Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

THE DEFINITION OF A SIGN MUST BE PRESUPPOSED, as given in Summulae I, ch. 4: a sign is “that which represents something other than itself to a cognitive power.” We gave this definition in a sufficiently general way to include every kind of sign, both formal and instrumental. For the common definition usually circulated among theologians at the beginning of Sentences IV,¹ from Augustine,² “A sign is that which, besides the appearances it presents to the senses, makes something else come to be known,” applies only to an instrumental sign.

In our definition, then, two things enter into the common account of a sign. First is the account of manifesting or representing. Second is an order toward something else, namely the thing represented, which must be distinct from the sign—for nothing is a sign of itself or signifies itself—and toward the power to which it manifests and represents a thing distinct from itself.

Manifesting as such clearly does not signify a relation. First, it can be preserved in relation to itself and without a relation to something else, as when light manifests itself, or when an object represents itself in order to be seen, and so on. Second, something can manifest something else without depending on it, but rather with the other depending on it, as principles manifest conclusions, light manifests colors, and God manifests creatures to sight, as the more learned theologians teach in the First Part, qq. 12 and 14. In these cases, one thing illuminates and manifests another without dependence or subordination to the thing manifested.

But the manifestative character of a sign is found together with an order toward something else, since nothing signifies itself, although it can represent itself; and it is found with dependence, since a sign is always inferior to the signified thing and depends on it as on its measure.

WE ASK, THEREFORE, whether this formal account of a sign consists first and per se in a relation according to being, or in a relation according to being said, that is, in something absolute that grounds such a relation.

What a relation according to being said and a relation according to being are, and what a transcendental and a predicamental relation are, was explained in q. 17, “On Relation.”³ Here we are speaking of a relation according to being, not a predicamental relation, because we are speaking of sign in general, insofar as it includes both a natural sign and a conventional sign; the latter also involves a sign that is something of reason, namely a conventional sign. Therefore, it cannot be a predicamental being or a predicamental relation, although it can be a relation according to being, in keeping with the teaching of St. Thomas explained in the First Part, q. 28, a. 1, and in the same q. 17. Only among things that are “toward something” is there found both a real relation and a relation of reason. It is clear that this relation is not predicamental, but is called a relation according to being because it is purely a relation and signifies no absolute thing.

THEREFORE, SOME AUTHORS think that the account of sign in general does not consist in a relation according to being toward the signified thing and the power, but in a relation according to being said, or in something absolute that grounds that relation. They assign as the account of sign its being something that leads cognition toward something else. For this seems to be the foundation of sign according to St. Thomas in Sentences IV, d. 4, q. 1, a. 1,⁴ where he says that the account of sign in a character is founded on something, because a sign, besides the appearances it presents to the senses, makes something else come to be known. Therefore, a sign does not formally consist in a relation but in the foundation of a relation. And this power to lead toward the knowing of something else is nothing other than the account of representation or manifestation itself—not in its entire breadth, which also includes representing itself, but insofar as it is restricted to manifesting something else. In this respect it regards a power as an object, in the same order and line as an object; but an object does not consist in a predicamental relation to a power or in dependence on it.

LET THERE, THEN, BE ONE CONCLUSION: Formally speaking, the account of sign does not consist in a relation according to being said, but according to being.

I said “formally speaking” because materially and presuppositionally it signifies the account of manifesting or representing something else, which certainly does not signify only a relation according to being, as we shall show shortly. Formally, however, the account of sign does not signify only the account of representing something else, since many things represent or manifest something else without doing so in the manner of a sign—for example, God represents creatures, every cause represents its effect, principles manifest conclusions, and light manifests colors—yet these do not have the account of sign. Therefore, representing something else is indeed required for a sign, but the sign does not consist in this alone. It adds to representation and formally signifies representing something else in an inferior or dependent way, depending on the very thing signified and, as it were, taking its place. Thus it regards the signified thing not merely as something manifested and illuminated by itself, but as the principal knowable thing and its own measure, in whose place it is substituted and whose office it performs in leading the power to know.

In the conclusion we add that it consists in a relation according to being, leaving aside for now whether the relation is real or of reason; we shall treat that in the following article. Thus we use a term common to both kinds of relation, and do not speak only of a determinate real relation or relation of reason.

Having explained the conclusion in this way, we derive it first FROM THE TEACHING OF ST. THOMAS. For St. Thomas expressly posits that a sign belongs to the genus of relation founded on something else. But a relation founded in being belongs to the predicament “toward something,” if it is real. Therefore, a sign consists in a relation according to being.

The inference is valid. The minor premise is taken from St. Thomas’s teaching in the fourth book addressed to Hannibald, d. 4, single question, a. 1,⁵ where he says “that it is the nature of relation always to be founded in some other genus of being.” Therefore, a relation founded in some other genus is distinguished from a transcendental relation and a relation according to being said, because these relations are not distinguished from the other genera of being, as was shown in the question on Relation. For they are not pure relations, but absolute entities ordered toward or dependent on something else, as we proved more fully in q. 17, “On Relation.”⁶ Therefore, a relation founded in some other genus of being is always a relation according to being, and if it is real, it will be predicamental.

The major premise is clearly proved from St. Thomas himself, both in the passage just cited and in Sentences IV, d. 4, q. 1, a. 1,⁷ and the Third Part, q. 63, a. 2, ad 3. There, after giving the argument that a sign belongs to the genus of relation and therefore a character belongs to the genus of relation, since it is a sign, he replies that a sign signifies a relation founded on something; since the relation of the sign of a character cannot be founded immediately in the essence of the soul, it must be founded in some added quality, and the character consists in this quality prior to the relation of sign. St. Thomas therefore holds that the relation of sign is a relation founded on something else. If it were only a relation according to being said or a transcendental relation, St. Thomas would not deny that a character consists in such a relation, since a quality can indeed be a relation according to being said—for example, knowledge is related to its object, and every act or habit is related to what specifies it. Since he posits the character in a quality and excludes it from relation, he certainly excludes it from predicamental relation and relation according to being, that is, from the predicament of relation. For he would not sufficiently exclude it from a relation according to being said by positing it in the predicament of quality, since a relation according to being said is also found there. But St. Thomas places the account of sign in that relation from which he excludes the character. Therefore, it is clear that he constitutes the account of sign in a relation according to being, or predicamental relation.

The BASIS of this conclusion is drawn from the very nature and quiddity of a sign. For the account of sign does not consist merely in representing or manifesting something other than itself, but in a particular way of manifesting: representing something else in an inferior way in relation to it, as something less principal in relation to what is more principal, as something measured in relation to its measure, as something substituted and performing the office of that for which it is substituted and whose office it performs. But the relation of what is measured to its measure, and of what substitutes to what is principal, is a predicamental relation. Therefore, the relation of sign to the signified thing is predicamental.

The minor premise is clear, since the relation of what is measured to its measure is a relation of the third kind in the predicament of relation, as was proved above in q. 17.⁸ The major premise is also clear, because the relation of sign, insofar as it is sign, directly regards the signified thing as what is principally to be known, toward which it leads the power. For this is the purpose of a sign: to be a means and substitute in place of the signified thing, which it intends to manifest to the power, since the thing is not made known through itself but through such a means. Hence, if the thing manifests itself, the account and office of sign cease. A sign, then, regards the signified thing as something substituted in its place, serving and ministering to it, and measured by it; the better a sign signifies, the more closely it is related to the signified thing in itself. Nor is this sufficiently explained by a transcendental relation, insofar as a sign signifies some connection with the signified thing and manifests it by reason of that thing; this is required, but is not sufficient. For although a son is an effect of his father and, under the account of effect, regards him transcendentally, nevertheless, as a son—that is, as similar to another in the account of procession—he signifies not a transcendental relation but a predicamental relation according to being. Likewise, although a sign, as manifestative and representative, regards the signified thing transcendentally, insofar as it signifies the account of what is measured and substituted in relation to the signified thing, and as it were ministers to it as principal, it regards it by a relation according to being.

From this we discern the difference between the account of what manifests and what signifies: what manifests principally regards a power as the terminus toward which it tends or which it moves. Likewise, representing something to a power is completed merely by making something present to the power in a knowable way; according to St. Thomas, On Truth, q. 7, a. 5, ad 2,⁹ this is nothing other than containing the likeness of something else. This containment of a likeness can occur without any relation according to being. First, because such containment can be a perfection simply and without any dependence on the thing represented, as God represents creatures in ideas. Second, because this containment is preserved and exercised even when the terminus does not exist, and consequently without a predicamental relation, as is clear in the representation of a future or past thing. Third, because this representation pertains to the account of moving a power, to which the object is made present through representation. Hence, it belongs per se and directly to the object to be represented. An object, however, does not consist in a relation according to being to a power; indeed, properly speaking, it does not regard a power or depend on it, but the power depends on the object, for it takes its specification from the object. Therefore, representing and manifesting do not consist in a relation according to being.

But to signify, or to be significant, is taken directly through an order toward the signified thing, for which it is substituted and whose office it performs as the means by which the signified thing is led to the power. For in this way a sign ministers and serves the signified thing, conveying and presenting it to the power as what is principally presentable. Likewise, in the case of a minister and a substitute for another, we consider two things: subjection to the other, whose office it performs as principal, and the effect for which it ministers and performs that office. Thus, although a sign in representing regards a power in order to manifest the signified thing to it, since it is assigned and taken up for this effect, and although in this precise respect it need not consist in a relation according to being to the power, nevertheless, in its subordination to the signified thing, insofar as it regards that thing as principal and as its own measure, it necessarily must consist in a relation to it, just as a slave signifies a relation to a master, and a minister or instrument to its principal.

YOU WILL OBJECT: A sign does not regard the signifiable thing as a mere terminus, but as the object of its signification; therefore, it does not consist in a pure relation but in a transcendental order, just as a power and knowledge regard an object, and yet the object measures the knowledge and power.

But against this: a sign does not regard the signified thing merely as an object or matter with which it deals, as a power and knowledge regard their objects. Rather, it regards it as a substitute for the signified thing, performing its office and taking its place in representing it to a power. Since a sign directly signifies this substitution and subrogation in relation to something else, it is formally something relative to that for which it is substituted. A power and knowledge, however, do not signify this relation to the object, but signify an account of a principle and power operating with respect to something; formally speaking, this is not a relation, since operating does not belong to a relation, whereas being a substitute is a relation. Thus, knowledge and a power, an act and a habit, regard an object as their measure fundamentally, not relatively and formally as a sign does; a sign is formally something subordinated and inferior to the signified thing, performing its office. The teaching of St. Thomas serves this point in the First Part, q. 13, a. 7, ad 1, where he says “that some relatives are imposed to signify the relation itself, such as master and servant, father and son, and the like; these are called relatives according to being. Others are imposed to signify things that certain relations follow from, such as mover and moved, head and headed; these are called relatives according to expression.” Therefore, knowledge and a power signify the thing itself and a principle, to which a relation to such objects follows; but a sign directly signifies a relation to the signified thing, to which it is subordinated as a deputy to its principal.

From this you will learn the basis for distinguishing a power or light, which is the power’s virtue, from a species. Both deal with an object, but a species does so as performing the office of the object and containing it as its substitute, whereas a power does so as tending toward the apprehension of the object. Hence, between a power and an object, the proportion of something acquiring something to a terminus that is acquired is sufficient; this is the proportion of a principle of motion to its terminus. A species, however, must be proportioned to the object as something that substitutes for it and performs its office. Thus, if it perfectly and adequately performs its office, it requires a complete proportion in the being of what can be represented; for this reason, neither can a corporeal representation be a species of a spiritual object, nor a created representation be a species of an uncreated object. If the representation is posited as uncreated, then the entity of the species will also be uncreated.

THE ARGUMENTS ARE RESOLVED.

The principal basis of the opposing view is that a sign formally signifies a thing that does not exist, as an ox’s footprint signifies an ox that no longer exists, and an image of an emperor signifies a dead emperor. Therefore, it is not formally a sign. For the inference from act to potency is valid: “It signifies; therefore it is a sign.” Yet it is not formally a relation, because there is no predicamental relation to a terminus that does not exist. Therefore, a sign does not formally consist in a relation.

It is confirmed that the formal account of sign is preserved by its being truly and formally something that leads a power to its signified thing. But leading a power to the signified thing does not occur through a relation, but through a proportion and connection between the sign and the signified thing, which is the foundation of a relation. Therefore, a sign does not formally consist in a relation but in the foundation of a relation. The major premise is clear from the definition of sign, “that which represents something to a cognitive power”; therefore it leads a power to the signified thing. The minor premise is proved as follows: for a sign to represent something to me, it is not necessary that I know its relation, just as a countryman recognizes an animal from a footprint without thinking about the relation; brute animals also use signs, as will be said below, and do not know the relation, but only the signified thing as it is known in the sign. Therefore, if the relation is not known, the relation does not lead, and thus it does not pertain to the formal account of sign.

THE REPLY IS first that this argument has no force for those who think the relation of a sign is always of reason, even in natural signs, because they think it is founded on their knowability. But granted that the relation of a natural sign is real, we reply that when an emperor has died, the sign does not remain formally, but virtually and fundamentally. A sign moves a power by reason of its foundation, not by reason of its relation, just as a father generates not by reason of the relation but by reason of his generative power, and yet he formally consists in a relation.

And to the proof: “It signifies formally, that is, it actually signifies; therefore it is formally a sign”—the consequence is plainly denied, because it suffices to be virtually a sign in order to signify actually. This is clearly illustrated by the following: B actually causes and produces an effect; therefore, it is actually a cause in reality. For the cause itself, though it does not exist in itself, causes through the power it has left behind and causes formally, because the effect is then formally produced. Thus, when a sign and signification exist virtually, the sign formally leads a power to the signified thing, and yet is not formally a sign, but virtually and fundamentally. For as long as the power to move the power remains—which occurs through a sign insofar as it is representative—even if the relation of substitution to the signified thing does not remain, it can perform the functions of a substitute without a relation, just as a slave or minister can perform the operations of his ministry even after the death of his master, to whom he is related and in which the account of slave and minister formally consists.

In reply to the confirmation, it is said that two things must be considered in the account of what leads: the power or account of exercising the very representation that leads, and the relation of subjection or substitution to that for which it exercises this power. Thus, in a master we consider the power to govern or coerce subjects and his relation to them; in a servant, the power to obey and the relation of subjection. As regards the power of leading representatively, we admit that it is not a relation according to being but the foundation of a relation, namely, the proportion and connection with the signified thing. But as regards the formality of sign—which is not just any proportion and representation, but is something that serves and substitutes for the signified thing—it formally consists in the relation of a representative substitute. For example, being a servant in place of a master is formally a relation, and yet the right to coerce and to obey are not relations according to being.

Second it is argued: A sign formally consists in being able to lead a power to the signified thing; for through this it has signification, which is the form of a sign, and through this the definition of sign belongs to it: that it represents something other than itself to a cognitive power. But it has the ability to lead to the signified thing, even as a means and instrument, through a transcendental relation. Therefore, a sign formally consists in that relation.

The minor premise is proved as follows: through this, a sign leads a power to the signified thing as a means by which it manifests the signified thing to the power. But it does this not by reason of a predicamental relation, but by a transcendental one, because once a transcendental relation of cause, effect, image, or any connection between two things is known, the terminus is immediately attained. Therefore, no predicamental relation is required for a sign to lead or be able to lead to the signified thing, since the transcendental relation performs this sufficiently. Nor is it valid to say that this transcendental relation is the foundation of the sign relation, because what is only such fundamentally cannot give the formal effect; a generative power, for example, cannot formally constitute a father, nor can a quality constitute something similar, although they are the foundations of these relations. Therefore, if the transcendental relation only grounds the sign relation, it does not formally provide the sign’s formal effect or its exercise.

It is further confirmed that it is unreasonable for conventional signs not to remain formally signs when they are not actually related to their signified thing, as with a closed book, in which the sign, or the letters written there, are not known; thus they do not then have a relation in act, and since this relation is of reason, it depends on actual cognition. Therefore, a sign cannot formally consist in a relation according to being. The antecedent is proved: a sign in a closed book retains its imposition, and therefore its signification, which can be reduced to act by opening the book. Therefore, it is formally and actually a sign, because it actually retains its signification.¹⁰

THE REPLY IS that this argument proves no more than the preceding one. Therefore, we say that the formal account of sign consists in being able to lead someone to cognition of the signified thing—not in any manner of power, but in a power subject to and substituting for the signified thing, inferior to it in the account of sign. Therefore, we consider in a sign both the power that moves a faculty and the order of a substitute to that for which it moves. The first is a transcendental relation, the second a predicamental relation. A sign consists in the second, not the first, because the first—namely, manifesting something else—also belongs to things that are not signs, as we said of light manifesting colors, an object representing itself, and God representing creatures. Therefore, for the cause to be known when the effect is seen, or the archetype when an image is seen, does not formally constitute the account of sign unless we add the special relation of a representative substitute, and so on; this signifies a relation according to being.

In reply to the refutation, it is said that the foundation of sign does not formally constitute the account of sign insofar as it is subjection and substitution, but insofar as it is the power to move, just as generative power constitutes the power of generation in a father, not the formal relation of father, which consists in being a principle that assimilates and has authority in relation to a son.

In reply to the confirmation, it is said that some hold different views in this matter about conventional signs, because all agree that the sign relation in them, if it exists, is not real but of reason.

Some think that a relation of reason not only denominates, but also exists through the existence of its foundation, at least imperfectly and incipiently, and thus denominates even before it is actually apprehended. But two difficulties remain to be explained by this reply. First, such existence will not denominate the thing perfectly and simply, but only incipiently and imperfectly; thus a sign in a closed book, or in a spoken word that is not actually apprehended, will not be a perfect sign, but only an incipient and imperfect one. It will acquire the perfect account of sign when it is actually apprehended. The same difficulty that drives us to this solution therefore remains: how can a sign in a closed book or a spoken word, not apprehended relatively, signify perfectly and lead to the signified thing? For the word man represents its signified thing no less perfectly if its relation is apprehended than if it is not apprehended; it retains its imposition and perfect signification in the same way. Therefore, it will be a perfect and complete sign, not merely an incipient one, before the relation, because it signifies and is a sign equally perfectly before that relation.¹¹ — The second difficulty is that this imperfect and incipient existence is either only fundamental and virtual with respect to the sign, or also actual. If it is only fundamental, this is to say that only the sign itself exists. If it is actual, it is very difficult to explain how a real existence, such as that of the foundation, prior to actual apprehension, makes something actually existent that is a being of reason and has only objective being. For then it will not be a purely being of reason, since it will also be capable of real existence, albeit imperfect and incipient.

Others think that it is formally a sign even before the formal existence of the sign relation. Others hold that it is considered a sign only in a moral way, because its imposition is said to remain in a moral way. But whether this is actually to be a sign or not is difficult. For “actually, morally” is a weakening particle, as if one said “actually, fundamentally” or “actually, virtually”; for the morality of this lasting imposition is the foundation of the relation.

Therefore, it must simply be said that the imposition or designation of something to be a sign of this or that thing is only the foundation of the sign relation, because it gives the sign a connection with that thing and substitutes it in place of that thing in signifying, not naturally but according to the choice of the one imposing it, just as abstraction of a nature is the foundation of universality. Hence, just as a natural sign exercises signification by reason of its foundation even if it does not actually have a relation to the signified thing, because the signified thing does not exist—as with an image of an emperor after his death—so too a spoken word or written mark signifies and represents even if its relation is not actually conceived and consequently does not exist through a concept. It does so by reason of an imposition made once, which does not formally return in the proximate way, as we shall say in the following question, art. 5. In these relations of reason there is no difficulty in an actual cognition of some form ceasing, and with it the formal existence of that form and the formal denomination arising from such existence, and then, when cognition is posited again, that form arising again, while the fundamental denomination always remains. This is like a universal that remains when comparison and relation are removed and only abstraction is posited: it remains universal metaphysically, not logically. Thus a conventional sign without a known relation remains a sign morally and fundamentally, and, as it were, metaphysically—that is, in the order of representing as an effect—but not formally and, as it were, logically, as regards the intention of the relation.

YOU WILL INSIST: This passive imposition of a sign leaves nothing real in it; therefore it cannot move a power or lead it to the signified thing, because a power cannot be moved by what is nothing. For a moving object actualizes and perfects a power, which this imposition cannot do. Therefore it does not remain a sign fundamentally, that is, as a power that moves and represents.

The reply is that all this also applies to the conventional sign itself when it exists actually and completely, for it is always something of reason. Therefore, we say that it moves by reason of the imposition, not as something immediately knowable and by reason of itself, but mediately and through something else, like other non-real beings; and so, once its borrowed knowability is presupposed, it takes on the account of what moves and represents, just as something knowable does.

Third it is argued: The genus of sign is the account of what represents and the account of an object that can be known—not the ultimate object, as the signified thing, but the intermediate one. But the account of what represents and of an object do not signify a relation according to being, but a transcendental relation. Indeed, the formality of being knowable as such is not formally a being but is presupposed as one, since it is a property of being and consequently is not a determinate being, namely a relation. Therefore, neither is a sign.

The consequence is clear, because if the genus is not in the account of what is relative, how can the species pertain to relation? We admit the minor premise. The major premise is clear from the definition of sign: it is representative of a cognitive power; therefore, representation and the account of object, or knowability, belong to it essentially. For it cannot otherwise lead to cognition of the signified thing except by presenting and representing itself to a power. But “representative” cannot be said essentially of sign as its species or specific difference, since it belongs to other things too; therefore it belongs to it as genus.

It is confirmed: a sign in general cannot consist in a relation; therefore, a sign absolutely is not a relation. The antecedent is proved as follows. First, a sign is common to a formal and an instrumental sign; but a formal sign is not a relation, but a quality, since it is a cognition or concept, as will be said below. Second, a sign is common to conventional and natural signs; but, on the view that the relation of a natural sign is real, there is no relation common to both except a relation abstracting from the real and the relation of reason. The relation of sign, however, is more determinate and contracted than one that abstracts from the real and the relation of reason. Therefore, a sign in general does not signify a relation according to being; for it would have to be placed determinately in one member, either real or of reason.

THE REPLY IS that what represents is not the genus of sign, but its foundation, just as what generates is not the genus of paternity but its foundation; nor is it what represents alone, for in that way it is related only remotely to what signifies as such, that is, to what substitutes for the signified thing and is subordinated to it in representing and leading to a power. It is placed in the definition of sign as a foundation pertaining to the relation, for the relation essentially depends on a foundation. If the relation is of some cause, effect, or exercise, the whole exercise is performed through the foundation; a relation has no exercise other than regarding something, if it is a relation according to being. Thus a father generates by reason of his foundation, a master commands by reason of his foundation, a minister substitutes and acts by reason of his foundation, and a sign represents by reason of its foundation. This is clear because the account of object or what can be represented in a sign is first with respect to itself: it presents itself to a power and, insofar as it is an object, directly regards the power as its measure. All this is not the genus of sign; for a sign principally regards the signified thing, to which it subordinates the very account of representing. Therefore, it begins to consist in the substitutive relation to the signified thing. What represents, however, insofar as it is connected substitutively to the signified thing, grounds that relation; and that connection is fundamentally substitution.

In reply to the confirmation, it is said that cognition and concepts have the account of quality insofar as they are acts or images of the object on which the relation of the formal sign is founded; the sign essentially consists in this relation insofar as cognition and concepts thus substitute for the object. Just as St. Thomas, in the places cited above, calls a character a sign fundamentally, since in itself it is a quality that nevertheless grounds the sign relation, so concepts and cognitions are informative qualities, not signifying objectively; but they ground the relation of a formal sign, that is, a sign whose representation and exercise of signifying occur by informing.

And to the other part of the argument it is said that sign in general signifies a relation more determinate than relation in general, whether it is transcendental or a relation according to being. For the argument applies on every view: how is sign in general a determinate being and inferior to being as such, and yet divided into real and of reason? For if the relation is transcendental, it will be real in a natural sign and of reason in a conventional sign. Therefore, this does not raise a special difficulty against our assertion that the relation of sign is according to being. It must be said that there is no problem in lower things taking on an analogical concept and being divided analogically like higher things, though more narrowly. Insofar as they subsist under an analogical concept, they are not placed under a determinate and univocal member of the higher division, but pertain analogically to both. A common example is the name “Wisdom.” It is a more determinate concept than being, yet it is not determinately created or uncreated; it can be divided into both because it can be taken analogically. But if univocal wisdom is taken, it will be determinately created or determinately uncreated. In the same way, “man,” if taken as abstracting from true and painted, living and dead, is something inferior to being, but not in a determinate member, because it is taken analogically, and consequently not as determinately one thing or as determinately in one member. Thus sign, as common to natural and conventional signs, is analogous, as with true and painted signs, real and of reason; and, as such, it is not in a determinate member of being or relation, but each of its inferiors in itself will be in a determinate genus.