Medieval Philosophy

by Peter S. Adamson

The modist theory makes it sound as though our concepts somehow intervene between language and reality. Does a word like “giraffe” or “running” really signify Hiawatha, or only my thought of Hiawatha? This question was one of those disputed ones.6 Some authors insisted that words must refer to or “signify” concrete things like a particular giraffe. But many modists, such as Martin of Dacia, insisted that language does signify concepts, at least in the first instance. To signify something, you have to have it in mind. Your words express your thoughts rather than the thing itself. On the other hand, your concept is about the concrete thing in the world. This means that language can still signify the real thing via mental concepts. If I say “Here comes a giraffe,” what I am fundamentally doing is communicating a thought. But since my thought is itself about