Greek Geometrical Analysis

Author(s): Norman Gulley

Source: Phronesis, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1958), pp. 1-14
Published by: BRILL
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Greek Geometrical Anafysis
NORMAN GULLEY
THIS article offers an interpretation of the passage in Pappus de-
scribing geometrical analysis (Collection, vii., Preface, pp. 634-6
in Hultsch; full text also in Thomas, Greek Mathematical Works,
II, pp. 596-9, Loeb). The principal difficulty is that Pappus appears to
give two different accounts of the direction of the analysis. (i) as an
upward movement to prior assumptions from which an initial assumption
follows
(ev
IL'V
y&'p
-T
0oV0F.XUxcC iT4. xCXX0UtV
(FVOAsLv). (ii)
as a
downward movement of deduction from an initial assumption (8vTv.
npo6fX-%toc).
Two interpretations have been offered. The first accepts (ii)
as the proper formulation of what the Greeks called geometrical analysis,
and explains (i) as merely an alternative way of describing (ii). The
second accepts (i) as the proper formulation, and explains (II) as merely
an alternative way of describing (i). The first is the commonly accepted
interpretation. Lucid and detailed accouats of the method on this
interpretation are given by Heath (The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements,
I, pp. I37-142), Robinson (Mind, N.S. XLV, I936, pp. 464-473), and
Cherniss (Review of Metaphysics, IV, i9gi, pp. 4I4-4I9). The method is
one of assuming to be true a geometrical proposition which it is required
to prove, or assuming a geometrical problem to be solved, and, by
analysis, deducing con-sequences until one reaches either a proposition
known independently to be true, or a construction which it is possible
to satisfy, or a proposition known to be false, or a construction which it
is impossible to satisfy. In the first case, the last step in the analysis
becomes the first in the synthesis, which repeats the steps of the analysis
in reverse order until the original assumption is reached and so proved.
In the second case one may conclude, without resort to the synthesis,
that the original assumption is false, or the solution impossible. A
requirement of the method is that the implications at each step are
reciprocal. The second part (ii) of Pappus' account seems, quite clearly,
to be describing this method. So also do the definitions of analysis and
synthesis interpolated in Euclid XIII (see Heath, op. cit. p. I 38). More-
over, as Robinson emphasizes, there are excellent examples of its use in
Archimedes,
in Pappus, in the alternative proofs of XIII, i-g, interpolated
in Euclid, and elsewhere (loc. cit. pp. 469-472; see also Heath, op. cit.,
I, pp. I4I-142). That this, and no other method is what the Greek
geometers called analysis is, says Robinson (Plato's Earlier Dialectic,
1II
ed. 2., p. i66), "really as certain as anything in the history of thought".
The second interpretation contends that this is not only not certain, but
false. The only detailed argument for this other view is that of Cornford,
in Mind, N.S., XLI, 1932, pp.
43-50,
but several other scholars appear
to share his view.1 Cornford argued that the method of analysis is not
one of deduction; the procedure is not to see what follows from the
original assumption, but to see from what the original assumption
follows, and, having discovered that, to proceed backwards until a
proposition is reached independently known to be true. Then, by
synthesis, the original assumption is deduced and so proved. It is only
the synthesis which is deductive, and not also the analysis. The first part
(i) of Pappus' account ('V ,uev yap -U vcLVXUCL... XX05XOV OVOeLav)
seems, quite clearly, to be describing this method. So also do the
definitions of analysis and synthesis given by the Greek commentators on
Aristotle and by Proclus. Moreover there are, as we shall see, illus-
trations of this method of analysis in Aristotle, in the Greek commentaries
on Aristotle, and in Proclus.
An assumption common to both these interpretations is that Pappus,
throughout his account, is describing, with perfect consistency, a method
which, exclusively of all other forms of analysis, was called by the
Greeks geometrical analysis. It is this assumption which seems open to
question; it is in the attempt to make one description of analysis
consistent with the other that the weaknesses of each interpretation
become apparent. Thus Cornford argued that Pappus has been "lamentably
misunderstood" because his description of analysis as proceeding 8r.& 'rCv
eiJq
&xo?CoiU$Ocv has been interpreted as if Ta
riKq
&xOXou6% meant TX
auxLPavov-n,
logical consequences. It should, he argued, be taken to
mean "the succession of sequent steps", without any implication that the
sequence is deductive (loc. cit. p. 47, n. i). He considered that if it
meant "logical consequences", it introduced a logical impossibility
into
Pappus' account, since he considered it to be logically impossible to
have the same series of steps giving logical consequences in both directions.
But he overlooked the point that when each of the propositions in the
series is convertible, then there is no logical impossibility of this kind.
And Robinson rightly made this a principal criticism of Cornford's view
1
See H. D. P. Lee in C.Q: XXLX, pp. II8-I24; A. S. L. Farquharson in C.Q. XVII,
p. 21 ; B. Einarson, in a valuable discussion of mathematical terminology in Aristotle
(A
J.P.
LVII, pp. 3 3- 4,
IS
1-172), commends Cornford's account of the Pappus passage
as "an excellent discussion' (p. 36 n. i8), but his later remarks on analysis (p. I s3)
seem to imply that he would not accept Cornford's conclusions.
2
(Mind, N.S., XLV,
pp.
468-9). The interpretation which takes rOC C'&
ix6?'ouO% to mean logical consequences has, however,
to
explain, con-
sistently with its own thesis, Pappus' description of analysis as a resolution
backwards from an original assumption to prior propositions from which
that assumption follows. Robinson says that this description is "not
incorrect on the usual view of analysis; it is merely unexpected". "Since
on the usual view the implication goes both ways, Pappus would be
correct whichever way he said it wvent". He suggests that "the reason
why he expresses himself here in this unexpected way is that he is
looking at analysis as existing for the sake of synthesis; this makes him
describe the steps of the analysis, not as they appear while you are doing
the analysis, but as they appear in the subsequent synthesis" (ibid. p. 473).
In other words, Robinson says that, since the implications are reciprocal
and the conclusion of the analysis becomes the premiss of the synthesis,
the analysis can correctly be drescribed as a search for premisses or for
antecedent propositions, since propositions which in the analysis were
logical consequences become, in the synthesis, propositions from which
the original assumption follows as conclusion.' Thus (i) becomes
consistent with (uI), as an alternative formulation of (II). This inter-
pretation bases itself on no external evidence for (i) being an alternative
formulation of (II). And it is clear that if there is reliable cxternal evidence
to provide a
d!fferent
explanation for Pappus' description (i), that
explanation should be preferred to one which, from an assumption of the
internal consistency of the passage as a whole, uses (ii) to interpret (i).
I shall argue that such external evidence is available. There are, in fact,
several accounts of geometrical analysis, both earlier and later than that
of Pappus, which describe it in almost precisely the same way as (i), and
it is, as we shall see, possible to supplement Cornford's evidence on this
point. And in the light of the evidence for both (i) and ({I) as recognised
forms of geometrical analysis, a third possible interpretation of the
Pappus passage suggests itself. It is that Pappus, though apparently
presenting a single method with a single set of rules, is really repeating
two different accounts of geometrical analysis, corresponding to two
different forms of the method, and is assuming the equivalence of (i) and
(ii) for all cases of analysis, overlooking the inconsistencies involved in
this assumption. If we assume that at least one account correctly de-
1
Heath too (op. cit. pp. 139, I40) appears to assume that the reason why Pappus de-
scribes analysis in this way must be that he is assuming the convertibility of each step in
the argument, and thus feels himself free to vary his description of the direction of the
analysis.
3
scribes the method, then either (a) one account is the correct one, and
the other is based on a tradition which confuses geometrical analysis
with some other form of analysis, or (b) both describe metho(ds
recognised
by the Greeks as forms of geometrical analysis. I shall argue for (b).
I shall accept the view that the Greeks recognised a form of geometrical
analysis in which both analysis and synthesis were strictly deductive.
Certainly there is no mention in any description of the method in
antiquity of the essential condition of the successful practice of the
method
-
that the implications at each step should be reciprocal. But
there is at least no doubt that Greek geometers were aware that a large
number of geometrical propositions were convertible (see Aristotle,
An. Post.
78a,
IO-13; Proclus, In Eucl., Friedlein, pp. 72, 26ff.,
2S2,
Sff.),
that they practised a method of analysis where the steps were in
fact convertible, and that before the time of Pappus a formulation of this
method had been made representing the analysis as deductive. Thus to
decide between (a) and (b) is to decide whether the tradition on which
Pappus' account (i) is based is a sound one or not.
There are many references to analysis in antiquity to illustrate the
general meaning of the term, its meaning in logic, and its meaning as
descriptive of a geometrical method. The Greek commentators
describe at some length, principally when explaining the title of
Aristotle's Analytics, the application of the term in many fields
-
by
ypotc'noelLXoL, cpuaLo oyoL, cpoL?OQOL, and y wttpxO.1 It is a process of
resolution, of a whole into its parts, of a compound into its elements, of
the complex into the simple. In its logical sense it is contrasted as an
upward movement with the downward movement of
a'vOeatc, &O8&LiL4,
8LodpXsat; it is an ascent to what is npo6repov, to principles (&pyoxL)
or
causes (ctVruo), from which the truth of the proposition which was the
starting point of the analysis can be demonstrated; as a logical method
it is classified as one of the four divisions of dialectic -
aCG,
Waet8tq,
aLuLtpeaL, and
OpLa:k4,
a classification of which the Greek
commentators find the basis in Plato, though
it does, of course, owe
much to Aristotle. 2 Two principal forms of analysis are recognised:
1
Alex. In An. Pr. I,
7,
12ff. (Wallies); Ammonius, In An. Pr. I,
5,
ioff. (Wallies);
Philoponus, In An. Pr. I,
E,
i6 ff. (Wallies); Eustratius, In An. Post II, 3, I O ff (Hayduck);
David In Porph. Is. 9, i iff., 103, 23ff. (Busse).
2 Amm. In Porph. Is.
34,
20ff.; In Anal. Pr. I,
5,
22ff.; Philoponus, In Anal. Pr. I, 5,
i 8 ff.; In Anal. Post II,
3
34, 24 ff.; Eustratius In Anal. Post II, 3,
1 3 ff.; David In Porph. Is.
88, 6ff. See also Albinus, Didaskalikos V (1i6-7 in Hermann's Plato, vi), and Proclus,
In Eucl. (Friedlein), 42, I 2 ff.
4
(a) a "reduction" of sensible particulars to a single form, for the purpose
of defining a term (thus auvy y is a form of analysis): (b) an ascent to
prior propositions or premisses. Though Plato was the first to formulate
these methods as methods of philosophical inquiry, he does not himself
use the term (XvOCauaL to describe them. Its first occurrence as a logical
term is in Aristotle. There it is used of the method of "breaking up" an
argument into its premisses, and these into their terms (see An. Pr. 46,
4o ff.). It is essentially a method of working back from a given conclusion
to the premisses from which that conclusion is deduced. And the de-
scriptions of logical analysis in the Greek commentaries naturally follow
the terminology of Aristotle's discussion of syllogistic analysis, just as
the terminology used to describe the propositions which constitute the
limit of the analysis reflects Aristotle's terminology in specifying the
conditions for the premisses of o au)oytaot6e La-T-1J LOVLX64 (An. Post.
7ib, I6-22)
-
7p()o,
05y4a,
7pOTEppOA,
ao na,
yvxpc p.
In the formulations which the commentators give of geometrical
analysis, this same terminology is used. There is the same general
emphasis on analysis as a discovery of proof, and it appears to be assumed
that geometrical analysis is simply the application to a particular subject
of a method which has other and wider applications. The descriptions are
very closely parallel to Pappus' description in the first part of his account.
Alexander (In An. Pr. I,
7,
I i- I 8), described it as a method which takes
the au v=?pOC (conclusion) as starting-point, and proceeds upwards
progressively, through the assumptions necessary for the demonstration
of the conclusion, ?7:L Tag4
&pXq.
Proclus, in commenting on the
method
&tocycoyn
rs &UvOTov (In Eucl. p.
25S,
I2ff., Friedlein), says
that in general all mathematical proofs are eitherfrom
Cp;o'L
or to
p
cL
and the latter he divides into those OerLxx'L tiCiv &pyfv, which are
analyses as opposed to syntheses, and those &VoLprTLxOx
-
i.e. proofs by
aocyCy4
?La, &&iVXTOV. Similarly (ibid. p. 69, I 6- I 9) he contrasts
&oTr6eLr,
as used in the passage from first principles to the things sought, with
3ovXuag,
as used in the opposite process from the things sought to the
first principles (cf. 8, g-8;
5,
I6-I8; 2II, 19-21). Ammonius (In An.
Pr. 1,5,27-3i) quotes Geminus' definition of geometrical analysis as
Mro8sLrCo
'UP?CL4,
and describes it, with the complementary synthesis,
in much the same terms as Alexander. A fuller account by Philoponus
describes it as the discovery of the premisses from which the truth of the
conclusion is inferred, the procedure being to assume the conclusion as
true, and to analyse it until one reaches TLV%
OPO)OYO\)tLVM
XOL
T&q
&PX&4
Tiq yecoeU'pX'Caq
(In An. Post. 1, I62, 23 ff.). He gives a detailed illus-
5
tration of this (In Phys. 333, 3 if., Vitelli) by taking the proposition that
the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right-angles as the starting-
point, and analysing the prior conditions for the establishing of its truth
until he reaches, as the limit of the analysis, the definition of straight
line (see Euclid, I, io); he then adds the complementary synthesis (cf.
his remarks, In An. Post 1, 3 1
9,
I S ff., whcrl he says that in syllogism the
limits of analysis are
O'pLapoL
or &awaoL e porOasCL, adding that in analysing
the proposition that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right
angles, the limit is the definition of straight line and angle. Similarly
Eustratius, In An. Post., p.
3g,
11. 23-6 (Hayduck). Proclus (in Eucl.
pp. 382,422) speaks of the analysis of rectilinear figures into triangles,
the ultimate figures into which they can be analysed).
It is clear that this method, as the commentators describe it, is closely
akin to what they describe as philosophical analysis and syllogistic
analysis. In each of the three forns of analysis there is a similar process
of upward resolution into principles, and in the formulation of each
much the same terminology appears. A striking instance of resemblance
between formulations of philosophical and of geometrical analysis is the
resemblance between the formulation of geometrical analysis in the
commentaries on Aristotle and the formulation in Albinus of what
Albinus classifies as the second of three forms of philosophical analysis in
Plato.' Cherniss (IOc. cit. p. 41 9) says of this latter that it is "a reduction
of Phaedrus 245 c-e to a scheme which is appareintly influence(d by
geometrical analysis". 2 Equally well, Albinus' formulation may be taken
as an indication of the influence of philosophical formulations of analysis
on the formulation of geometrical analysis. Certainly the way in which
geometrical analysis is formulated in Proclus and in the commentaries on
Aristotle suggests that to its formulation the development of philo-
sophical analysis by Plato and of syllogistic analysis by Aristotle con-
tributed a great deal. In Plato's case this is no doubt the explanation of
the close association in antiquity of Plato's name with geometrical
1
It is introduced as 1)
&OC tCi)v
8LXVUIL6V&)V xal
U7O8ELXxVu[LkvcaV
&vokq rTd
-roe;
&vaTro8ae(x
'roug
xaxl
&?Lkaouq
7po-r&aeL;, and then described more fully as follows (Didaskalikos V.
p. I57, 11. 19-23, in Hermann, vi.): - eaOrTOw
nt
8ii 6 o4,Tou.VOV x>ol oEcapeLv,
rtLvo &rl
-=p6 repo ocivtoi3, xoL Ta5-rua &0o8etXV6eLV &Tr6 mv Uvripov &nd t& 7rp6TEpot &vt6vtr,
gjq
&V IXOWoEV &17l TO6
%pCOYV
xKo
6[LO),OYOU?4LVOV,
OC76 To'uTou 8g
CaP4LCVOL
7id T6
To,UgCVoV xareXeua6FLaO auvOvtLX7I tp6nc-. The other two forms of analysis are
(i) the 'ascent' from sensible particulars to Forms (illustrated from the Symposium)
(II) the upward path of the Phaedo and Republic.
2 The analysis of the proposition that soul is immortal is given also by Ammonius,
In An. Pr. I, g, 34ff., as an illustration of syllogistic analysis.
6
analysis; in both Diogenes Laertius (III, 24) and Proclus (In Eucl. p. 2 I I,
I8-23) we find the statement that Plato explained or communicated the
method of inquiry by analysis to Leodamas. Other evidence suggests,
however, that the method was not initially a philosophical formulation.
It suggests rather that the work of Plato and Aristotle led to the more
precise formulation of a method of geometrical analysis already practised
and already formulated, although this latter formulation doubtless
lacked the more precise mathematical terminology which belongs to the
second, and, almost certainly, later formulation (Pappus' description
(II)). Thus when Plato first introduces in the Meno the method of analysis
f'
o60e'acwq,
he likens it to a method of analysis in geometry which,
he says, geometers frequently practise, and which he represents as a
method of analysing antecedent conditions for the possibility of solving
a problem.' Much more important evidence is that of Aristotle. In
several passages he indicates clearly the method recognised as geo-
metrical analysis in his time; the implication is that this method was
initially formulated by geometers. At the same time these passages
confirm the view that the tradition which Pappus follows in his de-
scription (i) of the methodi s a reliable one. There is, in the first place,
the familiar passage in the Ethics (E.N. I I I2 b, 2 8 ff.) in which the process
of deliberation in the sphere of action is compared with the analysis of a
figure in geometry (86x poq4tc). It is a method which, as a starting
point, assumes the end to be achieved, or assumes a problem solved, and
works backwards through the prior conditions for the achievement of
the end or the solution of the problem, until it reaches a condition
which can be satisfied in action (deliberation) or in construction
(geometry). In E.E. I 227b, I 2 ff., the proposition that the angles of a
triangle are equal to two right angles is given as an example of a propo-
sition which can be analysed by this method (cf. the remarks of the
anonymous commentator on the former passage (p. Igi, Heylbut),
which describe geometrical analysis as a process of assuming the con-
clusion to be true, working backwards through prior assumptions 'erL
rrv apyjPv, then proving the conclusion by synthesis). In the account of
"production"
(y&veaLq)
in Met. io32b,6-29 Aristotle calls the activity
in the ascent from starting-point to conditions
v6onLq,
as he does later in
I O I a, 2 I-33 in describing how geometrical relations are discovered by
"actualisation". In vAYsc we perceive the divisions which exist po-
1 Meno. 86e-87b. The example given is of a
8LopLtqL6q,
the determination of the
conditions for the possibility of the solution of a problem. See Thomas, Greek Mathematical
Works, I, pp. 394-7.
7
tentially in a given figure, and "actualise" them by construction. This
analysis is illustrated' by the process of discovery
(vpreatq,
11. 23, 30)
of the proof that the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles 2,
and that the angle in a semi-circle is a right angle (see Euclid, III,
3 ;
the premiss in Aristotle's passage appears to be Euclid, I, 32). Since
8aLypoctqL
is used both for geometrical figures and geometrical proofs,
aVOCS)V 8aLypLa[L o might mean, as Einarson points out 3, "either to
break a figure up into its parts or to divide a theorem iilto its premisses
or aotLeXZ". Aristotle makes clear elsewhere what already seems to be
implied by these examples and by the formulation itself of the method -
that the implications are not reciprocal and that it is only the synthesis or
proof which is deductive. In Physics 2ooa, Aristotle at once compares and
contrasts logical necessity in mathematics and "hypothetical" or "tele-
ological" necessity in natural processes. His primary purpose is to note
the analogies between deduction in mathematics and the analysis of the
preconditions for the achievement of an end in nature. Thus if we
compare the relation of necessity between premisses (i) and conclusion
(II) with that between end, as consequent, (a), an(d preconditions (b),
we find that while (i) is false if (ii) is false, and (a) is not achieved if (b)
is absent, yet (Ii) does not entail (i), nor does the presence of (b), which
is a necessary but not also a sufficient condition of (a), entail the
achievement of (a). In each case the relation is irreversible, for in each
case there is"the necessitation of a
aUt6pxa:obyan'pp',unaccompanied
by a necessitation of the
ip-n
by the av=_'pxaua " (Ross, Aristotle's Physics,
p.
532).
So in mathematics, "since the straight line is what it is, it is
necessary that the angles of a triangle should equal two right angles", but
not conversely; the premiss (i) is logically prior to the conclusion (iX) in
the sense that (i) can be assumed without assuming (iJ), but (ii) cannot
be assumed without assuming (I). The second example given in Met.
I o I a - that the angle in a semi-circle is a right angle - is found again in
An. Post.
94a28-35,
and there the
way
in which Aristotle desribes the
analysis suggests that in this example too he is assuming that the relation
between premiss and conclusion is non-reciprocal. For he asks from what
assumption (-0o5
O,v-roq;)
the proposition follows, and finds the premiss
in the definition of a right angle as the half of two right angles.
We have then, in Aristotle, the recognition of a method of analysis in
geometry, corresponding to Pappus' description (i), and illustratedl by
I
See Cornford, loc. cit. pp.
44-45,
and Ross, Aristotle's Metaphysics, ii,
pp.
?68-73.
2
This favourite example is used again in reference to analysis in An. Pr. 48 a, 2 9.
8
Ioc. cit. p. 39. cf. Cornford. loc. cit.
p.
44.
8
examples where the relation between
PCnpZ-
and au,7repxastx is recognised
to be irreversible. Moreover, what seems to be assumed in Aristotle, in
Proclus, and in the commentaries on Aristotle, is that geometrical
propositions can be ordered in a hierarchy, and it is principally in its use
in furthering such an ordered science of geometry that the importance
of a method of non-deductive analysis would appear to lie; its task would
be that of systematising geometrical knowledge and co-ordinating results
by leading propositions back to first principles - to axioms or definitions
or something already demonstrated. It is indeed possible, in view of the
large part played by geometrical ideas in the Analytics, and especially in
the account there of first principles, that this conception of an ordered
science of geometry was taken by Aristotle from the geometers of his
time as a model for his own conception of scientific knowledge generally.l
What at least is a reasonable assumption is that it was primarily in
relation to the ideal of reducing geometry to a system that the geometers
viewed the fLnction of analysis, and that their formulation of the method,
as it was known to Aristotle, reflected principally its function- of reducing
geometrical propositions to first principles. In their descriptions of the
method it is this function which the Greek commentators stress. And
these descriptions, together with those of Aristotle and of Proclus,
afford sufficient evidence that it is not because he happens to be looking
at deductive analysis upside-down that Pappus describes analysis as a
search for prior propositions; it is because he is repeating a recognised
formulation of geometrical analysis, distinct from that described in his
second account.
What is absent from these sources is any account of analysis corre-
sponding to Pappus' account of it as deductive. There is one passage in
Aristotle the elucidation of which would appear to make such an account
from the commentators especially relevant. It is the passage in the
Posterior Analytics (78a) where Aristotle says that mathematical propo-
sitions are more commonly convertible than dialectical propositions, and
that this makes analysis in mathematics easier. The commentators
explain analysis here as a method in geometry of discovering the
premisses from which a proposition assumed true as conclusion can be
demonstrated, (Themistius, In An. Post. 1,26, 11. 2 2-4; Philoponus, In
An. Post. 1, I62, 11. 16-28). Thus they assume that what Aristotle is
referring to is geometrical analysis, and the account which they give
corresponds with the account in the first part of the Pappus passage,
showing no awareness of any other formulation of the method relevant to
I
See H. D. P. Lee, C.Q, XXIX, pp. I
1
3-1 24.
9
cases where the implications are reciprocal. Before discussing their
comments further, it is important to consider the precise relevance of
the passage to geometrical analysis. Aristotle says that if false premisses
could never give true conclusions analysis would be easy, for premisses
and conclusion would in that case inevitably reciprocate. After illus-
trating this he says that reciprocation of premisses an(l conclusion is more
frequent in mathematics, because mathematics takes definitions, but
never an accident, for its premisses. The main point to be considered is
whether Aristotle's illustration is an illustration of the method of
geometrical analysis, presupposing perhaps a known formulation of it as
a deductive procedure. The illustration is as follows: -
3atc
yap TO A
ov- -ro'Aou 8' "VTOg 'aN
?a', X
t%
O6- a-GrLV, olov TrO B. Ex Tourov apoa aei 6-nt C`xLv izXZvo.
Ross 1 says that &vocvxeLv in the present passage means "the analysis of a
problem, i.e. the discovery of the premisses which will establish the
truth of a conclusion which it is desired to prove". He takes A as a
proposition assumed true as conclusion, and the movement from A to B
as a movement from proposition to premisses. So does Philoponus.
Taken in this way the illustration is recognisably an illustration of a
geometrical analysis which deduces consequences till something known
to be true is reached, and this last becomes the premiss of the
synthesis which demonstrates the truth of the original assumption. This
interpretation is, I think, wrong. The point which Aristotle wishes to
illustrate is that where premisses and conclusion reciprocate, then, if
from certain premisses you reach a conclusion known to be true, it is
possible to reason in reverse to the truth of the premisses, but that
where there is no such reciprocation, then the fact that from certain
premisses you reach a conclusion known to be true does not allow you
to infer the truth of the premisses; for if A entails B and B is true, it does
not follow that A is true, since true conclusions can follow from false
premisses.2 A is premiss, B is conclusion. For if B is premiss and A
conclusion, then if B is known to be true, and B implies A, then A must
be true, whether the relation of implication between A and B is reciprocal
or not. Thus Aristotle's illustration: (a) is a perfectly good illustration
of the point that it is only if the relation between A and B is reciprocal
that you can be sure that your premisses are true: (b) is relevant to
1
Aristotle's Prior and Posterior Analytics,
p.
549.
2
This is precisely how Ross explains Aristotle's point (ibid.). Yet he has just argued
that A is conclusion, B premisses.
I 0
analysis merely in that if, in an analysis of B, you see that A implies B,
which is true, then you can be sure that your premisses are true if the
relation between A and B is a reciprocal one. Both Themistius and
Philoponus seem to realise that the illustration is intended to illustrate
(a), but at the same time try to make it an illustration of geometrical
analysis and synthesis. And it cannot logically be made to perform this
double service. Thus Themistius explains the comparative ease of
analysis in mathematics by saying that whereas in dialectical arguments
(&'XaoyoL), where gvaoRa may form the premisses, the search for the
premisses of a given conclusion is 'v &brELpoL, the mathematician,
taking only definitions and properties, which are few in number, as his
premisses, searches within a limited and clearly defined field, and never
in fact takes anything that is not true for premisses. In dialectical
analysis the difficulty is that, since true conclusions may follow from
false premisses, one can never be sure that one's premisses are not false,
being as they are indefinite in number and lending themselves to various
ambiguities (2 6, 11. 24- 3 3). Similarly Philoponus (I 6 2, 1. 2 8- I 6 3, 1. I
3).
In each case the remarks are prefaced by a description of geometrical
analysis as a discovery of premisses. It is not clear at this point whether
the analysis is taken to be an analysis of A or B. What is to be noted is
that the distinction made between mathematical and dialectical analysis
is not one of direction, but between simplicity and complexity in the field
of inquiry. Philoponus now goes on to deal with Aristotle's remarks
about reciprocation as a separate point. He says (i 63, 16-2 I) that if A is
conclusion and if B stands for the premisses, which are true, then A
necessarily follows from B, and, reciprocally, B necessarily follows
from A; and tlhus the finding of the premisses is easy because they
necessarily follow the conclusion. This last remark suggests that he is
making the point that, where the implications are reciprocal, the
analysis which gives you the premisses is simply a process of deduction.
But the form of his argument makes it clear that he is not concerned with
a method of proving a given conclusion by a deductive analysis followed
by a deductive synthesis. He is still elucidating the point that, whereas in
dialectical arguments the same true conclusion can follow from many
different premisses or from false premisses, in mathematics recipro-
cation allows you to see not only that your premisses are true but that
they are a necessary and sufficient condition of the truth of the con-
clusion. And since his point is that what the reciprocal inference enables
you to establish easily and certainly is the truth of the premisses, he
ought, to be consistent, to have taken A as premiss, B as conclusion;
otherwise the premisses are known to be true before the reciprocal
inference is made.
These comments of Themistius and Philoponus, though offering no
proper Cluci(lation of Aristotle's point, do at least make clear that neither
of them knows of a formulation of geometrical analysis representing
both analysis an(l synthesis as dedLctive. A further possible inference
from their remarks is that the description of geometrical analysis as a
method of fin-ding premisses or prior propositions from which a given
conclusion will follow was accepted as a correct formulation irrespective
of whether the implications were non-reciprocal or reciprocal. The
confusion in the remarks makes this unlikely, perhaps, but it does
deserve note that in commentaries both on a passage (Phys. 200a) where
a case of non-reciprocal implication is discussed and on a passage (An.
Post. 78a) where a case of reciprocal implication is discussed, precisely
the same formulation of geometrical analysis is presented. The con-
clusions to be drawn from Aristotle's own remarks in the latter passage
are (i) th-at they recognise the practice of a form of mathematical analysis
in which the implications are reciprocal, and recognise that very many
mathematical propositions are convertible; they imply, at the same
time, that some are not convertible: (II) they do not themselves present
a formulation of a method of geometrical analysis in which the analysis is
deductive. There is indeed, no reliable evidence at all for dating, even
approximately, the first formulation of that method. Heath (op. cit.
p. 137 n. 4) is inclined to accept Heiberg's view, which traces the origin
of the definitions interpolated in Euclid XIII to Heron of Alexandria,
possibly the Ist century A.D. This view is based on a comparison of those
definitions with definitions quoted from Heron by an-Nairizi in his
commentary on Euclid (Curtze p. 89). What the Latin translation terms
dissolutio and compositio do appear to be equivalent to the Greek
&vaXuaLq
and uv0act4 as geometrical terms 1, but the definitions of them are far
from precise. In so far as they are comparable with other accounts of
analysis, their resemblance to the accounts given by the Greek commen-
taries on Aristotle is closer than it is to the account of deductive analysis
in the second part of the Pappus passage. They constitute no argument
for Heron's authorship of the definitions interpolated in Euclid. All that
can safely be said about the formulation of a method of geometrical
analysis as deductive is that it was earlier than Pappus, and that Pappus
1
an-Nairizi, in his commentary on IV,
s
if, himself adds an analysis of the demonstration
(see Curtze, pp. i4 ff.), in Latin the solutio, as opposed to the synthetic demonstration
found in Euclid, the compositio.
1 2
knew of it. It is extremely unlikely that the account of it as deductive in
Pappus represents its first formulation.
The evidence we have considered strongly suggests that Pappus, for his
account of geometrical analysis, is repeating two different formulations
of the method, one describing it as an upward movement to prior
assumptions from wlhich an initial assumption follows (i), the other as a
downward movement of deduction from an initial assumption (nI). And
(i) is not equivalent to (ii) for all cases of analysis, although it is possible
that (i) was recognised as a correct formulation for the method of which
(II) is the formulation. It follows, as we have already seen, that Pappus'
description (i) of anialysis is not (lue to the accident that he is looking at
deductive analysis upside down. And since he appears to be
assuming
that (i) is equivalent to (In) for all cases of analysis, it follows that the
apparent inconsistencies in his account are due simply to the inconsistency
of this assumption. Pappus overlooks the point that (i) is a correct
formulation for cases for which (II) is an incorrect formulation. The
form itself of his account suggests that it is made up of two separate
descriptions of the method. An initial statement that analysis is a passage
through the successive consequences of an assumption is followed by two
descriptions of analysis, the first a more general one, the second dividing
it into theoretical and problematical analysis. Each description is
perfectly self-consistent. According to the first description, analysis is a
resolution upwards through propositions antecedent to an initial
assumption until something already known or ranking as a first principle
(nr&RLv
ppXjq "ZXov)
is reached. The synthesis is then carefully described
as a process of deduction from the last step in the analysis, arranging in
their natural order (xour& puatv) as consequents what were formerly
antecedents (ta
7ZpoInYoU4svLa).
According to the second description the
analysis is deductive; it is then said simply that the proof (&7r6CLL)
will be the reverse of the analysis. But whereas the first account says of
the end of the method only that, having reached in your analysis a first
principle or something already known, you proceed deductivel yuntil
you finally arrive at the construction of what was sought, the second
account describes as results of the method what would not always
logically result from the practice of method
(I).
It says that if in analysis
you reach something admitted to be false or impossible, then that which
is sought will be false or the problem will be insoluble. But this conse-
quence is not, of course, necessarily true for cases where the implications
are not reciprocal, since false premisses may give true conclusions.
Robinson uses this point as an argument for the view that reciprocation is
' 3
a condition of the method, on the ground that, otherwise, Pappus is
making a logical blunder in stating the above consequence. But there is
an alternative explanation which is, as all the other evidence suggests,
that Pappus is presenting two different forms of the method, the logical
inferences which may be drawn from the conclusion of the analysis being
not always the same for each form. It is surely significant that what
Pappus gives as these logical inferences from the analysis for each form
are precisely those which are permissible for each form. This is, I think,
added confirmation that he is relyinig on two different accounts of analysis.
It is worth noting, finally, that all other accounts of geometrical analysis
as a search for prior propositions say only of these logical inferences what
Pappus himself says in the first part of the passage, and never pretend that
from a false conclusion of the analysis the falsity of the initial assumption
may be inferred.
Bristol.
'4-