The Mother of All Conflations: Parmenides' Proof

In this study three general claims are made. (1) Aristotle’s logic conflates methodology and epistemology. (2) Aristotle’s conflation of methodology and epistemology has had a tremendous influence upon the development of logic. (3) George Boole’s extensionalism has undone the Aristotelian conflation. It, thus, cleared the road for modern logic, for the study of logic as a methodology-in-the-weak-sense.

We should begin by a brief inspection of the background to Aristotle’s conflation of methodology and epistemology: the pre-history of logic. For the conflation clearly prevails in the most rudimentary conceptions of logical proof that we know of. It is appropriate to begin, then, with a few notes on Parmenides poem, for Parmenides has been called ‘the father of logical proof’ and even ‘the father of logical indirect proof.