The logical link between the propositions is perhaps most apparent in (5), where we detect an abbreviated syllogism-what the logicians call an enthymeme. (7)In modern times, the enthymeme has come to be regarded as an abbreviated syllogism--that is, an argumentative statement that contains a conclusion and one of the premises, the second premise being implied. (62) However, Corbett allows as how both models of the enthymeme coexist in Aristotle and illustrates the possibility of both models functioning simultaneously within the same example:But according to what Aristotle said in Prior Analytics (Bk. 2, Ch. 27.), the essential difference is that the syllogism leads to a necessary conclusion from universally true premises but the enthymeme leads to a tentative conclusion from probable premises. (62) Here we have an enthymeme, both in the sense of a truncated syllogism and in the sense of a deductive argument based on probable premises. (63) On the other hand, in the majority of his examples, Corbett returns to the missing premise model: When we are seeking to refute someone else's enthymeme, it may be the missing premise that we should attack.... (63) Mackin generalizes Aristotle's use of enthymeme in passing but does not elaborate on his obiter dicta: The enthymeme ... might be defined as any deductive reasoning that does not adhere to the strict rules of formal logic... The usual definition is that enthymemes are syllogisms with one premise surpressed. But this seems inaccurate because no one, with the exception possibly of a logician, consciously does any suppressing of anything whatever with engaged in deducing conclusions. (122)Hill, in his summary of Aristotle's Rhetoric uses both the probablistic and the missing premise notions of the enthymeme without explicitly addressing the issue of their difference:The enthymeme is an argument from premises which are probable principles or from signs. (23)
The printers' devices appearing on the front cover of AJP have been selected from among the ones especially created in stained glass for the Hutzler Undergraduate Reading Room on the Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins University. They represent the devices by the sons of Aldus Manutius (Spring), Robert Estienne (Summer), Joannes Frobenius (Fall), and Christopher Plantin (Winter).
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