TransitivityCannotExplainPerfectSyllogisms

TransitivityCannotExplainPerfectSyllogisms

byFabioAcerbi

Source: Rhizai.AJournalforAncientPhilosophyandScience(Rhizai.AJournalforAncientPhilosophyand Science),issue:VI.1/2009,pages:2342,onwww.ceeol.com.

TRanSiTiViTY CannOT EXpLain PERfEcT SYLLOGiSMS Fabio Acerbi

I. Perfect Syllogisms and Transitivity

In Aristotles theory of assertoric syllogisms, those in the rst gure are taken as more basic than the others, in view of the fact that nothing else apart from what is assumed is needed for the necessity to be evident (An. Pr. 24b234). They are thereby termed complete or, in the canonical translation, perfect (tleioi) (An. Pr. 25b34, 26a20, 26b29, 27a1); they often enter, in a way that is still under scholarly debate, in the validity proofs of the syllogisms in the other gures. Ancient and modern interpreters have tried to explain why should the validity of perfect syllogisms be taken as evident. A sustained attempt at an explanation was developed by G. Patzig (1968, ch. 3; the rst German edition was published in 1959), after clearing the eld away from past misconceptions. His proposal rests on such a basic notion as transitivity, and on an obvious property of the arrangement of the terms in the rst gure: in the words of the English translation of his book (Patzig 1968, 5152), in the formulation of Barbara the logical fact on which its validity depends, namely the transitivity of the relation belongs to all between the terms which satisfy the syllogistic assumptions, becomes supremely clear. Patzig refers to the two descriptions of barbara syllogisms that Aristotle formulates at the beginning of the Analytica Priora. The rst is an account in full words: when the three terms are in such a relation to each other that the last one is in the middle as a whole and the middle either is or is not in the rst as a whole, it is necessary that there be a perfect syllogism of the extremes, the middle term being a middle also as for its position (An. Pr. 25b3236). The second description is in a form that Patzig calls standard formulation, namely, a schematic representation using dummy letters for the terms, that are put in a well-dened order: For if A [is predicated] of all B and B of all G, it is necessary that A be predicated of all G (e gr t A
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kat pantj to B ka t B kat pantj to G, ngkh t A ka t pantj to G kathgoresqai, An. Pr. 25b3739). The ordering of the terms can be compendiated in the following mildly symbolic formulation, where R is the relation being predicated of all (= belonging to all): if aRb and bRc, then aRc. In this scheme one is immediately led to recognize a formulation of the transitivity of relation R (universal quantication over the terms is understood), characterised by a particular position of the common term. Accordingly, I shall call such an arrangement of the terms and the related premise-pairing contiguous. As Patzig points out and as is clear from the two accounts just quoted, Aristotle keeps to a contiguous arrangement of the terms both when the relation between them is worded as being predicated of all and when it is worded as being in as in a whole, entailing an interchange of the terms and a rearrangement of the premises in a syllogism. Most notably, a pattern such as if bRa and cSb, then cTa representing rst gure syllogisms, besides being expressly ruled out by Aristotles remark at An. Pr. 25b36 read above, is never met in the chapters of the Analytica Priora where he lies down the foundations of his syllogistic, namely, I.17.1 Arrangements such as if bRa and bRc, then aRc or if aRb and cRb, then aRc, where the common term has the same position in both premises, are typical of the second and of the third gure. I shall call such arrangements homological. Patzigs explanation was initially accepted as valid without reservations.2 More recently, it has been subjected to criticisms and qualications that severely reduce its extent, but nonetheless license it as a sound proposal, at
1 This is in fact the form of one scholastic formulation of a syllogism in barbara, but the premises are not interchanged (actually, it was not the only formulation that deserves to be termed scholastic: the Greek commentators oer plenty of examples with interchanged premises, and this became the standard formulation with the 19th century logicians we shall deal with later). For this reason, so Patzig points out (1968, 15), the connection with transitivity got lost. Actually, the Aristotelian practice of setting out concrete syllogisms is not always in line with the standard formulation: see, e.g., An. Post. 78a35, where the premises of a rst gure syllogism are arranged in the scheme bRa; cRb. Presumably presyllogistic elaborations involving chains of predicates conrm this; for instance, the example at Cat. 3 1b1215 is handled in the scheme bRa; cRb: therefore aRc. I have not made a statistical survey, but even if the data were not to display strict adherence to the standard formulation we should be careful before charging Aristotle of inconsistency (see the following section). 2 See, e.g., Kneale, Kneale (1962, 73), Aristotele (1969, 224227). Rose (1968, 104) quotes with approval the former reference only. Hintikka (1977, 64) speaks of transitivity of class-inclusion and does not mention Patzig. Before Patzig,

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least as far as barbara is concerned.3 In the present note I shall show that less than this is actually the case: Patzigs argument amounts to an unwarranted projection of the current formulation of transitivity, which in fact is at variance with the ancient practice, as I shall show in the next section. As a consequence, if one has to judge only from the schematic structure of the standard formulation, it is the homological arrangement that was more suitable to make it supremely clear, i.e., straightforwardly evident from the very disposition of the terms, the transitivity of the relation belonging to all. On these grounds I shall also question, in the nal section, the adequacy of the notion of transitivity as an explicative tool in this context. Before doing all of this, it is mandatory to settle a preliminary issue. The above scheme can be said to be obviously representative of transitivity inferences only if the relation R is the same throughout the syllogism. But syllogisms dierent from barbara, even in the rst gure, involve at least two dierent relations, and none of the remaining three relations between terms envisaged by Aristotelian syllogistic is transitive. Therefore, even if it is not completely incongruous to speak of transitivity when dierent relations are at issue in the same inference, we are thereby not entitled to suppose that viewing transitivity at work in barbara would automatically entail viewing it at work in the other perfect schemes too. For instance, even granting that a > b; b = c: therefore a > c can in a sense be said to conclude by transitivity, it is not clear the transitivity of what we are speaking about. As a consequence, Patzigs proposal is far less eective when such syllogisms are at issue, as Patzig himself (1968, 52) recognizes. In the case of the other syllogisms of the rst gure, Patzig reformulates his own explanation as the descriptive statement that [t]he two steps of the premises, we can say, follow one another without a break. To rescue his interpretation from such a tautological impoverishment, Patzig (1968, 5257) is bound to introduce more powerful technical tools, such as the relative product of relations, and in the end to construe, following a formalization developed by P. Lorenzen, Aristotles syllogistic as a logic of relations. On the last issue we shall return in the nal section; the point I would like to stress now is that the main goal of any discussion of perfect syllogisms is to explain why those in

ukasiewicz (1957, 1415) asserted that barbara relies on the transitivity of the being predicated of all relation, but did not mention perfection. 3 Of course, this amounts to say that Patzigs proposal is not a successful explanation of what he had set out to explain. See, e.g., Flannery (1987), Detel (1987), Ebert (1995), and Patterson (1995, 208224) for alternative proposals.

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barbara are so. If one succeeds in doing this, the next step is to try to extend the explanation to the other three schemes in the rst gure; conversely, showing that an interpretation is untenable for barbara will a fortiori entail rejecting it as a valid one of perfection in general. This is even more true if the explanation hinges upon the notion of transitivity, a property that is not shared by the other syllogistic relations unless they are combined exactly in such a way as to produce the other valid schemes. For these reasons my discussion below will be limited to barbara.

II. Transitivity in Greek Mathematics

In order to establish whether transitivity was a recognized notion in ancient times or not, and in case, how was it handled, one has to look at those texts where transitivity was most likely to be used. But, what does transitivity mean? What we are dealing with is a certain inferential scheme involving three terms, a, b, c and one relation, R, namely, the scheme that allows us to infer aRc from aRb and bRc. The noun transitivity refers to a property which licenses an inferential scheme of this kind, and we must refer to such a scheme in order to assess the validity of Patzigs explanation, that has only to do with the hability of a certain scheme to represent in the most self-evident way an abstract property of a logical object. This, however, needs to be assessed in the context of ancient Greek argumentations. It should not be presupposed that our standard formulations would be also self-evident for Greek eyes, accordingly we cannot be sure that the modern notion of transitivity can be transferred lock, stock, and barrel to describe all facets of a putative notion of transitivity that can be extracted from ancient practice. Instead, we should be able to specify characteristic patterns of reasoning in ancient texts which constitute a general scheme in their own right. Once such a scheme is specied, in the case of the particular instances of dierent relations substituted in the scheme, what is relevant is tting the scheme, not doing it qua symmetric relation, even if the primary examples on which the general scheme is built are in fact provided by symmetric relations. Moreover, it should also be clear that, as far as the mere scheme is concerned, the peculiar position of the middle term is only an accidental feature, since other positions are possible. Therefore, we are allowed to consider other dispositions of the terms too, and justied in wondering whether other arrangements of the terms happened to be used in antiquity tting a description analogous to the one given above, and thereby deserving the denomination of scheme of transitivity. This is exactly what happened in Greek mathematical treatises.

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I shall take as a reference text Euclids Elements, even if the results presented here can actually be extended to the whole ancient mathematical corpus, as a detailed survey would show. The reasons for such a choice are quite obvious. First, the Elements is the longest extant treatise of Hellenistic mathematics and hence can provide good statistical samples. Second, it is less geometrical and more abstract than other treatises such as for instance Archimedes works or Apollonius Conica. As a consequence, one can hope to nd more inferences by transitivity in the Elements than in other treatises. Third, it provides a text possibly nearer to Aristotles times.4 Sure, all Greek mathematical texts are later, even considerably later, than Aristotles times, but it is absurd to think that the lexicographical convention for handling transitivity had changed in the meantime, and at any rate not everything we nd in the Elements has been elaborated after Aristotle. Fourth, and most importantly, a number of relations are assumed or proved to be transitive in the Elements: equality in Common Notion 1, parallelism of straight lines in proposition I.30 (lines in the same plane) and XI.9 (lines not in the same plane), sameness of ratio (i.e., proportionality) in V.11, similarity of rectilineal gures in VI.21 (but the authenticity of the proposition is doubtful), commensurability in X.12. All these properties are enunciated in exactly the same form, take for instance parallelism: <Straight lines> parallel to the same straight line are also parallel to one another (A t at eqev parllhloi ka lllaij es parllhloi). Accordingly, the enunciations of the corresponding propositions are typically instantiated as follows: Let both of AB, GD be parallel to EZ: I say that AB is also parallel to GD (Estw katra tn AB, GD t EZ parllhloj: lgw, ti ka AB t GD sti parllhloj). The rst example of inference that sets out all passages in a transitivity argument is in proposition I.1.5 As is the rule, the instantiated inference is formulated in such a way as to keep the same form as the non-instantiated formulation of the basic transitivity-statement at issue:
The modal shade is not out of place. It is well known that all Greek mathematical works have been more or less heavily reworked and edited in late antiquity. However, this happened with all works (the only exception being, perhaps, Archimedes), and it is not said that such a subtle feature as the formulation of transitivity had to be aected in a decisive way. 5 Actually the only one, together with El. I.2. From I.3 on, the quotation of Common Notion 1 is systematically omitted, and after that also the partial conclusion introduced by katra. The passage to a shortened standard form is typical of Greek mathematical style.
4

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Now, since point A is the centre of circle GDB, AG is equal to AB. Again, since point B is the centre of circle GAE, BG is equal to BA. But GA was proved equal to AB:6 therefore, both of GA, GB are equal to AB.7 But equals to the same are equal also to one another: therefore, GA is also equal to GB.

ka pe t A shmeon kntron st to GDB kk lou, sh stn AG t AB. plin, pe t B shm eon kntron st to GAE kklou, sh stn BG t BA. decqh d ka GA t AB sh: kat ra ra tn GA, GB t AB stn sh. t d t at sa ka llloij stn sa: ka GA ra t GB stn sh.

Take the two underlined clauses: they have the form aRb; cRb; the conclusion in the last clause has the form cRa.8 The arrangement of the terms is indisputably homological, and it is not induced by contextual constraints. The straight lines that are proved to be equal in the preliminary steps are in fact radii of the same circles: therefore, the order in which they appear in the equality is not dictated by any particular mathematical requirement. The choice of setting them in homological order is deliberate. This should suggest to the reader the reason why the explanation of perfection involving transitivity is unfounded. Very simply, the scheme that was regarded as standard by ancient mathematical authors had to have a form nearest to the general format of transitivity statements, and therefore to have the terms arranged in the homological form: barbara denitely does not t that scheme.
6 The interchange of the denotative letters (here from BA to AB and from AG to GA) in successive occurrences of the same string is subjected to scribal improvisations that may have aected the text to an unpredictably large extent. 7 This step is often forgotten in recent discussions of the argument in El. I.1, but it is necessary if one wants to make it manifest that the form of the basic transitivity-statement is preserved. The importance of the step was rightly pointed out by Alexander in his attempt at dressing an argument by transitivity in syllogistic clothes: A is equal to B will be syllogistically inferred from G is equal to B and A is equal to G when, after adding the general premise saying equals to the same are equal also to one another, we condense what has been assumed as two premises into one single premise, that has the same power as the two: this is A and G are equal to the same (in fact to B) (In An. Pr., 344.1419). The reference to the full-edged inference in El. I.1 is clear, even if not explicit. 8 Such an inversion of the terms in the conclusion is more frequent, independently from the relation envisaged, than the form aRc.

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One might rightly object that what was more likely to count as a paradigmatic example for Aristotle was mathematical practice, and not the form transitivity statements have in their general formulation: the instantiated inference of El. I.1 might well be the only one in which the terms are set out in a homological arrangement. I will present in what follows a statistical survey showing that this is not the case.9 It results that the most current practice of inferring by transitivity was by means of a homological scheme with the common term in the rst entry of both premises: aRb; aRc: therefore cRb (the conclusion is less frequently stated in the form bRc). Only in some cases such a pattern is replaced by the one presenting the shared term in the second entry in both premises. Most importantly, contiguous arrangements are adopted in a strict minority of instances. Sure, the data are not so clear-cut as the abstract formulations would suggest and maybe require: we are far from nding zero occurrences for the contiguous arrangement, and uctuations occur from book to book of the Elements. Nevertheless, the data clearly indicate that the homological arrangement was adhered to with remarkable consistency, especially if one recalls that Greek mathematics resorted to no symbolism. As a consequence, and at bottom simply because of getting accustomed to a standard mathematical practice, the homological scheme has to be considered as the one in which the transitivity of a relation showed itself in the most evident way. What is more, the mere existence of contiguous arrangements shows that we are entitled to put both schemes under the common label of transitivity, at least as far as mathematical practice is concerned. The results for transitivity of equality are set out in the table below.10 The rst row contains the numbers of the books of the Elements, the second row the numbers of occurrences of homological/contiguous arrangements. For instance, the rst column means that in book I transitivity of equality is handled 8 times using the
9 The samples for similarity and commensurability are too restricted and do not provide signicant data. Therefore, I shall discuss equality, parallelism and notions of proportion theory only. 10 In certain instances (a strict minority as far as I have been able to check), a particular ordering of the terms may t the mathematical context better than another. This would introduce a bias in our statistical sample. If the sample is suciently large, however, the eects of such contextual considerations will become marginal or, if not, will tend to cancel out, and we can be reasonably condent that what we nd as the preponderant formulation in mathematical texts was perceived as the most suitable one to express inferences by transitivity.

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homological arrangement, 5 times following the contiguous one. The last column is devoted to the alternative proofs. The sum total for the Elements is 76/35. It is to be noticed that among the contiguous arrangements a few occurrences are reckoned of the scheme b = a; c = b: therefore a = c.
I 8/5 II III IV 5/2 12/1 6/4 V 0/1 VI 3/7 VII VIII IX 6/0 0/0 8/3 X 4/2 XI 1/2 XII XIII alt. 2/2 13/3 8/3

Transitivity of parallelism is applied a handful of times. Homological arrangements can be found in El. XI.10, 13 and in XII.17, as well as in Data 28. The rst occurrence presents an almost full-edged inference, very much in the style of El. I.1 seen above. The only contiguous arrangement is in El. IV.7. As it should be expected given their very abstract character, notions tied to proportion theory (elaborated in El. V and applied in some of the subsequent books) enjoy a higher degree of formulaic standardization with respect to those typical of other books of the Elements. The most representative notion of general proportion theory for which transitivity holds is, of course, the relation of proportionality itself. Also in this case the homological arrangement used in handling transitivity is adhered to with remarkable consistency. To this claim El. V.11, where in fact transitivity of proportionality is proved, seems to constitute a notable exception. The enunciation, that has the typical format seen above, is in fact set out in a contiguous arrangement: A:B::G:D, but G:D::E:Z; I say that A:B::E:Z. But a part of the mss. of the Arabic translation of the Elements carries the homological pattern (Engro 1980, 213); and whenever El. V.11 is applied, this is by far the preferred format. This happens in El. V.16 (bis), 18, 23 (bis); VI.3, 56, 1820 (bis), 22 (bis), 23 (bis), 2426; X.2728, 68, 113; XI.17; XII.2, 4, 5, 9 (bis), 11, 12 (ter), 14, 18 (bis). Contiguous arrangements can be found only in VI.7, 19; X.3132, 112; XI.33; XII.2, 45, 11. The sum total of the occurrences is 36/10.11 No theorem analogous to V.11 is proved for numbers, yet transitivity of proportionality is repeatedly applied in the arithmetic books. The homological arrangement is followed almost everywhere, namely in El. VII.14, 17, 19 (bis), 34; VIII.2 (quater), 4, 5 (bis), 8 (bis), 9, 10 (quinquies),
11

The analysis of nested applications of transitivity is less straightforward, since some steps are always understood, and we cannot determine with certainty the ordering of the terms in such steps. Occurrences of nested inferences in the case of transitivity of proportionality are in El. V.23; VI.1, 2 (bis), 14 (bis), 15 (bis), 20; X.25, 93, 98100; XI.31, 33 (bis), 34 (bis), 37 (bis); XII.1, 4, 11, 15 (bis).

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11, 12 (bis), 18 (bis), 19 (ter). The only exceptions are in VIII.2021. The sum total for is 28/2. The second notion of general proportion theory for which transitivity holds is equimultiplicity. It is a four-place relation that, within deductions, appears only in book V. It is made up of two nested relations: A, C are equimultiples of B, D i A = mB and C = mD for some integer m which I shall write (A,C) = m(B,D). However, such a symbolic representation is partly misleading, since it gives prominence to one of the two possible couplings of the four terms, namely, the one in which the two multiples and the two basic magnitudes form dierent pairs. Actually, Greek mathematical language is richer than this, as it sets out and employs both couplings, identifying them by means of dierent formulations:
I skij st pollaplsion t A to A is the same multiple of B that C is of D B ka t G to D II sti t A, G tn B, D skij A, C are equimultiples of B, D pollaplsia

The symbolic representation just given is faithful to form II only. As is often the case with four-place relations, equimultiplicity is symmetric only if particular permutations of the terms are performed. Such a requirement is nicely met by the two forms, both by means of the actual disposition of the terms and of the dierentiation induced by the dierent cases (nominative or genitive).12 As it turns out, the passage from (A,C) = m(B,D) and (E,C) = n(F,D) to (A,E) = p(B,F), holds for equimultiplicity, even if this is never proved. In this case the identity of the second members of the pairs of relata in the rst two equimultiplicities the premises guarantees that here we have cases of equimultiplicities where the same parameter is at work, and then this feature transfers to the third equimultiplicity. However, form II could not enter into such an inference, since the four magnitudes involved are set in an unsuitable order. Only form I is suited to t into the homological transitivity scheme: where transitivity of equimultiplicity is employed, namely, in El. V.5 (bis), 6, 8, 17 (bis), only form I is applied, and in all occurrences the arrangement of the (pairs of) terms is homological. In the arithmetic books, a similar pattern is at work in El. VII.7 (bis), where the relation is being the same part as. Form II is invariably used in other contexts: (i) In the

12

In the same vein as the main issue discussed in the present paper, we might ask ourselves which of the two forms displays the symmetry of equimultiplicity in the most obvious way.

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construction before a proof; (ii) inside a proof, whenever the proportionality condition of V.def.5 is made explicit; (iii) at the very end of a proof, in the resumption of an already proved or assumed equimultiplicity statement. In none of these contexts, which are almost invariably tied to def. 5 and give rise to the majority of the overall occurrences, do we nd chains of inferences by transitivity of equimultiplicity.13 Further evidence comes from the peculiar mathematical operation on ratios called di j sou, a syntagma usually translated with the latin expression ex aequali. The main theorem concerning this operation (El. V.22) states that from A:B::D:E and B:C::E:Z we may infer ex aequali A:C::D:Z. The ex aequali phrase marks the passage from ratios A:B and B:C to ratio A:C, and from ratios D:E and E:Z to ratio D:Z, a result that we might simply read as arising from multiplying the two pairs of ratios. The inference ts very neatly into a scheme of transitivity, but in this case the canonical disposition of the terms is contiguous. The fact that it is identied by an additional qualication such as di j sou turns out not to be accidental, as one gathers from other occurrences of the syntagma in the Elements.14 The rst occurrence is in El. V.20, a theorem which is a preliminary step to the proof of V.22. It states that, if A:B::D:E and B:C::E:Z and di j sou A > C, then D > Z, and the same for = and <. The syntagma is placed in the antecedent of the conditional, not in the consequent as in V.22. In such a position, it cannot, of course, mark an operation on ratios. It simply stresses the fact that, of the four terms in

A general reckoning in book V gives the following gures: props. 11, 12, 13, 22, 23 have form II only; props. 2, 5 and 15 form I only; props. 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 16, 17 both. The other theorems do not use the equimultiples. The mere existence of form II can be explained by the fact that it ts into the formulation of V.def.5 better than form I. 14 Most of the occurrences in the ancient corpus are related to applications of the procedures in El. V.2223, or of their extensions to inequalities between ratios; see Aujac 1986 for a survey. The procedure in V.23 is a modication of the one in V.22, in which the disposition of the terms in the second couple of ratios is neither contiguous nor homological, i.e., the sequence is E:D Z:E. Accordingly, the qualication di j sou is further qualied by the expression in perturbed proportion (n tetaragmnV nalogv). The di j sou phrase marks also the operation on equimultiples at issue in El. V.3, where from (A,C) = m(B,D) and (E,Z) = n(A,C) one infers (E,Z) = k(B,D) for some k. It is a form of transitivity acting on the multiples, but the consistent use of form I for the rst premise and of form II for the second one, makes it impossible to determine whether the arrangement is contiguous or homological.
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the sequence A, B, B, C, only the extremes are taken into account, the equal middle terms being not. The denition of the ex aequali operation in El. V.def.17 conrms that this was the general meaning of di jsou.15 The text is corrupt and conates a true denition and a reformulation of theorem V.22, but a satisfactory reading can be reconstructed quite easily. The definiens simply reads taking the extremes by elimination of the middles (lyij tn krwn kaq j pexaresin tn mswn). The interest in the common middle term is further borne out by the very expression di j sou, where the understood noun is very likely rou term. This and the formulation of V.def.17 show that the designation di j sou is intended to capture a unique feature of the schematic representation of those inferences by transitivity characterised by a disposition with contiguous middle terms: in principle, then, it is not specic of dispositions of terms in a proportion, as the application in V.20 conrm. The creation of an ad hoc syntagma to single out only this subspecies of inferences by transitivity suggests, once again, that the contiguous arrangement was not perceived as the canonical one among those tting a transitivity scheme. A major objection to the arguments just developed is that all mathematical relations envisaged so far are symmetric, that is aRb if and only if bRa, whereas the relation being predicated of all is not.16 When the relation is not symmetric the contiguous arrangement is necessary in a schematic presentation of transitivity, if one wants to keep the same relation in both premises. For instance, we currently write a > b; b > c: therefore a > c (contiguous arrangement of the terms and the same relation in both premises), and not a > b; c < b: therefore a > c (homological arrangement of the terms but dierent relations in the premises), that is totally correct but would appear quite eccentric. This would entail the necessity to keep to a contiguous scheme in the case of the non-symmetric relation at stake
The two other texts of seemingly incongruous usage that Aujac adduces, namely, Archimedes, Pl. ae. I.12, and Pappus, Coll. III.96, do not stand a close scrutiny. The involved operations on ratios are not univocally determined, and the di j sou phrase can be read as a genuine reference to El. V.22. 16 Neither transitivity nor symmetry are treated in the Aristotelian accounts of relations in Cat. 7, Top. IV.4 and Metaph. D 15. A very interesting argument, showing that universal negative premises convert simpliciter on the basis of the manifest symmetry of being disjoined from, is ascribed to Eudemus and Theophrastus by Alexander, In An. Pr., 31.410 and 34.1315, and, drawing from Alexander and in a less neat way as usual, by Philoponus, In An. Pr., 48.1118 (= fr. 90AB Fortenbaugh et al.).
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in a barbara syllogism. One can also reformulate the objection by saying that, in the hypothesis of unbiased random distribution, the four possible congurations aRbbRc, bRacRb, aRbcRb, bRabRc are equally probable, if the relation is symmetric. The four positions of the middle term cannot be equally probable in the case of a non-symmetric relation, since its very nonsymmetric character introduces an external bias in the sample. The statistical evidence just adduced would then have no signicance in the non-symmetric case. But it is clear that symmetry is restored by allowing the converse relation, as in the example above, to appear in the inferences. My point is that, if putting the two occurrences of the middle term contiguous was in the end the reason that induced Aristotle to formulate barbara syllogisms in the way he does, namely, by using the same relation everywhere, this was by no means forced by anything Aristotle states in his general denition of a syllogism. He introduces from the very outset the converse being in as in a whole of being predicated of all and nothing would have prevented him from employing both of them in the same syllogism, producing for instance schematic representations of barbara with homological arrangements such as e t A pant t B prcei ka t G n lJ t B sti, t A pant t G prcei if A belongs to all B and G is in B as in a whole, A belongs to all G admittedly quite weird objects. If the proposal of writing down barbara syllogisms using two dierent formulations of the relation of universal predication sounds bizarre, it is enough to turn to an examination of the non-symmetric relations employed in mathematics to see such a practice at work. In the Elements there are a few inferences by transitivity of greater than. The seemingly natural scheme a > b; b > c: therefore a > c is attested in X.44 and XI.21 only (as well as in the alternative proof of the latter; this is not an independent occurrence since the relevant part of the proof is repeated identical). The eccentric scheme a > b; a < c: therefore c > b is instead found in I.21 (bis), XI.23 (conclusion stated as b < c) and in the alternative proofs to X.1 and to XII.17.17 What is important is that, in both occurrences in I.21, the premise I have written as a < c does not contain the sign less than in the text, but greater than with the two terms interchanged: bur grater than GEB was proved BDG (ll tj p GEB mezwn decqh p BDG).18 In XI.23, instead, the inference aims at proving a less than inequality, as is clear from the context, and the

17 18

Add to this a scheme such as a > b; a = c: therefore c > b in El. XIII.18. Such inversions are quite common in the case of symmetric relations, most notably equality. They are marked by the fact that the term in the dative precedes

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premise with interchanged terms is in fact the rst one, which ts very well its resulting from a sum of greater than inequalities. Therefore, not even in the case of a non-symmetric relation adherence to a contiguous ordering was felt as a necessary feature of the inference. On the contrary, adherence to the standard lexicographical ordering of the terms must be considered, at least as far as mathematical practice is concerned and the converse of the relation at issue exists, as a regulative criterion stronger than keeping the relation xed throughout the inference.

III. Assessment
The interpretative issue this paper is concerned with can be split into two sub-issues. The rst is the claim that in virtue of the peculiar disposition of the middle term in a barbara syllogism the transitivity of the relation belongs to all between the terms becomes manifest. The evidence surveyed in the previous section shows that the canonical scheme of presentation of inferences by transitivity customary in modern treatments of the logic of relations, namely, the one with contiguous middle terms, is not the same as the scheme attested as canonical in ancient mathematical texts, the latter being more faithful to the peculiar way the transitivity of a relation was enunciated. Such a piece of evidence seems to me to settle the question: if there were syllogisms for which transitivity of some syllogistic relation had to become supremely clear to the ancients on the sole grounds of the ordering of the terms, such syllogisms were denitely not those in the rst gure. If what matters was the degree of self-evidence, a feature that cannot but refer to some shared practice, I cannot see how Aristotle could hope that a convention at variance with the one current in mathematical texts would serve his purposes. Another matter is to question (as I also do) the very pertinence of the notion of transitivity to explain the Aristotelian partition between perfect and non-perfect syllogisms. My questioning can be summarized in the remark that what counts for an explanation to be in terms of transitivity to a presentday scholar is not necessarily the same as to Aristotle or to a Hellenistic mathematician. Patzigs explanation, if I read it correctly, is not simply intended as a legitimate explanatory tool, devised to make what happens with perfect syllogisms palatable to scholars irremediably accustomed

the one in the nominative. Most of the inversions appear to serve the purpose of setting the terms in a homological arrangement.

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to logico-algebraic thinking, but has the ambition of constituting a valid explanation from within. Well, how do we recognize that an argument is (or can be labelled as) an inference by transitivity? and how can we construe the Ancients recognizing the same state of aairs? Which is the less biased way of projecting back such a seemingly transparent notion into ancient texts? Were the Ancients able to formulate an inference by transitivity independently from the actual arrangement of the terms? Here the evidence coming from mathematical texts comes into play. Surprising as it may seem, it quite denitely suggests that no, they were not able to do that (or, better said, they simply did not do that), and the evidence is particularly telling exactly because the relations involved in the above survey are symmetric. Their very property of symmetry, in fact, entails that the order of the terms in an inference by transitivity is immaterial. In other words, we should expect a statistical zero as far as the prominence is concerned of some among the four possible congurations of terms aRbbRc, bRacRb, aRbcRb, bRabRc. But this denitely does not happen. Since we are interested in the arrangements of the terms only and since all uninstantiated enunciations of the transitivity rules have the same formulation, we are allowed to sum all the data from the Elements set out in the preceding section, collecting them in the same statistical sample. The result 151/49 for the partition of the occurrences calls for being explained in terms of a practice directed by an intentionally applied criterion, precisely because it is utterly unlikely as a statistical uctuation: the probability that it is the outcome of an unbiased random distribution of the common terms is less than 1 over 107. All of this should not surprise us, though. The Greeks used only natural language; we are deeply accustomed to use symbolic notations. Our perception of what pertains to logical form cannot be assumed to coincide with their perception. If only natural language is used, regular linguistic patterns are what is at ones disposal in order to recognize, or even to create, kinds of arguments whose validity does not depend on the actual terms set out in them (singular terms, schematic letters, etc.), that is, arguments that are conclusive in virtue of a certain form. In this respect, evidence coming from mathematics is all the more relevant, since the solution that was given to the problem of creating a stable linguistic format was also, even if not exclusively, aimed at producing a recognizable logical form. It is not surprising, then, that seemingly trivial features such as the ordering of the terms can reasonably be taken to replace, in the perspective of the ancient Greek mathematicians, more articulated and far-reaching notions as the one we designate with the substantive transitivity.

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A second objection against the use of the notion of transitivity can be raised on methodological grounds. The explanation in terms of transitivity is based on a feature shared by all syllogisms of the rst gure, and only by them, namely, a peculiar ordering of the terms. This is an essential attribute of rst gure syllogisms, as the Aristotelian remark at An. Pr. 25b36 shows. Yet, the very disposition of terms typical of the rst gure can be linked with issues of validity in manifold ways. Let me quote Peirce (19311935, 3.184; the meaning of the symbol < is immaterial): The statement of its validity has been called the dictum de omni, the nota notae, etc.; but it is best regarded, after De Morgan, as a statement that the relation signied by the copula is a transitive one. It may also be considered as implying that in place of the subject of a proposition of the form A < B, any subject of that subject may be substituted, and that in place of its predicate any predicate of that predicate may be substituted. The same principle may be algebraically conceived as a rule for the elimination of y from the two proposition and x < y and y < z. Even if contiguous formulations of barbara can be presented as instances of self-evident, perfect syllogisms, and if this will ultimately be linked with the fact that these formulations bring into sharp relief some salient feature of the relation being predicated of all, as is quite reasonable to assume, nevertheless we are not allowed to claim that this salient feature cannot be but transitivity. Severing the obvious link between contiguity of the middle terms and the very notion of transitivity seems to me to be the safest attitude. A third remark is in order. Besides showing that Patzig proposal has venerable ancestors, Peirces quotation above is not out of place. The modern theory of relations was driven from the very outset by the aim of formalizing and generalizing Aristotelian syllogistic (see, e.g., the essays collected in De Morgan 1966, from which I shall take my quotations), assimilated in a form that immediately recognizes barbara as the fundamental scheme, invariably formulated in the contiguous form with terms and premises interchanged. Syllogistic inferences merely became the basic example of the largest class of inferences by composition of relations. De Morgan repeatedly insist that the conditions of transitivity and symmetry are together sucient for all forms of inference (1966, 51) and that the instrumental part of the inference may be described as the elimination of a term by composition of relations (56). Accordingly, the first figure will now be seen, as the most simple expression of the combination of relations (131), since it is that of direct transition: X related to Z through X related to Y and Y related to Z (229, and cf. 173), where the transitive character of the copula is [] the dictator of the result (254) (all italics are in the original). Most interestingly, De Morgan sets forth an

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argument which, in spite of being focused on the order of the premises, quite clearly formulates many of the issues discussed in the present article (notice in particular the apparent conict between the second formula and its alleged reformulation in full words; the symbolism is quite obvious and I shall not explain it), and that deserves a full quotation: In turning the fundamental syllogism into the form X)Y + Y)Z = X)Z, I have altered Aristotles order of the premises, which would give Y)Z + X)Y = X)Z. Reasoning direct from his dictum de omni et nullo, namely, that what is true or false of all is true or false of every some, it would seem natural rst to ascertain the fact relating to the whole, and then to introduce the part which is to be considered. But in another point of view it may be more natural to reverse this order. If there be three boxes P, Q, and R, of which I want to ascertain by means of Q whether P will go into R, it seems to me more natural to try rst whether P will go into Q, ant then whether Q will go into R. But if the question be whether R will hold P, the perhaps it may be more natural to try rst whether R will hold Q, and then whether Q will hold P. It must be mere matter of opinion which should be taken; and the idioms of the language which people speak produce the associations on which they will decide (14, italics of English words mine). All of this, among other reasons, could explain why the contiguous arrangement of terms in a schematic presentation of transitivity of mathematical relations such as equality, etc., became predominant, marking a break in the continuity from the practice in the Elements, whose study was never interrupted in England. But all of this also entails that, provided its origins are forgotten, the theory of relations can be taken as a perfectly natural model (but only a model, unless one entertains the belief that it strikes somehow nearer to the laws of thought) to set up explanations concerning syllogistic, whereas it is in fact a completely biased one, as it interchanges explanans and explanandum. But this is not the whole story. One can read the evidence in another perspective, namely, setting the Aristotelian procedure at work in the opening chapters of the Analytica Priora in opposition to the way mathematical texts formulate inferences containing dierent kinds of transitive relations. Even if Aristotle took his cue from mathematical formulations, he clearly avoided to present his most evident deductive patterns in homological formulations. What is more, he introduced a crucial element of rigidity in his system, since the requirement of resorting to contiguous arrangements only is expressly formulated in the very denition of rst gure syllogisms. One needs not to set up a statistical sample in order to analyse the distribution of occurrences in Analytica Priora I.17: homological arrangements are absent. And this pour cause. Aristotle was more interested in logical form than the mathematicians

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were, and even more so if he aimed at introducing a partition among syllogisms on grounds of (lack of) evidence of their concluding by necessity. The impression is that he considered the requirement of keeping the same formulation of the relation belonging to all throughout the most scientic syllogisms in barbara as the crucial constraint, maybe because he (rightly) realized that an alternative, homological formulation with two dierent relations would not have brought out the evidence of these syllogisms. This element of rigidity goes as far as forgetting the routine facility of Greek language, allowing one to accommodate at will the word order in a sentence, a resource we have seen at work in a mathematical context at the end of the preceding section. Most notably, this resource makes it unnecessary to replace in one of the premises a transitive non-symmetric relation with its converse in order to arrange the terms in a certain order. The absence of homological, but containing one single relation, formulations of barbara such as e t A pant t B ka pant t G t B, t A pant t G prcei if A belongs to all B and to all G B belongs, A belongs to all G shows that, to Aristotle and contrary to mathematical usage, adherence to the standard lexicographical ordering of the terms was a regulative criterion weaker than keeping the relation and the matrix of the relation xed throughout the inference. Late Aristotelian commentators were not eager to see connections between transitivity and syllogismhood, even if the obviousness of some typical inferences by transitivity and their current and widespread application in mathematical arguments clearly puzzled them. They appear to have been pretty casual in their expositions as far as the ordering of the terms was concerned. Alexander of Aphrodisias (In An. Pr., 344.9346.6) excludes from the class of syllogisms all those deductions that need an additional premise. Among the examples, the transitivity inference for equality is almost invariably adduced. Alexander writes it as c = b; a = c: therefore a = b (In An. Pr., 344.1415), that indeed does not t neither a homological transitivity scheme nor a contiguous one.19 The same example can be found
19

For a list of the occurrences of the transitivity inference for equality in the ancient exegetical literature, see Barnes (1990, 6871). The schemes followed by some Aristotelian commentators are as follows: Alexander, In Top., 14.212: a = b; b = c: a = c (the second clause is in the form c = b in the ms. Par. gr. 1874 and in the Aldine); [Ammonius], In An. Pr., 70.1112: a = b; b = c: a = c; Philoponus, In An. Pr., 36.1011 and 321.1011 and [Themistius], In An. Pr., 121.234: a = b; c = b: a = c. It is obvious that the accounts are not independent the one from the other both in the choice of the example and in the way the problems such inferences raise are discussed. Alexander may well be their common source.

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also in Galen, Inst. Log. XVI.6:20 after a quotation of the general statement of transitivity of equality in the form we nd in Elements, Common Notion 1, reference is made to the basic inference in El. I.1, that is formulated, by introducing ordinals in the Stoic fashion, as both the rst and the second are equal to the third, so that the rst should be equal to both of them (t prtn te ka t deteron <t trtJ son>, katrJ atn son n eh otw t prton). A less frequently adduced argument has having the same parents as the transitive relation. In the same sample of authors as the one for equality, we nd the argument formulated three times in the scheme aRb; bRc: therefore aRc and once in the scheme aRb; cRb: therefore aRc.21 An interesting point in the commentators analysis of transitivity arguments is their identifying these arguments as second gure syllogisms with particular premises and conclusion.22 This is quite surprising: since both particular premises and relations of equality do convert simpliciter, a transitivity argument for equality would t into whatever gure. Therefore, a deliberate choice was made by Alexander and his colleagues, and I surmise that the second gure was chosen looking at the standard ordering of the transitivity inferences, namely the homological one. But why not the third gure as well? Maybe because the standard examples of syllogisms invalid by form were second gure syllogisms, as for instance the notorious fallacy put forward by Caeneus and reported in An. Post. I.12. We can thus perceive a tension between mathematical conventions and constraints specic of a domain that appears to owe so much to mathematics but nevertheless cannot be entirely reduced to it, most notably as far as formal issues are concerned. We are not entitled, however, to assume that Aristotle had in mind to set forth a schematic presentation of transitivity that might
At Inst. Log. I Galen twice oers an argument by transitivity of equality applied to three men called Theon, Dion and Philon. The whole passage is corrupt, but the scheme seems to be a = b; c = b: a = c in the rst occurrence and b = a; b = c: a = c in the second. Here, too, the general statement of transitivity of equality is quoted. 21 The rst three at Alexander, In An. Pr., 344.323 and 345.67 and at [Themistius], In An. Pr., 122.34, the fourth at Philoponus, In An. Pr., 321.2324 (the second and fourth occurrence are schemes of the invalid syllogism where being siblings replaces having the same parents). 22 And this leads immediately to the conclusion that the transitivity arguments are not syllogistically valid. The premises are indeterminate (in fact they are singular), and it is a standard Aristotelian doctrine (An. Pr. 26a2930) that indeterminate premises are equivalent to particular premises.
20

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possibly replace the format typical of mathematical style, even if the latter was ill-suited to his system. The best attitude seems to me to satisfy ourselves with submitting that Aristotle was forced to apply a non-homological scheme. Why he did prefer a contiguous scheme and not a mostly neglected non-contiguous, non-homological bRacRb scheme maybe is a matter that has to do with schematic evidence, perfection and all that, maybe inspired by a mathematical model of composition of ratios such as the one whose scheme is the di j sou operation (as De Morgan himself suggested, see 1966, 228), but it is unsafe to multiply speculations.* CNRS, UMR 8163 Savoirs, textes, langage BP 60149 59653 Villeneuve dAscq cedex France fabacerbi@gmail.com

References
Aristotele (1969), Gli Analitici Primi, a cura di M. Mignucci, Loredo, Napoli. Aujac, G. (1986), Le rapport di isou (Euclide V, dnition 17): Dnition, utilisation, transmission, Historia Mathematica 13, 370386. Barnes, J. (1990), Logical Form and Logical Matter, in: A. Alberti (ed.), Logica, mente e persona, Leo S. Olschki, Firenze, 7119. De Morgan, A. (1966), On the Syllogism, and Other Logical Writings, Edited, with an Introduction by P. Heath, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. Detel, W. (1987), Eine Notiz ber vollkommene Syllogismen bei Aristoteles, Archiv fr Geschichte der Philosophie 69, 129139. Ebert, Th. (1995), Was ist ein vollkommener Syllogismus des Aristoteles?, Archiv fr Geschichte der Philosophie 77, 22147. Engro, J.W. (1980), The Arabic Tradition of Euclids Elements, Book V, Unpublished Harvard University PhD Dissertation, Cambridge (Mass.).

* I am grateful to I. Bodnr for his perceptive remarks.

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Flannery, K. (1987), A Rationale for Aristotles Notion of Perfect Syllogisms, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 28, 455471. Fortenbaugh, W.W., Huby, P.M., Sharples, R.W., Gutas D. (eds.), (1993), Theophrastus of Eresus. Sources for his life, Writings, Thought and Influence, 2 vols, Leiden/New York/Kln, Brill. Hintikka, J. (1977), Aristotles Incontinent Logician, Ajatus 77, 4865. Kneale, M., Kneale, W.C. (1962), The Development of Logic, Oxford University Press, Oxford. ukasiewicz, J. (1957), Aristotles Syllogistic, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Patterson, R. (1995), Aristotles Modal Logic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Peirce, Ch.S. (19311935), Collected Papers, vols. IVI, Edited by Ch. Hartshorne and P. Weiss, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.). Patzig, G. (1968), Aristotles Theory of the Syllogism, D. Reidel, Dordrecht. Rose, L. (1968), Aristotles Syllogistic, Ch.C. Thomas Publisher, Springeld.