Saint Vincent Ferrer, His World and Life: Religion and Society in Late Medieval Europe

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St. Vincent is a logician par excellence ; cf. Fr. Bochenski, O.P.'s History of Formal Logic p. 166 fn (part of the § on medieval supposition theory), where he says a "link between deep religious life and a talented interest in formal logic is" seen in "Vincent Ferrer[, who] was the greatest preacher of his time. We would add that Savonarola was also an important logician."

St. Vincent adhered, contrary to whom St. Catherine of Siena and St. Birgitta of Sweden supported (Urban VI), to Clement VII. Later, he disavowed himself of his adherence to Benedict XIII, whom he had served as a confessor and friend.

Ch. 9 ¶¶21-23 of Andrew Pradel, O.P.'s 1863 St. Vincent Ferrer: Angel of the Judgment explains why St. Vincent can be considered a sedevacantist:

…the King of Aragon detached himself from his obedience to Benedict XIII [cf. Daileader p. 165-6], and from that moment the cause of the union was accomplished.

The King’s edict was published on the 6th of January, 1416.

Our Saint spent the beginning of the year in traveling through many provinces of Aragon to withdraw the people from obedience to Benedict XIII, and to attach them to that of the Council of Constance, an undertaking by no means easy considering the long period in which those countries had lived under the spiritual dominion of Peter de Luna. But to all their prejudices the Saint opposed solid reasons, which carried conviction to every mind. In a short time, Spain, as well as Italy and the rest of Christendom, awaited with submission the choice of the Council of Constance, ready to acknowledge the elect of the Council as the veritable Vicar of Jesus Christ.

But later he disagreed with the outcome of the council (cf. Daileader pp. 168-76).

St. Vincent's 1380 Tractatus de moderno ecclesie scismate seems quite good; most of the pages are available for viewing online. Daileader p. 22:

Vincent asked first whether, in a time of schism, it was necessary to accept a single true pope or whether one could accept both or neither. Having established in his response to the first question that one must accept either Urban or Clement as pope, Vincent then posed the second question, namely, which of the two men elected by the College of Cardinals was the true pope. Having established that Clement’s election alone was valid, Vincent then asked whether this truth had to be preached and revealed to the Christian people. To each of these three major questions, the friar assigned five additional questions. Vincent answered all 15 questions within a scholastic framework: he posed his answer; cited his rational arguments (rationes) and his authorities (chiefly Aquinas, named on several occasions, and the Bible, with some references to Augustine and Aristotle); raised objections to his own arguments; and then rebutted the objections.

Thus, it doesn't seem St. Vincent treated the pope-heretic question. I'm wondering if he ever discussed Pope John XXII's material heresy.

cf. this brief write-up on St. Vincent's sedevacantism (both posts)Ch. 1 of Philip Daileader's Saint Vincent Ferrer, His World and Life: Religion and Society in Late Medieval Europe discusses the saint's logical works, Tractaus de suppositionibus (ed. recently by Trentman) and Quæstio de unitate universalis: pp. 12-15 (PDF pp. 31-4) & fn46-70 pp. 209-10 (PDF pp. 223-24). St. Vincent wrote them to combat Ockham's nominalism.

Daileader cites historians of medieval logic

• Terence Parson's "The Development of Supposition Theory in the later Twelfth through Fourteenth Centuries" in Gabbay & Wood's Handbook of the History of Logic (spec: pp. 187, 194-5, & 222 // PDF pp. 808, 815-6, & 843, respectively).
• Catarina Dutilh Novaes, “Logic in the Fourteenth Century after Ockham,” in Handbook of the History of Logic, 2:449–61 (PDF pp. 1068-1090).

He's also mentioned in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy:

• On the distinction between propositions and terms, see Paul Vincent Spade, “The Semantics of Terms,” 188–96 (PDF pp. 283-291)
• Gabriel Nuchelmans, “The Semantics of Propositions,” 197–210 (PDF pp. 293-306), esp 197–8.

UNAM prof. Mauricio Beuchot (who was a friend of Deely) writes in his article "La lógica en la España medieval" (p. 45) that "Vicente Ferrer [es] uno de los mayores genios de Ia Iógica y Ia filosofía del lenguaje. " He does a good job describing St. Vincent's logic on pp. 44-5. St. Vincent "se anticipa a Ia distincion que hace Peirce entre type y token de una palabra." Beuchot says St. Vincent anticipated much of Frege:

• absorbing the copula into the predicate
• St. Vincent's signification → "Sense" of Frege
• his supposition → "Reference" of Frege
• quantifier forming part of the predicate, not the subject (which Frege also thought)
• subject the matter and predicate the form (like Frege: subject as argument, predicate as functor)

St. Vincent knew Hebrew so well he could refute the errors of the Talmud to the Jews by quoting the Hebrew Old Testament! He also knew Greek and Aramaic and taught logic and physics!

pp. 21-28 (PDF pp. 41-7) discuss St. Vincent's Tractatus de moderno ecclesie scismate , which is a must-read for sedevacantists today because it discusses the question of how to determine if a pope is valid

p. 22 (PDF p. 41): «Vincent also cited the Decretum in defense of the cardinals who, rather than allowing themselves to be killed, had elected Urban and pretended to be happy to do so when in truth they were deathly afraid; as the Decretum says, there was biblical precedent for “useful simulation.” [Tractatus de moderno ecclesie scismate , 36, 69.]» Cf. simulated authority.

Le Sel de la terre n°109 is a special issue on St. Vincent.

The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were times of tumultuous change in medieval Europe; they witnessed the Black Death, the Great Papal Schism, heightened fears of the apocalypse, and the elimination of Spain's non-Christian population. Few figures were as widely and as intimately involved in late medieval Europe's struggles as Saint Vincent Ferrer. Perhaps the foremost preacher of his day, Ferrer spent the final two decades of his life traversing Europe, preparing the world for its imminent destruction. Saint Vincent Ferrer (d. 1419), His World and Life reassesses the controversial preacher's motives, methods, and impact, tracing Ferrer's journey from obscure logician to angel of the apocalypse, as he came to be known. At the same time, the book offers new insights into the depth and breadth of late medieval apocalyptic anticipation, and into the processes that ultimately led to the expulsions of Spain's Jews and Muslims.

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