In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

222 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY that the first is true than it does in making evident that the second is true. While Hahm makes each of these claims repeatedly, the real aim of his study is to set forth the origins of Stoic cosmology, and this aim is achieved with admirably clarity, a convincing body of evidence, and considerable subtlety in argument. JOSIAHB. GOULD SUNY, Albany Francesco Bottin. Le antinomie semantiche nella logica medievale. Padova: Editrice Antenore, 1976. Pp. 222. L. 6,000. In 1975-76 two general books on the lnsolubilia literature in the Middle Ages appeared: Paul V. Spade's The Medieval Liar and the present work by Francesco Bottin. At first sight the works are not in competition with one another. Spade's work, without any pretense toward completeness, was a catalogue of printed works and manuscripts dealing with these medieval semantic paradoxes, although it provided at times particular outlines of the positions of the authors it treated. Bottin's was a book of a different character--a much needed survey of the attempted solutions given by medieval authors to these logical puzzles. His work was more an attempt to trace the development of this literature and portray directions or alternatives toward untying such language knots as "I never tell a lie: this statement is a lie." Medieval logicians did not think such puzzles were really insoluble; they just believed they were difficult to resolve. For medieval thinkers this type of semantic paradox had its roots in Chapter 25 of Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations (180b2-5). Bottin speculates on its pre-Aristotelian roots in Chapter 1 and then sketchily traces its history from Aristotle through the Academy, Cicero, Augustine and through the twelfth- and thirteenth-century texts made available by L. M. DeRijk. In Chapter 2, dealing with the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Bottin has more abundant source material: his treatment is more detailed and the pattern of solutions is more fully developed. In my judgment, however, the details are not always without problems. For example, he attributes to John Dumbleton (p. 92) a position found in William Heytesbury which does not coincide with the analysis of the works of these authors given by Spade (The Medieval Liar, pp. 64 and 117). Likewise his treatment of Heytesbury's third conclusion or rule (pp. 101-2) is inconsistent with the rest of Heytesbury's rules given in the list provided by Spade (p. 119). In treating of Paul of Venice (p. 146) Bottin associates him with William Heytesbury, while Spade (pp. 82-83) sees him rejecting Heytesbury's position and presenting as his own an elaborated and corrected version of Roger Swyneshed's. Thus, although Spade's and Bottin's works are of a different character, they really have a lot of conflicting things to say to one another. A quite detailed analysis is necessary to figure out who is more precise on each detail. But even apart from the conflicts between what is presented by Bottin and Spade I have trouble with Bottin's analysis of authors such as Walter Burley and William of Ockham, who are more familiar to me. On page 79 Bottin claims that "Burley non presenta una soluzione generale del paradossa," wfiile he speaks of Ockham in these words: "La sua esposizione ~ breve ed essenziale, ma sufficientemente chiara per dare un'idea precisa della propria soluzione delle antinomie" (p. 110). I am quite convinced that Ockham had Burley's treatise before his eyes when he wrote the chapter in his Summa logicae dealing with insolubles. In all essentials their positions seem to be identical and thus I see no ground for such a different evaluation. In Chapters 3 and 4 Bottin goes beyond historical representation and attempts an evaluation of medieval insolubilia developments and a conjecture concerning why such treatises expanded so much. His underlying supposition in both chapters is that the medieval authors were, at least in their late nominalisticform, attempting to develop a pure logical system. In this particular area of insolubilia puzzles, he argues, they did not establish the kind of system that Alfred Tarski, in BOOK REVIEWS 223 more recent times, constructed. Therefore, despite great precision and developments they failed...

pdf

Share