Early Career Work in Progress Seminar (Wednesday - Week 7, TT25)
Wednesday 11 June, 4.30pm - 6:00pm
Ryle Room, Radcliffe Humanities
Andrea Buongiorno(Oxford): 'Fixing Signification in Metaphysics Gamma 4'
Title: 'Fixing Signification in Metaphysics Gamma 4'
Abstract: Aristotle is a staunch advocate of the principle of non-contradiction. As formulated by him, the principle states that it is impossible for the same property to belong and not to belong to the same subject simultaneously. Aristotle’s main business in Metaphysics Gamma 4 is to defend this principle against a hypothetical objector. This is someone who claims, for example, that it is possible for the same thing to be a human and not to be a human simultaneously. Interestingly, Aristotle’s argument turns on certain assumptions concerning the way in which language works. First, denying the principle involves saying something. Moreover, what the objector says must signify something. Lastly, what is being signified must be one thing. I will call this the view that signification is fixed. To this day, there are still various open questions surrounding this assumption. What part of what the objector says is doing the signifying? What is being signified by it? What kind of relation is signification? (For example: is it a meaning or a reference relation?) And when, exactly, is signification fixed? (In other words: under what conditions does a word successfully signify one thing?) My aim in this talk will be to offer a plausible and unified answer to these questions.
