Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

88 Ian Wilks
pertain to the form present in the other. But if there are no shared forms then
another sort of explanation must be found. If the animality of Socrates is not the
same as the animality of Brunellus then why do we not need different names —
such as “animal 1” and “animal 2” — to denote them respectively? Answering
this question is the key labour of the position Abelard adopts. This is why, after
his rejection of a theory of shared forms, Abelard supplies, in way of a positive
account to follow upon the refutation, not a replacement metaphysical theory, but
a semantic theory — a theory about the signification of general names.
There are two aspects of signification that need to be addressed by this theory.
They correspond to the “twofold signification” (duplex significatio) of names
[Abelard, 1970, p. 154 (20)] which Abelard commonly refers to. First there is
the ad rem or denotative aspect, whereby the name picks out a thing or things.
And second there is the ad intellectum aspect, whereby the name generates an
understanding (intellectus) in the mind of the hearer. 12 The technical label for
the denotative aspect of signification is “nomination” or “naming” (nominatio),
and the technical label for the ad intellectum aspect is “signification by generation”
(significatio per generationem) [Abelard, 1970, p. 112 (4)]. When Abelard
uses the word “signification” without qualification he means signification by generation,
so, following him in this usage, we can say that the twofold intent of his
account of general names is to show how, in the absence of shared forms, they can
succeed both in naming and signifying. Failing such explanation, general terms
will seem as if they cannot “name things as agreeing in anything” [Abelard, 1919,
p. 18 (14–15)], or as if they are not able “to establish a sound (sanus) understanding
of anything” [Abelard, 1919, p. 18 (8–9)], or both. There are two questions
here, the first about naming, the second about generating a understanding — i.e.,
signifying. Both must be answered.
The question about naming is this: what do the things named have in common
that allows them, but not other things, to be picked out by the general name?
As noted, a shared form would make the question easy to answer; if there was
one, the things would have it in common. It would be, in Abelard’s parlance, the
common cause of the name’s being imposed on all of those things, where imposition
is simply the process of establishing the conventional association of symbol with
the thing or things to be named. Having rejected the shared form account of the
common cause, this is Abelard’s substitute: “Single men, which are discrete from
one another because they differ just as much in their essences as in their forms,
agree in this: that they are men” [Abelard, 1919, p. 19 (21–22, 23–24)]. What
12 Intellectus is commonly translated “understanding” by Abelard scholars, who therefore speak
of a word as “generating an understanding” in the mind of the hearer. John Marenbon prefers
“thought” as a translation [Marenbon, 2004, p. 61, note 8], and therefore speaks of “generating
a thought.” Marenbon’s practice has merit, since I think intellectus is used in a rather more
general and less technical sense than is conveyed by “understanding.” To have an understanding
of something suggests that one understands it; this is a stronger suggestion than is involved
when Abelard speaks of having an intellectus of something. While I will follow the now standard
translation practice in Abelardian scholarship and use “understanding,” I do so with the caveat
that the word is to be taken as meaning something like “thought.”