SOPHISMS IN M E D I E V A L LOGIC A N D G R A M M A R

Nijhoff International Philosophy Series

VOLUME 48

General Editor: J A N T. J. SRZEDNICKI Editor for volumes on Applying Philosophy: ROBERTO POLI Editor for volumes on Logic and Applying Logic: S T A N I S L A W J. S U R M A Editor for volumes on Contributions to Philosophy: J A N T. J. SRZEDNICKI Assistant to the General Editor: D A V I D WOOD

Editorial Advisory Board:

L . Broughton {Lincoln University)', R . M . Chisholm {Brown University, Rhode Island)', Mats Furberg {Göteborg University)', D.A.T. Gasking {University of Melbourne)', H . L . A . Hart {University College, Oxford)', S. Körner {University of Bristol and Yale University)', H J . McCloskey {La Trobe University, Bundoora, Melbourne)', J. Passmore {Australian National University, Canberra)', A . Quinton (Trinity College, Oxford); Nathan Rotenstreich {The Hebrew University, Jerusalem)', Franco Spisani {Centro Superiore di Logica e Scienze Comparate, Bologna)', R. Ziedins {Waikato University, New Zealand)

The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.

Sophisms in Medieval Logic and Grammar Acts of the Ninth European Symposium for Medieval Logic and Semantics, held at St Andrews, June 1990

edited by

Stephen Read University of St Andrews, Scotland

SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MESIA, B. V.

A C L P . Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-94-010-4776-0 ISBN 978-94-011-1767-8 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-1767-8

Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved © 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1993 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1993 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.

Sophisms in Medieval Logic and Grammar

Contents

ix Preface

xi Stephen Read, "Introduction"

Part I: Sophisms as a Genre

3 Robert Andrews, "Resoluble, Exponible, and Officiable Tenns in the Sophistria of Petrus Olai, MS UppsaIa C 599"

17 Appendix 1

24 Appendix 2

31 Mario Bertagna, "Richard Ferrybridge's Logica: a handbook for solving Sophismata"

45 Sten Ebbesen, Boethius de Dacia et aI. "The sophismata in MSS Bruges SB 509 and Florence Med.-Laur. S. Croce 12 sin., 3"

56 Appendix

62 List of MSS

64 C. H. Kneepkens, "Orleans 266 and the Sophismata Collection: Master Joscelin of Soissons and the infinite words in the early twelfth century"

80 Appendix

86 Roberto Lambertini, "The Sophismata attributed to Marsilius of Padua"

102 List of MSS

103 Alfonso Maierli, ''The sophism 'Omnis propositio est vera vel faIsa' by Henry Hopton (Pseudo-Heytesbury's De veritate et falsitate propositionis )"

115 Appendix

vi CONTENTS

116 Mieczyslaw Markowski, "Die Rolle der Sophismata im Unterricht der Krakauer Universitat im 15. 1ahrhundert"

128 Fabienne Pironet, "The Sophismata asinina" of William Heytes­bury"

141 Appendix

144 Paul A. Streveler, "A Comparative Analysis of the Treatment of Sophisms in MSS Digby 2 and Royal 12 of the Magister Abstractionum"

154 Appendix 1

168 Appendix 2

185 Andrea Tabarroni, '''Omnis phoenix est': Quantification and Existence in a new Sophismata-collection (MS Clm 14522)"

200 Appendix

202 Mikko Yrjonsuuri, "Expositio as a method of solving sophisms"

Part II: Grammatical Sophisms

219 Christine Brousseau-Beuermann, "Grammatical sophisms in collections of logical sophisms: 'Amatus sum' in BN.lat. 16135"

231 Irene Rosier, "La distinction entre actus exercitus et actus significatus dans les sophismes grammaticaux du MS BN lat. 16618. et autres textes apparentes"

260 Appendix

262 Mary Sirridge, "Interest mea et imperatoris castam ducere in uxorem: can 'est' be used impersonally?"

Part III: Logical Sophisms

277 Allan Back, "Who is the worthiest of them all?"

288 10151 Biard, "Albert de Saxe et les Sophismes de l'Infini"

304 Alessandro D. Conti, "II Sofisma de Paolo Veneto: 'Sortes in quantum homo est animal'''

313 Appendix

CONTENTS vii

319 Jeffrey S. Coombs, "The Soul of the Antichrist necessarily will be a being: A modal sophism in 16th century logic texts"

333 Gyu1a Klima, '''Debeo tibi equum': a reconstruction of the theoretical framework of Buridan's treatment of the sophisma"

348 Simo Knuuttila, "Trinitarian Sophisms in Robert Holcot's Theology"

357 Christopher J. Martin, "Obligations and Liars"

379 Appendix

382 Angel d'Ors, "Hominis asinus/Asinus hominis"

398 Claude Panaccio, "Solving the insolubles: hints from Ockham and Burley"

413 Index of Manuscripts

418 Index of Names

Preface

The first Symposium consisted of three people in a cafe in Warsaw in 1973. Since then, meetings have grown in size and have been held in Leyden, Copenhagen, Nijmegen, Rome, Oxford, Poitiers and Freiburg­am-Breisgau. The ninth Symposium was held in St Andrews in June 1990, with 57 participants who listened to addresses by 28 speakers. It was very fitting that Scotland's oldest university, founded in the heyday of medievalleaming in 1411, should have been given the chance to bring together scholars from all over Europe and beyond to present their researches on the glorious past of scholastic rational thought. The topic of the Symposium was "Sophisms in Medieval Logic and Grammar".

The present volume consists, for the most part, of the papers presented at the Symposium. In fact, however, it proved impossible to include five of the contributions. Two of the papers included here were intended for the Symposium but in the event not delivered, because of the unavoidable absence of the speakers.

The Symposium received very helpful financial support from one of the major philosophical associations in Britain, the Mind Association, from the Philosophical Quarterly, a journal published at St Andrews, from the University of St Andrews, from the British Academy, and from Low and Bonarplc.

In organising the programme for the conference and in preparing the papers for publication I received invaluable help from: Professor E.J. Ashworth of the University of Waterloo, Canada; Professor Henk Braakhuis of the Katholieke Universiteit, Nijmegen; Professor Klaus Jacobi of the Albert-Ludwigs Universitiit, Freiburg; Professor Alfonso Maierii of the Universita "La Sapienza", Rome; Professor D.P. Henry, now retired from the University of Manchester; and especially from Dr Sten Ebbesen of the Institute for Medieval Greek and Latin Philology, Copenhagen.

The text was prepared on an Apple Macintosh, using Microsoft Word 4.0.

University of St Andrews, July 1992

ix

Introduction

by Stephen Read

Increasing insight into the medieval genre of sophisms has been acquired in recent years. Nonetheless, as more is discovered, more puzzlement arises, and yet more questions are prompted. It was in this context that three years ago, having offered to host the Ninth European Symposium for Medieval Logic and Semantics at St Andrews, I proposed the topic of Sophisms in Medieval Logic and Grammar as the theme for the conference. It satisfied two criteria: first, it provided a stimulus to the scholars involved in this regular symposium to work on a topic of much current interest during the run-up to the meeting, and to present papers which, particularly as an ensemble, would together shed more light on the problem. Secondly, it provided a focus, one narrow enough to give the conference, and the conference volume, a unity, a clear expression of scholars working together towards a common end; and at the same time a variety within that common theme, ranging from close textual and historical study of the actual genre of sophismatic treatises through to the forever fascinating content of the sophismatic puzzles themselves.

Such is the origin, and the rationale, of the present volume. I believe the project was successful. Reading through the contributions, one comes away with a much clearer picture than before of the contribution sophisms made to the richness of medieval logic and thought. "What is left in logic which is untouched by British sophisms?", wrote Leonardo Bruni of Arezzo in his first Disputation dedicated to Pier Paolo Vergerio in 1401.1

Sophisms played a crucial role in medieval logical and grammatical theory in providing the spur for investigation, insight and invention.

John Marenbon questions whether "exponents of what might be called the 'modem analytical' approach of thought in the Middle Ages" are right to "concentrate on philosophical problems which they believe they share with medieval scholars".2 The answer is that despite the medievals' engagement with issues of very particular concern to them, there is indeed a remarkable similarity both in the problems which they tackled, and in their methodological approach to them. The roots of our thought lie in Greek and Roman antiquity, and that heritage is mediated by medieval philosophy, logic and grammatical theory. The influence of medieval thinking on our own is too little appreciated, but it is considerable. Examination of this background well repays the effort, and has moreover a fascination all its own. The medievals had their own particular problems, and their own strange methods; but they share many of their central

1 L. Bruni, Ad Petrum Paulum Histrum dialogus I, in Prosatori Latini del Quattrocento, ed. E. Garin, Milan-Naples: Riccardo Ricciardi Editore 1952, pp. 58-60: "Quid est, inquam, in dialectica quod non britannicis sophismatibus conturbatum sit?"

2J. Marenbon, Later Medieval Philosophy (1150-1350): An Introduction, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1987, p. 86.

xi

xii STEPHEN READ

problems with us, and their overriding method, in logic and grammar, of analysis, puts them methodologically in touch with modem philosophy of language. Here are some of history's deeper thinkers - Ockbam, Buridan, Abelard, St Thomas - tackling our problems - what exists, can processes proceed infinitely, is self-reference acceptable, what follows from a contradiction? All these questions are found in sophismatic treatises.

There are three classic treatments of the history of sophismatic works, starting with Martin Grabmann's monograph published in 1940.3 At the same time he focused attention on that important Danish thinker at the University of Paris, Boethius of Dacia. This work was followed up by De Rijk's monumental three-volume study, Logica Modernorum, in 1962 and 1967, in which he mapped out the origins of terminist logic in the study of fallacies in the twelfth century.4 Finally, one must note HenkBraakhuis' dissertation on Syncategoremata, published in Dutch in 1979.5 There.is a close and intimate connection between sophistic fallacies, the study of syncategorematic words and the development of the theories of properties of terms.

But the real growth in studies of sophisms has come only in the last decade or so. We are still awaiting the publication of Alfonso Maieru's study of Methods of Teaching Logic during the Period of the Universities.6 But there have been important studies by Ebbesen, de Libera, the Kretzmanns, Rosier and Tabarroni, to name but a few. This volume, it must be acknowledged, takes that study, and our understanding of the role of sophisms in medieval thinking, yet further.

An initial question is whether to render' sophisma' as 'sophism', or to retain the Latin term. Different authors in the present volume adopt each course. The problem about the word 'sophism' is that, for the English reader, it threatens to import implications which are unwarranted and not present for medievals in Latin usage. De Rijk spoke of "ambiguous propositions") Their role was to cause puzzlement, to invite theoretical development in the search for clarification. But they did not have the implication of casuistry, or even necessarily of fallacy. The problem was, rather, that there seemed to be ways of showing both that they were true and that they were false. Insight was needed to see which argument was correct, or to show that, by making a suitable distinction, both were correct, in appropriately different senses. For example, in Mario

3M. Orabmann, Die Sophismatalitteratur des 12. und 13. lahrhunderts mit Textausgabe eines Sophisma des Boetius von Dacien, Beitriige zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters 36.1, MUnster: Aschendorff, 1940.

4L.M. De Rijk, Logica Modernorum. A Contribution to the History of Early Terminist Logic, Vol. I: On the Twelfth Century Theories of Fallacy; Vol. II, 1: The Origin and Early Development of the Theory of Supposition; Vol. II, 2: Texts and Indices, Assen: Van Oorcum 1962-7.

5H.A.O. Braakhuis, De I3de Eeuwse Tractaten over Syncategorematische Termen. Inleidende studie en uitgave van Nicolaas van Parijs' Sincategoreumata, Deelll, Ph.D. Leiden, Meppel: Krips Repro. 1979.

6See below, p. 104 n. 12. 70p .cit., vol. II part I, p. 595.

INTRODUCTION xiii

Bertagna's paper below, it would appear to follow from Ferrybridge's theory of truth that the proposition 'Every man is' is equivalent to a conjunction of propositions of the form 'x is', for each man x existing at the time of utterance. But each conjunct is only contingently true, whereas the original proposition, 'Every man is' seems to be necessarily true, for necessarily every man who is, is. Ferrybridge resolves the difficulty by distinguishing between the meaning (significatio) and the reference (significatum) of the proposition. Although the reference of the proposition changes with time, its meaning, and so its necessity, do not vary.

Another very common distinction that was appealed to was that between composite and divided senses. For example, in Paul Streveler's paper we find that, to solve the sophism 'Every man is every man', the Magister Abstractionum distinguishes the composite sense, in which the aggregate or collective is referred to, and the proposition is true, from the divided sense, in which each individual man is separately said to be every man, and so is false. Again, in Jeff Coombs' article, a similar distinction is drawn concerning the scope of 'necessarily' in 'The soul of the Antichrist necessarily will be a being', such that if 'necessarily' has narrower scope than 'will be', the proposition is true (for when the Antichrist comes to be, he necessarily will be), while if it has wider scope, the proposition is false (for there is no necessity that the Antichrist ever will be).

To render the Latin 'sophisma' I shall, for my own part, use the English term 'sophism'. We should also note that the Latin term was used both for the "ambiguous proposition" on which attention was focused, and also for the whole discussion - the proof, disproof and resolution which we shall look at below. Provided we accept that there is more to a medieval sophism than a mere quibble, and that many examples are not in the least bizarre, we shall not be misled.

It should also be noted that three rather different medieval treatments can all be described as the study of sophisms, and different authors in the present volume treat of different aspects. First, there is the use of sophisms at certain points in a work of a different nature: for example, sophisms may come into a work on supposition theory, to point up a particular problem. In his paper for the volume, Allan Back looks at discussions of the sophismatic proposition 'Man is the worthiest of creatures' as a test of an author's theory of supposition. William of Sherwood thought 'man' here must have simple supposition, so that it stood for the species - but by Ockham's lights the proposition would then be false. The only alternative for Ockham seemed to be to accord 'man' personal supposition, to stand for individual men - but then which man is the worthiest? Ockham had to produce a paraphrase: that every man is worthier than every other type of creature. The hard-nosed rejection, the paraphrase and the reduction exhibited here are all part of the nominalists' armoury.

Rather different from such use of sophisms is the treatment by a single author of a succession of sophisms, as for example in John Buridan's or Albert of Saxony's Sophismata. An example of one such sophism treated by several authors appears in the collection of sophisms by William Heytesbury examined below by Fabienne Pironet. It is now known as Curry's paradox, having been rediscovered in 1940 by Haskell B. Curry.

xiv STEPHEN READ

Heytesbury's treatise has an attractive stylistic unity, in focusing successively on different problematic arguments all engineered to deliver the absurd conclusion, 'You are an ass'. The argument in question takes the form 'This argument is valid, so you are an ass'. Suppose it were valid; then its conclusion would follow, by Modus Ponens, so by Conditional Proof, the argument really is valid. So you are an ass, by Modus Ponens again. The sophism was recognised to be an insoluble, and is here solved by a restrictive rule, that an insoluble cannot refer to itself. Claude Panaccio, in the final paper in the volume, extends the restrictive rules found in Burley and (implicitly) in Ockham, to propose a general solution to such sophisms.

Finally among these different medieval treatments, there is the text which consists of a collection of sophisms by various authors, often showing evidence of oral debate, but often also brought together and unified by the intervention and comments of the editor. Andrea Tabarroni examines such a treatise. The author of one of the sophisms (number 9) in the collection claims that propositions such as 'A man is an animal' will be false when their subject terms fail of reference - if there are no men. The author of another (number 6) says that such propositions are true even if there are no men, for animal is part of the essence of man. This and other indications show that we are dealing with a collection of multiple authorship.

For sophisms had a significant role in the medieval curriculum. After attending lectures on grammar, logic and rhetoric, perhaps for two years, a student would be required to serve first as opponent, then for a year as respondent, in a series of disputations. These took place under the direction of a master, who had in many cases already lectured in the morning, and then oversaw discussions in the afternoon. A sophism would be set out, with a hypothesis (casus) - "let's suppose ... " - and proof and disproof (probatio and improbatio). This would create the problem, for the opponent first to attack, and for the respondent to try to resolve. In between, there might be various subsidiary questions; by the end of the thirteenth century, and particularly in treatises which show literary and editorial intervention and addition to the oral debate, these questions could come to dominate the discussion. In the simpler cases, the treatise may end with the respondent's resolution, and perhaps replies to the opposing arguments. In other cases, the master may intervene. In such cases, the debate may be opened by the master who at some point will dismiss the student's resolution, closing day 1 of the debate. On day 2, the master returns, and "determines" the sophism at length.

Thus we can set out the general form of a sophismatic disputation as follows:

Hypothesis Proof(s) Disproof(s) (Questions) Resolution (Replies to opposing arguments) (Determination)

INTRODUCTION xv

The optional components are given in parentheses. In one of the most complex examples of disputation, the sophism on the nature of logic by Bartholomew of Bruges, written at Paris in the first decade of the fourteenth century, the questions cover 74 of the 76 printed pages.8 In fact, if one is surveying the whole range of sophismatic treatises, there is an indefinite variety of ways in which the elements can be organised. There may be a whole series of problems posed, discussion of them and eventual rejoinder. Sometimes the responses will be placed after each question or problem, though more commonly they are collected at the end.

After a year or so as respondent, the student could proceed to the degree of bachelor, in which he could himself lecture under the guidance of his master. Some three years of lecturing, opposing and responding would then lead to his being allowed to incept as a master himself.

Sophisms were mainly used for teaching logic. There are also grammatical sophisms and sophismatic treatises, physical sophisms and theological sophisms. Even the physical sophisms, however, are very close to logical ones, treating problems of, say, infinity or continuity essentially as logical and conceptual problems.9 For example, when Albert of Saxony treats the sophism, 'The infinite are finite', he clarifies the problem by appeal to the logical distinction between taking 'infinite' categorematically and syncategorematically. Joel Biard presents the solution in his paper: Albert identifies three senses for the sophism, in two of which it is true, namely, when 'infinite' is taken, categorematically, with respect to number and 'finite' with respect to magnitude - for each of the infinitely many is finite in size; and when 'infinite'is taken syncategorematically - for however many finite things one has, there are yet more. Indeed, whether the possibilities discussed were physically impossible was largely ignored, the issue being whether they were logically possible.

The heyday of these treatises recording real disputations is the thirteenth century. Indeed, on the whole those which survive have come from Paris. What survive from Oxford are literary works showing less evidence of original live disputations. Nonetheless, what evolved out of the discussions of Aristotle's De Sophisticis Elenchis (On Sophistical Refutations) in the twelfth century was a rich literature of sophismatic treatises, firmly grounded in the university curriculum. Right through to the sixteenth century there were little booklets (libelli sophistarum) designed to help the student in the art of disputation and resolution of

8S. Ebbesen and J. Pinborg, "Bartholomew of Bruges and his sophisma on the nature of logic", Cahiers de l'Institut du Moyen-Age Grec et Latin 39,1981, pp. iii-xxvi, 1-76. The structure is set out there on pp. xxiv-xxv.

9See, e.g., N. & B.E. Kretzmann, The Sophismata of Richard Kilvington: Text Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy 1990; idem, The Sophismata of Richard Kilvington: Introduction. Translation and Commentary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990.

xvi STEPHEN READ

sophisms.1O To do this, a whole armoury of distinctions and theoretical concepts drawn from the "properties of terms" was needed.

Some indeed of these treatises are actually entitled Distinctiones Sophismatum, with a special title in the thirteenth century of Sophisteria or Sophistria (in the fourteenth century this title came to be used simply as an alternative to Sophismata, for a single sophismatic treatise). So there are connections between the various treatises called Distinctiones, Abstractiones, Syncategoremata, Sophistria, Sophismata, De Obligationibus, De modo opponendi et respondendi and De consequentiis.

Nonetheless, the treatises we have, and in particular, the treatises which have been analysed and examined, are only a scattered record of the work that went on from the late twelfth century to at least the late fourteenth century - and to some extent later. So it is only by more research that we can begin to build up an accurate picture of the treatment of sophisms. In 1989, Andrea Tabarroni gave a counterexample to the claim that the early treatises were only models, and that actual records of debate dated only from the time of Boethius of Dacia in the 1270s.11 He exhibited a record of debate from the 1250s. Again, Alain de Libera has only recently corrected the belief that terminist logic was overtaken by modistic work at Paris in the 1270s by looking closely at two complex manuscripts. 12 They show that there was a terminist and non-modistic tradition at Paris from 1250 up to 1270-5, which preserved the teaching of the masters of the early thirteenth century such as Jean Ie Page.

Another problem thrown up by these sophismatic treatises as we try to reconstruct the history of logical doctrines in the middle ages, is the very notion of "the real text".1 3 It is clear from many of the treatises that there was a real debate which lies beneath it. But that may itself have been a succession of different debates under different masters, and the literary rendition may also have been carried out more than once, giving rise to different successions of related manuscripts, from which no single Urtext can be recovered. The problem is similar to, but even trickier for the editor than, the differing reportationes of the lectures of a master.

I have separated the papers collected here into three main categories. First, in Part I there are those papers which deal largely with the sophismatic treatises themselves, their historical origins and their structure and development. Of course, even here the sophisms themselves also play

!OSee EJ. Ashworth, "The 'Libelli Sophistarum' and the use of medieval logic texts at Oxford and Cambridge in the early sixteenth century", Vivarium 17,1979, pp. 134-58.

11 A. Tabarroni, '''Incipit' and 'desinit' in a thirteenth-century sophismata-collection", Cahiers de l'lnstitut du Moyen-Age Grec et Latin 59,1989, pp. 61-111.

12 A. de Libera, "La litterature des Sophismata dans la tradition terministe parisienne de la seconde moitie du XIIIe siecle", in The Editing 0/ Theological and Philosophical Texts/rom the Middle Ages, ed. M. Asztalos, Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell 1986, pp.213-44.

13See e.g., M. Asztalos, "Introduction" in idem (ed.), op.cit., p. 8, and S. Ebbesen, "Corpus Philosophorum Danicorum Medii Aevi, Archbishop Andrew (t1228) and twelfth-century techniques of argumentation", ibid., pp. 267-9.

INTRODUCTION xvii

an important role, but I have brought these papers together since their dominant theme is the genre of sophisms itself, the use of sophisms in treatises as their central theme. I hope it will be helpful for the reader to consider these papers together, separated from those whose focus is on a particular sophism and its logical or grammatical character.

These other papers I have separated into a small group in Part II which treat of grammatical sophisms, propositions whose rationale was the pointing up of a grammatical moral, and a larger group in Part ill dealing with logical sophisms. These papers are less concerned with the historical origins and form of the treatises themselves, and more with the puzzles and, primarily, the theories and solutions proposed.

A recurrent theme throughout the conference was the phoenix: the mythical bird whose existence is forever singular, which must die in the ashes before its successor is born. The first and last papers at the conference (Andrews' and Tabarroni's) focused on the ontological problems to which the existence of the phoenix gives rise. Tabarroni shows how successive authors took 'Every phoenix is' first to be grammatically incorrect, on the grounds that 'every' may only be used with terms actually referring to many; later to be false, for even if used with such terms as 'phoenix' or 'sun', at least three things must be present for 'every' truly to apply; and finally to be true, for 'phoenix' is different from 'sun' and 'world' in that there are successively different phoenixes, and 'every' only requires that there be in principle more than one. The phoenix sophism rose again and again from the ashes of medieval theories - it appears also in the collections studied by Sten Ebbesen and Paul Streveler. The phoenix can, I think, serve also as a trope, a metaphor for the recurrent interest which sophisms spark in the logician's and grammarian's mind. Speaking of the three genres of Distinctiones, Syncategoremata and Sophisteria, De Rijk wrote: "All three ... comprise tracts which afford a rich collection of logico-semantical materials which are of paramount importance for every student of medieval logic and semantics."14 The authors collected here succeed, I believe, both separately and collectively, in pushing forward our understanding of these issues of recurrent fascination.

University of St Andrews

14L.M. De Rijk, Some Earlier Parisian Tracts on Distinctiones Sophismatum, Nijmegen: Ingenium 1988, p. xi.