Aristotle’s Syllogistic: by Lynn E. Rose (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 775 influence of Plato's Phaedo upon the author of The Apple, the history of the latter's origin and tradition, and the manuscript tradition of the Latin version of The Apple, are well presented. Working in an area in which modern scholarship has yielded a betterdeveloped order of historical data and making use of the critical edition of the opusculum as produced by L. W. Keeler, S. J., Dr. Zedler has made a very good translation of the Aquinas defense of the coherent Aristotelian psychology concerning the mind against the Averroists at the University of Paris during the late Hl60's and early 1£70's. Her summaries of the history previous to and contemporaneous with the dispute about the unity of the mind (as well as her choice of excellent references in this regard) , immediate facts relevant to the Aquinas treatise and its relationship with writings of Siger of Brabant, and the content and structure of this treatise, represent a splendid accomplishment. Dominican House of Studies Washington, D. C. F. c. LEHNER, 0. P. Aristotle's Syllogistic: By LYNN E. RosE. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas Publishers, 1968. Pp. 149. It is no secret among logicians that Aristotle's theory of the syllogism has been the subject of much controversy for centuries. During these confrontations the Peripatetic has received many criticisms as well as many encomia for his pioneering efforts in the sphere of formal logic. In light of these varied representations of Aristotle's Syllogistic the author of this book purposes to correct once and for all some of these old and gross misunderstandings. By offering this amalgam of essays on the essential elements of syllogistic reasoning Dr. Rose hopes to "exonerate" Aristotle's theory. Using the Prior Analytics almost exclusively, his main thesis is that the only genuine way to view the syllogism is " as a linear array of three terms." With mostly probable arguments the author attempts in scholarly fashion to establish this position and then to explore its many consequences in deductive logic. In general this book is composed of two parts: (I) the arguments themselves (pp. 3-97), and (£) the appendices (pp. 99-143). The first part is made up of ten chapters of uneven length, ranging from three pages e. g., chaps. II, V, VII) to twenty-two pages (e. g., chap. VIII) and arranged in no special order. The six appendices are quite similar, as to their arrangement and length, the longest being a most interesting study of "Theophrastus and the Indirect Moods." (pp. 109-132) 776 BOOK REVIEWS In the early chapters Dr. Rose sees the Peripatetic's theory of the ~yllogism principally as a natural result of an evolutionary process of " premise sets " from Plato's theories about division and recollection. As long as Rose realizes that " division " was a very remote stepping-stone to the demonstration that Aristotle talks about in the Analytics, these chapters are of some value in his project. In the next few chapters (pp. 16-52) the author attempts to do three things but not always with equal success: (1) to explain why the syllogistic as conceived by Aristotle is exclusively a three-figured structure (chap. 8); (2) to show why logical " rules " are superfluous in the syllogistic in light of his earlier discussion about the sufficiency of "premise sets" in any argument (chap. 4); and (8) to emphasize the importance of the " reduction " technique in the axiomatization of Aristotle's formal logic. Of the subsequent chapters the best done are the most controversial ones on the " Counter Example Technique in Invalidation" (Chap. 6) and "The Fourth Figure and the Indirect First" (Chap. 8). However, we would heartily disagree that " counter examples would be perfectly appropriate as bases for a system of logic" (p. 51); nor is his rather dogmatic interpretation of the Aristotelian technique of " reduction " satisfactory in light of his lack of concern about the act of consequence in the syllogistic. Finally, of the half dozen or so typographical errors (e. g., pp. 8, 59, 89, 106, 116, and 188), only those on pp. 89, footnote 27 (consequence should have read consequent ), and p. 106, line 4, were serious. To...