MARIANE FARIAS DE OLIVEIRA

This research aims to investigate the connections between defining and demonstrating that Aristotle presents in the treatise of Posterior Analytics (APo). We start from an apparent inconsistency found in Posterior Analytics II.8 that mobilizes the exegetical and conceptual apparatus around the mentioned practices, in order to understanding how definition and demonstration maintain an intrinsic relationship. To address the problem, it is necessary to understand the middle term of a demonstration as capable of revealing or showing the definition from the causal relationship it holds with the major and minor terms. To address this issue, what we need to do is to investigate how this explanatory/causal capacity of the middle term can be expressed through the demonstration, so that the procedures of demonstrating and defining do not collapse - and thus the apparent inconsistency of II.8 turns out to be, in fact, only apparent.