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Robert Kilwardby on Negative Judgement

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Abstract

In this article, I discuss Robert Kilwardby’s (1215–1279) theory of judgement and consider its implications for his view of truth and falsity. I start by considering Kilwardby’s claim that truth and falsity are primarily found in composite thought, i.e. judgement. I then examine his distinction between two different kinds of being, namely real and conceptual, arguing that different kinds of true judgement, according to Kilwardby, have different kinds of existential import, either real or merely conceptual. Since Kilwardby develops his position by commenting on Aristotle’s logical treatises, an important aim of the article is that of showing how he addresses exegetical issues in those sources and offers solutions that go beyond Aristotle’s alleged intentions. The focus of the paper is on negative judgement because that is where Kilwardby diverges from Aristotle most conspicuously.

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Notes

  1. On the Old Logic, see Cameron (2016: 195–219); on Kilwardby and the Old Logic, see Lewry (1978). For an introduction to Kilwardby’s life and thought, see Silva (2016) and Silva (2012).

  2. See e.g. Uckelman and Lagerlund (2016: especially 120–123; 127–132).

  3. I cannot provide here a full-blown justification for this claim. For my purposes here, therefore, it suffices to point out that the existing scholarship agrees that Albert’s logical commentaries depend on Kilwardby and that Aquinas’ logical work depends on Albert (although they disagree on the extent of this influence). On the former, see Ebbesen (1981), Steel (2009), Conti (2013b). On the latter, see e.g. McMahon (2003).

  4. For an up-to-date bibliography, see Silva (2016).

  5. Thom (2007) briefly discusses some of these issues in different sections of the book, but with an exclusive focus on Kilwardby’s commentary to the Prior Analytics.

  6. In what follows, I take statements as linguistic expressions of judgements. I will use both in order to keep closer to the terminology used in the passages I am interpreting.

  7. Notule super librum Peryermenias (hereafter DI) (liber) I. (lectio) 2, M 45va: nomen et uerbum, que sunt principia materialia enuntiationis. I am grateful to Alessandro Conti for making available to me this forthcoming edition which is based on Lewry’s transcription. The MSS for the edition are indicated with the following sigla: M = Madrid, Biblioteca Universitaria 73; P = Cambridge, Peterhouse 206; V = Venice, Biblioteca Marciana L.VI.66.

  8. DI I.3, M 47ra. See Priscian, Institutiones grammaticae, II.IV.18, 55.

  9. DI I.1, P 66vb: differenter determinat dialecticus de nomine et gramaticus. Gramaticus enim secundum quod determinat de nomine considerat ipsum secundum quod incoat a uoce litterata et procedit ad intellectum; dialecticus uero considerat ipsum prout inchoat ab intellectu et terminatur in uocem. On similar analyses of these different approaches in the Thirteenth Century, see Mora-Márquez (2015).

  10. DI I.2, M 46vb.

  11. Aristotle, De interpretatione 16a3–8. Boethius’s interpretation of this passage, which influenced most of the late Middle Ages, has been studied in detail in Magee (1989).

  12. DI Proemium, P 66va: ex terminis significantibus res determinatorum generum.

  13. See e.g. Notule Libri Priorum (hereafter NLPri) I, lectio I, 98.

  14. See fn. 7 above.

  15. DI I.7, M 52ra: propositio est ex terminis huiusmodi qui non dicunt res determinatas, sed dicunt modos rerum.

  16. De ortu scientiarum (hereafter DOS), paragraph 450: Isti igitur modi rerum sive rationes concrete cum rebus faciunt res rationalibles.

  17. DOS 451: termini [transcendentibus] qui nullius facultatis res significant. See also NLPri Prologue 36 and NLPri I.1, 50.

  18. DI I.2, M 45vb: intellectus aliquando est sine uero et falso, aliquando cum uero et falso; et uoces sunt note intellectuum; ergo et uoces quedam sunt sine uero et falso, et sunt incomplexe, quedam cum uero et falso, et sunt complexe. ‘Intellectus’ here means the same as ‘passio’, which is the species (a likeness or representation of something) as understood or thought, i.e. as existing in the intellect (see DI I.2, M 46ra). He also notes that whereas thoughts are the same in all human beings, the words or signs are not. See Silva (2016) and Silva (2012).

  19. Contrast Aristotle’s Metaphysics VI.4, 1027b24–5 and De interpretatione 6, 17a34–35. For an informative note on this issue, see Ackrill (1963, 125–127). This same point is noted by Crivelli (2004: 70); see also Whitaker (2008: 26 and especially 29).

  20. DI I.8, M 52va; see Aristotle, Categories 13b27–33.

  21. DI I.1, M 45va. See Aristotle, Metaphysics III.2, 996b14–16.

  22. DI I.7, M 52ra: Set dicendum quod cum dico omnem enuntiationem esse alicuius de aliquo, sumitur hoc ipsum “aliquid” communiter, siue fuerit aliquid secundum uocem tantum, siue secundum rem: unde cum de non ente secundum rem enuntiatur, est enuntiatio de ente ad minus secundum dictionem, ut cum enuntiatur de chimera uel de aliquo huiusmodi. On the medieval discussions concerning the existence of imaginary things like chimeras, see e.g. Biard (1985); Ebbesen (1986); and Dewender (2011). On how a similar idea is found later on in Martin of Dacia, see Mora-Márquez (2014: 37–38).

  23. De interpretatione 21a32–33: ‘It is not true to say that what is not, since it is thought about, is something that is; for what is thought about it is not that it is, but that it is not’ (trans. Ackrill). But how to take being in a predicative versus existential sense in Aristotle is a matter of dispute. See Jacobs (1979), Carson (2000), Charles (2000), and Kahn (1966).

  24. NLPri I.18, 386: Et ita ad ueritatem huius ‘Homo est animal’ requirirur ueritas huius ‘Homo est’. Et ita ueritas propositionis exigit actualem entitatem subiecti et predicati. For Kilwardby, the statement has a unity of signification; see Conti (2013a: 75).

  25. See Roger Bacon, De signis, 141, 127.

  26. Kilwardby is following one of the opening sentences of Aristotle’s De interpretatione: ‘spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the soul, and written marks symbols of spoken sounds’ (16a3–5; trans. Ackrill).

  27. ‘[...] since that which is in the sense of being true, or is not in the sense of being false, depends on combination and separation [...] for falsity and truth are not in things—it is not as if the good were true, and the bad were in itself false—but in thought’ (Metaphysics VI.4, 1027b18–19, 25–27; trans. Ross).

  28. I have hinted at this exegetical worry in Silva 2017. For discussion concerning this point in Aristotle, see Crivelli (2004, Chap. 3). In the passage cited, Aristotle argues, in the context of a discussion over priority, that ‘whereas the true statement is in no way the cause of the actual thing’s existence, the actual thing does seem in some way the cause of the statement’s being true; it is because the actual thing exists or does not that the statement is called true or false’ (Categories 12, 14b18–22; trans. Ackrill). See also Metaphysics VI.4, 1027b18–25.

  29. DI I.9, P 75va: Et hoc est quod dicit Aristotiles, orationes esse ueras quemadmodum et res, idest orationes sic se habere ad determinationem ueritatis uel falsitatis quemadmodum res ad determinationem existentie et non existentie.

  30. DI I.9, V 12v: Intellige quod ueritas dicitur equiuoce: est enim in incomplexis entitas rei, et hoc est quod dicit Auicenna, indiuisio esse, idest indiuisa rei entitas; et est ueritas in complexis, et sic dicitur adequatio rei et intellectus, et hoc est in enuntiationibus et in negatiuis de presenti et etiam in hiis de preterito. Ex ex hiis patet quid est ueritas. This definition of truth is found in Avicenna, Liber de Philosophia Prima sive Scientia Divina, Tractatus Primus, Capitulum Octavum, 55–64.

  31. DI I.9, V 12v: [habitudo ueritatis] est in re tanquam in subiecto, et in oratione tanquam in signo, et est etiam in re tanquam effectus in sua causa, et in intellectu tanquam in uirtute compositiua uel diuisiuam, tanquam scilicet apprehensum in apprehendente.

  32. DI I.9, V12v: Set intellige quod ueritas et falsitas est in oratione eo quod res est uel non est; set non dico hoc rem subiecti termini set magis illud quod significatur per orationem, secundum quod dicimus Sortem currere significari per hanc enuntiationem, ‘sortes currit’.

  33. DI I.9, V 12v: in omni materia affirmatiua uera de preterito, cuius ueritas non dependet ex futuro, est necessaria; negatiua autem nequaquam. Et causa est quia quod factum est non potest non fieri, et quod nondum factum est potuit fuisse. It is important to note that Kilwardby thinks that for Aristotle, in negative modal propositions, what is negated is the ‘to be’ (the esse) rather than the mode, which is particularly important for their conversion (see NLPri I.8, 124–125; I.9, 142–143).

  34. DI I.9, M 55va: Propter hoc ergo dicimus quod in hiis de futuro est ueritas uel falsitas, non tamen determinata. God does, of course, know their truth value. See Knuuttila (2015).

  35. On the issue of the relation between signification and the truth value of assertions with empty terms as subjects, see e.g. Mora-Márquez (2015, especially Chap. 2, Sect. 2).

  36. Notule Libri Posteriorum (hereafter NLP) book II, lectio 7, page 382: et quia sermo est signum intellectus, propterea talia, ut chimera, possunt per sermonem significari et poni etiam illud intellectum, sicut est in intellectu sermone per partes explicari, et illud sic explicans non est diffinitio significans quid est rei, sed diffinitio indicans quid significat nomen. Patet etiam quod non entium extra animam, entium tamen alico modo in anima composite, est nomen et diffinitio indicans quid est nomen.

  37. NLP II.7, 374: non sit in rerum natura al < i > quid tale. See Aristotle, De interpretatione 16a15–16; and Metaphysics VII.4, 1030a17–27.

  38. William of Ockham will argue later on for a similar view (Summa Logicae, I, c. 26, 88). See Dewender (2011: 441). On Duns Scotus on the same topic, see Cesalli (2007: 132–137). For later developments, see Ashworth (1977). Whitaker (2008, Appendix III) analyses in detail the relation between signification and definition.

  39. This conception of existential import extended to possible things may be of Avicennian influence. On Avicenna’s view, see Chatti (2016).

  40. NLP II:7, 381. That would put Kilwardby at odds with Thomas Aquinas. On Aquinas’ view, see Bäck (2003) and Bäck (2011). On the criticism of the received view that, for Aristotle, negative categorical propositions have existential import in syllogistic reasoning, see Wedin (1990); for a defence of the view, see Kneale and Kneale (1962).

  41. I am grateful to the two reviewers, who insisted that I make this point clearer.

  42. For Aristotle on privative terms, see Categories 12a28–33; on indefinite terms, De interpretatione 16a30–31.

  43. DI 3, M 47vb. See Thom (2007: 15–16).

  44. DI M 48ra: Item, ‘Omnis homo est animal; ergo omne non-animal est non homo; set lapis est non-animal; ergo lapis est non-homo; ergo lapis est.’ Ergo a primo, ‘Si omnis homo est animal, lapis est,’ et non est prohibere istud nisi dicatur quod li ‘non-homo’ nichil ponit: ergo ut prius. Thom (2007: 88) quotes a similar passage from the commentary on the Prior Analytics (NLPri 47, 1004), which further demonstrates the close connection between the two commentaries.

  45. According to Aristotle, Kilwardby says, and with respect to the quantity of statements, a totality can be either finite or infinite; if finite, it is universal; if infinite, it is indefinite (DI I.8, M 53ra).

  46. NLPri 47, 1014. See Thom (2007: 26).

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge funding from the European Research Council under the ERC Starting grant agreement n. 637747 for the project Rationality in Perception: Transformations of Mind and Cognition 1250–1550. Many thanks are due to the guest editors of this volume, Mika Perälä and Sonja Schierbaum, for their suggestions and patience, as well as to Simo Knuuttila for his comments. In the final stages, this article has also benefited from important suggestions by two anonymous referees of Topoi.

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    José Filipe Silva

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Silva, J.F. Robert Kilwardby on Negative Judgement. Topoi 39, 667–677 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-018-9577-x

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