Universa Philosophia

Sotus, 2nd part of the introduction, ch. [lect.] and note 1, says: supposition is the acceptance of a term for something answering to it according to the same acceptance. A better definition than Villalpandus's, but not without fault. For acceptance is the same as signification at pleasure; but I showed that supposition is not signification, §1. therefore. The major is clear, because we accept and impose words for signifying, and hence acceptance of a word is also imposition. Then he says it is an acceptance, if the word acceptance signifies signification, it has this sense: supposition signifies the same thing that is signified by it, because to be an acceptance is to signify, and to answer to the signification is to be signified, and thus the definition will be trifling: if however the word acceptance signifies not signification, but the substitution of a term for its object, it has this sense, supposition is substitution for the thing for which it is substituted, because supposition is substitution for a thing, and the thing to answer to it according to the same supposition is the thing to be that for which it is substituted; but thus Sotus will fall into the same straits. In another sense I think Sotus means, that the word acceptance is the same as substitution, and to answer according to the same acceptance is the same as to answer to the same term as signifying the thing, that is, supposition is the substitution of a term for the thing signified by it: thus the definition is clear, but the Sotic one is less clear, and thus it also suffers its difficulty. For in the same place Sotus admits, and truly, that non-significative terms at pleasure have supposition: likewise that there is material supposition; but then nothing answers to a non-significative term according to its acceptance; because it signifies nothing, nor does anything answer to a term materially supposited according to its signification, because the answer demands an extreme, which answers to the supposited term, therefore. That nothing answers is clear in this proposition, Peter is a significative word at pleasure, in which Peter is supposited for itself, and its significate does not answer to it. By this last argument the definition of Fonseca is attacked, book 8, ch. 20, asserting, supposition is the acceptance of a name for the thing which it signifies. For non-significative words are not accepted for the thing which they signify, because they signify nothing, nor in material supposition is a name accepted for the thing which it signifies. Note that the word acceptance is taken by Fonseca for substitution, as is clear from the same.