Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

650 Petr Dvoˇrák
ad extra as someone pronouncing various combinations of characters (speaking)
out loud. This is consistent with Caramuel’s naturalism in logic mentioned above.
Yet Caramuel also employs the idea of possible worlds and possibilia in order
to capture the meaning of modal expressions in “Three Labors of Hercules, the
Logician”. The term used here is somewhat different, i.e. “another world” (mundus
alter). 20 While exploring the various meanings of “possible” he is making use of
the then familiar distinctions within possibilia, yet he uses them in order to clarify
both the ontological statuses of both this, i.e. the actual, world, and the other
world. Caramuel says that when “possible” is used in the pure sense, then this
world is not possible, while the other is. The other world does not exist in fact (de
facto non est), yet could be created (sed condi potest). When “possible” is used
in the abstract sense, then both worlds — the actual as well as the other — are
possible in this sense. 21
It comes as no surprise to learn that Caramuel, famed for his moral theology,
also dealt with logic in moral and legal argument. This is to be found especially in
his Pandoxion physico-ethicum (“Physico-ethical summary of belief”) (1668) and
somewhat extended in Moralis seu Politica Logica (“Moral or Political Logic”)
(1680). One would expect to find some predecessor of deontic logic in Caramuel’s
treatment, but the nature of legal argument, as Caramuel sees it, rather gives rise
to (i) the logical analysis of the scale or gradation of natural language quantifiers
and (ii) some considerations in epistemic logic. For in moral or legal argument,
what one finds is very often an inference from a statement where fewer than all
members of a certain class are subjects of predication to a statement whose truth is
consequently only more or less probable. Syllogismus iuridicus seu moralis consists
of a general major premise, which states some moral or legal norm (ius), while a
singular minor states some fact (whose occurrence is to be proved at the trial by
the accuser). The conclusion, also singular, is then the sentence. 22 For instance:
1. Whoever injured some person with the intention of causing death
is to be guilty of murder and sentenced to death
2. Peter injured John with the intention of causing death
Therefore, Peter is to be guilty of murder and sentenced to death
The minor consists of two parts, the first (Peter injured John) is established
by the testimony of the witnesses, while the second, intention, is to be proved by
another moral or legal argument:
20 Herculis Logici Labores Tres, op. cit., p. 49ff.
21 According to Caramuel, the difference could also be captured terminologically: while in the
pure sense a world (another world) is said to be in potency in relation to existence, in the abstract
sense a world (this world) is said to have potency to exist.
22 Moralis seu Politica Logica, Lib. I, Logicae Moralis Synopsis, sect. XVI, pp. 41-45.