The Method of Disputation

[DANIEL M. OFFUTT]

Isn't the Thomistic method of disputation very complex since many propositions and syllogisms are not categorical?  Does the method of disputation deal only with categorical syllogisms?  Is there always a way to translate any kind of proposition into a set of categoricals?  Why isn't the whole Internet organized as a big disputation according to the method of St. Thomas?

Daniel Offutt
 

[DANIEL M. OFFUTT]

For example, suppose someone posts a simple condition hypothetical syllogism on this forum.  Can one distinguish the major premise, the hypothetical.  If you get into very complex conjunctions of alternatives the elements of which may or may not be negated, then what does distinguishing the major or the minor mean?  Let me give a schematic example with variables for the categoricals:

IF (A OR NOT B) AND (NOT C OR NOT D OR E) AND (F OR G OR NOT H) THEN P

BUT (A AND NOT C AND G)

HENCE P

Now that's a valid syllogism with complex propositions.  Does anything this complicated show up in an actual disputation where one of the disputants distinguishes the major?

I rediscovered automated theorem proving, in a much advanced state, having discovered it in a basic form decades ago (the Robinson resolution (to the null set) algorithm).  Computers deal deftly with vastly more complex "syllogisms" than the example shown above.  I read somewhere that mathematics is now done using computer theorem provers, nor paper and pencil.