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Historical-Analytical Studies on Nature, Mind and Action 5

Jenny Pelletier
Magali Roques Editors

The Language
of Thought in
Late Medieval
Philosophy
Essays in Honor of Claude Panaccio
Historical-Analytical Studies on Nature,
Mind and Action

Volume 5

Editor-in-Chief
Professor Gyula Klima, Fordham University
Editors
Dr. Russell Wilcox, University of Navarra
Professor Henrik Lagerlund, University of Western Ontario
Professor Jonathan Jacobs, CUNY, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Advisory Board
Dan Bonevac, University of Texas
Sarah Borden, Wheaton College
Edward Feser, Pasadena College
Jorge Garcia, University of Buffalo
William Jaworski, Fordham University
Joseph E. Davis, University of Virginia
Stephan Meier-Oeser, Academy of Sciences of Göttingen
José Ignacio Murillo, University of Navarra
Calvin Normore, UCLA
Penelope Rush, University of Tasmania
Jack Zupko, University of Alberta
Historical-Analytical Studies on Nature, Mind and Action provides a forum for
integrative, multidisciplinary, analytic studies in the areas of philosophy of nature,
philosophical anthropology, and the philosophy of mind and action in their social
setting. Tackling these subject areas from both a historical and contemporary
systematic perspective, this approach allows for various “paradigm-straddlers” to
come together under a common umbrella. Digging down to the conceptual-historical
roots of contemporary problems, one will inevitably find common strands which
have since branched out into isolated disciplines. This series seeks to fill the void for
studies that reach beyond their own strictly defined boundaries not only
synchronically (reaching out to contemporary disciplines), but also diachronically,
by investigating the unquestioned contemporary presumptions of their own
discipline by taking a look at the historical development of those presumptions and
the key concepts they involve. This series, providing a common forum for this
sort of research in a wide range of disciplines, is designed to work against the well-
known phenomenon of disciplinary isolation by seeking answers to our fundamental
questions of the human condition: What is there? – What can we know about it? –
What should we do about it? – indicated by the three key-words in the series title:
Nature, Mind and Action. This series will publish monographs, edited volumes,
revised doctoral theses and translations.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11934


Jenny Pelletier • Magali Roques
Editors

The Language of Thought


in Late Medieval Philosophy
Essays in Honor of Claude Panaccio

123
Editors
Jenny Pelletier Magali Roques
University of Leuven – Research Department of Philosophy
Foundation Flanders University of Hamburg –
Leuven, Belgium Laboratoire d’Etudes sur les
Monothéismes (UMR 8485)
Hamburg, Germany

ISSN 2509-4793 ISSN 2509-4807 (electronic)


Historical-Analytical Studies on Nature, Mind and Action
ISBN 978-3-319-66633-4 ISBN 978-3-319-66634-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66634-1

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Preface

In the summer of 2014, Claude Panaccio invited both of us to attend the final
installment of his annual Montreal Workshop on Nominalism before his retirement
from the Université de Québec à Montréal. The theme of the 2015 workshop would
be Ockham, and it was his intention, he told us, to invite the current and up-
coming generation of Ockham scholars. This gesture, the deliberate inclusion of
younger scholars was a generous one and characteristic of his general conduct.
The importance of his contribution to the history of late medieval philosophy is
undisputable and for that alone a volume such as this would be justified. But over
the years he has also helped many of us find our way through Ockham’s challenging
and dense texts, and provided us with significant academic support. We both, for
instance, spent time in Montreal as post-doctoral researchers thanks to him while he
held the Chaire de recherche du Canada en Théorie de la connaissance at UQAM.
And so, we each – independently at first – thought of putting together a collection
of essays that would honor his exemplary scholarship but also his kindness,
encouragement, and assistance. The number of contributors to this volume, which
includes his peers, colleagues, and former students, is a testament to how much he
and his work is respected. We would like to thank Claude Panaccio for having agreed
to this book and we hope that it pleases him. In particular, we are very grateful that
he took the time to conduct the interview and for his own contribution. We would
also like to thank Gyula Klima for having so enthusiastically taken on this project
for his series at Springer.
Jenny Pelletier would like to thank Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) for
their ongoing financial support, and the Institute of Philosophy at the University
of Leuven. She is indebted to Russell L. Friedman for always giving excellent and
prompt advice, and Claude Panaccio for his unfailing encouragement in making
sense of Ockham. Of the many people who have fostered her interest in Ockham
and late medieval philosophy, she would like to mention the incomparable Marilyn
McCord Adams, who died on the eve of submitting the manuscript. She will be
missed and very fondly remembered. Finally, Jenny would like to thank Vincent,
Sevren, and little Clea, whose birth meant a hiatus from editing work.

v
vi Preface

Magali Roques would like to thank all the institutions that gave her financial
support during the preparation of the volume and, in particular, The Dahlem
Research School of the Freie Universität Berlin, the Department of Philosophy
at the University of Geneva and the Fondation des Treilles. She also thanks all
the people who have nurtured her passion for Ockham, especially her doctoral
supervisor Joël Biard, her post-doctoral supervisors Claude Panaccio, Dominik
Perler, Bernd Roling and Laurent Cesalli, as well as her colleagues and friends
Christophe Grellard, Aurélien Robert, and Nicolas Faucher.

Leuven, Belgium Jenny Pelletier


Hamburg, Germany Magali Roques
Contents

1 An Introduction to Mental Language in Late Medieval


Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Magali Roques and Jenny Pelletier
2 An Interview with Claude Panaccio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Jenny Pelletier and Magali Roques

Part I Ockham
3 A Crucial Distinction in William of Ockham’s Philosophy
of Mind: Cognitio in se/cognitio in alio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Aurélien Robert
4 Causation and Mental Content: Against the Externalist
Reading of Ockham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Susan Brower-Toland
5 Likeness Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Calvin G. Normore
6 Ockham’s Semantics of Real Definitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Magali Roques
7 Is There a Metaphysical Approach to the Transcendentals
in Ockham? The Case of the Good . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Jenny Pelletier
8 Intellections and Volitions: Ockham’s Voluntarism
Reconsidered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Sonja Schierbaum
9 The Metatheoretical Framework of William of Ockham’s
Modal Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Ernesto Perini-Santos

vii
viii Contents

10 Ockham on Mental Syncategoremata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149


Fabrizio Amerini

Part II Ockham and His Contemporaries


11 The Role of the Speaker in Roger Bacon and William
of Ockham’s Supposition Theories: A Contrast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Frédéric Goubier
12 Peter Auriol and William of Ockham on a Medieval Version
of the Argument from Illusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Martin Pickavé
13 Raisons de croire et vouloir croire: le débat entre Durand de
Saint-Pourçain, Gauthier Chatton et Guillaume d’Ockham . . . . . . . . . 201
David Piché
14 The Syllogism as Defined by Aristotle, Ockham, and Buridan . . . . . . . 217
Catarina Dutilh Novaes
15 Burley, Ockham, and English Logicians on Impositio as a Type
of Obligatio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
E. Jennifer Ashworth

Part III Ockham in His Broader Context


16 Understanding as Attending. Semantics, Psychology
and Ontology in Peter Abelard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Irène Rosier-Catach
17 La triade farabienne du logos, son parallèle grec et son écho
latin chez Arnoul de Provence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Claude Lafleur and Joanne Carrier
18 Psammetichus’s Experiment and the Scholastics: Is Language
Innate? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Sten Ebbesen
19 James of Viterbo on Universals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Antoine Côté
20 The Science of Psychology in Ockham’s Oxford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Peter King
21 Durand of St.-Pourçain and Cognitive Habits (Sent. A=B III, d.
23, qq. 1–2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Peter John Hartman
22 Thought-Transplants, Demons, and Modalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
Gyula Klima
Contents ix

23 Sensory Awareness and Self-Awareness in Buridan and Oresme . . . . . 383


Jack Zupko
24 Évidence et raisons probables: Pierre d’Ailly et la scientificité
de la théologie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
Joël Biard
25 Présentation et représentation. Aux origines
du “représentationnalisme” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
Alain de Libera

Part IV Conclusion
26 Grasping the Philosophical Relevance of Past Philosophies . . . . . . . . . . . 439
Claude Panaccio

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
Chapter 1
An Introduction to Mental Language in Late
Medieval Philosophy

Magali Roques and Jenny Pelletier

Abstract The introduction to this volume is divided into two parts. The first part
includes an overview of the state of the art on mental language as a key topic and
tool in the philosophical analyses of the fourteenth century. We describe the current
state of scholarship in five main areas: (1) the mental language hypothesis in general
and in the work of William of Ockham in particular; (2) the comparison of Ockham
to John Buridan (1295/1300–1358/61), another leading figure in the first half of
fourteenth century, on mental language and related semantic issues; (3) situating
Ockham within a broader context by examining themes in mental language in other
philosophers both preceding and following him; (4) developments in Ockham’s
semantics and its connection to concept formation and cognitive psychology; (5)
the relationship, if any, between mental language and nominalism. The second part
of the introduction briefly describes the chapters of the present volume and explains
their organization.

Keywords Mental language • Ockham • Buridan • Supposition theory


• Concept theory • Nominalism • Cognitive psychology • Externalism
• Consciousness

This volume of collected essays seeks to honor Claude Panaccio’s immense


contribution to our knowledge of late medieval philosophy. He has long been
recognized as one of the leading experts on the thought of William of Ockham (ca.
1285–1347) and more generally on late medieval philosophy of language, mind, and
metaphysics. Panaccio is a pioneer of an approach to studying the various debates
and problems of late medieval philosophy that explicitly makes use of developments

M. Roques ()
Department of Philosophy, University of Hamburg – Laboratoire d’Etudes sur les Monothéismes
(UMR 8485), Hamburg, Germany
e-mail: magali.roques@uni-hamburg.de
J. Pelletier
University of Leuven – Research Foundation Flanders, Leuven, Belgium
e-mail: jenny.pelletier@kuleuven.be

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 1


J. Pelletier, M. Roques (eds.), The Language of Thought in Late Medieval Philosophy,
Historical-Analytical Studies on Nature, Mind and Action 5,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66634-1_1
2 M. Roques and J. Pelletier

in contemporary analytic philosophy. In doing so, he has exemplified the spirit of the
Cambridge History of Late Medieval Philosophy, published in 1982, and influenced
a generation of scholars on how to think about medieval philosophy.
This introduction is divided into two parts. The first part includes a detailed
though not exhaustive overview of the state of the art on mental language as a key
topic and tool in the philosophical analyses of the fourteenth century. As one of
Panaccio’s most significant contributions to the history of philosophy,1 his work on
mental language and Ockham’s theory of mental language in particular naturally
presented itself as an appropriate topic even though not every chapter in this volume
deals with mental language. The second part of this introduction briefly describes
the chapters of the present volume and explains their organization.

1.1 The Late Medieval Language of Thought2

We describe the current state of scholarship in five main areas. We begin with the
mental language hypothesis in general and in the work of Ockham in particular.
Having delineated Ockham’s account of mental language, we identify three signifi-
cant trends or waves in the scholarship on the medieval history of mental language of
the last forty years, which take their point of departure from Ockham. A first wave of
research has compared Ockham to John Buridan (1295/1300–1358/61) specifically,
another leading figure in the first half of the fourteenth century, on related semantic
issues. A second wave of research has sought to place Ockham in a broader context
by examining themes in mental language in other philosophers both preceding and
following him. A third wave of research has focused on developments in Ockham’s
semantics and its connection to concept formation and cognitive psychology. We
conclude with a brief overview of research on mental language and nominalism and
whether there is any privileged relationship between the two.

1.1.1 What Is Mental Language?

To count as a mental language, a system of representation must have several features


that Calvin Normore (2009, 294) describes as follows:
First it must be a medium in which thinking is carried on. Second it must have a syntax
which is similar for all thinkers and which makes it possible to combine elements of thought

1
Mental Language. From Plato to William of Ockham (Panaccio 2017), an English translation of
his essential work, Le Discours intérieur. De Platon à Guillaume d’Ockham was published this
year with a new postscript.
2
We would like to thank Joël Biard, Gyula Klima, and Stephan Schmid for their invaluable
comments on an earlier draft of this part of the introduction.
1 An Introduction to Mental Language in Late Medieval Philosophy 3

so as to form other items which are capable of representing and of bearing truth-values.
Third it must be expressively complete in the sense that anything which can be expressed in
any natural language could in principle be expressed in it. Fourth it must be prior to natural
language in the sense that one does not need already to have a natural language in order to
have (or to acquire) it. Fifth it must be such that elements of natural languages have their
meaning in virtue of relations they bear to its elements so that if its elements were to behave
differently semantically the corresponding elements of each natural language would also
behave differently.

At first sight, this classical description of the nature and structure of mental
language perfectly fits Ockham’s theory of mental language. Indeed, in the first
chapter of the Sum of Logic, Ockham claims that propositions and their terms are of
three sorts: written, spoken, and conceived (SL I, c. 1, OPh I, 7, ll. 13–16).3 He then
writes that spoken terms signify what they signify because they are subordinated
to mental terms (SL I, c. 1, OPh I, 7, ll. 19–21). “If a mental term were to change
its signification,” Calvin Normore explains, “the subordinated spoken term would
as well” (Normore 1990, 54; SL I, c. 1, OPh I, 7–8, ll. 26–34). Ockham goes one
step further and claims that every true or false utterance corresponds to a mental
proposition composed of concepts (SL I, c. 3, OPh I, 14, ll. 85–86). The mind
constructs mental propositions using component concepts that are natural likenesses
of what they signify (Panaccio 1992, 1999a; Biard 2009). Since mental language is
in principle the same for all language-users, it is not the private language criticized
by Wittgenstein in Logical Investigations. Human concepts are not inaccessible,
private mental states.4 Moreover, mental language has a grammar. It includes names
(nouns and adjectives), verbs, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions.
Mental names have accidents, like case, number, and comparison (SL I, c. 3, OPh I,
11, ll. 5–12; Quodl. V, q. 8, OTh IX, 509, ll. 12–17).
At the beginning of his Sum of Logic, Ockham refers to Boethius’s three kinds
of propositions and Augustine’s doctrine of the inner word but in fact his theory
has no antecedent (Biard 1989; Panaccio 1999a. Cf. Trentman 1970; Karger 1996).
Panaccio (2003, 46) summarizes Ockham’s innovation as follows:
The whole Aristotelian tradition in logic and philosophy of mind had required from the start
the existence of mental propositions governed by a principle of semantical compositionality:
truth and falsity were considered as properties of complex mental units (mental proposi-
tions), which somehow resulted from the referential functions of their mental components
(Aristotle’s noemata – the concepts). Aristotle, however, had not provided any interesting
theoretical tools for a precise explanation of this semantical compositionality of mental
propositions. It was left to late medieval philosophers – especially Ockham, Buridan, and
their followers – to do just that. And they did it precisely by transposing the theoretical
apparatus of supposition-theory to the analysis of inner thought.5

3
Throughout the present introduction, we will use the term “proposition” in its medieval accepta-
tion, that is, corresponding to what are now known as declarative (meaningful) sentence-tokens.
4
This question received a different answer among the modist authors who also defended the idea
of a universal grammar. See Sten Ebbesen’s chapter in this volume.
5
What medieval logicians called “suppositio” is the referential function that a term receives when it
is used as subject or predicate within a proposition. This quotation is a brief summary of Panaccio’s
4 M. Roques and J. Pelletier

Ockham transferred supposition theory – initially elaborated for the analysis of


spoken discourse – to the analysis of inner thought. As a consequence, the principle
of semantical compositionality applies to mental discourse. In other words, the
core of Ockham’s theory of mental language is the famous claim that thought is
syntactically organized like a language. Even though former logicians working in
the Aristotelian framework established a strong link between language and thought,
they did not systematically apply the principle of the semantical compositionality
of mental propositions with the rigor and detail Ockham did.6
Some scholars accuse Ockham of carrying the analogy between thought and
spoken language much too far. According to Peter Geach, Ockham merely transfers
Latin grammatical features to mental language and then accounts for the features
of Latin by reference to the features of mental language (Geach 1957, 102). The
criticism that Ockham’s mental language derives its semantics and syntax from that
of a natural language has never disappeared since Geach first raised it. This may
be due to the fact that Ockham, Buridan and others in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries never argued for the assumption of mental language nor explained its
function but merely presupposed it in dealing with philosophical problems.
Unsurprisingly, the question of mental language’s function has garnered signifi-
cant scholarly attention. The point of departure is the third chapter of the Sum of
Logic, where Ockham highlights an important discrepancy between mental and
spoken language (SL I, c. 3, OPh I, 11, ll. 17–22).7 Invoking a variant of his
principle of parsimony, Ockham claims that the diversity and plurality found in
spoken language should not be admitted in its mental counterpart unless it is relevant
for truth and falsity and thus for logical consequence. According to Calvin Normore,
“this is amplified by his claim in Summa Logicae I, c. 13 that, strictly speaking, not
term or concept of mental language can be equivocal” (Normore 1990, 54). Indeed,
by definition to be equivocal means to be subordinated to more than one concept
(SL I, c. 13, OPh I, 44–45, ll. 10–15). Ockham’s claims strongly suggest that mental
language is an ideal language intended to provide the deep structure necessary for
a satisfactory analysis of the surface phenomena of spoken language(s) (Trentman
1970; Spade 1975, 1980; Boler 1985; Adams 1987, 322ff.; Normore 1990). On
this interpretation, mental language is characterized by its expressive adequacy and
its unambiguity, “containing just those distinctions relevant to the truth-value of
sentences” (Normore 1990, 55).8
If this interpretation is correct, then one of the main functions of mental language
would be to disambiguate spoken expressions. This is exactly what Paul Spade

main claim in his 1999 book (Panaccio 1999a). For more details on the “prehistory” of the notion
of mental language, see Claude Lafleur and Joanne Carrier’s chapter in this volume.
6
There are various hints in earlier authors that indicate that they had an idea of the semantic
compositionality of mental language, even if it did not play the systematic role it did in Ockham’s
logic. See, for instance, Hochschild (2015).
7
Ockham is even clearer in Quodl. V, q. 8, OTh IX, 509.
8
For a history of this debate see Calvin Normore’s chapter in this volume.
1 An Introduction to Mental Language in Late Medieval Philosophy 5

(1975) suggested. He believed that, according to Ockham, a simple connotative term


(e.g. “white”) and its nominal definition (e.g. “something that a whiteness inheres
in”) are synonymous, two expressions being synonymous if and only if they signify
the same things in the same way (SL I, c. 6, OPh I, 19, ll. 8–16. Cf. Quodl. V,
q. 10, OTh IX, 518, ll. 17–28).9 This implies, however, that there is no place in
mental language for both the complex expression and its nominal definition since the
“ideality” of mental language prohibits synonymy as a redundancy. Ockham would
thus hold what has been called “the classical view” on concepts, that is, the view
according to which all our connotative concepts are complex, composed of absolute
terms and logical operators or syncategoremata (Panaccio 2004, 85).10 He would
deny, in short, the existence of simple connotative concepts in mental language.
Panaccio seriously challenged this interpretation (Panaccio 2004, but also
Tweedale 1992; Chalmers 1999; Gaskin 2001). He showed that at least some simple
connotative terms, namely relative terms, do exist in mental language, arguing
that a nominal definition does not have to be synonymous with its definiendum.
Panaccio concludes (2004, 90) that “the role of nominal definitions is not to
eliminate connotative terms, but to show, on the contrary, that they are ontologically
innocuous, even when they are ineliminable.”11
Although apparently narrowly focused on the inclusion of simple connotative
concepts in mental language, Panaccio’s criticism targets the wider view that
Ockham’s mental language is ideal. If mental language contains connotative terms
and expressions such as nominal definitions, then mental language contains redun-
dancies. Instead of arguing that mental language is ideal, Panaccio’s alternative
interpretation takes mental language to be part of a broader nominalist program.
In particular, he claims that the function of nominal definitions is to uncover the
ontological commitment of connotative terms (2004, 96–97). Indeed, Klima (2012)
believes that Ockham’s nominalism does so without trying to identify the absolute
semantic primitives of mental language, contrary to the aspirations of modern
nominalist programs, such as that of Goodman and Quine.

9
The complex expressions in question are connotative terms like “white,” which are opposed to
absolute terms. The distinction is outlined in SL I, c. 10, OPh I, 35, ll. 6–13. According to Panaccio
(2004, 63), “certain signs – the connotative ones such as “white,” “father,” “movement,” “time,”
and a lot of others – are endowed with a hierarchized internal semantical structure: in addition to
their primary signification, they are said to have a connotation (or secondary signification) and this
semantical duality allows in crucial cases for major ontological simplifications.”
10
A categorematic term has signification; a syncategorematic term has no signification by itself,
but alters the signification of categorematic terms (SL I, c. 4, OPh I, ll. 15–16). An absolute term is
a term that has only a primary signification, while a connotative term is a term that has a primary
signification and a secondary signification (SL I, c. 10, OPh I, 35, ll. 6–13). For the problems raised
by this distinction for Ockham’s theory of mental language, see Fabrizio Amerini’s chapter in this
volume.
11
Panaccio’s point has been taken up by Roques (2016a), who has studied the consequences of
Ockham’s theory of real definition for his semantics, epistemology, and metaphysics. See her
chapter in this volume as well.
6 M. Roques and J. Pelletier

Another challenge to the “ideality” of Ockham’s mental language came from


Ockham’s claim that there can be equivocation of the third type in mental language
(SL I, c. 64, OPh I, 197; SL I, c. 67, OPh I, 207). This kind of equivocation concerns
terms that stand in simple supposition in a proposition. As Panaccio explains, “there
are three main varieties of supposition” (Panaccio 1999b, 59; cf. SL I, c. 64, OPh
I, 195). “The most basic one is personal supposition. It corresponds to the normal
use of a subject or predicate term as standing for its primary significates” (Panaccio
1999b, 59; cf. SL I, c. 64, OPh I, 195, ll. 4–9). However, a term can be used non-
significatively and in that case, “it does not stand for its significates” (Panaccio
1999b, 59), as when a term stands in material or simple supposition. If, to take up
Panaccio’s example, the proposition “horse is an English noun” is true, then “‘horse’
must be taken in this proposition as standing not for real horses but for spoken or
written tokens of the word ‘horse.’ This is material supposition” (Panaccio 1999b,
59; cf. SL I, c. 64, OPh I, 195, ll. 38–42). Finally, “when the term stands non-
significatively but for the natural mental signs to which it is subordinated, rather
than spoken or written ones, as ‘horse’ does in ‘horse is a concept,’ it is said to be
taken in simple supposition” (Panaccio 1999b, 59; cf. SL I, c. 64, OPh I, 195, ll.
26–32; Panaccio 1999b, 59).
Equivocation of the third type occurs when a term in a proposition can be
understood either in personal or in material or simple supposition. Ockham accepts
that ambiguities about what a term supposits for can be clarified in mental language
by taking into consideration certain extra-propositional factors such as the thinker’s
intention (SL I, c. 65, OPh I, 197, ll. 3–8; Panaccio and Perini-Santos 2004; Dutilh
Novaes 2007).12 He also explicitly claims that equivocation of the third type can
occur in mental language (SL III-4, c. 4, OPh I, 763, ll. 113–118). If mental
language contains terms which are ambiguous in such a way that the ambiguity
can be resolved only by appeal to contextual and pragmatic factors, it will not be
expressively powerful enough to be ideal (Normore 1997). Just what the function of
mental language is, then, remains open to debate.
Nonetheless, the assumption of a mental language has become the standard
methodological principle for the analysis of the structure of thought in late
scholasticism, at least from the early fourteenth century to the first half of the
sixteenth century. Among many others, Panaccio mentions Walter Burley, William
of Ockham, William Crathorn, William Heytesbury, Adam Wodeham, Robert
Holcot, Gregory of Rimini, John Buridan, Albert of Saxony, Pierre d’Ailly, John
Dorp, Paul of Venice, Jeronimo Pardo, Juan de Celaya, Fernando de Enzinas, and
John Major (Panaccio forthcoming, 37).13 To date, two striking fourteenth-century
critiques have been studied: Hugh Lawton’s (Gelber 1984) and William Crathorn’s
(Perler 1997; Robert 2009, 2016). Crathorn claims that all mental terms are the

12
See Frédéric Goubier’s chapter in this volume.
13
We could add Richard Brinkley to this list, since in his Insolubilia he develops an original
interpretation of the relation of subordination usually established between terms of spoken
language and mental language. See Jennifer Ashworth’s chapter in this volume for a more detailed
account of Brinkley’s view.
1 An Introduction to Mental Language in Late Medieval Philosophy 7

mental images of spoken terms, while Hugh of Lawton simply denies that there is
any mental language at all. Against these and others, other logicians, often from a
Dominican background such as Vincent Ferrer (ca. 1379), prefer an account of the
relation between thought and language closer to that of Aquinas’s (Trentman 1968).
Yet other theologians such as Gregory of Rimini argue that there are two kinds of
mental language: a mental language that is the mental image of spoken language
and a mental language composed of simple mental propositional acts. Despite these
exceptions, the assumption of a mental language was generally accepted until the
early modern period (Ashworth 1974; Biard 2009).
The historical significance of Ockham’s mental language hypothesis is not
limited to the medieval period. It seems to be very close to the famous “Language
of Thought Hypothesis” (LOTH) advocated by Jerry Fodor (1975, 1998).14 In his
analysis, Fodor metaphorically describes the mind as a computer, since “computers
show us how to connect semantical with causal properties for symbols. So, if having
a propositional attitude involves tokening a symbol, then we can get some leverage
on connecting semantical properties with causal ones for thoughts” (Fodor 1975,
20–21). Thought has a semantical and syntactical structure. Fodor’s core hypothesis
is that the language of thought is innate on the grounds that otherwise one could not
explain how it is possible to learn a language.
Connections between Ockham’s mental language and LOTH have been explored
by several scholars (Normore 1990; Read and Bos 2001, 4–7; Read 2015; Schier-
baum 2014a). For instance, Normore says that “[ : : : ] a mental language of the
sort Ockham describes seems very attractive. It offers the avid psychosemanticist
all the internal representational and computational character that could be wanted,
while preserving for empiricism the spirit and mist of the letter of the dictum
that there is nothing in the mind which was not previously in the senses.” Other
scholars have contested the relevance of comparing Ockham to Fodor. For instance,
Panaccio (1992, 91) insists on the fact that for Ockham, mental representation is not
something purely internal to the subject, while Fodor holds that it is. This debate
likewise remains open.

1.1.2 Ockham and Buridan

What has first and foremost sparked the interest of scholars remains the similarities
and differences between the two main defenders of the mental language hypothesis,
namely Ockham and Buridan. For Ockham, a concept immediately signifies the
thing(s) that the spoken term subordinated to it also signifies. John Buridan
conceives of the connection between spoken and mental terms differently. For
him, a spoken term directly signifies a concept, not an extra-mental thing (De
suppositionibus, ed. van der Lecq, 39). Moreover, according to Ria van der Lecq, “in
Buridan’s semantics, [...] concepts are not signs in the strict sense and, consequently,

14
For an introduction to LOTH see Aydede (2010).
8 M. Roques and J. Pelletier

signification is not a property of a mental term” (van der Leq 2009, 3). This explains
why some scholars have argued that unlike Ockham, who explicitly considers
mental terms to be natural signs, “Buridan tends to take spoken language as his
starting point” (van der Lecq 2009, 3; Reina 1959; Biard 1989, 199).15
However, with respect to the theory of supposition Buridan is very close
to Ockham. Although Buridan makes his point indirectly, claiming that, for
instance, “no mental term in a mental proposition supposits materially but rather
always personally [ : : : ]” (De fallaciis, 7.3.4; translation by Klima, 522), we
can deduce that “supposition is a property of spoken and mental terms alike”
(van der Lecq 2009, 3). Like Ockham, Buridan holds that the terms of mental
language are concepts and that propositions in mental language are acts of thought
(QLP I.7, ed. Tatarsynski, 33, ll. 20–28; Nuchelmans 1973, 243; Biard 1989, 201).
Buridan claims that “something is called a spoken expression or proposition only
because it designates a mental expression or proposition, and a spoken proposition
is called true or false only because it designates a true or false mental proposition
[ : : : ]” (De propositionibus 1.1.6, translation by Klima, 10). According to Panaccio,
Buridan merely utilizes a terminology concerning signification different from that
of Ockham for strategic reasons, in order to neutralize any apparent provocative
departure from the traditional way of speaking to some degree (Panaccio 1999b,
297–298). Panaccio believes that Buridan would be a firm defender of the mental
language hypothesis, just as Ockham was.
Buridan’s theory of mental language would be even more elaborate and coherent
than Ockham’s. Buridan holds that there is no ambiguity in mental language and
so he denies that there is any kind of supposition in mental language apart from
personal supposition (De fallaciis 7.3.4; van der Lecq 2009). As Panaccio explains
(2013, 380), for Buridan “in the mental propositions corresponding to spoken and
written propositions such as ‘man is a word’ (where ‘man’ has simple supposition),
the subject term is not the mental concept of man itself, but the concept of the
word ‘man’ in the first case, and the second-order concept of the concept of
man in the second case.” By contrast, Ockham is known for having accepted the
possibility of ambiguity in mental language, as noted above. Indeed, for him the
terms of mental propositions can have material supposition, which means that the
mental propositions containing terms that can be taken in material supposition are
ambiguous, since any term can always be taken in personal supposition. Albert of
Saxony later tried to find a middle way between Ockham and Buridan (Berger 1991).
Most commentators have favored Buridan’s approach as the more philosophically
sound. Spade, for instance, has argued that the presence of material supposition in

15
Klima (2009, 27–30) disagrees with this interpretation of Buridan’s concept of signification. He
believes that, for Buridan, the immediate signification of concepts by spoken terms is the same as,
according to Ockham, the spoken terms’ subordination to those concepts. In fact, Klima believes,
Buridan also uses the terminology of subordination as referring to the inverse relation of immediate
signification. So, their conception of the Aristotelian “semantic triangle” (of the relationships
between words, concepts and things) would be the same, despite the occasional terminological
variation.
1 An Introduction to Mental Language in Late Medieval Philosophy 9

mental language, as Ockham would have it, leads to the possibility of ambiguities
within human thought itself, which Spade took to be at odds with the idea of a
logically ideal language, writing, “we do not always know what we are asserting
in a mental sentence” (Spade 1980, 21; Spade 1974). Panaccio, on the contrary,
believes that “a philosophical theory of human mental language should not rule out
a priori the possibility of such confusions within our own minds” (Panaccio 2013,
384).
Another important difference between Ockham and Buridan lies in their respec-
tive discussions of mental content, particularly the content of singular concepts.
According to Ockham, “the causal relation between an intuitive cognition and its
object grounds the singularity of that object’s cognition” (Normore 2007, 127).16
Indeed, for Ockham, the content of intuitive cognitions is not an internal feature of
the mind (Brower-Toland 2017, 59; Panaccio 2004, 2015; King 2015). This points
to his externalist assumptions about mental content, about which more will be said
below. As Brower-Toland explains, mental content is determined by the external
world, i.e. by the very object that caused the intuitive cognition in the first place
(Brower-Toland 2017, 63; cf. Quodl. I, q. 13, OTh IX, 76, ll. 89–98; Rep. II, qq. 12–
13, OTh V, 289, ll. 3–6). Using the example of two things so similar that a cognizer
could not distinguish the one from the other, Ockham concludes that “likeness is
not the only reason why we think of one thing rather than another” (Rep. II, qq.
12–13, OTh V, 287, ll. 18–19; our translation). In his Questiones in De Anima,
Buridan reveals a very different picture of the singularity of an act of cognition.
For Buridan (Quaestiones in Metaphysicen Aristotelis VII, q. 20, f. 54va ), the
appearance of the object of thought to the cognizer as if it were in his or her view
(sicut in prospectu cognoscentis) is what accounts for the singularity of a cognitive
act.17 He introduces vague individual concepts into the language of thought, which
are concepts expressible by a common term and a demonstrative pronoun, such as
“this man.” These vague individual concepts apply to several things depending on
what is perceived at a particular time (Lagerlund 2015). For instance, the mental
term “this man” can signify both Socrates and Plato, but at different times. Jennifer
Ashworth (2004) and Henrik Lagerlund (2015) have recently shown that Buridan’s
theory influences a long tradition in the works of Nicholas Oresme, Marsilius of
Inghen, Albert of Saxony, Peter of Ailly, and Gabriel Biel.

16
For Ockham, intuitive cognition is a type of cognition that provides immediate access to the
world and grounds judgments regarding contingent facts. For the definition, see Ockham, Ord. Prol.
q. 1, a. 1, OTh I, 31, ll. 10–12 and 17–22. On this subject, see especially King (2015), Panaccio and
Piché (2010), and Panaccio (2015). In this volume, Alain de Libera’s chapter provides the wider
context for understanding the distinction between intuitive cognition and abstractive cognition.
17
A large amount of literature exists on Buridan’s position. See among others Klima (2004),
Lagerlund (2006), Normore (2007), and Brumberg-Chaumont (2016).
10 M. Roques and J. Pelletier

1.1.3 Ockham in His Time

A second wave of scholarship has sought to place Ockham’s theory of mental


language in its broader context by examining certain key preceding figures, like
Peter Auriol (ca. 1280–1233)18 and Durand of Saint-Pourçain (ca. 1270/5–1334),19
and tracing the reception of his thought into the seventeenth century.20
For instance, Russell Friedman has traced the emergence of a debate from the
1310s onwards on the unity of mental propositions. A mental proposition is not just
a set of concepts. What gives this set its unity? Durand of Saint-Pourçain advocates
the popular view that the intellect can only perform one act at a time and that a
mental proposition is produced by only one act of the intellect. Thomas Wylton (fl.
ca. 1288–1322) claims that the act of the intellect implies the simultaneous existence
of different mental acts that correspond to the terms of the proposition. This debate
continues into the fourteenth century. Francis of Marchia (ca. 1285/90-after 1344)
takes over Thomas Wylton’s position, while Gregory of Rimini (ca. 1300–1358)
claims that a mental proposition is a simple act (Friedman 2009a, b). Richard Cross
has argued that John Duns Scotus (1265/66–1308) claimed against Aquinas before
Thomas Wylton that the mind can perform more than one act at once, allowing
distinct real accidents to be the bearers of distinct mental content, which can be
syntactically combined at one and the same time into one complex act (Cross 2014,
c. 9). Scotus, Cross thinks, accepts an inchoate theory of mental language.
At the other end of the period, research done in the last thirty years has given
insight into early sixteenth-century Spanish, Scottish, and French contributions to
the theme of mental language.21 However, the questions discussed by Ockham and
Buridan’s followers are still understudied, with a few notable exceptions, the most
obvious being the question of the total significate of the proposition (also known
under the name “complexe significabile”).22 In this context, we should mention
again the question of the unity of the proposition, which is present in the late

18
The centrality of Auriol’s theory of cognition to the medieval development of a theory of mental
representation and consciousness was noted by Tachau (1988) and Pasnau (2002, 219) and more
extensively explored in Biard (2007) and Friedman (2015). On Auriol’s theory of intentionality
see Pasnau (1997, 69-76) and more recently Amerini (2009). See Martin Pickavé’s chapter in this
volume.
19
Like Ockham, Durand of Saint-Pourçain claims that a concept is the intellectual act itself and not
a product of that act, see Friedman and Pelletier (2014). He also rejects the necessity of intelligible
species, but he departs from Ockham by claiming that a concept is not a quality of the mind but
rather a way the intellect exists. On this subject see Friedman (forthcoming).
20
See Courtenay’s studies, among others Courtenay (1984).
21
See Ashworth (1974), Broadie (1985), Nuchelmans (1980). See also Peter Hartman’s chapter on
Durand of Saint Pourçain in this volume.
22
This question has its roots in the debate between Ockham and Chatton about the significate of
mental propositions. For discussion of the development of the fourteenth-century discussion, see
Kretzmann (1970), Nuchelmans (1973, cc. 14-16), Nuchelmans (1980, c. 4), Zupko (1994), Cesalli
(2012), Gaskin (2003), and Conti (2004).
1 An Introduction to Mental Language in Late Medieval Philosophy 11

medieval tradition of mental language (Gaskin 1995) and treated by logicians into
the sixteenth century (Ashworth 1981; Maierù 2004). Gregory of Rimini denied
parts to mental propositions (Lectura Prol. q. 1, a. 3, ed. Trapp et al., 24–40). Peter
of Ailly (1351–1420) followed him, whereas Buridan retained Ockham’s idea that
there can be several mental acts in the mind at the same time (De propositionibus,
ed. van der Lecq, 31).23 Panaccio (forthcoming, 9) conjectures that “this change of
mood corresponds to the progressive decline of logical semantics. Indeed, the more
logically-inclined authors of the fourteenth century – such as Ockham, Heytesbury
(ca. 1313–1400), Buridan, Albert of Saxony (ca. 1320–1390) or Paul of Venice
(1369–1429) – tended to see supposition theory as providing a correct account
of the inner structure of intellectual thought. More theologically inclined thinkers
like Gregory of Rimini, on the other hand, had a tendency to restrict themselves
to the analysis of more external phenomena.” This interpretation is quite close
to Stephan Meier-Oeser’s explanation of the disappearance of mental language
in the sixteenth century (Meier-Oeser 2004). Normore (2009, 306) gives another
explanation. Mental language might have disappeared in the contest between the
analogy of the mind as a grammatical engine as opposed to a computer, a view that
was held from Ramus to Leibniz to Boole and beyond.

1.1.4 Cognitive Psychology

A third wave of scholarship has widened the scope of the study of mental language
into cognitive psychology. Many scholars contend that cognitive psychology is a
crucial part of late medieval theory of mental language, given the importance of
concept formation in the explanation of the semantic character of thoughts. Klima
(2008, 2011b, 2012), for instance, argues that what fundamentally separates the via
antiqua and via moderna schools of thought is not so much their different ontologies
(realism vs. nominalism) as their different logical semantics. Realists, he has argued,
construct an intensionalist semantics while nominalists favour an extensionalist one,
according to which the meaning of a concept is determined by the extension of its
signification, which is all sufficiently similar individuals. This difference is based on
a different understanding of what concepts are. The ontological status of concepts
and their intentionality (their “aboutness”) play a key role in the interpretation of
the nature and function of mental language. Put differently, concept formation and
cognitive psychology are relevant for mental language, which after all includes
concepts as its fundamental semantic units.
The theory of intentionality that grounds Ockham’s extensionalist semantics has
given rise to a debate about the relationship between signification and intentionality.
Ockham is usually understood as claiming that the intentionality of a concept is

23
Cf. Ockham, Ord. Prol. q. 1, OTh I, 19, ll. 31–14 and Quod. IV, q. 17, OTh IX, 385, ll. 110–112
and 387, ll. 159–162.
12 M. Roques and J. Pelletier

reducible to its signification, a claim made possible by his assumption of mental


language. However, he famously insists (Ord. d. 35, q. 1, OTh IV, 427, ll. 11–14)
that there is no answer to the general question of what makes something cognitive
(i.e. intentional), which seems to suggest that intentionality is primitive. Against
this, Pasnau suggests that Ockham cannot take being cognitive to be primitive
because in some cases, seeing for example, he provides detailed theories of what
is going on (Pasnau 1997, 61). On the contrary, Normore believes that Ockham
should be taken at his word: being cognitive is primitive (Normore 2010, 260).
Normore also believes that although Ockham’s views about the ontological status of
concept evolved,24 throughout his career Ockham maintained that the intentionality
of thoughts, which he expresses in terms of signification, is a primitive feature
of them. The debate goes on, since it has recently been claimed that Ockham
would accept mental beings – namely cognitive habits – that are intentional but not
significative, which would imply that intentionality is not reducible to signification
in Ockham’s view (Klima 2013; Roques forthcoming).25
The question of the nature of intentionality is closely related to the widely held
view that fourteenth-century nominalists are externalists about the mental content
of our concepts. Externalism about the mental content of our concepts is the view
that what thoughts are about is only determined by relations those thoughts bear to
the external world. Many scholars have claimed that Ockham is a strong externalist
with regard to singular thought (Panaccio 2004, 12–14), which we mentioned above.
The basic question is: how can an intuitive cognition be proper to a singular thing?
Ockham answers that it is “since it is immediately caused by the singular thing
(or apt by nature to be caused by it), and it is not apt by nature to be caused
by any other singular thing” (Ockham, Quodl. I, q. 13, OTh IX, 73, translation
by Freddoso and Kelley, 65). Susan Brower-Toland has challenged the thesis that
Ockham is an externalist by insisting on two supernatural cases where God could
act so as to cause an intuitive cognition of an object (Brower-Toland 2007). In
the first case, God causes an intuitive cognition of an object that exists, but not
in the cognizer’s immediate vicinity. In the second case, God causes an intuitive
cognition of an object that does not exist. In both cases, the cognizer can form
true beliefs about those objects. For any naturally caused intuitive cognition, that
very state could be caused by God alone and this runs counter to an externalist
account of the content of such states. In response, Panaccio (2010) objects that the

24
Ockham changed his mind on the ontological status of concepts, a change first established by
Boehner (1958). Earlier in his career, Ockham held the so-called fictum theory, according to which
concepts are fashioned (“ficted”) entities existing in mind, viz. “objectively,” that are the immediate
objects of thought. After a period of hesitation, he eventually endorses the so-called actus theory,
on which concepts are mental acts or qualities that exist in the mind just as a whiteness exists in
a wall, viz. “subjectively.” The standard but not uncontested story is that Ockham altered his view
under the influence of Walter Chatton. The literature is huge. See Gál (1967), Adams (1987, cc.
1–3), Panaccio (2004), and most recently Pelletier (2013, 80–89) for overview accounts.
25
For the reception of Ockham’s externalism in Oxford and the question of whether his theory of
concepts leads to skepticism, see Klima’s chapter in this volume.
1 An Introduction to Mental Language in Late Medieval Philosophy 13

supernatural cases show that even if God does play a role in securing the relevant
causal connection between a natural agent and its effect, if God had not intervened,
a similar effect would have been produced by a particular created agent. Thus, in
cases of supernaturally induced intuitive cognition, the intuition still stands in a
relation of causal dependence (albeit a counterfactual one) on the object that is its
natural cause and the externalist reading of Ockham’s theory of intuitive cognition
is preserved.26
Mental language is often characterized as enabling second-order cognition, that
is, the ability to attend to our own thoughts. The idea that mental language and
conscious thought are closely related has been explored recently by several scholars.
Ockham would hold what is nowadays called a “higher-order perception” theory of
consciousness. He explains consciousness of a wide range of our subjective states,
such as thinking or feeling, by appealing to acts of inner awareness or perception
(Michon 2007; Yrjönsuuri 2007; Brower-Toland 2012; Schierbaum 2014b). He does
not assume that all occurrent mental states are conscious. If consciousness were
ubiquitous in this way, his confrère Chatton objected, a state’s being conscious
would be a matter of its serving as the object for some higher-order state and,
consequently, this higher-order state would occur consciously and there would be
a threat of infinite regress (Chatton, Prol. q. 2, a. 5, ed. Wey, 119–120; see Brower-
Toland 2014).27 Ockham’s account of consciousness had an important influence
since it was adopted by Crathorn (In I Sent. q. 1, concl. 14, ed. Hoffmann, 129)
and above all by Adam Wodeham, who constructs a thought experiment which, to
take over Toivanen’s and Yrjönsuuri’s description of it, “assumes that an abstract
proposition, ‘I think,’ is only thought in the mind. It can appear to be false (when it
does not express any direct perceptual awareness of a thought). It cannot, however,
appear not to be a thought. Thus, it verifies itself and cannot be false” (Toivanen and
Yrjönsuuri 2013, p. 440; Wodeham, Lectura Prol. q. 2, §9–16, ed. Wood and Gál
I, 50–64; Lectura, q. 6, §14, ed. Wood and Gál, 166). Wodeham’s discussion grew
into a detailed account of how thoughts are present in the mind.28 The claim that the
first absolutely evident proposition is “I exist” can be found in John of Mirecourt
(ca. 1310-?) (In I. Sent. q. 6, ed. Franzinelli, 441) and Pierre d’Ailly (In I Sent. Prol.
q. 1, a. 1, ed. Brinzei, 140).29 It also appears in the circle of John Mair (1467–1550)
and was discussed until Descartes (Schmutz 2007; Boulnois 2007).

26
The debate continues since Brower-Toland’s chapter in this volume answers Panaccio’s concerns.
See also Robert’s chapter for another aspect of the problem as well as Normore’s.
27
It appears that Ockham’s account of consciousness changed over time. In earlier works, Ockham
explains that for an occurrent mental state to produce a higher-order cognition of it, an act of
will is necessary to direct attention to the first-order state. In later works, he suggests rather that
consciousness does not extend beyond our first-order states, on the grounds that the intellect is
limited in its capacity for conscious attention (Quodl. I q. 14, OTh IX, 80, ll. 32–40; Brower-
Toland 2014).
28
Buridan’s theory of self-awareness has recently received a lot of attention. Although not about
intellectual self-awareness, see Jack Zupko’s chapter in this volume.
29
For Pierre d’Ailly, see Joël Biard’s chapter in this volume.
14 M. Roques and J. Pelletier

1.1.5 Mental Language and Nominalism

Finally, one of the central questions that has always preoccupied scholars working
on mental language in medieval philosophy is whether there is an intimate link
between mental language and nominalism, i.e. the metaphysical claim that only
individuals exist, of which Ockham and Buridan are famous proponents.30 For both
Ockham and Buridan, universals are primarily mental signs that refer to a plurality
of extra-mental things. They concur in that the ontological commitment of our
best theory is based on the claim that signification is ultimately the applicability
of a term to a singular thing by means of a demonstrative pronoun designating a
singular thing, as in the proposition “This is Socrates.”31 Thus, the link between
mental language and nominalism seems to be obvious, on condition that concepts
have a signification, which is explicit in Ockham’s theory of mental language. This
would be confirmed by the fact that for both Ockham and Buridan the Aristotelian
categories are not “genera of being” but types of terms or signs, either vocal or
conceptual, in such a way that they would only accept two different types of being,
substance and quality, in addition to some modes of being.32
However, Abelard is a nominalist, and he does not have a theory of mental
language.33 Moreover, there is nothing about mental language that forces one to
reject the realist claim that there is an isomorphism between thought and the
world. The Pseudo-Campsall (ca. 1330), who is strongly opposed to nominalism,
accepts mental language. Yet, Calvin Normore points out that the division between
categoremata and syncategoremata is so sharp for Ockham and Buridan that
it must suggest the following recipe for an ontology: take the categorematic
terms of a language or theory and eliminate those that can be defined using
simpler categorematic terms and syncategoremata. The items referred to by the

30
Ockham generally allows only concrete, particular substances and some qualities. He denies the
reality not only of universals, but also of abstracta including propositions (as they are nowadays
conceived), state of affairs, and numbers. For an overview of Ockham’s ontology, see Adams
(1987, cc. 1–9). See also Spade (1999) and Klima (2011a). For Ockham’s denial of the extra-
mental existence of numbers, see Roques (2016b). Buridan is less parsimonious than Ockham
since he admits an ontological category that Ockham does not accept, namely modes. See Normore
(1985) and Klima (1999). Calvin Normore (1987, 207) claims that medieval nominalism is not so
much a stance on the question of the ontological status of universals as “a position about what
makes sentences true.” The sources of Ockham’s and Buridan’s nominalism are not well known.
Henry of Harclay is often quoted as a predecessor of Ockham. For the relation between Ockham’s
doctrine and James of Viterbo’s, see Antoine Côté’s chapter in this volume.
31
This idea is present in Ockham’s very definition of “signification” in the narrower sense, in SL I,
c. 33, OPh I, 95, ll. 3–5.
32
Ockham, SL I, 40, OPh I, 111–113; Buridan, Summulae de praedicamenta, I.8, ed. Bos. 18. For
Ockham on the categories see most recently Pelletier (2013, 106–115) and Roques (2014). For an
immediate reaction to Ockham’s view by Walter Chatton see Pelletier (2016).
33
Peter King believes that Abelard has a theory of mental language. See King (2007). Panaccio
(2010) responds to him. For more on Abelard’s concept theory, see Irène Rosier-Catach’s chapter
in this volume.
1 An Introduction to Mental Language in Late Medieval Philosophy 15

remaining categorematic terms will constitute the ontology of that language or


theory (Normore 1985). This idea hints towards a congenial link between terminist
logic and mental language, although it is not exclusive (Normore 2009, 302).
This hypothesis has been confirmed by Joël Biard (2010), who believes that the
manifesto written by fifteenth-century Parisian nominalists in response to the 1474
decree establishes a close relationship between semantic analysis and nominalism.
Klima (2012) defends another interpretation of the link between mental language
and nominalism. He claims that nominalists use conceptual analysis for reducing
ontological commitment, while realists are content with the reductionist tactics of
cross-categorical identification of semantic values or by assigning them a reduced
ontological status (esse rationis, esse intentionale, etc.). Thus, nominalists have a
genuine stake in providing conceptual analyses with the intent to eliminate apparent
reference to would-be entities in “prohibited” ontological categories. But this does
not exclude that other realist authors would have a conception of a compositional
language of thought.34
Other scholars have been less cautious about the link between mental language
and nominalism. According to Panaccio, as summarized by Hochschild, “Ockham’s
development of a theory of mental language was, if not determined by, at least fos-
tered within his nominalist project. Desiring to preserve the universality of scientific
knowledge without a commitment to universal objects, Ockham found it attractive
to take propositions, rather than common natures, as objects of knowledge, for
even universal propositions could be verified, on Ockham’s nominalist semantics,
only to particular individuals in the world” (Hochschild 2015, 30). Because of the
necessity or at least omnitemporality of universal propositions, these cannot be
merely tokens in spoken and written language. As a consequence, there must be
mental propositions which are true whenever they are thought of (Panaccio 1999a,
256; Hagedorn 2015). Buridan, however, does not use mental language to account
for the omnitemporal truth of scientific propositions. He famously resorts to the old-
fashioned notion of natural supposition (de Rijk 1973; Braakhuis 1999; Fitzgerald
2006; Biard 2012, 133–155).

1.2 The Present Volume

Most of the chapters in the present volume touch on the themes associated with men-
tal language discussed above. A number of chapters, for instance, address cognition,
perception, concept formation, externalism about mental content, mechanisms in
the cognitive process (habits), sensory self-awareness, acts of the understand-
ing (i.e. mental acts), the formation of propositions, and the nature of mental
(re)presentation. Other chapters discuss concepts and semantics in various contexts

34
See again Hochschild (2015), but also Schmidt (1966). Also, Hervaeus Natalis, a realist, seems to
have a well-developed compositional theory of second intentions and objective concepts in general.
16 M. Roques and J. Pelletier

such as real definitions, the transcendentals, the relationship between mental and
spoken syncategoremata, a term’s acquisition of a new signification, the speaker’s
intention in supposition theory and imposition, and the skeptical implications of
nominalist views on concept identity. Two chapters are devoted respectively to the
innateness of language and a momentary episode in the history of mental language.
Mental language not only has a semantics, as we saw, but also a logic, and can be
used at will by thinkers. Several chapters deal with the nature of the syllogism and
rules for modal logic, the increasing approbation of probable or plausible arguments,
the scientific status of psychology at Oxford, and finally the freedom of the will, the
rationality of its choices, and its role in the production of belief.
We have organized the chapters of the volume around Ockham, the primary
focus of Panaccio’s past and present research. The volume is divided into four
parts, whose chapters are ordered roughly chronologically by philosopher. The first
part of the volume is dedicated to contributions on Ockham alone, some of which
take their point of departure from interpretations diverging from Panaccio’s. The
second part of the volume includes contributions that explicitly situate Ockham
in discussion with his immediate predecessors and contemporaries. The third part
of the volume comprises contributions that explore issues in the work of other
medieval philosophers – before, after, and contemporaneous to Ockham –, relating
to language, mind, and ontology. Finally, to conclude the volume, Claude Panaccio’s
contribution is a presentation of a methodology for doing the history of philosophy.
Opening the first part of the volume, Aurélien Robert examines the problems
raised by Ockham’s distinction between two modes of cognition, in se and in alio.
Ockham claims that no material substance is cognized in se. But how, then, do we
acquire simple substance concepts like “man” or “horse”? Robert suggests that the
evolution of Ockham’s theory of concepts during his career is probably the key for
our understanding of this crucial distinction.
Susan Brower-Toland revisits an ongoing exchange with Panaccio on Ockham’s
purported externalism about the mental content of concepts. While acknowledging
that there seem to be good reasons to think that Ockham was an externalist about
mental content, she continues to resist this reading, arguing that Ockham’s account
of efficient causation entails that intuitive (and by extension abstractive) mental
states are determined by those states’ internal features. Similarly, Calvin Normore
explores a number of the debates and points of disagreement on the role and nature
of concepts that he and Panaccio have engaged in over the past decades. Hailing
Panaccio’s work on Ockham’s language of thought as an exemplary model of how
to do the history of philosophy, Normore concludes that Panaccio, unlike others
working on mental language in Ockham from a purely semantic background, has
always recognized the central psychological dimension to Ockham’s account of
concepts.
Magali Roques focuses on real definitions, complex expressions composed of
a genus term and an essential difference term. She argues that Ockham, faced
with a difficulty about the classificatory function of genus terms, is led to an
analysis of their real definitions. She considers various semantic features of real
definitions and their terms, concluding that, as with nominal definitions, Ockham’s
1 An Introduction to Mental Language in Late Medieval Philosophy 17

view of real definitions is consonant with his ontological reductionism. Turning


to a different kind of term, Jenny Pelletier discusses Ockham’s “semantic” or
“linguistic” approach to the transcendentals, arguing that at least in the case of
“good,” Ockham has a present though underdeveloped metaphysical explanation
as to why all beings are necessarily and intrinsically good, namely desirable or
willable, in a non-moral and transcendental sense.
Sonja Schierbaum examines Ockham’s voluntarism, defending him against the
charge that his account of the freedom of the will seems to imply the possibility
of acting for no reason at all and thus irrationally. After examining Ockham’s
conception of the freedom of the will and what is necessary for acts of will, she
concludes that any action performed in view of attaining an end, where that end is a
possibly or actually existing thing, is rational even if not moral.
Turning to Ockham’s logic, Ernesto Perini-Santos considers Ockham’s modal
syllogistic. For Ockham, every term that is predicable of a whole sentence is a
modal term, including “necessary,” “possible,” “contingent” and “impossible,” but
also “known,” “believed,” “written,” “spoken,” etc. Perini-Santos wonders if it is
possible to provide general rules for all these modalities. He argues that, even
if Ockham does not build a proper syllogistic for each modal domain, he does
give appropriately general rules such that his modal theory can be understood as
a metatheoretical framework.
Fabrizio Amerini ends the first part, arguing that while Ockham indisputably
modifies his position on the nature of concepts, he does not, in fact, depart from
his early explanation of the formation and function of mental syncategoremata.
While in the first so-called fictum theory, Ockham describes mental syncategoremata
as linguistic concepts abstracted from spoken language, in the second so-called
actus theory, he describes them as signs of the mind, naturally co-signifying the
same things as the mental categoremata to which they apply. Amerini focuses on
Quodlibet IV, q. 35 and claims that Ockham reaffirms the view he had established
in the early Ordinatio.
The second part of the volume starts with Frédéric Goubier, who contrasts the
role of the speaker in the respective theories of supposition in Ockham and Roger
Bacon, concluding that while the speaker plays some part for Ockham, Bacon takes
the speaker’s contribution more seriously. Both philosophers, he shows, discuss
the role of the speaker in the context of equivocation of the third type, that is,
equivocation between types of supposition (personal, material, and simple). He
compares this type of equivocation with ambiguities in the supposition of the terms
of tensed and modal sentences.
Martin Pickavé revisits Peter Auriol’s “argument from illusion” (as it is now
known in philosophy of perception) in sense perception. Having outlined Auriol’s
argument and Ockham’s criticisms of it, he defends Auriol’s argument, contending
that Ockham fundamentally misunderstands it. Pickavé concludes by arguing that
for Auriol the true function of the argument is to draw our attention to perceptions
as conscious experiences.
18 M. Roques and J. Pelletier

David Piché discusses the role of the will in the production of acts of belief and
the epistemological and ethical justifications for such acts in the writings of Durand
of Saint-Pourçain, Walter Chatton, and Ockham. Contrary to recent interpretations,
he shows that Ockham does not ultimately subject his doxastic voluntarism to moral
intellectual justification(s), nor that Ockham’s radical voluntarism constitutes a kind
of “blind spot” in Ockham’s broader naturalistic epistemological system.
Catarina Dutilh Novaes deals with Ockham and Buridan’s definition of a
syllogism. Noting a diminished interest in the pragmatic aspects of the application
of syllogisms, particularly dialectical or dialogical contexts, she finds an increased
interest in the formal properties of the syllogistic system. Despite some differences
between Ockham and Buridan, she concludes that they represent a growing trend
of studying logical theories as such rather than as tool(s) for specific applications.
Continuing in fourteenth-century logic, Jenny Ashworth discusses impositio, the
endowing of terms and propositions with a new signification, as it occurs in treatises
on obligationes from Ockham and Burley to their English successors, especially
Swyneshed, Ralph Strode, and Brinkley. She identifies and discusses various trends
and lines of influence between all these authors, in England and on the continent, on
the logical doctrine of impositio in connection to obligationes and its application to
two sophismata.
The third part of the volume opens with Irène Rosier-Catach, who shows that
the notion of attentio-attendere, Augustinian in origin, occupies a crucial position
in Abelard’s thought, unifying the apparently disparate contexts of the formation
of understandings, the signification of nouns, the problem of universals, and the
formation of propositions. She thinks that attentio-attendere reveals the links
between ontology, semantics, and psychology in Abelard’s thought.
Lafleur and Carrier study a moment in the pre-history of mental language
by examining a text by Arnoul de Provence (ca. 1250), his Divisio scientiarum,
which shows the influence of the Latin al-Fārābı̄ as adapted by Gundissalinus. The
authors are able to qualify Claude Panaccio’s comparison, discussed in Le Discours
intérieur, between al-Fārābı̄’s triple logos and John Damascène’s tripartition of the
philosophical logos. Arnoul, they show, does not speak of a logos that is conceived
in the mind but of a logos that is a concept of the mind.
Sten Ebbesen deals with how modist authors from the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries (amongst others Radulphus Brito, Boethius of Dacia and John of Jandun)
discuss whether language is innate to humans such that a person can acquire a
language without learning it. According to Ebbesen, the most widely held opinion
is that no existing language is any more natural than another, and that a normal
learning process is required for anyone to acquire an established existing language.
Antoine Côté discusses James of Viterbo’s little known views on the nature of
concepts. Although the critical editors of Ockham’s Ordinatio thought that a series
of views expressed by Ockham in that text were similar to those of James, Côté
argues that James was far too much of a realist. Nevertheless, Côté finds interesting
parallels between their respective opinions, e.g. the identification of concepts, and
thus universals, with acts of understanding, the rejection of intelligible species and
the identification of the agent and possible intellect.
1 An Introduction to Mental Language in Late Medieval Philosophy 19

Peter King describes the nature of psychology in the University of Paris


and Oxford in the mid-thirteenth to early fourteenth centuries. While Parisian
arts masters were intensely preoccupied with the philosophical difficulties and
theological challenges that De anima I posed, Oxford masters were strikingly not.
King argues that one reason might have been that psychology did not fit easily in
Oxford’s “mathematized” conception of natural philosophy. Peter Hartman presents
a critical edition with English translation of Durand of Saint-Pourçain’s Sentences
ADB III, d. 23, qq. 1–2, which contains Durand’s earliest treatment of cognitive
habits.
Gyula Klima continues an argument that he has made elsewhere that the
nominalist understanding of concept identity as tied to the internal features of mental
qualities, particularly in the work of Adam Wodeham, prefigures Cartesian Demon-
skepticism. Yet, Klima now elaborates, Wodeham could not have countenanced
Descartes’ “full-blown” Demon-skepticism because he did not subscribe to the same
modal principles as Descartes.
Jack Zupko considers two fourteenth-century accounts of sensory awareness or
consciousness in the psychology of both humans and “brute” animals, one offered
by John Buridan and the other by Nicolas Oresme. He shows that while Buridan
afforded all living animals a minimal degree of sensory self-perception by appealing
to sensitive or vital spirits, Oresme restricts sensory awareness to humans alone.
Joël Biard examines the place and function of the probable in the works of Peter
of Ailly. By examining his Sentences commentary, Biard shows that, in the middle
of fourteenth century, the probable occupies an increasingly important place in the
evaluation of argumentation and the epistemic analysis of our concepts alongside
evidence and certitude. Indeed, for Peter of Ailly the majority of human knowledge
is only probable, a claim that ultimately modifies the nature of argumentation in
natural philosophy and theology. The probable now characterizes the whole field of
“natural light” and “natural reason.”
Alain de Libera concludes the third part, showing that the two kinds of
cognitions, namely intuitive and abstractive, that were theorized in the Middle
Ages correspond to the two senses of the term “Vorstellung” in Brentano and
Husserl and to the distinction between presentation and representation nowadays
used in analytic philosophy. He also explains the differences between intuitive
and abstractive cognitions and the distinction between transitive transparence and
reflexive opacity that is used in the classical theory of representation (Port-Royal).
Finally, Panaccio’s chapter comprises the fourth part of the volume. By analyzing
how historians of philosophy interpret their texts, and by arguing that past and
present philosophers are confronted with the same philosophically problematic
phenomena to be analyzed (e.g. especially logico-linguistic phenomena like predi-
cation, modality, truth), he makes the case for how the historian of philosophy can
grasp the continued philosophical relevance of the texts she studies, texts radically
different from those of today.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Gryllacrides, 329
Gryllidae, 201, 330-340, 340
Gryllides, 340
Gryllotalpa, 332;
dorsal vessel, 134;
Malpighian tubes, 127;
tracheal system, 132
Gryllotalpides, 340
Gryllus, head, 93;
G. campestris, 332, 339;
G. domesticus, 330, 338
Guilding on Ulula, 461
Gula, 88, 93
Gyri cerebrales, 119
Gyropus, 350

Haase on abdominal appendages, 189, 192


Haemocoele, 22, 23
Hagen, on segments, 88;
on wing-rudiments, 395;
on respiration of immature dragon-fly, 423 f.;
on larvae of Ascalaphides, 460;
on amber Psocidae, 397;
on Platephemera, 428;
on Perlidae, 401;
on Psocidae, 393 f.;
on Termites, 360 f.
Haldmanella, 308
Halesus guttatipennis, 473
Haliday on Bethylus, 535
Halobates, 83
Halteres, 108
Hansen on Hemimerus, 217
Haplogenius, 461
Haplophlebium, 345
Haplopus grayi, egg, 265
Harpagides, 259
Harpalus caliginosus, head, 92
Harpax ocellata, 253;
H. variegatus, 244
Harrington on Oryssus, 507
Harris on Katydids' music, 320
Hart on forms of Atta, 501
Hartig on gall-flies, 530
Harvesting Termites, 383
Harvey on metamorphosis, 168
Hatchett Jackson on ecdysis, 162;
on oviduct of Lepidoptera, 139
Haustellata, 94
Haustellum, 476
Haviland on Termites, 368, 373, 384
Hawaiian Islands, 354, 395, 425, 471
Head, 92-94
Heart, 133
Heat, 131
Helicomitus insimulans, 460, 461
Helicopsyche shuttleworthi, cases of, 482
Hellgrammites, 447
Helorus anomalipes, 534
Hemerobiidae, 453 f.
Hemerobiides, 465 f.
Hemerobiina, 467, 472
Hemerobius larva, 467
Hemichroa rufa, 498
Hemimeridae, 201, 217
Hemimerus hanseni, 217;
foetus of, 218;
H. talpoides, 218
Hemimetabola, 158
Hemiptera, 173
Hemiteles, 556
Henking on embryology, 146
Henneguy on egg-capsule of Phyllium, 271;
on embryology of Smicra, 545
Heptagenia, 440;
H. longicauda, 437
Hessian-fly, parasites, 537
Heterogamia, 222;
H. aegyptiaca, 220;
egg-capsule, 229
Heterometabola, 158
Heteromorpha, 158
Heterophlebia dislocata, 427
Heteropteryx grayi, 262
Hetrodides, 329
Hexapoda, 86
Heymons on earwig embryology, 216
Hind body, 109
Hind wings absent, 429
Histoblasts, 167
Histogenesis, 165
Histolysis, 165, 166
Hodotermes japonicus, 383;
H. havilandi, 384;
H. mossambicus, 356;
H. brunneicornis, 359;
H. quadricollis, 371
Hoffbauer on elytra, 108
Holocampsa, misprint—see Holocompsa
Holocompsa, 226, 235
Holometabola, 158
Holophthalmi, 459
Homomorpha, 158
Hooks for wings, 494
Hoplolopha, 303
Hose, 393
Howard, on pupation of Chalcididae, 550;
on Hydropsyche, 483
Hubbard and Hagen on Termites, 388
Humboldt, 31
Humpback, 445
Huxley, on head, 87;
on cervical sclerites, 99
Hydropsyche, 479
Hydropsychides, 482;
larva, 483
Hydroptila angustella, 474;
H. maclachlani, larva, 484
Hydroptilides, 484
Hylotoma rosae, 513
Hymenoptera, 173, 487-565
Hymenoptera phytophaga, 503 f.
Hymenopus bicornis, 253
Hyperetes, 395, 397
Hypermetamorphosis, 158, 159, 465, 540, 552, 557
Hyperparasitism, 521
Hypertely, 323
Hypnorna amoena, 234
Hypoblast, 65, 149
Hypocephalus, 99
Hypochrysa, 470
Hypodermis, 162, 480
Hypoglottis, 96
Hyponomeuta cognatella, parasite of, 545
Hypopharynx, 96
—see also Lingua

Ichneumones adsciti, 559


Ichneumon-flies, 265, 551;
uninjurious, 264;
supplementary, 558
Ichneumonidae, 551-558
Ichneumonides, 557
Ictinus, 419
Imaginal, discs, 165, 166;
folds, 165
Imago, 157
Imbrications, 493
Imhof on Perla, 403 f.
Inaequipalpia, 480
Indusial limestone, 485
Infra-oesophageal ganglion, 117
Inner margin of wing, 108
Inocellia, 447
Inquilines, 373, 524, 531, 533
Insecta, definition, 86
Instar, 155, 158
Instinct of Leucospis, 541
Integument, 162
Internal anatomy, 186 f.;
of Acridiidae, 282 f.;
of earwigs, 210;
of Gryllotalpa, 335;
of Hymenoptera, 494;
of Libellula, 414;
of Mantidae, 246;
of Myrmeleon larva, 457, 458;
of Odonata, 414;
of Stilopyga orientalis, 228;
of Phasmidae, 262;
of Raphidia, 448;
of Sialis larva, 446;
of Thysanura, 187 f.
Intestine, 114, 124
Involucrum alarum, 206
Iris oratoria, 248
Isogenus nubecula, 405, 406
Isopteryx, 400
Isosoma, 546
Isotoma, 190

Jamaica, 388
Japygidae, 184
Japyx, abdomen of, 109;
J. solifugus, 184, 196
Jhering, Von, on Termites, 387
Joint, 105
Joint-worms, 546
Joly, on Ephemeridae, 431;
on anatomy of Phyllium, 262
Julidae, 34, 43, 71, 73, 77
Julopsis, 74
Julus, 36-39, 52;
J. nemorensis, 43;
J. terrestris, 37, 70, 77;
breeding, 37;
development, 66-69;
heart, 50;
ovum, 63, 64;
eye, 69
Jurassic, 216, 259, 407, 442
Jurine on pieces at base of wing, 102

Kampecaris, 76
Karabidion, 274
Katydids, 319, 320
King, 361, 378
Klapálek, on Trichopterous larvae, 484 f.;
on Agriotypus, 557
Knee, 104
Koch, 42
Koestler on stomatogastric nerves, 120
Kolbe, on entothorax, 103;
on wings of Psocidae, 394
Kollar on Sirex, 509
Korotneff on embryology of Gryllotalpa, 336
Korschelt on egg-tubes, 138
Korschelt and Heider on regenerative tissue, 167
Kowalevsky, on phagocytes, 166;
on regenerative tissue, 167;
on bee embryo, 496
Kradibia cowani, 549
Krancher on stigmata, 111
Krawkow on chitin, 162
Kulagin, on embryology, 537;
of Encyrtus, 545
Künckel d'Herculais, on histoblasts, 167;
on emergence of Stauronotus, 290
Labia minor, 214
Labidura riparia, 210, 211, 214, 215
Labium, 95;
of Odonata, 410, 411;
of O. larva, 420
Laboulbène, on Anurida maritima, 194;
on Perla, 399
Labrum, 93, 93
Lacewing flies, 453, 469
Lachesilla, 395
Lacinia, 95
Laemobothrium, 347
Lamarck, 77
Lamina, subgenitalis, 224;
supra-analis, 224
Landois on stigmata, 111
Languette, 96
Lankester, 40
Larva, 157;
(resting-larva), 164;
oldest, 449
Larvule, 431, 432
Latreille, 30
Latreille's segment, 491
Latzel, 42, 77
Leach, 30, 77
Lead, eating, 510
Leaf-Insects, 260
Legs, 104;
internal, 496;
four only, 549;
of larvae, 106, 110
Lendenfeld, on dragon-flies, 416, 417;
on muscles of dragon-fly, 115
Lens, 98
Lepidoptera, 173
Lepisma, 185, 196;
L. saccharina, 186;
L. niveo-fasciata, 195
Lepismidae, 185
Leptocerides, 482
Leptophlebia cupida, 430
Lespès on Calotermes, 364
Leuckart on micropyle apparatus, 145
Leucocytes, 137
Leucospis gigas, 540;
larva, egg, 542;
habits, 540 f.
Lewis, Geo., on luminous may-fly, 442
Lewis on Perga, 518
Leydig, on brain, 119, 120;
on Malpighian tubes of Gryllotalpa, 335;
on ovaries, 137, 142;
on glands, 142
Lias, 216, 239, 340, 427, 428, 453, 485, 503
Libellago caligata, 413
Libellula quadrimaculata, 411, 425
Libellulidae, 409
Libellulinae, 416, 426
Lichens, resemblance to, 253
Liénard on oesophageal ring, 118
Light, attraction of, 441
Ligula, 96
Lilies and dragon-flies, 426
Limacodes egg, 153
Limnophilides, 481
Lingua, 95, 96, 391, 411, 420, 437
Linnaeus quoted, 84
Liotheides, 346, 350
Lipeurus heterographus, 346;
L. bacillus, 347;
L. ternatus, 349
Lipura burmeisteri, 190;
L. maritima, 194
Lipuridae, 190
Liquid emitted, 264, 324, 399, 515
Lissonota setosa, 551
Lithobiidae, 45, 70, 75
Lithobius, 32, 36-39, 41, 45, 58;
breeding, 38;
structure, 48, 49, 57
Lithomantis, 259;
L. carbonaria, 344
Locusta, ovipositor, development and structure, 315;
L. viridissima, 318, 319, 321, 324, 327
Locustidae, 201, 311-329, 328
Locustides, 329
Locusts, 291 f.;
of the Bible, 298;
in England, 299;
swarms, 292-299;
eggs, 292
Loew on anatomy of Panorpa, 450;
of Raphidia, 448
Lonchodes duivenbodi, egg, 265;
L. nematodes, 260, 261
Lonchodides, 277
Longevity, 377, 429, 438;
of cockroach, 229
Lopaphus cocophagus, 264
Lophyrus pini, 511
Löw on Coniopteryx, 471, 472
Löw, F., on snow Insects, 194
Lowne, on embryonic segments, 151;
on integument, 162;
on stigmata, 111;
on respiration, 130
Lubbock, Sir John, on Pauropus, 62;
on aquatic Hymenoptera, 538;
on auditory organs, 121;
on sense organs, 123;
on respiration, 130;
on stadia, 165;
on Cloëon, 432, 437;
on Collembola, 192;
on Insect intelligence, 487
Lucas on mouth-parts of Trichoptera, 475
Luminous may-flies, 412
Lycaenidae, eggs, 144
Lyonnet on muscles, 115
Lysiopetalidae, 76

Machilidae, 184
Machilis maritima, 185;
M. polypoda, 184
Macronema, 478
Malacopoda, 77
Mallophaga, 342, 345-350
Malpighi on galls, 525
Malpighian tubes, 114, 124, 127, 187, 353, 360, 392, 403, 414,
421, 448, 457, 458;
of Gryllotalpa, 335;
of Ephippigera, 335;
of Mantis, 246;
of Myriapods, 48
Malta, Myriapods at, 35
Mandibles, 94, 95;
absent, 474, 475
Mandibulata, 94
Manticora, 304
Mantidae, 201, 242-259, 259
Mantides, 259
Mantis, immature tegmina, 248;
parasite, 546;
M. religiosa, 246, 247, 258
Mantispa areolaris, 463;
M. styriaca larva, 464
Mantispides, 463 f.
Mantoida luteola, 251
Marchal on Malpighian tubes, 127
Marine Myriapods, 30
Marshall, on Apanteles cocoons, 560;
on Braconidae, 561
Mask, 420
Mastacides, 301, 309
Mastax guttatus, 301
Maternal care, 214, 336, 517
Maxilla, 95, 96;
of Odonata, 411;
absent, 190
May-flies, 429;
number of, 442
Mayer, on Apterygogenea, 196;
on caprification, 547, 548
Mazon Creek, Myriapods at, 75
M‘Coy on variation of ocelli, 267
M‘Lachlan, on Ascalaphides, 459;
on Oligotoma, 354;
on Psocidae, 395;
on Trichoptera, 480 f.
Mecaptera, 174, 453
Mechanism of flight, 416
Mecistogaster, 412
Meconema varium, 321
Meconemides, 328
Mecopoda, 319
Mecopodides, 328
Mecostethus grossus, 285, 299, 308
Median plate, 504, 506, 507, 512
Median segment, 109, 490, 491
Megachile, nervous system, 496
Megaloblatta rufipes, 235
Megalomus hirtus, 468
Megalyra, 562
Megalyridae, 562
Meganeura monyi, 428
Megasecopterides, 344
Megastigmus, 547
Meinert, on earwigs, 210, 211, 212;
on Myrmeleon larva, 457;
on stink-glands, 210
Melittobia, 545
Melliss on Termite of St. Helena, 389
Melnikow on eggs of Mallophaga, 348
Membranule, 413
Menognatha, 161
Menopon leucostomum, 348;
M. pallidum, 350
Menorhyncha, 161
Mentum, 95, 96, 96
Mesoblast, 20, 65, 149
Mesoderm, 20, 149
Mesonotum, 88
Mesopsocus unipunctatus, 394
Mesothoracic spiracle, 491
Mesothorax, 101
Mesozoic, 309, 449, 485
Metabola, 158, 174
Metagnatha, 161
Metamorphosis, 153-170;
of Hymenoptera, 497;
of nervous system, 495 f.
Metanotum, 88
Metapodeon, 491
Methone, 200;
M. anderssoni, 305, 306
Miall, on imaginal discs, 165, 167;
on unicellular glands, 142
Miall and Denny, on pericardial tissue, 135;
on epithelium of stomach, 126;
on spermatheca of cockroach, 228;
on stigmata, 111;
on stomato-gastric nerves, 120
Miamia bronsoni, 449
Microcentrum retinerve, 313, 314, 320
Microgaster, 559;
M. fulvipes, 560;
M. globatus, 560
Micropterism, 339, 394, 405 f., 484
Micropyle, 145;
apparatus, 404
Migration, 293, 425
Migratory locusts, 292, 297
Millepieds, 41
Millipedes, 30, 40, 41
Miocene, 216, 258, 407
Molanna angustata, mandibles of pupa, 477
Mole-cricket, 333;
leg, 333
Moniez on Anurida maritima, 194
Monodontomerus, 532;
M. cupreus, 543;
M. nitidus, 544
Monomachus, 563
Monomorphic ant, 498
Monotrochous trochanters, 494, 520, 564, 565
Mordella eye, 98
Mormolucoides articulatus, 449
Morton, on gills of Trichoptera, 483;
on Perlidae, 406
Moult, 156
Moulting, 437;
of external parasite, 556
Mouth-parts, of dragon-fly, 411;
of dragon-fly nymph, 420;
atrophied, 430
Müller, Fritz, on caddis-flies, 482 f.;
on fig-Insects, 549;
on Termites, 358, 360, 374, 381, 382
Müller, J., on anatomy of Phasmidae, 262
Murray, on Phyllium scythe, 263; on
post-embryonic development of Orthoptera, 265
Musca, metamorphosis, 163, 167
Muscles, 115
Music, of Locusta, 318;
of Tananá, 319;
of Katydids, 319
—see also Phonation
Mylacridae, 239
Mymarides, 537, 538
Myoblast, 149
Myriapoda, 27, 42, 74;
definition, 29;
as food, 31;
habits, distribution, and breeding, 29-40;
locomotion, 40;
names for, 41;
classification, 42-47;
structure, 47-63;
embryology, 63-72;
fossil, 72-77;
affinities, 78
Myrmecoleon, 456
Myrmecophana fallax, 323
Myrmecophilides, 340
Myrmeleo, 456
Myrmeleon, 456;
M. europaeus, 457;
M. formicarius, 455, 457;
M. nostras, 457;
M. pallidipennis, 456
Myrmeleonides, 454 f.

Nasuti, 370
Necrophilus arenarius, 462
Necroscides, 278
Needham on locusts at sea, 297
Nematus, 514;
N. curtispina, 498
Nemobius sylvestris, 339
Nemoptera ledereri, 462;
N. larva, 462
Nemopterides, 462
Nemoura, 401;
N. glacialis, 405
Neoteinic Termites, 362, 380
Nervous system, 116
Nervures, 107, 108, 206;
of Psocidae, 393;
of Embiidae, 352;
of Termitidae, 359
Neuroptera, 172, 341-485;
N. amphibiotica, 342;
N. planipennia, 342
Neuropteroidea, 486
Neuroterus lenticularis, 523
Neuters, 137
Newman on abdomen, 491
Newport on Anthophorabia, 545;
on Monodontomerus, 544;
on Paniscus, 555;
on Pteronarcys, 399 f.;
on turnip sawfly, 515
Nicolet on Smynthuridae, 191
Nietner on Psocidae, 395
Nirmus, 346 f.
Nitzsch, on Mallophaga, 346 f.;
on Psocidae, 392
Nocticola simoni, 232
Nodes, 493
Nodus, 413
Nomadina, 565
Notophilidae, 45
Notophilus, 45
Notum, 91, 100
Number of species, of Insects, 83, 171, 178;
of Cephidae, 506;
of Chalcididae, 539;
of gall-flies, 533;
of Hymenoptera, 503;
of Parasitica, 520;
of Ichneumonidae, 551;
of Odonata, 424;
of Orthoptera, 201;
of earwigs, 215;
of cockroaches, 236;
of Mantidae, 258;
of Phasmidae, 272;
of migratory locusts, 297;
of Perlidae, 407;
of Psocidae, 395;
of sawflies, 518
Nurseries of Termites, 387
Nusbaum on embryology, 149, 152
Nyctiborides, 240
Nymph, 157;
of dragon-fly, 418, 419, 420, 422, 426;
of Ephemeridae, 432 f., 432, 433, 434, 435, 436
Nymphidina, 465, 472
Nyssonides, 565

Oak-galls, 527
Occiput, 94
Ocelli, 97, 282, 313, 400, 409, 430;
variation in, 267, 536
Odonata, 409 f.
Odontocerum albicorne, case of, 480
Odontura serricauda, 316
Oecanthides, 340
Oecanthus, 339
Oecodoma—see Atta
Oedipodides, 304, 309
Oenocytes, 137
Oesophageal "bone," 391
Oesophageal nervous ring, 118, 121
Oesophagus, 114, 124, 403
Oestropsides, 482
Oligonephria, 175
Oligoneuria garumnica, nymph, 434
Oligotoma michaeli, 351, 354;
O. saundersi, 352;
O. insularis, 354
Ommatidium, 98
Oniscigaster wakefieldi, 442
Ontogeny, 153
Oolemm, 144
Oolitic, 239
Ootheca of Mantis, 246, 247
Ophionellus, 563
Ophionides, 557
Opisthocosmia cervipyga, 215
Orders, 172
Orientation, 112
Origin of wings, 206
Orl-fly, 445
Ormerod, Miss, on importation of locusts, 299
Ornament, 200, 215, 233 f., 243, 244, 282, 302, 313, 339
Orphania denticauda, 321
Orthodera ministralis, 249
Orthoderides, 251, 259
Orthophlebia, 453
Orthoptera, 172, 198-340, 407
Oryssidae, 506
Oryssus abietinus, 506;
O. sayi, 506
Osborn on Menopon, 350
Osmylides, 466
Osmylina, 466
Osmylus chrysops, 341;
larva, 466;
O. maculatus, 466
Osten Sacken on similar gall-flies, 532
Ostia, 48 f., 133, 435
Oudemans on Thysanura, 182
Oustalet on Odonata, 422, 423
Outer margin of wing, 108
Ovaries, 137, 138;
of earwigs, 211;
of Oedipoda, 283, 284;
of Perla, 404;
of Thysanura, 188
Oviduct, 139, 392
Oviposition, 229, 246, 265, 290, 291, 440;
of Agriotypus, 557;
of Cynipidae, 527 f., Adler on, 529;
of Encyrtus, 545;
of Ichneumon, 555;
of inquiline gall-flies, 532;
of Meconema, 321;
of Pelecinus, 564;
of Pimpla, 553;
of Podagrion, 546;
of sawflies, 513;
of Sirex, 509;
of Xiphidium, 321
Ovipositor, 110, 552, 554;
Cynipid, 524;
of Locusta, development, 314, 315
Owen, Ch., 40, 78
Oxyethira, 484;
O. costalis, larva, 485
Oxyhaloides, 234, 241
Oxyura, 533, 534
Pachycrepis, 550
Pachytylus cinerascens, 293, 297, 298, 299, 308;
P. marmoratus, 298;
P. migratorioides, 298;
P. migratorius, 298, 299, 308;
P. nigrofasciatus, 285, 298
Packard, on cave-Myriapods, 34;
on air sacs of locusts, 283, 294;
on classification, 173;
on development of Diplax, 419;
on may-flies, 430;
on metamorphosis of Bombus, 497;
on scales, 397;
on spiral fibre, 129
Pad, 105
Paedogenesis, 142
Pagenstecher on development of Mantis, 247
Palaeacrididae, 309
Palaeoblattariae, 239
Palaeoblattina douvillei, 238 f.
Palaeocampa, 73
Palaeodictyoptera, 486
Palaeomantidae, 259
Palaeontology, 178
Palaeophlebia superstes, 427
Palaeozoic, Myriapods, 76;
Insects, 343, 486
Palingenia bilineata, 430;
P. feistmantelii, 443;
P. papuana, 441;
P. virgo, 431
Palmén, on dragon-fly nymphs, 423;
on Ephemeridae inflation, 439;
on gills of Perlidae, 402;
on rectal gills, 422;
on tracheal system of immature Ephemeridae, 436
Palmon, 546

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