Abstract
A few sentences near the beginning of De interpretatione (16a3–8) constitute the most influential text in the history of semantics. The text is highly compressed, and many translations, including the Latin translation in which it had its greatest influence, have obscured at least one interesting feature of it. In this paper I develop an interpretation that depends on taking seriously some details that have been neglected in the countless discussions of this text.
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Notes
In the notes to his translation (J. L. Ackrill, Aristotle’s Categories and De Interpretatione, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1963; reprinted with corrections, 1966 ), p. 113.
H. Bonitz, Index Aristotelicus, Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, 1870; art. ‘σύμβολον’ Part 3. This is also the view of, for example, H. Steinthal (Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft bei den Griechen und Römern, Berlin 1890, 2nd ed., p. 186) and K. Oehler (Die Lehre vom noetischen und dianoetischen Denken bei Platon und Aristoteles, München 1962, p. 149). Steinthal’s view was developed in opposition to the distinction drawn between the two terms by T. Waitz in his edition Aristotelis Organon graece (Leipzig 1844–46). Recent writers who have distinguished the meanings of ‘σημεία’ and ‘σύμβολον’ in this passage include P. Aubenque (Le problème de l’ être chez Aristote, Paris 1962, pp. 106–112) and R. Brandt (Die aristotelische Urteilslehre, Marburg 1965, pp. 33–35). (Professor Gabriel Nuchelmans kindly called my attention to Brandt’s book and thereby to much of the information contained in this note.)
The commentary of Giulio Pacio (recommended by Ackrill, op. cit., p. 156) views these claims in this way and makes some sensible remarks about them (Julius Pacius, In Porphyrii Isagogen et Aristotelis Organum commentarius, Frankfurt 1597; reproduced photographically, Georg Olms, Hildesheim, 1966, p. 61 ).
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© 1974 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland
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Kretzmann, N. (1974). Aristotle on Spoken Sound Significant by Convention. In: Corcoran, J. (eds) Ancient Logic and Its Modern Interpretations. Synthese Historical Library, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2130-2_1
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