Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Prima Pars Artis Logicae

On p. 106 b 32.

THE REPLY: The antecedent is denied. In proof of it, the antecedent is granted, because not everything is enumerated there adequately. The consequent is distinguished: “Therefore a spoken word does not signify a thing through a concept as its formal rationale or as its primary and immediate signified,” is granted; for the formal rationale of signifying in a spoken word is imposition, and in a concept it is likeness. “It does not signify a thing through a concept as its principal signifier, of which the spoken word is a substitute and as it were an instrument,” is denied. For a spoken word signifies a concept because it is substituted in its place, to supply what the concept cannot reach, namely, to make it manifest externally both to itself and to others. Thus a spoken word is as it were a substitute representing both its principal, which it serves (the mental word, from which, as St. Thomas says in question 4 of De Veritate, article 1, reply 7,¹ it participates in being and signification), and that to which it is ordered, namely, the thing signified. Thus spoken words signify the concept as the principal signifier, but the thing as what is directly signified. Spoken words represent things as conceived specifically and in exercise; that is, the “as” states a condition, for things are represented as conceived, but not by taking “as” reduplicatively to mean the state in which they are known. Spoken words sometimes also signify things as subject to the intention and state they have in the mind. Then the intention itself is as it were the thing represented, as with logical intentions such as species, genus, etc.

For the second proof, etc., p. 107 a 28.

Concerning the second point, namely, what spoken words signify principally, things or concepts, the reply is that they signify principally things, unless perhaps the thing signified is itself a concept or its intention.

THE REASON IS that the concept itself is ultimately and principally ordered to representing the thing itself, of which it is an intentional likeness. Therefore a spoken word, which is only an instrument of the concept in representing and makes the concept itself sensible, will be principally ordered to representing those same things, since it serves the concept precisely for this purpose.

YOU WILL OBJECT, FIRST: An instrument regards its principal, from which it is moved, more than the effect it produces. Therefore, from the fact that a spoken word is an instrument of the concept, it is inferred rather that it signifies the concept principally and the thing less principally, the thing that it makes intelligible or knowable.

The reply distinguishes the antecedent: “An instrument considered in its account of operating and acting” is granted; “in its account of representing” is denied. For a representational instrument, such as a spoken word, has as the principal source of its representation a concept that is also representative of a thing. To manifest that representation to others, the concept substitutes a spoken word for itself; thus the principal signified of both is the thing itself. Hence St. Thomas says in question 9 of De Potentia, article 4,² that “that is signified formally by a name to which it was principally imposed, just as the name ‘man’ was imposed to signify what is composed of body and rational soul.”

SECOND OBJECTION: The divine Word represents the Father, who is the principle expressing the Word, more principally than creatures, which are things expressed and represented by it. Therefore an external word, or spoken word, will also represent its expressing principle, namely, the concept, more principally than the thing it signifies and expresses.

The first reply is: Let the antecedent pass, and the consequent is denied, because a spoken word is not a natural expression of its principle, as the Word or concept is, but is imposed and principally ordered to signifying that which the concept naturally represents, namely, things. The inference from one case to the other is therefore unsound.

The second reply is that a concept or word represents principally its principal and formal object, because it is an expression of its formal principle, which is the impressed species representing the object of which it is formally the species. In divine things this is the Essence and the Persons. Creatures, however, are a secondary and material object and are therefore not represented principally by the Divine Word. It does not follow from this that an external word, or spoken word, represents the concept more principally, because the concept is not the formal object represented, but the principal signifier of the thing.