[FOM] fom submission: Mill on Aristotle and Euclid

[Neil Tennant]

On Fri, 26 Mar 2004, John Corcoran wrote:

> 
> Subject: Mill on Aristotle and Euclid 
> 
> FORMALIZING EUCLID'S DEDUCTIONS: The whole of Euclid, for example, might
> be thrown without difficulty into a series of syllogisms, regular in
> mood and figure. MILL 1843:I,191
> Q1. Who commented on this absurdity? De Morgan? Boole? Hamilton? Frege?
> Peirce?

I do not know whether De Morgan was the first to comment on it, or where
he did so, but I recall reading somewhere that he pointed out that
Aristotle's syllogistic was incapable of accommodating the valid argument
"All horses are animals; therefore, all horses' tails are animals' tails."
His point was that it was an *expressive* inadequacy; from which, of
course, deductive inadequacy would follow.

Neil Tennant