Thomas Aquinas's account of the semantics of names is based on two fundamental distinctions: the distinction between a name's mode of signifying and the signified object, and that between the cause and the goal of a name's signification, i.e. that from which a name was instituted to signify and that which a name actually signifies. Thomas endows names with a two-layer signification: names are introduced into language to designate primarily conceptions of extramental things and secondarily the particular extramental things referred (...) to by such conceptions. On such a `conceptualistic' account of names' signification, Thomas recognizes that a generic acquaintance with external things is a sufficient condition for imposing names to signify things. Following this intuition, Thomas at times dwells on the role that pragmatic factors such as the common usage of names by a linguistic community ( usus loquendi ) and the speakers' intention ( intentio loquentium ) play in explaining both the formation and semantic function of conventional language. This paper will focus on what Thomas had to say about such factors. (shrink)

Like Plato, Aristotle uses dialectic to interpret and analyze ordinary discourse as well as to ascend to the first principles of philosophy and science. At the same time he says that it is intellect ( noûs ) that apprehends the first principle. With al-Fārābī and Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā), dialectic becomes relegated to dealing with ordinary language. For them demonstration in an ideal language from principles apprehended by the intellect suffices for the philosopher.

William of Ockham discussed the fallacy of amphiboly twice in his writings. The first treatment was in his Expositio super libros Elenchorum, where he simply presents Aristotle’s treatment, updates it with some Latin examples, and tells us it is not too important, since we do not often run into cases of ambiguity of thiskind. Later, in his Summa logicae, however, he extends his treatment appreciably. He here includes under ambiguous statements philosophical and theological sentences which are improperly stated. Led by (...) Aristotle, Augustine and Anselm, Ockham finds that in their writings they give us instances of improper statements which need to be restated properly before they can be evaluated as true or false. These leads provide for Ockham a key to unlocking the teaching treasures of the Ancients. (shrink)

(2013). Boethius on Mind, Grammar and Logic: A Study of Boethius’ Commentaries on Peri Hermeneias. History and Philosophy of Logic. ???aop.label???. doi: 10.1080/01445340.2013.777502.

This paper looks to revive and advance dialogue surrounding John Nijenhuis’s case against ‘existence language’ as a rendering of Aquinas’s esse. Nijenhuis presented both a semantic/grammatical case for abandoning this practice as well as a more systematic argument based on his reading of Thomist metaphysics. On one hand, I affirm the important distinction between being and existence and lend qualified support to his interpretation of the quantitiative/qualitative correlation between esse and essentia in Aquinas’s texts. On the other hand, I take (...) issue with Nijenhuis’s relegation of exist(ence) to a second-rate ontological principle, and to this end undertake a brief historical and etymological survey, noting its emergence in Greek thought (ὑπάρχϵιν, ἥπαρξις), its translation into medieval Latin (ex(s)istere, ex(s)istentia) and thus something of the pedigree of this terminology in modern usage. I conclude with some brief remarks on the task of exegeting Aquinas vis-à-vis the revivification of contemporary metaphysical ontology in general. (shrink)

Duns Scotus defends the view that we can speak univocally of God and creatures. When we do so, we use words in the same sense in the two cases. Scotus maintains that the concepts that these univocal words signify are themselves univocal: the same concept in the two cases. In this paper, I consider a related question: does Duns Scotus have the notion of analogous concepts—concepts whose relation to each other lies somewhere between the univocal and the equivocal? Using some (...) neglected texts from Scotus’s attempt to refute Henry of Ghent’s rejection of univocity, I argue that he does, and that he uses his account of univocity to ground the relation of analogy between two concepts. According to Scotus, analogous concepts are compositional, and overlap at a univocal concept. (shrink)

In this paper I will delineate the psychological operations and faculties required for linguistic apprehension within a Thomistic psychology. This will require first identifying the proper object of linguistic apprehension, which will then allow me to specify the distinct operations and faculties necessary for linguistic apprehension. I will argue that the semantic value of any linguistic term is a type of incidental sensible and that its cognitive apprehension is a type of incidental sensation. Hence, the faculties necessary for the apprehension (...) of any linguistic term’s semantic value will be the cogitative power and the intellect. The cogitative power, because it is the faculty of particular intentions, and the intellect, because it is the faculty of universal intentions. (shrink)

Aristotle in the central chapters of his Sophistical Refutations gives advice on how to counter unfair argumentation by similar means, all the while taking account not only of the adversary's arguments in themselves, but also of his philosophical commitments and state of mind, as well as the impression produced on the audience. This has offended commentators, and made most of them, medieval and modern alike, pass lightly over the relevant passages. A commentary that received the last touch in the very (...) early 13th century is more perceptive because, it is argued, the commentator had lived in a 12th-century environment of competing Parisian schools that was in important respects similar to the one of Aristotle's Athens. (shrink)

The article describes the evolution of Ockham's theory of mental language and its impact on three of his dominican contemporaries at oxford: Hugh Lawton, William Crathorn and Robert Holcot, and its impact at Paris on the works of Gregory of Rimini and Pierre d'Ailly. Hugh Lawton's critical response to Ockham relied on a liar-like paradox to show that mental language would preclude the ability to lie. Crathorn devised an alternative to Ockham's theory in reaction, whereas Holcot defended Ockham's views. At (...) Paris, the debate suggested a solution to the liar paradox to Gregory of Rimini. (shrink)

In his Welcome Message for the XXII World Congress of Philosophy hosted by Seoul National University in August 2008 the President of the International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP), Peter Kemp, said that—inter alia—it will be an occasion “for rethinking the great philosophical questions.” Amongst there questions how we in the present understand the philosophical past is surely a perennial query before us. In this short paper I will refer to the endeavor of understanding past philosophical thought on its own (...) terms or as presented in a current idiom as “philosophical translation.” The latter can take three forms: logical, analytical, or hermeneutic. This paper will briefly discuss all three forms vis-à-vis modern attempts to understand the medieval concept of “supposition” with special regard to the role metalanguage plays in philosophical translation. (shrink)

The construction of mediaeval semantic theories is based on defining semantic concepts introduced by means of paradigmatic examples. One of the commonly discussed expressions is the promise “Debeo tibi equum”. This study deals with analyses of this proposition in fourteenth century logic done by means of instruments of terminist semantics. We may distinguish between realist and nominalist analyses, the nominalist may further be classified according to how the propositional context is interpreted – whether as extensional, intensional or hyperintensional. If we (...) take the function terminist logic has with respect to grounded elimination of false inferences as the criterion of its effectivity, all solutions must be considered comparably effective, and therefore acceptable.Medio aevo doctrinae semanticae super notionum semanticarum definitiones, quae exem plorum allatorum auxilio communiter introducebantur, construi solebant. Inter exempla saepius pertractata est etiam hoc promissum “Debeo tibi equum”. In dissertatione nostra explicationes, quae instrumentis semantices terministicae 14. saeculo in logica propositae sunt, investigamus, quorum aliae sunt realisticae, aliae nominalisticae. Inter hasce aliud porro discrimen notaripotest, scilicet quod aliae contextum dicti “extensionalem”, aliae “intensionalem”, aliae “hyperintensionalem” interpretantur. Quae omnes explicationes fere aeque efficaces esse inveniuntur, inquantum scilicet sufficientia praebent fundamenta ad argumenta fallacia eliminanda, quod et aeque acceptabiles. (shrink)

Al-Ghazālī's most detailed explanation of how signification works occurs in his treatise on The Beautiful Names of God. Al-Ghazālī builds squarely on the commentary tradition on Aristotle's Peri hermeneias : words signify things by means of concepts and correspondingly, existence is laid out on three levels, linguistic, conceptual, and particular (i.e. extramental). This framework allows al-Ghazālī to put forward what is essentially an Aristotelian reading of what happens when a name successfully picks out a being: when a quiddity is named (...) by some kind term, its referent in the mind is formally identical to the quiddity of an individual existent which belongs to that natural kind. Al-Ghazālī then proceeds to tease out the implications of this scheme for the special problem of signifying God. It turns out that the Peripatetic theory, which al-Ghazālī appropriates from Ibn Sīnā, is ill equipped for the task as al-Ghazālī envisions it. (shrink)

An examination the development of Peter Abaelard's views on translation and figurative meaning. Mediaeval philosophers curiously do not connect the theory of translation implied by Aristotelian semantics with the multiplicity of tongues consequent upon the fall of Babel and do not seem to have much to offer to help in solving the problems of scriptural interpretation noted by Augustine. Indeed, on the Aristotelian account of meaning such problems do not arise. This paper shows that Abaelard is like others in this (...) respect in not in general finding translation problematic. Two particular cases, oppositio in adiecto and accidental predication, however, present problems for him and the paper examines and tries to explain the differences between the account given in the Dialectica and that given in the Logica `Ingredientibus'. (shrink)

This paper is consecrated to the problems of the semantics in the Anselm’s philosophy of language – one of the most important parts of his philosophical inquiry. The main care is focused to the analysis of terms veritas and rectitudo, mainly because of significatio and the semantics – e.g. significatio with respect to names (proper and common; infinite, privative and empty). Special passage refers to denominative names, because in their case Anselm of Canterbury makes differences between significatio ( per se, (...) per aliud and ut unum) and appellatio in his semantic analysis. (shrink)

This paper studies the doctrinal and historical relations between the augustinian theme of the inner word as it was understood in Thirteenth-century thought --especially by Thomas Aquinas -- and William of Ockham's idea of mental discourse. The differences are shown to be deeply significant and are replaced in the context of a crucial shift that occurred in the decades between Aquinas and Ockham: the shift from theology to logic as providing the main inputs and stimulations for the development, on an (...) aristotelian basis, of a radically new sort of philosophy of mind. (shrink)

1 The Roots of the Laws Perhaps the most ready assumption of any reader of the Laws-it only because of its title-is that its primary purpose is to provide a ...

In this paper, I engage in a preliminary discussion to the thorny problem of analogous naming in Aquinas; namely, the Maimonidean problem of how ourconceptual content can relate to us any knowledge of God. I identify this problem as the First Semantic/Epistemic Problem (FSEP) of religious language. Theprimary determination of semantic content for Aquinas is what I call the Aristotelian Epistemic Principle (AEP). This principle holds that a belief is related tosome experience in order to be known. I show how (...) an examination of the extent the AEP engenders the problem and allows us to find a way out of the FSEP. Forexample, through such an analysis, we can see how the AEP relates to Aquinas’s use of the distinction between the res significata and the modus significandi; the latter which includes the intension of being a created being where the former does not. (shrink)

Linguae orandi analysis philosophica ac theologicaIn hac tractatione analysis philosophica ac theologica linguae orationis Christianae proponitur. Pro inquisitione accuratiore in orationiem Christianam consideratio theologica philosophiae certe multum prodesse videtur. Si enim praecise sunt determinanda extrema inter quos relatio orandi intercedit, necessitas apparet fontium theologicarum adhibendarum, quae de ss. Trinitatis, necnon b. Mariae virginis ceterorumque sanctorum et angelorum parte in oratione loquuntur. Per analysin philosophicam orationis ad definitionem eius pervenitur, quae orationem ut relationem dialogicam determinat, in qua orans homo, tres divinae (...) personae, virgo Maria, ceteri sancti, angeli, et collectio assertionum significativarum, quae continentiam orationis constituunt, participant. Praeterea de fide accipimus, Deum omnem orationem praecedere appropinquando hominem; cuius appropinquationis descriptionem a Bocheńskii recepimus. Translatio: Lukáš NovákPhilosophical and Theological Analysis of the Language of PrayerIn this paper, we examine the issue of the language of the Christian prayer from philosophical and theological point of view. We come to the conclusion that for the closer enquiry of the Christian prayer philosophy can be inspired by theology. For if we want to determine exactly between whom the relation of prayer lies, we might need to draw on the inspiration from the theological sources concerning the Holy Trinity as well as the involvement of all the saints, especially of Virgin Mary, and angels in the prayers. Within the framework of the philosophical analysis of the prayer we determine it as a participatory dialogical relation between the praying human being, the three divine persons, Virgin Mary, other saints, the angels, and the group of meaningful assertions that form the content of a prayer. Beside this on the basis of our faith we accept that every prayer is preceded by God, and the structure of this approaching of man by God we adopted from Bocheński. (shrink)