Organon

name, noun

name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A set of principles that are used in science or philosophy.

    "1999, Kant (Guyer and Wood trans.), Critique of Pure Reason, Cambridge University Press. Hence pure reason is that which contains the principles for cognizing something absolutely a priori. An organon of pure reason would be a sum total of those principles."

  2. 2
    a system of principles for philosophic or scientific investigations; an instrument for acquiring knowledge wordnet
  3. 3
    The name given by Aristotle's followers to his six works on logic.

    "He thought that it might not be so bad with Merlyn, who might be able to make even the old Organon interesting, particularly if he would do some magic."

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    The standard collection of the works of Aristotelian logic.

Example

More examples

"The philosophical descendants of the author of the Organon were notorious for their ignorance of logic, and in ethics had approximated considerably to the Stoic teaching."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Ancient Greek ὄργανον (órganon). Doublet of organ, organum, and orgue.

Etymology 2

From Ancient Greek Ὄργανον (Órganon, “instrument, tool, organ”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.