Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

Duns Scotus on signification and understanding
Logic and Theories of Meaning . . . 363
John Duns Scotus (1266–1308) never wrote a handbook on logic or grammar.
Nevertheless, he played an important role in the debates about the semantic issues
of his time. 82 The modes of signifying play an important role in his semantics, but
he cannot be considered a Modist himself, because he does not defend the modistic
thesis that there is a strict correspondence between the modes of signifying, modes
of being and modes of understanding. 83
In his Peri hermeneias commentary, probably written in Paris in the 1290s,
Scotus gives an overview of the competing opinions regarding the relationships
between the three angular points of the semantic triangle. He distinguishes two
opinions: 84 one opinion holds that a (spoken) name signifies an intelligible species
primarily and an extra-mental thing secondarily; the other opinion holds that a
name primarily signifies a thing as understood. 85 Both opinions hold that we need
an intelligible species in understanding extra-mental things, but only in the first
opinion the species also plays a role in the signification of names. But how should
this role be described in the first opinion? Scotus explains that the intelligible
species is not in itself, as mental entity, the object of signification. It is in its role
of representation or mental sign of the extra-mental object (signum rei) that the
species is primarily signified, in the same way as a photograph of my grandmother
represents my grandmother and is signified by the name ‘grandmother’ when I
show someone this picture and say: “this is my grandmother”. The primary significate
would be my grandmother as she appears on the photograph; the secondary
significate would my grandmother herself, but since she died long ago, there is no
secondary significate in this case. This example shows that in this opinion the
signification of names like ‘chimera’ (the so-called empty names) is no problem.
The name simply signifies the content of the intelligible species. It is not necessary
for a thing to exist in order to be signified. This opinion can be regarded as the
dominant position until the 1260’s and can be found in the work of Albert the
Great and the younger Thomas Aquinas, be it in a less elaborated form. 86 Roger
Bacon opposes this view in his works on signs.
Scotus mentions an interesting objection the supporters of the theory of the
primary signification of the species have to face. If names primarily signify species,
a proposition like ‘man is an animal’ is always false, for the intelligible species of
man is not the same as the intelligible species of animal. Now, Scotus makes clear
that the notions ‘truth’ and ‘falsity’ imply a reference to the extra-mental world.
The subject and predicate term of a proposition do not signify the corresponding
intelligible species in itself as signs, but that of which the species are signs. 87
82The question of his originality has been the subject of debate among scholars. See esp. Pini
[1999] and [2001] and Perler [1993] and [2003].
83Perler [2003, p. 173].
84For a detailed account of the two positions, see: Pini [1999].
85See also Vos [2006, pp. 159–160].
86See: Pini [1999, pp. 35–9].
87Super Peri herm. 1.2,n.2-6.