Medieval Semiotics (meier-oeser, Stephan) / quote 27 of 30
Boethius commenting on Aristotle
in his more elaborate second commentary on Peri Hermeneias, Boethius discusses at length the interrelations between the four elements of linguistic semeiosis mentioned by Aristotle, i.e., between external objects or things (res), mental concepts or representations (passiones, intellectus), spoken words (voces), and written words (scripta). These elements are arranged so that they build up what Boethius calls the “order of speaking” (ordo orandi) (Magee 1989, 64–92) which is characterized by the fact that among the elements mentioned the former in each case ontologically precedes the latter. Thus, without the existence of things there would be no concepts, without concepts no spoken words, and without spoken words no written ones.