De dicto in Wikipedia

I'm glad to see that something may (possibly) be done about the current ban on links from Wikipedia to the Logic Museum. John Vandenberg, who is president of Wikimedia Australia, and who is slightly more sane and mature than the bunch of teenagers who run the place, has left a kind comment on the spam blacklist page, saying that "The Logic Museum is scholarly work, of exceptional quality and utility to Wikipedia".

Yes of course, John!  How else would readers of Wikipedia understand the use of Latin phrases like de dicto and de re?  I discussed this in an earlier post, but let's see what Wikipedia has to say about this important distinction.

De dicto and de re are two phrases used to mark important distinctions in intensional statements, associated with the intensional operators in many such statements. The distinctions are most recognized in philosophy of language and metaphysics.

The literal translation of the phrase "de dicto" is "of (the) word", whereas de re translates to "of (the) thing". The original meaning of the Latin locutions is useful for understanding the living meaning of the phrases, in the distinctions they mark. The distinction is best understood by examples of intensional contexts of which we will consider three: a context of thought, a context of desire, and a context of modality.

This is horrible. Note the article doesn't have any warning sign that something is wrong (to preempt a complaint that William made about the Maverick post yesterday.  It is a mixture of the horribly clumsy and the horribly wrong.  The plural 'important distinctions' is merely clumsy, given that there is just one distinction.  So is "The distinctions are most recognized in philosophy of language and metaphysics", although it is not clear whether recognised is meant, as though writers outside those subjects are aware of the distinction, but refuse to recognise it, or whether made is intended, in the sense that writers outside those areas simply aren't aware of the distinction at all.

But some of it is just wrong.  The standard use of the term 'intensional' qualifies not a statement but a context.   See e.g. the more useful SEP article on this.  And the distinction itself is a distinction in reading or sense, which the introduction does not explain properly. Thus there is a de re reading of a particular sentence, or a de dicto.  And the worst bit is the explanation of the Latin 'original meaning'.  'De dicto' does not mean 'of the word', as my previous post made clear, and as another excerpt from the Logic Museum, this time from the Summa Logicae of pseudo-Aquinas (my hasty translation) makes clear.  A dictum is what we now call a 'that clause', which Latin expresses by combining an accusative with an infinitive - Socratem currere - 'Socrates's running' or 'that Socrates runs'.  In Latin such a construction can be the subject of a sentence, as in Socratem currere est necesse, where 'that Socrates runs' is the subject, and 'is necessary' is the predicate. We can say the same in English, although it sounds a bit old-fashioned, such as in 'that snow is white is a well-known fact'. In no way does 'dictum' mean a word, as Wikipedia says, possibly confusing it with 'dictio' which can mean a word, or an expression. It literaly means 'about (de) what is said (dicto).

As for de re, 'of the thing' is slightly better, although res in has a much richer semantics than the plain English 'thing'.  It is sometimes translated as 'about reality' or 'about the reality'.  Note the two letters that begin the word 'reality', which is not a coincidence.

Here is the link to the Summa Logicae.  Don't try inserting it in Wikipedia: it will get you banned. Needless to say, Google returns the Wikipedia article first, on a search for de dicto.

Latin

English

Ad sciendum autem earum quantitatem, notandum quod quaedam sunt propositiones modales de dicto, ut, Socratem currere est necesse; in quibus scilicet dictum subiicitur, et modus praedicatur: et istae sunt vere modales, quia modus hic determinat verbum ratione compositionis, ut supra dictum est. Quaedam autem sunt modales de re, in quibus videlicet modus interponitur dicto, ut, Socratem necesse est currere: non enim modo est sensus, quod hoc dictum sit necessarium, scilicet Socratem currere; sed huius sensus est, quod in Socrate sit necessitas ad currendum.

Now for knowing about their [i.e. modal propositions'] quantity, it should be noted that some modal propositions are de dicto, such as "that Socrates runs is necessary", namely those in which the dictum [i.e. the clause "that Socrates runs"] is the subject and the mode [i.e. 'is necessary'] is the predicate, and these are truly modals, for the mode here determines the verb by reason of composition, as was said above.  And some are modals de re, namely in which the mode is interposed in dictum, e.g. "Socrates necessarily is running", for the sense is not now that the dictum is necessary, namely 'that Socrates runs', but the sense of it is that in Socrates there is 'necessity towards running'.

De re and de dicto

Tristan Haze recommended this 1977 paper by Kripke which I am working through. He mentions the de re / de dicto distinction on page 258, and once again I am struck by the way that so much of our terminology and ideas are inherited from medieval Latin philosophy and logic.  I discussed this before with respect to a priori.

The de re / de dicto distinction is mentioned in a passage here from Thomas's Summa Theologiae, which I quote here using the Dominican translation.

Latin

English

Unde et haec propositio, omne scitum a Deo necessarium est esse, consuevit distingui. Quia potest esse de re, vel de dicto. Si intelligatur de re, est divisa et falsa, et est sensus, omnis res quam Deus scit, est necessaria. Vel potest intelligi de dicto, et sic est composita et vera; et est sensus, hoc dictum, scitum a Deo esse, est necessarium.

Hence also this proposition, "Everything known by God must necessarily be," is usually distinguished; for this may refer to the thing, or to the saying. If it refers to the thing, it is divided and false; for the sense is, "Everything which God knows is necessary." If understood of the saying, it is composite and true; for the sense is, "This proposition, 'that which is known by God is' is necessary."

I am not sure about the translation. 'De re' is rendered as 'about the thing', and 'de dicto' as 'about the saying.  Correct-ish, but we have the difficulty of translating a Latin term which is probably being used in a technical sense.   He uses the verb consuevit which means 'is usually' or 'is customarily', which suggests that the terminology was established when he was writing in the 1270s.  It certainly was - the distinction is mentioned at the end of this very technical discussion probably written in Paris around the same time (Aquinas taught in Paris in the 1260s).  Even Abelard, writing in the 12th century, mentions it. A dictum - literally 'what is said' - of a proposition is what is said or asserted by the proposition.  In Latin it is expressed by the accusative-infinitive form, e.g.. Socratem currere which means 'that Socrates runs' or 'Socrates's running'.  A de dicto proposition is thus one which has a dictum as subject.  For example, in Socratem currere est verum (it is true that Socrates is running) the subject is Socratem currere, which is the dictum (or refers to it, medieval texts frequently conflate use and mention), and the predicate is verum.  See Catarina's interesting paper here.

When Thomas talks about the composite and divided sense, he almost certainly means what Ockham is talking about here.  (Not yet available with English translation, however).  Ockham's point throughout the Summa is that the dici de omni pretty much always applies to propositions understood de re, and so Frege's puzzle does not apply in such a sense.  In propositions understood de dicto, there are nearly always problems with substitution.  His ideas about this are mostly in Part III-1 of the Summa, none of which is available in English online, and indeed very little of which is available offline. It is a philosophical scandal that the works of one of England's greatest philosophers are not available in the language of his own country. (For much of his life William would have spoken as well as written in Latin, but the language of ordinary people was a form of middle English similar to the English of Chaucer which would still be intelligible to us modern folks).

Google takes up Latin

I was excited when I saw that the Google translator now includes Latin, and immediately gave it an untranslated section of the Logic Museum to look at.  Results below.  Not promising, sadly, so I am stuck with the tedious manual method for the moment.

Logic Museum	Google
Fit autem fallacia consequentis vel arguendo ex propositionibus quarum una sequitur ad aliam et non e converso; vel arguendo ex una condicionali ad aliam condicionalem in qua oppositum antecedentis primae condicionalis ponitur antecedens et oppositum consequentis primae condicionalis ponitur loco consequentis.	Or by arguing the fallacy of the consequent becomes one of which follows from propositions to another and not vice versa, or by arguing on the one in which the opposite of the antecedent of the first conditional to another conditional is placed opposite of the consequent of the first antecedent and the consequent CONDITIONAL place is placed.

The snows have scattered

It's almost a Spring day here in London, sun, birds chirping and shopping at Sainsbury's. So here is an attempt at translating Horace's poem (IV.7) on the transience of human life and ambition. I have tried to preserve the word order as far as possible, so I don't know whether it makes much sense.

There is another (very non-literal) translation here. Another set of translations here.

Latin	English
VII.	Ode VII
1 Diffugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis Arboribusque comae; Mutat terra vices et decrescentia ripas Flumina praetereunt;	The snows have scattered, and back comes grass to fields And leaves to trees. Earth changes seasons, and declining [between their] banks Rivers flow.
5 Gratia cum Nymphis geminisque sororibus audet Ducere nuda choros. Immortalia ne speres, monet annus et almum Quae rapit hora diem.	The Grace with the Nymphs and her twin sisters dares To lead, naked, the dance. Lest you hope for immortal things, the year warns you, and the hour, That hurries away the kindly day.
Frigora mitescunt Zephyris, ver proterit aestas 10 Interitura, simul Pomifer autumnus fruges effuderit, et mox Bruma recurrit iners.	Frosts grow mild in the western winds; Summer tramples Spring, Who will herself perish once Fruitful Autumn has poured out fruit; and soon Fruitless Winter returns.
Damna tamen celeres reparant caelestia lunae ; Nos ubi decidimus, 15 Quo pater Aeneas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus, Pulvis et umbra sumus.	Yet the moons are fast to make good their heavenly losses; We, when we have fallen to Where good Aeneas and wealthy Tullus, and Ancus [have] Are dust and shadow.
Quis scit an adiciant hodiernae crastina summae Tempora di superi ? Cuncta manus avidas fugient heredis, amico 20 Quae dederis animo.	Who knows whether [they] will add to the sum of to-day,to-morrow's Time - the gods above? All will escape the greedy hands of your heir, Which you gave to your dear soul.
Cum semel occideris et de te splendida Minos Fecerit arbitria, Non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te Restituet pietas.	But when once you have fallen, and on you Minos Has made majestic judgment, Neither, Torquatus, shall family or eloquence Or loyalty restore you.
25 Infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicum Liberat Hippolytum, Nec Lethaea valet Theseus abrumpere caro Vincula Pirithoo.	For neither from the shadows below does Diana virtuous Hippolytus set free; Nor can Theseus break Lethe's Chains from [his dear] Pirithous

On the revival of Latin

On the revival of Latin, by Hillaire Belloc, at Michael Gilleland's website.

His main theme is the need for a common language. "The necessity of some common language is seen in the fantastic attempts to create one artificially. You will find enthusiasts for stuff like Esperanto, which is about as much like a human language as a jig-saw puzzle is like a living face." He was writing just before the internationalisation of English. He does not mention at all the importance of Latin to philosophers, namely that the philosophical language of thought - its vocabulary and to a large extent its syntax - is essentially Latin.

His characterisation of what we now call The West is interesting. "There is one unmistakable thing which, in spite of a badly diseased and divided social state, is still in the main the common descendant of the old Christian culture. Its dress, its manner of living, its main social ideas are the same".

Astronomy and astrology II

Following my previous post about translating the medieval Latin astrologia, I found the article "Astrology" by Charles Burnett in Medieval Latin: an introduction and bibliographical guide (ed. Mantello and Rigg, here at Amazon).

It turns out that astronomia was also a term used in medieval Latin. Astronomia was the mathematical science that measured the position and movements of the heavenly bodies. Astrologia was a physical science based on the (not entirely incorrect) assumption that events on earth (such as tides, but also human characters and events) were influenced by the stars and planets. Isadore divides astrology into the 'natural' part - which concerns events such as tides and seasons - and 'superstitious' part, which concerns the prediction of human character and events.

To complicate matters, thirteenth century authors used the terms interchangeably. Bacon uses the term astrologia to signify astronomy, and astronomia to signify astrology. It is not clear which sense Thomas intends for astrologia in the passage I quoted in the previous post.

Astronomy and astrology

Looking at Aquinas in Latin and English I was struck by the way that a modern translator has consistently rendered 'astrologia' as 'astronomy'. And this reminded me of the challenge of translating technical terms in general. Words representing concepts that are pretty much the same across all human societies - say 'dwelling place' or 'age' or 'clothing' - the problem is not so great, although even here there are difficulties ('bungalow').

For technical terms the difficulties are multiplied. Is the word being used as a technical term, or just figuratively? Take materia. Do you translate it as 'material', which is what the Latin really means? Or do you recognise that it may have taken on a technical meaning at the time of use, in which case 'matter' is probably better? There is a similar problem with continuum. Do you render it literally as 'the continuous', or as the mathematical term 'the continuum'?

In both cases, and particularly the latter, you face the added problem of Latin words that were imported into English (mostly in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) because English itself had no corresponding terms for the idea. Nearly all of our philosophical vocabulary, and much of our scientific vocabulary, is taken from Latin. But the technical meaning may have changed considerably since the importation. 'Matter' probably has different connotations now (i.e. as something that has mass) than it did in the medieval period (when mass and weight were not properly distinguished). And 'the continuum' has a special meaning for mathematicians now - in connection with Cantor and uncountability and all that - that it could not have had for medieval writers such as Thomas of Sutton or Ockham.

Terms that have fallen into disuse represent a different problem. 'Quiddity' is simply an English version of the Latin 'quidditas'. Both are invented terms, and represent an utterly outmoded philosophical theory. Thus it means whatever the Latin writers thought it meant. But then you have to explain what they did mean, and that is difficult, because it is not clear to anyone what they did mean, and it probably wasn't clear even to them, either. There are further difficulties with terms that have acquired a common use outside science, or which are of 'general intellectual interest' not specific to any discipline. For example 'per se'. Does the common use reflect the real, original meaning, given that 'per se' and 'quiddity' really live in the same house and form part of the same outmoded theory? Are we, as it were, being eliminativists about quiddity, but reductivists about 'per se'? A priori is another problem that I discussed earlier.

Finally, astrologia. Do we translate it as 'astronomy' or 'astrology'. For 'astronomy', there is the argument that Aquinas was writing about the science of his time, which included the study of heavenly bodies that they called astrologia. The modern equivalent of that is astronomy'. For 'astrology' there is the argument that astrologia, as a theory, was much closer if not identical to what we call 'astrology', as the name suggests. It involved a smaller number of planets, the idea that the earth was the centre of the universe, and the theory that they physics of the sub-lunary sphere was fundamentally different from that of the heavenly bodies, plus many other wrong ideas, including that the heavenly bodies somehow influenced human life and thought. You might argue that Aquinas thought astrologia was a science, whereas 'astrology' is now just a jokey thing you find in the darker parts of the Daily Mail, but the reply to that is that plenty of people still do think that astrology is a science.

This is a question about translation, the only resolution of which is to supply the reader with both the original and the translation in close proximity, which is the purpose of the Logic Museum. But it is connected with a deeper question about the connection between science and philosophy, which I shall explore later.

Medieval hymns (1)

Fregit Adam interdictum
et reliquit hoc delictum
posteris miseris
poenam culpae veteris;
libera conditio
mergitur in vitio,
viget in natura
conjectura.
o quanta miseria!

Fregit homo pactum dei,
unde sumus omnes rei
patimur, labimur
aeternumque morimur
donec virgo peperit,
quae naturam praeterit
sola praeter morem
pium redemptorem.
o quanta miseria!

Hic adjutor opportunus
a peccato liber unus
exstitit, restitit
hosti, qui nos perdidit;
qui dum petit humilem,
tentat ut vincibilem,
satan enervatur,
vincit, qui temptatur.
o quanta victoria!