The Semantics of Intuitive Acts in William of Ockham’s Theory of Mental Language

Claude Panaccio

(Department of Philosophy,University of Quebec at Montreal,Montreal H3C3P8,Canada)

The Semantics of Intuitive Acts in William of Ockham’s Theory of Mental Language

Claude Panaccio

(Department of Philosophy,University of Quebec at Montreal,Montreal H3C3P8,Canada)

William of Ockham(ca.1287-1347)is wel-lknown for having conjoined epistemology with semantics in his nominalist theory of mental language.Thinking,in his view,is a matter of producing syntactically structured mental propositions composed of simpler units called″concepts.″Some concepts such as″horse″or″white″are″categorematic″terms,which naturally signify certain individuals in the world:the concept″horse,″for example,is a natural mental sign for horses,while the concept″white″is a natural mental sign for white things.Ockham takes the human mind to be equipped in addition with″syncategorematic″concepts such as″and,if,some,no,to be″and so on,which do not represent anything in the world,but which can be combined with categorematic concepts into mental propositions with determinate truth-conditions,such as″some horses are white″or″no horse is a dog.″The basic idea is that whenever a human speaker produces spoken or written sentences composed of conventional words, the meaning of such utterances is derivative with respect to that of the underlying mental propositions.A detailed semantic theory is then provided by Ockham for the language of thought,especially in hisSumma Logicae①Reference to Ockham’s works will be to the critical edition of Gedeon G á l et al.in two series:Opera Theologica(OTh),10 vols., 19671986;andOpera Philosophica(OPh),7 vols.,1974-1988,St.Bonaventure,NY:The Franciscan Institute.TheSumma Logicaeis published in OPhⅠ.;and this semantics is devised in such a way,in accordance with Ockham’s nominalism,that only individual things— such as individual horses or individual white things— are admitted as significates or referents for categorematic concepts②More detailed presentations of Ockham’s theory of mental language are provided in C.Panaccio,Le discours in té rieur:De PlatonàGuillaume d’Ockham,Paris:Seuil,1999;C.Panaccio,Ockham on Concepts,Aldershot:Ashgate,2004(esp.chap.1).SeeOrdinatio,Prologue, quest.1,art.1;OThⅠ,pp.1647..

Ockham holds,on the other hand,that all human cognition is ultimately rooted in direct encounters with external singular things by way of what he calls″intuitive acts.″General concepts such as″horse″or″white,″for example,are naturally acquired by a particular cognizer when horses(or white things,as the case may be)are really present to this cognizer’s perception.The question thus arises of how such intuitive graspings are related with propositional thought within the mind.My aim in the present paper is(1)to show that in Ockham’s mature theory intuitive acts(or intuitions for short)are treated as significant singular terms capable of occurring themselves within mental propositions,and(2)to give a detailed account of how such terms signify.As I understand it,Ockham’s strikingly original position provides an elegant and plausible way of integrating the direct grasping of external things within the course of conceptual thought while firmly maintaining its distinctively non-conceptual character.

Ⅰ.Intuitions as signs

In the prologue of his first major work,a commentary on Peter Lombard’sSentences,Ockham introduces a distinction between intuitive and abstractive acts of cognition③.He defines the intuitive cognition of a thing as″this cognition in virtue of which it can be known whether the thing exists or not,so that if the thing exists,the intellect judges at once that it exists and evidently cognizes that it exists″[1]Ⅰ,31.,while an abstractive cognition of a thing is a cognition by which it cannot be evidently known whether that thing presently exists or not.My seeing Mary in front of me,for example,allows me to evidently know that she presently exists;it is a paradigmatic case of intuitive cognition.If on the other hand I think of her while she is absent,the cognition I then have does not by itself legitimize the judgment that Mary presently exists(she could have died since I last saw her)and it is therefore an abstractive cognition in Ockham’s sense.

In accordance with his distinction between the sensitive soul and the intellectual soul,Ockham acknowledges two kinds of intuitive cognitions:the sensible ones and the intellectual ones.The former are sensible perceptions such as seeing or hearing,while the latter occur only in the intellectual part of the mind.When a human being encounters some external physical object,there occurs in her a sensitive intuition,such as a non-human animal would have in similar circumstances,and then a merely intellectual intuition,which in turn prompts in this cognizer a firm assent to a contingent true judgement about this external thing,such as″this thing here exists.″Ockham thinks this reduplication of intuitions is to be postulated within the human mind in order to account for both the physical aspects of perception and the role intuitive acts play in the intellectual life of human cognizers.Intellectual intuitions,at any rate,are supposed by him to be present in all normal cases of human perception,and since they are the ones that really matter in Ockham’s account of knowledge and mental language,I will from now on focus on them only and ignore the merely sensitive intuitions(as Ockham himself does most of the time).

Whether sensitive or intellectual,intuitive cognitions are described by Ockham as mentalacts.This does not mean that he takes them to be voluntary actions,but that he identifies them with qualitative states of the mind. From an ontological point of view,Ockham accepts two general sorts of beings in the world:substances and qualities,both purely individual.Mary,for example,is a singular substance,while her color is a singular accidental quality(what philosophers call a″trope″in today’s vocabulary),which she might lose or change without ceasing to be herself.Human mental acts in this ontology are qualities which human substances can have or lose without ceasing to be themselves.Thus when a human cognizer intuits a horse,say,a real singular quality temporarily occurs within this cognizer’s intellect:an intellectual intuitive act namely,which in turn will have a causal impact in the intellectual life of this cognizer,such as bringing about an act of assent.Note,however,that the intuitive act itself is not to be identified with the assent it brings about.Ockham distinguishes various kinds of mental acts,some of which are merely″apprehensive″such as intuitive and abstractive cognitions,while others are″judicative,″such as acts of assenting,dissenting or doubting①SeeOrdinatio,Prologue,quest.1;OThⅠ,16:″The first distinction is that among the acts of the intellect there are two acts one of which isapprehensiveand bears upon whatever can terminate an act of the intellectual faculty[…]The other act can be called judicative,by which the intellect not only apprehends an object,but also assents to it or dissents from it.″.

Intuitions,then,are strictly apprehensive non-judicative acts of the mind and their distinctive feature with respect to abstractive apprehensive acts is that they involve a direct non-conceptual acquaintance with their singular objects.Abstractive acts,by contrast,always have to do withconcepts.It is well-known by now that Ockham significantly changed his mind in the course of his career about the ontological status of such concepts②The classical study on Ockham’s change of mind about concepts is P.Boehner,″The Relative Date of Ockham’s Commentary on the Sentences,″Franciscan Studies,No.11(1951),pp.305-316.See also M.Adams,William Ockham:Vol.2,Notre Dame,IN:University of Notre Dame Press,1987,chap.3,pp.71-107;C.Panaccio,Ockham on Concepts,Aldershot: Ashgate,2004,pp.21-27.;and this change of heart has important implications as to how intuitions are supposed to connect with concepts in human thought.In his first writings— such as the first version of theOrdinatio— he took concepts to be purely ideal entities produced by abstractive acts as their objects:this is the so-calledfictum–theory of concepts.In his more mature works,however,such as theQuodlibetal Questionsand theSumma Logicae,he came to identify conceptswith the abstractive acts themselves,thus endorsing what is known as the″actus-theory″of concepts.This allowed him to avoid postulating a mysterious ontological type for merely ideal entities and to stick with real singular substances and qualities in his account of intellectual thought.In the rest of this paper,I will exclusively focus on the matureactus-theory,which is more interesting philosophically.

For our present concern,theactus-theory of concepts,in addition to being more economical ontologically, allows for a smooth integration of intuitive acts within mental language,since all mental propositions in this theory are composed of cognitive acts anyway.The mental proposition corresponding to″all horses are animals,″for example,is composed of four mental acts suitably arranged with respect to each other.Two of them are categorematic conceptual acts(″horse″and″animal″)while the other two are syncategorematic acts(the quantifier″all″and the plural copula″are″).In this particular example,the two categorematic concepts involved areabstractive acts of cognition:the concept″horse″in this proposition refers to individual horses in the world,and the concept″animal″refers to individual animals,and they both do so without their referents being actually present to the cognizer.Yet since all the components of mental propositions are cognitive acts in this approach,nothing forbids that some of these might occasionally be intuitive rather than abstractive acts,intuitions rather than concepts.

And this is indeed what Ockham thought,as shown by the following passage from hisQuestions on Aristotle’s Physics,which I will first quote and then explain:

When the intellect apprehends a singular thing by intuition,it forms in itself an intuitive cognition,which is a cognition of this singular thing only,andis capable by its very nature to supposit for this singular thing […]And just as a spoken word conventionally supposits for its significate,this[intuitive]intellection naturally supposits forthe thing it is an intellection of.①Q(mào)uaestiones in libros Physicorum Aristotelis,quest.7,OPhⅥ,p.411(with my italics).

Ockham there uses the technical verb″to supposit for″(supponere pro).But supposition in his semantics is the referential function of a termwithin a proposition:never can a term″supposit″for anything when taken alone②SeeSumma LogicaeⅠ,chap.63;OPhⅠ,p.193:″supposition is a property of a term,but only when it is in a proposition″(with my italics).. Taken by itself,the term″horse″can be said tosignifyhorses,but not to supposit for them.It can supposit for horses only when it occurs as subject or predicate of a proposition③See ibid.:″both subject and predicate supposit;″andSumma LogicaeⅠ,chap.72;OPhⅠ,p.221:″[…]strictly speaking,a part of an extreme[that is:a part of a subject or of a predicate within a proposition]does not supposit.″The point of the medieval theory of supposition is precisely to distinguish the signification of a term(which is a semantical property it has in itself)from the various referential functions that same term can have when it occurs as subject or predicate of a proposition,whether mental,spoken or written.Most of the time,admittedly,a term will supposit for its significates or some of them,but it can do so in various ways(″horse″supposits differently,for example,in″all horses are animals″,″a horse is white″and″Brownie is a horse″),and in some special cases,moreover,it might supposit for itself or for the corresponding concept instead of for its significates(as in″horse is a five-letter word″or″horse is a natural kind concept″)..In Ockham’s view,this holds for concepts with respect to mental propositions as well as for spoken words with respect to spoken propositions.When he says in the passage quoted above that an intuitive cognition is″capable by its very nature to supposit″for its object just as a spoken word can supposit for its significate,he directly implies,therefore,that intuitive acts can occur as subjects or predicates of mental propositions.In the presence of a white horse,for example,the mental singular proposition corresponding to″this is white″would have as its very subject the intellectual intuitive act by which the cognizer actually grasps this singular horse.

Ockham’s main argument in favour of theactus-theory of concepts was that cognitive acts themselves can legitimately be seen assignsinsofar as they can represent external things and supposit for them within mental propositions④SeeSumma LogicaeⅠ,chap.12;OPhⅠ,p.43:″Everything that can be saved by positing something distinct from the act of intellection can be saved without such a postulation,for suppositing for something else and signifying something else can be done by an act of intellection as well as by any other sign.″The same point is made inQuodlibeta SeptemⅣ,quest.35; OThⅨ,pp.472-474..As we now see,this holds not only for abstractive acts of cognition but for intuitive acts as well.Insofar as an intuition is a real quality of the mind,it is a mental representation;and insofar as it can be the subject or predicate of mental propositions and supposit for something within such propositions,this representation is asign in Ockham’s technical sense of the word①See Ockham’s technical definition of″sign″inSumma LogicaeⅠ,chap.1;OPhⅠ,p.9:″The term″sign″is taken for that which brings something to mind and can supposit for that thing[…].″For a detailed analysis of this definition and of the surrounding passage of theSumma Logicae,see C.Panaccio,Ockham on Concepts,Aldershot:Ashgate,2004,pp.45-51..

Ⅱ.What do intuitions signify?

If intuitions are signs,one may wonder,what do they signify?In Ockham’s general theory of signification,a categorematic sign,whether mental,spoken or written,is said to primarily signify whatever it is true of:″horse″primarily signifies horses,and″white″primarily signifies white things②See in particularSumma LogicaeⅠ,chap.33;OPhⅠ,pp.95-96..In addition to primary signification,some terms,the″connotative″ones(which include all relational terms),are also endowed with a secondary signification (or connotation)insofar as they″obliquely″refer to certain things in the world which,however,they are not true of.The term″father,″for example primarily signifies all fathers,but it also indirectly evokes the children:in Ockham’s vocabulary,it is said to connote(or secondarily signify)the children.The question of the signification of intuitive acts in Ockham’s theory,then,must be broken down into two different interrogations:What do intuitions primarilysignify?And:What do they connote(if anything)?I will postpone the latter point to section 4 below, and concentrate on the former in the present section and the subsequent one.

Insofar as intuitive acts are taken to be signs,what must be said,obviously,is that just as the concept″horse″primarily signifies all singular horses,an intuitive act primarily signifies the individual thing out there which is the object of this particular intuitive grasping.My intuitive grasping of Mary,in this view,primarily signifies— or represents— Mary herself,and my intuitive grasping of a tree primarily signifies that particular tree.And just as a concept normally″supposits for″— or refers to— its significates when it occurs as subject or predicate of a mental proposition,an intuitive act which occurs as subject or predicate of a mental proposition will similarly″supposit for″— or refer to— its singular object.The intuitive act will thus contribute to the truth-conditions of the relevant mental proposition just as a concept normally does③Ockham’s theory of truth-conditions is detailed inSumma LogicaeⅡ,chap.2-20;OPhⅠ,pp.249-317.The theory is formulated in terms of″supposition″rather than″signification″,but since in normal cases a term in a proposition supposits for its significates,the truth-conditions for such normal cases can be given directly in terms of signification.Special cases occur when the term supposits for itself or for the corresponding concept(see above n.9),but I will leave those aside here..The mental proposition″horses are mammals,″for example,is true if and only if the significates of the concept″horse″are among the significates of the concept″mammal,″and similarly the mental proposition corresponding to″this is a horse,″the subject of which is an intuitive act,will be true if and only if the singular significate of this intuitive act is among the significates of the general concept″horse.″

An intuitive act,then,is a singular sign for the individual object which it is an intuition of.Yet this is not enough to settle the matter.For how is the object of an intuition determined?Among all the individual things in the world,which one exactly is a certain intuitive state an intuitionof?Ockham has a precise and far-reaching answer to this question:the object of a given intuitive act is that individual thing in the world whichcausesthat particular intuitive act:

[…]an intuitive cognition is a proper cognition of a singular thing not because of its greater likeness to the one thing than to the other,but because it is naturally caused by the one thing and not by the other,and it is not able to be caused by the other.④Quodlibeta SeptemⅠ,quest.13;OThⅨ,p.76.

Since intuitive acts are real mental qualities for Ockham just as concepts are in his mature theory,he takes them to be likenesses of external things:intuitions for him are intellectual images of things just as concepts are⑤See for instanceQuodlibeta SeptemⅣ,quest.35;OThⅨ,p.474:″[…]an act is a similitude[similitudo]of its object […].″.Likeness,however,cannot account for what precisely a given intuitive act is an intuition of,for if a mental image,whether intuitive or abstractive,resembles somehow some external thinga,it will equally resemble any other thing that maximally resemblesa.Likeness cannot account for thesingularityof an intuitive representation:

[…]it is not because of a likeness that an intuitive cognition,rather than a first abstractive cognition,is called a proper cognition of a singular thing.Rather,it is only because of causality;nor can any other reason be given①Q(mào)uodlibeta SeptemⅠ,quest.13;OThⅨ,p.76..

Suppose there are two very similar eggs in your surrounding but you look at one of them only.This particular egg is the singular object of your present intuitive state not because this intuition resembles it more than it resembles the other egg,but because this one rather than the other is what causes your present intuitive act.The theory,of course,needs some refinement.The causal process that brings about a given intuitive act is always complex and not every element in it is directly relevant for determining the object of this particular act.Sensory intuition,for example,plays a causal role in the production of an intellectual intuition②SeeQuodlibeta SeptemⅠ,quest.15;OThⅨ,p.86:″I say that the sensitive vision is a partial cause of the intellectual vision.″,and so does the intellect itself as well as some external factors such as the ambient light,the surrounding background and so on.But neither the sensory intuition nor the intellect itself nor the surrounding light and background are the objects of this intellectual intuitive act.The intuited object must occupy a distinctive position and play a distinctive role in the causal process.Ockham, admittedly,is never explicit as to how to characterize such position and function,yet the basic idea remains pretty clear:the significate of an intuitive cognition is the middle-size singular thing which plays the appropriately salient role in the production and the keeping into existence of this particular intuitive act③The very special causal powers of God according to Ockham’s theology also complicates matters with respect to the causal theory of cognition,but I will leave this aspect aside here.More on this in C.Panaccio,″Intuition and Causality:Ockham’s Externalism Revisited,″in F.Amerini(ed.),Later Medieval Perspectives on Intentionality,Quaestio 10,Turnhout: Brepols,2010,pp.41-253..

This causal approach to intuitive cognition is a form of what recent philosophers callcontent externalism④See for example M.Rowlands,Externalism:Putting Mind and World Back Together Again,Montreal&Kingston:McGil-l Queen’s University Press,2003,esp.chap.5-7,pp.76-138,and R.Schantz(ed.),The Externalist Challenge,Berlin:Walter de Gruyter,2004,esp.Sect.Ⅲ-Ⅴ,pp.211-365.A prominent promoter of content externalism in the last few decades is Ruth Millikan;see e.g.R.G.Millikan,On Clear and Confused Ideas:An Essay about Substance Concepts,Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,2000;R.G.Millikan,Varieties of Meaning,Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,2004;R.G.Millikan,″Existence Proof for a Viable Externalism,″in R.Schantz(ed.),The Externalist Challenge,Berlin:Walter de Gruyter,2004,pp. 227-238..Content externalism,roughly,is the thesis that the content of mental states is not entirely determined by the inner features of those states,and that external factors— which the cognizer might not be aware of— are crucially relevant in this respect.The key idea is that two cognizers might be in maximally similar internal states while the content of their cognitions nevertheless differ because of some differences in their respective surroundings.This is what we have in Ockham,at least with respect to intuitive cognitions.If John,say,is presently intuiting an egg while Peter is intuiting a different,but very similar,egg,the two of them might be in maximally similar intuitive states,but the significations of their intuitive states will nevertheless differ because each is being caused by a different external thing.Neither John nor Peter might be aware of the causal process that leads to the occurrence of their respective intuitive acts,yet this process is what univocally determines the contents of their respective intuitions.Content externalism is often presented as a recent and revolutionary contribution to the philosophical debate because it runs counter to the positions of prominent early modern thinkers such as Descartes or Locke, but the germs of it can be found in Ockham’s nominalism,and especially in his theory of intuitive cognition⑤As I understand it,Ockham’s externalism extends to abstractive cognitions(see e.g.Panaccio 2015)and to propositional knowledge as well(see Panaccio 2012),but this lies beyond the scope of the present paper.See C.Panaccio,″Ockham’s Externalism,″in G. Klima(ed.),Intentionality,Cognition,and Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy,New York:Fordham University Press,2015,pp.166-185;C.Panaccio,″William of Ockham’s Epistemological Externalism,″World Philosophy,No.4(2012), pp.97-108..

Ⅲ.Intuitions and other singular terms

Ockham lists in theSumma Logicaethree different varieties of singular terms:proper names,such as″Socrates,″demonstrative pronouns such as″this,″and common nouns accompanied by demonstratives such as″this man.″①SeeSumma LogicaeⅠ,chap.19;OPhⅠ,p.66.We must now ask how intuitive cognitions are related to these.Ockham’s list is obviously drawn with spoken and written language in view rather than mental language.For how could there be demonstrative pronouns in mental language?A demonstrative pronoun,strictly speaking,is an indexical term with a variable content:what individual in the world a demonstrative refers to systematically varies with the context of its use.It is difficult to see how this distinctive feature of demonstrative pronouns could be transposed to mental singular acts of designation. Such acts,I gather,are simply to be identified with intuitive cognitions,and it does not make much sense that the sameintuitive cognition should reoccur in different contexts with different objects.Ockham,actually,explicitly doubts that there are pronouns at all in mental language②Summa LogicaeⅠ,chap.3;OPhⅠ,p.11..What corresponds within a mental proposition to a spoken or written demonstrative pronoun must be the underlying intuitive act itself,which,as we saw,can be the subject(or the predicate)of such a proposition,according to Ockham.

It would be inconvenient— and probably unmanageable— if conventional language like French or English had a distinct term corresponding to each distinct private intuitive act.It is quite understandable,therefore,that indexical terms with variable content be introduced in public languages,to be used in connection with any particular intuitive act in order to precisely designate on the occasion the object of this intuitive cognition.But there is no point in postulating such indexical terms within mental language in addition to intuitive acts.Even though they stay in existence only as long as their object causes them to occur,intuitive acts must be the basic singular terms of Ockham’s mental language.

What about proper names?Are we to suppose that in addition to intuitive acts there exists in mental language another category of simple singular terms,capable of re-occurring in the mind in the absence of their referents? Ockham seems to have hesitated on this issue,but he came to think in his later works that no such naturally significative mental proper names exist.If they did,they would have to be identified with abstractive acts,and more precisely with what Ockham calls the″prima abstractiva.″③See e.g.Quodlibeta SeptemⅠ,quest.13;OThⅨ,pp.72-78.Whenever a cognizer has an intuitive cognition,Ockham thinks,this intuitive act immediately brings about within this cognizer the formation of an abstractive representation which the cognizer can then go on to use in his mental propositions even when the original intuited object gets out of sight.But such an abstractive act,Ockham holds,can only be intrinsicallygeneral④SeeQuodlibeta SeptemⅤ,quest.7;OThⅨ,p.506:″I claim that our intellect cannot have any such proper and simple concept with respect to any creature,either with or without a vision of the creature.And this is because each such cognition or concept is equally a likeness of,and equally represents,all exactly similar individuals,and so it is no more a proper concept of the one than of the other.″.Since the original external object is not there anymore,Ockham reasons,it does not play any direct causal role in the production of this abstractive act and the latter’s object,consequently,has to be determined by resemblance rather than causality.If so,the abstractive act cannot singularly represent the original external object,for it equally resembles any other individual object that would maximally resemble the original one.If I see a chickadee,say,my intuitive grasping of it brings about in me the formation of an abstractive act capable of representing all chickadees in my later mental activity.Such a mental sign,obviously,would not be a proper name,but a general term.It is possible,according to Ockham,to form singular abstractive representations,but they must be complex rather than simple;they are uniquely identifying descriptions composed of several general terms⑤SeeQuodlibeta SeptemⅠ,quest.13;OThⅨ,p.77:″[…]when I see something,I have a proper abstractive cognition. But this cognition will not be simple;rather it will be composed of simple cognitions.And it is this composite cognition that is the principle of memory.For I recall Socrates because I have seen him as having such-and-such a shape,color,height, and girth,and as being in such a place;and it is by means of this composite concept that I remember that I have seen Socrates.″.

The one way I can see of introducing proper names within Ockham’s mental language— although he is by no means explicit about it— would be to do it indirectly by way of spoken or written conventional proper names.When a cognizer actually intuits a given external thing,he can,if he so wills,give that thing a conventional proper name, which will keep designating it even after the intuitive grasping is over.″Let us call this one Socrates,″might have said the mother,for example,with the baby in view.And then for whoever accepts this conventional imposition, the spoken name″Socrates″will designate this very same external individual,even in his absence.All of this is standard Ockhamistic theory①As I have tried to show elsewhere(2015 and forthcoming),Ockham is strongly committed to an externalist account of the signification of spoken proper names.Typically he would think of the referent of a proper name to be fixed through some original intuitive act which it was subordinated to for its meaning.From which it follows that a later speaker could use the proper name with its original reference without intuiting the referent anymore.See C.Panaccio,″Ockham’s Externalism,″in G.Klima(ed.),Intentionality,Cognition,and Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy,New York:Fordham University Press,2015,pp.166-185;C.Panaccio,″Linguistic Externalism and Mental Language in Ockham and Buridan,″in G.Klima(ed.),Questions on the Soul by John Buridan and Others,New York:Fordham University Press, forthcoming..But it implicitly invites a further step.The later users of the name″Socrates″must have formed,I gather,some mental representationof that name itself,in order to recognize new tokens of it when they are uttered.It is tempting at this point to suppose that the users of the name″Socrates″might come to use their own representation of that spoken name as a sign for the conventional referent of the name,whoever he might be.In this way,the mental representation of the spoken word″Socrates″might come to be used within mental propositions as a proper name for Socrates himself.I don″t see why this should not be acceptable to Ockham,but whether it is or not in the end,I can think of no other way of accepting proper names in Ockham’s mental language as distinct from intuitive acts,and this certainly is but a very derivative way.

The third variety of singular terms mentioned by Ockham in theSumma Logicaeis especially interesting for our present purposes:expressions composed of a demonstrativeanda common term,such as″this horse.″Having two distinct components,such expressions are complex in spoken and written languages,and it is to be presumed that the corresponding mental acts have a parallel complexity:the mental act corresponding to″this horse″has(at least) two constituents.One of these,obviously,is the general concept″horse.″What about the other one?Well,if an intuitive act usually corresponds in mental language to a demonstrative in external language,it is to be gathered that the complex mental phrase corresponding to″this horse″has an intuitive act as one of its components.In such a case,then,the complex mental act is a concatenation of an intuitive act corresponding to″this″and a general concept corresponding to″horse.″The signification of the complex mental term taken as a whole must therefore be reached on the basis of the independent significations of those constituents.

Ockham is by no means explicit about the semantics of complex but non-propositional expressions such as″white horse″or″Socrates the philosopher,″but since in general a term,whether mental,spoken or written, primarily signifies whatever it is true of,the same must hold for complex terms:taken as a whole,the complex phrase″white horse″will thus primarily signify all white horses.And if so,it is not difficult to see what the general rule should be for constructing the signification of complex expression of the form″FG″out of the independent significations of the components″F″and″G″:in normal cases,the complex term″FG″will signify whatever is both an Fanda G.The logical extension of the complex term,in other words,is the intersection of the extensions of the components.The same rule,surely,should apply to complex mental phrases composed of an intuitive act and a general concept:they will primarily signify whatever it is that is altogether the singular object of the intuitive act and one of the primary significates of the general concept.If there is no such object— if the thing I am looking at is not a horse,for example— the complex mental phrase corresponding to″this horse″will primarily signify nothing②Ockham is independently committed to the idea that a complex phrase such as″this horse″primarily signifies nothing if the object designated by the demonstrative is not a horse.See C.Panaccio,Ockham on Concepts,Aldershot:Ashgate,2004, pp.14-15..If, on the other hand,the intuited object does fall under the accompanying concept— if it is a horse,in our example—,then what the complex mental phrase signifies will precisely be the object of the relevant intuition(the singular horse Bucephalus,let’s say).The complex phrase,however,will signify this object not merely by singularlydesignating it,but also by putting it under a general concept:Bucephalus will simultaneously be thought of as what is now in front of me and as a horse.Yet the two parts remain distinct,the primary significate of each one of them being determined independently of the other.This suggests an interesting account of whatseeing ascomes down to: a cognizer can be said to see a given individualaas a horse,say,if he attaches his general concept of horse to his intuitive cognition ofaso as to form a unified complex mental phrase.

An intuitive act,in short,can either occur alone as subject or predicate of a mental proposition or be attached to a concept into a complex mental phrase equally capable of serving as subject or predicate of mental propositions.In both cases,the intuitive act designates its singular referent in a purely non-conceptual way.Such non-conceptual intuitive cognitions constitute the basic singular terms of Ockham’s mental language.

Ⅳ.Absolute and connotative intuitions

Among categorematic terms,as explained above,Ockham distinguishes between absolute and connotative ones①See in particularSumma LogicaeⅠ,chap.10;OPhⅠ,pp.35-38..The former only have a primary signification(i.e.,an extension,in today’s logical vocabulary):the entire meaning of″horse,″for instance,lies in its primarily signifying horses and nothing but horses.Connotative terms (including all relational terms),by contrast,have a″secondary signification″(or connotation)in addition to their primary signification:″father″primarily signifies all fathers while connoting their children,and″white″primarily signifies all white things while connoting their(singular)whitenesses.Since intuitive cognitions are categorematic terms in Ockham’s semantics,as we found out,we now have to enquire whether some of them are absolute and some connotative.This will be my last point.

Ockham himself is not explicit on the matter,but the functions he attributes to intuitive acts strongly suggest that he would normally take them to be absolute terms.On the one hand,their most salient semantic role according to Ockham’s relevant developments is to represent their singular object and nothing else,which is precisely what absolute terms do.And on the other hand,one crucial cognitive function he endows them with is to bring about the formation of general absolute concepts.Such concepts,Ockham thinks,can only be acquired as simple mental units on the basis of intuitive encounters with individuals:the absolute concept″horse,″for example,is naturally acquired by way of intuitively cognizing at least one horse,and so on for other absolute concepts such as″man,″″trout″or″tulip.″The presumption,then,is that in order to do that,the triggering intuitions must themselves be absolute singular terms.

It seems to me,however,that Ockham is committed to accepting that there are connotative intuitions as well. My reason for thinking so is that Ockham accepts some simple general connotative concepts as primitive terms in his mental language,a concept like″white″for example,as well as some basic relational concepts such as″larger″or″darker.″②Although this had been previously doubted by some commentators such as Paul Vincent Spade,see e.g.P.V.Spade,″Ockham’s Distinctions between Absolute and connotative Terms,″Vivarium,Vol.13,No.1(1975),pp.55-76,I have tried to show that Ockham does accept simple connotative concepts in mental language and that he can do so without inconsistency.See in particular C.Panaccio,Ockham on Concepts,Aldershot:Ashgate,2004,chap.4-5,pp.63-102.Since these concepts can no more be innate in his view than absolute concepts are,they must also be acquired on the basis of intuitions.The relevant intuitive cognitions,consequently,must be connotative themselves from the start.Several passages indeed clearly suggest that basic connotative concepts such as″white″are acquired on the basis of simultaneously grasping a white thing and its whiteness.See the following one from Ockham’s commentary on BookⅡof theSentences(known as theReportatio):

For example,if I intuitively see a body and its whiteness,my intellect can at once form such propositions as″there is a body,″″there is a white thing″or″a certain body is white,″and these propositions having been formed the intellect at once assents to them.And this is donein virtue of an intuitive cognitionthat the intellect has[…]③ReportatioⅡ,quest.12-13,OThⅤ,p.257(with my italics).

Note that Ockham here speaks in the singular of the simultaneous intuitive cognition of the body and its whiteness. This intuition,moreover,must primarily signify the white body rather than its whiteness,since it is supposed togive rise to the concept″white,″which primarily signifies white things while connoting their whitenesses.The relevant intuition,accordingly,must also secondarily signify the perceived whiteness of the relevant body.It is therefore a connotative intuition①See alsoOrdinatioⅠ,Prologue,quest.1;OThⅠ,p.31,where Ockham also speaks in the singular of the intuitive cognition of several things simultaneously:″similarly,an intuitive cognition is such that when certain things are cognized one of which inheres in the other[such as a whiteness in a body]or one of which is distant from the other or otherwise related to the other,it is known at once in virtue ofthis simple cognitionof those things whether this thing inheres or not, or is distant or not,and so on for other contingent truths[…]For example,if Socrates really is white,this cognition of Socrates and his whitenessin virtue of which it can evidently be known that Socrates is white,is called an intuitive cognition.″(with my italics)..And the same holds for the intuitive cognitions that bring about the formation of basic relational concepts such as″similar,″″larger″or″darker.″②See e.g.Quodlibeta SeptemⅣ,quest.17;OThⅨ,p.386:″[…]a relative concept is caused by both extremes,posited simultaneously,prior to the formation of a proposition.″

Whether such connotative intuitions are simple acts of the mind(as basic connotative concept are)or complex arrangements of several absolute intuitive cognitions,can be left open at this point.What matters for our present enquiry is that Ockham interestingly turns out to be committed to extending to intuitive acts the semantic distinction he usually draws among concepts between absolute and connotative terms.Absolute intuitions occur,presumably, when the cognizer focuses on one singular object such as Socrates or this horse there in front of me.According to Ockham’s doctrine,this normally brings about two further mental acts within the cognizer:on the one hand,an assent to a true contingent judgement of existence about that thing,the subject of this proposition being the intuitive act itself;and on the other hand the formation of an abstractive act(the″prima abstractiva″),which is an absolute general concept primarily signifying everything in the world which belongs to the same basic natural kind as the singular object of this intuition(the concept″horse,″for example,if the intuited object is a horse or the concept″man″if it is a man)③Ockham holds that a species concept such as″horse″or″man″can be acquired on the basis of a single intuitive encounter. See e.g.Quodlibeta SeptemⅣ,quest.17;OThⅨ,p.385:″[…]the concept of a species can be abstracted from a single individual.″Such species concepts in his view are absolute terms..Connotative intuitions,by contrast,occur when several objects are intuited together or when a given singular thing is intuited in connection with some other surrounding object(s).A given horse,for example,can be intuited in connection with its whiteness or with some other smaller animal standing besides it,etc. Such connotative intuitions,then,would normally bring about the formation of basic connotative concepts such as″white″or″larger,″and the assent of the cognizer to some contingent truths involving these concepts,such as″here is a white thing,″or″this thing here is larger than this other one.″

All knowledge about the world is thus ultimately grounded in non-conceptual intuitive grasping of individual things.What is saliently distinctive in Ockham’s special variety of foundationalism is that these intuitive cognitions are treated assigns,capable of occurring within mental propositions.They constitute the basic singular terms of mental language,and much of Ockham’s highly developed semantical apparatus can be applied to them,including the famous notion of″supposition″(or referential function)and the distinction between absolute and connotative terms. Semantics in Ockham provides the main toolbox for epistemology.

(The research that led to this paper has been generously supported by the Canadian Research Chair Program and by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.I wish to express my deepest gratitude to both of them.)

Bibliography

[1]G.G á l et al.,Opera Theologica,St.Bonaventure,NY:The Franciscan Institute,1967-1986.

10.3785/j.issn.1008-942X.CN33-6000/C.2013.11.212

date:2013-11-21Website:http://www.journals.zju.edu.cn/soc

Online first date:2016-01-30

Author profile:Claude Panaccio(http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6368-062X),professor in the department of philosophy, University of Quebec at Montreal,Canada;Research interests:medieval philosophy,semantics,metaphysics,contemporary philosophy of mind,language,logic and knowledge.