A Bunch of Diagrammatic Methods for Syllogistic

Abstract

This paper presents, assesses, and compares six diagrammatic methods for Categorical Syllogistic. Venn’s Method is widely used in logic textbooks; Carroll’s Method is a topologically indistinguishable version of Venn’s Method; and the four remaining methods are my own: the Dual of Carroll’s Method, Gardner’s Method, Gardner–Peirce’s Method, and Ladd’s Method. These methods are divided into two groups of three and the reasons for switching from a method to another within each group are discussed. Finally, a comparison between the Dual of Carroll’s Method and Ladd’s Method supports the main result of the paper, which is an approximation of the two groups of methods.