Universa Philosophia

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.

First argument for the second opinion.— You will say first that logic contemplates the vocal mode of knowing, which explains the nature of the thing. For this act, the vocal definition explains the nature of the thing, directly pertains to some faculty: not to grammar, because this does not provide vocal instruments as explaining the nature of the thing: for that is the dialectician's task. Suppose a man forgetful of the mental syllogism to know the vocal syllogism explaining something: which explained thing is rightly known by the hearer, then he exercises this act: this syllogism rightly explains this object. This act often repeated generates some habit, not indeed grammatical, therefore logical.

It is refuted.— First I do not see what difference it makes whether a man is mindful or forgetful of the mental syllogism. For if with forgetfulness of it that cognition generates a habit of dialectic, it will generate the same with memory. For if the hearer together with the vocal syllogism has known the mental one, he will have two partial objects of dialectic, one the mental syllogism, the other the vocal, which according to you is a partial object: which character of object is not removed by memory of another object: nor yet can the vocal syllogism be conceived under the character of syllogism without memory of the formal one, because as it is a substitute for the formal one it is called a vocal syllogism.

But since this is the foundation of the opposite opinion, it pleases me to root it out. A definition explains the nature of a thing in no other way than by signifying it at pleasure. For the formal or mental concept explains the nature of the thing by naturally representing or signifying it, because it is its natural sign: but a word explains an object only by signifying it. But its signification is from the free institution of men, therefore a vocal definition explains the nature of the thing by free signification alone. But every free signification of words is formally the object of grammar, and not of dialectic:¹ therefore that mode by which words explain the nature of a thing is the object of grammar alone. The minor is proved from § 29. For he who does not know the meanings of Latin words is handed over to grammar teachers to be imbued, from whom he never ascends unless sufficiently instructed in the skill of the signification of words, by which he may be fit to perceive the precepts of dialectic, which are given in the Latin idiom: but if he were to be taught dialectic in Greek, he would first have to be taught Greek grammar. The sign is therefore that that cognition concerning the manner in which words signify and manifest their objects is grammatical, and not dialectical.

Besides the free signification, the vocal syllogism has the disposition of the words themselves in figure and mood: for if one is to argue in Darii, the first proposition is universal, but the other two are particular. But this structure also pertains to the grammarian; whose task is not only to know what the words of others signify, and in what order; but also to learn their use: so that he can make them not only in order that they signify the substance of the object, but also in the order necessary for expressing the things themselves as they are conceived by us, and in the order in which they are conceived. For the doctrine of speaking aptly, and of signifying objects through words as apprehended by us, is grammar, not dialectic: for all the precepts of syntax tend to this.

These things are explained openly: suppose a man wholly ignorant of the Latin language, or badly instructed in it, to be rightly skilled in all the precepts of dialectic; nothing is lacking to him for explaining them except knowledge of Latin words and their significations: by the precepts of what faculty is he deprived if not of grammar? because he has no ignorance except concerning the use and free signification of the Latin language. But if, with the signification of words known, he did not know how to bring them forth in the method necessary for showing the mental syllogism, he would not be ignorant of arguing, but of speaking: but logic teaches to argue, grammar to speak. From these things I openly conclude that the vocal syllogism has nothing foreign to grammar.

But someone may object: grammar cannot know the nature of the mode of knowing, nor signify it: therefore dialectical cognition is necessary. I answer that by this argument it is proved that Theology, Philosophy, and other faculties deal with words, by which they explain their objects: because grammar cannot be skilled in them. Consider that the first author of words knew the whatness of the thing (as they say) signified by the word: but those who are ignorant of things cannot signify them: for knowledge of the thing signified by them precedes the use of words. For a word signifies an object as apprehended by the speaker: but those who are ignorant of things do not well perceive the meaning of the word. The intellect therefore instructed by knowledge of things uses words to signify them: but he who knows only the whatness of the word knows objects imperfectly: which afterwards the discipline of the sciences masters.

To the argument in § 30 the solution is easy: for that act is purely grammatical. To the proof I answer that it pertains to the grammarian to explain through words not only the objective mode of knowing, but also the very nature of God: for the Blessed can explain it to us: because this mode of manifesting the nature of a thing is nothing other than either to supply words signifying the nature of a thing at will; and to show that the word corresponds to the formal concept: namely that in time the word corresponding to the prior formal concept is brought forth before the word corresponding to the second.

The second opinion is impugned secondly.— Secondly I argue: he who contemplates the whole formal and objective mode of knowing, thinking nothing of the vocal or other external mode, is perfectly a logician. For he so penetrates the whole reasoning that he can use it perfectly, and discern whether others use his precepts well or badly? For example, if God by accident, or by himself, infuses in someone the habit of the formal and objective mode of knowing alone, without cognition of the vocal: this man is as perfect a logician as Aristotle: therefore the whole business of the dialectician is in contemplating the formal and objective mode of knowing, and not the vocal.