Universa Philosophia

I proposed in sect. 2. the whole matter, or the adequate object, which logic attains by all its acts. Now I begin to explain what that matter contains? whether words? or indeed beings of reason? whether the acts of the intellect alone? or the objects alone? or acts and objects? But in this section I undertake to examine words: in the following sections the rest.

The first opinion teaches that the adequate object of logic is words. It is falsely imposed on the Nominalists.— THE first opinion teaches that the vocal mode of knowing is the adequate object of logic: which opinion gives to logic words alone. Many ascribe this opinion to the Nominalists: who for that reason incurred the odium of this name, because they referred all things to names and words. Yet they took this word, name, in a far different sense: namely for the mental concept or for cognition: because since words are substituted for the formal concept, they took the word by metonymy for the concept: whom I often defend in disp. 5. of the metaphysics against certain men who, I know not whether through an occasion for calumny or through contempt for reading their books, content with the first sound of syllables, impose many things on the Nominalists: by which they have brought most learned men, who brought light to the schools, into popular odium. Ockham in his logic proves at length that the object of logic is the concepts of the mind:¹ likewise in the first book dist. 2. quaest. 8. he calls the concept of the mind a word, just as also Blessed Thomas in opusc. 9. q. 1. and at the beginning of book 1. of the Perihermenias reduces all things to words substituted for concepts.² indeed the five predicables are called by Porphyry five words. In this sense and not in another did the Nominalists say that the vocal mode of knowing is the object of logic: that is, the formal mode of knowing which the vocal word signifies. With stronger right that opinion could have been ascribed to Aureolus in the prologue fol. 66. asserting that the word as expressive of concepts is the object of logic:³ yet he has the same explanation, namely the word taken formally for the concept which it expresses.

Yet that opinion could never be introduced into the schools, nor is it probable for any reason.¹ For the logician considers many things foreign to words. For when it is said that the first passion is demonstrated through its essence, that belongs to the object, not to the word. For the word first passion is not shown through this essence: although we might grant that the words themselves are that by which the demonstration is accomplished. Likewise when we say that demonstration generates science, that belongs to the objective demonstration and to the formal one: for the objective one in the character of object; but the formal one generates science as it were efficiently. Thirdly, because the logician deals with the formal sign, which is an act of the intellect: but words are an instrumental sign. Finally because the mode of knowing and its direction are formally acts of the intellect: and one who knows nothing of words or writings can by the light of reason alone know the syllogistic force and its attributes, and use logical precepts: which by no means depend on the Greek or Latin idiom. But all those acts are logical: therefore the logician considers many things besides words. Finally this conclusion will be clearer from §. 28., where I will reject words even from the partial object of logic.

You will first argue that logic is called from logos, that is speech: therefore logic deals with words.¹ First I answer that it is at most proved that words are the partial object of logic, from which it took its name; but it does not prove that they are its total object: for it deals with mental reasoning: whence it was called ratiocinative or rational science.² Second I answer that speech is used only for mental reasoning, or for vocal speech by metonymy, whereby the sign is taken for the thing signified:³ as when we say that lions were conquered by eagles, that is, men whose family crests are lions, conquered by those bearing eagles.

Second you will argue: because the mode of knowing is manifestative of the unknown; but words manifest unknown things; therefore words are the object of dialectic.¹ I answer first that even the formal mode of knowing is manifestative of the unknown, as will be established in disputation 10, section 1, and therefore the logician contemplates other things besides words.² Second I answer that there are two manifestations of the unknown: one when one act of intellect or two signify more clearly certain things which were signified more obscurely through another act: as the act concerning rational animal represents man more clearly than this act man. And this account is the perfect mode of knowing, which logic contemplates. The second manifestation is that by which we signify outwardly objects as they are conceived by us; or we signify directly the formal conceptions themselves: but this manifestation belongs to grammar, not to logic: for it is the grammarian's task to supply significant words for all things, and to arrange them so that they signify aptly.

The third argument: because the logician deals with subject and predicate. Porphyry likewise discoursed on the five voices.¹ I answer that for the same reason subject and predicate also belong to mental terms, not to spoken words alone: I would say the same of Porphyry's five voices.² Then, words are not properly subject or predicate, but only instrumentally: and the consideration of these instruments belongs to grammar and rhetoric, not to dialectic.

Others have treated of words more moderately, establishing them as the partial object of logic, not the total.¹ For they establish several acts terminated at formal and objective syllogisms independently of words: they also admit other acts directly terminated at words. For example, this act the vocal syllogism explains the nature of the thing: which, since it is logical, is directly terminated at words. This opinion was taught briefly by P. Fonseca, 2 Metaph., ch. 3, q. 1, sect. 5, at the words sed quaerat aliquis, and the following: and by St. Thomas, 1 Periherm., lect. 1.²³

Yet I think that no act of dialectic is directly terminated at words.¹ This opinion is common among logicians, who, while they impugn the opinion which they judge to be that of the Nominalists, say that words pertain to grammar and rhetoric alone. P. Suarez, Disputation 1 on Metaphysics, sect. 4, no. 27, teaches it openly.² I premise to the proof that words are not used materially for the quality of sound, but formally as they signify by institution: for unless they are considered in this signification, they are considered neither by the logician nor by the grammarian, but by the specialist in the science of the soul dealing with the object of hearing and the faculty of speech. I likewise premise that it is one thing to dispute with words, and another to dispute about words.³ The first is done in any faculty. For the intellect, once instructed in the signification and concord of words, explains by the same words the objects as they were conceived by it through the individual faculties. But to discourse about words is to have them as the object of disputation, to inquire into their meanings, kinds, inflections, syntax, and elegance.

The conclusion is proved first: because words have precisely signification, syntax, and ornament: but none of these pertains to the logician: therefore no logical act contemplates them.¹ The major is proved: because words serve us for civil life, that we may signify through them objects as they are conceived by us: for this is their adequate use and immediate end: for since we cannot disclose our concepts except through external signs, we use words and writing at will to explain ourselves. Therefore words have nothing for civil life beyond the free signification of things as conceived. And for this reason no one needs the use of his words except to act with others: because without it he himself knows what and how he has conceived: review disputation 2 of the Summulae from § 6. But this signification of words pertains directly to the grammarian. For by us boys are taught the signification of Latin words. And that is the first task of the grammar teacher: if he is perfect, the signification of no word escapes him: and grammarians are more or less learned according as they know more or fewer word meanings. Do we go to the schools of theologians or philosophers to learn Latin or Greek meanings, and not rather to grammar? For that reason is the grammarian set over the young to examine whether they are fit to enter dialectic and other faculties? But who doubts that structure is grammatical, and that elegance pertains to the rhetorician? What then remains for logic to contemplate in words? Hence the minor proposition of this argument remains proved.