Why do people shit on Aristotle so much?
For example, I heard someone with a philosophy PhD say that Aristotle prevented the development of calculus because of his "discomfort with infinity."
But ~half of the Physics is about the nature of infinity, continuity, and limit. Aristotle didn't reject "infinity", he just rejected the notion that there was some substance out there called The Infinite. He also rejected the idea that there was an infinite actuality - i.e. an infinitely large magnitude, or a number that was "infinity", and was right on both points (a magnitude is limited by definition). And of course he rejected infinite per se causal series. But it's simply false to say that he had a problem with infinity. For example, he argued that the universe had exited for an infinite amount of time, and would go in existing forever. Aristotle's work on the nature of infinity actually laid the ground for calculus.
Another example, I heard a mathematician say "Aristotle's logical theories are useless for math; you can't express Euclid's proofs in syllogisms."
This man's point was, "you can't express the premises and conclusions of a geometrical proof in the form All A is B, or B is predicated of all A". But that's not what an Aristotelian syllogism is. Predication for Aristotle is a technical term, not a grammatical one, and he gives examples in the Prior Analytics of sorts of arguments (including relational arguments) that could never be rendered that way (e.g. Prior An II.22), not to mention any number of his own proofs, in other works, which take a form like that, and yet he would have considered them syllogistic demonstrations. They were syllogisms for him because "X is true because C" - that's all a syllogism really is, and in the Organon Aristotle was showing how this is resoluble into two separate ideas, and using that as a handle to approach everything else (epistemology, ontology, physics, psychology). Most of Aristotle's examples of syllogism in Post An are geometrical; he wasn't a dummy, he definitely knew these sorts of reasoning could not be expressed like "all cats are mammals".
So why do people drag Aristotle through the dirt like this? I can't think any other philosopher who gets treated with so much disdain, or whose views are so recklessly distorted. I could go on and on with examples. Or just check virtually any Aristotle thread on plebbit. If your worldview is based on rejecting the philosophies of the past, and Aristotle in particular, shouldn't you have some understanding of what you're rejecting?
Most people are not only completely uninterested in truth but utterly incapable of the degree of rigor required to reach it. They see fine distinctions of real importance underlying any matter and their eyes glaze over in a blur of words. In short, and do note that even the Philosopher admits as much, most people are idiots.
> most people are idiots
This. Also, Aristotle is the opposite of Plato— he advocates for liberalism (libertarianism) and private property.
You can hardly call Aristotle the opposite of Plato simply on account of their political views, especially since Plato's views on politics are diverse and changed from in the Republic.
Ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect?
Not a real thing
It's incredibly fricking obvious that something like this occurs. You can do statistical frickery to produce any sort of relationship or disprove it. People vastly overestimate what p values are telling them in many cases.
DK is so widespread because people see it explained and say "of yeah, I've seen that all the time."
And you do. People will read one book on a topic, often one that is polemical, and then go hard on these polemical opinions and not really understand what they are talking about at all.
>People will read one book on a topic, often one that is polemical, and then go hard on these polemical opinions and not really understand what they are talking about at all.
I think it's important for people's development for them to write out big opinions, even if they're wrong, when they read stuff like that. It's fantastic proof of progress when you look back a few years later and realize you were being moronic. Also, what's the point of being young if you don't do or say anything brash or silly?
Thanks for the seethe, poindexter
How can't you express geometric proofs using syllogisms? All triangles are 3-sided.
Here's a random Euclidean proof for you:
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/bookI/propI32.html
Now you try to express it in a series of propositions like
All cats are mammals
All mammals are animals
All animals are substances
I.e. propositions in which one thing is grammatically predicated of one other thing, with a series of middle terms in that form.
I'll be waiting patiently.
It is possible lol you just have to frick with the wording, there are only a couple of things that can’t be expressed in syllogism and those definitely don’t occur in this proof. I’ll probably do that proof later tonight if no one else does first
I'll be waiting friend.
Oh and while you're at it, try expressing Prior An II.22 in neat Boethian "all B is C" syllogisms, too. Here's the full text of the proofs:
"Whenever the extremes are convertible it is necessary that the middle should be convertible with both. For if A belongs to C through B, then if A and C are convertible and C belongs everything to which A belongs, B is convertible with A, and B belongs to everything to which A belongs, through C as middle, and C is convertible with B through A as middle. Similarly if the conclusion is negative, e.g. if B belongs to C, but A does not belong to B, neither will A belong to C. If then B is convertible with A, C will be convertible with A. Suppose B does not belong to A; neither then will C: for ex hypothesi B belonged to all C. And if C is convertible with B, B is convertible also with A, for C is said of that of all of which B is said. And if C is convertible in relation to A and to B, B also is convertible in relation to A. For C belongs to that to which B belongs: but C does not belong to that to which A belongs. And this alone starts from the conclusion; the preceding moods do not do so as in the affirmative syllogism.
Again if A and B are convertible, and similarly C and D, and if A or C must belong to anything whatever, then B and D will be such that one or other belongs to anything whatever. For since B belongs to that to which A belongs, and D belongs to that to which C belongs, and since A or C belongs to everything, but not together, it is clear that B or D belongs to everything, but not together. For example if that which is uncreated is incorruptible and that which is incorruptible is uncreated, it is necessary that what is created should be corruptible and what is corruptible should have been created. For two syllogisms have been put together. Again if A or B belongs to everything and if C or D belongs to everything, but they cannot belong together, then when A and C are convertible B and D are convertible. For if B does not belong to something to which D belongs, it is clear that A belongs to it. But if A then C: for they are convertible. Therefore C and D belong together. But this is impossible.
When A belongs to the whole of B and to C and is affirmed of nothing else, and B also belongs to all C, it is necessary that A and B should be convertible: for since A is said of B and C only, and B is affirmed both of itself and of C, it is clear that B will be said of everything of which A is said, except A itself. Again when A and B belong to the whole of C, and C is convertible with B, it is necessary that A should belong to all B: for since A belongs to all C, and C to B by conversion, A will belong to all B.
(1/2)
When, of two opposites A and B, A is preferable to B, and similarly D is preferable to C, then if A and C together are preferable to B and D together, A must be preferable to D. For A is an object of desire to the same extent as B is an object of aversion, since they are opposites: and C is similarly related to D, since they also are opposites. If then A is an object of desire to the same extent as D, B is an object of aversion to the same extent as C (since each is to the same extent as each – the one an object of aversion, the other an object of desire). Therefore both A and C together, and B and D together, will be equally objects of desire or aversion. But since A and C are preferable to B and D, A cannot be equally desirable with D; for then B along with D would be equally desirable with A along with C. But if D is preferable to A, then B must be less an object of aversion than C: for the less is opposed to the less. But the greater good and lesser evil are preferable to the lesser good and greater evil: the whole BD then is preferable to the whole AC. But ex hypothesi this is not so. A then is preferable to D, and C consequently is less an object of aversion than B. If then every lover in virtue of his love would prefer A, viz. that the beloved should be such as to grant a favour, and yet should not grant it (for which C stands), to the beloved’s granting the favour (represented by D) without being such as to grant it (represented by B), it is clear that A (being of such a nature) is preferable to granting the favour. To receive affection then is preferable in love to sexual intercourse. Love then is more dependent on friendship than on intercourse. And if it is most dependent on receiving affection, then this is its end. Intercourse then either is not an end at all or is an end relative to the further end, the receiving of affection. And indeed the same is true of the other desires and arts."
This is exactly the kind of proof that modern logicians fault Aristotle for not understanding, that's the biggest irony. You couldn't actually express the logic here apart from predicate logic; but Aristotle considered these syllogisms.
Wtf, does Aristotle actually go through with al this autism? It sounds like he definitely tried to express it syllogistically.
It's more the second one that's relevant, and no you can't resolve it into syllogisms like that because it contains complex relations. Go ahead and try.
Again I'm not saying that they aren't syllogistic, but that modern people misunderstand what Aristotle meant by syllogism.
A lot of reasons. Modern science is predicated on the rejection of both Aristotelian physics, and of the scholastics who are supposed to have been responsible for holding back progress in science by treating Aristotle as dogma. The result is longstanding opprobrium both from Protestant polemics, and from developers and inheritors of modern science. The sheer extent of the writings that come down to us under his name also makes it both intimidating to approach him with a view to understanding the extent of the work he did (e.g., the numerous treatises on animals that almost no one reads anymore), and easy to forget that before him there was no systematized body of knowledge to avail himself of on subjects like logic, pysics, or biology to inspire fresh inquiries of, as figures like the Merton calculators, Galileo, or William Harvey had with his own works.
Great effortposts anon.
>especially since Plato's views on politics are diverse and changed from in the Republic.
This is nitpicky and pedantic of me, but the suggestion of Laws 739a-e is that he didn't change his mind, or at least not in any substantial way.
ABC is a triangle
All triangles are 3-sided lines
AB is a line
BC is a line
CA is a line
CE is a line
BD is a line
Some lines are parallel
AB and CE are parallel
Some lines are incident
AB and BD are incident
CE and BD are incident
AC and BD are incident
AC and AB are incident
Some angles are incidence relations
An incidence relation is two incident lines
BAC is an angle
ACE is an angle
Some angles are alternate
Alternate angles are equal
BAC and ACE are alternate
BAC and ACE are equal
Some angles are transversal
Transversal angles are equal
ABC and ECD are transversal
ABC and ECD are equal
BAC is a small angle
ACB is a small angle
ACD is a big angle
A small angles and a big angle are not equal
A small angle and a small angle are a big angle
BAC and ACB are ACD
Some angles are parallel relations
Parallel relations are two parallel lines
Some parallel lines are opposite
Opposite parallel lines are two right angles
Two right angles is a small right angle and a small right angle
ACD and ACB are two right angles
You can see how this goes.
Those aren't syllogisms in the way modern logicians understand the word. You're missing many, many middle terms.
Ofc I don't deny that Euclid's proofs are syllogistic.
There's nothing wrong with modern symbolic logic, it's just a bad tool for approaching Aristotle's logic. If you go into the Organon thinking "ah this will be a sort of primitive version of what we're doing today in modern logic" you'll be baffled and disappointed. For example, you'd think "Why the hell did this guy not treat disjunctives?"
maybe not wrong but there are as if 2 forms of 'language' if you will where you cannot exactly merge one with the other, although in my opinion (as i havent obviously finished aristotle) my guess is that if one is strong in Aristotelian logic it can help in symbolic logic but according to you it seems starting with symbolic logic and working backwards doesnt seem optimal.
I'd put it like this - modern logic is concerned with entailment in general. So you really could take the thought in Aristotle's Organon and express it in the terms of modern logic, that's kind of what Marko Malink did.
I'd say which to start with just depends on what you're more interested in; they're very different. Aristotle was almost exclusively concerned with the logic of causal relations between extratemporal universals and even then his treatment on a formal level leaves a lot to be desired. Like I'll go back to
Those relations can't be be expressed as "A is B, B is C, A is C". But they're still syllogisms in the sense that one thing is said of another because of a third.
The first part of that quote wasn't relevant I was being careless.
hm i see, well thank you for the perspective..I'll take a garner at the history and development of symbolic logic, im not sure if someone mentioned Francis Bacon or it was another thread, but thanks for the knowledge nonetheless, keep up the good effortposting anon.
>For example, you'd think "Why the hell did this guy not treat disjunctives?"
Well, why didn't he?
What middle terms? And what your disagreement seems to be is what syllogisms are, which is the predicate of a subject, any subject, singular or plural using the verb 'to be'.
The guy's contention is that relationships can't be expressed using syllogisms, I just expressed the incident and parallel relationship btn lines.
Just because they didn't use them doesn't mean it can't be done.
>What middle terms?
The major premise bro. Never seen the anatomy of a syllogism?
Pedantic much, i think that's a style issue, you can't expect to have three arguments to any detailed proof can you? This is imposing literary standards on philosophy, I think the most important thing about syllogisms are the predications and not the tri structure.
It's not pedantry. The major premise is what does the "heavy lifting" in a syllogism.
Anyway, I haven't been participating in the thread until
, and I was just busting your balls a bit. I think we agree a lot more than we disagree. We had a good thread on IQfy about this topic here if you want to read more:
https://warosu.org/lit/thread/22383306#p22384099
Here's a quote from Katz' A History of Mathematics: "Although Aristotle emphasized the use of syllogisms as the building blocks of logical arguments, Greek mathematicians apparently never used them."
Or here's a thread that talks about how and why it's not really possible to reduce Euclidean proofs to syllogism, at least in the way moderns understand it, with citations of contemporary scholars:
https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/110695/converting-a-euclidian-proposition-to-a-syllogism-format
More like Arsestotle
Bump, currently reading on Interpretations
I love that one, what do you think?
RE: the title of the work - it's not commonly known but the Greek "hermenia" means "the interpretation of thoughts into speech". So Aristotle really isn't writing about language but the underlying structure of thought - some have faulted him for relying on a Greek grammatical understanding of e.g. subject and predicate, but it's not really a sound criticism. The whole "not-man" thing, not to mention other things - it's as weird in Greek as it is in English.
Another thing Aristotle is criticized for is not discussing empty sets. But he actually does, at the beginning of De Int, and relegates them to Poetics. He was just doing something very different from modern logicians and approached it from another angle.
One important thing to understand - when he speaks of the "universal", he doesn't mean "the whole set of existing particulars", but an abstraction. So "All men" = "the universal, man; man considered as a species."
That's how a statement like "all men are rational" makes sense - it doesn't mean all men actually are actively or even potentially rational (i.e. people born in vegetative states etc); it means the universal "man", abstracted by the intellect, is rational.
I could go on, it's a great work. What are your thoughts so far?
Im on the section of Affirmations and negations and to be quite honest i made the awful decision to postpone my studies to attend to other (with hindsight) not important events, and also the arrogant assumption that i can just casually read where i left off, this thread truly is a divine intervention and I thank your enthusiasm on this subject, your passion and sincerity have made me question my devotion to studying philosophy and somewhat has strengthened it, sorry for long speel, but want to say thank you.
As to your statement, Universal, i figured he meant it in a general sense, not a particular set. but my thoughts so far is that Aristotle is much more magnificent than i can comprehend at the moment and should take extra care when studying his texts, they did influence some of the major thinkers of our time. again, truly im humbled by your dedication and erudite knowledge.
I should say that, yes the logic of De Int applies just as well to particulars ("all the men around"), just like the categorical syllogistic in Prior An does, but it is crucial to bear in mind that what Aristotle is really aiming at is science, which does concern extratemporal universals. Anyway his definition of "universal" in De Int. is definitely aimed at this sort of universal if you read it carefully as it seems you did. But modern logicians tend not to notice this. And this doesn't become super clear until you get to the Posterior Analytics.
So for example the mixed modal syllogisms in Prior An don't really make sense if you read them as referring to sets of particulars or to things happening in time - a lot of Prior An doesn't make sense under that reading, actually.
I'm sure you know the basic story of A's works and how they were lost and rediscovered; the logical works are in the roughest shape of all. Poorly organized, words used in ambiguous and technical senses which aren't really explained, etc.
Feels like you're putting me on though. I'm a dilettante just like you, I've just been doing it for longer on this subject in particular. But have fun Aristotle is a lot of work but worth the effort. A scholar 1500 years ago would've given a limb for a set of Aristotle's works and you can now buy them used in a good translation for ~30$.
>putting you on
nah im serious, or rather the discussion that surrounds philosophia today. its horrific for multiple reasons, but your effortposting and dedication is duly noted.
i have 'Aristotle - The Organon 1: the categories and On interpretations by Harold P.Cooke and Prior Analytics by Huge Tredennick 1938 ed. with ancient greek translations.
I am beginning to enjoy his work, however, it feels as if i should have read something prior to him but you are right, a scholar would cry with sheer joy. let me not interrupt your thread, hopefully in the future i might bump into you about aristotle and have a in depth discussion with him. plus you seem chilled.
is this the problem with modern symbolic logic that it begins with propositions and not terms like "man" which express universals, which may imply metaphysical and epistemological realism (we can know things as they are) which modern philosophers and logicians deem as too naive, i can admit that symbolic logic has its advantages in the mathematical realm however i believe it fails to address the 'common sensical' seens it has no means due using propositions of saying and prevent us from saying, what anything is?
I don't think I've heard the name "Aristotle" spoken aloud in years.
>He doesn’t chant Aristotle’s name to himself every morning
PhDs are almost always midwits
he called women mentally and physically inferior and that natural slaves exist
According to Plato, he was only wrong on one thing in that statement.
Is the Organon still a good intro to logic for noobs? It is supposed to be the first systematic treatment of the topic that survived, after all.
I think it'd be a terrible introduction to logic if by logic you mean "the valid relations between ideas in general" - that's not what he was even writing about. It's a great introduction to Aristotle, though.
What is it about if not logic?
Dialectic and scientific demonstration, primarily the latter. I'll go back to the Prior Analytics on this - for his modal syllogistic to work, the terms have to be read in a way that's consistent with his theory of demonstration in the Posterior Analytics. (They were originally one work, and ofc he begins Prior An. by talking about demonstration.) It was never meant to cover "logic" in the broad sense, and it never claims to. How does Prior An. open again? "We must first state the subject of our inquiry and the faculty to which it belongs: its subject is demonstration and the faculty that carries it out demonstrative science." There's no word in Aristotle that signifies what modern people do with "logic".
So what is it good for? Spotting fallacies in someone's reasoning? Yeah, but that's secondary. Is it a tool for thinking things out? Not at all; in fact Aristotle states that in general one reasons "backwards" from a conclusion to its constituent premises. As in, first it's "The moon is eclipsed, why is that?" and then "the moon is eclipsed by the interposition etc" - the proposition has been "thickened" as he puts it in Post An.
The syllogism was a way for Aristotle to abstract causal relations in the broadest possible sense. That's how he's able to come up with a general theory of epistemology in Post An (and other works obv). In Post An, he essentially anticipates Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, but the proof depends on his theory of the syllogism, as do many other interesting things.
>ts subject is demonstration and the faculty that carries it out demonstrative science." There's no word in Aristotle that signifies what modern people do with "logic".
Is the difference really that significant? I feel like you're exaggerating it to make a point, but it's hard to take it seriously considering that demonstration/entailment/etc. is an important function of logic.
Nta, but "logic" as we understand it today as formalized reasoning seems to come in sometime after Aristotle, perhaps through the Stoics. In Aristotle and authors prior, you have words derived from logos (logikos, logistikos, dialektikos) which can connote something or other (logistikos for example connotes mathematical reckoning), but usually those words are tied up with discursive speech, so logikos can mean "argument", but not necessarily a formal one. Logos itself does a lot of heavy lifting as a word, connoting speech in general, argument, reason, account, and even ratio (in Euclid). Maybe by analogy, you could look at it like how we might get confused by an ancient using chaos to mean void, whereas we understand something like hectic and random activity. So evaluating Aristotle's logic in accordance with what we expect of logic now might be imposing ideas and motivations different from what Aristotle was doing.
I guess I don't understand the difference between demonstration and entailment. They sound very similar to me. Entailment might have more variety or depth to it. But to demonstrate something is to see what it entails, and what something entails needs demonstration of some kind.
The way I understand it, Aristotelian syllogisms are meant to relate "terms" to each other in valid ways, terms being anything that is either a subject or a predicate. In fact, what it really seems to be is kind of like relating sets of things to each other, since the terms tend to behave like the classes in Porphyry's tree (genera, species, individuals, etc.). Whether the terms are behaving the way they should according to the syllogism, or are even properly supported in the first place, is a question for ontology, science, etc.
Therefore, the reason why you can't reduce mathematics to syllogism is because you can't reduce mathematics to a mere relation of terms. Some other methods of "discovery", "invention", definition, etc., are required. You can't just unpack every mathematical proposition from some prior mathematical proposition that it is the subset of and do so in a neat, linear fashion.
Some men get to bury their heads in asses like that and think it's normal
It should be
Your philosophy PhD proceeds from the false premise that calculus should have been developed, and as soon as possible. That this is a good and desirable thing.
To add to your point: and as if Archimedes, not long after Aristotle, hadn't made some headway towards calculus in the Sand Reckoner.
Was looking for the source and I stumbled upon a cheese pizza website
generational trauma from midwit enlightenment shills like russell makes people associate aristotle with catholicism so they have to hate him. it makes no sense and is totally unfair but that’s the psychology these people operate on
Who dat?
(OP)
>Why do people shit on Aristotle so much?
Your post reminded me of a critique of Aristotle I read on IQfy:
>The authority of Aristotle in the West was established by Peter Abelard around 1100. He was a logician and argued in favor of Aristotelian logic. He famously used it in order to rationally explain the Christian dogma of transubstantiation, which played a big role in him getting the Church on his side. From then on the Church embraced Aristotelian logic, and the scholastic method that was born from it.
>After that, logic supreme at the universities, but as a consequence of Aristotle's prestige, his Physics turned into dogma among the academia as well. But the Church, while supporting Aristotle's Logic, was always more ambivalent about his Physics, since it partially contradicted Christian philosophy. In 1277 the bishop of Paris did issue a condemnation stating that, while Aristotle's Physics could still be taught at the University, it could no longer be taught as absolute fact.
>>This forced the University to allow questioning of Aristotle, and in the following decades Western natural philosophers made advances in physics for the first time in 1600 years, most notably Buridan and Oresme (who discovered every physical law and theorem that was later attributed to Galileo, who merely rediscovered their work after it had been swept under the rug by Renaissance Humanism).
> 1277 can be considered the birth date of modern science. And it's the Church that broke the dogma.
https://desuarchive.org/his/thread/5439288/#5442121
Similar remarks here: https://desuarchive.org/his/thread/1545833/#1550430
And here: https://desuarchive.org/his/thread/1788163/#1791351
And here: https://desuarchive.org/his/thread/1545833/#1550430
I post these remarks from the immediate above link simply as a matter of interest:
>There are several principles constitute the scientific method, none of which can be ascribed to a single person:
>- The belief in a rational universe governed by logic. If anyone can be credited for establishing that principle, it's Peter Abelard. He did it by defending Aristotle's Logic, and convinced the Church of its validity. The basic thinking was that since God is benevolent, and since he gave us reason, he must have made the universe rational as well, and meant for us to use our reason in order to understand it and better glorify God by learning the inner workings of his creation. This is the foundation of scholasticism, and made natural philosophy (the ancestor of science) the most prestigious field after theology. Saint Thomas Aquinas also did a lot of work in support of that.
>>- The belief that the universe can be translated entirely into the language of Mathematics. This partly follows from the previous point, but it's not clear when it was established, just that by the 13th century it was considered like an obvious truth in both Paris and Oxford.
>philosophy PhD say that Aristotle prevented the development of calculus because of his "discomfort with infinity."
These people generally misunderstand calculus. And probably also misunderstood Aristotle's discussion of infinity, too. Not that Aristotle was right about everything to do with infinity anyway. He was still closer to the truth than most of the idiots who criticize him.