In his De Natura et Origine Animae, an answer to a work by Vincentius Victor, Augustine was drawn into attempting to answer some questions about what kind of reality dream-bodies, dream-worlds and dream-pains have. In this paper I concentrate on Augustine's attempts to show that none of Victor's arguments for the corporeality of the soul are any good, and that Victor's inflated claims about the extent of the soul's self-knowledge are the result of mistaking self-awareness for self-knowledge. Augustine takes the (...) position that the feelings we have in dreams and the feelings of the dead, although they are real feelings, are not always the feelings they seem to be. This position is consistent with Augustine's later works, though it departs from his understanding of these issues in his earliest works. (shrink)

The overarching aim of this excellent book is to demonstrate the common ground between medieval logic and logical theories of the twentieth century by analyzing some important medieval approaches to three important topics in medieval logic and then showing that in each case, once we determine what is really going on in the medieval theory, it can be formalized in such a way as to show how it resembles one or more developments in twentieth-century logical theory. Analysis in terms of (...) modern logical theory has a lot to offer the study of medieval logical theories, the author claims, and twentieth-century theory can learn some interesting lessons from examining its medieval counterparts. Much of the material in these specific discussions has been presented in earlier versions in the author's published articles. "The Philosophy of Formalization" , however, is new. English translations are used in the text, though the Latin is supplied in the footnotes. (shrink)

Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a consolation for the sorrow of this world, but an answer to that question, ‘Is it true?’ J. R. Tolkien.

This is an edition of commentaries on Porphyry's Isagoge and Aristotle's Categories and On Interpretation attributed to Nicholas of Amsterdam, who taught as magister Erfordiensis at the University of Rostock. Nicholas's own position is what he calls "the position of the moderns", which in this instance means that he adopts and defends primarily the approach of John Buridan and Marsilius of Inghen, including their conceptualism. As Bos notes, Nicholas is thus a good source of information about how the works of (...) Marsilius and Buridan were transmitted and studied. Nonetheless, Nicholas often, and frequently sympathetically, discusses Ockham's... (shrink)

I undertake to examine the practice of Richard, Master of Abstractions, with respect to supposition in his dealing with the fallacy of figure of speech. His practice turns out to support the ‘single theory’ account of the theory of personal supposition, as does his treatment of a functional equivalent of simple supposition, but his practice of proposing additional solutions points to changing attitudes with respect to species as separate entities. Questions having to do with material supposition and the like are (...) completely absent, even in discussions where we might expect to find them. (shrink)

In this essay, the structure and content of theiones, a mid-thirteenthcentury collection of sophismata ascribed to a ‘Magister Ricardus’, are described. It is then argued that the text of the Abstractiones itself together with its “descendant” works present us with a case of textual evolution: the main text appears itself to be the result of patchwork and development, with each manuscript in effect a variation of the work; the descendant works continue the job of modifying the text, now so selectively (...) and radically that they can no longer be described as versions of the Abstractiones itself. (shrink)

POLLARD ARGUES THAT IN MY EARLIER ARTICLE, "TRUTH FROM\nFICTION?", I UNDERESTIMATE THE STRENGTH OF THE POSITION\nTHAT WORKS OF FICTION CONTAIN OR IMPLY THEIR "MORALS" OR\n"MESSAGES." I ARGUE THAT HIS PROPOSED METHOD FOR\nDETERMINING SUCH TRUTHS PRODUCES ONLY PROPOSITIONS WHICH\nCAN BE CLAIMED TO BE TRUE OF THE WORK, AND NOT PROPOSITIONS\nWHICH HAVE A CLAIM TO TRUTH ABOUT THE REAL WORLD. IN\nADDITION, HE HAS FALLEN INTO A DIFFICULTY I PREDICTED FOR\nHIS SORT OF POSITION: HE HAS TO DEFEND THE CREDIBILITY OF\nTHE AUTHOR AS INFORMANT (...) IN ORDER TO DEFEND THE COGNITIVE\nIMPORTANCE OF THE AUTHOR'S WORK OF FICTION. (shrink)

So in literature we have two (perhaps identical) syntactically articulate vocabularies, the terms of each taking the terms of the other as referents, with both of the resultant systems — the one a system of denotation, the other of exemplification — being syntactically articulate and semantically dense. Thus, even though a literary work is articulate and may exemplify or express what is articulate, endless search is always required here as in other arts to determine precisely what is exemplified or expressed.

This chapter contains sections titled: “To Serve Man” “Will the Real Martian Please Stand up?” “The Eye of the Beholder” Conclusion Notes.

In his Questions I, qq. 35-36 Sent. Robert Kilwardby asks whether divine understanding (intelligere) is the same as the divine speaking (dicere), as Anselm says in Monologion, ch. 63, just as for us mental speaking (mentis locutio) is the same as the thinker's examination (inspectio cogitantis) or mental seeing (videre in mente). His answer is that neither for us nor for God is the equation correct, because understanding lacks an essential characteristic of speech, i.e. referentiality, and because speaking is active (...) and understanding passive, which is reflected in the meanings (impositiones) and grammatical functions (modi significandi) of the corresponding expressions. Kilwardby does concede in his discussion of the speech of angels in II Sent. q. 56 that when inner speech does occur, and remains internal, it amounts to thought, though with the additional element of referentiality. I suggest that Kilwardby is unwilling accept Augustine's theory that thought is inner speech, as Anselm does, because it would require him to reject Aristotelian-style philosophical psychology. (shrink)