Universa Philosophia

Therefore the object of logic is real being, not indeed of reason (as a being of reason is outside the range of real being as such). Which conclusion is handed down in express words by St. Thomas, cited in § 57 and 58, where he establishes the object of logic to be the acts of the intellect, just as he establishes the object of moral philosophy to be the acts of the will, and external actions the object of the mechanical art: but the philosophy of mechanics and morals considers those operations as they are real being: therefore St. Thomas established a real object for logic. The same opinion is that of Durandus, cited in § 46, establishing the object of dialectic to be the extrinsic denominations which he himself calls a being of reason. Father Toletus agrees, cited in § 46; Didacus Masius, cited in § 50; Father Fonseca, lib. 2 of the Metaphysics, chap. 3, and Father Suarez, 1 of the Metaphysics, disp. 1, sect. 4, n. 25, and tom. 2, disput. 39, at the beginning: but in disputation 54, at the beginning, he says that it is a dialectical error to think that a being of reason is the object of logic: the Conimbricense college in the preface to logic, q. 5, art. 2 and 3, and very many others.

It is proved first, because the adequate matter of logic is the concepts of genus, species, definition, argumentation, etc. But all these are real extrinsic denominations, not distinct from the acts of the intellect: therefore the adequate object of dialectic is real being. The minor is proved from disp. 19 of the Metaphysics, sect. 1, but especially sect. 2 from § 56; but § 62 applies the whole doctrine to this view. Because cognition and love by themselves, without any real form or form of reason, denominate a man loving and knowing, as all admit: therefore they also denominate by themselves the object loved or known. The consequence is clear; because love and cognition are as immediately extrinsically concerned with the object loved and known as they are immediately intrinsically concerned with the one knowing and loving. Because he who loves immediately, immediately loves something: therefore something is immediately loved: for that love makes both the man loving and the object loved. But that these denominations are real is clear from this; that the denominating form is real being: but since the subject and the form are real, and nothing is interposed between both, there is no reason why that denomination should be excluded from the class of real being as such: as is established from disp. 19 of the Metaphysics, § 14.

You will object with Father Rubius that the acts of the intellect can be considered as they communicate to the one understanding the denomination of the one who understands: under which consideration they do not pertain to the logician, but to the science of the soul: because according to that character they are acts according to themselves, and pertain to real science. They can also be considered as they bestow on objects the denomination of known: under which consideration they are snatched away from logic: but thus they are not real beings, because the denomination 'known' posits nothing in things. I reply first that intellections enjoy the same concept as they denominate the one knowing, and as they denominate the known: because by the same character by which a man is knowing, the object is known, and therefore each denomination is real, because each is from a real form. To the proof I reply that intellection pertains to the science of the soul, which considers whether it is action? or passion? or quality? or both? and other such things which the logician does not touch. They can also be considered as they are made by art, namely that the act concerning genus is to be joined with the act concerning difference in order to define: likewise that a universal affirmative act is to be joined to a particular affirmative act in order to gather the conclusion in Darii; this pertains to the logician, nor is it about acts according to themselves, but about their disposition by art: which disposition, beyond the essence of those acts, adds an extrinsic denomination of one act from another: or some accidental mode: just as the architect deals with stone and lime, not according to themselves, but as they are mixed. But the denomination 'known' posits something in things: extrinsic indeed to the object, but intrinsic to the power. Consult § 109.

To the second proof of the conclusion I premise that the distinction between the denominations of the one knowing and the known must be allowed to the opponents, and that some being of reason distinct from the intellection must be granted, by which genus, species and other second intentions are proximately and formally constituted, as I allowed in § 66 and 67. These things being established, I prove the conclusion secondly: the acts of the intellect as they are formally and actually definition, division and argumentation are the object of logic: but under this consideration they are real beings and not of reason: therefore the object of logic embraces real beings. The minor is granted by the opponents: because those acts are of the category of quality and action. The major is clear, first from an example, because all human operations, both internal and external, capable of some precept, pertain to some faculty by which they are directed: as the actions of the will to moral philosophy. About which philosophy is bipartite: for the science of the soul considers about the acts of the will whether they are action? or quality? or whether they depend on cognition only from the nature of the thing? or essentially? whether freedom is an extrinsic denomination to them? or intrinsic? But the moral philosopher, these things being allowed to the science of the soul, disputes that it is the right dictate of reason that one be moved by its prescription. The will weighs whether and in which circumstances justice is rather to be used than mercy. The architect likewise, having received from the natural philosopher the attributes of wood and stone, considers by what reason the hand is to be moved for their placement, which he prescribes by his own laws. Therefore by the same reason the logician will prescribe by what reason we are actually to argue.

You will object first that the acts of the intellect in that consideration are indeed treated by the science of the soul, but not by the logician. I reply that this is proved to be openly false: because active argumentation is an accidental being conflated from three acts of the intellect, by an artificial structure indeed: in which we do not consider whether those acts are action? or quality? which questions pertain to the science of the soul. But the accidental artifice by which argumentation is conflated depends on the precepts of definition and of the mode of knowing: but these precepts, what part of the science of the soul hands them down? For compare logic with moral philosophy: just as the latter considers the rules of conduct, and the circumstances in which an act is to be exercised honorably: so the logician considers the rules of art, by which the acts of the intellect are to be exercised according to the dictate of art: and just as natural philosophy does not consider the reason by which the will is to be exercised; so neither does it consider by what reason the intellect is to be exercised by art. Therefore as besides natural philosophy there is constituted moral philosophy, directly contemplating the actions of the will to be exercised honorably: so also dialectic is to be constituted to prescribe to the intellect the reason for exercising itself without error. Which is also clear in architecture, music and others: for the musician teaches by what reason the strings are to be struck, and the voice inflected; but not the natural philosopher: but the architect alone contemplates the structure of stone and wood: therefore the structure of the active and formal syllogism, likewise the varied conjunction of intellections for concluding rightly, the logician will contemplate: but the natural philosopher by no means.

You will object secondly, with Father Rubio, that the active direction of intellections pertains to the science of the soul; but the passive direction of things, namely that the object is divided, defined etc., which is passive direction, pertains to logic: on the contrary, I have shown that the active direction of what is done and the passive direction of objects are not sufficiently distinguished: but the passive direction, according to you, pertains to logic, therefore also the active. Next, that active direction pertains to logic is clear from the example in §. 75 of moral philosophy and architecture, because in the active definition the science of the soul considers the character of quality, action etc., while the logician considers whether it is through genus and difference, whether it converts with the defined, and whether it has second intentions which in no way pertain to the science of the soul. But I shall show in the following section that these attributes belong to the intellections themselves. Finally, since there is passive direction in objects and active direction in acts, it cannot be denied that active direction pertains per se and primarily to logic: because we want a thing to be known by us for the reason that there be knowledge in us of such a thing. For what we want is that the intellect see clearly by dialectical precepts lest it err, or that it be knowing: just as the moral philosopher wants the will to be perfect and to love according to reason; and consequently he wants the object to be loved according to reason. Since therefore passive direction is not formally more perfect in the intellect, as active direction is, the latter pertains to logic rather than the former.

It is confirmed: dialectic is the art teaching the reason and method of disputing rightly: but right disputation is formally and actively in the intellect, while in objects it is only passively or by extrinsic denomination: therefore not only passive disputation but also active pertains to logic. The major premise can be denied by no one. For Aristotle in the Rhetoric to Theodectes, book 1, chs. 1 and 2, clearly teaches that the office of the rhetorician and dialectician is to dispute; likewise in On Interpretation, book 1, ch. 1, he shows that the dialectician ought to know what affirmation, negation etc. are. The same he teaches in Prior Analytics, book 1, ch. 1. St. Augustine, tome 7, book 1 Against Cresconius, ch. 18: For what (he says) is dialectic other than the skill of disputing? But in ch. 14: Just as (he says) dialectic took its name from disputation, so in Greek "dialectician" is much more usual, and in Latin "disputator" is more tolerable. But if usage allowed, perhaps dialectic in Latin would be called "disputatoria." But the minor is proved from the same Augustine, ibid., ch. 15: For he who (he says) disputes discerns the true from the false: where he shows that disputation is the discernment of the true from the false: but this discernment pertains formally to the intellect, as choice to the will. Therefore disputation belongs formally to the intellect. But intellectual disputation is not a being of reason but a real one, just as choice in the will. The minor is clear, because that discernment is assent given to truth with dissent from falsehood, just as choice is the relation of one means to the others. These things will be clearer from the third objection.

You will object thirdly that the acts of the intellect can be considered, called defining and dividing; likewise the being of reason is derived thence which is called definition, division etc. The act of the intellect pertains to the science of the soul, but the being of reason to logic. I answer that it is remarkable that Augustine teaches that logic is the art of disputing, and that disputation is the discernment of the true from the false, without remembering this dreamed-up being of reason: but to pull out the fibers of his sentence, I admit that being of reason, and the argument: the precepts of dialectic are immediately about the dividing, defining etc. acts themselves; therefore those acts are the object of dialectic. I prove the antecedent: these precepts, syllogismus in barbara constat tribus propositionibus affirmativis: propositio per se nota est quae cognoscitur ex terminis: dicit de omni, et dici de nullo: these precepts, I say, are about the acts themselves: for a proposition known through itself, likewise an affirmative proposition, likewise saying of every and of no, are acts of the intellect. But who doubts that these are dialectical precepts? For the syllogistic structure, to what faculty does it pertain besides logic?

It is confirmed: from the structure of a house there is also derived, in this view, another being of reason; likewise from the moral disposition of volitions a being of reason is derived: yet neither does the architect contemplate that alone, nor does the moral philosopher: for they contemplate the very disposition and arrangement of the stones, from which a being of reason openly arises: for the precepts of architecture are about the site and shape of the house, which are made formally by the industry of the workmen, which terminates in a real being and not a being of reason. Likewise moral philosophy contemplates the very honesty of acts: by what reason the giving of alms ought to be exercised so that it be honest: therefore by the same reason the dialectician contemplates the very acts of the intellect, from whose disposition that being of reason is feigned to be derived. Indeed the logician does not even partially contemplate that being of reason: for although it is an effect of his primary object, nevertheless there are certain effects that claim no faculty for themselves: for the architect and the moral philosopher do nothing about that being of reason. For although every effect can be known through the faculty by which we deal with its cause, this effect is nevertheless of such bad birth that it is treated by no faculty: which is no obscure argument that it is recent and obscurely born. But ask, I beg you, some architect whether he has known anything about it, and he will think himself mocked by you.

Here I do not wish to pass over the inconstancy of a certain new dialectician: who proves at length that a being of reason cannot be the object of metaphysics: because metaphysics cannot extend itself to an object that is outside the ambit of the object of the intellect: but a being of reason is outside this ambit. Against whom I hurl the argument. Logic attains no object beyond the ambit of the intellect; because the account of logic and of metaphysics is the same: but a being of reason is beyond this ambit: therefore a being of reason cannot be the object of logic. Nothing can be answered to this argument except that it is ineffective in metaphysics. I have proved that in disputation 1 of the Metaphysics, §. 65. That real being is the object of logic will be established more clearly in the following section.