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Understanding the semantics of "relativa grammaticalia" some medieval logicians on anaphoric pronouns

Reinhard Hülsen

pp. 31-46

Abstrakt

When in the early nineteen-sixties Geach presented his by now well known theory of the semantic roles of anaphoric pronouns, he did something quite unusual in those days: time and again he critically referred to certain medieval approaches to the same subject. He thought, apparently, that these sophisticated approaches showed the enormous difficulties a coreferential approach was bound to lead into. Geach (1960) even went so far as to claim sweepingly that "the medievals who discussed relativa — pronouns with antecedents — were groping in the dark despite all their ingenuity." It is one of the ironies of the history of philosophy that one such medieval theory — to be found in the fourteenth-century philosopher Buridan and his pupils (though foreshadowed a century earlier) — has now raised his head again in the work of Gareth Evans — this time against Geach.

Publication details

Published in:

Von Heusinger Klaus, Egli Urs (2000) Reference and anaphoric relations. Dordrecht, Springer.

Seiten: 31-46

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-3947-2_3

Referenz:

Hülsen Reinhard (2000) „Understanding the semantics of "relativa grammaticalia" some medieval logicians on anaphoric pronouns“, In: K. Von Heusinger & U. Egli (eds.), Reference and anaphoric relations, Dordrecht, Springer, 31–46.