Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association

Volume 84, 2010

Philosophy and Language

Is Buridan’s Theory of Abstraction Incompatible with His Nominalist Semantics? An Evaluation of Klima’s Charge against Buridan

This paper addresses Klima’s charge of inconsistancy against John Buridan in a book recently published on the subject. Klima argues that Buridan’s theory of abstraction commits him to the aspectuality of substantial concepts. However, his semantics of absolute terms and concepts prevents him from accepting any aspectuality of substantial concepts. In light of this problem, the paper gives a detailed reconstruction of Buridan’s account of abstraction, beginning with sensory perception and singular cognition and ending with the formation of substantial concepts that have a universal signification. Then, from this reconstruction, some Buridanian responses are given to Klima’s critique, which explain at least why Buridan did not see the problem himself. Finally, the conclusion comes down in favor of Klima and, in light of the discussion, highlights some fundamental problems with the nominalist project.