Gyula Klima

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.

“The expression ‘free logic’ is an abbreviation for the phrase ‘free of existence assumptions with respect to its terms, general and singular’.”1 Classical quantification theory is not a free logic in this sense, as its standard formulations commonly assume that every singular term in every model is assigned a referent, an element of the universe of discourse. Indeed, since singular terms include not only singular constants, but also variables2, standard quantification theory may be regarded as involving even the assumption of the existence of the values of its variables, in accordance with Quine’s famous dictum: “to be is to be the value of a variable”.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.2 (2003) 272-273 [Access article in PDF] Matthew of Orléans. Sophistaria sive summa communium distinctionum circa sophismata accidentium. Edited by Joke Spruyt. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Pp. ix + 581. Cloth, $151.00. Matthew of Orléans is not a famous author (indeed, even his name is given tentatively by the editor on the basis of the explicit of one manuscript). And the Sophistaria was apparently not one the most influential works of its time, the early thirteenth century (its full text is preserved only in a couple of manuscripts, and it has never been printed before). Yet, the Sophistaria of Matthew of Orléans is a fine example of a characteristic genre in the rich tradition of medieval logical literature. The genre itself is an interesting combination of two other characteristic genres: treatises on syncategoremata and sophismata. The sophismata treatises are discussions of problem-sentences (sophismata) usually grouped together to illustrate some logical doctrinal points, especially concerning the resolution of ambiguities caused by the logical behavior of syncategorematic terms in various contexts. The treatises on syncategoremata provide systematic discussions of the logical behavior of syncategorematic words, i.e., logical connectives, themselves. But these treatises also illustrate their doctrinal points by resolving the ambiguities of sophismata, mostly using some commonly accepted distinctions concerning how the function of the syncategoremata is to be construed in the contexts provided by these problem-sentences. The proper subject matter of the sophistaria treatises is the discussion of these common distinctions, dealing especially with ambiguities caused by (what we would describe as) the different possible scopes of the syncategoremata occurring in the paradigmatic sophismata.For example, take the sentence "Someone seeing nothing is someone seeing something." This sentence can be regarded as ambiguous, if we analyze "nothing" into "not... a thing," yielding (1) "Someone not seeing a thing is someone seeing something," which can be taken to be ambiguous between (a) "Someone not seeing anything is someone seeing something" and (b) "Someone not seeing something is someone seeing something," depending on whether we take "not" in (1) to be operating (a) on "seeing a thing," or (b) only on "seeing." On this analysis, the ambiguous sentence is obviously false in the first sense, but may be true in the second, for it may be true of Socrates who does not see Plato but sees Coriscus.To be sure, this is not the only possible way to account for the (genuine or putative) ambiguity of the original sentence. In fact, this is not the account considered by Matthew of Orléans or in a parallel passage by Peter of Spain in their analyses of the corresponding Latin sentence (Nihil videns est aliquid videns), although one of the arguments for the truth of the sophisma they reject would be a good argument for the second reading provided here (cf. Peter of Spain, Tractatus [Van Gorcum: Assen, 1972], 220, ll. 10-6, and Sophistaria, 88, ll. 16-20). In any case, the point of the sophistaria treatises is precisely the discussion of the merits and demerits of such possible accounts.The Sophistaria of Matthew of Orléans is a well-organized, highly structured treatise, divided into eight chapters, corresponding to the eight groups of syncategorematic terms [End Page 272] it deals with. The first chapter is devoted to the discussion of common distinctions concerning negations (both propositional and term-negations, including privative negation), the second deals with exclusive words (such as "only"), the third with exceptive words ("besides," "except," "unless"), the fourth with the conditional sign "if," the fifth with the modalities "necessarily" and "contingently," the sixth with the verbs "begins" and "ceases," the seventh with the word "whether," and the eighth with the distributive sign "every," that is, the universal sign that causes the terms it is construed with to be distributed for everything that falls under it.The discussion of these topics in the individual chapters is organized around typical scholastic questions raised concerning the validity of some common distinction in connection with typical sophismata, involving ambiguities in the operation...

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.".

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.

Lo studio intende mettere in evidenza l'ambiguità della nozione di unità, intesa come entità numerica, con la nozione di unità quale sinonimo di essere. Sul primo concetto verte la parte iniziale dello studio, alla quale segue l'esame del significato ontologico di «uno». Le considerazioni fatte guidano l'A. a valutare i rapporti di relazione fra le nozioni di essere e uno, e quelle di sostanzialità, identità e semplicità in Tommaso. La gerarchia ontologica che ha al vertice l'essere assoluto e l'assoluta unità implica la paradossale impossibilità di «significare» e definire la divinità

This is a brief, accessible introduction to the thought of the philosopher John Buridan (ca. 1295-1361). Little is known about Buridan's life, most of which was spent studying and then teaching at the University of Paris. Buridan's works are mostly by-products of his teaching. They consist mainly of commentaries on Aristotle, covering the whole extent of Aristotelian philosophy, ranging from logic to metaphysics, to natural science, to ethics and politics. Gyula Klima argues that many of Buridan's academic concerns are strikingly similar to those of modern philosophy and his work sometimes quite directly addresses modern philosophical questions

This paper examines the multiple semantic functions Aquinas attributes to the verb ‘est’, ranging from signifying the essence of God to acting as a copula of categorical propositions to expressing identity. A case will be made that all these apparently radically diverse functions are unified under Aquinas’s conception of the analogy of being, treating all predications as predications of being with or without some qualification (secundum quid or simpliciter). This understanding of the multiplicity of the semantic functions of this verb as conceived by Aquinas will enable us to have a better understanding of the meaning of his metaphysical claims and arguments. In particular, with this understanding of Aquinas’ conception of being, we will be able to see how Aquinas’s famous “intellectus essentiae” argument for the thesis of the real distinction between essence and existence in creatures can work, despite Anthony Kenny’s arguments to the contrary in his recent book Aquinas on Being.

“The problem of universals” in general is a historically variable bundle of several closely related, yet in different conceptual frameworks rather differently articulated metaphysical, logical, and epistemological questions, ultimately all connected to the issue of how universal cognition of singular things is possible. How do we know, for example, that the Pythagorean theorem holds universally, for all possible right triangles? Indeed, how can we have any awareness of a potential infinity of all possible right triangles, given that we could only see a finite number of actual ones? How can we universally indicate all possible right triangles with the phrase ‘right triangle’? Is there something common to them all signified by this phrase? If so, what is it, and how is it related to the particular right triangles? The medieval problem of universals is a logical, and historical, continuation of the ancient problem generated by Plato's (428-348 B.C.) theory answering such a bundle of questions, namely, his theory of Ideas or Forms.

This course covers paradigmatic accounts of human nature in ancient, medieval, and early modern philosophy, through a careful reading of selected primary texts and contemporary commentary. Major topics will include knowledge and opinion; body and soul; immortality, rationality, and freedom of the will; created being and goodness as emanations of divine perfection. The main focus of the discussions will be on the metaphysical foundations of moral value in the pre-modern tradition, and the conceptual changes shaking these metaphysical foundations with the emergence of modern philosophy.

To many contemporary philosophers, the phrase “essentialist nominalism” may appear to be an oxymoron. After all, essentialism is the doctrine that things come in natural kinds characterized by their essential properties, on account of some common nature or essence they share. But nominalism is precisely the denial of the existence, indeed, the very possibility of such shared essences. Nevertheless, despite the intuitions of such contemporary philosophers,2 John Buridan was not only a thoroughgoing nominalist, as is well-known, but also a staunch defender of a strong essentialist doctrine against certain skeptics of his time. But then the question inevitably arises: could he consistently maintain such a doctrine?

Let me begin my reply to Professor Roark’s objections in good old scholastic fashion, by a distinction. Philosophical objections can be good in two senses. In the first, trivial sense, a good objection is one that convincingly shows the presence of a genuine error in a position or reasoning. Such objections are useful, but uninspiring. In the second, non-trivial sense, a good philosophical objection broadens and deepens our understanding of the problems at issue, whether or not they manage to refute the opponent’s position. In this reply I am going to argue that even if Roark’s objections may not be necessarily good in the first, trivial sense, they are..

This paper argues in the first place that nominalists are right in insisting against ontological realists that semantic universality does not require commitment to universal entities. However, Ockham, in his zeal to get rid of Scotus’s universal entities, swept under the carpet the issue of universal representational content of genuinely universal symbols, conflating it with the mere indifference of the information content of non-distinctive singular representations. Buridan did come up with an abstractionist theory of the formation of genuinely universal representational content to solve the resulting issues, however, the paper argues further, his solution is committed to attributing the sort of “aspectuality” to universal absolute concepts that his Ockhamist semantics denies to them. The conclusion of the paper suggests how Aquinas’s “moderate realism” can provide a consistent solution without the ontological extravaganza of ontological realists, without conflating the mere indifference of singular representation with genuine universality, and without having to deny aspectuality to our quidditative universal concepts formed by abstraction