(1) Now that we have talked about the signification of terms, it remains to talk about supposition, which is a property that belongs to a term, but only when [it occurs] in a proposition.
(2) Now first, you must know that supposition is taken in two senses, namely, broadly and strictly. Taken broadly, it is not distinguished from appellation. Rather, appellation is contained under supposition. In another sense it is taken strictly, insofar as it is distinguished from appellation. But I do not intend to speak about supposition in that sense, but rather only in the first sense. Thus, both the subject and the predicate supposit. And in general, whatever can be the subject or predicate of a proposition supposits.
(3) Supposition is so called as, so to speak, a “positing for another”,1 in such a way that when a term in a proposition stands for something, so that we use the term for something of which (or of a pronoun pointing to it) that term (or the nominative of that term, if it is in an oblique case) is verified, it supposits for that [thing]. At least this is true when the suppositing term is taken significatively.
(4) So in general, a term supposits for that of which (or of a pronoun pointing to it) the predicate is denoted by the proposition to be predicated, if the suppositing term is the subject. But if the suppositing term is the predicate, it is denoted that the subject is in subject position with respect to it (or with respect to a pronoun pointing to it) if the proposition is formed.2 For example, it is denoted by ‘A man is an animal’ that Socrates truly is an animal, so that ‘This is an animal’, pointing to Socrates, is true if it is formed. But it is denoted by ‘Man is a name’ that the utterance ‘man’ is a name, [and] therefore in this [proposition] ‘man’ supposits for the utterance [itself]. Likewise, it is denoted by ‘A white3 is an animal’ that the thing that is white is an animal, so that ‘This is an animal’, pointing to the thing that is white, is true. For this reason, the subject “supposits” for that thing.
(5) So, analogously, it must be said in the case of the predicate. For it is denoted by ‘Socrates is white’ that Socrates is this thing that has a whiteness.4 Therefore, the predicate supposits for this thing that has a whiteness. And if no thing but Socrates had a whiteness, then the predicate would supposit precisely for Socrates.
(6) Therefore, there is a general rule that a term never supposits for anything in any proposition, at least when it is taken significatively, except for what it can be truly predicated of.
(7) It follows from this that what some ignorant [people] say is false, [namely,] that a concrete [term] on the part of the predicate supposits for a form. That is, that in ‘Socrates is white’, [the term] ‘white’ supposits for whiteness. For ‘A whiteness is white’ is simply false, however the terms supposit. Therefore, such a concrete [term] never supposits for such a form signified by its [corresponding] abstract [term], according to Aristotle’s view.5 But this is quite possible for other concrete [terms], which we have talked about [above].6
(8) In the same way, in ‘A man is God’, [the term] ‘man] truly supposits for the Son of God, because he is truly a man.7
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).
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Footnotes
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‘Suppositio’ = ‘sub’ + ‘positio’ = literally, “putting under.” ↩
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Propositions are tokens for Ockham, so that their existence is very much a contingent matter. ↩
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That is, a white thing. ↩
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Ockham is implicitly assuming that the proposition is true. ↩
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See Ch. 5, above. The remark is odd, and would seem to go more properly with the following sentence of the text. The kind of concrete/abstract pairs referred to by the ‘such’s in this paragraph is the kind discussed in Ch. 5 above. But Aristotle is not mentioned there at all. He is mentioned in Ch. 6 in connection with certain pairs of concrete and abstract terms, mainly in the category of substance. For those terms, the claim rejected in this paragraph would hold. (See also Ch. 7, where Ockham departs from the Aristotelian view for certain theological statements.) ↩
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In Ch. 6, above. See n. 186 above. ↩
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The point rests on the theology of the Incarnation. The term ‘man’ here is taken to supposit for a person, not for a nature. According to the doctrine, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, is Jesus the man. This one person has two natures, divine and human. If ‘man’ here supposited for the human nature, the proposition would be false, because that is not God. The example does not quite fit the topic, however, since we were talking about concrete terms on the part of the predicate. (See para. 7.) But the same point can be made about the predicate here. If ‘God’ supposited for the divine nature, the proposition would be false, since no human is the divine nature (even though there is one human who is a divine person). ↩