Modalities in Medieval Philosophy

✍ Scribed by Simo Knuuttila

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 247
• Series: Routledge Library Editions: The Medieval World 29
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Originally published in 1993, Modalities in Medieval Philosophy looks at the idea of modality as multiplicity of reference with respect to alternative domains. The book examines how this emerged in early medieval discussions and addresses how it was originally influenced by the theological conception of God acting by choice. After a discussion of ancient modal paradigms, the author traces the interplay of old and new modal views in medieval logic and semantics, philosophy and theology. A detailed account is given of late medieval discussions of the new modal logic, epistemic logic, and the logic norms. These theories show striking similarities to some basic tenets of contemporary approaches to modal matters. This work will be of considerable interest to historians of philosophy and ideas and philosophers of logic and metaphysics.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Original Title Page
Original Copyright Page
Contents
Preface
1 Modalities in Aristotle and other ancient authors
Statistical interpretation of modality
Possibility as a potency
Other ancient modal paradigms
Modal logic and modal syllogistic
2 Philosophical and theological modalities in early medieval thought
Boethius’ modal conceptions
New theological modalities: from Augustine to Anselm of Canterbury
Gilbert of Poitiers, Peter Abelard and Thierry of Chartres
3 Varieties of necessity and possibility in the thirteenth century
Natural and divine possibilities
Models for modalities in logical treatises
Necessity and possibility in Parisian Aristotelianism: Siger of Brabant and Thomas Aquinas
4 Fourteenth-century approaches to modality
Duns Scotus’ theory of modality
Fourteenth-century discussions of obligational rules
New theories of natural necessity
Modal logic and modal syllogistic
5 Medieval discussions of applied modal logic
Elements of epistemic logic
Logic of norms and logic of the will
Roger Roseth and the principles of deontic logic
Bibliography
Index of names
Index of subjects