translaled bV Robin Smith Prior Analytics ARISTOTLE Prior Analytics translated, with introduction, notes, and commentary, by Robin Smith Hackett Publishing Company Indianapolis I Cambridge Aristotle: 384 - 322 B.c. Copyright© 1989 by Robin Smith All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Cover and interior design by L. Daniel Kirklin For further information, please address the publisher Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. P.O. Box 44937 Indianapolis, Indiana 46204 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Aristotle. [Prior analytics. English] Prior analytics I Aristotle ; translated, with introduction, notes, and commentary by Robin Smith. p. em. Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0-87220-064-7 1. Logic-Early works to 1800. I. Title. B440.ASS65 1989 160 - dc19 88-39877 CIP The paper used in this publication meets the minimum re­ quirements of American National Standard fo r Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper fo r Printed Library Materials, ANSI 239.48-1984. Contents Preface Vll Introduction Xlll Prior Analytics Book A 1 Book B 65 Notes to Book A 105 Notes to Book B 183 Appendix I A List of the Deductive Forms in PriorAnalytics A 4-22 229 Appendix II Deviations from Ross's (OCT) Text 236 Glossary 239 Bibliography 24 4 Index Locorum 249 General Index 252 In Memoriam Charles Allen Carson 1928-1989 PREFACE No other treatise on fo rmal logic is comparable to Aristotle's Prior Analytics. This is true in the first place because no other logician oc­ cupies a position in history at all comparable to Aristotle. He was not only the first fo rmal logician, he was also one of the greatest: the most compelling evidence for this assessment is his startling appearance on the stage of history, with no real predecessor. But historical accident has added much to the importance of the Prior Analytics. For many generations, Aristotelian logic (or at least what passed fo r Aristotelian logic) was identically logic: thus, Kant could say, in the Critique of Pure Reason, that the entire field of logic had not made a single advance since Aristotle's great treatise. Few would concur in such an opinion today, but the effect of the PriorAnal ytics in fo rming our philosophical heritage is difficult to exaggerate. At the same time, it might be argued that the work has little philo­ sophical interest today. During the last century, fo rmal logic has reached extremely high levels of technical sophistication, and philo­ sophical discussion of its underlying concepts has advanced commen­ surately. As a result, it might be suggested that whatever admiration we may have today for Aristotle's achievement, nevertheless he has little to teach us that we cannot learn better from our contemporaries. When we consider the effo rt that is required to study a system in many respects awkward and unfamiliar from a modern point of view, the difficulties occasioned by Aristotle's ignorance of much of what we have since learned about deductive systems, and the many problems of interpretation which arise with any work produced in another language and in another culture at a distance of over two millennia, the Prior Analytics may seem to be of value only to the philosophical antiquary. I do not think this is a fa ir assessment. In part, I would respond with the same defense many historians of philosophy give for the practice of their craft: Aristotle is a major part of our philosophical ancestry, and we come to understand ourselves better by studying our ideal origins. In larger part, however, I would suggest that we still may have some­ thing to learn from this old Greek. If he is ignorant of our vast body of VII VIII PREFACE metalogic, he is also unencumbered by our many newly-born preju­ dices. Sometimes, we find his approach to a question, once we come to understand it in our own terms, is a fresh one: occasionally, he might even be right. The proof, of course, must be in the experiencing. The Translation. Tra nslation is almost by nature arrogant: the trans­ lator acts as a kind of impersonator of the author, and the reader has no good means of defense against a fa lse representation. In the case of a work like the Prior Analytics, there is a temptation to even fu rther arrogance. Aristotle's Greek is frequently clipped, difficult of con­ struction, awkward, ambiguous, or obscure. The translator is sorely tempted to give him a hand in coming across better in English: to resolve the ambiguities, clean up the messy constructions, fill out what is abbreviated (or even absent), smooth out the awkward parts. While about it, one could also give the reader a bit of help with a few rather fu ll renderings of difficult terms or phrases, creating a text that em­ bodies a certain amount of commentary in its interstices. There are occasions when this sort of translation is appropriate, but it is not what I have aimed at. I have tried instead to give the philo­ sophically informed reader who does not know Greek a vehicle for the study of Aristotle's Prior Analytics. To that end, I have attempted to leave as much of the interpretative work as possible undone. One way to do that is to fo llow the model of Robert Grosseteste and construct a sort of fu nctional mapping of Aristotle's Greek into English (or rather into a barbarous sort of construction made of English words). But this, I believe, is in many cases just not to translate at all. The Greekless reader, presented with such a subliteral string of English vocabulary, is often prompted to ask: We ll, whatever could that mean? What I have tried to do instead is to strike a compromise. The English of my translation is intended to be English, though I have sought to avoid making it more elegant than Aristotle's Greek. When Aristotle is hard to construe, I have undertaken to translate him with difficult English. However, I have made intelligibility take precedence over the goal of reproducing the character of Aristotle's Greek in English, something which probably cannot be done. When alternative interpretations of the text are possible, I have, of course, chosen the one I find most likely (though in some fo rtunate cases, I have been able to reproduce an ambiguity of Greek syntax in English); however, in the Notes I alert the reader to those possibilities which I have PREFACE IX closed off in the translation itself. When a certain translation of a technical term is well-established, I have more often than not opted fo r it, even though these traditional renderings are sometimes less than optimal, simply to make my version useful: readers must other­ wise have a glossary converting my renderings into the established ones in order to make sense of the secondary literature. I have, however, avoided one unnecessary barbarism: I usually translate huparch eipanti as 'belongs to every' rather than 'belongs to all' (which, in the present sense, has no English use outside discussions of the syllogistic: see Geach 1972, 69). The Text. The translation is generally based on Ross's text; varia­ tions from his readings, where they are important, are discussed in the Notes (a list of variations from Ross is given as Appendix II). In virtually every such case, my diffe rences with Ross lean towards edi­ torial conservatism: I have tried to find a coherent sense fo r the best­ attested reading, and I have taken the position that Aristotle some­ times nods. I retain the traditional division into Chapters, which (though completely without ancient authority) is a convenient and generally reasonable way of subdividing the text. Line references in the margin are to the standard edition (Bekker). Square brackets en­ close passages which, although well-attested in the manuscripts, nev­ ertheless seem to be spurious. I use angle brackets to mark both editorial additions to Aristotle's text (i.e., corrections to the manu­ scripts) and interpretative additions to the translation. The Notes. The Notes are not intended as a comprehensive com­ mentary, but rather as an aid to the reader with more knowledge of logic and philosophy than of Greek. My goal has been to provide others with a PriorAnal ytics that can actually be used for serious study. Accordingly, I have tried to make clear what is controversial or prob­ lematic about the text and, to the extent possible, to get out of the reader's way. This has sometimes led me to include rather lengthy discussions of the grammatical and textual problems surrounding cer­ tain passages, which may seem odd in a work intended to be intelli­ gible to those who do not know Greek. But it is precisely fo r that sort of reader that these points require the fu llest discussion. Such a reader has no text beyond the translation and cannot see through the finished product to its often murky origins. What I have done is reconstruct X PREFACE some of the messy, even tendentious process whereby renderings come to be chosen; I hope that I have at the same time managed to undermine my own appearance of authority. I have also tried to alert the reader to difficulties in understanding the text and to give some broad picture of the range of opinion among scholars, although this is necessarily selective and omits mention of many issues. In some cases, I do not take a position myself, but in others I do: the reader is better armed against my prejudices by being informed of what they are.