v. Forms: 5 sylogyse, sillogise, 7 sillogize, 6– syllogize, 7– syllogise. [a. OF. sil(l)ogiser, or ad. med.L. syllogizāre (Boethius, Thomas Aquinas), ad. Gr. συλλογίζεσθαι, f. σύν SYN- + λογίζεσθαι to reckon, calculate, compute, conclude, infer, f. λόγος discourse, reason, consideration, account.
Syllogize has often been explained as meaning literally ‘to collect,’ L. colligere being regarded as the etymological equivalent of Gr. συλλογίζεσθαι (perh. by association with συλλογη collection, συλλέγειν to collect); cf. Milton’s Logic, II. ix., eam ratiocinantis quasi collectionem vox ipsa syllogismi significat. It has otherwise been interpreted as ‘to add up, make a sum of,’ as if συλλογίζεσθαι were an intensive of λογίζεσθαι in the sense of ‘to calculate, compute.’]
1. intr. To argue by syllogisms; to reason syllogistically; also gen. (Also with it.)
c. 1420. ? Lydg., Assembly of Gods, 19. Me nought auaylyd ayene hym to sylogyse.
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., ix. (1555), E ij b. But rude people, opprest with blyndnes Agaynst your fables, wyll often solisgyse [sic].
1594. Nashe, Terrors of Night, Wks. (Grosart), III. 250. All receipts and authors you can name he syllogizeth of.
1616. R. C., Times’ Whistle, etc. (1871), 146. Though they can sillogize with arguments Of all thinges.
1631. [see ELENCHIZE].
1632. J. Hayward, trans. Biondi’s Eromena, 93. This constant concealing himselfe put her in doubt, causing her to syllogize; That who so loveth, the same obeyeth the thing or subject beloved, but he obeyed not (because he told her not who hee was) and therefore he loved her not.
1663. Cowley, Cutter Colman St., IV. iv. I have heard him syllogize it with Mr. Soaker in Mood and Figure.
1697. trans. Burgersdicius’ Logic, II. vi. 20. To Syllogise is to collect, that is conclude, or from some certain Propositions to draw up the Summ of an Argument or Proof.
1759. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, I. xvi. And then he would do nothing but syllogize within himself for a stage or two together, How far the cause [etc.].
1788. T. Taylor, Proclus, I. 54, note. Thus we may syllogize in the first figure, Every thing white, is an animal: Every bird is white: Therefore, Every bird is an animal.
1875. W. Jackson, Doctr. Retribution, i. 54. They [sc. first-truths] cannot be proved deductively, because, being first, there is nothing prior from which to syllogize.
1907. F. Harrison, Creed of a Layman, 168. He does not syllogise about the origin of things, but he goes straight to the practical work of religion.
b. trans. To argue (a person) out of a condition, etc.
1718. Free-thinker, No. 14, ¶ 6. A Scholastick Jugler, who plays his Legerdemain Tricks to Syllogize the Ignorant out of their Understanding and their Senses.
1809. Southey, in Q. Rev., II. 51. That [he] should of a sudden fall in metaphysics, and, by a few miserable sophisms syllogize himself out of all hopes of an hereafter.
c. To deduce by syllogism.
Only in transl, and echoes of Dante, Paradiso, X. 138, sillogizzò invidiosi veri = ‘drew true conclusions which brought odium upon him’ (Tozer).
1867. Longf., trans. Dante, Paradise, X. 138. Sigier, Who, reading lectures in the Street of Straw, Did syllogize invidious verities.
1870. Lowell, Among my Bks., Ser. I. (1873), 337. The men who attack abuses are not so much to be dreaded by the reigning house of Superstition as those who, as Dante says, syllogize hateful truths. Ibid. (1884), Democracy (1887), 15. It is then only that they syllogize unwelcome truths.
2. intr. (nonce-use, after sympathize.) To agree in ways of thinking.
1800. Mackintosh, Lett. to Moore, 27 Sept., in Mem. (1835), I. 141. There is no body to whom I speak with such unreserved agreeable liberty, because we so much sympathise and (to borrow Part’s new coined word) syllogise.
Hence Syllogizer, a syllogistic reasoner; Syllogizing vbl. sb., reasoning by syllogisms.
1588. J. Harvey, Disc. Probl., 96. These cunning *Syllogizers, or any like Sophisticail concluders.
1606. J. Dove, Def. Church Govt., 72. It is not a noueltie of 60. yeares old, as this syllogiser hath obiected.
1642. Sir E. Dering, Sp. on Relig., xvi. 86. Every Syllogizor is not presently a match to cope with Bellarmine.
c. 1449. Pecock, Repr., I. xiv. (Rolls), 76. For that thei trusten and trowen the premisse be trewe, eer that thei seen the premisses sufficientli proued bi *sillogizing.
1569. J. Sanford, trans. Agrippa’s Van. Artes, xcvii. 169. They hauing recourse to interpreting, to expounding, to glossinge, and to sillogisinge, do rather geue it some other sence, then the proper meaninge of the letter.
1654. J. Webster, Acad. Examen, 38. The vain glory of Syllogizing Sophistry.
1656. trans. Hobbes’s Elem. Philos. (1839), 57. Errors which happen in reasoning, that is, in syllogizing, consist either in the falsity of the premises, or of the inference.
1666. Bp. S. Parker, Free & Impart. Censure (1667), 36. Plato’s manner of arguing is more succinct than the tedious way of Syllogising.
1699. T. Baker, Refl. Learn., v. 58. The way of Syllogizing seem’d to him very fallacious and too dependent upon words, to be much rely’d on.
1806. W. Taylor, in Ann. Rev., IV. 722. The reasoning power he [sc. Newton] displayed in the mathematical forms of syllogizing.
1877. E. Caird, Philos. Kant, I. 134. There is no ground for saying that reason, the faculty of syllogising, is different and distinct from understanding, the faculty of judging.
