Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

These properties pose a difficulty because in relatives the relation depends on its term, and likewise one relative is defined through another. Therefore priority, rather than simultaneity, seems to obtain, since wherever there is dependence, there is priority of nature.

To resolve this difficulty, WE MUST PRESUPPOSE what Master Soto notes in the chapter “On the Relative,” concerning text 5, and in the chapter “On the Modes of Being Simultaneous”: two conditions are required for things to be simultaneous. First, neither is the cause of the other. Second, they entail one another. For if one is the cause of the other, they are not simultaneous; one is prior to the other. And insofar as they are simultaneous, one cannot stand without the other, and thus they mutually entail one another. Likewise, being simultaneous in cognition, according to the Philosopher in the chapter “On the Relative”¹ and St. Thomas in opusculum 48, treatise on Relation, chapter 5², consists in this: whoever cognizes one must necessarily cognize the other, because the being of one relative is wholly directed to the other. This does not require one to be defined through the other as through a cause, but as directed to the other as a term; thus the term does not specify causatively, but purely as a terminus, as we said above.³

I SAY, THEREFORE, FIRST: The first property is understood of relatives formally, insofar as they are relatives and as they exercise the act of referring, as Cajetan notes on this chapter on Relation and St. Thomas indicates in 1. p. q. 13. art. 7. ad 6., where he says: “To know whether relatives are or are not simultaneous by nature, one must consider not the order of the things of which they are said, but the significations of the relatives themselves. For if one includes the other in its account, and conversely, then they are simultaneous by nature, as double and half, father and son.” Thus there need not be simultaneity in the very things that ground the relation. Indeed, relation is often grounded in cause and effect, and in that respect the father is prior to the son in causing, but simultaneous in referring.

THE REASON IS that in the very account of referring and the formality of the relative, they have no causality, since one relation does not cause another; each is caused by its own foundation. They do, however, have connection, since one cannot exist without the other; therefore they are simultaneous by nature.

BUT YOU WILL SAY: One relative specifies another, since it is its term. But what specifies is prior to what is specified, since it is its cause; therefore they are not simultaneous. Second, in relatives of the third kind, there is only a relation of reason, since they are not mutually relative. But a relation of reason is not simultaneous with its correlative, since it depends on cognition, not merely on foundation and term. Therefore this property does not belong in the fourth mode to every categorial relation. Finally, relations of reason are also simultaneous, as genus and species are; therefore this property belongs to things other than categorial relatives.

To the first point, the answer is that the term, as formally opposed and correlative, does not specify the relation first and per se; rather, the relation is specified with respect to the term, not from it, as we said above.⁴ The foundation concurs as what specifies by way of principle and cause, but with an order to the term, in which the specification is completed and terminated.

To the second point, the answer is that this property is found in non-mutual relations only proximately and fundamentally, because the term is not found there formally as opposed and correlative, as we said above; rather, one extreme receives an extrinsic denomination from the relation of the other to it, and is said to terminate it proximately and fundamentally, not formally. In this way the term is simultaneous by nature with the relation that is toward it. Hence the knowable is not simultaneous with knowledge by reason of a transcendental relation, since in that respect it is the specifying object and cause, nor by reason of a relation of reason, which is posterior; it is simultaneous by reason of the proximate foundation that terminates it, by reason of which it is taken as terminating the categorial relation in the way that it can. Thus the rule of St. Thomas stated above is entirely true: to determine whether relatives are simultaneous by nature, one must attend to their significations. If the knowable is considered as the object of knowledge, it does not include the relation of knowledge in its account and is not simultaneous with it by nature, because in this way it is signified according to the transcendental relation of knowledge. But if it is considered not as an object, but as terminating the categorial relation of knowledge, at least proximately and fundamentally, then it is signified as correlative, at least extrinsically, and consequently as simultaneous by nature.

To the final point, it is said that relations of reason are not simultaneous by nature because they do not have being, but are only cognized; therefore they are no more simultaneous by nature than the cognitions from which they result.

I SAY, SECOND: The other property, namely that relatives are simultaneous in cognition, is understood of relatives formally, according to the exercise of referring—not according to the things that are materially relative, nor insofar as a relation is considered as informing, but as referring.

THE REASON for this conclusion is that what is material and foundational in a relation can be cognized as prior to its term, since it can be its cause, specifying factor, or object. Thus, although it cannot be defined without the term, it is not simultaneous in cognition, because it is rather the cause of cognizing and explaining the term, since it is what defines. Only relatives insofar as they are correlatively related and exercise opposition are simultaneous, because their respect and their pure terms have connection and not causality. If the relation itself is considered in the force of a form and in the signified act—that is, as exercising the function of informing a subject, not the function of referring to a term—then it need not be simultaneous in cognition with its correlative, because in this way it takes on the mode of an inhering thing, which is common to relative and absolute things. In that respect it need not be cognized simultaneously with its term or correlative, but only when it is cognized according to what is proper to a relative, namely, its exercise of referring. Thus, when in divine things we conceive the relation of paternity as subsisting and constituting a person, we need not conceive it as terminating in the Son, but as subsisting as the Son's principle.

From this it follows, first, that relatives are simultaneous in cognition both as to quiddity and as to existence. As to quiddity, because the proper and quidditative account of a relative is “toward another,” and consequently by its essential principles it calls for connection with another, not causality but termination, which is to be simultaneous. As to existence, because a relative cannot exist in reality without a term and correlative; for a real relation calls for a really existing term, as has often been said.

It follows, second, that although the foundation is sometimes included in the definition of relatives, as when one says “A father is one who has begotten someone similar in nature,” their simultaneity in cognition does not come from their foundations, in which there is sometimes priority and dependence; rather, it comes from correlative opposition, even if this is not always explicitly stated, nor intrinsically and formally present in all cases, as in non-mutual relatives.

ORDER OF THE CATEGORY OF RELATION.

The highest genus is real relation according to being. It is divided into three immediate genera: first, what is founded on quantity or proportion; second, what is founded on action and passion; third, what is founded on measure.

The first genus is divided into relations of equality and inequality, similarity and dissimilarity, agreement and diversity, and proportion, as in double, subdouble, and so forth; all these are atomic species.

The second genus is divided into relations of cause and effect, action and motion or change, proximity and recession, insofar as these depend on motion. Each can be divided into various species according to the various accounts of cause and effect: for example, one relation is that of an efficient, material, or formal cause, and so on; another relation is founded on the motion of generation or alteration, or on the action of creation, and so on.

The third genus is divided into relation to a measure, which is either an object or a model or prototype. Relation to an object is divided into relation of a power, habit, or act. Each of these is divided into various species according as it is an active or passive, cognitive or appetitive power; and the cognitive kind is divided into various species, such as relation to what is visible, audible, intelligible, and so forth. Similarly, models can ground diverse relations of species, according to the different ways in which they are called models and exemplars.