Chrysippus’ Indemonstrables and the Semantic Mental Models

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Miguel López-Astorga

Abstract

According to standard logic, only one of the five indemonstrables proposed by Chrysippus of Soli is actually indemonstrable. The other four schemata are demonstra­ble in that logic. The question hence is, if four of them are not really indemonstrable, why Chrysippus considered them to be so. López-Astorga showed that, if we ignore standard propositional calculus and assume that a current cognitive theory, the mental logic theory, truly describes human reasoning, it can be explained why Chrysippus thought that all of his indemonstrables were so basic. However, in this paper, I try to argue that the mental logic theory is not the only framework that can account for that. In particular, I hold that another important reasoning theory at present, the mental models theory, can offer an explanation in that regard as well.

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Author Biography

Miguel López-Astorga, Instituto de Estudios Humanísticos "Juan Ignacio Molina". Universidad de Talca (Chile)

Dr. en Lógica y Filosofía de la Ciencia. Académico del Instituto de Estudios Humanísticos "Juan Ignacio Molina" de la Universidad de Talca (Chile). Director de la revista Universum.