The Introduction to Logic by William of Sherwood, of which this is the first English translation, is the oldest surviving treatise which contains a treatment of the most distinctive and interesting medieval contributions to logic and ...

The intent of the present work is chiefly the presentation of a running commentary, preponderantly historical in complexion, on the detail of the text of St. Anselm's dialogue De Grammatico. At the same time the making intelligible of that text has demanded the concurrent proffering of logical elucidations. The framework adopted for the latter is the Ontology of S. Lesniewski. The unsuitability of other current systems of logic for the analysis of medieval doctrines has been suggested in HLM I. Hereunder (...) the line of analyses proposed in HDG (an introduc tory study of De Grammatico) will for the most part be maintained, with only a few modifications. Changes which further study might demand would in any case involve not so much an abrogation of the HDG ver sions, but rather certain complications of detail on the lines indicated in HLM, HEE, and Hoi. Readers who happen to be out of sympathy either with modem logic as a whole, or with the Lesniewskian systems in particular, may be assured that the historical thread of the commentary remains for the most part unaffected by issues connected with such logics. Much of the historical material contained in the commentary consists of quotations from the logical works of Boethius. Some of that material may at first sight appear prosaic and tedious. (shrink)

0. Introduction: Mereology, Metaphysics, and Speculative Grammar 0.1 Mereology, Ancient and Contemporary 0.11 Mereology is, strictly speaking, the theory of ...

The medieval version of the problem of universals centres around propositions such as ?man is a species? and ?animalis a genus?. One of C. Lejewski's analyses of such propositions shows the semantic status of their terms by means of Ajdukiewicz-style categorical indices having participial or infinitive forms as their natural-language counterparts. Some medievals certainly used such forms in their corresponding analyses, thus avoiding the alleged referential demands generated by nominally-termed propositions. Boethius the Consul exemplifies the confusion which may still arise (...) from the traditional definition of universal in terms of predication of many. Unnecessary adherence to nominally-termed analyses not only grounded a tendency towards nominalism and Platonism, but also towards the moderns? ?way of ideas? (shrink)

A proposition containing an adjectival predicate has customarily been described as one which predicates some quality of its subject; thus "William is white" is said to attribute whiteness to William. The concrete adjectival form in such a situation was sometimes said (e. g. by Boethius) to be derived from the corresponding abstract (as "white" from whiteness, "just" from justice, and so on), thus enabling the subject in question to be "denominated" from the abstract by means of the concrete. The quality (...) is then said to be predicated of its subject in a denominative or paronymous fashion. Involved here also is the shaky assumption that adjectives may indeed be distinguished from substantives on the basis of the former's correlation with available abstract forms which the latter lack, but this need not concern us here. (shrink)

Recent books in English on the history of Logic have tended to concentrate on the formal and semantical aspects of that history, and say little or nothing concerning its inductive aspects. Treatment of the latter has been left to historians of science, such as Duhem, Crombie and Claggett. The present work, however, is a full examination of the doctrines of Balduino, who is presented as the most significant exponent of sixteenth-century Paduan Aristotelianism. This Aristotelianism is part of an Averroistic tradition (...) proper to Padua, and the discussion circles at great length around problems having their roots in the Posterior Analytics, and which hence concern theory of scientific discovery. (shrink)

It is not often that one can literally describe the critical edition of the work of a medieval philosopher as being exciting. After all, what could such an edition comprise, over and above a more exact version of an already-familiar text? In the present case, however, not only the content, but also the inception and execution of the project which comes to fruition in this edition have involved adventures and even tragedies, major and minor. The fact that there already exists (...) an excellent preliminary detailed commentary on the material contained in this volume, thus lightening and heightening the pleasures of research in this area, is another feature in its favour. (shrink)

It may well be asked: what sort of interest to the philosopher has a work on rhetoric such as this? Consider, however, an utterance such as the following: ‘In every discussion three things are the objects of enquiry: an sit, quid sit, and quale sit. For first there must be something about which the discussion has arisen. Until this is made clear no discussion as to what it is can arise; far less can we determine what its qualities are, until (...) this second point is ascertained’. In spite of its prima facie Thomistic flavour, it antedates Aquinas by a good twelve centuries, and has a writer on rhetoric as its author. And at the opening of the Middle Ages Lafranc lectured on the Herennian Rhetoric, the influence of which is visible in the works of St Anselm, emerging as a rudimentary doctrine of analogy. The tenets of the ancient rhetorical writers also exert their influence on medieval literature, of course, and acquaintance with them is sometimes essential for the full understanding of the moral points which are being made by an author such as Chaucer, for example. (shrink)

It may well be asked: what sort of interest to the philosopher has a work on rhetoric such as this? Consider, however, an utterance such as the following: ‘In every discussion three things are the objects of enquiry: an sit, quid sit, and quale sit. For first there must be something about which the discussion has arisen. Until this is made clear no discussion as to what it is can arise; far less can we determine what its qualities are, until (...) this second point is ascertained’. In spite of its prima facie Thomistic flavour, it antedates Aquinas by a good twelve centuries, and has a writer on rhetoric as its author. And at the opening of the Middle Ages Lafranc lectured on the Herennian Rhetoric, the influence of which is visible in the works of St Anselm, emerging as a rudimentary doctrine of analogy. The tenets of the ancient rhetorical writers also exert their influence on medieval literature, of course, and acquaintance with them is sometimes essential for the full understanding of the moral points which are being made by an author such as Chaucer, for example. (shrink)

There is no single theme to the papers bound in this volume, and my comments hence tend inevitably to reflect a selection based on my own interests. The majority, however, have some connection with medieval Philosophy, the chief exception being a description of the Logic of Confucian Dialogue.