From the Tree to the Labyrinth

9

Toward a History of Denotation

Denotation (along with its counterpart, connotation) is considered, depending on the context, as either a characteristic or a function (i) of individual terms (what does the word “dog” denote?); (ii) of declarative propositions (the sentence “the dog barks” may denote a state of the world, that there is a dog barking—but, if “the dog” is taken as denoting a species—all dogs, that is—then it could denote a characteristic common to the entire canine race); (iii) of nominal phrases and definite descriptions (the phrase “the President of the Republic” may denote, depending on the context and the circumstances of its utterance, either the actual president currently in power or the role provided for in a constitution). In each of these cases we must decide whether the denotation has to do with the meaning, the referent, or the act of reference. To sum up, by denotation do we mean what is signified by the term, the thing named, or, in the case of propositions, what is the case or what is believed to be the case, inasmuch as it forms the content of a proposition?

For structural linguists, “denotation” is concerned with meaning. For Hjelmslev (1943) the difference between a denotative semiotic and a connotative semiotic lies in the fact that the former is a semiotic whose expression plane is not a semiotic, whereas the latter is a semiotic whose expression plane is a semiotic. Barthes (1964) too formulates his position basing himself on Hjelmslev and develops a fully intensional idea of denotation, according to which, between a signifier and a first (or zero) degree signified, there is always a denotative relationship.

In componential analysis, the term has been used to indicate the sense-relationship expressed by a lexical term—such as the term “uncle,” which expresses the relationship “father’s brother” (see, for instance, Leech 1974: 238). In other words, in structuralist circles, denotation, referring back to Frege’s (1892) distinction, is closer to Sinn than to Bedeutung, closer to meaning than to reference, and in Carnap’s (1955) terms has more to do with intension than with extension.

It is, however, Frege’s term Bedeutung that is ambiguous, and it should be replaced with Bezeichnung (which we may translate as “designation”), given that, in the vocabulary of philosophy, Bedeutung usually stands for “meaning,” whereas Bezeichnung stands for “reference, designation” and for denotation in the extensional sense. Husserl (1970), for instance, says that a sign signifies or means (bedeutet) a signified and designates (bezeichnet) a thing. This is why, in the most recent tradition of Anglo-Saxon semantics inspired by Frege, Bedeutung is often rendered with “reference” or “denotation” (see, for example, Dummett 1973). And so the usage of the structuralists is completely turned on its head.

In the field of analytic philosophy, the whole picture underwent a radical change with Russell’s essay “On Denoting” (1905), in which denotation is presented as different from meaning; and this is the direction followed by the entire Anglo-Saxon philosophical tradition. See, for instance, Ogden and Richards (1923) and Morris (1946), where it is said that when, for example, in Pavlov’s experiment, a dog reacts to the bell, food is the denotatum of the bell, while the condition of being edible is its significatum.

In this sense, an expression denotes either the individuals or the class of individuals of which it is the name, whereas it connotes the characteristics on the basis of which such individuals are recognized as members of the class in question. If we go on to substitute (see Carnap 1955) the pairing extension/intension for the pairing denotation/connotation, then denotation becomes a function of connotation.

But even if we establish that denotation stands for extension, it may refer (i) to a class of individuals, (ii) to an actually existing individual (as in the case of the rigid designation of proper names), (iii) to each member of a class of individuals, (iv) to the truth value contained in an assertive proposition (with the consequence that, in each of these fields, the denotatum of a proposition is what is the case, or the fact that p is the case).

Very reasonably, Lyons (1977: 2:208) proposed using the term designation in place of denotation, and using denotation in a neutral fashion, between extension and intension: in this sense “dog” would denote the class of dogs (or perhaps some typical member, or exemplar, of the class), while “canine” would denote the characteristic whereby we recognize that it is correct to apply the expression. His proposal did not meet with much favor, however, at least in the analytical koinè, and therefore the polysemous nature of the term persists.

9.1. From Mill to Peirce

The term denotation was used in an explicitly extensional sense by John Stuart Mill in his System of Logic (1843, I, 2, 5): “the word white, denotes all white things, as snow, paper, the foam of the sea, etc., and implies, or in the language of the schoolmen, connotes, the attribute whiteness” (emphasis in original).

Peirce was probably the first to realize that there was something that did not jibe in this solution, despite the fact that he himself always used denotation in this extensional sense. Let us see how he uses the term on various occasions:

the direct reference of a symbol to its objects, or its denotation (CP 1.559)¹

a Rhematic Indexical Sinsign [is] really affected by the real camel it denotes (CP 2.261)

a symbol … must denote an individual and must signify a character (CP 2.293)

every assertion contains such a denotative or pointing-out function (CP 5.429)

signs are designative or denotative or indicative, in so far as they, like a demonstrative pronoun, or a pointing finger, “brutally direct the mental eyeballs of the interpreter to the object in question” (8.350)

Peirce was well aware that, as far as connotation went, Mill was not in fact following, as he claimed to be, traditional Scholastic usage. The Schoolmen (at least up until the fourteenth century) distinguished between significare (meaning) and appellare (naming), and did not use connotation in opposition to denotation, but as an added form of signification:

It has been, indeed, the opinion of all the students of the logic of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, that connotation was in those ages used exclusively for the reference to a second significate, that is (nearly), for a reference to a relative sense (such as father, brighter, etc.) to the correlate of the object it primarily denotes.… Mr. Mill has, however, considered himself entitled to deny this upon his simple authority, without the citation of a single passage from any writer of that time. (CP 2.393)

Peirce develops the same argument in CP 2.431, and he later points out that in the Middle Ages the most common opposition was between significare (to mean) and nominare (to refer to). He further observes how Mill uses—in place of the term significare—connotare, implicitly reserving denotare for designating, naming, or referring. Furthermore, he recalls a passage from John of Salisbury (Metalogicus II, 20), according to whom “nominantur singularia sed universalia significantur,” concluding that unfortunately “the precise meaning recognized as proper to the word ‘signify’ at the time of John of Salisbury … was never strictly observed, either before and since; and on the contrary the meaning tended to slip towards that of ‘denote’ ” (CP 2.434).

However, although Peirce lucidly realizes that at a certain point significare partially shifted from an intensional paradigm to an extensional one, he nevertheless fails to recognize that in ensuing centuries the term retains for the most part its intensional meaning. Thus, he accepts the fact that denotation is an extensional category (and took issue with Mill’s work only with respect to connotation), whereas it is precisely the term denotare that, initially used halfway between extension and intension, finally (and the terminus ad quem is in fact Mill) took over as an extensional category. Peirce does not indicate when this happened for the first time, and he fails to do so because the question was far from lending itself to a simple solution.

9.2. From Aristotle to the Middle Ages

Plato had already made it clear that by pronouncing a single term (say, “dog”) we can certainly signify a given idea, but only when we enunciate a proposition (such as “that dog barks”) can we say that something is the case, and hence say something is true or false.

As for Aristotle, in the famous passage in De interpretatione (16a et seq.), he outlines a semiotic triangle in which words are on the one hand linked to concepts (or to the passions of the soul) and on the other to things. Aristotle says that words are “symbols” of the passions, and by “symbol” he means a conventional and arbitrary expedient. It is also true, however, as we will see in what follows, that he claims that words may be considered as symptoms (semeia) of the passions, but he says so in the same sense that any and every verbal utterance may first of all be a symptom of the fact that its speakers have something on their minds. The passions of the soul, on the other hand, are likenesses or icons of things. But, according to Aristotelian theory, things are known through the passions of the soul, without there being a direct connection between symbols and things. We name things and we mean their icons, that is, the corresponding ideas that the things arouse in our minds.² To indicate this symbolic relationship, Aristotle does not employ the word semainein (which could almost be translated as “to signify”), though in many other circumstances he uses this verb to indicate the relationship between words and concepts (see Figure 9.1).

Figure 9.1

For Aristotle too, as for Plato, single terms taken in isolation do not make any statement about what is the case. They merely “mean” a thought. Sentences or complex expressions on the other hand also mean a thought; but only a particular kind of sentence (a statement or a proposition) asserts a state of affairs that is true or false. Aristotle does not say that statements “signify” what is true or false, only that they “say” (the Greek verb is legein) that something given A “belongs” (the verb is uparkein) to something given B.

Thus, from Aristotle on, we find ourselves faced with three questions that will be amply debated throughout the entire Middle Ages: (i) Do signs mean primarily concepts (and can refer to things only through the mediation of concepts), or do they can signify directly, designate, or denote things? (ii) What is the difference between referring to a class of individuals and referring to a concrete individual? (iii) Wherein lies the difference between the correlation signs-concepts-individual things and the correlation sentences-propositional content-extralinguistic state of affairs?

Not that medieval thinkers had all of these different issues clearly in mind from the word go. The most we can say is that question (i) became the object of debate, in terms of the opposition between significare, nominare, and appellare, very early on (at least from the time of Anselm of Canterbury). Question (ii) was probably framed for the first time by Peter of Spain with his distinction between suppositio naturalis and suppositio accidentalis. Question (iii) was variously addressed from Boethius onward—though while, among the commentators of Aristotle, the debate over the relationship of signification was conducted independently from that over true and false assertions, for a number of grammarians and theoreticians of the suppositio, the two issues were often superimposed, until such time as, with Roger Bacon and William of Ockham, they became completely interchangeable.

The fate of terms like denotatio and designatio is bound up with the history of the opposition significatio–nominatio. It would appear that, for a long time (at least until the fourteenth century), these terms were used sometimes in an intensional and sometimes in an extensional sense. The terms were already present in the traditional Latin lexicon and signified, among their many other meanings, “to stand as a sign for something”—regardless of whether that something was a concept or a thing. In the case of designatio the etymology speaks for itself, in the case of denotatio, however, we must bear in mind that the term nota indicated a sign, a token, a symbol, something that referred back to something else (see also Lyons 1968: ch. 9). According to Maierù (1972: 394), Aristotle’s term symbolon was in fact generally translated as nota: “nota vero est quae rem quamquam designat. Quo fit ut omne nomen nota sit” (“a sign is that which designates any thing. Hence every name is a sign”)(Boethius 1988: p. 108).³

It is important, then, to establish (i) what happened to the term significatio; and (ii) when denotatio (along with designatio) occurs in connection with significatio, and when, on the contrary, it occurs in opposition to it.

As far as denotatio goes, it is important to record its occurrence in each of the following three usages: (i) in a strong intensional sense (denotation is related to meaning); (ii) in a strong extensional sense (denotation is related to things or states of things); (iii) in a weak sense (denotation is undecided between intension and extension, but with good reason to lean toward intension). We will see that the weak sense is the predominant one at least up until the fourteenth century.

9.3. Boethius

From Augustine to the thirteenth century, the possibility of referring to things is always mediated by meaning. For Augustine, “signum est enim res praeter speciem, quam ingerit sensibus, aliud aliquid ex se faciens in cogitationem venire” (“a sign is something which, offering itself to the senses, conveys something other to the intellect”) (De doctrina christiana II, 1, 1) and signification is the action a sign performs on the mind. Only through this mediation can one refer to things (see Figure 9.2).

Figure 9.2

Boethius had already introduced the term propositio to indicate the complex expressions that assert that something is either true or false. It is difficult to decide whether by “proposition” he meant the expression itself or the corresponding concept, but it is clear that truth or falsehood were connected with propositions and not with isolated terms. Boethius affirms that the isolated terms signify the corresponding concept or the universal idea, and he takes significare—as he does, though more rarely, designare—in the intensional sense. Words are conventional tools that serve to make manifest thoughts, sensa or sententias (De interpretatione I). Words do not designate res subiectae but passiones animae. The most we can say of the thing designated is that it is “implied by its concept” (significationi supposita or suppositum, see De Rijk 1962–1967: 180–181).

In his first commentary on Aristotle’s Peri hermeneias, II, in a discussion as to whether words refer directly to concepts or to things, in both cases Boethius uses the expression designare. He says “vox vero conceptiones animi intellectusque significant” and “voces vero quae intellectus designant,” and, speaking of litterae, voces, intellectus, res, he states that “litterae verba nominaque significant” and that “haec vero (nomina) principaliter quidem intellectus secundo vero loco res quoque designant. Intellectus vero ipsi nihil aliud nisi rerum significativi sunt.” In Categories, col. 159 B4–C8, he says that “prima igitur illa fuit nominum positio per quam vel intellectui subiecta vel sensibus designaret.” It seems to me that in these examples designare and significare are considered as more or less interchangeable.

Figure 9.3

Therefore, for Boethius too, words signify concepts and it is only as a consequence of this that they may refer to things (see Figure 9.3).

9.4. Anselm’s

Appellatio

It is thanks to the theory of appellatio, proposed in his De Grammatico by Anselm of Canterbury, that a more clear-cut distinction is posited between signifying and referring.

Building on Aristotle’s theory of paronyms, Anselm says that, when we call a given individual a grammaticus or grammarian, we are using the term paronymically. The word still signifies the quality of being a grammarian, but it is used to refer to a specific person. To indicate reference, then, Anselm uses the term appellatio, while, to indicate meaning, he uses significatio (De Grammatico, 4, 30 et seq.). A distinction of this kind between meaning and appellation (or naming) is also observed by Abelard.

9.5. Abelard

In the case of Abelard it is not possible to identify a logical terminology established once and for all, since he frequently uses the same terms in more than one sense. Nevertheless, he is the first author in whom the distinction between the intensional and extensional aspects is clearly made (if not always consistently from the terminological point of view). While he speaks indifferently of significatio de rebus and significatio de intellectibus, he nevertheless considers the principal meaning of significatio to be (we would say) intensional, in conformity with the anti-Aristotelian tradition, for which significare means to constituere (or “to generate”) a mental concept.

In his Ingredientibus (Geyer 1927: 307), Abelard states unambiguously that the intellectual plane is the necessary intermediary between things and concepts. “Not only is the significatio intellectuum a privileged significatio, it is also the only legitimate semantic function of a noun, the only one a dialectician must bear in mind when examining a discourse” (Beonio-Brocchieri Fumagalli 1969: 37).

But if we consider the various contexts in which terms such as significare, designare, denotare, nominare, appellare are compared and contrasted with one another, we are entitled to conclude that Abelard uses significare to refer to the intellectus generated in the mind of the listener, nominare instead for the referential function, and—at least in certain passages in the Dialectica, but in a way that leaves no room for doubt—designare and denotare for the relationship between a word and its definition or sententia (the sententia being what we would call the “encyclopedic” meaning of the term, whose definition represents a particular “dictionary” selection for the purposes of disambiguating the meaning of the term itself).⁴

We have already stressed, not only the frequently contradictory nature of Abelard’s terminology, but also how the terms designare and denotare had continued to enjoy a remarkably vague definitional status down to his time. There are passages in which we encounter designare with a strong extensional sense, such as Dialectica (I, III, 2, 1, p. 119), where Abelard argues against those who maintain that syncategorematic words do not produce concepts, but merely indicate a number of res subiectae. In this passage Abelard goes on to speak of the possibility of designating things, and he seems to use designare to indicate the first imposition of names upon things (seen as a kind of baptism in which there is a strict designatory link between the namer and the thing named). See, for instance, Dialectica (I, III, 3, p. 114): “ad res designandas imposite.”

It is also true, however, that in certain passages (see, for instance, I, III, 3, 1, p. 123), designare and denotare do not seem to have the same meaning, while in others (such as I, II, 3, 9, p. 97, and I, III, 3, 1, p. 121) the use of designare suggests an intensional interpretation.

Furthermore, there are two contexts (I, III, 1, 1, pp. 112–113) in which what is designated is the relationship between a name and its corresponding definition, and the denotation is explicitly linked to the meaning (or sententia) of an expression.

Taking issue with those who maintained that the things upon which the vox or name has been imposed are directly signified by the vox itself, Abelard stresses the fact that names signify “ea sola quae in voce denotantur atque in sententia ipsius tenentur.” He then adds that words do not signify everything they can name, but what they designate by a definition. For example, Latin animal signifies a sensitive animal substance, and this is precisely what is denoted by (or in) the word (see Figure 9.4).

Figure 9.4

It is clear then that both designation and denotation continue to maintain a decidedly strong intensional sense and to refer to the relationship between an expression and its corresponding definitional content.

As for signification, it has nothing to do with the naming of things, since it continues to exist “nominatis rebus destructis” (“if the things named are destroyed”), making it possible to understand the meaning of nulla rosa est (Ingredientibus, Geyer ed., p. 309).

Abelard makes a further distinction between two specific meanings of signification that continue to be a source of perplexity even today. Spade (1982) has stressed the fact that for the Scholastics significatio is not the same as our “meaning”: a term significat what it succeeds in bringing to someone’s mind (and this is undoubtedly the sense intended by Augustine). In this way signification, unlike meaning, is a kind of causal relationship. Meaning (be it mental correlate, semantic content, intension, or any form of noematic, ideal, or cultural entity) is not represented in the Middle Ages—and throughout the entire Aristotelian tradition—by the term significatio but by sententia or definitio.

True, in the medieval tradition we find both significare in the sense of constituere intellectus, as well as the expression significare speciem (which seems more tied to a noncausal notion of signification), but this distinction seems to become clear only with Abelard: a word significat something to the mind causally, while the same word is correlated by way of designation and/or denotation with a meaning, that is, with a sententia or a definition.

Accordingly, we can say that what Abelard’s theory envisaged was not a semiotic triangle, but a sort of square according to which a vox: (i) significat intellectus, (ii) designat vel denotat sententiam vel definitionem, and (iii) nominat vel appellat res.

9.6. Thomas Aquinas

In his commentary on the De interpretatione, Thomas Aquinas, who remains faithful to Aristotle’s positions, after distinguishing the first operation of the intellect (perception) from the second (“scilicet de enunciatione affirmativa et negativa”), defines interpretatio as “vox significativa quae per se aliud significat, sive complexa sive incomplexa” (“significant vocal sound—whether complex or incomplex—which signifies something by itself”) (Proemium 2). But immediately afterward he makes it clear that nouns and verbs are merely “principles” of interpretation, which is to be identified exclusively with the oratio, that is, with all those propositions “in qua verum et falsum inveniuntur.”

At this point he uses significare for the nouns and verbs (I, ii, 14), as well as for those voces that signify naturally, such as the moaning of the sick and the noises made by animals; but, as far as human voices are concerned, they do not immediately signify the things themselves but the general concepts, and only “eis mediantibus” (through them) do they refer to singularia (I, 2, 15).

He later states that the name signifies its definition (I, ii, 20). True, when Thomas speaks of composition and division, that is, of affirmation and negation, he says the former “significat … coniunctionem,” while the latter “significat … rerum separationem” (I, iii, 26), but it is clear that even here (where language refers to what is or is not the case) what is signified is an operation of the intellect. It is only the intellect, whose operations are signified, that may be defined as true or false with respect to the actual state of things: “intellectus dicitur verum secundum quod conformatur rei” (I, iii, 28). An expression can be neither true nor false, it is merely the sign that significat a true or false operation of the intellect.⁵

The verb denotare, in all of its various forms, occurs 105 times in the Thomistic lexicon (to which we may add two occurrences of the noun denotatio), but it appears that Thomas never used it in the strong extensional sense, in other words, he never used it to say that a given proposition denotes a state of affairs, or that a given term denotes a given thing.⁶

It is occasionally used with the sense of “to signify metaphorically or symbolically that …” See, for instance, the commentary In Job 10, where it is stated that the roaring of the lion stands for Job (“in denotatione Job rugitus leonis”). There is an ambiguous passage in III Sent. 7, 3, 2, which says: “Similiter est falsa: ‘Filius Dei est praedestinatus,’ cum non ponatur aliquid respectu cujus possit antecessio denotari.” But it could be argued that what Thomas is talking about in this case is the mental operation that leads to the understanding of a temporal sequence.

9.7.

Suppositio

Authors like Boethius, Abelard, or Thomas Aquinas, more concerned with the problem of signification than with that of denomination, were primarily interested in the psychological (today we would say “cognitive”) aspects of language. Certain of our contemporary scholars, however, committed to the rediscovery of the first medieval manifestations of a modern truth-conditional semantics, find the whole question of signification to be a very embarrassing problem, upsetting as it does the purity of the extensional approach, firmly established apparently by the theory of suppositio.⁷

In its most mature formulation, supposition is the role a term, once inserted into a proposition, assumes so as to refer to the extralinguistic context. The road, however, that leads from the first vague notions of suppositum to the more elaborate theories like that of Ockham is long and winding. De Rijk (1962–1967, 1982, n. 16) has traced the path by which, in discussing the relationship between a term and the thing to which it refers, the notion of signification (understood as the relationship between words and concepts, or species, or universals, or definitions) becomes ever less important.

We may observe how, for instance (De Rijk 1982: 161 et seq.), the disciples of Priscian spoke of names as signifying a substance at the same time as a quality (a formula in which the latter no doubt represented the universal nature of the thing and the former the individual thing), so that as early as the twelfth century we find the verb supponere as the equivalent of significare substantiam, in other words, signifying the individual thing. It is true, however, that authors like William of Conches insist that names do not signify either substance or quality or a thing’s actual existence, but only its universal nature, and that during the twelfth century the distinction is maintained between signification (of concepts and species) and denomination (the denotation of concrete individual things—see, for example, the Ars Meliduna).

It is, however, clear how, little by little, in the fields of logic and grammar, the cognitive is superseded by the extensional approach, and how “in successive phases, the real meaning of a term became the focus of general interest, with the consequence that reference and denotation became far more important than the over-abstract notion of signification. What a term signifies first and foremost is the concrete object to which it can correctly be applied” (De Rijk 1982: 167).

Notwithstanding this development, this novel point of view is not usually expressed using terms such as denotatio, whose semantic domain remains ill-defined.⁸ Peter of Spain, for example, uses denotari in at least one passage (Tractatus VII, 68), in which he states that, in the expression sedentem possibile est ambulare (“to someone seated ambulating is possible”), what is denoted is not the concomitance between being seated and ambulating, but that between being seated and having the possibility (potentia) to ambulate. Once again, it is difficult to say whether denotare has an intensional or extensional function. Furthermore, Peter considers significare in an extremely broad sense, given that “significatio termini, prout hic sumitur, est rei per vocem secundum placitum representatio” (Tractatus VI, 2), and it is impossible to decide whether this res is to be considered as an individual or a universal (De Rijk 1982: 169).

On the other hand, Peter does introduce an honest-to-goodness extensional theory simply by developing a notion of suppositio distinct from that of signification (see also Ponzio 1983, who has an interesting reference to Peirce, CP 5.320): what Peter says in fact is that suppositio and significatio are different in that the latter is concerned with the imposition of a vox to signify something, while the former is the meaning of the same term (which already in and of itself and in the first instance signifies that given thing) inasmuch as it stands for something particular.⁹

In Peter’s theory, however, there is a difference between standing extensionally for a class and standing extensionally for an individual. What we have in the first case is a natural supposition (suppositio naturalis), and in the second an accidental supposition (ibid., 4). Along the same lines, Peter distinguishes between suppositio and appellatio: “differt autem appellatio a suppositione et a significatione, quia appellatio est tantum de re existente, sed significatio et suppositio tam de re existente quam non existente” (Tractatus X, 1).

De Rijk (1982: 169) affirms that “Peter’s natural supposition is the exact denotative counterpart of signification.” To be sure, we may insist that homo signifies a certain universal nature and supposes all (possible) existing human beings or the class of humans. What Peter does not say, however, is that homo signifies all existing human beings or that it denotes them, though the entire question does not substantially change.

Up to this point, the terminological landscape that lies before us is still somewhat confused, considering that each of the technical terms considered so far covers at least two different domains (except for “denotation” and “designation,” which are still more indeterminate). This is illustrated by the diagram in Figure 9.5.

A significant change occurs with William of Sherwood, who “unlike Peter and the majority of 13th-century logicians … identifies the significative character of a term with its referring exclusively to actually existing things” (De Rijk 1982: 170–171).

Figure 9.5

This will be the position of Roger Bacon, for whom signification becomes denotative in the modern extensional use of the term—despite the fact that he never employs a term such as denotatio.

9.8. Bacon

In his De signis (Fredborg et al. 1978, hereinafter DS), Bacon sets up a relatively complex classification of signs (fundamentally confirmed in other works by the same author, such as the Compendium studii theologiae), which presents a number of elements of interest to the semiotician. This classification has already been discussed,¹⁰ and we saw that Bacon employs the terms significare, significatio, and significatum in a sense radically different from the traditional one.

In DS II, 2, he states that “signum autem est illud quod oblatum sensui vel intellectui aliquid designat ipsi intellectui.” A definition of this kind might appear similar to that of Augustine—but only if we understand Bacon’s “designat” as the equivalent of Augustine’s “faciens in cogitationem venire.” We must, however, point out two considerations that differentiate Bacon from Augustine. First of all, “oblatum sensui vel intellectui” implies that Bacon assumes a less radical stance than Augustine via-à-vis the sensible qualities of signs, given that he repeatedly admits that there may also be intellectual signs, in the sense that concepts too may be considered to be signs of things perceived. In the second place, for Augustine the sign produces something in the mind, while for Bacon a sign shows something (that exists outside of the mind) to the mind.

Therefore, for Bacon signs do not refer to their referent through the mediation of a mental species, but are directly indicated, or posited, to refer immediately to an object. It makes no difference whether this object is an individual (something concrete), a species, a sentiment or a passion of the soul. What matters is that between a sign and the object that it is supposed to name there is no preliminary mental mediation. The mind steps in, so to speak, after the fact, to register the designation that has already taken place. As a result, Bacon uses significare in an exclusively extensional sense.

It should be borne in mind, however, that Bacon distinguishes natural signs (physical symptoms and icons) from signs “ordinata ab anima et ex intentione animae,” in other words, signs produced by a human being with some purpose in mind.

Among the signs ordinata ab anima are words and other visible signs of a conventional nature, such as the circulus vini or barrel hoop that taverns displayed to identify themselves, and even the goods displayed outside shops, inasmuch as they signify that other members of the same class to which they belong are on sale within. In all of these cases Bacon speaks of impositio, that is, of a conventional act by means of which a given entity finds itself having to stand for something else. Clearly, for Bacon convention is not the same as arbitrariness: the merchandise on display is chosen conventionally but not arbitrarily (the objects act as a kind of metonymy, the member of the class for the class as a whole). The circulus vini too is designated as a sign in a conventional and nonarbitrary manner, inasmuch as it points to the hoops that hold the barrels together, and acts simultaneously as both synecdoche and metonymy, representing a part of the container that holds the wine ready to be sold.

But in DS most of the examples are taken from verbal language and hence, if we wish to follow Bacon’s line of thought, it would be better not to stray too far from what is probably the paramount example of a system of conventional and arbitrary signs.

Bacon, however, is not so naïve as to say that words signify exclusively individual and concrete things. He contends that they name objects, but these objects may also exist in a mental space. Signs in fact can also name nonentities, such as infinity, a vacuum, the chimera, and nonbeing itself (DS II, 2, 19; see also II, 3, 27, and V, 162).

This implies that, even when words signify species, this occurs because they point extensionally to a class of mental objects. The relationship is always extensional, and the correctness of the reference is guaranteed only by the actual presence of the object signified. A word is truly significant if, and only if, the object it signifies is the case—if nothing else if it is the case that it is thought.

Admittedly, Bacon says (DS I, 1) “non enim sequitur: ‘signum in actu est, ergo res significata est,’ quia non entia possunt significari per voces sicut et entia,” but this position cannot be equated to Abelard’s insistence that even an expression like nulla rosa est signifies something. In the case of Abelard rosa was significant insofar as significare was considered from an intensional point of view, and, within this framework, the name signified the concept of the thing, even if the thing did not exist or had ceased to exist. Bacon’s position is different: when one says “there is a rose” (and when there being a rose is the case), the meaning of the word is given by the actual concrete rose, but when one makes the same affirmation and no such rose exists, then the word rose does not refer to an actual rose, but to the image of the supposed rose that the speaker has in mind. There are two different referents, and in fact the sound rose itself is a token of two different lexical types.

Let us weigh carefully the following passage. Bacon states that “vox significativa ad placitum potest imponi … omnibus rebus extra animam et in anima,” and he admits that we may name conventionally both mental entities and nonentities, but he insists on the fact that it is impossible to signify with the same vox both the individual object and the species. If, to name a species (or any other mental passion), one intends to use the same word already used to name the corresponding object, we must set in motion a secunda impositio (DS V, 162).

What Bacon intends to clarify is that, when we say “homo currit” (“the man is running”) we do not use the word homo in the same sense as in the sentence “homo est animal” (“man is an animal”). In the first case the referent of the word is an individual, in the second a species. There are then two equivocal ways of using the same expression. When a potential customer sees the barrel hoop advertising wine in a wine shop, if there is wine, then the hoop signifies the actual wine. If there is no wine, and the customer is misled by a sign that refers to something that is not the case, then the referent of the sign is the idea or image of wine that has taken shape (erroneously) in the customer’s mind.

For the people who know there is no wine, the hoop has lost its ability to signify, in the same way in which, when we use the same words to refer to things in the past or the future, we do not use them in the same sense as we do when we refer to actual things that are present. When we speak of Socrates, referring, that is, to someone who is dead, and express our opinions about him, in reality we are using the expression Socrates with a new meaning. The word “recipit aliam significationem per transsumptionem,” it is used in an ambiguous way compared with the meaning it had when Socrates was alive. “Corrupta re cui facta est impositio, non remanebit vox significativa (DS IV, 2, 147). The linguistic term remains, but (as Bacon remarks at the beginning of DS I, 1) it remains only as a substance deprived of its ratio and of the semantic correlation that made its material occurrence a word.

In the same way, when a child dies, what is left of the father is the substantia, not the relatio paternitatis (DS I, 1, 38).

When we speak of individual things, “certum est inquirenti quod facta impositione soli rei extra animam, impossibile est (quod) vox significet speciem rei tamquam signum datum ab anima et significativum ad placitum, quia vox significativa ad placitum non significat nisi per impositionem et institutione,” while the relationship between the mental species and the thing (as the Aristotelian tradition was also aware) is psychological and not directly semiotic. Bacon does not deny that species can be the signs of things, but they are so in an iconic sense: they are natural signs, and not signs ordinata ab anima. The vox thus signifies only the individual thing and not the species (DS V, 163). As has already been demonstrated, when we decide to use the same term to name the species, what we have is a second imposition.

Bacon subverts, then, once and for all the semiotic triangle implicitly formulated since Plato, according to which the relationship between words and referents is mediated by the idea, the concept, or the definition. At this juncture, the left-hand side of the triangle (the relationship, that is, between words and concepts) is reduced to a merely symptomatic phenomenon (see Figure 9.6).

Figure 9.6

In Chapter 4, on the barking of the dog, we raised the question of whether Bacon had relied on Boethius’s translation of De interpretatione 16a, in which both symbolon and semeion were translated into Latin with the same word, nota, or whether he might not have gone back to the original, concluding from it that words are first and foremost in an exclusively symptomatic relationship with the passions of the soul. Accordingly, he interprets (DS V, 166) the passage in Aristotle from his own point of view: words are essentially in a symptomatic relation with species, and at most they can signify them only vicariously (secunda impositio), while the only real relation of signification is that between words and referents. He disregards the fact that, for Aristotle, words were, so to speak, symptoms of the species with reference to a temporal sequence, but that in any case they signified the species, to the point that we can only understand things named through the mediation of species already known.

For Aristotle, and in general for the medieval tradition prior to Bacon, extension was a function of intension, and in order to ascertain whether something was in fact the case, one had first to understand the meaning of the statement. For Bacon, on the other hand, the meaning of the statement is the fact of which the referent is the case.

What is of most interest to Bacon is the extensional aspect of the entire question, and this is why the relationship of words to what is the case looms so large in his treatise, while the relationship of words and their meaning becomes at best a subspecies of the referential relationship.

We can thus understand why, in the context of his terminology, significatio undergoes a radical transformation from the meaning it had had until now. Before Bacon, nominantur singularia sed universalia significantur, but with Bacon and after him significantur singularia, or at least significantur res (though a res may be a class, a sentiment, an idea, or a species).

9.9. Duns Scotus and the Modistae

Duns Scotus and the Modistae represent a sort of highly ambiguous fringe between the extensional and intensional positions. In the Modistae we encounter a tortured dialectic between modi significandi and modi essendi. Lambertini (1984) has demonstrated how this point continues for the most part to remain ambiguous, not only in the original texts, but also in the context of modern and contemporary interpretations (see also Marmo 1994).

In the works of Duns Scotus too, we come across contradictory statements. In support of the extensionalist point of view, we find: “verbum autem exterius est signum rei et non intellectionis” (Ordinatio I, 27), while on the other hand, in support of the intensionalist position, we find “significare est alicuius intellectum constituere” (Quaestiones in Perihermeneias II, 541a). There are, however, passages that seem to espouse a compromise solution, opposed to be sure to that of Bacon, according to which, though the thing may be subject to transmutation, this is no reason for the vox that signifies it to change, because the thing is not signified insofar as it exists, but insofar as it is understood to be an intelligible species (Quaestiones in Perihermeneias III, 545 et seq.).

Thus there are scholars who would place Scotus among the extensionalists. Nuchelmans (1973: 196), for instance, referring to the commentary on the sentences (Opus Oxoniense I, 27, 3, 19), declares: “Duns Scotus already affirmed that what is signified by the vocal utterance is a thing rather than a concept.” For others, such as Heidegger (1915),¹¹ Scotus is very close to a phenomenological view of meaning as a mental object. And finally, there are still others, like Boehner (1958: 219), who have no qualms about confessing their ongoing perplexity.¹²

9.10. Ockham

There has been considerable discussion as to whether Ockham’s extensionalist theory is really as straightforward and explicit as might appear at first sight. If we consider in fact the four meanings of significare proposed by Ockham (Summa logicae I, 33), only the first has an unmistakable extensional sense. Only in this first meaning in fact do the terms lose their ability to signify when the object they stand for does not exist.

That said, even though we cannot be completely certain that Ockham used significari and denotari (invariably in the passive form) exclusively in the extensional sense,¹³ nevertheless in many passages he did use the two terms with this meaning.

What happens with Ockham—and had already happened with Bacon—is that the semiotic triangle is turned completely on its head once and for all. Words are not connected first and foremost with concepts and then, thanks to our intellectual mediation, to things: they are imposed directly on things and on states of affairs; and, in the same way, concepts too refer directly to things.

At this point, the semiotic triangle would look like Figure 9.7: there is a direct relation between concepts and things, given that concepts are the natural signs that signify things, and there is a direct relation between words and the things on which they impose a name, while he relation between words and concepts is completely neglected (see Boehner 1958: 221 and Tabarroni 1984).

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.

9.11. After Ockham

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.

In De corpore I, ii, 7, Hobbes states that “homo quemlibet e multis hominibus, phliosophus quemlibet et multis philosophis denotat propter omnium similitudinem.” Denotation then once more concerns any and every individual who is part of a multitude of single individuals, insofar as homo and philosophus are concrete names of a class. In De corpore I, ii, 7, he adds that words are useful for syllogistic proofs, because, thanks to them, “unumquodque universale singularium rerum conceptus denotat infinitarum.” Words denote concepts, but only of singular things. Mill translates this attitude along clearly extensional lines: “a general name … is capable of being truly affirmed of each of an indefinite number of things” (II, iii).

Finally, in De corpore II, ii, 2, Hobbes writes that the Latin name parabola may denote an allegory (parable) or a geometrical figure (parabola). It is not clear whether denotat here means significat or nominat.

To sum up:

(i) Hobbes uses denotat at least three times in such a way as to encourage an extensional interpretation, in contexts that recall Ockham’s use of significare and supponere.

(ii) Although Hobbes does not use denotare as a technical term, he nonetheless uses it with some regularity and in such a way as to preclude its being interpreted as a synonym of significare, as Hungerland and Vick (1981: 153) have persuasively stressed.

(iii) Hobbes probably moved in this direction under the influence of the ambiguous alternative offered by the passive denotari that he encountered in Ockham, as well as in some logicians belonging to the Nominalist tradition.

(iv) Mill disregards Hobbes’s theory of signification and reads Computation or Logic as if it belonged to a wholly Ockhamistic line of thought.

(v) Mill no doubt decided to oppose “denotation” (instead of nomination) to “connotation” under the influence of Hobbes’s own use of denotare.

The above are of course merely hypotheses. The whole story of the give and take between Ockham and Hobbes and Hobbes and Mill has still to be written.

9.12. Conclusions

In the history of these philosophical terms, issues are clearly at stake which continue to be of considerable relevance from the semiotic and philosophical points of view. Mahoney (1983: 145) remarked on a curious contradiction, or at least a hiatus, between Bacon’s epistemology and his semantics. From a gnoseological point of view, we can know a thing through its species, and we cannot name a thing if we do not know it. When we utter a vox significativa, then, it is because we have something in mind. From a semiotic standpoint, however, the opposite is what happens, or at least something substantially different: we apply the word directly to the thing, without any mediation of the mental image or the concept or the species.

Such is the paradox of any extensional semantics concerned with the relationship between a sentence and its truth conditions. Every extensional semantics, from Bacon to Tarsky, rather than considering the relation between words and meaning, concentrated on the relation between words and something that is the case. An extensional semantics so conceived does not address the problem of how we can know that p is the case. If instead we were to focus on this problem, we would need to be able to identify the mental processes or the semantic structures that make it possible to know or to believe that p is the case. We would need to identify the difference between knowing or believing that p is the case, and the fact that p is the case. But a strict extensional semantics is not concerned with these kinds of epistemological questions, seeing that its exclusive object of study is the formal relation between propositions and what is assumed to be the case. “Snow is white” is true only if snow is white. For an extensional semantics, the marginal and accidental fact that it is hard for us to know on what basis we may assume that snow really is white is not a problem

An intensional semantics on the other hand is invariably concerned with the description of our cognitive structures. It may not be capable of determining whether snow is or is not really white, but it seeks to imagine and reflect upon the mental organization and encyclopedic structures that permit us to assume that snow is white.

Thus, in the last analysis, the history of the alternate fortunes of denotation (and the fact that its status remains moot) turns out to be a symptom of the unending dialectic between a cognitive and a truth-conditional approach.

The original version of this essay was published in English with the title “Denotation” in Eco and Marmo (1989), and subsequently in Italian as an appendix to Eco (1997a). [Translator’s note: This appendix was not included in the English translation of Eco (1997).] I would like to thank Mariateresa Beonio Brocchieri Fumagalli, Andrea Tabarroni, Roberto Lambertini, and Costantino Marmo for discussing the content with me and for their valuable suggestions.

1. Here and elsewhere references to the standard edition of the Collected Papers (Peirce 1931–1958) appear under the abbreviation CP.

2. Recently, Lo Piparo (2003) has proposed a different interpretation of the passage in question, according to which the passions of the soul are not mental images of things, but ways of being of thought, cognitive modalities (like reflecting, being afraid, feeling joy). In the same way, the pragmata cannot be things that already exist or facts in general, otherwise how are we to explain why, in other parts of his opus, Aristotle claims that we can think of nonexistent or false things like the chimera, or events that might exist but whose existence it is impossible to demonstrate. See the earlier references to Lo Piparo’s theory in Chapter 4 of this volume, section 4.2.5. Nevertheless, even if we were to accept his reading, I do not think it would alter the nature of the problem under discussion.

3. On Boethius’s use of the term “nota” see our Chapter 4.2.4. For an English translation of this work by Boethius, see Boethius 1988.

4. In the Dialectica (V, II, De definitionibus; De Rijk 1956: 594), it is clear that a nomen is determinativum of all the possible differences of something, and it is by hearing a name pronounced that we are able to understand (intelligere) them all. The sententia includes within itself all these differences, while the definitio posits only certain of them, those, that is, needed to determine the meaning of a name in the context of a proposition, eliminating all ambiguities: “Sic enim plures aliae sint ipsius differentiae constitutivae quae omnes in nomine corporis intelligi dicantur, non totam corporis sententiam haec definitio tenet, sicut enim nec hominis definitio animal rationale et mortale vel animal gressibile bipes. Sicut enim hominis nomen omnium differentiarum suarum determinativum sit, omnes in ipso opportet intelligi; non tamen omnes in definitione ipsius poni convenit propter vitium superfluae locutionis.… Cum autem et bipes et gressibilis et perceptibilis disciplinae ac multae quoque formae fortasse aliae hominis sint differentiae, quae omnes in nomine hominis determinari dicantur … apparet hominis sententiam in definitionem ipsius totam non claudi sed secundum quamdam partem constitutionis suae ipsius definiri. Sufficiunt itaque ad definiendum quae non sufficiunt ad constituendum.”

5. “Unde haec vox, homo est asinus, est vere vox et vere signum; sed quia est signum falsi, ideo dicitur falsa” (I, iii, 31). “Nomina significant aliquid, scilicet quosdam conceptus simplices, licet rerum compositarum …” (I, iii, 34).

6. The preposition per “denotes the instrumental cause” (IV Sent. 1, 1, 4). Elsewhere he affirms that “praedicatio per causam potest … exponi per propositionem denotantem habitudinem causae” (I Sent. 30, 1, 1). Or “dicitur Christus sine additione, ad denotandum quod oleo invisibili unctus est …” (Super Ev. Matthaei 1, 4). In all these and in similar cases the term denotatio is always used in the weaker sense.

7. De Rijk (1962–1967: 206), for example, affirms that in Abelard “a point of view appears to prevail that is not based on logic” and that the term impositio “stands in most cases for prima inventio” and that “rarely is it encountered with the sense of denoting some actual imposition in this or that proposition emitted by some actual speaker. When even the voces are separated from the res, their connection with the intellect leads the author into the realm of psychology, or confines him to that of ontology, since the intellectus in its turn is referred to reality. The theory of predication too appears to be extremely influenced by the prevalence of perspectives that do not belong to logic.” Hence, the medieval logicians “would have obtained better results if they had completely abandoned the very notion of signification” (De Rijk 1982: 173). But we cannot expect the medievals to think in terms of modern truth-functional semantics.

8. In the Vienna commentary on Priscian (see De Rijk [1962–1967]: 245), a name “significat proprie vel appellative vel denotando de qua manerie rerum sit aliquid.” Thus, denotare still appears to be connected with the significance of universal nature.

9. “Suppositio vero est acceptio termini substantivi pro aliquo. Differunt autem suppositio et significatio, quia significatio est per impositionem vocis ad rem significandam, suppositio vero est acceptio ipsius termini iam significantis rem pro aliquo.… Quare significatio prior est suppositione” (Tractatus VI, 3).

10. See Chapter 4 in the present volume.

11. We have in mind the first and more reliable part of the text, dedicated to the true Scotus and not to Thomas of Erfurt.

12. Concerning this issue, see Pini (1999).

13. For significare, see Boehner (1958) and for denotari, Marmo (1984).

14. “Item repraesentatum debet esse prius cognitum; aliter repraesentans nunquam duceret in cognitionem repraesentati tamquam in simile. Exemplum: statua Herculis nunquam duceret me in cognitionem Herculis nisi prius vidissem Herculem; nec aliter possem scire utrum statua sit sibi similis aut non. Sed secundum ponentes speciem, species est aliquid praevium omni actui intelligendi objectum, igitur non potest poni propter repraesentationem objecti” (Quaest. In II Sent. Reportatio, 12–13). See also Tabarroni (1984).

15. “Sicut per istam ‘Homo est animal’ denotatur quod Sortes vere est animal. Per istam autem ‘Homo est nomen’ denotatur quod haec vox ‘homo’ est nomen … Similiter per istam “Album est animal,” denotatur quod illa res, quae est alba, sit animal, ita quod haec sit vera: ‘Hoc est animal,’ demonstrandum illam rem, quae est alba et propter hoc pro illa re subjectum supponit.… Nam per istam: ‘Sortes est albus’ denotatur, quod Sortes est illa res, quae habet albedinem, et ideo praedicatum supponit pro ista re, quae habet albedinem.… Et ideo si in ista ‘Hic est angelus,’ subjectum et praedicatum supponunt pro eodem, propositio est vera. Et ideo non denotatur, quod hic habeat angelitatem … sed denotatur, quod hic sit vere angelus.… Similiter etiam per tales propositiones: ‘Sortes est homo,’ ‘Sortes est animal’… denotatur quod Sortes vere est homo et vere est animal.… Denotatur quod est aliqua res, pro qua stat vel supponit hoc praedicatum ‘homo’ et hoc praedicatum ‘animal’ ” (Summa, II, 2). There is at least one example, taken from the Elementarium logicae and cited by Maierù, of denotare in the active voice, in which Ockham distinguishes between the two meanings of appellare. The first meaning is Anselm’s, while, apropos of the second, Ockham writes: “aliter accipitur appellare pro termine exigere vel denotare seipsum debere suam propriam formam.” It would seem that here denotare stands for “govern” (or “require”) or postulate a coreference within the framework of the linguistic context.

16. For a similar use of denotari, see Ockham’s Quaestiones in libros Physicorum III, partial edition by Corvino (1955).

17. Maierù (1972) cites Peter of Mantua: “Verba significantia actum mentis ut ‘scio,’ ‘cognosco,’ ‘intelligo,’ etc. denotant cognitionem rerum significatarum a terminis sequentibus ipsa verba per conceptum.” Right after this sentence, Peter gives an example: “Unde ista propositio ‘tu cognoscis Socratem’ significat quod tu cognoscis Socratem per hunc conceptum ‘Socratem’ in recto vel oblique” (Logica, 19vb–20ra). It is evident that denotare and significare mean more or less the same thing, and that both terms are used to speak of propositional aptitudes—an intensional theme if ever there was one.