38 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



signed) a connotative name ought to be considered a name of 

 all the various individuals which it is predicable of, or in other 

 words denotes, and not of what it connotes. But by learning 

 what things it is a name of, we do not learn the meaning of 

 the name : for to the same thing we may, with equal propriety, 

 apply many names, not equivalent in meaning. Thus, I call 

 a certain man by the name Sophroniscus : I call him by 

 another name, The father of Socrates. Both these are names 

 of the same individual, but their meaning is altogether dif 

 ferent ; they are applied to that individual for two different 

 purposes ; the one, merely to distinguish him from other per 

 sons who are spoken of; the other to indicate a fact relating 

 to him, the fact that Socrates was his son. I further apply to 

 him these other expressions : a man, a Greek, an Athenian, a 

 sculptor, an old man, an honest man, a brave man. All these 

 are, or may be, names of Sophroniscus, not indeed of him 

 alone, but of him and each of an indefinite number of other 

 human beings. Each of these names is applied to Sophro 

 niscus for a different reason, and by each whoever understands 

 its meaning is apprised of a distinct fact or number of facts 

 concerning him ; but those who knew nothing about the names 

 except that they were applicable to Sophroniscus, would be al 

 together ignorant of their meaning. It is even possible that I 

 might know every single individual of whom a given name 

 could be with truth affirmed, and yet could not be said to know 

 the meaning of the name. A child knows who are its brothers 

 and sisters, long before it has any definite conception of the 

 nature of the facts which are involved in the signification of 

 those words. 



In some cases it is not easy to decide precisely how much 

 a particular word does or does not connote ; that is, we do not 

 exactly know (the case not having arisen) what degree of dif 

 ference in the object would occasion a difference in the name. 

 Thus, it is clear that the word man, besides animal life and 

 rationality, connotes also a certain external form ; but it would 

 be impossible to say precisely what form ; that is, to decide 

 how great a deviation from the form ordinarily found in the 

 beings whom we are accustomed to call men, would suffice in 



