Thoughts, Words and Things: An Introduction to Late Mediaeval Logic and Semantic Theory

410 Pages·2002·2.795 MB·English

by  Paul Vincent Spade

Thoughts, Words and
Things: An Introduction to
Late Mediaeval Logic and
Semantic Theory

Paul Vincent Spade

Version 1.1: August 9, 2002
Copyright  2002 by Paul Vincent Spade
Permission is hereby granted to copy this document in whole or in part for any
purpose whatever, provided only that acknowledgment of copyright is given.
The “dragon” that graces the cover of this volume has a story that goes with it. In the summer of 1980, I was on
the teaching staff of the Summer Institute on Medieval Philosophy held at Cornell University under the direction of Nor-
man Kretzmann and the auspices of the Council for Philosophical Studies and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
While I was giving a series of lectures there (lectures that contribute to this volume, as it turns out), I went to my office one
morning, and there under the door some anonymous wag from the Institute had slid the pen and ink drawing you see in the
picture. It represents “Supposition” as a dragon, making a rude face at the viewer. The tail of the dragon is divided — not
entirely accurately, as it turns out — into the various branches and subbranches of supposition. If the details are not alto-
gether correct, the spirit is certainly understandable.
A few years ago, I discovered that the anonymous artist was not altogether as original as I had at first supposed.
While glancing one day — don’t ask why — through the charming A Coloring Book of the Middle Ages (San Francisco,
Cal.: Bellerophon Books, 1969), I turned a page and was startled to find this very creature leering out at me! The inscrip-
tions in the tail and at the bottom were not there, but otherwise it was the same creature! A note at the top of the page said
“From the Treatise of Walter de Milemete, De Nobilitatibus Sapientiis et prudentiis Regum, Oxford, Christ Church Library,
MS. E. 11 about 1326–27.”
I confess I had never heard of Walter or his book, but of course I couldn’t leave it at that. After some detective
work in the library, I found a very informative description of the manuscript in Lucy Freeman Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts
1285–1385, (“A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles”; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), volume
II: Catalogue, pp. 91–93. It turns out that the manuscript is now identified as: Oxford, Christ Church MS 92. Master Walter
of Milemete (fl. 1326–73), it seems, was King’s Clerk and afterwards Fellow of King’s Hall, Cambridge. His book, of
which this manuscript is the unique copy, was designed to instruct “the soverign on his varied responsibilities in relation to
religion, government, learning, administration, entertainment, financing of armies, and on the moral virtues appropriate to
his kind” (Sandler, p. 91). Here is some more of Sandler’s discussion (pp. 91–92):
Milemete wrote his book as an offering to Edward III at the end of 1326, after the deposition but be-
fore the murder of Edward II in 1327. It was intended as a companion volume to the copy of Pseudo-Aristotle's
De secretis secretorum …, which Milemete had also prepared for Edward III. [Note: Sandler also describes this
manuscript in her immediately following entry. It survives as London, British Library MS Add. 476].
An ambitious project, the text … is dominated by the decorative borders, crammed with heraldry,
contorted hybrids, … combats between man and man, man and best, half-man and half-beast, human monstrosi-
ties, e.g. the courting wildman and wildwoman …, the axe-bearing dwarf …, hunting scenes, and tournaments.
By a stroke of good fortune, it happens that the manuscript was actually published in 1913 in a limited-edition
monochrome reproduction by Montague Rhodes James (well known to all searchers of manuscript catalogues). Here are
the particulars: The Treatise of Walter de Milemete De nobilitatibus, sapientiis, et prudentiis regum Reproduced in Facsim-
ile from the Unique Manuscript Preserved at Christ Church, Oxford, together with a Selection of Pages from the Compan-
ion Manuscript of the Treatise De secretis secretorum Aristotelis, Preserved in the Library of the Earl of Leicester at
Holkham Hall, [Oxford:] Printed for the Roxburghe Club [at the University Press, by H. Hart], 1913. M. R. James included
a long and detailed description in an introduction to the volume.
Apparently this limited edition was distributed only to then members of the Roxburghe Club. There is list of
members included in the preliminary matter in the volume, and each member’s copy has his name printed in red in that list.
It turns out that the Lilly Library at Indiana University (our rare-book library) has the copy produced for a certain Michael
Tomkinson, Esq. And, sure enough, there on fol. 31v (p. 62), in the lower left corner, is our grinning monster. It appears in
Ch. 7 (De regis gratitudine) of the treatise.
Just to head off potentially awkward legal questions of copyright, I hasten to add that the “supposition dragon”
that was slipped under my door and that graces th volume is not simply a marked-up xerographic copy of the sketch that
appears in A Coloring Book of the Middle Ages. The latter’s jaws are slightly open, for instance, so that the upper teeth do
not quite meet the lower ones; my dragon has his teeth clenched. No, although my dragon was obviously inspired by the
Coloring Book, it was drawn separately. Again, there are veins in the tail of the Coloring Book’s sketch, whereas my
dragon lacks them (to make room for the writing). Again, neither sketch shows the shadings and the backgroun pattern
visible in the Roxburghe Club’s printed volume.
I have absolutely no idea about the identity of the anonymous artist who was inspired to apply this drawing to
supposition theory, but I have the original framed on the wall in my office.
Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction...........................................................................................1
A. Scope of This Book..................................................................................1
B. The Intended Audience............................................................................2
C. What Mediaeval Logic Is Not..................................................................2
D. The Future of This Book..........................................................................3
E. Translations..............................................................................................3
Chapter 2: Thumbnail Sketch of the History of Logic to the End of the
Middle Ages.............................................................................................................5
A. The Early Ancient Period........................................................................7
B. Aristotelian Logic..................................................................................10
1. Important Characteristics of Aristotelian Logic............................12
2. Opposition, Conversion, and the Categorical Syllogism...............13
a. Kinds of Categorical Propositions.................................................14
b. The Square of Opposition and the Laws of Opposition.................15
c. Conversion.....................................................................................18
d. Categorical Syllogisms..................................................................19
i. Major, Middle and Minor Terms...............................................19
ii. Syllogistic Figures.....................................................................20
iii. Syllogistic Moods and the Theory of Reduction.......................21
3. Last Words About Aristotle and a Few About Theophrastus........25
C. Stoic Logic.............................................................................................25
1. General Characteristics of Stoic Logic..........................................28
2. Particular Doctrines.......................................................................28
a. Diodorus Cronus............................................................................28
b. Philo of Megara.............................................................................30
c. Chrysippus.....................................................................................30
D. Late Antiquity........................................................................................31
E. Boethius.................................................................................................35
F. The Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries.....................................................37
G. The Sophistic Refutations......................................................................38
H. The Thirteenth Century..........................................................................40
I. The Fourteenth Century and Thereafter................................................43
J. Additional Reading................................................................................51
Chapter 3: The Threefold Division of Language..................................................53
A. Some Remarks on John Buridan............................................................53
1. Buridan’s Writings.........................................................................55
B. The Quaestio-Form................................................................................57
C. What Is A “Sophism”?...........................................................................60
D. The Relation of Writing to Speech........................................................61
E. What Is “Signification”?........................................................................63
F. Three “Levels” of Language..................................................................66
G. Variations of Terminology.....................................................................71
H. More about Relations R1 through R6...................................................72
I. The Primitive Relations.........................................................................72
J. The Sources of the Doctrine..................................................................74
K. Natural vs. Conventional Signification..................................................77
L. Subordination.........................................................................................79
M. Evaluation and Comparison of These Views.........................................80
1. The Position of Written Language.................................................80
2. The Position of Spoken Language.................................................83
a. The Transitivity of Signification....................................................84
3. More on the Position of Spoken Language....................................86
4. Unanswered Questions..................................................................87
N. Postscript................................................................................................88
O. Additional Reading................................................................................88
Chapter 4: Mental Language.................................................................................89
A. Major Contributors to the Theory..........................................................89
B. The Conventionality of Spoken and Written Language........................90
1. Robert Fland’s Extreme View.......................................................90
2. William Heytesbury’s Odd Restriction..........................................93
C. Natural Signification..............................................................................95
D. Mental Language as the Explanation for Synonymy and
Equivocation......................................................................................................97
E. Synonymy and Equivocation in Mental Language..............................101
1. Mental Language and Fregean Senses.........................................104
F. The Ingredients of Mental Language...................................................105
G. Common and Proper Grammatical Accidents.....................................107
1. Geach’s Criticisms of Ockham’s Theory.....................................109
H. The Structure of Mental Propositions..................................................113
1. Proper and Improper Mental Language.......................................118
2. The Problem of Word-Order in Proper Mental Language...........123
a. Gregory of Rimini’s and Peter of Ailly’s Theory of Mental
Propositions as Structureless Acts...........................................................125
b. God is a True Mental Proposition Properly So Called................127
c. The Difference Between Gregory’s Theory and Peter’s.............128
d. A Way Out of the Word-Order Argument...................................130
3. The Problem of the Unity of Proper Mental Propositions...........134
a. Reply to This Problem.................................................................136
I. Summary of the Two Preceding Problems..........................................137
J. Additional Reading..............................................................................137
ii
Chapter 5: The Signification of Terms...............................................................139
A. A Dispute Between Ockham and Burley.............................................140
1. Ockham’s Theory.........................................................................140
2. Burley’s Theory...........................................................................142
3. Historical Antecedents of Burley’s Theory.................................144
B. Ockham’s Nominalism and Some of Its Consequences......................146
C. The Pros and Cons of Realism and Nominalism.................................148
D. Burley’s Arguments Against Ockham.................................................148
1. First Argument.............................................................................149
a. Ockham’s Reply...........................................................................150
b. Difficulties...................................................................................151
2. Another Objection........................................................................153
a. Ockham’s Reply...........................................................................154
i. Concepts as Natural Likenesses...............................................155
ii. Ockham’s Two Main Theories of Concepts............................156
iii. Why Did Ockham Abandon the Fictum-Theory?....................158
b. Concluding Remarks on This Objection......................................160
3. Still Other Objections..................................................................160
E. Epistemological Factors in the Dispute...............................................161
F. Additional Reading..............................................................................163
Chapter 6: The Signification of Propositions.....................................................165
A. The Additive Principle.........................................................................165
B. Complexe significabilia.......................................................................168
1. Authoritative Sources for the Theory..........................................169
a. Boethius.......................................................................................169
b. Aristotle.......................................................................................170
2. Arguments for the Theory............................................................170
3. Terminological Variations...........................................................172
4. The Ontological Status of Complexe significabilia.....................173
a. The Problem.................................................................................173
b. Gregory of Rimini’s Three Kinds of Beings................................174
C. Buridan’s Theory.................................................................................175
1. Problems for Buridan’s Theory...................................................177
a. One Problem................................................................................177
b. A Possible Second Problem.........................................................177
D. Digression on the Bearers of Truth Value...........................................178
E. The Adverbial Theory of Signification................................................180
1. Questions and Problems...............................................................181
F. Adverbial Signification as the Basis for A Theory of Truth...............182
G. Direct and Consecutive Signification..................................................184
1. Some Implications of This Distinction........................................185
H. Additional Reading..............................................................................187
Chapter 7: Connotation-Theory..........................................................................189
A. The Theory of Paronymy.....................................................................189
1. Augustine.....................................................................................191
iii
a. Semantical Implications...............................................................193
2. Anselm.........................................................................................195
a. Ontological Implications..............................................................196
b. Anselm’s Semantics of Paronymy...............................................198
i. Signification Per se and Signification Per aliud.....................201
B. Connotation-Theory in Ockham..........................................................204
1. Ockham’s Theory of Definition...................................................206
a. Real Definitions...........................................................................207
b. Nominal Definitions.....................................................................209
i. Expressions Expressing the Quid Nominis..............................209
(A) Identifying Which Expressions Express the Quid
Nominis........................................................................................212
c. A List of Connotative Terms.......................................................215
2. The Secondary Significates of Connotative Terms.....................215
a. Buridan’s Account.......................................................................217
b. Ockham’s Account.......................................................................219
3. A Generalization and Some Conclusions....................................222
C. Connotation in Mental Language........................................................224
1. Why Ockham Cannot Have Simple Connotative Concepts........227
2. Why Buridan Cannot Have Them................................................228
3. Conceptual Atomism...................................................................228
4. Epistemological Factors...............................................................231
5. An Interpretative Tangle..............................................................232
a. Claude Panaccio’s Interpretation.................................................233
b. Martin Tweedale’s Interpretation................................................237
c. Suggestions and Conjectures.......................................................238
D. Additional Reading..............................................................................241
Chapter 8: Supposition — The Theory of Reference.........................................243
A. The Difference Between Supposition and Signification.....................247
1. The First Main Difference...........................................................248
2. The Second Main Difference.......................................................250
B. The Kinds of Supposition....................................................................250
1. Proper and Improper Supposition................................................250
2. The Divisions of Proper Supposition...........................................253
a. Ockham’s Divisions.....................................................................253
i. Personal Supposition...............................................................253
ii. Simple Supposition..................................................................255
iii. Material Supposition................................................................256
iv. Summary..................................................................................256
v. Mistaken Interpretations of Ockham’s Division......................257
vi. Refinements in Material and Simple Supposition...................258
b. Burley’s and Other Authors’ Divisions.......................................260
c. Subdivisions of Simple Supposition............................................264
d. Additional Questions...................................................................266
iv
i. Problems about Ockham’s Account of Supposition in
Mental Language.................................................................................266
ii. The “Rule of Supposition”.......................................................269
iii. Supposition Theory as the Basis for a Theory of Truth
Conditions............................................................................................270
C. Additional Reading..............................................................................271
D. Supplement: Diagrams of the Divisions of Supposition Proper..........272
Chapter 9: The Ups and Downs of Personal Supposition....................................277
A. The Branches of Personal Supposition................................................277
1. Syntactical Rules..........................................................................279
2. Descent and Ascent......................................................................281
a. Determinate Supposition..............................................................281
b. Confused and Distributive Supposition.......................................283
c. Merely Confused Supposition.....................................................285
i. Horse-Promising......................................................................286
d. Conjoint Terms............................................................................288
e. Modes of Personal Supposition as a Theory of Analysis or
Truth Conditions......................................................................................290
i. Objections to This Interpretation.............................................291
ii. Suggested Answers to These Objections.................................293
3. The Logical Structures of the Theory..........................................298
a. Some Preliminary Conclusions....................................................299
b. Restrictions on the Propositions We Are Considering................300
c. Facts of Mediaeval Usage............................................................301
d. A Partial Logic of Complex Terms..............................................302
e. Important Results.........................................................................303
i. First Important Result..............................................................303
ii. Second Important Result..........................................................304
iii. Consequences of the First Two Results...................................306
iv. Third Important Result.............................................................307
B. Additional Reading..............................................................................308
Chapter 10: Ampliation......................................................................................309
A. Modality...............................................................................................309
1. Assertoric vs. Modal Propositions...............................................310
2. Two Syntactical Constructions for Modal Propositions..............311
a. Truth Conditions for Modal Propositions with a Dictum
and Read in the Composite Sense............................................................313
i. Problems for this Account.......................................................315
b. Truth Conditions for Other Modal Propositions..........................317
B. Ampliation...........................................................................................319
1. Rules for Ampliation....................................................................320
C. Tense....................................................................................................322
D. Some Conclusions................................................................................324
1. An Inconsistent Triad...................................................................325
E. Additional Reading..............................................................................327
v
Appendix 1: Chronological Table of Names.......................................................329
Appendix 2: A Collection of Texts......................................................................335
Bibliography........................................................................................................373

Table of Figures

Figure 1: Main Periods in the History of Western Logic........................................7
Figure 2: The Ancient Period in Logic..................................................................10
Figure 3: The Square of Opposition......................................................................16
Figure 4: The Relation of Writing to Speech.........................................................67
Figure 5: Mediate and Immediate Signification....................................................68
Figure 6: The Three Levels of Language...............................................................69
Figure 7: The Full Schema.....................................................................................70
Figure 8: Do Words Signify Concepts?.................................................................87
Figure 9: Ockham’s Theory of Signification.......................................................142
Figure 10: Walter Burley’s Theory of Signification............................................143
Figure 11: A Most Lovely Curve.........................................................................155
Figure 12: A Possible Subordination Relation....................................................226
Figure 13: Simple and Complex vs. Absolute and Connotative..........................230
Figure 14: First Approximation of Ockham’s Schema........................................257
Figure 15: Ockham’s Full Schema......................................................................257
Figure 16: Approximation of Ockham’s Schema (Again)...................................261
Figure 17: Approximation of Burley’s Schema...................................................261
Figure 18: Branches of Personal Supposition......................................................278
Figure 19: Personal Supposition in Categorical Propositions.............................285
Figure 20: Ockham on Modal Propositions.........................................................312
vi
Chapter 1: Introduction

his book is the product of a graduate-level course I have taught during the
Fall semesters of 1972, 1976, 1987, 1991, and 1996, and will teach again
during the fall of 2002, and of a series of eleven lectures I presented as a
m ember of the faculty of the Institute on Medieval1 Philosophy held dur-
ing the summer of 1980 at Cornell University.2 Things have reached the point
where there’s no good purpose to be served by reading stale old lecture notes to
students, when they can read them for themselves and we can go on to do other
things in class. So here they are, for your edification and amusement.
A. Scope of This Book
The purpose of this book, as its subtitle says, is to introduce readers to late
mediaeval logic and semantic theory. By “late mediaeval,” I do not mean the
really late period, at the end of the fifteenth century, say. Rather I mean the four-
teenth century, primarily, and only the first half of it at that. (That is “late” in
comparison with Boethius, certainly, and even in comparison with Peter of Spain
and William of Sherwood a century earlier.) This is the period on which I have
concentrated the bulk of my research, so naturally it’s the period I’m best in a po-
sition to talk about. Nevertheless, to give the reader a running start, I have in-
cluded a kind of overview in Ch. 2, below, of the history of logic up to the end of
the Middle Ages, including the periods before and after the time we will be
mainly focusing on.
I emphasize that this book is an introduction to the topic. It makes no
claim to be — and in any case isn’t — an exhaustive study. I have concentrated
on the crucial semantic notions of signification and supposition, and on the inter-
action of those notions with the theories of mental language and connotation. The
result, I think, is a more or less self-contained package of material that is abso-
lutely essential to any further work in late mediaeval logic and semantic theory.

1 You might as well get used to it. I myself spell it ‘mediaeval’, with the extra ‘a’. But I
will stoop to using the other, vulgar spelling if I am quoting or citing someone who insists on do-
ing it that way.
2 The Institute was directed by Norman Kretzmann and sponsored by the Council for
Philosophical Studies and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Just so you will know, let me indicate some of things this book does not
discuss in detail. Most conspicuous, perhaps, is the lack of any serious discussion
of the theory of consequence. A lot of work was done on that notion in the Middle
Ages, and much has been written about it in the secondary literature. But you will
have to go elsewhere for a study of it; I treat it here only in passing.
Again, although I have devoted far too much of my life to the mediaeval
insolubilia- and obligationes-literatures, you will find them scarcely mentioned
here; they are more specialized topics than what I wanted to do in this book.
Likewise, I have said virtually nothing about the theory of “exposition,” or about
the theory of “probationes terminorum” that grew up after c. 1350 and is associ-
ated with the name of Richard Billingham. In fact, these two theories are badly in
need of a lot more research before we will be in a position to say anything very
illuminating about them.
Again, I have treated the theory of syncategoremata and the sophismata-
literature only cursorily, insofar as they fed directly into other points I wanted to
make. Likewise, I have not discussed the extremely interesting applications of
supposition-theory to the theory of motion and change.
So, you see, this book is really pretty limited. Nevertheless, what you find
in it will prepare you adequately, I think, to pursue those other topics on your
own, should you care to do so.
B. The Intended Audience
When I taught this material in the classroom, my audience was often very
mixed. I had people from Philosophy who had a good sense of what was theoreti-
cally important and what counted as a good argument, but for whom the Middle
Ages, and for that matter anything before Frege, was at best a vague rumor. At the
same time, I had people from Medieval Studies, who knew the history and lore of
the period backwards and forwards, but who had no special training in philoso-
phy. I had to accommodate both, and I have tried to continue to be accommodat-
ing in this book. So you will find that I use a minimum of logical notation, for ex-
ample, and always include a paraphrase when I do use it. Likewise, I try to moti-
vate the philosophical issues that come up, and don’t just leap into them head-
long. On the other side, you will also find little lessons about Latin syntax as well
as commonplaces about the structure of the mediaeval university system, for ex-
ample.
I hope no one will feel condescended to by this approach. On the other
hand, if you do find something you don’t understand after giving it some thought,
just read on.
C. What Mediaeval Logic Is Not
Readers coming at this material from the point of view of modern logic
may be surprised to find very few of what are sometimes called “logical results”
— that is, theorems about interesting general logical truths. In fact, you may think

2