... for genuine proof in concrete matter we require an organon more delicate, versatile, and elastic than verbal argumentation.
John Henry Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, 1870
The Greek noun órganon means “tool, instrument, sensory organ, body part, musical instrument (whence the English name of the musical instrument), surgical instrument, table of calculations, (a concrete) work, work product, and a set of principles for conducting scientific and philosophical work.” This last meaning first occurs in the works of the Peripatetic philosopher Alexander of Aphrodisias, who lived in the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries a.d. and was the most famous ancient Greek commentator on Aristotle. Órganon is a derivative of the Greek root erg-,org- (also dialectal werg-, worg-), from the Proto-Indo-European root werg-,worg-; the Germanic form of this root is werk-, whence English work. Organon in its sense “bodily organ” entered English in the late 16th century; the philosophical sense entered English in the early 17th century.
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