Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

A PREDICAMENT is nothing other than “an ordered series of superior and inferior predicates, from one highest genus predicated of every inferior, down to the individual subject to every superior.” Because this coordination is made through superior and inferior predicates, more and less universal, these predicates are called “grades,” since it is as though there were a ladder by which we ascend and descend. In the predicament of substance, for example, substance is posited as the highest genus, then body, living thing, animal, man, and Peter; below, at the end of each predicament, we shall arrange its tree.

The distinction of the predicaments was introduced to set out orders and classes of different natures, to which all things participating in some nature could be reduced. Therefore, first of all, a being of reason must be excluded from every predicament, since it has no nature or true entity, but a fictitious one; it must accordingly be rejected not into a true predicament but a fictitious one. Hence St Thomas says that only things outside the soul belong to the predicaments, De potentia, q. 7, a. 9¹.

Among real beings, some must belong to the direct line and gradation of a predicament, others to its side, as it were by reduction, since not all participate equally in the nature of being or of the genus itself. To discern which beings are wholly outside a predicament, which belong to the direct line, and which are placed reductively to its side, five conditions are listed as required for something to be in a predicament. Although others list more, all are reduced to these: first, it must be a being per se and not per accidens; second, a complete being; third, a finite being; fourth, an incomplex being; fifth, univocal.

AS TO THE FIRST, it is said that something must be a being per se, to exclude a being per accidens. The latter is excluded from a predicament because it does not express one nature but several, and so is not a thing consisting of one genus and difference but of several, since its natures are diverse. Or, if it consists of the same genus and difference, genus and difference will nevertheless be multiplied if the natures are diverse, as required in a being per accidens. A being per accidens is thus composed from these diverse natures; it is not posited per se in a predicament, but through those natures, each either in a distinct predicament if they belong to different predicaments, or in a distinct way with the natures multiplied within one predicament. In either case it is not posited per se and by one position.

From this condition I judge that concrete accidentals must be rejected from a predicament, if they are taken not merely formally but as a composite formed from both subject and accident. Taken merely formally, they signify only the accidental form; in this sense Aristotle says in the chapter on substance² that “white signifies quality alone,” and in the Metaphysics he often enumerates the predicaments that are accidents in concrete terms, such as how much and what sort. Thus, considered only in respect of its formal aspect, the concrete term for an accident can have the nature of genus and species and, consequently, a predicamental series, although some find a difficulty in its mode of signifying, because it signifies in the manner of something inhering, not in the manner of a quiddity. This is no obstacle: although it signifies as inhering in a subject, predication in quid can be made concerning the accidental form itself and predicates essential to it, as when we say “White is colored”; it is quidditative by reason of the formal aspect it conveys.

But if the subject conveyed by connotation is conceived as making one composite with the form itself, so that the quiddity or nature of the concrete composite is taken from both, then that composite cannot be posited per se in a predicament, since it is composed from natures belonging to different predicaments, such as subject and accidental form. In this respect, therefore, it is not posited per se in one predicament.

It is no objection that, as some say, concrete accidents have a definition and therefore a nature or species; or that they have an operation, as a hot thing heats, and operation is a sign of nature, the principle of operation. The answer is that concrete accidents are defined quidditatively only by reason of their formal aspect, to which the predicates included in the definition are essential. A concrete term as composed from subject and accident is defined only by a definition of the name, as when I say “White is that which has whiteness.” And if such things have an operation by reason of the form that is its principle, they have it not by reason of a third nature resulting from accident and subject.

THE SECOND CONDITION required for predicamental being is that it be a complete being. This applies to things placed in the direct line of a predicament, not to those placed reductively or at its side. We call a being complete when it is signified as a constituted whole and in the manner of a “what.” Thus even accidents have the nature of a complete being in their own genus, the genus of accident, although by comparison with substance they are incomplete beings, that is, do not subsist per se.

The reason for this condition is that in the direct line of a predicament are placed inferiors constituted from superiors, and superiors predicated of them. Inferiors are constituted from their superior and a contracting difference, and so are wholes composed of their constituents as of parts. Superiors, in turn, are identified with the inferiors of which they are predicated, and so are wholes by identity, just as the inferiors themselves are. But if things are signified by their mode of signifying not as a whole but as form and part, they are not in the direct line of those predicated as a whole.

Differences have a further reason for exclusion: although they are predicated of the species they constitute and of the inferiors of that species, other superior predicates are not predicated of the differences themselves. Genus is not predicated of differences, nor can differences be resolved into two concepts, genus and another difference, since otherwise there would be an infinite regress. Since superiors are not predicated of them, differences interrupt the direct line and series of superior and inferior grades and are therefore placed at the side.

Whether physical parts, such as matter and form, and other parts and modes are also excluded from a predicament, we said above, q. 7, a. 3, near the end. See there.

Some substances, although subsistent beings, have an imperfect nature and exist in the manner of a way or tendency toward a more perfect terminus, as an embryo relative to a fully developed animal. St Thomas places these reductively in the species of their terminus, De potentia, q. 3, a. 9, ad 1³. By their nature these species are, as it were, ways toward another thing and motions, insofar as they are in an imperfect state and still tending toward the terminus at which generation is perfected; they thus have something like the nature of a part, not by composing but by tending toward ultimate perfection.

No equally easy general rule can be given for modes. Some modes are posited in a predicament only reductively, such as substantial modes of subsistence and union. Others have predicaments per se, such as where and position, and the like. Briefly—and this belongs to metaphysics—modes differ in two ways. Some pertain to the very composition or completion of a thing or nature: substance is constituted through union and completed through subsistence; accident through inherence; quality through degrees of intension and remission, whether these are different unions or different terminations of the same quality. These modes are reduced to the predicament of the thing they compose or terminate by modifying it as parts in composition. Other modes pertain neither to a thing’s constitution nor completion, but belong to it only from some extrinsic reason or principle. Such modes can properly constitute separate predicaments, as where and position, and according to some, relation.

THE THIRD CONDITION is that predicamental being be finite. This excludes what is absolutely infinite throughout the whole genus of being, as God, but not something infinite in a determinate genus, if there were such a thing, for example infinite quantity or quality. The reason is that infinity in a determinate genus is only accidental. As to its essence it consists of act and potency, which are termini by which the essence is finite as an essence; they are the termini of the essence by which it is composed in being. It is composed only of act and potency; genus is taken from what is potency, and difference from what is act. Therefore it retains the coordination and series of superior and inferior predicates, genus and difference, which is to be placed in a genus and predicament. But infinity in substance or in the genus of being is the infinity of pure act, since it is infinite only through the absence of the termini of essence. If it is in act, it is an infinity of act, which excludes all potentiality. Once potentiality is excluded, no genus remains, since genus is what is potential to differences by which it is actualized and determined. Pure act therefore excludes every coordination of the determinable and determining, actualizable and actualizing grades that make up a predicamental gradation and series, as will be explained further in the next question.

THE FOURTH CONDITION is that predicamental being be incomplex. This excludes not only accidental complexes and beings per accidens, excluded by the first condition, but also essential complexes, such as definitions—for example, the complex “rational animal.” The reason is that such complexes correspond to a double concept explaining one and the same nature, which is posited per se in a predicament: the defined thing itself is the species. If the species or defined thing is posited per se in a predicament, and the complex explaining that defined thing is also posited per se in the same predicament, the same thing would be posited twice, once in itself and once by reason of its definition taken complexly. Sometimes, however, because authors may lack an incomplex word to signify a thing, they signify it with a complex expression and place it in the predicament, since the thing signified is incomplex. Nor can one say that only the definition, not the defined thing itself, which is the specific nature, is placed in the predicament. On that account the predicaments would formally be something of reason, namely, the intentions of definitions placed in a predicament, rather than the defined things themselves, which alone are something real in the definition.

THE FIFTH CONDITION is that they be univocal. Equivocal things do not signify one nature but many, and so do not express one thing capable of being placed in a predicament. Analogues are also excluded because they do not have one nature contractible like a genus through differences, or like a species constituted from a genus and contracted to individuals. Once genus, species, and difference are excluded, predicamental coordination, which consists of these, is excluded as well.