In Posterior Analytics 71b9 12, we find Aristotle’s definition of scientific knowledge. The definiens is taken to have only two informative parts: scientific knowledge must be knowledge of the cause and its object must be necessary. However, there is also a contrast between the definiendum and a sophistic way of knowing, which is marked by the expression “kata sumbebekos”. Not much attention has been paid to this contrast. In this paper, I discuss Aristotle’s definition paying due attention to this contrast (...) and to the way it interacts with the two conditions presented in the definiens. I claim that the “necessity” condition ammounts to explanatory appropriateness of the cause. (shrink)

Most interpretations of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics believe that the term ‘ameson’ is used to describe the principles or foundations of a given system of justification or explanation as epistemically prior to or more fundamental than the other propositions in the system. Epistemic readings (as I shall call them) arguably constitute a majority in the secondary literature. This predominant view has been challenged by Robin Smith (1986) and Michael Ferejohn (1994; 2013), who propose interpretations that should be classified as non-epistemic according (...) to the definition above. My aim in this article is purely negative. I intend to show that these non-epistemic interpretations are liable to serious objections and are in conflict with some important features of Aristotle’s theory of demonstration. (shrink)

In Prior Analytics 1.15, Aristotle attempts to give a proof through the impossible of Barbara, Celarent, Darii, and Ferio with an assertoric first premiss, a contingent second premiss, and a possible conclusion. These proofs have been controversial since antiquity. I shall show that they are valid, and that Aristotle is able to explain them by relying on two meta-syllogistic lemmas on the nature of possibility interpreted as syntactic consistency. It will turn out that Aristotle's proofs are not of the intended (...) schemata. I shall investigate some of the results that the impact of this reconstruction on the modal syllogistic has: the relationship between Aristotle's syllogistic and the logics of relevance; the value of Aristotle's requirement that universal affirmative propositions be taken ‘absolutely’; the destruction of many Aristotelian proofs; the recovery of certain principles of modal opposition from a charge of inconsistency. (shrink)