clUB V:

One of the marvels of academic history is that logic advanced so slowly between Aristotle and 1850, and so fast since then. Some people reckon that modern logic made fast progress by abandoning down-to-earth questions; others disagree. I aim to throw some light by examining one place - perhaps the only one - where medieval logicians made real progress towards what we now recognise as a significant mathematical result. This is the late medieval laws of distribution for syllogisms. Sadly many (though not all) published discussions of these laws have been ignorant of the relevant facts of logic.