From the Tree to the Labyrinth (66 page)

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.

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.

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.

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.