Book contents
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 March 2010
Summary
This work examines homonymy, a topic that lies within Aristotle's theories of language and predication. In Aristotle's work, the idea of homonymy is paired with that of synonymy, and in fundamental ways, rests upon it. To English speakers, homonymy is known as a grammatical category referring to the case in which the same word has different meanings, and synonymy, the case in which different words have the same meaning. In contrast, Aristotle finds homonymy and synonymy to be concerned not merely with words, but also, and primarily, with things. As he explains in Cat. 1, synonymy refers to the situation in which two or more things have the same name, or term, and the same defining character (cf. Cat. 1a6–7). For example, we use “animal” synonymously of a human being and an ox in the sense that the term picks out the same characteristic feature in each thing; human and ox share what it is to be animal (cf. Cat. 1a7–8). In contrast, homonymy refers to the case in which two or more things have the same name, but not the same defining character (cf. Cat. 1a1–2). Re-iterating Aristotle's example, we use “animal” homonymously of a human being and a drawing of one in the sense that they are not animal in the same way, and so, the term “animal” picks out different properties in each (cf. Cat. 1a1–4).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Aristotle on HomonymyDialectic and Science, pp. 1 - 8Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007