Since this (understand “universal”) is man or horse, it is an intention other [than and] beyond the intention of universality, and is humanity or horsehood. For the definition of horsehood is over and above the definition of universality. Neither is universality contained in the definition of horsehood. For horsehood has a definition that does not need universality.

(7) From these and other words of his, which I omit for the sake of brevity, it is clear enough that he means no more than that nothing like this occurs in the definition of ‘horse’ or ‘horsehood’. Thus, he means that in the above quotation the name ‘horsehood’ is equivalent in signifying to many words. For otherwise it would not follow: “One and many and the like do not occur in the definition of horsehood; therefore, horsehood is not one”, just as it does not follow: “White does not occur in the definition of man; therefore, a man is not white.”

(8) From what has been said above, the following mode of arguing, which appears to by syllogistic, can be blocked, according to one view¹⁰: “Every absolute thing is a substance or a quality; quantity is an absolute thing; therefore, quantity is a substance or a quality”, just as the mode of arguing: “Every B is A; C is B; therefore, C is A” can be blocked when these letters are instituted in another way. For if ‘B’ signifies the same as [does] ‘man’, and ‘A’ the same as [does] ‘animal’, and ‘C’ the same as the whole ‘only a risible’, so that it is always permissible to put the letter ‘C’ in place of the whole ‘only a risible’, and conversely, then, just as it does not follow: “Every man is an animal; only a risible is a man; therefore, only a risible is an animal”, so [too] it does not follow: “Every B is A; C is B; therefore, C is A.” And so by means of this mode of [analyzing] abstract names, many sayings of the authoritative [writers] can be preserved, although they seem to be false literally.

(9) Now not only can an abstract [term] be equivalent in signifying to many words in this way. This [feature] can also belong to concrete [terms] and to other words. Thus, those skilled in logic grant that the sign ‘whole’ includes its distributable, so that it is equivalent to saying ‘any part’ when it is taken syncategorematically. Hence, ‘The whole Socrates is less than Socrates’ is equivalent to ‘Any part of Socrates is less than Socrates’.¹¹ Likewise, the sign¹² ‘anything’ includes its distributable, so that it is equivalent to ‘every being’. For otherwise ‘Anything is a man or a non-man’ would be unintelligible. It is the same way too for many verbs. For when one says ‘curro’,¹³ the first-person pronoun is implicit. So the verb ‘curro’ is equivalent to itself and the pronoun. The same thing holds in many other cases. It is necessary above all to know this in order to get at the meaning of the authoritative [writers].

(10) Not only is one word sometimes equivalent in signifying to many words, but also, when added to [something] else, the whole that results is equivalent to a composite [made up] of several [words]. Among [these components] what is added is sometimes changed, either in case or in mood or tense. But sometimes it has to be simply removed in resolving and finally explicating what is conveyed by the expression. Thus, when one says ‘The whole Socrates is less than Socrates’, if ‘whole’ is taken syncategorematically, [the proposition] is equivalent to ‘Any part of Socrates is less than Socrates’, where in place of the nominative ‘Socrates’ there occurs the oblique form ‘of Socrates’,¹⁴ and in place of the word ‘whole’ there occur the two words ‘any part’. Thus some [people] would say,¹⁵ that the proposition ‘Generation of a form is in an instant’ is equivalent to ‘One part of a form is not produced before another, but rather all at once’, where the copula ‘is’ is removed.¹⁶

(11) So [too], some [people] can say that ‘Quantity is an absolute thing’ is equivalent to ‘Distance between parts, and extension, if it were not a substance or a quality, would be an absolute thing, if it were in the natural world’. If this were so, it would be plain that the following argument would not be valid: “Every absolute thing is a substance or a quality; quantity is an absolute thing; therefore, quantity is a substance or a quality.”

(12) Suppose it is said that in this way I could prevent any syllogism [whatever], by saying that some such [syncategorema] is included in one of [its] terms. It must be said [in reply to this] that, in order to know when an argument is valid, you have to presuppose the significates of the words, and it is in accordance with this [knowledge] that you must [then] judge whether the argument is a good one or not. Because for many terms it is certain that, according to everyone’s usage, nothing like that is equivalently included, therefore it has to be simply granted that the syllogism is valid or not valid, in accordance with the traditional rules.

(13) Yet for any proposed argument, the logician could judge whether it is valid by resolving [its] terms into their nominal definitions. When this is done, he can recognize plainly, by rules that are certain, what is to be said about it.

(14) All privative and negative abstract [terms] can be reduced to the above mode of abstract names, and also all verbal [names] and many others. We shall investigate that below. By means of this mode [of abstract names], all the following propositions could easily be denied: ‘Matter is a privation’, ‘Air is a shadow’, ‘A soul is a sin’, and the like. By means of this mode too, the following can be kept: ‘God does not make a sin’, ‘God is not the author of evil’, and the like. It will be shown in the tract on fallacies¹⁷ how inferences like this are not valid: “This is an evil; God makes this; therefore, God makes an evil.”

Translation by Paul Vincent Spade, CC BY 4.0. Source: Indiana University ScholarWorks. Changes: format conversion only (PDF to Markdown; footnotes, italics and paragraph numbers kept; margin line numbers and page headers dropped).

---

← Chapter 7 (summary) · Contents · Chapter 9 →

Footnotes

1. The reference is to Ch. 7, which digressed on certain theological matters. ↩

2. See Ch. 6, para. 6, and the end of Ch. 6, para. 9, above. ↩

3. The so called “impositor” imposes or institutes words arbitrarily to perform certain linguistic tasks. ↩

4. This is not to suggest that the man might be something else, but only that his existence at all is a contingent affair. ↩

5. Including Ockham himself. See Ch. 44. ↩

6. Avicenna, Metaphysics V, c. 1 (ed. Venice 1508, fol. 86va). ↩

7. ‘actually’ = in effectu. The phrase is derived from the Latin translations of the Muslim philosophers. ↩

8. That is, like ‘one’ or ‘many’, like ‘being outside the soul’ or ‘being in the soul’. ↩

9. Ibid. The parenthetical insertion is Ockham’s. ↩

10. Ockham’s own. See Ch. 44. ↩

11. So taken, the proposition is of course true. ↩

12. That is, quantifier. ↩

13. I have to do it in Latin, since the point rests on the inflection of Latin verbs for person. The word means ‘I run’. ↩

14. This is in the genitive in the Latin. ↩

15. Including Ockham himself. See his Summa Physicorum, Pars IV, c. 1 (ed. cit., pp. 85f.). ↩

16. The ‘is’ in the English ‘is not produced’ does not appear in the Latin, which has a pure passive form here. ↩

17. Ockham, Summa logicae III–4, c. 6. ↩