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    Suppositional descent from universal statements to singul... — Carmelics
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    Home/Philosophy of Language
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    Suppositional descent from universal statements to singular statements can yield false conclusions from true premises when proper names refer to non-men or deceased individuals

    Philosophy of Language
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    Reasons For

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    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Supposition theory, as developed by Buridan and Ockham, requires that a term supposit for existing entities within the relevant domain of discourse.
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    • 2.Proper names like 'Brownie' fall outside the suppositional range of 'every man' because suppositio personalis is restricted to the actual referents of the subject term.
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    • 3.Descending to a singular term outside the subject's suppositional range violates the formal conditions of valid descent, producing material failure regardless of surface logical form.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Medieval logicians distinguished ampliation, whereby tensed or modal contexts expand reference beyond present existents, as a necessary condition for valid inference across temporal gaps.
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    • 2.Without ampliation explicitly governing the universal premise, a deceased individual's name lacks a current suppositum, rendering the descended singular statement without a truth-conferring referent.
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    • 3.John Buridan's treatment of ampliated supposition in the Summulae de Dialectica directly entails that 'Socrates is running' is false when Socrates has no present existence to supposit for.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
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    • 1.Proper names like 'Brownie' and 'Tawny' apply to donkeys, not men
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    • 2.A proper name's bearer may die, making a singular conclusion false while the universal premise remains true
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    • 3.The inference 'Every man is running, therefore Brownie is running' has the same logical form as 'Every man is running, therefore Socrates is running'
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    Philosophy of Language

    Related

    A proper name's bearer may die, making a singular conclusion false while the uni...Descending to a singular term outside the subject's suppositional range violates...John Buridan's treatment of ampliated supposition in the Summulae de Dialectica ...Medieval logicians distinguished ampliation, whereby tensed or modal contexts ex...
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    Proper names like 'Brownie' and 'Tawny' apply to donkeys, not menProper names like 'Brownie' fall outside the suppositional range of 'every man' ...Supposition theory, as developed by Buridan and Ockham, requires that a term sup...The inference 'Every man is running, therefore Brownie is running' has the same ...Without ampliation explicitly governing the universal premise, a deceased indivi...

    Similar

    A proper name's bearer may die, making a singular conclusion false whi...81%Propositions like (7) — propositions about possibly non-existent indiv...73%Extra premises can stipulate that the things referred to by a true uni...73%Suppositional descent is valid when extra premises are added to ensure...73%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: singular-terms-medieval
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    Another place in which singular terms were used was suppositional descent, as when one infers from “Every man is running” that Socrates is running or Plato is running or Cicero is running, or that this man is running, and that man is running. In the earlier Middle Ages, logicians did not seem to worry about the use of proper names as opposed to demonstrative phrases, but there was some discussion of possible problems in the later period. One problem had to do with the fact that there are differe
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit