Abstract
31. The aunqualifieda terma is more inclusive than the assertoric or non-contingent term, and, in fact, it encompasses each of them. For example, b’moving’ without qualificationb is true of ‘necessarily moving’ and 4assertorically, not non-contingently, moving’. But an unqualified term does not encompass the possible term since the possible term is true of what is not actually that term. For example, ‘possibly moving’ is true of what is not moving, but for which it is possible to move, but ‘moving’ without qualification is not true of it.
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Notes
ha-gebul be-muhlat, ‘the term simpliciter’.
mitno’e’a be-muhlat. Gersonides generally expresses modal qualification in two ways: in the first, shown here, the modal qualifier follows the term it qualifies (in our translation the order is inverted); in the second, the modal term introduces a subordinate clause, as in ’ efshar she-yihyeh mitno‘e’a (translated as ‘will possibly be moving’, ‘may be moving’) or ’tefshar she-yitno‘e’a (translated as ‘will possibly move’, or ‘may move’). Gersonides seems to favor the former when speaking formally, and the latter when speaking loosely and on an ontological level. But this is not a hard and fast rule.
See I.1 above.
Lit.: ‘is true with’.
See Averroes, Middle Commentary on the De Interpretation, fols. 58r-v (23a16-18); cf. C. De Interpretatione, 96v-98v.
ha-’efshari ha-’amiti.
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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Manekin, C.H. (1992). On the Relative Extensions of Modally Qualified Terms. In: The Logic of Gersonides. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 40. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2614-4_5
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