The
Organon was used in the school founded by Aristotle at the
Lyceum, and some parts of the works seem to be a scheme of a lecture on logic. So much so that after Aristotle's death, his publishers (
Andronicus of Rhodes in 50 BC, for example) collected these works. Following the collapse of the
Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, much of Aristotle's work was lost in the Latin West. The
Categories and
On Interpretation are the only significant logical works that were available in the early
Middle Ages. These had been translated into
Latin by
Boethius, along with Porphyry's
Isagoge, which was also translated into Arabic by
Ibn al-Muqaffa' via a Syriac intermediary. The other logical works were not available in Western Christendom until
translated into Latin in the 12th century. However, the original Greek texts had been preserved in the
Greek-speaking lands of the
Eastern Roman Empire (aka
Byzantium). In the mid-twelfth century,
James of Venice translated into Latin the
Posterior Analytics from Greek manuscripts found in Constantinople. The books of Aristotle were available in the early Muslim world, and after 750 AD Muslims had most of them, including the
Organon, translated into Arabic, normally via earlier Syriac translations. They were studied by
Islamic and
Jewish scholars, including Rabbi
Moses Maimonides (1135–1204) and the Muslim Judge
Ibn Rushd, known in the West as Averroes (1126–1198); both were originally from
Córdoba, Spain, although the former left Iberia and by 1168 lived in
Egypt. All the major scholastic philosophers wrote commentaries on the
Organon.
Aquinas,
Ockham and
Scotus wrote commentaries on
On Interpretation. Ockham and Scotus wrote commentaries on the
Categories and
Sophistical Refutations.
Grosseteste wrote an influential commentary on the
Posterior Analytics. In the
Enlightenment there was a revival of interest in logic as the basis of
rational enquiry, and a number of texts, most successfully the
Port-Royal Logic, polished
Aristotelian term logic for
pedagogy. During this period, while the logic certainly was based on that of Aristotle, Aristotle's writings themselves were less often the basis of study. There was a tendency in this period to regard the
logical systems of the day to be complete, which in turn no doubt stifled innovation in this area. However,
Francis Bacon published his
Novum Organum ("The New
Organon") as a scathing attack in
1620.
Immanuel Kant thought that there was nothing else to invent after the work of Aristotle, and the famous logic historian
Karl von Prantl claimed that any logician who said anything new about logic was "confused, stupid or perverse." These examples illustrate the force of influence which Aristotle's works on logic had. Indeed, he had already become known by the Scholastics (medieval Christian scholars) as "The Philosopher", due to the influence he had upon medieval theology and philosophy. His influence continued into the Early Modern period and
Organon was the basis of school philosophy even in the beginning of the 18th century. Since the logical innovations of the 19th century, particularly the formulation of modern
predicate logic, Aristotelian logic had for a time fallen out of favor among many
analytic philosophers. However, the logic historian
John Corcoran and others have shown that the works of
George Boole and
Gottlob Frege—which laid the groundwork for modern mathematical logic—each represent a continuation and extension to Aristotle's logic and in no way contradict or displace it. Boole fully accepted and endorsed Aristotle's logic, and Frege included Aristotle's
square of opposition at the end of his groundbreaking
Begriffsschrift to show the harmony of his theory with the Aristotelian tradition. == See also ==