Discussing modalities in the mid-twelfth century: An introductory study of the Introductiones Montane Maiores, the Summa Periermeneias and the Ars Meliduna on the de re/de dicto distinction

In this article, I bring attention to three interesting, still unexplored discussions on modalities that are found in some logical sources datable in the middle and the second half of the twelfth century. Through the examination of the ‘Introductiones Montane Maiores’, the ‘Summa Periermeneias’ and the ‘Ars Meliduna’, I retrace the different positions that masters of the time had on the syntactic structure of modal propositions and their use in modal syllogistic. My reconstruction particularly focuses on the distinction between de re and de dicto modalities, a distinction that authors in the second half of the century inherited from Abelard and his contemporaries, and further developed to support their grammatical and logical analysis of modals.