SOURCE: Hendley, Brian. “John of Salisbury and the Problem of Universals.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 8, no. 3 (July 1970): 289-302.

[In the following essay, Hendley assesses John's contribution to solving the problem of universals and notes that his solution has much in common with that proposed by John Locke five centuries later.]

One of the most persistent and vexing philosophical problems in the Middle Ages was that of the nature of universals. Beginning with Boethius' second commentary on the Isagoge of Porphyry, the dispute centered on the question of the existence of genera and species. Are they mere concepts of the mind or can they also be said to subsist? If they subsist, are they corporeal or incorporeal? If incorporeal, do they subsist separated from sensible things or in union with them? Porphyry himself refused to answer these questions because his work was intended for beginners in logic; Boethius spells out the Aristotelian solution but does so primarily because the work he is commenting on is an introduction to Aristotle's Categories.¹

Having been introduced to the problem, medieval thinkers tried to solve it in a variety of ways. Some claimed to be following Plato or Aristotle; others saw their solutions as original and final. By the twelfth century, John of Salisbury was moved to observe that more time had been spent on the problem of universals “than the line of the Caesars has consumed in subduing and ruling the world …” (Policraticus, VII, 12). John is a leading source of information about this problem and has been called “the historian of the universals controversy.”² In Book II, Chapter 17, of his Metalogicon (written in 1159), he summarizes nine current views of universals; and in Chapter 20 he proposes a solution to the problem.

John's proposed solution has been variously interpreted. Some see it as a “common sense” solution, reflecting the practical down-to-earth character of John's thought. Others say that John merely adopts the position of Aristotle. Peirce claims that John displays a kind of “Platonistic nominalism” in regard to universals like that of Abailard. A highly critical interpretation is that of Carl Prantl who asserts that John has no solution to offer to this or any other philosophical problem. Very few critics have credited John with an original view worthy of philosophical consideration and even these differ as to what exactly this view is.³

I contend that John's proposed solution to the problem of universals can best be appreciated in the context of his theory of knowledge. I also feel that it can be distinguished from the nine views he summarizes and from those of Plato and Aristotle. Finally, I think that John's view can be fruitfully compared with that of John Locke. Let us begin with John's own summary of the solutions to the problem which were prevalent in his day.

NINE VIEWS OF UNIVERSALS

The Metalogicon is a defense of the arts of the Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) which includes one of the first Western commentaries on the newly rediscovered Organon.⁴ Books III and IV are chiefly concerned with the individual books of the Organon, while Book II puts forth some preliminary observations as to the nature and scope of logic. Chapter 17 discusses current views of the nature of genera and species as an example of “In what a pernicious manner logic is sometimes taught.”⁵

One explanation of universals like genera and species was that they were merely “word sounds” (flatus vocis). This view was attributed to Roscelin and according to John, “has already almost passed into oblivion.” There seemed to be something more substantial about genera and species than the mere emission of sound when we use the words. Abailard was a strong critic of this view and in its place he proposed that universals were meaningful sounds (sermones). That is, genera and species refer to something, although not to a universal thing. While Abailard wrestled with the question of what universal words refer to, others suggested that they are notions (notiones): either the “cognition of something, derived from its previously perceived form, and in need of unravelment,” or “an act of the intuitive understanding which somehow includes the universality of universals” (cf. McG [The Metalogicon of John Salisbury, transl. by Daniel D. McGarry], pp. 112-113).

A different approach maintained that universals inhere essentially in things; though John points out that this view was refined to say that universals are ideas, eternal exemplars, the original plans (rationes) of things. Such a view can be ascribed to the Platonist Bernard of Chartres among others (cf. McG, p. 114). An attempt to combine features of both these views argues that universals are “native forms” (formae nativae) or examples of an original exemplar which inhere in created things. As such, they are “sensible in things that are perceptible by the senses; but insensible as conceived in the mind” (the view of Gilbert of Poitiers; cf. McG, p. 115).

Finally, some attribute universality to “collections of things” (collectio) or at least to our modes or manners of dealing with things (maneries). Whether the latter is meant to refer to collections of things or to a universal thing is unclear to John; it may also refer to the “status” which certain individual things are found to share. Thus, Abailard for one claimed that “humanity” could be attributed to individual men because they were alike in having the status of being a man.⁶

Most historians of philosophy have found John's summary useful and reasonably accurate.⁷ What is more important for our purposes is the fact that John advocates none of these solutions. Instead, he criticizes them all for confusing beginners in logic with such a difficult problem, for wrangling over words, and for breaking with Aristotle. For, “if Aristotle, who says that genera and species do not exist [as such] is right, then the labors of the foregoing inquiry as to their substance, quantity, quality, or origin are futile” (McG, p. 118). In Chapter 20, John presents Aristotle's view of genera and species (drawn from the Organon) and seems to feel that it settles the matter once and for all.

This presentation has led to the usual appraisal of John as a “historian” of the universals controversy whose importance lies not in original speculation but in his “intelligent and sympathetic account of other men's views. …”⁸ My contention is that there are differences between John's and Aristotle's views, particularly in the use John assigns to universals in man's investigation of sensible reality. These differences indicate an originality to John's view not often appreciated and reveal its close resemblance to the position of John Locke. To back up my contention we must take a close look at the Aristotelian solution to the problem of universals put forward by John and consider it in terms of John's theory of knowledge.

ARISTOTLE'S VIEW

Boethius had answered Porphyry's questions with the Aristotelian explanation that genera and species subsist in sensible things but are understood apart from them, that they are incorporeal but subsist in sensible things joined to sensible things (McKeon [Selections from Medieval Philosophers, transl. by Richard McKeon], pp. 97-98). John proceeds in much the same fashion. He maintains that to identify universals with word sounds, meaningful sounds, notions, eternal exemplars, native forms, or collections of things is to contradict Aristotle who said that genera and species do not exist as such, but only as understood (McG, pp. 118-119). Although things possess only one manner of existence, they may be undertood or signified in more than one way. A universal is “that which is understood in a general way by the mind as pertaining equally to many particular things, and that which is signified in a general way by a word, as referring equally to several beings …” (McG, p. 123).

Our understanding can contemplate the form of things without considering the matter, even though form cannot in fact exist apart from matter. This abstract consideration of the form of things leads to our discernment of genera and species on the basis of substantial mutual resemblances. Genera and species are not entities existing apart from individual things; they are mental representations of the substantial likenesses of particular things (McG, pp. 120-121). “That in which men, who are alike in the form of their nature [nature forma, Webb [Policritici, ed. by Clement C. J. Webb], 885c 11], and distinct only in number … correspond, is called their ‘species’,” says John explaining Aristotle's view. “and that which is … a general image of various forms, is known as ‘genus’” (McG, pp. 134-135).

To assert with Aristotle that universals exist is thus not to add to the total number of individual things in the world; rather, it is to indicate that there are universal representations of particular things which “have licitly and for instructional purposes, been given names that denote the way in which they are understood” (McG, p. 134). Such a view presupposes that certain individual things are substantially alike and that reason can discern this likeness.

According to Joseph Owens, Aristotle has equated universals with formal causes.⁹ It is the formal cause which makes a number of singular things coincide in one species. Knowledge of a universal is knowledge of a thing through its form (cf. Metaphysics, 1087a 15-25; 1036a 6-8 and 15, 1040a 1-7; and Prior Analytics, II, 21, 67b 1-5). As Owens puts it, “Instead of cognition of a supersensible Idea outside a thing, knowledge of the universal was for Aristotle knowledge of the sensible thing itself under its formal aspects. It was knowledge of a thing in terms of the basic type of cause” (Owens [Joseph Owens, “The Aristotelian Conception of the Sciences,” Intenational Philosophical Quarterly IV (May, 1964) 203–04], pp. 203-204). Genera and species exist only as understood; what we understand by them are the formal aspects of particular sensible things. This understanding provides the basis for scientific knowledge which “gives the cause and holds for all cases where the same cause is recognized” (Owens, p. 203; cf. Metaphysics, 981a 15-30).

Aristotle attempts to explain how we come to grasp the formal aspects of sensible things with his famous metaphor of the “rout in battle” in the Posterior Analytics. The soul is so constituted as to be able to stabilize the universal content of sense perception. For example, we perceive a particular man and come to realize that he is a “man” (i.e., we grasp the particular sensible thing under the formal aspect of humanity). Such stabilization of universal content from fleeting sense perceptions is like stopping a rout in battle. A fresh stand is made among these “rudimentary universals” and we make further generalizations (e.g., the species “man” falls under the genus “animal”). This process of intuition eventually leads to our grasping the primary premisses of scientific knowledge. The originative source of scientific knowledge is thus an intuition of the universal content of sense perception (cf. Posterior Analytics, 99b 15-100b 18). Science is possible for Aristotle because we can gain insight into the formal aspects of particular sensible things (what John calls “the form of their nature”).

John acknowledges Aristotle as the master on the question of universals (McG, p. 140). He agrees that genera and species exist only as understood, that they represent mutual likenesses of particular things, and that they play a key role in the rational investigation of sensible reality. He seems less confident about the results of such an investigation for: “frequently our knowledge of [real things] is not very definite, and our concept of them rather vague” (McG, p. 126) and “the strength of reason seemingly melts when confronted by the [first] principles of things” (McG, p. 130). Finally, he depicts genera and species as “fictions [figmenta, Webb, 885c 14-18] employed by [human] reason as it delves deeper in its investigation and explanation of things” and contends that “all branches of learning … unhesitatingly devise fictions to expedite their investigations” (McG, p. 135). We can best understand these and other statements John makes about universals and come to see his differences with Aristotle by turning now to his theory of knowledge.

JOHN'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

According to John, knowledge begins in sensation (sensus) which is a power of the soul excited by an external object or action (McG, pp. 216-217). He finds three requisites for sensation: (1) the conscious soul (anima que sentit); (2) the spirit or power whereby the soul senses (spiritus que sentit); and (3) the external object it perceives (Webb, 934a 23-24; McG, p. 248). In sensation the spirit comes in contact with the external object and brings the quality (qualitatem) or outward form (species, Webb, 925b 19) of the object to the attention of the conscious soul. On the basis of these sense impressions, the soul makes a “first judgment” concerning the object and “pronounces, for example, that something is white or black, warm or cold” (McG, p. 220). John maintains that “no, or very little knowledge can exist independently” of this first judgment of sensation (McG, p. 216).

Sense impressions are stored in the memory and as the soul mentally revolves stored up sense impressions, there arises imagination (imaginatio) which can either bring back the first judgment of sensation or formulate a second judgment. Imagination enables us to recall judgments of sensation even when the object is no longer present and to formulate judgments in regard to objects which the senses may come in contact with in the future. For example, recalling previous perceptions of my father, I may fashion together various representative qualities which, when displayed by another sensible object, lead me to judge that it too is a father.

Judgments of sensation and imagination go to make up our opinions (opinio) about sensible reality. An opinion is trustworthy (certa) “when it judges things to be as they really are” but unreliable “when it judges them to be otherwise than they are” (McG, p. 220). Since opinion depends on judgments based on the outward form or appearance of things, John is sceptical regarding the trustworthiness of our opinions. He does not think that we have to look far for instances of the fallibility of opinion: even the most keen sighted would agree that the stick in the water looks bent (a judgment of sensation which may lead to the erroneous opinion that it really is bent) and a child often mistakes all men for fathers (a judgment of imagination that has lead to an erroneous opinion, cf. McG, p. 221).

This is not to say that none of our opinions can be trusted. For example, we feel quite confident that the sun will rise tomorrow; and John admits that such an opinion approximates certitude, “even though it is really less than [scientific] knowledge” (McG, pp. 106-107). The prudent man may strongly assert the truth of his opinions, despite the fact that he has not arrived at this truth by science (per scientiam, Webb, 924b 12). He will also keep in mind that having been deceived before, he can be deceived again (McG, p. 221) and will follow John's admonition to rely on moderate probability in his inquiry into the truth of things (McG, p. 79).

The conscious soul “endeavours strenuously to avoid errors arising from sense perceptions and opinions” (McG, p. 225). John calls this “more perspicacious force” of the soul reason (ratio), the power of the soul to examine things with sure and accurate judgment (cf. Webb, 924d 19-21 and McG, p. 225). “Slipping about in a mire of incertitude” (McG, p. 254), man yearns for truth and certitude. This yearning is “inborn in reason” (McG, p. 262), says John; and he defines reason as “an activity of the mind whose object is to discern truth” (McG, p. 268).

Reason is handicapped in its investigation of reality in search of the truth because of the limitations of the senses and imagination (McG, pp. 253-254). The “secret and most excellent nature” of unadulterated truth and trustworthy reasoning is “hidden from the senses of man” (McG, p. 246). Limited to the outward form of things, the senses and imagination cannot with certitude tell us how things really are. The truth which reason so avidly seeks to discover is thus a “hidden truth” (latens uerum, Webb, 924b 23) for John; a truth that lies hidden in the exact nature (natura) of sensible things. Much of his Metalogicon is devoted to an explanation of how reason can come to discover this hidden truth of things.

John does believe that the soul is ultimately able to form sure and accurate judgments of sensible reality. He argues that “sensation is the progenitor of science” (scientia) because “sensation gives birth to imagination, and these two to opinion, and opinion to prudence, which grows to the maturity of scientific knowledge” (que in scientiam conualescit, Webb, 923c 8-d 11; McG, p. 222). The problem of human knowledge in John's epistemology is how we are able to advance from fallible opinions based on the outward form of things to scientific knowledge of their exact nature. His solution of the problem is closely tied to his view of universals and requires that we distinguish three different meanings of the crucial word natura.

THREE MEANINGS OF “NATURA”

Although John himself uses the same word in various contexts and McGarry translates it as “nature,” we can differentiate three meanings of the word natura as John uses it. The first is what we might call Nature with a capital N: the whole spectrum of sensible reality, the things of the created world manifesting the plan of their Creator (McG, pp. 9, 29). The best definition of Nature in this sense of the word is the one John gives us in his Policraticus: “by Nature [naturam] we mean the customary course of events and the hidden causes [causas occultas] of phenomena for which a reasonable explanation can be given.”¹⁰

As the creature endowed with reason, man seeks to understand and explain the events and phenomena of Nature. He is not satisfied with appearances and opinions and seeks knowledge that is certain and abiding. Such knowledge will come as the culmination of rational inquiry in an intuitive understanding (intellectus) of the hidden truth of things (cf. McG, pp. 232, 268). Since God has determined the “exact nature and precise power of everything” (naturam et uim singulorum, Webb, 934c 24; McG, p. 250), to grasp the exact nature of a thing is to know the Divine causes behind it (cf. McG, p. 250). This constitutes wisdom, the final satisfaction of reason's inborn yearning for truth and certitude whereby the conscious soul contemplates “the divine causes behind all the reasons within the natural powers of its perception” (McG, p. 230).

Thus, a second meaning we can assign to natura is the exact nature of the things in Nature, the knowledge of which constitutes wisdom. John has already referred to this as the “form of the nature” of things (cf. Webb, 885c 11; McG, pp. 134-135). He maintains that everything obtains a nature as a result of being brought into existence and that “this nature is for each being its true principle of existence” (principium existendi, Webb, 835c 3; McG, p. 28). For John as for Aristotle, it is this formal, universal aspect of particular sensible things that is the basis for scientific knowledge of Nature. John goes on to trace the origin of the nature of things to God and holds that “in creation truth is an image of the divinity, which is sought and found by reason in created things” (McG, p. 268).

But how is reason to find the truth of created things if it must initially depend on the senses and imagination? Having shown considerable scepticism about sense knowledge, how can John now assert that wisdom “flows originally from the same fountainhead of the senses …” (cf. McG, p. 231)? John's answer is that we must have faith. “Since not only man's senses, but even his reason frequently err,” he says, “the law of God has made faith the primary and fundamental prerequisite for understanding of the truth” (McG, p. 273). This is an abiding faith that there is truth to be attained and that through rational investigation man can advance in his knowledge of Nature and ultimately, with God's help, come to know things as they really are.

I have argued elsewhere that John's defense of the arts of the Trivium in the Metalogicon follows from his underlying view that the concerns of wisdom and eloquence are mutual.¹¹ That is to say, the faculty of eloquence facilitates the attainment of wisdom by expediting the communication of opinions and experiences through the written and spoken word. John sees scientific knowledge brought forth by reading (lectio), learning (doctrina), and meditation (meditatio; cf. McG, pp. 64-65). Considering rational investigation from a linguistic, rather than an empirical or experimentalist point of view, he argues that the clarification and effective communication of our opinions and experiences leads to a refinement of our knowledge of sensible reality. Thus, for example, we can learn that the the stick in the water is not really bent and that all men are not necessarily fathers. By supplying us with concise rules for reading and learning (communication through the written and spoken word), the arts of the Trivium bring us closer to a meditative insight into the hidden truth of things. John defends the study of grammar, rhetoric, and logic because they confer eloquence, “the faculty of appropriate and effective expression” (McG, p. 26); for how can the secret and hidden recesses (cuniculos) of Nature be understood “by one who knows neither how to speak correctly, nor to comprehend what is written or spoken?” (McG, pp. 18-19)

John's defense of the Trivium is usually hailed as the last stand of an outstanding twelfth-century humanist against the sudden onslaught of Aristotelian logic.¹² It can be better understood as a philosophical attempt to solve the problem of human knowledge by treating language as the chief means for advancement in our search for wisdom. With the truth of things hidden from his senses and imagination, man tries to express what he knows and to learn from others. In this way he can come to a more accurate view of reality and ultimately with the help of God's grace attain an intuitive grasp of things as they really are. The third meaning we can assign to natura has to do precisely with this use of language to advance toward wisdom and allows us to distinguish John's solution of the problem of universals from that of Aristotle.

Unlike Aristotle, John does not attempt to describe how the soul is able to stabilize the universal content of sense perception. He finds the science explicated in the Posterior Analytics extremely subtle and demanding and primarily of use to mathematicians (McG, p. 212). This reflects his view that there can be no demonstrative science of corruptible things (eo quod corruptibilium nec demonstratio nec scientia simpliciter est, Webb, 920d 13-14; cf. McG, p. 215). The exact nature of things is hidden from reason and we must make do with impressions of sensible qualities. We can, however, infer the nature underlying such sensibly manifested qualities and through the efficacious use of language make more accurate judgments about them.

The inferred nature of things is the third meaning we can give to natura. There are two ways to prove the accuracy of our apprehension of sensible reality, John tells us: “Either from the form of the substance [of things], or [at least] from the effects of this form” (uel a forma substantie uel ab effectu forme, Webb, 936c 30; McG, p. 254). Aristotle equates universals with the formal aspects of things and sees genera and species as mental representations of the substantial resemblances of particular things and the basis for scientific knowledge of sensible reality. John accepts all this, while insisting that we lack access to the “form of the substance” of things because “God alone perceives with certitude all mutual agreement and disagreement, whether between things or words” (McG, p. 262). We can only infer the nature of things from various sensibly manifested effects and have faith that God will help us come closer to their hidden truth.

It is in this sense that John speaks of genera and species as “instruments of learning” (McG, p. 136). We use them to name the natures of things we have inferred from their sensible qualities. Genera and species are “fictions” useful for delving deeper in our investigation and explanation of things (McG, p. 135). If we have been trained to effectively express our opinions and experiences and to correctly appraise what we read and hear from others, we shall learn more about sensible reality. Part of this progress in knowledge comes from being able to use general words to refer equally to many particular things (cf. McG, p. 123). Genera and species are instances of man's attempt to concisely convey what he knows, not in order to formulate scientific demonstrations, but to arrive at more accurate judgments. They exist only as understood and what they should be understood to refer to are the inferred natures of things.

Knowledge of a universal for John is thus not knowledge of a thing through its form (exact nature), but knowledge of the nature of a thing inferred from various sensibly manifested effects. According to his view that the concerns of wisdom and eloquence are mutual, the way to the truth of things is through the efficacious use of language. Genera and species play a role in this linguistic investigation of reality, with wisdom as the animating ideal and with faith that ultimately God's grace will reveal to us “hidden truths by means of those things which have been made” (McG, p. 232). Perhaps the most succinct summary of John's position is that from the Policraticus: “the treasures of knowledge are disclosed to us in two ways: first, by the use of reason, understanding discovers what is capable of being known; second, revealing grace discloses what has been hidden by presenting it to our eyes” (Webb, I, II, c. 1; Pike [John of Salisbury, Frivolities of Philosophers, transl. by J. Pike], p. 154).

Having differentiated three meanings of natura, we can better understand John's relationship to Aristotle. He agrees with Aristotle that genera and species subsist in sensible things but are understood apart from them, that is, things have an exact nature which, when abstractly considered, provides us with a universal basis for scientific judgments. John sees God as the origin of the exact nature of things and so knowledge of it becomes knowledge of divine causes or wisdom. The exact nature of things lies hidden from the senses and imagination, however, so that man can only infer the nature underlying various sensible qualities, communicate his opinions and experience and learn from those of other men, refine his knowledge of sensible reality, and come nearer to a meditative insight into how things really are.

Genera and species are thus not mental representations of substantial likeness (Aristotle's view), but “fictions” used to advance in knowledge through rational investigation (John's view). Since John sees Aristotelian science as a goal for inquiry, he can accept an interpretation of genera and species in terms of substantial form or exact nature, while concentrating on the role played by genera and species in regard to the inferred nature of things. In short, the second meaning we can assign to natura (exact nature) has to do with John's description of the ideal of scientific knowledge; the third meaning of natura (inferred nature) has to do with John's explanation of the (linguistic) means to attain it. Unlike Aristotle, John can only have faith that with God's grace assisting us, rational investigation will culminate in wisdom.

JOHN AND PLATO

If we can distinguish John's view of universals from that of Aristotle, what are we to make of it? C. S. Peirce, for one, finds an affinity between John and Plato. Much has been written about Peirce's alleged scholastic realism and his interest in Duns Scotus.¹³ It should also be noted that Peirce read and appreciated other medieval philosophers among them John of Salisbury whom he characterizes as “the elegant writer and accurate thinker.”¹⁴ Peirce read John's works (cf. 1.560) and refers specifically to the Metalogicon a number of times (cf., for example, 2.317, n. 1; 2.364; 2.391, n. 3; 2.434; 8.378). He was fascinated with the problem of universals and classifies John's solution with that of Abailard as a prominent example of “an alliance between nominalism and Platonism” (8.30).

According to Peirce, John's view of universals is of the order of the doctrine of Berkeley that in the usual sense of the word reality “the reality of sensible things resides only in their archetypes in the divine mind.” Although this is Platonistic, it is not realistic, Peirce contends; “on the contrary, since it places reality wholly out of the mind in the cause of sensations, and since it denies reality (in the true sense of the word) to sensible things in so far as they are sensible, it is distinctly nominalistic” (8.30). Hence there arises the curious hybrid of nominalism and Platonism.

If I understand Peirce's point correctly, this does not seem to be an accurate interpretation of John's position. John does not deny reality in any sense of the word to sensible things insofar as they are sensible; he locates it in their exact nature which underlies the qualities brought to the attention of the soul by the senses. The exact nature of sensible things determines how they really are. It comes from God and manifests the divine plan in creation; but it still exists in its own right and is the source of the truth and certitude man seeks. Peirce seems to have concentrated on John's use of the word natura to mean the nature of things inferred from sensibly manifested effects, without recognizing the fact that he also uses the word to mean the exact nature of things which lies hidden from the senses and “is for each being its true principle of existence” (McG, p. 28). In this sense of natura, John cannot be said to hold that the reality of sensible things resides only in their archetypes in the divine mind.

Furthermore, John himself takes pains to dissociate his views from those of Plato. “We by no means follow Plato in his analysis of universals,” he asserts (McG, p. 140); primarily because Plato saw genera and species as having an existence independent of particular things and our investigation of them. “Genera and species are … exemplars of particular things,” John admits, “but rather as instruments of learning than as essential causes of particular things” (McG, pp. 136-137). This is why he does not advocate the view of Bernard of Chartres that universals are ideas or eternal exemplars and why he disagrees with Gilbert of Poitiers who claims that universals are examples of an original exemplar which inhere in created things (cf. above).

Universals are “fictions” which are useful in our attempt to grasp the exact nature of things by allowing us to refer to the inferred nature of many similar things under a common name. They are not Ideas or archetypes nor examples of Ideas or archetypes. They are mental and linguistic tools used in the investigation of the things in Nature. When seen in the light of what I have called inferred and exact natures, John's explanation of genera and species bears little resemblance to the doctrines of Plato and Berkeley as presented by Peirce. A more fruitful comparison can be made with Locke's theory of real and nominal essences.¹⁵

LOCKE'S REAL AND NOMINAL ESSENCES

In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding,¹⁶ Locke points out that the “materials of all our knowledge” are simple ideas suggested and furnished to the mind by sensation of external objects or by the mind's reflections on its own operations (II, i, 2 and II, ii, 2). Thus, we have simple ideas of the qualities (primary and secondary) of external objects and of the powers of one object to make another operate differently on our senses (II, xii, 9, 10, 23).

Out of such simple ideas, the mind makes complex ideas of modes, substances, and relations (II, xii, 1-7). Our complex ideas of substances are combinations of simple ideas which are taken to represent distinct particular things subsisting by themselves (II, xii, 6). By combining simple ideas of the qualities and powers of a particular thing, we come to have a complex idea of the thing as subsisting by itself.

This complex idea of a substance involves the supposition of an unknown support of the qualities which have produced simple ideas in us (II, xxiii, 2). This Locke calls the real essence of things, “the real internal, but generally (in substances) unknown constitution of things, whereon their discoverable qualities depend” (II, iii, 15; cf. also III, iii, 17). The real essence of things is not dependent on the ideas men have of it, but on the will of its Creator (cf. Fr. II, 25, n. 2).

We do not gain an idea of the real essence of things from sensation or from reflection on the mind's operations. Lacking knowledge of “the internal constitution and true nature of things,” Locke says that “we only suppose their being, without precisely knowing what they are” (III, xxiii, 32 and III, vi, 6). That is to say, “the simple ideas we receive from sensation and reflection are the boundaries of our thought; beyond which the mind … is not able to advance one jot; nor can it make any discoveries, when it would pry into the nature and hidden causes of those ideas” (II, xxiii, 29).

Supposing an unknown support of the qualities which have produced simple ideas in us (i.e., a real essence), the mind chooses a number of simple ideas which it finds to be united together in things, gives them connexion and makes them into one idea, and ties them together by a name (III, v, 4; cf. also III, vi, 21; and II, xxiii, 1, 3, 6). Man formulates a nominal essence of things on the basis of the simple ideas he finds united in them. This nominal essence is completely dependent on man (since he chooses the simple ideas and ties them together by a name), but depends on the unknown real essence as its supposed foundation and cause (III, vi, 2, 6). The nominal essence serves as a means of discourse about things and makes easier the communication of knowledge about them. As Fraser explains: “Our concepts of individual things, which are their ‘nominal essences’, help our progress towards those unattainable ‘real essences’ which, as ideals, are the springs of our intellectual advance, but in which the scientific secrets of the physical universe lie hid” (II, 31, n. 2).

The formulation of the nominal essence of things enables man to sort them into species. According to Locke, “Nature makes many particular things [italics his], which do agree one with another in many sensible qualities, and probably [italics mine] too in their internal frame and constitution: but it is not this real essence that distinguishes them into species; it is men who, taking occasion from the qualities they find united in them, and wherein they observe often several individuals to agree, range them into sorts, in order to their naming, for the convenience of comprehensive signs …” (III, iv, 36). Observing certain particular things to agree in various sensible qualities, man sorts them together under the same nominal essence and thereby is able to designate a large number of things under a common term.

In sum, for Locke genera and species are “nothing else but an artifice of the understanding, for the easier signifying such collections of ideas as it should often have occasion to communicate by one general term …” (III, v, 9). Species is a nominal essence under which are sorted together many particular things which agree in various sensible qualities. Genera are complex ideas made up of those qualities common to different species. We use genera and species to consider things in “bundles” (III, iii, 20), that is, to communicate under one general term our knowledge of many particular things. They are “artifices of the understanding” which enable us to discourse meaningfully about things and progress towards the real essences which as ideals are the springs of our intellectual advance (cf. Fr. II, 31, n. 2).

JOHN'S EXACT AND INFERRED NATURES

It seems clear that John's use of natura to mean inferred and exact natures bears a strong resemblance to Locke's distinction between nominal and real essences. Like Locke, John supposes a real internal constitution of things which supports their discoverable qualities. This is a real essence or exact nature which depends not on our knowledge of it but on the will of its Creator (compare John, Webb, 934c 24, with Locke, Fr. II, 25, n. 2). Since this real essence is unknown to man's powers of sensation and imagination, he can only infer the nature or essence of a thing from its sensible effects (i.e., he constructs a nominal essence from a collection of sensible qualities). This inferred nature (nominal essence) enables man to communicate his opinions and experience of things and thus progress towards an insight into their exact nature (real essence).

For John as well as for Locke, genera and species exist only as understood. They are mental representations of the mutual likenesses of particular things. Certain things resemble each other in their sensible qualities; our intellect considers this resemblance, infers an underlying nature, and gives it a name (McG, p. 134). A species is a nominal essence which allows us to consider under one general term many particular things with various similar sensible qualities. A genus is a nominal essence made up of those qualities common to different species (cf. McG, pp. 134-135).

Genera and species are thus “useful fictions” (“artifices of the understanding”) which facilitate man's intellectual advance towards the real essences of things. Although it might be argued that Locke eventually came to the conclusion that there were no real essences at all and hence nothing to which nominal essences were meant to correspond,¹⁷ John has faith that with God's help the hidden truth of things will ultimately be disclosed to us (cf., for example, Policraticus, Webb, II, c. 1; Pike, p. 154). As we have said, this is also a faith in the powers of reason and in man's ability to advance in his knowledge of sensible reality towards truth and certitude.

CONCLUSION

It has been my contention that John of Salisbury makes an original contribution toward solving the problem of universals and that his view can be distinguished from those of his contemporaries and from the Aristotelian view developed in the Organon. To best appreciate what is at stake philosophically in John's position, we had to differentiate three meanings of the word natura and appraise the Metalogicon in terms of man's attempts to progress from opinions based on the inferred nature of things to scientific knowledge of their exact nature.

I do not contend that John has solved the problem of universals, though he is evidently quite sick and tired of all the arguments about it. He does have something to offer on the problem and it would seem that later philosophers have formulated similar views. This should help counteract the usual judgment of the Metalogicon as a kind of tender-minded humanism, a judgment which philosophers all too uncritically accept. Even more unfortunate is the situation where some philosophers will not even read John's works because he lived before Descartes or Locke, while others may not be able to adequately evaluate them because they have not read Descartes or Locke. What is needed is an increased awareness of the continuity of ideas and the common themes in the history of philosophy. Perhaps the most important thing John has to tell us is that communication is still one of the chief means to advance in knowledge.

Notes

1. Anicii Manlii Severini Boethii, In Isagogen Porphyrii Commenta, in J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina (Paris, 1844-1864), vol. 64, col. 71-86. Translated by Richard McKeon in his Selections From Medieval Philosophers (New York, 1929), vol. I, 70-99, subsequently referred to in the text as McKeon.

2. S. J. Curtis, A Short History of Western Philosophy in the Middle Ages (London, 1950), chap. 5: “John of Salisbury, the Historian of the Universals Controversy.”

3. John's proposed solution is a “common sense” one: Herman Shapiro, ed., Medieval Philosophy (New York, 1964), p. 177; and E. Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York, 1955), p. 152.

   John's view is basically Aristotelian: Clement C. J. Webb, John of Salisbury (London, 1932), pp. 87-88 and Reginald Lane Poole, Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought and Learning, second ed., rev. (New York, 1960), pp. 121 and 194.

   John is a “Platonistic nominalist”: Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vol. VIII, ed. Arthur W. Burks (Cambridge, Md., 1958), 8.30. Subsequently referred to in the text.

   John has no position: Carl Prantl, Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande, vol. II (Leipzig, 1861), p. 251. It should be noted that on p. 249 Prantl seems to characterize John as having a basically Aristotelian position.

   John has an original view worthy of philosophical consideration: Leopold Denis, “La question des universaux d'après Jean de Salisbury,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, XVI (1927), pp. 425-434. Cf. also the rebuttal of Prantl by C. Schaarschmidt. Johannes Saresberiensis: nach Leben und Studien, Schriften und Philosophie (Leipzig, 1862), pp. 303-308.

   John's original position is a “Platonistic nominalism”: cf. Peirce, above.

   It is that of “Moderate Realism” which results from tempering “the psychology of St. Augustine by that of Aristotle, without obtaining a coherent result.” Maurice de Wulf, History of Mediaeval Philosophy, trans. of the sixth French edition by Ernest C. Messenger, vol. I (New York, 1951), 229-230. De Wulf finds John's epistemological classifications “rather confusing” (p. 230). I hope to clear up such confusion in my presentation of John's theory of knowledge. Part of the problem will be to clarify what John holds as his own view and what he presents as the view of Aristotle.

   Although meant to be anti-realistic, John's view seems, “by Quine's criteria,” to be realistic. This “would clearly be a most unsatisfactory state of affairs” unless one realized that philosophical and logical medieval Latin is “a semi-artificial language designed to express truths which involve semantical categories not distinguished by ordinary grammar. …” Desmond Paul Henry, The Logic of Saint Anselm (Oxford, 1967), p. 107. I must confess that Henry's precise characterization of John's position eludes me.

4. Martin Grabmann, Mittelalterliches Geistesleben, Bd. II (Munich, 1936), p. 73; William and Martha Kneale, The Development of Logic (Oxford, 1964), p. 225; and Armand Maurer, Medieval Philosophy (New York, 1962), p. 86.

5. The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury, trans. Daniel D. McGarry (University of California Press, 1962), p. 111. Subsequently referred to in the text as McG. References to the Latin Text are to Ioannis Saresberiensis Episcopi Carnetensis, Metalogicon Libri IIII, ed. Clemens C. I. Webb (Oxford, 1929) and will be given in the text according to the Webb pagination.

6. Abailard's view is the most philosophically interesting of those that John summarizes. J. G. Sikes claims that John adopts Gilbert's position to criticize Abailard. Cf. J. G. Sikes, Peter Abailard (Cambridge, England, 1932), pp. 107-108. I disagree with such a claim when I consider John and Plato—later on in the paper. A full development of Abailard's position can be found in Peter Abailard's Philosophische Schriften, herausgegeben von Dr. Bernard Geyer, I Die Logica “Ingredientibus” in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, Bd. XXI, Heft I, pp. 1-32. This has been translated by Richard McKeon in his Selections from Medieval Philosophers (New York, 1929), vol. I, 208-258. A good recent account is that of John F. Boler, “Abailard and the Problem of Universals,” in Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. I, no. 1 (October, 1963), 37-51.

   Although John studied under Abailard for a time (McG, p. 95), he clearly rejects the latter's solution to the problem of universals (McG, pp. 112 and ff.).

7. Cf., for example, Curtis (fn. 2 above) and de Wulf (fn. 3 above).

8. Clement C. J. Webb, “John of Salisbury,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, II, no. 2, part 2, p. 101. This appraisal has been echoed by Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (London, 1954): “John of Salisbury, though not an important thinker, is valuable for our knowledge of his times, of which he wrote a gossipy account” (p. 461) and E. Gilson (cf. fn. 3 above): “John has a mind more delicate than powerful, but so fine, so rich and so perfectly cultured that its presence ennobles and graces in our thought the image of the twelfth century” (p. 153).

9. Joseph Owens, “The Aristotelian Conception of the Sciences,” International Philosophical Quarterly, IV (May, 1964), 203-204. Subsequently referred to in the text as Owens.

10. Ioannis Saresberiensis Episcopi Carnetensis, Policratici, sive de nugis curalium et vestigiis philosophorum libri VIII, ed. Clemens C. I. Webb, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1909), II, 11, 427b 12-14. Cf. also John of Salisbury, Frivolities of Courtiers and Footprints of Philosophers, trans. J. B. Pike (Minneapolis, 1938), p. 72. Subsequently referred to in the text according to the Webb pagination and as Pike.

11. Cf. my paper, “John of Salisbury's Defense of the Trivium,” in the Actes du IV^e Congrès International de Philosophie Médiévale (Montreal and Paris, 1969). This interpretation is developed further in my dissertation, “Wisdom and Eloquence: A New Interpretation of the Metalogicon of John of Salisbury” (unpublished, Yale, 1966). Also of interest are the analyses by Henry (cf. fn. 3 above) and that of L. M. De Rijk, Logica Modernorum, vol. II, part 1 (Assen, 1967), 215-220.

12. Cf., for example, David Knowles, The Evolution of Medieval Thought (New York, 1962), p. 139: “So John of Salisbury could criticize his age, and the burden of all his writings is a defense of the ideal of Chartres, and of its literary and philosophical education … not as a preparation for acquiring wealth or as a niche for academic research, but for a full life of Christian humanism.” Even Curtis (cf. fn. 2 above) agrees that John's importance does not consist in the originality of his philosophical thought: “He was not a builder of systems; he was rather a fine scholar, a man of liberal culture whose vast learning was accompanied by good taste and sound judgment” (p. 83). And finally, Gordon Leff tells us that although John “was not an original thinker in his own right,” nonetheless, he was “the clearest example of the humanist and the international man of letters. …” Medieval Thought: St. Augustine to Ockham (London, 1958), pp. 124-125.

13. Cf., for example, John F. Boler, Charles Peirce and Scholastic Realism: A Study of Peirce's Relation to Duns Scotus (Seattle, 1963).

14. “Letters to Lady Welby” in Values in a Universe of Chance, ed. Philip P. Wiener (New York, 1958), p. 403.

15. This was first brought to my attention by Professor R. S. Brumbaugh.

16. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Alexander Campbell Fraser, 2 vols. (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1959). Subsequently referred to in the text as Fr. with volume and page numbers.

17. The question of Locke's possible change of heart on the existence of real essences has been raised by Robert Fendel Anderson, “Locke on the Knowledge of Material Things,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, III, no. 2 (October, 1965), 205-215.