Introductory Readings in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy by Patrick Lee Miller

Author:Patrick Lee Miller [Reeve, C.D.C; Miller, Patrick Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-62466-416-8
Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Published: 2015-03-08T16:00:00+00:00

DE INTERPRETATIONE

1

[16a] We must first establish what names and verbs are, then what negations, affirmations, statements, and sentences are.

Spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the [5] soul, and written marks are symbols of spoken sounds; and just as written marks are not the same for everyone, neither are spoken sounds. But the primary things that these signify (the affections in the soul) are the same for everyone, and what these affections are likenesses of (actual things) are also the same for every one. We have discussed these questions in On the Soul; they belong to another inquiry.

[10] Some thoughts in the soul are neither true nor false, while others must be one or the other; the same is true of spoken sounds. For falsity and truth involve combination and division. Names and verbs by themselves, [15] when nothing is added (for instance, ‘man’ and ‘pale’) are like thoughts without combination and separation, since they are not yet either true or false. A sign of this is the fact that ‘goatstag’ signifies something but is not yet true or false unless ‘is’ or ‘is not’ is added, either without qualification or with reference to time.

2

A name is a spoken sound that is significant by convention, [20] without time, of which no part is significant in separation. For in ‘Grancourt’, the ‘court’ does not signify anything in itself, as it does in the phrase ‘a grand court’. But complex names are not the same as simple ones; for in simple names the part is not at all [25] significant, whereas in complex names the part has some force but does not signify anything in separation — for instance, ‘fact’ in ‘artifact’. I say ‘by convention’ because nothing is a name by nature something is name only if it becomes a symbol. For even inarticulate noises — of beasts, for example — reveal something, but they are not names.

{260} [30] ‘Not-man’ is not a name, nor is any established name rightly applied to it since neither is it a sentence or a negation. Let us call it an indefinite name.

[16b] ‘Philo’s’, ‘to-Philo’, and the like are not names but inflections of names. The same account applies to them as to names, except that a name with ‘is’ or ‘was’ or ‘will be’ added is always true or false, whereas an inflection with them added is neither true nor false. For example, in ‘Philo’s is’ or ‘Philo’s is not’ nothing [5] is yet either true or false.

3

A verb is [a spoken sound] of which no part signifies separately, and which additionally signifies time; it is a sign of things said of something else. By ‘additionally signifies time’, I mean that, for instance, ‘recovery’ is a name but ‘recovers’ is a verb; for it additionally signifies something’s holding now. And it [10] is always a sign of something’s holding, i.e. of something’s holding of a subject.

I do not call ‘does not recover’ and ‘does not ail’ verbs; for, although they additionally signify time and always hold of something, there is difference for which there is not established name.

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