Occam latino

Luigi Speranza

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Occam writes:

"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,20 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."

"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

(15Aristotle, Prior Analytics I, 1, 24b16–18).

(16Aristotle has ‘premise’ (= protasis) here. The Latin is ‘propositio’, which sometimes means “premise” but came also ¾ as here ¾ to mean “proposition” more generally)

(17That is, the subject).

(18The last clause is simply a long-winded way of saying “whether it is affirmative
or negative.”)

(19Boethius, 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.)

(20Augustine, De trinitate XV, 10, 19; 12, 22; 27, 50 (PL 42, cols. 1071, 1075,
1097).)

Copyright © 1995 by Paul Vincent Spade. This document may be copied and circulated
freely, provided only that this notice of copyright is included with all copies.

----

"and properly, but rather because utterances are imposed21

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 instituted22 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."

"The Philosopher says as much when he says that utterances are
“the marks of the passions that are in the soul”.23 Boethius too means the
10 same thing when he says that utterances “signify” concepts.24

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 below25 ).

"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.

"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,
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 [circulus] signifies wine in the tavern."



(21 “Imposition” is the act of assigning spoken (and written) expressions to the
mental correlates they express. See also n. 22 below.)

(22 ‘Institution’ in this sense is just another term for imposition. See n. 21 above.
23 Aristotle, De interpretatione 1, 16a3–4.)

(24 Boethius, op. cit. PL 64, col. 407C.)

(25 See Ch. 11, below.)

26 William of Ockham, Scriptum in I Sent., d. 3, q. 9, (“Opera theologica,” II; St.
Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1970), pp. 544ff.
Copyright © 1995 by Paul Vincent Spade. This document may be copied and circulated
freely, provided only that this notice of copyright is included with all copies.
7

"But I am not talking here about ‘sign’ that generally."

"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 ¾ for instance, syncategoremata
and verbs and the parts of speech that do not have a definite signification ¾
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