Aristotle's modal proofs. Prior analytics A8-22 in predicate logic (Q2638163): Difference between revisions

Modal logic is a very controversial part of Aristotle's syllogistic logic. In order to unravel the intricacies of Aristotle's text, this book sets out to employ the basic tools of the lower predicate calculus (LPC) as a powerful method if enriched with the distinction between substantial (`red' for the author) and accidental (`green' for the author) terms, and with some principles concerning the syllogistic treatment of these `coloured' terms. In addition, the modal propositions are analysed as `de re' propositions (for which the scope of the modal operator is only the term), because, according to the author, Aristotle never requires a `de dicto' modal premise (for which the scope is the whole proposition). More generally, the author remarks that in Aristotle we don't find the very notion of `scope' and the propositional negation operator. After a first part devoted to outline the employment of the LPC framework in Aristotle's syllogistic logic, the second part deals with modal necessity in the same framework, and the third part with one of the clumsiest parts of the Prior Analytics: the analysis of the contingent syllogisms. The (maybe too sharp) conclusion of the author is that ``Aristotle's modal syllogistic has to be understood as an applied logic''.