What terms are susceptible of syllogistic operations? For important interpreters of Aristotelian logic - especially Ross, Lukasiewicz and Patzig - the answer tends to introduce a single and homogeneous group of terms, those of intermediate generality (τὰµεταξὺ). Mostly based on the tripartite classification of beings which appears in Chapter 27 of Prior Analytics I, this view attributes to syllogistic the exclusion of proper names and singular designations (such as "Socrates" and "this man"), transcategoricals (such as "being" and "one"), as well as of the so-called summa genera ("substance", "quality", "quantity", etc.). In our opinion, these results are not derived from the writings of Aristotle, but from improper readings, translations and interpretations of the central passages for the discussion. In this paper, we will make a further examination of these texts in order to show that Aristotle has never departed from his logic the types of terms that interpreters do not hesitate to exclude from syllogistic. Thereby, we hope to bring back singular terms, transcategoricals and summa genera to the operation domain of the Aristotelian syllogistic.
Aristotle; Syllogistic; Singular Terms; Transcategoricals; Summa Genera