Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

506 Simo Knuuttila
modern logic (logica moderna) and some historians call terminist logic because
of its concentration on an analysis of the properties of terms, such as signification,
supposition, appellation, and ampliation. This trend was also associated
with the rise of some new genres in logic: the treatises on sophisms, which were
influenced by Aristotle’s On sophistic refutations, insoluble propositions, syncategorematic
terms, and the logic of ‘obligational’ disputations. 3 The subjects of
the old and new logic were combined with those of terminist logic in many early
and mid-thirteenth century introductions and compendia, the most influential of
which proved to be Peter of Spain’s Tractatus. 4
Ancient modal theories were extensively dealt with in Boethius’s two commentaries
on De interpretatione, early medieval authors being acquainted with Aristotelian
and other ancient modal paradigms through these works before the later
Aristotle reception. The modal themes which were brought into the discussion
by the new logic were mainly the modal syllogistics and the conversion of modal
propositions which formed part of it. Early medieval theories of modality were
also influenced by Augustine’s ideas about divine power and freedom which deviated
from the philosophical assumptions of ancient views of possibility. There
were analogous discussions of ancient philosophical theories and their relationship
to divine modalities in Arabic philosophy. Arabic modal theories influenced Latin
discussions mainly through the translations of the works of Averroes. 5
Dod, Aristoteles Latinus V.1-3 (Bruges-Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1969), De sophisticis elenchis,
ed. B.G. Dod, Aristoteles Latinus VI.1-3 (Bruges-Paris: Desclée de Brouwer and Leiden:
Brill, 1975). See also S. Ebbesen, ‘Echoes of the Posterior Analytics in the Twelfth Century’ in
M. Lutz-Bachmann, A. Fidora, P. Antolic (eds.), Erkenntnis und Wissenschaft. Probleme der
Epistemologie in der Philosophie des Mittelalters (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2004), 69-92; id.,
Commentators and Commentaries on Aristotle’s Sophistici Elenchi, Corpus Latinum Commentariorum
in Aristotelem Graecorum VII.1-3 (Leiden: Brill, 1981); id., ’Medieval Latin Glosses
and Commentaries on Aristotelian Logical texts of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’ in Ch.
Burnett (ed., 1993), 129-77; N.J. Green-Pedersen, The Tradition of the Topics in the Middle
Ages (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1984).
3 SeeL.M.deRijk,Logica Modernorum. A Contribution to the History of Early Terminist
Logic I: On the Twelfth Century Theories of Fallacy, II.1-2: The Origin and Early Development
of the Theory of Supposition, Wijsgerige teksten en studies 6, 16 (Assen: van Gorgum, 1962,
1967); H.A.G. Braakhuis, De 13de eeuwse tractaten over syncategorematische termen. Inleidende
studie en uitgave van Nicolaas van Parijs’ Sincategoreumata, 2 vols (Meppel: Krips Repro,
1979); S. Read (ed.), Sophisms in Medieval Logic and Grammar, Nijhoff International Philosophy
Series 48 (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1993); M. Yrjönsuuri (ed.), Medieval Formal Logic: Obligations,
Insolubles and Consequences, The New Synthese Historical Library 49 (Dordrecht: Kluwer,
2001), P. Spade, The Mediaeval Liar: A Catalogue of the Insolubilia-Literature (Toronto: The
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1975); id., Thoughts, Words and Things: An Introduction
to Late Mediaeval Logic and Semantic Theory, http://pvspade.com.Logic/.
4 Tractatus called afterwards Summule logicales, ed. L.M. de Rijk, Wijsgerige teksten en
studies 22 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1972).
5 For medieval Arabic Logic, see T. Street, ‘Arabic Logic’ in J. Woods and D.M. Gabbay
(eds.), Handbook of the History of Logic I (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2004), 471-556; for modalities
in Arabic philosophical theology, see T. Kukkonen, ‘Possible Worlds in the Tahâfut al-falâsifa.
Al-Ghâzalî on Creation and Contingency’, Journal of the History of Philosophy 38 (2000), 479-
502; A. Bäck, ‘Avicenna and Averroes: Modality and Theology’ in T. Buchheim, C.H. Kneepkens
and K. Lorenz (eds.), Potentialität und Possibilität. Modalaussagen in der Geschichte der Metaphysik
(Stuttgart and Bad Canstatt: Frommann-Holzbook, 2001), 125-45.