Treatise on Consequences by John Buridan

Author:John Buridan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fordham University Press

Chapter 2: The Division of Modal Propositions into Composite and Divided

Now, in the second chapter, we must acknowledge that modal propositions of this sort are commonly of two types. For some are called “composite” and others “divided.” [p. 57]

They are called composite when a mode is the subject and a dictum is the predicate, or vice versa. I call the terms “possible,” “necessary,” “contingent” and the like “modes.” I call a “dictum” that whole occurring in the proposition in addition to the mode and copula and negations and signs or other determinations of the mode or the copula. For example, I call the following composite: “That a human runs is possible,” “It is necessary that a human is an animal.”1 The subject of the first of these is “that a human runs” and the predicate is “possible”; the subject of the second is “necessary,” and the predicate is “that a human is an animal.”

They are called “divided” when part of the dictum is the subject and the other part the predicate. The mode attaches to the copula as a determination of it. For example, “A human can run” or “A human is possibly running”; similarly, “A human is of necessity a runner” or “A human is necessarily running,” and the like. In these, the subject is “human” and the predicate is “runner.” The copula is the whole phrase “can be” or “is possibly” or “is of necessity” or “is necessarily.” For this proposition “A human is possibly running” should be analyzed into “A human is possibly a runner,” just as “A human is running” is [analyzed] into “A human is a runner.”

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