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Imposition

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Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences

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Definition

“Impositio” is the term used by the Scholastics to refer to voluntary ascription of names to concepts and things. Names are chosen either by an authority, such as God, Adam, a legislator, or by a contingent pact among men.

The doctrine of imposition has its roots in Aristotle’s “On Interpretation” (16a 1–8) where he individuates the relata of the signification relation (concepts, words, things) and divides them into two classes: In the first class are concepts and things which do not depend on human practice or art, thereby being natural; in the second class are words, which relate to concepts and things “kata syntheken,” translated into Latin as ad placitum (arbitrarily) or ex instituto (due to establishment) (Coseriu 2004: 1–35). Insofar as words do not naturally relate to things or to concepts, they are arbitrarily chosen by people as signs for concepts and things. The plurality of languages is an evidence of the arbitrary imposition of signs. While human beings use...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy Department, University of Münster, Münster, Germany

    Lucia Oliveri

  2. Philosophy Department Emerson Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Lucia Oliveri

Authors
  1. Lucia Oliveri
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Correspondence to Lucia Oliveri .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Dana Jalobeanu

  2. Dept. of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University Dept. Philosophy & Moral Sci, Ghent, Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium

    Charles T. Wolfe

Section Editor information

  1. Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Martin Lenz

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Oliveri, L. (2020). Imposition. In: Jalobeanu, D., Wolfe, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_221-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_221-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-20791-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-20791-9

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