Comments

  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?


    Nice points! I am going off my own reflections from here on so please take it with a grain of salt

    In a parent child relationship, you don't get anything like that.  To begin with, parents are not conditions themselves.  Parent is a societal name for someone who has a child, be it biologically had, or adopted.  One is called a parent by the society, when one has a child.

    Parent doesn't exist as some matter or physical objects or events.  It is a name given by human culture and tradition.  It is like someone is called a teacher, when he / she has some students.  There is no causal relationship in that.  It is a kind of job title, when one has a duty to do something, the society will call you under the name.
    Corvus


    I am not sure how we can claim that relationships based on culture or tradition should be considered as separate from their physical basis. Yes it is true that a parent can be either biological or through adoption, but wouldn’t we mean parent in two different senses? For example, a deadbeat father from birth and a stepfather are both parents, albeit in very different ways. The reason either of them get to have a claim to parenthood in the first place is because they do have a specific relation to a physical being which we call a child. If some small family decided someone was a parent of an imaginary child of theirs, based solely on their tradition with no physical basis to the child’s existence, we would have to either deny the true parenthood of of the person or create a third meaning of the word “parent” — because as we currently understand the word, this parent of no physical basis is definitely not actually a parent at all.

    As for the temporality aspect, I did mention it in the last part very briefly but it is a sign that causes exist eternally to some degree, that is, somewhat out of time. When Spinoza declares substance to be the cause of its modes, or Aristotle when he considers the whole to be the cause of its parts, clearly these are also cases where the “cause” in question could not possibly exist in time without the effect in question also taking shape at the same exact point in time. So we can see that, in terms of historical discussion on causes, temporality was never too much of a concern for these thinkers. Indeed, in both senses of the word, the parent doesn’t exist until the child exists, but the person who becomes the parent has an active role in helping the both of them become parent and child together, whereas the child is only passively made so through the parent. Considering this, we can imagine a situation where, in the adoptive sense, the child is the cause of the parent: that is, a child saying something along the lines of “will you be my adoptive parent and take that role within our lives?” In this case, the child can be considered the active reason why the parent is a parent. It’s worth noting that because of this, I was being very strict in my definition of parent before as “the one who gives birth to a child, regardless of their involvement in raising them.” All the same, these parents and children come about at the same exact point in time, because temporal priority isn’t necessary to logical/causal priority. But still, the birth parent must have physically existed before the birthed child right? So how can we say causes are outside of time despite seeming to rely on time for its laws? Well, it seems that logic itself is prior entirely to time, rather than vise versa. When time abides by causality, it is following laws of causality prior to it which can themselves be understood without time in consideration. That is, time relies on logic for its existence but logic does not rely on time. So when it comes to those things affected by time, that is, specifically physically rooted things, there is a temporal requirement for one physical thing to be the cause of another physical thing — such as Edith having to exist before her children. But the concept of the parent itself, as far as we can endow any reality upon it, this quite literally never existed without existing contemporaneously in time with the concept of the child. In simpler terms, if we abstract away the physicality from these concepts, we can see that they actually cannot be grasped in the same way and must be understood as entirely concurrent.

    This brings us to your last point though.

    It is difficult to see the body of parents as some physical or any type of cause here. If it has to be some causal relationship, then you must also bring the physicians who actually pulled out the child from the mother's body and the midwifes who managed the birth, as part of the cause for the child, which becomes quite blurry in the relationship i.e. who is the real cause for the child?Corvus

    This is a very good point and as a result I will expand my theory pertaining to the parent: first let us acknowledge that this circumstance is specifically considering a concrete instance of a child, not the simple and abstract concept of child, whose cause is solely the parent. What is the cause of the concrete child is quite precisely (or not precisely, depending on how you think of it): the circumstances of the entire universe as a whole. We know that every physical body is affected by every other physical body through gravity, and we also all have an intuitive sense of the butterfly effect. What should be understood as the cause of the child, is like I mentioned with Edith X and Edith X1, the particular circumstances at that very moment in time in which they were birthed. Since we have established that, as a concrete child, the parent must concretely exist first, so must the physician, the hospital, and all of the history of reality that brought everyone to that point. So considering this, it seems to be that in the concrete sense, how reality actually plays out, we have to consider every single existing thing as directly or indirectly contributing to the cause of the child, and thus no matter which concrete object you observe you should only truly be able to consider its efficient cause as the full circumstances of reality leading to its existence. We might even say that efficient cause is the sole force that pushes time itself forward. However, if we were again to consider the child as a simple concept, understood separately from everything else, then all of those concrete qualities of the particular child are gone, and so are all of those extraneous circumstances that brought about the child’s concrete richness in the first place. Considered simply, without any extra qualities, the only thing that could possibly bring about this condition of “childness” is none other than the simple parent, who similarly does not have any extra qualities besides what it has by definition and essence: the one who brings about through biological development the birth of a child. So I guess we can say that, considering all of this, efficient cause is only ever a significant observation in abstraction, and to speak correctly of it towards a concrete individual thing would be nothing other than acknowledging the circumstances of time that led to that things existence.

    What remains is whether or not abstractions exist in a significant sense. I couldn’t really gel with your points in the middle of your comment asserting parentness and childness as simply terms of culture and not physical reality. It seems if we take that route we must then go on to throw out all viability of language and further philosophy — as all words are formed out of the culture that observes their respective objects. We have to at least accept that all of these words truly do have an external tether to real things that are distinct from the rest of reality.

    Also, I got it cleared up with another commenter here that 1 cannot be the cause of 2, but specifically because a part cannot be confused as a cause :) however we can follow Aristotle and say, since the whole is the cause of the part, that 2 may very well be the cause of 1, and following this, infinity is the fullest cause of all discrete numbers!
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    Hm, I’m not sure. It seems like there really is a clear connection between the actions of the parent and the birth of the child, much more so than the examples you gave. To me it seems there are two ways we can think of it, one more concretely and the other more abstractly. In the former, Edith, a unique person (Parent Y) is the parent of Tim, another unique person (Child X). In the latter, a generic concept of parent regards itself once again as the parent of a child, a generic concept of a child that has once again come from this generic parent.

    From here, I see ways that proper causality can be asserted for both. The latter is a little easier to start with — a parent is only understood *as* a parent, when the child is actually in some way existent. Edith, who we are trying to consider as simply a parent, still lived and existed many years without being a parent to Tim. The parent in her though, did not exist until the child was born. In this way, we can say that a parent, qua parent, is universally the cause of the child, qua child, insofar as they cannot exist separate from each other. If our parent, as Edith, took another year to have a child and instead conceived Gregory (Child X1), then it doesn’t change that as simply a parent, the parent did not exist until the child was conceived, and this law held for all parents insofar as parenthood held any share of reality. Furthermore, if we *were* to go back in time and remove the circumstances that brought about the existence of the parenthood in a person, it would also necessarily and without any further steps remove the existence of childhood in the other person, probably by their complete removal of existence altogether. If we were to prevent parenthood in the first parent, and thus fully prevent parenthood as a real thing, then childhood too would be removed to the same degree. But we can see that this abstract level causality is actually eternal in some sense, because although the parent corporeally exists before the child does, as abstract concepts of parent and child they only ever come about at the same exact time, and yet the parent has a clear priority to the child that thus can’t be explained by means of time. Another way to say it is that the definition of parent has causality in its essence — it cannot itself exist without having some degree of the child in existence as well.

    In the latter, where Edith gives birth to Tim, which *does* exist over time, we can clear things up if we work from the ground up and observe Tim as an effect. Is it not true that, as a thing existing in the rational universe, Tim’s existence must have come about by result of a determinate cause? And isn’t it true that this cause must exist in some way as well? And if we consider again, Tim not as a generic child, but as Child X, it is clear that the only way his existence could be necessitated is by his conception at the very time and circumstance that he *was* conceived, in which Edith, his father, and the enveloping world are involved. To imagine Tim, not simply as a child named Tim but as *Tim concretely himself*, yet further being able to truly exist without substantial difference by means of any other circumstance, would obviously be absurd. Tim could not exist but by the very specific reality he was conceived in. And so, being necessary parts to the creation of Tim, it should be true that his parents are not simply people *named* Edith and his fathers name, but *actually are Edith as Parent Y, and the father as concretely the same person*. And thus it should be understood that it was *always the case* that if a person identical to Tim should be properly conceived, he could *only be properly conceived as coming about by the circumstances in which Edith is his mother*. And we can’t stop here, because we should also assert, though it may be obvious now, that *Edith as her concrete self could also not exist as we properly understand her, without being precisely the person who caused the creation of Tim*. So if we were to imagine an Edith who waited a year to instead birth Gregory, then although the causality parenthood itself to childhood itself doesn’t change as we previously established, the *concrete Edith as Parent Y should now be understood as Edith Y1, if she instead conceives Gregory and not Tim*. It is a substantially different Edith, if we are properly considering Edith as a concrete individual.

    But what if Edith conceives both children? Well, we would need to understand two concretely different Ediths as well. The Edith who birthed Tim is not fully identical to the one who birthed Gregory. She has different cells, a different egg, and for all we know she might even have slightly different genes than she did a year previous. If we really want to conceive of Edith as a concrete individual, as an illuminative instantiation of our investigation, we have to understand her properly as someone *in time*, and thus it is more appropriate to say that while it is Edith as Parent Y who gives birth to Tim as Child X, it is rather a slightly different Edith as Parent Y1 who gives birth to Gregory as child X1. So, just as Tim’s existence necessitated a concretely specific Edith, Gregory’s existence necessitated a concretely specific Edith *who nonetheless should be understood as some way distinct from the other concrete instantiation of Edith*. And so Tim, in every instance that we properly imagine him, comes about only from a very specific circumstance that involves Edith Y, and the same follows for Gregory with Edith Y1. We cannot understand Child X without the existence of Parent Y, but we also can’t imagine Parent Y properly without the existence of Child X. Edith, properly understood as the parent of Tim, could not follow her precise path in life *unless* Tim’s existence had nudged her path in a certain direction, and so would be a concretely different Edith without him. And the same follows for her with Gregory.

    So this is how I would establish the universality of efficient causes. I feel like most graspings of it fail to account for time properly — although it is constantly in flux, its instants seem obviously brought about by necessity of the, sometimes immediate, past. What is, is only temporarily. And what will be, will only be potentially. But what has been, will always have been, and *must* have been, for the rest of history. This is the universality hiding right under our noses in the ever-changing current of time.
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    Hi! Returning with a confusion towards this specific definition we concluded on: how does this explain efficient causes? Would the parent not be considered the efficient cause of the child? Or the craftsman an efficient cause of their works? And we know these clearly don’t fall under the stricter consideration of cause and effect, so would we say efficient cause is something different altogether?
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    Cause and effect theory is a scientific concept. If you say A caused B, then whenever there was A, then B must follow in all occasions. Here the important point is that A must produce the exact same state, entity or result or effect condition B on all occasions.Corvus

    Cool, I’ve been slowly gathering this as the thread continued, I’m surprised it took this long to get explicated. Thanks!! It really does clear up a lot
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    thanks for these references! I will totally use them to investigate further. Is one other way to put it that we should not confuse a part of a thing as a cause of it? Or should we be sure to be strict with this term “principle”?
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    fair enough, thanks for your contributions :)
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    The next question is, are there any good reasons for supposing that ontological relations do exist in the world?RussellA

    Wouldn’t gravity be a perfect example of one?
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    This may just be a spade-turning commitment on my part to viewing cause as separated in time from effect.J

    To me, causality does seem prior to time itself, as time seems entirely reliant on more basic and general ideas of order and necessity, but I understand the effort :)

    But that was why I then moved on to thoughts as causes. In a functionalist, psychological way, we can talk about thought A (viewed as a brain-event) causing thought B, even though as yet our science doesn't really know what this means. The question is, is that the same kind of "causing" that we mean when we say that "my thought of A" causes B? We want to say that thought A justifies or explains, rather than causes, thought B -- but that is to bring in the Fregean notion of a thought/proposition that can be abstracted from any given instance of its occurrence in a brain.J

    Well it seems to me we can do the same logic I employed in the last comment, no? Wouldn’t “Thought A” simply be part of a fuller composition of reality, which, when considered altogether as a whole, gives an account for why “Thought B” necessarily followed? Surely Thought A on its own can be shown to not lead to Thought B in plenty of other contexts, but in the specific context in which it *does* come about, wouldn’t Thought A then be both necessary to the existence of Thought B, as well as albeit only a piece of the fuller composition that led to this existence of Thought B? Insofar as B, as an effect, can be logically understood through *some* cause, wouldn’t we be safe to think there is some formal general consistency to the certain compositions of reality that bring about Thought B, so that in this sense Thought A is simply filling a role that other thoughts in the past have filled in also causing Thought B?

    For example, a thought about a loved one’s deceit (Thought A) might make me have a thought of hopelessness (Thought B), and this thought is likely necessarily furnished by other thoughts, perhaps about the history of my life (Thought C) in order for Thought B to be caused. But many other collections of thoughts could have led me to the same Thought B, such as a thought of getting fired (Thought F) and a thought of a dismal future (Thought G). So A+C causes B, but F+G also causes B. So in this case it would be more appropriate to understand the logical consistency between A+C and F+G as respective pairs, to see what aspects of their individual collections exist essentially as the same cause of the same effect. This consistent aspect, that we would assumably find in all other thought-complexes that lead to Thought B, could be considered the formal cause of thought B, so we may cause it Forms X+Y, where Form X is the role filled by Thoughts A and F respectively, while Form Y is the role filled by thoughts C and G.

    So to speak properly, the proper cause of Thought B into reality is the bringing together of Form X and Form Y through their instantiations, whether it be Thoughts A+C, or Thoughts F+G, and this is precisely the role that Thought A has in the cause of Thought B. Further, we can simplify this language by saying Forms X+Y together make up Form Z, which is simply the analogous Form of Thought B in all of its instantiations, and what we utilize when we understand two completely distinct thoughts as both for some reason qualifying “Thought B”
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?


    Sure, this feels like it’s clearing things up. So taking the assumption I’m making from the other commenter, if a cause necessarily leads to its effect, it makes sense how two and two necessarily lead to four, while two by itself does not necessarily lead to it at all. So the bringing together of 1 and 1 and 1 and 1 is the cause of 4, but 1, 2, 3, or any other smaller number by themselves can’t cause 4. Similarly, while a good parent has the possibility of bringing about a fair child, the good parent on their own cannot produce the child without another parent, and the specific composition of the one parent determines the necessary composition the second parent must have in order for the child to become fair? And so properly spoken, the fair child’s cause is not the one good parent, but the bringing together of that one parent with another appropriate one. This bringing together necessarily leads to a child who has a fair disposition, and so as a whole process is the cause, but not the process’ components. Does this make sense or am I talking nonsense here?
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    If 1 caused 2, then every time 1 appears immediately 2 must appear, if they have cause and effect relationship. But it doesn't. You order 1 coffee in the caffee, and you don't see 2 coffees served to you unless by mistake or confusion of the maid.Corvus

    Ok this explanation as made the most sense to me. Idk if get down with the non-reality of numbers but this part is what matters to me. As a cause, it necessary implies the existence of its effect, yes? So let’s take a person who is a parent — surely as a person they exist far before their child, and their child does not have to necessarily exist, but as a *parent*, a causal thing, it is necessarily implied that their effect exists too, which we call the “child.” Is this correct?

    So in a strict sense, would we say that a thing, in order to properly understand it as a cause, *must* have an existent effect that followed necessarily from some specific aspect of that thing, and it is precisely this specific aspect which, through its necessary bringing about of the effect, we would call the cause? I can get down with this but doesn’t it kind of restrict causality to the realm of determinism? Is there a way we can understand, for example, one person being the cause of another’s actions, but where those actions were in no way necessary to follow and largely came about from the will of that other person? Or is this just simply not a cause in our strict sense?
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?


    As the relation between 1 and 1 is contemporaneous with 1 and 1, the concept of cause is not applicable.

    Hold on, this doesn’t feel unanimously agreed upon. Aristotle speaks of a certain priority in which two things exist contemporaneous to each other yet still have a causal-effective relationship — such as the existence of a thing and an affirmation of that thing. Similarly, when Spinoza gives a causal nature to substance as substance, he does not imply that substance ever existed before its modes at large. While one mode may come and go, “modes” as a whole are inextricable from substance. And yet, for Spinoza, substance is “prior in nature” to modes and causal of them.

    Are you saying it can’t be argued through their thought that mutually contemporaneous things are causal of each other?
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    I can get why they’re not efficient causes at least, but I’m trying to grasp this in the same lens that the Aristotelian tradition considered the genus of a thing to be the cause of its species. Now, 1 is obviously no genus of 2, but is the genus in any way argued as *efficient* cause by them, or is it formal?

    And regardless of that, is it at least then established and agreed upon by most experts that a thing can be necessary for the existence for another thing, and yet not be a cause? If so, my more confused question would be what best defines a cause most generally across all types besides this criteria of necessary priority?
  • Are "cause" and "sake" in Plato's Lysis parallel to Aristotle's efficient and final causes?
    (pressed post early — reply under construction. Check back soon lol)
  • Are "cause" and "sake" in Plato's Lysis parallel to Aristotle's efficient and final causes?


    As I understand it, efficient cause is what describes the coming-to-be or creation of one distinct thing by another distinct thing. What Plato mentions as cause here would fill that role, because he is looking for what makes friendship come to be, what creates it. Since the bad or desire that is present is considered a distinct thing from the friendship, even more conveniently from the friend itself, and the bad or desire is seen to be what makes the friendship/friends come to be, then it seems to be the efficient cause. If I am misunderstanding efficient cause though I would be glad to be corrected.
  • Need a hero to help me interpret this passage by Aristotle in Prior Analytics book 2

    Hi friends, I'm back and centered in on the precise part of this commentary that discusses the part I'm confused on. This commentary does somewhat enlighten things with good examples at every step, but I'm afraid it doesn't really relieve the source of my confusion. Here is the excerpt of the relevant passages and my interpretations on each:

    7. [...] There is, however, yet another cause for which universal syllogisms infer plenty of conclusions. For from the content of the minor term you will draw a conclusion and from the content of the middle term another one, but all conclusions will be drawn in the first figure through this very figure, the first one, by means of which the first syllogism also comes about. Let us assume that A stands for essence, C for animate being, E for sense‐perceptible being, B for logical being and D for human being. The first syllogism is that essence is predicated of every animate being, animate being is predicated of every logical being, and therefore essence is predicated of every logical being. Indeed, this is the first syllogism. Since the minor term, the logical being, contains the human being, you will draw from the content of the former a second conclusion: essence is predicated of every logical being, logical being is predicated of every human being, therefore essence is predicated of every human being. But even the middle term, the animate being, contains the sense‐perceptible being and you will draw another conclusion: essence is predicated of every animate being, animate being is predicated of every sense perceptible being, and therefore essence is predicated of every sense‐perceptible being. [...]

    I've abridged this chapter a bit where he reviews the previous chapters in the beginning, and where he goes over the same idea but as a negative syllogism at the end. However this is right where the confusion arises, right at the beginning of the discussion of subordinates. On its own however, there is no contradiction yet. Magentenos here specifies that the extra subordinate conclusions that you can get from a universal-positive first-figure syllogism, also use universal-positive first-figure syllogisms. This he elaborates by laying out his terms, giving a first figure syllogism, and then deducing the subordinates of both the conclusion (aka the minor term) and the middle term, respectively. This he does, as already said, by means of the first figure unto these subordinate terms, as well as being in some way branched off of the original syllogism of the first figure. I have italicized the last syllogism because it will be the critical part of the contradiction to come: note carefully how its premises do not include the original conclusion AB-- this will be the card we pull back out at the end of this comment.

    Here is a diagram:

    figure1.png

    8. In the second and in the third figure, not all conclusions are drawn by the same figure, but by a different one on each occasion; e.g. in the second figure it was inferred through the middle term living being that stone is predicated of no human being. The particular term, namely grammarian, which is subordinated to the minor term, namely human being, will be inferred in the first figure as follows: stone is predicated of no human being, human being is predicated of every grammarian, therefore stone is also predicated of no grammarian. Similarly, logical being, i.e. the particular term subordinated to the middle term, namely living being, will also be inferred in the first figure as follows: stone is predicated of no living being (for ‘no’ converts to itself), living being is predicated of every logical being, therefore stone is also predicated of no logical being.

    Here we bring in the second figure, where the more of the confusion lies, but still no contradiction yet between these two chapters. First Magentenos makes explicit that in this figure, extra conclusions will be drawn using figures other than the one they're branching from. That is, from the second figure, other figures like the first will be utilized to make further conclusions. He then shows this. He makes an allusion ("it was inferred") to a second figure syllogism using terms Living Being, Stone, and Human Being (I cannot find an actual previous reference to a syllogism with these terms anywhere, except for later on in Prior Analytics when discussing false premises.). Then he again substitutes subordinates for the conclusion and middle respectively, to make further conclusions. As he lays these two syllogisms out, he notes how each are deduced using the first figure.

    He also, oh so conveniently, swaps around the term letterings from here on without saying so (perhaps related to the mysterious allusion?), so here they are in the second figures diagram:

    figure2.png

    9. In the case of the second figure, however, a syllogism will be possible only for what is subordinated to the conclusion, namely for the subordinated term. A syllogism for what is subordinated to the conclusion will be possible from a premise demonstrated by syllogism; for the major premise ‘stone is predicated of no human being’ was the conclusion of the second figure and every conclusion has been demonstrated by a syllogism.

    This is a crucial part. The first sentence is the first part where a contradiction seems apparent, and it comes up in the same way in the Aristotle text. This can be accepted on its own if you take it on its own, but with what we established so far, it doesn't, as we shall see in full. The second sentence in this chapter explains the reasoning for this sentence: the syllogism is possible for the conclusion, because it will include "A premise demonstrated by syllogism" , that is, it uses a premise that was previously a conclusion in the figure it branched from. The contradiction seems like it comes from a sudden shift in topic. It feels like it confuses itself between the formerly established idea of extra conclusions that use the same/different figure as the ones they branch from, and the here newly established idea extra conclusions that, regardless of figure, use the conclusion from a previous syllogism as one of its premises.. But why this sudden change in topic, and why is it specified for the second figure, when as we shall see it applies to the first figure above as well?

    10. To the terms subordinated to the middle term; or rather the conclusion of the terms which are subordinated to the middle term, namely to A, that stone is predicated of no logical being, has not become clear by means of a syllogism; or rather, the major premise, that ‘stone is predicated of no living being’, has not been demonstrated before, but it was received undemonstrated. Furthermore B, namely the stone, is predicated of no E, namely of no logical being, because logical being is subordinated to A; and since B is denied of A, namely of the living being, it is will also be denied of E, namely of the logical being.

    And this is where the contradiction is finally made explicit. Aristotle and Magentenos both say here that the middle subordinate is not concluded by means of syllogism, specifically because neither of the involved premises come as conclusions from previous syllogisms. Let's pull our card back out from the top of the comment, the bolded and italicized part, and remember that this has already taken place in the first figure, with no mention. When Essence was predicated of the middle term Animate Being, and then Animate Being was in turn predicated of its subordinate sense-preceptive being, this was treated as using the first figure deduction. But in the second figure middle subordinate, Where Stone is negative-predicated of Living Being, and Living Being is predicated of Logical Being (see chapter 8), it is considered not through the syllogism because neither of those predications came to our disposal through a deduction. And yet, neither of the predications in the first figure example come to us through a deduction either-- they were both granted to us. This contradiction seems to come from the confusing, perhaps accidental, change of topic that I mentioned above. Aristotle seems to begin by talking about the figure-structure of syllogisms that branch off of a given figure and provide extra conclusions. He then appears to begin to give conditional statements to the second figure with regards to this topic, by moving on to speak of the second figure alone, but as he does this he actually changes topics altogether, to focus on the nature and source of the premises used to find extra conclusions, regardless of figure, and perhaps even regardless of deductive status of the conclusions. This final chapter/passage of Magentenos below attempts briefly, but not adequately, to explain things.

    11. That B is predicated of no C, however, was demonstrated by a syllogism of the second figure and is conclusion of the latter; it was taken as major premise leading to the conclusion that ‘stone is predicated of no grammarian’. But that B is predicated of no A, which is exactly the major premise leading to the conclusion that stone is predicated of no E, namely of no logical being, is undemonstrated. Consequently, that B is predicated of no E was not inferred because of the syllogism, or rather it does not result from a premise demonstrated by means of syllogism.

    This is just rephrasing what we've all been over. First he restates that we got a certain conclusion through the second figure's standard process. Then he says that this conclusion is used in turn as a premise in the deduction concerning the conclusion's subordinate. And then he says once again how this does not happen for the subordinate of the middle, and so that subordinate should not be considered as demonstrated through syllogism. This just seems to further show definitively that we have abandoned the discussion of figure-structure that took up chapters 7 and 8 of Magentenos, and have totally started seeing things in terms of the source of various premises.

    I can't tell now who is the more confused between myself and Magentenos. Going directly back to the Aristotle passage, at the beginning he does specify: "all the things that are subordinate to the middle term or to the conclusion may be proved by the same deduction" ... but "proved by the same deduction" is the vague term in question. Magentenos seems to interpret it in his chap 7 and chap 8 as "proved with the same figure" and thus elaborates how the figure stays the same. But if we want to assume the ever-so-smarter Aristotle was consistent, then we should probably take it to mean "proved by using propositions from a previous syllogism as premises" that is, the subordinates will source at least some of their premises from the previously established syllogism (and by 'proposition' I mean either premise or conclusion). If we accept this, then instead of Magentenos' interpretation of sporadically switching from figure-structures to premise-sources, we could interpret Aristotle's original passage as broadly talking about the sources of premises in both parts. However, this still doesn't alleviate the contradiction, because even if we do interpret "proved by the same deduction" as "proved by using propositions of a previous syllogism as premises" it's not the same as "proved by using the conclusion of a previous syllogism as premises" which is what both Aristotle and Magentenos clearly focus their attention on by the end. However if we still grant, as I really wish to, that Aristotle did stay consistently on topic, since I can't find any smarter person supporting the idea that he didn't, then we still don't have an explanation for why he didn't point out that the first figure's middle subordinate also doesn't utilize any previously deduced conclusions. Like I said in a previous comment, I'm less concerned about the actual truth of the syllogism and more concerned about the seeming error in the text and the lack of historical attention brought to said error. How have countless students in the past not torn their hair out at this exact passage, enough to warrant plenty of provisions and footnotes as warning?

    Thanks to everyone who has helped me so far and has bothered to trudge through this comment to help me. I will continue as always to poorly search for further commentaries but I would appreciate any more that anyone else might find!
  • Need a hero to help me interpret this passage by Aristotle in Prior Analytics book 2
    Superb, thank you so much. I'll look into this now and see if it can resolve my confusion. I swear I googled for something like this a million times and nothing came up, so I appreciate you
  • Need a hero to help me interpret this passage by Aristotle in Prior Analytics book 2
    I appreciate the resource. I do wish it had a little more clarity on this exact issue though. I am less interested in the absoluteness of ideas behind the syllogism, I know I can crack open any modern logic textbook for that. I'm more interested in understanding the history of thought behind the ideas and tracing that progression. So instead of trying to understand this from the perspective of "how do these syllogisms work?" I'm approaching it more from "What must Aristotle in particular have been thinking when he wrote this?" angle. To be honest, I'm a little astonished that this kind of stuff isn't easier to find discussion on. The internet is young, sure, but Aristotle is Aristotle, I'd think there'd be more exhaustive discussions behind the nitty gritty of his works than most other philosophers. And I know I'm not very smart, but I can't be the only one who has gotten tripped up here and elsewhere at parts where I found my confusion to be high but discussion to be lacking
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