Štyri antické argumenty

The book is devoted to the ancient
logical theories, reconstruction of their semantic proprieties and
possibilities of their interpretation by modern logical tools. The Ancient
arguments are frequently misunderstood in modern interpretations since authors usually
have tendency to ignore their historical proprieties and theoretical background
what usually leads to a quite inappropriate picture of the argument’s original
form and mission. Author’s primary intention was to draw attention to the complexity of some
historical arguments and to the theoretical context in which arguments were
created, circulated, developed, and finally tuned. Four well-known ancient arguments –
with a common central subject related to the future contingencies problem – are
reconstructed from available historical sources: “The Sea Battle”, which is
drawn from Aristotle’s treatise De Interpretatione; two arguments,
usually ascribed to the Stoics, “The Lazy Argument” and “The Reaper”; “The
Master Argument” of the Megarian philosopher Diodorus.  Arguments are
linguistically and semantically detaily analyzed, formally presented by
reflecting some relevant corresponding hypotheses based on physical or logical
theories of their ancient authors, and finally covered by logical tools
appropriate for modern reader.

Two appendices are added at the
closing part of the book. One covering some assumptions relevant for
understanding of rival streams in ancient theories of meaning related to the
nature of names and naming; the other is devoted to the ancient understanding
of logical proposition and attempts to find an adequate Latin translation of
the Greek delicate philosophical term “ἀξίωμα”.