ARISTOTLE Logica

by the humanist bookseller Jean Petit.

Magnificent copy of Bernhardus Rascher who calligraphed the date 1544 on the volume,

preserved in its beautiful contemporaneous binding in embossed pigskin.

Paris, 1536.

Aristoteles (384-322 BC). Logica Libri logicorum ad archetypos recogniti3 Paris, Jean Petit, 1536.

In-folio, 271 ff. and 1 f. of printer’s mark (some pagination errors but complete). Embossed pigskin with brass clasps and fasteners, ribbed back. Period binding.

326 x 207 mm.

Aristotle’s most influential foundational texts on logic in a beautiful contemporary pigskin over wooden board, richly rollstamped and with 2 brass clasps.

With woodcut title border and numerous woodcut diagrams and figurative and ornamental metal and woodcut initials in the text, at end with large woodcut printer’s device.

7Follows the 1531 edition, no. 26.

Avignon. Barcelona, BU. Berlin, SB. Fribourg, BCU. Genoa, BC (missing title). Geneva, BPU. Lisbon, BN. Munich, BSB. Pamiers. Poitiers, BU. Saint-Dié7. (Renouard, ICP, V, 23)

Significant edition, with a preliminary piece by Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples, paraphrasing the preface of Porphyrus to his disciple Chrysaorius, printed by Jean Petit, at the press of Pierre Vidoue.

Jean Petit, a printer at the start of the 16th century, was one of the four principal booksellers of the University of Paris and greatly contributed to the dissemination of humanism at the beginning of the Renaissance. He published a large number of original editions. Among his collaborators were Robert Estienne and Josse Bade. Petit was an example of an early successful printer.

In his logic courses, Kant wrote: 1Current logic derives from ‘the analytic’ of Aristotle. This philosopher can be considered the father of logic 7.

Aristotle (384-322 BC) is indeed the founding father of classical logic, but he is also, in my opinion, largely at the origin of Western philosophy of language. In Aristotelian theory, logic and language are indeed closely linked, within a vast organization of knowledge. Heidegger does not fail to point out that 1 […] it is to Aristotle himself that we owe a more distinct metaphysical interpretation of the 9 bb 9 bb conceived as the proposition. […] This conception of the essence of the 9 bb 9 bb eventually became exemplary and normative for the constitution of logic and grammar 7.

Aristotle’s theory has been immensely successful. Over time, it has influenced both rationalists and idealists as well as empiricists and realists.

Aristotle remains a fundamental reference, at least from the perspective of a history of thought and even, one could say, a history of reflexive thought, that is, the thought that takes its own mechanisms as an object of study.

It is known that Aristotle’s various texts on logic issues have been collected into a vast set called Organon (literally: tool, instrument). This gives us six logical treatises: the Categories, a treatise studying the constituent terms of the proposition; On Interpretation, which studies propositions, that is, combinations of terms; the Prior Analytics or analytical study of reasoning and its main form, the syllogism, and the Posterior Analytics, which studies more particularly the scientific syllogism, these two treatises constituting the study of interpropositional relations, a study that naturally follows that of the propositions; then the Topics, in fact probably written before the Prior Analytics and the Posterior Analytics, and which propose a method of argumentation from probable premises; finally, the Sophistical Refutations, which aim to dismantle the mechanisms of refutations by sophists, in other words, the fallacies they are accustomed to using.

Aristotle’s contribution to philosophy, logic, and the analysis of language is considerable. This fact is known and almost a commonplace, but it is still necessary to demonstrate it in each era by rereading his work in the light of progress or innovations in the world of thought. Let us not forget that this appreciation is not unanimous. It is, in any case, striking to note that the debate between Platonists and Aristotelians remains significant in the scientific world (among mathematicians, for example). The master, Plato, and the disciple, Aristotle, who emancipated himself from the master to put things back on their feet and rehabilitate the sensible world, remain two major references even today.

As for the Organon, it represents the first major corpus to deal with logic and language systematically. Despite criticisms and trials of time, despite the necessary evolution of thought, it is a central work that has inspired logicians, philosophers of language, and linguists, often unwittingly, and even in school grammar since its antique origins. The fertility of the Aristotelian method is undeniable, and the debates it has instigated are far from over or outdated. Even for our contemporaries, the Organon remains a cathedral of classical logic.

Magnificent copy of this very rare edition, preserved in its beautiful contemporaneous binding in embossed pigskin over wooden boards, from the library of the humanist Bernhardus Rascher with the calligraphed date of 1544.