Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

With regard to the first part of the proposed difficulty, namely whether this is a division of genus into species, it should be noted that the difficulty arises from two sources:

First, among the predicables themselves some are predicated accidentally, such as the last two, property and accident, while others are predicated essentially, such as the first three. Yet nothing seems to stand univocally in relation to being said both accidentally and essentially.

Second, the difficulty arises from the very complexity of the division: for if the universal is a genus with respect to the five predicables, and one of the members that divide it is genus, the thing divided will coincide with the dividing member. Nor is it enough to say that the universal which is divided here is formally universal in itself, but denominatively genus, so that it does not formally coincide with the dividing member. For the contrary follows: the same intention of universality would then belong univocally to the same thing formally and denominatively, essentially and accidentally. For it is essentially universal in itself; and since it is denominatively genus, while genus is a certain universality, it would accidentally have the universality that is in genus, although essentially it is the very universality in common that enters into genus.

THE FIRST DIFFICULTY compelled some to say that this division is analogical, although it is univocal with respect to the first three predicables. Others think it univocal and a division of genus into species. Still others mediate between the two positions, saying that the metaphysical universal, or the universal considered as unity and aptitude for many, is analogical, but is univocal as a relation of reason, which is a second intention. All agree, however, that the universal taken materially and as a substratum is not univocal with respect to all the predicables, indeed not even with respect to any one alone. For genus, for example, can have as the material thing it denominates both a real being and a being of reason, substance and accident. Hence we are speaking only of the universal taken formally.

THE SECOND DIFFICULTY, HOWEVER, has no less perplexed some minds, because they divide universality into two kinds, one per se and intrinsic, the other accidental and extrinsic. The first is that which belongs to natures, is exercised in them, and denominates them; for it results from the abstraction of natures. The second reflects upon universality itself and, gathering diverse intentions or modes of universality into one, again confers upon them another denomination of universal, accidentally and denominatively. Thus, just as the first universality stood denominatively with respect to natures, although in itself it was universality, so the second universality stands denominatively and accidentally with respect to the first. Hence in these second intentions there is no incompatibility in the same predicate belonging essentially and accidentally to the same thing, or in the same intention being superior and inferior with respect to the same thing—not the same intention and predicate taken numerically, but specifically or universally. For the intention of universality, which is essentially and formally such, can in turn acquire universality denominatively through reflexive cognition, by which another universality is attributed to it. For example, animal is called a genus through universality and abstraction. Again, that intention of genus, insofar as it agrees with another intention of genus, is reflexively cognized and abstracted from it, and by that abstraction is denominated a certain species of universals; for this is what genus is. All of this contains no mystery beyond the familiar doctrine that something can formally be a genus and denominatively a species, formally a universal in common and denominatively that universal which is genus. So Martinez, disputation 1 on Porphyry, question 4.

NEVERTHELESS, IT MUST BE SAID that this division of the universal into the five universals or predicables is univocal and is made after the manner of genus into species.

Authors commonly follow this view, especially the Thomists and also the school of Scotus. THE BASIS IS that these five predicables, however accidentally they may be predicated, as property and accident are, are truly and univocally predicated of many; therefore they are univocally universal.

The antecedent is stated by St. Thomas in Summa contra Gentiles I, chapter 32, where he says that “everything predicated univocally is either a genus, a species, a difference, a property, or an accident.” Therefore all these five predicables ground univocal predication. But univocal predication is simply the same in all things predicated univocally, for one and the same account is preserved, which is predicated of many, since they are predicated univocally according to the same account. Therefore whatever is predicated univocally simply preserves true and proper universality, which consists only in being one in many. Hence it is one thing for a predication to be qualified with respect to the entity it predicates, and another for it to be qualified with respect to the universality according to which it is predicated. For the first requires only an accidental identity between predicate and subject; the second requires that what is predicated simply not be one in many. That would require either that it not have unity simply, or that the things of which it is said not be many simply. But whatever is predicated univocally is one simply and is said of many; therefore it has univocal universality. Thus an analogy in the account of being can well coexist with no analogy in the mode of predication.

That it is related to those five as a genus is clear, because it is divided into those five intentions of predicables, which do not differ from one another merely numerically, as two intentions of genus, species, or difference do; therefore they differ specifically within the genus of intention, and so it is related to them as a genus.

To the first difficulty raised at the outset, then, it is said that the last two predicables are called accidental, which is to be said in a qualified way on the part of the thing predicated. Yet they are not said in a qualified way with respect to the mode of universality, since in this they retain the account of unity said of many.

YOU WILL INSIST: The fourth and fifth predicables are said only denominatively. But denominatives are not univocal, both because the Philosopher distinguishes them from univocals and equivocals in the Antepredicaments;¹ and because they signify an accident concretely, which is a being per accidens and consequently does not have the account of one predicable; and finally because an accident is united to the subject it denominates but is not identified with it, nor can one accident be abstracted from several subjects except in the way a form is abstracted from matter, which is formal abstraction, not total abstraction, as is required for a universal.

It is answered that the predication of the fourth and fifth predicables is indeed denominative, but this does not prevent it from also being univocal or equivocal. For when the Philosopher distinguishes them from equivocals and univocals, he does not distinguish them as if the same things could not have both characters, but because they do not have them under the same account. We shall explain in the Antepredicaments² how distinguishing denominatives from equivocals and univocals serves the Philosopher’s doctrine.

As for the claim that a denominative is a being per accidens, it is answered that formally it is not a being per accidens, or so on the part of the form; for “white” signifies only a quality, as Aristotle says in the chapter on substance³ and St. Thomas in Metaphysics V, lecture 9.⁴ What is constituted from a subject and an accident is a being per accidens, but this is not predicated denominatively. For denominative predication is made only of the substitute, or subject, when the form is predicated of it.

And to the third objection it is said that between an accident and its subject there is not a quidditative and intrinsic identity, but a denominative one. All the inferior things agree in the accident as that which denominates, not as that which constitutes. Thus a universal of denominative predication results, and this is simply a universal, although it is identified with the subject in a qualified way on the part of entity; it is predicated absolutely on the part of universality and of the mode under which it is identified.

To the second difficulty it is answered, on the basis of the doctrine given, that in these intentions it is one thing to be formally universal, genus, or species, and another to be so denominatively. It can happen that an intention is formally a genus and denominatively a species, and formally a universal and denominatively a genus. Nor is this being such essentially and accidentally under the same account, but under different accounts, as we shall say presently. This happens because the intellect reflects upon its own acts and denominations. For when an intention results from the abstraction of some nature, the intellect again reflects upon that intention and, as though upon a thing or nature, affects and denominates it by a new abstraction and intention. And so on with other intentions without end. This amounts to nothing more than that an intention which denominates the nature on which it is founded can in turn be cognized as a thing and a certain nature, and thus found anew another intention that denominates it. With respect to the nature on which it is founded, therefore, it is a denominating form, which is what it is formally to be a universality; but when conceived as a certain nature, it is a foundation and is denominated by another second intention resulting from it, and so it is denominatively universal.

WE SAY, THEREFORE, that the universal in common does not formally and as that by which coincide with the dividing member, which is genus, but denominatively and as that which: that is, the universal in common is not the form by which something is a genus, but the form by which it is universal. Yet that form, conceived as a certain thing, receives within itself the denomination of genus with respect to the five predicables, and so it is denominated by its dividing member. By the same reasoning, one dividing member can be denominated by its opposite: genus can be called species, that is, the intention of genus is denominated as a certain species of universal; and the individual is a species, that is, the intention of an individual is a certain species of intention. Even specieshood in the abstract can be denominated a species, because forms of reason transcend throughout, since they are founded in all things.

IF YOU OBJECT: The universal is included in the differences that contract it, both because the contracting differences are also predicated universally, and because one of the predicables is difference. Therefore the universal is not a genus with respect to them, since a genus lies outside its differences.

It is answered by denying the antecedent. For the differences by which the universal is divided into five predicables are not relations of universality, but differential modes by which that relation is contracted. Therefore they are not formally universality, although they can be so denominatively. But for genus formally and essentially to be included in them is not the same as their being able to be a foundation of universality; for this can belong to every entity capable of abstraction, whether real or of reason. As for one of the predicables being a difference, this does not prove that the universal is formally included in differences, that is, in the modes that function as such, but in the intention of difference, which is a certain species of universality resulting from a contracting mode of that sort, namely, the mode of “in what” essentially.

As for the second point asked in the article’s title, whether this division into five predicables is immediate, it is answered that it matters little whether one speaks of it in one way or another. For it can be said that the universal is immediately divided into essential and accidental universal—not by taking essential and accidental absolutely, but insofar as they are found within the account of universal, namely, insofar as one thing, while remaining one, regards many in an essential or accidental mode. Then the mode of regarding many essentially is either “in what” after the manner of genus, “in what” after the manner of species, or “in what kind” after the manner of difference. Likewise, the mode of regarding many accidentally is either accidental in the proper sense or accidental in common. Thus it can be said that the division is immediate into those two members as genera, and mediate into these five as lowest species.

It can also be said that the universal is immediately divided into those five species, because essential and accidental predication as such do not per se divide the account of universality, except insofar as they belong to the account of genus or species, and so on. For the essential or accidental absolutely can also be found outside universal predication: as when I say, “Peter is this man,” the predication is essential; “Peter is this white thing,” the predication is accidental. Therefore essential and accidental as such are not per se and properly differences of the universal, since they are found outside universal predication; only the accidental and essential insofar as they constitute or are embedded in the very account of genus, species, property, and so forth are differences of the universal.