Syllogism - Types of Syllogism

Types of Syllogism

There are infinitely many possible syllogisms, but only a finite number of logically distinct types, which we classify and enumerate below. Note that the syllogism above has the abstract form:

Major premise: All M are P.

Minor premise: All S are M.

Conclusion: All S are P.

(Note: M – Middle, S – subject, P – predicate. See below for more detailed explanation.)

The premises and conclusion of a syllogism can be any of four types, which are labeled by letters as follows. The meaning of the letters is given by the table:

In Analytics, Aristotle mostly uses the letters A, B and C (actually, the Greek letters alpha, beta and gamma) as term place holders, rather than giving concrete examples, an innovation at the time. It is traditional to use is rather than are as the copula, hence All A is B rather than All As are Bs. It is traditional and convenient practice to use a, e, i, o as infix operators to enable the categorical statements to be written succinctly thus:

The letter S is the subject of the conclusion, P is the predicate of the conclusion, and M is the middle term. The major premise links M with P and the minor premise links M with S. However, the middle term can be either the subject or the predicate of each premise where it appears. The differing positions of the major, minor, and middle terms gives rise to another classification of syllogisms known as the figure. Given that in each case the conclusion is S-P, the four figures are:

(Note, however, that, following Aristotle's treatment of the figures, some logicians—e.g., Peter Abelard and John Buridan—reject the fourth figure as a figure distinct from the first. See entry on the Prior Analytics.)

Putting it all together, there are 256 possible types of syllogisms (or 512 if the order of the major and minor premises is changed, though this makes no difference logically). Each premise and the conclusion can be of type A, E, I or O, and the syllogism can be any of the four figures. A syllogism can be described briefly by giving the letters for the premises and conclusion followed by the number for the figure. For example, the syllogism BARBARA above is AAA-1, or "A-A-A in the first figure".

The vast majority of the 256 possible forms of syllogism are invalid (the conclusion does not follow logically from the premises). The table below shows the valid forms. Even some of these are sometimes considered to commit the existential fallacy, meaning they are invalid if they mention an empty category. These controversial patterns are marked in italics.

The letters A, E, I, O have been used since the medieval Schools to form mnemonic names for the forms as follows: 'Barbara' stands for AAA, 'Celarent' for EAE, etc.

Next to each premise and conclusion is a shorthand description of the sentence. So in AAI-3, the premise "All squares are rectangles" becomes "MaP"; the symbols mean that the first term ("square") is the middle term, the second term ("rectangle") is the predicate of the conclusion, and the relationship between the two terms is labeled "a" (All M are P).

The following table shows all syllogisms that are essentially different. The similar syllogisms share actually the same premises, just written in a different way. For example "Some pets are kittens" (SiM in Darii) could also be written as "Some kittens are pets" (MiS is Datisi).

In the Venn diagrams, the black areas indicate no elements, and the red areas indicate at least one element.