Tips on reading the Organon and actually understanding it? should I read any of the ancient commentators alongside it? Tell me how to tackle the prior analytics, etc. I am a beautiful boy ready to be initiated into the lower mysteries.
Bump
>>24880176Dude or Chica, they have been writing Aristotle's commentaries for more than 1,000 years. Some of the greatest minds have made commentaries.The point of the commentaries is most frequently not to make Aristotle any clearer, but to project their own opinion onto the old master. This is the reason why they get mocked (e.g. in Gullivers Travel).I would suggest reading an introduction by a modern-day scholar, not necessarily from the current year, but sometimes after 1815 or so.These scholars actually try to clarify and explain the thought of Aristotle and are not engaged in metaphysical discussions themselves.
Not really just read it carefully and repeatedly. Averroes’ commentaries are great and helped me tremendously if you read Latin. Demonstration is scientific explanation, not “proof”. It’s not ‘if a is b, and b is c, then a is c’, it’s ‘a is c because b’. And it’s only in analysis that it takes this form; it’s an abstract form behind language, not a replacement for normal speech. I think that’s the biggest hurdle because this does not become clear until deep in Post An. So as an account of ‘Logic’ it’s a failure, we reason in all sorts of non-syllogistic ways. But if you see he’s narrowly focused on explanations, the reason why, it is elegant, complete, and fruitful. The Analytics is more epistemology than logic. Similarly, these premises are not temporal and they do not concern individuals, they are ‘universally universal’ to use De Int’s language because scientific. (Yes there are exceptions). So “all men are rational” is not “all the men that ever been” but “the universal ‘man’ taken in its totality as a universal” - it has nothing to do with individuals. Forget the mixed modal syllogistic unless you’re a turbo autist, it has no significance for the rest and it is virtually incomprehensible as written; even Alexander threw up his hands at it. I went crazy by studying it too obsessively, brought into hospital naked by police etc. I did figure it all out mind you. What drove me batty was seeing the syllogism as an image of the Trinity and total cessation of sleep, and family history. I wish you luck in working through these frustrating but brilliant works. The Topics is like cheat-codes for Plato, it is the logic of the dialogues and you will see Plato is merely dialectical, and that Aristotle was the first scientific philosopher because he’s the first philosopher to work out a science of science, a Wissenschaftslehre. Don’t ever lose sight of the anti-Platonic character of the whole Organon. Soph En will teach you to shitpost better, it’s basically a handbook on how to argue like a dick. But the Analytics are the main attraction. I wish you luck in studying these frustrating, ugly but brilliant works. Aristotle is like the statuettes of Silenus, unattractive on the outside but inside full of gods. Many are seduced by the myths of Plato but Aristotle is the real deal.
>>24880176you can just keep going, imo, because prior analytics is as hard as it gets. Hes inventing formal logic so you can study that somewhere else, but you should understand what a syllogism is
I visualised regular syllogisms like static circles to make Venn diagrams in my head and modal syllogisms like moving circles under certain restrictions to make dynamic Venn diagrams. After that visualization I wrote down the syllogisms with symbols, some of them are direct syllogisms and others have to be analytically reduced to direct syllogisms with a proto-arithmetic, and I wrote down the steps. This combined method of visual intuition and "formalization" helped me to understand and I recommend it, but the text is very very hard nonetheless. An example of dynamic Venn diagram for a syllogism: If it's necessary for A to be in all C (1), and it's admissible that B is in all C (2), then it's admissible (not necessary) that A is in some B (3).Because (1) is necessary, I imagine A and C with a fixed binding: If I move A and try to separate it from C, C is going to follow A to stay inside. And if I try to move C, which is inside A, outside A, the circunference of A will be a barrier to stop that. But I can move A or C as long as this restriction is respected. Because (2) is admissible, I can imagine that B is in all C, but there is not a binding like there was for (1). So it's admissible that A is in some B and that's what's directly infered from the premises, but this conclusion, according to Aristotle, implies that it's also admissible that A is in no B, the contradictory (not contrary, see the square of opposition) statement to "A is in some B" because his definition of "admissible" is weird and assumes that "admissible" is contingency, so the contradictory statement is admitted too. In reality, if it's admissible that B is in all C, it can be due to B being necessarily in all C (with the restraint I said for (1)) or due to B being movable and able to contain C in certain position but also able not to contain it; and this is something that Aristotle acknowledges at some point, but he omits it by saying that the necessity option is by homonymy and not meaningful, so he always assumes that "admissible" is the second option with contigency and "movable" objects. I guess that he thinks that if there are two options and one is a special case of the other, you have to take the less restrictive one, and it's reasonable put like that, but I think that some information is lost that way. This is the kind of subtlety that you have to deal with while reading the prior analytics. It took me a lot of time and a lot of rereading and writing notes to understand this, and I think it's necessary to fully comprehend it. Could have been a lot easier with additional commentary but I am very stubborn. I don't know additional sources, but if you search for them, I think it'd be good if it contains a symbolic translation of the syllogisms or even the diagrams I talked about. Math symbols often intimidate but they make things a lot easier once you assimilate the notation.
Ask this>ChatGPT, help me understand this passage, take on the personality of 3 separate classics professors who have popular and accepted, but contrasting views. Have them back up their views and provide citations when applicable.Then read it again and use your brain.Welcome to the 21st century.
Simplicius covers everythingEVERYTHING
>>24882142Very cool, a Vennfag. I have heard of such but never met one. I’m the opposite, terrible at visualizing to the point that it’s hard to follow your post. In the renaissance edition of Averroes I read there were diagrams roughly like this for every proof.Another protip for the Analytics - modality is de re not de dicto. This follows from what I said earlier re: universality ofc.
Another protip: terms themselves are modally specified insofar as they are differences, accidents, genera etc . That was Averroes’ major discovery. You can verify this for yourself - look through all A’s examples (he only gives them for invalid syllogisms generally) and see what terms occur in what positions in the different modal premises, he was right. All walking things are nec animals is for example not valid, because walking is a property of animals not vice versa. Topics 1 is important for understanding Prior An.Another - necessity and contingency are both equivocal, he does not explain this entirely. The necessity in all walking things are nec. moving is per accidens necessity, it’s not the same as all men are nec animals.And the categorical is not simple actuality, though it can serve this function, it is modally unspecified, as Theophrastus said.Science is eternal for Aristotle. Excepting enthymemes and that nutty counterfactual apagoge in the proofs of the mixed contingents none of these syllogisms concern existent fact. It’s essential to grasp this or the mixed modals will not make sense.Again though it’s turbo autism, you can skip the mixed modals. No Aristotelians understood it properly until the 13th century.
>>24882521>terms themselves are modally specified insofar as they are differences, accidents, genera etc I think that's the case for how Aristotle's uses syllogisms in the Posterior Analytics as a foundation for science, but terms as they are used in the Prior Analytics can be used without that modal connotation, in a more general way unrelated to his ontology/metaphysics. For example, "All humans (A) are deaf (B)" could be used in a syllogism as the universal premise "All As are in B", and that proposition is certainly possible if we kill all hearing people, but it does not tell you anything about the essence of humans, not even about "per accidens necessity" as you call it, because anytime two deaf people can give birth to a hearing human and the proposition would be false fron then on.
>>24881076>>24882142>>24882579I started reading Posterior Analytics this week (though I started with Book B because it's more relevant to the things I was worried about), and I was surprised by how engaging it was for such a dry subject matter. I guess I'm still looking for the difference between "being a universal" and "having universal application", especially as it applies to systems of explanation. And I'm still confused by the details of the differences between definitions and demonstrations. I get the sense that definitions are about the "what is" of a thing and are "static positions", and that demonstrations are like "movements" which essentially connect terms, but if a demonstration leads you from one term to the next term, isn't that latter term demonstrated? idk.Definitely will read more and see what Apostle has to say. Also, Aristotle seems to both formulate and on occasion accept the existence-essence distinction in Posterior Analytics, which was really interesting to me. He also often rejects it. But sometimes he accepts it. And I didn't realize that he had spoken about the whole issue so directly. I thought it was a Thomist issue.
>>24882521>moving is per accidens necessity,is that like saying after you drink your cup of coffee it is necessary that you drank it, even though you didn't have to drink it necessarily?
>>24882799>but if a demonstration leads you from one term to the next term, isn't that latter term demonstrated?Funny I had chatgpt and grok arguing over whether Aristotle thought you can demonstrate essences yesterday and they contradicted each other. I think in Post An II.10 he defines definition in three ways and one is a sort of conclusion from a demonstration. But you will never be able to demonstrate all terms or you'll run into an infinite regress thus some definitions are immediate and undemonstrable. Perhaps review book I where he talks about how some people demand demonstrations for all things and how some say you can't demonstrate anything and the absurdities that follow from that.
>>24882153I jailbroke my kindle last week and installed an AI plugin so it can explain highlighted text immediatly. Thanks Gemini AI!
>>24882521Nta What order should I read his works?
>>24883282That doesn't surprise me, if you're talking about the infamous multiple conclusions section and the subordinate only part of PA then for fully contained sequences the only parity is at sensory receptacles and living beings, theoretically essence is above but it might be more appropriate to say it encompasses all subordinates. If you switch to a subordination then essence really only encompasses the same criteria but inanimate is always excluded. What was the middle term used in the example you fed them?
>>24883533Sorry i mixed up my AI conversations... yesterday is when I asked them if Aristotle treats Good as pros hen like he does with Being. Grok said that he does and GPT said he doesn't. Both were stubborn and wouldn't backtrack.Before I just asked if Aristotle thought you could demonstrate the essence of a substance. GPT said no, Grok yes. but I didn't have them argue about it, and that was the last version of Grok. The newest version says "The short answer is no, you cannot strictly demonstrate the essence of a substance in the way you demonstrate its properties or accidents. However, essence can be known or grasped through a different process."
Why is anyone reading this when it’s been refuted by modern, Hegelian logic? Aristotle’s logic is subjective and empirical - subjective because it concerns intramental concepts which conform to an external reality; empirical because he reaches these logical determinations by induction. Now I know some idiot will say “what on earth do you mean? I read in Perl that Aristotle identifies thought and being!” He does and he doesn’t. I’m really sick of trying to explain this to retarded anons. But in DA for instance what is the “form” the intellect “becomes”? A universal, not the actual primary substance. That’s Empedocles’ view not Aristotle’s, he attacks it. Sense, too, involves the sensorium simply becoming a form btw, albeit a different form. An Aristotelian form is not a fucking Platonic Idea, get it through your thick fucking skulls. Didn’t you read the Metaphysics? How do you forget what he says there so quickly? On the other hand the world is rational and intelligible, caused by a mind. In that sense being and thought are indeed the same, but the irrational and contingent comes from the variable motion of a plurality of celestial spheres. This radical contingency means the actual is only subject to opinion, as he says, and is not truly intelligible.So you see there’s a dualism which really shouldn’t be there. Even the contingent is secondary to the rational. Aristotle makes thinking first, in God, but he leaves it in immediate simplicity. But if there’s anything that ought to determine itself rather than seeking material outside, it’s thought. And if there’s anything that ought to be neither subjective nor objective but prior to both, it is thought. Aristotle fails to fully realize either. Hegel actually accomplishes this.
>>24883595He may have said something about this in prior but I don't remember it. In posterior it can be done but even Aristotle claimed it in past tense.
>>24883658>Why is anyone reading this when it’s been refuted by modern, Hegelian logic?
>>24883658>Why is anyone reading this when it’s been refuted by modern, Hegelian logic? Aristotle’s logic is subjective and empirical - subjective because it concerns intramental concepts which conform to an external reality; empirical because he reaches these logical determinations by induction.>So you see there’s a dualism which really shouldn’t be there. Even the contingent is secondary to the rational. Aristotle makes thinking first, in God, but he leaves it in immediate simplicity. But if there’s anything that ought to determine itself rather than seeking material outside, it’s thought. And if there’s anything that ought to be neither subjective nor objective but prior to both, it is thought. Aristotle fails to fully realize either. Hegel actually accomplishes this.Log off.
>>24883658LLM trash
>>24882799To be a universal is to be 'man', 'sodium chloride', 'burning', and so on, universal concepts. A universal 'has universal application' if the predicate term is completely under it. In 'Fire is plasma', plasma has universal application. But in a premise like 'Some animals are men', the universal 'men' does not have universal application. Those sorts of premises hardly ever occur in science anyway. I'm assuming this is what you're talking about.>And I'm still confused by the details of the differences between definitions and demonstrations.A definition is what something is; a demonstration explains why some attribute inheres in a subject. ("Why are the angles equal?".) The demonstration always includes the definition of the major extreme (in analysis, not in actual argumentation) because the what-it-is of the attribute is what is demonstrated to exist. Terms are not demonstrated, conclusions are demonstrated. Terms their essences are grasped by noesis not demonstration. Not everything can be demonstrated, demonstration stops at noesis, roughly comprehension of the universal by experience with particulars.>Also, Aristotle seems to both formulate and on occasion accept the existence-essence distinction in Posterior Analytics, which was really interesting to me.Everyone accepts that there's a distinction between the thought of a thing and the thing itself, the question is the nature of that distinction. Posterior Analytics is one of the treatises that can sound more 'Platonic' because science concerns universals. Then again he (uncharacteristically) ridicules/mocks Platonism in one passage. I don't even want to go down this rabbit hole again, I explained it last time and no one understood what I was talking about.
>>24882142You're making it more complicated than it has to be honestly. Putting it in Boethian form, All A is nec. C, All B is cont. C, of course some B is cont. A. The middle term itself is necessarily a contingent accident, as the predicate of a contingent proposition, so the necessity in the major premise can only be necessary per accidens. For instance in the first figure:What sets fire is nec. dangerousSpace heaters cont. set fire to rubbish around the heaterSpace heaters can be dangerous.The same principle is at work in your Datisi. But what is going on with, say, Celarent with a categorical major and contingent minor? Why does Aristotle say the conclusion is either necessary or contingent? No B is AAll C is cont. BSo, No C is poss. (either nec. or cont.) ABecause the major premise, "No B is A", can have either an accident-term (walking, burning) or a substance term as its predicate, because of the conversion of the universal negative. But in your necessary major in the Datisi, the predicate must be a contingent word. Now you can establish, as Aristotle does, by an apagoge in mixed necessary/categorical Disamis with a necessary major, that it is impossible for some C to be necessarily A. But you cannot establish whether the true conclusion, the negative "No C is A", is necessary or contingent. For example, here's the Celarent with a conclusion that is truly necessary, though this cannot be established by the proof itself:Nothing intelligent is a ravenEvery man is contingently intelligentSo, No man is possibly a raven - but in truth it is a necessary relation.Here's one where the true conclusion is contingent:Nothing that has science is movingEvery man is cont. scientificSo, no man is possibly moving - but in truth it is a contingent relation.It's a massive, meaningless, autistic puzzle.
>>24882579>I think that's the case for how Aristotle's uses syllogisms in the Posterior Analytics as a foundation for science, but terms as they are used in the Prior Analytics can be used without that modal connotation, in a more general way unrelated to his ontology/metaphysicsIf the categorical works as you say then the mixed modal syllogistic does not make sense. Also he tells you at the start that the Analytics is about demonstration, they are one single work divided by later editors. So you're saying "ackshually, it's not about demonstration. Source: my ass."> that proposition is certainly possible if we kill all hearing peopleNo, no, for God's sake no. Universals are extratemporal, as he says in Post An and De Int. It'd be like a scientist proving something about trees and then you say "well what if the trees all went away, huh? Then your theory would be false!" This is not what Aristotle is talking about. Read it again, slowly.>>24883282>using Grok to read AristotleEmphatically ngmi. Aristotle will tell you right here in Post An that you cannot demonstrate essence and why this is so. LLMs cannot interpret dense philosophical texts accurately.>he defines definition in three ways and one is a sort of conclusion from a demonstration.Right, but this isn't the definition of a thing's essence, it's just a demonstration in another form, as he says.>>24883533>fully contained sequences the only parity is at sensory receptacles and living beingsI can't stand it when people pretend to know what they're talking about when they have no idea what they are talking about. The theory of demonstration is universal, it applies to all sciences. You do not understand the syllogistic whatsoever.>theoretically essence is above but it might be more appropriate to say it encompasses all subordinatesMeaningless gibberish.>If you switch to a subordination then essence really only encompasses the same criteria but inanimate is always excluded. What was the middle term used in the example you fed them?Meaningless gibberish.>>24883595You are a retard for using Grok and you should not study philosophy. You are illiterate. You're staring at sentences in Aristotle for a minute or two and then take a wild guess at the meaning. Please stop studying philosophy and stop shitting up philosophy threads, take up baking or something.
Who/where developed that cool medieval mnemonic system? I remember it briefly mentioned in Lear’s book. Would like to learn about it. >>24885158>>24885195Thanks, this is the second thread I made in lit recently where people started shitting up the thread with AI trash. I can’t even bring myself to utter the name of Musk’s LLM, it’s a tool for a peculiar type of retard incapable of feeling shame
>>24885195I'm sure it appears that way to you since there was no demonstration. It's cute you took the effort to respond but you can't expect me to care if there is no demonstration. It was the answer to why the 2 ai's contradicted though. If you don't like this then feel free to provide an answer because the ai worshipping anons worship ai due to being unable to perform the advice you offered. I called it an infamous passage for a reason.
>>24885195>No, no, for God's sake no. Universals are extratemporal, as he says in Post An and De Int. It'd be like a scientist proving something about trees and then you say "well what if the trees all went away, huh? Then your theory would be false!" This is not what Aristotle is talking about. Read it again, slowly.I'm not saying that Aristotle's syllogisms are unrelated to his ontology and epistemology, but that, while being related to his ontology and epistemology, they also have a more general use that can be used outside his ontology and epistemology. If all humans are deaf at any time, the universal premise "All A are in B" would be valid even if the conclusions don't account for the essence of humans at all, that is to say, that A and B have no substantial or generic relationship. This is something that Aristotle acknowledges in the Posterior analytics, I think, with the eclipse and the shadow example:>When we have found the answer, if the premisses are immediate, we know fact and reason together; if they are not immediate, we know the fact without the reason, as in the following example: let C be the moon, A eclipse, B the fact that the moon fails to produce shadows though she is full and though no visible body intervenes between us and her. Then if B, failure to produce shadows in spite of the absence of an intervening body, is attributable A to C, and eclipse, is attributable to B, it is clear that the moon is eclipsed, but the reason why is not yet clear, and we know that eclipse exists, but we do not know what its essential nature is.
>>24885427Of course it would be unlikely that some being has direct experience of all humans being deaf, but it is potentially valid as a formally universal premise without a universal meaning that predicates essence.
>>24885427Well, you could argue that the example is inside Aristotle's ontology and epistemology because he includes accidents in them. Let me rephrase it: Aristotle's syllogisms can be used without the particular use he gives them to organise science.
>>24885195>using Grok to read AristotleYeah, I didn't do that. I've asked Grok like two questions about Aristotle and its answers were shaky. It's interesting that LLM's disagree with each other about philosophy and I like viewing the results. Also ChatGPT is better at Greek than you, but I don't assume its right about anything.
>>24885116What are axioms and how do they relate to universals?
>>24885947It’s not interesting at all. Stop wasting people’s time talking about “Grok” in a thread about Aristotle. go back to X where you’ll find likeminded retards who want to be idly amused.
>>24885158Two things I misspoke: it’s the major in the mixed nec/cont datisi that needs a contingent term as its subject, not the minor. And in the negative I talk about, the major has its *subject* as a contingent or necessary term, not the predicate. Apologies it’s been years since I looked at Prior An seriously and I wrote too fast. As I said, the mixed modal syllogistic is an autistic game. I can’t respond to all the other retarded stuff right now.
>>24885116>A definition is what something is; a demonstration explains why some attribute inheres in a subject. ("Why are the angles equal?".) By attribute of a subject, are we referring to the essence (a triangle has 3 sides), the differentiae (3-sided), another attribute that is proper to the subject but not essential for it (e.g. a triangle has 180 degrees)? Or could all three of these things be referred to in a subject by demonstration? >The demonstration always includes the definition of the major extreme (in analysis, not in actual argumentation) because the what-it-is of the attribute is what is demonstrated to exist.So, this sounds like it is an "unraveling" of a form in a subject, or perhaps the organization of forms within a science from more general to more specific.>Terms are not demonstrated, conclusions are demonstrated. Terms their essences are grasped by noesis not demonstration. Not everything can be demonstrated, demonstration stops at noesis, roughly comprehension of the universal by experience with particulars.What do you mean by conclusion? As in, the final idea that the minor term is connected to the major term (after showing that the middle term is the bridge between the two)? I think that's what I was trying to understand: that demonstration is the propositions and the links between the propositions, while noesis would be figuring out the terms (subjects and predicates, well more accurately the essences signified by the terms) of the sentences.
>>24886297Grok is better at greek than you + ur mad
bump
I don’t have a computer and it’s too much to phonepost. But yeah - the attribute is the third kind you mention. You don’t demonstrate definitions, and the difference is part of the definition. Why is man rational? Because it’s what he is, we learn this by experience, there is no “explanation” strictly speaking, a thing’s “what” grounds explanations, it’s not explainable in itself. Also, definitions only *signify* (semainei) the whatness. It’s not as if, if there were aliens on the moon, they’d be men just because man’s spec diff is “rational”! That’s another important point that filters people. Reading book 2 on its own without book 1 and at least a cursory understanding of Prior A may not work desu. Demonstration explains why an attribute inheres in a subject. The “conclusion” is this inherence, and the middle is the reason why. Teleological demonstrations are an exception, there the explanation is the major extreme. I think you’ll figure it out fine if you autistically read these books over and over again, but if you don’t do this you won’t. These translations “demonstration”, “conclusion” are shit as you can maybe see. Aristotle doesn’t prove theses, he takes a given phenomenon and tries to understand why it is as it is - he was a scientist, the first real scientist and the first really scientific philosopher. I agree with Hegel that his psychological theology in De An is the peak of his thought. Hegel also says he’s genuinely speculative - why? His theory of demonstration led him away from dead abstractions, he wants to understand and he understands the world as living, concrete. He doesn’t dissect life he goes into it and penetrates it, deeply, forcefully, lovingly. It would be more appropriate really to say that he was penetrated by life.
I'm surprised there isn't a visual guide or video to the syllogisms yet, especially not one based on the medieval mnemonics
>>24885158>You're making it more complicated than it has to be honestly.There are other cases in which the visualization was more useful. In this case it can be easily thought verbally. >The middle term itself is necessarily a contingent accidentThat's the thing I'm questioning. "Admissible" shouldn't be equivalent to "contingent", because necessary implies admissible, and contingent implies admissible, but admissible can imply either necessary or contingent. Aristotle always assumes that "admissible" means "contingent", and that necessary implying admissible it's only due to homonymy and can be disregarded. From book 1, chapter 13:>In the next place let us speak A Bout the contingent, when, and how, and through what propositions there will be a syllogism. But I call to be contingent, and the contingent, that which not being necessary, if it is admitted to exist, there will on this account be nothing impossible. For the necessary is said to be contingent homonymously.I picked a random translation from the internet, but it says the same as the edition I used to read the work. This has consequences for many syllogisms because that contingency connotation implies that the contradictory statement can also be true. For example: >Suppose that A belongs to no B, and B may possibly belong to no C. Through these comes nothing necessary. But if B is assumed to be possible for all C (and this is true) and if the premiss AB remains as before, we shall again have the same syllogism.He transforms "B may possibly belong to no C" to "B is possible for all C", because que always understand the admissible as contigent. "admissible" or "possible" should mean the opposite of impossible, not the opposite of necessary (contingent). This does not automatically make aristotelian logic false, but it does make the aristotelian logic a special case of a more general logic where "admissible" or "possible" are just the negation of "impossible.
>>24891572he always understands*
