Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

276 Terence Parsons
Therefore, ‘donkey’ has merely confused supposition in the whole proposition. (It
is easy to check that one may not descend to a disjunction, and one may ascend
back from any disjunct.)
Are there more rules of this sort? If so, they are few. In a large number of cases
the mode of supposition of a complex term in a proposition together with the mode
of supposition of a term T in the clause of that complex term do not determine
a mode of supposition of T in the whole proposition. In particular, if a term has
wide distributive supposition in a clause within a complex term that has narrow
distributive supposition in a whole proposition, then the mode of supposition of
the simple term is not determined. Consider the following propositions in which
‘donkey’ has wide distributive supposition within a clause making up the relative
clause portion of a term with narrow distributive supposition. Then:
‘Donkey’ has determinate supposition in:
Some horse isn’t an animal that sees every donkey
And it has merely confused supposition in:
Some horse is an animal that sees every donkey
And it has narrow distributive supposition in:
Some horse sees every animal that is every donkey
And it has no mode of supposition at all in:
Some horse sees every animal that sees every donkey
Perhaps there are some subtle rules that will constitute an algorithm for determining
the mode of supposition of a non-main term from some information about it
that is evident from inspection (which is how the rules for the modes of supposition
of main terms work), but I don’t know how to construct them.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am indebted most of all to Calvin Normore from whom I have learned the most,
and received the most support. In addition I am indebted to Elizabeth Karger,
Gyula Klima, Gareth Matthews, Paul Spade, my colleagues at UCLA, especially
John Carriero, Brian Copenhaver and David Kaplan, the repeating participants in
the annual Moody Conference, and the many students, especially Timothy Doyle,
who have kept me on my toes in many ways.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[Adams, 1976] M. M. Adams. What Does Ockham Mean by Supposition? Notre Dame Journal
of Formal Logic 17: 375-91, 1976.
[Adams, 1987] M. M. Adams. William Ockham. U. of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 1987.