Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-54gsr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-06T17:48:36.601Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 6 - The Threat of Pernicious Ambiguity

Supposition and Use in Ockham’s Mental Speech

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 September 2025

Claude Panaccio
Affiliation:
Université du Québec à Montréal
Jenny Pelletier
Affiliation:
University of Leuven
Get access

Summary

This chapter examines William of Ockham’s theory of mental speech, focusing on aspects that have been claimed to give rise to the possibility of pernicious ambiguity. Against these claims, which center on the varieties of reference allowed by supposition theory, we argue that Ockham’s theory remains coherent despite marginal instances of ambiguity. We review two types of suppositional ambiguity: Type 1, in which referring terms can be interpreted as suppositing personally, materially, or simply; and Type 2, in which supposition is personal but can vary in tense or modality. Type 1 ambiguity is ruled out, except in extreme cases, by the fact that “changing” the supposition of a term requires a conscious, reflexive act of the speaker; Type 2 ambiguity, while more of a live possibility, is generally either absent or harmless. In neither case does ambiguity seriously compromise the function of mental speech as a vehicle of human cognition.

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Ockham’s Summa Logicae
A Critical Guide
, pp. 128 - 147
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×