The Practical Syllogism

Author(s): Alexander Broadie

Source: Analysis, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Oct., 1968), pp. 26-28
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Committee
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3327628
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 THE PRACTICAL SYLLOGISM

By ALEXANDER BROADIE

THE purpose of this paper is to suggest an answer to the problem of

how to construe the relation between premisses and conclusion
in the Aristotelian practical syllogism. To do this we must begin by
giving an account of what Aristotle meant by the phrase 'practical
syllogism'.
In De Anima 434a15-20 Aristotle says of the practical syllogism:
'The one premiss or judgment is universal and the other deals with the
particular (for the first tells us that such and such a kind of man should
do such and such a kind of act, and the second that this is an act of the
kind meant, and I am a person of the type indicated).' We are not in this
passage given a description of the conclusion of the practical syllogism;
but it is clear from several passages, (e.g. De Motu Animalium 701a28-33
and Nic. Eth. 1147a25-30), that the conclusion is to be construed as an
action. For example, in De Motu 701a20-24 Aristotle writes 'I need a
covering and a cloak is a covering, I need a cloak. What I need I ought
to make; 1 need a cloak, I ought to make a cloak. And the conclusion
"I ought to make a cloak" is an action... That the action is the con-
clusion is quite clear'.
Since the conclusion of the practical syllogism is an action, while the
conclusion of the theoretical syllogism is a proposition, it would appear
to follow that the relation between premisses and conclusion in these two
types of syllogism is radically different. Yet Aristotle makes it clear in
several passages that he regards this relation in the two types as being the
same. In De Motu 701a8-12, having asked why thought only sometimes
results in an action, he writes 'Apparently the same thing happens as
when one thinks and forms an inference about immovable objects. But in
the latter case the end is speculation (for when you have conceived the
two premisses, you immediately conceive and infer the conclusion);
but in the former case the conclusion drawn from the two premisses
becomes an action'. And in the Nicomachean Ethics 1147a25-30, having
described the form of the premisses in the practical syllogism, Aristotle
writes 'Now when the two premisses are combined, just as in theoretic
reasoning the mind is compelled to affirm the resulting conclusion, so in
the case of practical premisses you are forced at once to do it'.
Before leaping to criticise Aristotle for failing to distinguish ade-
quately between the relation between premisses and conclusion in the
theoretical and the practical syllogism, we shall first determine how
Aristotle himself regarded this relation in the case of the theoretical
syllogism. We shall then consider whether his characterisation of this
26

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 THE PRACTICAL SYLLOGISM 27

relation in the case of the theoretical syllogi

relation in the practical syllogism.
In the Posterior Analytics 94a20-24 Aristotle
that we have knowledge of a thing when we
are four kinds of cause: the essence, the necess
efficient cause which started the process, and the f
exhibited through the middle term'. And in
while writing of the relation between premisse
demonstrative syllogism, Aristotle says 'demons
proceed from premisses which are . . . causat
They must be causative ... because we only have
when we know its cause'. It is clear from these
thought that a person cannot claim fully to und
a syllogism unless he knows its premisses, and
misses of the syllogism of which that is the co
cause the cause of the conclusion, i.e. that which
truly to be predicated of the major, is displayed
syllogism though not in the conclusion. No
express the cause of the conclusion they provide
conclusion. But so far as they do this, the prem
of the conclusion, since, for Aristotle, it is precisel
that enables it to be understood.
The above account of the relation between premisses and conclusion
in the theoretical syllogism can also be taken to hold of this relation in
the practical syllogism. We may say that just as we cannot claim fully to
understand a judgment which stands as the conclusion of a theoretical
syllogism if we do not know the premisses which express the cause of the
conclusion, so also we cannot claim fully to understand an action if we
do not know the premisses which express its cause. That is, we do not
understand an action if we do not know why it was performed-what
the agent's motives were, the way he saw his situation, etc. To put our
point in Aristotelian terms: any action has an internal and an external
aspect. The latter, which is the physical aspect, is the matter of the action,
and the former, constituted by the agent's motives, intentions, beliefs,
etc., which are expressed as the premisses of the practical syllogism, is the
form of the action. As the form of the action, the premisses express the
rational structure of the action which is their conclusion. And the matter
is that which has this rational structure.
Thus the relation of premisses to conclusion in both the theoretical
and the practical syllogism may be regarded as the relation of form to
matter, and Aristotle's insistence on the close parallel between theoretical
and practical reasoning would seem to be justified.
In his recent book Aristotle on Practical Knowledge and Weakness of Will

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 28 ANALYSIS

(The Hague, 1966) R. D.

between premisses and co
psychological cause to eff
in a syllogism to be temp
a central feature of Arist
existsin what it informs, (
rem). Thus if our account
the premisses, as the form
but are in a sense contem
rational structure.
Furthermore, Milo argue
premisses of a practical s
accordingly. Unfortunate
means by this phrase. W
roughly as the compulsion
when asked why he perf
couldn't stop myself doin
to perform most of the a
most actions, and those
conclusions of a practica
actions not performed as
be explained most natura
action and beliefs about th
the agent. That is, it is ju
cal constraint which can b
matter which Aristotle tr
syllogisms.
By offering a psychological account of the relation between premisses
and conclusion in the Aristotelian practical syllogism when this relation
is essentially logical in character, Milo appears to have made it more
nearly impossible for himself to give an adequate explanation of Aris-
totle's insistence on the similarity between this relation in the theoretical
and the practical syllogism.

Glasgow University

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