Guglielmo di Ockham, Walter Chatton e i concetti dimostrativi

Walter Chatton criticizes William of Ockham’s theory of knowledge extensively, and also the nature of demonstrative concepts (i.e., the concepts that correspond to the demonstrative pronouns of language, such as ݕthis’ or ݕthat’) does not escape his criticism. Whereas, for Ockham, demonstrative concepts precede any abstract operation of our mind, functioning thus as ݕrigid deictics,’ to borrow an expression of Claude Panaccio, for Chat ton, they express concepts that logically depend on a defnite de scription, and this reveals that they are complex and derivative concepts, which follow and not precede the operation by which our mind abstracts universal concepts. In spite of this, Chatton believes that, once formed, demonstrative concepts express sim ple and individual concepts, capable of expressing the knowledge that is proper to the thing that is pointed to and only to it. Te present paper reconstructs Chatton’s account of demonstrative concepts and his criticism of Ockham, and proves that his ac count anticipates some signifcant aspects of the modern discus sions on the nature of demonstrative concepts