Aristotle PRIOR ANALYTICS Complete

Translated by A. Jenkinson.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

109 pages - You are on Page 94

Part 15

In what figure it is possible to draw a conclusion from premisses which are opposed, and in what figure this is not possible, will be made clear in this way. Verbally four kinds of opposition are possible, viz. universal affirmative to universal negative, universal affirmative to particular negative, particular affirmative to universal negative, and particular affirmative to particular negative: but really there are only three: for the particular affirmative is only verbally opposed to the particular negative. Of the genuine opposites I call those which are universal contraries, the universal affirmative and the universal negative, e.g. 'every science is good', 'no science is good'; the others I call contradictories.

In the first figure no syllogism whether affirmative or negative can be made out of opposed premisses: no affirmative syllogism is possible because both premisses must be affirmative, but opposites are, the one affirmative, the other negative: no negative syllogism is possible because opposites affirm and deny the same predicate of the same subject, and the middle term in the first figure is not predicated of both extremes, but one thing is denied of it, and it is affirmed of something else: but such premisses are not opposed.

In the middle figure a syllogism can be made both oLcontradictories and of contraries. Let A stand for good, let B and C stand for science. If then one assumes that every science is good, and no science is good, A belongs to all B and to no C, so that B belongs to no C: no science then is a science. Similarly if after taking 'every science is good' one took 'the science of medicine is not good'; for A belongs to all B but to no C, so that a particular science will not be a science. Again, a particular science will not be a science if A belongs to all C but to no B, and B is science, C medicine, and A supposition: for after taking 'no science is supposition', one has assumed that a particular science is supposition. This syllogism differs from the preceding because the relations between the terms are reversed: before, the affirmative statement concerned B, now it concerns C. Similarly if one premiss is not universal: for the middle term is always that which is stated negatively of one extreme, and affirmatively of the other. Consequently it is possible that contradictories may lead to a conclusion, though not always or in every mood, but only if the terms subordinate to the middle are such that they are either identical or related as whole to part. Otherwise it is impossible: for the premisses cannot anyhow be either contraries or contradictories.

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