Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

To understand predicamental relation, one must distinguish it both from a relation of reason and from a transcendental relation, which is also commonly called a relation according to saying.

For this to be better understood, the common doctrine MUST BE PRESUPPOSED: in this kind of being called relation, three things must concur, namely subject, foundation, and term. The subject, common to every accident, is that which is informed and denominated by the relation. A foundation is required as the rationale and cause from which these relations receive their entity and being. A term is that toward which this respect tends and in which it comes to rest. Although a cause is required for every entity and form, a foundation is said to be required especially for relation: other forms require only a cause in order to be produced and exist, whereas relation, on account of its minimal entity and because by its own concept it is toward another, requires a foundation not only in order to exist but also in order to be capable of existing—that is, to be a real entity. Thus St. Thomas says in 1. ad Annibaldum dist. 30. quaest. unica art. 1.¹, “that relation is nothing other than the bearing of one thing toward another; hence, according to its proper rationale, it does not have it that it be something in that of which it is said, but sometimes it has this from the cause of the bearing.” He says nearly the same in 1. dist. 26. q. 2. art. 1.² and 1. p. q. 28. art. 1., where he says that “those things called relatives signify, according to their proper rationale, only a respect toward another. This respect is sometimes in the nature of things, as when certain things are ordered to one another by their nature.” This is so because relation, on account of its minimal entity, does not depend precisely on a subject as other absolute forms do, but stands as a third entity consisting in and resulting from the coordination of two extremes. Therefore, to be in the nature of things it must depend on a foundation that coordinates it with a term, and not merely on a subject and a productive cause.

From this it will not be difficult to distinguish relations according to saying from those according to being, and real relations from relations of reason. Relatives ACCORDING TO BEING and ACCORDING TO SAYING are distinguished by their very exercise: in relatives according to being, the whole rationale or exercise is to regard, and so they are said to regard the term precisely as term. But the exercise or rationale of a relation according to saying is not simply to regard the term; it is to exercise something else from which a relation follows. Hence St. Thomas rightly said in 2. dist. 1. q. 1. art. 5. ad 8. first listed³ that these relatives imply a foundation and a relation, whereas relatives according to being signify only a relation. For relatives according to saying stand toward the term more by founding a relation than by actually regarding it; consequently, they regard it not under the rationale of a pure term but under another rationale, such as that of cause, effect, object, or something similar. Therefore, according to St. Thomas, a relation according to saying is always distinguished from a relation according to being in this respect: the principal signification of a relation according to saying is not the relation but something else, from which a relation follows. When the principal signification of something is the relation itself and not something absolute, it is a relation according to being, as is clear from 1. p. q. 13. art. 7., 1. dist. 30. q. 1. art. 2.⁴, and opusc. 48. tract. de praedicamento Ad aliquid cap. 1.⁵, where he teaches this plainly.

It is also clear from this that a transcendental relation, which is no different from a relation according to saying, does not signify a relation as its principal signification, but something absolute from which some relation follows or can follow. For if it did not signify something absolute, it would not be transcendental—that is, ranging across different genera—but would belong to only one category. Thus a transcendental relation is not a form accruing to a subject or absolute thing; it is imbibed in it, while connoting something extrinsic on which it depends or about which it concerns itself, as matter is related to form, a head to what is headed, and a creature to God. Thus transcendental relation coincides with relation according to saying. Some wrongly distinguish a remainder, dividing being into transcendental and predicamental, since the transcendental relation is in the absolute entity itself and does not differ from its being; hence its whole being is not toward another, as is required for a relation according to being. Whether transcendental relation implies some imperfection and dependence and must therefore be excluded from God is a question for metaphysicians and theologians.

REAL RELATIONS AND RELATIONS OF REASON, a division found only within relation according to being, are distinguished by the absence of some condition required for real relations. St. Thomas requires five conditions in opusc. 48. tract. de Relativis cap. 1.⁶: two on the part of the subject, two on the part of the term, and one on the part of the related things. On the part of the subject, the subject must be a real being and have a real foundation or rationale for founding. On the part of the term, the term must be some real thing that really exists, and, second, it must be really distinct from the other extreme. On the part of the related things, they must be of the same order; for this reason there is no real relation between God and a creature, nor between a measure and what is measured, if they are of different orders. This doctrine agrees with what he teaches in 1. dist. 26. q. 2. art. 1.⁷ and 1. p. q. 28. art. 1. Formally and principally, however, the whole difference between a real relation and one of reason comes down to this: a real relation has a real foundation together with the term’s coexistence, whereas a relation of reason lacks a foundation, as is gathered from St. Thomas in 1. ad Annibaldum dist. 30. quaest. unica art. 1.⁸

WITH THESE POINTS PRESUPPOSED, I STATE BY WAY OF RESOLUTION: For a relation to be predicamental, it must have the conditions by which it is distinguished from a relation of reason and from a transcendental relation, or relation according to saying. Hence a predicamental relation is defined as a real form whose whole being is toward another.

By the first phrase it is distinguished from a relation of reason, which is not a real form; by the second, from a transcendental relation and from anything absolute, whose whole being is not toward another, since it is also something absolute in itself.

Three conditions of a predicamental relation are gathered: first, that it be a relation according to being; second, that it be real, which includes all the conditions required for a real relation; third, that it be finite. Scotus adds a fourth condition: that it be a relation accruing intrinsically—that is, one that arises immediately, without any change, once the foundation and term are posited. He assigns relations accruing extrinsically to the six last categories: once their foundation and term are posited, they do not result immediately and as it were from within, but require some extrinsic change in order to result. But in q. 19., when treating the six last categories, we shall show that these are not relations accruing extrinsically.

The first condition of predicamental relation therefore excludes all relations according to saying, or transcendental relations; the second excludes all relations of reason; the third excludes all divine relations, which are banished from the category because they are pure acts.

BUT YOU WILL ASK about that condition of real and predicamental relation, namely that the extremes be really distinct: is it required that they be distinct only on the side of the things or extremes materially, or also on the side of the rationale for founding, so that the proximate foundation too is really distinct?

The answer is that there is a difference here between the school of St. Thomas and that of Scotus. In 1. dist. 31. quaest. unica Scotus requires only a distinction between the things that are the extremes, not between the rationales for founding. St. Thomas requires both, as is clear in 1. p. q. 42. art. 1., where he denies that there is a real relation of likeness and equality among the divine persons because the foundation is the same in all the persons, namely the divine essence, by reason of which they are alike; the same would hold if one whiteness were posited in two stones. The reason is taken from Cajetan there and other interpreters: in these relatives the material extremes are related because the very rationales for founding are related. For because whitenesses are alike, white things are alike. Conversely, if whitenesses are not alike because there is only one whiteness, the white things themselves cannot be alike in whiteness; rather, they are the same, since there is only one and the same whiteness. If, however, they are alike in something else, they are not alike in the very formal rationale of being white. It is enough to have indicated this difficulty; it belongs more properly to theologians and metaphysicians.

THE ARGUMENTS ARE RESOLVED.

First, an argument is made from that well-known but difficult passage of St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 28. art. 1., where he says that only among things that are relative are some found according to reality and others according to reason. These words have seemed difficult to many. For either St. Thomas is speaking of predicamental relation, or of relation insofar as it abstracts from real and relation of reason. If in the first way, it is false that relations of reason are found in predicamental relation, or we falsely said that predicamental relation must be real. If in the second way, it is true that both are found in relation so abstracted, namely real relation and relation of reason; but it is false that this is found only in relation. For something can also be fictively conceived in substance, which would be called a substance of reason, such as a chimera, a goat-stag, and the like; and in quantity there is imaginary space, with similar cases in the other genera. Therefore something of reason is not found only in relation. Cajetan’s reply there increases the difficulty: relation has this peculiarly, that being in reason is not a diminishing condition, but that relation which is of reason is a true relation. For it is clear that if it were a true relation, it would truly make the subject be referred, not fictively, and thus not through apprehension but really.

This difficulty gave many occasion to understand St. Thomas perversely or to philosophize less well about relation. Some think that real relation is divided into two concepts: the concept of an accident, which they call in, and the respect, which they call ad; the first is real, the second is of reason or abstracts from real and relation of reason. Others think that St. Thomas only meant that something can be devised by reason after the pattern of a predicamental relation. Still others think that he speaks of relation insofar as it abstracts from real and relation of reason.

But the first group excludes true reality from the category of relation if what is proper to that category—namely, the respect and rationale of ad—is not made real. The second group says nothing peculiar to relation, as St. Thomas presents it, since beings of reason can also be formed in the likeness of other genera, for example after the pattern of substance and quantity, and so on.

Therefore the third interpretation is entirely true in one respect: St. Thomas speaks of relation in its full breadth, insofar as it abstracts from real and relation of reason. For the holy Doctor did not say that some things according to reason are found in the category Ad aliquid; he said absolutely “among those things that are toward something,” to show that he was not speaking of relation as determinately a genus, but absolutely and in itself. Some who read the holy Doctor less attentively ought to have noticed this. Thus St. Thomas speaks of relation under the most formal concept ad and means that, insofar as it is considered toward a term, it has positive standing and is not determinately a real form, but allows that it be a real being or a being of reason, even though predicamental and founded ad is real. St. Thomas therefore did not mean to specify which relation is real or which is of reason, but from which side relation can be real or of reason: namely, from the side on which it is toward a term. Although it can have reality there, it does not have it from there. The holy Doctor expressed this in 1. ad Annibaldum dist. 26. q. 2. art. 1.⁹, saying “that relation can be considered in two ways: in one way, with regard to that to which it is said, from which it has the rationale of relation; in this respect it does not have it that it posits something, although neither does it have it from this that it is nothing. For some respects are something according to reality, while others are nothing. In another way, with regard to that in which it is, and thus when it has it in a subject, it inheres really.” So St. Thomas.

We say that this is peculiar to relation and is not found in the other genera because in the other genera their proper and most formal rationale cannot be understood positively without also being understood entitatively: their positive rationale is only toward themselves and absolute, and so it is not understood positively unless also entitatively, since what is toward itself is entity. Relation alone has being as a being and toward a being; insofar as it is toward a being, it stands positively, yet it does not thereby have real entity. Rather, reality comes to relation from elsewhere, namely from the foundation; its positive rationale ad comes from elsewhere, namely from the term. From the term it has being not as a being but toward a being, although that ad is truly real when it is founded.

That something can therefore be considered positively, even if not really entitatively, is proper to relation. This alone is what Cajetan wished to say in the cited place when he says that a relation of reason is a true relation, not with the truth of an entity and an informing form, but with the truth of an objective and positive tending toward a term. Nor did Cajetan say that in predicamental relation the ad itself is something of reason; he expressly says that it is truly made real.

When it is objected that other genera too can in this way be called something of reason—for example, a chimera would be a substance of reason, imaginary space a quantity of reason, and so on—we reply that, as was said above in q. 12. art. 1., that after whose pattern a being of reason is formed is not called a being of reason. A being of reason is formed after the pattern of a real being; rather, that non-real thing which is conceived after the pattern of a real being is called a being of reason. There is therefore no substance of reason or quantity of reason: although some non-being is conceived after the pattern of substance, for example a chimera, and something after the pattern of quantity, for example imaginary space, neither substance itself nor some rationale of substance is conceived by reason and formed in being after the pattern of another real being. Hence the negation or non-being of a chimera, and the non-being of imaginary space, is called a being of reason. But this is a being of reason called a negation; it is not a substance of reason, since substance itself is not conceived as a being of reason after the pattern of something real. Rather, negations or non-beings are conceived after the pattern of substance and quantity. In relatives, however, not only is some non-being conceived after the pattern of relation; the relation itself, on the side of its respect ad, when it does not exist in reality, is also conceived or formed after the pattern of real relation. Thus it is what is formed in being, not merely that after whose pattern it is formed; for this reason there is a relation of reason, but no substance of reason.

Second, an argument is made: The highest genus of this category is a true real relation, yet it has no term distinct from itself that it regards. Therefore we falsely said that this is required for a real predicamental relation.

The minor premise is proved as follows. That term is either something relative or something absolute. It is not absolute, because, as we shall say below¹⁰, the formal term of a relation is not something absolute but relative. Besides, that absolute thing cannot be something real existing in an individual; for a relation in general cannot regard some determinate individual as its term, since then all relations would regard it. If it is something abstracted from individuals, it cannot terminate a real relation, since it is not given in reality. If it is something relative, it is either equal to that relation or inferior to it. If equal, there will be two genera of relations. If inferior, it will be regarded by relation in general as that of which relation is predicated, not as that toward which it is terminated per se as a relation, but as a universal.

THE ANSWER IS that relation in general does not regard a term in act and in exercise; it is conceived only as the rationale and quiddity of relation itself and as a higher grade by which lower relations are constituted to regard—not as what it actually regards, since it has that through its inferiors. In the same way, first substance, taken vaguely and in general, is that by which one underlies accidents, not that which actually underlies them. The reason is that relation taken generically is not the concept of relation as opposed, but as uniting by reason of the natures of relation. Thus relatives and correlatives agree in it; they are not opposed in it. Relation is exercised toward a term only under relative opposition. Accordingly, relation conceived under a generic concept casts off the state of opposition and explains only the concept in which all relations agree, not the exercise of regarding a term, though it is the rationale for regarding one in its inferiors. Even on the view that the term of relation is something absolute, the term cannot be taken in general as something one: according to that view, the term of relation is found in every genus, and one term cannot be made from all the genera to be regarded by relation as such. A determinate term, however, is not regarded, since the relation is generic.

Third, an argument is made: Transcendental relations too have their whole being toward another: the whole essence of matter is toward form, and the whole essence of habit and act is toward an object, since from it they receive their whole specific nature. Conversely, predicamental relation does not have its whole being toward another, since it is also an inhering accident and thus has being in a subject, not toward a subject.

It is confirmed that transcendental relation also depends on its term, just like relation according to being. Therefore there is no reason why a transcendental relation can terminate at something nonexistent, but a predicamental relation cannot.

THE ANSWER IS that transcendental relation is not primarily and per se toward another as predicamental relation is. Although its whole species and essence is taken from another or depends on another, it is not toward another in the way matter depends on form and act on an object as on causes from which they receive being and specification. It follows from this that they regard that thing as a term. But being primarily and per se toward another as toward a term is proper to predicamental relation. Hence it is said to regard a term as a pure term—that is, only as toward another, not as from another, about another, or in some other causal way, as transcendental relation does. The claim that predicamental relation is in a subject does not prevent its whole being from being toward another: its whole being, I mean, its proper and distinctive being, by which it differs from the other absolute genera, while presupposing the common rationale of accident, namely being in something. By reason of this common rationale it does not have being toward another, but neither does that exclude it.

In answer to the confirmation, we reply that transcendental relation is not primarily and per se toward another, as has been said, but from another or about another, as dependence or causality or something similar. This can sometimes be preserved not through what actually is, but through what can belong to it or what it requires to belong to it. Predicamental relation, however, because its whole being is toward another, arises only from the positing of the extremes. Hence, if one of them is absent, it is absent.