Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

192 Terence Parsons
this is what Ockham intended (or should have intended). It is not clear, however,
whether a written or spoken connotative term directly signifies the same (complex)
concept as does its nominal definition. Nor is it clear that all connotative terms can
be ultimately eliminated from all nominal definitions. Ockham himself suggests
otherwise at SL III.26. 39
It is an additional question whether there are simple connotative terms in mental
language. If so, they have nominal definitions in mental language which are
complex terms. The simple connotative terms must not be synonymous with
their nominal definitions, because then distinct terms in mental language would
be synonyms, which Ockham rules out. So terms with nominal definitions are not
synonymous with their definitions. Commentators disagree about whether this is
the right thing to say about Ockham’s view.
4 TYPES OF SUPPOSITION
4.1 Univocation as the Source of Types of Supposition
Aristotle uses ‘equivocation’ for a case in which things are called by the same name
but the name does not have the same definition in each case. An example is ‘dog’,
which can apply to one thing because it is a canine, and to another because it is a
certain star. So if you have inferred that something is a dog, and is not a dog, you
haven’t inferred contradictory propositions40 unless ‘dog’ has the same definition
in each proposition.
According to Boethius, 41 there is a similar way in which apparently contradictory
propositions are not actually contradictory, even when you use the same word
with the same definition in each application. His illustration is:
[A] man walks homo ambulat
Man does not walk homo non ambulat
(Recall that there are no articles in Latin, so the displayed Latin propositions
are explicitly contradictory in form.) These propositions are not contradictory if
‘homo’ in the first proposition stands for an individual man, and in the second
proposition refers to the species man. This is not equivocation, because the word
‘homo’ does not have different definitions in the two propositions. Boethius calls
this phenomenon “univocation”. 42 Some medieval treatises were written explicitly
about univocation.
39See [Panaccio, 2004 4.2 (68-69)] for discussion of this point.
40Equivocation is discussed along with other fallacies in Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations. A
“refutation” is achieved when the respondent admits a proposition that contradicts the proposition
being defended. So the relation of contradictoriness is central to that essay.
41Boethius’s commentary on Aristotle’s On Interpretation, cited in De Rijk LM II.I.XV.1
(492).
42In essence the proposal is that univocation occurs when a word is used twice with the same
signification, but what it stands for (its “supposition” or its “appellation”) changes. This kind
of explanation is given e.g. in the Treatise on Univocation: “Univocation therefore is when the
appellation of a name varies and the signification remains the same.” (Second paragraph of