The Logic of Where and While in the 13th and 14th Centuries

Medieval analyses of molecular propositions include many non-truthfunctional connectives in addition to the standard modern binary connectives (conjunction, disjunction, and conditional). Two types of non-truthfunctional molecular propositions considered by a number of 13thand 14th-century authors are temporal and local propositions, which combine atomic propositions with ‘while’ and ‘where’. Despite modern interest in the historical roots of temporal and tense logic, medieval analyses of ‘while’ propositions are rarely discussed in modern literature, and analyses of ‘where’ propositions are almost completely overlooked. In this paper we introduce 13thand 14th-century views on temporal and local propositions, and connect the medieval theories with modern temporal and spatial counterparts.