On the Difference between Platonic and Aristotelian Philosophy

A Question of Logic.

CHAPTER VIII.

There is, furthermore, another axiom which holds thus: that the conclusion always follows that part of the premises which is called the Minor The author refers to the "weaker" part of a syllogism; in logic, if one premise is negative or particular, the conclusion must also be negative or particular.: that is, the part which looks to the particular is minor to the universal, the negative is minor to the affirmative, and moreover, the simple is minor to the necessary, and the contingent is minor to the simple. Aristotle himself, however, says that from two premises—one necessary and the other simple An "assertoric" statement or a statement of fact—a necessary conclusion is produced. And yet, if that is the middle term which connects the first term to the extreme, it surely cannot connect it in any other way than by the same reasoning through which the first is joined to the extreme. Therefore, if that one indeed has a necessary relationship to the other, this one will also have that same relationship to the extreme, and for that reason, only a necessary conclusion will be drawn from them. But if that same middle term is not necessarily joined with either of the terms, then not even the first can be necessarily joined with the extreme. And such are these pronouncements of Aristotle.

The supreme One is simply one: so that its subsistence, power, and act are not distinguished. In the middle? inferior forms, these three are divided? in act.

CHAPTER IX.

I come now to those things which he taught incorrectly in his books On the Soul original: "de anima". The Platonists, therefore, make that supernatural One "simply one," to such an extent that they do not distinguish its subsistence subsistentia; the underlying reality or essence of a thing, its power potentia; the capacity for being or acting, and its act actus; the actualization or exercise of power from one another. But in others, which are after and below the One—namely forms and minds—they do not believe those three are one in the same way. Instead, they distinguish the act from the subsistence, though they do not entirely distinguish the power from the act; this is because those minds or forms, since they are immobile, possess nothing by way of potentiality, but always have all things present in reality and in act which are within them. But in the soul, these three—subsistence, power, and act—all
: