(1) Because it was said in the preceding chapter that some names are of first intention and some of second intention, and [because] ignorance of the significations of words is for many [people] an occasion for error, therefore we must see in passing what a first intention is and what a second [intention is], and how they are distinguished.
(2) Now first you have to know that [there is] a certain [something] in the soul, apt to signify [something] else, [and] called an “intention of the soul”. Thus, as was said earlier,1 in the [same] way that an inscription is a secondary sign with respect to utterances (because among all the signs instituted by convention utterances stand in the first rank), so [too] utterances are secondary signs of the [things] of which intentions of the soul are the primary signs. Aristotle said as much, that utterances are “the marks of the passions that are in the soul.”2
(3) Now what exists in the soul and is a sign of a thing, [and is such that] a mental proposition is put together out of it in the [same] way that a spoken proposition is put together out of utterances, is sometimes called an “intention of the soul”, sometimes a “concept of the soul”, sometimes a “passion of the soul”, sometimes a “likeness of a thing”. In his commentary on the De interpretatione, Boethius calls it an “understanding”.3 Thus, he says that a mental proposition is put together out of “understandings” — not, of course, out of the “understandings” that are really intellective souls, but rather out of the “understandings” that are certain signs in the soul that signify other [things] and [are such that] a mental proposition is put together out of them.
(4) Hence, whenever someone utters a spoken proposition, he first forms within [his mind] a mental proposition that belongs to no [spoken] language. [This is so] to the extent that many [people] often form propositions within [their minds] that nevertheless they do not know how to express, because of a defect of [their] language. The parts of such mental propositions are called “concepts”, “intentions”, “likenesses [of things]” and “understandings”.
(5) But what is it in the soul that is such a sign?
(6) It must be said that on this point there are different opinions. Some [people] say that it is nothing but a certain [something] contrived4 by the soul. Others [hold] that it is a certain quality subjectively existing in the soul [and] distinct from the act of understanding. [Still] others say that is the act of understanding. On the side of these last [people], there is the argument that “it is idle to bring about through several means what can be brought about through fewer”. Now all that can be preserved by maintaining [that the concept is] something distinct from the act of understanding can be preserved without [any] such distinct [thing], insofar as suppositing for [something] else and signifying [something] else can belong just as much to the act of understanding as [it can] to another sign. Therefore, one does not have to posit anything else besides the act of understanding.
(7) We will investigate these opinions below.5 Therefore, let it suffice for now that an “intention” is something in the soul that is a sign naturally signifying something for which it can supposit or that can be part of a mental proposition.
(8) Now such a sign is of two kinds. One kind is a sign of some thing that is not such a sign, whether it signifies such a sign along with this or not. This is called a “first intention”. The intention of the soul that is predicable of all men is like this, and similarly the intention [that is] predicable of all whitenesses and [the one predicable of all] blacknesses, and so on.
(9) Nevertheless, you have to know that ‘first intention’ is taken in two senses. In the broad sense, every intentional sign existing in the soul that does not signify intentions or signs precisely is called a “first intention”, whether it is a “sign” taking ‘sign’ strictly for what signifies in such a way that it is apt to supposit in a proposition for its significate, or whether it is a “sign” taking ‘sign’ broadly in the sense in which we say syncategoremata signify. In this sense, mental verbs and mental syncategoremata and conjunctions and the like can be called “first intentions”. But, strictly, [it is] the mental name that is apt to supposit for its significate [that] is called a “first intention”.
(10) Now a “second intention” is one that is a sign of such first intentions. For example, such intentions as ‘genus’, ‘species’, and the like. For just as one intention common to all men is predicated of all men by saying ‘This man is a man’, ‘That man is a man’, and so on, so [too] one intention common to all intentions that signify and supposit for things is predicated of them by saying ‘This species is a species’, ‘That species is a species’, and so on. Likewise, by saying ‘Stone is a genus’, ‘Animal is a genus’, ‘Color is a genus’, and so on, one intention is predicated of intentions in the way in which in ‘Man is a name’, ‘Ass is a name’ ‘Whiteness is a name’, one name is predicated of different names.
(11) Therefore, just as names of second imposition signify by convention names of first imposition, so [too] a second intention naturally signifies a first [intention]. And just as a name of first imposition signifies other [things] besides names, so [too] a first intention signifies other things than intentions.
(12) It can also be said that ‘second intention’ can be taken strictly for an intention that signifies precisely first intentions, or broadly for an intention that signifies intentions and [also] signs instituted by convention, if there is any such [intention].
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).
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Footnotes
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See Ch. 3, above. ↩
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Aristotle, De interpretatione 1, 16a3–4. ↩
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Boethius, In librum De interpretatione, ed. 1a, I, PL 64, cols. 297f., and ed. 2a, PL 64, col. 407. Note that ‘understanding’ in this sense does not mean the faculty or power of understanding, but rather an act of understanding, or the result of such an act. See the immediately following lines. ↩
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‘contrived’ = fictum. This is the famous “fictum”-theory of concepts. ↩
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See Chs. 14–15 & 40. ↩