Mesino de Codronchi was professor of logic at the University of Bologna between 1382 and 1394; although he has received little attention to date, we know that his works were highly influential in Italy during the 15th century, and were appreciated by philosophers such as Gaetan of Thiene. Graziella Federici Vescovini has dealt with Mesino's Dubia super quaestionem Johannis de Casali [2] and with his Expositio on De Tribus Praedicamentis; [3] the latter work was also discussed by Dino Buzzetti in a recent Symposium on the teaching of Logic in Bologna during the 14th century.[4] In the same Symposium, I gave a first presentation of Mesino's Quaestiones on Aristotle's De Interpretatione[5] - of which I am preparing a critical edition - discussing his positions on the obligational rule of the varianda responsio[6] and on insolubilia.[7] Furthermore, I have published in 1997 a discussion of a number of physical and epistemic sophisms included in the Questiones.[8]

Here I will give a little essential information on the manuscript tradition, and in the main section of this paper I will deal more extensively with Mesino's discussion of mental language, focusing on his answer to the question of whether mental language includes syncategoremata or not, and on his treatment of the mental copula.

As far as I know, Mesino's Quaestiones on Aristotle's De Interpretatione are contained in two manuscripts: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canonici Classici Latini 278, ff. 37r-63v, and Viterbo, Biblioteca Capitolare 56 (D. 52), ff. 14r-36r. I dealt with the problems of the dating and history of this manuscript tradition during the Bologna Symposium,[9] and I will only recall here that the Oxford manuscript dates the Quaestiones to 1387, a date which agrees with the available information about the period of Mesino's teaching in Bologna.

The text consists of 20 questions, which often bear little relation to the littera of Aristotle's text, quoted only in two passages. They have, with very few exceptions, a constant structure: first the main question is posited, and the pro and contra arguments are presented. Then four articuli are proposed; the first two discuss subordinated questions, whose examination may be of help in the determinatio of the quaestio principalis; the third one gives the determinatio of the quaestio principalis, the fourth one discusses one or more sophisms, which do not usually seem connected with the main topics of the quaestio. I have edited elsewhere[10] the third quaestio, which besides including most of the relevant passages for the present discussion, may be used as an example of the general structure followed throughout the whole text.

It is well known that the nature of mental language was a greatly debated topic during the 14th century. Of course, the discussion on mental language was much older: strongly influenced by Boethius' distinction between spoken, written and mental terms,[11] inspired by Aristotle's famous passage of De Interpretatione 1, 16a1-8,[12] it had among the most frequently quoted auctoritates book XV of Augustin's De Trinitate, where spoken language (and the mental counterpart of a given spoken language) are contrasted with an inner speech made of inner words, which are neither Greek nor Latin and do not belong to any particular language.[13] One of the most relevant and influential discussions of those topics during the XIV century was that provided by Ockham,[14] and he refers to both Boethius and Augustine in the very first chapter of the Summa Logicae.[15]

Our interest will focus on Mesino's discussion of the internal structure of mental language, and on the presence in it of syncategorematic mental terms. Before dealing directly with Mesino's text, however, it may be useful to recall that according to Ockham both categorematic and syncategorematic terms are included in mental language:

But what precisely are syncategorematic mental terms? This question was connected with at least two, more general problems: on the one hand, that of the status of mental terms tout court; on the other, that of the nature and meaning of the propositio as a whole.

To start with the latter topic, it should be remembered here that one of the major debated issues was that of the structure and unity of mental propositions: should we postulate that the ultimate mental correlate of a spoken or written proposition has parts more or less corresponding to those of the spoken or written proposition itself, as Ockham seems to hold,[17] or should we conceive it as a single whole - for instance as a single act of knowledge - as Gregory of Rimini and Peter of Ailly did?[18] The relevance of this discussion for the question of the mental status of syncategorematic terms is obvious; E.J. Ashworth summarizes the two alternative positions in the following way:

Only the 'common view', therefore, allows mental syncategoremata. But its acceptance may still leave open the problem of their nature. The question was basically the following: mental syncategoremata are to be viewed as mental acts, or as mental terms? Here, of course, the first of the above mentioned problems - namely that of the general nature of mental terms - becomes relevant. Ockham's positions on this topic - and their historical development - have been the subject of much scholarly work; I will just recall here that following the so-called 'fictum' theory he had initially assumed that within mental language there is a difference between those mental terms which naturally signify things, and those mental terms which are the result of the reflection upon (conventional) spoken language; syncategorematic mental terms should be included in the latter group[20]. On the contrary, according to the so-called 'mental act theory', which is considered the last stage of Ockham's reflections, all concepts - including, one would suppose, syncategorematic mental terms - come to be considered as mental acts of some kind. Therefore according to Ockham's more mature thesis the 'grammar' of mental language is a grammar governing mental acts, which should be thought of as subdivided into categorematic and syncategorematic ones, obviously with quite different functions but made up of basically the same 'mental stuff'. It is interesting to remark that it is precisely the account given by Ockham regarding the nature of syncategoremata according to the 'fictum' theory which motivates one of the main criticisms of this theory levelled by Walter Chatton, who devotes the fifth of his dubia to this problem.[21]

The 'mental act' theory, however, seems to imply a difficulty which was pointed out by Gregory of Rimini, and has again to do with the problem of the unity of mental propositions: if all mental terms are similar in their being mental acts, how can we connect them to form a higher unity - namely a proposition? It would be pointless to say that this is done through a new - categorematic or syncategorematic - mental act, because we would have to explain how this new mental act is connected to the original ones: in this way, in order to explain how the proposition 'homo est albus' differs from the three terms 'homo', 'est' and 'albus' taken separately we would need an infinite hierarchy of mental acts.[22]

The strategy adopted by Mesino - namely a strong differentiation between categorematic mental terms and syncategorematic mental acts - appears to be precisely a possible way out of the problem. This topic is discussed mainly in the third question ("Utrum voces subordinentur conceptibus"), the second article of which explicitly addresses the problem "utrum aliqui termini mentales sint syncategorematici". According to Mesino's prima conclusio,

Mesino, therefore, identifies mental terms in the strict sense (that is, categorematic mental terms) with the intentiones sive similitudines, thought of as some kind of mental image;[24] however, he adds immediately, we may speak of mental terms (or of concepts, which seems to be the same) in a broader sense as including both the intentiones sive similitudines and the modi concipiendi, those being the mental correlates of syncategoremata. If we speak of mental terms in the strict sense, then it is clear that there are vocal terms (i.e. syncategoremata) which have no mental counterpart. But if we accept the broader meaning of 'mental term', then

Mesino comes back to this problem in the eighth question, holding that "in mente non est aliquod syncategorema, sed intellectus tenet locum syncategorematis"[27] and, with reference to omnis, that "intellectus tenet locum signi uniuersalis (...) et (...) omnium aliorum syncategorematum".     [28] Again, in question thirteen, with reference to negation:

The same basic assumptions are used by Mesino in discussing the much debated issue of the grammatical variations of terms within mental language. Thus, the second article of question seventeen deals with the problem "utrum termini mentales mutentur propter casus sicut termini uocales et scripti", and Mesino holds that if we speak of mental terms in a strict sense, that is as only referring to the intentiones sive similitudines, "nullus terminus mentalis est uariabilis per casum".[30] Sed "capiendo terminum mentalem pro intentione simul cum modo concipiendi, terminus mentalis habet casum rectum et obliquum".[31] As we shall see, even the difference between noun and verb is attributed by Mesino to mental operations rather than to different mental terms.

It will be clear from the above quoted passages that Mesino's discussion on the grammar of mental language and on the mental status of syncategoremata is strongly indebted to the modist tradition and to the critical debate on it which took place during the 14th century. The interrelation between speculative grammar and discussions on mental language is, of course, not surprising,[32] but it is interesting to see the importance of its presence in Italy. Mesino, however, never explicitly discusses modist grammatical theories, although he uses both the expressions modi concipiendi and modi significandi. The first one is much more frequent - and this may be explained by the thesis considered above that it is through a form of mental activity that mental language acquires its structure. Mesino's use of the two expressions may be exemplified by a passage taken from the third question, which deals precisely with the difference between noun and verb:

Mesino's position on the nature of mental syncategoremata must have been within a tradition which is in many respects still to be explored, but which was probably an important one. We find it still present in Domingo de Soto, who "informs us that the moderni did not call the syncategorematic mental terms cognitions or concepts, but rather syncategorematic acts".[34] And the position that Soto attributes to the moderni seems to be exactly the same as we have found in Mesino. The same opinion, according to which a mental proposition is the result of a composition of categorematic mental concepts and syncategorematic mental acts, is to be found, for instance, in Stephanus de Monte and Tartaretus,[35] and E.J. Ashworth has explored its presence in the early 16th century.[36] Where does this opinio came from? We have introduced it as a possible way out of an objection which Gregory of Rimini made to the idea that a mental proposition is composed of parts. Gregory of Rimini is never directly quoted in Mesino's Quaestiones, but the same problem was discussed by Heytesbury in his Sophismata,[37] a text which was certainly used by Mesino. Since Heytesbury defends the thesis that - like the copula in affirmative propositions - in negative propositions the negation corresponds to a syncategorematic act, he may well be one of the direct sources of Mesino's position. It will be apparent, however, that the whole issue is closely related to the discussion of a much older topic, namely the nature of that quite peculiar syncategorema which was considered, at least by some authors, to be the copula.[38] It seems hardly coincidental that it is precisely with reference to the mental copula that Buridan introduces a position which appears similar to Mesino's own. According to Buridan,

A somehow similar conception was already defended by Abelard. According to him, the mental act of combining (est) or separating (non est) the res intellectae is not itself an intellectus, and syncategoremata like si and non have no proper signification, but "animum inclinant ad quendam concipiendi modum"[40] - where it is interesting to observe the use of the very same expression (modus concipiendi) used by Mesino.

The idea that the mental correlate of the copula is a mental operation of composition, and that in this way the mental copula has a completely different nature from that of the terms it joins together, has of course a long history.[41] Such an idea is present in that which is probably its most extreme form in Walter Burleigh's theory of the propositio in re: according to Burleigh, the ultimate correlate of the spoken proposition is not the mental proposition, but a propositio realis consisting of extramental things. However,

A strong differentiation between the copula - or, more precisely, between the compositio which is implied by every verb, but more immediately displayed by the copula - and the terms it joins, and a peculiar emphasis on the nature of mental activity proper to this compositio, seems to be a characteristic tract of the Bologna logical school. This idea is already clearly present in Gentilis de Cingulo at the very beginning of the 14th century. According to his Scriptum super Modos significandi Martini, the proposition is an ens per aggregationem made up of a material part - subject term and predicate term, referring to the external reality - and a formal, mental part - the compositio implied by every verb, and namely by the copula:[43]

It seems plausible to assume that this kind of position played a crucial role in persuading some authors, like Mesino, that all syncategoremata should be viewed as correlated to mental operations. The 'work in progress' on the history and logical production of the Bologna school during the 14th century will hopefully provide us with further texts on this problem, allowing a better evaluation of Mesino's degree of originality on this point; but what we already know seems sufficient to indicate what may have been an important contribution of the Bologna masters - among whom Mesino had a relevant role - to the debate on the nature of the proposition, and to the development of a theory of syncategoremata which, as already noted, was to survive in post-medieval logic.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abaelardus, Petrus (1927) Philosophische Schriften I, Logica 'Ingredientibus', ed. B. Geyer, in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters Bd. XXI, 1-3, Münster 1919-1927.

Adams, M. McCord (1987) William Ockham, Notre Dame (Indiana) 1987.

Albertus de Saxonia (1988) Quaestiones in Artem Veterem, ed. by A.M. Garcia, Maracaibo 1988.

Arens, H. (1980) "'Verbum cordis'. Zur Sprachphilosophie des Mittelalters", in Historiographia Linguistica VII (1980) 1/2, pp. 13-25.

Ashworth, E.J. (1974) Language and Logic in the Post-medieval Period, Dordrecht 1974.

Ashworth, E.J. (1981) "Mental Language and the Unity of Propositions: a Semantic Problem discussed by Early Sixteenth Century Logicians", in Franciscan Studies XIX, 41 (1981) pp. 61-96.

Ashworth, E.J. (1982) "The Structure of Mental Language: Some Problems Discussed by Early Sixteenth Century Logicians", in Vivarium XX, 1982, pp. 59-83.

Augustinus (1968) De Trinitate, ed. W.J. Mountain, Turnhout.

Biard, J. (1989) Logique et théorie du signe au XIVe siècle, Paris 1989.

Boethius (1880) In librum Aristotelis Peri Hermeneias, editio secunda, I,1, ed. by C. Meiser, Lipsiae 1880.

Boethius de Dacia (1976), Quaestiones super librum Topicorum, ed. N.J. Green-Pedersen and J. Pinborg, Corpus Philosophorum Danicorum Medii Aevi VI.2, Copenhagen 1976

Boler, J.E. (1972) "Ockham's Mental Language", in Journal of Philosophy LXIX (1972) pp. 85-98.

Braakhuis, H.A.G. (1977) "The Views of William of Sherwood on Some Semantical Topics and Their Relation to Those of Roger Bacon", in Vivarium XV (1977) pp. 111-142.

Braakhuis, H.A.G. (1981) "English Tracts on Syncategorematic Terms from Robert Bacon to Walter Burley" in H.A.G. Braakhuis, C.H. Kneepkens and L.M. De Rijk (eds.), English Logic and Semantics from the End of the Twelfth Century to the Time of Ockham and Burleigh. Acts of the 4th European Symposium on Mediaeval Logic and Semantics, Leiden-Nijmegen 23-27 April 1979, Nijmegen 1981.

Buridanus, Johannes (1957) Tractatus de suppositionibus, ed. by M.E. Reina, in Rivista critica di storia della filosofia XII (1957) pp. 175-208 and pp. 323-352.

Buzzetti, D. (1992) "Linguaggio e ontologia nei commenti di autore bolognese al De tribus praedicamentis di William Heytesbury", in D. Buzzetti, M. Ferriani, A. Tabarroni (eds.), L'insegnamento della logica a Bologna nel XIV secolo, Bologna 1992, pp. 579-604.

Federici Vescovini, G. (1978a) "Duns Scoto e Biagio Pelacani a Padova", in Regnum hominis et regnum Dei. Acta Quarti Congressus Scotistici Internationalis, Patavii 1976, Societas Internationalis Scotistica, Roma 1978, pp. 187-198

Federici Vescovini, G. (1978b) "Simone di Castello e la medicina dei moderni", in Rivista di Filosofia Neoscolastica LXX, 1978, pp. 227-238, reprinted in Ead., 'Arti' e filosofia nel secolo XIV, Vallecchi, Firenze 1983, pp. 215-229.

Federici Vescovini, G. (1982) "Il commento di Angelo da Fossombrone al De Tribus Praedicamentis di Guglielmo Heytesbury", in A. Maierù (ed.), English Logic in Italy in the 14th and 15th Centuries, Bibliopolis, Napoli 1982, pp. 359-374, reprinted in Ead., "Arti" e filosofia... cit., pp. 59-73.

Federici Vescovini, G. (1983) "L'influence des Regulae solvendi sophismata de Guillaume Heytesbury: l'Expositio de tribus praedicamentis de Magister Mesinus", in P.O. Lewry (ed.), The Rise of British Logic, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto 1983, pp. 361-379.

Gál, G. (1967) "Gualtieri de Chatton et Guillelmi de Ockham controversia de natura conceptus universalis", in Franciscan Studies XXVII (1967).

Geach, P. (1957) Mental Acts, London 1957.

Gelber H. (1984) "I Cannot Tell a Lie. Hugh of Lawton's Critique of William of Ockham on Mental Language", in Franciscan Studies XXII v. 44 (1984) pp. 141-179.

Gregorius Ariminensis (1981) Lectura super primum et secundum sententiarum, ed. by A. D. Trapp and V. Marcolino, Berlin-New York 1981, t. I (Prologus - ed. by W. Eckermann and M. Schulze).

Heytesbury, William (1494) Sophismata, ed. Venetiis 1494.

Maierù, A. (1972) Terminologia logica della tarda scolastica, Roma 1972.

Maierù, A. (1990) "Filosofia del linguaggio", in G.C. Lepschy (ed.), Storia della linguistica, v. II, Bologna 1990, pp. 117-137.

Maurer, A. (1981) "William of Ockham on Language and Reality", in Miscellanea Mediaevalia XIII/2 (1981) pp. 795-802.

Nuchelmans, G. (1973) Theories of the Proposition. Ancient and Medieval Conceptions of the Bearers of Truth and Falsity, Amsterdam-London 1973.

Nuchelmans, G. (1980) Late-Scholastic and Humanist Theories of the Proposition, Amsterdam 1980.

Ockham, William (1970) Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum, ed. S. Brown and G. Gál, in Opera Theologica II, St. Bonaventure (New York) 1970.

Ockham, William (1974) Summa logicae, ed. Ph. Boehner, G. Gál and S. Brown, St. Bonaventure (New York) 1974.

Ockham, William (1978) Expositio in librum Perihermeneias Aristotelis, ed. by A. Gambatese and S. Brown, in Opera Philosophica II/2, St. Bonaventure (New York) 1978.

Ockham, William (1980) Quodlibeta septem, ed. J.C. Wey, in Opera Theologica IX, St. Bonaventure (New York) 1980.

Peter of Ailly (1980) Concepts and Insolubles. An Annotated Translation, ed. by P.V. Spade, Dordrecht 1980.

Pinborg, J. (1967) "Walter Burleigh on the Meaning of Propositions", in Classica et Mediaevalia XXVIII (1967) pp. 394-404, reprinted with the original page numbers in J. Pinborg, Medieval Semantics. Selected Studies on Medieval Logic and Grammar, London 1984.

Pinborg, J. (1971) "Bezeichnung in der Logik des XIII. Jahrhunderts", in Miscellanea Mediaevalia VIII, 1971, pp. 238-281, repr. with the original page numbers in Id., Medieval Semantics. Selected Studies on Medieval Logic and Grammar, London 1984.

Reina, M.E. (1959) "Il problema del linguaggio in Buridano I: voci e concetti", in Rivista critica di storia della filosofia XIV (1959) pp. 367-417.

Roncaglia, G. (1992) "Le Quaestiones di Mesino de Codronchi sul De Interpretatione", in D. Buzzetti, M. Ferriani, A. Tabarroni (eds.), L'insegnamento della logica a Bologna nel XIV secolo, Bologna 1992, pp. 545-577.

Roncaglia, G. (1993) “Mesino de Codronchi’s Quaestiones on Aristotle’s De Interpretatione: An Edition of Quaestio III  (Utrum voces subordinentur conceptibus)”, in Cahiers de l’Institut du Moyen-Âge Grec et Latin, Université de Copenhague, LXIII, pp. 209-224.

Roncaglia, G. (1997) “Physical and epistemic sophisms in Mesino de Coderonchi's Quaestiones on De Interpretatione”, in S. Caroti et P. Souffrin (ed.), La 'nouvelle physique' du XIVe siècle, Olschki, Firenze, pp. 277-308.

Soto, Domingo de (1529) Summulae, Salamanticae 1529.

Spade, P.V. (1980) "Synonymy and Equivocation in Ockham's Mental Language", in Journal of the History of Philosophy XVIII (1980) pp. 9-22.

Tabarroni, A. (1984) "Segno mentale e teoria della rappresentazione in Ockham", in Versus 38/39 (1984) pp. 63-90.

Tabarroni, A. (1992) "Gentile da Cingoli e Angelo d'Arezzo sul Peryermeneias e i maestri di logica a Bologna all'inizio del XIV secolo", in D. Buzzetti, M. Ferriani, A. Tabarroni (eds.), L'insegnamento della logica... cit., pp. 393-440.

Tachau, K. (1988) Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham. Optics, Epistemology and the Foundations of Semantics, 1250-1345, Leiden 1988.

Trentman, J. (1970) "Ockham on Mental", in Mind LXXIX (1970) pp. 586-590.

William of Sherwood (1941) Syncategoremata, ed. J.R. O'Donnell, in Medieval Studies III (1941) pp. 46-93.

Zimmermann, A. (1971) "'Ipsum enim est nihil est' (Aristoteles, Periherm. I, c. 3). Thomas von Aquin über die Bedeutung der Kopula", in A. Zimmermann (Hrsg.), Der Begriff der Repraesentatio im Mittelalter. Stellvertretung, Symbol, Zeichen, Bild (Miscellanea Mediaevalia, 8), Berlin-New York 1971, pp. 282-295.