S (for Syllogism) Revisited

"The Revolution Devours its Children"

Abstract

In 1978, the authors began a paper, “S (for Syllogism),” henceforth [S4S], intended as a philosophical companion piece to the technical solution [SPW] of the Anderson-Belnap P–W problem. [S4S] has gone through a number of drafts, which have been circulated among close friends. Meanwhile other authors have failed to see the point of the semantics which we introduced in [SPW]. It will accordingly be our purpose here to revisit that semantics, while giving our present views on syllogistic matters past, present and future, especially as they relate to not begging the question via such dubious theses as A →’ A. We shall investigate in particular a paraconsistent attitude toward such theses.