Thomas Aquinas's foreword to his commentary on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, in which he shows the connections between all of Aristotle's "logical" works (original) (raw)
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Review of Striker's 2009 Oxford UP translation of Aristotle's Prior Analytics I
The author of this translation and commentary, is a prolific and respected scholar, a leading figure in a large and still rapidly growing area of scholarship: Prior Analytics studies PAS. PAS treats many aspects of Aristotle's Prior Analytics: historical context, previous writings that influenced it, preservation and transmission of its manuscripts, editions of its manuscripts, interpretations, commentaries, translations, and its influence on subsequent logic, philosophy, and mathematics. All this attention is warranted because Prior Analytics marks the origin of logic: the field that, among other things, asks of a given proposition whether it follows from a given set of propositions; and, if it follows, how we determine that it follows; and, if it does not follow, how we determine that it does not follow. Striker is currently Professor of Philosophy and Classics at Harvard University. Her doctoral supervisor was Günther Patzig, the most noted German scholar in this area. His im...
Understanding, Explanation and Insight in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics
Exegesis and Argument, 1973
The Posterior Analytics, like the Theaetetus, is an essay on e0 pisth/ mh, or understanding. For Aristotle, e0 pisth/ mh is, in broadest terms, the explanatory art; one who understands is someone able to explain what he understands. In this sense, e0 pisth/ mh is, as Aristotle repeatedly urges, a discursive disposition or habit of soul, a e3 cij, the locus of whose e0 ne/ rgeia is in the activity of a0 po/ deicij, an activity which I shall with qualification call in English "explanation." The explanatory art presupposes another sort of understanding, nou= j, which is itself a e3 cij, and whose nature and connection to e0 pisth/ mh is complex and subtle.
The commentary gives only the most superficial discussions of the main interpretations, the differences among them, the philosophical and historical significance of the differences, and the arguments pro and con. The introduction mentions the Łukasiewicz “axiomatic model of assertoric syllogistic” without giving any of the essential features or even saying which of the several current senses of the word ‘model’ is intended. It immediately adds that Patzig “provided a historically more accurate picture” without giving one example of Patzig’s corrections or even one example of Łukasiewicz’s supposed inaccuracies. It reports that “several critics pointed out that Lukasiewicz’s (sic) axiomatic model (which had been accepted by Patzig) was not a very adequate representation” without saying who the several critics were or what inadequacies they found. Nowhere in the book is it revealed how or even whether Patzig ever repudiated his well-known endorsement of the Łukasiewicz axiomatic interpretation of assertoric syllogistic. It asserts without explanation that Aristotle’s deductions are “more plausibly seen as derivations in a natural deduction calculus” without any indication of which natural deduction calculus is concerned or what explains the increased plausibility. It further asserts, without giving evidence, that the natural-deduction interpretation “is widely accepted.” Moreover, it alleges that “a first model of the natural deduction kind was published in German by K. Ebbinghaus in 1964” without giving any details of the Ebbinghaus “model” and without saying what interpretation of Prior Analytics Ebbinghaus proposed, if any, or what textual references Ebbinghaus cited in support. It also alleges that the 1973 and 1974 work of John Corcoran has been “more influential in the Anglophone literature,” thus simultaneously (1) failing to mention Timothy Smiley’s equally influential early 1970s work, (2) suggesting that the Ebbinghaus work has been more influential than the Corcoran work outside of Anglophone literature, and (3) suggesting that the Ebbinghaus work has been somewhat influential in the Anglophone literature. To the best of my knowledge the Ebbinghaus work has been largely ignored by all except for Patzig and one or two others. Smith 1989 does not mention it.
Prior Analytics and Aristotle\u27s Commitment to Logos
1996
Prior Analytics describes a natural deduction system as part of an underlying logic. It is a proof-theoretic treatise concerned principally to establish and to perfect a deduction system for science. Aristotle knew that deductions about matters pertaining to a given subject matter are content specific and that they employ a topic neutral deduction system; such a system makes evident that given sentences logically follow from other given sentences. One process of deduction is accomplished through taking pairs of given categorical sentences to generate immediate inferences according to prescribed rules, which categorical inferences are then added to the given sentences and then again taken in pairs, to wit, syllogistically, until a final conclusion is obtained (see esp. A25). This process is treated in Prior Analytics in an exactly analogous fashion as chaining immediate inferences by using rules of propositional logic
Interpreting Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics in Late Antiquity and the Byzantine Period
2011
Recent years have seen the publication of a number of collective volumes studying the fate of particular Aristotelian works through the centuries. The present volume is a welcome addition to the bibliography. Its 10 essays are arranged in three parts: (1) Concept Formation in Posterior Analytics II 19, (2) Metaphysics as a Science, and (3) Demonstration, Definition and Causation.
The Problem of the Title of the Posteríor Analytics, and Thoughts from the Commentators
The Prior and Posterior Analytics were entitled Ta Analutika by Aristotle himself. But it is nol at all clear what Aristotle had in mind in grouping these two works together and in giving them this common title. This question was discussed at length bythe ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle. Two main possibilities emerged. The first is that taken by Alexander of Aphrodisias, Ammonius, and Philoponus in his commentary on APr. According to this line of thought, Aristotle has in mind the analysis that shows how a complex arises out of simple entities; both Analytics show us how to subject all lines ofsyllogistic reasoning (including demonstration) to such analysis. According to the second approach, found in the commentary on APo. 2 attributed to Philoponus, in giving APo., 2 the title 'Analytics'Aristotle has in mind the analysis that reasons from effects to causes. Demonstrations reveal the causes of things, and APo., 2 shows how this is the case. In this paper, the two approaches are compared, and a third approach, which builds on the second, but allows'Analytics' to have a continuity of sense in its use as a title, is proposed.