On the whole it seemed more plausibleto admit that the first work contributes mainly toontology and the second to something that is close toour formal logic.

Notes

* I wish to thank Francesco Ademollo and Walter Cavini for theimprovements, both in form and in content, suggested by them. 1 For a synthetic account of the origin and the organisation of theOrganon in antiquity see Brunschwig 1989. 2 I follow the prevailing account of logikos, which is suggested bysome Aristotelian passages such as Topics VIII 12, 162b27, andMetaphysics I (A) 6, 987b29 ff. (taken together with XII [Λ] 1,1069a26–28 and XIII [M] 4, 1078b23–27). This account has beenquestioned by Mosquera 1998, but for my present purpose it issufficient to point out that logikos does not cover analutikos (cfr.Posterior Analytics I 22, 84a7–9 and b1–2), hence it is not adequateto render Aristotle’s conception of logic. 3 Cfr. Metaphysics III (B) 1, 995b20–25; IV (Γ) 2, 1004a9 ff., and1004b1–26; XIII (M) 4, 1078b25 ff. 4 On these points cfr. Brunschwig 1967, Introduction, pp.XXVI–XXIX with n. 1 to p. XXVII and pp. 126–127, n. 1 (top. 16); cfr. also the comments on 105b19–29 by Smith 1997,pp. 90–92. (I take 104b8–10 as meaning that certain propositionsare of no use in themselves but can only be useful instrumentally.)The attempt to read the two passages in parallel was made e.g. byAlexander of Aphrodisias in his commentary (cfr. In Topica,74.26–75.3 and 94.7–10).

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5 Cfr. e.g. Metaphysics II (α) 3, 995a6–14; IV (Γ) 3, 1005b2–5; 4,1006a5–7; De Partibus Animalium I 1, 639a1 ff. 6 On the issues touched upon here and in the rest of this introduc-tion see also Brunschwig 1991, pp. 423–427. 7 For more details on their position see, in addition to Brunschwig1989, Lee 1984. 8 Cfr. Bonitz 1870, p. 102a40–52. 9 Thus I avoid any discussion of the relationship between the worksbelonging to the Organon and the remaining works by Aristotle, and,apart from the evidence which is to be found in the Rhetoric (whichis a work that I regard as rather close to the Topics in its practicalpurpose), I do not consider the evidence concerning this point thatcan be found in those other works. I also avoid giving a close dis-cussion of the much discussed chapter I 2 of the Topics, whereAristotle says in which ways the pragmateia he is offering in thatwork can be of use, for any interpretation that is given of this text(and of certain other brief passages touching upon this point) dependson the view that one adopts about that general relationship. Any suchdiscussion, it seems to me, must come after an examination of whatwe find in the Organon. 10 With some reservations, because his account of SophisticiElenchi, in less than one page, is evidently inadequate, and hisapproach to the Categories, on which more below (n. 69), is in myview not satisfactory; he also tends to admit a continuity between theDe Interpretatione and the Prior Analytics. 11 For instance Smith 1989, Introduction, pp. xvii–xviii, is inducedto summarise the contents of that work as necessary (or at leastuseful) for an understanding of the syllogistic. 12 This assumption is made explicit in APo. I 2, 72a8–11 (quotedbelow, § 10). 13 See Bochenski 1951, pp. 27–29, further 1956, second part, II10.C. 14 This term is not be taken in a purely grammatical sense, forAristotle admits that verbs are onomata (cfr. 3, 16b19 ff.), thus arebasic units in propositions, but that they differ from simple onomatabecause of the predicative function they have (cfr. 3, 16b7, b12 andb10, where I would keep the reading of the codex Ambrosianusfavoured by Porphyry; further ch. 10, 19b12) and because of the time-reference they involve (I think that ‘time’ includes the omnitem-poral present) (cfr. 3, 16b6 and b12). An expression which is verbalin the grammatical sense, e.g. ‘walks’ (said of a man), is equivalentto ‘is walking’ (cfr. ch. 12, 21b9–10, and Metaph. V [∆] 7, 1017a27–30), hence does not differ in a significant way from ‘is an animal’or ‘is white’, and these are treated as predicative expressions in ch.11 (especially 20b18–19 and b37–38). 15 I agree with Whitaker 1996, p. 1 and passim, in excluding thatthe first four chapters of the work can be isolated from the rest asbeing its “linguistic chapters”; I also agree with him, up to a certainpoint, that “the work forms a coherent unity” (p. 2), though notalways for the reasons he adduces. 16 That the noemata there mentioned are adiareta is made explicitin De Anima III 6; that truth and falsity involve, in addition to com-position and separation, also correspondence or lack of correspon-dence is made explicit in Metaphysics VI (E) 4 and IX (Θ) 10. (I takethe, perhaps misplaced, reference to the De Anima in ch. 1, 16a8–9,as being mainly but not exclusively to III 6; what he says aboutopinion and imagination in III 3 and in III 8 is also relevant.) 17 See Geach 1968, p. 4, where the following counter-examples are

given: “Socrates loves Theaetetus”, “Any man either wakes orsleeps”. 18 The traditional title of the work, Peri Hermeneias (in Latin DeInterpretatione), which is not used by Aristotle himself, is notsatisfactory, for taking hermeneia in the sense of ‘expression (ofthought)’ or even ‘language’ would imply making language in generalthe scope of its study, against its author’s intentions (as rightlypointed out by Whitaker 1996, pp. 5–7; but his counterproposal: Onthe Contradictory Pair [Peri Antiphaseos], cannot be accepted either,cfr. below, § 10). On the whole the most appropriate title would havebeen (as suggested by H. Weidemann 1994, pp. 43–44) that whichwas traditionally given to Theophrastus’ similar work: On Affirmationand Negation (Peri Kataphaseos kai Apophaseos). 19 This question is discussed in Metaphysics VII (Z) 12 and VIII(H) 6 and involves ontological issues such as that of the unity thereis between genus and differentia. 20 An attempt to give a unified exposition of the contributions tologic found in the Organon on such a basis was in fact made byMignucci 1997. He recognizes that this attempt at reconstruction doesnot reflect Aristotle’s own intentions but is a manner of giving a senseand a unity to those contributions; he is inevitably very selective. 21 Cfr. Bonitz 1870, pp. 97b49–98a2. 22 Cfr. the definition of the syllogism given by Aristotle in PriorAnalytics I 4, 25b32 ff., especially b35–36 about the middle, con-taining the assertion “this is also middle in position”, which I thinkis to be understood as meaning that it is middle in position whenrepresented graphically (see the illustrations provided in Kneale andKneale 1972, pp. 68 and 72, and the following note). What followsthere (“If A is predicated of every B . . .”) is an instance of this non-standard predication, not a reference to the usual form of predica-tion (i.e. of the form ‘B is A’), for only taken in this way B is middlein position. 23 This fact is noticed for instance by Patzig 1963, ch. III, § 15,with the eloquent title: “Die Evidenz eines Schlusses ist abhängigvon seiner Formulierung”. It can be illustrated as follows in the caseof Barbara, where M (for ‘men’) is the middle term:

All men are mortal, All M are B, B belongs to all M,All Greeks are men; All G are M; M belongs to all G; ∴ All Greeks are mortal ∴ All G are B. ∴ B belongs to all G.

24 See the detailed discussion of this passage in Brunschwig 1971,pp. 64 ff. This article is important not only in relation to its declaredtopic but also in relation to the connection between Prior andPosterior Analytics. 25 As supposed e.g. by Bochenski 1951, p. 55. 26 For surveys of its contents see Ross 1949, Introduction, pp. 4–5,and Smith 1989, Introduction, pp. xiv–xv. 27 See the more detailed discussion of these passages in Ross 1949,Introduction, p. 10. 28 E.g. the Prior Analytics are referred to in this way in DeInterpretatione 10, 19b31, in Topics VIII 11, 162a11 and 13,162b31–33, in Sophistici Elenchi 2, 165b9; the Posterior Analyticsare referred to in Nicomachean Ethics VI 3, 1139b27 and 32, inEudemian Ethics II 10, 1227a9, in Metaph. VII (Z) 12, 1037b8. Forother occurrences see Bonitz 1870, p. 102a30–40. 29 This is stressed by Striker 1998. She maintains that “Aristotlewas interested both in logic as a theory and in its more humdrumuses in philosophical, or indeed everyday, argument, and more than


half of the text of the Prior Analytics is concerned with the uses oflogic in argument, rather than with either the exposition of a formalsystem or what we would call logical theory. This is what one shouldexpect, since Aristotle invented formal logic for the purposes of hisgeneral theory of argument, not just as a formal theory of deductiveproof or an ‘underlying logic’ for demonstrative science” (p. 210).There is some truth in all this, but she goes too far, since it is notobvious that to do argument one needs a “general theory of argument”rather than pratical handbooks like the Topics and the Rhetoric; shealso plays down the connection between this work and the PosteriorAnalytics. 30 This issue of completeness, together with Aristotle’s conceptionof a syllogism, are discussed by Cavini 1991 and by Mignucci 2002.31 Cfr. Ross 1949, Introduction, p. 1, and comm., p. 400. 32 See Alexander, In Analytica Priora, prooemium, 7.27–33, andPhiloponus, In Analytica Priora, prooemium, 5.24–31. 33 The substantive and the verb he most frequently uses in this con-nection are dialusis and dialuein (cfr. Bonitz 1870, s.vv.). 34 This fact has been noticed by scholars, and most of them are infavour of this conclusion. Among them there are L/ ukasiewicz 1957,p. 43 (“The perfect syllogisms, therefore, are the axioms of thesyllogistic”); Bochenski 1951, pp. 46–48 and 53–54; Rose 1968,ch. VII, and Patzig 1963, ch. V, § 27, entitled: “Ist die aristotelischeSyllogistik ein deduktives axiomatisiertes System?”. See also Ackrill1981, p. 86 (as a short synthesis of Aristotle’s syllogistic his ch. 6on Logic is to be recommended). This conclusion is resisted byStriker 1996, pp. 212–213, who argues that Aristotle does not presentthose syllogisms as ‘principles’, overlooking however their presen-tation as ‘elements’. She also argues that the syllogistic cannot bean Aristotelian science because it does not make use of the doctrineof the Four Causes, but it is not obvious that this doctrine has appli-cation beyond physics: what about geometry? (Even in theology, Ipresume, there is no use of all of them: the unmoved movers are notefficient or material or even formal causes of anything else.) 35 See the discussion in Patzig 1963, ch. V, § 31, with the title:“Beweis für die Nichtschlüssigkeit von Prämissenparen”.36 These three relations are mentioned as the only ones possible byAristotle himself in APr. I 23, 41a13–18. 37 In admitting a general dependence of the Posterior Analytics onthe Prior Analytics for the syllogistic I do not wish to maintain thatthis was fully developed when Aristotle elaborated his theory ofdemonstration. Even those who exclude this, in particular Barnes1981 and Smith 1982, admit that the syllogistic was in any case underelaboration and that parts of the Posterior Analytics may have beenrevised in light of the complete theory offered in the other work. 38 This separation is rather frequent in general expositions ofAristotle’s philosophy, cfr. e.g. Allan 1952: Part IV includes a chapteron Formal logic and a chapter on Demonstrative science; Ackrill1981: ch. 7 on The philosophy of science follows ch. 6 on Logic;Barnes 1982: ch. 8 on Knowledge follows ch. 7 on Logic. 39 Cfr. I 22, 84a7 ff., with the comment by Ross 1949 on 21,82b35–6, p. 573. 40 Cfr. In Analytica Priora, prooemium, 5.16. 41 E.g. Metaph. VII (Z) 7, 1032b6 ff. 42 See the use of anapalin in Ph. II 9, 200a19. 43 There is a mechanical necessity which is to be associated e.g. tothe action of the four elements or, in general, to the material cause(cfr. De Partibus Animalium I 1, 640b4 ff.).

44 There is, then, a restriction in Aristotle’s methodology of scien-tific research, but it seems to me that J. Barnes goes too far when heclaims, in a well-known article (1975a, p. 77), that “the theory ofdemonstrative science was never meant to guide or formalise scien-tific research: it is concerned exclusively with the teaching of factsalready won”. (The second assertion, but not the first, is partiallymodified in Barnes 1993, Introduction, pp. xviii–xix, where he stillclaims, in n. 4, that Aristotle’s “chief and primary concern is withthe form of an achieved science”.) I cannot however give to thismatter the extensive discussion it would require, but see, for anaccount close to the one I favour, Primavesi 1996, § 2.2.2.3, entitled“Der Ort des apodeiktischen Syllogismos: Lehre oder Forschung?”(pp. 67–70). 45 For an introductory discussion see e.g. Smith 1997, Introduction,pp. xxiv–xxviii. On this and other questions see also Brunschwig1967, Introduction. For more detailed discussions cfr. Primavesi 1996and Slomkowski 1997 (the two authors ignored each other inpreparing their, partly overlapping, works). 46 See e.g. the esamination of Gorgias, 474B–475E, given byThionville 1855, pp. 77–85. 47 See the discussion in Dorion 1995, Introduction, pp. 24–25. 48 So e.g. lately Lear 1988, pp. 209–210. See also Ackrill 1981,p. 80. 49 This scholar’s translation follows Pacius in reading soloikismosfor sullogismos. 50 In our chapter this parallel is operative up to a point, for it cannotbe extended to the development of the two disciplines, and in183b27–28 there is a reference also to other arts. On this matter andalso on some other points of interpretation see the discussion of thechapter by Brunschwig 1994, esp. pp. 66–72. 51 Up to this point Dorion’s interpretation, initially advanced inDorion 1995, Commentary, p. 418, successively, and in a much moredetailed way, in Dorion 2002, is persuasive. He rightly remarks thatthe assertion of 184b1–2: “on the subject of syllogism we had nothingelse of an earlier date to speak of at all”, recalls that of 183b33–35:“of this inquiry [. . .] nothing existed at all”, hence also the firstassertion must refer to the present inquiry. This and some other ofthe observations he makes are a development of those made byBrunschwig 1994. 52 On the rules applied in this dialogue cfr. Narcy 1984. 53 It should be recalled that in De Interpretatione 4, 17a4–7,Aristotle says that “the present investigation deals with apophan-tical discourse”, whereas the study of discourse that is neither truenor false (there exemplified by a prayer) is more properly the taskof rhetoric and poetics. 54 There also are, in the same sense, less specific references to whathappens in the field of dialectic (cfr. II 22, 1396b22–27, and 24,1401a2 ff.). 55 Cfr. I 2, 1357a27–33 concerning the syllogistic; I 2, 1357b20–25concerning probability (to eikos), sign (to semeion) and proof(tekmerion), with reference to Prior Analytics II 27; two other ref-erences to the same effect are to be found in II 25, 1403a5 and 12. 56 The Parisinus 1741, which is the oldest manuscript of theRhetoric. 57 Cfr. Primavesi 1996, § 1.8.3 entitled “Der nur indirekte Nutzender Topik für die Philosophie” (pp. 52 ff.); Brunschwig in variouspublications (including his review of the previous, 1998, and hisrecent 2000); and Smith 1997, Introduction, and 1993, pp. 335–358.

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58 See the evidence collected by Frede 1987, p. 19. 59 Olympiodorus, In Categorias Commentarium, 134.1 ff. 60 Cfr. Metaphysics IV (Γ) 2, 1004a2 and b34, and the other refer-ences to the work collected by Bonitz 1870, p. 104a22 ff. 61 In Bodéüs 2001, Introduction, pp. LXXIII–LXXIX. 62 “[. . .] mais ce sont les exposés de C [= Catégories] qui semblentsupposer les thèses sinon les exposés des Topiques, plutôt quel’inverse” (pp. LXXIX–LXXX). 63 Cfr. Husik 1904, esp. pp. 519 ff. (He is not right in claimingthat what is said of the differentia in the Topics presupposes the treat-ment in the Categories, since this work does not contain any expla-nation of what a differentia is.) 64 Cfr. Menn 1995, pp. 316 ff. (his general interpretation, thoughperhaps not on this specific point, meets the approval of Burnyeat2001, who also asserts that the Categories are preparatory to theTopics). 65 On this point also Bodéüs 2001, Introduction, p. LXX and n. 1,expresses a reservation. 66 We have seen that ch. VII 3 of this work contains references tothe other work precisely on this issue. 67 Cfr. De Partibus Animalium I 4. 68 Cfr. Metaph. III (B) 1, 995b20–25 and IV (Γ) 2, 1004b17–26. 69 One has to include Smith 1995, who believes that “the Categorieshas something of the same relationship to the dialectical treatises asOn Interpretation has to the works on demonstration” (pp. 28–29).The first formulation of what follows is due to Menn 1995, but onthis point also Bodéüs 2001 is agreed with him. 70 In fact how far even theology is explanatory could be a matterof dispute (cfr. above, n. 34). 71 In Leszl 1975, pp. 190–208. 72 Cfr. Leszl 1975, pp. 365 ff. and 553–556. 73 This is stated as follows at p. 78: “Of every contradictory pair,one member is true and the other false”. 74 The text in 8–9 has clearly to be corrected as Barnes 1975bsuggests in the note to his translation (antiphaseos for apophanseos),as shown by what follows, where Aristotle adds (clarifying what hemeans by “one thing said of one”): “the part of a contradiction(antiphasis) saying something of something is an affirmation, the onesaying something from something is a denial” (72a13–14, Barnes’transl.). 75 Whitaker himself offers the following exposition of Aristotle’sposition, by reference to the passage of the Posterior Analytics, aftera mention of name and verb, and of assertions with truth value inwhich these combine: “[. . .] assertions themselves may be said tobe members of a larger unit, that is, the contradictory pair (cf. APo.72a13 f.). This final unit differs from the others in that it is, as itwere, an abstraction from ordinary language: the utterance ‘man ispale – man is not pale’ is not a quotation from ordinary speech, butan analysis of a structure found in it” (op. cit., p. 79). If this expo-sition is satisfactory, as it seems to me, why insist that “this finalunit” exists only for dialectic? 76 A suspicion expressed by Ross 1949, Commentary, p. 421, andalso by Ackrill 1963 in commenting the passage of the DeInterpretatione, p. 143. 77 This is stated by Aristotle in De Interpretatione 6 (further 7,17b37 ff.), with an explicit reservation about propositions involvingequivocity (those considered in ch. 8) and other propositions (notspecified) which can be exploited by sophists. In the case of simple

propositions in fact it can be said that the negation (exactly) deniesthe same thing (= predicate) of the same thing (= subject) as the affir-mation affirms, hence there is a straight contradiction between them.

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Department of PhilosophyUniversity of FlorenceItalyE-mail: [email protected]

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Aristotle's Logical Works and His Conception of Logic

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