Category
Logic & argument
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Reading group: the first book of the Nyāya Sūtra with Vātsyāyana’s commentary
The Nyāya Sūtra, traditionally attributed to Gautama Akṣapāda and dated around the second century CE in its current form, is the root text of the school that made Indian logic and debate into a system. About three centuries later Vātsyāyana wrote the…
Started by Vikram Sethi6 replies -
Reading group: Toulmin’s The Uses of Argument, starting from the middle
The Toulmin layout (claim, grounds, warrant, backing, qualifier, rebuttal) is on every debate camp handout in the country. Almost nobody has read the book it comes from. Let's fix that. Text. Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (1958; the Cambridge updated edition…
Started by Sam Ellery6 replies -
Reading group: the Nyāya-sūtra on debate, from the sixteen categories to the points of defeat
Several threads here have touched on the Nyāya distinction between vāda, jalpa and vitaṇḍā. I'd like to read the primary text together, since most of us (me included, honestly) know it through summaries. Text. The Nyāya-sūtra attributed to Gautama (Akṣapāda), with Vātsyāyana's…
Started by Meera Kulkarni6 replies -
Reading group: Aristotle’s Metaphysics Gamma on the firmest principle
Several recent threads keep coming back to Aristotle's defence of the principle of non-contradiction, usually second-hand. Let's read it. It's short and much stranger than its reputation. Text: Metaphysics Book Gamma (IV), chapters 3 to 7. Ross's translation is freely available; Christopher…
Started by Nikos Theodoridis5 replies -
Reading group: Prior Analytics I.1–7, slowly, with a Nyāya inference on the table
Everyone says Aristotle invented formal logic, and I realise I have never read the Prior Analytics closely in company. So here is a proposal: the first seven chapters of Book I, over five weeks, which is where the whole assertoric system is…
Started by Giulia Ferrante6 replies -
Reading group: Stoic logic in Diogenes Laertius, Lives Book VII
Chrysippus is said to have written hundreds of books, a large share of them on logic, and almost all are lost. What we have of Stoic logic comes mostly through later writers: Diogenes Laertius, who gives a summary of Stoic dialectic in…
Started by Giulia Ferrante5 replies