Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

BEING OF REASON, in its whole breadth, if we attend to the signification of the name, means that which depends in some way on reason. It can depend either as an effect on a cause or as an object on a knower.

In the first way, something is found to depend on reason in two ways: either because it comes from reason as from an efficient cause, as works of art that are devised and made through reason; or because it is in reason as in a subject and material cause, as acts and habits are in the intellect. But both of these modes belong to real being, because what is called a being in this way has true and real existence, though existence that depends on the intellect.

What depends on the intellect in the second way, namely as an object, is properly called a being of reason, as relevant here, because it has no being outside reason but is said to be in reason only objectively, and so is opposed to real being. Although some have denied this, its existence is clear from the common agreement of theologians and philosophers, since all distinguish real being from fictitious or rational being: the former exists in the nature of things, while the latter has no existence in reality but is merely known and feigned. Indeed, experience itself proves this sufficiently, since we see ourselves imagine and know many things that are wholly impossible; such things are fictitious beings. They are beings because they are known in the manner of a being, but fictitious because no true being on the part of the thing corresponds to them.

From these points one can derive a definition, or explanation, of being of reason in general: “a being having objective being in reason, to which no being corresponds in reality.” This is taken from St. Thomas, On Being and Essence, ch. 1,¹ and Metaphysics V, lect. 9,² and Summa theologiae I, q. 16, art. 3, ad 2, where he says that a being of reason is what, although it posits nothing in reality and is not a being in itself, is nevertheless formed or taken as a being in reason. This way of explaining it is more fitting: since “being” is said from “to be” and by reference to existence, just as real being is defined by reference to the being it truly has in reality, so being of reason, which is opposed to it, must be explained in the opposite way: it does not have being in reality but has it objectively in cognition.

As for what some say, that being of reason consists in an extrinsic denomination by which a thing is said to be known, as Durandus says in I Sentences, dist. 19, q. 5, no. 7, the assumption is doubtful in the first place, since it is highly controversial among authors whether an extrinsic denomination is formally a being of reason, as we shall say shortly. Moreover, speaking universally, it is false that being of reason as such consists in the mere denomination “known.” For this denomination is either the form constituting a being of reason, or that which receives the formation of a being of reason. It cannot be the first, since this denomination can also apply to real beings, which are denominated known but are not thereby formed into beings of reason, because they are not made fictitious. If it is the second, it is true that an extrinsic denomination is apprehended as a being of reason, but this is not true of extrinsic denomination alone: other non-beings are apprehended this way too, such as negations, privations, and so on.

If you ask what it means to have being in cognition, I answer that this depends on what will be said later about the cause and act by which a being of reason is formed. For the present, it is enough to hear St. Thomas, Metaphysics IV, lect. 1,³ where he says: “We say that certain things are in reason because reason deals with them as though they were certain beings, when it affirms or denies something of them.” This is not to be understood as meaning that a being of reason is formed only through a proposition that denies or affirms; rather, the formation of a proposition about an object that has no being on the part of reality is a sign that the intellect takes it in the manner of a being, because it applies a copula that signifies being.

Thus the very act of the intellect, by reaching an object in the manner of a being that does not exist outside the intellect, has two aspects: insofar as it is cognition, it makes the object known and so posits in the object only the extrinsic denomination “known”; and insofar as it makes such an object known in the likeness of a being, although it is not a being in reality, it gives it being of reason, or fictitious being. Thus St. Thomas says in Opusculum 42, ch. 1,⁴ that something becomes a being of reason when the intellect endeavors to apprehend what is not and therefore feigns it as if it were a being. And in Sentences I, dist. 2, q. 1, art. 3,⁵ he says that a being of reason follows from the way of understanding a thing outside the soul, and that such are the intentions our intellect devises. There St. Thomas treats “becoming” a being of reason, “being devised,” “being apprehended,” and “following from the way of understanding” as the same thing. Hence, as we shall say below, a being of reason is not formally fictitious or objective being merely because it is made known as that which; for in that case it is already presupposed to have being, or some character, on which the denomination “known” falls. Rather, the act that regards a non-being under the character and mode of being is said to feign or form a being of reason, and not merely to denominate it. To have objective being in the intellect consists in this: through the very mode of knowing, to be apprehended as a being that is not a being.

YOU WILL OBJECT: Therefore every object that is conceived by the intellect differently from the way it is in reality is a being of reason. The consequent is false: we know many real beings in the likeness of something else, and not as they are in themselves, such as God, angels, and things we have not experienced.

The consequence is denied, because such things are presupposed to be true real beings in reality. Therefore, from the mode of knowing, no character of being is attributed to them; rather, because they are not reached in their own proper and special mode, they are said to be reached in the likeness of something else. This is not enough for them to be denominated beings formed by reason absolutely under the character of being; they are denominated as known in the mode of an alien nature, not their own, and thus receive a connotation in being known by reference to that mode in whose likeness they are known.

Having learned what being of reason is in general, we must also briefly touch on HOW MANY KINDS OF BEING OF REASON THERE ARE. It is not the logician’s task to treat the division that divides being of reason in its whole breadth; the logician treats only logical being of reason, which is one of the members into which it is divided. Still, so that we may know which member of the division it belongs to, we briefly say that St. Thomas, in De veritate, q. 21, art. 1,⁶ divides being of reason taken in the broadest sense into two mutually exhaustive members: negation and relation of reason. “What belongs to reason,” he says, “can only be of two kinds: negation or some relation; for every absolute positing signifies something existing in the nature of things.” He also includes privation under negation. For privation is a kind of negation, or absence of a form in a subject capable of receiving the opposite form; negation, by contrast, is absence in a subject that is incompatible with the form, as the absence of the power of sight in a stone is a negation, while in a human being it is a privation. Relation, too, by the force of its own concept—which is “toward another”—can be found in mere apprehension and not in reality, namely when it is related to something else that is not in anything, as St. Thomas shows in Summa theologiae I, q. 28, art. 1.

NOT EVERYONE ADMITS THE SUFFICIENCY OF THIS DIVISION, because some think that being of reason should first be divided into what has a foundation in reality and what does not; the first is called reasoned reasoning, the second reasoning reason. They say that only what belongs to reasoned reasoning is divided into negation and relation, while what belongs to reasoning reason ranges through all the categories. See Serna, Logic, disp. 1, sect. 4, q. 2, art. 3; Magister Cabero, On Universals, disp. 1, dub. 3; and Merinero, disp. 3, q. 2.

Others think that no determinate species of being of reason is given; rather, they say that every incompatibility, every impossibility, and every implicating contradiction is a species of being of reason, because each is a fictitious being. So Martinez, disp. 2 of the prologue, q. 1.

Others assign other species at will; there is no need to be concerned with these.

NEVERTHELESS, IT MUST BE SAID that this division is the best and adequate one, and the one that most directly applies to being of reason in general.

For in a being of reason we can consider THREE THINGS: First, the subject to which it is attributed; second, the very character that is conceived and attributed to another; third, that in whose likeness it is conceived and apprehended.

On the part of the subject to which it is attributed, there is sometimes a foundation for attributing something to it in this or that way, and sometimes there is not. With respect to this, then, we take the distinction between a being of reason with a foundation in reality and one without such a foundation; this is considered with reference to that to which such a being of reason is attributed.

Likewise, on the part of that in whose likeness a being of reason is conceived, it can range through all the categories without difficulty. For sometimes something can be feigned and apprehended in the likeness of substance, as a chimera or a golden mountain; sometimes in the likeness of quantity, as a vacuum; and sometimes in the likeness of quality, as when death or blindness is conceived as a blackness or a kind of obscure form, and so on.

But if we consider a being of reason on the part of the thing conceived, or on the part of that which is knowable in the mode of a real being although it is not a being in reality, it is adequately divided into those two members as the first genera of being of reason: negation and relation, under which many negations and relations are further subdivided. Since this is the formal aspect reached in a being of reason, this division is direct and formal; other divisions may also be admitted, but they are taken from conditions of being of reason, as it were, rather than directly placed under it.

This division is adequate, because the very character of being of reason formally consists in its opposition to real being, namely, that it is incapable of existence. This is either something positive or something non-positive. If it is non-positive, it is a negation—that is, something that does not posit a form but removes it. If it is positive, it can only be a relation, because every absolute positive thing, since it is not conceived as toward another but in itself, is either a substance in itself or an accident in another. Therefore, no absolute positive thing can be taken as a being of reason, since the very concept of being in itself or in another imports some reality. Relation alone, because its concept says not only “in” but also “toward,” and for this reason does not precisely signify existence in itself but an extrinsic reaching of a term, can be conceived without reality and thus as a being of reason: it is conceived not as in another or in itself, but as toward another, with the denial of existence in anything.

BUT YOU WILL OBJECT TWO THINGS: First, to prove that it is wrong to call privation and negation beings of reason. Privation and negation, even when no intellect is considering them, signify the absence of a form and denominate a subject as lacking it; therefore they are not fictitious absences or beings of reason.

The consequent is evident, because a being of reason depends on cognition both to be and to confer its formal effect. Therefore, if negation gives its denomination to things before cognition, negation is not a being of reason. The same argument applies to extrinsic denomination, for example, being seen or being known: even when no intellect is considering it, a wall is denominated seen simply because the wall’s vision occurs in an eye. Similarly, before a being of reason results, a nature can be denominated higher or lower, a predicate or a subject, and so on.

The argument is confirmed: an extrinsic denomination follows upon a real form existing in some subject; therefore it is a real form. The consequent is evident, because just as a denomination that follows on a substantial form is substantial, and one that follows on an accidental form is accidental, so one that follows on a real form must be real.

I ANSWER that negation, insofar as it signifies the absence of a form, is given negatively on the part of reality, because the form itself is not in reality. Yet it is not called a being of reason for this reason, but because, although it is not a being in reality but an absence of a form, it is taken by the intellect in the mode of a being; thus, before the intellect considers it, it denominates the subject that lacks the form. But this absence is not properly a formal effect, nor is removing a form itself some form. Rather, it is taken by the intellect in the mode of a formal effect insofar as it is taken in the mode of a form, and consequently in the mode of a formal effect, although in reality that absence is not a formal effect but the removal of one. Likewise, an extrinsic denomination is given on the part of reality with respect to the form that denominates. But because its application to the denominated thing is not really in that thing, conceiving that form as adjacent and applied to the thing denominated is something of reason. Before the intellect’s consideration, being a predicate or subject, higher or lower, is found only fundamentally, not formally under the concept of a relation, as will be said more fully when we treat universals.

In answer to the confirmation, some hold absolutely that an extrinsic denomination is something of reason, as P. Vazquez, Summa theologiae I, disp. 115, ch. 2, no. 2, and I–II, disp. 95, ch. 10. Others hold that it is absolutely something real, though real with an extrinsic rather than intrinsic reality, which supplies its effect without anything of reason being added. So Suarez, final disp. on the Metaphysics, sect. 2, and others. But the truer view seems to be that two things concur in this denomination: the form itself as the denominating character, and its adjacency or application to the thing denominated as a condition. As to the form itself, it is clearly something real; for example, the vision by which a wall is denominated seen is a real form in the eye. But its application, insofar as it touches the subject denominated, is not something real, because it posits nothing in the wall itself. Everything that is apprehended as non-real is something of reason; accordingly, in the application of the form to the denominated thing, an extrinsic denomination is something of reason. The subject is nevertheless called denominated before the intellect’s operation, not because of what is posited in it, but because of what is presupposed outside it: the form is real in itself but does not really exist in what it denominates. Thus, because it does not exist in that subject, it is taken as a being of reason; because it pre-exists in another, from which it regards the denominated thing, it is said to denominate before the intellect’s operation.

If it is asked to which member of this division an extrinsic denomination belongs when it is conceived as a being of reason, I answer that it belongs to relation, because it is not conceived as affecting something by denying and removing a form, but as ordering and depending on that from which the denomination is taken, or on that to which it is assigned and directed through cognition.

Second objection, to prove that the division is not adequate. The unity of reason, such as that attributed by the intellect to a universal, is something of reason and is neither a relation nor a negation. It is not a relation, because unity is spoken of absolutely, not relatively. Nor is it a negation: first, because unity signifies something positive and not a pure negation, as St. Thomas says in Summa theologiae I, q. 11, art. 1; second, because if it were a negation, it would have to be conceived in the mode of a being of reason, and so it would not be called a unity of reason—that is, a negation of reason—but simply a being of reason. Likewise, a duality or distinction of reason is not a negation, since it rather removes the negation of unity; nor is it a relation, because the relation between things distinguished is founded on the distinction or duality. Therefore, it is another species.

The argument is confirmed by things that are pure fictions, such as a chimera, a golden mountain, and the like. For these are neither negations nor relations, but several substances united by the intellect from mutually incompatible parts. Likewise, there can be a quality or quantity of reason, as when a vacuum is taken in the mode of quantity or darkness in the mode of quality. Therefore, not all beings of reason are reduced to those two.

I ANSWER that some hold that unity of reason is taken only from the unity of a concept, and distinction from plurality. This is true on the part of the efficient cause, or that which causes a being of reason, which we are not examining here; we are considering its objective or fundamental aspect. Hence we answer that, on the part of the object, the formal aspect of unity of reason belongs to negation or privation, because it is nothing other than the separation, from many things producing difference, of that in which they agree. To the first objection, the answer is that, according to St. Thomas in that passage, unity is materially and entitatively something positive, but formally it is the negation of division. To the second, it is not incompatible for this unity of reason also to be a being of reason, since the negation or separation of plurality and difference is taken by the intellect in the mode of a being. As for what is added about duality or distinction of reason, distinction of reason is formally a relation of reason; it is the very relation between the things distinguished. Since they are distinguished by reason alone, their distinction is a kind of relation, even though the extremes are sometimes conceived as distinct in the likeness of absolutes, for example, in the mode of two substances. This relation of distinction is founded not on another distinction formally taken but fundamentally, that is, on virtual plurality, which belongs to the object insofar as it is subject to a plurality of concepts.

In answer to the confirmation, all those fictions are beings of reason that are negations; but there is no substance or quantity of reason, because what reason forms in the likeness of a real being is not a substance or quantity, but negations of substance or quantity are conceived in the likeness of substance or quantity. What is called a being of reason is not that in whose likeness something is conceived, but that which is conceived in the likeness of a being, although it is not a being in itself. See more on this below, q. 17, on Relation, art. 2.

From this it follows that in the metaphysical universal—which says only an abstract nature conceived in the mode of one, as we shall say in the next question—something of reason is already found: namely, what belongs to the represented or known nature by virtue of abstraction, that is, unity, or aptitude or non-repugnance to be in many. For these negations are something of reason, but they are not formally second intentions, which consist in a relation founded on natures thus abstracted. Such an abstract universal is called metaphysical, not logical, because not every being of reason formally and directly belongs to Logic, but only a second intention, as we showed from St. Thomas in the preceding question, art. 3. This second intention is a relation of reason, not a negation like unity; yet it belongs to the abstract and one thing.