دانلود کتاب The Origins of Aristotelian Science

In this book Michael Ferejohn offers an interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of demonstrative knowledge as that theory is presented throughout most of the “Posterior Analytics” and parts of the “Prior Analytics”. According to Ferejohn, in the “Posterior Analytics” Aristotle considers certain general constraints he thinks any adequate theory of knowledge would have to satisfy and then constructs an original theory of demonstrative knowledge, based on his own syllogistic logic, that is intended to satisfy those constraints. Ferejohn investigates the foundationalist character of Aristotle’s theory, challenging the view that an Aristotelian science can be understood as an axiomatized system in which all explained facts follow deductively from the basic assumptions, or “first principles”, of that science. Ferejohn argues instead for a two-stage interpretation of Aristotelian demonstration according to which the construction of syllogistic explanations is preceded by a nonsyllogistic procedure descended from Plato’s method of division in which relevant concepts must be framed and definitions set out. The second part of the book is a study of the specific sorts of immediate connections Aristotle permits between the terms of acceptable demonstrative premises. Ferejohn argues that Aristotle’s theory is not nearly so restrictive in this respect as might first appear, for in addition to definitional or analytic truths, Aristotle also admits into the field of respectable scientific premises predications of differentiae, predications of necessary properties, and statements expressing causal connections, as well as certain types of negative statement.