Meaning and Denotation - Wikispaces · UMBERTO ECO MEANING AND DENOTATION HISTORICAL REMARKS Today "denotation" (along with its counterpart, "connotation") is alternatively considered

Meaning and DenotationAuthor(s): Umberto EcoSource: Synthese, Vol. 73, No. 3, Theories of Meaning (Dec., 1987), pp. 549-568Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20116473 .

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UMBERTO ECO

MEANING AND DENOTATION

HISTORICAL REMARKS

Today "denotation" (along with its counterpart, "connotation") is

alternatively considered as a property or function of (i) single terms,

(ii) declarative sentences (iii) noun phrases and definite descriptions. In

each case one has to decide whether this term has to be taken intensionally or extensionally: is "denotation" tied to meaning or to referents? Does

one mean by "denotation" what is meant by the term or the named thing

and, in the case of sentences, what is the easel

As far as connotation is concerned, if denotation has an extensional

scope, it becomes the equivalent of intension; if, on the contrary, denotation has an intensional scope, then connotation becomes a sort

of further meaning depending on the first one. These terminological

discrepancies are such that Geach (1962, p. 65) suggested that this term should be "withdrawn from philosophical currency" since it

produces "a sad tale of confusion". In the framework of structural linguistics denotation is intensional.

Such is the case of Hjelmslev (1943), where the difference between a

denotative semiotics and a connotative one lies in the fact that the former is a semiotics whose expression plane is not a semiotics, while the latter is a semiotics whose expression plane is a semiotics. The denotative relationship has to do with the correlation between the form of expression and the form of content: an expression does not

denote a content-substance. Likewise Barthes (1964) elaborates upon

Hjelmslev's suggestions and develops a merely intensional approach to denotation. A denotative relationship always occurs between a

signifier and a first (or zero) degree signified. In the framework of

componential analysis, "denotation" has been used for the sense

relationships expressed by a lexical term - such as 'father's brother'

expressed by 'uncle' (see, for instance, Leech 1974, p. 238). Prieto

(1975, p. 67, 109) means by "(de)notative" or "notative" any concep tion of a linguistic term or of a significant object in so far as it appears

Synthese 73 (1987) 549-568. ? 1987 by D. Reidel Publishing Company



550 UMBERTO ECO

as the member of a class of objects fulfilling the same purpose

("membre de la classe du syst?me d'intercompr?hension qui le d?ter

mine"), where such a class belongs to the universe of sense.

Thus one can say that in the structuralistic milieu, denotation, (if we

assume as a parameter Frege's triangle), is more similar to the Sinn

than to the Bedeutung, that is, more similar to the sense than to the

reference.

The whole picture changes radically in the anglosaxon tradition of

philosophy of language and truth conditional semantics: in Russell's

"On denoting" denotation is undoubtedly different from meaning. This

usage is followed by the whole of anglo-saxon philosophical tradition

(see, for instance, Ogden and Richards, 1923 and Morris, 1946). In this sense an expression denotes the individuals of which it is the

name, while it means (and for certain authors "connotes") the proper ties by virtue of which these individuals are recognized as members of

a given class. If we substitute (as Carnap 1955, does) the couple denotation/connotation with the couple extension/intension, we can

say that denotation is a function of connotation (except if one follows

the theory of rigid designation). In order to avoid such a growing terminological confusion some

body has preferred to use "designation" in place of "denotation" and

recently Lyons (1977, p. 208) has proposed to use "denotation" in a

neutral way as between extension and intension.

However the situation is more complicated than that. Even when

denotation recognizably stands for extension it may refer (i) to a class

of individuals, (ii) to an actually existing individual (as in the case of

the rigid designation of proper names), (iii) to each member of a class

of individuals, (iv) to the truth value corresponding to an assertive

proposition (so that, in these frameworks, the denotatum of a pro

position is what is the case or the fact that 'p' is the case). The first case in which "denotation" has been blatantly used in an

extensional sense was, as far as I know, the one of John Stuart Mill (I,

II, v): "the word 'white' denotes all white things, as snow, paper, the

foam of the sea, and so forth, and implies, or as it was termed by the

schoolmen, connotes the attribute whiteness".

Peirce was probably the first one to realize that there was something odd in this usage. Peirce always used "denotation" to mean "the direct

reference of a symbol to its object" (1.559). According to him a

Rhematic Indexical Sinsign is affected "by the real camel it denotes"



MEANING AND DENOTATION 551

(2.261), a sign must denote an individual and must signify a character

(2.293), "a general term denotes whatever there may be which pos sesses the characters it signifies" (2.434), "every assertion contains

such a denotative or pointing-out function" (5.429), signs are desig native or denotative or indicative, insofar as they, like a demon

strative pronoun, or a pointing finger, "brutely direct the mental

eyeballs of the interpreter to the object in question" (8.350).

However, Peirce understood clearly that - as far as "connotation"

was concerned - Mill was not following, as he claimed, the traditional

scholastic usage. The Schoolmen distinguished (at least until the

fourteenth century) between meaning (significare) and naming (ap

pellare), and used "connotation" not as opposed to "denotation" but

in order to define an additional form of signification.

It has been, indeed, the opinion of all the students of the logic of the fourteenth,

fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, that connotation was in those ages used exclusively for

the reference to a second signif?cate, that is (nearly), for a reference to a relative sense

(such as father, brighter, etc.) to the correlate of the object it primarily denotes.... Mr.

Mill has however considered himself entitled to deny this upon his simple dictum, without

the citation of a simple passage from any writer of that time (2.393).

Peirce remarks that the common opposition in the Middle Ages was

between "significare" and "nominare" ("to mean" and "to refer to"). He then remarks that Mill uses "to connote" instead of "to signify", and "to denote" for naming or referring to. He recalls the quotation from John of Salisbury (Metalogicus II, 20), according to whom

nominantur singularia sed universalia significantur. "It unfortunately

happened that... the precise meaning recognized as proper to the

word 'signify' at the time of John of Salisbury... was never strictly observed, either before and since, and on the contrary the meaning tended to slip towards that of 'denote'" (2.434).

In this discussion Peirce is right (and perceptive) and wrong at the

same time. On one side he lucidly realized that at a certain moment

"significare" partially shifted from an intensional to an extensional

framework, but he did not acknowledge the fact that, during the

following centuries, it mainly retained, its intensional sense. On the

other side he accepted "denotation" as an extensional category

(arguing with Mill only a propos of "connotation") while it was only

very late that "denotare", originally used mid-way between extension

and intension, took over as an extensional category.



552 UMBERTO ECO

THE FIRST SEMANTIC TRIANGLE

In De interpretatione, Aristotle implicitly but clearly designs a semiotic

triangle, in which words are related on one side to concepts (or

passions of the soul) and on the other to things. Aristotle says that

words are symbols of the passions and by symbol means a con

ventional and arbitrary device.

He adds that words can be taken as symptoms (seme?a) of the

passions, since every verbal utterance can be, first of all, the symptom of the fact that the utterer has something in his mind. As for the

passions of the soul, they are likenesses, or icons, of the thing. We

know the things through the passions of the soul and there is no direct

connection between symbols and things. We name things by meaning their icons, that is, the corresponding ideas they arouse in our minds.

Aristotle does not use, for this symbolic relation, the word sema?nein

(that could be, as it was, translated by "significare") but in many other

circumstances he uses this verb to indicate the relation between words

and concepts. Aristotle says (as Plato did) that single terms taken in isolation do

not assert anything about what is the case. They only 'mean' a

thought. Also, sentences or complex expressions mean a thought but

only a particular kind of sentence (a statement, or a proposition,

apdphasis or logos apophantikds) asserts a true or false state of affairs.

He does not say that statements 'signify' what is true or false but

rather that they 'say' (the verb is l?gein) that something A belongs (the verb is yp?rchein) to something B.

Boethius translated "sema?nein" with "significare" but he followed

the Augustinian line of thought, according to which "significatio" is

the power that a word has to arouse in the mind of the hearer a

thought, through the mediation of which one can implement an act of

reference to things. He says that single terms signify the correspond

ing concept or the universal idea and takes "significare" - as well as,

less frequently, "designare" - in an intensional sense. Words are

conventional instruments used to make known one's thoughts (sense or sententias).

Words do not designate things or states of the world but concepts of

the mind. The designated thing is at most called "underlying the

concept of it' \significationisupposita or suppositum, see de Rijk, 1967,

pp. 180-81).




As for "denotatio", Boethius uses extensively "note", but we know

how vague the meaning of this term was in the Latin Lexicon - at least as vague as the meaning of the equivalent Greek "symbolon". It must

be reminded that Boethius, in the translation of De Interpretatione used "nota" for both "symbolon" and "seme?on", thus creating a first

"sad tale of confusion".

A more clear-cut distinction between signifying and referring is posited

by Anselm of Canterbury in his De Grammatico with the theory of

appellation. By elaborating upon Aristotle's theory of paronyms, Anselm

puts forth the idea that when we call a given person a 'grammarian', we

use this word paronymically. The word still signifies the quality of being a grammarian, but is used to refer to a given man. Thus for 'reference'

Anselm uses "appellatio", and for 'meaning' uses "signification'. Such a distinction between signification and appellation (or naming)

will be followed by Abelard.

SIGNIFICATIO, DENOTATIO, APPELLATIO

It has been remarked that in Abelard the logical terminology is not

definitely assessed and that he frequently uses the same terms in an

equivocal sense. Nevertheless Abelard is the first author in which the distinction between the intensional and extensional aspects of seman tics is substantially (if not always terminologically) posited with a great care. It is true that he speaks indifferently of "significado de rebus" and "significatio de intellectibus", but it is equally true that for him the primary sense of "significatio" is an intensional one, on the

Augustinian line of thought - where "significare" is "constituere" or

"generare" a concept of the mind. Abelard in Ingredientibus (Geyer, p. 307) makes clear that the

intellectual plane is the necessary intermediary between things and

concepts. "Not only is the 'significatio intellectuum' a priviledged 'significatio', but it is also the only legitimate semantic function of a

noun, the only function which a dialectician should bear in mind in

examining speech" (Beonio-Brocchieri, 1969, p. 31). By considering various contexts in which such terms as "significare,

designare, denotare, nominare, appellare" confront each other, one can maintain that Abelard is using "significare" to refer to the



554 UMBERTO ECO

intellectus generated in the mind of the hearer, "nominare" for the

referential function, and - at least in some pages of Dial?ctica, but with unmistakeable clarity

- "designare" and "denotare" for the

relationship between the word and his definition or sententia (the

sententia, or sense, being an 'encyclopedical' meaning, of which the

definition represents a particular 'dictionary-like' selection, provided for the purposes of a given act of disambiguation). In Dial?ctica (p. 594) it is clear that a name is "determinativum" of all the possible differences of something, and by hearing the name we can understand

("intelligere") all of them; the sententia (sense) contains all those

differences and the definitio posits only those who are useful in

determining the sense of a name in a sentence without ambiguities. Such an interpretation is not universally accepted. De Rijk (1970,

LIV) says that for Abelard "designation" is "the semantic relation

between a term and its extra-linguistic object", and Nuchelmans

(1973, p. 140) equates "denotare" with "nominare". In fact many

quotations in Dial?ctica seem to support his assumption. (See for

instance p. 119, where Abelard seems to use "designare" for the first

imposition of names upon things (intended as a sort of baptismal ceremony in which there is a rigid designative link between the namer

and the thing named); also p. 114: "ad res designandas imposite".) But it is also true that in other pages (for instance, p. 123) "desig

nare" and "denotare" seem not to have the same meaning, and on p. 97 and p. 121 "designare" suggests an intensional interpretation.

Arguing with those who assumed that the things to which the vox has

been imposed are directly signified by that vox, Abelard stresses the fact that words do not signify everything they can name but only what

they designate, that is, those things that are denoted by the voice and

are contained in the corresponding sense (Dial?ctica, pp. 112-13). Words signify what they designate by a definition, as "animal" signifies

a sensitive animate substance, and this is exactly what is denoted by (or in) the word. Likewise, signification has nothing to do with naming

because the former remains "nominatis rebus destructis", so that it is

possible to understand the meaning of "nulla rosa est" (Ingredientibus,

p. 309). Thus we can say that for Abelard a vox signifies a state of the

mind, designates or denotes a sense, and names a thing or a state

of the world.

The same intensional trend is followed by Aquinas who remains




absolutely faithful to the position of Aristotle. In his commentary of De

interpretatione he uses "significare" for nouns and verbs (I, II, 14) as

well as for these voices that mean naturally, such as the wail of infirms

and the sounds emitted by animals, and makes clear that by

"significatio" he means an intensional phenomenon. A name signifies its definition (I, II, 20). It is true that when speaking of composition and division, that is, of affirmation and negation, he says that the

former "significat ... coniunctionem" and the latter "significat ...

rerum separationem" (I, III, 26), but it is clear that even at this point, what is 'meant' is an operation of the intellect ("intellectus dicitur verum secundum quod conformatur rei", I, III 28). An expression is

neither true nor false, it is only the sign which "significat" a true or false

operation of the intellect: "unde haec vox, 'homo est asinus', est ver?

vox et ver? Signum; sed quia est Signum falsi, ideo dicitur falsa" (I, III,

31). Names signify simple concepts of composite things (I, III, 34).

Signification is so far from reference that, when a verb is used in a

sentence (say, "This man is white") the verb does not signify a state of

affairs but at most is the sign (in the sense of symptom) that something is predicated of something else and that, at the end, a state of affairs is

in some way indicated (I, V, 60)." (Aristotle) had said that the word

does not signify whether something is or is not the case, for no word

signifies the being or the non-being of a thing" (I, V, 69). The verb

"est" signifies the compositio, that is the predication of a predicate a

propos of a subject (I, VI, 75). As for "denotare" in all its forms, this term recurs 105 times in the

tomistic lexicon (plus 2 instances of "denotatio"). Even a cursory

probing suggests that Aquinas never used it in the strong extensional

sense, that is, he never used it to say that a given proposition denotes a

state of affairs or that a term denotes a thing. "Denotare" is always used in a weak sense.

It is clear that such authors as Boethius, Abelard or Aquinas, tied to

the problem of signification more than to the one of appellation, were

mainly interested in the psychological and ontological aspects of

language. We would say today that their semantics was oriented

toward a cognitive approach. It is interesting to remark how certain modern scholars, interested in rediscovering the first medieval mani

festation of a modern truth conditional semantics, find the whole

business of signification a very embarrassing one, which disturbs the

purity of the extensional approach, such as it is definitely settled by the



556 UMBERTO ECO

theory of supposition. For instance, de Rijk (1967, p. 206) says that in

Abelard "the non-logical point of view seems to prevail" and the term

"impositio" mostly stands for prima intentio: "it is rarely found to

denote some actual imposition in this or that sentence pronounced by some actual speaker. When even the voces are separated from the res,

their connection with the intellectus brings the author to the domain of

psychology or confines him to that of ontology, since the intellectus

are said to refer, in their turn, to reality. His theory of predication, too, seems to suffer from the prevalence of some non-logical point of

view". De Rijk (1982, p. 173) also suggests that medieval logicians "would have done a better job ... [if] they had abandoned their notion

of signification in itself". This means to ask medieval philosophers

(who were not pure logicians in the modern sense of the word) to have

done a different job. The kind of job the supporters of an extensional

approach are looking for is the one performed by the theoreticians of

suppositiones.

THE EXTENSIONAL APPROACH

In its more mature formulation, the supposition is the role played by a

term, when inserted into a proposition, in order to refer to extra

linguistic things. From the first vague notions of "suppositum" to the

most elaborate theories, such as the one of Ockham, the way was a

long one, and there is a consistent literature on this topic (see de Rijk 1967 and 1982).

With the theory of supposition the cognitive approach was over

whelmed by the extensional one: "in the later stages a term's actual

meaning was the focus of interest and reference and denotation was

far more important than the more abstract notion of signification. What is primarily meant by a term is the concrete individual object the

term can be correctly applied to" (de Rijk, 1982, p. 167). Nevertheless this new attitude is not frequently expressed by such

terms as "denotatio", which keeps going very indeterminate in its

scope. For instance, Peter of Spain uses "denotari" in Summulae

Logicales (VII, 68) where he says that in the expression "sedentem

possibile est ambulare" what is denoted is not the concomitance

between 'to sit' and 'to walk' but rather the concomitance between

'being seated' and 'having the possibility ('potentia') of walking'. Once

again it is difficult to tell whether "denotare" has an intensional or an




extensional function. Moreover Peter also takes "significare" in a very broad sense, since (Summulae VI, 2) "significatio termini, prout hie

sumitur, est rei per vocem secundum placitum representatio" and it is

undetermined whether this res ought to be an invididual thing or a

universal nature (de Rijk, 1982, p. 169). Peter implements a clear

extensional theory where his notion of suppositio is distinguished from

signification (see also Ponzio, pp. 134-35, with an interesting reference to Peirce, 5.320).

However in Peter's theory there is a difference between extension

ally standing for a class and extensionally standing for an individual. In

the first case we have a natural supposition, in the second case an

accidental one (p. 4). In the same vein Peter distinguishes between

"suppositio" and "appellatio": we can "appellare" (to refer to) only an

existing thing while we can signify and suppose for both existing and

unexisting things (X, 1). De Rijk says (p. 169) that "Peter's natural supposition is really the

denotative counterpart of signification". But, if denotation is taken -

in the contemporary sense - as the function performed by a proper name pointing towards a single object, then Peter's supposition is still

larger in its scope. "Homo" signifies a certain universal nature and

"supponit" naturally for all the (possibly) existing men or for the class

of men, and accidentally for an individual man.

One can say that his terminological landscape is pretty confused

since"significatio" stands both for 'meaning' and for the reference to a

class; "suppositio naturalis" stands for a class; "suppositio acciden

talis" stands for an individual, along with "appellatio" and "nomina

tio"; while "denotatio" and "designatio" are used in an even more

indeterminate way. There is a first radical change with William of Sherwood who

"unlike Peter and the majority of thirteenth-century logicians ...

identifies a term's significative character with its referring solely to

actually existing things" (de Rijk, 1982, pp. 170-71). This will be the position of Roger Bacon.

THE TURNING POINT: BETWEEN BACON AND OCKHAM

In De signis Bacon uses "significare, significatio, significatum" in a

sense that is radically different from the traditional one.

In DS II, 2 he says that "signum autem est illud quod oblatum



558 UMBERTO ECO

sensui vel intellectui aliquid d?sign?t ipsi intellectui". Apparently the

Baconian "d?sign?t" stands for the Augustinian "faciens in cog itationem venire" (De doctrina Christiana I, 1, 1). However, for

Augustine the sign produces something in the mind, while for Bacon a

sign shows something (probably outside the mind) to the mind.

For Bacon signs are not referred to their referent through the

mediation of a mental species, but point directly or are posited in

order to refer immediately to an object. It does not matter whether

this object is an individual (a concrete thing), a species, a feeling, or a

passion of the soul. What counts is that between a sign and the named

object there is no mental mediation. Thus Bacon uses "significare" in a

mere extensional sense.

In his classification of signs Bacon had distinguished natural signs (or physical symptoms, such as the Stoic semeia, or as icons - which

refer directly by a sort of natural virtue to the objects they are like) from signs "ordinate ab anima et ex intentione animae", that is,

produced for some purpose by a living being. Among the signa ordinata ab anima stand words and other conventional visual signs, such as the circulus vini used as an emblem for taverns, and even

commodities exposed in windows, insofar as they mean that other

members of the class to which they belong are sold inside the shop. In all these cases Bacon speaks of "impositio", that is, of a con

ventional act by which a given entity is appointed to name something else. It is clear that convention for Bacon is not the same as arbitrari ness: commodities exposed in a window are chosen conventionally but

not arbitrarily (they act as a sort of metonimy, the member for the

class). Likewise the circulus vini is appointed as a sign conventionally but not arbitrarily, since in fact the circle is a barrel-hoop, and thus it

acts synecdochically and metonimically at the same time, and

represents a part of the barrel which is the container of the wine ready to be sold. However in De signis most of the examples are drawn from

vocal language and it will be better to follow Bacon's train of thoughts

by remaining tied to this paramount example of conventional (and

arbitrary) signs. Bacon is not so naive to say that words only mean

individual and physical things. He says that they name objects but

these objects can also be in the mind. Signs can also name non

entities, "non entia sicut infinitum, vacuum, et chimaera, ipsum nichil

sive pure non ens" (DS, II, 2, 19; but see also II, 3, 27 and V, 162). This means that, even when words signify species, they do so by




pointing extensionally to a class of mental objects. But when, to name

a species, we use a name previously used to name the corresponding

thing, then we have an instance of second imposition. In any case the

relationship is an extensional one and the correctness of the reference

is guaranteed only by the actual presence of the signified object (be it a physical or a mental one). A word signifies truly if and only if the

object it signifies is the case. Bacon (DS I, 1) does not say that, if there

is the sign, then there must necessarily be the thing, since words can

signify both entities and non-entities. However he is not suggesting, as

Abelard did, that the expression "nulla rosa est" still signifies some

thing because it means the concept of the thing (even though the

thing did not exist or had ceased to exist). For Bacon when one says "there is a rose" and there is no rose, then the word rose (which cannot refer to the actual rose) instead of meaning the corresponding

concept, refers - as to an object - to the image of the supposed rose

that the utterer has in his mind. There are two different referents and

in fact the same sound rose is a token of two different lexical types. To

use, in order to name a species (or any other mental passion), the same

expression previously used to name the correspondent thing, one must

implement a second 'impositio' (DS, V, 162). When one says "homo

currit" one does not use the word homo in the same sense of the

expression "homo est animal". These are two equivocal ways to use

the same expression. When a customer sees the circle that in a tavern

advertizes the wine, if there is wine the circle signifies the actual wine.

If there is no wine and the customer is deceived by a sign which refers to something which is not the case, then the referent of the sign is the

idea or image of wine which took form (erroneously) in the mind of

the customer. For those who know that there is no wine the circle has

lost its significance. When we say that Socrates is dead, the expression Socrates is used equivocally in respect to the sense it had when

Socrates was alive (DS, IV, 2, 147). "Corrupta re cui facta est

impositio, non remanebit vox significativa" (DS, IV, 2, 147). The

linguistic term remains as mere substance deprived of the 'ratio', or of

the semantic correlation that made a word of this material token. In

the same sense, when the son dies what remains of the father is

"substantia", but not the "relatio paternitatis" (DS I, 1, 38). Bacon

definitely destroys the semiotic triangle that was formulated since

Plato, by which the relationship between words and referents is

mediated by the idea, or the concept, or the definition. With Bacon the



560 UMBERTO ECO

left side of the triangle (that is, the relationship between words and

meanings) is reduced to a mere symptomatic phenomenon. Bacon was able to read Aristotle in Greek and realized that

Boethius, by using twice the term "nota", disregarded the fact that, for Aristotle, words were "first of all" or "primarily" (see Kretzmann,

1974) symptoms of the passions of the soul. Thus (DS, V, 166) he

interprets the Aristotelian passage according to his personal position: words are essentially in a symptomatic relation with species and at

most they can signify them only vicariously (by a second impositio). The very relation of signification is the one between words and things. He disregards the fact that for Aristotle words, even though they were

symptoms of the mental passions, also signify them, to such an extent

that we can understand the named things only through the mediation

of the understood species. For Aristotle - and for the medieval

tradition before Bacon - extension was still a function of intension.

For Bacon the only signification of the statement is the fact that the

referent is the case.

It is thus clear why in his terminological framework the sense of

"significatio" undergoes a radical change. Before Bacon "nominantur

singularia sed universalia significantur", with Bacon "significantur

singularia", or at least "significantur res" (even though a "res" can

also be a class, a feeling, a species). Duns Scotus seems to have been more imprecise on this matter. On

one side he says that words are signs of the thing and not of the

concept (Ordinatio I, 27, 1; see also Nuchelmans, 1973, p. 196), on

the other side he says that to signify is "alicujus intellectum con

stituere" (Quaestiones in Perihermeneia II, 541a). Heidegger (1916, in

the reliable first part of his book, devoted to the 'real' Scotus and not

to Thomas of Erfurt) says that Scotus is very close to a

phenomenological view of meaning as a mental object. Other scholars

confess their perplexity. Boehner (1958, p. 219) says that "Scotus

already broke with this interpretation of Aristotle's text, maintaining that the signif?cate of the word, generally speaking, is not the concept but the thing", but in footnote 29 adds that a student of him, John B.

Vogel, discovered a considerable discrepancy between the treatment

of this problem in the Oxoniense and the Quaestiones in Peri

hermeneias opus primum and secundum". (For a more decisive in

tensionalistic interpretation, see Marmo, 1981-82 and 1984.) As far as Ockham is concerned, it has been argued whether the




extensionalist theory of Ockham is really as straightforward as it

seems. Given his four senses of "significare" (STL I, xxxiii), only the

first one has a clear extensional sense. Only in this first sense terms

loose their signification when the object they stand for does not exist.

Nevertheless, even if Ockham used "significare" and "denotari" also

in an intensional sense (see for "significare" Boehner, 1958 and for

"denotari" Marmo, 1984), it is evident that in many places he used

them in an extensional context.

With Ockham the semantic triangle assumes the following format:

there is a direct relation between concepts and things, since concepts are the natural signs that signify things (STL I, xii), and there is a

direct relation between words and those things they are imposed to

name, while the relation between words and concepts is disregarded (cf. Tabarroni, 1984; cf. also Boehner, 1958, p. 221). Words signify the same things signified by concepts, but do not signify concepts

(Summa totius logicae, I, i). There are persuasive demonstrations of the fact that Ockham also

used "significare" in a intensional sense (Boehner, 1958 and Marmo,

1984, with a discussion of all these cases in which propositions still

retain their meaning independently of the fact whether they are true or

false). However, it is clear that he used "supponere" in an extensional

sense, since there is suppositio "quando terminus stat in propositione pro aliquo" (STL I, lxii). It is equally evident that Ockham repeatedly equates "significare" (in the first sense of the term, see STL I, xxxiii)

with "supponere": "aliquid significare, vel supponere vel stare pro

aliquo" (ib., I, iv). (See also Pinborg, 1972.)

Now, it is in the context of the discussion on propositions and

suppositions that Ockham uses the expression "denotari". See for

instance: "terminus supponit pro illo, de quo vel de pronomine demonstrante ipsum, per propositionem denotatur praedicatum

praedicari, si supponens sit subjectum" (ib., I, lxxii). If the term is the

subject of a proposition then the thing of which the term has the

"suppositio" is that of which the proposition denotes that the predi cate is predicated.

In "homo est albus" both terms suppose for the same thing and by the whole proposition is denoted that it is the case that the same thing is both man and white (Exp. in Porph. I, lxxii). By the proposition a

"significatum" is denoted and this significatum is a state of affairs

(Expositio aurea in Periherm., prooem.). Likewise, "denotari" is used



562 UMBERTO ECO

for what is demonstrated to be by the conclusion of a syllogism:

"propter quam its est a parte rei sicut denotatur esse per conclusionem

demonstrationis" (STL III, 2, xxiii; see also Moody, 1935, 6, 3). One

could find in Ockham many instances of such an usage. The constant

use of the passive suggests that a proposition does not denote a state

of affairs, but rather that by a proposition a state of affairs is denoted. It

is thus arguable whether the "denotatio" is a relation between a

proposition and what is the case or between a proposition and what is

understood to be the case. Marmo (1984) has decided to translate

"denotatur" as 'dare ad intendere'. By a proposition something is

denoted even though this something does not suppose for anything (STL I, 2, cxii-cxxi).

However, considering that (i) the supposition is an extensional

category and that the verb "denotari" occurs so frequently in con

junction with the mention of the supposition, and (ii) maybe the

proposition does not denote necessarily its truth value but at least it

denotes to somebody that something is or is not the case, one is lead to

suppose that the ockhamist example has encouraged some to use

"denotatio" in extensional contexts.

Because of the radical shift undergone by "significare" between

Bacon and Ockham, "denotare" is now ready to be intended exten

sionally. It is curious to remark that, according to Bacon and Ockham, this

terminological "revolution" concerned first of all "significatio" and

(involved "denotatio" only as a sort of side-effect). But "significatio" was so strongly linked to meaning from the times of Boethius that, so

to speak, it held out more bravely against the attack of the exten

sionalistic point of view. In the following centuries we find

"significatio" used again in an intensional sense (see, for instance,

Locke). Truth-conditional semantics succeeded better in capturing "denotatio", whose semantic status was more ambiguous.

FROM OCKHAM TO MILL

It remains, however, difficult to tell by which process, in the course of

five centuries, "denotatio" results in acquiring the unquestionable extensional status established by Mill. Is there any reason to believe that Mill borrowed from Ockham that idea? There are indeed many




reasons to think that Mill elaborated his System of Logic referring to

the ockhamistic tradition:

(i) Even though paying a remarkable attention to the in

tensional aspects of language, Mill developed a theory of

the denotation of terms in a proposition which is similar to

the ockhamistic theory of supposition. See for instance: "a name can only be said to stand for, or to be the name of, the thing of which it can be predicated" (1843, II, v).

(ii) Mill borrows from the Schoolmen (as he says in II, v) the term "connotation" and, when distinguishing between

connotative and non-connotative terms, he says that the

latter were called "absolute". Gargani (1971, p. 95) traces

this terminology back to the ockhamistic distinction be tween connotative and absolute terms,

(iii) Mill uses "significare" in the ockhamistic way, at least when

it is taken in Ockham first sense. "A non-connotative term

is one which signifies a subject only or an attitude only. A

connotative term is one which denotes a subject, and

implies an attribute" (II, v). Since the denotative function

(in Mill's terms) is first of all performed by non-connotative

terms, it is clear that Mill equates "signify" with "denote".

See also: "the name... is said to signify the subjects

directly, the attributes indirectly; it denotes the subjects and

implies, or involves, or as we shall say henceforth, connotes

the attributes ... The only names of objects which connote

nothing are proper names, and these have, strictly speaking, no signification" (v).

(v) Probably Mill accepts "denote" as a more technical term, less prejudiced than "signify", because of its etymological

opposition to "connote".

Nevertheless we have said that Ockham at most influenced, but by no

means encouraged, the extensional use of "denotare". Where can we

find, in this history of the natural evolution of a term, the missing link?

Probably we should look at Hobbes' De corpore I, better known as

Computatio sive l?gica. It is generally acknowledged that Hobbes

depends on Ockham as well as Mill depends on Hobbes. As a matter

of fact Mill opens his discussion on names with a close examination of

Hobbes' ideas.



564 UMBERTO ECO

We should however remark that Hobbes does follow Ockham as far as the theories of universals and propositions are concerned, but he

develops a different theory of signification. For Hobbes there is a clear cut distinction between signifying (that is, to express the speaker's ideas in the course of an act of communication), and naming (in the

classical sense of "appellare" or "supponere" - see Hungerland and

Vick, 1981). Mill realizes that for Hobbes, names are, first of all, names of our

ideas about things, but he also finds in Hobbes evidence of the fact

that "names... shall always be spoken... as the names of things themselves (1843, II, i),"and that "all names are names of something, real or imaginary... .A general name is familiarly defined, a name

which is capable of being truly affirmed, in the same sense, of each of an indefinite number of things (II, iii)." Mill is here close to Hobbes,

with the marginal difference that he calls "general" those names that

Hobbes called "universal". But Mill uses "signify" - as we have seen -

not in the sense of Hobbes but in the sense of Ockham - and for

Hobbes' notion of "significare" he uses rather "connote". Being

strongly intersted in connotation, and without realizing that his own

connotation is not so dissimilar from Hobbes' signification, Mill bel

ieves Hobbes privileged naming (Mill's denotation) over signifying (Mill's connotation). He says that Hobbes, like the Nominalists in

general, "bestowed little or no attention upon the connotation of

words; and sought for their meaning exclusively in what they denote

(v)." This very curious way of reading Hobbes as if he were Bertrand

Russell is due to the fact that Mill read him as if he were an orthodox

ockhamist.

However, even though Mill took Hobbes for an ockhamist, why did

he attribute to him the idea that names denote? Mill says that Hobbes

used "to name" instead of "to denote" (v) but he probably remarked

that Hobbes in De corpore I used "denotare" in at least four cases -

five in the English translation that Mill probably read, since he quoted Hobbes' work as Computation or logic (see Ungerland and Vick, 1981,

p. 22 and p. 157). A propos of the difference between abstract and concrete names

Hobbes says that "abstractum est quod in re supposita existentem

nominis concreti causam d?not?t, ut 'esse corpus', 'esse mobile'... et

similia ... Nomina autem abstracta causam nominis concreti d?notant, non ipsam rem" (De corpore I, iii, 3). It must be noted that for Hobbes




abstract names do denote a cause, but this cause is not an entity: it is

the criterion according to which an expression is employed (see

Gargani, 1971, p. 86; Hungerland and Vick, 1881, p. 21). Mill

rephrases Hobbes' text in this way: "a concrete name is a name which stands for a thing; an abstract name is a name which stands for an

attribute of a thing" ( 1843, II, v) - where "stands for" is the

ockhamistic "stare pro aliquo". He also adds that he is using such words as 'concrete' and 'abstract' "in the sense annexed to them by the Schoolmen".

Probably Mill extrapolated from Hobbes's quotation that, if abstract names do not denote a thing, the concrete ones certainly do. In fact

for Hobbes "concretum est quod rei alicujus quae existere supponitur nomen est, ideoque quandoque suppositum, quandoque subjectum, graece ypokeimenon appellatur", and two lines above he wrote that in

the proposition corpus est mobile "quandoque rem ipsam cogitamus utroque nomine designatum" (De corpore, I, iii, 3). Thus "designare" appears in a context where it is linked on one side to the idea of

supposition and on the other side to the idea of denotation. It is true that concrete names can be proper either to a singular

thing or to a set of individuals, so that we can say that Hobbes' idea of

denotation, if any, is still mid-way between the "suppositio naturalis" and the "suppositio accidentalis" of Peter of Spain. For this reason it has been remarked (Hungerland and Vick 1981, p. 51 ffg) that

certainly "to denote" has not for Hobbes the same sense that it

acquires in contemporary philosophy of language, because it does not

only apply to logical proper names but also to class names and even to

unexisting entities. But Mill accepts this view. Therefore he could have intended Hobbes' "denote" in an extensional way.

In De corpore (1, ii, 7) Hobbes says that "homo quemlibet e multis

hominibus, philosophus quemlibet e multis philosophis d?not?t propter omnium similitudinem". Thus the denotation concerns again any one

of a multitude of singular individuals, insofar as "homo" and

"philosophus" are concrete names of a class. In De corpore (I, vi, 112) Hobbes says that words are useful for proving through syllogisms because by them we denote the conceptions of singular things. Mill

translated in a clear extensional sense: "a general name ... is capable of being truly affirmed of each of an indefinite number of things" (II,

in). In De corpore (II, ii, 12) it is said that the name "parabola" can



566 UMBERTO ECO

denote both an allegory and a geometrical figure, and it is uncertain if

Hobbes meant "significat" or "nominat".

Thus (i) Hobbes uses "denotare" at least three times in a way that

encourages an extensional interpretation, and in contexts that recall

the ockhamistic use of "significare" and "supponere"; (ii) even though he does not use "denotare" as a technical term, he does consistently

employ it in a way which precludes its interpretation as a synonym of

"significare", as Hungerland and Vick (1881, p. 153) persuasively remark; (iii) it is verisimilar that he did so under the influence of the

otherwise ambiguous "denotari" that he found either in Ockham or in

some logicians of the nominalistic tradition; (iv) Mill disregarded Hobbes' theory of signification and read Computatio sive l?gica as if it

belonged to a totally ockhamistic line of thought; (v) it is verisimilar

that Mill, under the influence of Hobbes' "denotare", decided to

oppose denotation (instead of "naming") to connotation.

These are obviously mere hypotheses. To tell the whole story of

what really happened between Ockham and Hobbes and between

Hobbes and Mill is beyond the possibilities of a single scholar. I only tried to single out a turning point in the history of the philosophy of

language, of semiotics, and of logic, where something happened that

broke a long lasting tradition, thus explaining why we are today still

embarrassed when facing such a term as "denotation".

The embarrassment is not only a terminological one. The 'turning

point' represented by Bacon and Ockham has not in fact eliminated

the opposition between meaning and reference. Such an opposition

keeps going, from Carnap to Montague, from the 'structural seman

tics' and componential analysis to Searle, from the so-called 'dic

tionary-like semantics' to the semantics conceived in a format of an

encyclopedia, from 'instructional semantics' to Artificial Intelligence

(see Eco, 1984, p. 2). In a way the opposition between "significare" and "denotare" is still embarrassing the recent theories of rigid

designation. Is a proper name something that points to the original

baptismal ceremony as to a state of the world, or something that

signifies what was meant by the original namer? From this point of

view one can still find some consistent discrepancies among the

various approaches.

I hope that my revisitation of the origins of the debate can help to

better identify the different standpoints.




NOTE

* I thank Maria Teresa Beonio Brocchieri Fumagalli for her many useful suggestions. I

also thank Andrea Tabarroni, Roberto Lambertini and Costantino Marmo for having

discussed with me some passages of this paper, whose origin was a seminar on the

medieval theory of signs, University of Bologna, Chair of Semiotics, Academic Year

1982-83.

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University of Bologna

I.D.C.,viaToffano2

Bologna

Italy



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