Plato and the Senses of Words

Plato and the Senses of Words THOMAS A. BLACKSON GIVENTHEIRCONCERNwith language and with philosophical problems related to language, no one should be surprised if the ancients were the first on record to concern themselves with the senses of words. Indeed, surprise would be warranted if the facts were otherwise. The received wisdom is that Aristotle laid the foundation for subsequent thought on words and senses. Every serious student of the history of philosophy knows that to many cornmentors not only does he seem to discuss homonymy (i.e., multiple senses) in several places, but his most characteristic views appear to involve claims of homonymy. Aristotle's Doctrine of the Four Causes, e.g., is commonly taken in part as the claim that the Greek counterpart of the English word 'cause' is homonymous in a way that escaped the notice of earlier philosophers. Received wisdom, however, is often challenged, and this particular bit of wisdom sometimes appears to be challenged in a way which threatens to trivialize Aristotle's achievement. Many of Plato's most influential commentators insist that he is aware that some words have several senses. Sir David Ross, e.g., claims that Plato is "alive to the possibility" of homonymy but regarded it as "only occurring somewhat rarely."' Contemporary commentators are even bolder. Paul Woodruff insists that Plato knows that "the naive principle that each word must have one meaning" is false." It is a mistake, of course, to suppose that these assertions constitute a serious threat to the received wisdom on the senses of words.a The interesting question is which, if any, of the ancients concerned himself with words and senses in more than a nontrivial way. To be only aware of the existence of homonymy is not sufficient to show such a concern. Homonymy is as prevalent in Greek as it is in English. One would be hard pressed to justify that Plato or any other ancient philosopher was not aware of its existence. ' David Ross, Plato'sTheoryofldeas, 2d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), 12. 9 Paul Woodruff, Plato:HippiasMajor(Indianapolis: Hackett, 198~), 156. 3 I do not claim that Ross and Woodruff intend their assertions as a challenge to the traditional wisdom. What view they intend their remarks to refute is not clear to me. [169] 17o JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 29:2 APRIL t991 To show a nontrivial concern with words and senses is another matter altogether. One way is to exhibit an interest in tests for the presence of homonymy . In some cases, homonymy is obvious. Consider, e.g., the English word 'cape'. It clearly has more than one sense. 'Cape' may mean "sleeveless cloak" or "point of land jutting into the sea." The English word 'is', by contrast, does not obviously have multiple senses.4 A test is needed to decide such problem cases, and the first philosopher to make progress in developing such a test should be recognized as making a contribution to the philosophy of language. Although much could be said about the ancient tests for homonymy, my interest in this paper is with the ancients on the extent of homonymy. I want to know which, if any, of the early philosophers believed that homonymy is not confined to situations where it is readily detectable, as in the case where 'light' is said of dark feathers, but also may appear in contexts where its presence is not at all obvious, as, perhaps, in the case where 'exist' is said of minds and bodies. The first person to claim that homonymy can be "philosophically insidious" in this way deserves to be recognized as making a contribution to the philosophy of language and as propounding an idea which is part of the stock in trade of analytic philosophers. The traditional, but, again, not unchallenged, answer to my question is that Aristotle first claimed that homonymy can appear in contexts where its presence is not obvious. The philosophers who have mounted the most serious challenge to the traditional answer are, again, Plato's commentators. They insist that Plato makes such a claim in connection with his discussion of cause and explanation in Socrates' biography in the Phaedo at 95e-lo5...