Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

The Nominalist Semantics of Ockham and Buridan 407
could not handle; in fact most of these were raised and solved by themselves,
although at the expense of introducing further refinements and complications into
their own framework.
Ockham’s second strategy, however, undermines precisely this tactic of “adding
epicycles”, by showing and alternative way of constructing semantic theory in
which such complications need not emerge at all.
OCKHAM’S ALTERNATIVE
Ockham was thinking of semantic relations in terms of the Aristotelian semantic
triangle, just as much as his predecessors were. However, he radically reinterpreted
the idea of what concepts are and how they represent their objects. 39 Consequently,
since in his view the semantic properties of written a spoken terms are
inherited from the concepts to which they are subordinated, no wonder Ockham’s
semantics of terms will be radically different as well.
But, apparently, even apart from the differences in his conception of concepts,
he has a more directly semantic bone to pick with his predecessors. For in an
apparent stark contrast to what we have seen in Lambert and Aquinas, Ockham
insists that what is primarily signified by a term is not a concept, but the thing
conceived by the concept. He argues for this claim as follows:
. . . an utterance primarily signifies that for which on account of its
institution it primarily supposits. However, names of first intention
supposit for things, and names of second intention for concepts, and
names of second imposition for nouns or [other] utterances, as is clear
by induction. The major premise is obvious, because that is primarily
signified by the utterance, for which the person imposing the name uses
it. But it is clear that this is what the utterance primarily supposits
for. Thus, we use the term ‘man’ principally for men. 40
To be sure, Ockham’s “via antiqua opponents” would not deny that an utterance
(ultimately) signifies not the concept, but the object of the concept which it immediately
signifies, i.e., to which it is subordinated. But they would not agree
with Ockham what that object is and they would not identify that object in the
way Ockham does here, with reference to (personal) supposition and use. Walter
Burley explicitly attacked Ockham’s position on the apparently purely semantic
issue, trying to separate it from the connected ontological and cognitive psychological
issues. To see the real contrast between their views, it is worth quoting
Burley’s argumentation at some length:
Again, the name ‘man’ signifies something first. And it does not first
signify Socrates or Plato, because in that case someone hearing the ut-
39 For an excellent, detailed discussion of Ockham’s doctrine, see Panaccio, C. Ockham on
Concepts, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.
40 Ockham, Ordinatio, Opera Theologica, vol. IV, lb. 1, q. 22, pp. 48.18 - 49.4.