1 On the Term in General
1: On the Term in General All those who treat of logic try to show that arguments are composed of porpositions and propositions of terms. Thus, a term is simply a component part of a proposition. When he defines the notion of a term in the first book of the Prior Analytics, Aristotle says, "I call that a term into which a proposition is resolved (i.e., the predicate or that of which it is predicated), when it is asserted or denied that something is or is not the case.""
Although every term is (or could be) a part of a proposition, not all terms are of the same kind. Thus, to gain a full understanding of the nature of terms one must know some of the divisions that are drawn among them.
As Boethius points out in his Commentary on the first book of the De Interpretatione, discourse is of three types—the written, the spoken, and the conceptual (this last existing only in the mind.)? In the same way there are three sorts of terms—written, spoken, and conceptual. The written term is a part of a proposition which has been inscribed on something material and is capable of being seen by the bodily eye. The spoken term is a part of a proposition which has been uttered aloud and is capable of being heard with the bodily ear. The conceptual term is an intention or impression of the soul which signifies or consignifies something naturally and is capable of being a part of mental proposition and of suppositing in such a proposition for the thing it signifies. Thus, these conceptual terms and the propositions composed of them are the mental words which, according to St. Augustine in chapter 15 of De
Trinitate, belong to no language.? They reside in the intellect alone and are 124? 16-18.
2Patrologia Latina, J. P. Migne, ed. (Paris, 1847), T. 64, 297 B.
On the Term in General incapable of being uttered aloud, although the spoken words which are subordinated to them as signs are uttered aloud.
I say that spoken words are signs subordinated to concepts or intentions of the soul not because in the strict sense of 'signify' they always signify the concepts of the soul primarily and properly. The point is rather that spoken words are used to signify the very things that are signified by concepts of the mind, so that a concept primarily and naturally signifies something and a spoken word signifies the same thing secondarily. Thus, suppose a spoken word is used to signify something signified by a particular concept of the mind. If that concept were to change its signification, by that fact alone it would happen that the spoken word would change its signification, even in the absence of any new linguistic convention.
This is all that Aristotle means when he says that spoken words are signs of the impressions of the soul* and Boethius means the same thing when he says that spoken words signify concepts. In general, whenever writers say that all spoken words signify or serve as signs of impressions, they only mean that spoken words secondarily signify the things impressions of the soul primarily signify. Nonetheless, it is true that some spoken words primarily designate impressions of the soul or concepts, but these words secondarily designate other intentions of the soul as will be shown later.
The same sort of relation I have claimed to hold between spoken words and impressions or intentions or concepts holds between written words and spoken words.
Now, there are certain differences among these three kinds of terms. For one thing the concept or impression of the soul signifies naturally; whereas the spoken or written term signifies only conventionally. This difference gives rise to a further difference. We can decide to alter the signification of a spoken or written term, but no decision or agreement on the part of anyone can have the effect of altering the signification of a conceptual term.
Nevertheless, to silence hairsplitters it should be pointed out that the word 'sign' has two different senses. In one sense a sign is anything which when apprehended brings something else to mind. Here, a sign need not, as has been shown elsewhere, enable us to grasp the thing signified for the first time, but only after we have some sort of habitual knowledge of the thing. In this sense of 'sign' the spoken word is a natural sign of a thing, the effect is a sign ofits cause, and the barrel-hoop is a sign of wine in the tavern. However, I have not been using the term 'sign' in this wide sense. In another sense a sign is anything which (1) brings something to mind and can supposit for that thing; (2) can be added to a sign of this sort in a proposition (e.g., syncategorematic ex4 16? 3-7.