Disputationes metaphysicae

1. I call metaphysical abstracts those which are abstracted from metaphysical concepts, as animality, rationality and the like; and I call them metaphysical abstracts in order to distinguish them from physical ones, such as whiteness, colour, etc., between which there is no doubt that true and proper predications can be made, as whiteness is colour and the like. Of the former terms, then, and of the propositions which are made up of them, as animality is rationality and the like, Scotus, In I, dist. 2, q. 7, and dist. 5, q. 1, and on the predicables, q. 16, thinks that they are false on account of the formal distinction, from the nature of the thing, of the extremes. But Soto, q. 3 on universals, a. 2, says that Scotus differs in this from all the realists; whence he himself thinks the contrary from the opposite foundation, namely because a mere distinction of reason does not suffice for the falsity of the proposition.

2. But not only Scotus, but also other authors think that those expressions are to be denied, not on account of a distinction from the nature of the thing, but on account of the mode of signifying, which, a distinction of reason being adjoined, suffices to make a proposition false when one formal notion precisely conceived is predicated of another distinct notion similarly precisely conceived, which is done in those expressions. Because abstract terms signify precise formal notions; whence, when one is predicated of the other, it is signified that one is the other not only according to the thing, but also according to the prescission of the mind and according to reason, which is false; and in this way Niphus holds this opinion, Metaphysics III, disp. II; and Cajetan, De ente et essentia, c. 4; and St. Thomas indicates it in the same work, cc. 3 and 4; and it can be confirmed, because these abstracts signify the nature after the manner of a part; but one part cannot truly be predicated of another nor of the whole; whence it is commonly wont to be said that even the genus itself, for example animal, if it were taken precisely after the manner of a part, could not truly be predicated of the species, and is only truly predicated in so far as it at least confusedly signifies all that is in the species, or because it adequately signifies that which has such a nature, which is the whole itself; much less, therefore, can those propositions taken in the abstract be verified.

3. But if you object: if predications of this kind can be made in the abstracts of accidents, why not in the abstracts of substances? The answer from Scotus is that these abstracts are of ultimate abstraction, that is, of such abstraction that they cannot be further abstracted or resolved into others more abstract; but the accidents which are signified in the abstract according to common usage, and in which we say that those predications can be made, are not abstracts of ultimate abstraction; for they could be further resolved or abstracted, as if from whiteness whiteness-ness were abstracted, from colour colour-ness; for then in these abstracts too the aforesaid predications cannot be made; for the same cause militates. But it will be said more properly and more formally that the reason of substances and accidents is the same if the abstraction is of the same notion, namely either physical or metaphysical; but that between these the reason is diverse. For through physical abstraction, namely of whiteness from the subject, the essence is not abstracted from the very thing (so to speak) which it constitutes, but the form is abstracted from the subject; and therefore by virtue of such abstraction only universal predication after the manner of property or accident is taken away, because as such such a form cannot be predicated of its subject nor of the composite, because to the former it is compared as a part, to the latter as a thing distinct from it, and it is not signified as existing in it, but as standing per se. Finally, as such it in no way signifies that which has the form, nor does it stand for it, but only for the form itself which it signifies. And similar to this in substances will be if we abstract the form from the composite and signify it abstractly, as the soul from the animate, etc.; for so the abstract will not be able to be predicated of the concrete; but between abstracts predications of superiors of inferiors can be made; for soul is rightly predicated of such a soul. But through another, metaphysical abstraction the essence is abstracted from the entity which it constitutes, and is formally conceived and signified, as when whiteness-ness is said; and therefore in these abstracts true predications cannot be made when the notions conceived are distinct at least according to reason.

4. Among these opinions the last has attained the truth more; yet, in order that we may explain the matter more fully, we can distinguish here four kinds of predications: for, first, the superior and as it were generic abstract can be predicated of the inferior and as it were specific and integral abstract, as when we say: humanity is animality. Secondly, the same generic abstract can be predicated of the abstract not of the species but of the difference alone, which is compared to it as formal to material, as if we say: rationality is animality. Thirdly, conversely, this formal or differential abstract can be predicated of the specific abstract, as in this: humanity is rationality. Fourthly, the same abstract of the difference can be said of the generic or material abstract, as in this: animality is rationality.

5. Beginning, then, from this last predication, it seems to me rigorously false on account of the reasons given; and because those two extremes, as they are precisely and abstractly signified, are in no way so compared that one is formally included in the other; and consequently neither can one express all that the other expresses, neither in act nor in potency, neither explicitly nor confusedly. And although identically animality and rationality are sometimes the same essence, nevertheless this is not signified by that mode of enunciating, but rather it is signified as if the predicate were of the formal and quidditative concept of the subject. Whence an excellent confirmation is taken, because rationality cannot truly be predicated of animality except as its dividing and contracting difference, and so as existing outside its notion; but in that expression it is not predicated as a dividing difference; because the dividing difference, since it is outside the genus, lies beside it and is related after the manner of an accident, and therefore cannot be predicated of it in the abstract, but only in the concrete. On account of which Avicenna rightly said, tract. V of his Metaphysics, c. 6, that rationality, as it is signified in the abstract, is not the difference, but the principle of the difference. And for the same cause I think the third expression is rigorously false, because in it too rationality is not predicated as a difference, because it is not predicated in quale; it is therefore predicated as the whole and integral notion of humanity, and so it makes a false sense. Similarly I think enunciations of the second kind are rigorously false, although in the identical sense they are less indirect than the first; for every essence which is really rationality is also animality, but not conversely.

6. But expressions of the first kind seem able to admit some true sense in all rigour and propriety, although they seem equivocal, and therefore are not to be admitted without distinction. For humanity, since it expresses the integral essence and nature of man, includes in its concept animality and rationality, because all this is of the essence of man. Likewise, because humanity does not express rationality alone, for it includes more in its concept, as is self-evident; for it does not express only the ultimate difference of man, nor only the abstract of the difference, but expresses the form of the whole, which physically includes the whole nature composed of matter and form, and metaphysically all the grades of such a nature. Humanity, therefore, is in truth a certain sensitive nature, and in this it has some agreement and likeness with the nature of the horse and the lion taken in the abstract, for all are an integral principle of sensing; therefore one common concept can be abstracted from all of them, which is generic to them and can be predicated of them and in confusion and in potency expresses all that is found in the individual members; and indeed this concept seems to be signified by that expression, integral or total principle of sensing, which without doubt is truly predicated of all those natures. If, therefore, by the name of animality the same concept is signified and in the same way, that expression will be true. But this signification does not seem foreign to the propriety of that word; because, although that abstract is signified as a part with respect to the concrete, and therefore cannot truly be predicated of it (according to the truer opinion to be treated below in the disputation on the supposit), nevertheless with respect to the total form itself, although it does not formally express its whole notion, it seems able confusedly to signify it whole, or its common concept, as including in potency all its determinations; in this sense, then, that proposition will be true; as this too is true: this humanity of Christ is humanity, and it pertains to the predication of the species of the individual.

7. Nevertheless, on account of the formal signification and prescission of the abstract word, there can be an equivocation in that word animality, so that by it the constitutive notion of animal is signified as prescinded from every inferior; and in this sense the expression would be false, as the arguments made before convince; and therefore that expression is not to be admitted without distinction; and as regards this the reason is not the same of the common physical abstracts of forms or accidents; for, since these by their nature are real and physical forms, when they are signified or conceived in the abstract, they are plainly understood to be abstracted from subjects, but not prescinded from all inferior differences; but the substantial nature is only a metaphysical form and is not properly in a subject, and therefore, when it is conceived and signified in the abstract, it seems to be signified with every prescission even from every contracting difference, according to that saying of Avicenna: horseness is only horseness; although it is not repugnant that it also be signified after the manner of a potential whole with respect to its inferiors, as we have said. But you will ask: if animality can in this sense be conceived as the genus of humanity and of other natures taken in the abstract, why will rationality not have the notion of difference, or what will its difference be? The answer is that, if anyone wishes to define humanity metaphysically, he will easily understand this; for he will not say that humanity is animality rationality; for it would be an incongruous expression, nor would it be a definition, because those two parts are in no way joined among themselves to compose one expression. He will say, then, that humanity is rational animality; rational, therefore, is the difference also of that abstract; because, as I was saying above, the abstract as such cannot be predicated after the manner of a difference, but of genus or species; for it is always predicated in quid; for predication in quale comes about only through connotative or objective terms, which signify the form as informing or lying beside another. And therefore also in accidents, although the genus is predicated in the abstract of the species, the difference will never be said after the manner of an abstract, but of a concrete; for we shall not say that whiteness is colour and the scattering of sight, but colour scattering, or scattering of, sight. But if finally you object that the same difference cannot be of the genus taken in the abstract and in the concrete, the answer is that rational, joined to animal in the concrete and to animality in the abstract, is not attributed to each in the same sense; for in one it signifies to be a nature only rational, but in the other to be a rational supposit.