such as their account of essences as composed of attributes they called essential, and their restriction of the paths to knowledge to the definitions and demonstrative syllogisms they described—indeed, their account of the definitions through which conceptions are acquired, and even their account of the forms of syllogism and its certain premises.
Someone then wished to copy the remarks I had written at that time criticizing their views on logic. I permitted this because it opens the way to knowing the truth, although the scope for refuting them thus opened could accommodate many times as much as I had written.
Know, then, that they based “logic” on the discussion of definition and the like, and demonstrative syllogism and the like. They said: “This is because knowledge is either conception or assent. The means by which conception is attained is definition, and the means by which assent is attained is syllogism.”
We say: The discussion concerns “four points”: two negative and two affirmative. The first of the two negative points concerns their claim that the conception sought can be attained only through definition; the second, that the assent sought can be attained only through syllogism. The other two concern their claims that definition yields knowledge of conceptions, and that syllogism—or demonstration as they describe it—yields knowledge of assents.