Aristotle on a Puzzle about
Logical Consequence: Necessity
of Being vs. Necessity of Saying*
ABSTRACT: In the Posterior Analytics (I 6, 75a18–27) Aristotle
discusses a puzzle which endangers the possibility of inferring a
non-necessary conclusion. His solution relies on the distinction
between the necessity of the conclusion’s being the case and the
necessity of admitting the conclusion once one has admitted the
premisses. The former is a factual necessity, whereas the latter is
meant to be a normative or deontic necessity that is independent of
the facts stated by the premisses and the conclusion. This paper main-
tains that Aristotle resorts to this distinction because he thinks that,
as long as it is conceived as a factual relation, logical consequence
cannot exist independently of the facts expressed by the premisses
and the conclusion. As a corollary, the necessity of such a conse-
quence relation always requires the necessity of these facts. Aristotle
holds this factual conception of logical consequence responsible
for the puzzle, since it cannot account for valid syllogisms with
contingent or false premisses. The alternative conception of neces-
sity is then introduced by him in order to make good this deficiency.
The distinction between the necessity of being and the necessity of
saying was revived by the Oxford logician H. W. B. Joseph, and taken
over by Frank Ramsey in his seminal Truth and Probability, but
has not received attention from recent interpreters of Aristotle’s
logic. This paper, however, argues that, in spite of its intrinsic
interest, the distinction bore no significant fruit in Aristotle’s logical
doctrine.
1.
In the beginning was the συλλογισµός. We praise
Aristotle for having invented logic and agree that,
broadly speaking, our current conception of logic as the
study of deductive validity has not overturned and
replaced his logical project. A drawback of this success
is that we are easily induced to mistake some of his
difficult conquests for a statement of the obvious. For
example, a straightforward and uncontroversial aspect
of our conception of an argument’s validity is that it
does not depend on the truth of the premisses, whereas
to Aristotle this is a troublesome point, something that
requires reflection. In this paper I wish to show that it
was not obvious right from the beginning and why it
was not so. By understanding what motivates Aristotle’s
Topoi 23: 101–112, 2004.
 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
Paolo Fait
difficulty, we shall be in a better position to appreciate
his achievement.
To begin with, let us briefly summarise some well-
known moot points concerning the problem of false pre-
misses. Consider Aristotle’s definition of a syllogism:
A syllogism1 is a discourse in which, certain things having been
laid down, something different from the things laid down follows
from necessity because of their being so (τ ω̂˛ τα υ̂τα εˆ’ιναι).
(APr. I 1, 24b18–20)
One might doubt whether this definition ever allows
for the cases in which one (or more) of the premisses
is false, for just by taking the last clause, “because of
their being so”, at face value one might be inclined to
think that the “things laid down” must always be true
(or obtain).
On the other hand, Aristotle certainly wants his
definition to cover also syllogisms from false pre-
misses,2 for just before stating the definition he makes
the point that a syllogistic premiss can be demonstra-
tive or dialectical, and dialectical premisses can cer-
tainly be false. Besides, syllogisms can be used in a
reductio proof to infer an absurd conclusion from a false
premiss, and, furthermore, three chapters of the Prior
Analytics (II 2–4) are devoted to a lengthy survey of the
possible cases in which a true conclusion is inferred
from (at least) one false premiss. Is this contrast between
the last clause of the definition and Aristotle’s normal
practice deep enough to justify perplexity? Is the
problem of false premisses a real problem or merely an
apparent one?
The point has been mooted in the literature, but dis-
cussion has been mainly focussed on a difficult claim
Aristotle makes in the chapters on false premisses.
There he says that a true conclusion can be inferred
from false premisses, but “not of necessity” (57a40),
and this odd proviso has led established interpreters
such as Waitz and Maier to believe that he does not
recognise syllogistic necessity in arguments with false
102 PAOLO FAIT
premisses. Even if perhaps we still lack a fully con-
vincing interpretation, Patzig’s valuable attempt to
explain this passage3 at least shows that it would be
precipitous to embrace so drastic a conclusion on this
ground alone.
Apart from this passage, which will not be discussed
in the present paper, the problem has also been stated
in general terms, but then it seems to have been more
induced by the constraints of the exegetical perspec-
tive than genuinely raised by the text. When Aristotle’s
logic was first examined “from the standpoint of modern
formal logic”,4 logic itself was generally conceived,
under the influence of Frege and Russell, as an
axiomatic system in which premisses are either axioms
or previously established theorems. In such systems a
false proposition is never asserted as a premiss, and can
only occur as the antecedent of a conditional. From this
perspective, to take syllogisms as arguments with
asserted premisses would not be compatible with the
possible falsity of these premisses, and this is why the
traditional interpretation of syllogisms as arguments was
charged with neglecting or hiding the case in which the
premisses are false. Patzig urged that an advantage of
interpreting Aristotle’s syllogisms not as arguments but
as conditional propositions was that this “also explains
how Aristotle can admit syllogisms with false premisses
as perfectly valid” (Patzig 1968, p. 4).
When by contrast Aristotle’s logic started being
inspected from the point of view of the modern systems
of natural deduction5 – systems that admit the possibility
of assuming or supposing premisses without asserting
them – the problem seemed immediately to dissolve.
Syllogisms are arguments, and since premisses can now
occur unasserted, their falsity is no longer a difficulty
to be met.
Since the crucial character of a valid argument is
truth-preservation, we assess validity by considering
only circumstances under which the premisses turn out
true. Under such circumstances the conclusion must also
be true, otherwise we declare the argument invalid.
Failing these circumstances, we assess validity by sup-
posing them to hold. The idea that false premisses, in
spite of their falsity, can be supposed to be true seems
to be so natural, commonsensical and deeply rooted in
argumentative practices, that Aristotle might have
shared it without even bothering to make it explicit.
At the end of this paper (section 4) I will admit that
the definition of a syllogism cited above is compatible
with an intuition of this kind, and so recognise that after
all the problem of syllogisms from false premisses, at
least as far as logical practice is concerned, is not a real
one. Before surrendering to this conclusion, however, I
want to concentrate (in section 2) on a comparatively
neglected passage in the Posterior Analytics where
Aristotle seriously considers the case of false premisses.
Faced with a puzzle of the sort which dialecticians used
to put forward, he provides a solution which hinges
upon the distinction between the necessity of the con-
clusion’s being the case and the necessity of saying the
conclusion once one has said the premisses. This
distinction shows that, far from being resolved simply
by appeal to the commonsensical suppositional tech-
nique, the puzzle of false premisses prompted Aristotle
to resort to a completely different conception of logical
consequence.
After a discussion of the passage, I turn (in section
3) to an attempt to revive Aristotle’s distinction made
by a modern philosopher, H. W. B. Joseph, and to the
way it was received by another better known philoso-
pher, Frank Ramsey.
2.
The passage I want to comment on runs as follows:
Of accidents which are not in themselves in the way in which
things in themselves were defined there is no demonstrative
knowledge. For one cannot prove the conclusion of necessity,
since it is possible for an accident not to belong (this is the sort
of accident I am speaking about). Yet one might perhaps puzzle
about what purpose there could be in asking these questions about
them, if it is not necessary for the conclusion to be the case –
one might as well ask chance questions and then say the
conclusion. But we should ask questions not because the conclu-
sion will be necessary in virtue of the points asked, but rather
because it is necessary for anyone who says them to say the con-
clusion, and to say it truly if they hold truly. (APo. I 6, 75a18-
27)6
A few remarks before addressing the main problem:
(i) If the predicate of the conclusion is an accident,
i.e. a contingent predicate, the conclusion cannot be
inferred from necessary premisses, for from necessary
premisses only a necessary conclusion can be deduced
(cf. 75a10). Since, as has been argued throughout the
chapter, demonstration requires necessary premisses,
there can be no demonstrative knowledge of accidental
predicates.
(ii) That accidents relevant to the argument here are
contingent predicates, i.e. predicates that belong but
 NECESSITY OF BEING VS. NECESSITY OF SAYING
might not belong to their subjects, is explicitly stated,
but accidents of this kind are contrasted with accidents
in themselves, and the latter are not as easy to identify
as the former. They might correspond to the sort of
accidents in themselves defined in the Metaphysics as
“what belongs to a thing in itself without being in its
essence, e.g. having two right angles to triangle”
(Metaph. ∆ 30, 1025a30–32). In fact, in our passage
Aristotle refers back to APo. I 4, 73a34–b5, where
different uses of in itself (καθ’ α υ’ τ ό) are distinguished,
and there he does not seem to take into account
accidents in themselves as those envisaged in the
Metaphysics passage. On the present occasion we do not
need to get into this matter.
(iii) As correctly noted by several interpreters,7 a few
terms in this passage refer to an interrogative practice
which unequivocally points to a dialectical context. This
is in keeping with the fact that accidents of the kind
here in question constitute one of the so-called four
predicables, i.e. the four kinds of predicates by which
dialectical problems are constituted (Top. I 5). This
sharpens the puzzle: science can do without accidental
syllogisms but dialectic cannot.
(iv) The phrase “these questions about them” can be
interpreted in two ways. On the first interpretation
‘these’ means these particular questions as opposed to
arbitrary questions about accidents. This fits very well
with the subsequent remark about chance questions.
Such an interpretation is suggested by Barnes in his
commentary, but is blurred in his revised translation
(“asking about such items”). Alternatively, we can take
“these questions about them” as questions of this kind
(i.e. accidental) about accidental conclusions. This
would match the idea that in order to argue for
accidental conclusions one needs accidental premisses.
I would favour the first interpretation but what I am
going to say does not depend on this choice.
Now we can address the puzzle: if the conclusion is
not necessary, there is no point, says the objector, in
looking for relevant premisses, because it would be the
same to secure arbitrary premisses and then state the
conclusion. This conveys the idea that premisses of the
sort required to deduce a contingent conclusion seem
to lack any inferential link with it. It is thought that
since they cannot determine the necessity of such a con-
clusion, the latter is not inferred from them but just as
if asserted after them.
Interpreters suggest that the puzzle depends on a
confusion between necessitas consequentis and neces-
103
sitas consequentiae. According to Barnes:8 “if P
Q is
a valid argument then it follows that (P → Q), but it
does not follow Q”.
If there is no controversy on what the right solution
should be, it is more difficult to assess the solution
Aristotle actually puts forward (encapsulated in the
sentence: “it is necessary for anyone who says them to
say the conclusion”). Barnes thinks that “Aristotle is
evidently trying to formulate this distinction [i.e. the
distinction between the two kinds of necessitas]; but
he does not succeed”.9
The confusion between the two necessities is
sometimes taken to be a scope confusion. Since the
word “necessarily” occurs before the conclusion, one
may think that it only modifies the conclusion itself,
whereas it should go with the words that express the
relation of logical consequence. ‘P, so necessarily Q’
could be taken as ‘P, so (necessarily Q)’, or as ‘P, (so
necessarily) Q’, where brackets mark different syntactic
groupings. Aristotle knows very well these kinds of
fallacies: he classifies them in his Sophistical
Refutations as apparent refutations depending on com-
position or on division (SE 4, 166a22–32). But here his
solution does not resort to a scope distinction. He could
be prevented from so doing by the fact that, unlike
necessitas consequentis, which is syntactically trans-
parent, necessitas consequentiae seems to be less
intelligible: the words ‘so necessarily’ do not seem to
make a syntactic unity, at least not an obvious one.10
As a matter of fact, we take for granted that Aristotle
has full command of the notion of the necessity of the
consequence. We tend to assume that he can define it
in the way modern logic has accustomed us to do, but
I think this assumption is unwarranted. I hope to show,
on the contrary, that by attributing to Aristotle a dif-
ferent intuition about the nature of logical consequence,
we can readily see why he thinks that the necessity of
the consequent can be inferred from the necessity of the
consequence. At the same time, we can explain why,
in his solution of the puzzle, far from introducing
necessitas consequentiae, he has to resort to a more
complicated formulation.
In order to express necessitas consequentiae we need
a firm grasp of consequence as something that can bear
truth or necessity. What makes this kind of truth-bearer
rather difficult to handle is that it must have a truth-
value also if the antecedent is false. A consequence can
be conveniently expressed as a conditional (as in the
passage quoted above from Barnes), and such a propo-
104 PAOLO FAIT
sition, if understood truth-functionally, has a truth-value
when the antecedent is false: it is true. But this is
admittedly not a very intuitive way of understanding the
conditional. Consider Quine’s well-known reflection on
how common sense evaluates the conditional:
Now under what circumstances is a conditional true? Even to raise
this question is to depart from everyday attitudes. An affirma-
tion of the form ‘if p then q’ is commonly felt less as an
affirmation of a conditional than as a conditional affirmation of
the consequent. If, after we have made such an affirmation, the
antecedent turns out true, then we consider ourselves committed
to the consequent, and are ready to acknowledge error if it
proves false. If on the other hand the antecedent turns out to have
been false, our conditional affirmation is as if it had never been
made.11
This is perhaps an incomplete representation, because
it does not cover all the possible cases in which we feel
committed to the consequent. Yet, it makes an impor-
tant point: it is difficult to take the conditional as an
assertible complex because, whenever the antecedent
turns out false, the whole conditional seems to be
rendered void, and this of course is problematic, for we
want our assertions to be either true or false under any
circumstance. The conditional seems to be void because
the relation between the fact expressed by the
antecedent and the fact expressed by the consequent is
seen as a factual relation whose existence depends on
the existence of those facts.
Aristotle is as likely as anybody else to have shared
this popular conception: he probably felt that when the
premisses are false the conditional corresponding to the
syllogism cannot be granted a truth-value. Or, to put it
in different terms, he probably thought that, insofar as
it is taken to be a factual relation, the inferential link
between the premisses and the conclusion of a syllo-
gism does not exist unless the premisses are true. He
was unable to conceive logical consequence as a relation
of a factual nature yet independent of the existence of
the facts expressed by the premisses and the conclusion.
On the basis of this intuition one can easily see what
motivates the puzzle. The accidental premisses required
in order to infer an accidental conclusion,12 insofar as
they can turn out to be false,13 cannot enjoy a neces-
sary or constant relation to the conclusion, for this
relation would be annulled by their falsity. This amounts
to saying that we can infer the contingency of the con-
sequence from the contingency of the consequent.14 In
this way we license the inference of the necessity of
the consequent from the necessity of the consequence.
On the other hand, it seems to be implicitly agreed
that the relation between the premisses and the conclu-
sion of a syllogism cannot be a contingent matter.
Therefore, contingent premisses can aptly be charac-
terised as useless or irrelevant, for nothing can follow
from them.
Allegiance to the aforementioned intuitive concep-
tion of logical consequence can also explain why, when
providing his solution to the puzzle, Aristotle does not
straightforwardly distinguish the two necessities so as
to claim that the necessity of the consequent does not
follow from the necessity of the consequence. He is
unable to draw this distinction, for he tends to see the
necessity of the consequence as the necessity of a
factual relation and this he takes to mean that it holds
only if the necessary facts stated by the premisses neces-
sitate the fact stated by the conclusion.15
After this discussion, let us sum up the main steps
of the puzzle:
(1) the inferential link between the facts expressed
by the premisses and the fact expressed by the
conclusion of a syllogism is a factual relation.
(2) If the inferential link is factual, it only holds as long
as the premisses hold true (i.e. as long as the facts
expressed by them exist);
(3) therefore if the facts expressed by the premisses are
contingent, their inferential link with the fact
expressed by the conclusion is also contingent.
(4) But if the inferential link is contingent, the pre-
misses are not relevant to the conclusion,
(5) so nothing follows from contingent premisses.
(6) But a contingent conclusion could only follow from
contingent premisses,
(7) so a contingent proposition can never be the con-
clusion of a syllogism.
Now we are in a position to assess positively
Aristotle’s solution. He resolves the puzzle by pointing
to a different concept of necessity. This is not a factual
necessity but what we may call a normative or deontic
necessity: “it is necessary for anyone who says them to
say the conclusion”. If one accepts the premisses one
must admit the conclusion, without any physical or
psychological compulsion, but with the kind of obliga-
tion one has to obey, for instance, the rules of a game
one is playing. So Aristotle resolves the puzzle by
denying step (1) and not by rejecting step (2), as inter-
preters would prefer him to do.
The advantage of this reinterpretation of the neces-
 NECESSITY OF BEING VS. NECESSITY OF SAYING
sity involved in logical consequence is that the relation
between premisses and conclusion no longer depends
on the truth of the premisses, but holds also when the
premisses are false. This is clearly implied by the fact
that Aristotle cites the case in which the premisses are
true as a special subcase of an obligation which holds
more generally: “it is necessary for anyone who says
them to say the conclusion, and to say it truly if they
hold truly”.
The disadvantages of the solution are best discussed
in the next section along with Joseph’s interpretation
of the concept of the necessity of saying, for, as we shall
see, Joseph himself addresses some pertinent criticism
to this concept.
Before turning to this, I wish briefly to address
another problem: is the concept of the necessity of
saying employed only on this occasion or does it have
further applications in Aristotle’s logic? As far as I can
tell, there are a few passages where Aristotle might be
thought to resort to this kind of necessity. The most
important of them16 is near the beginning of the
Sophistical Refutations; there the syllogism is defined
in the following manner:
The syllogism is constituted by certain things laid down in such
a way as to say of necessity something different from the things
laid down, in virtue of the things laid down. (SE 1, 165a1–2)17
The same formulation occurs again later in the treatise,
where this definition is recalled: “for the conclusion
must follow from the things laid down in such a way
as to say it of necessity, and not just apparently” (δε ι̂
γὰρ εκ
’ τω̂ν κειµ ένων συµβα ίνειν τ ὸ συµπ έρασµα
ώ
’ στε λ έγειν ε’ ξ αν
’ άγκης αλλ’ ὰ µ ὴ φα ὶνεσθαι)
(SE 6, 168a21–23).
It would be something of a surprise if Aristotle
introduced the “necessity of saying” in such an official
context as a definition of the syllogism. But here caution
is required. As is easy to see, this definition differs in
several details from the definition cited at the outset
from the Prior Analytics, as well as from the definition
stated at the beginning of the Topics. Interpreters have
long noticed that it has several ‘idiosyncrasies’,
although nobody to my knowledge has ever tried to
explain them. I think the reference to “saying of neces-
sity” can be explained along with the other idiosyn-
crasies and has nothing to do with the necessity of
saying we are interested in. To avoid distraction, I will
confine the discussion of this definition to an appendix
(thereby defending the translation offered above).
105
3.
As a true Oxford philosopher H. W. B. Joseph did not
sharply distinguish Aristotelian exegesis from militant
philosophy. Although not historical in purpose, his
Introduction to Logic contains a detailed exposition,
with occasional corrections, of many Aristotelian logical
doctrines. This was in the spirit of those Oxford
Peripatetic circles whose members (such as Cook
Wilson, Smith, Joachim, Bywater and Ross) set a rarely
paralleled standard of Aristotelian scholarship.
The second edition contains some afterthoughts on
the formal validity of syllogisms which are interesting
on the present occasion:
We may see that a syllogism is valid, without knowing whether
its premisses are true, or even knowing them to be false; or we
may follow out syllogistic arguments with symbols, not knowing
what they stand for. Now to see the validity of an argument is a
process of inference. How then can inference depend on seeing
connexions of fact? [. . .] The problem cannot be solved by
distinguishing between the logic of consistency and the logic of
truth. Doubtless in the theory of syllogism we have no more than
an account of what conclusions we must admit, if we are to be
consistent, when we have admitted certain premisses. That indeed
is all we have in any attempt to formulate by the help of symbols
types of arguments that are found recurring with various real
terms. But what is meant by the condition ‘if we are to be
consistent’? Consistency is not a matter of arbitrary convention;
it is determined by what is possible in the nature of things. [. . .]
That consistency requires us to admit a certain conclusion if we
have admitted certain premisses means then that the nature of
things requires it. Yet if the premisses and conclusion are false,
and if we are working with symbols, how have we the nature of
things before us?18
A footnote appended to this passage shows that the
distinction between the logic of consistency and the
logic of truth here under criticism had been previously
endorsed by Joseph himself:
In Mind vol XIX N.S. 76, pp. 544–54619 I drew a distinction
between the αν ’ άγκη εˆι’ναι, the necessity for certain facts to be
thus and thus, which is apprehended in demonstrative thinking,
and the αν
’ άγκη λέγειν, the necessity to say one thing if we have
said another, which was alone considered in the formal treatment
of syllogism. Professor J. A. Smith pointed out to me the futility
of this distinction. What is meant by my being compelled to say
anything? As far as talking goes, I can say what I please. But the
compulsion here is a logical compulsion, not a moral or physical;
and so I have not got away from apprehending connexions of fact.
By admitting the premisses I am compelled to admit the conclu-
sion only because, if what the premisses express exists, what the
conclusion expresses exists also. But how can I see this connexion
unless I am considering existents?
106 PAOLO FAIT
Doubtless the distinction between αν’ άγκη εˆι’ναι and
α’ ν άγκη λ έγειν stems from Aristotle. In the Mind
article he refers to, Joseph does not bother to cite the
passage he took it from, but when he says that the
α’ ν άγκη λ έγειν “is, in Aristotelian terms, dialectical
and not apodeictical” he shows that he has in mind
the passage of APo. I 6 discussed above in our last
section.
The thought expressed in the quotation from Joseph’s
main text by means of the opposition between the logic
of truth and the logic of consistency is the same as the
point made in the footnote in terms of the opposition
between αν ’ άγκη εˆι’ναι and αν
’ άγκη λ έγειν. The logic
of truth (which concerns the αν ’ άγκη εˆ’ιναι) cannot
account for syllogisms from false premisses, because
unless premisses and conclusion are true it is impossible
to detect the connections of fact between them. On the
other hand, the logic of consistency (which concerns
the αν ’ άγκη λ έγειν) cannot be a viable alternative
because, although it can account for false premisses, it
requires a foundation in connections of fact.
The logic of consistency is, according to Joseph, a
logic of uninterpreted symbols: reasoning is seen as a
manipulation of symbols according to certain rules that
guarantee consistency. When he points out the neces-
sity of a foundation of the logic of consistency in the
logic of truth, he correctly asks for what is now called
a ‘soundness proof’, i.e. the proof that every formal
argument is truth-preserving, but wrongly thinks that
this proof requires connections of existing facts.
If from these data we try to reconstruct Joseph’s
interpretation of Aristotle, three things seem worth
noticing. First, the difficulty of seeing how connections
of fact can persist when the premisses are false exactly
corresponds to the problem Aristotle is trying to resolve
through the introduction of the necessity of saying. As
we saw in the last section, when the premisses turn out
to be false, the factual inferential link with the conclu-
sion seems to be dissolved, for Aristotle cannot figure
it out independently of the facts expressed by the pre-
misses and the conclusion.
Second, since Joseph proves a faithful interpreter of
Aristotle when he rescues the notion of the necessity
of saying, it is not surprising that his eventual rebuttal
of this concept raises some criticism to which Aristotle
too may be vulnerable. As we read in the footnote,
Joseph’s reason to reject the α’ ν άγκη λ έγειν is that,
unless grounded in facts, it is arbitrary and has no
authority. To the contrary, Aristotle seems to see no
possible divorce of the logic of consistency from the
logic of truth. When he claims “it is necessary for
anyone who says them to say the conclusion, and to
say it truly if they hold truly”, he simply takes for
granted that the necessity of saying is truth-preserving.
Of course he could justify his claim by saying, for
instance, that logical obligation, due to its normative
character, does not need to be grounded in facts.20
Alternatively, he may object to Joseph that a factual
foundation, though necessary, does not require the actual
existence of facts. As a matter of fact, however, he does
not give us a single clue as to his answer. We can only
conjecturally reconstruct the context in which the
commitment to say the conclusion is undertaken. This
brings me to my third remark.
Unlike Joseph, Aristotle does not relate the necessity
of saying to symbolic uninterpreted reasoning,21 but
rather to dialectic, as a practice of disputation governed
by rules and obligations. The very idea of taking
inference as an obligation obviously points to dialectic.
For dialectical opponents are forced to admit something
they do not accept spontaneously, whereas in a different
argumentative context it would be more natural to see
inference as an entitlement (as in the well-known
doctrine of the inference ‘ticket’ or ‘warrant’ or
‘license’). But of course the dialectical duty to be
consistent is not seen by Aristotle as purely formal as
if dialectic were an arbitrary game. Consistency is not
pursued as an end in itself but, presumably, because it
is a prerequisite of truth.22
After recanting Aristotle’s distinction Joseph
proposes his positive solution: valid deductions must
have true premisses, but these premisses concern only
the ideal forms of propositions, exactly as geometrical
demonstrations concern ideal figures. False premisses
are like geometrical figures imperfectly drawn on paper:
their imperfection does not affect the validity of the
demonstration, for imperfection does not play any role
in it. I do not wish to discuss this proposal, which seems
to be very problematic as soon as the analogy between
logical and geometrical form is spelled out in detail.
Throughout his career, and especially in his last
papers, Joseph expressed distrust of the new mathe-
matical logic. Reading his logical works now, one has
the impression that a deeper familiarity with the modern
methods of the “logisticians”, as he used to call them,
would have helped him dispel al least some of his
perplexities.23 It is thus very interesting to consider how
the distinction between the necessity of saying and the
 NECESSITY OF BEING VS. NECESSITY OF SAYING
necessity of being was interpreted by someone who had
learnt the lesson of mathematical logic very well.
As a true Cambridge philosopher, Ramsey could not
share Joseph’s sympathy with the Philosopher. Of the
ancients in general, he thought that “their logic is
entirely superseded, largely owing to advance in math-
ematics”.24 And when he used, in his Truth and
Probability, the distinction between the α’ νάγκη λέγειν
and the αν’ άγκη εˆ’ιναι, which he probably took from
Joseph, he may even have been unaware that he was
indirectly borrowing from Aristotle.25
The passage I am going to quote occurs in a section
bearing the title: “The logic of consistency”. Ramsey
purports to contend that probability, seen as partial
belief, neither requires a special logic nor pertains to
inductive logic, but can be dealt with by the same
deductive logic dealing with certain belief:
We have seen that there is a theory of consistency in partial beliefs
just as much as of consistency in certain beliefs, although for
various reasons the former is not so important as the latter. The
theory of probability is in fact a generalization of formal logic;
but in the process of generalization one of the most important
aspects of formal logic is destroyed. If p and ¬q are inconsistent
so that q follows logically from p, that p implies q is what is called
by Wittgenstein a ‘tautology’ and can be regarded as a degenerate
case of a true proposition not involving the idea of consistency.
This enables us to regard (not altogether correctly) formal logic
including mathematics as an objective science consisting of
objectively necessary propositions. It thus gives us not merely the
α’ νάγκη λέγειν, that if we assert p we are bound in consistency
to assert q also, but also the αν ’ άγκη εˆι’ναι, that if p is true, so
must q be. But when we extend formal logic to include partial
beliefs this direct objective interpretation is lost; if we believe
p&q to the extent of 1/3, and p&¬q to the extent of 1/3, we are
bound in consistency to believe ¬p also to the extent of 1/3. This
is the α’ νάγκη λέγειν; but we cannot say that if p&q is 1/3 true
and p&¬q 1/3 true, ¬p also must be 1/3 true, for such a state-
ment would be sheer nonsense. There is no corresponding
α’ νάγκη εˆι’ναι. Hence, unlike the calculus of consistent full belief,
the calculus of objective partial belief cannot be immediately
interpreted as a body of objective tautology.26
Ramsey endorses the distinction between the neces-
sity of being and the necessity of saying, for he thinks
that formal logic is just the logic of consistency. What
is important to stress here is that from his perspective
the distinction is not invoked in order to account for
false premisses. His problem is rather that of imagining
plausible underpinnings for fractions of belief: there
cannot be fractions of truth, so in the case of probability
the logic of consistency does not straightforwardly
correspond to the logic of truth. As for full beliefs, he
107
thinks that Wittgenstein’s concept of tautology provides
a convenient solution. Tautologies are truth-bearers but
not of a factual kind. The point is slightly expanded
later, in a section entitled “The logic of truth”:
The validity of the distinction between the logic of consistency
and the logic of truth has often been disputed; it has been con-
tended on the one hand that logical consistency is only a kind of
factual consistency; that if a belief in p is inconsistent with one
in q, that simply means that p and q are not both true, and that
this is a necessary or logical fact. I believe myself that this
difficulty can be met by Wittgenstein’s theory of a tautology,
according to which if a belief in p is inconsistent with one in q,
that p and q are not both true is not a fact but a tautology. But I
do not propose to discuss this question further here.27
Ramsey, as we see, is very likely to have Joseph in
mind in these passages, and what he claims shows that
he found the latter’s earlier distinction convenient
enough. But the point on the non factual nature of logic
does not go any more against Joseph than it goes against
Frege and Russell. Here Ramsey sides with Wittgenstein
against the majority of the logicians of his time. It is
worth noticing how his vindication of the logic of con-
sistency as the only kind of deductive logic changes
the perspective setting aside certain problems and
raising new ones. He can now forget about the problem
of false premisses, because logic does not mirror con-
nections of facts, connections, that is, that require the
existence of the facts themselves. On the other hand
logic must be able to represent facts; this is of course
a necessary condition in order for our beliefs concerning
them to be consistent, and so one must also be prepared
to express partial belief accordingly.
Further discussion of this subject may be of some
interest, but I am afraid it would lead too far away from
Aristotle. At the end of this section two contrasting
morals could be drawn. According to the first, one may
have the strong feeling that Joseph simply was not
enough of a logician to distinguish between necessitas
consequentis and necessitas consequentiae and found in
Aristotle a powerful ally. Together they went rather far
in adding nonsense to nonsense, for it is always very
dangerous to follow the Philosopher without the
compass of modern logic. Alternatively, one may think
that the way Joseph understood Aristotle and the way
Ramsey took over the distinction between the α’ νάγκη
λέγειν and the αν’ άγκη εˆι’ναι show that Aristotle had
raised a crucial problem concerning the nature of logic.
To this problem each of the philosophers mentioned
provided his own solution. Each of their proposals,
108 PAOLO FAIT
however, failed to meet universal consensus and did not
become a banal technical distinction. I favour this
second conclusion.
4.
In the paper published in Mind Joseph claims that the
Prior Analytics are concerned “merely with the α’ νάγκη
λέγειν”. This he means just as an interpretation of what
Aristotle actually does in that work; still there are good
grounds for disagreement. Besides having found no
mention of that notion in the Prior Analytics, I do not
think Aristotle is even tacitly employing it. Let us read
again the definition of a syllogism from which we
started:
A syllogism is a discourse in which, certain things having been
laid down, something different from the things laid down follows
from necessity because of their being so (τ ω̂˛ τα υ̂τα εˆ’ιναι).
(APr. I 1, 24b18–20)
Taken at face value, this definition speaks for the
α’ νάγκη εˆι’ναι and against the α’ νάγκη λέγειν, for the
logic of truth and against the logic of consistency.
Consider how two recent interpreters comment on the
definition, especially on its last clause: “The Greek
neuter pronouns, here translated as ‘things’, are rather
indeterminate; together with the verb ‘to be’ in its
absolute use, however, they suggest that in play here are
not so much the propositions themselves as the states
of affairs they express. As a consequence, the neces-
sity appropriate to the syllogism is not conceived as a
merely internal necessity (the impossibility for the mind
to contradict what it itself has posited), but as inherent
to a certain order of things, although understood in very
general terms”.28 Yet, even if we agree, we are still left
with our original question: what about false premisses?
Precisely because it seems to take for granted that
things laid down are facts or true propositions, leaving
therefore no room for false premisses, the last clause
of the definition has embarrassed several readers. Some
have tried to explain away this difficulty. Let us
compare a few proposals:
(I) “from the fact that they are such” (Tredennick’s
Loeb trans.);
(II) “because of their being there” (Mignucci 2002,
p. 249);
(III) “because what is asserted in the premisses is
(supposed to be) the case” (Striker 1998, p. 215).29
The first translation seems to take ‘being’ as
requiring a complement: being such and such (for
example affirmative or negative, universal or particular).
The second translation gives the verb a locative
meaning; ‘being there’ means being at the beginning
of a deduction, being among the premisses, regardless
of truth and falsity. The third rendering, which is in fact
a paraphrase, takes ‘lay down’ in the foregoing “certain
things having been laid down” with the meaning of
‘supposing as true or as being the case’. If the “things
laid down” of the definition are laid down as true or as
existent, it is natural to express the last clause consis-
tently with this assumption.
This last seems to me the most straightforward and
plausible interpretation. Syllogisms are evaluated by
supposing their premisses true. Counterfactual suppo-
sitions are admitted as well, which means that false
premisses are supposed to be true. This in turn means
that, independently of how the actual world goes, we
are allowed to imagine possible circumstances under
which the premisses turn out true. By resorting to these
situations and seeing what follows from the supposed
facts we can assess syllogisms as valid absolutely, i.e.
not only with respect to the supposed circumstances.
That by so doing we do not endanger the possibility of
assessing our arguments as true or valid seems to imply
that Aristotle is prepared to say that a syllogism is a
λ όγος whose validity does not require a literal and
crude correspondence to facts. So, after all, the defini-
tion of a syllogism does not seem to commit him to the
necessity of being.
This does not mean, however, that the necessity
mentioned in the definition is a necessity of saying. The
latter is a necessity of asserting the conclusion once one
has asserted the premisses: the crucial notion here is that
of assertion, which is different from the notion of sup-
position. Although when we assert something we hold
it true, the connection between assertion and truth can
be made very loose, whereas supposition is essentially
tied with the semantic notion of truth. Assertion, as is
best understood on the present occasion, could in
principle avoid any reference to truth, for we only need
to take it as the undertaking of a commitment. How far
one can go with such a concept of assertion is an
important question,30 but does not affect our present
point. What matters here is that it is all that is required
in order to make sense of the necessity of saying. Sup-
position, on the contrary, crucially presupposes truth.
To suppose means to introduce a fictional change at the
 NECESSITY OF BEING VS. NECESSITY OF SAYING
level of facts. It is a stipulation concerning not our asser-
tive commitments but their semantic underpinnings.
Both the necessity of saying and the necessity
involved in the definition of the syllogism are opposed
to the necessity of being, for both can account for false
premisses. So why did Aristotle not resolve the puzzle
by pointing to the definition of the syllogism? Perhaps
because the latter is incorrigibly ambiguous. It cannot
make clear that by supposing the premisses to be true
we do not mean to deny that in fact they are false. If
one were to ask “And what will you do in case the
premisses are false?”, I cannot answer “I will suppose
that they are true” without being suspected of refusing
to take into account the data of the problem. It is easy
to see that, by contrast, this is not a drawback of the
necessity of saying.
If the necessity of saying causes perplexity, the
notion of necessity involved in the definition of the
syllogism is not a masterpiece of clarity either. Besides,
nothing guarantees that Aristotle ever saw it as a source
of philosophical problems. For one thing, if the suppo-
sitional interpretation of the definition of a syllogism
sketched above were Aristotle’s most considered view,
it would be very difficult to explain how, immediately
after giving the definition, he can go on glossing the last
clause “because of their being so” (τ ω̂˛ ταυ̂τα εˆ’ιναι)
with the phrase “in virtue of these” (διὰ ταυ̂τα). For
the latter, unlike the former, refers to the premisses
without mentioning their (supposed) being the case.
Moreover, in the definition of a syllogism of the Topics
(I 1, 100a25–26) we find διὰ τ ω̂ν κειµ ένων31 instead
of τ ω̂˛ ταυ̂τα εˆι’ναι and, though the two clauses must
be equivalent, the former manages to be non committal
as to the (supposed) truth of the things laid down. So
nothing of great importance is likely to depend on the
mere fact that Aristotle employs one formulation rather
than the other.
My surmise then is that the definition of a syllogism
of the Prior Analytics reflects the common argumenta-
tive practice of supposing facts in order to see which
other facts necessarily follow from them, but how
supposed facts relate to reality Aristotle seems happy to
leave unexplained. He simply was unclear about the
status of the “things laid down”, perhaps because he
could go very far in the development of his logical
doctrine without being forced to clarify this point.
If this is the case,32 the discussion of the puzzle in
the Posterior Analytics seems to be the deepest treat-
ment of the problem of false premisses we can find in
109
Aristotle’s writings. Indeed this is a remarkable and
striking passage in which Aristotle gives us a token of
his ability to exploit all available means in order to
defend a good logical point. What seems to us a
platitude concerning logic, i.e. the fact that an argument
with false premisses can be perfectly valid, can be
endangered by a serious puzzle if one lacks a certain
idea of the conditional (or an adequate way of repre-
senting a logical consequence). Aristotle, according to
the interpretation put forward in this paper, was in such
a condition, and the distinction between the necessity
of being and the necessity of saying provided him with
an effective way out. Yet, it is unfortunate that this way
out is not just a technical device but commits Aristotle
to a particular, potentially controversial, view on the
nature of logic. This raises a number of honest expec-
tations and so it is not without disappointment that one
is forced to recognise that, very probably, the passage
is not just the beginning of the story but also the end
of it.
Appendix: On the idiosyncrasies of a definition of
the syllogism
We are now to comment on the following definition
already cited and translated above in the text:
ο’ µὲν γ ὰρ συλλογισµ ὸς εκ
’ τινω̂ν εστι
’ τεθέντων ώ
’ στε λέγειν
’ε´ τερον ε’ ξ αν
’ άγκης τι τω̂ν κειµένων διὰ τω̂ν κειµένων.
(SE 1, 165a1–2)
Notice the following:
(i) No genus is stated: unlike the other definitions of
a syllogism the present one does not mention its
being a λ όγος, a discourse, of a certain kind.
(ii) The last clause διὰ τω̂ν κειµένων seems redun-
dant, for it is just a repetition of εκ
’ τινω̂ν. As a
matter of fact it is omitted by all good manuscripts
except B (Marcianus 201), the best one. Although
some interpreters have supposed a distinction
between the meaning of ε’ κ as ‘from’ and the
meaning of δι ά as ‘through’, this distinction is
unwarranted, for the two prepositions are used
‘promiscuously’ in Aristotle.33 Moreover διά plus
genitive, here as well as at Top. I 1, 100a25–27,
must play the same role as διά plus accusative in
APr. I 1, 24b18–20, and this last plays a causal
role, if only because it is a gloss on τ ω̂˛ τα υ̂τα
εˆι’ναι (“because of their being so”), l. 20.34
110 PAOLO FAIT
(iii) ε’κ is constructed with εˆ’ιναι and not with
συµβα ι̂νειν.
(iv) In the Topics, beside the customary definition by
genus and specific difference, Aristotle envisages
a sort of compositional definition (VI 13, 150a1 f.),
which displays the components of the definiendum.
It can have three possible formulations: τ άδε,
“these things”; τ ὸ ε’κ το υ̂των, “constituted by
these things”; and τ όδε µετ ὰ το υ̂δε, “this plus
that”.
All this suggests that we should take ε’κ with a
constitutive meaning and understand our definition as
a compositional definition of the second kind.
That this is the right guess is shown by the defini-
tion of a refutation (’έλεγχος) immediately following
the definition of a syllogism. A refutation is a
συλλογισµὸς µετ’ α’ ντιφάσεως του̂ συµπεράσµατος,
“a syllogism plus the contradictory of the conclusion”
(165a2–3). This is clearly a compositional definition of
the third sort and differs from the standard definition
of a refutation precisely in the same way as the fore-
going definition of a syllogism differs from the standard
definition of a syllogism. Elsewhere a refutation is
always defined, by genus and difference, as a
συλλογισµὸς α’ ντιφάσεως, “a syllogism of a contra-
dictory proposition” (SE 9, 170b1; 10, 171a1–7; APr.
II 20, 66b11).
Our definition should then be translated (as above
in the text) as follows:
For the syllogism is constituted by certain things laid down in
such a way as to say of necessity something different from the
things laid down, in virtue of the things laid down.
It is not altogether clear why Aristotle defines here the
syllogism in compositional terms, but we can at least
envisage a plausible explanation of the obscure phrase
ώ
’ στε λ έγειν ’ε´τερον ε’ξ α’ νάγκης: the compositionally
shaped definition mentions no genus and so the infor-
mation that the syllogism is a λόγος must be inserted
somewhere else, otherwise it would be lost.35 My sug-
gestion, therefore, is that this definition has nothing to
do with the necessity of saying discussed in the paper.
Notes
* Fabio Acerbi, Francesco Ademollo, Ian Carter, Walter Cavini,
Paolo Crivelli and two anonymous readers kindly helped me improve
previous drafts of this paper. A version of it was read in January 2003
at the Seminar of Logic and Philosophy of Language of the
University of Padua, where I received valuable comments.
1
I am inclined to think that ‘syllogism’ and not ‘deduction’ is the
most convenient translation of συλλογισµ ός, but I cannot address
this difficult issue on the present occasion. Mignucci 2002 provides
reasons for preferring ‘syllogism’.
2
Throughout this paper I will speak of false premisses meaning that
at least one of them is false.
3
See Patzig, ‘Aristotle and Syllogisms From False Premisses’,
reprinted in Patzig 1968, pp. 196–203. See further Geach, ‘Aristotle
on Conjunctive Propositions’, reprinted in Geach 1972, pp. 13–27,
and Weidemann 1997.
4
Most famously by Lukasiewicz 1957.
/
5
By J. Corcoran 1974 and T. J. Smiley 1973. This perspective has
since won the approval of a wide majority of scholars.
6
Τω̂ν δὲ συµβεβηκότων µὴ καθ’ α υ’ τά, ’ὸν τρόπον διωρίσθη
τὰ καθ’ α υ’ τά, ο υκ ’ ’έστιν επισ’ τήµη αποδεικτική.
’ ο υ’ γὰρ ’έσ τιν
ε’ξ αν ’ άγκης δετξαι τ ὸ συµπέρασµα· τ ὸ συµβεβηκὸς γ ὰρ
ε’νδέχεται µὴ υ’ πάρχειν· περὶ το υ̂ τοιούτου γὰρ λέγω
συµβεβηκ ότος. καίτοι απορήσειεν
’ ’άν τις ’´ισως τίνος ’ε´ νεκα
τα υ̂τα δει̂ ερωτα̂ν
’ περὶ τούτων, ει’ µὴ αν ’ άγκη τὸ συµπέρασµα
εˆ’ιναι· ο υδ’ ὲν γ ὰρ διαφέρει ε’´ι τις ε’ ρ όµενος τ ὰ τυχόντα εˆ’ιτα
ειπειεν
’´ τὸ συµπέρασµα. δει̂ δ’ ε’ρωτα̂ν ο υχ ’ ω ’ ς αναγκαι̂ον
’ εˆι’ναι
διὰ τὰ η’ρωτηµένα, αλλ’ ’ ’ότι λέγειν ανάγκη
’ τω̂˛ εκει̂να
’ λέγοντι,
καὶ αληθ’ ω̂ς λέγειν, ε’ὰν αληθ
’ ω̂ς ηˆ˛’ υ’ πάρχοντα.
7
Ross 1949, p. 530; Mignucci 1975, p. 130; Detel 1993, II p. 160;
see already Pacius 1597, p. 292.
8
Barnes 1994, p. 130.
9
Barnes 1994, p. 130. Contra, Mignucci 1975, p. 131, who finds
the distinction between necessitas consequentis and necessitas
consequentiae successfully drawn in the passage. According to Detel
1993, II pp. 161–162, Aristotle resolves the puzzle by distinguishing
between “explanatory necessity” and “logical necessity”, two
concepts being different from the previous ones.
10
Sometimes interpreters (for example Fine 1984) take Aristotle
to expose cases of unwarranted necessitas consequentis by means of
the fallacy of division. By saying for instance ‘necessarily q, if p’,
one could either wrongly divide and mean ‘(necessarily q) if p’ or
correctly compose and mean ‘necessarily (q, if p)’. The most
‘explicit’ passage is Int. 9, 19a23–32, an extremely controversial text.
Aristotle first distinguishes between the necessity of what is when it
is and absolute necessity, and this, according to Fine 1984 and others,
he would do in order to warn us that ‘necessarily (if p, then p)’ is
valid, whereas ‘if p then (necessarily p)’ is not. The connection with
the fallacy of division would be established in the following lines.
There Aristotle says that the “same account” also holds for the
contradictory pair: from ‘necessarily (p or not-p)’ one cannot infer
by division (line 29: διελόντα) ‘necessarily p’, nor could one infer
‘necessarily not-p’. In spite of many interpretative efforts, however,
the two cases, i.e. the case of simple future contingents and the case
of contradictory pairs, cannot be said to be perfectly parallel.
11
Quine 1982, p. 21. On this passage see Stalnaker 1981, p. 113;
Sanford 1989, pp. 90–92.
12
An accidental (i.e. contingent) conclusion could not be inferred
from necessary premisses; for a proof of this see APo. 6, 75a8–11
(shortly before our passage).
 NECESSITY OF BEING VS. NECESSITY OF SAYING
13
Or, if you prefer, insofar as they do turn out false at some time.
Nothing depends here on the way we understand Aristotle’s modal-
ities.
14
See Detel 1993, II p. 161.
15
Sometimes Aristotle speaks of a “relative” necessity (ex hypothesi
or “these things being so”, see esp. APr. I 10, 30b31–40) and some
interpreters have taken these formulations as expressions of
necessitas consequentiae (Patzig 1968, pp. 23 f. and Fine 1984, pp.
25–27). Of course, the qualification is introduced by Aristotle in order
to oppose the temptation to attribute absolute necessity to the con-
clusion, but this does not mean attaching the necessity to the conse-
quence (or to the conditional) as a whole. It rather means, in my view,
weakening the necessity which still attaches to the conclusion. The
conclusion is necessitated by the premisses, which means that the
strength of the necessity of the conclusion reflects the strength of
the premisses. If one of the latter becomes false, the necessity of the
conclusion is thereby dissolved. This explains why resorting to this
kind of pro tempore necessity would not provide an adequate solution
to the puzzle here under discussion (for a different interpretation, see
Detel 1993, II p. 161). I know that more should be said on this point,
but I have to put off further discussion.
16
See also Top. VIII 9, 160b18; SE 12, 173a4, 7 and 14. For a
discussion of these passages with an attempt to explain the role of
λέγειν see Boger 1993, pp. 64–65. Notice, however, that the mere
expression of a logical principle as an obligation to assert does not
preclude its being a factual, objective, principle unless one finds, as
in the case of our puzzle, further reasons that impede an objective
interpretation. So, for example, the way Aristotle expresses the law
of excluded middle, “it is necessary either to assert or to deny” (e.g.
Metaph. Γ 7, 1011b24) should obviously not be taken to exclude the
objective validity of this principle.
17
ο’ µὲν γ ὰρ συλλογισµ ὸς ε’κ τιν ω̂ν ε’στι τεθέντων ώ ’ στε
λέγειν ’ε´ τερον ε’ξ αν
’ άγκης τι τω̂ν κειµένων διὰ τω̂ν κειµένων.
18
Joseph 1916, pp. 331–332.
19
Referenced as Joseph 1910.
20
The very possibility of deriving evaluative statements such as
‘argument X is logically valid’ from a set of purely descriptive
statements can be questioned on well-known Humean grounds. It has
been defended by Searle 1969, pp. 132–134.
21
On Aristotle’s negative attitude toward purely symbolic reasoning
see Fait 1996 (on the comparison between reasoning and reckoning
with pebbles).
22
Given the dialectical context, I resist the idea that Aristotle could
be envisaging symbolic manipulations, because his dialectic, even
the ‘gymnastic’ kind, does not seem to me to promote formal
consistency for the sake of itself. A merely formal, consistency-
seeking, kind of dispute can be plausibly imagined only as a devel-
opment (or, if you prefer, a degeneration) of a broadly truth-seeking
kind of dispute such as Aristotle’s art of dialectic. According to
Yrjönsuuri 1993 and 2001, the medieval doctrine of obligationes
(a family of question and answer disputation games ruled by strict
regulations) is likely to be the result of such a development of
the dialectical disputation depicted in Aristotle’s Topics. “Ars
obligatoria is a technique where the duty of answering logically is
of foremost importance and the duty of answering truthfully is pushed
into a corner” (Yrjönsuuri 2001, p. 12). Incidentally, notice that a
normative conception of logical consequence plays a role also in the
111
doctrine of obligations and so it would be very interesting to see
whether some medieval logician noted any connection with our
passage of the Posterior Analytics.
23
On the logical debate at Joseph’s time, see Grattan-Guinness
1985–86.
24
Ramsey 1991, p. 153.
25
This is perhaps slightly exaggerated. Although Aristotle’s passage
is rarely discussed and Joseph had been so sparing with references,
Ramsey was well acquainted with Joseph himself and with his work.
The Oxford logician is occasionally quoted in his notes, see Ramsey
1991, pp. 152, 234, and in 1926 they were co-symposiasts at the
Aristotelian Society. Knowing Joseph, Ramsey could easily guess the
identity of his favourite source.
26
Ramsey, Truth and Probability (1926), quoted from Ramsey
1990, pp. 82–83 (I have changed the logical notation). The paper was
originally published in Ramsey 1931.
27
Ramsey 1990, p. 86.
28
Crubellier and Pellegrin 2002, p. 48 (my translation).
29
Robin Smith’s Hackett transl. reads “because these things are
so”.
30
Brandom 1994, ch. 3, shows how semantics can be reconstructed
starting from a purely pragmatic concept of assertion.
31
On the equivalence between διά + genitive and διά + accusative
see the appendix below.
32
Alternatively, one might think that τιθέναι, ‘to lay down’, does
different work in different argumentative contexts (in science and in
dialectic) as suggested by Cavini 1989, p. 35 n. 2, and by Smith 1997,
pp. 43–44. In this way, however, the general definition of a syllo-
gism would be, in itself, scarcely intelligible. I prefer to think that
‘to lay down’ has a minimal meaning involved in every kind of
syllogism.
33
Barnes 1994, p. 139; Mignucci 1975, pp. 141–142.
34
See further Bonitz 1870, p. 177a38–49.
35
That here λέγειν does the same duty as λ όγος in the other
definitions speaks for ‘discourse’ and against ‘argument’ as the best
translation of this substantive (in principle both are possible: Robin
Smith has ‘discourse’ in his Hackett trans. of the Prior Analytics
and ‘argument’ in his Clarendon trans. of the Topics). Alternatively,
one shoud be prepared, as I am not, to follow Boger 1983, pp. 64–65,
in taking this occurrence of λέγειν as ‘to derive’ or the like.
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E-mail: pfait@mail.win.it