INTRODUCTION The following is a study of Boethius' thought on signification which attempts to situate that thought historically and to evaluate it ...

In recent years, speech-act theory has mooted the possibility that one utterance can signify a number of different things. This pluralist conception of signification lies at the heart of Thomas Bradwardine’s solution to the insolubles, logical puzzles such as the semantic paradoxes, presented in Oxford in the early 1320s. His leading assumption was that signification is closed under consequence, that is, that a proposition signifies everything which follows from what it signifies. Then any proposition signifying its own falsity, (...) he showed, also signifies its own truth and so, since it signifies things which cannot both obtain, it is simply false. Bradwardine himself, and his contemporaries, did not elaborate this pluralist theory, or say much in its defence. It can be shown to accord closely, however, with the prevailing conception of logical consequence in England in the fourteenth century. Recent pluralist theories of signification, such as Grice’s, also endorse Bradwardine’s closure postulate as a plausible constraint on signification, and so his analysis of the semantic paradoxes is seen to be both well-grounded and plausible. (shrink)

In his fifth Logical Investigation, Husserl intensely scrutinizes three possible significations of the concept of consciousness. In these analyses, he also strives to clearly delineate between two types of consciousness: psychological and phenomenological. The goal of this paper is to show that the way in which the (psychical) act is conceived and defined, according to the Husserlian approach, as a lived, intentional experience plays an essential role in clarifying the distinction between the empirical-psychological level of consciousness (where the act as (...) a lived experience manifests itself) and its eidetic or ideal level (wherein any type of objectivity is constituted as such). Moreover, I shall try to argue that the notion of act conceived in this manner had influenced and decisively determined the development of the entire Husserlian phenomenology and theory of knowledge exactly because it explains how knowledge in general is constituted from an objective point of view. Another highly relevant distinction that needs to be dealt with in this context is the difference that Husserl establishes between the descriptive and intentional contents of the act. I shall try to show that this distinction presupposes in fact a previous conceptual determination of the noema (undertaken jointly with the analysis of the noetical components of consciousness at this level), and that the way in which the relationship between these two strands of consciousness is described determines further and in a fundamental manner the development of the idea of intentionality itself. (shrink)

The conceptual gambit of this article is to propose that the notion of anti-entropy should be complemented by that of exergy investment or destruction, a term first proposed by Zoran Rant in 1956. It argues that one of Bernard Stiegler’s most important interventions into deconstruction is the thermodynamic reformulation of Derridean différance. I argue that we should view the idea of anti-entropy as likewise the displacement of entropy to an external system. With the notion of exergy, it becomes possible to (...) outline an economics of exergy expenditure and investment that considers this displacement. Having argued for the necessity of exergy as a concept that may complement anti-entropy, I demonstrate that this economy of exergy expenditure, through transductive analogy, can be applied to signification. An economics of exergy may give crucial insight into the transcendental problem of signification; that which Derrida’s notion of différance first responded to. I ask the question: can a trace-like logic of sense be understood energetically if trace itself is understood to be materially inscribed into the world? Having explored this question, I then outline how education might be understood as both the means through with traditional significations are energetically maintained as well as the means through which metastable significations can be disrupted. I use the recent banning of anti-capitalist literature in the UK as an example of what I call logomachics, a conflict of significative exergetic investment and disinvestment. (shrink)

The Transparent Intensional Logic explicates the meaning of a linguistic expression as a construction. The construction is a hyperintensional entity. It is characterised as instructions for a „calculation“ of a concrete value. In the terminology of Pavel Tichy a linguistic expression denotes its meaning , which construes the signification of the expression. If the signification is an intension, we can call it a reference of the expression. In several semantic conceptions the question of the denotation and of (...) the reference are not treated equally. The terminological chaos can be resolved in a specific way thanks to „fine-grained“ character of the logical analysis offered by TIL. (shrink)

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the field of Paleolithic art was a source of intellectual ferment and innovative interpretation. This was in direct contrast to the first forty years immediately following the recognition of graphic representations in Upper Paleolithic contexts. In this early period, all “art,” from nineteenth-century impressionist landscapes to the Pleistocene painted bison of Altamira, was misguidedly viewed as “art for art's sake.” The only explanation required was the pursuit of aesthetic pleasure and all that (...) was needed was sufficient time to pursue artistic activities. (shrink)

The paper describes W. Ockham’s theory of signification on the background of the classical medieval philosophy, with which Ockham comes to terms by the help of an original metaphysical-logical theory of sign having its effects also on the theory of universals. There are two approaches rejected by Ockham: First, the Aquinas’s theory of species which in Ockham’s view can not correspond to the really perceived world; secondly, from the metaphysical perspective he also rejects Scot’s metaphy- sics and epistemology, whose (...) terminology in his view was too detailed and expanded. Ockham’s logic and metaphysics intertwine in his theory of signification, which, seen from the semantic perspective, makes the resolution of the relationship between world and language reflecting the former possible. (shrink)

This paper attempts to demonstrate that the logical problematic of signification, has a very dangerous socio-political effect due to the ontological implication that is connected to the signification of terms in logic. It expounds the notion of signification in Formal Logic as exposed by William of Ockham. It thus, employs this notion of signification of terms, to discuss the term “Fulani”, to show the danger potent in distorting the signification of the term “Fulani” (...) as in every conventional and connotative terms. This work claims that as a result of the connection between logic and ontology, conceptualization and perception, names and reality, the distortion of terms, which are the building blocks of propositions in logic could lead to a dangerous cognition and perception of ontological realities. To this end, it posits a critique on the dangerous change in the signification of the term “Fulani”, in the conceptualization and perception of present day Nigeria people, of West Africa. A dangerous change, as this paper claims, if not speedily reconstructed and re-conceptualized, could lead to a disastrous situation in the socio-political reality of the Nigerian State. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ : Dans la tradition logique de la philosophie analytique, comprendre la signification d’un énoncé, c’est comprendre ses conditions de vérité. Dans la tradition du langage naturel, la signification est liée à l’usage du langage. Depuis Grice, elle est liée aux attitudes et aux actions des interlocuteurs. Selon Austin, Searle et Vanderveken, signifier c’est utiliser des mots avec l’ intention d’accomplir des actes illocutoires. Pareils actes ont des conditions de félicité plutôt que des conditions de vérité. Selon nous, (...) signifier c’est essentiellement tenter d’accomplir des actes illocutoires. Et comme toute tentative est une action intentionnelle plutôt qu’une attitude, signifier c’est agir intentionnellement. ABSTRACT: In the logical tradition of analytical philosophy, to understand the meaning of an utterance is to understand its truth conditions. In the tradition of natural language analysis, meaning is related to language use. Since Grice, meaning is linked to speakers’ attitudes and actions. Following Austin, Searle, and Vanderveken, to mean is to use words with the intention of performing illocutionary acts. Such acts have felicity conditions instead of truth conditions. The aim of my work is to clarify the nature of meaning in the second tradition. In my view, to mean something is mainly to attempt to perform illocutionary acts. Any attempt is an intentional action rather than an attitude. (shrink)

This book presents an exhaustive study of the three 13-century discussions explicitly dealing with the notion of Significatio. The study aims to show that the three discussions emerge because of apparently opposite claims about the signification of words in the authoritative literature of the period. It also shows that the three discussions develop in the same direction - towards a unified use of the notion of signification, which keeps its explanatory role in semiotics, but loses its role in (...) grammar and logic. (shrink)

English summary: This book offers a historical and critical study of one of the most important questions in contemporary philosophy: what does signify mean? The author applies Husserls phenomenology, reflecting on the existence of intentional objects, to demonstrate the ontological status of signification that has eluded psychological and referential theories. French description: Le present ouvrage propose une etude historique et critique d'une des questions les plus importantes de la philosophie contemporaine et des sciences humaines : qu'est-ce que signifier veut (...) dire? L'auteur envisage la theorie de la signification dans l'ensemble du corpus husserlien et prend en compte ces differents aspects (discours scientifique et theorique, langage ordinaire). En inscrivant la theorie husserlienne dans son contexte historique (psychologie de Brentano, logique de Bolzano), ce travail s'attache ainsi a eclairer d'un jour nouveau un moment cle de l'histoire de la philosophie. Pour Husserl, la signification n'est ni un acte immanent de la conscience, ni l'objet - reel, fictif ou ideal - auquel il se rapporte, mais une objectite categoriale. En tant que telle, elle est une espece d'objet intentionnel : le correlat de l'activite categoriale, autrement dit l'objet tel qu'il est pense, a distinguer soigneusement de l'objet qui est pense et des vecus psychiques et linguistiques au moyen desquels il est pense et exprime. C'est a partir d'une reflexion sur le mode d'etre de l'objet intentionnel que la phenomenologie de Husserl a pu devoiler le statut ontologique de la signification qui avait echappe aux theories psychologiques et referentielles. (shrink)

Quoique l'on ne trouve qu'un nombre limité de références à Nicod dans les manuscrits de la période dite « intermédiaire » de Wittgenstein, une lecture attentive de La Géométrie dans le monde sensible s'avère pourtant décisive pour comprendre la nature du projet phénoménologique de Wittgenstein de la fin des années vingt. Nous nous proposons de montrer que la prise en compte ainsi que la reformulation du problème posé par Nicod en 1924, celui de la nature de la relation d'inclusion spatiale, (...) conduit Wittgenstein à remplacer dès 1929 l'ancien critère logique du simple et du complexe (celui du Tractatus logico-philosophicus) par un critère phénoménologico-grammatical inédit et désabsolutisé applicable à toute donnée visuelle quelle qu'elle soit. Plus généralement, la priorité donnée par Wittgenstein au visuel dans son « investigation phénoménologique des impressions sensorielles » trouve sa meilleure justification dans l'esquisse par Nicod d'une géométrie de la vision à la fois complète et indépendante. Nous montrons en particulier que les propriétés structurales du champ visuel mises au jour par Nicod dans sa construction (diversité et simultanéité des places sensibles, coloréité) sont tacitement utilisées par Wittgenstein pour justifier la possibilité d'une description phénoménologique conçue, précisément, comme description des places ou « localités » constitutives de cet espace perceptif. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2014 Heft: 202 Seiten: 273-300.

In this definitive overview of Victoria Welby's contributions to sign theory through the Significs Movement, Susan Petrilli utilizes her extraordinary interpretive abilities to provide the reader with an overview of Welby's research and her contribution to the study of signs. In order to bring this monumental work to fruition, Petrilli spent time at the Welby Collection of the York University Archives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the Lady Welby Library, University of London, and The British Library in London. In addition to (...) Petrilli's insightful analysis and elucidation of Welby's original works, she also provides the reader with selections from Welby's published writings as well the a significant amount of previously unpublished material located in the Welby Collection at York University. Petrilli's careful editing and cross-referencing of these materials contributes to a logical and revealing account of Welby's influential and voluminous work and the Significs Movement. (shrink)

Supposition is a controversial logical theory. Scholars have investigated many points of this doctrine such as its historical origin, its use in theology, the logical function of the theory, or the relationship between supposition and signification. In the article I focus on this latter aspect by discussing how some Italian, and in particular Florentine, Dominican followers of Aquinas—Francis of Prato, Girolamo Savonarola, and Georgius Rovegnatinus —explained the relation between the linguistic terms’ properties of signifying and suppositing, and hence the (...) division of supposition. After sketching out Thomas Aquinas, Hervaeus Natalis, and William of Ockham’s positions on the relationship between signification and supposition, I closely examine Francis’s criticism of Ockham. Francis follows Walter Burley’s account of supposition and considers the statement that a term has simple supposition when it is taken not significatively and stands for an intention of mind as the weak point of Ockham’s explanation of supposition. According to Francis, if this were the case, there would be no semantic basis for differentiating simple from material supposition. Francis is however hesitant about the full subordination of supposition to signification, especially with regards to material supposition, when a term, suppositing for itself, is taken to signify itself besides its meaning. More than one hundred years later, Girolamo Savonarola and Georgius Rovegnatinus have no doubt about the fact that terms may supposit only for what they signify. (shrink)

Le role decisif que la theorie du jugement est amenee a jouer en philosophie depuis Descartes est directement lie aux pretentions critiques de la philosophie moderne. La phenomenologie de Husserl, qui allait jusqu'a reconnaitre en elle son grand desideratum, ne fait pas exception. Pour autant qu'elle entend s'elever au rang d'une authentique critique de la connaissance, la phenomenologie se heurte necessairement a ce qu'il est convenu d'appeler le probleme du jugement. Pour cette raison, il devenait indispensable de dresser un etat (...) de la question, qui soit de nature a fixer aussi precisement que possible les principaux enjeux et les principales problematiques de la theorie du jugement a l'epoque moderne (depuis Locke et Kant jusqu'a Russell, en passant par Bolzano et l'ecole de Brentano) - et tout particulierement en phenomenologie. Dans cet ouvrage, l'auteur tente de reformuler et d'evaluer ces problematiques a la lumiere de la theorie phenomenologique du jugement de Husserl. (shrink)

Résumé — Dans cet article, je postule qu’il y a plusieurs variétés d’antipsychologisme logique, auxquelles correspondent différents concepts de « logique pure ». Deux conceptions sont ici confrontées : la « logique de l’idéalité » de Husserl et la « logique de la validité » de Rickert. Contrairement à l’emploi équivoque des termes « validité » et « idéalité » chez Heidegger, je montre d’abord que ces deux conceptions, bien que très proches, ne sont pas parfaitement superposables, car Rickert partage (...) l’antipsychologisme de Husserl mais rejette sa théorie des significations. Il apparaît ensuite que cette divergence – particulièrement visible dans la recension inédite, par Rickert, du livre très controversé de Palágyi – touche en réalité un « point faible » des Recherches logiques de Husserl : la confusion entre les objets logiques et les idéalités mathématiques. L’alternative « axiologique » proposée par Rickert évite d’emblée cette confusion en soutenant que le sens logique des propositions, fondé sur de pures « valeurs théoriques », est irréductible à un objet idéal.— In this article, I postulate that there are several varieties of logical antipsychologism, to which correspond various concepts of “pure logic”. Two conceptions are here under discussion : Husserl’s “logic of ideality” and Rickert’s “logic of validity”. Against the equivocal use of “validity” and “ideality” by Heidegger, I first show that none of those conceptions can be exactly superimposed on the other one, because Rickert agrees with Husserl’s antipsychologism but rejects his theory of significations. It then appears that this difference – which is particularly obvious in Rickert’s unpublished review of Palágyi’s very controversial book –, reveals in fact a “weak point” in Husserl’s Logical Investigations : the confusion between logical and mathematical objects . Rickert’s “axiological” alternative avoids directly this confusion by asserting the irreducibility of the propositional sense – which is grounded on pure “theoretical values” – to an ideal object. (shrink)

Une hypothèse fondamentale avancée par Searle et Vanderveken dans Foundations of Illocutionary Logic est que la force illocutionnaire est un élé;ment essentiel de la signification conventionnelle. La signification conventionnelle, qui est une propriété d'énoncé, s'oppose en gros ici à la signification intentionnelle, qui est une propriété prédiquée aux locuteurs. J'aimerais questionner certaines des motivations qui sont susceptibles de nous amener à accepter ce point de vue.

Our article aims to show, on the one hand, the preeminence of the interactive paradigm as a determining element in the process of constitution of logical meaning and, on the other hand, to examine the contents of the linguistic expressions of pragmatic semantics. To do this, we expose three major figures of the logic of mathematical obedience in particular those of Gottfreid Leibniz, George Boole and Gottlob Frege. If this approach to mathematical logic has seen meritorious progress, it (...) should be pointed out that it does not favor the emphasis on epistemic and interactive aspects in the notions of logical consequences and inference. Our contribution is therefore to demonstrate that these weaknesses can be solved with the revolutionary approach of Robert Brandom based on the framework that promotes the interactive game of supply and demand of reasons. This analysis leads to the idea that interactive play is the basis of contemporary logical approaches. (shrink)

L’opinion est souvent exprimée que Bradley fut un des tout premiers critiques du psychologisme. Dans cet article, j’examine cette thèse en me penchant principalement sur ses Principles of Logic . Je définis le psychologisme au sens étroit comme une thèse portant sur les fondements de la logique, et le psychologisme au sens large comme une thèse plus générale en théorie de la connaissance pour montrer que Bradley a rejeté les deux, même s’il n’avait pas grand chose à dire sur (...) la version étroite. Sa critique de l’autre version est basée sur une distinction entre contenu psychologique et contenu logique, et sur sa défense de la thèse de l’idéalité du contenu logique, avant Frege et Husserl. Cependant, il tient encore à l’idée que le contenu logique provient de la perception. Après une brève présentation de ses critiques de la psychologie associationniste, je montre qu’il fait face à de véritables difficultés en essayant d’éviter de retomber dans le psychologisme en faisant appel à la distinction entre universel abstrait et universel concret. Je termine avec quelques remarques sur la place de Bradley dans l’histoire de la psychologie britannique.One often hears the opinion voiced that Bradley was an early critique of psychologism. In this paper, I investigate that claim, focussing on his Principles of Logic . I define psychologism in the narrow sense as a thesis pertaining to the foundations of logic, and psychologism in the wide sense as a more general thesis concerning the theory of knowledge, and show that Bradley rejected both, although he had little to say on the narrow version. His criticism of the wider version is based on his distinguishing between psychological and logical content and on his defence of the ideality of logical content, before Frege and Husserl. Nevertheless, he still hung to the idea that the latter harks back to ordinary perception. I then review briefly his criticisms of associationism in psychology, to show that he faced some difficulties in trying to avoid lapsing back into psychologism, with an appeal to a distinction between abstract and concrete universals. I conclude with some remarks on the palace of Bradley in the history of British psychology. (shrink)

First, I briefly recapitulate the main points of Rosen’s article, namely, that the word “Being” does not adequately signify the paradoxical unification of subject and object and that the Klein bottle can serve as a more appropriate sign -vehicle than the word. I then propose to apply his insight more widely; however, in order to do that, it is first necessary to identify infra- and exostructures of language, including culture, category structure, logic, metaphor, semantics, syntax, concept, and sign vehicles, (...) that preserve the status quo and keep subject and object disjunct. After analyzing those infra/exostructures, I engage a complementary process of integrating them, coagula, in order to spark ideas for innovating ways in which more of those facets of language can embrace paradox. (shrink)

The International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons in 1996 was a landmark case because, for the first time in history, the legal aspect of nuclear weapons was addressed. The decision has evoked controversies regarding the Court’s conclusion, the legal status of international humanitarian law in relation to nuclear weapons, and a newly introduced concept of state survival. While much legal scholarship discusses and criticizes the legal significance of the opinion, (...) there has not been enough scholarship examining the Court’s specific choice of words and concepts that sustain its wider ideological and political position in the opinion. The paper argues that the Court’s vague and controversial logic is attributed to its confrontation with two international orders/codes: the legal order and the political order. The paper engages in legal semiotics as methodology to decode legal text and discover a deep structure that sustains networks of codes, according to which text is interpreted. Through the semiotic examination of three sets of key concepts “permitted” and “prohibited,” “threat of use” and “possession of the weapon,” and “state survival,” the paper shows the ICJ’s confrontation with two orders/codes and eventual prioritization of the political order over the international legal order. The analysis of the opinion based on legal semiotics indicates an intimate and inseparable relationship between state practice and international law, which must be disentangled for the sake of the rule of law. (shrink)

Jean Ladrière. Les limitations internes des formalismes. Étude sur la signification du théorème de Gödel et des théorèmes apparentés dans la théorie des fondements des mathématiques. Collection de logique mathématique, B II. E. Nauwelaerts, Louvain, and Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 1957, XV + 715 pp. - Volume 25 Issue 3.

Hans Reichenbach argued inExperience and Prediction (1938)that the theory of meaning defended by Logical Positivism, i.e., “strict verificationism,” failed to give a relevant criterion for cognitive meaningfulness. He replaces it with a wholly probabilistic criterion that allows us to establish a pragmatic connection between language and action. But serious difficulties arise in the justification of his theory. The aim of this article is to assess some of these difficulties and to indicate a way to solve them in a “reichenbachian” way.

In reworking his Logical Investigations Husserl adopts two positions that were not actually incorporated into later editions of the Investigations but do appear in other writings: a new distinction between signitive and significative intentions, and the claim that even naming and perceiving acts are categorially formed. This paper investigates Husserl's notion of noematic sense and the pure grammatical ' categories ' intimated therein in order to shed light on these new positions. The paper argues that the development of the theories (...) of the noema and of pure grammar allows us to recognize how even merely perceived or named things have a certain categoriality belonging to them, but that this development also requires us to distinguish between an anticipatory categoriality and an articulated categoriality. (shrink)

Shortly after composing his Opus maius, Opus minus, and Opus tertium (1267), Bacon felt the need once again to call attention to obstacles to the achievement of wisdom placed by the Church, academia, and civil society in the early 1270s. This he did in Part I of his Compendium of the Study of Philosophy. But his explorations in 1267 of the need for the study of languages needed, he thought, further attention. So Part II of this follow-up work renews that (...) call with greater fervour and detail and yields a presentation of the rudiments of Greek and Hebrew, indicating how knowledge of these is needed to interpret the scriptures accurately and how many errors result from failure to recognise this. This new edition of Bacon's Compendium of the Study of Philosophy, with facing English translation, enables today's readers to engage with Bacon's philosophy. It provides a window on academic life in Oxford and Paris of the 1270s at an important time in the development of the universities of both cities.''. (shrink)

This critical edition of Matthew of Orléans' Sophistaria contains valuable information about the author's views on matters of ontology, modality, natural philosophy, and theology, and gives us a clear outline of the way in which thirteenth-century authors approached these subjects in works of logic.

The medieval distinction between categorematic and syncategorematic words is usually given as the distinction between words which have signification or meaning in isolation from other words and those which have signification only when combined with other words . Some words, however, are classified as both categorematic and syncategorematic. One such word is Latin infinita ‘infinite’. Because infinita can be either categorematic or syncategorematic, it is possible to form sophisms using infinita whose solutions turn on the distinction between categorematic (...) and syncategorematic uses of infinita. As a result, medieval logicians were interested in identifying correct logical rules governing the categorematic and syncategorematic uses of the term. In this paper, we look at 13th–15th-century logical discussions of infinita used syncategorematically and categorematically. We also relate the distinction to other medieval distinctions with which it has often been conflated in modern times, and show how and where these conflations go wrong. (shrink)

We discuss the philosophical implications of formal results showing the con- sequences of adding the epsilon operator to intuitionistic predicate logic. These results are related to Diaconescu’s theorem, a result originating in topos theory that, translated to constructive set theory, says that the axiom of choice (an “existence principle”) implies the law of excluded middle (which purports to be a logical principle). As a logical choice principle, epsilon allows us to translate that result to a logical setting, where one (...) can get an analogue of Diaconescu’s result, but also can disentangle the roles of certain other assumptions that are hidden in mathematical presentations. It is our view that these results have not received the attention they deserve: logicians are unlikely to read a discussion because the results considered are “already well known,” while the results are simultaneously unknown to philosophers who do not specialize in what most philosophers will regard as esoteric logics. This is a problem, since these results have important implications for and promise signif i cant illumination of contem- porary debates in metaphysics. The point of this paper is to make the nature of the results clear in a way accessible to philosophers who do not specialize in logic, and in a way that makes clear their implications for contemporary philo- sophical discussions. To make the latter point, we will focus on Dummettian discussions of realism and anti-realism. Keywords: epsilon, axiom of choice, metaphysics, intuitionistic logic, Dummett, realism, antirealism. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION If Roger Bacon is known for anything today it is for his association with the medieval beginnings of what we now call experimental science, ...

The semantic analysis of logical consequence must obey a set of requisites which nowadays have acquired a dogmatic status. This situation prevents the development of other varieties of this fundamental relation. In this issue we try to define what we call a naive variety of logical consequence. The main feature of this relation is the way it depends on formulas in premises and conclusion: every sentence must contribute to the acceptability of an argument in a significative way. This circumstance can (...) be of some interest for research programs demanding a logical apparatus sensitive to application context. We think of the logic LP developed by G. Priest -- Priest [1979] -- in relation to Gödel incompleteness theorems as a test for our points of view. (shrink)

Selon le holisme sémantique, les propriétés sémantiques sont par nature anatomiques, c’est-à-dire intrinsèquement collectives. Selon le holisme de l’interprétation, la signification ou le contenu sont attribués collectivement. La thèse de constitution holistique de la signification peut être raisonnablement défendue à l’aide d’une contrainte de molécularité, qui introduit une hiérarchie dans la complexité logique des phrases, et un ordre ou une articulation dans le langage, en faisant droit à une condition finitaire d’anatomicité.According to semantic holism, semantic properties are anatomic (...) by nature, i.e. intrinsically collective. According to interpretation holism, meaning, or content, is collectively attributed. The thesis that meaning is holistically constituted may be defended provided we take into account a molecularity requirement. The requirement’s rôle is to introduce order or articulation in the langage, via a hierarchy of logical complexity, and by paying due attention to a finitary condition of anatomicity. (shrink)

While for a long time the study of medieval logic focused on editorial projects and reconstructions of central medieval doctrines such as the theories of signification, supposition, consequences, and obligations, nowadays the spectrum of analysis has broadened and is increasingly informed by modern logical research, whose perspective is then applied to medieval logic. Promoting this tendency, logicians and researchers concerned with semantics in the Gesellschaft für Philosophie des Mittelalters und der Renaissance (GPMR) founded a working group bringing (...) together medieval logic and modern applied logic. The present volume is a seminal document of these interests and activities. It analyzes theories in medieval logic which are useful for solving questions of recent logic and explains crucial parts of medieval logic, philosophy, and theology by applying techniques of present-day logic. (shrink)

This chapter provides a comprehensive survey of Buridan’s conception of logical validity in a semantically closed token-based system, as he conceives of natural languages. The chapter argues first that Buridan has very good logical, as well as merely metaphysical, reasons to conceive of natural languages as compositional systems of significative token-symbols. Next, the chapter discusses the peculiar Buridanian conception truth and validity, according to which validity must not be based on truth, and truth need not always follow upon correspondence. These (...) results are presented as the consequences of Buridan’s pursuit of a consistently nominalist semantics for natural languages, able to handle the Liar Paradox and its kin involving reflective uses of language without the Tarskian distinction between object-language and meta-language, rejected for systematic reasons in the seventh chapter. (shrink)

This paper accomplishes two goals. First, I elucidate Edmund Husserl’s theory of inauthentic judgments from his 1890 “On the Logic of Signs (Semiotic).” It will be shown how inauthentic judgments are distinct from other signitive experiences, in such a manner that when Husserl seeks to account for them, he is forced to revise the general structure of his philosophy of meaning and in doing so, is also able to realize novel insights concerning the nature of signification. Second, these (...) conclusions are revealed to be the foundation of Husserl’s pure logical grammar, found in the 1901 “Fourth Logical Investigation.” In his analysis of inauthentic judgments, Husserl already recognized, albeit in a problematic way and for entirely different reasons, many of the central tenets of the 1901 work concerning categoremata and syncategoremata, matter and form, and the isomorphism between them. (shrink)

This book sets out for the first time in English and in the terms of modern logic the semantics of the Port Royal Logic of Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, perhaps the most influential logic book in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its goal is to explain how the Logic reworks the foundation of pre-Cartesian logic so as to make it compatible with Descartes' metaphysics. The Logic's authors forged a new theory of reference based (...) on the medieval notion of objective being, which is essentially the modern notion of intentional content. Indeed, the book's central aim is to detail how the Logic reoriented semantics so that it centered on the notion of intentional content. This content, which the Logic calls comprehension, consists of an idea's defining modes. Mechanisms are defined in terms of comprehension that rework earlier explanations of central notions like conceptual inclusion, signification, abstraction, idea restriction, sensation, and most importantly within the Logic's metatheory, the concept of idea-extension, which is a new technical concept coined by the Logic. Although Descartes is famous for rejecting "Aristotelianism," he says virtually nothing about technical concepts in logic. His followers fill the gap. By putting to use the doctrine of objective being, which had been a relatively minor part of medieval logic, they preserve more central semantic doctrines, especially a correspondence theory of truth. A recurring theme of the book is the degree to which the Logic hews to medieval theory. This interpretation is at odds with what has become a standard reading among French scholars according to which this 16th-century work should be understood as rejecting earlier logic along with Aristotelian metaphysics, and as putting in its place structures more like those of 19th-century class theory. (shrink)