En este artículo una paradoja es un tipo de argumentación con respecto a un sujeto X (sea un individuo o una comunidad) en un determinado momento T. Muchas argumentaciones paradójicas tienen lugar en el desarrollo histórico y práctico de las ciencias. Algunas suponen grandes sorpresas acompañadas de profundas crisis, como ocurre con las llamadas antinomias. Solventar, y eventualmente resolver, una paradoja en este sentido supone avances revolucionarios que se obtienen al precio de rechazar creencias previamente asumidas o tenidas por verdaderas (...) por la comunidad científica. El concepto de paradoja que se propone es relativo a sujetos y dinámico en el tiempo. Una argumentación que resulta paradójica para X pudiera no ser paradójica para Y, simplemente porque X e Y no tienen por qué compartir las mismas creencias. Asimismo, X puede descubrir que tiene una paradoja en T, y dejar de tenerla ulteriormente en virtud de un cambio de sus creencias. (shrink)

This paper explores applications of concepts from argumentation theory to mathematical proofs. Note is taken of the various contexts in which proofs occur and of the various objectives they may serve. Examples of strategic maneuvering are discussed when surveying, in proofs, the four stages of argumentation distinguished by pragma-dialectics. Derailments of strategies (fallacies) are seen to encompass more than logical fallacies and to occur both in alleged proofs that are completely out of bounds and in alleged proofs that are at (...) least mathematical arguments. These considerations lead to a dialectical and rhetorical view of proofs. (shrink)

Each science has its own domain of investigation, but one and the same science can be formalized in different languages with different universes of discourse. The concept of the domain of a science and the concept of the universe of discourse of a formalization of a science are distinct, although they often coincide in extension. In order to analyse the presuppositions and implications of choices of domain and universe, this article discusses the treatment of omega arguments in three very different (...) formalizations of arithmetic. In Peano's formalization the domain is a restricted class of individuals, while the universe of discourse is the unrestricted class of all individuals. In Gödel's formalization the domain is a restricted class of individuals as in Peano's formalization, but the universe of discourse coincides with the domain. In Whitehead-Russell's formalization the domain is a class of logical notions in Tarski's sense, that are necessarily not individuals, whereas the universe of discourse is the unrestricted class of individuals as in Peano's formalization. The present approach emphasizes the viewpoint that the universe of discourse of a given discourse is important in determining which propositions are expressed by which sentences. (shrink)

We seek means of distinguishing logical knowledge from other kinds of knowledge, especially mathematics. The attempt is restricted to classical two-valued logic and assumes that the basic notion in logic is the proposition. First, we explain the distinction between the parts and the moments of a whole, and theories of ?sortal terms?, two theories that will feature prominently. Second, we propose that logic comprises four ?momental sectors?: the propositional and the functional calculi, the calculus of asserted propositions, and rules for (...) (in)valid deduction, inference or substitution. Third, we elaborate on two neglected features of logic: the various modes of negating some part(s) of a proposition R, not only its ?external? negation not-R; and the assertion of R in the pair of propositions ?it is (un)true that R? belonging to the neglected logic of asserted propositions, which is usually left unstated. We also address the overlooked task of testing the asserted truth-value of R. Fourth, we locate logic among other foundational studies: set theory and other theories of collections, metamathematics, axiomatisation, definitions, model theory, and abstract and operator algebras. Fifth, we test this characterisation in two important contexts: the formulation of some logical paradoxes, especially the propositional ones; and indirect proof-methods, especially that by contradiction. The outcomes differ for asserted propositions from those for unasserted ones. Finally, we reflect upon self-referring self-reference, and on the relationships between logical and mathematical knowledge. A subject index is appended. (shrink)

Three distinctly different interpretations of Aristotle’s notion of a sullogismos in Prior Analytics can be traced: (1) a valid or invalid premise-conclusion argument (2) a single, logically true conditional proposition and (3) a cogent argumentation or deduction. Remarkably the three interpretations hold similar notions about the logical relationships among the sullogismoi. This is most apparent in their conflating three processes that Aristotle especially distinguishes: completion (A4-6)reduction(A7) and analysis (A45). Interpretive problems result from not sufficiently recognizing Aristotle’s remarkable degree of metalogical (...) sophistication to distinguish logical syntax from semantics and, thus, also from not grasping him to refine the deduction system of his underlying logic. While it is obvious that Aristotle most often uses ‘sullogimos’ to denote a valid argument of a certain kind, we show that at Prior Analytics A4-6, 7, 45 Aristotle specifically treats a sullogismos as an elemental argument pattern having only valid instances and that such a pattern then serves as a rule of deduction in his syllogistic logic. By extracting Aristotle’s understanding of three proof-theoretic processes, this paper provides new insight into what Aristotle thinks reasoning syllogistically is and, moreover, it resolves three problems in the most recent interpretation that takes a sullogismos to be a deduction. (shrink)

What are the pillars on which the success of modern science rest? Although philosophers have much discussed what is behind science’s success, this paper argues that much of the discussion is misdirected. The extant literature rightly regards the semantic and inferential tools of formal logic and probability theory as pillars of scientific rationality, in the sense that they reveal the justificatory structure of important aspects of scientific practice. As key elements of our rational reconstruction toolbox, they make a fundamental contribution (...) to our understanding of the success of science.At the same time, any science, however exact, is dominated by approximation, error, and uncertainty, a fact that makes one wonder how science can be so successful. This paper articulates and illustrates general themes—e.g., that truth-preserving arguments often fail to preserve approximate truth—that highlight the need for additional semantic resources. Thus, our proposal is that persistent failures to unravel the reasons behind the success of science in the face of pervasive error and uncertainty should be attributed to an insufficiently rich way of rationally reconstructing scientific and mathematical knowledge. What is missing? This paper claims that there is a third formal method of reasoning that constitutes a distinct pillar on which rests the success of science, namely, perturbation theory. The paper outlines how the representational and inferential tools of perturbation theory differ from those of logic and probability theory, and how they enable us to understand the apparently elusive aspects of the success of science.However, compared to its peers, perturbative reasoning has not received the attention it deserves. As the paper explains, this partly results from the circumstances in which perturbation theory is taught, and partly from the fact that perturbation theory first appears to be a vaguely related collection of methods offering no systematic semantic insight. In an attempt to show that this first impression is wrong, this paper presents its contribution to the semantic dimension of scientific representation and inference in terms of what I call “semantic layering.”. (shrink)

Since the time of Aristotle's students, interpreters have considered Prior Analytics to be a treatise about deductive reasoning, more generally, about methods of determining the validity and invalidity of premise-conclusion arguments. People studied Prior Analytics in order to learn more about deductive reasoning and to improve their own reasoning skills. These interpreters understood Aristotle to be focusing on two epistemic processes: first, the process of establishing knowledge that a conclusion follows necessarily from a set of premises (that is, on the (...) epistemic process of extracting information implicit in explicitly given information) and, second, the process of establishing knowledge that a conclusion does not follow. Despite the overwhelming tendency to interpret the syllogistic as formal epistemology, it was not until the early 1970s that it occurred to anyone to think that Aristotle may have developed a theory of deductive reasoning with a well worked-out system of deductions comparable in rigor and precision with systems such as propositional logic or equational logic familiar from mathematical logic. When modern logicians in the 1920s and 1930s first turned their attention to the problem of understanding Aristotle's contribution to logic in modern terms, they were guided both by the Frege-Russell conception of logic as formal ontology and at the same time by a desire to protect Aristotle from possible charges of psychologism. They thought they saw Aristotle applying the informal axiomatic method to formal ontology, not as making the first steps into formal epistemology. They did not notice Aristotle's description of deductive reasoning. Ironically, the formal axiomatic method (in which one explicitly presents not merely the substantive axioms but also the deductive processes used to derive theorems from the axioms) is incipient in Aristotle's presentation. Partly in opposition to the axiomatic, ontically-oriented approach to Aristotle's logic and partly as a result of attempting to increase the degree of fit between interpretation and text, logicians in the 1970s working independently came to remarkably similar conclusions to the effect that Aristotle indeed had produced the first system of formal deductions. They concluded that Aristotle had analyzed the process of deduction and that his achievement included a semantically complete system of natural deductions including both direct and indirect deductions. Where the interpretations of the 1920s and 1930s attribute to Aristotle a system of propositions organized deductively, the interpretations of the 1970s attribute to Aristotle a system of deductions, or extended deductive discourses, organized epistemically. The logicians of the 1920s and 1930s take Aristotle to be deducing laws of logic from axiomatic origins; the logicians of the 1970s take Aristotle to be describing the process of deduction and in particular to be describing deductions themselves, both those deductions that are proofs based on axiomatic premises and those deductions that, though deductively cogent, do not establish the truth of the conclusion but only that the conclusion is implied by the premise-set. Thus, two very different and opposed interpretations had emerged, interestingly both products of modern logicians equipped with the theoretical apparatus of mathematical logic. The issue at stake between these two interpretations is the historical question of Aristotle's place in the history of logic and of his orientation in philosophy of logic. This paper affirms Aristotle's place as the founder of logic taken as formal epistemology, including the study of deductive reasoning. A by-product of this study of Aristotle's accomplishments in logic is a clarification of a distinction implicit in discourses among logicians--that between logic as formal ontology and logic as formal epistemology. (shrink)

This paper discusses the history of the confusion and controversies over whether the definition of consequence presented in the 11-page 1936 Tarski consequence-definition paper is based on a monistic fixed-universe framework?like Begriffsschrift and Principia Mathematica. Monistic fixed-universe frameworks, common in pre-WWII logic, keep the range of the individual variables fixed as the class of all individuals. The contrary alternative is that the definition is predicated on a pluralistic multiple-universe framework?like the 1931 Gödel incompleteness paper. A pluralistic multiple-universe framework recognizes multiple (...) universes of discourse serving as different ranges of the individual variables in different interpretations?as in post-WWII model theory. In the early 1960s, many logicians?mistakenly, as we show?held the ?contrary alternative? that Tarski 1936 had already adopted a Gödel-type, pluralistic, multiple-universe framework. We explain that Tarski had not yet shifted out of the monistic, Frege?Russell, fixed-universe paradigm. We further argue that between his Principia-influenced pre-WWII Warsaw period and his model-theoretic post-WWII Berkeley period, Tarski's philosophy underwent many other radical changes. (shrink)

Peter H. Hare (1935-2008) developed informed, original views about the proposition: some published (Hare 1969 and Hare-Madden 1975); some expressed in conversations at scores of meetings of the Buffalo Logic Colloquium and at dinners following. The published views were expository and critical responses to publications by Curt J. Ducasse (1881-1969), a well-known presence in American logic, a founder of the Association for Symbolic Logic and its President for one term.1Hare was already prominent in the University of Buffalo's Philosophy Department in (...) 1969 when I was appointed. Soon after, he became Chair. As his Associate Chair from 1971to 1975, I spent many hours with him in Buffalo and on professional trips .. (shrink)

History witnesses alternative approaches to “the proposition”. The proposition has been referred to as the object of belief, disbelief, and doubt: generally as the object of propositional attitudes, that which can be said to be believed, disbelieved, understood, etc. It has also been taken to be the object of grasping, judging, assuming, affirming, denying, and inquiring: generally as the object of propositional actions, that which can be said to be grasped, judged true or false, assumed for reasoning purposes, etc. The (...) proposition has also been taken to be the subject of truth and falsity: generally as the subject of propositional properties, that which can be said to be true, false, tautological, informative, inconsistent,etc. It has also been taken as the subject and object of logical relations, e.g. that which can be said to imply, be implied, contradict, be contradicted, etc. Prima facie, such properties and relations are non-mental and objective. It has also been taken to be the resultants or products of propositional operations, usually mental or linguistic; e.g. judging, affirming, and denying have been held to produce propositions called judgments, affirmations, and negations, respectively. Propositions have also been taken to be certain declarative sentences. Finally,propositions have been taken to be meanings of certain declarative sentences. This essay is an informal, selective, and incomplete survey of alternative approaches to “the proposition” with special attention to the views of the late American philosopher Peter Hare (1935–2008)and of those who influenced him. DOI: 10.5007/1808-1711.2011v15n1p51. (shrink)

Contrary to common misconceptions, today's logic is not devoid of existential import: the universalized conditional ∀ x [S→ P] implies its corresponding existentialized conjunction ∃ x [S & P], not in all cases, but in some. We characterize the proexamples by proving the Existential-Import Equivalence: The antecedent S of the universalized conditional alone determines whether the universalized conditional has existential import, i.e. whether it implies its corresponding existentialized conjunction.A predicate is an open formula having only x free. An existential-import predicate (...) Q is one whose existentialization, ∃ x Q, is logically true; otherwise, Q is existential-import-free or simply import-free.How abundant or widespread is existential import? How abundant or widespread are existential-import predicates in themselves or in comparison to import-free predicates? We show that existential-import predicates are quite abundant, and no less so than import-free predicates. Existential.. (shrink)

Prior Analytics by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE) and Laws of Thought by the English mathematician George Boole (1815 – 1864) are the two most important surviving original logical works from before the advent of modern logic. This article has a single goal: to compare Aristotle’s system with the system that Boole constructed over twenty-two centuries later intending to extend and perfect what Aristotle had started. This comparison merits an article itself. Accordingly, this article does not discuss (...) many other historically and philosophically important aspects of Boole’s book, e.g. his confused attempt to apply differential calculus to logic, his misguided effort to make his system of ‘class logic’ serve as a kind of ‘truth-functional logic’, his now almost forgotten foray into probability theory, or his blindness to the fact that a truth-functional combination of equations that follows from a given truth-functional combination of equations need not follow truth-functionally. One of the main conclusions is that Boole’s contribution widened logic and changed its nature to such an extent that he fully deserves to share with Aristotle the status of being a founding figure in logic. By setting forth in clear and systematic fashion the basic methods for establishing validity and for establishing invalidity, Aristotle became the founder of logic as formal epistemology. By making the first unmistakable steps toward opening logic to the study of ‘laws of thought’—tautologies and laws such as excluded middle and non-contradiction—Boole became the founder of logic as formal ontology. (shrink)

Demonstrative logic, the study of demonstration as opposed to persuasion, is the subject of Aristotle's two-volume Analytics. Many examples are geometrical. Demonstration produces knowledge (of the truth of propositions). Persuasion merely produces opinion. Aristotle presented a general truth-and-consequence conception of demonstration meant to apply to all demonstrations. According to him, a demonstration, which normally proves a conclusion not previously known to be true, is an extended argumentation beginning with premises known to be truths and containing a chain of reasoning showing (...) by deductively evident steps that its conclusion is a consequence of its premises. In particular, a demonstration is a deduction whose premises are known to be true. Aristotle's general theory of demonstration required a prior general theory of deduction presented in the Prior Analytics. His general immediate-deduction-chaining conception of deduction was meant to apply to all deductions. According to him, any deduction that is not immediately evident is an extended argumentation that involves a chaining of intermediate immediately evident steps that shows its final conclusion to follow logically from its premises. To illustrate his general theory of deduction, he presented an ingeniously simple and mathematically precise special case traditionally known as the categorical syllogistic. (shrink)

Prior Analytics by the Greek philosopher Aristotle and Laws of Thought by the English mathematician George Boole are the two most important surviving original logical works from before the advent of modern logic. This article has a single goal: to compare Aristotle's system with the system that Boole constructed over twenty-two centuries later intending to extend and perfect what Aristotle had started. This comparison merits an article itself. Accordingly, this article does not discuss many other historically and philosophically important aspects (...) of Boole's book, e.g. his confused attempt to apply differential calculus to logic, his misguided effort to make his system of ‘class logic’ serve as a kind of ‘truth-functional logic’, his now almost forgotten foray into probability theory, or his blindness to the fact that a truth-functional combination of equations that follows from a given truth-functional combination of equations need not follow truth-functionally. One of the main conclusions is that Boole's contribution widened logic and changed its nature to such an extent that he fully deserves to share with Aristotle the status of being a founding figure in logic. By setting forth in clear and systematic fashion the basic methods for establishing validity and for establishing invalidity, Aristotle became the founder of logic as formal epistemology. By making the first unmistakable steps toward opening logic to the study of ‘laws of thought’—tautologies and laws such as excluded middle and non-contradiction—Boole became the founder of logic as formal ontology.… using mathematical methods … has led to more knowledge about logic in one century than had been obtained from the death of Aristotle up to … when Boole's masterpiece was published.Paul Rosenbloom 1950. (shrink)

Argumentation logicians have recognized a specter of relativism to haunt their philosophy of argument. However, their attempts to dispel pernicious relativism by invoking notions of a universal audience or a community of model interlocutors have not been entirely successful. In fact, their various discussions of a universal audience invoke the context-eschewing formalism of Kant’s categorical imperative. Moreover, they embrace the Kantian method for resolving the antinomies that continually vacillates between opposing extremes – here between a transcendent universal audience and a (...) context-embedded particular audience. This tack ironically restores the very external mediation they thought to obviate in their aim to ‘dethrone’ the absolutism and totalitarianism of formal logic with a democratic turn to audience adherence, the acceptability of premises and inferential links, and a contextual, or participant-relative, notion of cogency. (shrink)

This discussion reviews the thinking of some prominent philosophers of argument to extract principles common to their thinking. It shows that a growing concern with dialogical pragmatics is better appreciated as a part of applied ethics than of applied epistemology. The discussion concludes by indicating a possible consequence for philosophy of argument and invites further discussion by asking whether argumentation philosophy has an implicit, underlying moral, or even political, posture.

Contemporary logicians continue to address problems associated with the existential import of categorical propositions. One notable problem concerns invalid instances of subalternation in the case of a universal proposition with an empty subject term. To remedy problems, logicians restrict first-order predicate logics to exclude such terms. Examining the historical origins of contemporary discussions reveals that logicians continue to make various category mistakes. We now believe that no proposition per se has existential import as commonly understood and thus it is unnecessary (...) to restrict first-order predicate logics to non-empty classes. After introducing the problem, we trace some nineteenth century treatments of the issue to locate a source of misconstruing propositional import in misconceptions of ‘implies’ and ‘affirms’ and name the process/product fallacy, along with the translation of categorical sentences using quantifiers and accommodating an empty class. Next we treat some metalogical matters to orient our discussion by which we provide a more precise nomenclature about ‘sentence’ and ‘proposition’ to correct previous misconceptions; here we uncover a common category mistake in respect of a proposition’s efficacy. The semantic distinction between agent and force is helpful in this connection. We conclude by showing that logicians have reinserted existence as a predicate, a position previously excised by Kant, and that the Frege-Russell ambiguity thesis applies only to relationships within a categorical sentence between grammatical predicate and subject. (shrink)

The role of audiences in mathematical proof has largely been neglected, in part due to misconceptions like those in Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca which bar mathematical proofs from bearing reflections of audience consideration. In this paper, I argue that mathematical proof is typically argumentation and that a mathematician develops a proof with his universal audience in mind. In so doing, he creates a proof which reflects the standards of reasonableness embodied in his universal audience. Given this framework, we can better understand (...) the introduction of proof methods based on the mathematician’s likely universal audience. I examine a case study from Alexander and Briggs’s work on knot invariants to show that we can fruitfully reconstruct mathematical methods in terms of audiences. (shrink)

Written by experts in the field, this volume presents a comprehensive investigation into the relationship between argumentation theory and the philosophy of mathematical practice. Argumentation theory studies reasoning and argument, and especially those aspects not addressed, or not addressed well, by formal deduction. The philosophy of mathematical practice diverges from mainstream philosophy of mathematics in the emphasis it places on what the majority of working mathematicians actually do, rather than on mathematical foundations. -/- The book begins by first challenging the (...) assumption that there is no role for informal logic in mathematics. Next, it details the usefulness of argumentation theory in the understanding of mathematical practice, offering an impressively diverse set of examples, covering the history of mathematics, mathematics education and, perhaps surprisingly, formal proof verification. From there, the book demonstrates that mathematics also offers a valuable testbed for argumentation theory. Coverage concludes by defending attention to mathematical argumentation as the basis for new perspectives on the philosophy of mathematics. ​. (shrink)

When are we, in fact, arguing? Even one and the same author may offer more than one definition of what he understands by argumentation: this is partly because the problem of argumentation is not confined to a single area of knowledge or of practical life. Definitions of argumentation are as varied as the different positions taken on the question of what exactly we do when we argue. Be that as it may, we are struck by the fact that the problem (...) of argumentation (above all in its application to hypothetic-inductive methods) has not been analysed as a problem linked to interpretation. (shrink)

The Linda paradox is a key topic in current debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. We present a novel analysis of this paradox, based on the notion of verisimilitude as studied in the philosophy of science. The comparison with an alternative analysis based on probabilistic confirmation suggests how to overcome some problems of our account by introducing an adequately defined notion of verisimilitudinarian confirmation.

An information recovery problem is the problem of constructing a proposition containing the information dropped in going from a given premise to a given conclusion that folIows. The proposition(s) to beconstructed can be required to satisfy other conditions as well, e.g. being independent of the conclusion, or being “informationally unconnected” with the conclusion, or some other condition dictated by the context. This paper discusses various types of such problems, it presents techniques and principles useful in solving them, and it develops (...) algorithmic methods for certain classes of such problems. The results are then applied to classical number theory, in particular, to questions concerning possible refinements of the 1931 Gödel Axiom Set, e.g. whether any of its axioms can be analyzed into “informational atoms”. Two propositions are “informationally unconnected” [with each other] if no informative (nontautological) consequence of one also follows from the other. A proposition is an “informational atom” if it is informative but no information can be dropped from it without rendering it uninformative (tautological). Presentation, employment, and investigation of these two new concepts are prominent features of this paper. (shrink)

Mathematicians often speak of conjectures, yet unproved, as probable or well-confirmed by evidence. The Riemann Hypothesis, for example, is widely believed to be almost certainly true. There seems no initial reason to distinguish such probability from the same notion in empirical science. Yet it is hard to see how there could be probabilistic relations between the necessary truths of pure mathematics. The existence of such logical relations, short of certainty, is defended using the theory of logical probability (or objective Bayesianism (...) or non-deductive logic), and some detailed examples of its use in mathematics surveyed. Examples of inductive reasoning in experimental mathematics are given and it is argued that the problem of induction is best appreciated in the mathematical case. (shrink)

This paper examines whether philosophers of argument, in spite of their disavowing ‘timeless principles’, nevertheless embrace a set of principles, or axioms, to underlie argumentation theory. First, it reviews the thinking of some prominent philosophers of argument; second, it extracts some principles common to their philosophies; and third, it draws out possible consequences for argumentation theory and asks whether such theory has an underlying political posture.

We are much better equipped to let the facts reveal themselves to us instead of blinding ourselves to them or stubbornly trying to force them into preconceived molds. We no longer embarrass ourselves in front of our students, for example, by insisting that “Some Xs are Y” means the same as “Some X is Y”, and lamely adding “for purposes of logic” whenever there is pushback. Logic teaching in this century can exploit the new spirit of objectivity, humility, clarity, observationalism, (...) contextualism, and pluralism. Besides the new spirit there have been quiet developments in logic and its history and philosophy that could radically improve logic teaching. One rather conspicuous example is that the process of refining logical terminology has been productive. Future logic students will no longer be burdened by obscure terminology and they will be able to read, think, talk, and write about logic in a more careful and more rewarding manner. Closely related is increased use and study of variable-enhanced natural language as in “Every proposition x that implies some proposition y that is false also implies some proposition z that is true”. Another welcome development is the culmination of the slow demise of logicism. No longer is the teacher blocked from using examples from arithmetic and algebra fearing that the students had been indoctrinated into thinking that every mathematical truth was a tautology and that every mathematical falsehood was a contradiction. A fifth welcome development is the separation of laws of logic from so-called logical truths, i.e., tautologies. Now we can teach the logical independence of the laws of excluded middle and non-contradiction without fear that students had been indoctrinated into thinking that every logical law was a tautology and that every falsehood of logic was a contradiction. This separation permits the logic teacher to apply logic in the clarification of laws of logic. This lecture expands the above points, which apply equally well in first, second, and third courses, i.e. in “critical thinking”, “deductive logic”, and “symbolic logic”. (shrink)

Aristotle studies syllogistic argumentation in Sophistical Refutations and Prior Analytics. In the latter he focuses on the formal and syntactic character of arguments and treats the sullogismoi and non-sullogismoi as argument patterns with valid or invalid instances. In the former Aristotle focuses on semantics and rhetoric to study apparent sullogismoi as object language arguments. Interpreters usually take Sophistical Refutations as considerably less mature than Prior Analytics. Our interpretation holds that the two works are more of a piece than previously believed (...) and, indeed, that Aristotle's treatment of fallacious reasoning presupposes the results of the formal theory. (shrink)

The syllogistic mnemonic known by its first two words Barbara Celarent introduced a constellation of terminology still used today. This concatenation of nineteen words in four lines of verse made its stunning and almost unprecedented appearance around the beginning of the thirteenth century, before or during the lifetimes of the logicians William of Sherwood and Peter of Spain, both of whom owe it their lasting places of honor in the history of syllogistic. The mnemonic, including the theory or theories it (...) encoded, was prominent if not dominant in syllogistics for the next 700 years until a new paradigm was established in the 1950s by the great polymath Jan Łukasiewicz, a scholar equally at home in philosophy, classics, mathematics, and logic. Perhaps surprisingly, the then-prominent syllogistic mnemonic played no role in the Łukasiewicz work. His 1950 masterpiece does not even mention the mnemonic or its two earliest champions William and Peter. The syllogistic mnemonic is equally irrelevant to the post-Łukasiewicz paradigm established in the 1970s and 1980s by John Corcoran, Timothy Smiley, Robin Smith, and others. Robin Smith’s comprehensive 1989 treatment of syllogistic does not even quote the mnemonic’s four verses. Smith’s work devotes only 2 of its 262 pages to the mnemonic. The most recent translation of Prior Analytics by Gisela Striker in 2009 continues the post-Łukasiewicz paradigm and accordingly does not quote the mnemonic or even refer to the code—although it does use the terminology. Full mastery of modern understandings of syllogistic does not require and is not facilitated by ability to decode the mnemonic. Nevertheless, an understanding of the history of logic requires detailed mastery of the syllogistic mnemonic, of the logical theories it spawned, and of the conflicting interpretations of it that have been offered over the years by respected logicians such as De Morgan, Jevons, Keynes, and Peirce. More importantly, an understanding of the issues involved in decoding the mnemonic might lead to an enrichment of the current paradigm—an enrichment so profound as to constitute a new paradigm. After presenting useful expository, bibliographic, hermeneutic, historical, and logical background, this paper gives a critical exposition of Smith’s interpretation. (shrink)