Abstract

The article intends to show: a) that the modist Martin of Dacia sides with the traditional reading of the first chapter of Aristotle’s De interpretatione that we find in masters of arts from the first half of the thirteenth century; and b) that the modist Boethius of Dacia is one of the first thirteenth-century scholars to depart from this reading. In fact, Boethius presents us with an account of propositional verification where the terms’ signification is not operational and where the immediate truth-maker of statements like ‘homo est animal’ is an external state of affairs. In Martin’s case, to the contrary, the terms’ signification is operational in his account of propositional verification and the immediate truth-bearer of such statements is a mental composition or division.