Definitions of Posterior Analytics’ Demonstrations: Major or Minor Terms?
The article researches the question of whether the definitions, used in demonstrative syllogisms of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics as premises, are the definitions of major or minor terms of the syllogism. First I show that in all cases, contrary to the traditional understanding of this problem, it is the definition of major term that concerns Aristotle: all the relevant textual evidence speak in favor of that interpretation while there is no explicit evidence against it. Then, I reveal the fallacies upon which the widely held assumption that demonstration uses definitions of the minor term is based. One of those fallacies is an attempt to conceive the process of demonstration, described in Posterior Analytics, as analogous to (and perhaps based on) the process of Platonic diaeresis, which leads commentators to focus on examples of demonstration, that are inadequate to the point and at best accessory for Aristotle himself. The other main mistake is an implicit assumption that the process of demonstration of essential attribute has to reflect directly one of the types of essential connection between a subject of demonstration and an essential attribute that is being demonstrated of it, described in Posterior Analytics I.4. I show that the rejection of these two fallacious interpretational moves is not only justified, but also gives us an overall more coherent picture of the doctrine of Posterior Analytics.