reductionArticle Free Pass reduction, in syllogistic, or
traditional, logic, method of rearranging the terms in one or
both premises of a syllogism, or argument form, to express it in
a different figure; the placement of the middle, or repeated,
term is altered, usually to a preferred pattern. Aristotle took
as primary the first figure, in which the middle term (M) is in
the pattern S and P being the subject term and predicate term,
respectively, of the conclusion; he therefore reduced syllogisms
of the second, third, and fourth figures to the first figure.
For example, the second figure syllogism can be reduced to a
first figure syllogism by simply converting the first premise to
the equivalent “No B is A.” The desire to perform reductions was
based on the notion that only syllogisms of the first figure
were self-evident. Reduction to other figures, however, could
also have been chosen. What made you want to look up
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