Ever Heard of Aristotle's Organon?

Post Reply
User avatar
Royal
Posts: 10562
Joined: Mon Apr 11, 2011 5:55 pm

Ever Heard of Aristotle's Organon?

Post by Royal » Wed Feb 29, 2012 9:02 am

Why not? It's considered one of mankind's greatest achievements.

The goal of the Organon is not to tell the readers what's true, but rather to give approaches for how to investigate truth and how to make sense of the world. The primary tool is Aristotle's tool kit is the syllogism, a three-step argument, such as "All woman are mortal; Cleopatra is a woman; therefore, Cleopatra is mortal." If the two premises are true, we know that the conclusion must be true. Aristotle also made a distinction between particulars and universals (general categories). Cleopatra is a particular term. Woman and mortal are universal terms. When universals are used, they are preceded by "all," "some", or "no". Aristotle analyzed many possible kinds of syllogisms and showed which of them are valid. Aristotle also extended his analysis to syllogisms that involved modal logic - that is, statements containing the words "possibly" or "necessarily".
Racists, bible thumpers, and doomtards take note. :roll:

Post Reply