Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

102 Ian Wilks
fail to achieve propositionality. If they are grouped in accordance with grammatical
rules of construction they may constitute an appropriate conjunction of words, a
competens dictionum coniunctio [Abelard, 1970, p. 147 (28)]. But this is no
guarantee that they will constitute a proposition. A proposition is a complete
phrase, an oratio perfecta 38 ; what indicates the incompleteness of other phrases
is the disposition of the hearer to pause and “desire to hear something more”
[Abelard, 1970, p. 148 (27-28)]. When words grouped according to grammatical
rules suffice to meet this desire, we have a proposition. The key element is of
course the verb. “Without the verb,” says Abelard, “there is no completion of
sense” [Abelard, 1970, p. 148 (29–30)].
Mere combinations of names do not yield this completion. What they yield is
something that, under conditions of grammatical appropriateness, simply remains
at the semantic level of a name. “Rational, mortal animal” functions grammatically
just as “man” does, even though the one is a phrase and the other a word.
This naming function is brought about in the former case by a more complex
internal structure of signification, involving more mental acts (actus intellectus)
than the latter, but in the end both perform as names, and in fact as names of
the same thing [Abelard, 1927, p. 325 (24–29); Abelard, 2006, 01.94; Nuchelmans,
1973, p. 143]. At this level no considerations of truth or falsity arise. Names and
incomplete phrases may have application to things or fail to do so, but this just
means that they are either sound (sanus) or not [Abelard, 1927, p. 326 (30–36);
Abelard, 2006, 01.97]. 39 “The running man” signifies in such a way that it is able
to name, and as such is described as being sound. But it is not appropriately said
to be true. It differs from “the man runs” by the fact that in using it we determine
“running . . . as adjacent to man, but we do not also assert the adjacence, which
cannot be done without a verb” [Abelard, 1970, p. 149 (12–14)].
The verb’s special ability to confer completeness of sense resides in its ability to
convey predicative force. The example of predicative force given above is assertive
force, the product of which is a proposition. But Abelard notes that there are
other kinds of predicative force as well, which yield other kinds of complete phrase.
One can predicate interrogatively or imperatively; in uttering a prayer we have a
fourth different sort of predication, and in uttering a wish a fifth [Abelard, 1970,
p. 151 (4-14)]. These five kinds of complete phrase represent five different ways of
joining predicate to subject, and of demonstrating “the inherence of something in
something in accordance with various dispositions (affectus) of the soul” [Abelard,
1970, p. 149 (21–22)]. 40 What is at issue here is the distinction between sentential
theory: “maximal proposition.” Note that Abelard takes the token quality of the propositio so
seriously that he actually denies what we know as the “Tarski biconditional”; from the fact that
a man exists it does not follow that “A man exists” is true, since “A man exists” might never
have been uttered [Abelard, 1921, p. 291 (26-28)]. See [Guilfoy, 2002, p. 146; Marenbon, 1997a,
p. 205, note 8].
38 See note 25 above.
39 Sanus is contrasted with cassus, “empty” [Nuchelmans, 1973, p. 144].
40 Nuchelmans translates dispositiones animi as “mental attitudes” and notes that Abelard
uses the similar phrase affectus animi to denote the moods of the verb [Nuchelmans, 1973, p.