in short ch 5 reviews in short introduction Aristotle's definition of meaning in De Interpretatione, 16a3-8: 'pathema' (affections of the soul, mental states) are 'homoiomata' (likenesses) of the 'pragmata' (things, external objects), of which (spoken and written) words are the [conventional] symbols/signs. 3 aspects to be investigated: - the nature of the words related to the internal (mental) state (semantic theory and epistemology), - the nature of the things/objects that ground the significance of the terms (ontology), - the nature of likeness between mental states and objects (psychology) Terms refer to real entities that are definable. Definitions of the basic objects falling under the domain of a science are the foundational premisses of that science. Sameness of the form of the concrete substance and the 'logos' [formula] that is asserted by the definiens. The meaning of a term for a natural kind will be the articulation of the species form that is realized in the individuals belonging to that kind. Phantasia (cognitive ability to use sensory contents to represent objects), phantasma (image) as likeness of an external object, pathema (internal state) as an exercise of the rational faculty allowing images to represent universals. When the internal state is the recognition of an essence, the mental object is the same logos [qua cognitive object] as the logos [essence of the type to which the token belongs] embodied in the external object. semantical theory and epistemology: external objects (EO) are represented by mental states (MS): phantasia (imagination, the ability to use sensory contents to represent objects), individual / particular phantasmata (images, sensory representations of individuals/particulars but also representations of tokens of certain types, sc universals) [PP UP], pathema (the affection of the soul, mental sign as the phantasma used by thought to grasp a logos) (PA) spoken words (SW) written words (WW) relations SW-EO WW-EO SW-WW SW/WW-MS/PP/UP/PA conventional relation MS/PA-EO natural Aristotle: - correspondence theory of truth (match propositions - EO)? - ostensive (indicating objects) definition of meaning? ontology: verbal definition of object as ostensive definition of its form (eidos) form in objects is accessible by the intelligent mind form realized in EO and understood by the human intellect [ the logos in thought is (structurally) the form in the EO ] [ The logos grasped in thought is the same as the logos in the external object ] two kinds of likeness: 1 sensible likeness (red circle - red apple : particular individual) 2 intelligible likeness (round object - geometrical circle : universal cognitive content) > moderate realism: claim that there really exist in the world species forms of which our mental contents can serve as likenesses Modrak: the relevant pathema - the affection of the soul - is a particular phantasma representing a sensory individual, but employed by the rational faculty to think, or mean, an universal concept. Tierney (see review below): Problem 1: relation between the mental act that grasps the particular and the mental act that grasps the universal - one act? two acts? nested acts? (in)dependent? Problem 2: the content of the representation of an individual/particular is different from the content of the representation of an universal. It's the noetic act itself, the apprehension of the universal in the phantasma, which is the relevant pathema, rather than the phantasma itself. It's the universal imprinted in the phantasma, rather than the whole phantasma, that is the relevant pathema. ch 5 (first chapter of the ontological part II of the book) 147 A's Categories: particular substances and attributes as basic existents, universals ontologically secondary. A's Metaphysics: universals epistemologically primary A's De Interpretatione: meaning as function of reference to existents A's Posterior Analytics: definitions express real natures. knowledge of universals as derived from perceptions of the physical world [ consistency in patterned wholes (the same...) ] [ change in substrative parts (different...) ] 148 definitions of basic objects must be simple (blocking regress) and intelligible (vs indefinable and unknowable atoma) 149 A's solution: indivisible essences, real definitions and immanent forms 150 In the Heraclitean world are no stable objects. Plato imposes structure through stable, ideal objects. 151 Aristotle looks for stable meanings, determined by concrete referents to physical objects. Endurance as basis for stability. Ousia (substance) is primary being / essence. 152 being is predicated pros'en ( = in relation to the same subject, cf kath'en = said of one) from existing things to the study of being as being. ousia is primary being because it is prior in definition, knowledge and time (cf Quine: to be is to be the value of a bound variable) 153 the primary signification of 'to on' is the essence or substance of the existent uses (senses) of 'ousia': the essence, the universal, the genus, the substratum (the fourth as Aristotelian innovation). Meaning is determined by reference to external (nonlinguistic) objects. 154 uses (senses) of 'kath'hauto': essences, whatever is present in the 'what', whatever attribute a thing receives in itself, that which has no cause other than itself, whatever attributes belong to a thing alone qua alone. the proper object of definition: 'to legomenon kath'hauto'. Perhaps both essence and existence are very closely connected in A's philosophy. 155 matter (parts), form (whole) > composite of form and matter. If form is prior to matter, than it's also prior to the composite of form and matter. Defining characteristic of matter: being the substratum for form. 156 primary being: that what it is in itself [ what it stays to be (formatively), while changing (substratively) ] cf linguistic intuition: some terms are proper subject terms and others predicates. Substance is essence and definition is the logos [formula] of the essence. Primitive subjects are substances ('ti estin'). A: extra-linguistic referents (basic objects existing in the world) are required for meaning. Identification of the definition of essence with the substance of the physical object. 157 the statement of the essence captures the nature of the definiendum. definition ('orismos') where there is a formula ('logos') of something primary ('proton') - primary things do not imply the predication of one element of another. the definition must be primary and simple. only substances have essences and definitions chiefly, primarely and simply. 158 A single term need not correspond to a simple concept. The definition of a compound concept is derivable from more basic definitions. A envisages concepts that are both simple and definable in order to avoid basic concepts from being unanalyzable, indefinable and hence unintelligible. The elements of the definiens are not predicated of each other. The definiens expressing the essence that is the substance of a concrete particular has the requisite character. 159 Categories (quality, quantity, etc) are conceptually dependent on that of substance. 'pale man' contains one term 'man' that has a definition in the strict sense and another term 'pale' that has a definition in a secondary sense; taken together these two definitions give us a 'logos' of 'pale man'; this 'logos' (formula) is not a 'orismos' (definition) but adequate in explaining the meaning of the phrase. [ man: essential; pale: accidental ] 160 A identifies essence with substance without [?] matter. Change consisting of a persisting substratum [?] and characteristics to be lost and replaced by its opposite. 161 How should the referent of a conceptually complex notion be construed? Distinction between attributes that are present in and not said of a subject and those that are said of a subject. 162 Distinction between an attribute as instantiated and the same attribute in its full generality. 163 Individual referents consisting of a substantial individual and an instantiated property. A's theory: linguistic terms have ontological correlates. ontological inherence has a linguistic analog in predication. substance is primary both ontologically and conceptually. the ultimate building basic blocks of knowledge are basic objects and their definitions. the infinite regress of premisses of definitions would undermind knowledge. a proper definition has finite elements. in the basic premise there is no distinction between subject and predicate. [rock-bottom:] the definitions of indivisible species ('ta atoma' - indivisible objects of definition). essence as linchpin (spil) between external objects and human concepts. words are conventional signs of external objects. definition connects sign to external object, grounding intelligibility of the object. the definition of essence does not threaten the unity and simplicity of the basic object. the definition of essence is unified and does not generate regress. [ indivisible form-matter: - simplex in formative sense (this pattern / whole) - complex in substrative sense (these building blocks) ] 164 Why is the formula ('logos') of the definition ('orismos') a single thing, one and not many? a list of properties need not produce a unified definiens. only genuine differentiae should be used for a definiens. BUT unlikely that a single differentia could express the essence of a complex organism. BUT a list of not-conceptually-linked differentiae would not be 'unified and simple'. A often emphasizes the depencence of division [of differentiae] on a prior conception: 165 postulation of conceptual unity. division as a method displaying and comprehending the unity of the substance. example: soul as substance of living beings. Modrak: nested [?] capacities: nutritive powers, perceptual powers, rational powers. 166 BUT A is left without a formal test for the cohesiveness of a definiens. BUT there might be a material test: the definiens as 'logos' of a proper essence, essence as identical with the substance as indivisible object (<> concrete individual). Enmattered logos in the individual substance - (and) - logos of the essence as form of the indivisible species (as counterparts). The basic objects are indivisible but amenable to definition, the basic substances are simple but intelligible, because definable in terms of the differentiae of the proper genus. Because the definiens is both unified and analyzable, it provides a basis for knowledge. BUT A seems to be guilty of circular reasoning. 167 discriminate between essence in primary sense ('man') and accidental coumpounds that have essence only derivative ('pale' in 'pale man'), or accidental unity will not have an essence strictly speaking. A still reservations about his own method of division because of its dependence upon asumptions that cannot be justified on the basis of division. Division is not a method of proof [ but an heuristic method ]. In the end the definitions that express the essences of substances are primitive assumptions [ not proven, but postulated ]. 168 Essences are said in virtue of themselves ('kath'hauta'), articulating the unity and simplicity of the concepts. A definition is the logos [formula] of the essence and its constituents are the final differentiae of a genus. A's practice presupposes continuity between the definitions of ordinary and scientific language. 169 The majority of the significant words of a natural language will be tools in understanding the world. Metaphysicians refine these tools by setting out the requirements that a definition of essence must meet. The vast majority of the words of the natural language do not denote indivisible species. Categorial predicates are also important, e.g. for explaining change (secondary essence). 170 But A insists upon the ontological priority of substance - categorial referents cannot exist without (reference to) substances. A refines the preliminary definitions from different domains in order to capture the essence of the subject at hand. 171 Preexistent knowledge: some facts assumed, some terms understood. 172 Universal terms predicate both the substance (form) and the material substrate (matter) of the concrete individuals. Predicate as generalization of the composite of form and matter. Distinction between the technical definition (universal composite of form and matter) and the [my] linguistical meaning of a term. Technical definition as bridge between linguistical meaning and the definition of essence. concrete particulars > experience > linguistic universals > generalization of the common character (sc material and formal features) of the particulars > remove the accidental features > arrive at the definition that articulates the 'logos' (formula) of the essence of the particulars. [ particular individual: form and matter concrete - particularia ] [ species/genus: form and matter abstract - universalia ] 173 A constructs an ontological alternative to Platonic Ideas. A limits definition to that which is said in virtue of itself, and argues for the conceptual and ontological unity of the definiens. A primary substance is simple and thus its definition will be similarly unitary. Problem of the parts of the 'logos' (formula): must the formula of the parts be in the formula of the whole or not? A: the parts of the proper definition are the analysans of the concept defined and yet they are not ontologically prior to the definition. The terms of the definition are only definable in the context of the definition. So the parts of the definition are both ontologically and epistemologically dependent upon the definition (avoiding regress). Modrak reviews ARISTOTLE: THE POWER OF PERCEPTION. By DEBORAH K. W. MODRAK. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1987. Pp. x, 249. review Author(s): D. S. Hutchinson Source: Phoenix, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Spring, 1988), pp. 76-79 But in his own time Aristotle looked backward too, and the neglect of Aristotle's intellectual context is the single greatest cause of what errors there are in Modrak's interpretation. Of the two works most directly relevant to Aristotle's De anima, Plato's Timaeus, and Aristotle's own Eudemus (now lost, except that fragments and testimonia survive), the former is barely mentioned and the latter is not noticed. Review: [untitled]Author(s): Christopher Shields Source: The Classical World, Vol. 82, No. 1 (Sep. - Oct., 1988), pp. 61-62 (..) She begins by attributing to Aristotle five theoretical presuppositions, three substantive and two methodological. The substantive theses attributed to Aristotle are: 1) the Psychophysical Principle, according to which most psychic states are psychophysical, that is, physically realized states of the soul; 2) the Actuality Principle, that a cognitive faculty is potentially what its object is actually; and 3) the Sensory Representation Principle, that whenever a cognitive activity has a sense object as its focal object, the operative psychic faculty is the perceptual faculty. The methodolgical theses are: 4) the Analytic Principle, that psychological explanations should begin by explicating the constituent parts of psychic phenomena; and 5) the Normative Psychophysical Principle, that, given (1), any comprehensive psychological theory will address the psychophysical character of psychological states. The bulk of the book contains detailed investigations of sense perception, imagination, thought, and consciousness, all conducted in light of the five theoretical principles. Author(s): Anne M. Wiles Source: The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Sep., 1988), pp. 153-154 Modrak, Deborah K. W. Aristotle: The Power of Perception. Chicago and London: The central thesis: Aristotle's writings contain a coherent theory of per ception which is explanatory of a variety of psychological activities such as sense perceiving, imagining, remembering, dreaming and thinking. The next five basic principles comprising the theory are identified: the Psychophysical Principle [physical = A's formal cause, physiological = material cause, psychophysical / psychological = combination of matter and form], the Actuality Principle (cognitive faculty is potentially what its object is actually), the Sensory Representation Principle, the Analytic Principle (bottom-up explanations) and the Normative Psychophysical Principle (take the psychophysical character of psychological states into account). A's theory of mind avoids both dualism and reductive materialism. Knowledge depends upon perception, including the role of perception as the ultimate source of universal concepts and indemonstrable first principles. (..) Aristotle's theory is shown to be relevant to contemporary issues in the philosophy of mind, for instance, to the so-called mind-body problem, in respect to which it avoids both dualism and reductive materialism. An important implication is that if Aristotle's theory is correct, any adequate psychological theory must include both psychical and physiological descriptions. (..) Aristotle's Theory of Language and Meaning. DEBORAH K. W. MODRAK. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ix + 302 Author(s): Richard Tierney Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 99, No. 4 (Apr., 2002), pp. 203-209 In De Interpretatione 1, Aristotle presents what many have regarded as a general account of meaning, in the following terms: Spoken words then are symbols of affections in the soul and written words are symbols of spoken words. And just as written letters are not the same for all humans neither are spoken words. But what these primarily are signs of, the affections of the soul, are the same for all, as also are those things of which our affections are likenesses. This matter has, however, been discussed in my treatise on the soul... (16a3-9; translation follows Modrak). When we turn to the De Anima, however, to which the above passage apparently directs us, we find very little that explicitly refers to language or meaning, as such, or even any indication that the content of the De Interpretatione passage is being filled in at all. (..) The book is divided into three parts dealing, respectively, with the "epistemic, ontological, and psychological foundations of Aristotle's philosophy of language" (50). In part I (Language and Knowledge) Modrak spells out the general theory of meaning in the broader context of Aristotle's philosophy of language and epistemology, while in part II (Definition and Essence) she articulates the metaphysical presuppositions of his conception of language and epistemology. (..) The overall idea of Aristotle's account, as Modrak presents it, is fairly straightforward - as long as we are willing to grant the presuppositions that are built into it: words have meaning through being associated with affections of the soul that are themselves likenesses, or representations of external things - both particular and universal. Those affections, Modrak plausibly argues, are intended by Aristotle to be individual phantasmata (images).' (..) Problem: explaining how an individual phantasma can be both a sensory representation of a particular individual and a universal cognitive content: Herein lies the crux of the problem for Aristotle's theory of meaning and the postulated relation between a phantasma and a meaning. Phantasmata seem consigned to the role of representing particulars, but meanings are universals (248). (..) the essences the scientist ultimately discovers are the same as those universals to which our everyday experiences converge. While this is an assumption with which Aristotle was apparently quite comfortable, it is not one that modern philosophers are likely to make without serious reservations. (..) Modrak's insight is that, according to Aristotle, the same sensory representation (a particular phantasma) can be used to "focus" on different levels of nested generality. The relevant pathema, then - the affection of the soul - is a particular phantasma representing a sensory individual, but employed by the rational faculty to think, or mean, an universal concept. This is possible because the content of the particular sensory representation (the phantasma) carries with it the content of the universal concept, and the noetic or linguistic act apprehends that universal concept, ignoring what is idiosyncratic to the individual itself. Thus, for example, my image of Socrates may be used to think of, or mean, the individual Socrates, the species human, or the genus animal - and perhaps other more, or less general concepts. (..) I see two related difficulties with this overall interpretation as it presently stands. The first is that it apparently has the noetic act, and the act of meaning or understanding something by a sign, as involving an additional act of cognitive discrimination. The mind, as it were, "sees" the universal in the phantasma, but unless we are very careful (and I am not sure that Modrak has quite taken enough care on this point), we are perilously close to the idea that the mind already knows what it is looking for. The mind must think the universal to itself prior to (and independently of!) thinking the universal in the phantasma. (..) My second concern is that the content of the phantasma, insofar as it is used as a representation of a universal, and the content of the (same) phantasma, insofar as it is a representation of an individual, are nonidentical contents (even though the one is nested within the other). Thus, Modrak states that: Under ideal circumstances, using the phantasma of a concrete particular as a representation of a token of a certain type enables the thinker to recognize the essence that is characteristic of the type. In such cases, the pathema qua phantasma is like (resembles) a token of the type, and the pathema qua meaning is also properly described as a likeness (a resemblance of the logos realized in the concrete token (260). Here, the representational contents of the pathema qua phantasma and of the pathema qua meaning are nonidentical, but it is only the latter that is relevant to our understanding of the universal concept. One might wonder why it is not the noetic act itself, the apprehension of the universal in the phantasma, which is the relevant pathema, rather than the phantasma itself. (..) If the thinking act is the apprehending of the universal, it would seem that the linguistic act - that of meaning something or understanding something by a sign - is the associating of the universal with a sign (not associating the thought with a sign), and it is perhaps in virtue of such an association that we are able to apprehend the universal (that is, think it). This would explain how the mind can think the universal in the phantasma, without first thinking what it is going to think. I am inclined to think that, for Aristotle, the relevant pathema is in fact the universal "imprinted in" the phantasma, rather than the whole phantasma in which the universal is imprinted. Human beings have phantasmata that are "bumpier" than those of other animals (that is, those capable of imagination). The universal coming to rest in the soul is a process of reinforcement, with the recurring features of various impressions being pounded deeper into us as the result of Aristotelian induction (epagoge). Our words, then, are signs of these impressions of various depths, salient in any phantasma that represents an individual belonging to an ontological hierarchy. We cannot think a universal without the mind focusing on it, and a word focuses the mind on an impression at one particular depth rather than at another. Why, on Aristotle's account, should I apprehend the universal human in my phantasma of Socrates when I hear the word 'human', rather than apprehend the universal animal, which is also present in the phantasma? It is, I believe, because the word is associated with an impression of a certain depth, rather than the deeper impression nested within it. And this suggests that it is the universal imprinted in the phantasma, rather than the whole phantasma, that is the relevant pathema. Author(s): Agustinus Gianto Source: Language, Vol. 79, No. 3 (Sep., 2003), pp. 661-662 In Ch. 1, Modrak, a recognized scholar in the field, begins by suggesting that the context of Aristotle's thoughts is Plato's attacks against two contrasting philosophical theories of language in Cratylus, namely, that either words are conventional signs and have arbitrary meanings or they are natural signs, like smoke that signals fire. Aristotle offers a compromise: The relation between written and spoken words is conventional, as is the relation between spoken words and the mental state evoked by these words. But the relation between the mental state and its external object is natural and is the same for all humans. Hence different languages use different sounds for the same object. M then explains in Ch. 2 that Aristotle opts for a correspondence theory of truth. Thus sentences about extralinguistic objects are true if what they assert corresponds to the reality. Moreover, they are necessarily true if the corresponding reality is unchanging. Furthermore, as shown in Ch. 3, the meaning of words lies in their capacities to indicate objects. Ch. 4 describes how this ostensive definition of meaning perfectly accounts for Aristotle's view that knowledge in sciences, that is, meta-physics, physics, and mathematics, is indicative of the physical objects or their properties or, in the case of abstraction, of other objects deriving from them. The two chapters that constitute Part 2 examine whether the theory of meaning reconstructed above is consistent with Aristotle's ontology as found in Metaphysics. Ch. 5 explains that for Aristotle, a verbal definition of an object gives an ostensive definition of its form (eidos). Subsequently Ch. 6 focuses on Aristotle's ontological claims that forms exist in the empirical world and are accessible to human minds. Thus meanings find their intelligible essence in the real world. Much of the discussion in Part 2 assumes that more comprehensive treatises like Metaphysics can justifiably be used to elucidate and systematize various seminal insights developed in an earlier work like De Interpretatione. Part 3 delineates the relation between cognition and meaning by scrutinizing Aristotle's belief that the mental state (pathema) reflects external objects. Ch. 7 explains that imagination (phantasia) is the cognitive ability to use sensory contents to represent objects through mental images (phantasmata) which are themselves likenesses of the external objects. Furthermore, as made clear in Ch. 8, the conceptualization of such images constitutes meanings. Thus, the cognitive process of thinking and perceiving relates to external objects and shares the same structures. Ch. 9 recapitulates Aristotle's theory of meaning and briefly concludes with some remarks on its common ground with modern philosophy of language. Author(s): Fred Miller Source: The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Mar., 2004), pp. 640-641 Modrak rejects as overly Cartesian the intuitionist interpretation of nondemonstrative knowledge of first principles and universal concepts; instead, she argues, Aristotle is an empiricist and moderate realist: really existing kinds cause humans to know them through sense experience and induction. But it remains mysterious how they are able to do this. (..) Part 2 deals with definition and essence. Chapter 5: In Metaphysics VII Modrak sees as fundamental Aristotle's claim that the logos (formula) grasped in thought is the same as the form (or essence) of the concrete substance. She views this as the "missing link" needed to explain the mysterious process of nondemonstrative knowledge in the Posterior Analytics. Chapter 6: The Metaphysics explains the basis for moderate realism: forms exist in the world, make physical substances what they are, and are accessible to human minds. Thus the meaning of a natural kind term, for example, "horse," is the articulation of the species form, for example, horseness, that is realized in substances. Part 3 deals with cognition and meaning. Chapter 7: In De Anima and Parva Naturalia, meaning requires phantasia (imagination), the ability to use sensory contents to represent objects, but phantasia alone is insufficient to explain reference. Chapter 8: Meaning also requires the cognitive capacity, which involves conceptualizing the content presented in the phantasma (image). Modrak now uses the foregoing results to explain De Interpretatione Likeness Thesis along the following lines: The pathema or mental sign is the phantasma used by thought to grasp a logos. The logos grasped in thought is the same as the logos in the external object. Therefore, the pathema qua phantasma is like a token of the same type of which the external object is a token. Therefore, the pathema in a sense resembles the external object and is a natural sign of it. Chapter 9 briefly contrasts Aristotle's philosophy of language with modern views. Modrak's solution depends on a crucial (but implicit in Aristotle) distinction between two kinds of likeness: sensible likeness, for example, as a painted red circle resembles a red apple in a bowl; and intelligible likeness, for example, as a phantasma (image) of a round object used to represent a geometrical circle resembles the abstract circle by exhibiting features common to all circles (see p. 259). This "enriched notion of likeness" depends upon moderate realism, that is, his claim that there really exist in the world species forms of which our mental contents can serve as likenesses. |