25. An explanation of why in the case of animals nature acts as a sort of agent will (comparable to “agent intellect”) is provided by Albertus Magnus, De anima II [De voce qualiter fiat], iii, 22: “Et cum duo sint in anima, affectus scilicet doloris vel gaudii et conceptus cordis de rebus, non est vox significans affectum, sed potius conceptum. Cetera autem animalia affectus habentia sonos suos affectus indicantes emittunt et ideo non vocant; et quaecumque illorum plurium sunt affectuum sunt etiam plurium sonorum, et quae levioris sunt complexionis, et ideo aves plurium sunt garrituum quam gressibilia. Et illae quae inter aves sunt latioris linguae, et melioris memoriae, magis imitantur locutionem et ceteros sonos, quos audiunt. Licet enim bruta habeant imaginationem, sicut superius ostendimus, tamen non moveretur ab ipsis imaginatis secundum rationem imaginatorum, sed a natura et ideo omnia similiter operantur; una enim hirundo facit nidum sicut alia, et haec imitatio est naturae potius quam artis.Ideo anima imaginativa in eis non regit naturam, neque agit eam ad opera, secundum diversa imaginata, sicut facit homo, sed potius regitur a natura et agitur ad opera ab ipsa, ei ideo fit quod licet habeant apus se imaginata, tamen ad exprimendum illa non formant voces. Affectus autem laetitiarum et tristiarum magis profundatur in natura quam in anima, et ideo illos exprimunt sonis et garritibus.”
26. According to this reading the affections of the soul are not mental images of things, but modes of being of thought, cognitive modalities (like thinking, being afraid, or experiencing joy). The pragmata are not real things or facts in general (otherwise how could we explain why Aristotle says elsewhere in his works that we can think of nonexistent or false hybrids like the hircocervus or phenomena whose existence we are unable to prove (such as squaring the circle or the commensurability of the diagonal). Likewise, “those things that are in the voice” could be transformations, differentiations, or articulations that are proper to the human voice. Finally, an expression like kata syntheken does not mean that linguistic voces are related to the affections of the soul by means of convention, but that they are articulate, the effect of a syntactic composition (and for this very reason the voces emitted by animals, which are inarticulate, cannot express thoughts). At the same time the interpretation of the omoiomata is also called into question. It would refer to the fact that there exists a relationship of structural similarity between logical-cognitive operations and events in the world. In conclusion, the passage from Aristotle should be reinterpreted as follows: “The articulations of the human voice and the logical-cognitive operations of the human soul are different from each other and complementary, just as written articulations and articulations of the voice are. And just as the minimal units with which and in which writing is articulated are not the same for all mankind, neither are the minimal units in which the linguistic voice is articulated. On the other hand, the logical-cognitive operations of which the vocal and graphic units are the natural physiognomic signs are the same for all mankind, and likewise the same for all mankind are the facts with which the logical-cognitive operations of the human soul are in a relation of similarity” (Lo Piparo 2003: 187).
27. De Interpretatione, in Aristoteles Latinus II, 1–2, ed. L. Minio-Paluello, Bruges-Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1965, pp. 5, 4–11 and pp. 6, 4, 11–13. The following is a translation of Aristotle’s original Greek text: “Now spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the soul, and written marks symbols of spoken sounds. And just as written marks are not the same for all men, neither are spoken sounds. But what these are in the first place signs of—affections of the soul—are the same for all; and what these affections are likenesses of—actual things—are also the same … A name is a spoken sound significant by convention, without time, none of whose parts is significant in separation … I say ‘by convention’ because no name is a name naturally but only when it has become a symbol. Even inarticulate noises (of beasts, for instance) do indeed reveal something, yet none of them is a name.” Aristotle’s Categories and De Interpretatione, Translated with Notes and Glossary by J. L. Ackrill, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963, pp. 43–44.
28. Boethius translates semeion as nota on his own initiative, whereas he finds the identification of symbolon with nota already sanctioned by Cicero (Topica VIII, 35), on whom he comments as follows: “Nota vero est quae rem quamque designat. Quo fit ut omne nomen nota sit, idcirco quod notam facit rem de qua praedicatur, id Aristoteles symbolon nominavit” (In Topicis Ciceronis Commentaria IV, PL. 64, col. 1111 B). And here Boethius establishes the equivalency, as characteristic properties of nota, between rem designare and rem notam facere, in other words, between the significative function proper to Aristotle’s symbolon and the inferential or symptomatic function of semeion.
29. See Latratus canis (“On Animal Language”), p. 29, n. 20, and De Resp. 476 a 1–b 12; Hist. An. 535 b 14–24; De an. 420 b 9–14. And along the same lines Boethius, In Librum Aristotelis De Interpretatione Commentaria majora, PL 64, col. 423 D, where he explains that fish and cicadas do not have a voice but produce sounds with their gills or with their chests. Similar observations are found in Thomas (In l. De Int., 1, IV, 46) as well as in Pseudo Aegidius Romanus (In Libros Peri hermeneias Expositio, Venetiis 1507, fol. 49rb). The example of the latratus canis is already present in Ammonius, whose work, however, was only translated into Latin in 1268 by William of Moerbeke (Commentaire sur le Peri Hermenneias, ed. G. Verbeke, Corpus Latinum Commentariorum in Aristotelem Graecorum I. Louvain-Paris: Nauwelaerts 1961, p. 47: “Hoc autem ‘secundum confictionem’ separat ipsum a natura significantibus vocibus. Tales autem sunt quae irrationalium animalium voces. Extraneo enim aliquo superveniente, canis latrans significat extranei praesentiam. Sed non secundum aliquam confictionem et condictionem ad invicem emittunt talem vocem canes” (“ ‘By convention’ distinguishes [the name] from the vocal sounds significant by nature. Such are the vocal sounds of the irrational animals. For, when a stranger suddenly appears, a dog by his bark signifies the presence of the stranger; but dogs do not produce this sort of vocal sound according to any convention or agreements among themselves”). Ammonius, On Aristotle’s On Interpretation 1–8, Translated by David Blank, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996, p. 39.