The Uncle of Logic

We all like to consider ourselves to be very logical individuals.
We like to say, "Makes sense to me," as if that puts the ultimate seal of approval on whatever is being discussed at the moment.
Especially us guys, who seem to put Logic up on a pedestal while our female Significant Others shake their heads at our shaky decisions and say things like, "Logic is over-rated; what about Compassion? Empathy? Caring about the other person?"
Makes sense to me.
Even Spock himself is on record (vidoetape) as saying that Logic is the beginning of Wisdom, not the end.
Way back in the day before the day before the day, a guy named Aristotle was kicking around the idea of Logic as if it was something new. And, in a way, it was something new in the sense that it wasn't as well defined before he wrote his Analytica Posteriora.
Which, by the way, apparently translates as: Logic.
So, since it's the earliest well-known thesis on the subject and develops the related ideas much more thoroughly than had ever been done, Aristotle gets to be The Father of Logic.
And, if you can find a comprehensible translation of the work (Ari's English was worse than patchy) you can treat yourself to a well-reasoned presentation of the basics of what has since become the "science" of Logic.
If you can find a comprehensible translation.
I have looked at a half dozen different translations of his work Nicomachean Ethics (Ethics) and none of them are easy to understand. (Yeah, yeah, I can just see the eggheads feigning confusion and saying, "What translations has he been looking at that are so hard to understand?" Save it. I'm not buying it.)
But how logical was Aristotle, really?
Look at this exerpt from Ethics, from near the end of the seventh of ten sections:

Then again, it is allowed that Pain is an evil and a thing to be avoided partly as bad per se, partly as being a hindrance in some particular way. Now the contrary of that which is to be avoided, qua it is to be avoided, i.e. evil, is good. Pleasure then must be a good.

Did he really talk this way? The way a professor would, just to confuse and annoy us?
No, he spoke in Greek, which, at least to my ears, is even more confusing and annoying.
Okay, maybe this is a bad translation. Here it is again from another scholar:

But further it is agreed that pain is bad and to be avoided; for some pain is without qualification bad, and other pain is bad because it in in some respect an impediment to us. Now the contrary of that which is to be avoided, qua something to be avoided and bad, is good. Pleasure, then, is necessarily a good.

Better. Dumped the "per se" and the "i. e." but kept that pesky "qua."
How would I translate it?
Hey, pain is bad, and the opposite of pain is pleasure, and the opposite of bad is good, so pleasure is good.
Is this logical?
Sure, the conclusion seems sound. "Makes sense to me."
But is the reasoning sound? One of the first things you learn in studying Logic is that just because the conclusion is correct, that doesn't mean the logic is correct.
Here is one way to break it down:

Entity A has quality X.
Entity A is the opposite of entity B.
Quality X is the opposite of quality Y.
Therefore, entity B has quality Y.

(A = pain/B = pleasure/X = bad/Y = good)

That's simple enough. So what's the problem?
One way to test whether a logical construct (sometimes called a syllogism, but this is not a fundamental example) is sound is to substitute other entities and qualities for the variables.
Try to find one that is obviously wrong.
Ahem:

A = dog/B = cat/X = carnivore/Y = non-carnivore

A dog is a carnivore.
A cat is the opposite of a dog.
A carnivore is the opposite of a non-carnivore.
Therefore, a cat is a non-carnivore.

We know that opposite entities do not necessarily possess opposite qualities.
But read those Aristotle quotes again with that in mind. That's what he is saying regarding pain and pleasure.
Sure pleasure is good. (Do we say that in connection with the heroine addict who can only find pleasure in self-destruction?)
Sure pain is bad. (Do we say that of someone who can't feel pain and is unknowingly bleeding to death of a foot injury he hasn't noticed?)
But that can't be shown by implying that opposite entities possess opposite qualities.
Sorry Aristotle.
When they put you on that pedestal and called you the Father of Logic it set you up as a target for every little half-baked armchair philosopher like me to take potshots at.
I got you on this one - say "uncle!"