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Aristotle and Łukasiewicz on Existential Import

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2015

STEPHEN READ
STEPHEN READ*
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS slr@st-andrews.ac.uk
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Abstract:

Jan Łukasiewicz's treatise on Aristotle's Syllogistic, published in the 1950s, has been very influential in framing the contemporary understanding of Aristotle's logical systems. However, Łukasiewicz's interpretation is based on a number of tendentious claims, not least, on the claim that the syllogistic was intended to apply only to nonempty terms. I show that this interpretation is not true to Aristotle's text and that a more coherent and faithful interpretation admits empty terms while maintaining all the relations of the traditional square of opposition.

Keywords

empty termssyllogismnegationsquare of opposition
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , Fall 2015 , pp. 535 - 544
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2015 

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