Prior Analytics
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Prior Analytics is Aristotle's work on deductive reasoning, specifically the syllogism. It is also part of his Organon, which is the instrument or manual of logical and scientific methods.
[edit] The Syllogism
The Prior Analytics represents the first formal study of logic. In it, Aristotle identifies valid and invalid forms of arguments called syllogisms. A syllogism is an argument consisting of three sentences: two premises and a conclusion. Each proposition of a syllogism is a categorical sentence which has a subject and a predicate connected by a verb. There are four different types of categorical sentences: universal affirmative (A), particular affirmative (I), universal negative (E) and particular negative (O).
- A - A belongs to all B
- I - A belongs to some B
- E - A does not belong to any B
- O - A does not belong to some B
[edit] External links
- The text of the Prior Analytics is available from the MIT classics archive.
- Prior Analytics, trans. by A. J. Jenkinson
