Aristotle’s Modal logic and Essentialism

Abstract

Aristotle with introducing Modal logic in Organo and Essentialism and Essence in Organon and Metaphysics was one of the vanguard in metaphysical and logical challenging discussions. One of the most important subjects in history of logic and Aristotle’s philosophy is a presentation of consistent interpretation of Aristotle’s modal logic and conforming it with accounts of Aristotle’s essentialism in Organon and Metaphysics. This interpretation and commentary is penetrating inside Aristotle’s remarks and comparing it with modern philosophy. In this Article, we criticize one of the interpretations in ‘de re’ and ‘de dicto’ form and then introduce a new other interpretation, which was exposed by Richard Patterson, with two substantial feature. The first feature is pertaining to the consistency of Aristotle’s modal logic. We can say this interpretation is the best explanation about this consistency among other interpretations. The second feature is coincidence between this interpretation with Aristotle’s essentialism in Metaphysics. We examine and then confirm that this interpretation with instruments of ‘strong necessity’ and ‘weak necessity’ in modal syllogisms with two necessity premises.