Acessibilidade / Reportar erro
Articles • Manuscrito 42 (4) • Oct-Dec 2019 • https://doi.org/10.1590/0100-6045.2019.V42N4.JK   copy

SYLLOGISMS AND EXISTENCE IN ARISTOTLE’S POSTERIOR ANALYTICS* * I would like to thank the editors, Lucas Angioni and Breno Zuppolini, for their invitation to submit this paper and their encouraging—and very helpful—comments on it. An earlier version of the paper was presented at a conference at the Universidade Federal de Uberlândia on method and epistemology in Aristotle. I thank the conference organizer, Fernando Mendonça, and the other participants for their penetrating questions and observations. Jim Lennox also provided insightful comments on this paper. This project has also benefitted, albeit indirectly, from discussion with David Charles, Alan Code, David Ebrey, Dorothea Frede, Jessica Gelber, and Joel Yurdin about an unpublished ancestor of this paper.

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Abstract

In this paper I examine how Aristotle thinks syllogisms establish existence. I argue against the traditional "Instantiation" reading and in favor of an alternative "causal" or "structural" account of existential syllogisms. On my interpretation, syllogisms establish the existence of kinds by revealing that they are per se unities whose features are causally underwritten by a single cause/essence. They do so by tracing correlations between propria--peculiar, coextensive features--of the kind in question.

Keywords:
Aristotle; Existence; Syllogism; Kinds

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