Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Prima Pars Artis Logicae

Since a term is defined as a significant word from which a simple proposition is made, a familiar difficulty arises in explaining what is defined by it, as happens when explaining any definition of an accident taken concretely: does what is defined stand for the subject itself (which some call the substitute), for the form itself, or for what results from the subject and the form (which some call the constituted thing)? For if it stands for the subject itself—for example, for the word in the definition of a term—the definition does not belong to that subject essentially, but denominatively and accidentally, since the subject is that of which the definition is said, not what constitutes the very notion of a term. If it stands for the form, then the subject “significant word” is wrongly included in the definition, since a word, like any subject, is not the form itself but the recipient of the form; thus it would be wrong to define the form of a term as the word itself. If it stands for what results from the subject and the form, that result cannot be defined, because it is a being per accidens, which does not fall under definition.

We discuss this difficulty at greater length in Logic q. 7.¹ on genus. For now, it is enough to note a few points.

I SAY, THEREFORE: According to the teaching of the Philosopher and St. Thomas, an accidental or artificial concrete cannot be defined as the constituted thing or result of a subject and an accident. Rather, what is defined in these concretes—for example, in a term, an utterance, something white, or a statue—is the accidental form itself, not absolutely and abstractly, but relatively and connotatively with respect to the subject. Thus, being in a subject or outside a subject pertains, as it were, to the state and mode of being, not to the substance of what is defined; it therefore enters the definition as an extrinsic addition and as something connoted.

This is taken first from the Philosopher in the Categories, ch. “Substance,” where he says that white signifies quality alone. The Philosopher’s words are: “It does not signify simply a qualified thing, as white does; for white signifies nothing other than a quality.”² Therefore, it does not signify something constituted from a subject and a quality. Then St. Thomas, in On Being and Essence, ch. 7, near the end, says: “From an accident and a subject no one thing per se is made; hence no nature results from their conjunction to which the intention of genus or species could be attributed.”³ It is clear that every definition must explain some nature of a genus or species, which St. Thomas denies belongs to that constituted thing.

The REASON is straightforward: a thing constituted from a body and whiteness, a subject and an accident, is made up of things from different categories; therefore, it does not constitute one being per se. A being per se is one that belongs to a single category, with a single genus and difference, and a single definition, since a definition consists of genus and difference. But if it belongs to different categories, it does not have one genus but several, because a category is a genus. A being per accidens, however, cannot be defined, because, as St. Thomas says excellently in Metaphysics VII, lect. 3, “a being per accidens signifies not something, but a qualified thing,”⁴ and consequently it does not signify a what, or quiddity, which alone is the object of definition. Hence St. Thomas says in Sentences IV, d. 44, q. 1, a. 1, quaestiuncula 2, ad 4: “A statue can be considered in two ways, either as a substance or as something artificial. It is placed in the genus of substance by reason of its matter, but in the genus of artificial things insofar as it is a form, which is a kind of accident.” So says St. Thomas.⁵ Since what pertains to substance constitutes something in the genus of being simply, artificial things are therefore sometimes said to belong to the genus of their matter—not insofar as they are artificial, but insofar as they are beings, because being simply is substance. St. Thomas speaks in this way in Sentences IV, d. 3, q. 1, a. 1, quaestiuncula 4, ad 3.⁶

Therefore, a term, an utterance, and the other artificial things, considered under the notion of an artificial genus, are placed only in the genus of their form, which is a kind of accident.⁷

Like other accidents, whether taken concretely or abstractly, they are always placed in the very genus of their form, because the essence of an accident is the same in the concrete and abstract. The notion of the concrete or abstract therefore pertains, as it were, to the mode of being or state of the accident itself. Hence the thing defined as an accident must be the same in the abstract and in the concrete, although its state and connotation are not the same.

BUT YOU WILL SAY: How, then, did Aristotle say in Metaphysics VII that matter is the genus in these accidents, especially that a word is the matter of letters or syllables, and that such a genus is never without its species and is not distinct from them?⁸ Therefore, something one must be constituted from the difference or form and such matter or genus.

We answer that Aristotle’s text must be read carefully. He sometimes said that genus and matter are the same, but in different ways. St. Thomas explains this very well there in lect. 12,⁹ and we teach it at greater length in the cited place in Logic. In sum, what is gathered from his teaching is this: although the matter or subject of an accident is placed in definitions in the position and place of a genus, it does not have the character of a logical genus in itself, as though something one and definable per se were constituted from it and the accidental form, since St. Thomas repeatedly denies that one thing per se results from a subject and an accident, but says that the result is per accidens. Rather, the matter or subject, insofar as it is formed by an accidental form, admits of two considerations: as formed by that accidental form according to the common notion of such a form, and according to its determinate and specific notion. Matter of this kind, as formed according to the common notion, constitutes the character of a genus in relation to itself as formed according to a determinate notion. For example, if we said that in something white the common notion “qualified” is the genus of white, which is a determinate qualified thing, and for this reason a body insofar as it is qualified is the genus of a body insofar as it is white. Matter in itself is therefore never a genus; rather, the common notion of the form itself, or matter as formed according to the common notion of the form, is called the genus in relation to the determinate notion of that form, or to that particular formation.

THE ANSWER, THEN, TO THE REASON FOR THE INITIAL DOUBT is that when an accidental form is defined concretely, it is predicated of the subject not as of an intrinsic defined thing, but as sustaining and giving the state of concretion to the thing defined—that is, to the form or accident it has in itself. Nor is the subject properly the genus of such an accident; it is placed in the position of a genus, or as a kind of physical genus, as St. Thomas says in On Interpretation I, lect. 4.¹⁰ Since genus is taken from matter and we often do not know the proper genus of accidents, we put the matter from which they are taken in the place of a genus; or rather, we put the subject itself, not absolutely, but as formed by that accidental form according to its common degree, and in this way it is the genus of that same form according to its particular degree. Thus, if I say, “White is a body that disperses sight,” “body” is understood not absolutely, but as colored; here “colored” contributes to the per se definition, while “body” refers to the supposit of the thing defined, because it does not exist per se but in another.

BUT YOU WILL OBJECT FURTHER: The essence of a concrete, for example, something white, is neither a body nor whiteness, but a third constituted thing. Therefore, the same will hold of a term: it is neither signification nor a part, but something constituted from these; consequently, that is what is defined.

The antecedent is proved from Aristotle in ch. 5 of the Categories, where he says: “White is said of a body as of a subject, but the account of white is never predicated of the body.”¹¹ Therefore, the Philosopher thinks that the essence of white does not essentially signify the body itself—otherwise it would be predicated of it—but signifies something distinct, namely, something constituted from the body as its subject or substitute. For the same reason, when several forms are predicated concretely of a subject, as in “white is sweet,” they are not made true of their constituted things, which have distinct essences, but of the substitute or subject. Thus, since several formalities concur in a term—being significant, being a part of a proposition, and terminating a resolution—the term will be none of those formalities, but what results from them as from substitutes and presuppositions, together with the last formality that ultimately constitutes the essence of a term. It will therefore be possible to predicate of a term that it is a part and that it is an extreme of a proposition, because these are made true of the term with respect to its substitute, that is, what is presupposed for the notion of a term. But they do not enter into its definition, because they do not belong to the constituted thing. So argues the opposing view.

We answer that the Philosopher’s meaning is quite clear: the account of white is never predicated of a body as an account, or as something essential to the body. For he speaks in a very formal sense: the account of white is not predicated of a body as an account, that is, so as to signify an essential predication of the body, since the predication is accidental. From this, however, one cannot infer that the essence of white, or of any accident taken concretely, is a third thing constituted from a subject and a form, since no such constituted thing exists except as a being per accidens, as was said and will be discussed further in Logic q. 5.¹² and q. 7.¹³ Nevertheless, an accidental predication is made true of a subject, as when I say, “A body is white.” This is not on account of a third constituted thing—or rather, an aggregate—from the body and whiteness, for that cannot be predicated of the body, since the body is related to it as a part; nor is it on account of the substitute alone, because on the side of the predicate, namely, the word “white,” something is signified beyond the substitute or subject: an accidental entity is signified, concretely applied to the subject. The truth of that predication is therefore founded on the identity of white with the body, signified on the side of the word “white” by reason of what it connotes. For it connotes a subject that has whiteness, and this is the body; what has it and the body are identical. St. Thomas explains this solution in Summa theologiae I, q. 13, a. 10.

This¹⁴ doctrine must be observed further, and its opposite avoided, in substantial concretes such as “human being” and “humanity.” Some distinguish “human being” as the constituted thing from “human being” as the substitute, and say that “human being” as the constituted thing is human nature itself, while as substitute it is the supposit having human nature. Hence they infer that, just as the divine supposit assumed humanity, so too it assumed a human being, taking “human being” as the constituted thing. Yet this very inference, which this doctrine allows, shows its unacceptability; we must not use words in such a way that we are compelled to grant propositions in theology that are highly suspect and ill-sounding. To say that God assumed a human being sounds so bad in theology that it was expunged from the Library of the Ancient Fathers, vol. 3, in St. Ignatius’s Scholia, ch. 47, by the Spanish Index expurgatorius in 1612,¹⁵ 1632,¹⁶ and 1640.¹⁷ St. Thomas also condemns it in Summa theologiae III, q. 4, a. 3, because “human being,” by its mode of signification, says more than nature. In such expressions we must pay close attention to the customary mode of signifying and to the usage of the Church and the learned; for error follows from a change in the mode of signification and from disorderly wording. The proposition “Deity begets” is heretical, whereas “God begets” is Catholic. Yet if someone took “God” and “Deity” to mean the same thing by reason of the constituted thing, one could deny or affirm both, which would be erroneous. I have said this so that in this doctrine about concretes and abstracts, constituted things and substitutes, we may follow customary usage rather than trust our own ingenuity. See Logic q. 5.¹⁸ and q. 7.¹⁹ for more on this.

As for the further point in the argument—that when several formalities concur to constitute one essence, only the last formality can be predicated essentially—it is false. All the higher degrees are, as it were, presupposed to the last difference, and yet they are predicated essentially of the thing constituted from the last difference and those degrees. Thus, a human being is said to be an animal, a living thing, and a body; and something white is said to be colored and qualified, provided they are predicated according to the same mode—that is, the concrete of the concrete and the abstract of the abstract. Likewise, since being significant and being a part belong essentially to the notion of a term, however much they are presupposed and substituted, they are nevertheless predicated essentially of the term itself, because they belong to it essentially as generic or higher predicates.

It remained to discuss here the matters commonly debated at length about the nature and divisions of signs, since the notion of a sign is usually included in the definition of a term and the other instruments of logic. But we discuss these controversies, which are rather metaphysical, fully in our commentary on the books of On Interpretation.²⁰