Medieval antecedents of semiotics (3) : Realist semiotics faced with the difficult choice between oratio mentalis and enunciatio in mente

Abstract

In order to better understand Abelard's hostility to nominalism ( vocaliste ) (Roscelin) as well as to several extreme forms of realism (G. de Champeaux), we have clarified his theory of dictum [11], or " quasi-res propositionis " (neither a thing, nor an intellection, without being anything at all), then the concept of status (neither " une chose ", nor a " essence "), which does not prevent them from both being at the foundation of truth and reality, as they are what cause the imposition of our universals. The originality and fruitfulness of such an approach, which is more " non-realist " than nominalistic [12], makes it possible to envisage a semiotics that is authentically " realist ". The principles of Grammatica Speculativa were then detailed. For the modalists (John and Boethius of Dacia, Thomas of Erfurt, Duns Scotus), grammar must provide the universality required by all science (Aristotle) and absent from particular languages. If modes of signification (modi significandi), which determine the rules of constructibility of parts of speech, grammaticality (or rection) and sentence completeness [13], manifest themselves at the level of language, their roots extend into psychology and ontology. There is a homology between modes of being(modi essendi), modes of knowing (modi intelligendi) and modes of signifying(modi significandi), which gives coherence to the system. Moreover, words signify things, even if ideas mediate between them. So, while having its own consistency, language, beyond particular languages, is universal in its intimate connection with thought and being. This is an interesting hierarchy, which allows us to speak of a " propositional realism " [14] : the mode of signifying parts of speech depends on the mode of being of things and their mode of intellection.

The lecture then set out to demonstrate the validity of the Peircian tug-of-war between terminists and modists : the interest of Ockhamian formalism, which is certainly sparing in terms of ontological commitment (but which does not remove all risk of psychologism (see the theory of fictum or even of the act of intellection), nor of reductionism, and which lacks amplitude for those who also want to understand logic as an art of judging. The strength, indeed superiority, of the Scotian model of" enunciatio in mente " over bothinterpretatio andoratio mentalis, which can only be understood against a backdrop of metaphysics and ontology, and an ontology which, thanks to the system's keystone of formal distinction, enables Doctor Subtil to be a realist without being a Platonist. The propositional signified is not a complex extra-mental entity existing " apart " or " in addition " from the things the proposition is about. It is a complex (and natural, requiring no divine illumination) cognitive content, an esse objectivum (in contemporary terms, a truthmaker) always dependent on a mental act (and consequently, an intellect), capable of producing intentional objects [15] and founded on or motivated by the metaphysical structure of reality and ensuring cognitive access to the essence of things. This is what fascinates Peirce about Duns Scotus, the first, according to him, to state the realist position coherently (" the real is that which signifies something real "), and to develop it in all its aspects, semiotic, epistemological and metaphysical, of which we have given a few illustrations to conclude.

References

[11] Jolivet, J., " Comparaison des théories du langage chez Abélard et chez les nominalistes du ^XIVe siècle ", in Buytaert, E.M. (ed.), Peter Abelard, Louvain,1974, p. 163-178 ; repr. in Jolivet, J., Aspects de la Pensée médiévale, Abélard, doctrines du langage, Paris, Vrin, 1987. See also De Libera, A., " Abélard et le dictisme ", in Abélard, Le " Dialogue ", la philosophie de la logique, Cahiers de la revue de théologie et de philosophie 6, 1981, p. 59-97.

[12] Jolivet, J., " Non réalisme et platonisme chez Abélard. Essai d'interprétation ", in Abélard et son temps, Jolivet, J. (ed.), Paris, 1981, p. 175-195.

[13] Rosier, I., La Grammaire des Modistes, Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1983 ; La Parole comme acte. Sur la grammaire et la sémantique au XIIIe siècle, Paris, Vrin, 1994.

[14] Cesalli, L., Le réalisme propositionnel : sémantique et ontologie des propositions chez Jean Duns Scot, Gauthier Burley, Richard Brinkley et Jean Wyclif, Paris, Vrin, 2007. See also Pini, G., Categories and Logic in Duns Scotus, an interpretation of Aristotle's Categories in the Late Thirteenth Century, Leiden, Brill, 2002.

[15] Cesalli, op.cit. and Perler, D., Theories de l'intentionnalité au Moyen Âge, Paris, Vrin, 2003.