Vivarium 52 (2014) 23-48

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Martinus Dacus and Boethius Dacus on the

Signification of Terms and the Truth-Value
of Assertions
Ana María Mora-Márquez
University of Gothenburg

Abstract

The article intends to show: a) that the modist Martin of Dacia sides with the traditional
reading of the first chapter of Aristotle’s De interpretatione that we find in masters of
arts from the first half of the thirteenth century; and b) that the modist Boethius of
Dacia is one of the first thirteenth-century scholars to depart from this reading. In fact,
Boethius presents us with an account of propositional verification where the terms’
signification is not operational and where the immediate truth-maker of statements
like ‘homo est animal’ is an external state of affairs. In Martin’s case, to the contrary, the
terms’ signification is operational in his account of propositional verification and the
immediate truth-bearer of such statements is a mental composition or division.

Keywords

Medieval logic – Modistic logic – Medieval semantics – Martin of Dacia – Boethius of

Dacia – Aristotle’s De interpretatione

“Whether an utterance signifies a concept or a thing” was a question com-

monly raised in the commentaries on the Perihermeneias and other linguistic
treatises of the second half of the thirteenth century.1 The question concerns

1 It was raised in the commentaries on the Perihermeneias by Martin of Dacia, Peter of

Auvergne, John Duns Scotus, Radulphus Brito, Simon of Faversham and Walter Burley; in an
anonymous commentary on the Sophistici Elenchi (Incertus C); in Roger Bacon’s De signis;
and in Peter John Olivi’s Quaestiones logicales. See Martin of Dacia, Quaestiones super Peri
hermeneias, in Martini de Dacia Opera, ed. H. Roos, Corpus Philosophorum Danicorum

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24 Mora-Márquez

the interpretation of a passage in Aristotle’s Perihermeneias, where we are

told that:

[. . .] 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 all men, neither are spoken sounds. But what these are in the
first place signs of—affections in the soul—are the same for all, and what
these affections are likenesses of—actual things—are also the same.
(Int. 1.16a3-8)2

During the first three quarters of the thirteenth century most commentators
would agree with Manlius Boethius’ interpretation of the passage, according to
which: a) words primarily signify concepts; b) concepts in their turn are for-
mally identical to things; and c) words signify things only secondarily, by
means of the signification of concepts.3 In the last quarter of the century, how-
ever, most commentators would defend a direct and primary signification of
things as the right reading of the Aristotelian passage (e.g., Peter of Auvergne,
Radulphus Brito and Simon of Faversham).4 Nevertheless, the position adopted

(= CPhD) II (Copenhagen, 1961), 242-243; Peter of Auvergne, Quaestiones in Peri hermeneias,

ed. S. Ebbesen, ‘Animal est omnis homo. Questions and Sophismata by Peter of Auvergne,
Radulphus Brito, William Bonkes, and Others’, Cahiers de l’Institute du moyen-âge grec et latin
63 (1993), 145-208, at 152-155; Incertus C, Incertorum auctorum Quaestiones super Sophisticos
Elenchos, ed. S. Ebbesen, CPhD VII (Copenhagen, 1977), 278-280; Roger Bacon, De signis, ed.
K.M. Fredborg, L. Nielsen, and J. Pinborg, ‘An Unedited Part of Roger Bacon’s “Opus maius”:
“De signis” ’, Traditio 34 (1978), 75-136, at 132-135; Peter John Olivi, Quaestiones logicales, ed.
S.F. Brown, ‘Petrus Ioannis Olivi, “Quaestiones Logicales”: Critical Text’, Traditio 42 (1986),
335-388, at 346-347; John Duns Scotus, Quaestiones in libros Perihermeneias Aristotelis, ed.
R.R. Andrews et al., in Opera philosophica II (St. Bonaventure, 2004), 47-59; Simon of
Faversham, Quaestiones super libro Perihermeneias, ed. P. Mazzarella, in Opera Omnia I
(Padua, 1957), 151-170; Walter Burley, Quaestiones in librum Perihermeneias, ed. S.F. Brown,
‘Walter Burley’s Quaestiones in librum Perihermeneias’, Franciscan Studies 34 (1974), 200-295,
at 211-212.
2 Aristotle, Categories and De interpretatione, trans. J.L. Ackrill (Oxford, 1963), 43.
3 For a short description of Manlius Boethius’ interpretation of De int. 1.16a3-8 and the features
of the account of signification that he transmitted to the 13th century, see A.M. Mora-
Márquez, ‘Peri hermeneias 16a3-8: Histoire d’une rupture de la tradition interprétative dans le
bas Moyen-Âge’, Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Etranger 136.1 (2011), 67-84. For
exhaustive studies of Manlius Boethius’ commentaries on the Perihermeneias, see T. Suto,
Boethius on Mind, Grammar and Logic. A Study of Boethius’ Commentaries on Peri hermenei-
eas (Leiden, 2012), and J. Magee, Boethius on Signification and Mind (Leiden, 1989).
4 For accounts of the positions of some of these authors, see G. Pini, ‘Signification of Names in
Duns Scotus and Some of His Contemporaries’, Vivarium 39 (2001), 20-51, and idem, ‘Species,

Vivarium 52 (2014) 23-48

Martinus Dacus and Boethius Dacus 25

by a given author is not always easy to determine, as is the case with the early
modists Martin of Dacia and Boethius of Dacia.5
I have claimed elsewhere6 that Martin of Dacia adopted a position that fol-
lowed the traditional interpretation of Perihermeneias 1.16a3-8, and I suggested
that Boethius of Dacia may have been one of the first authors to break with
this tradition. A reason for hesitation about Boethius’ position is that his com-
mentary on the Perihermeneias does not survive.7 We can only guess his posi-
tion from his extant works, but of his logical writings only a commentary on
the Topics and a Sophisma survive.8 In Martin’s case, on the contrary, we have a
question-commentary on the Ars Vetus, which includes, of course, a commen-
tary on the Perihermeneias.
In this article, I intend to defend the claim that there was in fact an impor-
tant difference between Martin and Boethius as far as some logical issues are
concerned, but I shall widen the extent of my former claim to the case of truth-
values of general assertions and the role that the notion of signification plays
in their accounts of such truth-values. I shall leave aside the case of particu-
lar assertions. For in fact I do believe that Martin and Boethius would agree
that the truth-maker of a particular assertion, such as ‘Socrates currit’, is a fact

Concept and Thing: Theories of Signification in the Second Half of the Thirteenth Century’,
Medieval Philosophy and Theology 8 (1999), 21-52; A.M. Mora-Márquez, ‘Some 13th-century
Masters of Arts’ Notion of Signification in their Commentaries on Aristotle’s Perihermeneias:
A New Perspective on the Origin of the Debate on Signification at the End of the Century’, in
Papers on Aristotelian Logic and Metaphysics Presented to the Danish-Swedish Network for the
Aristotelian Tradition in the Middle Ages (2009–2011), ed. B. Bydén and C. Thomsen Thörnqvist
(Toronto, forthcoming).
5 The Danes Martin and Boethius of Dacia were masters of arts at the University of Paris dur-
ing the second half of the 13th century. They were both representative thinkers of the early
modistic school. After having been a master of arts for several years at the University of Paris,
Martin returned to Denmark in the 1280s and became the chancellor of King Erik VI. He died
in Paris in 1304. Boethius was one of the targets of the Paris condemnations of 1277 by Etienne
Tempier. He was also a master of arts in Paris and may have joined the Dominican Order after
Tempier’s condemnations. Martin and Boethius’ commentaries on logical treatises are prob-
ably from the early 1270s. Cf. Roos, Martini de Dacia opera, XXVII-XXXVIII, and Boethius of
Dacia, Modi significandi sive quaestiones super Priscianum maiorem, ed. P.J. Jensen, J. Pinborg
and H. Roos, CPhD IV.1 (Copenhagen, 1969), XXXI-XXXIV.
6 A.M. Mora-Márquez, Théories de la signification dans la deuxième moitié du XIIIe siècle: le por-
trait d’une rupture dans la tradition interprétative du Peri hermeneias 16a3-9, unpublished dis-
sertation, University of Paris 1, defended on 14 December 2009.
7 It did exist, since Boethius himself mentions it in his commentary on the Topics. Cf. Topica,
ed. N.G. Green-Pedersen and J. Pinborg, CPhD VI (Copenhagen, 1976), 7.107.
8 Boethius of Dacia, Topica, ed. Green-Pedersen and Pinborg; Boethius of Dacia, Sophisma
Omnis homo de necessitate est animal, unpublished edition by Sten Ebbesen.

Vivarium 52 (2014) 23-48

26 Mora-Márquez

of the external world. I shall be concerned then with the more intricate case of
the verification of assertions about general objects and the role that the notion
of signification plays in such a process of verification.
My aim is to show: a) that in the context of the Perihermeneias, Martin’s
accounts of signification and of verification of general assertions are inti-
mately linked to each other, and follow the Boethian tradition upon which sev-
eral commentaries on the Perihermeneias from the first half of the thirteenth
century are based; and b) that, regarding the verification of general asser-
tions, Boethius of Dacia distances himself from this tradition, putting forth
an extensionalist approach to which Martin is not entirely committed. This,
I attempt to show, implies that the signification of the terms of a general asser-
tion (henceforth, ‘assertion’) does not play the same role in Boethius’ account
of verification as it does in Martin’s account.
Let me begin by giving a short account of the modistic semiotics underlying
Martin and Boethius’ linguistic thinking.

1 Short Account of Modistic Semiotics9

Modistic speculative grammar aims at solidifying the status of grammar as a

scientia by grounding its subject-matter in reality—on modes of being of
things—through a correspondence between modes of signifying/co-signifying

9 The pioneering study on the modistic school is Jan Pinborg’s Die Entwicklung der Sprachtheorie
im Mittelalter (Munich, 1967). A large part of Sten Ebbesen’s work has been devoted to the
development of the study of modistic logic. For some of the most representative, see
‘Concrete Accidental Terms: Late Thirteenth-Century Debates about Problems Relating to
Such Terms as “album” ’, in Meaning and Inference in Medieval Philosophy. Studies in Memory
of Jan Pinborg, ed. N. Kretzmann (Dordrecht, 1988), 107-174; ‘Boethius of Dacia: Science is a
Serious Game’, Theoria 66 (2000), 145-158; ‘The Man who Loved Every. Boethius of Dacia on
Logic and Metaphysics’, The Modern Schoolman 82 (2005), 235-250; ‘The Chimera’s Diary—
edited by Sten Ebbesen’, in The Logic of Being, ed. S. Knuuttila and J. Hintikka (Dordrecht,
1986), 115-143; ‘Theories of Language in the Hellenistic Age and in the Twelfth and Thirteenth
Centuries’, in Language and Learning. Philosophy of Language in the Hellenistic Age, ed.
D. Frede and B. Inwood (Cambridge, 2005), 299-319. These articles have been reprinted in
Greek-Latin Philosophical Interaction and Topics in the Latin Philosophy from the 12th-14th
Centuries, which constitute the Collected Essays of Sten Ebbesen, Volumes 1 and 2 (Aldershot,
2008, and Farnham, 2009). Costantino Marmo’s Semiotica e linguaggio nella Scolastica, Parigi,
Bologna, Erfurt 1270-1330. La semiotica dei Modisti (Rome, 1994) and Irène Rosier’s La gram-
maire spéculative des Modistes (Lille, 1983) contain important developments of the study of
modistic grammar and semiotics. See also Angela Beuerle’s Sprachdenken im Mittelalter
(Berlin, 2010) for a recent study about Martin and Boethius’ grammatical thinking.

Vivarium 52 (2014) 23-48

Martinus Dacus and Boethius Dacus 27

of utterances, modes of understanding/co-understanding things and modes of

being of things.10 Modistic grammar accounts for the constitution of the eight
grammatical parts of speech—name, pronoun, verb, participle, adverb, con-
junction, preposition and interjection—for their accidents, and for the gram-
maticality of sentences composed with these parts through syntactic rules.
This correspondence is concomitant to the semiotic idea that parts of speech
qua parts of speech have a hylomorphic structure, so that they are a compound
of matter and form—of utterance (vox) and signification/modes of
signification.11
Modist authors propose that the constitution of a grammatical part of
speech follows from a ‘double articulation’ that is based on two acts by means
of which an utterance receives ‘forms’.12 First, an utterance (a vox) is a linguistic
item (a dictio) by virtue of the signification (ratio significandi) that it acquires
when the arbitrary act of imposition of the utterance on a lexical meaning
takes place. The linguistic item (dictio) is in turn a grammatical part of speech
(pars orationis) by virtue of modes of signifying and co-signifying (modi signifi-
candi et consignificandi), which follow corresponding modes of understand-
ing and co-understanding (modi intelligendi et cointelligendi). These modes in
their turn are grounded in certain ontological properties of things in the exter-
nal world. For instance, ‘pain’ and ‘to hurt’ are different parts of speech because
of two different modes of understanding/co-understanding, so that ‘pain’ is a
noun because it follows the consideration of its significate as a substantial and
stable entity; and ‘to hurt’ is a verb because it follows the consideration of its
significate as a process—as a changing accident occurring in time. But both
being a substantial and stable entity and being a changing accident occur-
ring in time are real features of external things. Therefore, the grammatical

10 This last aspect was particularly enhanced by Boethius of Dacia. Cf. S. Ebbesen, ‘Modi
significandi in Logic and Grammar’, in Modern Views on Medieval Logic, ed. C. Kann,
B. Löwe, C. Rode, and S.L. Uckelman, forthcoming.
11 For a recent account of modistic speculative grammar from the perspective of speculative
grammars before the 1270s (e.g., Peter Helias, Robert Kilwardby and Roger Bacon) that
spells out the subtleties of their development, see I. Rosier-Catach, ‘Grammar’, in The
Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, ed. R. Pasnau and C. Van Dyke, 2 vols.
(Cambridge, 2010), 1: 197-216. The article also contains important references to recent
studies about the development of grammar in the 12th and 13th centuries. For a thorough
explanation of the mechanisms of the hylomorphic structure of parts of speech in medi-
eval semiotics, see Marmo, Semiotica et linguaggio nella scolastica.
12 See also Rosier-Catach, ‘Grammar’, 207-208.

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28 Mora-Márquez

­ roperties of the name ‘pain’ and of the verb ‘to hurt’ are ultimately grounded
p
in ontological properties of things in the external world.13
As far as logic is concerned, modistic commentaries on Aristotelian logic
often appeal to semiotic notions taken from modistic speculative grammar.
The ones with which we are mostly concerned are that an utterance receives
its lexical meaning through an act of imposition and that its different linguis-
tic functions are determined by different modes of understanding/co-under-
standing this lexical meaning.14

2 Martin of Dacia’s Accounts of Signification and Truth in His

Commentary on the Perihermeneias

In question 7 of his commentary on the Perihermeneias, Martin of Dacia

answers the question whether utterances primarily signify a passion in the
soul or things outside the soul (utrum voces primo significant passionem in
anima aut res extra animam).
He starts by dividing things into: a) things that exist only in the soul (e.g.,
fictional entities or second intentions); b) things that exist only outside the
soul (e.g., prime matter); and c) things that exist both in and outside the soul
(e.g., natural species).15 On the basis of this division, Martin goes on to claim

13 Cf. Boethius of Dacia, Modi signfiicandi, ed. Jensen et al., 55.60-66: “Ad quaestionem
dicendum quod idem conceptus mentis potest esse significatum cuiuslibet partis oratio-
nis; [. . .] et ille mentis conceptus cadens sub modo significandi specifico nominis facit
significatum nominis, et cadens sub modo specifico verbi facit significatum verbi et sic de
aliis, ut patet dicendo sic: ‘dolor, doleo, dolens, dolenter et heu’, quae omnia idem signifi-
cant.” See also Rosier-Catach, ‘Grammar’, 207-208.
14 Boethius of Dacia and Radulphus Brito, for instance, often use the parallel between modi
significandi, modi intelligendi and modi essendi in order to give an account of the habitu-
dines locales of universal predicates and second intentions. For an analysis of different
logical problems that are tackled using the theory of modi significandi, see Ebbesen, ‘Modi
significandi in Logic and Grammar’, and idem, ‘Concrete accidental terms’.
15 Martin of Dacia, Super Perih. q. 7, ed. Roos, 242.26-31: “Dicendum ergo quod extendendo
hoc nomen res triplicem habet gradum. Nam quaedam res sunt, quae habent esse intel-
lectum solum, sicut res designatae per haec vocabula ‘chimaera’, ‘hircocervus’, ‘genus’,
‘species’ et cetera. <Quaedam sunt quorum esse tantum est extra animam per se, ut mate-
ria>. Quaedam aliae res sunt, quae cadunt et[iam] in anima et sunt res extra animam, ut
lignum, lapis et huiusmodi.” I use a correction to Roos’ edition suggested by Jan Pinborg.
For his correction, Pinborg used the Commentaire averroïste du traité de l’âme. Cf.
‘Commentaire averroïste du traité De l’âme d’Aristote’, ed. M. Giele, Mediaevalia

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Martinus Dacus and Boethius Dacus 29

that, in the first case, names like ‘chimaera’ and ‘genus’ signify only a thing in
the mind, and nothing outside. In the second case, signification is not possible
at all, for a certain knowledge of the thing is required for the imposition of
names, and therefore for signification.16 In the third case, a name like ‘homo’
signifies both a thing in the mind and a thing outside the mind (the concept
and actual men), but it signifies primarily (per prius) the concept.17 The reason
why names like ‘homo’ signify primarily concepts is because the imposition of
such names is primarily made on things according to their imagined being in
the intellect:

The proof of this is evident from Metaphysics IV, where it is said that
words are imposed on things only insofar as they are imagined18 in the
intellect. Therefore, they primarily signify passions.19

Although the Aristotelian passage to which Martin refers (Met. ∆.4: 1014b17-
1015a19) makes no explicit mention of the imposition of names or of imagined
being,20 we can find a hint of what is at stake in Martin’s idea in the following
passage of Thomas Aquinas’ commentary on the Metaphysics:

Philosophica Polonorum 15 (1971), 3-168. I owe thanks to Sten Ebbesen for having given me
access to Jan Pinborg’s personal copy of Roos’ edition, where his corrections appear as
glosses.
16 Since form is the principle of knowledge, prime matter cannot be known at all, because it
has not yet received a form.
17 Martin of Dacia, Super Perih. q. 7, ed. Roos, 243.1-6: “Dico igitur ad quaestionem, quam
supra quaerat de re, <si de re> primo modo, sic vox significat passionem in anima intra,
quod nihil extra; si de re secundo modo, sic vox <nihil> significat, cum nulla sit impositio
vocis ad rem illam. Si de re tertio modo, sic dico quod vox significat et passionem in anima
et rem extra animam, per prius tamen est significatum passionis.”
18 For the role of imaginatio in the process of signification, cf. Albert the Great, who is close
to Kilwardby, in I. Rosier-Catach, La parole comme acte. Sur la grammaire et la sémantique
au XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1994), 124.
19 Martin of Dacia, Super Perih. q. 7, ed. Roos, 243.6-9: “Cuius probatio patet ex IV
Metaphysicae, ubi dicitur, quod voces non imponuntur rebus nisi secundum quod habent
esse imaginatum in intellectu. Ergo per prius significant passiones.”
20 The Aristotelian chapter deals with the different meanings of ‘Nature’. In the passage Met.
∆.4: 1015a11-13, Aristotle talks about metaphor (transferring a name), but nowhere about
imposition of names nor of imagined being: μεταφορᾷ δ’ἤδη καὶ ὅλως πᾶσα οὐσία φύσις
λέγεται διὰ ταύτην, ὅτι καὶ ἡ φύσις οὐσία τίς ἐστιν. Nevertheless, he actually mentions a link
between sounds endowed with signification and phantasia in De anima II: 420b29-421a6.

Vivarium 52 (2014) 23-48

30 Mora-Márquez

In fact, names are imposed by us insofar as we understand, because

names are signs of concepts (intellectus). But we sometimes understand
what is prior from what is posterior. So we give a name immediately to
something, a name that suits mediately the thing of the name (res nomi-
nis), and this is the case in what was proposed.21

Thomas’ idea can be summarized as follows: we may know things that are prior
in nature by means of things that are posterior in nature, as for instance when
we come to the knowledge of the cause by means of the knowledge of the
effect. So it can be the case that we impose a name immediately on what is first
known to us (the effect), a name that suits mediately its cause. Hence, a name
like ‘homo’ can be primarily the name of the passion in the soul through which
man is known and to which the name was imposed, and afterwards it can
be applied to the man outside the soul, which is related to the passion as
its cause.22

21 Thomas Aquinas, In Met. V, c. 4, l. 5, n. 824: “Nomina enim imponuntur a nobis secundum

quod nos intelligimus, quia nomina sunt intellectuum signa. Intelligimus autem quan-
doque priora ex posterioribus. Unde aliquid per prius apud nos sortitur nomen, cui res
nominis per posterius convenit: et sic est in proposito.” The reference to this passage in
Thomas’ commentary is made by Roos in his edition of Martin’s works at p. 243. Thomas
may be drawing on Averroes’ comment on this passage, where the latter talks about tran-
sumptio of the name from the effect to the cause, and not at all about imposition. Cf.
Averroes, In librum V (∆) Metaphysicorum Aristotelis Commentarius, c. 5, ed. R. Ponzalli
(Bern 1971), 96.115-121.
22 In Thomas’ discussion of naming God, this idea of transfer of names is related to the for-
mula significatur sicut intelligitur, a formula that is commonly used in theological discus-
sions about the possibility of naming God. The use of this formula in this context goes
back at least to Pseudo-Dionysius’ On the Divine Names. Thomas Aquinas takes from the
Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (1, XVI, III, 1) the example of the noun ‘lapis’, in which
there is a difference between that from which the name is imposed (id a quo nomen impo-
nitur) and that on which it is imposed (id ad quod nomen imponitur). The name is imposed
because of the faculty of the stone of hurting our feet (ab eo quod laedit pedem), but it is
imposed on the nature of the stone, which we get to know through its effect on us. This
same idea is applied to the case of divine nomination in Summa theologiae I, q. 13. For a
thorough study of the use of the formula significatur sicut intelligitur in theological trea-
tises from the 12th and 13th centuries, see I. Rosier-Catach, ‘Res significata et modus signifi-
candi: Les implications d’une distinction médiévale’, in Sprachtheorien in Spätantike und
Mittelalter, ed. S. Ebbesen (Tübingen 1995) (Geschichte der Sprachtheorie, 3), 135-168; and
J. Ashworth, ‘Signification and Modes of Signifying in Thirteenth-Century Logic: A Preface
to Aquinas on Analogy’, Medieval Philosophy and Theology 1 (1991), 39-67.

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Martinus Dacus and Boethius Dacus 31

But Martin goes further than Thomas; for he is suggesting that, for names
like ‘homo’: a) it is not only possible, but also necessary that we impose them
on concepts, and b) that this priority in imposition somehow implies a pri-
ority in signification.23 Unfortunately, he gives no further explanation of this.
However, in some commentaries on the Perihermeneias of the first half of
the thirteenth century (namely by Nicholas of Paris, Robert Kilwardby and
Anonymus Oxford),24 we find an idea that may underlie Martin’s intention.
Let us look at Kilwardby’s case.
In his Notulae super Perihermeneias, Kilwardby raises the question why
thoughts are signified by utterances, rather than by the object of a sense other
than hearing.25 Although this question focuses more on the nature of the lin-
guistic item than on the nature of its content, Kilwardby’s response brings in
a requirement that can be seen from both sides—the linguistic item and its
content have to be proportionate:

One must say that, since the sign and the significate (signatum) are pro-
portionate, and the significate (signatum) is a resemblance of the thing in
the rational soul, the sign must have something from the rational soul
and something from the thing. [. . .] And thus, it is evident that the utter-
ance is a sign of the concept; for it has something from the thing, i.e.,
matter (in fact, its matter is air), and something from the rational soul,
since it (i.e., the soul) is its efficient principle.26

23 See n. 18, above.

24 Kilwardby’s commentary is doubtless earlier than Martin’s. The anonymous commentary,
given its form, the references it uses and the questions it raises, is very likely earlier than
Martin’s as well. See Kilwardby, Notulae super Perihermeneias and Anonymus Oxford,
Commentary on the Perihermeneias (ms. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Can. Misc. 403 [= O],
ff. 31r-55v). For an edition of Kilwardby’s prooemium and first lectio on De interpretatione
from mss. Cambridge, Peterhouse Library, 206, ff. 65vb-67ra (= P), Madrid, Biblioteca
Universitaria 73, ff. 44ra-45va (= M), and Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, L.VI.66,
ff. 1r-2v (= V), see O. Lewry, Robert Kilwardby’s Writings on the Logica Vetus Studied with
Regard to their Teaching and Method, unpublished dissertation, University of Oxford,
1978. I owe thanks to Alessandro Conti for having given me access to Lewry’s transcription
of the whole commentary, which I use in the quotations from Kilwardby’s commentary.
25 “Queritur postea propter quid passio siue intellectus significatur per obiectum auditus
sicut per uocem.” This question is also raised and replied to in the same way by Anon.
Oxford, In Perih., O 33ra, and by Nicholas of Paris, In Perih., ed. H. Hansen and A.M. Mora-
Márquez, ‘Nicholas of Paris on Aristotle’s Perihermeneias 1-3’, Cahiers de l’Institut du
moyen-âge grec et latin 80 (2011), 1-88, at 27.
26 Kilwardby, Notulae super Perihermeneias (Lewry’s transcription, cf. P 67vb): “Dicendum
quod cum signum et signatum sint proportionalia, et signatum est similitudo rei in anima

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32 Mora-Márquez

Kilwardby takes here for granted that the content of utterances are thoughts,
and given this fact, in addition to the fact that linguistic items and their lexical
meanings are (or rather must be) proportionate, he goes on to conclude that
utterances (that is, articulated utterances) are the only kind of thing that can
be proportionate to thoughts, because they are produced by the rational fac-
ulty of the soul. But we can take this argument the other way around, and claim
that the lexical meaning of a linguistic item cannot be the thing according to
its external being; for proportion is a symmetrical relation, and a material
being (e.g., a stone) is not proportionate with a sound produced by the rational
faculty (e.g., an utterance). In other words, in order to impose a linguistic item,
it has to meet its lexical meaning in the rational part of the soul, where both of
them have intellectual being.
It is noteworthy that this line of argumentation is based on the notion of
imposition that is at the core of the semiotics on which most linguistic trea-
tises from the thirteenth century are based. This notion, which does not play
a major role in the Aristotelian Organon, is fundamental in medieval explana-
tions of the constitution of a dictio.27 But its use in the interpretation of the
Perihermeneias yields a strong focus on the relation between dictiones and lexi-
cal meanings that may blur Aristotle’s intention when he talks about onoma
and rhema as significant utterances. For onomata and, more importantly, rhe-
mata are above all the constitutive parts of assertions,28 so that it could be mis-
leading to analyze their significant character without taking into consideration
the assertoric context to which they essentially belong.
Indeed, the tradition of commentaries on the Perihermeneias from the first
half of the thirteenth century does not ignore the intimate link between the
signification of names and verbs and the susceptibility of receiving a truth-
value of the assertions that they bring about. If we take into account, as some
commentators of the period actually did, that the name/verb-concept relation
in the Perihermeneias is inscribed in an assertoric context, it is easier to under-
stand what is at stake in the immediate signification of concepts by names and

rationali, oportet quod signum huiusmodi habeat aliquid ab anima rationali et aliquid a
re. [. . .] Et sic patet quod uox sit signum intellectus: hec enim aliquid habet a re, scilicet
materiam—materia enim eius est aer—et aliquid ab anima rationali, cum sit eius princi-
pium effectiuum.”
27 See Costantino Marmo’s Semiotica e linguaggio nella Scolastica for an exhaustive account
of the notion of imposition in medieval semiotics; see also Rosier-Catach, La parole
comme acte, ch. 4.
28 See for instance Aristotle’s claim that a rhema by itself is an onoma, which I take to imply
that nothing can be properly called a rhema outside the context of an assertion. Cf. De int.
3: 16b19-20.

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Martinus Dacus and Boethius Dacus 33

verbs. Let us look at Martin of Dacia’s account of truth and falsity of assertoric
sentences in his commentary on the Perihermeneias.
Martin himself establishes a link between signification and truth-values of
assertions in question 17, where the question is whether the examination of
names belongs to the logician or not. The reason for asking this question is
precisely that names are grammatical items, and as such they should fall under
the scope of the grammarian. There are two possible ways out of this puzzle:
either the examination of names by the logician is superfluous, or there is an
overlap between the subject-matter of grammar and the subject-matter of
logic. If the latter is the case, then one needs to explain how and why names
and verbs are treated differently in grammar and logic, so that we are left with
two different disciplines.
The concern with the different treatment of names and verbs in grammar
and logic also goes back to the commentary tradition on the Perihermeneias of
the first half of the thirteenth century.29 Nicholas of Paris, Robert Kilwardby
and Anonymus Oxford, for instance, deal with the question in the same way
that Martin does—the grammarian and the logician approach names from dif-
ferent perspectives. For the grammarian an utterance is a name insofar as it
can be constructed with other parts of speech so as to produce a grammatical
(congrua) sentence. For the logician, on the other hand, an utterance is a name
insofar as it can be constructed with a verb so as to produce an assertion that
is susceptible of receiving a truth-value.30 Along similar lines, Martin claims
that for the grammarian utterances are names insofar as they have modes of
signifying which are the principles of the grammaticality or ungrammaticality

29 Indeed, it goes back to Manlius Boethius. Cf. Commentarii in librum Aristotelis

Perihermeneias, ed. C. Meiser (Leipzig, 18872), 32.
30 Cf. Robert Kilwardby, Notulae super Perihermeneias (Lewry’s transcription, cf. P 68va):
“<Q> Primum dubitabile est propter quid diffinitur hic aliter nomen quam a Prisciano,
cum essentia uniuscuiusque sit semel. <Ad Q> Set dicendum quod diuersa intentio auc-
torum fecit diuersitatem diffinitionum. Diffinitur ergo in gramaticis per partes sue essen-
tie in quantum est constructibile, quia per substantiam et qualitatem; hic autem per
partes sue essentie in quantum est subicibile. Et est ista diffinitio magis formalis, illa
autem magis materialis, cum fiat per partes essentiales. Et quia in scientia ista intendit de
quadam specie orationis, scilicet de enuntiatione primo et per se, cuius partes sunt subi-
ectum et predicatum, et omnia illa que subiciuntur cadunt in differentiam unam, et est
nomen, et illa que predicantur in differentiam aliam, et est uerbum, propter hoc est hic
diuisio partium tantum in hiis duabus differentiis; non sic autem in gramaticis.” The ques-
tion appears also in Nicholas of Paris, In Perih., ed. Hansen and Mora-Márquez, 71.10-14,
and Anon. Oxford, In Perih., O 35ra.

Vivarium 52 (2014) 23-48

34 Mora-Márquez

of sentences,31 but that the logician treats names and verbs insofar as the logi-
cal notions of subject and predicate can be applied to them.32 And although
Martin does not state explicitly that being capable of being subject and predi-
cate amounts to being capable of bringing about an assertion that can receive a
truth-value, it is evident that the difference between being a grammatical part
of speech and being a subject or a predicate amounts to a difference between
a syntactical function and a semantic function in an assertion. That is, some
properties will explain why an utterance is a name in the sense of being com-
bined with other parts of speech in a grammatical sentence and quite differ-
ent properties will explain why an utterance is a name in the sense of being a
subject of predication in an assertion that is susceptible of being true or false.
Nicholas of Paris is explicit about this in his commentary on the
Perihermeneias:

Here, one can raise a doubt about the diversity of the definition of a name
according to the grammarian and to the logician. In fact, the grammarian
defines the name by means of a relation to the whole (i.e. to the oratio),
saying that it is a part of speech; but not the logician, who [defines] the
name by means of a relation to the significate, saying that it is a signifi-
cant word. [. . .] To the first [argument], one must say that regarding
speech the grammarian considers the grammatical and the ungrammati-
cal sentence, [whereas] the logician [considers] truth and falsity.33

According to Nicholas, names and verbs contribute to the truth or falsity of an

assertion through their signification, so that signification is here an opera-
tional notion with respect to the capacity of assertions to receive a
truth-value.

31 Martin of Dacia, Super Perih. q. 17, ed. Roos, 254.30-255.3: “Nam grammaticus considerat
nomen et verbum, prout habent modum significandi, qui est principium constructionis
congruae vel incongruae.”
32 Martin of Dacia, Super Perih. q. 17, ed. Roos, 254.20-24: “Ad primam questionem (q. 17)
dicendum est, quod ad logicum pertinet et cetera. Cuius ratio est: nam ad logicum perti-
net determinare de omni eo, cui applicata est ratio logica. Sed nomen et verbum sunt
huiusmodi. Potest enim eis applicari ratio subicibilis et praedicabilis.”
33 Nicholas of Paris, In Perih., ed. Hansen and Mora-Márquez, 35.19-23 and 38.15-17: “Hic
potest dubitari de diversitate definitionis nominis secundum grammaticum et logicum.
Grammaticus enim definit nomen per comparationem ad suum totum dicendo quod est
pars orationis, logicus vero non sed per comparationem ad significatum dicendo quod est
vox significativa. [. . .] Ad primum dicendum quod grammaticus circa sermonem consid-
erat congruam vel incongruam orationem, logicus veritatem vel falsitatem.”

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Martinus Dacus and Boethius Dacus 35

In Martin’s own account of the verification of assertions, truth is an intellec-

tual state (dispositio),34 which consists in putting together things that match
(or in separating things that do not match):

That which is complex and true is a disposition of the intellect in which

[the intellect] relates one thing to another by composing, or separates
one thing from another by dividing. And this thought is such that when it
relates a certain thing to another with which it matches, such as man to
animal, or when it separates something from a thing with which it does
not match, then it is true. But when it does the contrary, it is false.35

Thus, truth, according to Martin, is a feature that is primarily attributed to an

intellectual composition (or separation), to the effect that an assertion is true
or false mainly because it is the expression of an intellectual composition that
is true or false:

One must say that truth is the good of the intellect,36 just as Aristotle
takes it in book VI of the Ethics. For truth is a disposition of the intellect
according to which [the intellect] is assimilated to the thing. Therefore,
since truth is the good of the intellect, nothing will be true except in rela-
tion to the intellect. But something is related to the intellect in three
ways: in one way, as the sign to what is signified, and in this way a true
sentence is related to the intellect. For the sentence insofar as it is true is
a sign of the truth in the intellect.37

34 This is also in line with Aristotle’s intention, according to which the primary bearers of
truth or falsity are thoughts—that is, opinions or judgments—and thereby speech (cf. De
int. 1.16a9-11). For an exhaustive account of the Aristotelian notion of truth, see P. Crivelli,
Aristotle on Truth (Cambridge, 2004).
35 Martin of Dacia, Super Perih. q. 11, ed. Roos, 245.25-246.3: “Verum complexum est disposi-
tio intellectus sub qua refert unum ad aliud componendo vel separat unum ab alio divi-
dendo, et talis intellectus sic se habet quod quando refert rem aliquam ad aliam, cum qua
convenit, sicut hominem ad animal, vel quando separat rem a re, cum qua non convenit,
sic est verus. Sed quando facit e converso, sic est falsus.”
36 Cf. Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea VI: 1139a27-28, and Les auctoritates Aristotelis. Un florilège
médiéval, ed. J. Hamesse (Louvain, 1974), 240, n. 107.
37 Martin of Dacia, Super Perih. q. 15, ed. Roos, 250.24-251.5: “[D]icendum sicut vult Aristoteles
VI. Ethicorum, quod verum est bonum intellectus. Nam veritas est dispositio intellectus,
secundum quam assimilatur rei. Cum ergo verum sit bonum intellectus, nihil erit verum
nisi in comparatione ad intellectum. Sed aliquid comparatur ad intellectum tripliciter:

Vivarium 52 (2014) 23-48

36 Mora-Márquez

First order assertions, such as ‘homo est animal’, are true because they express
a true intellectual judgment—the intellectual composition of man and ani-
mal. Admittedly, the intellectual judgment that man is an animal corresponds
to a real composition.38 But this fact—a man being an animal—is not the
immediate truth-maker of the assertion ‘homo est animal’. We can see a double
way of verifying assertions in Martin’s account: a) if the assertion is accidental
and involves a non-empty subject, whether particular or general, then the
assertion corresponds to a composition in the intellect that is ultimately veri-
fied by a real composition; but b) analytic assertions correspond to a composi-
tion in the intellect that is verified by ‘being in the intellect’ alone or by
definition alone. The second way, b), applies both to analytic assertions with
general subjects, whether empty or not (e.g., ‘chimaera est chimaera’, but also
‘homo est animal’), and to assertions involving second intentions (e.g., ‘genus
est universale’).39 Thus, ‘chimaera est chimaera’, ‘chimaera est universale’,
‘homo est species’ and ‘genus est universale’ are all true assertions correspond-
ing to true intellectual compositions that are verified only by intellectual being.
And ‘homo est animal’, although actually having a corresponding compositio in
re, is not verified by either an external state of affairs or by things that only
exist in the intellect. In fact, following Avicenna, for Martin both the assertion
‘homo est animal’ and the intellectual judgment that man is an animal are veri-
fied by the very essence of man, which is in itself independent of real existence
or existence in the intellect. This tradition of Perihermeneias commentaries
thus acknowledges Aristotle’s approach to assertions as the vehicles that

uno modo si<cut> signum ad signatum, et sic oratio vera comparatur ad intellectum.
Nam oratio, in eo quod vera, signum est veritatis in intellectu.”
38 Indeed, according to Aristotle’s ontology this intellectual judgment always corresponds to
a real composition, for species are eternal and always instantiated. See Crivelli, Aristotle
on Truth, 78-81.
39 I am indebted to Costantino Marmo and Sten Ebbesen for having pointed out to me this
double way. Also, note that according to Martin no common term taken as a universal can
be predicated of an external thing: “Nam id quod significatur per terminum communem,
tripliciter potest accipi. Aut in re extra sensibili, et sic nihil est verum de re ipsa nisi deb-
etur ei per sua principia individuantia. Alio modo in anima, et sic nihil est verum de re
nisi intentio, sub qua anima ipsam apprehendit, sicut patet in hoc exemplo: homo est
species. Tertio modo potest accipi prout absolvitur a natura utriusque praedictorum
modorum, et tali modo nihil est verum de <re> nisi debetur ei per suam definitionem,
sicut patet in hoc exemplo: homo est animal rationale mortale. Et hoc tertio modo secun-
dum quosdam nec universale nec particulare seu singulare. Sic relinquitur quod nec est
ratio universalitatis nec res ipsa universalis praedicatur de rebus extra”: Martin of Dacia,
In Isagogen, q. 8, in Martini de Dacia Opera, ed. Roos, 132.19-31.

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Martinus Dacus and Boethius Dacus 37

c­ ommunicate the right or wrong opinions and judgments of individuals, rather

than as abstract linguistic expressions that are true or false. Martin of Dacia is
clearly still committed to this tradition.40
This commitment also emerges from a consideration of Martin’s approach
to the verification of assertions with empty subjects. An assertion like ‘chi-
maera est chimaera’ is true because it expresses an intellectual judgment that
is true, even if neither the assertion nor the intellectual judgment correspond
to a composition in reality:

The response to the argument is evident because of this: for when he says
first ‘a chimera is a chimera’, I concede that here there is composition. But
when he says afterwards that here there is no truth, I object by saying
that, even if there is no truth here in the way in which there is truth in the
composition of things that exist outside the soul, nevertheless there is
truth in the way in which there is truth in the composition of things that
have being only according to the understanding of the intellect.41

Hence, to the question of whether, to every composition in the intellect, there

corresponds some composition in the external world, Martin replies:

To the question, I say that the intellect makes compositions of things in

two ways, just as things are found in two ways: for there are some things
that have being even if there is no intellect, and some composition of
external things corresponds to the composition made by the intellect of
such things. [. . .] But there are some other things that have being only by
means of the conception and the understanding of the soul, such as goat-
stag [and] chimera, and it is not necessary that a composition of external
things corresponds to the composition made by the intellect regarding

40 The members of the Centre for the Aristotelian Tradition have defended this line of read-
ing the Perihermeneias by masters of arts of the first half of the 13th century. See D. Bloch,
S. Ebbesen, J.L. Fink, H. Hansen and A.M. Mora-Márquez, History of Philosophy in Reverse.
Reading Aristotle through the Lenses of the Middle Ages (Copenhagen, forthcoming).
41 Martin of Dacia, Super Perih. q. 15, ed. Roos, 251.21-27: “Per hoc patet responsio ad rationes.
Nam cum dicit primo ‘chimaera est chimaera’, hic est compositio, concedo. Sed cum dicit
postea, quod hic non est veritas, interimo dicendo, quod licet non sit hic veritas modo
quo est veritas in compositione rerum existentium extra animam, est tamen hic veritas
modo quo est veritas in compositione rerum, quae habent esse solum secundum appre-
hensionem intellectus.”

Vivarium 52 (2014) 23-48

38 Mora-Márquez

these things, but the understanding alone suffices, as long as it is not con-
trary to the intellect.42

Assertions with empty subjects can be true even if there is no real composition
corresponding to them, as long as they express a sound intellectual judgment,
such as the judgment that an empty concept matches itself. And the same goes
for judgments about second intentions, such as the judgment that the genus is
a universal. Now, since the truth-value of an assertion mirrors the truth-value
of an intellectual judgment, the signification of the name and the verb that
compose the assertion should be primarily directed to the concepts that com-
pose the intellectual judgment. Let me unfold the details of this inference.
As Aristotle himself puts it, some thoughts are not yet true or false; and
some—intellectual judgments or opinions—are true or false because they
are a composition or a separation of thoughts that are not yet true or false.
But what is the case in thought is the case in speech (cf. De int. 1.16a9-13),
i.e., speech preserves the truth-value of thought. Hence, names and verbs
are related to thoughts that are not yet true or false (cf. De int. 1.16a13-14); for
there cannot be truth or falsity in speech unless there is composition—i.e.,
unless there is a proper representation of the compositional structure of intel-
lectual judgments or opinions; or as Aristotle puts it, unless something (i.e., a
verb) is added to a name (cf. De int. 1.16a14-15). Therefore, the truth or falsity
of an assertion depends directly on the assertion being the representation of
a thought, a representation that preserves the formal structure of predication
in thought (something about something) and thereby its truth-value. But the
formal structure and the truth-value of a thought are not preserved in an asser-
tion unless its name and verb are themselves representations of the simple
thoughts that compose the opinion or judgment. The problem of the criteria
for truth or falsity is thus pushed on to the intellectual judgment or opinion,
which is what is primarily taken to be true or false in relation to the way things
are. This is the reason why Kilwardby, for instance, when talking about the

42 Martin of Dacia, Super Perih. q. 16, ed. Roos, 253.1-11: “Ad questionem dico quod intellectus
facit compositionem rerum dupliciter, sicut res inveniuntur dupliciter. Nam quaedam res
sunt, quae habent esse, etiam etsi intellectus non sit, et compositioni factae ab intellectu
de talibus rebus respondet aliqua compositio extra in rebus [. . .]. Quaedam autem aliae
sunt res, quae non habent esse nisi per conceptionem et apprehensionem animae ut
hircocervus, chimaera; et compositioni factae ab intellectu de istis rebus non oportet,
quod respondeat compositio in rebus extra, sed sufficit sola apprehensio, dummodo non
sit repugnans intellectui.” I owe thanks to an anonymous reader who suggested a better
translation of this passage.

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Martinus Dacus and Boethius Dacus 39

difference of perspective on the significative character of simple terms put

forth by Manlius Boethius in his commentaries on the Categories and on the
Perihermeneias, says:

But in this science (i.e., Perihermeneias) the discussion is about the term
insofar as it is said of something else or something else [is said] of it, and
in this way it (i.e., the term) is something according to the intellect. In
fact, the intellect takes whatever things are said of something else and
puts [them] under the intention /verb/; and [it takes] the things of which
the others [are said] and puts [them] under the intention /name/. And
for this reason, in this science the term is analysed into utterance and
concept (intellectus), rather than into utterance and thing. So, he says
that utterances are marks of concepts, and thus of things, [but] in the
Categories [he says] that they are marks of things.43

Here we have a claim that makes plain Martin’s own claim in his commentary
on the Perihermeneias that an utterance is a name or a verb insofar as the logi-
cal intentions of being a subject of predication and being a predicate can be
applied to it.44
Summing up, Martin’s account appears to be compatible with the account
according to which the terms of an assertion—names and verbs—ought to
signify simple thoughts for the assertion that they bring about to preserve
the formal structure and the truth-value of the intellectual judgment that the
assertion represents. ‘Homo est animal’ is a true assertion because it repre-
sents the true intellectual judgment that man is an animal. This intellectual
judgment, in its turn, is true presumably because being an animal belongs to
the very essence of man. But ‘homo est animal’ could not properly represent
this true intellectual judgment (i.e., preserve its structure and truth-value) if
its terms—‘homo’ and ‘animal’—did not indicate the simple thoughts out of

43 Kilwardby, Notulae super Perihermeneias (Lewry’s transcription, cf. P 67va): “Set in scien-
tia ista est sermo de termino secundum quod dicitur de altero siue alterum de ipso, et sic
est aliquid secundum intellectum. Accipit enim intellectus quaecumque de altero dicun-
tur, et ponit sub intentione uerbi; et de quo alia, et ponit sub intentione nominis. Et prop-
ter hoc in scientia ista resoluitur terminus in uocem et intellectum magis quam in uocem
et rem. Unde dicit quod uoces sunt note intellectuum, et sic rerum; in Predicamentis
quod sunt note rerum.” Cf. Nicholas of Paris, In Perih., ed. Hansen and Mora-Márquez, 18,
and Anon. Oxford, In Perih., O 31rb-31va.
44 Cf. n. 31 above.

Vivarium 52 (2014) 23-48

40 Mora-Márquez

which the intellectual judgment is composed. Boethius of Dacia, on the other

hand, has an entirely different perspective on this matter, as we shall see.

3 Boethius of Dacia’s Accounts of Signification and Truth

Boethius of Dacia gives a short description of the signification of the terms of

an assertion in the question “Whether ‘omnis’ signifies a thing or a mode of a
thing” (Topica II, q. 1) and in the sophisma Omnis homo de necessitate est
animal.
In the question about ‘omnis’, Boethius says about the signification of both
common and singular terms:

The universal term (i.e., ‘man’) signifies a thing that has been abstracted
from all individuating conditions, thus it (i.e., the universal term) has a
mode of being in relation to a suppositum contained under it, or to sev-
eral supposita, if there are several things in which the same nature is indi-
viduated by means of individuating conditions. Indeed, that same thing
that the common term signifies universally, the singular term signifies
individually. But this [term] ‘Socrates’ cannot have such a mode of being
in relation to a suppositum, since it does not signify a thing that has been
abstracted, but it is a suppositum and there is no suppositum of a
suppositum.45

Boethius begins the passage by claiming that a common term, for instance
‘homo’, signifies a thing that has been abstracted from its individuating condi-
tions, so that ‘homo’, by its signifying the thing in accordance with this abstrac-
tion, is related to all the supposita contained under it (i.e., the singular terms
‘Plato’, ‘Socrates’, etc.). The singular term (or the suppositum), on the contrary,
does not have this property of being related to any suppositum, since it does

45 Boethius of Dacia, Topica II, q. 1, ed. Green-Pedersen and Pinborg, 109.35-43: “Terminus
autem universalis significat rem ab omni condicione individuante abstractam, ideo habet
modum essendi in comparatione ad suppositum sub ipso contentum, vel ad supposita
plura, si sint plura in quibus eadem natura individuata est per condiciones individuantes.
Illud idem enim quod terminus significat communis universaliter, illud idem terminus
singularis significat individualiter. Talem autem modum essendi in comparatione ad sup-
positum non potest habere hoc quod est ‘Socrates’, cum non significat rem abstractam,
sed est suppositum, et suppositi non est suppositum.”

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Martinus Dacus and Boethius Dacus 41

not signify the thing as being abstracted from individuating conditions.

However, Boethius says, both the common term ‘homo’ and ‘Socrates’ signify
the same thing, but they do so following different epistemological approaches.
In other words, ‘homo’ signifies the nature of man that is the object of a univer-
sal cognition, while ‘Socrates’ signifies the nature of man insofar as it exists
with the individuating conditions that bring about Socrates. But this does not
mean that ‘homo’ signifies the universal cognition of man or man as it exists in
the intellect, nor does it mean that ‘Socrates’ signifies the cognition of
Socrates.46 Both ‘homo’ and ‘Socrates’ signify man itself, but under different
epistemological approaches.47
Now, Boethius does not commit himself to an extensionalist account of
signification. In the sophisma Omnis homo de necessitate est animal, problem
3, he answers the question whether terms lose their signification after the
destruction of their significates (Utrum rebus corruptis necesse sit terminos
cadere a suis significatis).48 Boethius’ position is that terms do not lose their

46 Although Boethius claims several times in his Modi significandi that parts of speech
express concepts, we must note that to express thoughts, which is the purpose of linguis-
tic imposition, is not the same as to signify. In other words, even if words are imposed
with the final purpose of communicating thoughts, they are however imposed on, and
thereby signify, the thing itself.
47 Peter of Auvergne holds a similar position, according to which common names signify the
thing itself: “Ad aliud quod dicitur quod terminus communis aliquid commune significat,
dicendum quod terminus communis, ut ‘homo’ vel ‘animal’ non significat aliquid com-
mune in actu sed tantum in potentia; significat enim tantum quiditatem hominis vel ani-
malis, et ista quiditas non est universalis nec particularis in actu, sed tantum in potentia
se habet ad hoc quid sit universalis vel particularis. Et ideo dicendum quod nihil prohibet
quin terminus communis, et quamvis significet aliquid quod sit in re, significet aliquid
commune—in potentia”: Peter of Auvergne, In Perih. q. 6, ed. Ebbesen, 155.
48 For discussion of this sophisma in other medieval authors, see A. de Libera, La référence
vide. Théories de la proposition (Paris, 2002); A. de Libera and L. Gazziero, ‘Le sophisma
“Omnis homo de necessitate est animal” du Parisinus Latinus 16135, f. 99rb-103vb’, Archives
d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age 76 (2008), 323-368; and A. de Libera, ‘Faire
de nécessité loi. Théories de la modalité dans le sophisma “Omnis homo de necessitate est
animal” du Codex parisinus 16135, ff. 11rb-12rb’, Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire
du Moyen Age 76 (2009), 179-233; I. Rosier, ‘Michel de Marbasio, Summa de modis signifi-
candi. Critical Edition with an Introduction by L.G. Kelly, Froman-Hozbog, Stuttgart-Bad
Canstatt, 1995 (Grammatica Speculativa 5) (review of)’, Vivarium 36.2 (1998), 259-264. For
a catalogue of this sophisma, see S. Ebbesen and F. Goubier, A Catalogue of 13th Century
Sophismata, 2 vols. (Paris, 2010), n. 583, 2: 281-292.

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42 Mora-Márquez

s­ ignification after the destruction of things,49 because the signification of a

thing does not depend on its existence.50 Signification depends only on some
thing, which supposedly has at some point existed, being the object of the
intellect, but actual existence is not a requirement for it to be the object of the
intellect, and so it is not a requirement for it to be signified either:

Furthermore, what is possible for the intellect when understanding is

possible for the word when signifying, for what can be understood can be
the significate of a word, and in that way; but if the thing has ceased to
exist, it is possible for the concept of that thing to be in the intellect, just
as it was before. Indeed, it is possible to understand the thing after its cor-
ruption; therefore, it is possible for it (i.e., the thing) to be signified by the
word, just as it was before.51

Hence, even after the destruction of the external thing the concept remains in
the intellect and has an object—the same one it had when the thing actually
existed—to the effect that the term retains its link of signification to this very
same (and now non-existent) thing. The preserved link of signification, how-
ever, is not to the concept, but to the object of the concept—the thing itself.
Here comes an objection: since the thing, what is understood in a concept,
and what is signified by an utterance are all exactly the same thing, if the thing
ceased to exist, it would also cease to be the significate of the utterance, so that
the term signifying it would lose its signification. Against this line of argumen-
tation, Boethius says that the destruction of the thing according to its material
existence does not amount to its destruction as an object of understanding and
of signification.52 The thing itself is what is signified, but for being s­ ignified it is

49 Boethius of Dacia, Omnis homo etc., ed. Ebbesen, unpublished, 20: “Ad quaestionem
breviter est dicendum quod rebus corruptis non est necesse cadere terminos a suis
significatis.”
50 Boethius of Dacia, Omnis homo etc., ed. Ebbesen, unpublished, 20: “[. . .] and this is
because the signification of the utterance does not depend on the existence of the thing.”
“[. . .] et causa huius est quia significare vocis non <de>pendet ab esse rei.”
51 Boethius of Dacia, Omnis homo etc., ed. Ebbesen, unpublished, 21: “Item quod est possi-
bile apud intellectum in intelligendo, possibile est apud voces <in> significando; nam
quod potest esse intellectum potest esse vocis significatum et illo modo; sed re corrupta
possibilis est apud intellectum conceptio illius rei sicut prius; res enim post sui corruptio-
nem possibilis est intelligi; ergo et per vocem significari sicut prius.”
52 Boethius of Dacia, Omnis homo etc., ed. Ebbesen, unpublished, 21: “Ad secundam ratio-
nem. Cum dicit quod idem est penitus res et intellectum et vocis significatum,—verum
est quod idem in numero est res in materia et intellectum et vocis significatum, esse

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Martinus Dacus and Boethius Dacus 43

only required that it be an object of understanding and not that it have mate-
rial existence.
Nevertheless, when Boethius accounts for the verification of assertions such
as ‘homo est animal’, he does so in such a way that the signification of terms
plays a quite different role than it does in Martin’s account, described above.
Let us look at the first problem of his sophisma Omnis homo de necessitate
est animal, where the question is whether ‘Every man is necessarily an animal’
is true, in the case that no man exists (Omnis homo de necessitate est animal,
utrum sit vera nullo homine existente). In the development of the discussion,
there is an argument for the negative that, as we shall see, Boethius grants
when he gives his own response to the question. The argument begins by
positing three sorts of composition: real, intellectual and linguistic. It is then
claimed that real composition, or composition in re, is the foundation and the
cause of all truth, both of composition in the expression and of composition in
the intellect. Now, since in the case that no man existed there would not be real
composition at all, the assertion in question would not be true:

But should no man exist, animal cannot be composed with man; there-
fore, neither the thought (intellectus) nor the expression composing ani-
mal with man can be true, since we lack the composition of things, which
is the basis and the cause of any posterior truth, i.e., of the thought and of
the expression.53

tamen aliud et aliud. Non enim idem est ipsam intellectum esse et ipsam esse vocis signi-
ficatum et ipsam esse rem; ideo ipsa corrupta in quantum ipsa res est in materia, non
oportet ipsam corrumpi in quantum ipsa est significatum vocis.”
53 Boethius of Dacia, Topica, ed. Green-Pedersen and Pinborg, 7.103-108: “Sed nullo homine
existente animal homini non componitur; ergo nec intellectus nec sermo componens
animal homini potest esse verus, cum deficiat compositio quae est in re, quae est funda-
mentum et causa cuiuslibet verita<ti>s posterioris, scilicet intellectus et sermonis.” This is
an echo of a passage in Topica where Boethius says: “. . . in re etiam est compositio una et
plures, scilicet prout unum inhaeret uni vel plura uni vel unum pluribus vel plura
pluribus. Et ex istis compositionibus in re existentibus accipitur compositio apud intel-
lectum et sermonem, et de istis diximus <in> libro Perihermeneias”: Boethius of Dacia,
Topica, ed. Green Pedersen and Pinborg, 6-7. This passage is briefly discussed by Laurent
Cesalli in his book Le réalisme propositionel. Jean Duns Scot, Gauthier Burley, Richard
Brinkley et Jean Wyclif (Paris, 2007), 62, where he proposes that Boethius of Dacia may be
one of the possible sources of the propositio in re put forth by some scholars from the 14th
century, such as Walter Burley. Cf. Boethius of Dacia, Omnis homo etc., ed. Ebbesen,
unpublished, 3.

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44 Mora-Márquez

The position granted by Boethius differs from Martin’s in an essential point:

the truth-maker of an assertion is always grounded in the external world.54
The discussion continues by positing that the assertion ‘homo est animal’
would be true even if no man existed. It would be true, it is claimed, because
even in the case in which no man existed, the terms ‘homo’ and ‘animal’ would
retain their signification, so that the assertion would continue to be true.55
This gives rise to a claim, recalling an account of verification very close to the
one that we found in Martin:

When it is said that there are three compositions, i.e., of the significates
in the expression, of the things understood in the soul, and of things, the
bachelor conceded this. And he also said that the composition in the

54 There is an interpretation of the last sentence of the first chapter of Aristotle’s

Perihermeneias (“. . . even ‘goat-stag’ signifies something but not, as yet, anything true or
false—unless ‘is’ or ‘is not’ is added, either simply or with reference to time” (trans. Ackrill,
43)), according to which an assertion such as ‘homo est animal’ would always be true (or
simply true), even if all men were to disappear, because it amounts to the attribution of
something incorruptible to something incorruptible—that is, the essence of animal to
the essence of man. The position that such an assertion is always true is at least as old as
Manlius Boethius, who lists it as one of the three possible readings of the sentence. Cf.
Manlius Boethius, In Perih., ed. Meiser, 51.2-53.9. Manlius Boethius’ list is taken over by
interpreters from the first half of the 13th century, such as Nicholas of Paris and Robert
Kilwardby. But whereas Kilwardby only gives Manlius Boethius’ list without taking a firm
personal position, Nicholas of Paris defends the interpretation just mentioned as the cor-
rect one, so that the truth of assertions such as ‘homo est animal’ does not depend on an
actual composition of external things. Cf. Nicholas of Paris, In Perih., ed Hansen and
Mora-Márquez, 28.9-10 and 32.6-15: “Dubitatur etiam ad expositionem litterae quid appel-
let verbum simpliciter et quid verbum secundum tempus.” . . . “Ad ultimum dicunt aliqui
quod appellat simpliciter verbum praesentis temporis, verbum secundum tempus appel-
lat casus verbi, scilicet verbum praeteriti et futuri. Aliter potest dici. Nam, sicut dictum
est, in hoc libro intendit de enuntiatione quae pertinet indifferenter ad materiam topici
et demonstratoris. Materia topici contingens est vel ut contingens, materia autem dem-
onstratoris necessaria est. Necessitas autem abstrahit ab omni tempore. Et ideo in mate-
ria necessaria verbum copulat tempus simpliciter, in materia contingenti copulat tempus
determinatum.” Unfortunately we have neither Martin’s nor Boethius’ interpretation of
this passage. I am indebted to an anonymous reader for pointing out to me this important
passage.
55 There is the following reply to this position: “Sed haec non est causa veritatis, nam
Aristoteles docens quae enuntiatio sit vera et quae falsa dicit quod ab eo quod res est vel
non est dicitur oratio vera vel falsa, et non ab eo quod termini idem significant; ergo non
est ista causa veritatis”: Boethius of Dacia, Omnis homo etc, ed. Ebbesen, unpublished, 3.

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Martinus Dacus and Boethius Dacus 45

expression is true only because the composition in the intellect is true, a

composition from which there is a composition in the expression; but for
the composition in the intellect to be true it is not necessary for there to
be a similar composition in things, as he was saying.56

This point is then considered together with the claim that the essences of man
and animal are the truth-makers of any assertion about them, and since
essences do not depend on real existence, the truth of assertions about them
does not depend on real existence either:

To the question, it is replied that [the assertion] is true. And the reason is
that to exist and not to exist are accidents of the thing, and hence,
whether there is a man or not, the essence of man always remains.
Therefore, since man and animal verify this assertion through their
essence and not through this accident that is to exist or not to exist, the
sentence will be true whether a man exists or not, and similarly whether
an animal exists or not.57

In his determination of the problem, Boethius rejects the position that cor-
ruptible essences that do not exist can be the truth-makers of assertions about
them. He starts by saying that:

One must say that this [proposition]—that is, ‘omnis homo de necessi-
tate est animal’—is false whether a man exists or not. For according to
Aristotle in book nine of the Metaphysics, truth is caused by things, so
that eternal truth [is caused] by eternal things and unchangeable truth
by unchangeable things that always have only one configuration; but

56 Boethius of Dacia, Omnis homo etc., ed. Ebbesen, unpublished, 4: “Cum dicitur quod tri-
plex est compositio, scilicet significatorum apud sermonem, intellectorum apud animam,
et tertia compositio rerum, concessit Bachelarius. Et dixit etiam quod compositio sermo-
nis non sit vera nisi quia compositio intellectus est vera, a qua est compositio sermonis;
sed ad hoc quod compositio intellectus sit vera non oportet consimilem compositionem
esse in re, ut dicebat.” For a study of propositional realism in the 14th century, see
L. Cesalli, Le réalisme propositionnel.
57 Boethius of Dacia, Omnis homo etc., ed. Ebbesen, unpublished, 4: “Ad quaestionem
respondetur quod ipsa est vera. Et ratio huius est quia esse et non esse accidunt rei, et
ideo, sive homo sit sive non sit, semper manet hominis essentia. Cum ergo homo et ani-
mal verificent huiusmodi propositionem per suam essentiam et non per hoc accidens
quod est esse vel non esse, oratio erit vera sive homo sit sive non sit, et similiter animal.”

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46 Mora-Márquez

changeable and contingent (non necessaria) truth is caused by corrupt-

ible and contingent things. So, since man and animal are changeable and
corruptible and nothing in them is incorruptible, except for prime mat-
ter, [. . .], and since this proposition ‘omnis homo de necessitate est ani-
mal’ is not verified by this matter, it follows that no unchangeable and
necessary truth is produced by these things, man and animal.58

So, if no man exists, ‘homo’ and ‘animal’ cannot bring about the true assertion
‘omnis homo de necessitate est animal’ only by virtue of their signification of
the essences of man and animal. He then goes on to make real existence a nec-
essary condition for the verification of assertions about corruptible things,
such as man. The truth-makers of such assertions are the essences of actual
things, and even if we were to allow some sort of intellectual existence of these
essences, this intellectual existence would not be sufficient for making true
assertions about them. For an assertion to be true it is necessary that it mirror
reality, and any assertion about man will fail to fulfil this condition, should no
man exist:

[. . .] the truth of the complex expression is its signification, [a significa-

tion] by which it is made similar to the thing; but if no man exists now,
the signification of this expression is not similar to the thing, since it is
neither the case that man is nor that animal inheres in him in the compo-
sition of things, but only in the composition of the expression; therefore,
if no man exists, the signification of this expression is not truth.59

58 Boethius of Dacia, Omnis homo etc., ed. Ebbesen, unpublished, 7: “Sed dicendum quod
haec, scilicet ‘omnis homo de necessitate est animal’, est falsa sive homo sit sive non sit.
Nam secundum Aristotelem nono Metaphysicae sicut veritas a re causatur, sic veritas
aeterna a rebus aeternis et intransmutabilis ab intransmutabilis quae sunt semper in una
dispositione; veritas autem transmutabilis et non necessaria causatur a rebus non neces-
sariis et corruptibilibus. Cum ergo homo et animal sint res transmutabiles et corruptibiles
et nihil sit in eis incorruptibile nisi materia prima, [. . .], secundum quam materiam non
verificatur haec propositio ‘homo de necessitate est animal’, sequitur quod ex hiis rebus
homo et animal nulla causatur veritas intransmutabilis nec etiam necessaria.”
59 Boethius of Dacia, Omnis homo etc., ed. Ebbesen, unpublished, 9: “[. . .] veritas sermonis
complexi est significatio eius, a qua ipse efficitur similis rei; nunc autem nullo homine
existente significatio huius sermonis non est similis rei, cum nec homo erit nec animal
sibi inest in compositione rei, sed solum in compositione sermonis; ergo nullo homine
existente significatio huius sermonis non est veritas.”

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Martinus Dacus and Boethius Dacus 47

Boethius’ account of signification and truth can thus be briefly described as

follows. The terms of an assertion signify essences that are independent from
their actual or intellectual instantiations. But signification alone does not
explain the requirements that the assertion has to meet in order to be true. For
an assertion to be true not only ought its terms have signification, but they also
have to refer to the essences of actually existing things. Thus, by making actual
existence a necessary condition for the truth of assertions, Boethius makes sig-
nification devoid of the operational role it had for the truth-values of asser-
tions according to Martin of Dacia.

4 Conclusion

a) Martin of Dacia’s case. There is an explicit adherence to a priority of the

signification of concepts in his commentary of the Perihermeneias, an adher-
ence backed up by his position about the verification of assertions, which is
linked to a tradition of commentaries on the Perihermeneieas that can be
traced back to masters of arts of the first half of the thirteenth century, such as
Nicholas of Paris, Robert Kilwardby and Anonymus Oxford. In this tradition,
the immediate signification of concepts follows from the idea that assertions
are representations of intellectual judgments or opinions that preserve their
formal structure and truth-value.
b) Boethius of Dacia’s case. As far as signification is concerned, the terms of
an assertion signify the essences of things themselves. But the only possible
truth-maker of an assertion about corruptible essences is a real composition.
The intellectual judgment is not the primary truth-bearer, as it is in Martin’s
case, but it is a truth-bearer on the same level as the assertion, to the effect that
both intellectual and linguistic composition ought to be verified by real com-
position. This, of course, implies a departure from the tradition of interpret-
ing the Perihermeneias as a treatise that deals with assertions that are capable
of receiving a truth-value because they are representations that preserve the
truth-value and formal structure of thoughts. It seems then that from Martin to
Boethius there is a shift from a consideration of assertions as public vehicles of
human opinions or judgments that are right or wrong (true or false) to a con-
sideration of assertions as abstract linguistic entities whose truth-value can
be determined independently from their users and can only be grounded in
external reality. In this latter view, language and intellect, insofar as they are
representations of the world, are on the same semantic level. On Martin’s view,
to the contrary, the semantic link between language and reality depends on a

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48 Mora-Márquez

primary semantic link between language and thought, perhaps because in his
tradition the emphasis is put on assertions insofar as they are tools for human
communication rather than insofar as they are tools for scientific enquiries
about the world.60

60 The preliminary research for this article was part of my PhD dissertation from Paris 1
University, but the major part of the work was carried out in Copenhagen thanks to a
personal grant from the Carlsberg Foundation. I would like to thank my colleagues from
the Centre for the Aristotelian Tradition (SAXO institute, University of Copenhagen), Mary
Sirridge, Costantino Marmo, Pierre Pellegrin, Paolo Crivelli and two anonymous referees
for their valuable remarks and suggestions. All my gratitude goes also to Phil Lavender for
checking the English.

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