Aristotle's Topics PDF Download

Author: Paul Slomkowski
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004320997
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
This work deals with Aristotle's Topics, a textbook on how to argue successfully in a debate organised in a certain way. The origins of the three branches of logic can be found here: logic of propositions, of predicates and of relations. Having dealt with the structure of the dialectical debates and the theory of the predicables, the central notion of the topos is analysed. Topoi are principles of arguments designed to help a disputant refute his opponent and function as hypotheses in hypothetical syllogisms, the main form of argument in the Topics. Traces of the crystallization of their theory can be found in the Topics and Analytics. The author analyses a selection of topoi including those according to which categorical and relational syllogisms are constructed.

Author: Sara Rubinelli
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 140209549X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Ars Topica is the first full-length study of the nature and development of topoi, the conceptual ancestors of modern argument schemes, between Aristotle and Cicero. Aristotle and Cicero configured topoi in a way that influenced the subsequent tradition. Their work on the topos-system grew out of an interest in creating a theory of argumentation which could stand between the rigour of formal logic and the emotive potential of rhetoric. This system went through a series of developments and transformations resulting from the interplay between the separate aims of gaining rhetorical effectiveness and of maintaining dialectical standards. Ars Topica presents a comprehensive treatment of Aristotle’s and Cicero’s methods of topoi and, by exploring their relationship, it illuminates an area of ancient rhetoric and logic which has been obscured for more than two thousand years. Through an interpretation which is philologically rooted in the historical context of topoi, the book lays the ground for evaluating the relevance of the classical approaches to modern research on arguments, and at the same time provides an introduction to Greek and Roman theory of argumentation focussed on its most important theoretical achievements.

Author: Johannes M.Van Ophuijsen
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1780938721
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Aristotle's Topics is about dialectic, which can be understood as a debate between two people or the inner debate of one thinker with himself. Its purposes range from philosophical training to discovering the first principles of thought. Its arguments concern the four predicables (definition, property, genus and accident). Aristotle explains how these four fit into his ten categories, and in Book 1 begins to outline strategies for debate, such as the definition of ambiguity. Alexander's commentary on Book 1 discusses how to define Aristotelian syllogistic argument, why it stands up against the rival Stoic theory of interference, and what is the character of inductive interference and of rhetorical argument. He distinguishes inseparable accidents such as the whiteness of snow from defining differentiae such as its being frozen, and considers how these fit into the scheme of categories. He speaks of dialectic as a stochastic discipline in which success is to be judged not by victory but by skill in argument, a view parallel to that sometimes taken in antiquity of medical practice. And he investigates the subject of ambiguity which had also been richly developed since Aristotle by the rival Stoic school.

Author:
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791498174
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Charles E. Butterworth provides a bilingual edition (Arabic and English) of several of this influential twelfth-century philosopher's greatest works.

Author: Christian Pfeiffer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191085308
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Christian Pfeiffer explores an important, but neglected topic in Aristotle's theoretical philosophy: the theory of bodies. A body is a three-dimensionally extended and continuous magnitude bounded by surfaces. This notion is distinct from the notion of a perceptible or physical substance. Substances have bodies, that is to say, they are extended, their parts are continuous with each other and they have boundaries, which demarcate them from their surroundings. Pfeiffer argues that body, thus understood, has a pivotal role in Aristotle's natural philosophy. A theory of body is a presupposed in, e.g., Aristotle's account of the infinite, place, or action and passion, because their being bodies explains why things have a location or how they can act upon each other. The notion of body can be ranked among the central concepts for natural science which are discussed in Physics III-IV. The book is the first comprehensive and rigorous account of the features substances have in virtue of being bodies. It provides an analysis of the concept of three-dimensional magnitude and related notions like boundary, extension, contact, continuity, often comparing it to modern conceptions of it. Both the structural features and the ontological status of body is discussed. This makes it significant for scholars working on contemporary metaphysics and mereology because the concept of a material object is intimately tied to its spatial or topological properties.

Author: Boethius
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501738445
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
In Ciceronis Topica and De topicis differentiis are Boethius's two treatises on Topics (loci). Together these two works present Boethius's theory of the art of discovering arguments, a theory that was highly influential in the history of medieval logic.

Author: Marta Spranzi
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027218897
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
This book reconstructs the tradition of dialectic from Aristotle's "Topics," its founding text, up to its "renaissance" in 16th century Italy, and focuses on the role of dialectic in the production of knowledge. Aristotle defines dialectic as a structured exchange of questions and answers and thus links it to dialogue and disputation, while Cicero develops a mildly skeptical version of dialectic, identifies it with reasoning "in utramque partem" and connects it closely to rhetoric. These two interpretations constitute the backbone of the living tradition of dialectic and are variously developed in the Renaissance against the Medieval background. The book scrutinizes three separate contexts in which these developments occur: Rudolph Agricola's attempt to develop a new dialectic in close connection with rhetoric, Agostino Nifo's thoroughly Aristotelian approach and its use of the newly translated commentaries of Alexander of Aphrodisias and Averroes, and Carlo Sigonio's literary theory of the dialogue form, which is centered around Aristotle's "Topics." Today, Aristotelian dialectic enjoys a new life within argumentation theory: the final chapter of the book briefly revisits these contemporary developments and draws some general epistemological conclusions linking the tradition of dialectic to a fallibilist view of knowledge.

Author: Paul Slomkowski
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9789004107571
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
This work provides some interesting new results on the notion of the topos and the theory of hypothetical syllogisms in Aristotle based on an incisive interpretation of Aristotle's "Topics" and certain passages of the "Analytics."

Author: Aristotle
Publisher: Aeterna Press
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
The Topics constitutes Aristotle’s treatise on the art of dialectic—the invention and discovery of arguments in which the propositions rest upon commonly held opinions or endoxa (?????? in Greek).Topoi (?????) are “places” from which such arguments can be discovered or invented. Aeterna Press

Author: Marko Malink
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674727541
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Aristotle was the founder not only of logic but also of modal logic. In the Prior Analytics he developed a complex system of modal syllogistic which, while influential, has been disputed since antiquity—and is today widely regarded as incoherent. In this meticulously argued new study, Marko Malink presents a major reinterpretation of Aristotle’s modal syllogistic. Combining analytic rigor with keen sensitivity to historical context, he makes clear that the modal syllogistic forms a consistent, integrated system of logic, one that is closely related to other areas of Aristotle’s philosophy. Aristotle’s modal syllogistic differs significantly from modern modal logic. Malink considers the key to understanding the Aristotelian version to be the notion of predication discussed in the Topics—specifically, its theory of predicables (definition, genus, differentia, proprium, and accident) and the ten categories (substance, quantity, quality, and so on). The predicables introduce a distinction between essential and nonessential predication. In contrast, the categories distinguish between substantial and nonsubstantial predication. Malink builds on these insights in developing a semantics for Aristotle’s modal propositions, one that verifies the ancient philosopher’s claims of the validity and invalidity of modal inferences. Malink recognizes some limitations of this reconstruction, acknowledging that his proof of syllogistic consistency depends on introducing certain complexities that Aristotle could not have predicted. Nonetheless, Aristotle’s Modal Syllogistic brims with bold ideas, richly supported by close readings of the Greek texts, and offers a fresh perspective on the origins of modal logic.