Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

The Development of Supposition Theory in the Later 12 th through 14 th Centuries 189
counts to nonstandard propositions containing universal predicate terms. One
would need something like:
A proposition of the form ‘No A is every B’ istrueiffthereisnothing
for which the subject supposits which is everything for which the
predicate supposits.
This looks a bit ad hoc, but as shown in section 1.7 we could account for a wide
class of propositions simply by covering eight basic forms. However, things get
more complicated with the extensions of section 2. Consider for example the
sentence:
Some A sees every B
There are two options here: to leave the verb unanalyzed, or to replace it with the
copula and a participle. If the verb is left unanalyzed then the truth conditions
using supposition would be something like:
Something for which the subject supposits sees everything for which
the predicate supposits.
This is correct, but not part of a general account of truth conditions, because it
contains the special word ‘sees’. The other option produces a proposition like this:
Some A is of every B a seeing-thing.
That is, the form is:
Some A is of every B a C.
This can be given an analysis using the copula ‘is’, but there are three quantified
terms, and so we need an additional analysis that is not included in the original
eight forms mentioned above. It also needs something conceptually new, since one
of the terms is parasitic, and so its supposition is characterized relative to another
term.
These issues were not pursued in detail.
3.4 Mental Language
The relation of a form to the individuals falling under it, or of a concept to the individuals
that it is a concept of, is a natural relation, independent of language. The
relation of a word to its form or concept (namely, signification) is a conventional
relation. Setting aside material supposition, which may be possessed by a nonsensewordsuchas‘bu’,
supposition by a written or spoken word is always partly
conventional because it is characterized in terms of direct or indirect signification.
Ockham added an innovation to this framework. He held that the mental concepts
discussed above are themselves words of a mental language. These words
signify naturally, not by convention. All humans have such concepts, and they