18
INTRODUCTION TO JEAN BURIDAN’S LOGIC
the things for which the term supposit. The different categories are
taken (sumuntur) from these different modes of predication.
Buridan discusses such modes of adjacence in QM 5.8; he states the key
problem, Bradley’s regress, in fol. 31rb-va, and in fol. 31vb asserts that there
is a “mode of relation” he calls an ‘inseparable disposition,’ which is the
inherence of an accident in a subject. These dispositions are inseparable;
to destroy them is to destroy the inherence, and conversely; and “they are
accidents which are inseparably related to their subjects in this manner.”
28
These ‘dispositions’ are qualities of qualities which are inseparable, but they
are not a new kind of entity; they are unusual entities of an old kind, namely
qualities.
The semantic counterpart of these ontological issues is now clear.
a term like ‘white’ (i ) stands for (supposits for) an individual person; (ii )
connotes the quality whiteness; and (iii ) “appellates the quality insofar as it
is adjacent to what it stands for,” that is, appellates the special disposition
of inherence (TS 1.4.8), which itself is a quality (indeed a quality of a
quality), inseparable from the white thing itself without destroying the white
thing. Of course, “to signify the added disposition is not to signify that the
disposition is added” (QM 5.7 fol. 31ra). A term is therefore appellative if
it is apt to satisfy (i )–(iii ).
29
Obviously, we may treat the semantic relation
of ‘appellation’ as a kind of naming, denoting the inseparable disposition
which is the appropriate form of adjacence. For ‘wealthy’ we may treat the
mode of adjacence as various mental qualities of the people involved which
constitute the recognition of ownership, for example.
The Mental correlate of an appellative term is a primitive complex-
ive concept: roughly, it is the functor ‘thing-having-x’ which is applied to
the absolute concepts of abstract qualities, e. g. ‘thing-having-whiteness.’
The primitiveness of the functor means that there need be no nominal def-
inition of the term in question, though of course there may well be. The
functor must be complexive well, since Buridan allows accidents like white-
ness to exist without inhering in a particular subject,
30
and the inseparable
28
See Normore [1984] who discusses this text and the metaphysical problems in detail.
29
The qualification ‘apt to’ is necessary, because (i )–(iii ) may fail in actual practice:
the term may fail to refer; what is connoted may not exist; what is connoted may fail
to inhere, i. e. this disposition be destroyed (QM 4.9 fol. 19ra; TS 5.2.6). This last
case is theologically crucial, since it describes the Eucharist, in which the qualities of
the bread remain without inhering in a subject. In each of these cases the truth-value
of the sentence containing the term is affected.
30
The semantic version of this principle is that ‘ϕ-ness’ is not synonymous with ‘what
it is to be ϕ,’ which Buridan defends in QM 4.6 fol. 30vb.
c Peter King, from Jean Buridan’s Logic (Dordrecht: D. Reidel 1985) 3–82.
INTRODUCTION TO JEAN BURIDAN’S LOGIC
19
disposition must be involved.
The theory of definition was our initial guide to whether a term was
absolute or appellative. We can now see that the usefulness of the theory
of definition was in that definition provides a generally reliable guide to
whether a term in Mental is complex or not. But in certain cases the theory
of definition is not sufficient, and we had to investigate deeper metaphysical
issues. The net result is that appellative terms are those with structure
in Mental, not merely those which have definition; such structure can be
introduced by the primitive complexive functor described in the preceding
paragraph.
4.3 Intentional Verbs
One of the key uses of the doctrine of appellation is to analyze the
behavior of terms in sentential contexts with intentional verbs.
31
His re-
marks equally apply to the participles and nouns derived from them. Such
verbs (and the terms derived from them—henceforth I shall omit this clause)
differ from other verbs in that the “verbal action” each specifies “goes over”
to their object not directly, into the things for which the terms supposit,
but indirectly, by means of “certain mediating concepts indicated by those
terms” (TS 1.6.12-14, TC 3.7.3). In particular, such verbs cause the terms
with which they are construed to appellare suas rationes, that is, to ap-
pellate the concept or ratio by which the terms were imposed to signify
(TS 3.8.25, TS 5.3.1 Rules App-1 and App-2, TC 3.7.5).
For Buridan, we are only mediately in touch with the things the
concepts are about, by means of mediating concepts: perhaps a single con-
cept, perhaps a Mental sentence. Such concepts give the ratio significandi
to an inscription or an utterance; knowledge, in this sense, is not direct but
requires an instrument (QM 12.8 fol. 70vb). As Buridan says in TS 3.7.10,
the logical analysis of a sentence such as:
Socrates knows A
is given by:
Socrates knows A according to the ratio or concept by which the
term ‘A’ is applied, that is, according to the concept-of-A
Buridan is therefore a “descriptionalist”: there is no pure immediate know-
ing; all knowledge is mediated by some concept(s) specifying a description
31
By “intentional verbs” I mean verbs that are (i ) cognitive or epistemic, such as ‘know,’
‘understand,’ ‘believe,’ and the like; (ii ) verbs of desire, such as ‘want,’ ‘intend,’ ‘hope,’
and the like; (iii ) promissory-verbs, such as ‘owe’ or ‘promise’ and the like.
The
fullest list, though Buridan acknowledges its incompleteness, is found in TC 3.4.7;
their characteristics are discussed in Soph. 4 Sophisms 7–15, TS 3.8.24-31 and 5.3.1-8,
TC 1.6.12-16 and .73-10, QM 4.8 fol. 19ra and 4.14 fol. 23va, QSP 2.12 fol. 38va.
c Peter King, from Jean Buridan’s Logic (Dordrecht: D. Reidel 1985) 3–82.