Aristotle's logical and metaphysical works contain elements of three distinct types of formal theory: an ontology, a theory of consequences, and a theory of reasoning. His formal ontology (unlike that of certain later thinkers) does not require all propositions of a given logical form to be true. His formal syllogistic (unlike medieval theories of consequences) was guided primarily by a conception of logic as a theory of reasoning; and his fragmentary theory of consequences exists merely as an adjunct to the (...) syllogistic. When theories of consequences took centre stage in the Middle Ages, the original motivation for the theory of the syllogism was forgotten. (shrink)

Paul Thom's book presents Kilwardby's science of logic as a body of demonstrative knowledge about inferences and their validity, about the semantics of non-modal and modal propositions, and about the logic of genus and species. This science is thoroughly intensional. It grounds the logic of inference on "that in virtue of which" the inference holds. It bases the truth conditions of propositions on relations between conceptual entities. It explains the logic of genus and species through the notion of (...) essence. Thom interprets this science as a formal logic of intensions with its own proof theory and semantics. This comprehensive reconstruction of Kilwardby's logic shows the medieval master to be one of the most interesting logicians of the thirteenth century. (shrink)

The paper criticizes Platonistic accounts of musical works as sound-structures. It rejects their view that the authoring of such works is a kind of 'discovery' (Kivy) or 'selection' (Wolterstorff) or 'indication' (Levinson). Instead, the paper proposes that the authoring of any work for performance consists in the production of a token performance-directive. Works for performance are then defined as the contents of such directives.

This book recounts the remarkable history of efforts by significant medieval thinkers to accommodate the ontology of the Trinity within the framework of Aristotelian logic and ontology. These efforts were remarkable because they pushed creatively beyond the boundaries of existing thought while trying to strike a balance between the Church's traditional teachings and theoretical rigor in a context of institutional politics. In some cases, good theology, good philosophy, and good politics turned out to be three different things. The principal thinkers (...) discussed are Augustine, Boethius, Abélard, Gilbert of Poitiers, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham. The aspects of Trinitarian doctrine dealt with are primarily internal ontological questions about the Trinity. The approach draws on history of theology and philosophy, as well as on the modern formal disciplines of set-theoretic semantics and formal ontology. Augustine inaugurated the project of constructing models of the Trinity in language drawn from Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, especially the conceptual framework of Aristotle's Categories. He used the Aristotelian notions of substance and relation to set up a model whose aim was not so much to demystify the Trinity as to demonstrate the logical consistency of maintaining that there is one and only one God at the same time as maintaining that there are three distinct persons, each of whom is God. Standing against this tradition are various heretical accounts of the Trinity. The book also analyzes these traditions, using the same techniques. All these accounts of the Trinity are evaluated relative to the three constraints under which they were formed, bearing in mind that the constraints on philosophical theorizing are not limited to internal consistency but also take note of explanatory power. Besides analyzing and evaluating individual accounts of the Trinity, the book provides a novel framework within which different theories can be compared. (shrink)

A formal analysis is offered of Pseudo-Scotus's theory of the conversion of (i) propositions containing singular terms (including propositions with a singular term as predicate): and (ii) propositions with a quantified predicate. An attempt is made to steer a middle course between using the Aristotelian logic as a framework for the analysis, and using a Fregean framework.

The first full-length study of Robert Kilwardby's commentary on Aristotle's Prior Analytics, based on a study of the medieval manuscripts.

Aristotle's modal syllogistic has been an object of study ever since the time of Theophrastus; but these studies have been somewhat desultory. Remarkably, in the 1990s several new lines of research have appeared, with series of original publications by Fred Johnson, Richard Patterson and Ulrich Nortmann. Johnson presented for the first time a formal semantics adequate to a de re reading of the apodeictic syllogistic; this was based on a simple intuition linking the modal syllogistic to Aristotelian metaphysics. Nortmann developed (...) an ingenious de dicto analysis. Patterson articulated the links between the modal syllogistic and the metaphysics, using an analysis which strictly speaking is neither de re nor de dicto. My own studies in this field date from 1976, when my colleague Peter Roeper and I jointly wrote a paper "Aristotle's apodeictic syllogisms" for the XXIInd History of Logic Conference in Krakow. This paper contained the disjunctive reading of particular affirmative apodeictic propositions, which I still favour. Nonetheless, I did not consider that paper's results decisive or comprehensive enough to publish, and my 1981 book The Syllogism contained no treatment of the modal syllogism. The paper's ideas lay dormant till 1989, when I read Johnson's and Patterson's initial articles. I began publishing on the topic in 1991. Gradually my thoughts acquired a certain comprehensiveness and systematicity, till in 1993 I was able to take a semester's sabbatical to write up a draft of this book. (shrink)

This is an examination of the criteria for identifying, evaluating, and appreciating art forms that require performance for their full realization. Unlike his contemporaries, Paul Thom concentrates on an analytical approach to evaluating music, drama, and dance. Separating performance art into its various elements enables Thom to study its nature and determine essential features and their relationships. Throughout the book, he debates traditional thought in numerous areas of the performing arts. He argues, for example, against the invisibility (...) of the performer - "the vehicle of representation in performance" - then critiques Diderot's Paradox of Performance, calling it "the most extreme formulation of the traditional valorization," and declaring that such thinking must be abandoned. Developing several lines of reasoning regarding music, Thom considers questions of incompleteness and authenticity in relation to the score, the score's function, and the sense in which musical performances are interpreted, or are open to interpretation. It is this audience interpretation that is the final ingredient in the blending and interrelating of the performers, the performance, and the audience. Thom discusses the impact of music, drama, and dance performances on audiences, and evaluates their expectations, reception, and interpretations. He contends that audiences play an active role as interpreters, without becoming performers themselves. Author note: Paul Thom is head of the Philosophy Department, The Faculties, Australian National University. (shrink)

This book explores noteworthy approaches to modal syllogistic adopted by medieval logicians including Abélard, Albert the Great, Avicenna, Averröes, Jean Buridan, Richard Campsall, Robert Kilwardby, and William of Ockham. The book situates these approaches in relation to Aristotle's discussion in the Prior and Posterior Analytics, and other parts of the Organon, but also in relation to the thought of Alexander of Aphrodisias and Boethius on the one hand, and to modern interpretations of the modal syllogistic on the other. Problems explored (...) include: Aristotle's doctrine of modal conversion, the pure and mixed necessity-moods, modal ecthesis, the pure and mixed contingency-moods, and Aristotle's use of counter-examples. Medieval logicians brought various concepts to bear on these problems, including the distinction between per se and per accidens terms, the notion of essential predication, the distinction between ut nunc and simpliciter propositions, the distinction between de dicto and de re modals, and the notion of ampliation. All these are examined in this book. (shrink)

In this book we present the first study of all of his philosophical works from logic and grammar to metaphysics and ethics. It contains a substantial introduction about Kilwardby's life and work as well as a comprehensive bibliography.

The Persian philosopher Atn al-Abharwriting mann al-sRevealing Thoughts’s various logics of complex terms with modern treatments.

This paper examines three recent discussions of Aristotle's system of syllogisms with apodeictic and assertoric premisses. Though they contain no cross-references, and though they arrive at disparate interpretations, all three pieces share a common aim. That aim is to construct an intuitively graspable interpretation of Aristotle's modal syllogistic which is based on metaphysical considerations. I argue that none of these authors has succeeded in this; nevertheless, I share their broad aim, and attempt to show that a more satisfactory interpretation can (...) be formulated by combining and developing elements drawn from all three. (shrink)

Critics and artists claim the title of 'interpreter' for themselves. Scientists do not so readily describe themselves in this way. But is the formulation of explanatory hypotheses in science so different from the interpretive work of artists? Making Sense recognizes that whenever interpretation occurs there may be a plurality of competing successful interpretations. It offers a philosophical theory that views the interpretive enterprise as an attempt to make sense of things by representing them in ways that can be accommodated within (...) various significance-systems. (shrink)

In his Short Treatise and his Commentary on the Peri hermeneias, al-Fbī offers two different but related accounts of indefinite terms and the propositions that contain them. In both works he presents a series of different senses that an indefinite term may have, commencing with a sense in which such a term would be equivalent to a privative term, and concluding with a sense in which it would determine the logical complement of the corresponding definite term. I offer an interpretation (...) of this series according to which they reveal the workings of a fine analytical mind and a subtle teacher. (shrink)

Paul Thom argues that opera is a set of practices framed by the concepts of work, interpretation, performance, and art. His argument is that operatic works have the potential to be art, but so do operatic productions, independently of their value as interpretations of the works they stage.

The present paper describes an ”ontological square’ mapping possible ways of combining the domains and converse domains of the relations of inherence and denomination. In the context of expounding and extending medieval appropriations of elements drawn from Aristotle’s Categories for theological purposes, the paper uses this square to examine different ways of defining Substance-terms and Accident-terms by reference to inherence and denomination within the constraints imposed by the doctrine of the Trinity. These different approaches are related to particular texts of (...) thinkers including Bonaventure and Gilbert of Poitiers. (shrink)

Essentialist theories are based on notions of necessity and essentiality. Kinds and Quasi-Kinds can be defined in terms of these notions. Aristotle's essentialism asserts that Kinds are unions of Quasi-Kinds, Kinds that can overlap are necessarily included in a common Kind, and Kinds partition into sub-Kinds. Truth-conditions for the apodeictic propositions of Aristotle's modal syllogistic are stated in terms of necessity and essentiality, but independent of theses -. While the basic insights motivating Patterson's and Nortmann's interpretations of modal syllogistic are (...) sound, nonetheless there are significant mistakes in the detail. Given -, truth-conditions for apodeictic propositions can be stated in terms of essentiality, but independently of the notion of necessity, thus confirming Johnson's interpretation. (shrink)

Musical performance, as an interpretive activity, has to be understood as relative to the material that is being interpreted. This material may or may not have the determinacy, fixity, and definitiveness of a work. Performative interpretation cannot be identified simply with what performers add to the material being performed. However, if interpretation is the assigning of significance, then in applying certain (theatrical, rhetorical, and biological) significance-endowing metaphors to integrated elements of a musical performance we commit ourselves to thinking of that (...) performance as interpretive. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Works, Pieces, and Objects PerformedPaul Thom (bio)IntroductionJames Hamilton has written a book on the philosophy of theater that is admirable for its analytic clarity and for the wide knowledge of theatrical practice that it brings to bear on philosophical questions. The book’s main thesis is that theatrical performances are not presentations or executions or completions of texts, but the meaning of this thesis is not completely clear. Hamilton (...) sometimes expresses the thesis specifically in relation to literary texts:what is of interest in this book is the fact that the history I have been tracing—including the history of these debates—has revealed theatrical performance to be a form of art in its own right, independent of literature. And it is the meaning and truth of that discovery that is the central, indeed the only, concern in this book.1... Theatrical performance is a practice independent of literature.2This is the thesis in its weak form. Sometimes, however, he voices it in a strong form, relating to a class of artworks wider than literary texts: “A performance is... never a performance of some other work.”3Hamilton’s thesis, in either its weak or its strong form, might be understood as a claim about theatrical performance as such, or it might be understood as a generalization about individual theatrical performances. To take it the first way would be to take it intensionally, as a claim about the nature of theatrical performance—a statement about what the very notion of theatrical performance implies and what it excludes. To take it the second way would be to take it extensionally, as a claim about each and every theatrical performance. Thus, the weak thesis—the thesis relating to literary texts—might be understood (intensionally) as stating that theatrical performance as such is an art form that is independent of literary texts. Or it [End Page 67] might be understood (extensionally) as stating that no individual theatrical performance qua artwork depends on a literary text. Similarly, the strong thesis—the thesis relating to artworks in general—might be understood (intensionally) as stating that theatrical performance as such is an art form independent of all artworks that are not theatrical performances. Or it might be understood (extensionally) as stating that no individual theatrical performance qua artwork depends on any artwork that is not itself a theatrical performance.In this article I outline a framework within which I argue that Hamilton’s thesis in either its weak or its strong form should be accepted as an intensional claim about either moral or ontological independence, but it should be rejected as an extensional claim. Then I will discuss a line of reasoning Hamilton uses in support of his thesis, and I will argue that it is invalid.A FrameworkSpectators at a performance are often able to distinguish, at least to some extent, between the performance and what is performed. This must be the case if spectators are ever to be in a position to comment, for example, on whether a particular routine, which is part of what has been performed, is the same routine as was performed on another occasion—or to comment on how well or badly the routine is being executed. The concept of “what is performed” is therefore an important one for the philosophy of the performing arts.It appears that Hamilton is using this concept when he talks about “the performed object.”4 He doesn’t give us an analysis of what exactly a performed object is, but it appears to be more general than what Paul Woodruff means by a “theater piece.” Woodruff defines a theater piece as a kind of theatrical event that may be repeated.5 (I take it that the definition doesn’t imply that all theater pieces are capable, practically speaking, of being repeated—for that would be false—but merely means that the notion of a theatrical event leaves open the possibility of repetition.) A theater piece is, presumably, a performed object, but a performed object need not be a theater piece if theater is defined (following Woodruff) in terms of human action that is worth watching. Some performances—many musical... (shrink)

Parmenides formulated a formal ontology, to which various additions and alternatives were proposed by Melissus, Gorgias, Leucippus and Democritus. These systems are here interpreted as modifications of a minimal Le?niewskian ontology.

An inclusive sense of ‘opera’ is distinguished from the Western high‐art sense. The problem of aesthetic unity in opera is discussed in relation to hybrid art forms ; specific operatic styles ; individual operatic productions and performances . The article includes links to video clips from operatic performances.

In his book The Philosophy of Nature, Ellis presents "the new essentialism" as resting on the notions of a property, an intrinsic property, an essential property, natural necessity and possibility, a natural kind, a fixed natural kind, and a natural law. The present paper argues that the central notions in this group are susceptible of a logical analysis, Ellis's notion of natural possibility has a historical precedent in the work of Abéelard, the notion of natural possibility contains both de re (...) and de dicto elements, and Ellis's essentialist claims, when joined to any plausible definition of natural possibility, lead to inconsistency. (shrink)

When someone makes music, the content of their music-making is the song they sing, or the piece they play. The idea of musical content is sometimes analyzed in terms of the notion of a type whose tokens occur when that content is played or sung. Such an analysis can be associated with different assumptions about the ontology of types. I consider four such assumptions; and I argue they give rise to four different conceptions of musical content. Finally, I consider the (...) question what kind of unity is possessed by musical content on these four different conceptions. (shrink)

Sticking to the point is thought to be a good thing. Changing the subject, by contrast, is regarded as a sign of a wandering mind if it is unintentional and as a sign of duplicity if it is intentional. Yet, as I shall show, interpreters regularly replace an initial object of interpretation with a new object, thus “changing the subject.” They do so in one of four ways: idealization, resegmentation, reconception, and recovery. Far from being symptomatic of either intellectual weakness (...) or a desire to hide something, however, these processes are an intrinsic part of that most central of human intellectual endeavors, interpretation, and they contribute to its positive value. (shrink)

Midwest Studies In Philosophy, EarlyView.

This volume should be warmly welcomed as the first critical edition of a major work by Radulphus Brito, one of the most important logicians of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, who lectured at the University of Paris between 1296 and 1306. The questions edited here cover most of Aristotle's Prior Analytics, with 75 questions on the first book and 22 on the second. There are no questions specifically on book 1, chapters 17–22, and none on book 2, chapters (...) 22–27. Two Appendixes supply some extra questions, including three doubtful questions. The edition is preceded by a critical study describing the manuscripts, Brito's sources, and the editorial principles. Regrettably, there is no index... (shrink)