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Extraordinary Language and Medieval Logic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

John Trentman
John Trentman
Affiliation:
McGill University.
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Extract

Dr. Desmond Paul Henry has recently published a systematic survey of his research on Anselm's logic which makes use of some of his previously published studies but includes much new material as well. Readers who know his earlier work will not be disappointed in this book. It evidences his usual combination of serious medieval scholarship, acumen in modern logic, and insight into the subtleties of logical problems new and old. It also demonstrates beyond doubt the remarkable skill exercised by St. Anselm in his discussions of a very wide range of logical problems involving such things as paronymy, modal arguments, moral reasoning, numerically definite reasoning, identity, forms of inference, and a variety of puzzles involving contrasts between real and apparent logical form. There is much here of very great interest to both the medievalist and the logician. Henry is also very careful and self-conscious about Anselm's methodology, and he attempts to locate Anselm's work within the general development of medieval logic. I hope that no one will feel excused from reading this book and will miss the rich results of Dr. Henry's studies from the fact that I intend here to argue that his view of the development of medieval logic is highly misleading and seems to involve the use of a distinction which, although it has twentieth-century analogues, is not applicable to medieval logic. First, I shall outline Henry's view; then I shall suggest some counter-evidence; finally I shall suggest that Henry's tools for bringing out and expounding Anselm's method have some problems of their own.

Type
Critical Notices/Éitudes critiques
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , September 1968 , pp. 286 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1968

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References

1 The Logic of Saint Anselm (Oxford, 1967), pp. viii, 258, $8.50Google Scholar

2 C. 18, trans., McGarry, Daniel D., The Metalogicon of John Salisbury (Univ. of California, 1962), p. 54.Google Scholar

3 C. 19, McGarry, p. 57.

4 Cf. Louis John Paetow, The Arts Course at Medieval Universities with Special Reference to Grammar and Rhetoric. For a survey of problems and discussions in this area see Murphy, James J., “The Arts of Discourse, 1050–1400”, Mediæval Studies, vol. xxiii (1961) 194–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 On Petrus and Ralph see, Hunt, R. W., “Studies on Priscian in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries - I: Petrus Helias and his Predecessors”, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. Hunt, Richard and Klibansky, Raymond, vol. I (1943) 194–231Google Scholar; “Studies on Priscian in the Twelfth Century - 11: The School of Ralph of Beauvais”, Med. and Ren. Studies, vol. II (1950) 1–56Google Scholar; and “Hugutio and Petrus Helias”, Ibid., 174–178.

6 Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, Fasc. XV, ed. Steele, Robert (Oxford, 1940) pp. 13–27.Google Scholar

7 Summa Modorum Significandi, ed. Wallerand, G., Les æuvres de Siger de Courtrai, Les philosophes belges, VIII (Louvain, 1913) pp. 91fGoogle Scholar. On this distinction in treatises “de modis significandi”, cf. Martinelli, Lucien, Thomas d'Aquin et l'Analyse linguistique (Montréal & Paris, 1963) pp. 21fGoogle Scholar. Also cf. Pinborg, Jan, Die Entwicklung der Sprachtheorie im Mittelalter (København, 1967).Google Scholar

8 In Scotus, DunsOpera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1891) vol. I, esp. pp.48–50.Google Scholar

9 Summa logicae, I, c.iii; Quodlibeta Septem (Strassbourg), 1491) V, 9.viii.Google Scholar

10 Cf. my “Vincent Ferrer on the Logician as Artifex Intellectualis”, Franciscan Studies, vol. 25 (1965), 322–337.Google Scholar