In the Introduction to the Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Berkeley attacks the “received opinion that language has no other end but the communicating our ideas, and that every significant name stands for an idea” (PHK, Intro §19). How far does Berkeley go in rejecting this ‘received opinion’? Does he offer a general theory of language to replace it? If so, what is the nature of this theory? In this chapter, I consider three main interpretations of Berkeley's view: (...) the modified ideational theory, the speaker intentions theory, and the use theory. I argue that the use theory does, and its competitors do not, make sense of Berkeley's remarks on language in both the earlier and later works. (shrink)

Abstract The aim of the paper is to reassess the role of British Aristotelianism within the history of early modern logic between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as a crucial moment of cultural transition from the model of humanistic rhetoric and dialectic to that of facultative logic, that is, a logic which concerns the study of the cognitive powers of the mind. The paper shows that there is a special connection between Paduan Aristotelianism and British empiricism, through the mediation of (...) British Aristotelianism. British Aristotelians took the ideas of the Paduan Aristotelian tradition and carried them to an extreme, gradually removing them from the original Aristotelian context in which they were grounded and developing what would later become the fundamental ideas of British empiricism. (shrink)

Locke’s claim that the primary signification of (most) words is an idea, or complex of ideas, has received different interpretations. I support the majority view that Locke’s notion of primary signification can be construed in terms of linguistic meaning. But this reading has been seen as making Locke’s account vulnerable to various criticisms, of which I consider two. First, it appears to make the account vulnerable to the charge that an idea cannot play the role that a word meaning should (...) play. I argue that the role Locke actually gives to signified ideas is not susceptible to this criticism. Second, it appears to make Locke guilty of at least some degree of semantic idealism. I argue that Locke is not guilty of this and that he makes a proper distinction between the non-referential relation that holds between a word and its primary signification and the referential relation that holds between a word and things the word is used to speak about. (shrink)

I argue that Locke’s distinction between ‘determined’ and ‘undetermined’ ideas incorporates an account of semantic indeterminacy: if the complex idea to which a general term is annexed is ‘undetermined’, the term lacks a determinate extension. I propose that a closer look at this account of semantic indeterminacy illuminates various charges of confusion, misuse and abuse of language Locke levels against his philosophical contemporaries.

Dans cette étude, je voudrais considérer l’une des questions les plus anciennes de la philosophie du langage, à savoir : qu’est-ce qui détermine la signification des expressions linguistiques? Prenez un mot comme « eau ». Qu’est-ce qui détermine la signification de ce mot? Il semble qu’il y a au moins deux réponses possibles : la première consiste à dire que la signification du mot est déterminée par mon idée de l’eau, de sorte que ce sont mes pensées internes qui déterminent (...) la significati... (shrink)