Supposition theory was a branch of
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
logic that was probably aimed at giving accounts of issues similar to modern accounts of
reference
Reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a ''name'' ...
,
plural
The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
ity,
tense, and
modality
Modality may refer to:
Humanities
* Modality (theology), the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations
* Modality (music), in music, the subject concerning certain diatonic scales
* Modalitie ...
, within an
Aristotelian context. Philosophers such as
John Buridan
Jean Buridan (; Latin: ''Johannes Buridanus''; – ) was an influential 14th-century French philosopher.
Buridan was a teacher in the faculty of arts at the University of Paris for his entire career who focused in particular on logic and the wo ...
,
William of Ockham
William of Ockham, OFM (; also Occam, from la, Gulielmus Occamus; 1287 – 10 April 1347) was an English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, apologist, and Catholic theologian, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small vill ...
,
William of Sherwood
William of Sherwood or William Sherwood (Latin: ''Guillielmus de Shireswode''; ), with numerous variant spellings, was a medieval English scholastic philosopher, logician, and teacher. Little is known of his life, but he is thought to have studied ...
,
Walter Burley
Walter Burley (or Burleigh; 1275 – 1344/45) was an English scholastic philosopher and logician with at least 50 works attributed to him. He studied under Thomas WiltonHarjeet Singh Gill, ''Signification in language and culture'', Indian Inst ...
,
Albert of Saxony
en, Frederick Augustus Albert Anthony Ferdinand Joseph Charles Maria Baptist Nepomuk William Xavier George Fidelis
, image = Albert of Saxony by Nicola Perscheid c1900.jpg
, image_size =
, caption = Photograph by Nicola Persch ...
, and
Peter of Spain
__NOTOC__
Peter of Hispania ( la, Petrus Hispanus; Portuguese and es, Pedro Hispano; century) was the author of the ', later known as the ', an important medieval university textbook on Aristotelian logic. As the Latin ''Hispania'' was consider ...
were its principal developers. By the 14th century it seems to have drifted into at least two fairly distinct theories, the theory of "supposition proper", which included an "
ampliation Ampliative (from Latin ''ampliare'', "to enlarge"), a term used mainly in logic, meaning "extending" or "adding to that which is already known".
This terminology was often used by medieval logicians in the analyses of the temporal content of thei ...
" and is much like a theory of reference, and the theory of "modes of supposition" whose intended function is not clear.
Supposition proper
Supposition was a semantic relation between a term and what that term was being used to talk about. So, for example, in the suggestion ''Drink another cup'', the term ''cup'' is suppositing for the wine contained in the cup.
The logical ''suppositum'' of a term was the object the term referred to. (In grammar, ''suppositum'' was used in a different way). However, supposition was a different semantic relationship from signification. Signification was a conventional relationship between utterances and objects mediated by the particularities of a language. ''Poculum'' signifies in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
what ''cup'' signifies in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
. Signification is the imposition of a meaning on an utterance, but supposition is taking a meaningful term as standing in for something. According to Peter of Spain "Hence signification is prior to supposition. Neither do they belong to the same thing. For to signify belongs to an utterance, but to supposit belongs to a term already, as it were, put together out of an utterance and a signification." An easy way to see the difference is in our ''drink another cup'' example. Here ''cup'' as an utterance signifies a cup as an object, but ''cup'' as a term of the language English is being used to supposit for the wine contained in the cup.
Medieval logicians divided supposition into many different kinds; the jargons for the different kinds, their relations and what they all mean get complex, and differ greatly from logician to logician. Paul Spade's webpage has a series of helpful diagrams here. The most important division is probably between material, simple, personal, and improper supposition. A term supposits materially when it is used to stand in for an utterance or inscription, rather than for what it signifies. When I say ''Cup is a monosyllabic word,'' I am using the word ''cup'' to supposit materially for the utterance ''cup'' rather than for a piece of pottery. Material supposition is a medieval way of doing the work we would do today by using quotation marks. According to Ockham (''Summa of Logic'' I64, 8) "Simple supposition occurs when a term supposits for an intention of the soul, but is not take significatively." The idea is that simple supposition happens when the term is standing in for a human concept rather than for the object itself. If I say ''Cups are an important type of pottery'' the term ''cups'' is not standing in for any particular cup, but for the idea of a cup in the human mind (according to Ockham, and many medieval logicians, but not according to John Buridan). Personal supposition in contrast is when the term supposits for what it signifies. If I say ''Pass me the cup'' the term ''cup'' is standing in for the object that is called a ''cup'' in English, so it is in personal supposition. A term is in improper supposition if it is suppositing for an object, but a different object than it signifies, as in my example ''Drink another cup.''
Modes of supposition
Personal supposition was further divided in types such as discrete, determinate, merely confused, and confused and distributive. In 1966 T.K. Scott proposed giving a separate name for Medieval discussions of the subvarieties of personal supposition, because he thought it was a fairly distinct issue from the other varieties of supposition. He proposed calling the subvarieties of personal supposition a theory of "modes of supposition."
The Medieval logicians give elaborate sets of syntactical rules for determining when a term supposits discretely, determinately, confusedly, or confusedly and distributively. So for example the subject of a negative claim, or indefinite one supposits determinately, but the subject of a singular claim supposits discretely, while the subject of an affirmative claim supposits confusedly and determinately.
Albert of Saxony
en, Frederick Augustus Albert Anthony Ferdinand Joseph Charles Maria Baptist Nepomuk William Xavier George Fidelis
, image = Albert of Saxony by Nicola Perscheid c1900.jpg
, image_size =
, caption = Photograph by Nicola Persch ...
gives 15 rules for determining which type of personal supposition a term is using. Further the medieval logicians did not seem to dispute about the details of the syntactic rules for determining type of personal supposition. These rules seem to be important because they were linked to theories of descent to particulars and ascent from particulars.
When I say ''I want to buy a cup'' I've made an indefinite affirmative claim, with ''cup'' as the predicate term. Further cup is a common term, including many particular cups within it. So if I "descend to particulars" I can re-phrase my claim as ''I want to buy this cup or I want to buy that cup, or I want to buy that other cup - and so on for all cups.'' If I had an infinite disjunction of all particular cups, it could stand in for the term cup, in its simple supposition in ''I want to buy a cup.'' This is called determinate supposition. That is when I say ''I want to buy a cup'' I mean some determinate cup, but I don't necessarily know which one yet. Likewise if I say ''Some cup isn't a table,'' I could substitute ''This cup isn't a table, or that cup isn't a table or ...''
On the other hand, if I say ''No cup is a table'', I don't mean ''This cup isn't a table or that one isn't a table or ...'' I mean ''This cup isn't a table, AND that cup isn't a table, AND that other cup isn't a table, AND ...''. Here I am referring not to a determinate particular cup, but to all cups "fused" together, that is all cups "confusedly." This is called confused and distributive supposition.
If I say ''This cup is made of gold'' I cannot descend to a disjunction of particulars, or to a conjunction of particulars, but only because ''this cup'' is already a particular. This kind of personal supposition is called discrete supposition.
However, the predicate of a universal affirmative claim won't really fit any of these models. ''All coffee cups are cups'' does not imply ''All coffee cups are this cup, or all coffee cups are that cup, or ...'', but still less does it imply ''All coffee cups are this cup, and all coffee cups are that cup, and ...''. On the other hand, if it happened to be the case that there was only one coffee cup left in the world, it would be true that ''All coffee cups are that cup'', so I can validly infer from ''All coffee cups are that cup'', to ''All coffee cups are cups''. Here descent to disjunction fails, and descent to conjunction fails, but "ascent from particulars" is valid. This is called "merely confused supposition."
That is basically how the theory works, a much thornier problem is exactly what the theory is for. Some commentators, like Michael Loux, have suggested that the theory of ascent and descent to particulars is intended to provide truth conditions for the quantifiers. T. K. Scott has suggested that the theory of supposition proper was designed to answer the question ''What kind of thing are you talking about?'' but the theory of personal supposition was aimed at answering the question ''How many of them are you talking about?'' Paul Spade has suggested that by the 14th century the theory of modes of personal supposition wasn't aimed at anything at all anymore.
Ampliation
When I say ''No cups are made of lead'', ''cups'' supposits for all the cups that exist. But if I say ''Some cups were made of lead in Roman times'', ''cups'' cannot just be suppositing for all the cups that exist, but for cups in the past as well. Here I am expanding the normal supposition of the terms I use.
Peter of Spain
__NOTOC__
Peter of Hispania ( la, Petrus Hispanus; Portuguese and es, Pedro Hispano; century) was the author of the ', later known as the ', an important medieval university textbook on Aristotelian logic. As the Latin ''Hispania'' was consider ...
says "Ampliation is the extension of a common term from a lesser supposition to a greater one."
Brian Copenhaver
Brian P. Copenhaver (born December 21, 1942) is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and History at The University of California, Los Angeles. He teaches and writes about philosophy, religion and science in late medieval and early modern ...
, Calvin Normore Calvin Normore (born June 25, 1948) is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is an expert in medieval philosophy and the history of logic.
Life and career
Normore was born in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Lab ...
& Terence Parsons
Terence Dwight Parsons (1939-2022) was an American philosopher, specializing in philosophy of language and metaphysics. He was emeritus professor of philosophy at UCLA.
Life and career
Parsons was born in Endicott, New York and graduated from th ...
(2014) ''Peter of Spain Summaries of Logic'', Text, Translation, Introduction, and Notes, Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
In practice, if I speak of the past, or the future, or make a modal claim, the terms I use get ampliated to supposit for past things, future things, or possible things, rather than their usual supposition for present actual things. Thus, ampliation becomes the medieval theory for explaining modal and tense logics within the theory of supposition.
References
* Bos, E.P. (ed. 2013), ''Medieval Supposition Theory Revisited. Studies in Memory of L. M. de Rijk'', Brill: Leiden.
* De Rijk, Lambertus M. (1967). ''Logica Modernorum''. Assen: Van Gorcum.
* Dutilh Novaes, C. (2007), ''Formalizing Medieval Logical Theories. Suppositio, Consequentiae and Obligationes''. New York: Springer.
* Dutilh Novaes, C. (2011), ''Supposition Theory'' in H. Lagerlund (ed.) ''Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy, Dordrecht: Springer, 2011, pp. 1229-1236.
*
Kneale, William & Martha Kneale (1962).'' ''Development of Logic''. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*
Kretzmann, Norman,
Anthony Kenny
Sir Anthony John Patrick Kenny (born 16 March 1931) is a British philosopher whose interests lie in the philosophy of mind, ancient and scholastic philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of Wittgenstein of whose literary esta ...
&
Jan Pinborg Jan Pinborg (1937–1982) was a renowned historian of medieval linguistics and philosophy of language, and the most famous member of the Copenhagen School of Medieval Philosophy pioneered by Heinrich Roos in the 1940s.Sten Ebbesen and Russell L. Fri ...
(1982). ''Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* McGrade, A.S. (editor), (2003). ''The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Philosophy'', Cambridge University Press. .
*
Terence Parsons
Terence Dwight Parsons (1939-2022) was an American philosopher, specializing in philosophy of language and metaphysics. He was emeritus professor of philosophy at UCLA.
Life and career
Parsons was born in Endicott, New York and graduated from th ...
(2014). ''Articulating medieval Logic'', New York: oxford University Press.
External links
*
*
* Paul Vincent Spade
Mediaeval Logic and Philosophy* Paul Vincent Spade
(PDF)
* Raul Corazzon.
ttps://www.historyoflogic.com/supposition.htm Annotated Bibliography on the Medieval Theories of Supposition and Mental Language
{{philosophy of language
Theories of language
Medieval philosophy
History of logic