Aristotle was the first and one of the greatest logicians. He not only devised the first system of formal logic, but also raised many fundamental problems in the philosophy of logic. In this book, Dr Lear shows how Aristotle's discussion of logical consequence, validity and proof can contribute to contemporary debates in the philosophy of logic. No background knowledge of Aristotle is assumed.

A text that would find a place for the realistic formalism of Aristotle, the scientific penetration of Peirce, the pedagogical soundness of Dewey, and the ...

Aristotle founds his modal syllogistic, like his plain syllogistic, on a small set of ?perfect? or obviously valid sylligisms. The rest he reduces to those, usually by means of modal conversion principles. These principles are open to more than one reading, however, and they are in fact invalid on one traditional reading (de re), valid on the other (de dicto). It is argued here that this way of framing the contrast is not Aristotelian, and that an interpretation involving modal copulae (...) allows us to see how these principles, and the modal system as a whole, are to be understood in light of close and precise connections to Aristotle's essentialist metaphysics. (shrink)

This book traces the development of formal logic from its origins inancient Greece to the present day. The authors first discuss the work oflogicians from Aristotle to Frege, showing how they were influenced by thephilosophical or mathematical ideas of their time. They then examinedevelopments in the present century.