Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

198 Terence Parsons
Since Sherwood holds that a word directly signifies a form, this seems to mean
that in simple supposition the word supposits for a form.
Lambert gives the condition:
Simple supposition is the kind according to which a term is interpreted
for itself or for its signified thing, without relation to the supposita
contained under it [PT 3g(ii) (110)]
For Lambert a word’s “signified thing” is a form, so in one version of simple
supposition a word supposits for the form it is a sign of.
Both writers hold that what a term signifies is a form; so a term in simple
supposition stands for a form. Peter of Spain makes this clear, while maintaining
his older view that predicates of categorical propositions always have simple
supposition:
Simple suppositions include that of a common subject term, as in ‘man
is a species’ or that of a common term put in an affirmative predicate,
as in ‘every man is an animal’. The predicate term ‘animal’ has simple
supposition, since it only stands for the nature of a genus. [T VI.6 (70)]
On the nominalist semantics of Ockham and Buridan and their followers, there
are no forms. Instead, apparent references to forms are actually references to
concepts. A word is used materially to supposit for itself or related expressions,
it is used simply to supposit for the concept that it is conventionally imposed on,
and it is used personally to supposit for the things that the concept is naturally
a concept of. This is how Ockham speaks. Buridan balks at using the term
‘simple supposition’, which is used by others to classify a relation between words
and forms. Instead, since expressions in simple supposition supposit for concepts,
and since concepts are words of a mental language, he says that what others call
simple supposition is actually reference to words — and thus a kind of material
supposition. In ‘Donkey is a species’ the word ‘donkey’ supposits for the associated
mental concept – i.e. for a mental word. So he uses a two-part classification of
uses of terms into material and personal. 50
Even ignoring Peter of Spain’s special view that predicates automatically have
simple supposition, the topic is full of controversy. Some will be discussed here.
According to William Sherwood, simple supposition comes in three varieties.
Our discussion will correspondingly have three parts.
50 Buridan SD 4.3.2. “some people have posited also a third member, which they called ‘simple
supposition’. For they held that universal natures are distinct from the singulars outside of the
soul. And so they said that a term supposits personally, when it supposits for the singulars
themselves, that it supposits simply, when it supposits for that universal nature, and materially,
when it supposits for itself. But I hold that Aristotle correctly refuted that opinion in the seventh
book of the Metaphysics, and so this kind of supposition has to be eliminated, at least, according
to this interpretation. In another manner, others call supposition ‘simple’ when an utterance
supposits for the concept according to which it is imposed and material when it supposits for
itself or another similar to itself. And this can be permitted, but I do not care [about this usage],
for I call both ‘material supposition’.”