ThePrior Analytics (Ancient Greek:Ἀναλυτικὰ Πρότερα;Latin:Analytica Priora) is a work byAristotle onreasoning, known assyllogistic, composed around 350 BCE.[1] Being one of the six extant Aristotelian writings on logic and scientific method, it is part of what laterPeripatetics called theOrganon.
The termanalytics comes from the Greek wordsanalytos (ἀναλυτός, 'solvable') andanalyo (ἀναλύω, 'to solve', literally 'to loose'). However, in Aristotle's corpus, there are distinguishable differences in the meaning of ἀναλύω and its cognates. There is also the possibility that Aristotle may have borrowed his use of the word "analysis" from his teacherPlato. On the other hand, the meaning that best fits theAnalytics is one derived from the study of Geometry and this meaning is very close to what Aristotle callsepisteme (επιστήμη), knowing the reasoned facts. Therefore, Analysis is the process of finding the reasoned facts.[2]
In theAnalytics then,Prior Analytics is the first theoretical part dealing with the science of deduction and thePosterior Analytics is the second demonstratively practical part.Prior Analytics gives an account of deductions in general narrowed down to three basicsyllogisms whilePosterior Analytics deals with demonstration.[3]
Aristotle'sPrior Analytics represents the first time in history when Logic is scientifically investigated. On those grounds alone, Aristotle could be considered the Father of Logic for as he himself says inSophistical Refutations, "When it comes to this subject, it is not the case that part had been worked out before in advance and part had not; instead, nothing existed at all."[4]
In the third century AD,Alexander of Aphrodisias's commentary on thePrior Analytics is the oldest extant and one of the best of the ancient tradition and is available in the English language.[5]
In the sixth century,Boethius composed the first known Latin translation of thePrior Analytics, however, this translation has not survived, and thePrior Analytics may have been unavailable inWestern Europe until the eleventh century, when it was quoted from byBernard of Utrecht.[6]
The so-calledAnonymus Aurelianensis III from the second half of the twelfth century is the first extant Latin commentary, or rather fragment of a commentary.[7]
Modern work on Aristotle's logic builds on the tradition started in 1951 with the establishment byJan Łukasiewicz of a revolutionary paradigm. His approach was replaced in the early 1970s in a series of papers byJohn Corcoran andTimothy Smiley[8]—which inform modern translations ofPrior Analytics by Robin Smith in 1989 andGisela Striker in 2009.[9]
A problem in meaning arises in the study ofPrior Analytics for the wordsyllogism as used by Aristotle in general does not carry the same narrow connotation as it does at present; Aristotle defines this term in a way that would apply to a wide range ofvalid arguments. In thePrior Analytics, Aristotle defines syllogism as "a deduction in a discourse in which, certain things being supposed, something different from the things supposed results of necessity because these things are so." In modern times, this definition has led to a debate as to how the word "syllogism" should be interpreted. At present,syllogism is used exclusively as the method used to reach a conclusion closely resembling the "syllogisms" of traditional logic texts: two premises followed by a conclusion each of which is a categorical sentence containing all together three terms, two extremes which appear in the conclusion and one middle term which appears in both premises but not in the conclusion. Some scholars prefer to use the word "deduction" instead as the meaning given by Aristotle to the Greek wordsyllogismos (συλλογισμός). ScholarsJan Lukasiewicz,Józef Maria Bocheński and Günther Patzig have sided with theProtasis-Apodosisdichotomy whileJohn Corcoran prefers to consider a syllogism as simply a deduction.[10]
... while "decompose" - the most prevalent connotation of "analyze" in the modern period — is among Aristotle's meanings, it is neither the sole meaning nor the principal meaning nor the meaning which best characterizes the work, Analytics.
... This leads him to what I would regard as the most original and brilliant insight in the entire work.
History's first logic has also been the most influential...
Authoritative texts beget commentaries. Boethus of Sidon (late first century BC?) may have been one of the first to write one onPrior Analytics.
In thePrior Analytics Aristotle presents the first logical system, i.e., the theory of the syllogisms.
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