Defining Basic Terms for the Syllogism - Prior Analytics - Book I Chapter I - Aristotle

Scope of the Work
The scope of this work Prior Analytics is demonstration and the demonstrative science. For more on this and the difference between dialectic and demonstration, see the picture of notes below. 

Required Definitions

- premise

- term

- syllogism

- Perfect vs. imperfect syllogisms

- "in what sense one term is said to be or not to be 'wholly contained' in another"

- "predicated of all"

- "predicated of none"

Types of Premises

Premise - "an affirmative or negative statement of something about some subject." 

Universal Premise - "a statement which applies to all, or to none, of the subject." 

Particular Premise - "a statement which applies to some of the subject, or does not apply to some, or does not apply to all." 

Indefinite Premise - "a statement which applies or does not apply without reference to universality or particularity." 

Premise of a Demonstration - "The assumption of one member of a pair of contradictory statements (since the demonstrator does not ask a question but makes an assumption)...". In other words, when someone puts forward a premise as given. ("true and based upon fundamental postulates")

Premise of Dialectic - "is an answer to the question which of two contradictory statements is to be accepted." When the two talk out if the premise is to be given. ("for the interrogator, an answer to the question which of two contradictory statements is to be accepted, and for the logical reasoner, an assumption of what is apparently true and generally accepted...") 

Syllogistic Premise - "the affirmation or negation of some predicate of some subject." 

Other Key Ideas

Term - "that into which the premiss can be analyzed, viz., the predicate and the subject, with the addition or removal of the very to be or not to be."

Syllogism - "A form of words in which, when certain assumptions are made, something other than what has been assumed necessarily follows from the fact that the assumptions are such." 

Perfect Syllogism - "if it requires nothing, apart from what is comprised in it, to make the necessary conclusion apparent..." 

Imperfect Syllogism - "if it requires one or more propositions which, although they necessarily follow from the terms which have been laid down, are not comprised in the premisses." 

Distributed Term - When "one term to be wholly contained in another...". i.e. every example of the one implies predication of the other. For example, all cats are animals. Every example and use of cat implies predication of animal.