Foundations of Mathematics

Foundations and Logic

What erroneous logic statement is often attributed to Aristotle?

It’s interesting to note that the classical syllogism is, “All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal.” But in reality, this is wrong, and is actually called a Peripatetic syllogism, a form not used by Aristotle. In fact, in Aristotelian logic, there are no singular terms. A more apt statement of Aristotelian logic would be “If all men are mortal, and all Greeks are men, then all Greeks are mortal.” To break part of this sentence down, in “All Greeks are men,” the “Greeks” is the subject, and the “men” is the predicate.



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