A study of the metatheory of assertoric syllogistic (Q6054110)

The paper examines the following question about the metatheory of assertoric syllogistic: Lukasiewicz claims that it presupposes a metalogic, which is propositional logic. However, he has to avail himself of predicate logic to explain Aristotle's proofs by \textit{ecthesis}. Contrary to Lukasiewicz, Corcoran argues that Aristotle's theory of deduction contains a self-sufficient natural deduction system which presupposes no other logic. The authors show that Aristotle's syllogistic indeed presupposes a metalogic and formulate a reconstruction of semantics for assertoric syllogistic, based on Aristotle's texts and \textit{ecthetic} proofs, in which all truth conditions are given by means of set inclusion, instead of empty intersection (for universal negative sentences) (Corcoran) and non-empty intersection (for particular affirmative sentences) (Smith). As a consequence, the \textit{ecthetic} proofs play a central role in the metatheory of syllogistic. Based on the analysis of the truth conditions for categorical sentences, the authors define a formal semantics which includes a definition of \textit{syllogistic validity}. Hence, the metalanguage of categorical syllogistic is the first-order predicate logic with identity and set inclusion. All proofs of syllogistic validity are realised in a calculus of natural deduction. Further, they show that Aristotle did not consider perfect syllogisms as evident, as axioms or as rules of inference but rather as valid arguments that deserve a syllogistic validity proof. Thus, their evidentness is due to the transitivity of set inclusion, which is furthermore a necessary and sufficient condition for their syllogistic validity. Moreover, the transitivity of set inclusion is shown to be the necessary and sufficient condition for the validity and perfection of a syllogism. The authors also show that from the definition of a perfect syllogism, it can be established \begin{itemize} \item[1.] what it means for a syllogism to be imperfect, \item[2.] what the main metalogical difference between a perfect and an imperfect syllogism is, \item[3.] what metalogical features perfect and imperfect syllogisms have in common, and \item[4.] what role the transitivity of set inclusion plays for the syllogistic validity of imperfect syllogisms. \end{itemize} Finally, it is shown why some imperfect syllogisms satisfy the definition of a perfect syllogism.