L. M. de Rijk (1993). On Buridan's View of Accidental Being. In Egbert P. Bos & H. A. Krop (eds.), John Buridan, a Master of Arts: Some Aspects of His Philosophy: Acts of the Second Symposium Organized by the Dutch Society for Medieval Philosophy Medium Aevum on the Occasion of its 15th Anniversary, Leiden-Amsterdam (Vrije Universiteit), 20-21 June, 19. Ingenium Publishers.
Each inhabitant of our world Gilbert calls (following Boethius) an id quod est or subsistens. Its main constituents are the subsistentiae (or the subsistent's id quo which is sometimes taken collectively to stand for ea quibus) and these are accompanied by the 'accidents', quantity and quality. The subsistent owes its status (or transitory condition) to a collection of inferior members of the Aristotelian class of accidents, which to Gilbert's mind are rather 'accessories' or 'attachments from without' (extrinsecus affixa). (...) The term 'substantia' is used both to stand for substance and substantial form (subsistentia), i.e., that by which something is subsistent (or 'is a substance'). The collection of subsistentiae (substantial forms) or the forma totius is called natura. However, 'natura' is also used to stand for either just one subsistentia or all the forms found in a subsistens even including its 'accidental' forms (quantity and quality). The inclusion of all kinds of accidents (including those inferior ones that make up a thing's status) is seldom found in the intension of the word 'natura'. One of the key notions featuring in Gilbert's ontology is esse aliquid. 'To be a-something' has a threefold import. First, it means 'to be only some thing', and to miss perfection. Second, it has the positive sense of 'being a something', i.e. 'being determinate and well-delineated', not indefinite, not formless that is. Third, 'to be a something' implies concreteness, corporealness and singularity. (shrink)
Basically, a historian's conception of history is to be judged by the status he assigns to historical fact. We on our part have defined fact as the mental entity to which direct reference is made by a descriptive statement accepted as true (1.2-1.4). Next, we have tried to throw further light on this conception, not least by enlisting the aid of linguistics (1.5-1.7). History-as distinct from what others have termed 'history in an objective sense'-has been defined as 'histoire connaissance', whose (...) central concerns it is to render insightful what we have called the vis-à-vis (XYZ), sometimes indicated by the, to me repellent, term 'histoire réalité' (2.2). Further reflection on what ultimately constitutes fact has led us to adopt, in line with others, an extension of Kuhn's paradigm concept. (shrink)
IT is well known that the art of logic (logica or diale(c)tica) knew a remarkable flourishing period during the twelfth century. In the first half of the century its main centres in Paris were: the School of Notre DameI, of St. Victor2, of the Petit Pont3 and of Mont Ste Geneviève4. The present paper aims to offer some new evidence from the manuscripts on the teaching of logic as given in the School of Mont Ste.
