John Buridan's Sophismata and interval temporal semantics

Abstract

In this paper we look at the suitability of modern interval-based temporal logic for modeling John Buridan’s treatment of tensed sentences in his Sophismata. Building on the paper [Ohrstrom 1984], we develop Buridan’s analysis of temporal logic, paying particular attention to his notions of negation and the absolute/relative nature of the future and the past. We introduce a number of standard modern propositional interval temporal logics (ITLs) to illustrate where Buridan’s interval-based temporal analysis differs from the standard modern approaches. We give formal proofs of some claims in [Ohrstrom 1984], and sketch how the standard modern systems could be defined in terms of Buridan’s proposals, showing that his logic can be taken as more basic.