From the Tree to the Labyrinth (68 page)

Figure 9.7

Ockham is familiar with the Boethius’s dictum according to which “voces significant conceptus,” but in his opinion it is to be understood in the sense that “voces sunt signa secundario significantia illa quae per passiones animae primario importantur,” where it is clear that
illa
refers to the things, not the concepts. Words signify the same things signified by concepts, but they do not signify concepts (
Summa logicae
I, 1). In addition, there exists a rather disconcerting text in which Ockham, taking issue with the notion of an intelligible species, equates it with an image that cannot be more than a sign permitting us to remember something that we have already encountered as an individual entity: what is represented must be in some way already known, otherwise the representing image could never help us recognize the represented object. For instance a statue of Hercules would not help me recognize the real Hercules if I had never seen Hercules before; and I could not tell whether the statue looked like Hercules or not.
¹⁴

This text assumes (as an issue on which there exists general agreement) the fact that we are not able to imagine, on the basis of an icon, something previously unknown to us. This would seem to be at odds with our actual experience (take, for example, the case of the identikit photo), given the fact that people use paintings or drawings to represent the characteristics of persons, animals, or things they have never seen. Ockham’s position could be interpreted in terms of cultural history as an example of aesthetic relativism: although he lived in the fourteenth century, Ockham was familiar for the most part with Romanesque and Early Gothic iconography, in which statues did not represent individuals in a realistic way, but universal types. When we view the portal of the Moissac cathedral or of Chartres, we have no trouble recognizing the Saint, the Prophet or the Human Being, but certainly not a unique individual. Ockham was unacquainted with the realism of Roman sculpture or the portrait tradition of later centuries.

There is nonetheless an epistemological explanation to account for such an embarrassing affirmation. If the concept is the only sign of individual things, and if its material expression (word or image) is merely a symptom of the inner image, then, without a prior
notitia intuitiva
of an object, the material expression cannot signify anything at all. Words and images cannot create or implant something in the mind of the addressee (as could occur in Augustine’s semiotics), unless there already exists in that mind the only possible sign of experienced reality, namely, its mental sign. In the absence of that sign, the external expression ends up being the symptom of an
empty thought.
The subversion of the semiotic triangle, which for Bacon was the end point of a protracted debate, for Ockham is an inescapable point of departure.

There are convincing demonstrations of the fact that Ockham also used
significare
in the intensional sense—we refer the reader to Boehner (1958) and Marmo (1984) for all of those cases in which propositions maintain their meaning regardless of whether they are true or false. We are not concerned here, however, with Ockham’s semiotics, but with his semiotic terminology. He clearly uses
supponere
in the extensional sense, inasmuch as
suppositio
exists “quando terminus stat in propositione pro aliquo” (
Summa logicae
I, 62). It is, however, equally evident that on more than one occasion Ockham uses
significare
(in the first meaning of the term) and
supponere
interchangeably: “aliquid significare, vel supponere vel stare pro aliquo” (
Summa logicae
I, 4; see also Pinborg 1972: 5).

It is, however, in the context of his discussion of propositions and suppositions that Ockham uses the term
denotari.
Consider, for example: “terminus supponit pro illo, de quo vel de pronomine demonstrare ipsum, per propositionem denotatur praedicatum praedicari, su supponens sit subiectum” (
Summa logicae
I, 62). If the term is the subject of a proposition, then the thing the term stands for
(supponit)
is the one of which the proposition denotes that the predicate is predicated.

In the phrase
homo est albus,
both terms
suppose
the same thing, and
it is denoted
by the whole proposition that it is the case that the same thing is both a man and white: “denotatur in tali propositione, quod illud, pro quo subiectum supponit, sit illud, pro quo praedicatum supponi” (
Exp. in Porph.
I, 72).

Likewise,
denotari
is used to indicate what is demonstrated to be the case by the conclusion of a syllogism: “propter quam ita est a parte rei sicut denotatur esse per conclusionem demonstrationis” (
Summa logicae
III, 2, 23; see also Moody 1935: sect. 6.3).
¹⁵

The repeated use of the passive form suggests that a proposition
does not denote
a state of affairs: rather,
by means of a proposition a state of affairs is denoted.
It is, then, open to discussion whether
denotatio
is a relationship between a proposition and what is the case, or between a proposition and what is understood to be the case (see Marmo 1984). Through a proposition something is denoted, even if that something
supposes
nothing (
Summa logicae
I, 72).

Be that as it may, considering that (i) the
suppositio
is a extensional category, and the word “denotation” occurs so frequently in conjunction with the mention of the supposition’ and that (ii) in all probability the proposition does not necessarily denote its truth value, but at least denotes to someone that something is or is not the case,
¹⁶
we are led to suppose that Ockham’s example may have inspired some later thinkers to use the term
denotatio
in extensional contexts.

Thanks to the radical shift in meaning of the verb
significare
between Bacon and Ockham, at this point the term
denotare
is ready to be considered in an extensional perspective.

It is curious to observe how, if we consider Bacon and Ockham, this terminological revolution first affected the term
significatio
(involving
denotatio
almost exclusively as a side effect). But, from the time of Boethius on, the term
significatio
had found itself so tied in with the concept of “meaning” that it had been able to hold out, so to speak, more courageously against the incursions of the extensionalist point of view. Moreover, in centuries to come, we will continue to encounter
significatio,
once more used in an intensional sense (see, for example, Locke). Truth-conditional semantics on the other hand was more successful in appropriating the more semantically ambiguous term
denotatio.

The cognitivist tradition on the other hand did not follow the lead of using the term “denotation” in relation with meaning.
¹⁷
Be that as it may, after Mill we find the term “denotation” used more and more in reference to extension.

Do we have any reason to believe that Mill borrowed the idea of using
denotatio
as a technical term from Ockham?

There are in fact several reasons to suspect that Mill elaborated his
System of Logic
with reference to the Ockhamist tradition.

(i) Though he paid considerable attention to the intensional aspects of language, Mill formulated a theory of the denotation of terms in which he makes an affirmation similar to that expressed in Ockham’s theory of supposition: “a name can only be said to stand for, or to be a name of, the things of which it can be predicated” (Mill [1898]1843: II, v).

(ii) Mill borrows from the Schoolmen (and he is the first to admit it—in II, v) the term “connotation” and, in distinguishing between connotative and nonconnotative terms, he states that the latter are defined as “absolute” terms. Gargani (1971: 95) traces back this terminology back to Ockham’s distinction between connotative and absolute terms.

(iii) Mill uses
signify
in line with the Ockhamist tradition, at least as far as the first meaning assigned to it by the medieval philosopher goes. “A non-connotative term is one which signifies a subject only or an attribute only. A connotative term is one which denotes a subject, and implies an attribute” (II, v). Since the denotative function (in Mill’s scheme of things) is performed in the first place by nonconnotative terms, it is clear that for Mill “to signify” and “to denote” are one and he same. See also: “the name … is said to signify the subjects
directly,
the attributes
indirectly;
it
denotes
the subjects and implies, or involves, or as we shall say henceforth,
connotes
the attributes … The only names of objects which connote nothing are proper names, and these have, strictly speaking, no signification” (II, v).

(iv) Mill probably opts for “denote” as a more technical and less prejudicial term than “signify,” on account of its etymological opposition to “connote.”

Nevertheless, we have seen that Ockham did not encourage the extensional use of
denotare
but at most influenced it. Where, in the history of the natural evolution of the term, are we to find the missing link?

The place to look is probably Hobbes’s
De corpore
I, better known as
Computatio sive logica.

It is a matter of general agreement that Hobbes was fundamentally influenced by Ockham, as Mill was by Hobbes. Mill in fact begins his discussion of proper names with an in-depth review of Hobbes’s opinions.

We must, however, note that Hobbes does indeed follow Ockham as far as the theory of universals and propositions is concerned, but at the same time he develops a different theory of signification. For Hobbes in fact there is a clear-cut distinction between signifying (expressing the speaker’s opinions, that is, during an act of communication) and naming (in the classic sense of
appellare
or
supponere,
on which see Hungerland and Vick 1981).

Mill ([1898]1843: II, 1) recognizes that for Hobbes names are above all the names of the ideas we have about things, but at the same time he finds in Hobbes proof supportive of the decision that “names, therefore, shall always be spoken of in this work as the names of things themselves,” and the contention that “all names are names of something, real or imaginary … A general name is familiarly defined, a name which is capable of being truly affirmed, in the same sense, of each of an indefinite number of things.” In these passages Mill is close to Hobbes, with the marginal difference that he dubs “general” the names that Hobbes on the other hand dubs “universal.”

However, as we have noted, Mill uses “signify,” not in the Hobbesian sense, but in that of Ockham, and, in place of the notion of “signifying” used by Hobbes, he prefers to employ “connote.” Being deeply interested in connotation, and not realizing that his idea of “connotation” is not all that far away from Hobbes’s “signification,” Mill is convinced that Hobbes privileges nomination (Mill’s “denotation”) over signification (Mill’s “connotation”). In his opinion, Hobbes, like the Nominalists in general, “bestowed little or no attention upon the connotation of words; and sought for their meaning exclusively in what they denote” (II, v).

This decidedly odd reading of Hobbes (as if he were Bertrand Russell) can be explained by the fact that Mill interprets Hobbes as if he were an orthodox follower of Ockham. But, if Mill considers Hobbes an Ockhamist, why does he attribute to him the idea that names denote? Mill claims that Hobbes uses
nominare
in the place of
denotare
(II, v), but he had probably observed that, in the
De corpore,
Hobbes used
denotare
in four cases at least—five in the English translation of Hobbes’s Latin that Mill probably read, since he cites Hobbes’s work as
Computation or Logic.

As for the difference between abstract and concrete names, Hobbes says that “abstractum est quod in re supposita existentem nominis concreti causam denotat, ut ‘esse corpus,’ ‘esse mobile’… et similia … Nomina autem abstracta causam nominis concreti denotant, non ipsam rem” (
De corpore
I, iii, 3). It should be underscored that for Hobbes abstract names do in fact denote a cause, but this cause is not an entity: it is the criterion that supports the use of an expression (see Gargani 1971: 86 and Hungerland and Vick 1981: 21). Mill reformulates Hobbes’s text as follows: a concrete name is a name that stands for a thing; an abstract name is a name that stands for an attribute of a thing (1843, II, v)—in which “stand for” is Ockham’s “stare pro aliquo.” He adds, furthermore, that his use of words like “concrete” and “abstract” is to be understood as being in keeping with the usage of the Scholastics.

Mill probably extrapolates from this passage in Hobbes the idea that, if abstract names do not denote things, this is instead the case for concrete nouns. For Hobbes in fact “concretum est quod rei alicujus quae existere supponitur nomen est, ideoque quandoque suppositum, quandoque subjectum, graece ypoleimenon appellatur,” and, two lines above, he writes that, in the proposition
corpus est mobile,
“quandoque rem ipsam cogitamus utroque nomine designatam” (
De corpore
I, 111,3). Thus,
designare
makes its appearance in a context in which it is linked on the one hand to the concept of supposition and on the other to that of denotation.

Since concrete names can be proper either to single things or to sets of individuals, we may say that, if there exists a concept of denotation developed by Hobbes, it is still halfway between between Peter of Spain’s
suppositio naturalis
and his
suppositio accidentalis.
This is why Hungerland and Vick (1981: 51 et seq.) stress the fact that
denotare
could not have had for Hobbes the same meaning it has acquired in our contemporary philosophy of language, because it applies, not only to logical proper names, but also to the names of classes and even to nonexistent entities. But Mill does buy into such a perspective, and therefore could have interpreted Hobbes’s
denotare
in an extensionalist mode.