The other day I suggested that economic liberal would say...
(I) socialism is theft,
(ii) socialism goes totally against human nature,
(iii) theft is every bit part of human nature.
How scurrilous of me. In fact (iii) should read (iii) therefore [if socialism exists] some theft goes totally against human nature. Then we would have been consistent with the spirit of Aristotle's system of syllogisms, preceding predicate calculus and quantifiers by some millennia. But then maybe I was thinking politically, not logically. Maybe I should have said (i) capitalism is theft, (iii) theft is every bit part of human nature. (ii) therefore capitalism is every bit part of human nature.
Maybe we should look a little bit more closely at what syllogisms are about. There are basically two key models, ‘Barbara’ and ‘Dimatis/Disamis’:
(I, Barbara)
(i) All X is Y,
(ii) All Y is Z,
(iii) Therefore all X is Z.
Note that if we say that no capitalist has a heart, we mean that all capitalists are heartless, or more strictly ‘non-having a heart’. Note also the formulaic convention of using ‘is’ when it will often be replaced by ‘are’. The Wikipedia syllogisms article might well be read after this article, giving details of all forms as well as, ‘Barbara’ and ‘Dimatis/Disamis’, including ‘no X is Y’, etc.
Modern logician will say that X need not exist, and if so, Y need not exist, and if the latter, Z need not exist.
This brings us to our second format, where we change (i):
(II, Dimatis/Disamis)
(i) Some X is Y (Dimatis), or some Y is X (Disamis)
(ii) All Y is Z,
(iii) Therefore some X is Z.
Clearly all of X,Y,Z have to exist in the above. Now as I said, modern-day logicians say that ‘all X is Y’ does not imply that X (and therefore Y) exists, but the ancients regarded a universal assertion as implying an existential assertion as well, so:
(III, Barbari) (i) All X is Y, (ii) All Y is Z, (iii) Therefore some X is Z.
Since if our conclusion is that all X is Z, then surely some X is Z.
(Also conclusions such that if no X are Z, then some Z are not X!),
But another form is:
(IV, Daraptis)
(iv) All Y is X,
(v) All Y is Z,
(vi) Therefore some X is Z.
(IV, Daraptis)
(iv) All Y is X,
(v) All Y is Z,
(vi) Therefore some X is Z.
And this fits in with the initial corrected model, where we draw the conclusion that “therefore [if socialism exists] some theft goes totally against human nature”. But of course what we have failed to do is specify capitalism and socialism in terms of the point of view of the thief and the victim. Now we see that we must be precise about what we are talking about. The analysis of events is something I might talk about on some other occasion.
And I wasn't that scurrilous was I!
Martin Prior
The Philosophy Takeaway 'Open topic' Issue 40
