Abstract

William of Champeaux (d. 1122) is best known as the leading master of dialectic (which included logic, grammar, and rhetoric) at Notre Dame when his more famous

Student, Peter Abelard, came there to study. William allegedly stopped teaching at that centre around 1108, shortly after his realist defenses on the controversial topic of the status of universals were attacked by Abelard, and he took up as a canon regular at the monastery at Saint Victor (Abelard 1967); there is no historical evidence to support the oft-repeated claim that William founded that famous monastery and school, his name is not found among the writings of the Victorines, and upon his death he was buried elsewhere, at Clairvaux (Mews 2001). William’s educational background in dialectic is unknown, but he studied under and taught with Anselm of Laon, and their theological work is preserved in the Liber pancrisis (Lottin 1959), the first known work to publish together the writings of both modern, practicing theologians and patristic sources. After his retirement from teaching, William eventually became Bishop of Chalons-sur-Marne, and belonged to circles of ecclesiastical influence (Mews, forthcoming).

Although none of his writings has been thought to survive, recently a number of anonymous commentaries and tracts on dialectic datable to the early years of the twelfth century have been either attributed to William or said to contain his teachings (Iwakuma 1993, 1999, 2003, 2008). None of these claims has been definitely proven, and scholars recognize that more work is yet to be done to sort out the authorship of these materials and their relationships to one another and to known masters. Complicating this project is that explicit references to a master’s view are normally given by abbreviating a name to a sole initial, and given fluid spelling and orthography it is difficult to judge whether every ‘‘W,’’ ‘‘G,’’ or ‘‘V’’ should apply to the same person (i. e., William), especially when the variety of initials can be found in one and the same text (e. g., Abelard’s Dialectica, which also contains references to ‘‘My teacher (magister noster)’’.

William’s realist theories of universals are the best known part of his philosophy. The defeat of these two positions led, according to Abelard, to William’s lectures on dialectic ‘‘falling to pieces’’ (Abelard 1967); John of Salisbury, writing years later, reports that William ‘‘is ConviCted of error by his own writings’’ (John of Salisbury 1991). William’s first theory is known as ‘‘Material Essence Realism’’: each existing thing possesses a material essence, which William identifies as the species of the individual, or genus of the species. What makes one individual different from another individual that shares the same material essence (i. e., is of the same species) is the addition of particular, accidental forms. Abelard launched a series of arguments against William’s theory, after which William took up anew with what is called ‘‘Indifference Realism’’: individuals (x, y) of the same species (A) are indifferently the same insofar as they do not differ in being (A) (Abelard 1919; Spade 1994; King 2004). This second position, too, was crushed by Abelard, and no further theories on this question by William are known. Abelard’s attacks on William took place during William’s lectures on rhetoric. It is possible that William’s rhetorical teachings have been identified (Fredborg 1976).

The details of William’s theory of signification are unknown, although it is certain that he distinguished between literal and figurative locutions, appealing to the latter to resolve problems such as the signification of expressions containing apparently contradictory terms (e. g., ‘‘dead man,’’ where ‘‘man’’ means ‘‘rational, mortal animal’’). In his theological writings, William advocated the view that terms used to refer to God are to be taken in a sense that is transferred from their usual meaning, namely what they were imposed (on things in the created world) to signify. Abelard, followed by other twelfth century figures, developed William’s improper or figurative signification into a doctrine of translatio in order to determine the signification of expressions that are affected by their context (Rosier-Catach 1999).

William likely borrowed the notion of improper signification from the discipline of grammar. References to a Master G and W in a set of notes on a widely copied commentary on Priscian’s Institutiones grammaticae have suggested William’s important role in the development of grammatical theorizing at this time (Rosier-Catach, forthcoming). William believed that grammar and dialectic present two different theories about the sense of propositions and predicative questions, based on the answers that each discipline’s authorities give to the question of the proper relation between the subject, predicate, and copula. ‘‘Snow is white,’’ according to the grammarian, means that snow is a white thing, and the terms ‘‘snow’’ and ‘‘white’’ thereby co-refer; according to the dialectician, it means that whiteness inheres in snow. Mocked by one scholar for thinking that meaning is determined according to disciplinary boundaries (where the author wonders whether there is not also an ethical and a physical sense), the view is criticized at length by Abelard who urged that propositions and predicational questions have a single sense.

Several of William’s opinions are given in anonymous discussions of BoEthiuS treatment of topical reasoning, and a number of these are criticized by Abelard elsewhere (Green-Pedersen, 1974; Martin 2004). William seems to have held that the force of a topical argument is the thing referred to or understood itself, such that in the

Consequence ‘‘if Socrates is man, Socrates is animal,’’ man provides the force. The locus differentia is the relation (habitudo), for example, speciality, generality, equality, and so on, that holds between the things referred to. Each maximal proposition generates a multitude of meanings, for example, ‘‘Whatever is predicated ofthe species is predicated of the genus’’ contains as its meanings ‘‘if it is man it is animal,’’ and ‘‘if it is pearl, it is stone’’ (Green-Pedersen 1974). This view is variously criticized by the anonymous commentator reporting it and by Abelard. William also added additional loci to Boethius’ list, includIng the loci from the predicate and the subject, and from the antecedent, consequent, or either of these through contraposition. An anonymous logic primer, the Introductiones secundum Wilgelmum (Iwakuma 1993) includes some but not all of these additional loci. Possibly associated with William’s teachings or his followers, this primer exemplifies several features of topical theory of which Abelard was deeply critical, suCh as the failure to distinguish between the rules for syllogistic and topical reasoning (Abelard 1969; Martin 2004).

William of Champeaux is an important figure whose dialectical views provoked much response during the Volatile period of the early twelfth century. Snippets of William’s other views can be found throughout the anonymous commentaries from this period (Iwakuma 1999). We will be in a better position to understand his theories once more of the anonymous commentaries and tracts from this period are critically edited and studied.

See also: > Peter Abelard > Realism > Universals