Universa Philosophia

An absolute term is defined by Father Toledo, book 1, chapter 13, and Fonseca, book 5, chapter 24, as one which signifies a thing standing by itself, as whiteness, man. But this definition is proper to an abstract term, as I soon prove. Then man is an absolute term, and does not signify humanity standing by itself; but as existing in a supposit and constituting man with it (since man is predicated of God). Therefore an absolute term is not one which signifies a thing standing by itself.

You will say that humanity is by itself because it subsists. On the contrary: rationality also is by itself and subsists, because it is a substance, and yet by this word rational it is signified as adjacent to an animal; therefore it rightly stands that a thing subsists and is signified by a term as it were adjacent. It is confirmed, human is a connotative term, and not absolute, and it can signify a thing subsisting by itself; namely a man, for a human person signifies a man. Likewise location is an absolute term, and signifies a thing adjacent to another. The reason is that the thing signified is not so much attended to as the mode of signifying.

M. Soto, 1 part of the introduction, chapter 10, lecture 1, thus defines an absolute term: one which, besides its material, signifies nothing else to be adjacent or not adjacent. On the contrary. If the word material signifies the thing or matter which the term signifies, then white is also an absolute term, because besides its matter, or thing, or subject, it signifies nothing else to be adjacent. But if matter is properly understood for the true subject: these terms God, Angel are absolute, and signify no subject, therefore it is not of the essence of an absolute term to signify its material and nothing besides it.

You will say that by those words Soto means that by an absolute term a thing adjacent to another is not signified. Good, therefore it is Toledo's definition in more obscure words, and it is attacked in the same way as that one in §.74. Villalpandus, book 1, chapter 5, says: An absolute term is one which does not take its denomination from another, as man. First, this definition is not quidditative, because it does not explain the positive concept of an absolute term, but a certain negation. Then man is an absolute term, and takes its denomination from another, namely from humanity, from which it is denominated man, especially when it is said God is man. And so this definition agrees only to abstract terms.

You will say from Villalpandus that man and humanity differ more than white and whiteness: because these differ only in case. On the contrary, white and whiteness do not differ only in case, but as accident and substance; indeed they differ more than man and humanity, because white includes a subject which is without controversy really distinguished from whiteness, which is doubtful concerning man and humanity. Therefore as white is from whiteness, so man is from humanity.

Therefore an absolute term is one which by itself alone is perfectly significative. This I prove: First, because the word absolute is ordered to absolute signification and the constitution of a proposition, but every and only term perfectly signifying by itself alone signifies absolutely and independently of other terms, as will be plain in §.81. Likewise simply by itself alone it is subject and predicate, therefore an absolute term is one which by itself alone perfectly signifies. Secondly it is proved from the connotative term, which is opposed to it, which by itself alone does not signify perfectly, but always regards another term with which it perfects signification, as white by itself alone signifies imperfectly unless lion, man, or stone is added. For if someone hears in the school there is a white thing, he does not perceive whether it is a man, a lion, or a stone: but he is uneasy until he knows who that white thing is: but if he hears in the school there is a stone, he perfectly conceives the object. Therefore a connotative term is one which does not signify perfectly; but an absolute term is one which signifies perfectly; but indeed what does it matter to an absolute term to signify by the mode of standing by itself or of being adjacent, since this belongs to abstract and concrete terms: it is explained by the physicists, where things independent of others are called absolute: which can exist by themselves alone, without those from which they are absolute; but those which depend on others are said to have a relation to them, nor can they be without them; which is to connote them in their concept; as vision connotes color, without which it cannot be.

Whence I gather that all substantive nouns are absolute terms, which no one denies; nor can he deny it; both because they all signify perfectly by themselves alone, without other terms being joined to them, whether they be abstract or concrete. Ut homo, humanitas. Petrus, albedo: and by induction; for there is no substantive which is not an absolute term. You ask whether album taken substantively for the composite of subject and whiteness is an absolute term. I answer that it is, as the word compositum taken substantively. For it signifies perfectly the composition of two things, without another term being joined to it.

Soto above says that a connotative term is one which, besides its material, signifies another thing to be adjacent or not adjacent. On the contrary. Dominus, compositum, and album taken substantively are not connotative terms but absolute, and besides their material they signify another thing to be adjacent, because they signify dominion adjacent to the Lord, and existing in him, likewise the subject and whiteness, therefore. For dominion concretely signified is the form by which Peter is called Lord: likewise man is absolute, and signifies humanity as it were in a subject, or subsistence existing in it. Finally, as I attacked Soto's definition of an absolute term, so I attack the definition of a connotative term: because the account of opposites is the same.

Toledo and Fonseca above say that a connotative term is: Because it signifies a thing as adjacent to another; as white, black, it is the same definition of Soto, and attacked for the same reason.

Villalpandus above says that a connotative term is: one which takes its name from another, from which it differs only in case. On the contrary, white is connotative, and differs from whiteness by more than case: because it differs really, as a whole from a part, therefore. Secondly, man is not connotative, and takes its denomination from humanity, therefore. The definition of denominatives will be treated in disputation 9 of the Logic, section 2.

Note what it is to connote: for it is to mark another thing together with one thing, as cognition connotes the object, that is, marks the object, and cannot be perfectly known unless the object also be known; in this way all relatives connote one another, as pater filium, materia formam; likewise it is the connotation of the thing with which it forms a unity. As album states a subject while marking the whiteness intrinsic to it, with which it makes a thing white; similarly homo states humanity marking the suppositum, with which it constitutes a man.