Note 404 — Chapter VII

A distinction has been drawn between single and double epicheiremas according as reasons are enthymematically given in support of one or both of the premisses of the ultimate syllogism. The example given in the text is a single epicheirema; the following is an example of a double epicheirema:

All P is Y, because it is X ;

All S is P, because all M is P ;

therefore, All S is Y.

The epicheirema is sometimes defined as if it were essentially a regressive chain of reasoning. But this is hardly correct, if, as is usually the case, examples such as the above are given; for it is clear that in these examples the argument is only partly regressive.