In Ockham’s opinion, Socrates qua father cannot be regarded as a relative it is the name ‘father’ (and the corresponding intentio) that is a relative. Ockham, on the contrary, believed that terms such as ‘ relativum’, ‘ relatio’, and ‘ ad aliquid’ are terms of second intention, since they signify other (vocal, written, mental) terms, when taken in personal supposition. The foundation is the main component, since it joins the relation to the underlying substances, permits the relation to link the antecedent term to the consequent term, and transmits some of its properties to the relation.
In fact, according to Burley, any relation has its own converse. Burley believed that when two substances are related one to the other, five distinct elements can be singled out: the relation itself (for instance, the form of paternity) the ultimate substrate of that relation (namely, the substance that denominatively receives the name of the relation - the animal which is called ‘father’ because it begot another similar to itself) the fundamentum of the relation (namely the categorial item in virtue of which the relation inheres in its substrate - in our example, the generative power) the antecedent term of the relation (namely the aggregate formed by the substrate in which the relation inheres and the relation itself - in our example, the father) and the consequent term of the relation (namely, the aggregate formed by the substance with which the subiectum is somehow connected and the relation correlated to the first one - in our example, the son). The article focuses on one important aspect of this debate between Realists and Nominalists in the Late Middle Ages, namely the controversy between William Ockham and Walter Burley about the nature and status of relations and relatives, for the category of ad aliquid is the most intriguing category after substance, and in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages many authors attempted to develop new formulations of the Aristotelian theory of relatives.
0 kommentar(er)
