History of Logic: Aristotle

Aristotle: The Big Think

Aristotle didn't in fact call his writings the "Organum". This was a name given to a collection of his notes collated by a number of his students. Because of this, it's difficult to study Aristotle's work in it's original historical context: often times, notes were inserted into the text later, and the writings themselves were continually being edited as Aristotle taught different people over the years. In other words, the "Organum" is a collection of lecture notes from across many years of teaching; they are useful in determining the general content of his teachings, but as to particulars, they are tantalizingly incomplete.

What's more, the Greek language contained many limitations that makes it difficult to interpret what Aristotle means even when his intent is fairly clear. For instance, in modern written English, we can say: "That man is blonde.", "'Man' has three letters." and "Man is essentially good at heart." and be well-assured that our audience will be able to differentiate between the three uses of the letters 'm', 'a', and 'n'. In the first sentence, we're talking about a specific man, in the second, the word 'man', and in the third, humankind. The notes that Aristotle left behind contained few of such distinctions; presumably he was able to explain himself more thoroughly to his students and didn't need to make that characterization in his notes. (He was able to use a particular Greek participle to indicate what I do here by quote marks, but often, Aristotle, like all lecturers, would abbreviate, and leave it off.)

That said, Aristotle's "Organum" was the basis for all study of logic for several hundred years, so though as a logical text, it is relatively unremarkable (particularly when compared to his other brilliant works,) as a historical document, it is absolutely indispensible. In fact, many peripatetic "rules" of logic are still with us today.

Aristotelian Propositions

Aristole emphasized, in his "Categories", the importance of the "primary substance" to thought. This substance has often been misinterpreted as a primitive atomic scientific theory, since the "primary substance" is a substance that cannot be comprised of any other substance. As he says: "Everything except primary substances is either predicable in primary substances or present in them as subjects." However, many historians believe that this was his response to Plato's Theory of Forms, and not necessarily as a logical statement of formal generalities. It is extremely unlikely that he meant it as an analysis of the difference between using a word and mentioning it.

Hmm. I'd like to know more about these propositions and the rest of Aristotle's impact on logic.
I'd rather just look at the rest of Greek logic.
Can we skip the Greeks and check out the Romans?
How about going back to the Aristotle/Stoic split?

Here's some Aristotelian links of interest:

Aristotle was one of the first people to look at dreams as a philosophical tool. You can open a gopher connection to Aristotle on Dreams
Aristotle's political philosophy was also ground-breaking. You can open a gopher connection to Aristotle On Politics
The most direct result of Aristotle's logical work can be seen in his theories of metaphysics. You can open a gopher connection to Aristotle On Metaphysics
Here are several other of Aristotle's works, available on the net:

The University of Michigan Papyrological Center has a very interesting resource that describes some of the problems and strategies associated with archaeological work affecting Aristotle's time. While is isn't technically a philosophy resource, it's extremely important in terms of understanding exactly how these texts came to be in our grubby little hands.

Take me back to Jason's homepage.

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Jason Corley -- corleyj@cobweb.scarymonsters.net