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abduction | Abduction | First published Wed Mar 9, 2011; substantive revision Tue May 18, 2021 | [
"\nIn the philosophical literature, the term “abduction” is\nused in two related but different senses. In both senses, the term\nrefers to some form of explanatory reasoning. However, in the\nhistorically first sense, it refers to the place of explanatory\nreasoning in generating hypotheses, while in the sense in\nwhich it is used most frequently in the modern literature it refers to\nthe place of explanatory reasoning in justifying hypotheses.\nIn the latter sense, abduction is also often called “Inference\nto the Best Explanation.”",
"\nThis entry is exclusively concerned with abduction in the modern\nsense, although there is a supplement on abduction in the historical\nsense, which had its origin in the work of Charles Sanders\nPeirce—see the",
"\nSee also the entry on\n scientific discovery,\n in particular the section on discovery as abduction.",
"\nMost philosophers agree that abduction (in the sense of Inference to\nthe Best Explanation) is a type of inference that is frequently\nemployed, in some form or other, both in everyday and in scientific\nreasoning. However, the exact form as well as the normative status of\nabduction are still matters of controversy. This entry contrasts\nabduction with other types of inference; points at prominent uses of\nit, both in and outside philosophy; considers various more or less\nprecise statements of it; discusses its normative status; and\nhighlights possible connections between abduction and Bayesian\nconfirmation theory."
] | [
{
"content_title": "1. Abduction: The General Idea",
"sub_toc": [
"1.1 Deduction, induction, abduction",
"1.2 The ubiquity of abduction"
]
},
{
"content_title": "2. Explicating Abduction",
"sub_toc": []
},
{
"content_title": "3. The Status of Abduction",
"sub_toc": [
"3.1 Criticisms",
"3.2 Defenses"
]
},
{
"content_title": "4. Abduction versus Bayesian Confirmation Theory",
"sub_toc": []
},
{
"content_title": "Bibliography",
"sub_toc": []
},
{
"content_title": "Academic Tools",
"sub_toc": []
},
{
"content_title": "Other Internet Resources",
"sub_toc": []
},
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"content_title": "Related Entries",
"sub_toc": []
}
] | [
{
"main_content": [
"\nYou happen to know that Tim and Harry have recently had a terrible row\nthat ended their friendship. Now someone tells you that she just saw\nTim and Harry jogging together. The best explanation for this that you\ncan think of is that they made up. You conclude that they are friends\nagain.",
"\nOne morning you enter the kitchen to find a plate and cup on the\ntable, with breadcrumbs and a pat of butter on it, and surrounded by a\njar of jam, a pack of sugar, and an empty carton of milk. You conclude\nthat one of your house-mates got up at night to make him- or herself a\nmidnight snack and was too tired to clear the table. This, you think,\nbest explains the scene you are facing. To be sure, it might be that\nsomeone burgled the house and took the time to have a bite while on\nthe job, or a house-mate might have arranged the things on the table\nwithout having a midnight snack but just to make you believe that\nsomeone had a midnight snack. But these hypotheses strike you as\nproviding much more contrived explanations of the data than the one\nyou infer to.",
"\nWalking along the beach, you see what looks like a picture of Winston\nChurchill in the sand. It could be that, as in the opening pages of\nHilary Putnam’s book Reason, Truth, and History,\n(1981), what you see is actually the trace of an ant crawling on the\nbeach. The much simpler, and therefore (you think) much better,\nexplanation is that someone intentionally drew a picture of Churchill\nin the sand. That, in any case, is what you come away believing.",
"\nIn these examples, the conclusions do not follow logically from the\npremises. For instance, it does not follow logically that Tim and\nHarry are friends again from the premises that they had a terrible row\nwhich ended their friendship and that they have just been seen jogging\ntogether; it does not even follow, we may suppose, from all the\ninformation you have about Tim and Harry. Nor do you have any useful\nstatistical data about friendships, terrible rows, and joggers that\nmight warrant an inference from the information that you have about\nTim and Harry to the conclusion that they are friends again, or even\nto the conclusion that, probably (or with a certain probability), they\nare friends again. What leads you to the conclusion, and what\naccording to a considerable number of philosophers may also warrant\nthis conclusion, is precisely the fact that Tim and Harry’s\nbeing friends again would, if true, best explain the\nfact that they have just been seen jogging together. (The proviso that\na hypothesis be true if it is to explain anything is taken as read\nfrom here on.) Similar remarks apply to the other two examples. The\ntype of inference exhibited here is called abduction or,\nsomewhat more commonly nowadays, Inference to the Best\nExplanation."
],
"section_title": "1. Abduction: The General Idea",
"subsections": [
{
"content": [
"\nAbduction is normally thought of as being one of three major types of\ninference, the other two being deduction and induction. The\ndistinction between deduction, on the one hand, and induction and\nabduction, on the other hand, corresponds to the distinction between\nnecessary and non-necessary inferences. In deductive inferences, what\nis inferred is necessarily true if the premises from which it\nis inferred are true; that is, the truth of the premises\nguarantees the truth of the conclusion. A familiar type of\nexample is inferences instantiating the schema",
"\nAll As are Bs.\n\na is an A.\n\nHence, a is a B.\n",
"\nBut not all inferences are of this variety. Consider, for instance,\nthe inference of “John is rich” from “John lives in\nChelsea” and “Most people living in Chelsea are\nrich.” Here, the truth of the first sentence is not guaranteed\n(but only made likely) by the joint truth of the second and third\nsentences. Differently put, it is not necessarily the case that if the\npremises are true, then so is the conclusion: it is logically\ncompatible with the truth of the premises that John is a member of the\nminority of non-rich inhabitants of Chelsea. The case is similar\nregarding your inference to the conclusion that Tim and Harry are\nfriends again on the basis of the information that they have been seen\njogging together. Perhaps Tim and Harry are former business partners\nwho still had some financial matters to discuss, however much they\nwould have liked to avoid this, and decided to combine this with their\ndaily exercise; this is compatible with their being firmly decided\nnever to make up.",
"\nIt is standard practice to group non-necessary inferences into\ninductive and abductive ones. Inductive inferences\nform a somewhat heterogeneous class, but for present purposes they may\nbe characterized as those inferences that are based purely on\nstatistical data, such as observed frequencies of occurrences of a\nparticular feature in a given population. An example of such an\ninference would be this:",
"\n96 per cent of the Flemish college students speak both Dutch and\nFrench.\n\nLouise is a Flemish college student.\n\nHence, Louise speaks both Dutch and French.\n",
"\nHowever, the relevant statistical information may also be more vaguely\ngiven, as in the premise, “Most people living in Chelsea are\nrich.” (There is much discussion about whether the conclusion of\nan inductive argument can be stated in purely qualitative terms or\nwhether it should be a quantitative one—for instance, that it\nholds with a probability of .96 that Louise speaks both Dutch and\nFrench—or whether it can sometimes be stated in\nqualitative terms—for instance, if the probability that it is\ntrue is high enough—and sometimes not. On these and other issues\nrelated to induction, see Kyburg 1990 (Ch. 4). It should also be\nmentioned that Harman (1965) conceives induction as a special type of\nabduction. See also Weintraub 2013 for discussion.)",
"\nThe mere fact that an inference is based on statistical data is not\nenough to classify it as an inductive one. You may have observed many\ngray elephants and no non-gray ones, and infer from this that all\nelephants are gray, because that would provide the best\nexplanation for why you have observed so many gray elephants\nand no non-gray ones. This would be an instance of an\nabductive inference. It suggests that the best way to distinguish\nbetween induction and abduction is this: both are ampliative,\nmeaning that the conclusion goes beyond what is (logically) contained\nin the premises (which is why they are non-necessary inferences), but\nin abduction there is an implicit or explicit appeal to explanatory\nconsiderations, whereas in induction there is not; in induction, there\nis only an appeal to observed frequencies or statistics. (I\nemphasize “only,” because in abduction there may also be\nan appeal to frequencies or statistics, as the example about the\nelephants exhibits.)",
"\nA noteworthy feature of abduction, which it shares with induction but\nnot with deduction, is that it violates monotonicity, meaning\nthat it may be possible to infer abductively certain conclusions from\na subset of a set S of premises which cannot be\ninferred abductively from S as a whole. For instance, adding\nthe premise that Tim and Harry are former business partners who still\nhave some financial matters to discuss, to the premises that they had\na terrible row some time ago and that they were just seen jogging\ntogether may no longer warrant you to infer that they are friends\nagain, even if—let us suppose—the last two premises alone\ndo warrant that inference. The reason is that what counts as the best\nexplanation of Tim and Harry’s jogging together in light of the\noriginal premises may no longer do so once the information has been\nadded that they are former business partners with financial matters to\ndiscuss."
],
"subsection_title": "1.1 Deduction, induction, abduction"
},
{
"content": [
"\nThe type of inference exemplified in the cases described at the\nbeginning of this entry will strike most as entirely familiar.\nPhilosophers as well as psychologists tend to agree that abduction is\nfrequently employed in everyday reasoning. Sometimes our reliance on\nabductive reasoning is quite obvious and explicit. But in some daily\npractices, it may be so routine and automatic that it easily goes\nunnoticed. A case in point may be our trust in other people’s\ntestimony, which has been said to rest on abductive reasoning; see\nHarman 1965, Adler 1994, Fricker 1994, and Lipton 1998 for defenses of\nthis claim. For instance, according to Jonathan Adler (1994, 274f),\n“[t]he best explanation for why the informant asserts that\nP is normally that … he believes it for duly responsible\nreasons and … he intends that I shall believe it too,”\nwhich is why we are normally justified in trusting the\ninformant’s testimony. This may well be correct, even though in\ncoming to trust a person’s testimony one does not normally seem\nto be aware of any abductive reasoning going on in one’s mind.\nSimilar remarks may apply to what some hold to be a further, possibly\neven more fundamental, role of abduction in linguistic practice, to\nwit, its role in determining what a speaker means by an utterance.\nSpecifically, it has been argued that decoding utterances is a matter\nof inferring the best explanation of why someone said what he or she\nsaid in the context in which the utterance was made. Even more\nspecifically, authors working in the field of pragmatics have\nsuggested that hearers invoke the Gricean maxims of conversation to\nhelp them work out the best explanation of a speaker’s utterance\nwhenever the semantic content of the utterance is insufficiently\ninformative for the purposes of the conversation, or is too\ninformative, or off-topic, or implausible, or otherwise odd or\ninappropriate; see, for instance, Bach and Harnish 1979 (92f), Dascal\n1979 (167), and Hobbs 2004. As in cases of reliance on speaker\ntestimony, the requisite abductive reasoning would normally seem to\ntake place at a subconscious level.",
"\nAbductive reasoning is not limited to everyday contexts. Quite the\ncontrary: philosophers of science have argued that abduction is a\ncornerstone of scientific methodology; see, for instance, Boyd 1981,\n1984, Harré 1986, 1988, Lipton 1991, 2004, and Psillos 1999.\nAccording to Timothy Williamson (2007), “[t]he abductive\nmethodology is the best science provides” and Ernan McMullin\n(1992) even goes so far to call abduction “the inference that\nmakes science.” To illustrate the use of abduction in science,\nwe consider two examples.",
"\nAt the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was discovered that the\norbit of Uranus, one of the seven planets known at the time, departed\nfrom the orbit as predicted on the basis of Isaac Newton’s\ntheory of universal gravitation and the auxiliary assumption that\nthere were no further planets in the solar system. One possible\nexplanation was, of course, that Newton’s theory is false. Given\nits great empirical successes for (then) more than two centuries, that\ndid not appear to be a very good explanation. Two astronomers, John\nCouch Adams and Urbain Leverrier, instead suggested (independently of\neach other but almost simultaneously) that there was an eighth, as yet\nundiscovered planet in the solar system; that, they thought, provided\nthe best explanation of Uranus’ deviating orbit. Not much later,\nthis planet, which is now known as “Neptune,” was\ndiscovered.",
"\nThe second example concerns what is now commonly regarded to have been\nthe discovery of the electron by the English physicist Joseph John\nThomson. Thomson had conducted experiments on cathode rays in order to\ndetermine whether they are streams of charged particles. He concluded\nthat they are indeed, reasoning as follows:",
"\n\n\nAs the cathode rays carry a charge of negative electricity, are\ndeflected by an electrostatic force as if they were negatively\nelectrified, and are acted on by a magnetic force in just the way in\nwhich this force would act on a negatively electrified body moving\nalong the path of these rays, I can see no escape from the conclusion\nthat they are charges of negative electricity carried by particles of\nmatter. (Thomson, cited in Achinstein 2001, 17)\n",
"\nThe conclusion that cathode rays consist of negatively charged\nparticles does not follow logically from the reported experimental\nresults, nor could Thomson draw on any relevant statistical data. That\nnevertheless he could “see no escape from the conclusion”\nis, we may safely assume, because the conclusion is the best—in\nthis case presumably even the only plausible—explanation of his\nresults that he could think of.",
"\nMany other examples of scientific uses of abduction have been\ndiscussed in the literature; see, for instance, Harré 1986,\n1988 and Lipton 1991, 2004. Abduction is also said to be the\npredominant mode of reasoning in medical diagnosis: physicians tend to\ngo for the hypothesis that best explains the patient’s symptoms\n(see Josephson and Josephson (eds.) 1994, 9–12; see also\nDragulinescu 2016 on abductive reasoning in the context of\nmedicine).",
"\nLast but not least, abduction plays a central role in some important\nphilosophical debates. See Shalkowski 2010 on the place of abduction\nin metaphysics (also Bigelow 2010), Krzyżanowska, Wenmackers, and\nDouven 2014 and Douven 2016a for a possible role of\nabduction in the semantics of conditionals, and Williamson\n2017 for an application of abduction in the philosophy of logic.\nArguably, however, abduction plays its most notable philosophical role\nin epistemology and in the philosophy of science, where it is\nfrequently invoked in objections to so-called underdetermination\narguments. Underdetermination arguments generally start from the\npremise that a number of given hypotheses are empirically equivalent,\nwhich their authors take to mean that the evidence—indeed, any\nevidence we might ever come to possess—is unable to favor one of\nthem over the others. From this, we are supposed to conclude that one\ncan never be warranted in believing any particular one of the\nhypotheses. (This is rough, but it will do for present purposes; see\nDouven 2008 and Stanford 2009, for more detailed accounts of\nunderdetermination arguments.) A famous instance of this type of\nargument is the Cartesian argument for global skepticism, according to\nwhich the hypothesis that reality is more or less the way we\ncustomarily deem it to be is empirically equivalent to a variety of\nso-called skeptical hypotheses (such as that we are beguiled by an\nevil demon, or that we are brains in a vat, connected to a\nsupercomputer; see, e.g., Folina 2016). Similar arguments have been\ngiven in support of scientific antirealism, according to which it will\nnever be warranted for us to choose between empirically equivalent\nrivals concerning what underlies the observable part of reality (van\nFraassen 1980).",
"\nResponses to these arguments typically point to the fact that the\nnotion of empirical equivalence at play unduly neglects explanatory\nconsiderations, for instance, by defining the notion strictly in terms\nof hypotheses’ making the same predictions. Those responding\nthen argue that even if some hypotheses make exactly the same\npredictions, one of them may still be a better explanation of the\nphenomena predicted. Thus, if explanatory considerations have a role\nin determining which inferences we are licensed to make—as\naccording to defenders of abduction they have—then we might\nstill be warranted in believing in the truth (or probable truth, or\nsome such, depending—as will be seen below—on the version\nof abduction one assumes) of one of a number of hypotheses that all\nmake the same predictions. Following Bertrand Russell (1912, Ch. 2),\nmany epistemologists have invoked abduction in arguing against\nCartesian skepticism, their key claim being that even though, by\nconstruction, the skeptical hypotheses make the same predictions as\nthe hypothesis that reality is more or less the way we ordinarily take\nit to be, they are not equally good explanations of what they predict;\nin particular, the skeptical hypotheses have been said to be\nconsiderably less simple than the “ordinary world”\nhypothesis. See, among many others, Harman 1973 (Chs. 8 and 11),\nGoldman 1988 (205), Moser 1989 (161), and Vogel 1990, 2005; see\nPargetter 1984 for an abductive response specifically to skepticism\nregarding other minds. Similarly, philosophers of science have argued\nthat we are warranted to believe in Special Relativity Theory as\nopposed to Lorentz’s version of the æther theory. For even\nthough these theories make the same predictions, the former is\nexplanatorily superior to the latter. (Most arguments that have been\ngiven for this claim come down to the contention that Special\nRelativity Theory is ontologically more parsimonious than its\ncompetitor, which postulates the existence of an æther. See\nJanssen 2002 for an excellent discussion of the various reasons\nphilosophers of science have adduced for preferring Einstein’s\ntheory to Lorentz’s.)"
],
"subsection_title": "1.2 The ubiquity of abduction"
}
]
},
{
"main_content": [
"\nPrecise statements of what abduction amounts to are rare in the\nliterature on abduction. (Peirce did propose an at least fairly\nprecise statement; but, as explained in the supplement to this entry,\nit does not capture what most nowadays understand by abduction.) Its\ncore idea is often said to be that explanatory considerations have\nconfirmation-theoretic import, or that explanatory success is a (not\nnecessarily unfailing) mark of truth. Clearly, however, these\nformulations are slogans at best, and it takes little effort to see\nthat they can be cashed out in a great variety of prima facie\nplausible ways. Here we will consider a number of such possible\nexplications, starting with what one might term the “textbook\nversion of abduction,” which, as will be seen, is manifestly\ndefective, and then going on to consider various possible refinements\nof it. What those versions have in\ncommon—unsurprisingly—is that they are all inference\nrules, requiring premises encompassing explanatory considerations and\nyielding a conclusion that makes some statement about the truth of a\nhypothesis. The differences concern the premises that are required, or\nwhat exactly we are allowed to infer from them (or both).",
"\nIn textbooks on epistemology or the philosophy of science, one often\nencounters something like the following as a formulation of\nabduction:",
"\nAn observation that is frequently made about this rule, and that\npoints to a potential problem for it, is that it presupposes the\nnotions of candidate explanation and best explanation, neither of\nwhich has a straightforward interpretation. While some still hope that\nthe former can be spelled out in purely logical, or at least purely\nformal, terms, it is often said that the latter must appeal to the\nso-called theoretical virtues, like simplicity, generality, and\ncoherence with well-established theories; the best explanation would\nthen be the hypothesis which, on balance, does best with respect to\nthese virtues. (See, for instance, Thagard 1978 and McMullin 1996.)\nThe problem is that none of the said virtues is presently particularly\nwell understood. (Giere, in Callebaut (ed.) 1993 (232), even makes the\nradical claim that the theoretical virtues lack real content and play\nno more than a rhetorical role in science. In view of recent formal\nwork both on simplicity and on coherence—for instance, Forster\nand Sober 1994, Li and Vitanyi 1997, and Sober 2015, on simplicity and\nBovens and Hartmann 2003 and Olsson 2005, on coherence—the first\npart of this claim has become hard to maintain; also, Schupbach and\nSprenger (2011) present an account of explanatory goodness directly in\nprobabilistic terms. Psychological evidence casts doubt on the second\npart of the claim; see, for instance, Lombrozo 2007, on the role of\nsimplicity in people’s assessments of explanatory goodness and\nKoslowski et al. 2008, on the role of coherence with\nbackground knowledge in those assessments.)",
"\nFurthermore, many of those who think ABD1 is headed along the right\nlines believe that it is too strong. Some think that abduction\nwarrants an inference only to the probable truth of the best\nexplanation, others that it warrants an inference only to the\napproximate truth of the best explanation, and still others\nthat it warrants an inference only to the probable\napproximate truth.",
"\nThe real problem with ABD1 runs deeper than this, however. Because\nabduction is ampliative—as explained earlier—it will not\nbe a sound rule of inference in the strict logical sense, however\nabduction is explicated exactly. It can still be reliable in\nthat it mostly leads to a true conclusion whenever the premises are\ntrue. An obvious necessary condition for ABD1 to be reliable in this\nsense is that, mostly, when it is true that H best\nexplains E, and E is true, then H is true as well\n(or H is approximately true, or probably true, or probably\napproximately true). But this would not be enough for ABD1 to\nbe reliable. For ABD1 takes as its premise only that some hypothesis\nis the best explanation of the evidence as compared to other\nhypotheses in a given set. Thus, if the rule is to be\nreliable, it must hold that, at least typically, the best explanation\nrelative to the set of hypotheses that we consider would also come out\nas being best in comparison with any other hypotheses that we might\nhave conceived (but for lack of time or ingenuity, or for some other\nreason, did not conceive). In other words, it must hold that at least\ntypically the absolutely best explanation of the evidence is\nto be found among the candidate explanations we have come up with, for\nelse ABD1 may well lead us to believe “the best of a bad\nlot” (van Fraassen 1989, 143).",
"\nHow reasonable is it to suppose that this extra requirement is usually\nfulfilled? Not at all, presumably. To believe otherwise, we must\nassume some sort of privilege on our part to the effect that when we\nconsider possible explanations of the data, we are somehow predisposed\nto hit, inter alia, upon the absolutely best explanation of those\ndata. After all, hardly ever will we have considered, or will it even\nbe possible to consider, all potential explanations. As van\nFraassen (1989, 144) points out, it is a priori rather\nimplausible to hold that we are thus privileged.",
"\nIn response to this, one might argue that the challenge to show that\nthe best explanation is always or mostly among the hypotheses\nconsidered can be met without having to assume some form of privilege\n(see Schupbach 2014 for a different response, and see Dellsén\n2017 for discussion). For given the hypotheses we have managed to come\nup with, we can always generate a set of hypotheses which jointly\nexhaust logical space. Suppose\nH1,…,Hn are the\ncandidate explanations we have so far been able to conceive. Then\nsimply define Hn+1 := ¬H1\n∧ … ∧ ¬Hn and add this new\nhypothesis as a further candidate explanation to the ones we already\nhave. Obviously, the set\n{H1,…,Hn+1} is exhaustive,\nin that one of its elements must be true. Following this in itself\nsimple procedure would seem enough to make sure that we never miss out\non the absolutely best explanation. (See Lipton 1993, for a proposal\nalong these lines.)",
"\nAlas, there is a catch. For even though there may be many hypotheses\nHj that imply Hn+1 and, had\nthey been formulated, would have been evaluated as being a better\nexplanation for the data than the best explanation among the candidate\nexplanations we started out with, Hn+1 itself will\nin general be hardly informative; in fact, in general it will not even\nbe clear what its empirical consequences are. Suppose, for instance,\nwe have as competing explanations Special Relativity Theory and\nLorentz’s version of the æther theory. Then, following the\nabove proposal, we may add to our candidate explanations that neither\nof these two theories is true. But surely this further hypothesis will\nbe ranked quite low qua explanation—if it will be\nranked at all, which seems doubtful, given that it is wholly unclear\nwhat its empirical consequences are. This is not to say that the\nsuggested procedure may never work. The point is that in general it\nwill give little assurance that the best explanation is among the\ncandidate explanations we consider.",
"\nA more promising response to the above “argument of the bad\nlot” begins with the observation that the argument capitalizes\non a peculiar asymmetry or incongruence in ABD1. The rule gives\nlicense to an absolute conclusion—that a given hypothesis is\ntrue—on the basis of a comparative premise, namely, that that\nparticular hypothesis is the best explanation of the evidence relative\nto the other hypotheses available (see Kuipers 2000, 171). This\nincongruence is not avoided by replacing “truth” with\n“probable truth” or “approximate truth.” In\norder to avoid it, one has two general options.",
"\nThe first option is to modify the rule so as to have it require an\nabsolute premise. For instance, following Alan Musgrave (1988) or\nPeter Lipton (1993), one may require the hypothesis whose truth is\ninferred to be not only the best of the available potential\nexplanations, but also to be satisfactory (Musgrave) or\ngood enough (Lipton), yielding the following variant of\nABD1:",
"\nNeedless to say, ABD2 needs supplementing by a criterion for the\nsatisfactoriness of explanations, or their being good enough, which,\nhowever, we are still lacking.",
"\nSecondly, one can formulate a symmetric or congruous version of\nabduction by having it sanction, given a comparative premise, only a\ncomparative conclusion; this option, too, can in turn be realized in\nmore than one way. Here is one way to do it, which has been proposed\nand defended in the work of Theo Kuipers (e.g., Kuipers 1984, 1992,\n2000).",
"\nClearly, ABD3 requires an account of closeness to the truth, but many\nsuch accounts are on offer today (see, e.g., Niiniluoto 1998).",
"\nOne noteworthy feature of the congruous versions of abduction\nconsidered here is that they do not rely on the assumption of an\nimplausible privilege on the reasoner’s part that, we saw, ABD1\nimplicitly relies on. Another is that if one can be certain that,\nhowever many candidate explanations for the data one may have missed,\nnone equals the best of those one has thought of, then the\ncongruous versions license exactly the same inference as ABD1 does\n(supposing that one would not be certain that no potential explanation\nis as good as the best explanation one has thought of if the latter is\nnot even satisfactory or sufficiently good).",
"\nAs mentioned, there is widespread agreement that people frequently\nrely on abductive reasoning. Which of the above rules exactly\nis it that people rely on? Or might it be still some further rule that\nthey rely on? Or might they in some contexts rely on one version, and\nin others on another (Douven 2017, forthcoming)? Philosophical\nargumentation is unable to answer these questions. In recent years,\nexperimental psychologists have started paying attention to the role\nhumans give to explanatory considerations in reasoning. For instance,\nTania Lombrozo and Nicholas Gwynne (2014) report experiments showing\nthat how a property of a given class of things is explained\nto us—whether mechanistically, by reference to parts and\nprocesses, or functionally, by reference to functions and\npurposes—matters to how likely we are to generalise that\nproperty to other classes of things (see also Sloman 1994 and Williams\nand Lombrozo 2010). And Igor Douven and Jonah Schupbach (2015a),\n(2015b) present experimental evidence to the effect that\npeople’s probability updates tend to be influenced by\nexplanatory considerations in ways that makes them deviate from\nstrictly Bayesian updates (see below). Douven (2016b) shows that, in\nthe aforementioned experiments, participants who gave more weight to\nexplanatory considerations tended to be more accurate, as determined\nin terms of a standard scoring rule. (See Lombrozo 2012 and 2016 for\nuseful overviews of recent experimental work relevant to explanation\nand inference.) Douven and Patricia Mirabile (2018) found some\nevidence indicating that people rely on something like ABD2, at least\nin some contexts, but for the most part, empirical work on the\nabove-mentioned questions is lacking.",
"\nWith respect to the normative question of which of the previously\nstated rules we ought to rely on (if we ought to rely on any\nform of abduction), where philosophical argumentation should be able\nto help, the situation is hardly any better. In view of the argument\nof the bad lot, ABD1 does not look very good. Other arguments against\nabduction are claimed to be independent of the exact explication of\nthe rule; below, these arguments will be found wanting. On the other\nhand, arguments that have been given in favor of abduction—some\nof which will also be discussed below—do not discern between\nspecific versions. So, supposing people do indeed commonly rely on\nabduction, it must be considered an open question as to which\nversion(s) of abduction they rely on. Equally, supposing it is\nrational for people to rely on abduction, it must be considered an\nopen question as to which version, or perhaps versions, of abduction\nthey ought to, or are at least permitted to, rely on."
],
"section_title": "2. Explicating Abduction",
"subsections": []
},
{
"main_content": [
"\nEven if it is true that we routinely rely on abductive reasoning, it\nmay still be asked whether this practice is rational. For instance,\nexperimental studies have shown that when people are able to think of\nan explanation for some possible event, they tend to overestimate the\nlikelihood that this event will actually occur. (See Koehler 1991, for\na survey of some of these studies; see also Brem and Rips 2000.) More\ntelling still, Lombrozo (2007) shows that, in some situations, people\ntend to grossly overrate the probability of simpler explanations\ncompared to more complicated ones. Although these studies are not\ndirectly concerned with abduction in any of the forms discussed so\nfar, they nevertheless suggest that taking into account explanatory\nconsiderations in one’s reasoning may not always be for the\nbetter. (It is to be noted that Lombrozo’s experiments\nare directly concerned with some proposals that have been\nmade for explicating abduction in a Bayesian framework; see Section\n4.) However, the most pertinent remarks about the normative status of\nabduction are so far to be found in the philosophical literature. This\nsection discusses the main criticisms that have been levelled against\nabduction, as well as the strongest arguments that have been given in\nits defense."
],
"section_title": "3. The Status of Abduction",
"subsections": [
{
"content": [
"\nWe have already encountered the so-called argument of the bad lot,\nwhich, we saw, is valid as a criticism of ABD1 but powerless against\nvarious (what we called) congruous rules of abduction. We here\nconsider two objections that are meant to be more general. The first\neven purports to challenge the core idea underlying abduction; the\nsecond is not quite as general, but it is still meant to undermine a\nbroad class of candidate explications of abduction. Both objections\nare due to Bas van Fraassen.",
"\nThe first objection has as a premise that it is part of the meaning of\n“explanation” that if one theory is more explanatory than\nanother, the former must be more informative than the latter (see,\ne.g., van Fraassen 1983, Sect. 2). The alleged problem then is that it\nis “an elementary logical point that a more informative theory\ncannot be more likely to be true [and thus] attempts to describe\ninductive or evidential support through features that require\ninformation (such as ‘Inference to the Best Explanation’)\nmust either contradict themselves or equivocate” (van Fraassen\n1989, 192). The elementary logical point is supposed to be “most\n[obvious] … in the paradigm case in which one theory is an\nextension of another: clearly the extension has more ways of being\nfalse” (van Fraassen 1985, 280).",
"\nIt is important to note, however, that in any other kind of case than\nthe “paradigm” one, the putative elementary point is not\nobvious at all. For instance, it is entirely unclear in what sense\nSpecial Relativity Theory “has more ways of being false”\nthan Lorentz’s version of the æther theory, given that\nthey make the same predictions. And yet the former is generally\nregarded as being superior, qua explanation, to the latter.\n(If van Fraassen were to object that the former is not really more\ninformative than the latter, or at any rate not more informative in\nthe appropriate sense—whatever that is—then we should\ncertainly refuse to grant the premise that in order to be more\nexplanatory a theory must be more informative.)",
"\nThe second objection, proffered in van Fraassen 1989 (Ch. 6), is\nlevelled at probabilistic versions of abduction. The objection is that\nsuch rules must either amount to Bayes’ rule, and thus be\nredundant, or be at variance with it but then, on the grounds of\nLewis’ dynamic Dutch book argument (as reported in Teller 1973),\nbe probabilistically incoherent, meaning that they may lead one to\nassess as fair a number of bets which together ensure a financial\nloss, come what may; and, van Fraassen argues, it would be irrational\nto follow a rule that has this feature.",
"\nHowever, this objection fares no better than the first. For one thing,\nas Patrick Maher (1992) and Brian Skyrms (1993) have pointed out, a\nloss in one respect may be outweighed by a benefit in another. It\nmight be, for instance, that some probabilistic version of abduction\ndoes much better, at least in our world, than Bayes’ rule, in\nthat, on average, it approaches the truth faster in the sense that it\nis faster in assigning a high probability (understood as probability\nabove a certain threshold value) to the true hypothesis (see Douven\n2013, 2020, and Douven and Wenmackers 2017; see Climenhaga\n2017 for discussion). If it does, then following that rule\ninstead of Bayes’ rule may have advantages which perhaps are not\nso readily expressed in terms of money yet which should arguably be\ntaken into account when deciding which rule to go by. It is, in short,\nnot so clear whether following a probabilistically incoherent rule\nmust be irrational.",
"\nFor another thing, Douven (1999) argues that the question of whether a\nprobabilistic rule is coherent is not one that can be settled\nindependently of considering which other epistemic and\ndecision-theoretic rules are deployed along with it; coherence should\nbe understood as a property of packages of both epistemic and\ndecision-theoretic rules, not of epistemic rules (such as\nprobabilistic rules for belief change) in isolation. In the same\npaper, a coherent package of rules is described which includes a\nprobabilistic version of abduction. (See Kvanvig 1994, Harman 1997,\nLeplin 1997, Niiniluoto 1999, and Okasha 2000, for different responses\nto van Fraassen’s critique of probabilistic versions of\nabduction.)"
],
"subsection_title": "3.1 Criticisms"
},
{
"content": [
"\nHardly anyone nowadays would want to subscribe to a conception of\ntruth that posits a necessary connection between explanatory force and\ntruth—for instance, because it stipulates explanatory\nsuperiority to be necessary for truth. As a result, a priori defenses\nof abduction seem out of the question. Indeed, all defenses that have\nbeen given so far are of an empirical nature in that they appeal to\ndata that supposedly support the claim that (in some form) abduction\nis a reliable rule of inference.",
"\nThe best-known argument of this sort was developed by Richard Boyd in\nthe 1980s (see Boyd 1981, 1984, 1985). It starts by underlining the\ntheory-dependency of scientific methodology, which comprises methods\nfor designing experiments, for assessing data, for choosing between\nrival hypotheses, and so on. For instance, in considering possible\nconfounding factors from which an experimental setup has to be\nshielded, scientists draw heavily on already accepted theories. The\nargument next calls attention to the apparent reliability of this\nmethodology, which, after all, has yielded, and continues to yield,\nimpressively accurate theories. In particular, by relying on this\nmethodology, scientists have for some time now been able to find ever\nmore instrumentally adequate theories. Boyd then argues that the\nreliability of scientific methodology is best explained by assuming\nthat the theories on which it relies are at least approximately true.\nFrom this and from the fact that these theories were mostly arrived at\nby abductive reasoning, he concludes that abduction must be a reliable\nrule of inference.",
"\nCritics have accused this argument of being circular. Specifically, it\nhas been said that the argument rests on a premise—that\nscientific methodology is informed by approximately true background\ntheories—which in turn rests on an inference to the best\nexplanation for its plausibility. And the reliability of this type of\ninference is precisely what is at stake. (See, for instance, Laudan\n1981 and Fine 1984.)",
"\nTo this, Stathis Psillos (1999, Ch. 4) has responded by invoking a\ndistinction credited to Richard Braithwaite, to wit, the distinction\nbetween premise-circularity and rule-circularity. An argument is\npremise-circular if its conclusion is amongst its premises. A\nrule-circular argument, by contrast, is an argument of which the\nconclusion asserts something about an inferential rule that is used in\nthe very same argument. As Psillos urges, Boyd’s argument is\nrule-circular, but not premise-circular, and rule-circular arguments,\nPsillos contends, need not be viciously circular (even though\na premise-circular argument is always viciously circular). To be more\nprecise, in his view, an argument for the reliability of a given rule\nR that essentially relies on R as an inferential\nprinciple is not vicious, provided that the use of R does not\nguarantee a positive conclusion about R’s reliability.\nPsillos claims that in Boyd’s argument, this proviso is met. For\nwhile Boyd concludes that the background theories on which scientific\nmethodology relies are approximately true on the basis of an abductive\nstep, the use of abduction itself does not guarantee the truth of his\nconclusion. After all, granting the use of abduction does nothing to\nensure that the best explanation of the success of scientific\nmethodology is the approximate truth of the relevant background\ntheories. Thus, Psillos concludes, Boyd’s argument still\nstands.",
"\nEven if the use of abduction in Boyd’s argument might have led\nto the conclusion that abduction is not reliable, one may\nstill have worries about the argument’s being rule-circular. For\nsuppose that some scientific community relied not on abduction but on\na rule that we may dub “Inference to the Worst\nExplanation” (IWE), a rule that sanctions inferring to the\nworst explanation of the available data. We may safely assume\nthat the use of this rule mostly would lead to the adoption of very\nunsuccessful theories. Nevertheless, the said community might justify\nits use of IWE by dint of the following reasoning: “Scientific\ntheories tend to be hugely unsuccessful. These theories were arrived\nat by application of IWE. That IWE is a reliable rule of\ninference—that is, a rule of inference mostly leading from true\npremises to true conclusions—is surely the worst explanation of\nthe fact that our theories are so unsuccessful. Hence, by application\nof IWE, we may conclude that IWE is a reliable rule of\ninference.” While this would be an utterly absurd conclusion,\nthe argument leading up to it cannot be convicted of being viciously\ncircular anymore than Boyd’s argument for the reliability of\nabduction can (if Psillos is right). It would appear, then, that there\nmust be something else amiss with rule-circularity.",
"\nIt is fair to note that for Psillos, the fact that a rule-circular\nargument does not guarantee a positive conclusion about the rule at\nissue is not sufficient for such an argument to be valid. A further\nnecessary condition is “that one should not have reason to doubt\nthe reliability of the rule—that there is nothing currently\navailable which can make one distrust the rule” (Psillos 1999,\n85). And there is plenty of reason to doubt the reliability of IWE; in\nfact, the above argument supposes that it is unreliable. Two\nquestions arise, however. First, why should we accept the additional\ncondition? Second, do we really have no reason to doubt the\nreliability of abduction? Certainly some of the abductive\ninferences we make lead us to accept falsehoods. How many\nfalsehoods may we accept on the basis of abduction before we can\nlegitimately begin to distrust this rule? No clear answers have been\ngiven to these questions.",
"\nBe this as it may, even if rule-circularity is neither vicious nor\notherwise problematic, one may still wonder how Boyd’s argument\nis to convert a critic of abduction, given that it relies on\nabduction. But Psillos makes it clear that the point of philosophical\nargumentation is not always, and in any case need not be, to convince\nan opponent of one’s position. Sometimes the point is, more\nmodestly, to assure or reassure oneself that the position one\nendorses, or is tempted to endorse, is correct. In the case at hand,\nwe need not think of Boyd’s argument as an attempt to convince\nthe opponent of abduction of its reliability. Rather, it may be\nthought of as justifying the rule from within the perspective of\nsomeone who is already sympathetic towards abduction; see Psillos 1999\n(89).",
"\nThere have also been attempts to argue for abduction in a more\nstraightforward fashion, to wit, via enumerative induction. The common\nidea of these attempts is that every newly recorded successful\napplication of abduction—like the discovery of Neptune, whose\nexistence had been postulated on explanatory grounds (see Section\n1.2)—adds further support to the hypothesis that abduction is a\nreliable rule of inference, in the way in which every newly observed\nblack raven adds some support to the hypothesis that all ravens are\nblack. Because it does not involve abductive reasoning, this type of\nargument is more likely to also appeal to disbelievers in abduction.\nSee Harré 1986, 1988, Bird 1998 (160), Kitcher 2001, and Douven\n2002 for suggestions along these lines."
],
"subsection_title": "3.2 Defenses"
}
]
},
{
"main_content": [
"\nIn the past decade, Bayesian confirmation theory has firmly\nestablished itself as the dominant view on confirmation; currently one\ncannot very well discuss a confirmation-theoretic issue without making\nclear whether, and if so why, one’s position on that issue\ndeviates from standard Bayesian thinking. Abduction, in whichever\nversion, assigns a confirmation-theoretic role to explanation:\nexplanatory considerations contribute to making some hypotheses more\ncredible, and others less so. By contrast, Bayesian confirmation\ntheory makes no reference at all to the concept of explanation. Does\nthis imply that abduction is at loggerheads with the prevailing\ndoctrine in confirmation theory? Several authors have recently argued\nthat not only is abduction compatible with Bayesianism, it is a\nmuch-needed supplement to it. The so far fullest defense of this view\nhas been given by Lipton (2004, Ch. 7); as he puts it, Bayesians\nshould also be “explanationists” (his name for the\nadvocates of abduction). (For other defenses, see Okasha 2000, McGrew\n2003, Weisberg 2009, and Poston 2014, Ch. 7; for discussion, see Roche\nand Sober 2013, 2014, and McCain and Poston 2014.)",
"\nThis requires some clarification. For what could it mean for a\nBayesian to be an explanationist? In order to apply Bayes’ rule\nand determine the probability for H after learning E,\nthe Bayesian agent will have to determine the probability of H\nconditional on E. For that, he needs to assign unconditional\nprobabilities to H and E as well as a probability to\nE given H; the former two are mostly called “prior\nprobabilities” (or just “priors”) of, respectively,\nH and E, the latter the “likelihood” of\nH on E. (This is the official Bayesian story. Not all of\nthose who sympathize with Bayesianism adhere to that story. For\ninstance, according to some it is more reasonable to think that\nconditional probabilities are basic and that we derive unconditional\nprobabilities from them; see Hájek 2003, and references\ntherein.) How is the Bayesian to determine these values? As is well\nknown, probability theory gives us more probabilities once we have\nsome; it does not give us probabilities from scratch. Of course, when\nH implies E or the negation of E, or when\nH is a statistical hypothesis that bestows a certain chance on\nE, then the likelihood follows “analytically.”\n(This claim assumes some version of Lewis’ (1980) Principal\nPrinciple, and it is controversial whether or not this principle is\nanalytic; hence the scare quotes.) But this is not always the case,\nand even if it were, there would still be the question of how to\ndetermine the priors. This is where, according to Lipton, abduction\ncomes in. In his proposal, Bayesians ought to determine their prior\nprobabilities and, if applicable, likelihoods on the basis of\nexplanatory considerations.",
"\nExactly how are explanatory considerations to guide one’s choice\nof priors? The answer to this question is not as simple as one might\nat first think. Suppose you are considering what priors to assign to a\ncollection of rival hypotheses and you wish to follow Lipton’s\nsuggestion. How are you to do this? An obvious—though still\nsomewhat vague—answer may seem to go like this: Whatever exact\npriors you are going to assign, you should assign a higher one to the\nhypothesis that explains the available data best than to any of its\nrivals (provided there is a best explanation). Note, though, that your\nneighbor, who is a Bayesian but thinks confirmation has nothing to do\nwith explanation, may well assign a prior to the best explanation that\nis even higher than the one you assign to that hypothesis. In fact,\nhis priors for best explanations may even be consistently higher than\nyours, not because in his view explanation is somehow related to\nconfirmation—it is not, he thinks—but, well, just because.\nIn this context, “just because” is a perfectly legitimate\nreason, because any reason for fixing one’s priors counts as\nlegitimate by Bayesian standards. According to mainstream Bayesian\nepistemology, priors (and sometimes likelihoods) are up for grabs,\nmeaning that one assignment of priors is as good as another, provided\nboth are coherent (that is, they obey the axioms of probability\ntheory). Lipton’s recommendation to the Bayesian to be an\nexplanationist is meant to be entirely general. But what should your\nneighbor do differently if he wants to follow the recommendation?\nShould he give the same prior to any best explanation that you, his\nexplanationist neighbor, give to it, that is, lower his\npriors for best explanations? Or rather should he give even\nhigher priors to best explanations than those he already\ngives?",
"\nPerhaps Lipton’s proposal is not intended to address those who\nalready assign highest priors to best explanations, even if they do so\non grounds that have nothing to do with explanation. The idea might be\nthat, as long as one does assign highest priors to those hypotheses,\neverything is fine, or at least finer than if one does not do so,\nregardless of one’s reasons for assigning those priors. The\nanswer to the question of how explanatory considerations are to guide\none’s choice of priors would then presumably be that one ought\nto assign a higher prior to the best explanation than to its rivals,\nif this is not what one already does. If it is, one should just keep\ndoing what one is doing.",
"\n(As an aside, it should be noticed that, according to standard\nBayesian usage, the term “priors” does not necessarily\nrefer to the degrees of belief a person assigns before the receipt of\nany data. If there are already data in, then, clearly, one\nmay assign higher priors to hypotheses that best explain the\nthen-available data. However, one can sensibly speak of “best\nexplanations” even before any data are known. For example, one\nhypothesis may be judged to be a better explanation than any of its\nrivals because the former requires less complicated mathematics, or\nbecause it is stated in terms of familiar concepts only, which is not\ntrue of the others. More generally, such judgments may be based on\nwhat Kosso (1992, 30) calls internal features of hypotheses\nor theories, that is, features that “can be evaluated without\nhaving to observe the world.”)",
"\nA more interesting answer to the above question of how explanation is\nto guide one’s choice of priors has been given by Jonathan\nWeisberg (2009). We said that mainstream Bayesians regard one\nassignment of prior probabilities as being as good as any other.\nSo-called objective Bayesians do not do so, however. These Bayesians\nthink priors must obey principles beyond the probability axioms in\norder to be admissible. Objective Bayesians are divided among\nthemselves over exactly which further principles are to be obeyed, but\nat least for a while they agreed that the Principle of Indifference is\namong them. Roughly stated, this principle counsels that, absent a\nreason to the contrary, we give equal priors to competing hypotheses.\nAs is well known, however, in its original form the Principle of\nIndifference may lead to inconsistent assignments of probabilities and\nso can hardly be advertised as a principle of rationality. The problem\nis that there are typically various ways to partition logical space\nthat appear plausible given the problem at hand, and that not all of\nthem lead to the same prior probability assignment, even assuming the\nPrinciple of Indifference. Weisberg’s proposal amounts to the\nclaim that explanatory considerations may favor some of those\npartitions over others. Perhaps we will not always end up with a\nunique partition to which the Principle of Indifference is to be\napplied, but it would already be progress if we ended up with only a\nhandful of partitions. For we could then still arrive in a motivated\nway at our prior probabilities, by proceeding in two steps, namely, by\nfirst applying the Principle of Indifference to the partitions\nseparately, thereby possibly obtaining different assignments of\npriors, and by then taking a weighted average of the thus obtained\npriors, where the weights, too, are to depend on explanatory\nconsiderations. The result would again be a probability\nfunction—the uniquely correct prior probability function,\naccording to Weisberg.",
"\nThe proposal is intriguing as far as it goes but, as Weisberg admits,\nin its current form, it does not go very far. For one thing, it is\nunclear how exactly explanatory considerations are to determine the\nweights required for the second step of the proposal. For another, it\nmay be idle to hope that taking explanatory considerations into\naccount will in general leave us with a manageable set of partitions,\nor that, even if it does, this will not be due merely to the fact that\nwe are overlooking a great many prima facie plausible ways of\npartitioning logical space to begin with. (The latter point echoes the\nargument of the bad lot, of course.)",
"\nAnother suggestion about the connection between abduction and Bayesian\nreasoning—to be found in Okasha 2000, McGrew 2003, Lipton 2004\n(Ch. 7), and Dellsén 2018—is that the explanatory\nconsiderations may serve as a heuristic to determine, even if only\nroughly, priors and likelihoods in cases in which we would otherwise\nbe clueless and could do no better than guessing. This suggestion is\nsensitive to the well-recognized fact that we are not always able to\nassign a prior to every hypothesis of interest, or to say how probable\na given piece of evidence is conditional on a given hypothesis.\nConsideration of that hypothesis’ explanatory power might then\nhelp us to figure out, if perhaps only within certain bounds, what\nprior to assign to it, or what likelihood to assign to it on the given\nevidence.",
"\nBayesians, especially the more modest ones, might want to retort that\nthe Bayesian procedure is to be followed if, and only if, either (a)\npriors and likelihoods can be determined with some precision and\nobjectivity, or (b) likelihoods can be determined with some precision\nand priors can be expected to “wash out” as more and more\nevidence accumulates, or (c) priors and likelihoods can both be\nexpected to wash out. In the remaining cases—they might\nsay—we should simply refrain from applying Bayesian reasoning. A\nfortiori, then, there is no need for an abduction-enhanced Bayesianism\nin these cases. And some incontrovertible mathematical results\nindicate that, in the cases that fall under (a), (b), or (c), our\nprobabilities will converge to the truth anyhow. Consequently, in\nthose cases there is no need for the kind of abductive heuristics that\nthe above-mentioned authors suggest, either. (Weisberg 2009, Sect.\n3.2, raises similar concerns.)",
"\nPsillos (2000) proposes yet another way in which abduction might\nsupplement Bayesian confirmation theory, one that is very much in the\nspirit of Peirce’s conception of abduction. The idea is that\nabduction may assist us in selecting plausible candidates for testing,\nwhere the actual testing then is to follow Bayesian lines. However,\nPsillos concedes (2004) that this proposal assigns a role to abduction\nthat will strike committed explanationists as being too limited.",
"\nFinally, a possibility that has so far not been considered in the\nliterature is that abduction and Bayesianism do not so much work in\ntandem—as they do on the above proposals—as operate in\ndifferent modes of reasoning; the Bayesian and the explanationist are\ncharacters that feature in different plays, so to speak. It is widely\naccepted that sometimes we speak and think about our beliefs in a\ncategorical manner, while at other times we speak and think about them\nin a graded way. It is far from clear how these different ways of\nspeaking and thinking about beliefs—the epistemology of belief\nand the epistemology of degrees of belief, to use Richard\nFoley’s (1992) terminology—are related to one another. In\nfact, it is an open question whether there is any straightforward\nconnection between the two, or even whether there is a connection at\nall. Be that as it may, given that the distinction is undeniable, it\nis a plausible suggestion that, just as there are different ways of\ntalking and thinking about beliefs, there are different ways of\ntalking and thinking about the revision of beliefs. In\nparticular, abduction could well have its home in the epistemology of\nbelief, and be called upon whenever we reason about our beliefs in a\ncategorical mode, while at the same time Bayes’ rule could have\nits home in the epistemology of degrees of belief. Hard-nosed\nBayesians may insist that whatever reasoning goes on in the\ncategorical mode must eventually be justifiable in Bayesian terms, but\nthis presupposes the existence of bridge principles connecting the\nepistemology of belief with the epistemology of degrees of\nbelief—and, as mentioned, whether such principles exist is\npresently unclear."
],
"section_title": "4. Abduction versus Bayesian Confirmation Theory",
"subsections": []
}
] | [
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abelard | Peter Abelard | First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022 | [
"\nPeter Abelard (1079–21 April 1142) [‘Abailard’ or\n‘Abaelard’ or ‘Habalaarz’ and so on] was the\npre-eminent philosopher and theologian of the twelfth century. The\nteacher of his generation, he was also famous as a poet and a\nmusician. Prior to the recovery of Aristotle, he brought the native\nLatin tradition in philosophy to its highest pitch. His genius was\nevident in all he did. He is, arguably, the greatest logician of the\nMiddle Ages and is equally famous as the first great nominalist\nphilosopher. He championed the use of reason in matters of faith (he\nwas the first to use ‘theology’ in its modern sense), and\nhis systematic treatment of religious doctrines are as remarkable for\ntheir philosophical penetration and subtlety as they are for their\naudacity. Abelard seemed larger than life to his contemporaries: his\nquick wit, sharp tongue, perfect memory, and boundless arrogance made\nhim unbeatable in debate—he was said by supporter and detractor\nalike never to have lost an argument—and the force of his\npersonality impressed itself vividly on all with whom he came into\ncontact. His luckless affair with Héloïse made him a\ntragic figure of romance, and his conflict with Bernard of Clairvaux\nover reason and religion made him the hero of the Enlightenment. For\nall his colourful life, though, his philosophical achievements are the\ncornerstone of his fame."
] | [
{
"content_title": "1. Life and Works",
"sub_toc": [
"1.1 Life",
"1.2 Works"
]
},
{
"content_title": "2. Metaphysics",
"sub_toc": []
},
{
"content_title": "3. Logic",
"sub_toc": []
},
{
"content_title": "4. Philosophy of Language",
"sub_toc": []
},
{
"content_title": "5. Philosophy of Mind",
"sub_toc": []
},
{
"content_title": "6. Ethics",
"sub_toc": []
},
{
"content_title": "7. Theology",
"sub_toc": []
},
{
"content_title": "Bibliography",
"sub_toc": [
"Primary texts in Latin",
"Primary texts in English translation",
"Selected Secondary Literature in English"
]
},
{
"content_title": "Academic Tools",
"sub_toc": []
},
{
"content_title": "Other Internet Resources",
"sub_toc": []
},
{
"content_title": "Related Entries",
"sub_toc": []
}
] | [
{
"main_content": [],
"section_title": "1. Life and Works",
"subsections": [
{
"content": [
"\nAbelard’s life is relatively well-known. In addition to events\nchronicled in the public record, his inner life is revealed in his\nautobiographical letter Historia calamitatum [“The\nStory of My Troubles”] and in his famous correspondence with\nHéloïse.",
"\nAbelard was born into the lesser nobility around 1079 in Le Pallet, a\nsmall town in Brittany near Nantes. He received early training in\nletters, and took to his studies with enthusiasm; his later writings\nshow familiarity with Cicero, Horace, Juvenal, Ovid, Lucan, Seneca,\nand Vergil. Abelard eventually renounced his inheritance, including\nits attendant knighthood, to pursue philosophy. He did so by\ntravelling to study with well-known philosophers, most notably\nRoscelin and William of Champeaux.",
"\nDuring the first years of the twelfth century, Abelard felt confident\nenough to set himself up as a lecturer, first at Melun and then at\nCorbeil, competing mainly with William of Champeaux (Paris) for\nstudents and reputation. The strain proved too\nmuch—Abelard’s health failed, and he returned to Brittany\nfor several years.",
"\nAbelard returned to Paris sometime between 1108 and 1113 with his\nhealth restored and his ambition intact. He attended William of\nChampeaux’s lectures, and entered into debate with William over\nthe problem of universals. According to Abelard’s report, he\nbested his teacher in debate, and gained his reputation as a\ndialectician of note, teaching at several schools. Around 1113 Abelard\ndecided to study theology; he sought out the most eminent teacher of\ntheology of his day, Anselm of Laon (not to be confused with Anselm of\nCanterbury), and became his student. It was not a good choice:\nAnselm’s traditional methods did not appeal to Abelard, and,\nafter some back-and-forth, Abelard returned to Paris to continue on\nhis own. It would be the last time he studied with anyone.",
"\nUpon returning to Paris, Abelard became scholar-in-residence at Notre\nDame, a position he held until his romantic entanglement with\nHéloïse led to his castration, at which point he entered\nthe Benedictine monastery of Saint Denis and Héloïse\nentered the convent of Argenteuil. After his recovery, Abelard resumed\nteaching at a nearby priory, primarily on theology and in particular\non the Trinity. His method of philosophical analysis was seen as a\ndirect challenge to more traditional approaches, and a synod, convened\nin Soissons to examine Abelard’s writings, condemned them and\nrequired Abelard to make a public avowal of faith, an experience he\nfound humiliating; shortly afterwards he was allowed to settle in a\nwild and uninhabited section of land, to devote himself to\ncontemplation.",
"\nIt was not to be. Abelard says that poverty forced him to resume\nteaching. He and the students who flocked to him in droves constructed\nan oratory named the Paraclete, where he continued to write, teach,\nand research. This idyll came to an end around 1126, when Abelard\naccepted an invitation to become abbot of the monastery of Saint\nGildas de Rhuys in Brittany; shortly afterwards he handed over the\nParaclete to Héloïse and the other nuns, whose convent had\nbeen expropriated. Abelard found the monks of Saint Gildas difficult\nand obstructive—even dangerous—and he claims that there\nwere several attempts on his life while in residence. During this\nperiod he wrote the Historia calamitatum and corresponded\nwith Héloïse.",
"\nBy the mid-1130s Abelard was given permission to return to Paris\n(retaining his rank as abbot) and to teach in the schools on the Mont\nSte.-Genevieve. It was during this time that his theological treatises\nwere brought to the attention of Bernard of Clairvaux, who objected to\nsome of Abelard’s conclusions as well as to his approach to\nmatters of faith. After some inconclusive attempts to resolve their\ndifferences, Abelard asked the archbishop of Sens to arrange a public\ndispute between himself and Bernard on 3 June 1140, to settle their\ndisagreements. Bernard initially refused the invitation on the grounds\nthat one should not debate matters of faith, but then accepted it and,\nunknown to Abelard, arranged to convene another commission of enquiry\nto review Abelard’s works on suspicion of heresy. When Abelard\ndiscovered that there was no debate but instead a kangaroo court, he\nrefused to take part, announcing his intention to appeal to the Pope\ndirectly. He walked out of the proceedings and began travelling to\nRome. The Council condemned nineteen propositions it claimed to find\nin his works and adjourned. Bernard launched a successful campaign\npetitioning the Papal Court before Abelard was out of France; a letter\nfrom the Pope upholding the decision of the Council of Soissons\nreached Abelard while he was at Cluny; Abelard was ordered to silence.\nBy all accounts Abelard complied immediately, even meeting peacefully\nwith Bernard in reconciliation. Peter the Venerable, the abbot of\nCluny, wrote to the Pope about these matters, and the Pope lifted\nAbelard’s sentence. Abelard remained under the protection of\nPeter the Venerable first at Cluny, then at St. Marcel, as his health\ngradually deteriorated. Abelard died on 21 April 1142. His body was\ninterred at the Paraclete, and today is (with Héloïse) in\nPère Lachaise cemetery in Paris.",
"\nAbelard’s students were active as kings, philosophers, poets,\npoliticians, theologians, and monks; they include three popes and\nseveral heads of state. Explicit references to Abelard’s\nthinking in the later Middle Ages are few, likely because of the cloud\ncast by the verdict of the Council of Soissons, but it is clear that\nhe had a seminal influence on twelfth-century philosophy and perhaps\non later fourteenth-century speculation as well."
],
"subsection_title": "1.1 Life"
},
{
"content": [
"\nThe dates of composition and even the number of Abelard’s\nwritings remain largely obscure and a matter of controversy among\nscholars. One reason for this is that Abelard constantly revised and\nrewrote, so that several distinct versions of a given work might be in\ncirculation; another reason is that several of his writings might\nrepresent ‘teaching notes’ constantly evolving in courses\nand seminars. Hence it is not clear that ‘date of\ncomposition’ is a well-defined notion when applied to the body\nof Abelard’s work that we now possess. Apart from\nAbelard’s correspondence, which can be dated with relative\nprecision, Abelard’s extant work falls into three\ncategories.",
"\nThe first category consists of Abelard’s works on\ndialectic—works concerned with logic, philosophy of\nlanguage, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. His two masterworks\nare:",
"\nBoth of these works follow the pattern of the logica vetus,\nthe “old logic” inherited from antiquity: Porphyry’s\nintroduction to Aristotle, the Isagoge; Aristotle’s\nCategories and On Interpretation; Boethius’s\nIntroduction to the Categorical Syllogism, Categorical\nSyllogisms, Hypothetical Syllogisms, On Topical\nDifference, and On Division. Abelard’s works cover\nthe material presented in the old logic, though they do so in\ndifferent ways. His Logica\n‘ingredientibus’ is a close textual commentary on\nthe old logic, though only some of it survives, namely the\ncommentaries on the Isagoge, the Categories, On\nInterpretation, and On Topical Differences; his\nDialectica is an independent treatise on dialectic that\ntreats the same material thematically, though neither the beginning\n(covering the Isagoge and the start of the\nCategories) nor the ending (on division and definition) have\nbeen preserved. In addition, there are four lesser works on\ndialectic:",
"\nThe first of these is a series of elementary commentaries on the old\nlogic (though again not completely preserved); their simple level has\nled some scholars to think they must come from early in\nAbelard’s career, others to deny that they are Abelard’s\nwork at all. Second, the Logica ‘nostrorum\npetitioni sociorum’ is something of a work-in-progress: it\nassumes knowledge of Abelard’s earlier Logica\n‘ingredientibus’ and discusses advanced points\nnot dealt with there, but for long stretches it is also a\nstraightforward paraphrase of or commentary on Porphyry’s\nIsagoge; it has textual parallels with some of\nAbelard’s other works and shows some knowledge of theology. The\nthird work deals with concepts, or ‘understandings’, from\nboth the point of view of logic (roughly as providing the meanings of\nterms) and from the point of view of the philosophy of mind (as\nvehicles for mental content). The last work may be no more than a\nreport of some of Abelard’s lectures, and is concerned with\nlogical and metaphysical puzzles about wholes and parts.",
"\nThe second category consists of Abelard’s works on ethics:",
"\nThe Ethics offers an analysis of moral worth and the degree\nof praise or blame that should attach to agents and their actions; it\nbreaks off at the beginning of the second book. The\nConversations is a pair of debates (among characters who\nappear to Abelard in a dream) over the nature of happiness and the\nsupreme good: the Philosopher, who claims to follow only natural\nreason, first debates with the Jew, who follows the Old Law; the\nPhilosopher then debates the Christian, who defends Christian ethics\nfrom a philosophical point of view. Abelard also wrote a slight work\nof practical advice for his son:",
"\nMoral advice and edifying sentiments are found in this series of\ndistichs.",
"\nThe third category consists of Abelard’s works of philosophical\ntheology. His three main works are devoted to a philosophical analysis\nof the Trinity, the several versions representing successive stages of\nhis thought and his attempts at orthodoxy (each rewritten several\ntimes):",
"\nThe first version of the Theology seems to have been the work\ncondemned at the Council of Soisssons, the last the work condemned at\nthe Council of Sens. In addition to these three works, in which\nproblems in philosophical theology are treated thematically, Abelard\nalso wrote several commentaries:",
"\nThe first three commentaries are brief, but Abelard’s\ndiscussions of the first verses of Genesis and of\nPaul’s letter are extensive and detailed (the latter also\nrelevant to Abelard’s ethical theory). Abelard also took up\nquestions about faith and reason in a short work:",
"\nThis brief inner dialogue, modelled on Augustine’s\nSoliloquies, has “Peter” talking things over with\n“Abelard.” Theological questions of a more practical\nnature were raised by Héloïse in a series of questions she\nasked on her behalf and on behalf of the nuns of the Paraclete:",
"\nPractical issues are also addressed in Abelard’s sermons, hymns,\nand lamentations (planctus). Finally, Abelard composed an\nextremely influential theological work that contains no theoretical\nspeculation at all:",
"\nAbelard assembles a series of 158 questions, each of which is\nfurnished with patristic citations that imply a positive answer\n(sic) to the question and other patristic citations implying\na negative answer (non). Abelard does not attempt to\nharmonize these apparently inconsistent remarks, but in his preface he\nlays down rules for proper hermeneutic investigation: look for\nambiguity, check the surrounding context, draw relevant distinctions,\nand the like.",
"\nAbelard’s students and disciples also record many of his views,\nthough this material has yet to be explored carefully. There are\nreferences in Abelard’s extant works to other works we do not\nhave: Grammatica, “Grammar”; Rhetorica,\n“Rhetoric”; a commentary on Ezekiel written at\nthe beginning of his studies in theology; and others. It is possible\nsome of these works may yet be found."
],
"subsection_title": "1.2 Works"
}
]
},
{
"main_content": [
"\nAbelard’s metaphysics is the first great example of nominalism\nin the Western tradition. While his view that universals are mere\nwords (nomina) justifies the label, nominalism—or,\nbetter, irrealism—is the hallmark of Abelard’s entire\nmetaphysics. He is an irrealist not only about universals, but also\nabout propositions, events, times other than the present, natural\nkinds, relations, wholes, absolute space, hylomorphic composites, and\nthe like. Instead, Abelard holds that the concrete individual, in all\nits richness and variety, is more than enough to populate the world.\nAbelard preferred reductive, atomist, and material explanations\nwhenever possible; he devoted a great deal of effort to pouring cold\nwater on the metaphysical excesses of his predecessors and\ncontemporaries.",
"\nAbelard defends his thesis that universals are nothing but words by\narguing that ontological realism about universals is incoherent. More\nexactly, he holds that there cannot be any real object in the world\nsatisfying Boethius’s criteria for the universal, namely\nsomething present as a whole in many at once so as to constitute their\nsubstance (i.e. to make the individual in which it is present what it\nis). Hence, Abelard concludes, universality is not an ontological\nfeature of the world but a semantic feature of language.",
"\nSuppose universals were things in the world, so that one and the same\nitem is completely present in both Socrates and an ass at the same\ntime, making each to be wholly an animal. Abelard points out that then\nthe same thing, animal, will be simultaneously rational (due\nto its role in constituting the species human being) and\nirrational (due to its role in constituting the species ass).\nBut then contraries are simultaneously present in the same thing as a\nwhole, which is impossible.",
"\nTo the rejoinder that rationality and irrationality are not actually\npresent in the same thing, Abelard offers a twofold reply. First, he\nrejects the claim that they are present only potentially. Each species\nis actually informed by a contrary, and the genus is actually present\nin each as a whole; hence it is actually informed by one contrary in\none species and by the other in the other; since it is wholly one and\nthe same in each, it is therefore actually informed by contraries, and\nthe contradiction results. Second, Abelard undertakes to establish\nthat contraries will be present not merely in the genus but even in\nthe selfsame individual. For Socrates is (an) animal, and so is\nBrunellus the Ass; but by transitivity—since each is wholly and\ncompletely animal—Socrates is Brunellus, and hence both\nrational and irrational. Put a different way, each is essentially an\nanimal, and furthermore essentially rational and essentially\nirrational.",
"\nIf we object to this last piece of reasoning, on the grounds that\nindividuals are unique in virtue of their non-essential features,\nAbelard replies that this view “makes accidents prior to\nsubstance.” That is, the objection claims that individual things\nare individual in virtue of features that contingently characterize\nthem, which confuses things with their features.",
"\nProspects are no better for realism if the universal is identified not\nwith a single thing but with a collection of things. Abelard points\nout that collections are posterior to their parts, and, furthermore,\nthe collection is not shared among its parts in the way a universal is\nsaid to be common to many. Nor does it help to try to identify the\nuniversal with the individual in some fashion, for example in claiming\nthat Socrates qua human is taken as the universal human\nbeing; Abelard argues that if the universal really is the\nindividual, then we are stuck with the consequence that either\nindividuals such as Socrates are common to many, or there are as many\nuniversals as there are individuals, each of which is absurd.",
"\nAbelard concludes that universality is merely linguistic, not a\nfeature of the world. More precisely, Abelard holds that common nouns\n(such as ‘animal’), verbs, and negative names (such as\n‘not-Socrates’) are correctly predicable of many, and so\ncount as universals. These terms are semantically general, in that\ntheir sense applies to more than one thing, but they do not thereby\nname some general thing; instead, they distributively refer to each of\nthe individuals to which the term applies. For example, the term\n‘animal’ has the sense living substance, which is\ninherently general, and it refers to each individual animal since each\nis a living substance—as Abelard puts it, since each has the\nstatus of being a living substance. But this is to leave the domain of\nmetaphysics for semantics; see the discussion of Abelard‘s\nphilosophy of language in\n Section 4.",
"\nAbelard maintains that everything in the world apart from God and\nangels is either form, matter, or a composite of form and matter. The\nmatter of something is that out of which it is made, whether it\npersists in the finished product (as bricks in a house) or is absorbed\ninto it (as flour in bread). Ultimately, all material objects are\ncomposed of the four elements earth, air, fire, and water, but they do\nnot retain their elemental forms in most combinations. In general, the\nform of a material object just is the configuration of its material\nparts: “We call the form strictly what comes from the\ncomposition of the parts.” The form of a statue, for example, is\nits shape, which is no more than the arrangement of its\nmatter—the curve of the nose, the size of the eyes, and so on.\nForms are therefore supervenient on matter, and have no\nontological standing independent of it. This is not to deny that forms\nexist, but to provide a particular explanation of what it is for a\nform to inhere in a given subject, namely for that subject to have its\nmatter configured in a certain way. For example, the inherence of\nshape in the statue just is the way in which its bronze is arranged.\nHence material things are identical with what they are made\nof—with one exception: human beings, whose forms are their\nimmaterial (and immortal) souls. Strictly speaking, since human souls\nare capable of existence in separation form the body, they are not\nforms after all, though they act as substantial forms as long as they\nare joined to the body.",
"\nMaterial composites of form and matter, humans excepted, are integral\nwholes made up of their discrete material parts as configured in a\ngiven way. Abelard countenances many types of integral wholes:\ncollections, no matter how their members are selected; structured\ncomposites, whether naturally unified (such as Socrates and his limbs)\nor artificially unified (such as the walls, floor, and roof of a\nhouse); continuous quantities that are homogeneous material\n‘substances,’ namely stuffs, such as water or gold;\ngeometrical objects, such as lines, defined by the relative position\nof their parts; temporal wholes, such as a day and the hours that make\nit up. Most of these wholes are ontologically nothing beyond their\nmaterial parts. Whether structured composites have any independent\nontological standing depends on the status of their organizing\nforms.",
"\nAbelard’s theory of substantial integral wholes is not a pure\nmereology in the modern sense, since he holds that there are\nprivileged divisions: just as a genus is properly divided into not\njust any species but its proximate species, so too the division of a\nwhole must be into its principal parts. Intuitively, some wholes have\na natural division that takes precedence over others; a sentence, for\nexample, is divided into words, syllables, and letters, in precisely\nthat order. According to Abelard, the principal parts of a whole are\nthose whose conjunction immediately results in the complete whole. His\nintent seems to be that the nature of the composition (if any) that\ndefines the integral whole also spells out its principal parts. A\nhouse consists of floor, walls, and roof put together in the right\nway. It is an open question whether each principal part (such as the\nwall) requires the existence of all of its subparts (every brick). The\nprincipal parts of a collection, for example, are just each of the\nmembers of the collection, whatever may be the case with any given\nmember’s subparts; the principal parts of an aggregation are the\nmembers located in proximity to one another.",
"\nIndividuals have natures, and in virtue of their natures they belong\nto determinate natural kinds. But an individual’s nature is not\nsomething really shared with or common to other individuals;\nAbelard’s refutation of realism has shown that this is\nimpossible. Instead, Abelard takes a natural kind to be a well-defined\ncollection of things that have the same features, broadly speaking,\nthat make them what they are. Why a given thing has some features\nrather than others is explained by how it got that way—the\nnatural processes that created it result in its having the features it\ndoes, namely being the kind of thing it is; similar processes lead to\nsimilar results. On this reading, it is clear that natural kinds have\nno special status; they are no more than discrete integral wholes\nwhose principle of membership is similarity, merely reflecting the\nfact that the world is divided into discrete similarity-classes of\nobjects. Furthermore, such real relations of similarity are nothing\nthemselves above and beyond the things that are similar. The division\ninto natural kinds is, presumably, a ‘shallow fact’ about\nthe world: matters could have been otherwise had God ordained them\ndifferently; fire might be cold, heavy bodies fall upwards, frogs\nreason. If these causal powers were different, then natural kinds\nmight be different as well, or might not have been as sharply\ndifferentiated as they are now. Given how matters stand, natural kinds\ncarve the world at its joints, but they are the joints chosen by\nGod."
],
"section_title": "2. Metaphysics",
"subsections": []
},
{
"main_content": [
"\nAbelard was the greatest logician since Antiquity: he devised a purely\ntruth-functional propositional logic, recognizing the distinction\nbetween force and content we associate with Frege,\nand worked out a complete theory of entailment as it functions in\nargument (which we now take as the theory of logical consequence). His\nlogical system is flawed in its handling of topical inference, but\nthat should not prevent our recognition of Abelard’s\nachievements.",
"\nAbelard observes that the same propositional content can be expressed\nwith different force in different contexts: the content that\nSocrates is in the house is expressed in an assertion in\n‘Socrates is in the house’; in a question in ‘Is\nSocrates in the house?’; in a wish in ‘If only Socrates\nwere in the house!’ and so on. Hence Abelard can distinguish in\nparticular the assertive force of a sentence from its propositional\ncontent, a distinction that allows him to point out that the component\nsentences in a conditional statement are not asserted, though they\nhave the same content they do when asserted—‘If Socrates\nis in the kitchen, then Socrates is in the house’ does not\nassert that Socrates is in the kitchen or that he is in the house, nor\ndo the antecedent or the consequent, although the same form of words\ncould be used outside the scope of the conditional to make such\nassertions. Likewise, the distinction allows Abelard to define\nnegation, and other propositional connectives, purely\ntruth-functionally in terms of content, so that negation, for\ninstance, is treated as follows: not-p is false/true if and\nonly if p is true/false.",
"\nThe key to the theory of argument, for Abelard, is found in\ninferentia, best rendered as ‘entailment’, since\nAbelard requires the connection between the propositions involved to\nbe both necessary and relevant. That is, the conclusion—more\nexactly, the sense of the final statement—is required by the\nsense of the preceding statement(s), so that it cannot be otherwise.\nAbelard often speaks of the sense of the final statement being\n“contained” in the sense of the preceding statement(s),\nmuch as we speak of the conclusion being contained in the premisses.\nAn entailment is complete (perfecta) when it holds in virtue\nof the logical form (complexio) of the propositions involved.\nBy this, Abelard tells us, he means that the entailment holds under\nany uniform substitution in its terms, the criterion now associated\nwith Bolzano. The traditional four figures and moods of the\ncategorical syllogism derived from Aristotle, and the doctrine of the\nhypothetical syllogism derived from Boethius, are all instances of\ncomplete entailments, or as we should say, valid inference.",
"\nThere is another way in which conclusions can be necessary and\nrelevant to their premisses, yet not be formally valid (not\nbe a complete entailment). The necessary connection among the\npropositions, and the link among their senses, might be a function of\nnon-formal metaphysical truths holding in all possible worlds. For\ninstance, human beings are a kind of animal, so the consequence\n‘If Socrates is a human being, Socrates is an animal’\nholds of necessity and the sense of the antecedent compels that of the\nconsequent, but it is not formally valid under uniform substitution.\nAbelard takes such incomplete entailments to hold according to the\ntheory of the topics (to be forms of so-called topical inference). The\nsample inference above is validated by the topic “from the\nspecies”, a set of metaphysical relations one of which is\nexpressible in the rule “Whatever the species is predicated of,\nso too is the genus” which grounds the inferential force of the\nentailment. Against Boethius, Abelard maintained that topical rules\nwere only needed for incomplete entailment, and in particular are not\nrequired to validate the classical moods of the categorical and\nhypothetical syllogism mentioned in the preceding paragraph.",
"\nAbelard spends a great deal of effort to explore the complexities of\nthe theory of topical inference, especially charting the precise\nrelations among conditional sentences, arguments, and what he calls\n“argumentation” (roughly what follows from conceded\npremisses). One of the surprising results of his investigation is that\nhe denies that a correlate of the Deduction Theorem holds, maintaining\nthat a valid argument need not correspond to an acceptable conditional\nsentence, nor conversely, since the requirements on arguments and\nconditionals differ.",
"\nIn the end, it seems that Abelard’s principles of topical\ninference do not work, a fact that became evident with regard to the\ntopic “from opposites”: Abelard’s principles lead to\ninconsistent results, a result noted by Alberic of Paris. This led to\na crisis in the theory of inference in the twelfth century, since\nAbelard unsuccessfully tried to evade the difficulty. These debates\nseem to have taken place in the later part of the 1130s, as Abelard\nwas about to become embroiled with Bernard of Clairvaux, and his\nattention was elsewhere."
],
"section_title": "3. Logic",
"subsections": []
},
{
"main_content": [
"\nMuch of Abelard’s philosophy of language is devoted to analyzing\nhow a given expression or class of expressions function logically:\nwhat words are quantifiers, which imply negation, and the like, so\nthat the logic described above may be applied. To do so, he relies on\nthe traditional division, derived from Aristotle, that sees the main\nlinguistic categories as name, verb, and their\ncombination into the sentence.",
"\nAbelard takes names to be conventionally significant simple words,\nusually without tense. So understood there are a wide variety of\nnames: proper and common names; adjectives and adverbs; pronouns,\nwhether personal, possessive, reflexive, or relative; conventional\ninterjections such as ‘Goodness!’; and, arguably,\nconjunctions and prepositions (despite lacking definite\nsignification), along with participles and gerundives (which have\ntense). Abelard usually, though not always, treats compound names such\nas ‘street-sweeper’ reductively. Even so his list is not\ngeneral enough to catalogue all referring expressions. In point of\nfact, much of Abelard’s discussion of the semantics of names\nturns on a particular case that stands for the rest: common names.\nThese are at the heart of the problem of universals, and they pose\nparticular difficulties for semantics.",
"\nWhen Abelard puts forward his claim that universality is only a\nlinguistic phenomenon, so that universals are “nothing more than\nwords,” he raises the objection that unless common names are the\nnames of common items, they will be meaningless, and so his view is no\nbetter than that of his teacher Roscelin (who held that universals\nwere mere mouth noises). In reply Abelard clearly draws a distinction\nbetween two semantic properties names possess: reference\n(nominatio), a matter of what the term applies to; and sense\n(significatio), a matter of what hearing the term brings to\nmind, or more exactly the informational content (doctrina) of\nthe concept the word is meant to give rise to, a causal notion. A few\nremarks about each are in order.",
"\nNames, both proper and common, refer to things individually or\nseverally. A name is linked with that of which it is the name as\nthough there were someone who devised the name to label a given thing\nor kind of thing, a process known as “imposition”\n(modelled on Adam’s naming the animals in Genesis 2:19), rather\nlike baptism. This rational reconstruction of reference does not\nrequire the person imposing the name, the “impositor”, to\nhave anything more than an indefinite intention to pick out the thing\nor kind of thing, whatever its nature may be:",
"\nThe inventor [of names] intended to impose them according to some\nnatures or distinctive properties of things, even if he himself did\nnot know how to think correctly upon the nature or distinctive\nproperty of a thing.\n",
"\nA name “has a definition in the nature of its imposition, even\nif we do not know what it is.” Put in modern terms, Abelard\nholds a theory of direct reference, in which the extension of\na term is not a function of its sense. We are often completely\nignorant of the proper conceptual content that should be associated\nwith a term that has been successfully imposed.",
"\nA proper name—the name of a primary substance—signifies a\nconcrete individual (hoc aliquid), picking out its bearer as\npersonally distinct from all else. Therefore, proper names are\nsemantically singular referring expressions, closely allied to\nindexicals, demonstratives, and singular descriptions (or descriptive\nterms). Common names, by contrast, are semantically allied with\nexpressions that have what Abelard calls “plural\nsignification”. On the one hand, common names are like plural\nnouns; the common name ‘man’ is grammatically singular but\noperates like the plural term ‘men’—each refers to\nevery man, although the plural term signifies individuals as part of a\ncollection, whereas the common name distributively refers to each\nindividual. On the other hand, common names are like terms such as\n‘trio’ or ‘pair’ in that they pick out a\ndeterminate plurality of individuals, but only on an occasion of use,\nsince their extension is variable.",
"\nThus a common name distributively refers to concrete individuals,\nthough not to them qua individuals. Instead, it severally\npicks out those individuals having a given nature: ‘human\nbeing’ refers to Socrates and to Plato, in virtue of each of\nthem being human. This is not a shared feature of any sort; Socrates\njust is what he is, namely human, and likewise Plato is what he is,\nnamely human too. Abelard states his deflationary position clearly in\nhis Logica ‘ingredientibus’:",
"\nNow it seems we should stay away from accepting the agreement among\nthings according to what is not any thing—it’s as though\nwe were to unite in nothing things that now exist!—namely, when\nwe say that this [human] and that one agree in the human status, that\nis to say: in that they are human. But we mean precisely that they are\nhuman and don’t differ in this regard—let me repeat: [they\ndon’t differ] in that they are human, although we’re not\nappealing to any thing [in this explanation].\n",
"\nSocrates and Plato are real; their agreement is real, too, but it\nisn’t to be explained by appealing to any thing—their\nagreement just is their each being human. From a metaphysical point of\nview they have the same standing as human beings; this does not\ninvolve any metaphysically common shared ingredient, or indeed appeal\nto any ingredient at all. That is the sense in which there is a\n“common reason” for the imposition of a common name. ",
"\nFor all that signification is posterior to reference, names do have\nsignification as well. Abelard holds that the signification of a term\nis the informational content of the concept that is associated with\nthe term upon hearing it, in the normal course of events. Since names\nare only conventionally significant, which concept is associated with\na given name depends in part on the psychological conditioning of\nlanguage-users, in virtue of which Abelard can treat signification as\nboth a causal and a normative notion: the word ‘rabbit’\nought to cause native speakers of English to have the concept of a\nrabbit upon hearing it. Abelard is careful to insist that the\nsignification is a matter of the informational content carried in the\nconcept—mere psychological associations, even the mental images\ncharacteristic of a given concept, are not part of what the word\nmeans. Ideally, the concept will correspond to a real\ndefinition that latches onto the nature of the thing, the way\n‘rational mortal animal’ is thought to be the real\ndefinition of ‘human being’, regardless of other\nassociated features (even necessary features such as risibility) or\nfortuitous images (as any mental image of a human will be of someone\nwith determinate features). Achieving such clarity in our concepts is,\nof course, an arduous business, and requires an understanding of how\nunderstanding itself works (see the discussion of Abelard’s\nphilosophy of mind in\n Section 5).\n Yet one point should be clear from the example. The significations of\nsome names, such as those corresponding to natural-kind terms, are\nabstractions in the sense that they include only certain features of\nthe things to which the term refers. They do not positively exclude\nall other features, though, and are capable of further determinate\nspecification: ‘rational mortal animal’ as the content of\nthe concept of ‘human being’ signifies all humans,\nwhatever their further features may be—tall or short, fat or\nthin, male or female, and so on.",
"\nWhat holds for the semantics of names applies for the most part to\nverbs. The feature that sets verbs apart from names, more so than\ntense or grammatical person, is that verbs have connective force\n(vis copulativa). This is a primitive and irreducible feature\nof verbs that can only be discharged when they are joined with names\nin the syntactically appropriate way, reminiscent of the\n‘unsaturatedness’ of concepts in Frege. Sentences are made\nup of names and verbs in such a way that the meaning of the whole\nsentence is a function of the meaning of its parts. That is,\nAbelardian semantics is fundamentally compositional in nature. The\ndetails of how the composition works are complex. Abelard works\ndirectly with a natural language (Latin) that, for all its\nartificiality, is still a native second tongue. Hence there are many\nlinguistic phenomena Abelard is compelled to analyze that would be\nsimply disallowed in a more formal framework.",
"\nFor example, Abelard notes that most verbs can occur as predicates in\ntwo ways, namely as a finite verbal form or as a nominal form combined\nwith an auxiliary copula, so that we may say either ‘Socrates\nruns’ or ‘Socrates is running’; the same holds for\ntransitive predication, for instance ‘Socrates hits Plato’\nand ‘Socrates is hitting Plato.’ Abelard argues that in\ngeneral the pure verbal version of predication is the fundamental\nform, which explains and clarifies the extended version; the latter is\nonly strictly necessary where simple verbal forms are lacking. (The\nsubstantive verb ‘is’ requires special treatment.) Hence\nfor Abelard the basic analysis of a predicative statement recognizes\nthat two fundamentally different linguistic categories are joined\ntogether: the name n and the simple verbal function\nV( ), combined in the well-formed sentence\nV(n).",
"\nAbelard argues that sentences (propositiones) must signify\nmore than just the understandings of the constituent name and verb.\nFirst, a sentence such as ‘Socrates runs’ deals with\nSocrates and with running, not with anyone’s understandings. We\ntalk about the world, not merely someone’s understanding of the\nworld. Second, sentences like ‘If something is human, it is an\nanimal’ are false if taken to be about understandings, for\nsomeone could entertain the concept human without\nentertaining the concept animal, and so the antecedent would\nobtain without the consequent. Third, understandings are evanescent\nparticulars, mere mental tokenings of concepts. But at least some\nconsequential sentences are necessary, and necessity can’t be\ngrounded on things that are transitory, and so not on understandings.\nSentences must therefore signify something else in addition to\nunderstandings, something that can do what mere understandings cannot.\nAbelard describes this as signifying what the sentence says, calling\nwhat is said by the sentence its dictum (plural\ndicta).",
"\nTo the modern philosophical ear, Abelard’s dicta might\nsound like propositions, abstract entities that are the timeless\nbearers of truth and falsity. But Abelard will have nothing to do with\nany such entities. He declares repeatedly and emphatically that\ndespite being more than and different from the sentences that express\nthem, dicta have no ontological standing whatsoever. In the\nshort space of a single paragraph he says that they are “no real\nthings at all” and twice calls them “absolutely\nnothing.” They underwrite sentences, but they aren’t real\nthings. For although a sentence says something, there is not some\nthing that it says. The semantic job of sentences is to say\nsomething, which is not to be confused with naming or denoting some\nthing. It is instead a matter of proposing how things are, provided\nthis is not given a realist reading. Likewise, the truth of true\nsentences is not a property inhering in some timeless entity, but no\nmore than the assertion of what the sentence says—that is,\nAbelard adopts a deflationary account of truth. A sentence is true if\nthings stand in the way it says, and things make sentences true or\nfalse in virtue of the way they are (as well as in virtue of what the\nsentences say), and nothing further is required. The sentence\n‘Socrates runs’ is true because Socrates runs, which is\nall that can be said or needs to be said."
],
"section_title": "4. Philosophy of Language",
"subsections": []
},
{
"main_content": [
"\nAristotelian philosophy of mind offers two analyses of intentionality:\nthe conformality theory holds that we think of an object by having its\nvery form in the mind, the resemblance theory that we do so by having\na mental image in the mind that naturally resembles the object.\nAbelard rejects each of these theories and proposes instead an\nadverbial theory of thought, showing that neither mental images nor\nmental contents need be countenanced as ontologically independent of\nthe mind. He gives a contextual explication of intentionality that\nrelies on a linguistic account of mental representation, adopting a\nprinciple of compositionality for understandings.",
"\nThe first Aristotelian analysis takes understanding to be the\nmind’s acquisition of the form of the object that is understood,\nwithout its matter. For an understanding to be about some\nthing—say, a cat—is for the form of the cat to be in the\nmind or intellective soul. The inherence of the form in matter makes\nthe matter to be a thing of a certain kind, so that the inherence of\nthe form cat in matter produces an actual cat, whereas the\n(immaterial) inherence of the form cat in the mind transforms\nthe mind into an understanding of a cat: the mind becomes (formally)\nidentical with its object. Since the ‘aboutness’ of\nunderstanding is analyzed as the commonness or identity of form in the\nunderstanding and the thing understood, we may call this approach the\nconformality theory of understanding. This theory captures\nthe intuition that understanding somehow inherits or includes\nproperties of what is understood, by reducing the intentionality of\nunderstanding to the objective identity of the form in the mind and\nthe form in the world.",
"\nThe second Aristotelian analysis takes understanding to be the\nmind’s possession of a concept that is a natural likeness of, or\nnaturally similar to, that of which it is a concept. For an\nunderstanding to be about some thing, such as a cat, is for there to\nbe an occurrent concept in the mind that is a natural likeness of a\ncat. The motivation for calling the likeness “natural” is\nto guarantee that the resemblance between the understanding and what\nis understood is objective, and that all persons have access to the\nsame stock of concepts. (The conformality theory does this by\npostulating the objective existence of forms in things and by an\nidentical process in all persons of assimilating or acquiring forms.)\nWe may call this approach the resemblance theory of\nunderstanding: mental acts are classified according to the distinct\ndegree and kind of resemblance they have to the things that are\nunderstood.",
"\nThe resemblance theory faces well-known problems in spelling out the\ncontent of resemblance or likeness. For example, a concept is clearly\nimmaterial, and as such radically differs from any material object.\nFurthermore, there seems to be no formal characteristic of a mental\nact in virtue of which it can non-trivially be said to resemble\nanything else. To get around these difficulties, mediaeval\nphilosophers, like the British Empiricists centuries later, appealed\nto a particular kind of resemblance, namely pictorial resemblance. A\nportrait of Socrates is about Socrates in virtue of visually\nresembling Socrates in the right ways. And just as there are pictorial\nimages that are about their subjects, so too are there mental images\nthat are about things. These mental images, whether they are concepts\nor are contained in concepts, explain the way in which a concept is\n‘about’ an object. For an understanding to be about a cat\nis for it to be or contain a mental image of a cat. The phenomenon of\nmental ‘aboutness’ is explicated by the more familiar case\nof pictorial aboutness, itself reduced to a real relation of\nresemblance.",
"\nDespite their common Aristotelian heritage, the conformality theory\nand the resemblance theory are not equivalent. The transformation of\nthe mind through the inherence of a form is not necessarily the same\nas the mind’s possession of a concept. Equally, natural likeness\nor resemblance need not be understood as identity of form; formal\nidentity need not entail genuine resemblance, due to the different\nsubjects in which the form is embodied.",
"\nThe standard way to reconcile the conformality theory and the\nresemblance theory is to take the mind’s possession of a concept\nto be its ability to transform itself through the inherence of a form,\nconstruing formal identity as natural likeness, where having a form in\nthe mind that is identical to the form of the object understood just\nis to have a mental image of that very object.",
"\nAbelard argues against conformality as follows. Consider a tower,\nwhich is a material object with a certain length, depth, and height;\nassume that these features compose its form, much as the shape of a\nstatue is its form. According to Aristotelian metaphysics, the\ninherence of a form in a subject makes the subject into something\ncharacterized by that form, as for instance whiteness inhering in\nSocrates makes him something white. The forms of the tower likewise\nmake that in which they inhere to be tall, wide, massive—all\nphysical properties. If these forms inhere in the mind, then, they\nshould make the mind tall, wide, and massive, an absurd conclusion:\nthe mind “cannot extend itself in length or width.” Yet it\nis a cardinal thesis of the conformality theory that the mind has the\nidentical form that is possessed by the external object, the tower,\nalthough the form of (say) length is by its very nature physical.\nThus, Abelard concludes, conformality is incoherent.",
"\nAbelard’s main objection to the resemblance theory is that\nmental images qua images, like any sign, are inert: they\nrequire interpretation. A sign is just an object. It may be taken in a\nsignificative role, though it need not be. Abelard notes that this\ndistinction holds equally for non-mental signs: we can treat a statue\nas a lump of bronze or as a likeness. Mental images are likewise\ninert. For a sign to function significatively, then, something more is\nrequired beyond its mere presence or existence. But the resemblance\ntheory doesn’t recognize the need to interpret the mental image\nas an image, and thereby mistakenly identifies understanding with the\nmere presence of a mental image in the mind. Abelard concludes that\nmental images have only an instrumental role in thought, describing\nthem as “intermediary signs of things” (intersigna\nrerum). Intentionality derives instead from the act of attention\n(attentio) directed upon the mental image. Proof is found in\nthe fact that that we can “vary the understanding” simply\nby attending to different features of the mental image: the selfsame\nimage—say, a fig tree—can be used to think about this very\nfig tree, or trees in general, or plant life, or my lost love with\nwhom I sat under it, or anything whatsoever. There is no intrinsic\nfeature of the mental image in virtue of which it is about any given\nthing; if there were, Abelard notes, we could determine by inspection\nwhat a sign is about—but we can’t. Mental images,\ntherefore, can’t explain the intentionality of understanding,\nbecause their role is merely instrumental. We think with them, and\ncannot avoid them; but they do not explain intentionality.",
"\nAbelard draws the conclusion that intentionality is a primitive and\nirreducible feature of the mind, our acts of attending to things.\nDifferent acts of attention are intrinsically different from one\nanother; they are about what they are about in virtue of being the\nkind of attention they are. Hence Abelard adopts what is nowadays\ncalled an adverbial theory of thought.",
"\nGiven that intentionality is primitive, Abelard adopts a contextual\napproach to mental content: he embeds these irreducible acts of\nattention in a structure whose articulation helps define the character\nof its constituent elements. The structure Abelard offers is\nlinguistic, a logic of mental acts: just as words can be said to\nexpress thoughts, so too we can use the articulated logic of language\nto give a theory of understanding. In short, Abelard gives something\nvery like a linguistic account of mental representation or\nintentionality. To this end he embraces a principle of\ncompositionality, holding that what an understanding is about is a\nfunction of what its constituent understandings are about. The unity\nof the understanding of a complex is a function of its logical\nsimplicity, which is characterized by the presence of what Abelard\ncalls “a single dominant conjunction” (the logical\noperator of greatest scope). Hence the understanding of a complex may\nbe treated as a complex of distinct understandings, aggregated in the\nsame thought, with its (logical) structure flowing from the\n‘dominant conjunction’ over the other logical operations\ngoverning its constituent understandings. Abelard’s acts of\nattention thus display the logical structure of the understanding they\nexpress, and thereby give the semantics of written or spoken language.\nMuch of Abelard’s writings on logic and dialectic are given over\nto working out the details as a scheme for explicating mental\ncontent."
],
"section_title": "5. Philosophy of Mind",
"subsections": []
},
{
"main_content": [
"\nAbelard takes the rational core of traditional Christian morality to\nbe radically intentionalist, based on the following\nprinciple: the agent’s intention alone determines the moral\nworth of an action. His main argument against the moral relevance of\nconsequences turns on what contemporary philosophers often refer to as\nmoral luck. Suppose two men each have the money and the intention to\nestablish shelters for the poor, but one is robbed before he can act\nwhereas the second is able to carry out his intention. According to\nAbelard, to think that there is a moral difference between them is to\nhold that “the richer men were the better they could become\n… this is the height of insanity!” Deed-centred morality\nloses any kind of purchase on what might have been the case. Likewise,\nit cannot offer any ground for taking the epistemic status of the\nagent into account, although most people would admit that ignorance\ncan morally exculpate an agent. Abelard makes the point with the\nfollowing example: imagine the case of fraternal twins, brother and\nsister, who are separated at birth and each kept in complete ignorance\nof even the existence of the other; as adults they meet, fall in love,\nare legally married and have sexual intercourse. Technically this is\nincest, but Abelard finds no fault in either to lay blame.",
"\nAbelard concludes that in themselves deeds are morally indifferent.\nThe proper subject of moral evaluation is the agent, via his or her\nintentions. It might be objected that the performance or\nnonperformance of the deed could affect the agent’s feelings,\nwhich in turn may affect his or her intentions, so that deeds thereby\nhave moral relevance (at least indirectly). Abelard denies it:",
"\nFor example, if someone forces a monk to lie bound in chains between\ntwo women, and by the softness of the bed and the touch of the women\nbeside him he is brought to pleasure (but not to consent), who may\npresume to call this pleasure, which nature makes necessary, a fault?\n",
"\nWe are so constructed that the feeling of pleasure is inevitable in\ncertain situations: sexual intercourse, eating delicious food, and the\nlike. If sexual pleasure in marriage is not sinful, then the pleasure\nitself, inside or outside of marriage, is not sinful; if it is sinful,\nthen marriage cannot sanctify it—and if the conclusion were\ndrawn that such acts should be performed wholly without pleasure, then\nAbelard declares they cannot be done at all, and it was unreasonable\n(of God) to permit them only in a way in which they cannot be\nperformed.",
"\nOn the positive side, Abelard argues that unless intentions are the\nkey ingredient in assessing moral value it is hard to see why\ncoercion, in which one is forced to do something against his or her\nwill, should exculpate the agent; likewise for ignorance—though\nAbelard points out that the important moral notion is not simply\nignorance but strictly speaking negligence. Abelard takes an extreme\ncase to make his point. He argues that the crucifiers of Christ were\nnot evil in crucifying Jesus. (This example, and others like it, got\nAbelard into trouble with the authorities, and it isn’t hard to\nsee why.) Their ignorance of Christ’s divine nature didn’t\nby itself make them evil; neither did their acting on their (false and\nmistaken) beliefs, in crucifying Christ. Their non-negligent ignorance\nremoves blame from their actions. Indeed, Abelard argues that they\nwould have sinned had they thought crucifying Christ was required and\ndid not crucify Christ: regardless of the facts of the case,\nfailing to abide by one’s conscience in moral action renders the\nagent blameworthy.",
"\nThere are two obvious objections to Abelard’s intentionalism.\nFirst, how is it possible to commit evil voluntarily? Second, since\nintentions are not accessible to anyone other than the agent,\ndoesn’t Abelard’s view entail that it is impossible to\nmake ethical judgements?",
"\nWith regard to the first objection, Abelard has a twofold answer.\nFirst, it is clear that we often want to perform the deed and at the\nsame time do not want to suffer the punishment. A man wants to have\nsexual intercourse with a woman, but not to commit adultery; he would\nprefer it if she were unmarried. Second, it is clear that we sometimes\n“want what we by no means want to want”: our bodies react\nwith pleasure and desire independently of our wills. If we act on such\ndesires, then our action is done “of” will, as Abelard\ncalls it, though not voluntarily. There is nothing evil in desire:\nthere is only evil in acting on desire, and this is compatible with\nhaving contrary desires.",
"\nWith regard to the second objection, Abelard grants that other humans\ncannot know the agent’s intentions—God, of course, does\nhave access to internal mental states, and so there can be a Final\nJudgement. However, Abelard does not take ethical judgement to pose a\nproblem. God is the only one with a right to pass judgement. Yet this\nfact doesn’t prevent us from enforcing canons of human justice,\nbecause, Abelard holds, human justice has primarily an exemplary and\ndeterrent function. In fact, Abelard argues, it can even be just to\npunish an agent we strongly believe had no evil intention. He cites\ntwo cases. First, a woman accidentally smothers her baby while trying\nto keep it warm at night, and is overcome with grief. Abelard\nmaintains that we should punish her for the beneficial example her\npunishment may have on others: it may make other poor mothers more\ncareful not to accidentally smother their babies while trying to keep\nthem warm. Second, a judge may have excellent (but legally\nimpermissible) evidence that a witness is perjuring himself; since he\ncannot show that the witness is lying, the judge is forced to rule on\nthe basis of the witness’s testimony that the accused, whom he\nbelieves to be innocent, is guilty. Human justice may with propriety\nignore questions of intention. Since there is divine justice, ethical\nnotions are not an idle wheel—nor should they be, even on\nAbelard’s understanding of human justice, since they are the\nmeans by which we determine which intentions to promote or discourage\nwhen we punish people as examples or in order to deter others.",
"\nThere is a sense, then, in which the only certifiable sin is acting\nagainst one’s conscience, unless one is morally negligent. Yet\nif we cannot look to the intrinsic value of the deeds or their\nconsequences, how do we determine which acts are permissible or\nobligatory? Unless conscience has a reliable guide, Abelard’s\nposition seems to open the floodgates to well-meaning\nsubjectivism.",
"\nAbelard solves the problem by taking obedience to God’s\nwill—the hallmark of morally correct behaviour, and itself an\ninstance of natural law—to be a matter of the agent’s\nintention conforming to a purely formal criterion, namely the Golden\nRule (“Do to others as you would be done to”). This\ncriterion can be discovered by reason alone, without any special\nrevelation or religious belief, and is sufficient to ensure the\nrightness of the agent’s intention. But the resolution of this\nproblem immediately leads to another problem. Even if we grant Abelard\nhis naturalistic ethics, why should an agent care if his or her\nintentions conform to the Golden Rule? In short, even if Abelard were\nright about morality, why be moral?",
"\nAbelard’s answer is that our happiness—to which no one is\nindifferent—is linked to virtue, that is, to habitual morally\ncorrect behaviour. Indeed, Abelard’s project in the\nCollationes is to argue that reason can prove that a merely\nnaturalistic ethics is insufficient, and that an agent’s\nhappiness is necessarily bound up with accepting the principles of\ntraditional Christian belief, including the belief in God and an\nAfterlife. In particular, he argues that the Afterlife is a condition\nto which we ought to aspire, that it is a moral improvement even on\nthe life of virtue in this world, and that recognizing this is\nconstitutive of wanting to do what God wants, that is, to live\naccording to the Golden Rule, which guarantees as much as anything can\n(pending divine grace) our long-term postmortem happiness.",
"\nThe Philosopher first argues with the Jew, who espouses a\n‘strict observance’ moral theory, namely obedience to the\nMosaic Law. One of the arguments the Jew offers is the Slave’s\nWager (apparently the earliest-known version of Pascal’s Wager).\nImagine that a Slave is told one morning by someone he doesn’t\nknow whether to trust that his powerful and irritable Master, who is\naway for the day, has left instructions about what to do in his\nabsence. The Slave can follow the instructions or not. He reasons that\nif the Master indeed left the instructions, then by following them he\nwill be rewarded and by not following them he will be severely\npunished, whereas if the Master did not leave the instructions he\nwould not be punished for following them, though he might be lightly\npunished for not following them. (This conforms to the standard payoff\nmatrix for Pascal’s Wager.) That is the position the Jew finds\nhimself in: God has apparently demanded unconditional obedience to the\nMosaic Law, the instructions left behind. The Philosopher argues that\nthe Jew may have other choices of action and, in any event, that there\nare rational grounds for thinking that ethics is not a matter of\naction in conformity to law but a matter of the agent’s\nintentions, as we have seen above.",
"\nThe Philosopher then argues with the Christian. He initially maintains\nthat virtue entails happiness, and hence there is no need of an\nAfterlife since a virtuous person remains in the same condition\nwhether dead or alive. The Christian, however, reasons that the\nAfterlife is better, since in addition to the benefits conferred by\nliving virtuously, the agent’s will is no longer impeded by\ncircumstances. In the Afterlife we are no longer subject to the body,\nfor instance, and hence are not bound by physical necessities such as\nfood, shelter, clothing, and the like. The agent can therefore be as\npurely happy as life in accordance with virtue could permit, when no\nexternal circumstances could affect the agent’s actions. The\nPhilosopher grants that the Afterlife so understood is a clear\nimprovement even on the virtuous life in this world, and joins with\nthe Christian in a cooperative endeavour to define the nature of the\nvirtues and the Supreme Good. Virtue is its own reward, and in the\nAfterlife nothing prevents us from rewarding ourselves with virtue to\nthe fullest extent possible."
],
"section_title": "6. Ethics",
"subsections": []
},
{
"main_content": [
"\nAbelard held that reasoning has a limited role to play in matters of\nfaith. That he gave reasoning a role at all brought him into conflict\nwith those we might now call anti-dialecticians, including\nhis fellow abbot Bernard of Clairvaux. That the role he gave it is\nlimited brought him into conflict with those he called\n“pseudo-dialecticians,” including his former teacher\nRoscelin.",
"\nBernard of Clairvaux and other anti-dialecticians seem to have thought\nthat the meaning of a proposition of the faith, to the extent that it\ncan be grasped, is plain; beyond that plain meaning, there is nothing\nwe can grasp at all, in which case reason is clearly no help. That is,\nthe anti-dialecticians were semantic realists about the plain\nmeaning of religious sentences. Hence their impatience with Abelard,\nwho seemed not only bent on obfuscating the plain meaning of\npropositions of the faith, which is bad enough, but to do so by\nreasoning, which has no place either in grasping the plain meaning\n(since the very plainness of plain meaning consists in its being\ngrasped immediately without reasoning) or in reaching some more\nprofound understanding (since only the plain meaning is open to us at\nall).",
"\nAbelard has no patience for the semantic realism that underlies the\nsophisticated anti-dialectical position. Rather than argue against it\nexplicitly, he tries to undermine it. From his commentaries on\nscripture and dogma to his works of speculative theology, Abelard is\nfirst and foremost concerned to show how religious claims can be\nunderstood, and in particular how the application of dialectical\nmethods can clarify and illuminate propositions of the faith.\nFurthermore, he rejects the claim that there is a plain meaning to be\ngrasped. Outlining his method in the Prologue to his Sic et\nnon, Abelard describes how he initially raises a question, e.g.\nwhether priests are required to be celibate, and then arranges\ncitations from scriptural and patristic authorities that at least seem\nto answer the question directly into positive and negative responses.\n(Abelard offers advice in the Prologue for resolving the apparent\ncontradictions among the authorities using a variety of techniques:\nsee whether the words are used in the same sense on both sides; draw\nrelevant distinctions to resolve the issue; look at the context of the\ncitation; make sure that an author is speaking in his own voice rather\nthan merely reporting or paraphrasing someone else’s position;\nand so on.) Now each authority Abelard cites seems to speak clearly\nand unambiguously either for a positive answer to a given question or\nfor a negative one. If ever there were cases of plain meaning, Abelard\nseems to have found them in authorities, on opposing sides of\ncontroversial issues. His advice in the Prologue amounts to saying\nthat sentences that seem to be perfect exemplars of plain meaning in\nfact have to be carefully scrutinized to see just what their meaning\nis. Yet that is just to say that they do not have plain meaning at\nall; we have to use reason to uncover their meaning. Hence the\nanti-dialecticians don’t have a case.",
"\nThere is a far more serious threat to the proper use of reason in\nreligion, Abelard thinks (Theologia christiana 3.20):",
"\nThose who claim to be dialecticians are usually led more easily to\n[heresy] the more they hold themselves to be well-equipped with\nreasons, and, to that extent more secure, they presume to attack or\ndefend any position the more freely. Their arrogance is so great that\nthey think there isn’t anything that can’t be understood\nand explained by their petty little lines of reasoning. Holding all\nauthorities in contempt, they glory in believing only\nthemselves—for those who accept only what their reason persuades\nthem of, surely answer to themselves alone, as if they had eyes that\nwere unacquainted with darkness.\n",
"\nSuch pseudo-dialecticians take reason to be the final arbiter of all\nclaims, including claims about matters of faith. More exactly, Abelard\ncharges them with holding that (a) everything can be explained by\nhuman reason; (b) we should only accept what reason persuades us of;\n(c) appeals to authority have no rational persuasive force. Real\ndialecticians, he maintains, reject (a)–(c), recognizing that\nhuman reason has limits, and that some important truths may lie\noutside those limits but not beyond belief; which claims about matters\nof faith we should accept depends on both the epistemic reliability of\ntheir sources (the authorities) and their consonance with reason to\nthe extent they can be investigated.",
"\nAbelard’s arguments for rejecting (a)–(c) are\nsophisticated and subtle. For the claim that reason may be fruitfully\napplied to a particular article of faith, Abelard offers a particular\ncase study in his own writings. The bulk of Abelard’s work on\ntheology is devoted to his dialectical investigation of the Trinity.\nHe elaborates an original theory of identity to address issues\nsurrounding the Trinity, one that has wider applicability in\nmetaphysics. The upshot of his enquiries is that belief in the Trinity\nis rationally justifiable since as far as reason can take us we find\nthat the doctrine makes sense—at least, once the tools of\ndialectic have been properly employed.",
"\nThe traditional account of identity, derived from Boethius, holds that\nthings may be either generically, specifically, or numerically the\nsame or different. Abelard accepts this account but finds it not\nsufficiently fine-grained to deal with the Trinity. The core of his\ntheory of identity, as presented in his Theologia christiana,\nconsists in four additional modes of identity: (1) essential sameness\nand difference; (2) numerical sameness and difference, which Abelard\nties closely to essential sameness and difference, allowing a more\nfine-grained distinction than Boethius could allow; (3) sameness and\ndifference in definition; (4) sameness and difference in property\n(in proprietate). Roughly, Abelard’s account of\nessential and numerical sameness is intended to improve upon the\nidentity-conditions for things in the world given by the traditional\naccount; his account of sameness in definition is meant to supply\nidentity-conditions for the features of things; and his account of\nsameness in property opens up the possibility of there being different\nidentity-conditions for a single thing having several distinct\nfeatures.",
"\nAbelard holds that two things are the same in essence when\nthey are numerically the same concrete thing (essentia), and\nessentially different otherwise. The Morning Star is essentially the\nsame as the Evening Star, for instance, since each is the selfsame\nplanet Venus. Again, the formal elements that constitute a concrete\nthing are essentially the same as one another and essentially the same\nas the concrete thing of which they are the formal constituents:\nSocrates is his essence (Socrates is what it is to be Socrates). The\ncorresponding general thesis does not hold for parts, however. Abelard\nmaintains that the part is essentially different from the integral\nwhole of which it is a part, reasoning that a given part is completely\ncontained, along with other parts, in the whole, and so is less than\nthe quantity of the whole.",
"\nNumerical difference does not map precisely onto essential difference.\nThe failure of numerical sameness may be due to one of two causes.\nFirst, objects are not numerically the same when one has a part that\nthe other does not have, in which case the objects are essentially\ndifferent as well. Second, objects are numerically different when\nneither has a part belonging to the other. Numerical difference thus\nentails the failure of numerical sameness, but not conversely: a part\nis not numerically the same as its whole, but it is not numerically\ndifferent from its whole. Thus one thing is essentially different from\nanother when either they have only a part in common, in which case\nthey are not numerically the same; or they have no parts in common, in\nwhich case they are numerically different as well as not numerically\nthe same. Since things may be neither numerically the same nor\nnumerically different, the question “How many things are\nthere?” is ill-formed as it stands and must be made more\nprecise, a fact Abelard exploits in his discussion of the Trinity.",
"\nEssential and numerical sameness and difference apply directly to\nthings in the world; they are extensional forms of identity. By\ncontrast, sameness and difference in definition is roughly analogous\nto modern theories of the identity of properties. Abelard holds that\nthings are the same in definition when what it is to be one\nrequires that it be the other, and conversely; otherwise they differ\nin definition.",
"\nFinally, things are the same in property when they specify\nfeatures that characterize one another. Abelard offers an example to\nclarify this notion. A cube of marble exemplifies both whiteness and\nhardness; what is white is essentially the same as what is hard, since\nthey are numerically the same concrete thing, namely the marble cube;\nyet the whiteness and the hardness in the marble cube clearly differ\nin definition—but even so, what is white is characterized by\nhardness (the white thing is hard), and conversely what is hard is\ncharacterized by whiteness (the hard thing is white). The properties\nof whiteness and hardness are “mixed” since, despite their\nbeing different in definition, each applies to the selfsame concrete\nthing (namely the marble cube) as such and also as it is characterized\nby the other.",
"\nThe interesting case is where something has properties that\n“remain so completely unmixed” that the items they\ncharacterize are different in property. Consider a\nform-matter composite in relation to its matter. The matter out of\nwhich a form-matter composite is made is essentially the same as the\ncomposite, since each is the entire material composite itself. Yet\ndespite their essential sameness, they are not identical; the matter\nis not the composite, nor conversely. The matter is not the composite,\nfor the composite comes to be out of the matter, but the matter does\nnot come to be out of itself. The composite is not the matter, since\n“nothing is in any way a constitutive part of or naturally prior\nto itself.” Instead, the matter is prior to the composite since\nit has the property priority with respect to the composite,\nwhereas the composite is posterior to its matter since it has the\nproperty posteriority with respect to its matter. Now despite\nbeing essentially the same, the matter is not characterized by\nposteriority, unlike the composite, and the composite is not\ncharacterized by priority, unlike the matter. Hence the matter and\ncomposite are different in property; the properties priority\nand posteriority are unmixed—they differ in\nproperty.",
"\nNow for the payoff. Abelard deploys his theory of identity to shed\nlight on the Trinity as follows. The three Persons are essentially the\nsame as one another, since they are all the same concrete thing\n(namely God). They differ from one another in definition, since what\nit is to be the Father is not the same as what it is to be the Son or\nwhat it is to be the Holy Spirit. The three Persons are numerically\ndifferent from one another, for otherwise they would not be three, but\nthey are not numerically different from God: if they were there would\nbe three gods, not one. Moreover, each Person has properties that\nuniquely apply to it—unbegotten to the Father,\nbegotten to the Son, and proceeding to the Holy\nSpirit—as well as properties that are distinctive of it, such as\npower for the Father, wisdom for the Son, and\ngoodness for the Holy Spirit. The unique properties are\nunmixed in Abelard’s technical sense, for the Persons differ\nfrom one another in their unique properties, and such properties do\nnot apply to God; the distinctive properties are mixed, though, in\nthat God is characterized by each (the powerful God is the wise God is\nthe good God). Further than that, Abelard holds, human reason cannot\ngo; but reason validates the analysis (strictly speaking only a\n“likeness” or analogy) as far as it can go."
],
"section_title": "7. Theology",
"subsections": []
}
] | [
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"Collationes a.k.a. Dialogus inter Philosophum,\nIudaeum, et Christianum. Edited by Giovanni Orlandi, with\nintroduction, translation, and notes by John Marenbon, in Peter\nAbelard: Collationes, Oxford University Press 2001.",
"Commentaria in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos. Edited by\nEligius M. Buytaert in Petri Abaelardi opera theologica.\nCorpus christianorum (continuatio mediaevalis) Vol. 11. Brepols:\nTurnholt 1969, 389–340.",
"Dialectica. Edited by L. M. De Rijk in Petrus\nAbaelardus: Dialectica, Assen: Van Gorcum 1970 (second\nedition).",
"Epistolae: Ep. 1 edited by Monfrin (see the entry below\nfor the Historia calamitatum); Epp. 2–5 edited by J. T.\nMuckle, Mediaeval Studies 15 (1953) 68–94; Epp.\n6–7, edited by J. T. Muckle, Mediaeval Studies 17\n(1955) 241–281; Ep. 8, edited by T. P. McLaughlin, Mediaeval\nStudies 18 (1956) 242–297; Epp. 9–14 edited by E. R.\nSmits in Peter Abelard: Letters IX–XIV, Groningen:\nRijksuniversiteit 1983; Ep. 15 edited by Josef Reiners, BGPTM 8 (1910)\n63–80; Ep. 16, edited by Victor Cousin and Charles Jourdain,\nPetri Abaelardi opera Vol. 1 (Paris 1849) 703–707,\ncorrected against Van Den Eynde, Antonianum 38 (1963) 219;\nEp. 17, edited by Charles Burnett, Mittellateinisch Jahrbuch\n21 (1986), 152–155; Apologia contra Bernardum (Ne iuxta\nBoethianum), edited by Eligius M. Buytaert in CCCM 12\n359–368; Epistola contra Bernardum edited by Raymond\nKlibansky, Medieval and Renaissance Studies 5 (1961),\n1–27; Confessio fidei “Uniuersis” edited by\nCharles Burnett, Mediaeval Studies 48 (1986),\n182–189.",
"Ethica seu Scito teipsum. Edited by R. M. Ilgner in\nPetri Abaelardi opera theologica. Corpus christianorum\n(continuatio mediaevalis) Vol. 190. Brepols: Turnholt 2001.",
"Expositio orationis dominicae. Edited by Charles Burnett,\n“Expositio orationis dominicae ‘Multorum legimus\norationes’” in Révue Benedictine 95 (1985)\n60–72.",
"Expositio symboli Apostolorum. Edited by Victor Cousin\nand Charles Jourdain, Petri Abaelardi opera Vol. 1 (Paris\n1849) 603–615.\n [Available online thanks to the Bibliothèque nationale de France].",
"Expositio fidei in symbolum Athanasii. Edited by Victor\nCousin and Charles Jourdain, Petri Abaelardi opera Vol. 1\n(Paris 1849) 615–617.",
"Hexaëmeron. Edited by Mary F. Romig with the\nassistance of David Luscombe, in Corpus christianorum continuatio\nmediaevalis Vol.15. Brepols: Turnhout 2004.",
"Historia calamitatum. Edited by Jacques Monfrin in\nAbélard, Historia calamitatum: texte et commentaires,\nJ. Vrin: Paris 1974 (fourth edition), 62–109.",
"Hymnarius Paraclitensis. Edited by Chrysogonus Waddell in\nHymn Collections from the Paraclete Vol. 2. Trappist\nMonastery, Ky.: Gethsemani Abbey (Cistercian Liturgy series)\n1987.",
"Introductiones parvulorum. Edited by Mario Dal Pra in\nPietro Abelardo: Scritti di logica, Firenze 1969 (second\nedition).",
"Logica ‘ingredientibus’ (LI):\n\n\n\nLI 1: Commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge. Edited by\nBernhard Geyer in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und\nTheologie des Mittelalters 21 (1). Aschendorff: Munster\n1919.\n\nLI 2: Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories. Edited\nby Bernhard Geyer in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie\nund Theologie des Mittelalters 21 (2). Aschendorff: Munster\n1921.\n\nLI 3: Commentary on Aristotle’s De interpretatione.\nEdited by Klaus Jacobi and Christian Strub, Corpus christianorum\ncontinuatio mediaevalis Vol.206. Brepols: Turnhout 2010.\n\nLI 7: Commentary on Boethius’s De topicis\ndifferentiis. Edited by Mario Dal Pra in Pietro Abelardo:\nScritti di logica, Firenze 1969 (second edition).\n ",
"LI 1: Commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge. Edited by\nBernhard Geyer in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und\nTheologie des Mittelalters 21 (1). Aschendorff: Munster\n1919.",
"LI 2: Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories. Edited\nby Bernhard Geyer in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie\nund Theologie des Mittelalters 21 (2). Aschendorff: Munster\n1921.",
"LI 3: Commentary on Aristotle’s De interpretatione.\nEdited by Klaus Jacobi and Christian Strub, Corpus christianorum\ncontinuatio mediaevalis Vol.206. Brepols: Turnhout 2010.",
"LI 7: Commentary on Boethius’s De topicis\ndifferentiis. Edited by Mario Dal Pra in Pietro Abelardo:\nScritti di logica, Firenze 1969 (second edition).",
"Logica ‘nostrorum petitioni\nsociorum’. Commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge.\nEdited by Bernhard Geyer in Beiträge zur Geschichte der\nPhilosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters 21 (4). Aschendorff:\nMunster 1933.",
"Planctus. Planctus 1, 4, 6: edited by Peter Dronke,\nPoetic Individality in the Middle Ages (London 1986).\nPlanctus 2, 5: edited by Giuseppe Vecchi, Pietro Abelardo, I\n“Planctus” (Modena 1951). Planctus 3: edited by\nWolfram von den Steinen, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 4\n(1967), 122–144. There are several modern recordings.",
"Problemata Heloïssae cum Petri Abaelardi\nsolutionibus. Edited by Victor Cousin and Charles Jourdain,\nPetri Abaelardi opera Vol. 1 (Paris 1849):\n237–294.",
"Sententiae secundum Magistrum Petrum. Edited by Lorenzo\nMinio-Paluello in Twelfth-Century Logic: Texts and Studies\nVol. 2 (Abaelardiana inedita), Roma 1958.",
"Sermones. Edited by Paola De Santis in I sermoni di\nAbelardo per le monache del Paracleto, Leuven University Press\n2002. (Mediaevalia Lovaniensa ser. 1, studia 31.)",
"Sic et non. Edited by Blanche Boyer and Richard McKeon in\nPeter Abailard: Sic et Non. A Critical Edition. University of\nChicago Press 1977.",
"Soliloquium. Edited by Charles Burnett in “Peter\nAbelard’s ‘Soliloquium’: A Critical Edition”\nin Studi Medievali 25 (1984), 857–894.",
"Theologia ‘summi boni’. Edited by\nEligius M. Buytaert and Constant Mews in Petri Abaelardi opera\ntheologica. Corpus christianorum (continuatio mediaevalis) Vol.\n13. Brepols: Turnhout 1987.",
"Theologia christiana. Edited by Eligius M. Buytaert in\nPetri Abaelardi opera theologica. Corpus christianorum\n(continuatio mediaevalis) Vol. 12. Brepols: Turnhout 1969.",
"Theologia ‘scholarium’. Edited by\nEligius M. Buytaert and Constant Mews in Petri Abaelardi opera\ntheologica. Corpus christianorum (continuatio mediaevalis) Vol.\n13. Brepols: Turnhout 1987.",
"Tractatus de intellectibus. Edited by Patrick Morin in\nAbélard: Des intellections. Paris: J. Vrin 1994.",
"Fairweather, E. R., 1995, A Scholastic Miscellany,\nWestminster: John Knox Press. (Excerpt from Abelard’s commentary\non Romans.)",
"King, Peter, 1982, Peter Abailard and the Problem of\nUniversals in the Twelfth Century, Ph.D. Dissertation, Philosophy\nDepartment, Princeton University. (Volumes 2 contains a complete\ntranslation of Abelard’s Tractatus de\nintellectibus.)",
"Luscombe, David, 1971, Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University\nPress. (Complete translation of Abelard’s Ethica.)",
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"McCallum, James Ramsay, 1948, Abelard’s Christian\nTheology, Oxford: Blackwell. (Includes substantial selections\nfrom Abelard’s Theologia christiana.)",
"Minnis, A. and Scott, A. B. (eds.), 1988, Medieval Literary\nTheory and Criticism 1100–1375, Oxford: Oxford University\nPress. (Includes Abelard’s preface to the Sic et\nnon.)",
"Payer, Pierre, 1979, Peter Abelard: A Dialogue of a\nPhilosopher with a Jew and a Christian, Toronto: The Pontifical\nInstitute of Mediaeval Studies Publications.",
"Radice, Elizabeth, 1974, The Letters of Abelard and\nHeloise, New York: Penguin Books.",
"Spade, Paul Vincent, 1994, Five Texts on the Mediaeval Problem\nof Universals, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.\n(Abelard’s discussion of the problem of universals from his\nLogica ‘ingredientibus’.)",
"Spade, Paul Vincent, 1995, Peter Abelard: Ethical\nWritings, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. (Complete\ntranslations of Abelard ‘s Ethics and\nConversations.)",
"Tweedale, Martin and Bosley, Richard, 1997, Issues in Medieval\nPhilosophy, Peterborough: Broadview Press. (Includes selections\nfrom Abelard on foreknowledge, universals, and ethics.)",
"Allen, Julie, 1996, A Commentary on the Second Collatio of\nPeter Abailard’s Dialogus, Ph.D. Dissertation, Philosophy\nDepartment, University of Toronto.",
"Arlig, Andrew, 2007, “Abelard’s Assault on Everyday\nObjects”, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly,\n81: 209–227.",
"–––, 2012, “Peter Abelard on Material\nConstitution”, Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie,\n94: 119–146.",
"–––, 2013, “Some Twelfth-century\nReflections on Mereological Essentialism”, Oxford Studies in\nMedieval Philosophy, 1: 83–112.",
"Astroh, Michael, 2001, “Abelard on Modalities de re\nand de dicto”, in Potentialität und\nPossibilität. Modalaussagen in der Geschichte der\nMetaphysik, Thomas Buchheim, C. H. Kneepkens, and Kuno Lorenz\n(eds.), Stuttgart: Frommann Holzboog, 79–95",
"Bejczy, I., 2003, “Deeds Without Value: Exploring a Weak\nSpot in Abelard’s Ethics”, Recherches de\nthéologie et philosophie médiévale, 70:\n1–21.",
"Binini, Irene, 2022, Possibility and Necessity in the Time of\nPeter Abelard, Leiden/Boston: Brill.",
"Blackwell, Daniel, 1988, Non-Ontological Constructs: The\nEffects of Abaelard’s Logical and Ethical Theories on his\nTheology, Berne, Paris, New York: Peter Lang.",
"Boler, John, 1963, “Abailard and the Problem of\nUniversals”, The Journal of the History of Philosophy,\n1: 104–126.",
"Brower, Jeff, 1998, “Abelard’s Theory of Relations:\nReductionism and the Aristotelian Tradition”, The Review of\nMetaphysics, 51: 605–631.",
"–––, 2004, “Trinity”, in The\nCambridge Companion to Abelard, J. Brower and K. Guilfoy (eds.):\n223–257. [Preprint available online]",
"Brower, Jeff and Guilfoy, Kevin (eds.), 2004, The Cambridge\nCompanion to Abelard, New York: Cambridge University Press.\n [Introduction available online]\n ",
"Freddoso, Alfred, 1978, “Abailard on Collective\nRealism”, The Journal of Philosophy, 75:\n527–538.",
"Gracia, Jorge, 1984, Introduction to the Problem of\nIndividuation in the Early Middle Ages, Washington, D.C.:\nCatholic University of America Press.",
"Guilfoy, Kevin, 1999, Abelard’s Theory of the\nProposition, Ph.D. Dissertation, Philosophy Department,\nUniversity of Washington.",
"–––, 2004, “Mind and Cognition”, in\nJ. Brower and K. Guilfoy (eds.), 200–222.",
"Henry, D. P., 1985, “Abelard’s Mereological\nTerminology”, in Mediaeval Semantics and Metaphysics,\nE. P. Bos (ed.), Ingenium: Nijmegen, 65–92.",
"Hause, Jeff, 2007, “Abelard on Degrees of Sinfulness”,\nAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 81:\n251–270.",
"Jacobi, Klaus, 1983, “Abelard and Frege: the Semantics of\nWords and Propositions”, in Atti del Convegno Internazionale\ndi Storia della logica, V. Abrusci (ed.), Bologna: Ed. CLUEB,\n81–96.",
"–––, 1986, “Peter Abelard’s\nInvestigations into the Meaning and Function of the Speech Sign\n‘Est’”, in The Logic of Being, Simo\nKnuutila and Jaakko Hintikka (eds.), Dordrecht: D. Reidel,\n145–180.",
"–––, 2004, “Philosophy of Language”,\nin J. Brower and K. Guilfoy (eds.) 2004, 126–157.",
"King, Peter, 1982, Peter Abailard and the Problem of\nUniversals in the Twelfth Century, Ph.D. Dissertation, Philosophy\nDepartment, Princeton University.",
"–––, 1992, “Peter Abelard\n(1079–1142)”, in The Dictionary of Literary\nBiography (Volume 115: Medieval Philosophers), Jeremiah Hackett\n(ed.), Detroit/London: Gale Research: 3–14.",
"–––, 1995, “Abelard’s Intentionalist\nEthics”, The Modern Schoolman, 72: 213–231.\n [Preprint available online].",
"–––, 2004, “Metaphysics”, in The\nCambridge Companion to Abelard, in J. Brower and K. Guilfoy\n(eds.), 65–125.\n [Preprint available online].",
"–––, 2007a, “Abelard on Mental\nLanguage”, The American Catholic Philosophical\nQuarterly, 81: 169–187.",
"–––, 2007b, “Abelard’s Answer to\nPorphyry”, in Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica\nmedievale, 18: 249–70.\n [Preprint available online].",
"Kretzmann, Norman, 1982, “The Culmination of the Old Logic\nin Peter Abelard”, in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth\nCentury, R. L. Benson and J. Constable (eds.), Cambridge, MA:\nHarvard University Press, 488–511.",
"Lenz, Martin, 2005, “Peculiar Perfection: Peter Abelard on\nPropositional Attitudes”, Journal of the History of\nPhilosophy, 43: 377–386.",
"–––, 2007, “Are Thoughts and Sentences\nCompositional? A Controversy between Abelard and a Pupil of Alberic on\nthe Reconciliation of Ancient Theses on Mind and Language”,\nVivarium, 45: 169–188.",
"Lewis, Neil, 1987, “Determinate Truth in Abelard”,\nVivarium, 25: 81–109.",
"Luscombe, David, 1969, The School of Peter Abelard,\nCambridge: Cambridge University Press.",
"Mann, William, 2004, “Ethics”, in J. Brower and K.\nGuilfoy (eds.), 279–304.",
"Marenbon, John, 1997, The Philosophy of Peter Abelard,\nCambridge: Cambridge University Press.",
"–––, 2006, “The Rediscovery of Peter\nAbelard’s Philosophy”, Journal of the History of\nPhilosophy, 44: 331–351.",
"–––, 2013, Abelard in Four Dimensions: A\ntwelfth-century philosopher in his context and ours, Notre Dame:\nUniversity of Notre Dame Press.",
"Martin, Christopher J., 1986, “William’s Wonderful\nMachine”, Journal of Philosophy, 83:\n564–572.",
"–––, 1987, “Something Amazing About the\nPeripatetic of Le Pallet”, Argumentation, 1:\n420–436.",
"–––, 2001, “Abaelard on Modality: Some\nPossibilities and Some Puzzles”, in Potentialität und\nPossibilität. Modalaussagen in der Geschichte der\nMetaphysik, Thomas Buchheim, C. H. Kneepkens, and Kuno Lorenz\n(eds.), Stuttgart: Frommann Holzboog, 97–122",
"–––, 2004, “Logic”, in J. Brower and\nK. Guilfoy (eds.), 158–199.",
"Mews, Constant, 1987, “Aspects of the Evolution of Peter\nAbelard’s Thought on Signification and Predication”, in\nGilbert de Poitiers et ses contemporains, J. Jolivet and A.\nde Libera (eds.), Naples: Bibliopolis.",
"–––, 2005, Abelard and Heloise, New\nYork: Oxford University Press.",
"Pinziani, Roberto, 2003, The Logical Grammar of Abelard.\nDordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. (Translation of La\ngrammatica logica di Abelardo, Parma 1992.)",
"De Rijk, L. M., 1980, “The Semantical Impact of\nAbailard’s Solution of the Problem of Universals”, in\nPetrus Abaelardus: Person, Wirk, und Wirkung, Rudolf Thomas\n(ed.), Trier: Paulinus-Verlag, 139–152.",
"–––, 1986, “Peter Abailard’s\nSemantics and his Doctrine of Being”, Vivarium, 24:\n85–127.",
"Tweedale, Martin, 1976, Abailard on Universals,\nAmsterdam: North-Holland.",
"Wilks, Ian, 1993, The Logic of Abelard’s\nDialectica, Ph.D. Dissertation, Philosophy Department, University\nof Toronto.",
"–––, 1997, “The Role of Virtue Theory and\nNatural Law in Abelard’s Ethical Writings”,\nProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical\nAssociation, 71: 137–149.",
"–––, 1998, “Peter Abelard and the\nMetaphysics of Essential Predication”, Journal of the\nHistory of Philosophy, 36: 356–385.",
"–––, 2008, “Peter Abelard and his\nContemporaries”, in Handbook of the History of Logic\n(Volume 2: Medieval and Renaissance Logic), Dov Gabbay and John Woods\n(eds.), Amsterdam: Elsevier, 85–155."
] | [
{
"href": "../aristotle-logic/",
"text": "Aristotle, General Topics: logic"
},
{
"href": "../mereology-medieval/",
"text": "mereology: medieval"
},
{
"href": "../relations-medieval/",
"text": "relations: medieval theories of"
},
{
"href": "../medieval-syllogism/",
"text": "syllogism: medieval theories of"
},
{
"href": "../universals-medieval/",
"text": "universals: the medieval problem of"
},
{
"href": "../william-champeaux/",
"text": "William of Champeaux"
}
] |
abhidharma | Abhidharma | First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022 | ["\nThe first centuries after Śākyamuni Buddha’s death saw\nthe rise of multiple schools of thou(...TRUNCATED) | [{"content_title":"1. Abhidharma: its origins and texts","sub_toc":["1.1 Literary style and genre","(...TRUNCATED) | [{"main_content":["\nThe early history of Buddhism in India is remarkably little known and\nthe atte(...TRUNCATED) | ["[A] Aṅguttara-nikāya","[Dhs-a] Atthasālinī\n(Dhammasaṅgaṇi commentary)","[Abhidh-av] Abhi(...TRUNCATED) | [{"href":"../atomism-modern/","text":"atomism: 17th to 20th century"},{"href":"../atomism-ancient/",(...TRUNCATED) |
abilities | Abilities | First published Tue Jan 26, 2010; substantive revision Thu Oct 8, 2020 | ["\nIn the accounts we give of one another, claims about our\nabilities appear to be indispensable. (...TRUNCATED) | [{"content_title":"1. A taxonomy","sub_toc":["1.1 Dispositions and other powers","1.2 Demarcating ab(...TRUNCATED) | [{"main_content":["\nWhat is an ability? On one reading, this question is a demand\nfor a theory of (...TRUNCATED) | ["Albritton, Rogers, 1985. “Freedom of Will and Freedom of\nAction,” Proceedings and Addresses o(...TRUNCATED) | [{"href":"../action/","text":"action"},{"href":"../compatibilism/","text":"compatibilism"},{"href":"(...TRUNCATED) |
abner-burgos | Abner of Burgos | First published Mon Jul 9, 2012; substantive revision Fri Aug 28, 2020 | ["\nAbner of Burgos (Alfonso de Valladolid; c. 1260–1347) was\nperhaps the most important philosop(...TRUNCATED) | [{"content_title":"1. Life","sub_toc":[]},{"content_title":"2. Works","sub_toc":[]},{"content_title"(...TRUNCATED) | [{"main_content":["\nThere are not many sources on the life of Abner. The majority of the\nsources a(...TRUNCATED) | ["Meyasher aqob, G. Gluskina (ed. and trans.), Moscow:\nNauka, 1983.","Ofrenda de zelos y Libro de l(...TRUNCATED) | [{"href":"../aristotle-natphil/","text":"Aristotle, Special Topics: natural philosophy"},{"href":"..(...TRUNCATED) |
abrabanel | Judah Abrabanel | First published Fri Dec 2, 2005; substantive revision Wed Jun 8, 2022 | ["\n\nJudah Abrabanel (ca. 1465–after 1521), also known as Leone Ebreo, is\nan important transitio(...TRUNCATED) | [{"content_title":"1. Life and Works","sub_toc":["1.1 Life","1.2 Works","1.3 Dialoghi d’amore and (...TRUNCATED) | [{"main_content":["\n\nThere exists a large debate in the secondary literature concerning the\nplace(...TRUNCATED) | ["Abrabanel, Judah (Ebreo, Leone). Dialoghi d’amore. Ed.\nSantino Caramella. Bari: Laterza e Figli(...TRUNCATED) | [
{
"href": "../ficino/",
"text": "Ficino, Marsilio"
},
{
"href": "../maimonides/",
"text": "Maimonides"
}
] |
abstract-objects | Abstract Objects | First published Thu Jul 19, 2001; substantive revision Mon Aug 9, 2021 | ["\nOne doesn’t go far in the study of what there is without\nencountering the view that every ent(...TRUNCATED) | [{"content_title":"1. Introduction","sub_toc":["1.1 About the Expression ‘Object’","1.2 About th(...TRUNCATED) | [{"main_content":["\nThe abstract/concrete distinction has a curious status in contemporary\nphiloso(...TRUNCATED) | ["Armstrong, David, 1978, Universals and Scientific Realism\n(Volume I: Nominalism and Realism; Volu(...TRUNCATED) | [{"href":"../analytic-synthetic/","text":"analytic/synthetic distinction"},{"href":"../carnap/","tex(...TRUNCATED) |
essential-accidental | Essential vs. Accidental Properties | First published Tue Apr 29, 2008; substantive revision Mon Oct 26, 2020 | ["\nThe distinction between essential versus accidental\nproperties has been characterized in variou(...TRUNCATED) | [{"content_title":"1. The Modal Characterization of the Essential/Accidental Property Distinction","(...TRUNCATED) | [{"main_content":["\nAccording to the basic modal characterization of the\ndistinction between essen(...TRUNCATED) | ["Adams, R., 1979, “Primitive Thisness and Primitive\nIdentity”, Journal of Philosophy, 76: 5–(...TRUNCATED) | [{"href":"../aristotle-metaphysics/","text":"Aristotle, General Topics: metaphysics"},{"href":"../de(...TRUNCATED) |
action | Action | First published Wed Jan 11, 2023 | ["\n[Editor’s Note: The following new entry by\nJuan Piñeros Glasscock and Sergio Tenenbaum\nrepl(...TRUNCATED) | [{"content_title":"1. About the Question: What is an Action?","sub_toc":[]},{"content_title":"2. Cau(...TRUNCATED) | [{"main_content":["\nThe central question in philosophy of action is standardly taken to\nbe: “Wha(...TRUNCATED) | ["Achinstein, Peter, 1975, “Causation, Transparency, and\nEmphasis”, Canadian Journal of Philoso(...TRUNCATED) | [{"href":"../shared-agency/","text":"agency: shared"},{"href":"../anscombe/","text":"Anscombe, Gertr(...TRUNCATED) |
action-perception | Action-based Theories of Perception | First published Wed Jul 8, 2015 | ["Action is a means of acquiring perceptual information about the\nenvironment. Turning around, for (...TRUNCATED) | [{"content_title":"1. Early Action-Based Theories","sub_toc":["1.1 Movement and Touch in the New The(...TRUNCATED) | [{"main_content":["Two doctrines dominate philosophical and psychological discussions\nof the relati(...TRUNCATED) | ["Abbott, T.K., 1864, Sight and Touch: An Attempt to Disprove\nthe Received (or Berkeleian) Theory o(...TRUNCATED) | [{"href":"../bodily-awareness/","text":"bodily awareness"},{"href":"../embodied-cognition/","text":"(...TRUNCATED) |
End of preview. Expand
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Dataset Card for "stanford_plato"
Description
This is a collection of articles in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html).
This dataset includes 1776 articles, each explaining one philosophy term/people/topic. It has 8 features:
- shorturl: The shorturl for the article. For example, the shorturl 'abduction' correspond to the page https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abduction/
- title: The title of the article.
- pubinfo: The publication information.
- preamble: The preface text of the article. The data is a list, each item of the list is a paragraph of the data. I choose not to break the paragraph structure. Certainly, you can merge them by, for example, ''.join(data['preamble'])
- toc: Table of contents. Also represented as list. Each item is a dictionary, the 'content_title' is the main content title, and the 'sub_toc' is a list of subcontent titles.
- main_text: The main text of the article. The data is also a list, each item represents a section of the article. Each item is a dictionary, 'section_title' is the title of the section, 'main_content' is a list of paragraphs before subsections, 'subsections' is a list of subsections, each item is also a dictionary, has its own title 'subsection_title' and list of paragraphs 'content'.
- bibliography: list of bibliography.
- related_entries: list of entries related to the current entry.
Copyright and license
See the information at the offical website: https://plato.stanford.edu/info.html#c This is not an official release. May be deleted later if violates copyright. The responsibility of not abusing is on the user.
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