Abstract
John of Poinsot was another important thinker in the sixteenth century's broadly Thomistic tradition. Building on a strong medieval logic tradition, he develops an influential theory of signs. As such, he stands as part of a significant semiotic tradition going back to Augustine and Roger Bacon. The selection presented here is from the first part of Poinsot’s main logical work called the Art of Logic. The selection contains his analysis of terms and sentences.
Text excerpted from: Wade, Francis C. trans. 1955. John of St. Thomas: Outlines of Formal Logic Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.
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Notes
- 1.
References included in the body of the text in The Reiser Edition (Turin, 1930), to which Reiser added Leonine and Bekker numbers, are included by the translator in footnotes. Variant readings from the first Lyons Edition, 1663, are included in footnotes, enclosed in square-brackets, and designated by “Lyons adds:”. Reiser’s additional references to works not named in the text are included in footnotes, enclosed in square-brackets, and designated by “-R”. Translator’s footnotes are enclosed in square-brackets and designed by “-Tr”.
- 2.
[Lyons adds: “that is, of a simple expression, such as man, Peter, stone.”]
- 3.
[Rhet. I, 4, 1359b 10.-R. Metaph., IV, 3, 1005b 3.-Tr.]
- 4.
Anal. Prior. I, 1, 24 b 16.
- 5.
In I De Interp. lect. 8, no. 17.
- 6.
De Interp. 5, 17a 17.
- 7.
Op. cit. lect. 5, no. 15.
- 8.
Sum. Tot. Log. Arist. Prooeraium. [John of St. Thomas considered this Summa an authentic work of St. Thomas. Modern scholars consider it spurious. See Mandonnet, P. Revue Thomiste, X, 1927, pp. 146–157; Grabmann, M. Beiträge Zur Geschichte der Phil. des Mittelalters, XXII, 1, 2, 1920, pp. 168–171. John of St. Thomas, in the part of his Logic here translated, refers to this Summa five times. He refers once each to two other spurious works of St. Thomas, De Natura Syllogismorum and De Inventione Medii.-Tr.]
- 9.
[De Interp. 2, 16a 19; 4, 16b 26.-R]
- 10.
Log. 1, q. 1, a. 3.
- 11.
[Lyons adds : “Thus we lay down the definition of a sign in order to take in all signs, formal as well as instrumental. For the definition commonly spread around, ‘A sign is what makes something come into knowledge other than the likeness it carries to the sense,’ fits only an instrumental sign.”]
- 12.
[Lyons adds: “or a likeness.”]
- 13.
[Lyons adds: “but it fits none except the instrumental sign.”]
- 14.
Log. II, qq. 21, 22.
- 15.
[Lyons adds: “The concept is that likeness which we form within us when we understand something.”]
- 16.
Phil. Nat. IV, q. 12, aa. 1, 2.
- 17.
Log. II, q. 13.
- 18.
[Lyons adds: “without any resemblance in nature, but in sound.”]
- 19.
Log. II, q. 13, a. 2.
- 20.
Log. II, q. 23, a. 4, arg. 2.
- 21.
Categ. 1, 1 a 1.
- 22.
Log. II, qq. 13, 14.
- 23.
Log. II, q. 13, a. 2.
- 24.
Log. II, q. 5, a. 3.
- 25.
In I De Interp. lect. 4, nos. 9, 10.
- 26.
[“Wild-horse” (equifer) was apparently considered a breed. An example, clearer to contemporaries, would be shoe-horn. In this term, “horn” has lost its original meaning, though “shoe-horn” has not.-Tr.]
- 27.
Log. II, q. 20, a. 1.
- 28.
Book II, chap. 16 [not printed here].
- 29.
De Interp. 1–3, 16a. b.
- 30.
In I De Interp. lect. 1, no. 6.
- 31.
De Interp. 2, 16a 19.
- 32.
In I De Interp. lect. 4, nos. 19–22.
- 33.
[The example here used, poenitet me (I am repentent [sic]) and Poenitentia tenet me (Repentence [sic] holds sway over me) cannot be translated into an English impersonal form. The sole remaining example of the pure impersonal in English (Century Dictionary Revised, 1914, N.Y.) is methinks. Reductively it says: It seems to me. The nominative supplied in this case is it, which stands for what it is that seems.-Tr.]
- 34.
De Interp. 3, 16b 6–25. [This is not one sentence in Aristotle, but a summary of what Aristotle says of the verb.-Tr.]
- 35.
In I De Interp. lect. 5, nos. 2, 3.
- 36.
[Lyons adds: “for example, these nouns time, day, year.”]
- 37.
Log. I, q. 3, a. 1.
- 38.
[“Of second adjacent (de secunda adjacente) … of third adjacent (de tertia adjacente)” are technical terms. They distinguish two uses of is. The author distinguishes them by this that in one the predicate is not a third word, in the other it is. We can also distinguish the two uses of is as existential (the existence of the subject is affirmed, e.g. The book is) and attributive (some way of being is affirmed of the subject, e.g. The book is hard to understand). The reason why is has these uses is given by the author.-Tr.]
- 39.
In I De Interp. lect. 5, no. 22.
- 40.
Log. I, q. 3, a. 2.
- 41.
In I De Interp. lect. 5, nos. 8, 9.
- 42.
[“Sentence” translates oratio. Here sentence is not completely satisfactory, mainly because of its grammatical flavor. But then discourse connotes consecutive thinking, the third operation of the intellect. I have used sentence because the Oxford translation so translates this text of Aristotle which John of St. Thomas is following. Throughout I have translated oratio by sentence or by statement.[-Tr.]]
- 43.
De Interp. 4, 16b 26.
- 44.
In I De Interp. lect. 6, nos. 2, 3.
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
In I De Interp. lect. 7, no. 4.
- 47.
[This definition, “piercing to vision,” is an example of a real definition, but it would be a better example if it were also true. Notice that John of St. Thomas does not say it is a true definition; he says that if a white thing be so defined, the definition is real. What he is doing is quoting a standard “text-book” example. Aristotle used this definition of white (Metaph. X, 7, 1057b 8–10; Top. III, 5, 119a 30–31; VII, 3, 153a 39), but conditionally as does John of St. Thomas. Aristotle took it from Plato, who thought it truly defined a white thing. To him the act of seeing was accomplished by two streams of light, one the light of the eye and the other, like it, the light of day. When the two lines meet on an external object, the likes coalesce and the whole stream of vision, from the eye into the soul, becomes similar to what it touches or what touches it (Tim. 45; Theact. 156–7). White and black in things are distinguished by the way the particles or flames emitted from each affect the stream of light from the eye. If the particles or the flames (made similar to the eye by the day-light on them) are greater than those of the vision-stream, as in the case of black things, they compress and contact the visual stream. Thus a black thing is compressive (συνκριτικὸν, … congregativum) of vision. If the particles are smaller, as in the case of white things, they penetrate and dilate the visual stream. Thus white, as a color, is piercing (διακριτικὸν, … disgregativum) to vision (Tim. 67). Having a different explanation of vision and the visible, Aristotle (De Anima II, 7, 418a 27, 418b), St. Thomas (In II De Anima, lect. 14; De Sen. et Sensat. lect. 6) and John of St. Thomas (Cursus Phil. Thom. IV, q. 5, a. 2; q. 7, a. 1) could hardly consider Plato’s definition of a white thing true. They used this definition for the same reason that accounts for many examples in books, to wit, everyone else had used them. The modern student, with a scientific background, should be warned not to feel too condescending towards Plato’s explanation of vision. He at least held fast to what is an indisputable fact, however annoying; namely, that seeing is so much my own action that it will never be fully explained by saying (in effect) that the eye is a camera stuck in a face.-Tr.]
- 48.
[This is probably intended to be a very general reference to Philosophia Naturalis I, qq. 9–13, dealing with the four causes. B. Reiser gives this preference: q. 11, aa. 1, 2. Better, though not too helpful, references are q. 10, aa. 1, 2; q. 12, a. 1.-Tr.]
- 49.
Sum. Theol. I, q. 13, a. 12.
- 50.
In I Anal. Post. lect. 5, no. 3; Sum. Tot. Log. Arist. tr. 7, ch. 1.
- 51.
De Interp. 4, 17a 2.
- 52.
In I De Interp. lect. 7, no. 2.
- 53.
In I De Interp. lect. 7, no. 4.
- 54.
[Aristotle, Metaph. VI, 4, 1027b 25. Cf. St. Thomas, In VI Metaph. lect. 4.-R.]
- 55.
Aristotle, Categ. 5, 4b 8.
- 56.
Sum. Theol. I, q. 16, a. 2.
- 57.
Log. I, q. 5.
- 58.
Log. I, q. 5, a. 1.
- 59.
De Interp. 5, 17a 9.
- 60.
In I De Interp. lect. 1, no. 6; lect. 8, no. 8.
- 61.
Ibid. lect. 8, no. 14.
- 62.
Book III, chaps. 2, 3 [not printed here].
- 63.
In I De Interp. lect. 3, nos. 4–6, 19–21.
- 64.
[Lyons adds: “also.”]
- 65.
[Lyons adds: “And thus the disjunctive proposition of mixed quality is virtually negative, while the copulative of mixed quality is virtually affirmative.”]
- 66.
Book II, chap. 18 [not printed here].
- 67.
Book II, chap. 17 and 21 [not printed here].
- 68.
Log. I, q. 5, a. 2.
- 69.
De Soph. Elen. I, 1, 165a 6.
- 70.
De Pot. Dei, q. 9, a. 4, corp.; ad 6.
- 71.
Sum. Theol. I, q. 39, a. 5 ad 5.
- 72.
In III Sent. d. 6, q. 1, a. 3.
- 73.
[It may help the reader, for purposes of quick reference , to have the divisions of supposition in outline form.-Tr].
- 74.
Book III, chaps. 2, 3 [not printed here].
- 75.
[Lyons adds: “i.e. once and again, where and is a sign of universality.”]
- 76.
[Lyons adds: “And finally every term immediately affected by some special sign of confusion, from among those given above, has confused alternate supposition. That is to say, etc.”]
- 77.
[Lyons adds: “For instance, if you said, The horse of the man runs, you cannot descend below man before you descend below horse.”]
- 78.
[Log. I, q. 7, a. 2, arg. 5. In this passage John of St. Thomas considers the contradictories of propositions having an oblique term. Consider:
-
(1) Every horse of any man runs.
-
(2) Some horse of any man does not run.
If (1) is true, then (2) is false and vice versa. That is, the contradictory of (1) is formed by changing simply the quantity of the direct term, leaving the oblique term what it was, and negating the proposition. Now consider:
-
(3) Every man’s every horse runs.
-
(4) Some man’s every horse does not run.
(4) is not the contradictory of (3), because both can be false, where one horse of some man does not run. The contradictory of (3) must read this way: Some man’s (some) horse does not run. This seem to prove the point, that [sic] horse of man has a single supposition; whereas man’s horse is capable of different suppositions and therefore of different resolutions.-Tr.]
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Lagerlund, H. (2017). John of Poinsot. In: Cameron, M., Hill, B., Stainton, R. (eds) Sourcebook in the History of Philosophy of Language. Springer Graduate Texts in Philosophy, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26908-5_21
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