Professor Silliman discussed the ramifications of his own rather unorthodox interpretation of Aristotle. If, as he contends, Aristotle is maintaing that women can reason, it is only that they are never listended to, than perhaps Aristotle is committing what Matt called an empiric fallacy. For only the reason that something happens or is happening, it does not follow that it must happen, or that it ought to happen. As a side note, I am particularly taken with this reading of Aristotle.
The empiric fallacy may pose problems, though, for some of the natural sciences. It is pure empirical observation upon which these entire disciplines depend. Must physicists maintain not that what goes up must come down, but rather that what goes up has typically come back down? I suppose I am merely wondering, given this fallacy, if there is any degree of mere observation that is sufficient for arriving at an adequate cause, or adequate law of nature.
