Tag Archives: History of logic

A Brief History of Validity #2

Introductory Logic, , ,

The 19 Traditional Forms

In the first post in this series, we saw that Aristotle identified 16 valid forms of categorical syllogisms (though he formally acknowledged only the first three figures). Some thirteenth-century logicians such as William of Sherwood and Peter of Spain recognized nineteen valid forms, giving them Latin names as a mnemonic device for ease of memorizing:

Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferioque prioris.
Cesare, Camestres, Festino, Baroco secundae.
Tertia Darapti, Disamis, Datisi, Felapton, Bocardo, Ferison habet.
Quarta insuper addit Bramantip, Camenes, Dimaris, Fesapo, Fresison.

The vowels in each name correspond with the mood, such that “Barbara” is AAA-1, “Cesare” is EAE-2, and so on. Thus the medievals recognized these valid forms:

Figure 1: AAA, EAE, AII, EIO
Figure 2: EAE, AEE, EIO, AOO
Figure 3: AAI, IAI, AII, EAO, OAO, EIO
Figure 4: AAI, AEE, IAI, EAO, EIO

The five forms not included in this list are AAI-1, EAO-1, EAO-2, AEO-2, and AEO-4. Why were these five not included? They are the forms in which the conclusion is the subimplication of moods with all universal statements, namely AAA-1, EAE-1, EAE-2, AEE-2,  and AEE-4. Thus they were seen as “weaker” forms of the syllogisms (why bother concluding the particular “Some S is not P”when you can conclude the universal “No S is P”?).

Defending the Missing Five

Interestingly, these five omitted forms can readily be shown to be equivalent to Bramantip (AAI-4) using immediate inferences, as follows:

AAI-4 (given)
All P is M
All M is S

∴ Some S is P

AAI-1 (taking the converse of the conclusion, correcting the premise order)
All M is S
All P is M

∴ Some P is S

EAO-1 (taking the obverse of the major premise and conclusion of the AAI-1)
No M is non-S
All P is M

∴ Some P is not non-S

EAO-2 (taking the converse of the major premise of the EAO-1)
No non-S is M
All P is M

∴ Some P is not non-S

AEO-2 (From the AAI-1, take the contrapositive of the major premise, obverse of the minor premise and conclusion)
All non-S is non-M
No P is non-M

∴ Some P is not non-S

AEO-4 (From the AEO-2, take the converse of the minor premise)
All non-S is non-M
No non-M is P

∴ Some P is not non-S.

This is one practical application of the immediate inferences learned in Lesson 27 of Introductory Logic.

A Brief History of Validity #1

Introductory Logic, , , ,

Which forms of categorical syllogisms are valid? Logicians have disputed the answer for centuries, a dispute that can give us insight into the meaning of validity, the central concept of formal logic. This will be the first of a few posts in which I will briefly discuss the history of syllogistic validity.

Aristotle’s 16

It all started with Aristotle, who in his Prior Analytics, Book I, chapters 4-7, detailed sixteen valid forms:

Figure 1: AAA, EAE, AII, EIO
Figure 2: EAE, AEE, EIO, AOO
Figure 3: AAI, EAO, IAI, AII, OAO, EIO
Figure 4: EAO, EIO

If you read Prior Analytics (which is no trivial task), Aristotle presents only the first three figures as figures, omitting any mention of a fourth figure. But in chapter 7 he admits in passing the forms of EAO-4 and EIO-4 as valid, saying,

If A belongs to all or some B, and B belongs to no C … it is necessary that C does not belong to some A.

It is not difficult to see why Aristotle omits AAI-1, EAO-1, AEO-2, and EAO-2. These four forms are his AAA-1, EAE-1, AEE-2, and EAE-2 with the subimplication of the conclusion. Aristotle apparently saw no need to include syllogism forms with particular conclusions when the premises could imply the universal.

Aristotle and Figure 4

It is rather more difficult to understand why Aristotle does not admit the fourth figure, though logicians have argued that it has to do with how he defines a syllogism. We learn from Bertrand Russell, in his Cambridge Essays, that

The fourth figure…was added by Aristotle’s pupil Theophrastus and does not occur in Aristotle’s work, although there is evidence that Aristotle knew of fourth-figure syllogisms.

Theophrastus apparently recognized three more valid forms of figure 4: AAI, AEE, and IAI, bringing the total to 19. These were given Latin names by medieval scholars, but that will be the topic for my next post.

Shakespeare’s Use of the Liberal Arts: Logic

Classical Education, Logic, Old Western Culture, Poetics, Trivium, Why learn logic?, , , , ,

81Few4FQ9cL[1]The classical Christian school movement is seeking to revive a form of education that helped shape some the greatest minds of western civilization. But how do we know that our father’s were trained according to the Trivium? One delightful demonstration of this is William Shakespeare’s frequent and detailed use of the liberal arts of grammar, logic and rhetoric in his plays and poems,  a use thoroughly identified by Sister Miriam Joseph in her book Shakespeare’s Use of the Arts of Language. In this well-researched book, she argues that Shakespeare’s application of formal logic is evidenced in his use of definition, genus and species, syllogistic vocabulary, applied syllogisms, enthymemes, and more. Let me give some of her clearer examples. Continue reading Shakespeare’s Use of the Liberal Arts: Logic →

All those 1’s and 0’s

Intermediate Logic, ,
Claude Shannon

The Stoics investigated the rules of propositional logic in the third century before Christ.

The rules of modern propositional logic were developed by George Boole, an English mathematician and logician, in his book An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854).

Over eighty years later, Boole’s work was applied to electronic circuits by Claude Shannon in his master’s thesis at MIT.

This was the birth of modern digital logic.