L'Argomentazione dimostrativa in Aristotele. Commento agli Analitici Secondi. Volume I (review)

Book Reviews L'Argomentazione dimostrativa in Aristotele. Commento age Analitici Secondi. Volume I. By Mario Mignucci. (Padova: Editrice Antenore, 1975. Pp. x+722. Paper) This is the first volume of a detailed commentary on the Greek text of the Posterior Analytics . It treats Book I, section by section, and provides an index of authors cited, ancient and modern. There are extensive references to the opinions and emendations of editors and commentators such as Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, Philoponus, Zabarella, Pacius, Tricot, Ross, and Tredennick. A second volume is promised, which will "oltre al commento del second libro contiene uno studio conclusivo." Presumably that study will amplify the author's earlier La Teoria Aristotelica della Scienze (Firenze: Sansoni, 1965). Mignucci promises to "interpretare Aristotele con Aristotele" and makes a valiant effort to use the terminology of the Philosopher rather than that of the Schools. He has profited from the work of Lukasiewicz, Bochenski, Patzig, and Margaret Kneale and uses their discussions to free himself from the Boethian tradition in logic. It is, therefore, somewhat ungrateful of him to charge others with an epistemological treatment of Aristotle's logic inasmuch as Mignucci relapses from time to time into talk of "validita" (p. 122). (Remember that Aristotle's terminology is of whether or not pairs of propositions generate a syllogism, not whether a syllogism is valid or not.) In spite of the claim that Aristotle's logic cannot be treated independently of his metaphysics, there is no discussion of Kneale's proposal (The Development of Logic [Oxford, 1962], pp. 54-66) that to do this will avoid difficulties in finding any consistent interpretation of Aristotle's theory of statements. Mignucci uses different twentieth-centurysymbolismsfrom time to time in his commentary. For the most part, he uses "a," "e," "i," "o," but, as Patzig does, in the converse sense from that in which they are used by J. N. Keynes and Bochenski. As a result, in this commentary "A a B" stands for "A si predica di ogni B" (A is predicated of every B) rather than for "Every A is B"; and similarly with the other relation letters. The use of that notation has a defect in that it does not permit, any more than its converse does, the representation of propositions with singular or indefinite subjects. For such propositions Mignucci shifts, with a bow to Quine's Italian Manuale di Logica (Milano, 1972), to "una notazione piu consueta" (p. 225), the lower functional calculus, and writes "Jw" (p. 313). In his earlier study mentioned above, Mignucci uses only one piece of special symbolism, an arrow to represent the Greek "hyparchein." He does not use it in this work. Perhaps he shied off the arrow because of the confusion (which he warned against) with the arrow so often used to symbolize implication or conditionality. The reviewer expresses hope that future investigators will use some symbol for "hyparchein" with additional ones for signs of quantity and quality. Such reveals more of the fine grain of Aristotle's discussions, for example, those in the Posterior Analytics of the explanation of the moon being eclipsed. In unpublished manuscripts the reviewer uses "y" so that (1) "'A belongs to every B'" is symbolized as "A y p B," (2) "A belongs to some B" as "A y t B," (3) "A belongs to no B" as "A y m B," and (4) "B is predicated of Callias" as "B y Callias." If wanted, "A a B" and so on can be defined in terms of these. He recommends the notation to others. In conclusion, the reviewer expresses the hope that Mignucci continue his researches which have opened many doors. It is gratifying to have a detailed discussion that works from the Greek text. An investigator into Aristotle's logic can do little of value without that, whatever twentieth-century methods he may make use of. WILLIAM H. HAY University of Wisconsin, Madison ...