Gyula Klima

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 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

Is Aquinas a representationalist or a direct realist? Max Herrera’s (and, for that matter, Claude Panaccio’s) qualified answers to each alternative show that the real significance of the question is not that if we answer it, then we can finally learn under which classification Aquinas should fall, but rather that upon considering it we can learn something about the intricacies of the question itself. In these comments I will first argue that the Averroistic notion of “intentional transfer”, combined with the Avicennean idea of the indifference of nature, yielding the Thomistic doctrine of the formal unity of the knower and the known renders the question moot with regard to Aquinas, indeed, with regard to the pre-modern epistemological tradition in general. These considerations will then lead to a number of further, both historical and philosophical questions, which I will offer in the end for further discussion.

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.

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

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

In order to make this point, in the next section I will present a very simple, intuitive reconstruction of Anselm’s argument. Then, in the third section, I will show that since the argument thus reconstructed is obviously valid, and it would be foolish to challenge any other of its premises except the assumption that God does not exist in reality, it is a sound proof of God’s existence. Nevertheless, in the fourth section, I will argue further that despite its soundness, this proof can rationally be rejected by anyone who refuses to think..