Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

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term represents the secondary significate only. In this way the theory of imposition
was saved. 50
It should be noted that earlier and later philosophers found the solution of
problems like this in the theory of supposition. The Modists, however, neglected
the terminist approach, probably because their main interest was in statements
about eternal entities and their essential properties, whereas supposition theory
was useful and interesting for the analysis of propositions about contingent objects
and states of affairs. 51
Modistic grammatical theory results from a complete interdependence between
the structure of reality and the operations of the mind. The Modists, as moderate
realists, assumed that reality had a definite structure that was mirrored
in cognition and in language. Nominalists like Ockham and Buridan rejected the
framework of the theory because it confuses linguistic distinctions with real ones. 52
Nevertheless, the importance of the modistic approach has often been recognised, 53
if only because of the fact that modistic grammar was the first serious attempt to
treat linguistics as a science. The foundation of grammar in reality was one of the
consequences of their Aristotelian concept of science. As such it is “an expression
of the intellectual climate which produced it.” 54
Primary signification of the thing: Roger Bacon on signs
The life of Roger Bacon (ca. 1214–1292) covered a large part of the 13th century.
Born in England and having studied in Oxford, he began his career as an arts
teacher at the University of Paris in the early 1240s. In this period he wrote works
on metaphysics, natural philosophy and grammar. In one of these works, the
Sumule dialectices (ca. 1250), Bacon proposes that as such names are names only
of presently existing entities, a claim which is not considered a common opinion. 55
Although Roger Bacon shows some familiarity with modistic grammatical theories,
he does not apply the concept of modus significandi in the same way, not even in
his grammatical work. He also seems to be acquainted with terminist logic, but
the terminist notions do not have a central place in his work. 56
In 1262 he wrote a remarkable piece of work: De multiplicatione specierum,
and in the years 1267-1270 he developed a theoretical framework for language
studies, a theory of signs, partly adapted from Augustine’s doctrine in De doctrina
christiana, but nevertheless original in its presentation. This theory appears for
the first time in the treatise De signis 57 (ca. 1267) and is best known from his
50For a full account of this problem, see Ebbesen (1979), 43–70.
51Ebbesen [1983, pp. 73–4].
52Pinborg [1982, p. 257].
53See e.g.: [Bursill-Hall, 1972, p. 26; Rosier, 1983, pp. 202–3; Covington, 1984, pp. 126–32].
54Bursill-Hall [1971, p. 36].
55Maloney [1988, p. 3].
56Biard [1989, pp. 29–30].
57Edited by Fredborg et al., [1978].