ABSTRACT

Like Pierre Abelard, William Ockham bases his treatment on a distinction between the compound and divided sense of modal sentences. This chapter examines Ockham's modal syllogistic and looks closely at Abelard's and Ockham's semantic theories, because it turns out that if they are viewed within the context of Aristotelian ontology they are not as different as they appear. Ockham sees sentences containing a mode of possibility as being ambiguous, depending on whether the subject stands for those things that are or for those that can be. Ockham explores different cases in which one or more of the propositions are taken in the compound sense. Ockham considers the effects of combining compound-sense and divided-sense propositions in the one syllogism, with or without ampliation, with or without simpliciter assertorics. A modal proposition not containing a dictum according to Ockham is always equivalent to a divided-sense modal.