Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Prima Pars Artis Logicae

To understand determinate, distributed, and confused suppositions better, certain rules are usually given: some general to all terms and others special to relatives, since relatives present a special difficulty in resolving their supposition.

Before setting out the rules, we must presuppose certain signs, marks, or syncategorematic terms that affect terms so as to make them stand universally or particularly. Thus they produce distributed, determinate, or confused-only supposition.

Some signs of universality are affirmative, some negative, and some mixed. Affirmative signs include “every,” “each,” “all,” “whole,” and so forth. Negative signs include “no,” “nobody,” “not,” and “neither.” Mixed signs include “contingently,” “only,” and others that are explained through affirmation and negation. For example, “A man is contingently white” is explained: “He can be and he can not be white”; “Only man is rational” is explained: “Everything rational is man, and nothing other than man is rational.” Some signs of universality or distribution are complete, namely those that include no particularity, such as “every” and “no,” taken absolutely. Others are incomplete signs of universality or distribution, such as “the other,” “neither,” and “every,” when used for genera of individuals. The conjunction and is also a sign of universality when taken only conjunctively, as when I say “Peter and Paul is an animal”; it has the force of universality because it conjoins several individuals.

Particular signs include “some,” “a certain,” “several,” and so forth, as well as the particle “or,” which does not conjoin terms but disjoins them. Special signs of confusion, which do not distribute but confuse, are “every” taken collectively, “only,” and terms such as “is required” or “I promise,” and the like; for example, “Only man is capable of reasoning,” “A horse is required for riding,” “I promise you a book,” and “I sang Mass twice.” In these propositions the term is held confused only, because one may not ascend or descend under it.

There is this difference between affirmative and negative signs of distribution: the force of affirmative distribution stops at the immediate term and does not pass to the mediate term, but leaves it confused. Thus, if I say “Every man is an animal,” only “man” is distributed, while “animal” is confused. Nearly every confused supposition originates in some mediate universality, on which it depends for its resolution either formally or virtually. “Only” is a sign of confusion for this reason: it has an exposition in which the term it affects follows mediately upon a universal. For example, “Only man is rational” is explained by “Everything rational is man,” where “man” follows mediately upon a distributed universal. And “A horse is required for riding” is equivalent to “A horse is required for every act of riding,” or “No act of riding can take place without a horse,” where it follows an affirmative universal. When I say “I sang Mass twice,” “twice” is taken conjunctively¹ and is a sign of universality. Thus confused supposition almost always arises virtually or formally from a mediate affirmative universality on which it depends. Negative universality, however, distributes a term placed both immediately and mediately, because negation distributes everything it finds after it. Thus in “No man is a stone,” both “man” and “stone” are distributed.

Therefore, six rules are set out for recognizing suppositions.

First rule: Every term affected by no sign or by a particular sign supposits determinately, as in “Man disputes” and “Some man disputes.” This is called determinate supposition because its verification must occur in some determinate supposit, not vaguely through a conjunctive or disjunctive enumeration as in confused supposition, nor through distribution and universality as in distributive supposition. It is not called indefinite supposition, although it belongs to a term in an indefinite proposition such as “Man disputes,” because “indefinite” describes the proposition: its truth may hold of only one individual or of many. A term’s supposition, however, is not verified indefinitely or vaguely; in determinate supposition one shows this individual or that one determinately.

Second rule: Every term immediately affected by an affirmative universal sign, or mediately or immediately affected by a negative universal sign, supposits distributively. Thus, in “Every man is an animal,” “man” stands distributively; in “No man is a stone,” both terms stand distributively.

Third rule: Every common term that follows mediately upon an affirmative universal sign—or, more generally, every term whose resolution depends on some prior universality, formally in itself or virtually in its exposition—supposits confusedly and disjunctively²; that is, only disjunct ascent and descent, not disjunctive ascent or descent, are due to it. Thus, in “Every man is an animal,” “animal” stands confusedly; in “Only man is rational,” “man” stands confusedly, because one of its expositions is “Everything rational is man,” where “man” supposits confusedly.

Fourth rule: A common term immediately affected by a collective sign supposits confusedly and collectively, as in “All the apostles of God are twelve,” because under “apostles” one may ascend only collectively, not conjunctively.

Fifth rule: If two universal signs occur over the same term, see what remains when the first negation or universal sign is removed. If what remains is distributed with respect to a term that supposits determinately, the term previously supposited confusedly; but if what remains is distributed with respect to a term that supposits confusedly, it previously stood determinately. For example, if I say “No man is not an animal,” remove the first negation, “no”: “animal” remains distributed with respect to “man,” which stands determinately, and so “animal” previously supposited confusedly. But if I say “Not every man is an animal,” remove “not”: “man” remains distributed with respect to “animal,” which stands confusedly, and so “man” previously supposited determinately.

Sixth rule: In complexes, one part of which determines and another is determined, as in “a horse of a man,” where “of a man” determines and restricts “horse,” when the parts are taken in one acceptance, the determining part cannot be resolved before the whole complex is resolved.³ If, however, they are not taken in one acceptance, either part can be resolved before the whole; for example, in “Of a man, a horse is an animal” or “Of a man, every horse is an animal,” one may descend or ascend under either according to the common rules. A phrase is taken in one acceptance when the oblique follows the direct, because it makes with it as it were one term; saying “a man’s horse” is the same as saying “a possessed horse.” It is taken in several acceptances when the oblique precedes, as in “Of a man, a horse,” because they are taken as different acceptances, or as different terms capable of different supposition and resolution. On this, see below, q. 7, a. 2, objection 5.