The author focuses on two different approaches in philosophical hermeneutics: those of Gadamer and Whitehead, which have some very important points in common. For example, Gadamer’s fusion of horizons is very close to Whitehead’s conception of symbolical reference.

The paper describes W. Ockham’s theory of signification on the background of the classical medieval philosophy, with which Ockham comes to terms by the help of an original metaphysical-logical theory of sign having its effects also on the theory of universals. There are two approaches rejected by Ockham: First, the Aquinas’s theory of species which in Ockham’s view can not correspond to the really perceived world; secondly, from the metaphysical perspective he also rejects Scot’s metaphy- sics and epistemology, whose terminology (...) in his view was too detailed and expanded. Ockham’s logic and metaphysics intertwine in his theory of signification, which, seen from the semantic perspective, makes the resolution of the relationship between world and language reflecting the former possible. (shrink)