Semantics and mental representation in Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rochester. Dept. of Philosophy, 2012.This dissertation is a careful examination of the first six chapters of Peri Hermeneias. This text contains what many consider to be Aristotle’s most explicit claims concerning language and meaning. In the first half of the last century, Aristotle’s claims in Peri Hermeneias came under withering criticism. Recently, Aristotelian scholarship has entered an exciting period as it has been argued that his linguistic claims in Peri Hermeneias are deep, sophisticated, and defensible. This recent work has successfully debunked various misinterpretations of Aristotle’s claims in Peri Hermeneias. With significant amounts of the turbid air surrounding Peri Hermeneias cleared, the path is open for renewed investigations into and interpretations of Aristotle’s claims. My intervention on one hand is to critically evaluate the interpretations of Aristotle’s claims in Peri Hermeneias 1-6. Simultaneously, on the other hand, my intervention is to present a new interpretation of Aristotle’s concept of signification and explore its implications. The first chapter of this thesis is a focused discussion of Plato’s analysis of conventionalism and naturalism in Cratylus and the way in which this analysis sets the stage for Aristotle’s discussion of language in Peri Hermeneias. The second chapter critically examines the issues with which the early Greek commentators were concerned. Specifically, I examine their interpretations of affections of the soul (παθήματα), ‘sign,’ ‘symbol,’ ‘likeness,’ and the connection between Aristotle’s claims in Peri Hermeneias and his other works. In the third chapter, I argue for specific interpretations of the sign, symbol, and likeness relations based upon a balanced view of the philological and philosophical evidence. Also, I argue for φαντάσματα as the affections of the soul (παθήματα) referenced by Aristotle in Peri Hermeneias 1, and I connect this interpretation to Aristotle’s work in the Categories and his account of perception. In the fourth chapter, I argue for an interpretation of Aristotle’s concept of signification that centers on the representational power of φαντάσματα and I apply this interpretation to the linguistic phenomena Aristotle discusses in Peri Hermeneias 1-6. Lastly, in the fifth chapter, I summarize my interventions and suggest possible applications of my interpretive work