Faculty Research and Publications

Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2022/18712

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    Henry Losier's Notebook: Poems and Maxims
    (2014-09-14) Spade, Paul Vincent
    Selections from a "notebook" left by Henry A. Losier (1859-1948), of Van Buren, Grant County, Indiana. The selections include poems, maxims and other miscellaneous observations.
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    An Anonymous Fourteenth-Century Treatise on "Insolubles": Text and Study
    (1969) Spade, Paul Vincent; Brinkley, Richard
    A thesis submitted for the degree of Licentiate of Medieval Studies at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto, 1969. The thesis consists of a Latin edition and a philosophical and historical study of a single anonymous treatise on semantic paradoxes like the "Liar Paradox" ("This very sentence is false"). The author has subsequently been identified as a certain Richard Brinkley, a Franciscan Friar at Oxford. The treatise was written sometime probably before 1373. The treatise is edited from: British Library, MS Harley 3243, fols. 47ra1-56rb5. Two other manuscripts have subsequently been found to contain this treatise as Part 6 of Brinkley's "Summa logicae": Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS 1360, and Prague, Státní Knihovna, ČSR, MS 396.
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    Insolubles: Supplementary Document (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
    (2009) Spade, Paul Vincent
    Some supplementary remarks to my article "Insolubles," in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, in response to an article by Stephen Read.
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    Poul Martin Møller, Introduction to a Treatise on Affectation (translation)
    Spade, Paul Vincent
    A translation from Poul Martin Møller, Inledning til en Afhandling om Affektationen, in Poul Møller: Skrifter i Udvalg, Vilh. Andersen, ed., (“Danmarks Nationallitteratur,” Poul Tuxen, gen. ed.; Copenhagen: Gad, 1930), vol. II, pp. 390–99. The original article dates from 1837.
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    Gregory of Rimini and Peter of Ailly: Are Mental Sentences Composed of Parts?
    Spade, Paul Vincent
    William of Ockham held that, with a few exceptions, the structure of spoken and written sentences mirrored that of mental language, at least with respect to features affecting truth and falsehood. Gregory of Rimini and Peter of Ailly rejected this view. This paper focuses on two of their arguments, one pertaining to word-order in mental language, the other to the mental copula. I conclude that their arguments are ones Ockham cannot answer without complicating his theory of mental language more than he would likely have been willing to do.
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    Jon Stewart. A History of Hegelianism in Golden Age Denmark. Tome I, The Heiberg Period: 1824–1836. København: Søren Kierkegaard Research Center—C. A. Reitzel, 2007. (Review)
    (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009-01) Spade, Paul Vincent
    A review of Jon Stewart. A History of Hegelianism in Golden Age Denmark. Tome I, The Heiberg Period: 1824–1836. København: Søren Kierkegaard Research Center—C. A. Reitzel, 2007.
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    John Marenbon, From the Circle of Alcuin to the School of Auxerre: Logic, Theology, and Philosophy in the Early Middle Ages. (Review)
    (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983-01) Spade, Paul Vincent
    A review of John Marenbon. From the Circle of Alcuin to the School of Auxerre: Logic, Theology, and Philosophy in the Early Middle Ages. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 3rd Series, vol. 15. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
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    Averroes's Middle Commentaries on Aristotle's Categories and De Interpretatione, Charles E. Butterworth, trans. (review)
    (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986-01) Spade, Paul Vincent
    A review of Charles E. Butterworth, translator. Averroes's Middle Commentaries on Aristotle's Categories and De Interpretaione. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.
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    Marius Victorinus on the Trinity
    (2015-01-03) Spade, Paul Vincent
    A study of Marius Victorinus's defense of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, the earliest systematic such study in the history of theology. The paper discusses some of the main ontological articulations of Victorinus's universe and their application to his doctrine of the Trinity, and then draws some observations and conclusions against the background of Etienne Gilson's biting criticism.
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    Synonymy and Equivocation in Ockham's Mental Language
    (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980-01) Spade, Paul Vincent
    In I957 Peter Geach argued that Ockham's theory of mental language was too facile, that it made the grammar of mental language look too suspiciously like that of Latin: "He merely transfers features of Latin grammar to Mental, and then regards this as explaining why such features occur in Latin -- they are needed there if what we say inwardly in Mental is to be outwardly got across to others in Latin. But clearly nothing is explained at all.'' In 1970 John Trentman responded to this charge in a short article that has since become very influential. In that article Trentman makes three claims among others: (1) Ockham thought of mental language as a kind of stripped-down, "ideal" language, containing just those grammatical features that affect the truth conditions of mental sentences. (2) There can be no synonymy in mental language. (3) There can be no equivocation in mental language. This paper examines these three claims in turn. Each of them is "correct" in the sense that Ockham either explicitly holds it or else seems committed to holding it on the basis of other features of his thought. Nevertheless, I maintain, each of these claims also leads to difficulties for Ockham, either (with respect to the first claim) because there are certain empirical, linguistic reasons of a sort Ockham would accept for rejecting the claim as it stands, or else (with respect to the second and third claims) because it conflicts with things Ockham says elsewhere.
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    Boethius's "De topicis differentiis" (review)
    (The Johns Hopkins Univerrsity Press, 1980-10) Spade, Paul Vincent
    A review of Eleonore Stump, Boethius's De topicis differentiis, Tr. by Eleonore Stump, with Notes and Essays on the Text. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1978). Pp. 237. $18.50.
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    Søren Kierkegaard
    Spade, Paul Vincent
    A complete course, last taught in the Spring of 2011, devoted entirely to the thought of Søren Kierkegaard. The course is structured to present a common, "standard" picture of Kierkegaard's philosophy, and then to examine that picture more closely to see what needs to be adjusted. The course consists of two files: a complete set of lecture notes, and an accompanying set of class handouts.
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    Anselm of Canterbury
    Spade, Paul Vincent
    A course, last taught in the Fall of 2010, devoted entirely to St. Anselm of Canterbury. The course discusses not only Anselm's famous "ontological argument" and other arguments for the existence of God, but also his views on truth, free choice, moral psychology, logic, time and modality, as well as theological topics like original sin, the Trinity, the Incarnation, virgin birth and redemption. There are two files associated with this course: (1) A complete set of lecture notes, and (2) a full set of handouts distributed throughout the course.
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    Where Do We Get Our Ideal Concepts, or Rationalism Defended against Every Knave
    Spade, Paul Vincent
    A talk, given originally in 1981 to several undergraduate philosophy groups. The talk argues that common "empiricist" accounts of the formation of ideal concepts (perfect circle, the ideally just state, geometrical point, etc.) are insufficient, and that theories like the Platonic theory of Recollection, the Augustinian theory of "illumination," or the Cartesian theory of innate ideas, need to be taken seriously. The talk does not recommend any of these latter theories, but only the problem they collectively address.
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    Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness: Class Materials
    Spade, Paul Vincent
    A complete set of lecture notes for an undergraduate/graduate course taught last in the Spring of 2010. The topic is Jean-Paul Sartre's big work Being and Nothingness. The lecture notes are accompanied by a course packet with outlines and other materials relevant to the class, and by a collection of class handouts. Earlier versions of most of this material have been posted at http://www.pvspade.com/Sartre. That material has been revised and updated here.
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    Fridugisus of Tours, "On the Being of Nothing and Shadows" (complete translation)
    (1995) Spade, Paul Vincent
    A complete and annotated translation of the odd letter "On the Being of Nothing and Shadows" by a certain Fridugisus of Tours, addressed to Charlemagne.
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    Søren Kierkegaard, "The Foreword to Either/Or" (translation)
    Spade, Paul Vincent
    An annotated English translation of the "Foreword" to Søren Kierkegaard's pseudonymous work "Either/Or."
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    Peter Damian, "Selections from his Letter on Divine Omnipotence" (translation)
    (1995) Spade, Paul Vincent
    A translation of a famous passage by Peter Damian about whether God's "omnipotence" means he is so powerful that he can change the past.
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    William of Ockham, De insolubilibus: Summa logicae, III.3.46
    (2002) Spade, Paul Vincent
    A translation of William of Ockham's short chapter on "insolubilia" (paradoxical statements like the Liar Paradox), from his Summa of logic, III.3.46.
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    Three Questions by John of Wesel on Obligationes and Insolubilia
    (1996) Spade, Paul Vincent
    A Latin edition of three questions on "obligationes" and "insolubilia" from the (probably) fourteenth-century Parisian logician John of Wesel, on the basis of the MS Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Class XI n. 12, Zanetti Latini 301 (= 1576), together with a discussion of the author's identity and comments on the theory contained in the edited questions. Because of difficulties with the manuscript, only questions 1 and 3 on "obligationes," and question 1 on "insolubilia" are edited here.