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An Introduction to Late Mediaeval Logic and Semantic Theory

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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
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