Seventeenth-century scholastic syllogistics. Between logic and mathematics?

The seventeenth century can be viewed as an era of innovation in the formal and natural sciences and of paradigmatic diversity in philosophy. Within this environment, the present study focuses on scholastic logic and, in particular, syllogistic. In seventeenth-century scholastic logic two different approaches to logic can be identified, one represented by the Dominicans Báñez, Poinsot, and Comas del Brugar, the other represented by the Jesuits Hurtado, Arriaga, Oviedo, and Compton. These two groups of authors can be contrasted in three prominent features. First, in the role of the theory of validity, which is either a common basis for all particular theories, or a set of observations regarding a particular theory. Second, in the view of syllogistic, which is either an implication of a general theory of validity and a semantics of terms, or an algebra of structured objects. Third, in the role of the scholastic analysis of language in terms of suppositio, which either is a semantic underpinning of syllogistic, or it is replaced by a semantics of propositions.