Roczniki Filozoficzne

The article deals with the problem of truth by Aristotle. The study begins a presentation of the main cognitive dispositions, mentioned in Book VI of Nicomachean Ethics, by which man achieve the truth. A next object of analysis is the truth in logical understanding. Its “place” is the intellect performing acts of judgment, standing at the basis of discursive knowledge. Having in mind that the determinants of so understood truth are things, further investigations are focused on except logical aspects of truth. Aristotle defines them, as in the case of logical truth, on the base of human cognitive dispositions, which–apart from discursive knowledge (epistēmē)—include theoretical wisdom (sophia), practical wisdom (phronēsis), desire (orexis), and art (technē). The actions emerging from these dispositions are also a form of cognitive agreement with reality, and consequently can be considered as a kind of truth. Despite that here as well, the truth is connected with the cognitive functions, its determinants are also real things. This leads to a crucial question of the presented article which concerns the truth of things themselves. According to Author, Aristotle does not give a directly answer, although his certain remarks touch this problem. Their examination allows better to understand the later conceptions of truth.

The notion of relation is one of the most important concepts present in our language.This study propose some extension of elementary ontology (OE) for relational variables and defining in his framework the concepts of the classical calculus of relations. Such enriched elementary ontology (OER) is a better tool for the analysis of natural language.It is shown that syllogistic with the negative terms enriched by so called oblique syllogisms (SNU with the axioms C1–C5) is a fragment of OER system (Theorem 1).The OER system is enriched next with individual variables (a,b,c) and by assuming the individual term referentiality (axiom A2) we obtain OER* system. The Proof that the classical calculus of relations (KRR) is a part of the system OER* (Theorem 2) is given.