(1) All those who treat logic try to show that arguments are put together out of propositions and propositions out of terms. Thus a term is nothing else but a proximate part of a proposition. For Aristotle, when defining a term in Prior Analytics I,1 says “I call a term [that] into which a proposition2 is resolved, such as a predicate and that of which it is predicated,3 whether being or non-being is added or taken away.”4
(2) But although every term is part of a proposition, or can be, nevertheless not all terms are of the same kind. So in order to have a complete knowledge of terms, we must first get familiar with certain divisions among terms.
(3) Now you have to know that just as, according to Boethius on De interpretatione I,5 there are three kinds of language, namely written, spoken and conceived, [the last] having being only in the intellect, so [too] there are three kinds of term, namely written, spoken and conceived.
(4) A written term is a part of a proposition written down on some physical object, which [proposition] is seen by the bodily eye, or can be [so] seen.
(5) A spoken term is a part of a proposition spoken by the mouth and apt to be heard by the bodily ear.
(6) A conceived term is an intention or passion of the soul naturally signifying or consignifying something [and] apt to be a part of a mental proposition and to supposit for the same thing [that it signifies]. Thus, these conceived terms and the propositions put together out of them are the “mental words” that Blessed Augustine, in De trinitate XV,6 says belong to no language because they abide only in the mind and cannot be uttered outwardly, although utterances are pronounced outwardly as signs subordinated to them.
(7) Now I say that utterances are signs subordinated to concepts or intentions of the soul, not because, taking the word ‘signs’ in a proper sense, these utterances always signify those concepts of the soul primarily and properly, but rather because utterances are imposed7 to signify the same things that are signified by the concepts of the mind, so that the concept primarily signifies something naturally, and the utterance secondarily signifies the same thing, to such an extent that once an utterance is instituted8 to signify something signified by a concept in the mind, if that concept were to change its significate, the utterance itself would by that fact, without any new institution, change its significate.
(8) The Philosopher says as much when he says that utterances are “the marks of the passions that are in the soul”.9 Boethius too means the same thing when he says that utterances “signify” concepts.10 And, in general, all authors, when they say that all utterances “signify” passions [of the soul] or are the “marks” of those [passions], mean nothing else but that the utterances are signs secondarily signifying what are primarily conveyed by passions of the soul (although some utterances do primarily convey passions of the soul or concepts that other intentions in the soul nevertheless convey secondarily, as will be shown below11).
(9) What was [just] said about utterances with respect to passions or intentions or concepts is to be maintained in the same way, analogously, for present purposes, for [terms] that are in writing with respect to utterances.
(10) Now certain differences are found among these [kinds of] terms. One is that a concept or passion of the soul signifies naturally whatever it signifies. But a spoken or written term signifies nothing except according to arbitrary institution. From this there follows another difference, namely that a spoken or written term can change its significate at [the user’s] will, but a conceived term does not change its significate for anyone’s will.
(11) But because of impudent quibblers, you have to know that ‘sign’ is taken in two senses. In one sense, [it is taken] for everything that, when apprehended, makes something else come into cognition, although it does not make the mind come to a first cognition of it, as is shown elsewhere,12 but to an actual [cognition] after a habitual [one] of it. In this sense, an utterance does naturally signify, just as any effect naturally signifies at least its cause, and just as the barrel-hoop signifies wine in the tavern.13 But I am not talking here about ‘sign’ that generally.
(12) In another sense, ‘sign’ is taken for that which makes something come into cognition and is apt to supposit for it, or [for what is apt] to be added to such a thing in a proposition — for instance, syncategoremata and verbs and the parts of speech that do not have a definite signification — or that is apt to be put together out of such things, like an expression. Taking the word ‘sign’ in this sense, an utterance is not a natural sign of anything [at all].
Translation by Paul Vincent Spade, CC BY 4.0. Source: Indiana University ScholarWorks. Changes: format conversion only (PDF to Markdown; footnotes, italics and paragraph numbers kept; margin line numbers and page headers dropped).
← William of Ockham’s Prefatory Letter · Contents · Chapter 2 →
Footnotes
-
Aristotle, Prior Analytics I, 1, 24b16–18. ↩
-
Aristotle has ‘premise’ (= protasis) here. The Latin is ‘propositio’, which sometimes means “premise” but came also — as here — to mean “proposition” more generally. ↩
-
That is, the subject. ↩
-
The last clause is simply a long-winded way of saying “whether it is affirmative or negative.” ↩
-
Boethius, In librum De interpretatione, ed. 2a, I, PL 54, col. 407B. In the Middle Ages, the De interpretatione was divided into two books. Boethius wrote two commentaries on the De interpretatione. It is the second one that Ockham is citing here. ↩
-
Augustine, De trinitate XV, 10, 19; 12, 22; 27, 50 (PL 42, cols. 1071, 1075, 1097). ↩
-
“Imposition” is the act of assigning spoken (and written) expressions to the mental correlates they express. See also n. 22 below. ↩
-
‘Institution’ in this sense is just another term for imposition. See n. 21 above. ↩
-
Aristotle, De interpretatione 1, 16a3–4. ↩
-
Boethius, op. cit. PL 64, col. 407C. ↩
-
See Ch. 11, below. ↩
-
William of Ockham, Scriptum in I Sent., d. 3, q. 9, (“Opera theologica,” II; St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1970), pp. 544ff. ↩
-
This was a common symbol of wine for sale, much as a striped barber’s pole is a symbol for a barber shop today. (There’s a story worth telling about that, but I won’t go into it here.) ↩