Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Prima Pars Artis Logicae

In the definition of the verb, all that remains is to explain what it means to signify with time and to abstract from time, since all the other expressions in the definition of the noun have been explained.

I SAY, FIRST: A verb, not only an adjectival verb but also a substantive verb, has a concept distinct from its extremes.

Everyone grants this concerning an adjectival verb. Some recent writers deny it concerning the substantive verb, saying that the verb “is” merely explains the agreement of its extremes and, in enunciations, signifies a connection that has no special concept distinct from the extremes. St. Thomas, however, holds the contrary view in On Interpretation I, lecture 5,¹ saying that Aristotle said the verb “is” consignifies composition because it does not signify composition principally but consequently. For it signifies what first falls under the intellect in the mode of actuality absolutely. The term “is,” taken simply, signifies actually to be. Since the actuality principally signified by the verb “is” is the actuality of every form, whether substantial or accidental, when we wish to signify any form as inhering in a subject, we signify this by the verb “is”; consequently, it signifies composition. Likewise, in Sentences I, dist. 8, q. 2, a. 3, ad 2,² he says “that ‘was’ and ‘will be’ signify essence in the mode of act and consignify time.”

Therefore the holy Doctor attributes a proper concept to the verb “is”; the union, however, is signified consequently and belongs to the verb’s mode of signifying, not to the thing signified. For it cannot be that the participle of “is,” namely, “being,” has a proper concept by which it signifies entity as such, while the verb “is,” from which it is derived, has no proper concept.

I SAY, SECOND, following St. Thomas in On Interpretation I, lecture 4,³ that to signify time as a thing signified is one thing; this is done by the nouns “time,” “day,” “year,” and “month.” To signify the relation of one time to another is another; this is done by adverbs such as “yesterday,” “today,” “tomorrow,” and the like. Another is to connote time, that is, to signify something with the determination of a time in which it occurs. Thus “lunch” signifies a midday meal, connoting the time at which it occurs; “dinner” signifies an evening meal, and so on.

Finally, to signify with time is proper to a verb: it means signifying an action or passion as in the process of coming to be, or in the mode of flux and motion. Motion and action are measured by time, as is said in the Physics; motion is that by reason of which other things are measured by time. For time is, as is said there, the number of motion, and so on. (Substance, in itself and according to the mode of substance, is not measured by time, but only insofar as it is subject to motion and change.)⁴ Hence a verb is said to signify with time because it signifies in the mode of motion and flux—that is, what amounts to the same thing, an action or passion in the process of coming to be. A noun, however, signifies without time because it signifies in the mode of substance, as something standing per se or indicating something that stands per se. There is no noun that signifies motion, action, or passion as in the process of coming to be, as can be seen in “I run” and “running.” They signify the same running, but “I run” signifies it as coming to be and being exercised, while “running” signifies it as, so to speak, already done and in the mode of substance.

To abstract from or be absolved from time means nothing other than that the verb unites the extremes without restricting them to stand for the temporal difference it signifies. This is clear in propositions of eternal truth, such as “A human being is an animal” and the like. In these, although the verb signifies with time—and this is so intrinsic and essential to a verb that it can never be absolved or dispensed from it, since it belongs to the verb by the force of its proper signification, distinguishing it from a noun—it nevertheless does not unite the extremes dependently on time. Thus it was true before all time to say, “A human being is an animal.” These and similar propositions are therefore called eternal truths not because they have a positive eternity and duration, but because they do not depend on time or rest on it, and, if necessary, are not changed through it. “When the true perishes,” Augustine said, “truth does not perish.”⁵ For a verb to be absolved from time, then, is for it to signify a truth that does not depend on time. If the truth signified by the verb does not depend on time, neither will the union of the extremes depend on time. Therefore, insofar as the verb unites the extremes, it does not depend on time; this is to be absolved from time with respect to the exercise of uniting or joining extremes that have an intrinsic connection, not a contingent and temporal one that depends on time. The verb nevertheless always signifies with time, because it must signify in the mode of action, flux, or motion, even in propositions of eternal truth, since we understand things eternal and independent of time through the mode of time. Thus, even when the union or joining of the verb is absolved from time, or does not depend on time on the side of the extremes to which it applies, we still understand it according to the mode of time. It therefore signifies with time as regards its mode of signifying, even though it is absolved from time as regards the union and relation of the extremes.

THE OBJECTIONS ARE ANSWERED.

First it is objected: Many verbs do not signify in the mode of motion and flux; therefore they do not signify with time.

The antecedent is proved: The verb “is” does not signify an action but being, like “being” itself, its participle. “I have,” “I possess,” “I rest,” and similar verbs signify no motion or action, but rather the opposite of action and motion; therefore they do not signify with time.

WE REPLY from what has been said by distinguishing the antecedent. That the verbs “is,” “I have,” “I possess,” and so on do not signify action or motion on the side of the thing signified: granted. That they do not signify it according to their mode of signifying: denied. For a verb to be verified as signifying with time, it is not required that the thing signified by the verb be an action, motion, passion, or process of coming to be; rather, it must signify in the mode of motion or time—that is, in the mode of something passing and according to the relation of present, past, or future. Thus the verb “is,” and the others listed in the argument, signify the act of being and their significations as subject to the present and passing into the past; in this way they signify with time according to their mode of signifying.

Second, it is objected to prove that a verb is not absolved from time: A verb signifies the very copula and union of the extremes. But the verb’s signification never changes; therefore neither does the union made by the verb. Therefore either the union always depends on time and so is not absolved from it, or the verb’s signification changes.

It is confirmed, first: The verb always unites by the force of its signification through some temporal difference, whether present, past, and so on. Therefore it restricts the extremes to stand and be verified according to the temporal difference it signifies, since they are united according to its requirement. Therefore it is never absolved from time.

It is confirmed, second: If a verb is absolved from time, all affirmative propositions in which the verb is absolved from time will be false. The consequence is proved: They will concern a subject that does not supposit; but an affirmative proposition with a subject that does not supposit is false; therefore. The major is proved: Supposition must be verified in relation to the copula. For example, if you say, “A human being is an animal,” it must be verified of a human being by saying, “This is a human being,” while pointing to a human being. But if it abstracts from time, one cannot point out that this is a human being, as is evident before a human being was created; therefore the supposition is not verified.

WE REPLY to the argument by distinguishing the major. That a verb signifies the copula and union of the extremes immediately, principally, and directly: denied. That it does so consequently: granted. That the verb’s signification does not change: granted as the minor. Therefore the union does not change: the consequence is denied, because union or composition cannot be understood without the extremes that are united and composed; it depends on them as regards the exercise of uniting. Thus, according to the connection of the extremes, the resulting union depends on time or is independent of time, according as the extremes do or do not depend on time.

To the first confirmation we distinguish the antecedent. That a verb always unites through some temporal difference on the side of the mode of signifying: granted. That it does so on the side of the thing signified, the thing united, or the union resulting in the extremes: denied. Therefore it restricts the extremes, and so on: the consequence is denied, because the union is rather drawn to the mode of the extremes it unites. If these do not depend on time, the union cannot restrict them or unite them dependently on time, although it signifies and unites according to its mode of signifying in relation to some temporal difference, since it cannot fail to signify with time.

To the second confirmation we reply by denying the consequence and its proof up to the major, which we distinguish as follows. It must be verified by saying, “This is a human being,” when a human being is pointed out with respect to the intellect: granted. When a human being is pointed out to the senses, or as existing in time: denied. For this supposition is natural, and its verification does not occur by pointing to a subject existing in time, but to the essence of a human being, when I say, “A human being is a human being insofar as that can be found in all individuals.”

YOU WILL ASK: Can the verbs “was” and “will be,” which are oblique cases of the verb “is,” be absolved from time? It seems that they can, because the verb “is,” since it is not equivocal, signifies not two actualities but one; therefore, just as “is” is absolved, so are “was” and “will be.” That they cannot be absolved is proved as follows: the proposition “Adam was a human being” would then be an eternal truth, although it is false with respect to the time before Adam was created.

WE REPLY with two solutions. The first denies that those oblique cases can be absolved from time, because “was” and “will be” restrict their signification only to the future or the past, which cannot abstract from time as “is,” or the account of the present, can. What is present can be signified as not passing away but always present, as are things that do not depend on time, such as the duration of God and the angel. But the past, on the side of the thing signified, essentially signifies passing and temporal succession itself; hence the union resulting from it always depends on time. This does not happen because the verb “is” has different significations or is equivocal, but because “was” and “will be” depart from the signification of the present verb. Many other verbs, such as “to exist” and “to be moved,” also cannot be absolved from time.

The second solution affirms that “was” and “will be” can be absolved from time, as St. Thomas discusses in Sentences I, dist. 8, q. 2, a. 3.⁶ They are attributed to God, as when it is said that God was from the beginning: “The Word was with God”; “God will be forever,” and so on. In that case one should say that the proposition “Adam was a human being” was true before Adam was created, taking “was” not to mean that he had existed, but that those two extremes had been connected.

We are not speaking of a verb when it is taken with the force of a noun, as when I say, “To run is not to rest”; then it can be made infinite, like other nouns. Rather, we speak of a verb when it exercises the role of copula. The difficulty is this: can negation be attached so subtly to a verb within a proposition that it makes the verb’s signification infinite without affecting the exercise of connecting, which is proper to a verb within a proposition? For if negation affects the verb as copula, the proposition will be negative and the verb negated, not made infinite. When negation makes a term infinite, it consumes all its force within the term to which it is attached, without passing to another term, as when I say, “A non-man is non-rational,” where the first negation does not pass beyond its term; otherwise it would negate the verb and the proposition would not be affirmative. If, then, negation affects the verb both with respect to signification and with respect to copula, it makes the verb negated, not infinite. The doubt thus consists in seeing whether negation can affect the verb’s signification without affecting the copulation or exercise of uniting.

THE CONCLUSION IS: A verb cannot be made infinite within a proposition; when negation is added, it is negated. Outside a proposition, however, it can be made infinite.

St. Thomas says this expressly in On Interpretation II, lect. 1,¹ saying: “A negation affecting a verb within a proposition removes the verb from something and thus makes the enunciation negative. This does not happen on the side of the noun; for an enunciation becomes negative only by denying the composition conveyed in the verb. Therefore an infinite verb placed in an enunciation becomes a negative verb.” What could be clearer?

THE FIRST PART IS PROVED BY REASON: A verb within a proposition has the role of copula and exercises the function of uniting; therefore negation affecting a verb within a proposition negates it and does not make it infinite.

The consequent is proved: Negation affecting a union destroys it and makes the proposition negative. A proposition’s being negative is nothing other than the extremes being removed from one another and their union, which the verb exercises, being dissolved and destroyed by the addition of negation. Therefore, precisely because negation affects a verb within the proposition in which it exercises the function of uniting, it negates the verb and does not make it infinite.

You may say that negation affects the verb’s signification, not its function of uniting or its role as copula, and thus makes it infinite, not negative. Against this: Either negation affects the verb only with respect to its signification and not its function of uniting, or it affects the verb with respect to both. If the second, the verb is negated and the whole proposition becomes negative, because the function of uniting is destroyed and the extremes are removed. The first cannot occur, because negation affecting the verb’s signification cannot leave the union affirmed; it must also attack and destroy that union. This is proved as follows: Give me an infinite verb. Does not that infinitization turn the verb’s signified meaning into its denied and removed opposite? For this is what it is to be made infinite. Therefore, by force of such infinitization, the copula cannot be preserved as affirmative. The consequence is clear, because negation must be signified as removing and indetermining a positive form. Therefore, however it is applied to a verb, it signifies by removing. St. Thomas’s reasoning thus stands firm: because in a proposition “negation removes the verb from something, it makes the enunciation negative,” and in this way a verb cannot be made infinite.

To say that negation will make the verb infinite with respect to signification and negate it with respect to its role as copula is contradictory. The same negation would then be taken negatively and infinitively, which is plainly incompatible, since as infinitive it forms one simple and incomplex concept with the term made infinite, while as negative it must have a distinct and complex concept with the thing negated, as was said above. One negation cannot at once belong to a complex and an incomplex concept with respect to the same thing.

THE SECOND PART OF THE CONCLUSION, that a verb can be made infinite outside a proposition, is clear from what was said, since outside a proposition it is not taken with the force of connecting. The holy Doctor also teaches this in On Interpretation I, lect. 5, § “It excludes certain things.”²

OBJECTIONS ARE RESOLVED.

First it is objected: An infinite verb still signifies with tense within a proposition; therefore it signifies by uniting.

The antecedent belongs to Aristotle, in the chapter on the Verb.³ It is proved because such a verb is inflected through past and future tenses.

The consequent is proved: A verb has the character of union because it signifies with tense; therefore wherever it signifies with tense, it signifies by uniting. The antecedent is clear, because the only part of the definition of a verb that explains its being a union is “to signify with tense.” Since this means signifying in the mode of action, flow, or motion, and action or motion rests, as it were, on two termini, “from which” and “toward which,” a verb signifying in this way is indicated as resting on two extremes and being their copula.

This is confirmed: “Peter has not-to-run; therefore Peter does not run” is a valid inference. Therefore not-run in the consequent is made infinite. The consequent is proved: If it is not made infinite but is negated, the inference is invalid, because it argues from an undistributed to a distributed term. Consider the case in which Peter runs and disputes: the antecedent, “He has not-to-run,” that is, to dispute, is then true, but the consequent, “Therefore he does not run,” is false if not is taken negatively, since its contradictory, “Peter runs,” is true. Therefore not in the consequent must be taken infinitively.

THE REPLY to the argument is to distinguish the antecedent: If the verb signifies with tense by removing and eliminating the form it makes denied and indeterminate, I concede it; if it posits some determinate form, I deny it. Therefore, that it signifies by uniting must also be distinguished: if it unites positively, I deny it; if removively, I concede it. In this way it makes a negative proposition, because an affirmative proposition requires it to unite determinately and apply something. It cannot instead remove and eliminate the verb’s signification, since in this way it would also remove it from the subject if applied to it, which is to negate, not to make infinite. This is how Aristotle is explained when he said, “An infinite verb consignifies tense and is always of something,” that is, as the holy Doctor explains there,⁴ “it is a mark of things that are predicated.” Its signifying tense and being a mark does not mean applying and uniting, but indetermining and removing; within a proposition, this occurs only by negating.

To the confirmation we reply that the inference is invalid and nothing against us follows from it. If “not-to-run” in the antecedent is taken negatively, the inference is valid, but proves nothing because the verb is not made infinite.

Second it is objected: Aristotle makes this inference in Posterior Analytics I, lect. 23, as cited by St. Thomas:⁵ “The non-twinkling stars are near us; the planets do not twinkle; therefore they are near us.” But the minor premise cannot be negative; therefore it must contain an infinite verb. The minor premise is proved: If it contained a negated verb, it would be a negative minor premise and consequently would yield a negative conclusion, not an affirmative one.

THE REPLY is that Aristotle did not form that syllogism in this way, but as St. Thomas says there: “Let the syllogism be formed thus: Every non-twinkling thing is near; the planets are non-twinkling; therefore they are near.” In both premises, “not twinkling” is taken infinitively. Even if Aristotle had said, “The planets do not twinkle,” it should be understood equivalently: they are stars that do not twinkle, or they are non-twinkling.

Finally, it is argued: An oblique verb has the role of a verb even within a proposition; therefore an infinite verb does too.

THE REPLY is that the two cases differ, as St. Thomas says in On Interpretation II, lect. 1,⁶ because an oblique verb can unite the extremes in a proposition at least in the past and future. It departs from a verb only with respect to signification of present time, not with respect to indetermination of action or the role of copula. For a verb in any tense other than the present indicative does not signify an action insofar as it is in the process of coming to be, but insofar as it is to be done in the future or has already been done in the past. Hence such verbs are said to depart from the proper account of a verb, which consists in signifying action or motion insofar as it is in the process of coming to be. An infinite verb, however, through infinitization loses or has impeded its positive and determinate copulation, which is grounded in the signification of determinate action, as was said. An infinite verb can enter a proposition in the force of a noun, as predicate or subject, but not by connecting positively. When it is taken with the force of a noun, it does not change its signification by ceasing to signify with tense; rather, it changes its acceptance, since it is taken as predicate or subject, which is also required of a verb that is not made infinite, as when I say, “To run is to move.”