Are Particular Terms Necessarily Only Particular

[Matthew Turnbull]

Dear Mr. Cothran,

I am greatly enjoying teaching three sections of Logic using your Traditional Logic I. Thanks for your work on the text.

It is one of my sharp students who is prodding me to ask this question. As we were discussing the rules and laws governing the opposition of propositions we were trying to prove them out using examples. In a few of our discussions we became perplexed. Our question is: Are particular statements (Some S is P) necessarily merely particular or is it possible for them to be universal? In other words, when stating that "some cats are snobby" is one necessarily stating that ONLY some cats are snobby or is one merely stating that AT LEAST some cats are snobby (and thus possibly all, but not certainly so)? I consulted Aristotle's Prior Analytics for the answer but was not satisfied that I understood him. In Book I, ch. I (line 17) he states that "by particular that it belongs to some or not to some or not to all; by indefinite that it does nor does not belong, . . ." Is he implying that particular statements could be referring to all in some fashion?

Thanks for your help!

Matt Turnbull

[martin]

Matt,

The terms "some" is taken as a matter of convention to mean "at least one, but not all". It is the best English expression we have to express the idea of a particular statement.

[critch]

The fourth law of opposition states that if a particular statement is true, its subaltern may or may not be true. This would mean that "some" means "at least one." If we add "but not all," we exclude the possibility that subalternate statements can both be true.