Professor Parkinson in his lecture on ‘The Translation Theory of Understanding’ discusses two stages in the development of a false but influential tradition which he finds common to Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Professor George Steiner's After Babel. He is not, of course, alleging any direct historical influence of the one on the other; neither is he principally addressing Steiner's book as a whole, but rather the account of understanding upon which it appears to be founded. I should like (...) to take his paper as the starting-point for my own, but begin from a somewhat broader view than he does of the legacy of Locke. With Parkinson's constructive position I have no quarrel, and I shall not address myself directly to it. (shrink)

This article canvases the main areas of controversy: the nature of Lockean signification and his position on propositions and particles.

Al final del Libro II del An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke manifiesta que «hay una relación tan íntima entre las ideas y las palabras […] que es imposible hablar clara y distintamente de nuestro conocimiento, que consiste completamente en proposiciones, sin considerar, primero, la naturaleza, uso y significación del lenguaje». De varias y diversas maneras Locke insiste en la tesis que ‘las palabras significan ideas’. En este ensayo me propongo: 1º resumir la teoría general del lenguaje de Locke; 2º (...) revisar algunas objeciones regulares a esta teoría, y 3º intentar una explicación de lo que Locke quiere decir cuando enuncia que ‘las palabras significan ideas’. Con respecto a este punto mostraré, apoyando la interpretación de E. J. Ashworth, que en su tesis semántica Locke usa el vocablo ‘significar’ (‘signifying’) no del modo como es usado por los teóricos contemporáneos del siglo XX, sino en el sentido que algunos escolásticos usaron el término ‘significare’. At the very end of Book II of ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’, Locke finds out «that there is so close a connexion between Ideas and Words […] that it is impossible to speak clearly and distinctly of our Knowledge, which all consists in Propositions, without considering first the Nature, Use, and Signification of Language». In various and diverse ways Locke defends the thesis that ‘Words signify Ideas’. My aim in this paper is first, to sum up Locke’s general theory of Language; secondly, to revisit some regular objections concerning this theory, and thirdly, to intend an explanation of what Locke means when he points out that ‘Words signify ideas’. In regard to this point, I shall hold up E. J. Ashworth’s interpretation to show that Locke semantic thesis involves the use of the verb ‘to signify’ (‘signifying’) not in the manner that it is used by contemporary theorists of the twentieth century, but in the sense that some scholastics used the term ‘significare’. (shrink)

Locke's main semantic thesis is that words stand for, or signify, ideas. He says this over and over again, though the phraseology he employs varies. In Book III chapter 2 alone we find the following statements of the thesis: ‘ … Words … come to be made use of by Men, as the Signs of their Ideas’ [III.2.1; 405:10-11); The use then of Words, is to be sensible Marks of Ideas; and the Ideas they stand for, are their proper and (...) immediate Signification’ [III.2.1; 405:15-17]; ‘Words in their primary or immediate Signification, stand for nothing, but the Ideas in the Mind of him that uses them’ [III.2.2; 405:21-2]; That then which Words are the Marks of, are the Ideas of the Speaker’ [III.2.2; 405:27-8]; ‘ …. (shrink)