Aristotle’s Account of Quick-wittedness

Abstract

This article reconstructs how acts of quick-wittedness—obtaining the middle term of a deduction via a fast non-discursive process—are possible according to Aristotle. I show that quick-witted people think all the steps that APr. i 27-30 lays out, but that they do not think about them in the way non-quick-witted people do when performing them. The premise-finding-procedure of APr. i 27-30 rationally articulates a process that itself is carried out without reasoning.