A No Nonsense Approach to St. Anselm

A NO NONSENSE APPROACH TO ST. ANSELM At the beginning of the De Grammatico St. Anselm raises the question as to whether grammaticus is a substance or a quaUty. We may rephrase this query without undue violence to its intent by transferring it to the formal mode (cf., 4.5141)1 and ask whether the term "grammaticus" signifies a substance or a quality. It would appear to signify the former in that it can have the sense of "grammarian" and this would designate a substance, human or otherwise. Evidence for the second alternative derives from its use as the equivalent of "grammatical," i.e., "Uterate" or "possessing grammar" and this indicates a disposition, or quality, attributable to humans at least.2 The authority for the latter reading is Aristotle's Categories ib29 where we find "white" and "grammatical" (grammatikon) given as examples of expressions signifying quality. A modern reader might expect the simple answer that "grammaticus " is ambiguous between what we now consider a noun and an adjective and when used in the first sense (= "grammarian") it would be a noun and signify a substance. When used in the second sense (= "grammatical") it would be an adjective and signify a quality. But St. Anselm gives a much more interesting and informative reply which, moreover, does not force us to choose between the alternatives . Take a sentence such as "Priscianus est grammaticus." Whether we translate "grammaticus" by nominalization and get "Priscian is a grammarian" or take it as adjectival as in "Priscian is literate," in either case the term "grammaticus" has two distinctive functions: it properly signifies a quality, i.e., literacy3 (significat 1 Numerical references, unless otherwise stated, are to the sections of the De Grammatico as edited by D. P. Henry (Notre Dame, 1964). 8 On the world "literate," so chosen because it can have both substantive and adjectival senses ^cf., "academic," "intellectual"), see Henry, De Gramm., pp. 92-94. 8 See Henry, De Gramm., pp. 91-92, for the important point that grammatica must not be read primarily as "grammar," but as signifying a mental disposition, i.e., literacy. A No Nonsense Approach to St. Anselm337 grammaticam per se et proprie) and "names" (appellat)* a substance, i.e. Priscian (4.232-4.233). This important differentiation is held to apply to all paronyms5 (1.000, 4.4242) and is the first explicit6 mention of the distinction later known as that between connotation (here significatio per se) and denotation (here appellatio or significatio per aliud).1 John Stuart Mill makes a great deal of the contrast between connotative and non-connotative terms (System of Logic, Book I, chapter II, sect. 5). Non-connotative terms are those, such as "Jack" or "London," which signify a subject only, or those, such as "whiteness ," which signify an attribute only. Connotative terms denote a subject and imply an attribute: "The word white denotes all white things, as snow, paper, the foam of the sea and... connotes the attribute whiteness." Here we see preserved8 the very distinction introduced by St. Anselm. Mill goes on to note (ibid.): "The word white is not predicated of the attribute, but of the subjects, snow, etc." 4 This use appellare is found in Priscian who, following the Stoic onoma prosègorikon or prosêgoria (Diogenes Laertius, VII, 58), uses nomen appellativum (e.g., H. Keil, Grammatici Latini, II, [Leipzig, 1855], 58, 1. 14) for the common noun (i.e., name) be it substantival or adjectival. But, given the present context, we do not have to invoke Priscian as the source of the term appellatio for, at Categories Iai2, the locus classicus for paronymy, appellatio is used by Boethius to translate prosêgoria. See also A. Maierù, Terminología Lógica della Tarda Scolastica (Rome, 1972), pp. 47-51, where he distinguishes the Stoic and Aristotelian traditions of the term. His account is inaccurate insofar as he takes Aristotle to be holding, at Categories iai2-i5, that terms (not things) are paronymous. 6 Things are called paronymous (Cat. iai2) which get their "name" from something from whose name their name is derivative. For example, the brave are so called paronymously from bravery, the literate from literacy, the just from...