Page 515 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

secondarily things insofar as they are represented by mental terms) or on the basis of a direct realism (i.e., conventional terms as well as mental terms directly signify things as they are in reality).
Following Boethius, many thirteenth-century com- mentators—among them Albert the Great (ca.1200- 1280) and Thomas Aquinas (1225-74)—claimed that a conventional term signifies the corresponding men- tal term as its first, direct significate (primum sig- nification) and the thing as its ultimate, indirect significate (ultimum signification). But there are some conventional terms, e.g., 'Caesar' or 'Antichrist,' that have no ultimate significate, since Caesar does not exist anymore and the Antichrist does not yet exist. Nevertheless, these terms do not lose their signification, since they have first significates, namely the mental terms Caesar and Antichrist.
Roger Bacon (ca. 1214-92/94) sharply criticized this explanation, claiming instead that every conventional categorematic term signifies immediately and exclus- ively the thing itself. He denied that 'Caesar' or 'Anti- christ' have a signification, because there is no actually existing significate (see Maloney 1983). John Duns Scotus (ca. 1265-1308) also rejected the traditional interpretation, but without agreeing with Roger Bacon's strong extensionalistic thesis. He asserted that a categorematic term signifies the thing directly, how- ever, not the thing insofar as it exists (res ut existii) but insofar as it is understood (res ut intelligitur). In contrast to the concept, this significate is not a psychic entity (qualitas animae) depending on a mental act; 'Caesar' signifies Caesar as he is understood even if no one actually thinks about Caesar. The significate is rather the nature of a thing expressed by its defi- nition and distinct from the existing thing as well as from the concept (see Marmo 1989: 160-64; Libera 1991).
Ockham followed Duns Scotus in rejecting the rep- resentationalistic explanation offered by Boethius and his followers, but he insisted that there is no formal distinction between the individual existing thing and its nature. He claimed that a categorematic term sig- nifies and refers to (supponii) a singular thing existing in reality. He granted that Caesar or a chimera can be signified, since one can have an understanding of a dead or fictive being. However, reference to such beings—technically speaking, suppositio—is imposs- ible (see Biard 1989:74-96).
Referring to Augustine's statement that concepts are words in the heart (verba in corde), Ockham held that mental terms have all the grammatical features which are necessary for signification, without syn- onymy and equivocation. Thus, there are mental sub- stantives, mental verbs, mental adjectives, etc., forming a mental language that has a syntax similar to Latin syntax (see Panaccio 1992). This idea of a mental language was extensively discussed by six- teenth-century scholastic authors, including Fer-
nando de Enzinas (d.1523) and Domingo de Soto (1494-1560) (see Ashworth 1982).
William (or John, according to other sources) Cra- thorn (fl.1330) made a remarkable challenge to the whole tradition that assigned a natural signification to mental terms. He claimed that mental terms are not at all the most basic signs but only inner likenesses (similitudines intrinsecae) of spoken or written terms. According to this theory, when one utters the word 'man,' the mental term is nothing other than a quality in the mind following the spoken word (see Tachau
1987:255-74).
At the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of
the fourteenth century the ontological status of mental terms or concepts was the subject of a lively debate. Three main positions may be recognized (see Adams 1987:73-107; Tachau 1987:85-153). First, according to Duns Scotus and his followers, including William of Alnwick (fl. 1315), a concept is a quality of the mind, having a subjective existence (esse subiective) since it exists in the soul as an accident exists in a subject. Second, Peter Aureol (ca. 1280-1322), Hervaeus Nat- alis (1250/60-1323), and the early Ockham held that concepts are neither extramental nor purely mental entities but that they form a peculiar category of beings having an objective existence (esse obiective); they exist just in the way that they are objects of the mind. Finally, in the Summa logicae Ockham rejected his early view and claimed that concepts are nothing other than the acts of understanding (actus intel- ligendi) which exist just at the moment when the intel- lect is directed toward an object and apprehends it.
Since the medievals considered the predicative structure 'S is P' as a linguistic source of information regarding the structure of the things signified by the terms, their semantic analyses were closely linked with ontological theories. This link was particularly strong in the discussions of denominative terms. In accord- ance with Aristotle's Categories, 8 (lOa 27ff.), a denominative term (or paronym) was defined as a term derived from a quality-term; e.g., 'grammatical' is derived from 'grammar,' and 'white' from 'white- ness.' But what does the denominative term signify: the quality or the subject in which the quality inheres? Both solutions seem to be unsatisfying. In the prop- osition 'Socrates is white,' for instance, 'white' sig- nifies neither the quality whiteness absolutely (but precisely the whiteness inhering in Socrates) nor the subject Socrates absolutely (but precisely Socrates insofar as he is white). Anselm of Canterbury recog- nized this problem and discussed it extensively in his dialog De grammatico. He said that a satisfactory answer requires a distinction between two semantic functions: 'white' signifies being in possession of whiteness (habens albedinerri) and at the same time names (appellaf) something white, namely, Socrates himself. It is important to note that being in possession of whiteness is not something in possession of white-
Medieval Philosophy of Language
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