Significado y Mente en Aristóteles

Abstract

Aristotle’s concern for meaning and mind, in the compact opening lines of De Interpretatione (16a3-8) together with the sequel of the next six chapters of this treatise, have been read (both historically and contemporary) in heavily different ways. Discrepancies reach even the kind of project this text carries out, whether engaged in a theory of language and meaning closely linked to Aristotle’s explanation of mental representation or rather engaged primarily in dialectical refutation without particular interest on meaning and mind. Yet, it is held -almost without exception among contemporary interpreters- that Aristotle explains (there and everywhere) meaning in terms of mental representation, and that somehow he takes mental representation to be dependent strongly on images which produce a mental likeness to the external object. So it goes nearly uncontested that mainly imagination must be responsible for meaning. This is a controversial assumption that I will dispute here by providing a detailed account of De Interpretatione (and some other related texts of the Organon) and by uncovering the psychological support for semantics (mostly found in De Anima and Parva Naturalia). Two main theses will be here argued for. First, I will contend that Aristotle is committed to a moderate linguistic conventionalism through which he can manage to preserve the intentional content of significant sounds as well as to avoid the shortcomings of any explanation of meaning in terms of images and likeness. Second, I will give several reasons Aristotle would have for explaining meaning on the basis of intellect rather than imagination. As a result, Aristotle will be exonerated from the common blame of having countenanced a natural imitation (based on images) to secure the reference of words.