Sextus Empiricus on Peripatetic syllogistic

Journal article

This mainly historical paper provides a comprehensive discussion of the – heretofore neglected – evidence for Peripatetic syllogistic in Sextus Empiricus. The paper sets out to show that it is likely that in Sextus (and Apuleius) there is valuable evidence of a transitional period in later ancient logic that is marked out by a number of characteristics, which include the following: (i) A Peripatetic term ‘categorical syllogism’ is newly in use, but no term ‘hypothetical syllogism’ has been established yet. (ii) Stoic and Peripatetic logic are treated as complementing each other. (iii) The reversion of quantified propositions from predicate-subject to subject-predicate form is still fairly new. (iv) The so-called crocodile example is used to show that induction lacks the feature of concluding by necessity that is a defining mark of Aristotelian syllogisms. (v) The use of the expression katholikê protasis for categorical universal premise-propositions is distinctive of the period. (vi) The argument forms displayed by Sextus’ three examples appear to be indirectly related to the soon-to-appear Platonist hypothetical syllogistic. (vii) There are parallels that suggest that Sextus’ source belongs to the same historical period of logic as Apuleius’ source and as some probably recent source of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Prior Analytics commentary (which is presented along with some later views and arguments, which may include Alexander’s own). Small differences between the three authors show that Sextus did not draw on the Greek handbook that was Apuleius’ source.

Authors: Bobzien, S

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers
• Journal: History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis
• Volume: 29
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 1-22
• Publication date: 2026-03-30
• Acceptance date: 2024-08-27
• DOI: 10.30965/26664275-bja10141
• EISSN: 2666-4275
• ISSN: 2666-4283
• Language: English
• Keywords: Aristotelian logic; Peripatetic logic; Prior Analytics; Sextus Empiricus; Alexander of Aphrodisias