Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

There are AUTHORS who hold the affirmative side, especially if “accident” is taken as a complete predicamental accident, not abstracting from complete and incomplete, and as a real accident that denominates intrinsically; for there is no univocal concept between what denominates extrinsically and what denominates intrinsically. Thus, speaking of a complete accident in this way, many authors, even outside the Scotist school, think it is univocal with respect to those predicaments that are forms denominating intrinsically.

The basis is that such an accident is not included in the differences, but behaves like a complete substance, which is truly a genus because it is not included in the differences, although substance is not a genus when it abstracts from complete and incomplete. Why, then, would a complete accident not likewise be univocal? Especially since one accident, such as quantity, participates in the nature of accident no less than another, such as quality; their entire diversity comes from their proper differences, in which the complete accident is not included. Finally, it is not easy to assign an analogy to complete accident. It is not transcendental, since it is not imbibed in the differences; it is not an analogy of attribution or metaphor, since all accidents are accidents intrinsically and not denominatively; and it is not proper proportionality, because in the opinion of these authors this does not suffice to make something analogue, since it is also found among univocals.

Against this is the general rule of St Thomas, Sentences I, d. 25, q. 1, a. 2¹: “Of things that do not agree in one most general genus, nothing can be said univocally.” But the nine genera of accidents are most general genera, being different predicaments. Therefore nothing can be said univocally of them, and consequently neither can “accident.”

I SAY, THEN, FIRST: Accident, insofar as it abstracts from complete and incomplete, is not univocal but analogue.

The authors commonly agree on this, because the same reason applies as to being common, complete and incomplete, indeed also to substance: in this way it is imbibed even in the differences and transcends all things and modes. For accidental differences too are accidents, though incomplete, since they are some being but not substantial being, and so are accidental. It follows that this nature is not altogether one but also diverse, since it is included in the differences and does not abstract from them perfectly. For a nature once included in the differences does not abstract from them, because there are no other differences of those differences from which it could abstract while leaving them behind. If it abstracts from differences, then, it abstracts from the wholes, and the common and one nature remains with respect to the inferiors, not with respect to the differences from which it abstracts. Therefore, to be common to those differences, it does not abstract from them; it includes them actually and is not simply one in nature.

I SAY, SECOND: Complete accident too is analogue with respect to the nine genera, even if all consist in a form that denominates intrinsically.

The REASON is taken from what we said in article 2 about complete being. Although the concept of complete is not included in the differences themselves, for it to be complete it must include those differences, because only through them can it be made complete. Accident can be made complete only through some mode distinguishing it from the incomplete. This mode is either inherence itself, as subsistence completes substance; or the accident’s being concrete; or its being predicamental as such; or, finally, the differences themselves contracting accident to this or that predicament.

The first does not make accident complete. Inherence is not ordered to constitute a whole complete in itself, as subsistence is; inherence belongs properly to a form informing a subject. Since both the common and particular or differential nature of an accident belong to the nature of a form, inherence applies to both. Therefore, merely by conceiving accident as inhering, it is not drawn out or separated from inclusion in the differences, since the differences themselves also inhere. Accident is made complete in its nature and quiddity by its differences, not by inherence as such. Indeed, inherence as a principle of completion and making a whole stands opposite to subsistence: subsistence makes something incommunicable, a condition of a whole, while inherence makes it communicable, a condition of a form and not of a whole.

The second is not relevant here either, because an accident is made concrete by being in a subject, whereas it is placed in a predicament also as abstracted from a subject and considered in itself. Being concrete in a subject therefore does not make an accident complete as required by the nature of predicamental accident; rather, an accident is placed in a predicament in its formal nature, not as concrete.

The third is also insufficient. An accident’s being predicamental as such means either that it is made predicamental by the second intention of being ordered in a predicament, or by some first intention that makes it capable of that second intention. The first does not complete a real accident, since a second intention is something of reason; nor can it apply unless the first intention is presupposed, making the thing capable of being placed in a predicament and of receiving the second intention. The second cannot be identified as anything other than the very modes by which each predicament is constituted and predicamental accident made such. There is no real mode common to the nine predicaments by which accident as such is made really complete and separable from the differences.

THEREFORE WE MUST SAY that complete accident is not one superior concept over the nine predicaments; rather, it is made complete as accident immediately through the very modes that constitute the predicaments. If it is actually complete, it actually includes those modes and therefore does not have the unity required for univocity; instead it takes on the diversity of the differences and modes themselves. For this reason St Thomas says in Metaphysics V, lect. 9² that what being is first divided into are the predicaments, since they are distinguished according to diverse modes of predicating. Thus the division into ten predicaments is immediate and primary to being; complete accident is not mediated by some completion distinct from the ten predicaments. And in Metaphysics VIII, final lecture³, he says that being does not await something added in order to become substance, quantity, or quality; it is immediately substance, quantity, and so on. Likewise, accident does not await something superadded but is immediately quantity, quality, and so on, and is completed immediately by these modes.

Furthermore, this argument is not avoided: if complete accident is univocal with respect to the nine genera, then it is a genus of them, and consequently they are not nine highest genera but subordinate ones; for everything univocal is adequately divided into genus, species, and the other five predicables. Hence St Thomas says, Summa contra Gentiles I, ch. 32: “Everything predicated univocally of many is either a genus, species, difference, property, or accident.” Accident in general is not an atomic species, much less a difference or property relative to its inferiors; therefore, if it is univocal, it will be a genus.

Some deny the inference and say that accident is not a genus because it is divided unequally in itself. But this destroys genus while affirming analogy: it is analogue precisely because it is divided unequally in itself. If the inequality comes only from the differences themselves, that too is found in a genus, whose differences are unequal.

Others say accident is not a genus because it does not signify a quiddity but the being of an accident, which is to be in a substance; or, if it signifies a quiddity, it signifies no distinct grade, but what is included in each thing. But this destroys univocity, because it is included in each and expresses no determinate grade. For thus complete accident would not be complete if it were included in everything. If it is not included in the differences, why would it not express a generic concept? It is univocal and predicated quidditatively. Quality is accident quidditatively, just as it is not substance quidditatively; precisely by being outside the differences it expresses a grade. If it does not express a grade, that is because it is included in the differences, which removes univocity.

Others say it is not a genus because it is transcendental, or because it signifies a concept composed from two analogues, or at least a concept analogue relative to the others. But if any of this destroys genus, it also destroys univocity.

Others say it is not a genus because the nature of genus is not taken from a distinct reality from that of difference. But we refuted this above, article 2, in treating being.

Others, finally, admit that accident is a genus. To the consequence that the nine predicaments would not be highest genera, they answer that they are highest relatively, not absolutely. But this was rejected above. In that way all subordinate genera could be called highest relatively: for example, living thing has nothing superior to it insofar as it is living, just as quality has nothing superior insofar as it is quality. But if quality absolutely has a genus above it, it is not absolutely highest; relatively, even lower genera may be highest, that is, within their own nature.

THE ARGUMENTS OPPOSED AT THE BEGINNING ARE ANSWERED as follows. To the first, there is a broad difference between complete substance and accident. For substance has something of one nature and predicament by which it is completed, namely, being an integral or total substance, a “what.” But in accident, since it is a form, nothing can be assigned to complete it except those predicamental modes by which it is measured to substance; and such a mode constitutes a determinate predicament if determinate. If it is taken confusedly and indeterminately as predicamental accident as such, then if “predicamental” signifies a second intention, it is not a real completion of accident but presupposes one. If it signifies the complete nature of accident, it signifies all the predicamental modes confusedly, since accident is completed by no other reality than those modes; thus it includes the differences and is analogue. As to the claim that quantity is an accident to the same degree as quality, although they participate equally in the nature of accident with respect to inherence, they do not do so with respect to the nature of disposing and measuring themselves to substance; in this respect they are diverse from the outset and unequal. The mode of inherence does not constitute quiddity but is a mode of it pertaining to its mode of existence as communicable, just as subsistence makes substance incommunicable. Equality in inherence therefore does not make accident equal absolutely in quiddity.

To the second basis, the same reasoning applies to accident insofar as it abstracts from complete and incomplete, which everyone admits is analogue. We therefore say it is an analogue of proper proportionality, since it exists in all the analogates through an intrinsic form. As to the fact that a comparison of proportionality can also be found among univocals, we have often answered that it is found there not as the sole source from which their unity is taken, but as presupposing unity and supervening upon it. When proportionality is found as the source from which the unity itself is taken, so that there is no unity other than proportionality, it constitutes analogy and is not found among univocals.