Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

186 Terence Parsons
For example, ‘he begins to be healthy’ — he is [healthy] and he was
not [healthy] earlier; ‘he ceases to be sick’ — he is not sick [and he was
sick earlier].
Appeals to exponibles often turn up when some topic is being discussed where
a certain sentence seems to be a counterexample to a proposal under discussion,
or where it is not clear what a certain proposal would say about the example.
Expounding yields a new form that fits with the proposal. In general it seems to
be the case that the semantics of an exponible proposition is taken to be whatever
is the semantics of its expounded version. 37
3.1 Signification
3 SIGNIFICATION AND SUPPOSITION
There are different theories about how language relates to the world. I concentrate
here on two accounts that were commonly appealed to by semanticists. One is an
older realist account that appeals to real universals. The other appeals instead to
mental concepts.
On the realist account, there are universals existing outside of the mind, with
individual things falling under them. These universals are usually called forms.
A common term gets into the language by being conventionally imposed on a
common form. For example, the term ‘donkey’ is imposed on a certain form (the
species, donkey), which is shared by all donkeys. This imposition is either done
by the will of a speaker, or, more usually, is done by convention (with details not
given). As a result, the word is a sign of, or signifies, that form. Signification is the
basic semantic notion; it is a kind of meaning that a word possesses independent
of any particular use of the word. A sign is also said to (indirectly) signify the
things that share in the form, so that ‘donkey’ is also said to (indirectly) signify
each and every individual donkey:
word
signifies
form
indirectly signifies
is shared by
individuals
On a nominalist account, there are no universals existing outside of the mind.
Instead, there are concepts in the mind that naturally are concepts of various
individuals. (This view is often backed up by an epistemological theory about
37 But see section 7.8 for an exception to this principle.