Aristotle PRIOR ANALYTICS Complete

Translated by A. Jenkinson.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

109 pages - You are on Page 46

Part 27

We must now state how we may ourselves always have a supply of syllogisms in reference to the problem proposed and by what road we may reach the principles relative to the problem: for perhaps we ought not only to investigate the construction of syllogisms, but also to have the power of making them.

Of all the things which exist some are such that they cannot be predicated of anything else truly and universally, e.g. Cleon and Callias, i.e. the individual and sensible, but other things may be predicated of them (for each of these is both man and animal); and some things are themselves predicated of others, but nothing prior is predicated of them; and some are predicated of others, and yet others of them, e.g. man of Callias and animal of man. It is clear then that some things are naturally not stated of anything: for as a rule each sensible thing is such that it cannot be predicated of anything, save incidentally: for we sometimes say that that white object is Socrates, or that that which approaches is Callias. We shall explain in another place that there is an upward limit also to the process of predicating: for the present we must assume this. Of these ultimate predicates it is not possible to demonstrate another predicate, save as a matter of opinion, but these may be predicated of other things. Neither can individuals be predicated of other things, though other things can be predicated of them. Whatever lies between these limits can be spoken of in both ways: they may be stated of others, and others stated of them. And as a rule arguments and inquiries are concerned with these things. We must select the premisses suitable to each problem in this manner: first we must lay down the subject and the definitions and the properties of the thing; next we must lay down those attributes which follow the thing, and again those which the thing follows, and those which cannot belong to it. But those to which it cannot belong need not be selected, because the negative statement implied above is convertible. Of the attributes which follow we must distinguish those which fall within the definition, those which are predicated as properties, and those which are predicated as accidents, and of the latter those which apparently and those which really belong. The larger the supply a man has of these, the more quickly will he reach a conclusion; and in proportion as he apprehends those which are truer, the more cogently will he demonstrate. But he must select not those which follow some particular but those which follow the thing as a whole, e.g. not what follows a particular man but what follows every man: for the syllogism proceeds through universal premisses.

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