Ockham on Mental Language
Chapter
Abstract
Thanks largely to the work of Noam Chomsky, we have witnessed over the last thirty years a revival of interest in two closely related ideas: that there is a universal grammar, a set of structural features common to every human language, and that the exploration of this grammar is, in part, an exploration of the structure of thought.
Keywords
Absolute Term Fourteenth Century Subject Term Intuitive Cognition Mental Term
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Notes
- 1.Cf. W. Ockham, Summa Logicae (hereafter S.L.) I, c. 1. in P. Boehner, G. Gal, S. Brown (eds.), Opera Philosophica (hereafter O.P.) I (St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1974 ).Google Scholar
- 2.Cf. S.L. I. c.33, in O.P.I, p. 95 ff.Google Scholar
- 3.W. Ockham, Quodlibeta V, Q.8. Art. 1, in Joseph C. Wey (ed.). Opera Theologica hereafter O.T.) IX (St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1980 ), p. 509.Google Scholar
- 4.W. Ockham, S.L. I. c.13, in O.P. I. p. 45.Google Scholar
- 5.Ibid., p. 46.Google Scholar
- 6.John Trentman, “Ockham on Mental,” Mind LXXIX (1970). pp. 586–590.Google Scholar
- 7.That they do creates some interesting problems. Is it possible to lie in mental language. for example? For discussion of this question. cf. Hester Gelber, -I Cannot Tell A Lie: Hugh of Lawton’s Critique of William of Ockham on Mental Language.“ forthcoming in Franciscan Studies 1984.Google Scholar
- 8.A full study of mental language as a medium of communication would require some account of what it is to ‘speak’ and ‘hear’ it. There will be some indirect remarks about ‘speaking’ it below, but a full treatment of the subject will not be attempted here. For a beginning consideration, cf. Hester Gelber, op cit., and Joan Gibson, The Role of Mental Language in the Philosophy of William of Ockham. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1976.Google Scholar
- 9.Paul Spade, “Ockham’s Distinctions between Absolute and Connotative Terms,” Vivarium, pp. 55–76.Google Scholar
- 10.Ockham, S.L. III-2, cap.29, in O.P. I, p. 557, 1.14–22.Google Scholar
- 11.Ockham, Quodlibeta I, q.13, in O.T. IX. p. 74. Ockham holds the view that the causes of each thing are naturally proper to it. so that a particular thing, in this case an apprehension, could be produced naturally by only one set of causes.Google Scholar
- 12.Cf. Marilyn M. Adams, William Ockham (Notre Dame Press, 1987), ch. 4.Google Scholar
- 14.Ockham, S.L. I, cap.10 (O.P. I, pp. 35–36).Google Scholar
- 15.Paul Spade, loc. cit.Google Scholar
- 17.Some of Ockham’s successors do seem to have admitted simple connotative terms into Mental. For evidence that Buridan does. cf. the introduction to P. King. John Buridan’s Logic: The Treatise on Supposition; The Treatise on Consequences, Synthese Historical Library, Vol. 27 ( Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Co.. 1985 ).Google Scholar
- 19.Ockham, I Sent.,d.2, q.8, in O.T. II, p. 285.Google Scholar
- 20.Cf. Chatton, Reportatio I, d.3, q.2, quoted in Gelber, op. cit.Google Scholar
- 21.T. K. Scott, “Ockham on Evidence, Necessity. and Intuition,” Journal of the History of Philosophy,Vol. 7 (1969), pp. 27–49, note 22.Google Scholar
- 22.Ockham, Sentences. Prot. q.1, in O.T. I. pp. 6. 31.Google Scholar
- 23.Paul Spade has drawn attention to medieval discussions of this problem. Cf., for example, P. V. Spade, Peter of Ailly: Concepts and Insolubles. an annotated translation (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co. 1980). Attend especially to his note 313.Google Scholar
- 24.Ockham II Sent.,q. 12–13, in O.T. V, G. Gal and R. Wood (eds.) (St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1981), p. 279.Google Scholar
- 25.For information on this tradition. cf. P. Spade. Peter of Ailly,note 217 and the references therein.Google Scholar
- 26.Cf. the citation in note 24.Google Scholar
- 27.Ockham, II Sent. q.12–13, in O.T. V, p. 280.Google Scholar
- 28.Ockham, Proemium to Erpositio in librum Petihermenias Aristotelis in O.P. II. E. A. Moody, G. Gal, A. Gambatese. S. Brown, P. Boehner (eds.) (St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1978 ), p. 356.Google Scholar
- 29.Norman Kretzmann, “Socrates is Whiter than Plato begins to be White,” Nous XI (1977), pp. 3–15.Google Scholar
- 30.H. Gelber, “The Fallacy of Accident and the Dictum de Omni: Late Medieval Controversy over a Reciprocal Pair,” Vivarium 25 (1987).Google Scholar
- 31.Cf., for example, S.L. III-II, c.29. in O.P. I. p. 558.Google Scholar
- 32.J. A. Fodor, The Language of Thought (New York: T.Y. Crowell. 1975 ). Cf. also Psychosemantics ( Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press. 1987 ).Google Scholar
- 33.Among the significant figures in this tradition one may mention Jean Buridan, Buridan’s student Pierre d’Ailly, and John Major. For some discussion of Buridan’s view. cf. P. King. John Buridan’s Logic. For work on Pierre d’Ailly. cf. P. Spade. Peter of Ailly. This tradition was controversial, and Hester Gelber has discovered at least one opposing voice in Hugh of Lawton. Cf. H. Gelber, “I Cannot Tell A Lie.” For an introduction to the later tradition, cf. E. J. Ashworth, “The Structure of Mental Language: Some Problems Discussed by Early Sixteenth Century Logicians.” Vivarium 20. 1 (1982).Google Scholar
- 34.This paper has benefited from many kind people over many years. Paul V. Spade helped enormously when we were both graduate students at the University of Toronto. The earliest version of the paper itself was read at Princeton University in 1977. The most recent version has benefited from ongoing argument with Hester Gelber and Peter King about whether there are simple mental connotative terms and from the very concrete help of Amelie Rorty.Google Scholar
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© Kluwer Academic Publishers 1991