Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

Some authors take the category of when to signify any intrinsic duration, by the same reasoning by which they posit that where is an intrinsic presence. Moreover, duration is something real and really denominates; therefore it must belong to some category, and to no category other than this one. It denominates intrinsically, like existence, because duration is the continuation of existence. So Father Suárez, Metaphysics, disputation 50, section 12.

This opinion cannot be admitted at all, even on its own principles. For the intrinsic duration of a thing is nothing other than the continuation of its existence; therefore it is not something distinct from existence. Otherwise it would not be the continuation and persistence of the same thing, but a succession. In the view of the opposing authors, existence does not constitute a category distinct per se from the thing that exists, since they say that existence is not really distinct from the produced thing and its real quiddity. In our view, although existence is distinct from the existing thing, it is reduced to the category of that thing, just as subsistence is reduced to substance, because existence does not by itself constitute a quiddity but only places constituted quiddities outside their causes. Thus one existence is distinguished from another by the species of the thing whose existence it is, since existence has the same formal effect in every case, namely, to place a thing outside its causes. Nor is it valid to say that duration is not an accident metaphysically distinct from the thing that endures, but is predicated accidentally of it, and that this suffices for it to constitute a distinct category. If that were so, existence too would be a distinct category, because it is accidentally predicated of creatures. Moreover, this would confuse every order of categories. The order of predicable accident is one thing, the categorical order another: substance can be predicated accidentally, as “A vessel is wooden” or “An animal is a horse,” but it is not thereby a categorical accident.

Therefore one must say that this category is not taken to signify the intrinsic duration of the thing that endures. It is constituted only with respect to a duration that measures, not informs. For that measurement by which something is said to be in time establishes the denomination of this category. Hence when is defined as “that which is left over from the adjoining of time,” that is, from its measurement, as St. Thomas explains in Opusculum 48, ch. 1, On When.¹ Thus time itself, insofar as it is the intrinsic duration of motion, is not placed in this category; rather, it is placed here insofar as it sets its adjacency in things subject to time. St. Thomas consistently explains the account of this category in the cited place and in Physics III, lecture 5,² where he says that “when is that according to which something is denominated by time”; he says the same in Metaphysics V, lecture 9.³

The reason is that although time is an extrinsic measure, things subject to time are no less affected by it than things subject to place or clothing, so that one is called located and another clothed. This suffices to establish in them a mode and denomination adequate for two categories. Therefore it also suffices for the category of when.

Nor is it valid to say that time merely coexists and accompanies the thing that is in time, which would pertain more to the relation of coexistence. For the contrary is clear: time does not merely accompany the things subject to it, both because it measures them and because it is the cause why these lower things are changed by the motion of the heavens, which is time in reality.

But you will ask whether all measures of duration, including spiritual and supernatural duration, are placed in this category, or only the measurement of time. St. Thomas answers in the negative in Opusculum 48, final chapter, On When.⁴ An indivisible duration does not per se have a “when” that measures and distinguishes or divides durations, thereby separating one duration or period from another by measurement, as we distinguish when something was or is. If something is present indivisibly, we cannot ask when it was or will be, because it always is in the same way. Thus when serves for mutable durations. Just as an angel is not located in place, because it contains place and is not contained by it, so it is not “whenned,” if I may say so, by a duration, because it is above every duration distinguishable by when.

But a twofold difficulty arises. First, to which category do the measurements of those indivisible durations belong? Why should we not say that every measurement of duration belongs to this category, although when is denominated more by the measure of time because it is better known to us?

Second, how is a real category constituted in the measurement of time, since the differences of time and its various measures arise only through the intellect? For time in reality is something continuous, like the motion of the heavens itself, with which it is identified; yet it measures according to number and division, which occur only through the intellect.

To the first difficulty, we reply that measures of other indivisible durations do not leave anything in lower durations by their adjacency, as time does in the things it measures. For things in time depend on time as on a cause, because all lower things depend on the motion of the heavens. Thus lower mobile durations are divided and marked by the adjacency of time—which is the motion of the heavens—from which they derive and to which they are subject. Place likewise constitutes the where insofar as it subjects a located thing to itself. The other indivisible measures, although one may be more uniform than another—for example, the duration of the highest angel and its discrete time may be more uniform than the durations of lower angels—do not cause lower durations or subject and contain them as lower motions are subject to the motion of the heavens and to time. For angels do not have natural motions caused by the motion of higher things, but only intentional and free motions, more or less uniform, one of which can measure another as a yard measures cloth, without the latter necessarily being subject to or changed by the former. Only God’s eternity, which is not in a category, contains and causes all other measures. But because it is indivisible, it does not measure them divisibly; rather, it contains them uniformly, without succession. Angelic duration cannot do this with respect to lower durations.

To the second difficulty, we reply that although the division and numbering of time are actually performed by the intellect, there is nevertheless in reality a fundamental numerability, or a before and after, in motion. Thus the adjacency of time called when is left by time itself, which is fundamentally numerable and divisible, although the actual division is performed only by the intellect.

We shall number the species of this category immediately in its coordination.

Concerning the category of habit: its definition is “the adjacency of bodies and of things that are around a body.” For just as a thing is made located by the adjacent and surrounding place, and is timed by being subject to time, so it is called clothed through the clothing surrounding it. Therefore it is false, as some say, that habit is a mode in the human body by which it is made suitable to be clothed, a mode that does not apply to other bodies. Such a mode does not make a human being clothed, but merely capable of being clothed, while simply remaining naked. It is clear, however, that the category of habit removes nakedness, since it makes a thing clothed. Therefore it does not consist in a mode compatible with actual nakedness. Rather, habit is left in a person by the adjacency of clothing, just as where is left by place. It is no objection that clothing is itself a substance, because its application is accidental and gives rise to an accidental denomination and category, just as a vessel is denominated golden or wooden. Yet this is not a purely extrinsic denomination; something is left in the person by this adjacency, just as where is left by place. Thus St. Thomas calls habit “a mean between clothing and the one having clothing,” Metaphysics V, lecture 20,⁵ and Summa Theologiae I–II, q. 49, a. 1. Hence animals, even if covered with hair or armed with claws, are not denominated clothed by them, because these are parts of the body. If they are surrounded by some clothing, however, as a horse decked or armored, they are denominated by this category, like a human being by clothing.

The properties of these categories can readily be seen in St. Thomas’s Opusculum 48, where he treats each one.⁶ Almost all do not admit more and less and have no contrary, except action and passion, which have both. Habit too is said to admit more and less, not according to intensity or remission, but according to a greater or smaller number of garments, as St. Thomas says in the cited opusculum, treatise on Habit, ch. 3.⁷ It has no contrary, however, because it has no intensity or remission.

COORDINATION OF THE CATEGORY OF WHEN.

Those who think this category is created duration divide it into time, aevum, the mode of aevum, and the mode of eternity. Time is divided into continuous and discrete according to continuous motion or distinct operations. Aevum belongs to incorruptible things; the mode of aevum, to instantaneous things; the mode of eternity, to the beatific vision, which is immutable by its nature.

Those who think that when is only the adjacency of time divide it, following Aristotle in Categories, ch. 4,⁸ according to the differences of time into present, past, and future, and each of these into the various species of months, years, days, and so on. For just as each unit changes the species of number, so each difference of time changes the species of when, which is a successive number. These divisions exist in reality only fundamentally.

COORDINATION OF THE CATEGORY OF HABIT.

St. Thomas divides habit, which is the highest genus, in Opusculum 48,⁹ into arms and clothing. Arms are divided into offensive and defensive, each of which has various species. Clothing is divided into clothing for human beings and for beasts, as horses are adorned with saddle, bridle, armor, and so on. Clothing is divided into various modes of wearing according to different adjacencies, such as a tunic, shoe, hat, and so on. These species are not taken from the material or craft by which clothing is made, but from the different way in which things clothe and cover. Wall hangings are also reduced to this category, although strictly speaking they are not clothing.