This is one of those areas where I get frustrated with Aristotle, and many of the others... they're trying to make finding out foundational truths an exercise in pure logic. I'm not convinced truth is accessible that way... which is how Christianity ends up with, not logic as a path to truth, but Truth as a Person: One's relationship to the Person of Truth is the path to truth. Probably saying it badly.

Also, Aristotle needed to get to know more trees. They are definitely sentient. But I don't think there's any way to get there via logic. It's relational ;)