Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

450 Catarina Dutilh Novaes
are both supposition for terms, and thus both material supposition (cf. chapter
4.3.2 of Buridan’s Summulae). He added that, being the conventionalist about
language that he was, he did not really care whether some people prefer to call
the supposition for mental terms simple supposition [Buridan, 2001, 253]. But
from the point of view of the theoretical simplicity advocated by Ockham himself,
it would seem more reasonable not to multiply concepts and terms unnecessarily;
if the concept of simple supposition becomes theoretically superfluous, one may
as well get rid of it. So it would seem that Buridan’s position was overall more
coherent.
Another related point is that, while Ockham ascribed different kinds of supposition
to terms in mental language as well (yielding a few counterintuitive results
related to equivocation in mental language 16 ), Buridan only allowed for personal
supposition in mental language [Buridan, 2001, 522], whereas in written and spoken
language both personal and material supposition could occur. In this respect
too Buridan’s position was more coherent, as argued in the literature (cf. [Spade,
1980b]).
However, this was not the end of the story. Authors of the following generations
kept on debating whether simple supposition was indeed required or in fact
superfluous for a theory of supposition. Most nominalists, i.e. those who followed
Ockham and Buridan in their denial of the existence of universals, ultimately opted
for simplicity and followed Buridan in his exclusion of simple supposition. This
was in particular the case of Marsilius of Inghen. Moreover, in the second half of
the 14 th century, with the revival of realism about universals with Wyclif and his
followers, simple supposition became again an important theoretical tool within
this trend. 17 But interestingly, there was an author who followed Ockham both in
his ontology (denial of universals) and in his inclusion of simple supposition in the
theory of supposition — a position that, as already argued, is not entirely straightforward.
This author boldly holding Ockham’s banner was Albert of Saxony (cf.
[Berger, 1991]).
Moreover, Albert’s position with respect to simple supposition and to the supposition
of mental terms is also rather idiosyncratic: he accepted personal, simple
and material supposition in spoken and written language, but only personal and
material supposition in mental language. 18 This is rather surprising, since one
16 Cf. [Spade, 1980b; Normore, 1997]. The problem is essentially the following: ambiguity in
spoken/written language (equivocation/amphiboly) is accounted for by Ockham in terms of a
one-many mapping between spoken/written expressions and mental expressions (an ambiguous
expression is one corresponding to more than one mental expression). However, how can he
account for ambiguity in mental language if there is no super-mental level to play the role that
the mental level plays for the spoken/written level?
17 The realist tradition in 14 th century logic is still largely understudied. Its first exponent
was, as already mentioned, Burley, who for example maintained the traditional definition of
simple supposition as the supposition for a universal. In the second half of the century, realism
underwent a revival, mainly with Wyclif and his followers (Robert Alyington, Johannes Sharpe
— see the entries on these authors in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and a whole issue
of Vivarium 43(1) (2005) dedicated to the realists).
18 “[...] a mental term cannot have simple supposition, but only material or personal supposi-