THE SEMANTICS OF JOHN STUART MILL

SYNTHESE HISTORICAL LIBRARY

TEXTS AND STUDIES IN THE HISTOR Y OF

LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY

Editors:

N. KRETZMANN, Cornell University

G. NUCHELMANS, University o/Leyden

L. M. DE RHK, Universityo/Leyden

Editorial Board:

J. BERG, Munich Institute o/Technology

F. DEL PUNTA, Linacre College, Oxford

D. P. HENRY, University o/Manchester

J. HINTIKKA, Florida State University, Tallahassee

B. MATES, University o/California, Berkeley

J. E. MURDOCH, Harvard University

G. PATZIG, University o/Gottingen

VOLUME 23

WILLEM REMMELT DE lONG

Centrale Interfaculteit, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

THE SEMANTICS OF JOHN STUART MILL

Translated from the Dutch by

Herbert Donald Morton

D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY

DORDRECHT: HOLLAND I BOSTON: U.S.A.

LONDON: ENGLAND

Ubruy of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Jong, W. R. de The semantics of John Stuart Mill

(Synthese historical library : texts and studies in the history oflogic and philosophy; v.23)

Translation of: De semantiek van John Stuart Mill. Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral-Free

University, Amsterdam, 1979) Bibliography: p. Includes indexes. 1. Mill, John Stuart, 1806-1873. 2. Semantics-History-

19th century. I. Title. II. Series. BI608.S4SJ6613 1982 160' .92'4 82-3849 ISBN-13: 978-94-009-7818-8 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-7816-4 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-7816-4

Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, Holland

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T ABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE ~

INTRODUCTION xi

CHAPTER 1 / THE CLASSIFICATION OF NAMES IN A SYSTEM OFLOG~ 1

1.1 Names 1 .2 The distinction between individual and general names 1 .3 Abstract and concrete names 1.4 Connotative versus non-connotative names 1.5 The remaining distinctions of names

1 7 9

11 13

CHAPTER 2/ THEMES FROM THE HISTORY OF LOGIC 18

2.1 Mill's familiarity with the older logic 18 2.2 Some classifications of terms 20 2.3 The Manuductio ad Logicam of Philippus du Trieu 24 2.4 The ontological square 28 2.5 Paronymy 31 2.6 Connotative and absolute terms in scholastic logic 36 2.7 The identity of thing and essence 41

CHAPTER 3 / THINKING IN INTENSION AND EXTENSION 45

3.1 Abstraction and generalization in English empiricism 45 3.2 The Port-Royal logic 50 3.3 Extension-intension (comprehension), and denotation-

connotation 57 3.4 Extension 60 3.5 Intension 63 3.6 Formal characterization of the diverse notions of extension

and intension 65 3.7 The inverse relation between intension and extension 68 3.8 A problematical presupposition in the analysis of intensions 69

v

vi T ABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 4 / FROM PREDICABLES TO REAL KINDS 72

4.1 The incipience of the theory of denotation and connotation in 'Whately's Elements of Logic' 73

4.2 Predicating and signifying in Whately 74 4.3 The theory of the predicables in 'Whately's Elements of

Logic' 77 4.4 The revised version of the predicables in 'The Early Draft

of the Logic' 81 4.5 Real kinds 85 4.6 Abstract tenns 90 4.7 James Mill'sAnalysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind 97 4.8 Connotation revisited 103

CHAPTER 5 / THEORIES OF THE COPULA 107

5.1 Views of the copula 108 5.2 The semantic scheme for tenns 110 5.3 Some illustrations 113 5.4 limitations of the diverse theories 115 5.5 The copula as identity 116 5.6 Syntactic and semantic analysis of Hobbes's theory of pre-

dication 118

CHAPTER 6/ THE SEMANTICS OF PROPOSITIONS 124

6.1 Ambiguity of the copula 124 6.2 The analysis of Sop propositions as meaning analysis 128 6.3 Dictum de omni and nota notae est nota rei ipsius 130 6.4 The connotation ofa term as constitutive for its denotation 131 6.5 The syllogism a petitio principii? 134 6.6 The status of deduction 136 6.7 Abstract propositions 143 6.8 Existential import 145 6.9 Real and verbal propositions 148 6.1 0 Defmitions 153 6.11 Resistance to the logic of identity 156

CHAPTER 7 / MEANING 159

7.1 Some interpretations of Mill's theory of meaning 160

T ABLE OF CONTENTS vii

7.2 Meaning and the distinction between connotative and non-connotative terms 162

7.3 Meaning and ideas 165 7.4 Proper names 170 7.5 Philosophical language 174

CHAPTER 8/ SEMANTICS AND METAPHYSICS 180

8.1 "Cornmon sense" ontology 181 8.2 Relativity of knowledge 184 8.3 Ontology 186 8.4 Resemblance: epistemological aspects of the problem of

universals 193 8.5 Logic and metaphysics 199

CHAPTER 9 / APPRAISAL

9.1 Connotative terms and the deformation of the ontological square

9 .2 The legacy of the past: terms 9.3 Signs of a new logical paradigm: propositions 9.4 Names, propositions, and facts 9.5 Meaning, ftxing the reference, and rigid designators

APPENDIX 1/ Some biographical notes

APPENDIX 2/ Du Trieu's doctrine of supposition

APPENDIX 3 / Predication and supposition

list of symbols and abbreviations of technical terms

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX OF NAMES

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

204

205 207 208 212 215

223

225

226

229

230

236

244

246

PREFACE

The original, Dutch version of this book served in 1979 as a doctoral disserta­tion in philosophy at the Free University in Amsterdam. In this preface to the - slightly revised - English translation, I wish once again to express my gratitude to my supervisors, Prof. J. van der Hoeven of the Free University and Prof. G. Nuchelmans of the University of Leiden, for their excellent and stimulating support.

Professor van der Hoeven was associated with this project from the outset. It was a privilege to benefit from his incisive commentaries, especially in those instances where the objective was to break through to more fundamental insights. I shall not lightly forget his friendly and heartening encouragement.

I am equally grateful for my discussions with Professor Nuchelmans. I almost always tried to follow his advice, since it was based upon awesome expertness and erudition.

I am happy to have found in the person of Herbert Donald Morton, Th.M., M.A., an able and enthusiastic translator. Drs. Gerben Groenewoud made the translations of a number of the Latin citations. I acknowledge permission from Routledge and Kegan Paul and the University of Toronto Press to quote from The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. And I thank the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research (Z.W.O.) for fmancing this translation.

WILLEM REMMELT DE lONG

ix

INTRODUCTION

John Stuart Mill was one of the most influential thinkers of the nineteenth century. His main work, A System of Logic (1843), set the tone in the field of logic for many years, in England at least. In his foreword to The Principles of Empirical and Inductive Logic (1889), for example, Venn wrote, "As many readers will probably perceive, the main original guiding influence with me, - as with most of those of the middle generation, and especially with most of those who approached Logic with a previous mathematical or scien­tific training, - was that of Mill" (Venn, p. v). Notwithstanding that, A System ''has been about the best attacked book of the time" (Bain, p. 67); yet, the conduct of the criticism was usually accompanied by a prodigious measure of congeniality. Besides, Mill's outrageously sloppy manner of formulating invited copious critical correction. It was his custom to present his ideas in confrontation with those of others. In doing so he often adopted, more than his own standpoint allowed, the terminology and approaches of his adversaries. Numerous ambiguities and inconsistencies were the result. It need hardly be said that this procedure has presented serious obstacles to the interpretation of Mill (see Copleston, p. 57; Jackson, p. viii).

My subject is not Mill's philosophy; it is not even his logic. The focus of this study is John Stuart Mill's semantic theories. Some general information about the philosopher's life and works will be found in Appendix 1.

Semantics is mentioned frequently and in various contexts nowadays. In this monograph I take semantics to be closely connected to, or even a component discipline of, (alethical) logic. At the same time, I take logic in a much broader sense than formal logic. Semantics is interested in the relations between (linguistic) expressions and the objects, facts, states of affairs, events, or phenomena to which these expressions pertain. In this study, however, I understand by semantics not only what Quine refers to as theory of reference (Quine, 130); I also include in the field of semantics the theory of meaning. In other words, part of the task of semantics is the uivestigation of notions such as meaning, synonymy, and analyticity. One fmds that in Mill's day theory of reference and theory of meaning were not yet distin­guished from each other. Central in Mill's semantics are notions like naming,

xi

xii INTRODUCTION

predicating, and meaning. This provides some indication that John Stuart was concerned mainly with categorematic expressions.

Mill set forth his semantic insights principally in A System of Logic. After 1843 he gave almost no more attention to logic. An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy is the only later work that still has any bearing on the subject. It is a work which has, however, a strongly epistemological psychological character. Semantic notions arise in it only by way of passing. Not only does Mill add nothing to the semantic theories of A System; he also does not hint at the possibility of questioning them.

The discussion of semantics is to be found largely in the first book of A System, 'Of Names and Propositions.' This means that Mill introduces his semantics in the context of a treatise on deductive logic. It is important to notice that, with respect to this part of logic, John Stuart fmds himself in the vicinity of a boundary which involves the transition from syl10gistics (the formal nucleus of traditional logic) to Fregean logic. Boole's The Mathe­matical Analysis of Logic and De Morgan's Formal Logic appeared less than five years after Mill's main work. John Stuart is still decidedly a representative of traditional logic. Yet his semantics strongly influenced a number of the coryphae of the opening period of modern logic. Ryle's assessment of the case cannot be left unmentioned:

Mill's contributions to Formal or Symbolic Logic were negligible. It was not he but his exact contemporaries, Boole and De Morgan, and his immediate successors, Jevons, Venn, Caron, McColl and Peirce who, in the E~-speaking world, paved the way for Russell. On the other hand, it is difficult to exaggerate the influence which he exercised, for good and for ill, upon British and Continental philosophers; and we must include among these philosophers the Symbolic Logicians as well, in so far as they have philoso­phized about their technical business. In particular, Mill's theory of meaning [that is, semantics in the sense I take it here] set the questions, and in large measure, determined their answers for thinkers as different as Brentano, in Austria; Meinong and Husserl, who were pupils of Brentano; Bradley, Jevons, Venn, Frege, James, Peirce, Moore and Russell (Ryle, p. 241; see Kretzmann (1967), p. 393).

This remarkable state of affairs by itself justifies a closer investigation of John Stuart Mill's semantics.

To make the standpoint which is determinative for this study clear, it is desirable to present a fairly precise description of the place of Mill's semantics in the whole of his logic. Not only the construction, but also the story of the origin of A System of Logic provides useful points of contact.

Globally speaking, A System addresses three broad problem areas. The frrst two books of A System cover the field of the traditional theory of terms,

INTRODUCTION xiii

propositions, and syllogisms, which is to say: deduction. The following two books deal with the logic of the empirical natural sciences, central to which is the problem of inductiqn, the "main question of the science of Logic" according to Mill (SL, p. 283). Finally, after a less important section about fallacies, there follows in the sixth and last book a study of the logic of the moral sciences. Nowadays this would rather be called the methodology of the social sciences. Mill's handling of the subject, and therefore Comte's influence on Mill in connection with it, lies beyond the scope of this study.

Mill's autobiography contains good information about the origins of A System. The first versions of books one and two are found to date to 1830, 1831, and 1832 (see AU, pp. 95-96, 108-9). A copy of them made shortly thereafter has been published in the series of John Stuart Mill's complete works, now in progress, under the title, The Early Draft of the Logic.' A comparison of this "Early Draft" with the introduction and first two books of A System reveals a surprisingly SUbstantial measure of agreement given the length of the intervening period (see Robson, p. lix). The passages about semantics, in particular, practically coincide. An exception is the theory of real kinds, which originated only later in the form in which it appeared in A System.

With the initial draft of the sections about deductive logic, Mill in 1832 had come - as he said himself - "to the end of my tether; I could make nothing satisfactory of Induction, at this time" (AU, p. 109). Only in 1837, after the publication of Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences, did Mill again pick up the work on his logic. With the help of the material gathered by Whewell, he was able to arrive at what he felt was a satisfactory theory of induction (AU, pp. 124-25,132-:33).

When A System appeared in 1843, Mill entertained little hope that it would be generally acclaimed. He did not expect a treatise on such an abstract subject to attract a large public, despite the fact that "Archbishop Whately had indeed rehabilitated the name of Logic, and the study of the forms, rules and fallacies of Ratiocination; and Dr. Whewell's writings had begun to excite an interest in the other part of my subject, the theory of Induction" (AU, p.133).

Nevertheless, the publication of A System was a great success, not least of all, I think, because of the work's synthetiC character. Mill introduced his main work as "an attempt not to supersede, but to embody and systematize, the best ideas which have been either promulgated on its subject hy specula­tive writers, or conformed to by accurate thinkers in their scientific inquiries" (SL, p. cxi). A System was received as a more or less successful attempt to

xiv INTRODUCTION

deal seriously, in the spirit of English empiricism, with both induction and deduction.

In Mill's day there were two distinctly different views oflogic. They were diametrically opposed precisely in regard to the question of whether logic should deal with deduction or induction.

On the one hand, there was the conception of logic which was derived from Francis Bacon and which, since Locke's Essay, had predominated in England. Howell speaks in this connection of ''the new logic" (Howell (1971), pp. 259ff.). Under the influence of English empiricism, its followers tied logic very closely to epistemology and rejected traditonal syllogistics as being totally worthless for the acquiring of new knowledge. In the eighteenth cen­tury, thinkers of this school led by Dugald Stewart, George Campbell, and Thomas Reid concentrated their attention principally on the methodology of the nature sciences and thereby on the problematics of induction.

On the other hand, there was the view of those who regarded syllogistics as the pith and kernel oflogic; here, syllogistics would be the continuation of the scholastic dialectica, in which logic was, indeed, associated with thought but placed at the same time in the context oflanguage, communication, and argumentation in dialogical situations. Induction as a method of acquiring new knowledge is alien to this tradition. In Mill's time, thanks in large mea­sure to Whately, this view oflogic was again more in vogue.

In his Elements of Logic (1825) Whately not only adopts this older logic; he at the same time explicitly disassociates himself from the "new logic." In the terminology of a modem distinction: he completely separates the context of justification from the context of discovery. Logic is concerned exclusively with justification. In doing so he already appeals to the modem notion of deductive validity in which no role at all is reserved for the actual truth value of premises and conclusion, or for the epistemological truth claims of pro­positions (Whately (1831), p. 231). Given that basis, he asserts that "[i] nduc­tion ... so far forth as it is a process of inquiry ... is, of course, out of the province of Logic" (Whately (1831), p. 230).

The January number of the Westminster Review of 1828 contains a review of Whately's logic from the hand of John Stuart Mill. While it is conceivable that Mill shortly altered his standpoint (see ED, p. 1045), he largely concurred with Whately at that moment, remarkably enough, concerning the nature and task of logic: "Syllogistic reasoning is not a kind of reasoning, for all correct reasoning is syllogistic: and to reason by induction is a recommendation which implies as thorough a misconception of the meaning of the two words, as if the advice were, to observe by syllogism" (WEL, p. 15). It is of importance

INTRODUCTION xv

to emphasize that in the same review Mill presents for the ftrst time the distinction, so fundamental for his semantics, between connoting and de­noting.

In A System John Stuart describes logic as "the science of the operations of the understanding which are subservient to the estimation of evidence: both the process itself of advancing from known truths to unknown, and all other intellectual operations in so far as auxiliary to this" (SL, p. 12). This characterization agrees with the view of logic of Locke and his followers (see Howell (1971), pp. 703-704). Nevertheless, the portion of A System that deals with deduction relies heavily on Whately's treatment of syllogistics. Mill even justiftes his own cursory presentation of this theory by directing his reader to Whately's Elements of Logic, "where he will fmd stated with philosophical precision, and explained with remarkable perspicuity, the whole of the common doctrine of the syllogism" (SL, p. 166; cf. ED, p. 1058).

In view both of the indicated interruption in the writing of A System and of the moments I have noted in the development of Mill's thought, the ques­tion arises whether these two radically different views of logic are actually reconciled in A System. Is the synthesis successful? Or more precisely, has Mill been able to fmd a place for deduction that is consistent with his char­acterization of logic? That Mill himself wrestled vigorously with this question is clear from his autobiography:

I .•. puzzled myself, like others before me, with the great paradox of the discovery of new truths by general reasoning. As to the fact, there could be no doubt. As little could it be doubted, that all reasoning is resolvable into syllogisms, and that in every syllogism the conclusion is actually contained and implied in the premises .... The explanations offered by Whately and others, though they might give a temporary satisfaction, always, in my mind, left a mist still hanging over the subject (AU, p. 108-9; see WEL, pp. 33 -34).

Broadly and somewhat critically, and with no pretension to doing Mill full justice, one can say Mill attempts to resolve this apory by means of a division of the inheritance. The theory of the syllogism pertains only to the verbal presentation of arguments; meanwhile, he believes the formulation of an argument inadequately reflects the discursive movement of thought in the human mind; syllogistics does not answer to the natural logic of the under­standing; epistemologically speaking, reasoning has an inductive character and is indeed able, precisely for this reason, to yield new knowledge. The relation between the verbal and in principle deductive presentation of an argument, and the underlying structure of thought constitutes the criticial point in this construction. Yet, it is just this relation that is dealt with only cursorily in

xvi INTRODUCTION

A System; furthennore, what Mill does have to say about it is rather confused and unclear.

I observed that Mill introduces semantics in the context of a treatment of deductive logic; it is evident that deduction, much more than induction, is intrinsically tied to language and its use. It is possible to go even a little further: where Mill's semantic theories are concerned, the relation between deduction and induction or, as the case may be, the relation between deduc­tion and the underlying mental processes of reasoning may be left almost entirely out of the picture. These considerations have been important in detennining my field of inquiry .

In his The Development of John Stuart Mill's System of Logic Kubitz calls attention to the great importance of Mill's critical review of Whately's logic for investigating the backgrounds of the semantics of A System. Accord­ing to him, the treatment of terms and propositions in the first book of A System reflects "the conclusions at which Mill arrived on the basis of his study of scholastic logic and associational psychology" (Kubitz, p. 30). Kubitz rightly emphasizes the importance of Mill's appeal to "the logic of the school· men"; however, he does not elaborate. His perspective is entirely determined by Mill's position in the empiricist tradition; which is to say that the accent falls not on the older logic but on the associational psychology of David Hartley and Thomas Brown. Such an approach is defensible with respect to A System as a whole; for Mill's semantics it is less appropriate.

In the numerous general studies of Mill's philosophy, his semantics receives only brief attention. I found no separate study of his semantics (with the presumable exception of Buzzetti's article on Mill's theory of denotation and connotation, which I have not yet succeeded in getting in hand). Monographs that approach this subject are likewise rare. In the few I have found, it is Mill's empiricist basic position that is the focus of attention. Fathi asserts flatly, for example, in the introduction to his dissertation,John Stuart Mill's Theories of Universals in Relation to his Different Theories of Universal PropoSitions (1956), that "[t] he Logic is a manifesto of empiricism" (Fathi, p. iv); this conviction is decisive for both the organization and the content of his study. Jackson begins his An Examination of the Deductive Logic of John Stuart Mill (1941) in the same way. Taking a similar approach, Kelly fmds that the significance of his The Presuppositions of John Stuart Mill's Theory of Names and Propositions (1969) lies mainly "in its detailing of how and what metaphysical-ethical presuppositions function in Mill's theory of names and propositions, so as to gain a better understanding of the theory itself' (Kelly, p. vi).

INTRODUCTION xvii

In his autobiography Mill himself says that in the portion of A System dealing with terms and propositions he has done no more than "to rationalize and correct the principles and distinctions of the school logicians, and to improve the theory of the Import of Propositions" (AU, p. 74). Naturally, this rationalizing and correcting of the distinctions from the older logic will not be insulated from Mill's empiricism, and in particular, its epistemological­metaphysical aspects. Nevertheless, that does not mean this empiricism is determinative for the semantics of A System; certainly, it would be unwise to accept or suggest such a thing a priori.

From the stages in the development of Mill's thought that I have men­tioned it is clear that the statements he makes in his autobiography about terms and propositions should be taken seriously. In this study I have accord­ingly undertaken to understand and account for the semantics of John Stuart Mill in the light of the pertinent historical background. This plan leads one, through the use of a more or less ideengeschichtliche method, to general conceptions and developments from the history of Western philosophy that in various ways overarch the main lines of thought of English empiricism. The semantic insights of John Stuart Mill are the central concern of this study, but I have constantly tried to keep broader considerations in view. And that, in my estimation, is the principal value of this study.