In his commentaries on Porphyry and Aristotle’s Organon and in his other works, John Duns Scotus shows his knowledge of both the modistic theory of language and the theory of supposition. My contribution sheds some light on the relationship between Scotus’ philosophy of language and the theory of supposition, collecting and commenting on all the passages in which he makes use of it or discusses some theoretical points. I take into special account the almost unknown commentary on the Topics, which (...) is preserved in a Vatican manuscript. (shrink)

En este trabajo se estudia la primera concepción escotista sobre las categorías y sobre el objeto del tratado aristotélico de las Categorías. El artículo se concentra sobre las tres primeras cuestiones del comentario de Duns Escoto al texto de Aristóteles. Una de las novedades del texto es su tematización del concepto mismo de categoría, entendido como concepto lógico y como objeto propio del tratado aristotélico. Esta aproximación permite a Escoto distinguir el orden lógico y el orden metafísico en el tratamiento (...) de las categorías. En el primero, la lógica se ocupa del concepto de categoría y, en el segundo, la metafísica se ocupa de la diversidad categorial y de su referencia a la categoría de la substancia. (shrink)

This article highlights five areas of Scotus' philosophy that have recently been the subject of scholarly discussion. (1) Metaphysics : I outline the most current accounts of Scotus on individuation (thisness or haecceity) and the common nature. (2) Modal theory : I consider recent accounts both of Scotus' innovations in spelling out the notion of the logically (and broadly logically) possible, and of his account of the independence of modality. (3) Cognitive psychology : I examine recent views of Scotus' theory (...) of intentionality and the nature of mental content. (4) Semantics : I look at contemporary expositions of Scotus' view that words signify things. (5) Metaethics and ethics : I briefly describe conflicting interpretations of Scotus' metaethics, and discuss whether Scotus should be thought of as adopting some kind of divine-command theory or not. I note too Scotus' claim that virtues and passions can be located in the will. (shrink)

This article highlights five areas of Scotus’ philosophy that have recently been the subject of scholarly discussion. (1) Metaphysics: I outline the most current accounts of Scotus on individuation (thisness or haecceity) and the common nature. (2) Modal theory: I consider recent accounts both of Scotus’ innovations in spelling out the notion of the logically (and broadly logically) possible, and of his account of the independence of modality. (3) Cognitive psychology: I examine recent views of Scotus’ theory of intentionality and (...) the nature of mental content. (4) Semantics: I look at contemporary expositions of Scotus’ view that words signify things. (5) Metaethics and ethics: I briefly describe conflicting interpretations of Scotus’ metaethics, and discuss whether Scotus should be thought of as adopting some kind of divine‐command theory or not. I note too Scotus’ claim that virtues and passions can be located in the will. (shrink)

Walter Burley claims throughout his career that the mind can make a statement out of things. Since things include entities that exist outside of the mind, Burley appears to be claiming that the mind can form a statement out of things that exist outside of it. Most scholars of Burley offer a deflationary reading of this claim, arguing that it confuses two distinct but closely related philosophical issues: the nature of propositional content, on the one hand, and the role of (...) facts in a compelling account of truth, on the other. But I argue that Burley means exactly what he says: that the mind can, quite literally, form statements out of things that exist outside of it. In Burley’s account, statements of this sort function as the propositional contents of our thoughts and written or uttered sentences. This account of propositional content is motivated by three more fundamental theses to which Burley is committed: referentialism, compositionality, and a claim about truth-conditionality I call intellectualism. (shrink)

Parmi les différentes approches possibles de la matière historique, on observe souvent, dans la littérature, une tension entre les deux options suivantes : faire d’un auteur le précurseur d'une révolution dont notre modernité serait l'héritière directe, ou au contraire, et par réaction, se livrer à un travail de remise en contexte détaillé qui prend parfois le risque de gommer l'originalité possible de ce même auteur. Le Traité sur les signes de Jean Poinsot (appelé également Jean de Saint Thomas), dominicain du (...) début du XVIIe siècle, a ainsi d’abord été édité comme un texte annonciateur de la sémiotique de Peirce, la thèse de cette originalité révolutionnaire étant fondée sur le traitement de la catégorie de la relation. Le travail critique qui s’est effectué en réaction tempère, parfois de façon excessive, la nouveauté de cet auteur du point de vue de sa contribution à la pensée des signes. Cet article s’inscrit dans cette démarche de remise en contexte en proposant une comparaison entre le texte de Poinsot et les Quaestiones sur les signes, que l'on doit à Sebastião do Couto, commentateur de l'université de Coimbra. Optant pour une contextualisation qui vise à mesurer l’originalité relative de Poinsot, cette étude porte sur les variations de la description du rapport du signe à l'intention. Nous montrerons ainsi que même si les contenus du discours sur les signes ne comportent que de maigres différences, on peut cependant constater une certaine originalité de Poinsot dans son traitement de la relation, qui l’amène à reconfigurer l’ordonnancement de la question des signes. (shrink)

Eckhart's interest in semantics has thus far been overlooked in literature probably because no extensive and sistematic treatment is found in his corpus. Yet, his views in this field deserve attent...

The Destructions of the Modes of Signifying (henceforth: dms) is an anonymous fourteenth-century polemic against modist speculative grammar (grammatica speculativa). Wielding Ockhamist logic and metaphysics, the dms repeatedly attacks the very root of modism: the claim that the grammatical features of language are grounded in the metaphysical properties of the world. I call this the Modist Correspondence Thesis (henceforth: mct). In its most general form, mct says that every mode of signifying exhibited by an utterance corresponds to a mode of (...) being exhibited by a thing. The Emptiness Argument of the dms tries to show that mct fails to accommodate certain special cases, such as privative, fictitious, and divine utterances, like ‘blindness’ (caecitas), ‘chimera’ (chimaera), and ‘deity’ (deitas). The modist Thomas of Erfurt directly addresses the Emptiness Argument, anticipating the anti-modist criticisms present in the dms. In doing so, he points the way to alternative formulations of mct that are immune to those criticisms. (shrink)