Aristotle's Prior Analytics book I: Translated with an introduction and commentary

286 Pages·2009·10.77 MB·English

by  Gisela Striker

ARISTOTLE
Prior Analytics
Book I
Translated
with an Introduction and Commentary
by
GISELA STRIKER
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PREFACE
have worked on the Prior Analytics, with more interruptions than
I
continuity, for longer than I care to remember. Over the years, I have
learnt from countless conversations with colleagues, students, and
friends, more than I can possibly attempt to list here. But I must
mention a few major benefactors: first and foremost, my teacher
Gi.inther Patzig, who encouraged me to begin and to persist, and with
whom I had the opportunity to discuss the first ten chapters over
two weeks in the pleasant environment of the Wissenschaftskolleg
zu Berlin. Ulrich Nortmann, who provided guidance, reassurance,
and criticism during my first venture into the obscurities of modal
syllogistic-though I should emphasize that his own views on the
subject turned out to be very different from mine.
When I had almost finished a first draft, Peter Geach kindly lent
me his own unpublished notes and wonderful translations of several
chapters. At the last stage, Lindsay Judson read through the entire
typescript with admirable patience and attention, suggesting changes
in both style and content, and detecting numerous haplographies that
increased my respect for the medieval scribes who preserved our
manuscripts of Aristotle's text. James Allen used a final draft in
his graduate seminar and pointed out the kind of errors that only
the user of a commentary would detect by going forth and back
between text, translation, and notes. Brendan Ritchie helped with
the preparation of the computer files for the printer, and drafts of
bibliography, glossaries, and indices.
Last and by no means least I want to thank Peter Momtchiloff
for accepting this volume into the Clarendon Aristotle Series and
cheerfully putting up with several delays. Hilary Walford proved to
be an incredibly meticulous and helpful copy-editor and, together
with Tessa Eaton, saw to it that the process of production turned out
to be as speedy and efficient as possible. could not have wished for
I
a more supportive editorial team.
Needless to say, all the remaining errors and infelicities are my
own fault.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 2008 G.S.
v

CONTENTS
ABBREVIATIONS ix
INTRODUCTION
xi
NOTE ON TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY xix
TRANSLATION
COMMENTARY
67
NOTES ON THE TEXT
247
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
253
GLOSSARY
259
INDEX OF PASSAGES CITED
265
GENERAL INDEX
267
vii

ABBREVIATIONS
ARISTOTLE
An. Post. Posterior Analytics
An.Pr. Prior Analytics
Cat. Categories
DA DeAnima
de lnt. de lnterpretatione
EE Eudemian Ethics
EN Nicomachean Ethics
Met. Metaphysics
Phys. Physics
Rhet. Rhetoric
SE Sophistici Elenchi
Top. Topics
OTHER ABBREVIATIONS
Alexander (Al. Aphr.) Alexander of Aphrodisias, Alexandri Aphro­
disiensis in Aristotelis Analyticorum Prio­
rum librum I commentarius, Commentaria
in Aristotelem Graeca, II. 1, ed. M. Wallies
(Georg Reimer, Berlin, 1883)
(referred to as 'Alexander' in running text)
Ammonius Ammonius, Ammonii in Aristotelis Analyti­
corum Priorum Librum l Commentarius,
Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca IV. 6,
ed. M. Wallies (Georg Reimer, Berlin, 890)
1
Becker Albrecht Becker, Die Aristotelische Theo­
rie der Moglichkeitsschliisse (Junker, Berlin,
1933)
Bonitz H. Bonitz, Index Aristotelicus (Berlin,
870; repr. Akademische Druck- u. Ver­
1
langsanstalt, Graz, 1955)
Geach P. T. Geach, Translation and notes on chap­
ters I, 3, 8-16, 34, 41. Unpublished type­
script
IX
ABBREVIATIONS
Jan Lukasiewicz, Aristotle's Syllogistic from
Lukasiewicz
the Standpoint of Modern Formal logic, 2nd
edn. (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1957)
Heinrich Maier, Die Syllogistik des Aris­
Maier
toteles, 3 vols. (H. Lamp, Tilbingen, 1896-
1900)
Mignucci Mario Mignucci, Gli analitici primi:
Traduzione, introduzione e commento di
Mario Mignucci (Luigi Loffredo, Naples
1969)
Pacius Iulius Pacius, In Porphyrii Isagogen et Aris­
totelis Organum Commentarius Analyticus
(1597; repr. Hildesheim 1966)
Pat ig Gunther Patzig, Aristotle's Theory of the
z
Syllogism, trans. J. Barnes (D. Riedel,
Dordrecht, 1968)
Philop. John Philoponus, Ioannis Philoponi In Aris­
totelis Analytica priora commentaria, Com­
mentaria in Aristotelem Graeca II. I, ed. M.
Wallies (Georg Reimer, Berlin, 1905)
Ross Aristotle's Prior and Posterior Analytics, ed.
D. Ross (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1949)
W.
Smith Robin Smith, Aristotle's Prior Analytics
(Hackett, Indianapolis, 1989)
Waitz Theodor Waitz, Aristotelis Organon graece
ed. Theodorus Waitz (Hahn, Leipzig, 1844)
x
INTRODUCTION
Aristotle's Prior Analytics marks the beginning of formal logic. For
Aristotle himself, this meant the discovery of a general theory of valid
deductive argument, a project that he had described as either impossi­
ble or impracticable, probably not very long before he actually came
up with syllogistic.
The A al ti s both Prior and Posterior belong to a group of
n y c - -
treatises that has been placed at the start of editions of Aristotle's
works since antiquity under the name of Organon, or 'tool' (of phi­
losophy). Alongside the Analytics, these include the Categories,
de
/nterpretatione, and the Topics. Though their place in the ancient
editions tells us nothing about their time of composition, there are
good reasons to think that most or all of these treatises were written
early in Aristotle's career, beginning when he was still a member
of Plato's Academy. The title 'Analytica' is Aristotle's own, and
references to this work occur in many of his other treatises. How­
ever, it is not likely that the four books into which the Analytics
were divided by ancient editors-two on syllogistic, two on scientific
demonstration-were planned by their author as a single work from
the beginning. According to Aristotle's own statement in the opening
sentence of chapter A 1, the investigation as a whole is concerned
with demonstration and scientific knowledge-pointing forward to
the Posterior Analytics. But in chapter 4 he explains that syllogism in
general must be treated before demonstration because it is the more
general subject: demonstrations are a kind of deductive argument,
but not all deductive arguments are demonstrations (25b26-3r). Syl­
logism in general is precisely the subject of the Prior Anal tics to
y ,
which Aristotle refers back at the beginning of chapters A 27 and
32, in the second place adding that the chapters on analysis should
bring the initial project to an end (47a5). The Prior Analytics has no
introduction at all, while the Posterior Analytics begins with one of
Aristotle's characteristic grand opening statements, giving no indica­
tion that it is the continuation of the previous book. Presumably, then,
the idea of combining the general treatise on deductive argument with
the books on scientific demonstration was an afterthought, albeit a
plausible one.
xi
INTRODUCTION
Within the Organon itself, however, it is clear that the Topics,
Aristotle's handbook of the debating-technique called dialectic, must
have been written before the Prior Analytics. It opens with the
announcement that it will provide a method to construct arguments
for all kinds of theses that might be discussed. The definition of
'syllogism'-valid deductive argument-given there is the same as
in the Analytics, but the Topics evidently does not yet have the system
of figures and moods that became known as Aristotle's syllogistic. Its
books are organized around the four 'predicables' definition, genus,
proprium, and accident, corresponding to four different relations
between the subject and predicate of a simple proposition of the
form 'S is P'. This kind of organization leads to a lot of repetition,
as Aristotle ruefully recognized (Top. r .6, 102b27-103"5), but at
that point he seems to have thought this inevitable, because a more
general theory covering all four types of predication could not be
found.
It is precisely such a general theory that Aristotle presents in the
first seven chapters of the Prior Analytics. The predicables have been
set aside in favor of four term-relations that combine predication and
quantity, so that we now have four types of proposition: 'A belongs to
every B'; 'A belongs to no B'; 'A belongs to some B', and 'A does not
belong to some B'. This constitutes a major simplification, reflected
in the fact that the terminology has changed. The expressions that
occur in the predicate -or subject position -are now uniformly called
'terms' -a word that was used in the sense of 'definition' in the Top­
ics. The asymmetries of the predicables are ignored, and the four new
relations can be interpreted as relations between classes: inclusion
('A belongs to every B': every member of B is a member of A),
exclusion ('A belongs to no B': no member of B is a member of A),
overlap ('A belongs to some B': some member of B is a member of
A), and partial overlap ('A does not belong to some B': some member
of B is not a member of A). Instead of the more natural copula ('is'
or 'are') Aristotle now uses the somewhat artificial 'belongs to'.
The crucial innovation, however, that makes syllogistic a formal
system is the introduction of letters as placeholders for the terms,
indicating that the validity or otherwise of a deductive argument
depends on the relations between its terms rather than the extra­
linguistic things they describe or refer to. Though Aristotle himself
does not speak of the form as opposed to the content or subject
matter of an argument, this way of speaking can already be found
XU