Robert Pasnau’s paper presents a strong thesis, which it does not manage to substantiate. The thesis in question is that the Aristotelian doctrine of the identity of the knower and the known, as interpreted by St. Thomas, cannot possibly be used to fend off skepticism.

This collection of readings with extensive editorial commentary brings together key texts of the most influential philosophers of the medieval era to provide a comprehensive introduction for students of philosophy. Features the writings of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Boethius, John Duns Scotus and other leading medieval thinkers Features several new translations of key thinkers of the medieval era, including John Buridan and Averroes Readings are accompanied by expert commentary from the editors, who are leading scholars in the field.

Buridan's life, works, and influence -- Buridan's logic and the medieval logical tradition -- The primacy of mental language -- The various kinds of concepts and the idea of a mental language -- Natural language and the idea of a formal syntax in Buridan -- Existential import and the square of opposition -- Ontological commitment -- The properties of terms (proprietates terminorum) -- The semantics of propositions -- Logical validity in a token-based, semantically closed logic -- The possibility of scientific (...) knowledge -- Buridan's anti-skepticism -- Buridan's essentialist nominalism. (shrink)

This volume features essays that explore the insights of the 14th-century Parisian nominalist philosopher, John Buridan. It serves as a companion to the Latin text edition and annotated English translation of his question-commentary on Aristotle's On the Soul. The contributors survey Buridan's work both in its own historical-theoretical context and in relation to contemporary issues. The essays come in three main sections, which correspond to the three books of Buridan's Questions. Coverage first deals with the classification of the science of (...) the soul within the system of Aristotelian sciences, and surveys the main issues within it. The next section examines the metaphysics of the soul. It considers Buridan's peculiar version of Aristotelian hylomorphism in dealing with the problem of what kind of entity the soul (in particular, the human soul) is, and what powers and actions it has, on the basis of which we can approach the question of its essence. The volume concludes with a look at Buridan's doctrine of the nature and functions of the human intellect. Coverage in this section includes the problem of self-knowledge in Buridan's theory, Buridan's answer to the traditional medieval problem concerning the primary object of the intellect, and his unique treatment of logical problems in psychological contexts. (shrink)

This paper analyses the import of three claims extracted from Geach's works concerning theories of predication and the reference of common terms, the notions of being or existence, and the force/content distinction and theories of valid inference, respectively. The paper highlights the theoretical and historical errors involved in these claims as well as their enormous influence and inspiration in the field of the philosophical study of medieval logic and metaphysics.

The first chapter presents a brief summary of the little we know about Buridan’s life, and the somewhat more we know about his immediate historical influence. But this brief survey of known facts only sets up the main argument of the chapter intending to show Buridan’s “modernity” in more than one sense of the word. Buridan is “modern” in the medieval sense, being “the great architect” of what would become in late-medieval philosophy the nominalist via moderna, but he is also (...) “modern” from our perspective, having many of the same concerns as contemporary analytic philosophers. Indeed, his philosophy can be the best key to understanding the major paradigm shifts between medieval and modern philosophy. (shrink)

This paper is not going to offer any criticism of the way Gaven Kerr treats Aquinas’ argument. Instead, it offers an alternative way of reconstructing Aquinas’ argument, intending to strengthen especially those controversial aspects of it that Kerr’s reconstruction left untreated or in relative obscurity. Accordingly, although the paper’s treatment will have to have some overlaps with Kerr’s, it will deal with issues essential to adequate replies to certain competent criticisms of his argument untreated by Kerr. For the sake of (...) the “formally inclined” reader, the paper’s treatment will also include an Appendix offering a formal reconstruction of both the main argument and its sub-arguments to demonstrate the formal rigor of Aquinas’ original. (shrink)

Contemporary "essentialism", if we want to provide a succinct, yet sufficiently rigorous characterization, may be summarized in the thesis that some common terms are rigid designators. [1] By the quotation marks I intend to indicate that I regard this as a somewhat improper (though, of course, permitted) usage of the term (after all, nomina significant ad placitum [2]). In contrast to this, essentialism, properly so-called, is the Aristotelian doctrine summarizable in the thesis--as we shall see, no less rigorous in its (...) own theoretical context--that things have essences. (shrink)

Common representational content allows the Buridanian classification of human concepts discussed in the fourth chapter, which provides the first thoroughgoing, systematic survey of Buridan’s conception of a mental language. The chapter discusses the divisions of concepts into syncategorematic and categorematic, simple and complex, absolute and connotative, and singular and common concepts. Besides presenting these classifications, the chapter provides a detailed discussion of the idea of conceptual complexity as semantic compositionality, its role in Buridan’s nominalist program of “ontological reduction,” and his (...) precarious positioning of his account of the distinction between the representational contents of universal and singular concepts “somewhere between” those of Ockham and Aquinas. The discussion relates the emerging issues to contemporary concerns in the philosophy of mind and language, such as the possibility of forming genuinely singular concepts and simple substantial concepts that would allow some terms of our language to function as rigid designators; the differences between consciousness and mental content; and the problem of universal representation without real universals. (shrink)

This paper argues for two principal conclusions about natural language semantics based on John Buridan's considerations concerning the notion of formal consequence, that is, formally valid inference. (1) Natural languages are essentially semantically closed, yet they do not have to be on that account inconsistent. (2) Natural language semantics has to be token based, as a matter of principle. The paper investigates the Buridanian considerations leading to these conclusions, and considers some obviously emerging objections to the Buridanian approach.

This chapter contains sections titled: Logic Metaphysics and physics Ethics.

This paper confronts a certain modern view of the relation between semantics and ontology with that of the late-medieval nominalist philosophers, William Ockham and John Buridan. The modern view in question is characterized in terms of what is called here “the thesis of onto-semantic parallelism,” which states that the primitive (indefinable) categorematic concepts of our semantics mark out the primary entities in reality. The paper argues that, despite some apparently plausible misinterpretations to the contrary, the late-medieval nominalist program of “ontological (...) reduction” was not driven by considerations that try to “read off” ontology from semantic analysis or those that try to identify semantic primitives in their search for ontological primitives. The medieval authors presented a much more flexible, dynamic view of “Aristotelian naturalism,” which challenges both of the unappealing modern alternatives of “conceptual tribalism” and “conceptual imperialism.”. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The author of the Summulae The Summulae and the realism of Peter of Spain.

After a brief analysis of the specifics of teleological explanations as opposed to causal explanations, the paper seeks to establish the irreducibility of the former to the latter by arguing that teleological explanations are inextricably tied to our notion of intentionality. Since this result undermines the very possibility of “a physicalist reduction” of the explanation of teleological phenomena, especially of human beha- vior, the rest of the paper develops an argument against the perceived need of any such reduction. According to (...) the conclusion of the paper, a more promising program is the development of a “modern, scientific Aristotelianism”, one that can provide a consistent conceptual framework that accommodates both types of explanation. (shrink)

This chapter provides a systematic discussion of Buridan’s nominalist semantics of propositions and sentential nominalizations. The chapter argues that despite its incompleteness, Buridan’s theory is still “nominalism’s best shot” at a semantics of propositions without buying into a philosophically and theologically dubious ontology of dicta, enuntiabilia, complexe significabilia, real propositions, or states of affairs.

"What can a scholastic do in the 20 th century?" - asks Katalin Vidrányi in the title of her article written in 1970. [1] If her characteristically systematic and pithy analysis can be summarized in a single sentence, the author's answer is this: many things, but not too much.

This paper primarily aims to provide a coherent interpretation of several, apparently conflicting claims made by Aquinas concerning the semantic function of the copula. The paper also argues that these claims can properly be understood only if they are interpreted as forming a coherent part of Aquinas' larger theory of the analogy of being. The Appendix sketches a model theoretical semantics for the reconstruction of Aquinas' relevant ideas, providing the technical means for setting apart the various senses of the verb (...) 'est' and its cognates distinguished by Aquinas. (shrink)

This paper contrasts the Thomistic and Cartesian interpretations of what the substantial unity of the body and mind can consist in. A detailed discussion of the Thomistic account of the substantial unity of body and soul identifies especially those principles of the presupposed hylomorphist metaphysical background of this account that Descartes abandoned. After arguing for the consistency of the Thomistic view, briefly outlines how certain developments in late-medieval scholasticism prepared the way for the abandonment of precisely these principles. Finally, the (...) paper shows why from the perspective of the Thomistic principles identified in the first part, Descartes has to appear as someone paying mere lip-service to the thesis of the substantial unity of body and mind. (shrink)

Under the traditional classification of medieval positions on the issue of universals, both Aquinas and Buridan would have to be deemed to be “conceptualists”: they both deny the existence of mind-independent, Platonic universals (against “realists”), and they both attribute universality primarily to the representative function of our universal concepts, and thus only secondarily to universal names of human languages (against “nominalists”). Yet, Aquinas is quite appropriately classified as a “moderate realist,” and Buridan as an “Ockhamist nominalist.” This paper will argue (...) that what justifies these more refined classifications is the two authors’ radically different conceptions of the representative function of our universal concepts. The paper will show how this difference results in their opposing judgments concerning the demonstrability of the thesis of the immateriality of the human intellect and will reply to Buridan’s main objection to Aquinas’s argument for this thesis, by pointing out the objection’s conflation of merely indifferent, non-distinctive singular representation with genuinely universal intellectual representation. In its conclusion, the paper will briefly gesture at an important contemporary implication of Aquinas’s thesis concerning a metaphysical limitation of artificial intelligence. (shrink)

This paper presents John Buridan’s nominalist ontology of habits, as the acquired qualities of innate powers aiding or hampering their operations, against the background of a more traditional interpretation of Aristotle’s doctrine to be found in Boethius, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and Cajetan. The paper argues that considerations of his late question commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics may have forced Buridan to rethink some of his earlier arguments for his parsimonious nominalist ontology of powers endorsed in such earlier works (...) as his Questions on Aristotle’s Categories and De anima. The lesson to be drawn from this investigation seems to be that upon working out the details of a nominalist programme in such fields as moral psychology and ethics, the requisite refinements sooner or later will involve such modifications of an originally “radical” programme that would bring it closer to what used to be the “mainstream” view. Even so, this much seems enough further down the line to change significantly how issues are framed relative to the “mainstream” view as well. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on how Aquinas’ solution of the problem of the persistence of eucharistic species and other scholastics’ reactions to it opened up certain conceptual possibilities in the Scholastic Aristotelian tradition that would not have been there without it, and which, therefore, were pointing the way toward later conceptual developments in the post-medieval and early modern philosophical traditions in logic, and metaphysics.

Anthony Kenny's book is one of the best of its genre, exemplifying the kind of introduction into (some field of) Aquinas's thought that endeavors to make his ideas accessible to the philosophically interested contemporary reader in terms of such philosophical, scientific and everyday concepts with which the reader can safely be assumed to be familiar. Indeed, Kenny's book provides us with such a good example of this genre that it brings into sharp focus the problems of the genre itself. Therefore, (...) while duly acknowledging the book's virtues of clarity of presentation, and its highly readable, almost conversational style, let me concentrate in this brief review on this problematic aspect of Kenny's book, as someone who is just as much concerned with making Aquinas accessible to a contemporary audience as the author is. (shrink)

"This question, and others, asking about the number of predicates, or of the predicables, or of the categories, or of natural principles, or the elements, etc. are rather difficult and tedious, especially for youngsters, for whom one should explain the logical and sophistic cavils which the more advanced students [need] no longer care about. Therefore, for the sake of freshmen, I posit some easy and [somewhat] facetious conclusions". (p. 183, ll. 2203-2209.).

1st GPMR Workshop on Logic and Semantics: Medieval Logic and Modern Applied Logic, Reinische Friedrich Wilhelms Universität Bonn, Germany, 2007.

The lectures presented here are the by-product of my teaching in Yale's Directed Studies program from 1991 through 1993 (hence the title, for want of a better). In fact, being what they are, lecture notes for an introductory philosophy course, they present rather elementary material. Yet, I flatter myself, they do not lack certain originality in the treatment of some of the basic questions of traditional metaphysics and epistemology. In any case, over the past couple of years they proved to (...) be quite useful in teaching my several other courses, especially in medieval philosophy. Thus, being too elementary for transforming them into scholarly papers, on the one hand, yet, containing what I think to be both philosophically interesting and pedagogically useful ideas, on the other, I decided to publish them here, in the Net's formally less stringent medium. Here they can easily be accessed by people who think what they need is a clear and simple discussion of the intriguing philosophical points themselves, rather than the meticulous and sometimes cumbersome scholarly discussions of the texts that raised them (a description which fits, at least, the majority of my students). Given these considerations (as well as the author's lack of time), the lectures are presented here basically unedited, in the form as they were actually delivered, without any notes or references (disregarding the occasionally inserted page numbers, serving as reminders for myself, referring to the texts we used in class). However, anyone who is interested in the more detailed scholarly discussion of some of the topics touched upon here may wish to check some of the papers listed on my.. (shrink)

(Appeared in: J. Bernard-J. Kelemen: Zeichen, Denken, Praxis , Institut fur Sozio-Semiotische Studien: Vienna, 1990, pp. 249-267. To print the published version, click here.).

In his admirably clear, beautifully argued study, Claude Panaccio has provided an able defense of Ockham’s position in response to an argument I presented against Ockham in a discussion with Peter King eight years ago at a meeting in Pittsburgh.1 But after eight years, and even after Claude’s book, I still stand by that argument. So, in these comments I will attempt to explain why I think Ockham may still not be off the hook.

This chapter continues the discussion of the issues raised by the chapter 6, focusing on the issue of ontological commitment. The chapter argues that Buridan’s theory of ampliation, reconstructed in terms of quantification with restricted variables, provides a genuine third alternative to the opposing modern views of Quine and “the Meinongians.” Furthermore, the chapter argues that Buridan’s theory thus reconstructed says “all the right things” according to Quine in its object-language; however, it still seems to side with the Meinongians in (...) its meta-language. However, this is just a feature of the reconstruction: “the real Buridan” does not have this distinction, but works out his natural language semantics under conditions of what Tarski described as “semantic closure.”. (shrink)

It is a commonplace in the historiography of medieval philosophy that theology represents philosophy's culmination in the later Middle Ages, and specifically, that it is in the work of theologians and theologically-trained Arts Masters that we find philosophy in its purest and most advanced form. By comparison, the philosophy produced by thinkers who worked exclusively or primarily in the Faculty of Arts is seen as inferior -- by which is usually meant that it is shallow, unsophisticated, immature, and driven by (...) disparate curricular and pedagogical concerns rather than by the more single-minded commitment to rationally articulate that sacred doctrine which, as Aquinas says, "extends [by virtue of its oneness] to things which belong to different philosophical sciences.". (shrink)

Of those that exist, some are said of a subject, but are in no subject: as man is said of some subject, namely of some man, but is in no subject. Others, however, are in a subject, but are said of no subject. And I say that to be in a subject which, while it is in something not as a part, cannot exist apart from the thing in which it is. For example, some particular literacy is in a subject, (...) namely in the soul, but is not said of any subject, and this whiteness is in a body as in its subject, for any color is in a body. Others both are said of and are in a subject. For example, knowledge is in the soul, and is said of a subject, say, of literacy. Still others neither are in a subject, nor are said of a subject, for example, some particular man, or some particular horse: for none of these is either in or is said of a subject. In general, individuals, and what are numerically one are said of no subject, but nothing prevents them from being in a subject, for some particular literacy is in a subject. (shrink)

Is there a grammar of the name ‘God’? In an obvious and trivial sense there certainly is. This term, being a part of the English language, has to obey the grammatical rules of that language. So, for example, by consulting the relevant textbooks and dictionaries we can establish that ‘God’ is a noun, so it can function as the subject or predicate of simple categorical sentences, but it cannot, for example, function as a verb or a preposition.

The third chapter discusses how Buridan’s conception of mental language provides the grounding for the objectivity and universality of logic despite the radical conventionality of written and spoken languages. Buridan’s conception, since it is based on the Aristotelian idea of the uniformity of natural human capacities in all individual humans, is nothing like modern psychologism, the kind heavily criticized by Frege. Indeed, Buridan’s mental language is not a “private language” criticized by Wittgenstein. On Buridan’s conception, the naturally representative units of (...) human mental language, namely, human concepts, are not inter-subjectively inaccessible private mental states; on the contrary, they are common to us all in our thinking. Of course, our concepts, being individual acts of individual minds are singular token-symbols, but they are common in their representational content: in what and how they represent for all humans. This is precisely the ground for their intersubjective accessibility as well as for the objectivity and universality of logic. (shrink)