8 EDWARD D. SIMMONS 



who is confused. They do not defend the confusion as a noetic 

 fact. The theory of demonstration in general remains, as much 

 as the theory simply of syllogism, the concern properly of the 

 logician. It must be assumed and contracted to the needs of 

 the special subject matter for any given scientific inquiry. 

 Thus the concern of this paper is within the limits of logic, 

 but it belongs to that branch of logic which is material logic 

 rather than formal logic. This brings us significantly closer to 

 the area of particular methodology than a paper in formal 

 logic would, but we remain in logic without trespassing beyond. 



II. Self-evident Proposition — The Basic Truths 

 OF Demonstration 



Early in the Posterior Analytics, after determining the nature 

 of scientific knowledge (in brief, certa cognitio per causas ^) , 



than are those in formal logic. The connection is so intimate that Simon and his 

 fellow translators suggest that the Jwhitus of material logic is reduced in actual use 

 to the science which employs it (ibid., note 39, pp. 594-595) . Whether this is the 

 case or not, it remains true that the formal subject of material logic as well as the 

 formal subject of formal logic is no more nor less than a logical form or second 

 intention. This means, of course, that material logic is integrally a part of logic 

 proper and is not, as a science, to be confused with any (and every) particular 

 sicence of the real. (Cf., Simmons, E., op. cit.) 



' The Posterior Analytics, Book I, Ch. 2, 71b9-12: " We suppose ourselves to 

 possess unqualified scientific knowledge of a thing . , . when we think we know 

 the cause on which the fact depends, as the cause of that fact and of no other, and, 

 further, that the fact could not be other than it is." [Translation from The Basic 

 Works of Aristotle, edited by Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941), 

 p. Ill] There should be no need to insist that, in the face of current usage, this 

 gives a highly restricted (and exceedingly strict) meaning to " science." As we 

 begin to speak of this kind of science as demonstrated knowledge there is, of course, 

 a proportionately strict understanding of the meaning of " demonstration." Still, 

 the terms " science " and " demonstration " admit of analogous impositions, even 

 as used by us in this paper. For example, demonstrations differ analogously from 

 one genus of speculative science to another — so that mathematical demonstration 

 is only proportionally like metaphysical demonstration (cf. In Boeth. de Trin., q. 6, 

 a. 1; In I Post. Anal., lect. 41), and even within a given science — so that a propter 

 quid demonstration in one science is only proportionally like a quia demonstration 

 in that same science (cf ., ibid., lect. 23) . Having introduced this strict meaning of 

 science in the second chapter of The Posterior Analytics, Aristotle has set the stage 

 to demand of the scientific syllogism that its premises be necessarily true and 



