Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

The Development of Supposition Theory in the Later 12 th through 14 th Centuries 195
donkey
‘donkey’
The former refers to donkeys, whereas the latter refers to a word. If there is no
spelling error, a word is never used to stand for itself. In the medieval account,
however, any word may automatically, as a matter of the ordinary semantics of
natural language, be used to stand for itself. 45
The definition of material supposition has a simple core:
Supposition . . . is called material when a word itself supposits
either for the very utterance itself or for the word itself, composed of
the utterance and the signification — as if we were to say ‘man is a
monosyllable’ or ‘man is a name’. [Sherwood IL V.2 (107)]
Most writers gave definitions similar to this. 46 In order to clarify the number of
options for e.g. written words referring to spoken words, some authors reflect this
in their account of material supposition. Burley says
“. . . supposition is material when (a) a spoken utterance supposits for
itself spoken, or (b) for itself written, or (c) for another utterance that
is not inferior to the former utterance taken in such a way, or also (d)
when an utterance taken under one kind of supposition supposits for
itself taken under another kind of supposition, or (e) when an utterance
taken in one way supposits for itself taken in such a way that it cannot
supposit or have supposition at all.” 47
45 In later writing something akin to quotation marks came into use. Greek grammarians had
used a definite article in front of a word to indicate that it is being mentioned; an example would
be “The and is a conjunction”. Sometimes medieval authors used ‘this’ for this purpose. But
later writers emulated the Greek practice by using the French definite article, spelled ‘li’ or ‘ly’.
(Since Latin has no definite article, they had to import a word.) Since ‘li’ is not Latin, its use in
Latin for this purpose is unambiguous. The use of ‘ly’ goes back at least to Sherwood IL V.12
(117).
46 William Ockham SL 1.64 (91): “Material supposition occurs when a term does not supposit
significatively, but supposits for a spoken word or a written word. A good example is: man is
a name. The word man here supposits for itself but it does not signify itself.” (This is Loux’s
translation with the quotation marks removed.)
John Buridan SD 4.3.2 (253): “. . . supposition is said to be material when an utterance
supposits for itself or for one similar to itself, or for its immediate significate, which is the
concept according to which it was imposed to signify, as the term ‘man’ in the proposition ‘Man
is a species’.” (Buridan’s account intentionally includes what some others would call simple
supposition — as he makes clear.)
Albert of Saxony: “Material supposition is the interpretation of a term for itself or for any
sign similar to itself . . . and which it was not instituted to signify.” SL II.3.
Paul of Venice LP II.1 (143): “Material supposition is the acceptance of a term in a proposition
for its material significate, e.g., “‘man’ is a noun”. It is clear that “man” does not stand for
[anything] unless for itself or for its like which are the material significates of this term “man”.”
47 Walter Burley, Longer Treatise, 1.1.2 para14 (82). His examples (in sections (15)-(21))
include (a) the use of ‘man’ in the spoken sentence ‘Man is spoken’, which is used to describe an
utterance of ‘man’; then a spoken word supposits materially for itself spoken. (b) In the written
sentence ‘Man is spoken’ used to describe a spoken utterance of ‘man’, we have a written word