Greek Foundations of Traditional Logic.

A Legal Semiotics Framework for Exploring the Origins of Hermagorean Stasis

“…As Aristotle has indicated (see note 22), in a syllogism the speaker can begin with the minor premise, making it the initial charge; indeed, the major premise of our syllogism need not be stated if it is evoked by the minor premise and uncritically accepted by an audience [5, §1357a, 1394b; 20, §I 76]. Significantly, in the minor premise, we attach the middle term (persons who blaspheme the gods) to the minor term, our subject (Socrates); earlier, we saw Aristotle's belief that his scientific questions target the middle term.…”

“…Let's begin with Jackson's Socratic adjudicatory syllogism, which, again, he presents as the following first-figure syllogism 22 :…”

“…If the defendant does attack the attachment of the middle term to the subject-if he or she attacks the minor premise/initial charge-we have a stasis of stochasmos, of fact: Socrates has blasphemed the gods/No, he hasn't. 22 As we move to a full discussion of stasis and the syllogism, we inevitably confront the potentially thorny issue of the enthymeme. After all, we are analyzing both rhetoric and the syllogism, and Aristotle calls the enthymeme ''a rhetorical syllogism'' [5, §1356b].…”