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Aristotle and Łukasiewicz on Existential Import

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2015

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

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.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2015 

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