TAPE 5: PETER ABELARD

To follow this lecture you will need either the Readings book, or Peter Abelard's Ethics, tr. D.E. Luscombe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), and Abelard's "Glosses on Porphyry", in A. Hyman and J.J. Walsh (eds.), Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Indianapolis: Hackett), p. 169 ff.

THE SCHOOLS

In twelfth-century Europe schools flourished in many centres. There were schools in monasteries and cathedrals, primarily for the education of monks and priests but often open also to laymen. In Italian towns, especially, there were lay schools teaching law and commercial skills to fee-paying students. In France, especially, also in England and other countries, there were schools for fee-paying students of the liberal arts. The traditional list of the liberal arts included seven: grammar, logic and rhetoric (the "trivium"), and arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music (the "quadrivium"): most of the schools we're talking about taught the trivium, grammar, logic and rhetoric. These three disciplines in one way or other taught language skills; they were sometimes called the artes sermocinales. Students who had completed these "trivial" studies sometimes moved on to theology, or sometimes set up as teachers themselves of grammar, logic and rhetoric. Some students travelled from country to country looking for a good school, and sometimes made their living for a while by teaching before becoming students again.

John of Salisbury, for example, travelled from England to France and studied under various masters, including Peter Abelard.

When, still but a youth, I first journeyed to Gaul for the sake of study... I betook myself to the Peripatetic of Pallet [Abelard], who was then teaching at Mont Ste. Genevieve. He was a famed and learned master, admired by all. At his feet I learned the elementary principles of this art [logic], drinking in, with consuming avidity, and to the full extent of my limited talents, every word that fell from his lips. After his departure, which seemed to me all too soon, I became the disciple of Master Alberic, who had a very high reputation as the best of the other dialecticians [logicians]... and also Master Robert of Melun. (The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury, tr. D.D. McGarry, p. 97).

After two years on the Mount John went to Chartres to study in the school there, made famous by Bernard of Chartres. There the emphasis was on literature, rather than on logic. "Meanwhile", he says, "I took as pupils the children of nobles, who in return provided for my material necessities. For I lacked the help of friends and relatives" (p. 98). After several years of study he decided to set up a school. "My pinched finances, the entreaties of my associates, and the advice of friends induced me to assume the office of teacher" (p. 99). After three years he became a student again, this time of theology. "I thus spent almost twelve years engaged in various studies" (ibid). Then he returned to England and spent most of his working life as a secretary and diplomat in the service of various bishops, including Thomas a Becket.

Almost twenty years have elapsed since I was forced to forsake the workshop and gymnasium of the logicians because of straightened circumstances and the advice of friends I could not disregard... I have been preoccupied with other concerns... I have hardly been able to find time to philosophize even an hour... Leaving England, I have crossed the Alps ten times, journeyed to Apulia twice, and repeatedly handled negotiations with the Roman Church for my superiors and friends. I have also on numerous occasions traveled about Gaul as well as England, in connection with various cases which have arisen", etc. (p. 142).

John left an interesting account of his time as a diplomat at the Roman court in his Historia Pontificalis. He also wrote a partly satirical book called Polycraticus, or Of the frivolities of courtiers and the footsteps of Philosophers. John of Salisbury's was a fairly typical career. Lots of travel, a mixture of study and teaching, and what we would call "clerical" and diplomatic employment. ("Clerical" comes from the medieval term for anyone trained by the Church (not necessarily to be a priest), and therefore literate in Latin.)

There were brilliant careers to be made in the schools; there were famous teachers admired by their students, whose enthusiasm for their teacher's ideas sometimes provoked the jealousy of others. The excitement was primarily intellectual: it was because people cared about the things being taught in the schools that it was possible to become famous as a teacher. But the possibility of fame bred ambition and competition. Eadmer in his Life of Anselm tells us that Anselm went to Bec to study with "a certain master by the name of Lanfranc... His lofty fame had resounded everywhere and had drawn to him the best clerks from all parts of the world". Anselm seems to have been accepted into Lanfranc's monastic school as a extern or outside pupil.

While he was... wearing his body with late nights, with cold and with hunger because of his studies, he began to think that if he had become a monk... he would not have had to put up with anything more severe... "Well, then, I shall become a monk. But where? If at... Bec, all the time I have spend in study will be lost. For... at Bec the outstanding ability of Lanfranc... will condemn me... to insignificance...". He often used playfully to recount these thoughts of his, and he would add, "I was not yet tamed, and there was not yet in me any strong contempt of the world...

But after a while he "came to himself" and became a monk at Bec, though expecting to be eclipsed by Lanfranc. In fact he became himself a famous teacher.

PETER ABELARD

Another twelfth-century scholar who had no strong contempt for the world, and took a bit of taming, was Peter Abelard. (His name is variously spelled: Abaelardus, Abelard, Abailard, Abelard.) You can read about him in The Story of Abelard's Adversities, written by himself (trans. J.T. Muckle). He was born in 1079 in Le Pallet, Brittany, the son of a knight, who gave him military training and also schooling:

Since I preferred the armour of logic... I exchanged all other arms for it and chose the contests of disputation above the trophies of warfare. And so, practising logic, I wandered about the various provinces wherever I heard that the pursuit of this art was vigorous.

(The nickname "peripatetic" probably refers to this wandering about; normally it means Aristotelian.) Abelard made his way to Paris and became a pupil of William of Champeaux:

At first I was welcome but after a while he found me burdensome as I began to question some of his statements and quite often to argue against his position; sometimes I was apparently the winner in these discussions. Those of my fellow-students who were considered outstanding became... deeply incensed... From this time my troubles began... the more widespread my fame has become, the more has the jealously of others been enkindled against me.

He set up his own school at some distance from Paris, and as he became famous moved closer to the city "that I might prove a greater embarrassment [to William of Champeaux] and offer more frequent challenges to debate". Later he became again a pupil of William, who must have been a slow learner; but he still challenged him in logic. "I forced him by clear proofs from reasoning to change, yes, to abandon his old stand on universals." As a result of this humiliation "his lectures bogged down into such carelessness that they could scarcely be called lectures on logic at all". "From then on my teaching gained such strength and prestige that those who formerly had somewhat vigorously championed the position of our master... now flocked to my school". Various other conflicts followed.

After a while Abelard decided to become a student of theology (up to then he had studied and taught the trivium, grammar, logic and rhetoric). He enrolled in the theology school of Anselm of Laon (not to be confused with Anselm of Bec, later of Canterbury): "And so I enrolled under this old man whose great name rested on long practice rather than on ability or learning. If one in doubt about some point consulted him, he left him in greater doubt". When Abelard criticised his teacher, some of the other students challenged him to show them how it should be done. So he gave some lectures on an obscure passage of the prophet Ezechiel. Of course (as he tells us) these lectures were a great success. "As a result, this old man... began to persecute me for my lectures in" theology, and forbade him to lecture:

He gave as an excuse that I might perhaps in that capacity write something erroneous, as I was unschooled in that subject, and the error would be imputed to him. When the students heard this, they became highly indignant at this open manifestation of envy and spite such as no one had ever experienced before.

In fact Anselm's anxiety was well-founded: masters did sometimes get into trouble with Church authorities because of the opinions of their students. Later this happened to Abelard himself.

Afterwards Abelard set up as a teacher of both theology and philosophy in Paris. But pride came before a fall. "At a time when I considered that I was the one philosopher in the world and had nothing to fear from others, I, who up to that time had lived most chastely, began to relax the reins on my passions". He seduced Heloise, the niece of one of the canons of the cathedral. She had been entrusted to him as a private student, and he abused his position without scruple. He offered to marry her, on condition the marriage would be kept secret (so as not to spoil his reputation as a philosopher). He did marry her, in the face of her protests - she would rather have been his lover than his wife, because of the lessening of his reputation likely to result from marriage. But despite the marriage, her uncle took his revenge: at his instigation a gang broke into Abelard's lodgings at night and castrated him. Humiliated and remorseful, Abelard became a monk: "It was, I confess, confusion springing from shame rather than devotion the result of conversion, which drove me to the refuge of the monastic cloister". He ordered Heloise to become a nun, which she did, again under protest. For some time after becoming a nun she continued to protest in letters: the correspondence between Heloise and Abelard is famous chiefly because of her outspoken letters.

As a monk Abelard continued to be a famous teacher, and continued to give offense. "The life in the abbey which I had entered was very worldly and disorderly and the abbot surpassed his monks by his base life and reputation as much as he did by dignity of office. I frequently and constantly kept speaking out". This is the teacher who had just seduced his pupil. As part of his teaching work he wrote a book On the Unity and Trinity of God. His students "had kept asking me for rational and philosophical expositions and insisting on what could be understood and not mere declarations, saying... that nothing is believed unless it first be understood"; contrast this with Anselm's "believe that you may understand". Abelard's book on the trinity was of course a great success. "When most men saw and read this treatise, they were very pleased with it as it appeared to answer all questions... on the subject. And since these questions seemed especially difficult, the subtlety of their solution appeared the greater". But his book was condemned by a provincial Church council (the Council of Soissons, 1092) and burnt: "they compelled me with my own hand to cast my book into the fire, and it was burned up".

He was transferred to another monastery, of St. Denys in Paris, the monastery believed to have been founded by St. Paul's convert, Dionysios the Areopagite. One day when reading something written by the venerable Bede Abelard came across a passage that contradicted this story. "When I saw this, I pointed out as in jest to some of the monks grouped about me this testimony of Bede which contradicted our tradition". This made the monks very angry. He had to move to another monastery.

Well, I won't go on, except to say that at the end of his Story of his Adversities he has become the abbot of a monastery in Brittany where the monks are, according to his account, criminals, persecuting him because he has tried to enforce the Rule of St. Benedict. "Often they tried to poison me, as happened in the case of St. Benedict... They tried to do away with me in the very sacrifice of the alter by putting poison in my chalice". He survived, and later (past the point his Story reaches) resumed teaching and writing in Paris. It was then that John of Salisbury was his pupil. Abelard was strongly criticised by St Bernard of Clairvaux (not to be confused with Bernard of Chartres), and in 1140 the provincial Council of Sens condemned propositions supposedly drawn from his writings (though in fact some of them may have come from writings of his students). He died not long afterwards. (For a description of Bernard of Clairvaux in action against another famous teacher, Gilbert de la Porree, see John of Salisbury's Historia pontificalis, chapter viii-xi).

ABELARD'S ETHICS

Would you expect such a tactless egotist, who showed so little understanding of himself and other people, to have anything interesting to say about ethics? Turn now to Readings, p.49, where you will find extracts from Abelard's Ethics, subtitled Scito teipsum, i.e., "know thyself". I'll leave it to you to read this work, but I will make a few comments.

First, notice the use of the technique of division on p. 49: Take virtue/vice, divide into virtues/vices of body and of mind, divide of mind into non-moral and moral: hence the definition given in the first sentence. But morals can also be divided, into dispositions and acts: vice is not the same as sin.

What is sin? That is the main topic of the following pages. On the top of p. 53 there is a summary: He distinguishes between vice, sin, evil will, and evil act. Sin consists precisely in consent - or, as he says on p. 53, in the intention. By consent and intention he means the same thing. By "intention" he does not mean some more or less distant objective; he means being intent upon doing the act. Similarly we may say of an action that it was "intentional" or "unintentional". For consent or intention we might say decision. Sin consists in the decision to do some wrong act. Doing the act does not add to the sin - once you decide to do it you are guilty already. Notice that by will he does not mean the same thing as the decision to do the act. Will is an underlying, fairly permanent, disposition: you may decide or choose to do something against your will, that is, reluctantly, unwillingly.

Notice his remarks, p. 51, on the desirability, so to speak, of having some undesirable dispositions with which you have to struggle, and so earn reward. Contrast this with Aristotle's doctrine that a virtuous person does the right thing promptly, willingly, without reluctance or regret, without a struggle; Aristotle would reject the suggestion that to be virtuous makes a person's actions less good morally. Aristotle's ethics has little place for the idea of reward or merit, whereas for Abelard this is central.

For Thomas Aquinas's treatment of some of the issues raised by Abelard's Ethics, see Readings, pp.161-9. (Bear in mind that by "intention" Thomas means some more or less distant objective, which is not what Abelard means.)

Porphyry and Aristotle: recapitulation

Let's turn now to Abelard on logic. First let me remind you of a few things I said in the second tape on Porphyry's Introduction and Aristotle's Categories. Recall that Porphyry distinguishes between genus, difference, species, definition, property, accident; and recall that there are also individuals, of which genera and species are predicated. To predicate means "to affirm as a predicate of" - "Socrates is a man" predicates "man" of Socrates. (Recall that Socrates, or as he was called in medieval manuscripts, Sortes, is like Joe Blow, an example.) A categorical or predicative proposition is one that affirms or denies some predicate of some subject, "S is [or "is not"] P". A universal is something that can be predicated of many different individuals. "Socrates is a man", "Plato is a man", "Aristotle is a man" - "man" is predicable of these three individuals, and of others; i.e. man is a universal. Remember that in the Categories Aristotle lists ten highest genera - substance, quality, quantity, relation, etc.; and recall the distinction between primary substances - individuals, like Socrates, Plato, etc., and secondary substances - universals, genera or species, like man or animal. Aristotle also distinguishes between univocal, equivocal and analogical words: a univocal word (if there is any such thing) has just one meaning; an equivocal word is simply ambiguous; an analogical word has several senses that are different, but not unrelated. Finally, remember what the essence of a thing is, the answer to the question What is this?, i.e. What sort of a thing is it? Humanity is the essence of Socrates, because if you ask What sort of a thing is this?, pointing at Socrates, the answer is, A man. ("Humanity" is the abstract noun for being a man.)

ABELARD'S GLOSSES ON PORPHYRY

Turn now to Readings, p.56, to Peter Abelard's Gloss on Porphyry. He expects his readers to have also before them not only Porphyry but also Boethius' Commentary on Porphyry. So put a marker in Readings, p. 11 (or use McKeon, Selections from Medieval Philosophers). Read paragraph 1 (as you read, write the paragraph number beside the beginning of each paragraph for later reference).

By "characteristic property" he means specific difference. In your notes set out a porphyrian tree, with knowledge at the top, divided into "philosophy" and "other knowledge", and philosophy divided into speculative, moral and rational. This corresponds to the old Stoic division of philosophy into Physics (on nature), Ethics and Logic. Skip over paragraph 2; the omission indicated by 3 dots is of about 15 paragraphs, in which he explains what Porphyry's book is about and its usefulness. Then he comments "on the letter" of the text i.e. on various words and phrases quoted from it, and this is what he is doing in the next paragraph in these selections, paragraph 3: the phase in italics "At present concerning genera", is quoted from the text. Turn back to Boethius, Readings, p.14, R.H. side (p. 91 in McKeon), and read the indented passage, and underline "At present... concerning genera"; and turn to p.18, LH (p. 98 in McKeon), and read the passage in italics, "This, however... ", which is the continuation of Porphyry's text. Now go back to Abelard, Readings, p.57 (p. 171 in Hyman and Walsh), and notice the italicised passages in paragraphs 3 and 4: these are all quotations from the text of Porphyry that you have just read.

So read through paragraph 3. Highlight "first" (10 lines from the beginning of the paragraph), "second" (four lines further down), "third" (next line) and "fourth" (RH. side, 10 lines down). (To illustrate the fourth question: During winter time, when there are no roses, does "rose" cease to be a universal? Now that Dodos are extinct, is "Dodo" a universal?). There are four main questions, then, the first three being those of Porphyry that Boethius discussed. RH side, lines 3-9 state two other questions which turn out to be important, but they can't really be understood at this stage.

We come to paragraph 4, which runs through the letter of Porphyry's text ("let us follow the introduction literally", i.e. look at the words of the text). The letter of Abelard's text, paragraph 4, needs no comment, except for the last sentence: Abelard does not seem to know that the peripatetics are the followers of Aristotle. Read also paragraph 5.

Paragraph 6 begins the main part of this text, Abelard's own discussion of Porphyry's questions. First, he says (last line of p.57), "let us inquire into the common nature of universals". That will occupy him up to the top of p.65 - turn to there and notice paragraph 54, "Consequently, having examined these things, let us proceed to the resolution" of the question concerning genera and species etc., "which we can do easily now that the nature of all universals has been shown". (Genera and species are two kinds of universals.) So paragraphs 6-53 discuss the nature of all universals. Turn back to p.57 and read paragraph 6. Note the problem mentioned at the end of the paragraph. Are universals words or things?

Paragraph 7 begins with definitions of "universal" and "particular", and then goes on to show that the authorities on the subject, Aristotle, Porphyry and Boethius, say that universals can be things. Read paragraphs 7 and 8.

Some comments "on the letter". At the end of paragraph 7, "the universal noun" means "the noun "universal"". "Are contained in the universal noun" means "are members of the class of things that are all called "universals"". In paragraph 8, second line, underline "signifies", and 4 lines down underline "displays". The quotation from Boethius ends at "them all"; the next sentence, "Yet to signify", is Abelard. In the next line "the designation of a noun" means "the designation "noun""; i.e. the various nouns, dog, cat etc. are all called nouns, so the word "noun" is a universal. So paragraphs 7 and 8 show that the authorities seem to think that both things and words can be universals. Are they right? In particular, can things be universals? It seems not; Socrates' hand is Socrates, and Socrates' foot is Socrates, but this is not like "Socrates is a man, Plato is a man"; Socrates, the person, is not a universal with respect to his hand and his foot. Read paragraph 9.

Paragraphs 7-9 open up the question in a preliminary way, now we go into it more thoroughly. Paragraphs 10-16 discuss one opinion and refute it, paragraph 17 ("Therefore others are of another opinion") introduces another opinion which will also be refuted. Read paragraph 10. In his Story of his Adversities, p.16, Abelard tells us that this theory was taught by one of his teachers, William of Champeaux. "I forced him by clear proof from reasoning to change, yes, to abandon his old stand on universals". According to William's original theory, humanity is a single real thing; this single humanity is my humanity and your humanity and every other person's humanity. We differ from one another by the accidental forms superimposed on our common humanity - one person is white, another black, one is old, another young, one large, another small, one a father, another a son, and so on. The single humanity is our substance. The other forms belong to the nine categories of accidents - quality (white), quantity (large), relation (father), and so on. A given individual human being is, on this theory, distinguished from all others by a unique assemblage of these accidental forms, corresponding to a unique description: Socrates is the human being who is white, walking to the right of Plato, etc; to pick out Socrates from everyone else you may need a long description. (In fact description won't be enough: however long it is, it will need to be anchored at some point to present sensation, by pointing, by a "this", "that", "I" or some other such word; see Strawson, Individuals.)

Let me run though the letter of paragraph 10: "Material" (line 3) does not, I think, mean that the universal thing must be a material body. I think it is meant to suggest that the universal thing is like a material that receives forms, like the wax example later in the paragraph. In line 4, "of its inferiors" means of the things that come under the heading of this universal; e.g. under the heading "man" come Socrates, Plato and so on. On the RH side, line 2, "This however is of importance" introduces a point in which the wax example does not exactly illustrate the theory: the wax receives different forms at different times, whereas the universal is at the one time diversified into Socrates, Plato and other individuals. For the first reference to Boethius see Readings, p.16, LH side (McKeon, p. 94); for the second see p.17, RH side (McKeon, p. 97). In Abelard's text again, p.58, RH side (Hyman and Walsh, p. 173), 7 lines down, "naturally" means as a nature. In the last few lines of the paragraph there is no contrast intended, I think, between existing and subsisting - they seem to mean the same (although other authors at this time did distinguish these terms). The point being made is that the universal humanity does not actually exist except under the accidental forms that diversify it into different individuals: nevertheless, their humanity is one single thing existing in them, that the mind can understand. The theory presented in this paragraph is like Plato's in regarding universal humanity as one real thing, but unlike his theory in saying that this thing does not exist except in the individuals; and although it exists only in many individuals, it is one single thing.

Now read paragraph 11. To understand this paragraph start with the last sentence: Abelard assumes from Aristotle the premise that if x and y can be present in the same thing at the same time, then they are not contraries. He also assumes that rational and irrational are contraries. Third, he assumes that a difference can be predicated of members of the species it differentiates: rational animals are rational, irrational animals are irrational. Argument: if animality were a single real thing existing in both rational animals and irrational animals as part of their essence (what they are), then that single real thing would be both rational and irrational at the same time, and rational and irrational would not be contraries; but they are contraries, so animality (and similarly other universals) cannot be a single real thing etc.

A comment on paragraph 11, line 10, "although the thing itself were white from one source and black from another"; The sources are (presumably) the form of whiteness and the form of blackness: Abelard is perhaps answering a possible answer to his argument: that just as whiteness and hardness are different forms that can exist in the same thing, so, perhaps, whiteness and blackness, since they are different forms, can both exist in the same thing at the same time. No, Abelard says, they are not merely different but contrary. White and hard are not contraries and can exist together, but white and black are contraries and cannot exist together.

Read paragraph 12. "But perhaps it will be said" introduces a possible reply to the argument of paragraph 11; "that too is shown thus" introduces a reply to that reply. The possible reply is that there is no problem if the single real thing that is the genus animality is both rational and irrational, or if the species humanity is both white and black, so long as contraries are not found in the individuals.. But "That too is shown thus" - on this theory contraries will be found even in individuals, e.g. in Socrates. He doesn't explain why, presumably because it is obvious. If, as this theory says, the genus exists only in individuals, and the species exists only in individuals, then if the contraries exist in the genus or in the species, the contraries exist only in the individuals.

This takes us to line 5 of this paragraph, to "because they are in Socrates". That is enough to reply to the reply suggested at the beginning of the paragraph, but Abelard goes further. Not only will the contraries be in Socrates, but the same contraries will be in Socrates and an ass, and in fact Socrates is the ass. Why will the same contraries be in the ass? Because the single thing that is the genus animal also exists in the ass; the genus animal includes rational animals (men, which includes Socrates) and irrational animals (which includes asses, including this ass). If rationality and irrationality, though contraries, both exist in the single thing animality, which exists in individual men such as Socrates and in individual irrational animals such as this ass, then rationality and irrationality exist in both Socrates and this ass.

Why does he say that on this theory Socrates is the ass? I think his argument is unsound; it seems to be as follows. Socrates contains the genus animality plus other forms, the ass contains animality plus other forms; in both cases the other forms are not the essence, i.e., they are not part of the answer to the question What is this? So in answer to the question What is this? we must say that Socrates is animality, and the ass is animality; and since on this theory animality is one single thing, if Socrates and the ass are both this single thing, then Socrates is the ass. Very clever.

But it is not true that the other forms are not the essence. The argument ignores the specific differences (rationality in Socrates' case, irrationality in the ass's case, and whatever difference differentiates asses from other irrational animals): not only the genus but also the difference is predicated essentially, i.e., as part of the answer to the question What is this? What is Socrates? A rational animal. What is the ass? An irrational animal with long warm ears (or whatever is the specific difference of ass); so even if animality is one single thing, Socrates and the ass are not simply identical with it. However, he could prove that Socrates is Plato, since on this theory they are both essentially identical with humanity, since the various accidental forms that distinguish them are not of their essence, i.e. are not mentioned in answering the question What is this? But that Socrates is essentially Plato is not an absurd implication of the theory; it is the theory - that individuals of the same species share a nature that is one single thing. Re-read paragraph 12, and read paragraph 13.

Paragraph 13, like paragraph 12, is what later scholastics would call an evasion (in paragraph 13 line 1, notice the word "escape"). Paragraph 11 argues against the theory of paragraph 10, paragraph 12 blocks one attempt to evade that argument, paragraph 13 blocks another. The proposition in italics on p.59, top line, occurs in paragraph 11, line 6, "so the rational animal is the irrational". What the evaders want to say is that the one single thing that is the genus animal is rational through the form of rationality, and irrational through the form of irrationality. They don't deny that it is both, but want to emphasise that it is rational and irrational through different forms: it is not both rational and irrational through the form of animality. Re-read down to "But surely".

"But surely" introduces Abelard's reply to the evasion. It makes no difference to the argument of paragraph 11 from what "source", or "through" what, the one thing is both rational and irrational: if the one thing could simultaneously be both rational and irrational these would not be contraries, as they are. "Nor do critics criticise" etc. "because" - i.e., on the grounds that; the "because" is part of what the critics might have said but don't say, not Abelard's explanation of why they don't say it. The critics do not say, "These propositions are objectionable because the animal is not mortal in that it is rational" etc. There is nothing wrong with a statement attributing various characteristics to some one thing that it has though various different forms, as long as these characteristics are not contraries. If rational and irrational were simultaneously in the one subject, they would no longer be contrary but just different.

The next three paragraphs 14, 15 and 16, state new objections against the theory of paragraph 10. Paragraph 11 was objection one, and paragraphs 12 and 13 block attempted evasions of objection one, paragraphs 14-16 are objections two, three and four. The words "Furthermore" and "Moreover" signal this. These are words scholastic authors often use to introduce new arguments; other words used that way include "Again" and "Also".

Read paragraph 14. Recall that Aristotle's doctrine of Categories is that there are just 10 supreme genera, 10 distinct porphyrian trees with a supreme genus at the top of each - substance, quality, quantity, relation and so on. Now, Abelard says, according to the theory of paragraph 10, these 10 highest genera will be the only essences; i.e., there will only ten single real things that are universals, each being diversified by additional forms into the various sub-genera and species and individuals. In line 2, "generalissima" means "most general things", i.e., the highest genera. Compare paragraph 10, from the fourth line from the bottom of p.58 LH: "Similarly, too, they place in the several animals different in species one and essentially the same substance of animal, which they make into diverse species by taking on diverse differences". But in relation to a higher genus (body) animal is a species, so on this theory there will be in the different species of body the single substance of body made into animal and the other species of body by various differences. And in turn body is a species of some higher genus, and so on to the top of the tree, substance: the one single thing that is the highest genus, substance, will be the essence of all the sub-genera and species differentiated by successive forms. And the same will be true of the nine other categories: in every quality there will be one and the same thing, Quality, differentiated by various forms. Similarly with quantities, and relations and the rest. So how will individuals differ? How will Socrates differ from Plato? Because of differentiating forms, they say. But if all the differing forms in each category are essentially the same single thing, how can they differentiate individuals? Re-read paragraph 14. Try to think of some "evasion". I'll leave it to you to work through paragraphs 15 and 16.

Paragraph 17 introduces another theory; it has two forms or versions, the first explained in paragraph 18, the second in paragraph 19. Read paragraphs 17-19. In the last line of p.58, LH, "discrete personally" may puzzle you. "Discrete" means "distinct". "Personal" here means simply "individual", without any implication of personality in the modern sense (rationality, consciousness etc.). Pebbles on the beach are "discrete personally", i.e. individually distinct, even though they are not persons. (Abelard's terminology comes from a part of logic, supposition theory, that was being developed in the twelfth century). So the theory of paragraph 17 is that the essence (e.g. the humanity) of each individual (e.g. of Socrates and Plato) is individually distinct through itself, not through anything else. Re-read paragraph 17 down to "But since they hold". This is the negative part of the theory - a rejection of part of the theory of paragraph 10, that Socrates and Plato have the same humanity but are individually distinct through additional forms; in this theory they are distinct all the way through.

Now re-read the rest of paragraph 17. This is the positive part of the theory. Socrates and Plato are distinct individuals, but they are the same in that they do not differ in that both are men. So what is the thing that is the universal, humanity? In one version of this theory it is each individual man, indifferently: there are many things, each of which is the universal (paragraph 19); in the other version the universal thing is the collection of individuals, the whole human species (paragraph 18). Read these two paragraphs.

Abelard goes on to criticise the first version (i.e. the version of paragraph 18). According to John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, p.115, this was the theory of Joscelin of Soissons. John says that "When Joscelin tries to explain the authorities", i.e. to explain the letter of Aristotle and Boethius to make them conform to his own theory, "When Joscelin tries to explain the authorities he has his troubles and is hard put, for in many places he cannot bear the gaping astonishment of the indignant letter".

Read paragraph 20. This paragraph contains several objections - last line of p.59 underline "But if", 6 lines down p.60, "Further"; two lines down "Even more"; counting from the end of the paragraph, 4 lines back, "Further", and three lines above that "Even more". In the middle of the paragraph "But perhaps it should be said" is an evasion, "But I still object" is a reply to it. Go back to the top of p.60. If the universal, man, is the whole human species, i.e. all the individuals, then to say "Socrates is a man" cannot mean that Socrates is the whole human species, it must mean that Socrates is a particular part of the human species, viz. the part that is Socrates: so then "the whole is predicated of different things by parts, in that its individual parts are accommodated to" i.e. fitted to, brought into correspondence with, themselves. But (this is the first objection) that is not the way a universal is common; see Boethius, Readings, p.16, LH (McKeon, p. 94). Back to Abelard, p.60 (Hyman and Walsh, p. 176). "As for example a field"; he is thinking of the medieval open field system in which different individuals owned different strips of the same field. I'll leave it to you to work through the rest of paragraph 20.

In paragraph 21 he objects to the other version, presented in paragraph 19. In the Story of his Adversities, p.17, Abelard says that this is the position adopted by William of Champeaux when driven by Abelard from his first position. Read paragraphs 21 and 22, and work out an understanding of the arguments.

You are incidentally acquiring all sorts of information about this Socrates or "Sortes"; he is white, musical, a grammarian, he walks and sits, and is and does whatever else logicians require their example to be and do. Plato's usual role is simply to be like or unlike Socrates.

This brings us to paragraph 23. Read the first three lines. Abelard claims to have given reasons why things are not universals. In fact he has refuted several theories according to which certain things are universals; he assumes either that these are the only such theories, or that any other that can produced will also be refuted. He also assumes that a universal must be either a thing or a word - that there are no other possibilities. His implicit argument is: Either universals are things, or they are words; but they are not things (since all such theories have been, or could be, refuted); therefore universals are words. This is an instance of the Stoic schema, "Either A or B, but not A; therefore B".

Read the rest of paragraph 23. Priscian is the author of a Latin grammar widely used in medieval schools. A couple of comments: Socrates, or John, is a proper name, i.e., a name used to refer to just one individual. But such a name can be borne by several individuals: there are many Johns. This shows that a proper name can be equivocal. Similarly common nouns can be equivocal. So in the phrase "that which is predicated of many", we must understand the "that which" to refer to one word used in one meaning.

Now read paragraphs 24, 25, 26. The "substantive verb" is some part of the verb "to be" - e.g. "is". A copula is a link. If we say "Socrates is white", the substantive verb "is" is a copula, linking whiteness to Socrates. Any verb, e.g. "runs", "walks", can be replaced by the substantive verb plus a participle - "Socrates walks" is equivalent to "Socrates is walking". In paragraph 26 the point is that "this man", "this white", "this musician" all refer to the same individual. So the word Socrates does not become a universal by being predicated of these terms, because they stand for only one individual.

Read paragraph 27. This makes the point that logicians are not interested merely in grammatically correct predication - "Socrates is a stone" is grammatically correct - but in true predications. A universal is a word apt to be predicated truly of many different things. In the third last line of the paragraph , "false categories" presumably means false predications (recall that Greek kategoreisthai means to predicate).

Read paragraph 28. Some comments. An "appellative" noun is a common noun (as distinct from a proper noun like "Socrates"). So "man", the common noun that can refer to any of the many men, is appellative. Its being able to refer to the individuals is called its appellation. Modern logicians call this denotation, which they distinguish from connotation. Medieval logicians used "connotation" in a quite different meaning. The medieval contrast corresponding to the modern contrast between denotation and connotation was between appellation and signification. The significance or meaning (or in the modern sense of the term, the connotation) of "man" is the set of characteristics we use as criteria for recognising individual men. The appellation or denotation is the possible set of individuals who can be called men. Appellare means "to call". In paragraph 28 Abelard's point is that universals and appellative or common nouns are not coextensive: "they are related to each other as that which exceeds and that which is exceeded", reciprocally - some common nouns fall outside the class of universals, some universals fall outside the class of common nouns. Some common nouns are not universals, namely the oblique cases of common nouns. The oblique cases in Latin were the accusative, genitive (e.g. hominis, of man), the dative and the ablative cases. These are not predicated of individuals. We do not say "Socrates is of man". On the other hand some universals are not common nouns but verbs or infinitives. For example, "Socrates walks", "Plato walks" etc. - the verb "walks" is a universal predicable of many. The infinitive, e.g. "to read", is a kind of noun, as in the sentence "To read Abelard's glosses on Porphyry is fun".

His glosses on Porphyry won't fit on one tape so we will continue in the next. .

Go to Abelard (continued)

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