Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

It is certain that external signs, which are known beforehand in order to lead to the signified, an order to the power is found, as in the other objects of cognition that terminate cognition. Such signs are clearly known as objects: smoke is first seen as an object, then from knowledge of itself leads to the signified. Hence the relation or order of the sign to the power in the character of an object must be distinct from the order or relation in the character of a sign, since in this respect of an object it agrees with the other objects that are not signs, and, like them, regards the power objectively. Therefore, for it to regard the power not only purely objectively but also significatively, it remains to inquire whether the very same relation by which it regards what is signified, and in the order to which it takes on the character of a sign, also regards the power to which this signified thing is to be manifested by the sign; or whether it has a relation to the signified purified of, and absolute from, any respect to the power, while by another relation it regards the power in the character of an object, and both relations concur to constitute the character of a sign; or whether, even within the very character of a sign, apart from its character as an object, there is a double relation, one to the power and the other to what is signified.

AND A DIFFICULTY ARISES, because on the one hand a sign regards what is signified not only in itself, but in order to the power, since the order to the power is included in the definition of a sign—namely, that it be manifestative to the power, etc. If, then, the character of a sign expresses this relation to the power, either it regards both by one and the same relation, and the difficulties discussed below follow, since these are altogether diverse terms: with respect to the power, it is only a relation of reason; with respect to what is signified, it is an order of the measured to the measure; whereas, with respect to the power, the power is measurable by the sign itself as by a known object. Or the sign’s relation to the power is distinct from its relation to what is signified; and thus the sign will not belong to the category of relation, because the character of a sign involves not one relation but a plurality of relations.

NEVERTHELESS, LET THE CONCLUSION BE: If the power and what is signified are considered as terms directly reached by the relation, they necessarily require a double relation in the sign. But in this way the sign regards the power directly as an object, not formally as a sign. If, however, the power is considered as a term reached obliquely, then by one relation of the sign both what is signified and the power are reached; and this is the proper and formal character of a sign.

Thus one and the same relation can terminate at two terms, one in the direct case, the other in the oblique, which is simply to have only one term in the formal character of a term.

Several of the more recent authors do not agree with this conclusion. Some think that a sign consists in a double relation concurring on equal terms, one to what is signified, the other to the power. Others recognize in the sign, too, insofar as it is distinguished from an object, a double relation—to what is signified and to the power—although not contributing equally to constitute the character of a sign, yet intrinsically and essentially required. They explain with great difficulty how one of these relations is compared with the other: whether as genus or difference, as attribute or mode. Others fashion from the power and what is signified one integral formal term composed of material parts. Others deny that a sign as sign regards the power, and others that it regards what is signified; instead, they hold that the whole essence of a sign consists in a certain apprehensibility by the power, as a means for knowing something else. Although these latter opinions are commonly rejected, since the definition of a sign requires both what is signified, which is to be manifested, and the power to which it is to be represented, some nevertheless concede that only this belongs to the intrinsic character of a sign: that it can terminate the power as a means through which or in which what is signified is known. They do not hold it to belong to its intrinsic character to be related to the power, whether by a real or transcendental order or by a relation of reason, although, given our way of conceiving, it cannot be apprehended without such an order.

The conclusion is proved.

AS FOR THE FIRST PART, that the power and what is signified, as terms directly reached, require a double relation is clear from this,¹ because the power is directly regarded only by its object, as mover or terminator. The power regards an object as object, whereas a sign directly expresses what stands in place of an object and serves as a means between the signified and the power. As sign, then, it directly regards what it stands for. To regard the power directly, it must be taken as object, not as sign; it then reaches the power by a relation other than that of sign, and thus has several relations. In sum: the relation to the power in the direct case, as directly bearing on the power, and the relation of a sign proceed in opposite ways. The power is movable by the sign, for it is moved by it as something representing what is signified; but the signified is not moved by the sign, but is manifestable, or that for which the sign performs its office in representation. Therefore, if these relations are taken in the direct case, they regard terms that are distinct even formally in their character as terms.

It cannot be said that a sign is related to what is signified and not to the power, but merely terminates the power. For it is incompatible with understanding a sign as related to what is signified that it be detached from the power and conceived without any order to it, since it regards what is signified precisely insofar as it carries and presents it to the power. Therefore, this relation to what is signified as something to be manifested to the power is incompatible with being detached from the power. But if, with respect to the power, it does not stand absolutely, but dependently and in an ordered relation to it, then consequently it has a relation to it.

This is confirmed: although an object is not constituted per se by its relation to the power, which instead depends on it, a sign, which stands in place of an object in representing and presenting itself to power, necessarily² includes this relation, because substitution is always for an end, and the sign, substituting for the signified in representing it to power, must be ordered to power. To represent is to make an object present to power; therefore, a sign as means and substitute for the signified must be ordered to that to which it represents or makes it present.

THE SECOND PART of the conclusion is proved as follows: the relation of a sign to what is signified is a relation by way of representing it or applying it to the power. Therefore it must regard what is signified as the direct term and the that which of its relation, while also reaching the power obliquely and as the term to which. For it is incompatible with these relations, which function by way of substituting and representing, that they regard that for which they stand and not that for whose sake, or in order to which, they substitute. For something that substitutes or performs the office of another does so according to some definite character and in order to some definite end; otherwise that substitution would not be determinate, since it is determined by the end for which it is made. Therefore, if the relation of a representative and substitute standing in for a person is determinate, it must regard that person in such a way that it also reaches that for whose sake and in order to which it substitutes, for it is from this that the substitution is determinate. And so, since a sign performs the office of what is signified, represents it, and substitutes for it in a determinate way so as to make an object present to the power, some relation to the power is necessarily involved in the very core and innermost character of this substitution and representation of what is signified, insofar as it is determinate: for it substitutes in order to represent to the power.

How, then, is the same relation said to attain the signified thing directly and the power obliquely? Omitting the many and varied explanations, this explanation seems more adequate: the sign regards the power obliquely, insofar as being manifestable to the power is included in the signified thing itself. And so, since the signified thing is not regarded as something absolute in itself or according to another order, but as manifestable to the power, that relation necessarily touches the power obliquely which attains the signified thing, not stopping at it precisely as it is in itself, but as manifestable to the power. In this way it somehow attains the power under the aspect of being manifestable to something else—not by attaining the power separately, but by attaining what is manifestable to the power. Thus religion regards worship as its formal object insofar as it is to be offered to God: it does not regard God directly, for then it would be a theological virtue, but worship directly and God obliquely, insofar as God is contained in worship as the term to whom it is offered; religion regards worship as subject to that term, not absolutely or under another consideration. The same holds for friendship’s order toward the good that I will for my friend. For that order does not terminate at the good willed absolutely, but insofar as it is referable to the friend; and the friend, as the term of that good, in some way terminates the same relation, though not as a direct object, but as included in the direct object, since the good is regarded as belonging to the friend and not absolutely.

It is indeed true that, for the sign to regard the signified thing in this way, that is, as manifestable to the power, it is essentially presupposed that the sign itself regards the power by another relation: either as an apprehensible object, if it is an instrumental sign, or as a form constituting apprehension, if it is a formal sign. In this way it serves to attain knowledge of something else, as an instrumental or formal sign. Moreover, this relation of the sign to the power, as we said at the beginning of the article, does not belong to the sign formally as sign, but as object or form. It is, however, presupposed as required for the sign, because the sign is also an object that moves the power; unless it moves as an object, it will not manifest as sign. Formally, however, one relation is distinct from the other. And although, by the force of its sole relation to the signified thing—in which the power to which it is manifestable is included obliquely—it does not exercise representation unless the power is also moved insofar as it is a motive object, nevertheless from that relation to the signified thing it has the property that this motion is significant: that is, vicarious and substituting for another, which it signifies, rather than primary on its own account.

From this it follows that the sign’s apprehensibility is not itself the formal ground of the sign’s relation immediately and formally, since being apprehensible or knowable is the aspect of an object as object, which is required only presuppositionally for the notion of sign. Rather, its foundation is the very aspect of a medium that it has in relation to the signified as manifestable to the power, substituting for it in the role of moving and representing. Still less does being known or apprehended in the sign—which some call proximate apprehensibility—ground or complete the notion of sign, because being known does not belong to the notion of sign but to its exercise (for when it actually represents, it is actually known), not to its being representative.

THE ARGUMENTS ARE RESOLVED.

First it is argued: The relation of a sign to the signified thing in natural signs is real, whereas in those same signs the relation to the power is one of reason; therefore, it cannot be one and the same relation.

The antecedent is established as to the first part by the preceding article. The second part is proved as follows: the relation to the power is the sign’s relation insofar as it is apprehensible by the power. But the relation of what is apprehensible or knowable to the knowing power is a relation of reason, even if it is apprehensible as a sign, because being apprehensible or apprehended, whether in a sign or in an object, posits nothing real in it. For cognition or apprehension is real only in the power; in the apprehended thing, whatever it may be, it posits no reality.

The same argument is made from the different mode and species of the relation to the power and to the signified thing. For the relation of a sign to the signified thing is that of the measured to the measure, because the signified thing is primary, and the sign substitutes for it and acts in its place, as has often been said. The sign’s relation to the power, however, is conversely that of measure to measured. For the sign regards the power by a non-mutual relation, since the sign is on the side of the representing object and is not measured by the power; and therefore measures the power. For the power does not measure the apprehended thing but is measured by it, since it is perfected by it.

IT IS ANSWERED that these arguments and similar ones, which can be multiplied in the same way, prove what we said at the outset: namely, that the relation on the sign’s part to the power, insofar as the sign is its object, and to the signified thing as direct terms, is not one relation but several. Neither, however, is formally the relation of the sign as sign. The relation directly regarding the power is the relation of an object under the aspect and formality of object; the relation directly regarding the signified thing, by contrast, is under the aspect of a cause or effect, or of some similar relation. Hence the thing that is a sign is determined as something of the signified thing, and thus to represent that rather than something else.

Strictly speaking, however, the relation of the sign itself, considered most formally as sign, regards the power obliquely—not insofar as the sign is apprehensible by the power and is its object, but insofar as the signified thing itself is manifestable to the power. By attaining what is naturally suited to stand for it, or by substituting for it, not absolutely but as it is manifestable to the power, the power is there involved virtually and obliquely. Therefore, although the relation of an object or of what is apprehensible to the power, taken directly and in the manner of an object, is a relation of reason, nevertheless the relation to the signified thing can be real even as that thing is manifestable to the power. For in an object, being signifiable and representable to the power is something real, although it does not really regard the power. It is one thing how an object regards the power, and another what it means in an object to be manifestable to the power. Being manifestable and objectifiable is something real, and it is that on which the power depends and by which it is specified; indeed, because it is so real, it does not depend on the power by a real relation. Therefore, since under the formality of sign the sign does not regard the power directly—for this belongs to the formality of object—but regards the thing signifiable or manifestable to the power, the power, as included obliquely in that manifestable object, is attained by the sign’s real relation. For the power is not regarded separately, but as included in what is real in the object insofar as it is manifestable to the power; here, everything actually and formally attained is real, and only the power, whose object it is, enters as a connoted and oblique term. Thus a science that treats of colors as objects of sight really regards colors, since they specify it, even though they virtually include an order to the power whose objects they are; the science’s relation to those objects is not a relation of reason. The relation by which a sign directly regards the power, moving it both to know itself and to know the signified thing in whose place it stands, is indeed a relation of reason, but distinct from the sign’s relation by which it regards the signified thing, because it is the relation of an object, not formally of a sign as sign.

This makes clear the answer to the second argument: it concerns the relation by which a sign directly and formally regards the power, which is the relation of a measure, or of a measuring object; it does not concern the relation by which it regards the signified thing as an object manifestable to the power, where the power is attained only obliquely and virtually, not by a relation of reason. Thus the sign is not a measure of the power, but an instrument of the signified thing directed to the power.

Second, an argument is made: These terms, namely, the signified and the power, are distinct even in the formal character of a term, since one is a term as that which is directly attained, while the other is a term as that to which; therefore they are distinct in more than a merely material way. For when a sign has several inadequate signifieds, it is related to them as to several terms materially diverse; therefore the power and the signified are distinguished in the character of terms by more than matter.

It is confirmed, because signs are specifically distinguished by their order to a power, as is clear in the formal and instrumental sign, which differ in species within the genus of sign and are not distinguished on the side of what is signified. For they can represent the same concept—for example, fire and smoke, which is a sign of fire—but they are distinguished by their way of relating to the power, by informing it or being set before it. Therefore, in a sign the order to the power is in the direct case and not in the oblique, since it specifies and distinguishes it.

This argument can also be made conversely, because a sign can be divided into different species according to its order to the signified while its order to the power remains unchanged; therefore the sign has distinct relations, since otherwise, if one varied, the other would vary too. The antecedent is evident: for different concepts vary on account of the different objects represented, while the relation to the power remains of the same character in all of them.

A second confirmation: The character of sign and the character of image differ in this respect: an image does not regard the power to which it represents, but rather the exemplar or idea of which it is an imitation. If it represents anything to a power, this is accidental to its being an image. A sign, however, per se regards the power, as that to which it represents. Therefore, the relation to the power is intrinsic to a sign and constitutive of its notion, since it essentially distinguishes a sign from an image.

Finally, a third confirmation: the relation to the power remains in the sign when the relation to the signified is destroyed, as is clear when the signified does not exist, yet the sign leads the power to knowledge of it just as before. Therefore it regards the power as something that leads and signifies just as before, and thus the relation to the power remains.

THE RESPONSE to the principal argument is that the signified, which is represented, and the power, to which the representation is made, are not two adequate terms distinct as terms, but together constitute one term, composed of a direct and an oblique element. Thus, in religion, the worship that is offered and God to whom it is offered are not two adequate terms, but one integral term of religion. Likewise, believing God and believing in God are not two terms, but one term of faith, insofar as one term is attained in such a way that it does not terminate absolutely and in itself, but as modified and related, or connoted, to something else—as the signified is attained as representable to a power.

The response to the first confirmation is that the division of sign into formal and instrumental is a division into different species. These are not taken directly from the mere difference in their relation to the power, but from a different relation to the signified as representable to the power in different ways. For one and the same object that is representable can be represented by a twofold representational medium, namely, a medium in which and a medium through which. The first grounds formal representation within the power, informing it; the second grounds instrumental representation outside the power, moving it. Hence, in the signified itself, insofar as it is representable, there is found a different notion or basis for terminating these different representations, or modes of representing, in signs, even though the thing represented is materially the same.

Similarly, the signs themselves presuppose a different manner of moving and representing to the power, namely, as an external object or as an internal form. This, however, pertains to the character of sign only presuppositionally; its most formal notion is that of a substitute for the signified, representable in this or that way.

From this the response to the other part of the argument is clear: although the order to the power is of the same character in different signifieds, it does not follow that it must be attained by a distinct relation. For relations of sign can indeed vary in species because of the diversity of the object representable, even though they agree, or do not differ, on the side of the connotation included obliquely. Thus faith and opinion agree in their mode of obscurity, but not in the formal character that specifies them.

The response to the second confirmation is that a sign regards the signified precisely as representable to a power, serving as its substitute and consequently being inferior to it; an image, however, regards its exemplar as imitable and as the principle from which it originates and is expressed, and thus it can be equal to it. Therefore, on the side of the term itself that they directly regard, they have distinct formal characters, or formal reasons for terminating, even though in one case an order to the power follows obliquely within the signified that it attains, and in the other it does not. Thus, the formal notion that distinguishes them in each case is the character of the signified as such, or of the exemplar as such, not the power itself to which the representation is made.

The response to the third confirmation is that when the order to the signified is destroyed, the order to the power is destroyed as well, since it was included in the signified obliquely and connotatively. Nevertheless, because this order remains fundamentally and virtually in the sign toward the signified that does not exist, the order to the power that accompanies the signified also remains fundamentally. Formally, however, the sign can retain within itself the character of an object that moves, or of a form that represents; this is a relation other than that of sign, as was said.