Page 511 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

1. Sources and Stages of Development
The most influential body of authoritative texts in the Middle Ages was Aristotle's Organon; its first treatise, the Categories,provided the basis for a theory of uncomplex linguistic signs, and its second treatise, De interpretatione, was the starting point for a theory of complex signs. These two works (translated into Latin with commentaries by Boethius), accompanied by Porphyry's Isagoge (an introduction to the Cate- gories), were the main sources of the old logic (logica vetus), which was fully elaborated for the first time in the Dialectica of Garlandus Compotista (died before 1102) and culminated in the School of Chartres and in Peter Abelard (1079-1142/44) (see Tweedale 1988; Jacobi 1988). The new translations or retranslations of the four other works of the Organon (Prior and Posterior Analytics, Topics, Sophistical Refutations), which entered the Latin West in the twelfth century, constituted the textual basis of the logica nova, a logic that focused especially on the theory of linguistic fal- lacies. Together, the old and the new logics formed the logica antiqua, which was replaced by the logica moderna in the late twelfth century. Since the logica moderna, which reached its full-fledged stage in the works of William of Sherwood (1200/10-66/72), Peter of Spain (d.1277), and Lambert of Auxerre (fl.1250), was distinguished by detailed analysis of the proper- ties of terms, it was also called 'terminism' (see Rijk 1967; Pinborg 1972: 13-18). Around 1300, the domi- nance of terminism was weakened by the Modistae, who introduced extensive grammatico-psychological analyses into semantic theory (Pinborg 1975; Marmo 1994).
An important transformation occurred in the early fourteenth century. On the basis of the ontological claim that only individual, really existing substances and accidents are beings in a strict sense, William of Ockham (1285-1347/49) elaborated a semantic theory which explained any linguistic reference as a reference to individual beings. This theory, labeled the via moderna, sparked a controversy that dominated uni- versity discussions of the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- turies (see Biard 1989:203-88; Kaluza 1988). At the same time, humanist dialecticians, including Lorenzo Valla (1407-57) and Rudolphus Agricola (1443/44-
1485), began emphasizing the rhetorical and prag- matic function of language, opposing the logico-sem- antic approach to language (see Jardine 1988:173- 76). However, the humanist approach did not simply supersede the logical approach characteristic of the Aristotelian tradition. A continuous scholastic tradition, especially active in Spain and Britain, trans- mitted medieval concepts to modern philosophers such as John Locke and G. W. Leibniz (see Ashworth 1988:153-72).
Although the ideas of Aristotle exerted a strong influence on medieval thought, scholastic philosophy of language should not be identified with Aris-
totelianism. Its development was also markedly influ- enced by Augustine's theory of signs (developed in his De doctrina Christiana and De trinitate), by later ancient grammar (especially Priscian's Institutiones grammaticae; see also Roman ars grammatica, includ- ing Prisciari), and by a Neoplatonic tradition (trans- mitted by Boethius' theological treatises) which was particularly evident in the semantics of Gilbert of Poi- tiers (1085/90-1154) and W illiam of Conches (ca.!085-after 1154). Scholastic philosophy of lang- uage, therefore, did not simply continue one tradition, but critically examined several interconnected tra- ditions, thus bringing about the most innovative achievements in medieval linguistic theory.
2. ThePropertiesofTerms
Following Priscian, medieval grammarians and log- icians divided words into two main classes. First, any word that can be used as subject or predicate in a proposition and which has by itself a significative force is a categorematic term. (Strictly speaking, a term is one or the other end (terminus) of a subject-predicate proposition.) Included in this class are nouns, adjec- tives, verbs, and personal and demonstrative pro- nouns. Second, any word that can be used with a significative force only in connection with a subject- predicate pair is a syncategorematic word. Included in this class are prepositions, adverbs, conjunctions, etc. For example, the propositions 'Only Socrates is running' and 'Socrates is contingently running' each contain a syncategorematic word, since the quantifier 'only' and the modal functor 'contingently' cannot be used significantly unless they are attached to the sub- ject term 'Socrates' in respect of the predicate term 'is running' (see Kretzmann 1982:211-28).
A clear understanding of the logical function of syncategorematic words is particularly important in distinguishing names from pseudo-names, as Anselm of Canterbury's (1033-1109) analysis of the prop- osition 'Nothing taught me to fly' (Nihil me docuit volare) illustrates. 'Nothing' seems to be used as a name, so that one could be led to make the odd infer- ence that something or somebody called 'Nothing' taught me to fly. But if one realizes that 'nothing' is a syncategorematic word which performs the office of prepositional negation, one can avoid the logical mis- take by reformulating the proposition as follows: Non me docuit aliquid volare—'It is not the case that some- thing taught me to fly' (see Henry 1967: 211-218).
However, the list of syncategorematic words was not confined to logical operators. It also included expressions signifying the starting and ending points of a movement or action (e.g., 'begins,' 'ceases'). Dur- ing the twelfth century, the reception of Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations, a treatise on fallacies, stimu- lated interest in such expressions, for fallacies arise when the logical relationships among all the words—
Medieval Philosophy of Language
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