Abstract
119. It is clear from the preceding how modal sentences, or those <sentences> that contain particles, convert; I mean that if ‘Every possessor of a is a possessor of b’ is true, it follows that’ something that is a possessor of b is a possessor of a’ will be true. Likewise, if ‘Every possible possessor of a is a necessary [possessor]a of b’ is true, it follows that’ something that is necessarily a possessor of b is a possible possessor of a’ will be true. Likewise, if ‘Everything that is in a is possibly b’ is true, it follows that’ something that is possibly b is in a’ will be true. Likewise, if ‘Nothing actual walking in a certain place now is rational’ is true, then ‘Nothing rational there is actually walking’ will be true. The same reasoning applies to all types of sentences and to all types of composition of modes and particles, when one places what was with the subject with the same term after conversion, and, likewise, what was with the predicate.
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Notes
Omitted in mss.
Lit.: ‘divides to that which divides’.
See §88 above.
’inyan.
Lit.: ‘because of the linkage that arises in it [i.e, the linkage with the predicate]’.
I.e., the consequence is invalid.
halikhah, which is the gerund of the verb h-l-kh.
See §§88-89 above.
Reading ’al for qol of L; in P there is a lacuna at this word.
Lit.: ‘every one of the individuals of <the species> man’.
I.e., refers to something actually existing.
Lit.: ‘is essential’.
See §18 above.
I.e., whether it is posited to be assertoric or incidentally necessary.
See §21 above.
Or: cannot exist.
Lit.: ‘is necessary for’. Gersonides’ point is that in the case described, the subject of the uncoverted sentence will, after conversion, be predicated necessarily of any attribute by which the subject of the converted sentence is described.
The standard definition of black; see e.g. Topics VII.3 153b1.
maqbilot. See English-Hebrew Glossary under ‘opposite’.
yitqabzu.
Omitting the mi-hem of the mss.
See §133 above.
Or: ‘converts of necessity’.
This is a difficult passage. Gersonides wishes to explain why, in the case described, the universal negative necessary subject-retracted sentence converts incidentally, and not essentially, necessary. It will be recalled that in a similar case, the universal negative necessary predicate-retracted sentence was said to convert essentially necessary. His explanation here turns on the point that the extension of ‘not moving’ includes what is not moving ever and what happens to be not moving at a certain time; hence its extension is indeterminate. So if we negate walking of what merely happens to be not moving at a certain time, then this negation is only incidentally necessary; so, too, will be the negation when the sentence is converted.
reading mehayyeb for mehuyyab of the mss. z See §119 above.
lo yishafet zeh ha-mishpat.
Reading ha-nose’ for ha-nasu’.
I.e., not impossible; see §35 above.
See §152 above.
Omitted in mss.
yistaleq, i.e., cease to exist.
I.e., to posit that which exists possibly to exist actually.
I.e., what may not be b can be assumed to be b, as, for example, what may not be writing later can be assumed to be writing now.
See Averroes, Middle Commentary on the Prior Analytics, fols. 64v-66r (Prior Analytics I.2, 25a10-12).
I.e., Aristotle’s comments.
darush.
See Averroes, Middle Commentary on the Posterior Analytics, fol. 173v (Post An. I.3 72b25). Cf. C. Posterior Analytics, fols. 53r-55r.
See Averroes, Middle Commentary on the Prior Analytics, fol. 66r.
See C. Logical Questions, fol. 264v.
mezu’iyim.
ha-nose’ be-teba’, the real, or, existential substratum denoted by the logical subject.
See §25 above. It should be noted that Gersonides uncharacteristically does not refer to this passage.
Based on Proverbs 28:13.
Based on Proverbs 28:16.
The C. Prior Analytics.
The C. Logical Questions.
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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Manekin, C.H. (1992). On the Modality of Consequences by Virtue of the Conversion of Sentence. In: The Logic of Gersonides. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 40. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2614-4_11
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