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How can language undermine or support my efforts for clarity?
From: Augustine, de dialectica, here translated by J. Marchand
Page 3
Watch closely now as I define the name. If I could point out that very Tullius, if he were living, with my finger, and if I then had to define him, I would not say: "Tullius is a name which signifies a man"; I would rather say: "That man is Tullius", and then I would add the other things. I can also answer in this way: "Tullius is a dactylic foot consisting of these letters ... (for what need is there to enumerate the letters?)" Perhaps one might say: "Tullius is a word by which all those things mentioned above are equivocal and any other similar ones you can make up."
Since I then have to define 'Tullius' in so many ways according to the terminology of the arts, how can we doubt that this type of ambiguity comes from equivocation, which is properly said to occur by art. For we say that those things are equivocal which can be contained in one name and not one definition.
Now look at the next type, which, as you remember, comes from usage. We call that usage through which we know words. For who seeks out and collects words for the sake of words? Let someone hear something who knows nothing of the parts of speech nor is interested in meter or any kind of verbal discipline. Nevertheless, he can be disturbed by the ambiguity of equivocation when 'Tullius' is said, for by this name the great orator and his picture or statue and the codex in which his letters are contained and whatever is left of his body in the tomb may be signified. For we say in diverse sentences: "Tullius saved the fatherland from ruin" "A golden Tullius stands in the Capitol" "All of Tullius is to be read" "Tullius is buried in this place". For the name is one, but all these are to be explained in different definitions. For this is the type of equivocation in which the ambiguity does not originate from the discipline of words, but from the very things which are signified.
Cf. Rilke, Letter to a Young Poet | Plato, Whom are we talking to? | Kierkegaard, My work as an author | Emerson, Self-knowledge | Gibson - McRury, Discovering one's face | Emerson, We differ in art, not in wisdom | Joyce, Portrait of the Artist
