A Medieval copy of Aristotle: Ockham

The Semiotic studies the significance of words and their use, hence their mean, an example: an offence to somebody on the street is an offence to somebody that we can know or not, the same offence in theatre is laughable, because the context is different, whereby it isn’t an offence but a cute of script; thereby the words have more means in the different context, it is simply obvious, but I must say it because the code of Semiotic isn’t much know, this is it isn’t obvious; I am considering the code of Semiotic, that alone during the 19^th century has been codified, but the matter, or conceptual matter, necessary to successive formulation is explained involuntary from Aristotle. The semiotic sense that in Nominalism of Ockham we can find in the following step: “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 points is rather that spoken words are used to signify the very things that are signified something a spoken word signify the something signified by a particular concept of the mind. If that the 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”. May William dreaded that he didn’t be quite clear, hence has added also this step, mentioning the father of semiotic, this is Aristotle: “This is all that Aristotle means when he says that spoken words are signs of the impression 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 secondarily signify the thing impression of the soul primarily signify. Nonetheless, it is true that some spoken words primarily designate impressions of the soul as will be shown later.”, An error is present in this description of Ockham because he thought that De interpretatione of Boethius was a independent book of same philosopher, instead it was a translation from Περί έρμηνείας of Aristotle, that Ockham could not read because he didn’t know the ancient Greek; therefore he has took from same author, this is Aristotle, an interpretation, he could not know it, but he has given to us an important datum, what is? Simple that Aristotle is philosophic father of semiotic instead that Charles Sanders Peirce(1839-1914) and Ferdinand de Saussure(1857-1913), they have given more precise indication regard the codes and method, for interpretation and use the semiotic, but they have rightly given the methodologic codes, but the first use, although isn’t official, is from Aristotle from the Analytic and form the Περί έρμηνείας; there is the first conceptual definition and use, although, I repeat, involuntary of semiotic. This hypothesis is confirmed from the steps that Ockham has took and he has almost copied: “Now, there are certain difference 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 given 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.”. The Semiotic studies the significance of words and their use.

Alessandro Lusana