Sophisms in Medieval Logic and Grammar: Acts of the Ninth European Symposium for Medieval Logic and Semantics, held at St Andrews, June 1990

433 Pages·1993·14.325 MB·English

by  Robert Andrews (auth.), Stephen Read (eds.)

SOPHISMS IN MEDIEVAL LOGIC AND GRAMMAR
Nijhoff International Philosophy Series
VOLUME 48
General Editor: JAN T. J. SRZEDNICKI
Editor for volumes on Applying Philosophy: ROBERTO POLI
Editor for volumes on Logic and Applying Logic: STANISLAW J. SURMA
Editor for volumes on Contributions to Philosophy: JAN T. J. SRZEDNICKI
Assistant to the General Editor: DAVID WOOD
Editorial Advisory Board:
L. Broughton {Lincoln University)', R.M. Chisholm {Brown University, Rhode
Island)', Mats Furberg {Göteborg University)', D.A.T. Gasking {University of
Melbourne)', H.L.A. Hart {University College, Oxford)', S. Körner {University of
Bristol and Yale University)', HJ. McCloskey {La Trobe University, Bundoora,
Melbourne)', J. Passmore {Australian National University, Canberra)', A. Quinton
(Trinity College, Oxford); Nathan Rotenstreich {The Hebrew University,
Jerusalem)', Franco Spisani {Centro Superiore di Logica e Scienze Comparate,
Bologna)', R. Ziedins {Waikato University, New Zealand)
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
Sophisms in
Medieval Logic
and Grammar
Acts of the Ninth European Symposium
for Medieval Logic and Semantics,
held at St Andrews, June 1990
edited by
Stephen Read
University of St Andrews, Scotland
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MESIA, B. V.
A CLP. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-94-010-4776-0 ISBN 978-94-011-1767-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-1767-8
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1993
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1993
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
Sophisms in Medieval Logic and Grammar
Contents
ix Preface
xi Stephen Read, "Introduction"
Part I: Sophisms as a Genre
3 Robert Andrews, "Resoluble, Exponible, and Officiable Tenns in the
Sophistria of Petrus Olai, MS UppsaIa C 599"
17 Appendix 1
24 Appendix 2
31 Mario Bertagna, "Richard Ferrybridge's Logica: a handbook for
solving Sophismata"
45 Sten Ebbesen, Boethius de Dacia et aI. "The sophismata in MSS
Bruges SB 509 and Florence Med.-Laur. S. Croce 12 sin., 3"
56 Appendix
62 List of MSS
64 C. H. Kneepkens, "Orleans 266 and the Sophismata Collection:
Master Joscelin of Soissons and the infinite words in the early
twelfth century"
80 Appendix
86 Roberto Lambertini, "The Sophismata attributed to Marsilius of
Padua"
102 List of MSS
103 Alfonso Maierli, ''The sophism 'Omnis propositio est vera vel faIsa'
by Henry Hopton (Pseudo-Heytesbury's De veritate et falsitate
propositionis )"
115 Appendix
vi CONTENTS
116 Mieczyslaw Markowski, "Die Rolle der Sophismata im Unterricht
der Krakauer Universitat im 15. 1ahrhundert"
128 Fabienne Pironet, "The Sophismata asinina" of William Heytes
bury"
141 Appendix
144 Paul A. Streveler, "A Comparative Analysis of the Treatment of
Sophisms in MSS Digby 2 and Royal 12 of the Magister
Abstractionum"
154 Appendix 1
168 Appendix 2
185 Andrea Tabarroni, '''Omnis phoenix est': Quantification and
Existence in a new Sophismata-collection (MS Clm 14522)"
200 Appendix
202 Mikko Yrjonsuuri, "Expositio as a method of solving sophisms"
Part II: Grammatical Sophisms
219 Christine Brousseau-Beuermann, "Grammatical sophisms in
collections of logical sophisms: 'Amatus sum' in BN.lat. 16135"
231 Irene Rosier, "La distinction entre actus exercitus et actus significatus
dans les sophismes grammaticaux du MS BN lat. 16618. et autres
textes apparentes"
260 Appendix
262 Mary Sirridge, "Interest mea et imperatoris castam ducere in uxorem:
can 'est' be used impersonally?"
Part III: Logical Sophisms
277 Allan Back, "Who is the worthiest of them all?"
288 10151 Biard, "Albert de Saxe et les Sophismes de l'Infini"
304 Alessandro D. Conti, "II Sofisma de Paolo Veneto: 'Sortes in
quantum homo est animal'''
313 Appendix
CONTENTS vii
319 Jeffrey S. Coombs, "The Soul of the Antichrist necessarily will be
a being: A modal sophism in 16th century logic texts"
333 Gyu1a Klima, '''Debeo tibi equum': a reconstruction of the theoretical
framework of Buridan's treatment of the sophisma"
348 Simo Knuuttila, "Trinitarian Sophisms in Robert Holcot's Theology"
357 Christopher J. Martin, "Obligations and Liars"
379 Appendix
382 Angel d'Ors, "Hominis asinus/Asinus hominis"
398 Claude Panaccio, "Solving the insolubles: hints from Ockham and
Burley"
413 Index ofM anuscripts
418 Index of Names
Preface
The first Symposium consisted of three people in a cafe in Warsaw in
1973. Since then, meetings have grown in size and have been held in
Leyden, Copenhagen, Nijmegen, Rome, Oxford, Poitiers and Freiburg
am-Breisgau. The ninth Symposium was held in St Andrews in June
1990, with 57 participants who listened to addresses by 28 speakers. It
was very fitting that Scotland's oldest university, founded in the heyday of
medievalleaming in 1411, should have been given the chance to bring
together scholars from all over Europe and beyond to present their
researches on the glorious past of scholastic rational thought. The topic of
the Symposium was "Sophisms in Medieval Logic and Grammar".
The present volume consists, for the most part, of the papers
presented at the Symposium. In fact, however, it proved impossible to
include five of the contributions. Two of the papers included here were
intended for the Symposium but in the event not delivered, because of the
unavoidable absence of the speakers.
The Symposium received very helpful financial support from one of
the major philosophical associations in Britain, the Mind Association, from
the Philosophical Quarterly, a journal published at St Andrews, from the
University of St Andrews, from the British Academy, and from Low and
Bonarplc.
In organising the programme for the conference and in preparing the
papers for publication I received invaluable help from: Professor E.J.
Ashworth of the University of Waterloo, Canada; Professor Henk
Braakhuis of the Katholieke Universiteit, Nijmegen; Professor Klaus
Jacobi of the Albert-Ludwigs Universitiit, Freiburg; Professor Alfonso
Maierii of the Universita "La Sapienza", Rome; Professor D.P. Henry,
now retired from the University of Manchester; and especially from Dr
Sten Ebbesen of the Institute for Medieval Greek and Latin Philology,
Copenhagen.
The text was prepared on an Apple Macintosh, using Microsoft Word
4.0.
University of St Andrews, July 1992
ix
Introduction
by Stephen Read
Increasing insight into the medieval genre of sophisms has been
acquired in recent years. Nonetheless, as more is discovered, more
puzzlement arises, and yet more questions are prompted. It was in this
context that three years ago, having offered to host the Ninth European
Symposium for Medieval Logic and Semantics at St Andrews, I proposed
the topic of Sophisms in Medieval Logic and Grammar as the theme for the
conference. It satisfied two criteria: first, it provided a stimulus to the
scholars involved in this regular symposium to work on a topic of much
current interest during the run-up to the meeting, and to present papers
which, particularly as an ensemble, would together shed more light on the
problem. Secondly, it provided a focus, one narrow enough to give the
conference, and the conference volume, a unity, a clear expression of
scholars working together towards a common end; and at the same time a
variety within that common theme, ranging from close textual and
historical study of the actual genre of sophismatic treatises through to the
forever fascinating content of the sophismatic puzzles themselves.
Such is the origin, and the rationale, of the present volume. I believe
the project was successful. Reading through the contributions, one comes
away with a much clearer picture than before of the contribution sophisms
made to the richness of medieval logic and thought. "What is left in logic
which is untouched by British sophisms?", wrote Leonardo Bruni of
Arezzo in his first Disputation dedicated to Pier Paolo Vergerio in 1401.1
Sophisms played a crucial role in medieval logical and grammatical theory
in providing the spur for investigation, insight and invention.
John Marenbon questions whether "exponents of what might be called
the 'modem analytical' approach of thought in the Middle Ages" are right
to "concentrate on philosophical problems which they believe they share
with medieval scholars".2 The answer is that despite the medievals'
engagement with issues of very particular concern to them, there is indeed
a remarkable similarity both in the problems which they tackled, and in
their methodological approach to them. The roots of our thought lie in
Greek and Roman antiquity, and that heritage is mediated by medieval
philosophy, logic and grammatical theory. The influence of medieval
thinking on our own is too little appreciated, but it is considerable.
Examination of this background well repays the effort, and has moreover a
fascination all its own. The medievals had their own particular problems,
and their own strange methods; but they share many of their central
1L . Bruni, Ad Petrum Paulum Histrum dialogus I, in Prosatori Latini del Quattrocento,
ed. E. Garin, Milan-Naples: Riccardo Ricciardi Editore 1952, pp. 58-60: "Quid est,
inquam, in dialectica quod non britannicis sophismatibus conturbatum sit?"
2J. Marenbon, Later Medieval Philosophy (1150-1350): An Introduction, London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul 1987, p. 86.
xi
xii STEPHEN READ
problems with us, and their overriding method, in logic and grammar, of
analysis, puts them methodologically in touch with modem philosophy of
language. Here are some of history's deeper thinkers - Ockbam, Buridan,
Abelard, St Thomas - tackling our problems - what exists, can processes
proceed infinitely, is self-reference acceptable, what follows from a
contradiction? All these questions are found in sophismatic treatises.
There are three classic treatments of the history of sophismatic works,
starting with Martin Grabmann's monograph published in 1940.3 At the
same time he focused attention on that important Danish thinker at the
University of Paris, Boethius of Dacia. This work was followed up by De
Rijk's monumental three-volume study, Logica Modernorum, in 1962 and
1967, in which he mapped out the origins of terminist logic in the study of
fallacies in the twelfth century.4 Finally, one must note HenkBraakhuis'
dissertation on Syncategoremata, published in Dutch in 1979.5 There.is a
close and intimate connection between sophistic fallacies, the study of
syncategorematic words and the development of the theories of properties
of terms.
But the real growth in studies of sophisms has come only in the last
decade or so. We are still awaiting the publication of Alfonso Maieru's
study of Methods of Teaching Logic during the Period of the
Universities.6 But there have been important studies by Ebbesen, de
Libera, the Kretzmanns, Rosier and Tabarroni, to name but a few. This
volume, it must be acknowledged, takes that study, and our understanding
of the role of sophisms in medieval thinking, yet further.
An initial question is whether to render' sophisma' as 'sophism', or to
retain the Latin term. Different authors in the present volume adopt each
course. The problem about the word 'sophism' is that, for the English
reader, it threatens to import implications which are unwarranted and not
present for medievals in Latin usage. De Rijk spoke of "ambiguous
propositions") Their role was to cause puzzlement, to invite theoretical
development in the search for clarification. But they did not have the
implication of casuistry, or even necessarily of fallacy. The problem was,
rather, that there seemed to be ways of showing both that they were true
and that they were false. Insight was needed to see which argument was
correct, or to show that, by making a suitable distinction, both were
correct, in appropriately different senses. For example, in Mario
3M. Orabmann, Die Sophismatalitteratur des 12. und 13. lahrhunderts mit Textausgabe
eines Sophisma des Boetius von Dacien, Beitriige zur Geschichte der Philosophie und
Theologie des Mittelalters 36.1, MUnster: Aschendorff, 1940.
4L.M. De Rijk, Logica Modernorum. A Contribution to the History of Early Terminist
Logic, Vol. I: On the Twelfth Century Theories of Fallacy; Vol. II, 1: The Origin and
Early Development of the Theory of Supposition; Vol. II, 2: Texts and Indices, Assen:
Van Oorcum 1962-7.
5H.A.O. Braakhuis, De I3de Eeuwse Tractaten over Syncategorematische Termen.
Inleidende studie en uitgave van Nicolaas van Parijs' Sincategoreumata, Deelll, Ph.D.
Leiden, Meppel: Krips Repro. 1979.
6See below, p. 104 n. 12.
70p.cit., vol. II part I, p. 595.