Confusion or Precision? Disentangling the Semantics of a Pair of Scholastic Terms

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to explicate, using the method of conceptual reconstruction rather than historical, text-oriented analysis, the plurality of meanings of two connected terms that play an important role in scholastic thought: "confusio" and "praecisio". These terms are used in a plurality of meanings by the scholastics, and sometimes even in one and the same context.

The aim of this paper is to disentangle these various meanings from each other, offer their precise definitions and explore not only their interrelations, but also their role and impact in such crucial matters as theory of abstraction, realism-nominalism dispute, theory of science, or theory of analogy.

Keywords

• confusion
• precision
• objective precision
• formal precision
• abstraction
• distinction
• analogy
• universals
• abstract concepts