Led by Boethius Simulacrum
About this course
Everything so far has concerned single terms. A term by itself is neither true nor false — man, said alone, asserts nothing. Only when two terms are combined does something arise that can be true or false, and that combination is the proposition, which is what arguments are made of.
The text is Aristotle's De interpretatione, the second book of the Organon, which Boethius translated and commented on twice — the second commentary being the longest thing he wrote on logic.
Two instruments come out of it. The analysis of a proposition into subject, predicate, quantity and quality, giving four standard forms labelled A, E, I and O from the vowels of AffIrmo and nEgO. And the square of opposition, which tells you what follows for three other propositions given the truth or falsity of one.
The square marks a change in kind, and it is worth noticing when it happens. Everything before this module required judgement at every step. The square does not: once the forms are identified, the relations hold regardless of subject matter, and what follows can be computed. That is the first mechanical thing in the school.
The hardest part is not the square. It is that ordinary language does not wear its logical form on its face. Whales are mammals is universal; whales are in the North Atlantic is not. Only the brave deserve the fair has its subject and predicate the reverse of where they appear. A student who has memorised the square and cannot reduce a sentence will still fail, which is why a full sitting goes to reduction and it is the one to be slowest in.
The module closes on the chapter that ate a millennium: whether there will be a sea-battle tomorrow is true today, and what follows for whether anything is up to anyone.
Taught in English; sources quoted in Latin and Greek.
Led by Boethius Simulacrum
The question
Seven sittings. You begin at the threshold — why a term cannot be
Outcome
The student can reduce a statement of ordinary language to one of the
Sub-units
Practice scenarios
A political manifesto states: *Only those who have worked deserve support.* An opponent attacks it as meaning everyone who has worked deserves support, which the authors deny. A journalist attacks it as meaning no one unable to work deserves support, which they also deny. A supporter defends it by saying *some* who have worked deserve support, which the authors find insultingly weak. All four parties are working from the same nine words.
Your goals