The Middle Included: Logos in Aristotle [Paperback]

The Middle Includedis the first comprehensive account of the Ancient Greek wordlogosin Aristotelian philosophy.Logosmeans many things in the Aristotelian corpus: essential formula, proportion, reason, and language. Surveying these meanings in Aristotle’s logic, physics, and ethics, Ömer Aygün persuasively demonstrates that these divers meanings oflogosall refer to a basic sense of “gathering” or “inclusiveness.” In this sense,logosfunctions as a counterpart to a formal version of the principles of non-contradiction and of the excluded middle in his corpus. Aygün thus shifts Aristotle’s traditional image from that of the father of formal logic, classificatory thinking, andexclusionto a more nuanced image of him as a thinker ofinclusion.
 
The Middle Includedalso explores human language in Aristotelian philosophy. After an account of acoustic phenomena and animal communication,Aygünargues that human language for Aristotle is the ability to understand and relay both first-hand experiences and non-first-hand experiences. This definition is key to understanding many core human experiences such as science, history, news media, education, sophistry, and indeed philosophy itself.Logosis thus never associated with any other animal nor with anything divine—it remains strictly and rigorously secular, humane, and yet full of the wonder.

The Middle Included is Ömer Aygün's systematic exploration of the meanings of logos throughout Aristotle’s work. 

ÖMER AYGÜN is an assistant professor of philosophy at Galatasaray University in Turkey.

 

Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Preface
 
Introduction: The Questionand the Method
 
Part I: Being (Logosin theCatlóV