Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Prima Pars Artis Logicae

TWO THINGS MUST BE PRESUPPOSED: The first is that a verb, not only an adjectival verb but also a substantive verb, has a concept distinct from its extremes. Everyone grants this of an adjectival verb, but some recent authors deny it of the substantive verb, saying that the verb “is,” when posited as a connection in propositions, has no special concept in the mind, but merely explains the agreement of its extremes.

St. Thomas holds the contrary. For at the end of On Interpretation I, lect. 5,¹ he says that Aristotle said that 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 absolute actuality. For is, stated simply, signifies actual being. But because the actuality principally signified by the verb “is” is the actuality common to every form, whether substantial or accidental, it follows that when we wish to signify that any form inheres in a subject, we signify this by the verb “is,” and so it signifies composition consequently. And in Sentences I, d. 8, q. 2, a. 3, ad 3,² he says “that was and will be signify essence in the mode of act and consignify time.” Thomas therefore assigns the verb “is” its own concept, while saying that it signifies union or composition consequently; for this belongs to the verb’s mode of signifying, not to the thing signified. And certainly it is impossible for the participle of the verb is, namely being, to have its own concept by which it signifies being as such, while the verb is, from which it is derived, has no concept of its own.

Second, I presuppose, from Thomas, On Interpretation I, lect. 4,³ that it is one thing to signify time, another to signify with time, and another to signify the relation of time as measure, or to connote time. To signify time itself as the thing signified is done by a noun, not by a verb: thus the noun time, day, year, and so on signifies time, and is not a verb. To signify with time is to signify something insofar as it is subject to time. And because substance, in itself and by its mode as substance, is not measured by time, but only insofar as it is subject to motion and change—since motion is what is measured by time first and in itself, and by reason of which other things are measured by time—it follows that a verb signifies with time because it signifies in the mode of flux and motion, whereas a noun signifies without time because it signifies in the mode of substance and of what stands in itself. Finally, to signify a relation to time or to connote time is to signify the relation of one time to another, or some thing with the determination of a particular time. For example, yesterday, today, and tomorrow signify a relation to past or future time; likewise lunch, dinner, and similar words connote a determinate part of time in which those actions are usually performed.

WITH THESE POINTS ESTABLISHED, I SAY: Signifying with time is so intrinsic and essential to a verb that it can never be separated from it. Yet verbs are said to be separated from time in certain propositions, not from signifying with time, because they unite the extremes independently of time, while signifying this very thing in the mode of time.

That a verb is separated from time is therefore the common opinion of authors, indeed the common conception of all, when they form necessary propositions that they call eternally true—not because objective truth has positive eternity and duration, but because, if necessary, it does not depend on time, is not grounded in it, and is not changed by it. “For truth that endures does not perish,” as Thomas says, citing Augustine,⁴ in Sentences I, d. 19, q. 5, a. 3.⁵ Therefore, for a verb to be separated from time means nothing other than for truth itself to be separated from time; for truth is signified by a verb insofar as it unites the extremes in a proposition. Hence if truth is independent of time, the union of the extremes is also independent of time; consequently, insofar as the verb unites them, it does not depend on time. This is to be separated from time with respect to the exercise of uniting and joining extremes that have an intrinsic connection, not a contingent and temporal one that would depend on time. Yet signifying with time belongs to a verb even outside a proposition by virtue of its proper signification, just as signifying without time belongs to a noun.

Therefore, it is the union of a verb, not its signification, that is separated from time. Hence it is clear that being separated from time does not mean changing the measure of time on the part of the mode of signifying, nor uniting with respect to every time or duration, nor not uniting at all in the mode of time, as some have variously thought. Rather, while retaining its mode of signifying with time, which is intrinsic to it, the verb does not express the union of the extremes as dependent on time.

As for what it is to signify with time, the first part of the conclusion, the answer from Thomas, On Interpretation I, lect. 4,⁶ is that it is nothing other than signifying under the aspect and in the mode by which something is subject to time. It is subject to time by reason of motion or change; every action, however, is signified in the mode of motion. This is what signifying with time means in a verb: it signifies a thing under an actual tendency, application, or communication, and thus is said to signify in the mode of action or flux, and hence under the measure of time. And because we also understand things that are eternal and independent of time in the mode of time, even when a verb’s union or joining is separated from time on the part of the extremes over which it falls, we still understand it in the mode of time; it is therefore signified with time as regards its mode of signifying, although it is separated from time as regards the union and relation of the extremes.

OBJECTIONS ARE RESOLVED.

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

The antecedent is proved as follows: The verb “is” does not signify an action, but being, according to an analogous concept common to essential and accidental being, like being itself, which is its participle. Likewise, the verbs “have,” “possess,” “rest,” and similar verbs signify no motion or action, but the opposite of action and motion; therefore, they do not signify in the mode of motion and action.

I ANSWER: signifying motion or action is one thing, and signifying in the mode of motion another. Not all verbs signify motion and action on the side of the thing signified, but all signify in the mode of motion—that is, in the mode of what passes and according to the relation of present, past, or future—and thus they signify a thing as subject to presence, which is understood to pass into past and future. Hence the verb “is” signifies the act of being, not of acting, and signifies it as subject to the present and passing into the past. For in creatures existence is the term of an action, and therefore can take on the mode of action and of what passes in signifying. The same holds of resting, possessing, and so on. These can be signified in the mode of what passes because they are acquired through motion, and hence as measured by time.

Second objection: The signification of a verb never changes, even when it is separated from time; rather, it signifies the copula and union itself. Therefore, the union never changes: it either always depends on time, or, if it does not, the signification changes.

It is confirmed because by virtue of a verb’s signification the verb necessarily unites by means of some difference of time, whether present, past, and so forth. Therefore, the extremes, insofar as they subsist and are united by the verb, cannot fail to be measured by time itself and restricted to that difference of time, since they are united only through it and according to its requirement.

It is confirmed a second time because, if the verb abstracts from time, it follows that the extremes do not supposit; and consequently, if an affirmative proposition is formed, it will be about a subject that does not supposit, which is false. The consequence is proved because supposition must be verified in relation to the copula. For example, if you say “a human being is an animal,” this must be verified of a human being by saying “this is a human being,” with a human being indicated. But if the verb abstracts from all time, it cannot be indicated that this is a human being, as is clear from the time before a human being was created; therefore, the supposition is not verified.

I ANSWER: a copula or union is not signified immediately and directly by a verb, but consequently, as we said above from Thomas, On Interpretation I, lect. 5, at the end.⁷ A verb directly signifies an action or actuality in the mode of what flows and passes. Since this mode is applicative, by virtue of it a union or application of the extremes results and follows. And because, as Thomas says there, composition cannot be understood without the composing extremes, the resulting union or copula depends on the extremes, and results according to their connection, either as dependent on time or as separated from time.

To the first confirmation, the response is that when a verb is separated from time, it still unites by means of some difference of time on the part of its mode of signifying, but independently of time on the part of the union that follows in the extremes and on the part of the thing itself that is united.

To the second confirmation, it is said that in those propositions the extremes supposit naturally; and the verification of such supposition takes place according to the requirement of the verb, not by indicating a subject existing in time, but as it is in itself in the intellect. Thus, when I say “this is a human being,” this does not indicate an individual existing in time, but the essence of a human being insofar as it can be found in all individuals; for this is natural supposition.

Finally, one argues: The verbs “was” and “will be” signify the same as the verb “is,” since they are oblique cases of it, and yet they cannot be separated from time; otherwise, the proposition “Adam was a human being” would be eternally true, although it would be false for the time before Adam was created. Therefore, the verb “is” also signifies dependently on time and cannot signify two actualities, since otherwise it would be an equivocal verb, not signifying one actuality alone.

I ANSWER: precisely because was and will be are cases of the verb and fall away from the signification of the present verb, they are incapable of abstracting from time: they restrict their signification to the aspect of the past or future alone, which cannot abstract from time as the aspect of the present can. For what is present can be signified as not passing away, but as always present, as is the case with things that do not depend on time. But the past, on the side of the thing signified, essentially includes passing and temporal succession; hence the union that follows from it is always dependent on time. There are many verbs that cannot be separated from time, such as to exist, to move, and so on; was and will be are likewise such verbs.

Or, second, one can say that was and will be are also separated from time, as Thomas discusses in Sentences I, d. 8, q. 2, a. 3,⁸ since they are sometimes attributed to God, as when it is said that he was from the beginning: “The Word was with God,” “God will be forever,” and so on. Then one must say that the proposition “Adam was a human being” was also true before Adam was created, taking was not to mean that he existed, but that those two extremes had been connected. The verb “is,” however, does not signify two actualities, but the actuality of being in general, like its participle, namely being. Hence, from the extremes joined to it, that common and indifferent signification of actuality is determined and restricted to the union of essential or accidental actuality, as is taken from Thomas, On Interpretation I, lect. 5, at the end.⁹

We omit here other arguments that could be made about the eternity of a necessary proposition, because they pertain to metaphysics. Nor do we now discuss how such propositions are eternally true; we presuppose that point and instead discuss how a verb in them is separated from time.