10
votes
Accepted
'Conclusio sequitur ex premissis' or 'sequitur conclusio ex premissis'?
I give some real examples taken from medieval latin:
ex his praemissis haec sequitur conclusio (Saint Lawrence of Brindisi)
sequitur ex praemissis ista conclusio (Ockham)
haec / ista conclusio ...
- 2,896
10
votes
Nonne "a fortiori, a priori, a posteriori" solecismi sunt?
In classical Latin, the ablative of comparatives could end on -i, although -e is probably more common. Here are a few quotations that I think must be conceded to contain ablatives:
Cornelius Nepos, ...
- 19.8k
8
votes
What semantic notions underlie ex/in-tēnsiō with the logical meanings of ex/in-tension?
I will keep this answer about Latin only.
For developments in other languages, please ask on another language site.
The philosophy or linguistics sites might also be options for related questions.
...
- 111k
8
votes
Caeteris paribus
The third part of Descartes's Principia Philosophiae (pg. 78 of this edition) contains a more literal translation of "all things unchanged":
Si autem caeteris immutatis, contingat ut minuatur illa ...
- 39.6k
8
votes
Accepted
How to say, "Many are not one?" Pluribus non paribus unum?
The sentence has more than one possible meaning in English that might slightly alter the way you may want to translate it into Latin.
Suppose that you want to put emphasis in something like the fact ...
- 11.2k
7
votes
Accepted
What is "philosophy" in Latin?
Latin does indeed use the term philosophia, -ae, from the Greek φιλοσοφία,.
Romans acknowledged that this was a Greek term:
Ita fit ut mater omnium bonarum rerum sapientia, a quoius amore Graeco
...
- 39.6k
6
votes
Nonne "a fortiori, a priori, a posteriori" solecismi sunt?
My impression is that fortiori, priori and posteriori are ablative forms, but they have been declined badly — from the classical point of view.
Making this mistake is quite easy.
Both -e and -ī ...
- 111k
6
votes
How do you translate “the principle of explosion” into Latin?
First off, the actual principle was usually called ex falso quodlibet or ex contradictione quodlibet in Latin philosophy literature. That said, if you want a literal translation of "principle of ...
- 61
6
votes
How do I say "Humanism" in Latin?
English humanism (or more precisely, Italian umanesimo) is effectively a calque of (Cicero's conception of) hūmānitās, which itself is hūmānus (not homō, though the words must be related) + the ...
- 8,779
5
votes
Why did the Romans link Autumn with earth and melancholy, Spring with air and sanguine, and Winter with water and phelgm?
The (Pseudo-)Hippocratean treatise “On the nature of man” proposes the theory of the four humours (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and the imaginary black bile) as an explanation not only for diseases, ...
- 17.6k
5
votes
Recommendations for "easy" philosophical/political Latin?
I find Cicero's De Natura Deorum fairly easily decipherable. The subject matter is less abstrusely technical than much philosophical writing, and the fact that it's written as a dialogue, or really a ...
- 30.9k
5
votes
Accepted
Modus Barbara, Modus Celarent, et Modus Darii: (Modi Barbara, Celarent, et Darii)?
For those unfamiliar with this terminology, this question refers to medieval mnemonic names for syllogisms, mostly drawn from Aristotelian logic. All valid syllogisms, along with their names, are ...
- 39.6k
4
votes
Eleatic arguments (argumenta Eleatica)?
"Eleatica" indeed seems to be the correct way to refer to the "Eleatic school," founded by Parmenides.
This book includes on pg. 62 a section titled, De Secta Eleatica.
Although I can find no ...
- 39.6k
4
votes
Accepted
Is it correct to say, "Additionem in prima, secunda, et tertia syllogismi"?
Given that syllogismus is masculine, and to indicate anything over which you exercise an activity you have to use in + ablative, if I have correctly understand what you mean, the correctly translation ...
- 2,896
4
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between an adjective ending in -alis and a genitive (in particular in Philosophia Naturalis/Naturae)?
The difference is not big.
I would argue that the semantic difference between philosophia naturalis and philosophia naturae in Latin is the same as between "natural philosophy" and "...
- 111k
4
votes
What is the word for "reason" and what resonance does it have in Roman culture?
In his book, De Inventione (and also De Natura Deorum), Cicero discusses the process of rational thought and he generally uses the word ratio to mean reason as an abstract process. For example,
Ac me ...
- 6,516
3
votes
"axiology" in Latin
I gather axiology is about the things people value rather than value in the economic sense, so pretium is inappropriate, and while valor is presumably nearer the mark, it is not attested Classically—...
- 8,779
3
votes
Accepted
Opposite for desideratum to mean "something not wished for"
If you find something not wished for (desideratum), then surely it is irrelevant?
The word for this, then, is alienus, whuch used substantively becomes alienum. Otherwise, a phrase such as nihil ad ...
- 18k
3
votes
Accepted
What is the "apparatus fontium"?
Apparātus is a very general-purpose word in Latin, but in classics and textual criticism, it refers to extra material that an editor has attached to a work; I'd translate it as "footnote". For example,...
- 65.1k
3
votes
What does causa procurans mean?
I think it could be a peculiar type of cause, such as causa efficiens, causa materialis, etc, philosophical concepts from Aristotle, widespread in medieval philosophy and theology.
See this passage ...
- 31
3
votes
Accepted
Variation on Descartes' famous phrase
Cogito, ergo sum – quod sciam (“...as far as I know,”
made famous by Winnie ille Pu).
- 1,103
3
votes
How do you translate “the principle of explosion” into Latin?
“The principle of explosion” is a modern metaphor. In the time when Latin had a significant population of native speakers, nobody would have used it. In any way you decide to express it in Latin, you ...
- 3,246
3
votes
Accepted
3
votes
What semantic notions underlie the prefixes 'con-' and 'de-' (+ notare) with the logical concepts of 'con/de-notation'?
I think there is a simple explanation for these two meanings: noto, -are, the base word, means "to signify, indicate, denote."
Denoto
The prefix de- can mean many things, such as "down" or "ending." ...
- 39.6k
2
votes
Ergo, ex nihilo aliquid et ex nihilo nihil fit
Your translation is fine, but a Roman may have preferred to express the shared prepositional phrase only once, perhaps like this:
Ex nihilo igitur fiunt et aliquid et nihil.
- 6,339
2
votes
How to translate "by means of utterance"?
I am not sure how well this would work for a paper written in English, but as far as Latin goes I would use an ablative of means.
An ablative of means, like the name suggests, tells the means by ...
- 258
1
vote
Accepted
Qualitas, whatness and whichness
When asking which of a set, then quis is used with a pronoun in the genitive. For example, quid horum (which of these?) or quis vestrum (which of you?). If there are only two objects then uter can be ...
- 6,516
1
vote
What does causa procurans mean?
In your second citation Iudaei vero et Iudas ut causa procurans it seems to me the meaning is something akin to "executive power" (this is of course wrong historically and terrible theology, ...
- 1,103
1
vote
Accepted
Meaning of "naturam unibilitatis"
It seems to me like you answer your own question. The word is quite precise and certainly not going to be found in classical dictionaries, but specialist dictionaries contain the word.
The Thomas-...
- 39.6k
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