The humanist treatises presented here are only peripheral to the history of logic, but I think historians of logic may read them with interest, if perhaps with irritation. In the early sixteenth century the humanists set about to demolish medieval logic based on syllogistic and disputation, and to replace it in the university curriculum with a 'rhetorical' logic based on the use of topics and persuasion. To a very large extent they succeeded. Although Aris totelian logic retained a vigorous life in the schools, it never again attained to the overwhelming primacy it had so long enjoyed in the...

A sports reporter might say that in a competition all the participants realize their potentialities or possibilities. When an athlete performs far below his usual standard, it can be said that it was possible for him to do better. But the idea of fair play requires that this use of 'possible' refers to another com petition. It is presumed that the best athlete wins and that no real possibility of doing better is left unrealized in a competition. Here we have a use of language, a language game, in which modal notions are used so as to imply that if something is possible, it is realized. This...

This book examines the factors influencing women's choices of obstetrical care in a Bariba community in the People's Republic of Benin, West Africa. When selecting a research topic, I decided to investigate health care among the Bariba for several reasons. First, I had served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in northern Benin (then Dahomey) and had established a network of contacts in the region. In addition, I had worked for a year as assistant manager of a pharmacy in a northern town and had become interested in the pattern of utilization of health care services by urban residents. This...

This book began with my edition of the anonymous treatise. A translation and notes seemed essential if the material of the treatise was to be understood. It then seemed that Chapter 5 of Heytesbury's Rules for Solving Sophismata, on which the treatise was based, should also be included. My translation of the Heytesbury treatise is based on a fifteenth-century edition, supplemented by readings from a few of the better manuscripts. (A critical edition from all the manuscripts, of which Chapter 5 will be mine, is now in progress under the supervision of Paul Spade, but only a few insignificant...

Buridan was a brilliant logician in an age of brilliant logicians, sensitive to formal and philosophical considerations. There is a need for critical editions and accurate translations of his works, for his philosophical voice speaks directly across the ages to problems of concern to analytic philosophers today. But his idiom is unfamiliar, so editions and trans- lations alone will not bridge the gap of centuries. I have tried to make Buridan accessible to philosophers and logicians today by the introduc- tory essay, in which I survey Buridan's philosophy of logic. Several problems which...

The word "modem" in the title of this book refers primarily to post-medieval discussions, but it also hints at those medieval mo- dal theories which were considered modem in contradistinction to ancient conceptions and which in different ways influenced philosophical discussions during the early modem period. The me- dieval developments are investigated in the opening paper, 'The Foundations of Modality and Conceivability in Descartes and His Predecessors', by Lilli Alanen and Simo Knuuttila. Boethius's works from the early sixth century belonged to the sources from which early medieval...

'Nobody reads Mill today, ' wrote a reviewer in Time magazine a few years ago. One could scarcely praise Mr Melvin Maddocks, who penned that remark, for his awareness of the present state of Mill studies, for of all nineteenth century philosophers who wrote in English, it is 1. S. Mill who remains the most read today. Yet it would not be so far from the truth to say that very few people pay much serious attention nowadays to Mill's writings about logic and metaphysics (as distinct from those on ethical and social issues), despite the fact that Mill put enormous effort into their composition...

The original, Dutch version of this book served in 1979 as a doctoral disserta- tion in philosophy at the Free University in Amsterdam. In this preface to the - slightly revised - English translation, I wish once again to express my gratitude to my supervisors, Prof. J. van der Hoeven of the Free University and Prof. G. Nuchelmans of the University of Leiden, for their excellent and stimulating support. Professor van der Hoeven was associated with this project from the outset. It was a privilege to benefit from his incisive commentaries, especially in those instances where the objective was...

When this book was first published, more than five years ago, I added an appendix on How the Pythagoreans discovered Proposition 11.5 of the 'Elements'. I hoped that this appendix, although different in some ways from the rest of the book, would serve to illustrate the kind of research which needs to be undertaken, if we are to acquire a new understanding of the historical development of Greek mathematics. It should perhaps be mentioned that this book is not intended to be an introduction to Greek mathematics for the general reader; its aim is to bring the problems associated with the early...

A sports reporter might say that in a competition all the participants realize their potentialities or possibilities. When an athlete performs far below his usual standard, it can be said that it was possible for him to do better. But the idea of fair play requires that this use of 'possible' refers to another com petition. It is presumed that the best athlete wins and that no real possibility of doing better is left unrealized in a competition. Here we have a use of language, a language game, in which modal notions are used so as to imply that if something is possible, it is realized. This...