Ordinatio

Argument is made against this univocity of being [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.28 q.3, a26 q.2, a.21 q.2 ad 2]: Through the Philosopher Metaphysics 3.10.998b22-24, because, according to him there, being is not a genus, because then, according to him in the same place, difference would not be per se being; but if being were something common said in the ‘what’ of several things differing in species, it would seem to be a genus.¹

Also the same [Aristotle] in Metaphysics 4, at the beginning [4.2.1003a23-35, b11-14], maintains that being is said of beings as healthy is said of things healthy, and that metaphysics is one science, not because everything it is about is said ‘according to one thing’ but ‘with reference to one thing’, namely not univocally but analogically. Therefore, the subject of metaphysics is not univocal but analogical.

Also the same [Aristotle], Metaphysics 7.1. …18-20, 4.1030a23-27, b2-3, says that accidents are beings only because they are of being, as logicians say that ‘not-being is’ and ‘the not-knowable is knowable’, and as a vase is said to be ‘healthy’. In all these examples there is no univocity of that which is said of many things.

And Porphyry, Book of Predicables 3, “If someone call all things beings, he will be naming them,” he says, “equivocally.”

Again, Physics 1.2.185a20-21, against Parmenides and Melissus, “The beginning is that being is said in many ways.” And he [Aristotle] argues that if all things are one being, then either this one being or that, which would not follow if being were univocal, just as this does not follow: every man is one man, therefore he is this one man or that one man.²

Again by reason: if being were univocal to the ten categories, then it would descend into them through some differences. So let a and b be two such differences: either then these two include being, and then in the concept of any most general genus trifling repetition is included; or these are not beings, and then non-being will belong to the understanding of being.³

To the first argument [n.152]. Although it is not necessary that the arguments of Metaphysics 3 assert what they conclude, because the Philosopher is intending there to argue to opposite sides of the questions he is disputing (as he himself says by way of preface in the introduction, 3.1.995a24-b4); yet two opposite conclusions cannot be reached unless one or other argument is sophistical (hence his Commentator [Averroes, Metaphysics 3 com.3] says that, in the first argument for the first question there disputed, there is a fallacy of the consequent: ‘if contraries belong to the same science, then non-contraries do not belong to the same science’⁴), – although this argument too [n.152] one should specifically not hold to be conclusive. For he infers in the same place [Metaphysics 2.3.998b26-27], “wherefore if ‘one’ or ‘being’ is a genus, no difference will be either ‘one’ or ‘being’,” (I ask, either he intends to infer that the difference ‘being’ or ‘one’ will not be per se in the first mode, and thus is the conclusion not unacceptable as far as ‘one’ is concerned; or he intends to infer the negative absolutely, and then the consequence is not valid; for it is not the case, if ‘rational’ is a difference with respect to ‘animal’, that it follows that ‘rational is not animal’ but that ‘it is not per se animal in the first mode’) – yet when holding that this argument [n.152] is valid, it proves rather the opposite than the conclusion intended. For it removes from being the idea of genus, not because of equivocation (on the contrary, if being were equivocal to the ten genera, there would be ten genera, because the same concept, by whatever name it be signified, has the same idea of genus), but it removes the idea of genus from being because of being’s excessive commonness,⁵ namely because it is predicated of difference in the first mode per se, and from this could be concluded that being is not a genus.

And to see how this is be true [sc. supra n.158: “it removes the idea of genus from being because of being’s excessive commonness”] – although however it was said before [nn.131-133] that being is not predicated of ultimate differences per se in the first mode – I draw a distinction in the case of differences, that some difference can be taken from the ultimate essential part, which is a different thing and a different nature from that from which the concept of genus is taken, just as if a plurality of forms be posited and genus be said to be taken from the prior essential part, and specific difference from the ultimate form. Then, just as being is said in the ‘what’ of the essential part from which such specific difference is taken, so is it said in the ‘what’ of such difference in the abstract, such that, just as this is said in the ‘what’: ‘the intellective soul is a being’ (taking the same concept of being according to which it is said of man or of whiteness), so is this in the ‘what’: ‘rationality is a being’, if ‘rationality’ is such a difference. But no such difference is ultimate, because in such difference are contained many realities in some way distinct (with the sort of distinction or non-identity that I said in the first question of the second distinction exist between essence and personal property [Ord. I d.2 nn.388-410] – or a greater distinction, as will be explained elsewhere [Ord. II d.1 q.4 n.25, a.6 n.5, IV d.11 p.1 a.2 q.1 n.54]). And then such a nature can be conceived in a certain respect, that is, in respect of some reality and perfection, and in a certain respect not known – and therefore a concept of such a nature is not simply simple [n.147]. But the ultimate reality or real perfection of such a nature (from which ultimate reality the ultimate difference is taken) is simply simple; this reality does not include being quidditatively but has a concept simply simple. Hence if such a reality be a, this statement ‘a is a being’ is not in the ‘what’, but is per accidens, and this whether a state the reality or the difference in the abstract that is taken from such reality.

Therefore did I say before [nn.133, 150] that no difference simply ultimate includes being quidditatively, because it is simply simple. But some difference, taken from an essential part (which part is the nature in the thing, different from the nature from which genus is taken) – that difference is not simply simple and it does include being in the ‘what’. And from this fact, that such a difference is a being in the ‘what’, it follows that being is not a genus, because of the excessive commonness of being. For no genus is said of any inferior difference in the ‘what’, nor of the difference that is taken from the form, nor of the difference that is taken from the ultimate reality of the form (as will be plain in Ord. d.8 p.1 q.3 nn.16, 14); for always that from which the concept of genus is taken is in itself potential with respect to the reality from which the concept of the difference is taken – or with respect to the form if the difference be taken from the form.

And if you argue against this [Averroes, Metaphysics IV com.3] that, if ‘rational’ includes being quidditatively, and if any like difference does (which, namely, is taken from an essential part, not from the ultimate reality of it), then, by adding such difference to the genus, there will be trifling repetition because ‘being’ will be said twice⁶ – I reply that when two things inferior to a third are so related that one denominates the other [e.g. ‘white animal’], the term common to them in particular [‘being’] denominates itself. Just as ‘whiteness’, which is inferior to being, denominates ‘animal’, which is inferior to being, and therefore, just as this statement ‘the animal is white’ is denominative [‘white’ denominated from ‘whiteness’], so ‘being’, which is superior to ‘white’, can denominate ‘animal’ [sc. as in ‘the animal is being-al’⁷], or denominate being taken particularly for animal [sc. as in ‘the animal-being is being-al’]. For example, if the denominative were ‘being-al’, this proposition would be true ‘some being is being-al’. And just as I concede an accidental denomination there without trifling repetition – nor yet does the same thing, conceived in the same way, altogether denominate itself [sc. ‘being is being-al’ is not trifling repetition nor is ‘being’ altogether the same, or conceived in the same way, as ‘being-al’] – so here with ‘rational animal’. For in ‘animal’ being is included quidditatively [sc. ‘animal-being’] and in ‘rational’ being is included denominatively [sc. ‘rational-being-al’]; and just as ‘rationality’ is a being, so ‘rational’ is denominated by being. So there would be trifling repetition here, ‘rationality animal’ [= ‘rational-being animal-being’], not here, ‘rational animal’ [= ‘rational-being-al animal-being’]; just as there would be here, ‘whiteness animal’ [= ‘white-being animal-being’], not here, ‘white animal’ [‘white-being-al animal-being’].

To the other thing [n.153] that is said about Metaphysics 4, I say that the Philosopher in Metaphysics 10.2.1054a9-11 concedes that there is an essential order among species of the same genus, because he maintains there that in a genus there is one first that is the measure of the others. Now things measured have an essential order to the measure, and yet, notwithstanding such attribution, everyone would concede that the concept of a genus is one, otherwise the genus would not be predicated in the ‘what’ of several things differing in species. For if the genus did not have one concept, different from the concepts of the species, no concept would be said of many things in the ‘what’, but each concept would only be said of itself, and then nothing would be predicated as genus of a species, but as the same of the same.

Similarly, the Philosopher in Physics 7.4.249a22-23 says that ‘equivocations are latent in a genus’, because of which there cannot be comparison according to genus. However, there is no equivocation as far as the logician is concerned, who posits diverse concepts, but there is equivocation as far as the philosopher is concerned, because there is no unity of nature there. So therefore to all the authorities that there might be on the Metaphysics and Physics, which would be on this subject, could an exposition be given because of the real diversity of the things that there is attribution in, with which, however, there stands a unity of concept abstractable from them, as was plain in the example [n.162]. – I concede then that the whole of what accident is has an essential attribution to substance, and yet from this and from that one can a common concept be abstracted [n.145].

To what was said from Metaphysics 7 [n.154] I reply that the literal text of the final paragraph on that material solves all the authorities from the Philosopher (the text which begins there ‘But clearly that…’, 4.1030b4-12). For the Philosopher says there that “what is first and simply definition and the ‘what it was to be’ belongs to substances; and not only to them but to other things does it belong simply, yet not first.” And he proves it there, because the idea that signifies the ‘what’ of the name is the definition [n.16], if that of which the idea is per se is per se one. “But ‘one’ is said as being also is said,” and understand ‘per se being’; and “per se being, this one indeed, signifies ‘this something’, and another signifies quantity, and another quality” – which is true of ‘being per se’, because in Metaphysics 5.7.1017a22-27 he divided ‘being per se’ into the ten categories: so each of them is one per se, and so the idea of them is a definition. And he concludes this there, “For which reason there will be an idea and definition of man, and in another way as of white and of substance” – because of substance per se and first, of white simply and per se but not first, of white man in a certain respect and per accidens. Hence in that chapter he treats principally of such ‘being per accidens’, of which sort is ‘white man’, because there is of it no definition. ‘Being’, therefore, or ‘what’ or ‘has a definition’, and any of these, is simply said of accident or of attributes as also of substance, but not equally first. And notwithstanding the ordering, there can well be univocity.

As to Porphyry [n.155], he himself adduces someone else, saying “he speaks equivocally.” Who ‘speaks’? Aristotle, of course, about whom Porphyry is speaking. A place where Aristotle said this is not found in the Logic. In the Metaphysics he says it, as has already been adduced and expounded [n.164]. If someone want to treat of Porphyry’s authority – how his argument from the authority of Aristotle is of value for his purpose – it could be expounded, but I do not wish to dwell on it.

As to what is argued about Physics 1 [n.156], I reply: for destroying the opinion of Parmenides and Melissus [sc. the opinion that everything is one] “the beginning” is to accept that being is said ‘in many ways’, not ‘equivocally’, but ‘in many ways’, that is, ‘about many things’. One must inquire which of these things they mean. Just as, if they were to say ‘everything is one animal’, it would be against them to distinguish ‘animal’ and to ask which animal they mean, either that all animals are “one man or one horse” [Physics 1.2.185a24]. Again, when you say the argument of the Philosopher would not be valid against them if being were univocal, I reply that the consequence [‘either this one man or that one man’, n.156], when descent is made under a predicate standing for [its instances] only confusedly, does not hold formally, but there is [a fallacy of] figure of speech and a fallacy of the consequent.⁸ Yet if they did mean, as the Philosopher imputes to them, that ‘all things are one’ not speaking of ‘one’ confusedly but of some determinate one thing, then on the antecedent so understood [‘if all things are one being’] it does indeed follow that everything is this one thing or that one thing.⁹