William of Sherwood
Encyclopedia
William of Sherwood (1190–1249) was a medieval English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 Scholastic philosopher, logician and teacher.

Little is known of his life, but he is thought to have studied in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, as a master at Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

 in 1252, treasurer of Lincoln
Lincoln, Lincolnshire
Lincoln is a cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England.The non-metropolitan district of Lincoln has a population of 85,595; the 2001 census gave the entire area of Lincoln a population of 120,779....

 from 1254/8 onwards, and a rector
Rector
The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...

 of Aylesbury
Aylesbury
Aylesbury is the county town of Buckinghamshire in South East England. However the town also falls into a geographical region known as the South Midlands an area that ecompasses the north of the South East, and the southern extremities of the East Midlands...

.

He was the author of two books which were an important influence on the development of Scholastic logic: Introductiones in Logicam (Introduction to Logic), and Syncategoremata
Syncategorematic term
In scholastic logic, a syncategorematic term is a word that cannot serve as the subject or the predicate of a proposition, and thus cannot stand for any of Aristotle's categories, but can be used with other terms to form a proposition...

. These are the first known works to deal in a systematic way with what is now called supposition theory
Supposition theory
Supposition theory was a branch of medieval logic that was probably aimed at giving accounts of issues similar to modern accounts of reference, plurality, tense, and modality, from within an Aristotelian context. Philosophers such as John Buridan, William of Ockham, William of Sherwood, Walter...

, known in William's time as the logica moderna.

Life

William was probably born in Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...

, between 1200 and 1210. In common with many educated English men of that time, he may have studied at Oxford university or the University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...

, or both. There are examples in his logical work which suggest he was a master at Paris. (For example 'No man lectures at Paris unless he is a smart person' / 'Whatever runs has feet, the Seine runs, ergo the Seine has feet'). Further evidence that he lectured in Paris is that those logicians who were influenced by his work also worked in Paris, such as Peter of Spain
Peter of Spain
Peter of Spain or, in Latin, Petrus Hispanus is the Mediaeval author of Tractatus, later known as Summulae logicales magistri Petri Hispani , a standard textbook on logic...

 (around 1245), and Lambert of Auxerre
Lambert of Auxerre
Lambert of Auxerre was a medieval 13th century logician best known for writing the book "Summa Lamberti" or simply "Logica" in the mid 1250's which became an authoritative textbook on logic in the Western tradition. He was a Dominican in the Dominican house at Auxerre. His contemporaries were Peter...

 (around 1250).

He is thought to have become treasurer of Lincoln Cathedral
Lincoln Cathedral
Lincoln Cathedral is a historic Anglican cathedral in Lincoln in England and seat of the Bishop of Lincoln in the Church of England. It was reputedly the tallest building in the world for 249 years . The central spire collapsed in 1549 and was not rebuilt...

 some time in the 1250s. The treasurer was one of the four principal officers of the English cathedrals whose duty was to keep the treasures of the church, the gold and silver vessels, ornaments, relics, jewels, and altar cloths. He would have had a personal residence in the Cathedral close
Cathedral Close
A cathedral close is an architectural term referring to the series of buildings that serve as appendages to a cathedral. These may include buildings housing diocesan offices, schools, free-standing chapels associated with the cathedral, and the houses of the bishop and other clergy associated with...

, would have employed a deputy and a large staff, and therefore could be absent as long as he performed those duties that could not be delegated (source: Edwards).

He is mentioned by Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon, O.F.M. , also known as Doctor Mirabilis , was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods...

, also a Master at Paris, as one of 'the more famous wise men of Christendom' one of whom is Albertus Magnus
Albertus Magnus
Albertus Magnus, O.P. , also known as Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne, is a Catholic saint. He was a German Dominican friar and a bishop, who achieved fame for his comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for the peaceful coexistence of science and religion. Those such as James A. Weisheipl...

, another of whom is master William of Sherwood, 'the treasurer of the church of Lincoln in England, who is much wiser than Albert'. (Brewer, transl. Kretzmann).

The Introduction to Logic

William's main work is a small logic manual, Introductiones in logicam. It survives in a single manuscript probably written in the late thirteenth century, headed 'Introductiones Magistri Guilli. De Shyreswode in Logicam', (Bibliothèque Nationale, Cod. Lat. 16617, formerly Codex Sorbonnensis 1797). It did not appear fully in print until 1937, in Grabman's Latin edition, and was not translated into English until 1966, by Kretzmann. No other works that are definitely by him have ever been printed.

The book consists of Six Chapters. Five of these are expositions of Aristotle's main logical works, as follows: 1. 'Statements', corresponding to De Interpretatione, 2. 'The Predicables', corresponding to Categories
Categories (Aristotle)
The Categories is a text from Aristotle's Organon that enumerates all the possible kinds of thing that can be the subject or the predicate of a proposition...

, 3. 'Syllogism', corresponding to Prior Analytics
Prior Analytics
The Prior Analytics is Aristotle's work on deductive reasoning, specifically the syllogism. It is also part of his Organon, which is the instrument or manual of logical and scientific methods....

, 4. 'Dialectical Reasoning' corresponding to Topics
Topics (Aristotle)
The Topics is the name given to one of Aristotle's six works on logic collectively known as the Organon. The other five are:*Categories*De Interpretatione*Prior Analytics*Posterior Analytics*On Sophistical Refutations...

, and 6. 'Sophistical Reasoning' corresponding to Sophistical Refutations. However, Chapter 5, 'Properties of Terms', contains material that is not in Aristotle, but is a distinctively medieval development, (Supposition theory
Supposition theory
Supposition theory was a branch of medieval logic that was probably aimed at giving accounts of issues similar to modern accounts of reference, plurality, tense, and modality, from within an Aristotelian context. Philosophers such as John Buridan, William of Ockham, William of Sherwood, Walter...

) that deals with the semantics of propositions. The theory attempts to explain how the truth of simple sentences, expressed schematically, depend on how the terms 'supposit' or stand for certain extra-linguistic items, and tries to address the problem of sentential forms, like 'I promise you a horse', which do not appear to fit the standard syllogistic forms.

In this chapter William introduces what was to become a standard division of supposition into 'material', 'formal' and 'personal'. In material supposition, a term stands for itself, as when we say that 'Socrates' is a name (note that medieval Latin did not use quotation marks as in modern English). In formal supposition, the word signifies its meaning, as in man is a species. Formal supposition is similar to what is indicated in modern philosophical logic by italicising a common noun, as when we refer to the concept horse. Personal supposition is approximately the relation we now call 'satisfied by', or 'denotes', as in 'the term 'man' denotes Socrates, Aristotle, &c'.

He discusses a number of problem cases. For example, the sentence 'every man sees a man' is true when there is a single man that every man sees (for example if 'every man sees Socrates' is true). But the sentence is also true when every man sees a different man, or when some men see a single man (such as Socrates), other men see another man, and innumerable cases in between. This is called 'confused' supposition. This instance of the problem of multiple generality
Problem of multiple generality
The problem of multiple generality names a failure in traditional logic to describe certain intuitively valid inferences. For example, it is intuitively clear that if:then it follows logically that:The syntax of traditional logic permits exactly four sentence types: "All As are Bs", "No As are...

, is now thought to be insoluble using the fixed schema of Aristotle's semantics.

William's work spurred a development of logic in the thirteenth century under the general designation De Proprietibus Terminorum. Those who engaged in this part of logic were called the Moderni, or Terministae. Its most detailed treatment is found in Ockham, and in the works of those who followed him.

Legacy

Now, William is perhaps best known for a mnemonic poem to help students remember the names of the valid
Valid
Valid is a Brazilian engraving company headquartered in Rio de Janeiro that provides security printing services to financial institutions, telecommunication companies, state governments, and public agencies in Brazil, Argentina, and Spain....

 syllogistic forms:


Barbara celarent darii ferio baralipton

Celantes dabitis fapesmo frisesomorum;

Cesare campestres festino baroco; darapti

Felapton disamis datisi bocardo ferison


This verse may not have originated with him, but it is the oldest known surviving version. Peter Hispanus later gives an account of the verses which is more detailed, and also one which lacks mistakes in William's version. According to Kretzmann, this strongly suggests their source is a single earlier version, now lost.

Latin Works

  • Introductiones in logicam (Introduction to Logic), edited by Martin Grabmann, Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1937
  • William of Sherwood, Introductiones in logicam, Critical edition edited by Charles H. Lohr with P. Kunze and B. Mussler, Traditio 39, 1983: 219-99.
  • William of Sherwood. Introductiones in logicam: Einfuhrung in die Logik, edited and translated in German by H. Brands and C. Kann Hamburg: Meiner, 1995 (this critical edition supersedes the two earlier editions).
  • Syncategoremata (Treatise on Categorization Words), edited by R. O'Donnell, Medieval Studies, 3, 1941: 46-93.
  • Insolubilia (Insolubles), edited by Marie Louise Roure in 'La problématique des propositions insolubles du XIIIe siècle et du début du XIVe, suivie de l'édition des traités de William Shyreswood, Walter Burleigh et Thomas Bradwardine', Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen Age 37, 1970: 205-326.

English translations

  • William of Sherwood's Introduction to Logic, translated (from the edition of Grabmann) by Nicolas Kretzmann, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1966.
  • Treatise on Syncategorematic Words, translated by Nicolas Kretzmann,Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1968.
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