On propositional form.

Abstract

For Aristotle the proper domain of logic was not just sentences in general, but propositions. Propositions are sentences have or falsity in them. Aristotle believed that all propositions could be viewed as having, logically, one of the four basic categorical forms. In other words, all propositions are logically subject-predicate in form. If he thought anything about other forms of propositions (viz., those more complex forms built up from combinations of categoricals) we have little evidence of it from his extant writings. Contemporary mathematical logicians recognize both simple subject-predicate propositions and propositional truth functions. A theory of the logical form of simple subject-predicate propositions can be gleaned from mathematical as well as Aristotelian logic. I think the Aristotelian view is closer to the truth. This essay has four parts.* In the first part we examine Aristotle's theory of the logical form of a categorical. We then look at the notion of the form of a simple subject-predicate proposition as found in the contemporary logician's calculus of (one-place) predicates. In Section 3 a