4/17/2019 Boole vs Aristotle (Categorical Logic) - YouTube

mark.james.photo 1 year ago

The Venn diagram comparison is anachronistic. The disagreement here is about
whether there are classes with no members; Aristotle, no, Boole, yes. Aristotle
thinks universals are beholden to particulars, because the former perform a
substantive explanatory role, and hence must be instantiated to serve their
scientific function of categorizing the manifest phenomena; whereas for Boole
universals are treated as merely semantic entities, capable of meaning without
actual instantiation. A Venn diagram cannot be used to explain their
disagreement since its empty spaces presuppose the possibility of empty classes,
or uninstantiated universals. For Aristotle, 'Some F's are G's.' follows
immediately from 'All F's are G's', since any statement involving the categorical
term F already entails that the class of F's is non-empty. It does not follow
mediately, as you seem to suggest, in virtue of an enthymeme in the syllogism,
like 'F's exist' or 'Some F's are H (= existents)', since (either, depending on your
version) there is no such thing as a permanent enthymeme (the word is
'immediacy') or there no existential quantifier in Aristotle's system other than
'some'.
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Carneades.org 1 year ago

Let me be clear. I am not trying to provide a historical account of the
ways in which our current logical frames works were arrived at. At
least not in a series with videos this short. I am trying to provide
novices with a framework to understand the logical issues at play
here, not the metaphysical ones. My goal with this video is to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAviPoZACIY 1/2
4/17/2019 Boole vs Aristotle (Categorical Logic) - YouTube

provide students of logic with the basic understanding of this

distinction and how it is used in common parlance. I could have
given a more in depth explanation of how we arrived at this
distinction, but that seems superfluous for this video. In another
video we will do some more work in the history of logic, but in my
opinion that would be counterproductive for this series.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAviPoZACIY 2/2