Previously Unpublished Works, Fascicle 15

rebutted by Bacon in the course of this work, but the task is beyond my competence and may be left to students of this very obscure period in the history of philosophy. One thing appears certain: the seemingly trivial objections we so often find raised in the discussion of serious problems in the works of the great scholastics scholastics were medieval scholars who used a specific method of critical thought and logic taught in universities are probably exactly the objections which would be raised in the course of academic exercises.

This is the list of propositions condemned:

Errors in logical matters. original: "Errores in logicalibus"

• That contraries can be true at the same time in some subject matter.
• Also, that a syllogism a form of reasoning where a conclusion is drawn from two premises that fails in its subject matter is not a syllogism.
• Also, that there is no more supposition the way a word stands for an object in a specific context in a proposition for the thing supposed than for the thing signified. And therefore one may say "Of every man the donkey runs," and "the donkey of every man runs." Bacon is likely arguing against a lack of distinction in word order and grammatical scope.
• Also, that "animal is every man."
• Also, that a sign does not distribute the subject in comparison to the predicate.
• Also, that truth with necessity only exists with the constancy of the subject the requirement that the subject of a statement must actually exist for the statement to be true.
• Also, that one cannot establish a demonstration without existing things.
• Also, that every true proposition about the future is necessary.
• Also, that a term used with a verb in the present tense is distributed across all differences of time.
• Also, that from a negative of a finite predicate follows an affirmative of an infinite predicate without constancy of the subject. an "infinite predicate" in medieval logic is a term like "non-man," which has an unlimited range of reference compared to a "finite" term like "man."

Fortunately in one case, the section "concerning Appellation" original: "de Appellatione," referring to the use of a term to name an existing thing, we are able to put a finger on the opponent and the theories that Bacon had in mind. In his last work, the Compendium of the Study of Theology original: "Compendium Studii Theologiae" written in 1292, edited by Dr. Rashdall in 1911, he devotes a chapter to the errors of Richard of Cornwall (pp. 52–9) who was a very successful teacher at Paris, after he had lectured on the Sentences the "Sentences" by Peter Lombard was the standard theology textbook of the Middle Ages at Oxford in 1250. On p. 57 Bacon refers to arguments he had used more than forty years before, "when I debated difficulties of this kind" original: "quando difficultates huiusmodi ventilavi". There can be no doubt that the chapter "concerning Appellation" is concerned with the same subject as the passages in the Compendium of the Study of Theology on pp. 52–3 and 57–8—the subject of the alleged universal use of the terms for "being" original: "ens" and "non-being" original: "non-ens". The dis-