Duns Scotus on Time and Existence: The Questions on Aristotle's 'De interpretatione'

401 Pages·2014·1.44 MB·English

by  Edward Buckner

duns scotus on
Tıme & Exıstence

DUNS SCOTUS ON
TIME & EX ISTENCE
The Questions on Aristotle’s “De interpretatione”
R
Translated with introduction and commentary
by Edward Buckner and Jack Zupko
The Catholic University of America Press
Washington, D.C.
Copyright © 2014
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standards for Information Science—Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Duns Scotus, John, approximately 1266–1308.
[Quaestiones in Aristotelis libros I-II Perihermenias. English]
Duns Scotus on time and existence : the questions on Aristotle’s On
interpretation / translated with introduction and commentary by
Edward Buckner and Jack Zupko.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8132-2603-3 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Aristotle. De
interpretatione. 2. Logic—Early works to 1800. 3. Language and
languages—Philosophy—Early works to 1800. I. Buckner, Edward,
1955– translator. II. Title.
B439.D8613 2014
160—dc23 2014016451
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
Translation
Opus I 25
Question 1. What Is the Subject of On Interpretation? 25
Question 2. Do Names Signify Things, or Species in the Mind? 28
Question 3. Does a Change Occur in the Signification
of an Utterance Given That a Change Has Occurred in the
Thing Signified? 39
Question 4. Does Aristotle Designate an Appropriate Difference
between Inscriptions and Utterances, and Affections and Things? 43
Questions 5. Is a Common Term Said Univocally of Existing
Things and Non-Existing Things? 45
Question 6. Are There Any Supposita Belonging Simpliciter to
a Common Term Signifying a True Nature, apart from Things
That Exist? 47
Question 7. Are the Propositions ‘Caesar is a man’ and ‘Caesar is
an animal’ True When Caesar Does Not Exist? 49
Question 8. Are the Propositions ‘A man is a man’ and ‘Caesar is
Caesar’ True When Neither of Them Exists? 52
Question 9. Does a Common Term Suppositing with a Present-
Tense Verb Supposit Only for Presently Existing Things? 67
Question 10. In a Past-Tense Proposition, Does the Subject
Stand Only for Things That Were, and in a Future-Tense
Proposition, Only for Things That Will Be? 70
Question 11. Is a Common Term Distributed for Any of Its
Supposita Simpliciter in Every Proposition in Which Some
Immediate Contracting Term Is Not Added to It? 71
Question 12. Is ‘Caesar is a man’ True When Caesar Does Not Exist? 83
Question 13. Can a Common Term Be Restricted? 87
vi Contents
Opus II. Questions on the Two Books of Perihermenias:
On Book I 96
Prologue 96
Question 1. Does a Name Signify a Thing or an Affection? 98
Question 2. Does a Name Signify a Thing Univocally When the
Thing Is Existing and When It Is Not? 106
Question 3. Do Truth and Falsity Only Concern Composition
and Division? 110
Question 4. Does an Indefinite Name Posit Something, Such That
the Predication of the Being of That Thing Is Required? 113
Questions 5. Is the Verb ‘Is’ Only a Copula of the Predicate with
the Subject? 119
Question 6. Is a Present-Tense Verb a Copula for the Present ‘Now’
or Indifferently for Anything Present? 121
Question 7. Is a Proposition about the Future Determinately
True or False? 131
Question 8. Is ‘a will be’ Now Determinately True? 132
Question 9. Is It Possible That Neither Part of a Contradiction
Is True? 133
Opus II. Questions on the Two Books of Perihermenias:
On Book II 142
Question 1. Does an Indefinite Verb Remain Indefinite in a
Sentence? 142
Question 2. Does ‘This is not just; therefore, this is non-just’
Follow? 147
Question 3. Does a Consequence of This Sort Hold for
Relational Terms? 149
Question 4. [Does a Consequence of This Sort] Hold with Past-Tense
Verbs: First, Would ‘It was non-white; therefore, it was not
white’ Follow? 149
Question 5. Conversely, [Does a Consequence of This Sort] Follow,
Assuming the Constant Existence of the Subject? 150
Questions 6. Is ‘A white man runs’ One? 153
Question 7. Is ‘A white thing is musical’ One? 155
Question 8. Is ‘A white man is a musical man’ One? 156
Question 9. Is ‘A man, who is white, runs’ One? 157
commentary
Opus I 169
Question 1. What Is the Subject of On Interpretation? 169
Question 2. Do Names Signify Things, or Species in the Mind? 172
Question 3. Does a Change Occur in the Signification of an Utterance
Given That a Change Has Occurred in the Thing Signified? 187
Contents vii
Question 4. Does Aristotle Designate a Proper Difference between
Inscriptions and Utterances, and Affections and Things? 194
Questions 5–8. Summary Outline 197
Question 5. Is a Common Term Said Univocally of Existing Things
and Non-Existing Things? 197
Question 6. Are There Any Supposita Belonging Simpliciter to a
Common Term Signifying a True Nature, apart from Things
That Exist? 202
Question 7. Are the Propositions ‘Caesar is a man’ and ‘Caesar is
an animal’ True When Caesar Does Not Exist? 206
Question 8. Are the Propositions ‘A man is a man’ and ‘Caesar is
Caesar’ True When Neither of Them Exists? 213
Questions 9–11. Summary Outline 230
Question 9. Does a Common Term Suppositing with a Present-Tense
Verb Supposit Only for Presently Existing Things? 231
Question 10. In a Past-Tense Proposition, Does the Subject Stand
Only for Things That Were, and in a Future-Tense Proposition, Only
for Things That Will Be? 238
Question 11. Is a Common Term Distributed for Any of Its Supposita
without Qualification in Every Proposition in Which Some Immediate
Contracting Term Is Not Added to It? 241
Question 12. Is ‘Caesar is a man’ True When Caesar Does Not Exist? 254
Question 13. Can a Common Term Be Restricted? 260
Opus II. Questions on the Two Books of Perihermenias:
On Book I 274
Prologue 274
Question 1. Does a Name Signify a Thing or an Affection? 276
Question 2. Does a Name Signify a Thing Univocally When the
Thing Is Existing and When It Is Not? 283
Question 3. Do Truth and Falsity Only Concern Composition
and Division? 288
Question 4. Does an Indefinite Name Posit Something, Such That
the Predication of the Being of That Thing Is Required? 292
Question 5. Is the Verb ‘Is’ Only a Copula of the Predicate with
the Subject? 299
Question 6. Is a Present-Tense Verb a Copula for the Present ‘Now,’
or Indifferently, for Anything Present? 302
Questions 7–9: Future Propositions and Truth 317
Question 7. Is a Proposition about the Future Determinately
True or False? 320
Question 8. Is ‘A will be’ Now Determinately True? 321
Question 9. Is It Possible That Neither Part of a Contradiction
Is True? 323
viii Contents
Opus II. Questions on the Two Books of Perihermenias:
On Book II 331
Question 1. Does an Indefinite Verb Remain Indefinite in a Sentence? 331
Questions 2–5: On Inferential Relations between Propositions
Containing Definite versus Indefinite Terms 335
Question 2. Does ‘This is not just; therefore, this is non-just’ Follow? 340
Question 3. Does a Consequence of This Sort Hold for
Relational Terms? 343
Question 4. [Does a Consequence of This Sort] Hold with
Past-Tense Verbs: First, Would ‘It was non-white; therefore, it was
not white’ Follow? 344
Question 5. Conversely, [Does a Consequence of This Sort] Follow,
Assuming the Constant Existence of the Subject? 345
Questions 6–9. The Unity and Complexity of Propositions 349
Question 6. Is ‘A white man runs’ One? 350
Question 7. Is ‘A white thing is musical’ One? 352
Question 8. Is ‘A white man is a musical man’ One? 353
Question 9. Is ‘A man, who is white, runs’ One? 354
Bibliography 365
Index of Names 377
General Index 381
Acknowledgments
The present translation was made possible by the appearance in 2004 of the
critical edition of Scotus’s Quaestiones in Libros Perihermenias Aristotelis—edited
by Robert Andrews, Girard Etzkorn, the late Fr. Gedeon Gál, OFM, Romuald
Green, OFM, Timothy Noone, Roberto Plevano, Andrew Traver, and Rega
Wood—in volume II of the Opera Philosophica of Blessed John Duns Scotus,
jointly published by the Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University and
the Catholic University of America. Along with the entire scholarly community,
we owe a debt of gratitude to the editorial team for making available to present
and future Scotus scholars a reliable, modern edition of the Perihermenias along
with other important writings. We are also grateful to the publishers for permit-
ting us to use the critical edition as the basis for our translation.
We began translating Scotus’s commentaries on De interpretatione separate-
ly, but were alerted to each other’s efforts early on thanks to the intervention of
Tim Noone. The difficulty of the text made it advisable to work together, which
is what we did, to the point where it is now no longer easy to identify who wrote
what. Our procedure was for one of us to translate and the other to revise the
translation, alternating our roles for each question. But the revisions inevitably
prompted discussion, which led to further revisions and further discussion until
we were confident we had the text right, or at least that we had provided our best
rendition of what we took Scotus to be saying. Any remaining uncertainties are
flagged and discussed in the translation.
During the five years that we worked on the translation, we encountered many
passages that were challenging not only linguistically, but also in terms of their
underlying historical and doctrinal context. Here we freely availed ourselves of
the scholarship of others, especially concerning the Oxford logic scene in the
ix