Stoic Logic Free PDF book (1953) by Benson Mates

Download Stoic Logic Free PDF book (1953) by Benson Mates

 Benson Mates

Excerpt from the introduction:


The aim of this study is to present a true description of the logic of the Old Stoa. It repeats most of Lukasiewicz’s published conclusions on the subject and offers additional evidence for them. It also describes the Stoic semantical theory and compares it with certain similar modern theories, attempts to give a better account of the heretofore misunderstood Diodorean implication, points out the Stoic version of the conditionalization principle, and discusses the contention of the Stoics that their propositional logic was complete.


In appendices, it offers and justifies new translations of some important fragments pertaining to Stoic logic. The Stoic authors in whose work we shall be interested primarily are Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus. Closely associated with them were Diodorus Cronus and Philo, of the Megarian school. Since the writings of these men have been lost, and since our sources usually do not distinguish between the views of the various Stoics, we are forced to treat the entire Old Stoa as a unit. This, of course, creates many difficulties.


The best of our sources are Sextus Empiricus and Diodes Magnes (apud Diogenes Laertius). We also derive bits of information from Cicero, Gellius, Galen, Boethius, Apuleius, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Simplicius, Philoponus, Origen, Proclus, Stobaeus, Epictetus, Seneca, and a few others. Of these, only Epictetus and Seneca were favorably inclined toward Stoicism, and they, unfortunately, restricted their attention almost entirely to ethics.


 It is thus remarkable that the fragments of Stoic logic, transmitted by unsympathetic hands, are as clear and consistent as they are. For more than two thousand years the logic of Aristotle exercised so complete a dominance over the field that in 1787 Immanuel Kant could say, “It is remarkable that to the present day it [logic] has not been able to make one step in advance, so that, to all appearance, it may be considered as completed and perfect.” any part of mathematics. So many steps in advance have been made that the present-day student of logic is likely to find Aristotle mentioned only in the historical footnotes of his textbook.

Author: Benson Mates
 Publication Date:1953

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