Original scientific paper

Chrysippus’ Indemonstrables and Mental Logic

Miguel Lopez-Astorga ; Talca University, Chile

Abstract

Stoic logic assumes fi ve inference schemata attributed to Chrysippus of Soli. Those schemata are the well-known indemonstrables. A problem related to them can be that, according to standard propositional calculus, only one of them, modus ponens, is clearly indemonstrable. Nevertheless, I try to show in this paper that the mental logic theory enables to understand why the Stoics considered such schemata to be basic kinds of arguments. Following that theory, four of them can be linked to ‘Core Schemata’ of mental logic and the only one that is more controversial is modus tollens. However, as I also comment, some assumptions of Stoic philosophy, which can be interpreted from the mental logic theory, can explain why this last argument was included into the set of the indemonstrables as well.

Keywords

Classical logic; indemonstrable; mental logic; reasoning schemata; Stoic

Hrčak ID:

167146

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/167146

Publication date:

30.4.2015.

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