Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

Developments in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries 643
standardized form, and they are always relatively simple propositions devoid of
repeated logical particles or logical particles found in curious places. Insofar as
the language used is complex, it is because the logician is striving to be Classical
in style and vocabulary, not because he sees Latin itself as a logical tool. As Luce
Giard has put it, “[...] logic no longer bends language as an object to its own uses;
rather it itself bends before the uses of language. From being normative and technical,
logic becomes descriptive and in a sense pragmatic.” 164 Why these changes
came about is a delicate question, not easily to be resolved. Humanism coexisted
too long with medieval logic for humanism to be the sole explanation, and the
return to Averroes and Aquinas shows that mere revolt against anything medieval
is not a sufficient explanation either. 165 Changes in grammar teaching; 166 changes
in the relation of logic to the study of natural science; 167 and changes in other
parts of the university curriculum presumably have a good deal to do with the appearance
of a new style of logic. 168 So too do Reformation, Counter-Reformation
and the resulting changes in theological studies. The logic needed for the study of
Peter Lombard’s Sentences was not the logic needed for reading the Bible or the
Church Fathers. But whether or not reasons can be given for them it, is still quite
clear that dramatic changes in logical writing took place in the sixteenth century.
164L. Giard, “Du latin médiéval au pluriel des langues, le tournant de la Renaissance,” Histoire
Épistémologie Langage 6.1 (1984), 45. Her words (which I have translated rather freely) are
worth quoting in their full context: “Ce qui est en jeu dans ce refus de la logique scolastique, ce
n’est pas une discussion de son contenu sur le fond, mais la revendication d’un nouveau statut
pour la langue traitée. Dans cette perspective, la saisie de la langue ne peut plus être abandonnée
à des instruments théoriques issus ou reçus directement de la logique. En conséquence, le rôle de
la grammaire change lui aussi: elle devient un savoir qui doit recenser et expliciter les règles de
l’usage de la langue pour les offrir, dans un second temps, à la logique, obligée, pour sa part de
s’en accommoder. La logique ainsi entendue ne plie plus la langue-objet à son usage, elle se plie
à ses usages; de normative et technicisée, elle devient descriptive et pragmatique en un sens.”
165Schmitt, “Philosophy and Science in Sixteenth-Century Italian Universities,” pp. 316–317.
166See Heath.
167For sophismata and natural philosophy in the later middle ages, see Edith Sylla, “The Oxford
Calculators” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, pp. 540–563.
168For some remarks on the curriculum at Oxford, see Ashworth, introduction to Sanderson,
Logicae Artis Compendium, pp. XXXII–XXXV. For a full discussion of Oxford, see The History
of the University of Oxford. Vol. III. The Collegiate University, ed. J. McConica (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1986).