Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

This is the chief and most difficult point to understand in analogues, in which their unity is explained—the unity that separates them from equivocal terms but does not bring them to univocal terms. We are speaking of a concept abstracted or segregated from the lower analogates, since it is clear that the concept is multiplied in them. Hence, unless it is segregated from them, it has no unity; and thus the unity of an analogical concept cannot be investigated without investigating its abstraction from the lower analogates. This unity is founded on agreement, and a different unity is taken according to the different mode of agreement. In univocals, agreement and unity are given in one way, namely, through unity simply speaking. But in analogues, since unity is qualified and proportional, or consists in a relation and comparison, it is not found in the same way in all cases. They must therefore be distinguished one by one, and the mode of unity proper to each assigned to it.

I SAY, THEN, FIRST: Analogues of attribution and metaphorical analogues cannot have one concept, either objective or formal, but have several, with unity of comparison and connotation; by this alone they differ from purely equivocal terms. This is why these analogues are commonly called “of several concepts,” by Master Soto in his question on equivocal and analogical terms, and by other Thomists.

THE REASON FOR THIS IS that the unity of these analogates does not consist in something found intrinsically in all of them, either absolutely and simply or relatively and proportionally, that is, in their own way. Rather, it consists in the order of one or several things to one term, from which they receive their denomination because they connote or are related to it. Since such unity is a unity of order and relation of one or several things to another, it necessarily requires several concepts joined to that order and needed to exercise such connotation and relation. This is further made clear because such analogues are not analogical from their primary imposition, but through the transference and usage of people, as we hinted in our Summulae, q. 6, on supposition, a. 2. There we did not explain the matter fully, because that was not the place to do so; therefore we said that there are no true analogues in transfers and metaphors, but that proper names themselves are taken up for metaphorical transfer. And this is indeed so: these analogues of attribution and metaphorical proportionality are not such by their imposition, as Master Soto rightly notes in his commentary on the chapter on equivocal terms, single question, a. 2, corollary 2, but through the transfer and usage of people. For the names “healthy,” “laughter,” “lion,” and many like them are univocal by their imposition and directly signify the formal health that is in an animal, laughter that is in a human being, and a real lion. But through the usage of people, who compare one thing with another on account of a likeness or connotation they assert, the name of one is applied to the other, under which name they, as it were, conceal the comparison or connotation and explain it by circumlocution. Such a name, however, does not have as even a secondary signified object the thing with which it is compared and to which it is metaphorically transferred. Rather, what it signifies is only that to which such a thing can be compared and to which it bears a relation as to a term. From the fact that something can be the term of others’ comparison or relation, it does not signify all those things directly or indirectly by imposition or by the natural representation of the concept. We instead use that name abusively to name the things compared with it: thus, seeing that a medicine which is in an animal is healthy, we call food healthy; seeing a flowery meadow to be a cause of joy, we say that it laughs; and seeing that Christ has strength like a lion, we call him a lion.

St. Thomas expressed this in Prima Pars, q. 13, a. 6, saying that “the name ‘lion,’ said of God, signifies nothing other than that God is disposed to act powerfully in his works, as a lion is in its own.” Hence it is clear that the concept of lion, insofar as it corresponds to the name “lion,” which is univocal, cannot be extended to signify God or anything else compared with a lion, because the lion serves only as the term of that comparison and likeness, not as something having God for a less principal signified object. Therefore, in the cited place in our Summulae, we warned that, whatever the case may be, analogues that are truly analogues do secondarily signify their less principal analogates; nevertheless, even in the univocal name itself, improper supposition must be allowed when it is transferred to signify something else. This doctrine was presented there fully and briefly: improper supposition and metaphorical analogy (for they are the same) can belong to a univocal name which, by its imposition or direct signification, signifies something univocal, but is extended by transfer to something else. Thus, for example, the concept of lion signifies Christ neither directly nor indirectly, whereas analogues that are such from their first signification or imposition signify their less principal analogates. The name “lion,” however, is univocal by its imposition and is applied to Christ only by transfer. These analogues therefore cannot be reduced to one concept, because they have only a unity of comparison and connotation, which requires several concepts, even though they are compared with one term. This is the basis for saying that these analogues, taken per se—that is, left to their imposition and with the transfer removed—stand for the most familiar signified object, since they return to univocity.

I SAY, SECOND: Proper analogues of proportionality can have one concept with respect to all their analogates, but it is inadequate and imperfect. It does not abstract from the lower analogates by including them potentially and excluding them actually; rather, it does not explain them actually, while actually including them, or implicating them.

This is taken from Cajetan in a short work on the concept of being and in his work on the analogy of names, ch. 4, from Ferrariensis, Summa contra Gentiles I, ch. 34, and from the Thomists generally. We are speaking of both an objective and a formal concept, for each corresponds to the other as representing to represented.

The FOUNDATION of this is that the intellect, on hearing an analogous name—for example, “being” (which we shall show in the following question to be analogous)—usually gathers itself into one concept and is not divided into several. This is a sign, as it were a posteriori and by induction, that it can have one concept. We also say of that being that unity, goodness, and so on are its properties; therefore it must be one thing, for otherwise how could unity be its property? How could metaphysics treat it as one object and demonstrate its properties? The a priori reason is that there is a sufficient foundation in these analogates for forming one concept. The agreement of the analogates does not consist in their regard for one term or in their connotation of another, since such connotation or regard requires several things among which that regard and connotation are exercised. Rather, they agree in the mode of having a form, because each analogate has its own form, not in the same way, but proportionally, “in its own measure.” There is therefore something there that can terminate one concept, namely, this proportional agreement in something that belongs to them intrinsically and does not require several concepts to be explained. In sum, this analogue must not have a wholly diverse concept, as things equivocal by chance do, or it would not be an analogue; therefore it must have some unity. This is not a unity of comparison and connotation to one thing, for then it would be an analogue of attribution, which requires several concepts. It is instead a unity of agreement only in the mode of having its own form; but the unity of agreement serves a single concept.

That this one concept is imperfect and inadequate, and does not abstract from the lower analogates in such a way as to remain in potency to them and be contractible by the addition of a differential concept, is inferred from the fact that otherwise it would be a univocal concept. For animal is univocal with respect to all species because it is conceived as one in act, with the differences that divide it held only in potency, and is divided by their addition. Therefore an analogue that lacks such unity and has unity only in a qualified sense must not include the diversity of its lower analogates only potentially. For then it would remain simply one in act, which is to be univocal, and merely multiple or diverse in potency. To prevent it from remaining simply one, it must include diversity actually, although it does not explain that diversity actually. Again, this analogue, and especially the transcendentals, are included in the differences and imbibed in them; they are not merely contracted by their extrinsic addition, as univocals are. Therefore the analogue itself gives rise not only to the unity and agreement found in the lower analogates, but also to their difference and diversity, since division is not made by something extraneous in which the transcendental is not included. If, then, an adequate and perfect concept is given that explains the whole content of the analogue, it will represent not only its unity but also its diversity. When it is conceived under unity alone, it is conceived inadequately and imperfectly, without explaining everything that actually belongs to it.

But since some find it difficult to understand how that concept can contain the diversity of the lower analogates only implicitly and yet include it actually—for a concept seems to contain something in act when it actually represents it, and in potency when it represents nothing actually but needs another concept added for representation to occur—we must carefully observe what is especially useful for explaining the concept of analogy, of the transcendentals, and of the divine attributes. The intellect’s abstraction, distinction, or separation can occur in two ways. In one way, one thing is simply segregated from another by a concept, so that it does not include what it is separated from; distinction is made by including one thing and excluding another, as when animal is separated from human being. In another way, abstraction is not simple and is not made by excluding one account from another, but according to what is more confused or more explicit about the same thing. This does not vary the things conceived, but the modes of conceiving, just as seeing a thing from far off in a confused way or nearby distinctly does not vary the things seen.

These abstractions are better understood through their opposite, which is contraction. When an abstract concept, for example animal or human being, needs to be contracted by adding something extrinsic—that is, something of which the abstract concept is not predicated—then the abstraction was made by excluding that contracting item. For example, animal needs to be contracted by “rational,” of which animal is not predicated. This contraction takes place by addition, and consequently abstraction from that item takes place by exclusion. But when an abstract concept does not need to be contracted by adding something extrinsic, but by adding something of which the abstract concept itself is predicated, that abstraction is not made by excluding it, but by not explaining it, even though it actually includes it, albeit confusedly. For example, being needs something in order to be contracted to substance, accident, living thing, or body, but that something is also being, of which being is predicated, and consequently is not extrinsic to being. Such contraction does not occur by addition, and consequently the abstraction of being does not occur by exclusion; rather, it occurs only by not explaining the lower analogate, while nevertheless including it actually and confusedly.

FROM THIS YOU GATHER, FIRST, that the distinction of attributes in God and the abstraction of analogues and transcendentals are not properly made by abstraction from different things, but according to a different explanation or confusion of the same concept. One attribute cannot exclude another from its concept so that it remains in potency to the other and is perfected by it through addition, since God is pure act and thus excludes all potentiality. Therefore the concept of divine mercy, insofar as it is divine mercy and pure act, necessarily includes justice actually, not potentially. But because our mind does not explain in that concept everything that belongs to it as divine, but rather as mercy in God, it is distinguished from justice not by separation but by non-explanation. Likewise, since transcendentals such as being express an account that is imbibed in the differences and modes themselves—for all things are beings—the concept of being in general cannot be separated from something extraneous to being, as animal is segregated from rational as something extraneous to it insofar as it is animal. Rather, the concept of being is separated from its contractors because what is divided among the lower analogates is known confusedly and not explicitly.

This is the doctrine of St. Thomas when he teaches that being cannot be contracted by addition, but by modes that explain and express something not expressed by the name “being,” as is clear in De Veritate, q. 1, a. 1,¹ and likewise In I Sent., d. 22, q. 1, a. 3, ad 2.² From the Philosopher, he teaches in Metaphysics VIII, text 16.³ final lecture⁴ “that being does not await something added in order to become this—that is, substance, quantity, or quality—but from the beginning is substance, quantity, quality, etc.” These very modes that contract being are concepts of being as regards the account of entity, but are diverse as regards the expression of modification.

SECOND, it follows how that analogous concept is reduced to unity precisely by confusedly regarding its analogates, and is contracted and multiplied by regarding them explicitly. For the unity of the analogue is not the unity of some third thing that remains one as a form or higher account and is contractible through the lower analogates. If what is taken in common is one in itself, formed by abstraction itself, and contractible by the addition of contractors, then either it includes these contractors and dividers actually or potentially. If potentially, it has a concept that is one in itself and in potency to many, which is univocal. But if it actually includes the contractors themselves, which divide and contract it by addition, that concept will remain actually divided and contracted; how, then, is it abstract and one? The unity and diversity of analogues is therefore not to be sought in their union in some single abstract form, where the contractors are then understood to be present actually; for in this way that account would remain actually abstract and contracted. Unity must instead be understood in another way: not because one form is taken separately and differences then accrue to it, but because the analogates themselves are taken in a confused manner, without being distinctly expressed. It is like seeing a multitude from afar without discerning anything one by one: the analogates touched confusedly are the unity of the analogue, while their explicit grasp is their diversity. Nor is that common concept a concept of the proportion itself insofar as proportion is a relation; otherwise it would be a concept of a relation. Rather, it is a concept of that which grounds the proportion, insofar as it is taken confusedly and not explicitly in the diverse things. For example, bone and spine are taken confusedly if they are known according to the account of supporting flesh; substance and accident are taken confusedly if they are known as having being; and foundation and heart, if they are known as having a principle and giving origin.

You may ask: Why not say that the concept “supporting flesh,” “having being,” or “giving origin” is simply one, because it is then contracted by the account of such a mode of supporting flesh or having being? The response is that the concept does not signify a form that is simply one in account and quiddity as a form, but one in its mode of having being—being such in its own way and proportionally, not simply. For example, the account of principle in a foundation and in a heart does not express some form constituting the account of foundation and heart, but wholly diverse forms that nevertheless have the character of principle in their own way. Being, moreover, is not one form, because it is transcendental and is imbibed in the differences; thus it is no less an account or principle of diversity than of unity. It is therefore not a form simply one, but partly the same and partly diverse, as will be said in the following question.

LASTLY, IT IS UNDERSTOOD how this concept of an analogue of proportionality can stand for each of its analogates, whereas the concept of an analogue of attribution or metaphorical proportionality cannot. For the concept of the first kind of analogue regards all the analogates under a unity of confusion in their having proportional unity in their forms, without explaining their diversity. Hence each analogate can be made a suppositum for that concept, because it is contained there as having such a form proportionally. Thus being stands for substance when we say, “Being subsists,” and for accident when we say, “Being inheres,” because this confusion of being is determined by “subsists” or “inheres.” In analogues of attribution or metaphor, however, since the concept is directly univocal and the word is transferred, the thing signified has a different concept with a connotation toward itself. Therefore, since it serves only as the term of a relation and connotation, it needs another concept in order to stand for that which connotes it and regards itself as the term of a relation; for supposition is not for that which is connoted as if obliquely, but for what is directly signified as contained in itself and as the that which.

THE ARGUMENTS ARE ANSWERED.

First, an argument is made to prove that analogues of attribution can have one concept. For wherever likeness and agreement among several things are found, one concept can be formed of that agreement, distinct from the concept in which disagreement and diversity are found. But analogates of attribution have some agreement and likeness. Therefore they can have one concept.

The major is clear, because the intellect derives the unity of a common concept only from the agreement and likeness of many things, leaving aside what is dissimilar and taking up what is in agreement. The minor is clear, because those analogues are not wholly diverse; otherwise they would be equivocal. Therefore they have some likeness, though with diversity. What, then, prevents the intellect from separating what is likeness from what is diversity and representing it by a single concept, leaving aside what is diverse, as it does in other analogues of proper proportionality?

This is confirmed because this analogue is truly and properly a universal with respect to its lower analogates; therefore it is one in many and abstracted from many. It therefore does not include those many things—or, if it does include them, it is not a universal.

THE RESPONSE is that wherever there is likeness, there is unity of concept according to the mode of likeness and agreement. If the likeness is simple and absolute, the abstract unity will also be simple unity. But if the likeness is only qualified and proportional, the unity cannot be purified of all diversity; it will be partly the same and partly diverse, which is a proportional unity, not something simply the same, for that would be univocal.

In analogues of attribution and metaphorical analogues, however, the likeness is even less, because they have agreement not in some form that they participate in, as univocals do, nor in the mode of having their forms proportionally, as analogues of proper proportionality do, but in the unity of a term that they regard or connote extrinsically, and from that connotation, relation, or comparison they receive their denomination. They therefore differ from purely equivocal terms not by having one concept—they have several—but because they join them under some one relation, comparison, or connotation, whereas equivocal terms separate them completely.

In answer to the confirmation, it is said that an analogue is a universal in a qualified sense, just as it is one in a qualified sense and abstracted in a qualified sense: it does not exclude the lower analogates, but only fails to explain them, taking them confusedly and imperfectly. In its own way it is thus one in many, has lower analogates, and is superior to them—namely, in a qualified sense and by reason of explaining or confusing those same analogates, as we said.

You will insist: An analogue can be the object simply speaking of one science, as being is the object of metaphysics; therefore it is simply a universal and simply one. The response is that just as it has one formal concept, so too it has one science. It is entirely possible for there to be unity in a qualified sense in the being of being, but for it to be simply one in the formal account of being representable, in the being of an object: that is, insofar as this confusion of being is representable as one species and this connection of being with its properties can be illuminated by one light.

A SECOND ARGUMENT: The analogue taken in common in no way represents the lower analogates or their contracting modes; therefore it in no way includes them, but separates them by exclusion.

The consequent is clear, because the intellect’s abstraction by exclusion is made only by representing one thing in a concept and not another. Therefore whatever it does not represent, it excludes and abstracts from. The antecedent is proved as follows. The analogue either has several concepts or one. It does not have several, because we are speaking of an analogue of proper proportionality, which is an analogue of one concept, as we admit. If it has one, then in that one concept several things are not represented—for example, substance, quantity, quality, etc.—immediately and per se; otherwise there would be equivocation in the mind, that is, a representation of several things as several. Second, it would follow that when I make the predications “A stone is being” and “A human being is being,” if the concept of being as predicate actually includes all the analogates, namely, substance, quantity, etc., the sense would be “A human being is substance, quantity, quality, etc.,” which is plainly absurd. Third, it would follow that infinite things are actually contained and represented by that concept, because there are infinitely many analogates of being.

This is confirmed: Are all the analogates contained in that one and imperfect concept as some aggregate, or as some disjunction of them, or is one contained in another and assimilated to it? The last cannot be maintained, since one thing is not like another unless they agree in something common; but, as was said, the analogates do not agree in anything common as in a third thing. Rather, they are many things that are one confusedly and proportionally. The first and second alternatives are wholly false. For when I say, “A human being is being,” the sense is not “A human being is substance or accident,” for I am not predicating a disjunction; rather, I am predicating something simple. Much less do I mean, “A human being is substance and accident,” as an aggregate or conjunction, for that would be false.

THE RESPONSE is that an analogue in the abstract represents its analogates confusedly and actually, not explicitly. To the first proof it is said that many things can be represented by one concept confusedly, not distinctly and as many. For example, when I see a thousand people or a mountain of sand from afar and do not discern the individuals, I see the whole multitude in one vision; nevertheless, they are many and, in the manner of one, terminate one vision. Yet there are not several things in these concepts only potentially, but actually, although they are grasped confusedly. The confused concept of being stands in the same way with respect to all its analogates: it immediately represents them all under the confused account of having being, but explains only this common account, not each analogate distinctly. It does not follow that there is equivocation in the ultimate concept, because an equivocal term signifies several things as several—that is, as agreeing in no way, neither in proportion nor in a mode of confusion that reaches several things, but as explicitly diverse. A concept that reaches several things confusedly, however, unites them by that very confusion, and merely explains their unity as a unity of those many things not by abstraction but by confusion. The unity of confusion requires an actual plurality of the things taken confusedly, just as a multitude is seen as one under a single confusion.

To the second proof it is answered that, in the predication “A human being is being,” the predicate “being,” although it actually regards all the analogates confusedly, does not express some determinate account that contains the lower analogates potentially. Rather, what it predicates is not all the things it contains materially and implicitly, but the account in which they are all confused, namely, having being. This is an account that does not abstract but confuses everything, and it alone is explained—just as weakness of light and distance confuse a multitude seen from afar, and the eye alone reaches it explicitly. A clear example is the predication “The Father is God.” For the term “God” includes actually, not potentially, everything that is in God, including the three persons—not as constitutive, but as terminative and modifying itself. Yet because it does not say them explicitly but includes them implicitly, it does not predicate all three persons of the Father, but only the Deity in which they are contained. In the same way, “being” predicates only that in which all things are confused, namely, having being. For these words, “signifies,” “predicates,” and the like, which imply an act of the soul, imply a naming imposed on the object as formally signified and predicated, not on what is included and confused materially.

To the third proof it is answered that, although infinitely many things are contained under being, they are nevertheless reduced to one common account under which they are confused, namely, having being, and to a finite number of genera or categories.

In answer to the confirmation, it is said that these many things correspond to that concept not as an aggregate or a disjunction, but as proportionally alike—not in some third thing as in an account simply one in which they agree, but in having their forms, not in the same way, but each in its own way, yet proportionally. Thus they are many confusedly, not many explicitly, nor simply one.

A THIRD ARGUMENT: An analogous concept is contracted by adding another distinct concept, and not by a greater explanation of the same concept; therefore that concept abstracts simply from the lower analogates.

The consequent is clear, because a concept is simply abstracted if it needs something added to it in order to be contracted; for when it is abstracted in this way, it excludes that thing. The antecedent is proved as follows: The analogates differ from one another entitatively—for example, substance and quantity—and are not distinguished in the concept of being itself, in which they agree; therefore they differ by something superadded. For everything in which they differ is superadded to that in which they agree. Therefore what we say is not explained there would better be called superadded.

This is confirmed because, if that concept actually contained all the analogates, someone who comprehensively penetrated the concept of being would actually see all beings. This is false, since one proceeds from an analogue—for example, being—to its analogates from potency to act, and therefore cannot see all of them actually. Again, that concept would have the lower analogates as actual and integral parts, not as subjective parts, because it includes them actually and not potentially. Thus, once the concept is penetrated, they would be seen actually and not potentially, and would stand as its actual parts; anyone who saw that concept with the confusion removed would see all the parts actually. The falsity of the consequent is clear from the reason by which St. Thomas, Prima Pars, q. 14, a. 6, proves that God does not know all things only under the account of being, for in that case he would know things most imperfectly and most potentially. Therefore the concept of being cannot manifest its analogates actually and determinately, since it stands indifferently to them.

THE RESPONSE is to deny the antecedent of the principal argument. To the proof it is answered that the analogates differ entitatively by differences contained under the same analogous account in which they agree, not by differences extraneous to it. Consequently, what contracts being is not superadded to being, but is contained under being; it merely explains in a different way what the common account implicates. The analogates also differ in that in which they agree, although under another respect. For this is what characterizes an analogue, especially a transcendental: it has unity and diversity, and is not only an account of agreement but also of difference. Therefore the account in which they differ is not superadded to the analogue, but explains the analogue in another way. This does not mean that the analogates are distinguished only modally and not entitatively; rather, the difference by which they differ entitatively is also contained under being. Nevertheless, an analogue is said to be contracted by modes and not by differences, not because modes are superadded, or because being is in potency to modes but not to real differences—for that would be a childish understanding—but because the analogates express some mode over and above being that is not expressed by the name “being,” as St. Thomas explicitly teaches in De Veritate, q. 1, a. 1.⁵ The mode is therefore in the expression, not in an addition.

In answer to the confirmation, it is said that someone who penetrated the concept of being in general would see nothing more contained there than all beings confusedly. Hence he would not penetrate all beings distinctly and determinately, because they are not contained there in that way. If he removed the confusion, he would destroy that concept of being in general, which is essentially confused, and form another distinct concept of a determinate being. St. Thomas therefore rightly proved that if God saw creatures only under the account of being, he would see them imperfectly, because he would know them as confused in being, not as distinguished and determined among themselves and according to the explanation of their proper modes. For the confusion of that concept is opposed to the explanation of determinate beings. Thus from the mere cognition and penetration of that concept the plurality of beings cannot be explained determinately, but must remain confused; if the confusion is removed, that concept is destroyed. One who proceeds from being to its analogates therefore proceeds from a more potential cognition, because it is more confused and indistinct. The cognition that proceeds from a concept representing all things confusedly is more confused and imperfect, even though it does not represent anything that contains several things potentially, than cognition that proceeds from the representation of something containing several things potentially and not actually; for at least the latter touches distinctly what is potential and contains the lower things potentially. For example, one who conceives animal touches all animal species potentially and confusedly, but conceives animal distinctly. But one who grasps being confusedly grasps nothing distinctly, but only what has being proportionally.

To the other part of the argument it is said that the analogates should not be called actual integral parts simply speaking, nor subjective parts, since they are parts only in a qualified sense, as was said. They are called subjective parts, however, because they are actually contained in the superior and joined or confused in that concept—not by way of aggregation, but by proportionality in being. Nor does it follow that the abstraction of being is actual, that is, formal, even though it is the most potential of all. For formal abstraction occurs by segregating potentiality and matter, and the more universal it is, the purer and more perfect it is. Thus formal abstraction of being is pure act if it abstracts in complete universality. But the abstraction of being in general as an analogue is most confused; and although it actually includes all things confusedly, it is not a formal abstraction, because it is not made by segregating the imperfect, but by including all things under a certain confusion and obscurity.