Fourteenth-century logic gave rise, among others, to the genre De scire et dubitare, which offered a unified framework for discussing different forms of epistemic sophisms by utilising the underlying systems of epistemic logic. One of the problems introduced in this context already by the founding father of this genre, William Heytesbury, was the so-called axiom of positive introspection, i.e., the principle that an agent who knows that something is the case, knows that she knows that it is the case. Owing to Heytesbury’s enormous popularity in the subsequent centuries, discussion of this problem became relatively widespread. This debate was addressed already in Boh’s seminal Epistemic Logic in the Later Middle Ages, which, despite its limitations acknowledged by its author, is a standard source. The present study elaborates on Boh by extending the corpus of his works (both in the sense of including new authors and of utilising manuscripts along with printed editions) and drawing new connections based on that. The core of the survey consists of an analysis of the positions of William Heytesbury and John Wyclif (both pertaining to the context of Merton College), their Italian reception by Peter of Mantua, and the “continental” reception of Heytesbury by John of Holland. The main goals of this study are to formalise the key arguments, which makes it possible to address the underlying systems of epistemic logic and their respective “strength”, and to articulate the conceptual background of those arguments and systems (the concepts of evidence, attention, and order of cognitive operations). The gist of the debate is, on one of the sides, an attempt to prove that it is impossible to doubt whether one knows that something is the case by employing whether the principles of positive introspection and of distribution of knowledge over implication, or the principles of positive and negative introspection combined.

Further development of the research on the fourteenth-century logic of iterated modalities (Heytesbury, Wyclif, and Peter of Mantua) leads to further exploration in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian scholasticism, in particular, the contributions of Paul of Venice and his followers (including Paul of Pergula, Cajetan of Thiene, and Domenico Bianchelli). The research confirms the well-established notion of “British logic in Italy”, as the major logical strategies used in the analysed works can be traced back to earlier British authors. Logically speaking, the problem of iterated epistemic modalities (such as knowledge and doubt) was framed as debate on the consistency of the hypothesis that an agent doubts whether she knows φ and the hypothesis that an agent knows φ and doubts whether she knows φ, in which the principles of positive and negative introspection play a major part. Philosophically speaking, the debate on the possibility of doubting one’s own knowledge utilised theories of evidence and scientific proof and philosophy of the mind (including the problems of direct and reflexive mental acts and of propositional attitudes).

The problem of logical omniscience breaks down to the problems of the closure of knowledge under implication and of the distribution of knowledge over implication. In late medieval scholasticism these two related issues were engaged in various genres, in particular in general analysis of validity, games of obligationes, solution to self-referential antinomies and semantics of terms. The present study analyses the corpus of fourteenth-century texts with some overreaches to the subsequent two centuries, attempting to cover representatives of both the “British” and the “Continental” tradition. With some degree of simplification, this results in a range of four basic positions: 1. knowledge is closed under “analytic entailment” (Buridan), 2. knowledge distributes over implication (Heytesbury), 3. knowledge distributes over implication provided that its consequent’s truth is being taken into consideration (Peter of Mantua), 4. knowledge does not distribute overimplication (Wyclif).

The purpose of this article is to compare the Thomist and the Scotist theory of relations. The main feature of the Thomist theory is an effort to minimize the ontological import of the specific essential ratio of relation as such, called esse ad, and to reduce the ontological import of its other aspect, the esse in or inherence understood as a common feature of all accidents, to the esse in of its foundation. The Scotists, on the other hand, have no tendency to deflate the esse ad of a relation. Moreover, according to Malafossa of Barge’s theory (adopted by B. Mastri and B. Belluto), a relation involves two different instances of esse in. The one, called esse in velut in subiecto, is that generic inherence common to all accidents (which, therefore, does not occur in the substantial relations of divine persons). The other, esse in velut in fundamento, belongs specifically to relation as such and reflects the fact that very relation, even a substantial one, is not only a relation towards something, but necessarily also a relation of something towards something else. In spite of the fact, therefore, that the Thomist and Scotist doctrines are usually grouped together as mere subvariants of anti-reductive realism, they must be regarded as substantially different.

Poznámka překladatele - Čtenář si nepochybně klade otázku po původu a historickém kontextu nově objeveného sókratovského dialogu, jehož český překlad zde prezentujeme. Tomuto oprávněnému požadavku však bohužel zatím nelze dostát. Autorství a historická povaha textu jsou stále předmětem zkoumání a zásadní nejistota zatím panuje i ohledně zcela základních otázek. Prezentovat zde jakékoliv předběžné dohady by tudíž za této situace mohlo být velmi zavádějící; čekat s prezentací dialogu veřejnosti na vyřešení techto otázek se však zdálo škoda. Proto jsem se rozhodl – po poradě s redakcí časopisu – zdržet se prozatím všech vyjádření k historickým a textově kritickým otázkám spjatým s textem a předložit jej tímto způsobem v pracovním českém překladu bez jakéhokoliv dalšího komentáře. Překlad věnuji svým kolegům. - Lukáš Novák

The author shows that Aquinas’s treatise on the Trinity can be viewed in two ways. According to the first, now prevailing opinion, the thoughts of the Angelic Doctor are too speculative and in essence they harm our personal relationship with God. He aims to show that the main source of inspiration for this approach are those currents in modern and contemporary philosophy according to which any metaphysics is impossible. Adherents of the other view do not reject metaphysics, and so they are also sympathetic towards Aquinas’s connecting speculation with the Trinity doctrine. They see a great advantage in this connexion, as it allows us to understand more deeply the mysteries of faith and so to demonstrate the uniqueness of the Christian message. The author aims to show that both approaches are justified and one should not be sacrificed for the other. He believes that a philosophical framework allowing the old and the new Trinitarian theologies to coexist is provided by Wittgenstein’s conception of speech games.

In our contribution we continue our discussion with L. Novák, who criticised our paper “Různá pojetí matematiky u vybraných autorů od antiky po raný novověk.” Novák’s critique titled “Tomáš Akvinský instrumentalistou v matematice?” served as an incentive for us not only to clarify certain points, but also to deepen our original exposition. We focused on Aquinas’s understanding of mathematics, the middle sciences and philosophy. We still insist that two substantially different interpretations of these disciplines are possible. On the one hand, there is much evidence for Aquinas’s realistic approach to mathematics and the middle sciences. On the other hand, ideas can also be found in Aquinas’s texts supporting an instrumentalist reading. In our opinion, it is important to point out these two approaches to the mathematical sciences in order to adequately understand the subsequent evolution of the history of ideas, especially in the modern period.

In this article I consider two aspects of Moore’s philosophical method which lead to the turn to natural language. These are his interest in the meaning (not the truth) of problematic philosophical theses and his interest in common sense philosophy. However, Moore himself did not completely achieve the linguistic turn: he merely prepared the way for it. In the conclusions I show that Moore’s themes were developed by N. Malcom. The deeper sense of my paper is to show that the linguistic turn as begun by Moore does not conflict with the spirit of the Aristotelian tradition.

The article deals with the problem of the future contingents from the logical point of view, i.e. whether the propositions about (conditional) future contingents have a determinate truth-value. The author attemps to show how the problem was discussed both in the 17. century between a Prague’s Jesuit M. Větrovský and a French Dominican A. Goudin, as well as how the discussion has progressed through contemporary analytical philosophy. Firstly the history of the problem is explored to provide the sources for the discussion. Secondly the polemic of Větrovský with Goudin is examined and finally how A. J. Freddoso and W. L. Craig discuss the problem in contemporary analytical philosophy. The essential aspect of the argument is whether the propositions about (conditional) future contingents might have a determinate truth-value if the causal grounding (futuritio causalis) is being detached.