Abstract

This dissertation examines certain key doctrines of Aristotle's philosophy of language as they are presented in the treatises known collectively as the Organon in order to show that a coherent theory of meaning can be attributed to him. Chapter one examines the doctrines of the categories and homonymy and synonymy, chapter two the problem of existential import, chapter three the doctrine of the predicables, particularly definition and its differences from the Academic practice of division, and chapter four presents a picture of Aristotle's theory of perception that shows how, for Aristotle, all of these elemental doctrines, taken together with his theories about perception and acquisition of knowledge of universals, can be taken as a theory of meaning according to which there is a marked similarity between the deep metaphysical structure of reality and our linguistic practice