Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Prima Pars Artis Logicae

The fourth division is that of the categorematic term into various subdivisions, none of which is subordinated to another; rather, they belong to the term on an equal footing. These subdivisions can be reduced to five principal ones.

FIRST: A categorematic term is either common or singular. A common term is one that signifies several distributively, as “man.” By “several distributively” we mean communicable to several: for it signifies something that, either on the part of the thing signified or at least in its mode of conception, is not incompatible with being understood as communicated to several. For this reason, the name “God” too is a common term, because of the mode of signifying him on the part of our concept, as we explain in Logic, question 5, article 3. A singular term is one that signifies only one, as “Peter” or “this man”; that is, one whose signified content is not communicable to several, not even by its mode of signifying. — Here the division of the term into collective and distributive is also added. A collective term signifies several together in the singular, as “people,” “Salamanca,” and so on, because they are aggregates of several. A distributive term signifies one in the singular or several distributively, as “Peter” and “man.”

SECOND SUBDIVISION: A categorematic term is either absolute or connotative. An absolute term signifies something in the manner of what subsists in itself, that is, in the manner of a substance, whether it is a substance in itself, as “man,” or is conceived in the manner of a substance, as when an accident is conceived without a subject, as whiteness. A connotative term signifies something in the manner of what inheres in another, as “white” or “blind.” Hence a connotative term must have one principal signification in the direct case, which is the same as that of its absolute counterpart, as “white” and “whiteness,” and another in the oblique case, namely that in which it inheres and to which it belongs. A connotative term signifies in the oblique case, and of what is connoted, only that to which it truly belongs, not something imaginary and false. Nor is it enough for it to connote an object, as “knowledge” and “wisdom” do: these are absolute terms and yet regard and connote their objects. Rather, it must connote the subject in which it is found. Take care not to confuse the connotative, the concrete, and the adjective. For concrete is opposed only to abstract, and can be found in an absolute term: “man,” for example, is concrete and absolute. That is called concrete which signifies something as constituted as that which it is, as “man”; abstract, by contrast, signifies something as that by which it is constituted, as “humanity.” Adjective is opposed to substantive, not to connotative. Hence there can be a connotative term that is not an adjective noun, such as “father” or “creator,” although every adjective is connotative.

THIRD SUBDIVISION: A categorematic term is either of first intention or of second intention. A term of first intention signifies something according to what it has in the thing or in its proper state, that is, with its state in the intellect and as conceived set aside, as “white” or “man” as it exists in reality. A term of second intention signifies something according to what it has through a mental concept and in the state of the intellect, as species, genus, and other such things, which the logician treats. These are called first and second intentions because what belongs to something in itself is, as it were, first in it and its proper state; what belongs to something insofar as it is understood is, as it were, second, a second state supervening upon the first. Hence it is called a second intention, as if it were a second state.

FOURTH SUBDIVISION: A categorematic term is either complex or incomplex. A complex term is one whose parts are independently significant, as “white man.” An incomplex term is one whose parts are not significant separately, as “man.”

Note two things. First, a complex term can also be an expression, but it is an expression under one mode and formal aspect, and a term under another. It is an expression when its significant parts are considered as composing one whole, because the intellect, as it were, attributes one to another and rests there as in a certain composite whole. It is a term when those significant parts are considered not as composing a whole, but as making up a certain part composed of other parts, which is nevertheless in itself ordered toward composing a whole—just as the head is a part of a man, although it is composed of other parts, such as the eyes, ears, mouth, and so on. Second, for a term to be complex, it must have parts that are independently significant, that is, parts that have and exercise their signification even within the complex they compose, so that if any part were deprived of its signification, the complex would be destroyed. Hence the principal rationale of a complex term is that its parts are subordinated to several concepts, as St. Thomas teaches, On Interpretation I, lecture 4¹. For this reason, terms of a compound figure, such as equifer, legifer, and so on, are incomplex for the dialectician, because they are subordinated to a single incomplex concept and imposed with a single signification, such that even if equus were deprived of its own signification, equifer would still signify the same thing.

The FIFTH DIVISION concerns the comparison of terms with one another. For some are irrelevant or disparate, that is, neither does one imply the other nor is one incompatible with the other, as “white” and “sweet,” “learned” and “just.” Others are relevant, that is, one implies the other or is incompatible with it. They are therefore divided into relevant by entailment and relevant by opposition. Relevant by entailment are terms that follow from and accompany one another, as “man” and “capable of laughter”; relevant by opposition are terms that are opposed and incompatible with one another, as “seeing” and “blind,” “hot” and “cold.” Opposition by incompatibility is treated in the Post-Predicaments, in the chapter on Opposites², and below, in treating the opposition of propositions³; therefore we shall pass over it here.