MoL-2000-04: A Study of William of Ockham's Logic - from Suppositio to Truth Conditions

MoL-2000-04: Novaes, Catarina Dutilh (2000) A Study of William of Ockham's Logic - from Suppositio to Truth Conditions. [Report]

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Abstract

This work is the result of my attempts to combine my Philosophy
background with the Mathematical Logic inclinations of the institution
within which this research was developed. In fact, this twofold
character is noticeable in many features thereof; I shall now outline
some of them.

The project has two main purposes: the less risky one is to provide an
account of William of Ockham's logical thinking, with focus on its
aspects which bear a relation with the contemporary issues of
intensional logics and possible-world semantics. The more risky one
consists of investigating the possibilities of developing a purely
extensional treatment of intensional contexts, such as tense and
modalities. For the latter, some other extensional/nominalistic
systems could have played the role of `experimental sample', but there
seemed to be something intriguing about Ockham, as one wonders whether
a philosopher from the XIVth century would have something relevant to
add to our present logical issues. Moreover, he is considered to be
the founder of nominalism, so the historical interest of such
enterprise was self-evident - therefore, the legitimacy of the first
purpose.

I shall try to comply with two very distinct kinds of expectations:
those which are the desiderata for a History of Philosophy work, and
those of logicians, who are interested in the formal correcteness of
the system hereby presented. The criteria of excellence of these two
lines are almost incompatible, and one wonders if it is not a suicidal
enterprise to try to combine them. On the one hand, an Ockham scholar
may be discontent with the absence of a few important aspects of
Ockham's logic, since I deliberately priorize those related to
contemporary logic. On the other hand, a logician may be bothered by
the presence of too many `antiquities', perhaps hindering logical
clarity. So, at the risk of displeasing everybody, I nevertheless
maintain that such a combination may turn out to be fruitful and
informative to both sides.

Chapter 1 will display some fundamental aspects of Ockham's logic and
semantics, in a rather historical approach. However, even this part is
developed taking into account what I later shall want to establish as
my version of an `ockhamist system'. I consider it to be the flaw of
many such reconstructions that they do not undertake a serious
analysis of the underlying concepts; alternatively, some which did
rely on such an analysis have reached very interesting results.

Chapter 2 relates some apparently less central (when compared to
supposition theory, for example) issues of Ockham's theory to relevant
topics of Contemporary Philosophy, such as possible worlds,
designation, demonstratives etc... In this chapter I also introduce
conceptual tools which I will make use of for the reconstruction
undertaken in chapter 3. Finally, Chapter 3 is an attempt to provide
truth conditions for quantified, modal and tense propositions, based
on the truth of singular propositions.

I hereby hope to reach a rather broad account of Ockham's thinking,
even though my main target is to build a coherent and correctly
structured reconstruction of his theory of propositions.

Item Type:	Report
Report Nr:	MoL-2000-04
Series Name:	Master of Logic Thesis (MoL) Series
Year:	2000
Date Deposited:	12 Oct 2016 14:38
Last Modified:	12 Oct 2016 14:38
URI:	https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/711

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