Falk’s Reviews > Medieval Thought > Status Update
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“A universal noun designates 'a common form'. We conceive such a form when we use a universal noun. But what is a common form? The answer that Abelard gave is that it is not a thing nor is it a concept (intellectus) but it is a signification. A name that signifies stands between reality and understanding. A universal noun generates a concept but it is not itself a concept.” (p. 50)
— Jun 06, 2016 02:16PM
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“One may characterize Abelard's method, whatever the subject on which he reflected, as the practice of methodical doubt: ‘he who enquires’, he wrote in his dialectic, ‘expresses doubt in order to pursue and obtain certainty’. So his teaching of logic was very much concerned with the truth or falsehood of propositions and with establishing whether what is expressed by a proposition is in fact the case. Such study entails, on the one hand, the study of grammar and syntax as well as the rules and forms of syllogisms, and, on the other hand, the study of Porphyry's five predicables (genus, species, difference, property, and accident), and of Aristotle's categories..” (p. 48)
Both Abelard's 'Ethics' and Luscombe's book about him are on my reading list. A brilliant thinker for sure!