Boehner on Logic and the Decline of Scholasticism

Philotheus Boehner, Medieval Logic, 92-93:

Medieval Logic in its stage of maturity in the 14th century has become an essentially consequential logic. A consequential logic, however, is a highly formalistic logic.

Unfortunately, this peak of the development of medieval logic was reached at the beginning of a rapid decline of scholastic philosophy in general. To interpret this chronological coincidence as a causal relation, and to blame the high standard of 14th-century logic for the ruin of scholastic metaphysics, appears to us extremely ironical. We are not convinced that scholastic metaphysics has to be afraid of an inexorable logic. On the contrary, scholastic metaphysics, in contrast with modern metaphysical systems, has called for logical rigour and has always been averse to any kind of intuitionism. We are rather convinced that scholastic logic in the 14th century finally reached a stage by which it was in a condition to justify its basic metaphysical inferences. For it is a fact that the proofs of the existence of God developed during the Middle Ages, and definitely the proofs of St. Thomas, cannot be sufficiently developed and justified with a logic content with syllogistics. This has been shown by Salamucha as regards the first of the five ways of the Common Doctor. It was likewise stated already in the Middle Ages as regards the proof of the existence of God advanced by Scotus. Petrus Thomae, an immediate disciple of the Subtle Doctor, expressly states that consequences holding in virtue of an extrinsic means, and hence not reducible to syllogisms, are used the construction of his proof.

Historically speaking, then, medieval logic had finally caught up with metaphysics, when, for well-known exterior reasons, a general decline of scientific culture began.

A Definition of Medieval Logic

From a forthcoming book advertised on amazon.com, entitled Later Medieval Metaphysics: Ontology, Language, and Logic. Chapter 8 is called "The Power of Medieval Logic" and is written by Terence Parsons.  Here is his definition of medieval logic:

The first task is to decide what to count as medieval logic. Medieval logic consists of centuries of work by some very smart people working in a difficult area. I will be libertine about what is included in medieval logic. If any medieval logician ever said it, and if it is worthwhile, it is part of medieval logic.

Buridan contra Fundamentalism and Postmodernism

The meaning of a word has never obliged us [to construe words only in their proper senses, and to concede or deny propositions only according to what is required by their proper senses]. On the contrary, sometimes we must construe words their proper senses, and sometimes in improper senses, as in parabolic or ironic [expressions], or in other ways even more removed from the proper senses. For example, if we read the books of learned authors such as Aristotle or Porphyry, we must construe their words according to the senses those authors have imposed upon them, even if these are improper senses. And so we must concede that, strictly speaking, those words are true because they are true as construed in those senses. But even so, we must say that they have been imposed in such senses, and that if they had been imposed in their proper senses, they would be false. And if people reading the books of learned authors were to construe their words differently than they believe them to have been imposed by their authors, they would be insolent and cantankerous, and unworthy to study or read the books of the philosophers. In the same way, we must say that every word of the Bible and the Gospels is strictly speaking true, and we must construe these words in the senses in which they have been imposed and according to which they are true. And those who do otherwise are mistaken, as well as being blasphemers, or perhaps even heretics. But even so, we can correctly state in connection with many of these words that they are false, if imposed and construed in their proper senses.

The passage is from Buridan's Questions on Porphyry's Isagoge, and the translation is lightly adapted from Jack Zupko's book John Buridan (pages 18-19), which I intend to mine for my next post as well. I find the passage noteworthy for two reasons. First, it shows that the right relationship between doctrinal or biblical formulations and scientific was not worked out under pressure of advancing modernity and the onslaught of independent empirical science, but by philosophy when science was still in its nascent stages and both philosophy and science were flourishing under the purview of the undivided Catholic university. The whole Galileo issue could have been resolved easily by reference to Buridan here (or one might add to any number of other doctors); the reasons it wasn't were cultural, political, and personal, rather than because the Catholic Church was stuck in "dark ages" thinking. The thinking of the high middle ages was in general much more sane, moderate, and temperate than most of that emanating from the post-Reformation battles.

The second thing that strikes me about this passage is its implicit condemnation of much of modern and postmodern academia, of which one besetting sin is its fascination with mining old texts in the service of contemporary "relevance." We can't read an old book properly unless we care about the same things its author cared about, but with our presentist solipsism, narrow-mindedness, and progressive triumphalism, scholars (as much as Hollywood screenwriters) are constantly tempted to read them primarily in the light of our own political, cultural, or ideological concerns. The other day I reread Tolkien's classic lecture Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, which makes the same point, namely that Old English scholars had up until his day used the poem as a data mine for their own interests, without caring about what the poet cared about. The result was that the poem was devalued as scholars pined after the poems they wished had been written instead. Buridan's passage reminds me that you're not going to read Beowulf correctly if you think monsters are stupid and a waste of time, no matter how much you're interested in what it tells you about the Ingeld legend, Scyld Sheafing, or Geatish architecture. And it seems to me that classicists, medievalists, philosophers, scholars of all stripes fall prey to this data-mining temptation across the board.

Education, the Liberal Arts, and Philosophy

In the Forward to The Unity of Philosophical Experience Etienne Gilson writes:

The history of philosophy is much more part of philosophy itself than the history of science is part of science, for it is not impossible to become a competent scientist without knowing much about the history of science, but no man can carry very far his own philosophical reflections unless he first studies the history of philosophy.

I am profoundly convinced of the truth of this claim. Both reason and long experience of philosophers who fail to heed this warning demonstrate beyond question that the thoughts of those that do not learn from past sages are solitary, nasty, brutish, poor and short.

Nevertheless it's a pressing question just how much work to put into the historical side of philosophy before daring to begin to think for oneself. Because in principle there's no reason why one should ever put aside the quest for mastery of past systems and begin to reflect afresh. Many find scholars have never done so.

Gilson's remark reminded me of a comment Vos made somewhere in The Philosophy of John Duns Scotus, which I referred to recently. Vos was discussing the opinions of some scholars who tried to find evidence of Scotus reacting to the teachings of Meister Eckhart and vice versa, and Vos states that the likelihood is all against their having ever responded to each other or read each other's writings. He pointed out that we're interested in possible interactions between them because we remember both of their names today and they were roughly contemporaries, but at the time they were two drops in a very big academic bucket. Vos points out that in Scotus' day there were so many doctors and masters and bachelors churning out thousands of pages of brilliant arguments a year that no one of their contemporaries could ever have kept abreast of them all.

In light of the obvious truth of this statement, how do we approach them as historical figures? It's clearly wrong to read a little Plato, a little Aristotle, a little Augustine and Aquinas, move on to Descartes and a few big-name early moderns, and then only read one's contemporaries. But on the other hand, I know very well how an enthusiasm for Aquinas becomes a passion for Aquinas and Bonaventure, and then a love for Aquinas and Bonaventure and Scotus, and then a compulsion to read Aquinas and Bonaventure and Scotus and Albert and Henry and Ockham and Godfrey and Dietrich and on and on, until you realize that mastering even a few decades of philosophy's richer periods is much more than a life's work.

At the same time we must remember that the liberal arts are a necessary precondition for good philosophy, which means that in order to be good philosophers we have to study other things besides philosophers past and present, for instance history, literature, mathematics and the sciences. I think that even the most devoted scholastic-lover, like the authors of this blog, would have to admit that part of the downfall of medieval philosophy was due to its exaltation of logic above the other liberal arts, leading to an imbalance which was "corrected" in terrible ways by people who abandoned rigor and logic almost altogether. This point is suggested by a passage in Armand Maurer's Medieval Philosophy:

One of the results of the rise of speculative grammar was to crowd out of the universities the reading of the Latin classics, which formed an integral part of the teaching of grammar in the earlier Middle Ages. The arts course came to be centered around logic and philosophy, to the neglect of literary studies. Incidentally, this was one of the main reasons for the decline in good Latin style in the latter Middle Ages. The allegorial poem of Henry of Andelys entitled The Battle of the Seven Arts, written about 1250, describes the defeat of Dame Grammar, the champion of the University of Orléans, supported by the humanists and the classical authors, by Dame Logic of the University of Paris. The Muse of Poetry goes into hiding after this defeat, but Henry of Andelys is not discouraged. He foretells the return to the study of classical literature in the next generation. In fact . . . [his] prophecy came true only in the fourteenth century, when Petrach began to revive classical humanism.

But Petrarch, the "first modern man", herald of the Renaissance, was anti-Aristotle and anti-philosophy. But even among those who did not abandon philosophy, the temptation to turn away from the logic of Aristotle to the poetics of Plato - as soon as this became possible - proved overwhelming for many. And when one reads much 14th century scholastic writings one sees that this is inevitable. Certainly the tiers and banks of careful, precise syllogisms in barbarous Latin are very impressive indeed, and the reader rejoices that reason can do so much; at the same time the mind feels the need for other nourishment. I wonder who in the 14th century would have been capable of writing a Metalogicon or Didascalicon, or if it would even have occurred to anyone.

Still, what's the solution? It took years upon years already to qualify for the doctorate in a medieval university; if the arts course wasn't centered on logic and philosophy, when would it get squeezed in? It was only the rigorous philosophical training theologians of that time endured as youths that made the theological glories of their adulthood, so unthinkable today, possible. When did they have time for the classics? My own education, from primary school to doctorate, took twenty-four years. A lot of that time, especially in the first half, was wasted by bad teachers and useless subjects. On the other hand, I did have time to learn and read a great many of the classics in a number of languages. But there is no question that I can't turn out an argument as could the least of my medieval brethren.

The kind of education I received is the kind that leads men to spend fifty years studying what Aquinas or Scotus wrote in fifteen or twenty, and never get one step beyond them. This is not standing on the shoulders of giants, it's standing on their feet and grasping their knees. I don't know how to balance between the dangers of dilettantism on the one hand and barren specialization on the other. It does seem to me that our modern educational system gives us the worst of all possible solutions, an undisciplined, nearly random, practically endless glut of information but without the cultivation of any of the liberal arts at all.

Mediaeval and Modern Logics II

Lest anyone should think that my last post implies that we Scotists can find nothing good in modern philosophy (rather than that we simply regard it as metaphysically inadequate), I offer a corrective text:

Unfortunately there are still neo-scholastic logicians - though happily their number is decreasing - who are convinced that their logic is genuinely scholastic and that it cannot be surpassed by anything that modern logic has to offer. They look askance at the latter's formalism. They are suspicious of its symbolic form. They are afraid of repeating the Cartesian experiment of mixing mathematical thinking with philosophical speculation. Their coldness and openly hostile attitude are not without reason, since modern logic has made its most striking development not only in the hands of mathematicians, but also in the shadow of Positivism. Curiously enough, they seem to share with Kant the firm belief that logic has not progressed since the time of Aristotle. Yet the history of their own tradition should dispel this illusion, for the history of scholastic logic alone gives ample proof of a decided advance beyond the Stagirite's logic . . .

For those who have more than a passing acquaintance with modern logic, it is an accepted fact that this logic has made tremendous strides forward. It is likewise a fact - and one which current research continues to confirm - that these new developments have deviated far less from the logic of the 13th and 14th centuries than from that of our neo-scholastic textbooks . . .

Among the elements shared in varying degrees by genuinely scholastic logic and modern logic, there is one in particular that brings them in close proximity and facilitates a comparison. It is the character of formality, conserved in a much purer form in scholastic logic than in its neo-scholastic counterpart.

- Philotheus Boehner, Medieval Logic: An Outline of Its Development from 1250 to c.1400, Introduction

Boehner proceeds in a useful manner, showing where modern developments are good, useful, and compatible with mediaeval philosophy properly understood, as well as recognizing where the modern systems are allied or bound up with bad elements. He also shows how a "manualist" attitude to philosophy, presenting Thomism as a closed system, an alternative to modern philosophy, doesn't do justice either to the scholastic or to the modern philosophical tradition. This can help us to see how to read both. Vos doesn't really do this, as I recall, his attitude instead being "Scotus is great! All he needs to read modern philosophy!" A more judicious and less breathless approach would recognize that much in modern logic is good but that not much in modern metaphysics is and that these two need to be carefully disentwined to make their respective strengths and weaknesses clear.

The Anti-Razor

Dr Feser fairly recently had a post about Ockham's razor, and perhaps it was remembering this that made me sit up when I came across the "anti-razor", formulated in the Scotist work (anonymous, despite the title) Logica Campsale Anglicj, valde utilis et realis contra Ockham, that is, The Logic of the Englishman Campsall, very useful and realist, against Ockham. It goes like this:

Whenever some affirmative proposition is verified about things, if one thing does not suffice to verify such such a proposition, one must posit two, and if two do not suffice, three, and so on to infinity.

In his preface to the critical edition to Ockham's Quodlibeta Septem, Joseph Wey notes that the same principle was formulated by Walter of Chatton. I translate from p. *35:

It may be useful to note here that Chatton also frequently employs a limiting principle or rule . . . which can be called a certain "anti-razor" or complement of the principle of parsimony, namely 'When a proposition is verified about things, if two things do not suffice to verify the proposition, one must posit a third.' Ockham does not accept this rule, but rather vehemently opposes it.

Gideon Gal discusses the authorship of pseudo-Campsall's anti-Ockhamist logic in the preface to the critical edition of Ockham's Summa Logicae. There's a funny remark in there which seems to imply that the logical debates in early 14th-century Franciscan England were damaging to fraternal charity. The Campsall-logic can't have been by John of Rodington, he says on *60-*61:

Furthermore, John of Rodington, who as they say was a very holy man, did not adhere so faithfully to the doctrine of the Subtle Doctor nor so bitterly opposed the doctrine of the Inceptor as the author of the Logic against Ockham. If anyone were to say that the author is John of Reading, we could well believe him . . . It seems to us that some of the things he said and wrote are very similar to those which William Ockham found vain and ridiculous and rebuked in the Summa Logicae . . . this can easily explain the acrimony of the author against Ockham, especially if their contention took place in a single academic community [coram scholaribus communibus].

Gal goes on to discuss the anti-razor as well as the case for and against Walter of Chatton and the anti-Ockham being one and the same.

In any case, as the editor of the anti-Ockham notes, the anti-razor has been independently formulated by a modern author, K. Menger, in "A Counterpart of Ockham's Razor in Pure and Applied Mathematics: Ontological Uses," Synthese 12 (1960), 415:

. . . what is needed is a counterpart to the Law of Parsimony - so to speak, a law against Miserliness - stipulating that entities must not be reduced to the point of inadequacy and, more generally, that it is vain to try to do with fewer what requires more.

The benefit, such as it is, of the Ockhamist metaphysics is that it's clean and tidy, wiping all the conceptual barnacles and encrustments off the mental slate. The main critique of the formalizantes must always be that its wild and florid growth produces a profusion of pseudo-entities multiplying out of control. The goal of metaphysics, however, is not to produce either an invigoratingly pure and arid conceptual desert, nor an exciting and exotic conceptual rainforest, but to understand reality as it is. So metaphysics will have to do with the right amount of entities, neither more nor less than necessity demands.

If Faber and I ever get around to producing for public consumption an edition or translation or modern rewriting of the Diologus curiosus inter Dunxsistam et Okamistam, "A Curious Dialogue between a Scotist and an Ockhamist," no doubt the anti-razor will resurface.

Scotus on the Relation of Metaphysics and Various Branches of Logic.

Fun times with the Doctor subtilis. From the QQ. super librum Elenchorum, q.1 (Opera Philosophica II, 271-3):

To the question it should be said that logic is of common things as is first philosophy, but in different ways. For first philosophy considers being insofar as it is being, whence it considers a thing according to its quiddity. And because the quiddity of a thing is per se the entity of a thing, therefore first philosophy considers a thing according to its entity. And because it considers a thing according to its quiddity, and many things follow upon a thing according to its quiddity, therefore the first philosopher can consdier the attribute of a subject and about whatever other. For although by understanding being insofar as it is understood in common and inasmuch as it comprehends under itself being of this kind, something cannot be shown, nevetheless many things can be shown about being according to its quiddity; for many things follow a thing according to quiddity, as to be perfect and imperfect, and many others.

Likewise, logic is about common being, or it considers it. But being is double, namely of nature and of reason. Being of nature, insofar as it is such, is the being which does not depend on the soul. But being of reason is said of certain intentions which reason finds in things themselves, such as genus, species, definition, and others of this kind. Being however said in that second way is equated according to its community to being said in the first way. For there is not some being of nature that cannot fall under being of reason, that some intention can be founded over it, as genus or species or property or individual, or at least of cause and caused. Because therefore lgoic is of intentions of this kind, which are applicable to all thihngs, therefore logic is said to proceed from common things.

Further it must be understood that although logic as far as its doctrine is from common things, nevertheless the doctrine handed down in dialectics and demonstration is a diverse use. For dialectic is from common things and in particular sciences argues from common elements to proper conclusions. For it shows that love and hate are receivable in the same thing, not by considering the property of love or hate but this medium that "contraries are made around the same". Whence from common things it does not argue to common, but from common things it argues to proper conclusions. That part of logic which is demonstrative, even if the docrine is handed down from comon things, as for example of a syllogism, nevertheless in special it argues by its proper medium. For the geometer uses the demonstrative art, and thence he receives the first causes of a conclusion, and per a proper medium he argues to a proper conclusion. But one arguing dialectically can show another and another conclusion in another and other science by the same medium. Whence in natural philosophy and medicine there can be shown a diverse conclusion by the same medium.

Ockham Quodlibet I.2

In this question Ockham asks whether the relations of origin of the persons in God are distinct from the divine essence. Here we see him begrudgingly admitting Scotus' formal distinction in this case only, while rejecting it everywhere else in metaphysics or theology.

In a certain sense God's essence must be distinct from the relations of origin, and not merely notionally distinct, because it is the case that "the essence is three persons, and paternity is not three persons". But because of divine simplicity on the one hand and the separability criterion (presumably) on the other, it can't be a quote-unquote "real" distinction either. It has to be a formal distinction, though Ockham doesn't use the term until later on in the question when replying to objections. Logic simply requires the distinction here, but O. clearly isn't too happy about it, and he says "Nor do I posit any distinction or non-identity small or great other than" this one in God. But if we don't posit this one we get a straight contradiction.

This is a pretty big deal. The other interesting thing about this question is that we see Ockham trying to clear up a lot of difficulties using supposition theory, that is, the theory of reference in late mediaeval logic. This sort of logical analysis is, so far as I know, not to be found in Thomas or Bonaventure, or in Scotus either, and it shows both Ockham's devotion to logic-based solutions whenever possible and also his habitual use of contemporary developments in the art. Ockham himself was, of course, a great logician, and his Summa logicae one of the greatest books in the history of logic.

Anyway these supposition-based solutions are summed up in a catch-all sentence: "I say that all these paralogisms, whether affirmative or negative, are resolved by [accusing them of] the fallacy of the accident, such that in all the case some term is taken as supposing [supponens] for one absolute thing, which is [in fact] several relative things; and it suffices to apply [this point to all the arguments].

Paradox!

Item quaritur de hoc quod dicit: 'Confessio ibi commendatur: Iustus in principio est accusator sui'. Videtur enim male dicere, quia aut accusat se iustus in quantum iustus aut in quantum peccator. Se in quantum iustus, sed omnis qui accusat iustum in quantum huiusmodi, accusat iustitiam; et omnis qui accusat iustitiam est iniustus: ergo, si accusat se in quantum iustus, est iniustus. Si accusata se secundum quod peccator, sed omnis qui accusat peccatorem secundum quod peccator, accusat peccatum; et omnis talis iuste accusat et est iustus: ergo, si accusat secundum quod peccator, accusator est iustus, et ita secundum quod peccator est iustus.

--St Bonaventure, Sententiarum Lib.IV Dist. XVI. Pars I. Dubium IV

On Illegal Moves

Many years ago when Lee Faber and I were in high school together we used to play chess. Good times were usually had by all, until one or the other got too wrapped up in the game and then started losing. More than once a game with Faber ended with him overturning the chess board in rage, scattering all the pieces. He may or may not have yelled, "How's that for checkmate, jerk!?" I may or may not have behaved in a similar manner on one or more occasions.

Later, back when I began college--still many years ago now--we stopped playing chess and moved on to the far eastern game Go, a much more complex, subtle, and nuanced game. In chess each player is trying to find the checkmate move or the path to checkmate at all times. Go is different: in Go if I can play a checkmate move that means that you have played a lot of boneheaded moves in a row. In a game with skilled players each side builds up his position step by step, carefully accounting for his opponents moves with each play and balancing his own position against them. In a good game the entire board remains balanced until the end, where finally one side proves to have been the (slightly) stronger.

So, when Faber and I grew up we abandoned chess and took up this new game. There was certainly a learning process to go through. It was a challenge to realize, and then to act on, the principle that the game is not about seeking death for the opponent, and that in fact this strategy usually ends up making one lose. And it's just possible that Faber and/or I may have overturned a board mid-game a time or two. But eventually we began to discover the pleasure of a game that was not so much about victory and defeat as about beautiful and elegant play--on both sides, ideally.

Grown-ups don't toss the board and call it checkmate. They don't demand to start over and then make the exact same moves all over again, acting as though the intervening moves never happened. They certainly don't claim to win based on the merits of insults directed at their opponents' mothers. Not, at least, if they want other grown-ups to play with them.

Pini on Kilwardby on Categories

[T]here can be a causal science of categories, inasmuch as there can be a causal science of things belonging to the categories. Kilwardby remarks, however, that the real philosopher, and not the logician, studies categories as composed of matter and form, for it is the real philosopher who deals with the principles of material things. Studying the principles of sensible substances, the real philosopher can first ascend from material to immaterial substances, then he can further ascend from the multiplicity of immaterial substances to the highest immaterial substance, i.e. God.

--Geogio Pini, Categories and Logic in Duns Scotus, Chapter One.

Pini's excellent book nevertheless contains a mistake here. The Kilwardby passage from which the above remarks are taken is as follows:

Et hec cognicio est propria primo philosopho; considerat enim in principiis substancie sensibilis, et consequenter in principiis substancie insensibilis, reducens omnes substancias sensibiles ad insensibiles, et insensibiles omnes ad unam . . ."

Note that Pini begins talking about sensible substances and then speaks of ascending to immaterial substances, up to the highest immaterial substance. Kilwardby, in contrast, speaks of sensible and insensible substances throughout. Pini shares here the extremely common prejudice that insensible substances are obviously also immaterial, and thinks nothing of conflating the two terms. This is dangerous, however, when Kilwardby is speaking of matter and form as the foundation for understanding things belonging to categories, for if insensible substances are themselves composed of matter and form, they can be included under (at least some of) the same categories as sensible substances. Now Kilwardby, although a Dominican, does in fact accept spiritual matter, as Pini might have learned from Kleineidam. The point doesn't seem to have occurred to him, though.

This is not a jab at Pini. I'm 1/3 through the book and it is otherwise very good.

The Socratic Ass and Denominative Predication

Here's a bit on denominative predication from St. Bonaventure, a topic that I have always been a bit shaky on. No translation, as I've been taking heat on their poor quality.

III Sent. d. 4 a.1 q.3 ad 4


"...dicendum quod praedicatio denominativa potest esse quatuor modis: per modum inhaerentiae, ut cum dicitur 'iste est albus'; per modum transmutationis, ut cum dicitur 'Petrus est dealbatus'; per modum possessionis, ut cum dicitur 'asinus Socraticus'; et per modum unionis, ut cum dicitur 'ferrum ignitum', id est igni unitum. Cum ergo dicitur quod praedicatio denominativa est accidentis, dicendum quod verum est quando est per modum inhaerentis, non autem est verum si semper intelligatur de praedicatione denominativa secundum alios modos. Cum autem dicitur 'Christus est humanatus', non est ibi praedicatio per modum inhaerentis, sed per modum unionis et relationis. Et ideo non sequitur quod humana natura sit accidens; nec sequitur ex hoc quod persona dvina sit mutata, quia, quamvis mutatio absoluta in accidente ponat mutationem in subiecto, introductio tamen ipsius relationis in esse potest esse ex mutatione facta in altero extremo."

Rant of the day: A few pages over from this I found a discussion by Bonaventure on the Lombard's three Christologies (if you recall, certain Thomists claim that Thomas, being the great reader of ancient councils that he was, managed to avoid heresy because he found the acts of one of the more obscure councils and endorsed the only possible option out of the Lombard's three while Scotus, because he was so dumb and uneducated, fell into heresy by endorsing the wrong one--of course, since Ordinatio III has been edited, it's clear there that Scotus thinks the question is booo-ring, and he cites a decree of Alexander III that had been incorporated into Gratian and opts for the correct option). Big surprise. Bonaventure also says that only one option is possible in his day and that it is commonly held by the Doctors. Yawn.