Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

The Nominalist Semantics of Ockham and Buridan 411
on Ockham’s ontological program. 42 According to “the received view”, 43 Ockham’s
primitive vocabulary would contain only syncategorematic terms (roughly,
logical connectives) and absolute terms, i.e., terms subordinated to absolute concepts,
whereby individuals are conceived absolutely (though in the case of universal
concepts, indifferently), not in relation to anything else. Accordingly, on
this view, Ockham is committed to holding that all connotative terms (i.e., terms
subordinated to connotative concepts whereby we conceive of individuals in relation
to other things, the connotata of the term) are semantically compositional;
their semantic values are functionally determined by the semantic values of the
components of their nominal definitions. Equivalently, the view holds that all
connotative concepts are complex, i.e., there are no simple connotative concepts.
The rationale for the view is Ockham’s repeated claim that all connotative terms
have nominal definitions, which coupled with the idea that nominal definitions are
synonymous with their definita because they are subordinated to the same concept,
directly yields the above theses. Panaccio’s meticulous analysis of Ockham’s
texts, however, cast serious doubt on the assumption that nominal definitions for
Ockham always have to be strictly synonymous with their definita on account of
being subordinated to the same concept, and, correspondingly, that there are no
simple connotative concepts for Ockham.
But even without trying to settle this issue of Ockham scholarship, one can note
that what is problematic with a severely limited primitive vocabulary is the feasibility
of providing plausible analyses in all cases when needed. However, the primitive
vocabulary may be enhanced not only by means of the addition of primitive
connotative terms (ones subordinated to simple connotative concepts), but also by
means of enhancing the class of syncategoremata, and construe apparently primitive
connotative terms as complexes of absolute terms and some “non-standard”
syncategoremata. Take for instance the Latin phrase ‘hominis asinus’ (‘donkey
of a man’). This is clearly a complex term, consisting of a simple absolute term
‘asinus’ (‘donkey’) and an apparently simple connotative term, ‘hominis’ (‘of a
man’), signifying things in relation to men as their possession. However, if we
look at the corresponding English term, the appearance of the simplicity of the
Latin connotative term ‘hominis’ is dissolved in the syntactical structure of the
phrase ‘of a man’, which seems to indicate that in the formation of the concept expressed
both by ‘hominis’ and by ‘of a man’ actually several concepts are involved,
42 See Panaccio, C. “Connotative Terms in Ockham’s Mental Language”, Cahiers
d’épistémologie 9016(1990), pp. 1-22. For more recent treatments of the issue see Chalmers,
D. “Is There Synonymy in Ockham’s Mental Language?” in The Cambridge Companion to Ockham,
ed. P. V. Spade, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 76-99; and Panaccio,
C. “Semantics and Mental Language,” ibid., pp. 53-75. Panaccio’s most recent summary account
of the debate can be found in his Ockham on Concepts.
43 Cf., e.g., Spade, P. V. “Ockham’s Distinctions between Absolute and Connotative Terms,”
Vivarium 13 (1975), pp. 55–76; Spade, P. V. “Synonymy and Equivocation in Ockham’s Mental
Language”, Journal of the History of Philosophy 18(1980), pp. 9-22. For Spade’s most recent
discussion of the issue, see Spade, Paul Vincent, ”William of Ockham”, The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy (Fall 2006 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/
archives/fall2006/entries/ockham/