AccScience Publishing / BIJP / Volume 11 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.18491/beytulhikme.1679
Cite this article
1
Download
45
Views
Related Info Links
More by Authors Links
Journal Browser
Volume | Year
Issue
Search
News and Announcements
View All
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Existential Import in Aristotelian Logic

Samet Büyükada1
Show Less
1 İstanbul Medeniyet Üniversitesi, Edebiyat Fakültesi, Felsefe Bölümü 34700, İstanbul , Turkey
BIJP 2021, 11(2), 589–605; https://doi.org/10.18491/beytulhikme.1679
Received: 27 November 2020 | Published online: 4 May 2021
© 2021 by the Authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
Abstract

We will discuss how to determine the truth value of categorical propositions in Aristotelian logic, where, our focus is on the existential import in categorical propositions in this article. A proposition is accepted to have existential import, provided that the truth of this proposition requires a belief in the existence of members of the subject class. The fact that, the correspondence of the proposition, in reality, is related to the existence of terms in the proposition raises the question of which propositions need an existential assumption to be true in traditional logic. The existential import in Aristotelian logic has been severely criticized on two issues: (i) How to determine the truth value of propositions when non-referential terms are the subject of the proposition? (ii) Is the contradiction between the categorical propositions partaking the square of opposition reliable? By considering these two questions, we will examine whether categorical propositions containing existential import cause inconsistency or not in Aristotelian logic.

Keywords
Existential import
traditional logic
categorical propositions
non-referring terms
Aristotle.
References
  1. Aristotle (1960). Posterior Analytics & Topica. (Trans. H. Tredennick & E. S. Forster). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
  2. Aristotle (1963). Aristotle’s Categories and De Interpretatione. (Trans. J. L. Ackrill). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  3. Aristotle (2009). Prior Analytics Book I. (Trans. G. Striker). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  4. Bäck, A. (2000). Aristotle's Theory of Predication. Leiden: Brill.
  5. Geach, P. (1950). Subject and Predicate. Mind, 59, 461-482.
  6. Jacobs, W. (1979). Aristotle and Nonreferring Subjects. Phronesis, 24, 282-300.
  7. Lukasiewicz, J. (1957). Aristotle’s Syllogistic. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  8. Mignucci, M. (2007). Aristotle on the Existential Import of Propositions. Phronesis, 52 (2), 121-138.
Share
Back to top
Beytulhikme An International Journal of Philosophy, Print ISSN: 1303-8303, Published by AccScience Publishing