Universa Philosophia

Fonseca, book 8, chapter 31, says that the descent of a confused proposition is disjunctive, for example, oculus est necessarius ad videndum, that is, necessarius est, hic vel ille, non tamen hic est necessarius, vel ille est necessarius. But a determinate proposition has a disjunctive descent, as aliquis homo currit, that is, hic currit, or ille currit. I do not agree, because "the eye is required" can be resolved disjunctively, for either this eye is necessary, or that one. Fonseca says that these resolutions are false, because no eye is necessary: I distinguish, no eye in particular, excluding others, I grant; no eye vaguely, and disjunctively, not excluding others, even confusedly apprehended, I deny: but the proposition does not say that some particular eye is required in particular, but confusedly, which is signified in those resolutions: for just as on the part of the thing vision cannot occur without this or that eye, so this or that eye is necessary: because it is the same thing for the eye to be necessary and not to be able to see without it. It is true that on the part of the thing vision does not occur except in a particular eye, because on the part of the thing no confusion is given, concerning which elsewhere, and in the following section, from §3. Nor indeed is supposition discriminated by the fact that it is exercised on the part of the thing; but from the mode by which the mental term (for which the word supposits) tends toward the object: yet it tends confusedly in this aliquis homo currit, as much as in this aliquis oculus requiritur ad videndum: because it tends confusedly toward both.