Commentary on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics

by Thomas Aquinas, Richard Berquist (Translator), Ralph McInerny (Preface by)

Overview

The Posterior Analytics is the summit of Aristotle's achievement in logic. It investigates the logical requirements for the most perfect of arguments, the demonstration, which proves a necessary conclusion from necessary premises. In his commentary on this treatise, Thomas Aquinas gives us perceptive interpretations of Aristotle's very concise and difficult text, together with illuminating explanations of the structure of the work as a whole and of the order of its parts. This new translation, based on the Leonine Commission's 1989 edition, seeks to render Aquinas's text faithfully in contemporary English. It includes a careful translation of the Latin text of Aristotle on which the commentary was based, with footnotes on passages where it differs from the Greek.

To make the work as useful as possible for contemporary readers, the translator has provided an introduction and a supplementary commentary of his own. The introduction discusses three topics of fundamental importance for the study of the Posterior Analytics today: the relationship of Aristotle's logic to symbolic logic, the scope and subject matter of logic, and the status of the syllogism as an argument form. The supplementary commentary invites the reader to further reflection on the Posterior Analytics in the light of Aquinas's interpretation. Aquinas's commentary is divided into readings or lessons (lectiones), forty-four on Book I of the Posterior Analytics and twenty on Book II. The translator's supplementary commentary follows the same arrangement. The work includes footnotes, a brief bibliography of works cited, an index, and a preface by Ralph McInerny.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781883357788
Publisher:	St. Augustine's Press
Publication date:	01/10/2008
Series:	Aristotelian Commentaries Ser.
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	535,492
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)

Table of Contents

Dedication     ix
Acknowledgments     x
Preface   Ralph McInerny     xi
Introduction     xiii
Note on the Translation     xxix
Aquinas's Division of the Text of the Posterior Analytics     xxxi
Aquinas's Commentary on the Posterior Analytics
Prooemium     1
The Need for Demonstration
Dependence of Learning on Pre-existent Knowledge     4
The Pre-existent Knowledge Required for Demonstration     6
How the Conclusion Is Foreknown     11
The Definition of the Why-Demonstration
Definition of the Why-Demonstration     15
Immediate Principles: Axioms and Suppositions     23
Principles Better Known than the Conclusion     27
Immediate Principles Not Demonstrable     30
Impossibility of Circular Demonstration     33
The Premises of the Why-Demonstration
Meaning of "Predicated of All"     39
The Modes of Per Se     42
The Commensurately Universal     47
Errors regarding the Commensurately Universal     50
Principles of Demonstration as Necessary     57
Principles of Demonstration as Per Se     64
Demonstrations Not from Extrinsic Principles     67
Demonstrations andDefinitions as Eternal     72
Demonstrations Not from Common Principles     76
Principles and Non-principles-Common and Proper Principles     80
Distinctions among Common Principles     85
Use of Common Principles     89
Questions and Arguments Proper to Each Science     94
Deceptions Proper to Each Science-Deceptions Not Found in the Sciences     97
The Premises of the Fact-Demonstration
Fact-Demonstrations from Effect to Cause     104
Fact-Demonstrations from Remote Cause     108
Fact-Demonstrations in the Subalternated Sciences     111
The Form of the Demonstration
Superiority of the First Figure-Immediate Negative Propositions     115
Falsity and Ignorance in the Demonstrative Sciences
False Syllogisms Opposed to True Immediate Negative Propositions     120
False Syllogisms Opposed to True Immediate Affirmative Propositions     126
False Syllogisms Opposed to True Mediate Propositions     131
Sense Knowledge Required for Demonstration     137
The Impossibility of Demonstrations Proceeding Infinitely
Questions about Whether Demonstrations Come to an End     140
Questions Reduced to the Question About Affirmative Demonstrations     146
Presuppositions for the Logical Proof that Demonstrations Come to an End      152
The Logical Proof that Demonstrations Come to an End     158
The Analytic Proof that Demonstrations Come to an End     165
Corollaries of the Proofs that Demonstrations Come to an End     170
Comparison of Demonstrations
Arguments for the Superiority of Particular Demonstrations     178
Universal Demonstrations Superior to Particular Demonstrations     184
Affirmative Demonstrations Superior to Negative Demonstrations     189
Negative Demonstrations Superior to Demonstrations to the Impossible     194
Comparison of Sciences to Each Other and to Other Forms of Knowledge
Certitude of Sciences-Unity and Diversity of Sciences     198
Science in Relation to Chance Events and to Sense Knowledge     206
Principles Not the Same for All Sciences     212
Science and Opinion-Quickness of Mind     220
The Middle Term: Definition and Cause
The Four Questions and Their Relation to the Middle Term     229
Opposing Arguments on the Relation of Definition and What a Thing is to Demonstration
Definition and Demonstration Not of the Same Thing     238
Impossibility of Proving What a Thing Is by Convertible Terms     244
Impossibility of Proving What a Thing Is by Divisions     249
Impossibility of Proving What a Thing Is by Supposition      254
Impossibility of Knowing What a Thing Is by Demonstration or by Definition     259
How Definition and What a Thing is Are Related to Demonstration
Showing What a Thing Is by Logical Syllogism and by Demonstration     264
Different Kinds of Definition in Relation to Demonstration     271
Demonstration and the Causes
Demonstrations through the Four Causes     277
Demonstrations When Cause and Effect Are Simultaneous or Not Simultaneous     285
Continuity in Demonstrations from Non-simultaneous Causes     291
Demonstrations for Circular Processes and for Things Which Come to Be for the Most Part     296
Searching for Definitions
Predicates Signifying What a Thing Is     300
Seeking Definitions by the Method of Division     305
Replies to Objections-Rules for the Method of Division     310
Seeking Definitions by the Method of Similarities     315
Searching for Causes
Seeking the Cause of Common Characteristics     319
How Cause and Effect Are Not Always Convertible     323
How One Effect Can Have More than One Cause     328
The First Principles
How the First Principles Come to Be Known     335
Translator's Commentary     343
References     471
Index     473