Mental Language and the Unity of Propositions: A Semantic Problem Discussed by Early Sixteenth Century Logicians

Abstract

MENTAL LANGUAGE AND THE UNITY OF PROPOSITIONS: A SEMANTIC PROBLEM DISCUSSED BY EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY LOGICIANS Gregory of Rimini's influential Sentence Commentary was written in the 1340s. One of the questions which he discussed in his prologue was how it is that a mental proposition functions as a united whole, with a force that its apparent parts taken separately do not possess.1 In this article I intend to explore the reactions to Gregory's arguments among a group of logicians who studied or taught at Paris in the first three decades of the sixteenth century. The most important of the authors I shall examine are three Spaniards: Jerome Pardo (d. 1502 or 1505) whose Medulla Dialectices was published in 1500 and again in 1505; Antonio Coronel, whose Duplex Tractatus Terminorum was published in 1511 and whose Prima Pars Rosarii in qua de Propositione Multa Notanda was published at about the same time; and Fernando de Enzinas, whose most noteworthy book for our purposes was his Tractatus de Compositione Propositionis Mentalis Actuum Sincathegoreumaticorum Naturam Manifestans, first pubUshed in 1521, and reprinted in 1526 and 1528. i. Introduction: Mental Language, 'Significatio,' 'Propositio' a) Mental Language Something must first be said of the background to the debate about mental language. Following Boethius in his two commentaries on Aristotle's De Interpretationen everyone agreed that there were 1 Gregory of Rimini, Gregorii Ariminensis O.E.S.A. Super Primum et Secundum Sententiarum (Reprint of the 1522 edition: St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: The Franciscain Institute; Louvain: E. Nauwelaerts; Paderborn: F. Schöningh, 1955), fol. 3va-5rb. 8 Boethius, Anicii Manlii Severini Boetii Commentarii in librum Aristotelis 62E. J. ASHWORTH three types of language, spoken, written, and mental. Spoken and written languages had conventional meaning and were in fact, though not necessarily so, different for different groups of people. Mental language, on the other hand, was thought to have natural meaning and to be common to all men. Most late-medieval logicians recognized an intermediate level of mental language, called "non-ultimate mental language," which was conventionally rather than naturally meaningful. If a person "speaks in his heat" by using the words of Latin or French without actually uttering them, then he is using mental language in this extended sense.3 Gregory of Rimini even suggested that, when thinking, we always stay at the level of nonultimate mental language until an act of judgment comes into play.4 In other words, it is only when we assent to or dissent from a proposition that mental language in the ultimate sense is involved. However, even those later authors who sympathized with Gregory's views tended to disagree with him on this point.5 As Pardo put it, a person who entertains the proposition "Rex sedet" must take it signifieatively, else he will be in the same situation as a Greek speaker who is thinking of a Latin sentence, and a proposition can only be taken significatively if it is, or is subordinated to, an ultimate mental proposition.6 In some authors, notably Enzinas, the distinction between ultimate and non-ultimate mental language led to an interesting discussion of the question whether, given that a non-ultimate mental term (or proposition) was said to be a concept of a spoken or written term, ???? ????????S, edited by Carolus Meiser (Leipzig: Teubner, 1877-1880) Editio Secunda, p. 20 ff. 8 See e.g. Peter of Ailly: Paul Vincent Spade, Peter of Ailly. Concepts and Insolubles. An Annotated Translation (Dordrecht, Boston, London: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1980) pp. 19-20; though Peter of Ailly speaks of mental language "improperly so-called" rather than of "non-ultimate mental language. 4 Gregory of Rimini, fol. 4rb. He was followed by the Italian Tiberius Bacilerius, Lectura in Universam Aristotelis et Averrois Dialecticam (Papie, 1512), fol. 30vb; and also by Andreas Limos, Dubia in Insolubilibus (Parisiis, 1499), sig. a vi r. 5 Alfonsus Pratus, Questiones Dialecticae supra Libros Perihermenias (Compluti , 1530), fol. xxiii va. "...ista copulativa: omnis mentalis ultimata est simplex qualitas: et non omnis propositio mentalis ultimata est assensus apud multos censetur probabilis." 8 Heronymus Pardo, Medulla Dyalectices (Parisius, 1505), fol. xvi ra. Cf. Antonio Coronel (1), Expositio super Libros Posteriorum Aristotelis...

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