16
INTRODUCTION TO JEAN BURIDAN’S LOGIC
some terms are appellative, and others are not.
22
Appellative terms are
more complicated than absolute terms. We shall investigate their nature
carefully.
Buridan characterizes at least some appellative terms by the Re-
mainder Principle:
23
If a term signifies something it doesn’t stand for, the term is ap-
pellative.
By ‘stand for’ Buridan means what a term refers to or supposits for (dis-
cussed in Section 6). Appellative terms falling under the Remainder Prin-
ciple have no real definition (QM 7.5 fol. 44va); presumably they have a
nominal definition and so by (1) correspond to complex concepts. Buridan
lists several examples of appellative terms: (i ) every term in an oblique
case;
24
(ii ) nondenoting terms, which may be impossibilia such as ‘round
square’ or figmenta such as ‘centaur’ (TS 1.4.7); (iii ) concrete terms in
categories other than Substance;
25
(iv ) transcendental terms convertible
with ‘being,’ such as ‘thing,’ ‘one,’ and the like (QM 4.5 fol. 15vb); (v ) the
term ‘potency’ (QM 9.6 fol. 59ra); (vi ) most combinations of terms, so that
complex subjects and predicates are connotative. What is more, terms in
oblique cases combined with a substantive connote the relation between the
subject and what the term would stand for in the nominative case. In this
case, or when an attributive adjective is combined with a substantive, the
term appellates the adjacence of the associated property with the subject.
What, exactly, is appellation? Buridan explains it thus (TS 1.4.1,
5.1.1, 5.2.5; Soph. 4 Remark 2):
A term appellates that which it connotes as in some way adjacent
or non-adjacent to that for which it stands or is apt to stand.
‘Connotation’ is a semantic relation, a kind of indirect or oblique form of
signification.
26
The concrete accidental term ‘white’ stands for white things,
22
The two distinctions absolute/non-absolute and non-appellative/appellative are often
identified, but this is a substantive semantic thesis and is open to question: in TS 1.4.8
Buridan says that ‘white’ is appellative, and in TS 2.4.5 he explicitly says that ‘white’
corresponds to a simple concept. Therefore some appellative terms are absolute.
23
See TS 1.4.1, 5.1.1, 5.2.5; Soph. 1 Theorem 6. Modern scholars often state the Re-
mainder Principle as a biconditional, but Buridan never states it in this way—nor
should he, since he countenances ‘non-external’ appellation (discussed below).
24
Rule App-6 in TS 5.4.1 and the discussion in 5.4.4–5.4.7; such terms, like attributive
adjectives, also appellate in combination with a term in the nominative case (TS 1.4.4-
5).
25
Nonsubstantial abstract terms are more difficult; they need not have appellation, and
are categorized by reduction (QM 4.6 fol. 17va).
26
Buridan’s usage is not regular; sometimes he characterizes terms as connotative, par-
c Peter King, from Jean Buridan’s Logic (Dordrecht: D. Reidel 1985) 3–82.
INTRODUCTION TO JEAN BURIDAN’S LOGIC
17
connotes whiteness, and appellates whiteness insofar as it inheres in those
things (TS 1.4.8). Equally the term ‘wealthy’ stands for a man, connotes his
riches, and appellates those riches as adjacent to him as a possessor. ‘Adja-
cence’ is Buridan’s general term for the metaphysical relation between two
items, e. g. inherence; non-adjacence its opposite. Thus ‘blind’ appellates
vision privatively, as non-adjacent to its subject.
In most cases, a term connotes something other than that for which
it stands, and so is appellative by the Remainder Principle. but there are
exceptions.
In QM 7.4 fol. 44ra Buridan says that the appellative term
‘creative’ connotes a power which is not really distinct from the possessor of
the power; it has no ‘external’ connotation. Buridan mentions ‘extraneous’
and ‘distinct’ (alienae) connotation in QM 4.1 fol. 13ra, and in TS 1.4.6
Buridan says that ‘rational’ in the combination ‘rational animal’ connotes
no accident, for there is no appellation of a distinct (alienae) disposition:
here it is a constitutive differentia.
27
These issues immediately embroil
us in metaphysics, for Buridan holds that such modes of adjacence are all
Aristotle’s categories really amount to. That is, the primary metaphysical
types of adjacence simply are the Aristotelian categories, which are therefore
not classification of (different kinds of) beings. Corresponding to these types
of adjacence will be various modes of predication, each involving a different
inherence-relation. Here is how Buridan puts the matter in QM 4.6 fol. 17va:
There are ten categories or generalissima because concrete acciden-
tal terms are connotative...the categories should be distinguished by
the distinct modes of predicating (modos praedicandi ) [something]
of primary substances—[that is], of singular terms contained under
the genus quid or aliquid . . .
The same point is stated more forcefully in Soph. 4 Remark 3:
Thirdly, it should be remarked that the different modes of predi-
cation, such as in quale, in quantum, in quando, in ubi, how one
thing is related to another, and so forth are taken from (proveni-
unt ) the different modes of adjacence of the things appellated to
ticularly in his commentaries on Aristotle, and sometimes he calls such indirect sig-
nification appellation, particularly in his independent logical works. This looseness is
not vague; his intention is usually clear in context.
27
There is a problem here: we might take ‘rational animal’ to be the real definition of
‘man,’ and hence to correspond to a simple concept. But in QM 7.21 fol. 54vb Buridan
says that definitions by genus and differentia are nominal, not real. There are two
reasons for rejecting this claim: (i ) if definition by genus and differentia is not ‘real,’
then we have no example of real definitions, and indeed may lose our intuitive grasp
on this notion altogether; (ii ) ‘man’ cannot be synonymous with ‘rational animal’ by
the Additive Principle.
c Peter King, from Jean Buridan’s Logic (Dordrecht: D. Reidel 1985) 3–82.