Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Prima Pars Artis Logicae

Not everyone accepts Aristotle’s definition,¹ but some reject it because it seems to coincide with the complex term, which also has separately significant parts. They therefore define an utterance differently, saying that “an utterance is several expressions or terms suitably related,” as though this were not also found in a complex term. Others define an utterance as follows: “An utterance is a significant vocal expression by convention, consisting of a noun and a verb suitably related to one another, or at least of a verb and a vocal expression, if the latter is not significant.” Still others accept Aristotle’s definition but say that the form of an utterance is the grammatical union of its parts.

FIRST CONCLUSION: The best definition of an utterance is the one given by Aristotle, namely: “An utterance is a significant vocal expression by convention, whose separated parts signify as an expression, not as an affirmation or negation”; and it is essential and quidditative in the same way as the definition of a term or a name.

This assertion is common, and its only proof is the EXPLANATION OF THE DEFINITION itself. St. Thomas gives it in the first book of the Perihermeneias, lecture 6.² We reduce it to this form: a whole in general is best defined as that which has parts, or is composed of parts; therefore such a whole in particular is best defined as that which has such parts, or is composed of such parts. But an utterance is a certain logical significant whole, that is, a certain composite whole. Therefore it is best defined as “a significant vocal expression by convention, whose parts when separated, etc.”

The consequent is evident, because this definition explains everything that belongs essentially to this composite, which is an utterance: what its parts must have, the parts of which it is composed, and that by which it differs from other things from which the defined thing differs.

The minor is proved: an utterance belongs to the intellect’s second operation, which is composition, because through an utterance we express something joined and composed with another thing, just as through a term we express something uttered separately and simply. Therefore an utterance, which is a certain logical and significant whole, is best defined as that whose separated parts signify as an expression.

St. Thomas noted that Aristotle did not say “whose parts signify something,” but simply “signify,” because of negations and syncategorematic terms, which do not signify something but signify in some way; yet they are parts of an utterance, in which at least one part must signify something, that is, be a noun or a verb, even if the others signify in some way. He also said “as an expression, not as an affirmation,” because the parts of an utterance must at least signify as an expression; for this must be found in every utterance. If, however, it also has parts as affirmations, that is better, as in a hypothetical proposition. Besides, the character of being a part in its own right is found only in an expression or term; a proposition, even if it composes a hypothetical proposition, is not a part in its own right and primarily, but accidentally, as we said above.

FROM WHAT HAS BEEN SAID IT FOLLOWS that the other definitions are not good, and that Aristotle should not be abandoned for their sake. To say that an utterance is “several expressions suitably related” is not only also applicable to a complex term, but does not explain its essence well, which consists in its being a certain composed, total, and unified whole. A composite thing is not aptly defined by saying that it “is several parts,” but by saying that it is one thing composed of parts. — We are even less satisfied with saying that an utterance is a vocal expression consisting of a noun and a verb. For many complete utterances do not consist of a noun: for example, “To run is to move.” Indeed, an utterance may consist of a verb and an adverb, as “One runs quickly,” or “It is well.” An imperfect utterance is also given—which truly is an utterance, although it produces an imperfect sense—without a verb, as “A just man,” which St. Thomas affirms to be an utterance in the first book of the Perihermeneias, lecture 4.³ Therefore it is not of the essence of an utterance in general that it consist of a noun and a verb.

SECOND CONCLUSION: The essential form of an utterance is not the grammatical union of its parts, but the predicate terms, if we speak of its partial form; or else its complex and composite signification itself, insofar as it takes on the character and intention of a whole, if we speak of its total formal aspect.

THE FIRST PART IS PROVED, because a union is the conjunction and application of things that can be united; for by union a form is applied to its matter or subject. Therefore union, insofar as it is union, is not the form constituting a composite, but the means or bond of the extremes. Therefore it presupposes the constitutive extremes, one of which—the one that is the form—is applied through union in order to constitute the composite; just as, in a human being, the constitutive form is not the union but the application of the soul, which is the constitutive form. Thus, just as a physical whole has a partial form, which is the soul with respect to the body, and a total form, which is humanity with respect to the supposit, so in an utterance the partial form is the predicate or, rather, the predicated term—because, as St. Thomas says in the first book of the Perihermeneias, lecture 8,⁴ in an utterance one part must determine the other. The determining part is the form; and if they determine one another, each is a form with respect to the other: the form insofar as it determines, the matter insofar as it is determined. So, in a marriage contract, it is customary to say that the words of the contracting parties are form and matter in relation to one another. The total form, however, is the total and complex signification of the utterance, insofar as it takes on the relation and character of a whole; in this way it is, as it were, relatively opposed to a term, which is a part. Just as a term has its essence in its character as a part, so an utterance has its essence in complex signification by way of a whole.

As to the defined thing of an utterance, one must say that it is the form of the utterance in the concrete, in accordance with what was said above about the definition of a term; this must always be said of the defined thing of any accidental concrete.

OBJECTIONS ARE ANSWERED.

First objection: A complex term too has parts that signify as expressions, etc.; therefore the whole definition of an utterance also applies to a complex term; therefore it is not a good definition. — The antecedent is clear from the definition of a term.

THE ANSWER IS: The antecedent is distinguished: that a complex term has parts formally is denied; materially, it is granted.

That is called a part formally which composes under the formal character of a part. The formal character of a part, however, lies in its order to a whole, which it concerns and composes by stopping in it, so that it is not ordered further to something else. But when parts compose something in such a way that they do not stop in it but are ordered further to a whole, then that thing is said to have parts materially, and not under the formal character of a part. Thus parts can be joined into one thing in two ways: in one way, their composition terminates in that thing as a certain whole; in another, they compose it without stopping in it, but by being ordered further to a whole that the thing composed of those parts also concerns.

You have an example in an arm or a foot. For these parts are ordered to compose an animal, which is a whole, and their union terminates and stops there. The animal is said to be composed of parts formally, or under the formal character of parts—that is, of parts that concern it as the whole they compose and in which they stop. But flesh, nerves, and bones, of which an arm is composed, are parts materially, because they do not compose the arm as a certain whole in which they stop, but as a more principal and composite part (for in wholes there are both simple parts and parts composed of other parts), which is ordered to compose the animal itself. Nevertheless, if an arm or another organic part is separated from the animal and made into a certain whole, its parts will be ordered to it as parts formally, that is, under the formality and relation of parts to a whole.

Therefore an utterance or proposition is a certain whole consisting of parts. Some parts of this whole are simple, such as incomplex terms; others are composite, such as a complex expression, which is, as it were, the arm of an utterance, or a composite part and not a whole, even though it has parts. For its parts are joined in a complex term in such a way that through that term they are ordered to compose some further whole, namely, an utterance. But the same complex expression “a white man,” if separated and taken by way of a whole (like an arm separated from an animal), becomes an imperfect utterance; whereas, when it is in an utterance, it is a composite part. Hence an imperfect utterance and a complex term coincide materially, but differ formally, because a complex expression is always a part, even if composed of parts, whereas an utterance, even an imperfect one, is always a whole.

OBJECTION AGAINST THIS: An imperfect utterance too, even as an utterance, is a part; therefore the whole solution collapses.

The antecedent is proved first from St. Thomas, first book of the Perihermeneias, lecture 6,⁵ who says that an imperfect utterance is a part of a perfect utterance. Also, in Opusculum 48, treatise on the Enunciation, chapter 3,⁶ the same holy Doctor holds that an imperfect utterance belongs to the intellect’s first operation and not its second. For he says there “that something is lacking to the sense produced by an imperfect utterance, namely, composition and division.” Therefore it lacks what belongs to the second operation; therefore it remains within the bounds of the first; therefore it falls within the account of a part, since whatever belongs to the first operation is a part with respect to other things.

Second: A perfect utterance is a complete whole in the genus of utterance; therefore, since an imperfect utterance is something incomplete, it is less than the whole itself; therefore it is a part.

The antecedent is denied. To the first proof from St. Thomas it is answered that the holy Doctor called an imperfect utterance a part either by taking “part” broadly for that which is an imperfect whole—for whatever in a genus does not attain perfection is called its beginning or part—or, if he takes “part” strictly and properly, he is speaking of an imperfect utterance materially, that is, as a complex term, and not of it formally, as an utterance and a whole.

To the second proof from the same holy Doctor, it is answered that an imperfect utterance lacks composition and division insofar as these are like affirmation and negation that remove the mind’s suspension; thus it lacks the composition and division that produce a perfect sense, but it does not lack the account of the second operation, which is imperfect composition and division. Indeed, from the fact that it produces a suspended and imperfect sense, it is shown to differ from a complex term: the latter produces a simple apprehension of several things or concepts, but makes no sense, even a suspended one, and so remains within the account of a term and a part. An imperfect utterance, by contrast, goes beyond the account of apprehension and produces a certain sense, although one that is incipient and imperfect, because it begins to pass into the composition of a whole—as when, for example, I utter “A white man”—and intends to say something further; yet it stops there and does not complete the sense. Therefore it belongs to the second operation, even if imperfectly and incipiently, and so is not a part but a whole.

To the second proof from reason, it is answered: the consequent is distinguished: “Therefore an imperfect utterance is less than the whole itself within the genus of a whole,” that is, an imperfect whole, is granted; “outside the genus of a whole, so that it is a part,” is denied. An imperfect utterance is like an utterance begun with respect to a perfect utterance, or like becoming with respect to a perfect whole; because it is suspended, it does not proceed further or attain the character of perfection.

Second argument: If the letter A were imposed to signify the clause “a man is white,” then A would be an utterance and would not have parts that signify; therefore this is not required for an utterance. Also, according to a probable opinion, a mental proposition is a simple quality; therefore an utterance then does not have parts that signify.

THE ANSWER IS that in that case A would have parts that signify virtually or equivalently, although not formally, because it would be subordinated to several concepts.

To the second proof it is answered, in keeping with that opinion, that although a proposition or utterance does not have parts entitatively, it nevertheless has them objectively, because it signifies something complex. It also has them presuppositionally, because it is formed from several concepts apprehended as its presuppositions.

You will ask: How are an utterance, a term, and the other logical instruments, since they are formally beings of reason, defined by “vocal expression” (an utterance is a “vocal expression,” a term is a “vocal expression,” etc.), which is something real?

THE ANSWER IS: All the aforesaid things are defined by “vocal expression” as by an extrinsic subject and foundation in which a second intention of reason is grounded. Thus St. Thomas, in the first book of the Perihermeneias, lecture 4,⁷ said “that this should be granted: ‘A dish is shaped wood,’ and likewise, ‘A name is a significant vocal expression,’ although it can also be granted denominatively that a dish is wooden and a name is vocal.” For in artifacts the matter can be predicated of the whole, because it contains its entire substance, while the artificial form adds only an accident. And when Aristotle, in the seventh book of the Metaphysics, text 25,⁸ denies that a statue is gold or stone, he is speaking of stone as unshaped and not subject to the form of an art, but taken precisely as a natural substance, as the holy Doctor explains there.⁹ Hence, because an accident or form in the concrete supposes for its subject, when the subject is something real and the form a being of reason, one cannot say absolutely that it is a being of reason, but only with an added qualification, namely, “formally”; absolutely, however, it can be called a real being on account of that for which it supposes in the concrete.