Paradox

BURIDAN’S SOPHISMS 201Buridan banned some of Ockham’s nominalist writings(which, logically enough, eventually led to some of Buridan’sown writings being posthumously banned).THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMAs a side effect of the medieval educational system, sophismshad become standard classroom tools. A sophism is a sentencethat poses an instructive analytical difficulty. Usually theproblem is an embarrassment of riches: there is an argumentin favor of the sentence’s truth and an argument against it.Albert of Saxony’s eleventh sophism in his Sophismata is:A. All men are donkeys or men and donkeys are donkeys.Here is the argument that A is true: A conjunction is an “and”statement and so is true when all of its conjuncts are true. “Allmen are donkeys or men” is true and “Donkeys are donkeys”is true. Therefore, A is a true conjunction. Here is theargument that A is false: A disjunction is an “or” statementand so false when all of its disjuncts are false. “All men aredonkeys” is false and “Men and donkeys are donkeys” is false.Therefore A is a false disjunction. The quandary is that A isboth true and false. This completes Albert’s exposition of thesophism.Now comes Albert’s solution. Statement A is ambiguous:A1. (All men are donkeys or men) and (donkeys aredonkeys).A2. (All men are donkeys) or (men and donkeys aredonkeys).