|
|
|
|
|
|
tione (and be therefore significativus), or can be heard from afar, so allowing one simply to infer that ''down there, there is a dog." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It is clear that Abelard, in an Augustinian vein, is following the Stoic line of thought and distinguishes between signs (significantia) and words or pseudo-natural words (significativa). The same bark can act as a symptom (where the intentionality stands only on the part of the interpreter and the event has not been instituted for this purpose) or as a naturally signifying utterance which the dog utters in order to constituere intellectum. This does not mean that the dog "wants" to do what he is doing; his intention (institutio) is not his own but rather a "natural" intention impressed by nature, so to speak, on the neural circuits of the whole species. We are curiously witnessing here the proposal of a sort of Agent Will, molded on the Agent Intellect of Avicennaan interpretation which can be supported by an analogous suggestion provided by Albert the Great in De anima. Thus the agent is not individual, but it is nonetheless intentional. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Not forgetting the provocation of Augustine, there now comes Roger Bacon. The classification which can be extrapolated from his De signis is hardly homogeneous (see figure 7.5). His natural signs seem those of |
|
|
|
|
|