Aristotle usually contrasts proving φυσικῶς with proving λογικῶς. In many cases, the former carries the real burden of the proof, with the latter being a kind of introduction or preparatory argument to it. And as arguing λογικῶς is sometimes assimilated to proving dialectically and in a vacuous way, there is a tendency to look at λογικοί arguments with some diffidence. But Aristotle has a much more complex use for these expressions, and marking λογικοί arguments with the negative note of dialecticity or vacuity will surely lead to serious misunderstanding of key passages in Aristotle’s treatises. For instance, Aristotle also contrasts ἀναλυτικοί arguments with λογικοί arguments in his logical works, and taking the latter as dialectical arguments will certainly miss the point, for they are considered good arguments, and no dialectical argument is adequate for a logical treatise. But more interestingly, there are also cases in which proving λογικῶς gets the point perfectly well and is only to be complemented by a φυσικός argument. These cases of λογικός argument are particularly salient in metaphysics. As a matter of fact, we find in Aristotle a variety of ways of proving a point: proving it in a geometrical fashion, or mathematically, or medically, and so on. The λογικοί and φυσικοί arguments are the best known (and to a certain extent disputable) cases of a much larger family of ways of proving a point. I examine these different ways of proving, and attempt a general account of the relationships among them.
...MoreBook William Wians; Ron Polansky (2017) Reading Aristotle.
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