From Lullus to Cognitive Semantics: The Evolution of a Theory of Semantic Fields :: Philosophy Philosophical Essays

From Lullus to Cognitive Semantics: The Evolution of a Theory of Semantic Fields ABSTRACT: The domain of cognitive semantics-insofar as it deals with semantic neighborhood and semantic fields-is discussed from a historical perspective. I choose four distinct stages in the evolution in philosophy of language: Raymundus Lullus and his Ars Magna (14th century); Giodano Bruno and his artificial memory system (16th century); Charles Sanders Peirce and his diagrammatic logic (19th century); and, Kurt Lewin and his topological psychology (20th century). Their proposals furnish steps toward a kind of space-oriented model of semantic neighborhood and semantic fields. Linguistic developments since 1920 (field linguistics) and more recently in cognitive semantics are compared to the evolution in the frame of philosophy as put forth above. The result is that we criticize cognitive semantics insofar as the field does not reflect the philosophical work done since Raymundus Lullus, which is highly relevant for contemporary cognitive science. Introduction Although field-semantics was only created at the beginning of the 20th century, some of its major features have precursors dating back to antiquity. Two disciplines have contributed to it: logic on the one hand and models of the world / cosmology on the other hand. My specific concern will be the rise of a space-orientated concept of a semantic field because, as the word "field" indicates, the ideas of dimensionality (one two- or multi-dimensionality) lies at the heart of the image-schema "field" in its theoretical use. 1 The circular fields of Llull The first systematic spatial organization of lexical items (their concepts) was put forward by Raymundus Lullus (Ramà ³n Llull: 1232-1314). All conceptual systems of his Ars Magna are arranged in a linear order with (normally) nine segments. Since the extremes of this 'belt' are joined, we have a circular field. Every concept has two neighbours, and by adding specific figures (triangles, squares, etc.) one can join three, four, etc. concepts to create a sub-network. The concepts of an area of knowledge may be organized into a set of such nine-tuple 'fields'. On top of all the more specific conceptual fields (arrays of nine concepts), stands a universal field, which contains those qualities of God that are at the origin of all further entities and their concepts. The semantic system has an ontological and metaphysical foundation in the tradition of Aristotelian and medieval logic. The idea that concepts/words form linear arrays, that the extremes may be glued together, and that a hierarchy of such arrays exists, is a first realization of 'field-semantics'.