Grice e Bordoni: filosofiia retorica e grammatica filosofica

 Scaliger''s main work. on language is his De causis linguoe Latinoe, which was published by Sebastianus Gryphius in 1540 in Lyons. There Scaliger tried to establish a philosophical basis for   36. JENSEN: . Scaliger''s concept of signification   a science of grammar. As the late professor Stéfanini put it, he approached his subject en philosophe (Stéfanini 1976 : 319). In order for grammar to q. ualify as a science it had to deal with eternally true '' and necessary statements about language. This is a problem which had confronted speculative grammarians since the twelfth century. Scaliger tried to establish the causes of language, because in an Aristotelian context the causes were that which always and by necessity brought about one specifie result. The discussion of the causes normally centered about the central passages of the Physics and the Metaphysics (1). In the De causis   . Scaliger does not devote much space to the discussion of the nature . of the causes. His philosophical presuppositions remain for the most part implicit (2). Thus, in order to understand more fully Scaliger''s philosophical stance on single problems, it is necessary to draw extensively on his other works as weIl. The formaI cause of language was traditionally identified as signification. It is clear, therefore, that signification posed a series of problems which involved not _ only language. The most fundamental ontological and epistemological problems were clearly at stake. A fundamental text from which discussions of signification arose was a passage from the beginning of Aristotle''s   De · interpretatione : Now spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the soul, and written marks symbols of spoken sounds. And just as written marks are · not the same for aIl men, neither are spoken sounds. But what these are in the first place signs of -affections of the soul -are the same for ail; and what these affections are likenesses of -actual things -are also the same (3). If words signify mental terms, or through mental terms, we must know how the latter relate to the extramental world in order to be able to account for the full process of signification. Central problems will be Scaliger''s ideas on the nature of the universals, on the conception of individual phenomena, on individuation, and on the agent intellect. We find usefulhints of Scaliger''sposition scattered in many of his works such as the commentary on the Hippocratean De fnsomniis, the dialogue on Pseudo-Aristotle De plantis, and in the commentaries on Theophrastus''s botanical works (1539, 1556, 1566 and 1584). The most important text is,   JENSEN :'' Scaliger''s concept of signification 37 however, the Exotericoe exercitationes (1557), where a long section is devoted '' to a series of problems concerning the soul. The Italian scholar Paganinus Gaudentius was rather sceptical about the value of the Exotericoe exercitationes as a source to Scaliger''s thought. He found that the work was too marked by Scaliger''s polemic against Cardanus, which occasioned the book (4). Gaudentius was scandalized by sorne un-Aristotelian views of Scaliger''s, and he tried to dismiss the work as being not seriously meant. 1 do not think him right in doing so, although 1 do admit that it can be difficult to use the Exotericoe exercitationes   because its choice of subjects is determined by the polemic, and also because the language is notoriously obscure, as it was noted already by German academics in the'' early seventeenth century (Godenius 1606 : 207 and 211). Our senses are immediately presented with the singular and, material objects. What we sense, however, is not the substance or essence of a concrete phenomenon, but its accidents, such as its size, colour, position, or its number. The intellect removes these acciàenis, anà whai remains is ihe essence (substantia), Le. the   species uniuersalis which is therefore in sorne sense produced by the intellect (Scaliger 1556 : fol. 394). Scaliger does not take this to its nominalist extreme of calling the species or the universals exclusively mental phenomena (1557 : fol. 407). He gives an ontological status to the two (5). ln order to solve the problem of the nature of the'' universals Scaliger briefly analyses a passage from the Analytica priora (Al, 24a 25), and concludes that universals are things (res) whose nature it is to be predicable about many things. They do not exist in the soul; they are discovered there rather'' than created (6). What the soul does to the universals in turning them into mental terms is merely to make them predicable : Intellectus autem nihil affert nisi proedicabilitatem (ibdm.). The ontological foundation of the mental term thus remains pronounced in Scaliger (7). In support of his view Scaliger quotes a passage from the De anima where Aristotle says that the «universals » (ton kath" olou) exist in the soul somehow (pas). Had he meant that the universals actually had their only existence there he would not have used the word pas. Scaliger''s attitude is not identical to any of the great medieval   38 JENSEN: Scaliger''s concept of signification   schools of thought, but it does recall the common natures of Johannes Duns Scotus, which were actualised by the intellect as predicable universals (Owens 1982 : 456). This sort of fundamental Scotism was by no means uncommon i n the sixteenth century, and ought to cause even less surprise in Scaliger, who claimed to have spent sorne years in a Franciscan monastery, and who as a young man also had prefaced and index to Duns Scotus with a laudatory poem (8). One should not, however, unduly stress the Scotisi aspects of Scaliger : although it is a conspicuous trend in his thought it is but one amongst many. For instance in connection with the universals he here and in several other conneçtions used the phrase res uniuersalis. This is an unusual usage · of res. One would rather have expected aliquid or the like. It could perhaps best be understood in connection with the terminology which came in after Valla''s Dialectics (Valla 1982 : Il), where res replaced ens, aliquid, and several other scholastic terms. Aiso in the De causis linguoe Latinoe we meet res used for universalis and even for   accidentia (1540 : 168). This is not an obvious usage for a man who, like Scaliger, was a moderate realist : he did not ascribe a separate existence to the universals ante rem, only a real existence in re.   Points of view akin to the one outlined above are found not only in the Exotericoe exercitationes, from the last years of Scaliger''s life, but also in his earlier writings. A corresponding attitude is for instance expressed in the commentary on the Hippocratean   De insomniis from 1539, Scaliger''s first scholarly publication (9).   Regarding species as a predicable or a universal as Scaliger does was a Platonising interpretation of Aristotle which stems back to Porphyrius. This interpretation created serious problems within the Aristotelian system: How can two single individuals of the same species differ, and how can they be graspedby the intellect if at ail? This set of problems underlies a wide range of metaphysical and logical discussions of the later middle ages, and it would be pointless to give even an outline of its importance here, but we cannot avoid a presentation of Scaliger''s viewson individuation and of the intellection of singular material phenomena. According to Scaliger (1557 : fol. 400 r.), Averroes assumed that there is one intellect for the whole of humanity, and that it   JENSEN: Scaliger''s concept of signification 39 cannot grasp the individual phenomena. In Italian Renaissance Aristotelianisrn the unity of the intellect was a standard topic of discussion. Scaliger''s interest in the subject probably reflects his Padua University days. Averroes was held to believe that the intellect assumed the form of the thing intellected. Scaliger points out that to Averroes the intellect does not realiter become res intellecta, but only modo similitudinis et receptionis, although he in other places ascribes the more radical view to Averroes, and he also ascribes it to Cardanus (Scaliger 1539 : 9, 1557, fol. 400 r ..). According to Scaliger Thomas also rejected the intellection of the individuals, not because of their materiality, but because of their , individuality. This is hardly in accordance with modern readings of Thomas (Boler 1982 : 461) but it seems to have been communis opinio in the sixteenth century. Zimara based his De primo cognito   (1530) on a refutation of what he saw as a nominalist acceptance of the intellection of the singulars simpliciter. The arguments used by Zimara, one of the men whom Scaliger quoted as his preceptors in the epistle to the reader prefixed to the Exotericoe exercitationes,   are listed as either Scotist or Thomist. The objects were considered incompatible with the intellect because they were, respectively, materiai anà singuiar. These are ihe same reasons which Scaliger ascribes to Averroes · and Thomas (10). For Scaliger the matter is clear. We do perceive the individuals in our intellects. They are indeed the first things perceived by it. If this \\ vere not the case, he continues, a proposition like Coesar est homo would bedevoid of sense. To the objection that the individual only per modum is distinguished from the species, he responds : «Now listen : This Cresarwho is writing this, is something different from the universal nature of man... therefore it is nece''ssary that Cresar is intellected as differing from the universal through sorne particulars. Therefore the singulars are intellected » (Scaliger 1557 : · fol. 400). Scaliger proceeds to argue that the higher faculties have a more perfect cognition than the lower ones, and therefore the intellect is hound to have cognitioI) of the singulars of which the senses have perception, for the intellect is a higher power than are the senses. This is very close to the traditional Scotist argument in favour of the intellection of the singulars (e. g. Coppleston 1962, 2.2 : 15). Again it is interesting to sec that thiswas a constant point of view in the works of Scaliger. In the commentary on the De insomniis   he says : «Therefore, if the intellect grasps the universals, it also   · 40. JENSEN: Scaliger''s concept of signification   has knowledge of the material things » (1539 : 10). This opinion was expressed forcefully enough for Scaliger to be quoted for it several times in later academic literature (Pomeranus 1645 : fol. A 4 r.). In the section of the Exotericoe exercitationes with which 1have been mainly concerned above, we were stillleft in the dark as to what constitutes the individuating principle. Another section, however, provides us with a clue. It is entitled De principiis naturre indiuidure (1557 : fol. 401 v.). Anima is the individuating principle : of the human being. Scaliger does not say so in so many words, but thus it. becomes clear that forma to him is the individuating principle, since the human forma is anima (11). This would seem to pose more problems than it solved, for the forma is that which makes a thing be what it is. It is its common nature or universal principle, and hence it should really be the forma which requires individuation. Scaliger is obviously not very precise here, and although he uses the term individuation, he probably does not want to commit himself too unequivocally to Scotism by introducing the   hoeccitas, which was formally distinct from the soul. But even so it seems clear that for Scaliger''s contemporaries this was accepted as " a Scotist approach. Niphus, for instance, another of the menScaliger identified as his preceptor, specified as Scotist his thought that the soul is irreduceably individual in itself, and that it is in its own · right an individuatingprinciple (cf. Nardi 1958: 436-437; 1945: 161-163). The same vaguely Scotist attitude can also be detected in the section of the Exotericoe exercitationes which is called Quid sit intellectus (12). There we read : «Thus we see that there are several notions for one and the same thing. We calI them formalitates. This is seen as a barbarism by those who are themselves harbarians, but for the learned it is not an inapt term » . Admittedly the idea that one thing could hring about various notions is rather more nominalist than Scotist,-~ nd the S~ otist would altogether have described the   formalitates as having a higher degree of reality, but even so the provenance of Scaliger''s ideas on individuation seems clear (13). We now know that the individual phenomena are first to he perceived by our senses, but they are also grasped by the intellect   JENSEN: Scaliger''s concept of signification 41   before it proceeds to denuding them of their differentia in order to make them into species. In this function the intellectcould be called intellectus agens. If one assumes that the universals are created in the intellectus materialis (or possibilis), Scaliger says, there would indeed be use for an intellectus agens. If, on the · other hand, one does not believe that the intellect actually creates the universals, then it is superfluous. Either one can say that the   intellectus agens both recognizes the singular and through the process of abstraction cornes to recognize the universals, or the other way round, one might say that the material intellect can have a facultas diuidendi, componendi, separandi, and colligendi :   «Therefore the agent intellect will not be necessary, where the material intellect is, or it will exist on its own without the material intellect » (Scaliger 1557 : fol. 402 v.). Thus there is no real distinction between the two, but Scaliger does permit a distinction   ratione or ui by insisting that the intellect is but one according to its potentia, whereas it has several uires. Aiso Scaliger''s. preceptor, Niphus rejected the Thomist idea that the soul had   severalprotestates (Mahoney 1976 : 194). Thus Scaliger once again recalls Scotist terminology (cf. e. g. Coppleston 1962, 22 : 213).   Scaliger stated his views on the agent intellect very strongly, even suggesting that the notion was ridiculous, and this became the object of much attention in the · generation immediately following Scaliger''s. Thus Goclenius discussed the problem in his   Aduersarium number 28 : An sit necessarium ponere intellectum agentem (Goclenius 1606 : 162), and Gaudentius was · positively scandalized '' at the thought that a man who wanted to pass for an Aristotelian could hold such opinions: «The agent intellect, which Aristotle dealt with very earnestly is being attacked by Scaliger as superfluous, nay ridiculous » (Gaudentius 1641 : 257). Scaliger takes the same attitude in his commentary on Pseudo-Aristotle''s De Plantis andalso in the commentary on Theophrastus''s De causis plantarum (14).   As an introduction to his discussion of the dictio in the De causis linguoe Latinoe Scaliger provides a brief summary of his epistemological views (1540 : 113-115). Most of it should be self-evident after the discussion of the Exercitationes exotericoe on the same subject. The De causis is far more jejune and. far less   42 JENSEN: Scaliger''s concept · of signification   explicit, but none of the information there provided, seems to contradict our findings. In the Dè causis, however, Scaliger takes us, also briefly, from the epistemological level to the level of language. We have the intellection of the species in common with other animaIs, but we distinguish ourselves from them by our rationality (prudentia, consilium), whereby we participate in God. The rationality can only be perpetuated socially, by the process of learning and teaching. Therefore langu. age is necessary (15). Reading the De causis one might weIl wonder why language is necessary at aIl. The mental terms as weIl as the things they reflect are identical for aIl. If words signify mental terms, language is really only an instrument for communicating what is already perceived and intellectually grasped equally by everybody. We would, according to Apel, be metaphysically guaranteed to say the same things about the same world (Apel 1976 : 38). Scaliger''s answer to this would be that the finis orationis is not only naming various states of mind ; it is an interpretation of the soul. The soul does not only perceive the singulars and grasp the universals, two objective processes; it is also discursive and combines them in   complexa, which in turn can be compared with the external world. The relationship to truth is that which makes language significant (16). Verburg writes that the relationship between mentalterm and real world is far closer for Scaliger than the relationship between word and mental term (17). Mental terms do not signify at aIl in Scaliger, which corroborates Verburg''s view. The word   significare is never used about a mental term, nor are these ever called notoe in the way words always are. Only words signify, and it seems to be clear that they signify mental terms. This last statement is nothing special; for even the nominalists had to make use of a mental term for significatum when e. g. universals were concerned, although they generally. assumed that · words signify singular and material Qbjects directly (Pinborg 1967 : 195-198). It therefore cornes as a surprise that throughout his book on the causes of the Latin language Scaliger clearly and unambiguously statesthat words signify things (res). The mentallevel is practically entirely left out of consideration in the discussion of the Latin language and its causes. For instance words follow directly the nature of things : «In the same way as words are signs of things, they also imitate their nature » (Scaliger 1540 : 132). In sorne places   JENSEN: Scaliger''s concept of signification 43 Scaliger explicitly excludes influence from an intervening mental level : «Consequently amhigous nomina do not existe For in the real world (in " rebus) there is no intermediate between those which we have called adjectives and nouns. Hence there can he no intermediate lzomen (ibdm. : 190). Even if we remember that for Scaliger res could mean far more than just physical things, this leaves the mental process completely out of the picture as far as language is concerned (18). At the risk of explaining away what might only he a banal inconsistency, 1 venture to propose that Scaliger did believe that, words signify mental terms, which in their turn are reflections of the res, but that the mirror of the intellect is so perfect that the mentallevel becomes superfluous when one talks about the matter. We have seen that the soul neither adds nor detracts from nature; it arrives at the universals through abstraction. Scaliger is close to the entirely objective relation between mental term and extramental phenomenon which Niphus maintained in his Dialectica ludicra. When Scaliger therefore says nomen significat rem or the like, he is not talking as a nominalist, although sorne sixteenth century logicians did maintain that words refer directly to things (19). On the contrary 1 think that Scaliger uses a shorthand expression possible only for a realist. Leaving the mentallevel without any importance in lallguage Scaliger " notably" " dis~ anced himself from not only the realist modists, but also from'' their, nomi   ~~   list opposers/ followers, who reinterpreted the modisignificandi iriio modi agendi of the intellect. Here Scaliger breaks radically with" late medieval Aristotelianism, including Scotism. He is not, however, the only one of his time to do so. Augustinus Niphus explains this tendency more fully in his Dialectica ludicra where · · he sets out to prove that there is no such thing as natural signification. Not even the meIltal term signifies naturally, for the notions are received objectiveIy. Renee there is no formaI causal relation between the singular lnaterial object and the mental notion. This is not dissimilar to the Thomist idea that the mental notions are similitudines (Pinborg 1967 : 107). The mental term is itself somethiJlg signified, it does not signify   (Niphus 1521 : fol. 16). It is clear that Niphus can deprive the mental term of signification becallse of the o~ jcctjve rclationship   44 JENSEN: Scaliger''s concept of signification   between the real world and the mental term, an approach which is very close to the restricted function of the intellect as set out by Scaliger. The tendency in late medieval philosophy had been to underline the function of the mental terms in the process of signification, and ~. g~ both Scotists and Averroists therefore stressed that words admittedly signified things, but through their concepts (Pinborg 1967 : 107 sq.). We occasionally find this attitude reflected in the De causis as weIl (1540 : 115), but on the whole this seems to be overruled by Scaliger''s practice, where he is closei" to his preceptor Augustinus Niphus. However, although mental terms themselves do not signify, they are still in exceptional cases considered as the significate of words by Scaliger. He does not always insist on words merely signifying things. Having recourse to the mentallevel seems to have been Scaliger''s ultimate resource when the more simple approach was not viable. 1 will consider the following passage : «Somebody might object : Nouns which are names of figments, are not words. For they are not the sign of a thing. It should be understood as follows : That which is called ens sometimes has true being, e. g. God, sometimes note The latter case can have two forms, either privation or fiction. The uacuum is an example of privation, Phoenix of fiction. The names of these things do not signify in the same way as God signifies God. Privation signifies through the category of having... It is easier to understand figments, for they are a sort of false enunciations. For Phoenix is the same as this enunciation : A bird resuscitated on account of itself » (Scaliger   1540 : 147).   Vacuum is described in practically modistic terms. Per modum priuationis significare is not written explicitly, but aIl the elements are there. This involves a concept of a mental process which cannot be derived from Scaliger''s own epistemology. Luhrman has pointed out how Scaliger''s approach to this is very similar to the modistic treatise of Thomas of Erfurt (Luhrman   1984 : 298).   ln order to explain how Scaliger sees the signification of Phoenix Luhrman changes Scaliger''s text, perhaps inadvertently. He paraphrases Phoenix to Phoenix est auis rediuiua sui caussa.   JENSEN: Scaliger''s concept of signification 45   Thus he obtains a proposition which can he either true or false, but this does not help us with this rather obscure passage. Scaliger does not equate Phoenix with a proposition, but with a complexum indistans : Auis rediuiua sui caussa. Scaliger confuses two problems here, that of signification and that of truth. This cannat be dismissed so easily as this. It is worth while recalling the commentary of Averroes on chapter one of the De interpretatione   where he states the generally accepted view that a word on its own is neither true nor false ; only if we add '' is'' or '' is not'' can one talk about truth. He continues: «And therefore, when we say goat-stag or chimrera we neither signify something true nor something false, unless we add to them · is or is not » (20).   Scaliger''s preceptor Zimara dealt · with a related problem in his Solutiones contradictionuln. He claimed that in one sense the formation of the intellect is always true; that is by the first operation of the intellect (21). In a similar context in the Exotericoe. exercitationes Scaliger says : «for that which is understood by the intellect is always true » (1557 : fol. 395 r.). In an other sense, however, the formatio of the intellect is neither true nor false,   , . _ .. _. .,. . • ~ . _. _ _, _ _ 1.. . _.. _ ,. 1 • _,_ . _, .,. . _ ,. oecause, as we nave seen, uerzcas can onlY oe eSIaOllsnea Inrougn   an adoequatio rei, which involves compositio or disiunctio. . Neither of these two ways of regarding truth . allows of declaring Phoenix a lie. Sorne light can be thrown on this contradiction in Scaliger by looking at the central passage in the Metaphysics where Aristotle discusses the ways in which falsitas can be said, Le. not a philosophically unambiguous term, but the usage of the term in Greek, although Aristotle probably took it for granted that aIl the ways in whichfalsitas could be said were equally adequate instances of falsitas. What is important for my purpose is that Aristotle in one section, in the words of Kirwan «ignores statements" and beliefs in favour of states of affairs... which he groups together with things that are not as they seem, as false   «actual things » » (22). The commentary of Averroes says on the same locus : «And «false » is also said about things which are imagined according to · their not haviIlg existence, or not being at aIl. And this sort of falsehood has to do with intellection and primarily with believing » (23).   46 JENSEN: Scaliger''s concept of signification   It must be a falsitas of this kind which Scaliger has in mind, although this is difficult to explain without ascribing a greater independence to mental operations. I · think Scaliger is more likely to be depending on a passage like the one from Averroes than on scholastic quoestiones on pgmenta (Pinborg 1967 : 82 ; 1982 : 263). This is reinforced · by his choice of the example Phoenix, which usually exemplified a species with only one member in it. The example of the figmentum was usually either hircoceruus or   chimoera, which were more complicated to account for than Phoenix (24). However, allowing that Scaliger means what was usually meant by chimoera, there is sorne traditional sense to be made out of this passage. ln one other instance Scaliger has to take mental operations into consideration. That is when he discusses what was traditionally known as suppositio materialis (25). Scaliger never uses the term   suppositio, and he is altogether very un-technical on the subject. ln sorne places he is, however, reminiscent of logical terminology (1540 : 132). Scaliger''s explanation of the material supposition corresponds to his description of the mental autoreflection on the mental terms (26). Thus we see that Scaliger does explicitly acknowledge mental operation in the De causis linguoe Latinoe in sorne special circumstances, although it on the whole is of less than secondary importance to him. 1 do not deny, therefore, that a mental level exists in Scaliger''s epistemologically based concept of signification. Mypoint is rather that the functions which he ascribes to the intellect are so limited that he can most often ignore them in practice (27). Scaliger''s indifference to the mental operations has sorne linguistic consequences as weIl. He has a . preference for Othe word   significatus rather than significatio, and it is remarkable that he does not seem to mind whether significatus (-us) gets confused with   significatum (-i). He quite often uses forms where the two co-incide, without giving any indication of which of the two he means. When discussing the hOIDonyms he says : °   nam profecto ut inre non sunt eadem (requiuoca), ita nominis significato alio atque alio sunt. Itaque sic uere possis dicere :   JENSEN: Scaliger''s concept of signification 47 Canis non estcanis. Id est res coelestis non est res terrestris; at nomen et materiam habet ipsas literas C, A, N, l, S, et formam, id est significatum. Ergo canis coelestis materiam eandem habet elementorum quam canis terrestris. Formam autem, id est significatum, non habet. Ergo non est idem nomen   (1540 : 166).   The two places where he writesosignificatum he must be thinking of forms of significatus (28). It would, syntactically, have been at least as normal to have had the nominative in the two instances, where the form would have been distinguishable from significatum.   Where he writes significato it is a form of significatum ; but that makes little sense; it would amount to saying : «Just as two'' homonyms are different in the real world, they are not the same in the real world » . It would make more sense to read significatu   instead. The same is true of another passage : «proprium autem quorundarum (prrepositionum) est ut significata uarient » (Scaliger   1540 : 306). Prepositions, being consignificantia, do not have a   significatum at ail; sohere significatu or significatus wouldhave constituted a more understandable texte My intention is not, however, to propose emendations ot the text, but to show that Scaliger \\ vas practically indifferent to any distinction bet\\ veen   significatus and significatum : a rather dramatic consequence of the objective relation between the extramental world and the corresponding mental concepts. Scaliger''s concept of signification makes it very difficult to explain contextually changing usages of a word. Varying" usages must reflect various mental terms. Two different usages of a word must therefore be considered" as two different dictiones, which only accidentally have the same phonetic structure.. This is traditional to speculative grammar (Pinborg 1975 : 47-48), but Scaliger''s concept of signification becomes even more rigid and static because of the limited role he ascribes to the mental operations. Not only does he ignore theories of supposition, which involve words changingaccording to context ; he rejects the possibility explicitly by telling us that discussions of sermonis proprietas are cOlnpletely misguided, because words have Ollly one signification (Scaliger   1540 : 351). This make it very difficult to acc() unt theoretically for the philological discussions of the niceties of classical usage. That   48. JENSEN: Scaliger''s concept of signification   was also a sort of proprietas sermonis (e. g. Maius 1480; cf. Kessler 1981). Scaliger unhesitatingly gives usage precedence over rationality in lànguage, when confrorited with the problem, but his theoretical discussion of usage remains fundamentally incompatible. with his concept of signification. A discussion of the concept of usus will, therefore lead to far away from the theme of this article, and itmust here be left as a hint at the range of Scaliger''s eclecticism.   NOTES   (1) Arist. · Phys. B 3. 194b23 -195b30; Met. Â 2. 1013-24 -1014-25.   (2) te Scripsimus autem desumptis a Philosopho principiis pro confessis quod in omni scientia fit infmore» Scaliger, 1561: fol. a 3v, where he discusses criticism of the De causis.   (3) Arist. / nt. 16-3-8, translated by Ackrill 1963: 43. (4) Gaudentius 1641: 201; for a modern discussion of Scaliger's relationship with Cardanus see Maclean 1984., (5) te ita et naturre opulentia et Aristotelis opibus euincam, esse in natura res uniuersales piuribus communicabiles», ibdm.   (6) te At intellectus nullam facit substantiam. Neque cum abstrahit circumstantiam quicquam addit de suo... sed agnoscit eandem esse in utroque, quia utrique communicabilem et iam communicatam» (Scaliger 1556: fol. 407 v.). (7) Scaliger is clearly and often explicitly anti-nominalist. (8) For Scaliger's stay in a monastery cf. Billanovich (1968) pp. 223-25. The poem is in de Fanti (1516). (9) Scaliger 1539: 10: te Ad hrec uniuersalia in materia sunt. Sunt enim unum in multis. Nam idearum figmenta non admittimus». (10) It is worth noting that Scaliger does not agree with Zimara who says: te unde, sicut mea fert opinio, sententia peripateticorum fuit quod intellectio singularis materialis repugnat intellectui, ut intellectus est, non quatenus singulare, sed quatenus materiale est» (Zimara 1530: fol. 3 r.). (11) Cf. Scaliger 1540: 166: te Sic erat respondendum: in rebus singulis esse multa suapte natura qure unum fiunt ab una forma: ut esse, uegetari, sentire, intelligere. Hrec omnia ab una anima unum fiunt in homine». See aiso Nardi 1945: 74 and 142. (12) «Sic uidemus eiusdem rei diuersas esse notiones quas barbare quidem barbaris, sed non inscite apud doctos formalitates appellabamus» (Scaliger: 1557 fol. 400 r.). (13) See Poppi (1966) for-a discussion of the Scotist doctrines on formaI distinction at the university of Padua. (14) Scaliger 1566: 42. Scaliger's thoughts are very similar to the notion of the immediate contact between the intellected object and the passive intellect which Achillini was noted   university of Padua. (14) Scaliger 1566 : 42. Scaliger''s thoughts are very similar to the notion of the immediate contact between the intellected object and the passive intellect which Achillini was noted   JENSEN: Scaliger''s concept of signification 49   for maintaining. cf. Nardi 1958: 230-232. Perhaps more interesting here is that Niphus and Tiherius Bacilieri also nurtured such ideas: cf. Poppi 1970: 142 sqq.: also Mahoney 1976. Scaliger does not, however, completely reject the existence of the species intelligibilis.   (15) Rationality is the traditional Aristotelian differentia of the human being. Luhrman (1984: 291) sees a dependence on Pico della Mirandola in the use of diuinum. The idea of the divine participation of the soul is general Neo-Platonist doctrine and can hardly he identified with Pico specifically. It is worth noting that Scaliger does not make the human use of language an argument for the divinity of the souI. This would have brought him far closer to the language mysticism of Pico. Cf. e. g. Apel 1963: 233 sqq.: Yates 1979: 17 sq9.   (16) Cf. e. g. Scaliger 1540: 342: te Veritas in oratione est, non in uerbis priuis». Also Scaliger 1557: fol. 395 v. (17) Verburg 1952: 164 sqq.: followed by Luhrman 1984: 292. (18) Thus when Scaliger talks abQut materiam, formam and qualitatem significare (1540: 191): about substantiam significare (1540: 182): and about actionem/ passionem significare   (1540: 198) aIl these concepts are also res, not with a separate existence, but nevertheless with a real existence. (19) B. g. Hieronymus Pardo, who took up the nominalist argument that the assumption of an intervening concept would lead to Infinite regress: cf. Ashworth 1974: 43. (20) Averroes in Aristotle (1562) Vol. 1, 1, fol. 68 v. (21) Zimara (1530) (Contradictiones) fol. 53 v., commenting on the De anime III textus 21 and 26 = r 6. 43Qa26 sqq. and 43{) b 26 sqq. (22) Kirwan (1971) p. 178 on /:. 29. 1024b 17 sqq. (23) Averroes in Aristotle (1562) Vol. VIII, Met. V, textus 34: fol. 141. (24) The chinuera not only poses a problem of truth, but as a true figmentum it exemplifies that which it is impossible to comprehend, in the sense that it signifies something which has the essential characteristics of both lion, woman and dragon: cf. Ashworth 1977: 62-63. That Scaliger does not use the chimzra here is so more remarkable as he did know why the chimzra was complicated: 1557: fol. 391v.: cf. also Pomarius 1648: fol. B 3v., who comments on the passage from Scaliger 1557. (25) For an introduction to post-Medieval theory of suppositio materialis cf. Ashworth 1974: 77-100. (26) As it is described in Scaliger exercitatio (1557: 307, 21) on which Goclenius comments:   te Ac aliquando sine hac specie intellectus intelligit, nempe cum intellectus recepta species exsinuat se ipsum et speciem ipsam intelligit. Id est ipsam speciem cognoscit esse rei notionem, non autem rem. Hzc intellectio est animi actio» (Goclenius 1606: 211-212). (27) 1cannot therefore entirely agree with Stefanini 1982: 43 in calling Scaliger te mentaliste».   (28) For significàtion is the forma of a word, not something separate from it. Cf. Scaliger 1540: 220: te est enim forma dictionis significatio».   Niphus Mahoney intelligibilis.   1984: the he human him : Scaliger 191): significare   nevertheless of and exemplifies which : know 3v., : :   species rei 212). (27) 1cannot therefore entirely agree with Stefanini 1982 : 43 in calling Scaliger te mentaliste » .   Références ACKRILL, J. L. (1963). Aristotles Categories and De interpretatione, Translated with. 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