Petrus Ramus

[thinkandmull]

Wikipedia says:
“Petrus Ramus amended the syllogism. He admits only the first three figures, as in the original Aristotelian scheme, and in his later works he also attacks the validity of the third figure, following in this the precedent of Laurentius Valla. Ramus also set the modern fashion of deducing the figures from the position of the middle term in the premises, instead of basing them, as Aristotle does, upon the different relation of the middle to the major term and minor term.”

Does anyone here understand this?

 

[e_c]

It’s about a subtlety of an approach to logic. Unfortunately, I only took the primer class on logic - my school didn’t offer anything beyond that. So what exactly the author means by “figures” I’m unsure of, though the major, middle, and minor terms are not that vague - there’s even a link to that stuff on the Wiki page. But anyway, logic quickly becomes complicated and even ambiguous, once you get past the obvious stuff.