Abstract

The recent revival of scientific interest in medieval texts is happily removing the long neglect of the scientific works of William Ockham. While a new edition of his political writings is being prepared in England, the late Father Boehner has initiated a school of study of his philosophical and theological works in New York. As the basic instrument to Ockham’s philosophical evaluation he insisted upon the understanding of Ockham’s systematic re-organization of Aristotelian logic, with some extraordinary anticipations of modern mathematical logic, which he rigorously applied to solve his problems. Lack of appreciation of this logical power exposes us to misjudge, and possibly to charge him with scepticism, since Ockham drew a firm line between the evident presence and absence of proof in the strict sense. Establishing the text of the capital work, Summa Logicae occupied the last twenty years of Fr. Boehner’s life. The present accurate volume carries forward the edition to the second, and the first section of the third part. It expounds the logic of proposition and syllogism and is particularly rich on modal logic. It was composed, according to the editor’s final judgment at Avignon between 1324 and 1327.