Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of King's College London and the Lever Hume Trust online at

W.W. history of philosophy dot net. Today's episode

The Philosophers Toolkit Aristotle's logical works.

A few episodes back I asked you to imagine that you were a medieval monk, reading Plato's

Timaeus.

That was good practice for what I'd like you to do now.

Imagine instead that you're a 5th century A.D. student of philosophy.

You have come to the great center of learning that is the city of Alexandria in Egypt.

Don't forget to visit the Lighthouse, I hear it's wonderful.

You already have a good education under your belt.

You are literate and have studied some rhetoric,

and now you are going to try to master philosophy.

What's the first thing you will study? Of course it will be Aristotle.

As we'll see eventually in the late ancient world even Platonists introduced their students to philosophy through Aristotle, saving Plato's texts for more advanced research.

But what Aristotle will you begin with? Nowadays a course on Aristotle might start with his ethics or his physics,

but as a late ancient student you will be taught that there is only one place to begin doing philosophy, logic.

In fact, you will spend quite a while digesting Aristotle's logical works.

Many students will never progress any further into more advanced topics.

The designers of the late ancient curriculum were on to something

when they prescribed a foundation in logic for their students.

Logic deals with the rules of rational argument and obviously philosophy is nothing if not a kind of rational argument.

So, there is good reason to think that the study of logic is fundamental to the study of philosophy as a whole.

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