About term distribution in categorical syllogisms
Dan Constantin Radulescu · 2018
One uses a set interpretation of the terms appearing in categorical syllogisms,to redefine the term distribution notion such that most of the valid categoricalarguments (VCAs), (which contain as a subset all the valid syllogisms (VSs)),“conserve the distribution of terms”, i.e., the terms that appear in the logicalconclusion (LC) of a VCA and are there distributed, (resp. undistributed), werealso distributed, (resp. undistributed), in the pair of categorical premises (PCP)that generated the VCA by entailing its LC. The following criterion redefinesterm distribution: The sets which are distributed, (resp. undistributed), in anuniversal categorical statement are undistributed, (resp. distributed), in itscontradictory particular statement. Thus, by definition, I(M,P) does notdistribute M and P since E(M,P) does, but distributes M' and P' since E(M,P)does not, and O(M,P) does not distribute M and P' since A(M,P) does, butdistributes M' and P since A(M,P) does not.