Names Carried Over: Dropping Meaning and Ratios, Analogy, Metaphor in Scripture and Poetry, and Examples

Orientation #

He opens mid-stream with “the other way that a name becomes equivocal,” continuing the treatment of names equivocal by reason (prev. lecture), and near the end says “that concludes the first part of the art of definition about names.” He does not name next time’s subject. The previous class covered the five figures of naming and the first way a common name divides; the next takes up definition of the thing.

The class, in order #

1. Two ways a name is carried over (“by being carried over from one thing”) #

The point: besides the way already treated, a name becomes equivocal by reason by being carried over, and this happens either by dropping part of the meaning (generalizing) or by ratios.

2. Passio / undergoing: the famous example of dropping meaning (“the word suffering in English is stuck”) #

The point: passio / pathos moves from a bad meaning to a good one by successively dropping parts of the original meaning.

1. Original sense of suffering: (a) acted upon by something, (b) changed by it, (c) changed for the worse — e.g. the passion of our Lord; “he’s undergone a lot,” “under the weather.” English “suffering” is stuck at this first meaning; “undergo” is the best English word to follow the movement.
2. Drop (c): clay sphere molded into a cube is acted upon and changed, but not for the worse — “not real suffering.”
3. Sensing. Abilities of the soul are distinguished by their acts (eye and ear by seeing and hearing), acts by their objects (color and sound); a fundamental division: does the object act on the power or the power on the object? Digestion: the power acts on the food. Seeing and hearing: color and sound act on eye and ear. So sensing is an undergoing, yet not a suffering but a fulfilling, a perfecting of the organ. Boundary: because the sense is a body organ, too bright or too loud an object can still harm it.
4. Reason. The object acts on it, but here every trace of suffering is gone: (De Anima comparison) a very loud sound leaves you deaf for a while, a very bright thing blinds, but understanding something very understandable makes other things more understandable. Even the idea of change drops out — coming to understand is being fulfilled, not changed. Conclusion: the word moves from something bad to something not merely free of bad but a being perfected. Why the first meaning is bad: it is the most sensible, and knowledge begins with the senses. A pin stuck in you makes you aware of being acted upon; seeing and hearing me does not, because it is pleasant; a light in your face or a shout in your ear makes you aware again, because contrary to your nature. “We name things as we know them.” People speak of the room’s temperature only when it is too hot or too cold for the body.

• Aside: Gabriel Marcel’s passage criticizing Sartre — for Sartre all being acted upon is bad, the other imposing itself (“hell is the others”); he is “stuck on that first meaning,” which destroys friendship, parents, teacher and student.
• Aside: Professor Richards; the student who resents being made to read Shakespeare or take music appreciation — “why are you inflicting this upon me?”

3. Further cases of dropping part of the meaning (“you’ve dropped part of the meaning”) #

The point: several logical and literary terms are carried over the same way.

• Genus/difference: defined as a name said with one meaning of many things of one kind, signifying what it is; yet Aristotle, Plato and Thomas will call a name said equivocally by reason “something as a genus” — part of the meaning kept, not every part.
• Property: in the full sense, what follows on a nature and belongs to only one species, to every member, always (“half of four” of two). “Less than ten” is called a property of two too (every two, always) but “only” is dropped; not by chance we still say property.
• Looking defined as “trying to see”: since “to see” means the act of the eye, imagining, or understanding, looking has three meanings — in a way three definitions, in another way one, since it can be stated in one word; the genus or difference in a strict definition has just one meaning.
• Tragedy: Othello and King Lear do not knowingly choose evil, so their downfall is more pitiful; Macbeth and Richard III knowingly choose it (“a monster”), so some deny they are tragedies — yet they keep something of tragedy, a serious work, not purely equivocal.
• Divine Comedy: comedy originally a likeness of the laughable, going from misery toward happiness; Dante’s poem is not a likeness of the laughable, but it goes from Inferno to Paradiso, so not called comedy by chance. One letter of Dante explains the title (its authenticity is disputed); most readers find the name odd at first.

4. Carrying over by ratios: three ways and a box (“the order relation of one thing to another”) #

The point: a ratio is the order or relation of one thing to another; a name is carried over by ratios in three ways, two other combinations being excluded.

1. Ratio of the second to the first. De Trinitate: logic is not part of speculative (“looking”) philosophy but its tool; called philosophy not as knowledge pursued out of wonder but as the tool for acquiring it. Thomas, SCG: being is said first of substance, of quantity as the measure or size of substance. Aristotle: healthy said first of the body, then of diet (preserves health), exercise, complexion (a sign of health).
2. Other ratios to the same thing. SCG, same text: being said of quantity and quality does not mean the same, yet not by chance — quantity is the measure of substance, quality its disposition.
3. Like ratios to other things. “Before”: before in being and before in our knowledge — as this can be without that and not vice versa, so this can be known without that and not vice versa. Four terms; a likeness of ratios. Excluded: same ratio to the same thing is univocal (Paul and Marcus are both son of me); other ratios to other things have nothing in common (Paul is my son, two is half of four). “So you can make a box.” Aristotle’s famous example in Metaphysics IV is healthy (other ratios to health). The third way is what Greek analogia originally meant: logos = ratio, analogous = likeness of ratios, Euclid’s “proportion.” Unfortunately proportion has come to mean also a single ratio, so one has to say “proportionality”; better keep ratio for the order of one thing to another and proportion for the likeness of ratios, with four terms. Calling names equivocal by reason “analogous” names them from “a part of a part of a part,” which gives too narrow a notion. Range of the whole: the first kind (from the previous class) is almost univocal — “in some sense I am an animal, in another sense I am not,” so some equivocation, but very close to univocal; this last kind is so far off it is hard to tell from metaphor, and at philosophical conferences “they often call this metaphor.”

5. Equivocal by reason vs. metaphor (“carrying over the name, but not the meaning”) #

The point: the boundary with metaphor lies in the distance of the likeness.

• “To see” for eye, imagination, understanding: equivocal by reason (likeness of ratios). Gregory the Great, “anger disturbs the eye of the soul”: more like metaphor. Seeing is more material and lends itself to meaning understanding; the eye is a physical structure in no way like reason, which is not bodily.
• Etymology: metaphora and translatio both mean “carried over” (meta/trans over, phora/latio carried); Thomas speaks of translatio nominis. In English, metaphor carries over the name not the meaning, translation the meaning not the name.
• When the meaning gets “a tremendous distance” away we speak of metaphor: Shakespeare’s waves toward the pebbled shore and our minutes hastening to their end is a beautiful proportion, but we would not call minutes “waves” (“got five waves and I got to go”).

6. Why scripture uses metaphor, and what the poet does (“in a sense, it’s just the reverse”) #

The point: Thomas asks whether sacred scripture should use metaphors; the objection is that metaphor belongs to the poet, lowest as far as the mind is concerned — why should the highest use the lowest? His answer as given: in one way the same reason, in another exactly the reverse. Common: the thing is not proportioned to our mind. Poet: takes what in itself is not understandable and raises it, makes it more understandable than it is. Scripture: takes what is above our mind, too bright, and brings it down. Dante’s Paradiso does what scripture does, not what fiction characteristically does.

• Scripture’s banquet for the beatific vision (Psalms; Christ eating at his Father’s table); daily speech “food for thought” — food, the object of the plant power and first object treated in the soul, carried to the mind.
• Shakespeare gives the minutes more being than they have: on the shore two or three waves already exist, but the next minutes do not yet — bringing down as God, “I am who am,” has more being.
• Iliad: perhaps a pirate raid on the coast of Asia Minor; Homer makes it an image of human life, giving the insignificant great significance.
• Titian’s portraits capture a whole character in one expression, whereas no single expression of a friend’s face does, which is why people dislike their photographs.
• Fr Philip Hughes on the Reformation, the interim of 1555 in Germany: the historian sees the end of an age that the actors did not see; the poet puts events into beginning, middle and end, an order and intelligibility our chopped-up life lacks. Lear and Hamlet are more sharply drawn than people we know.
• Mozart raises commonplace, almost ridiculous operatic situations, a domestic squabble, so they seem filled with meaning and mystery.
• Who uses metaphor: the theologian, scripture, the poet, the rhetorician (less); the philosopher hardly at all, but is very much concerned with names equivocal by reason, “especially in wisdom” (the word “before” taken from the Categories). National Review’s “stormy weather ahead”: metaphor appealing to imagination. Greek philosophers use examples to make a thing clear; moderns give examples that appeal to imagination and get carried away. Cassirer: students remember the story, not the point — because our senses are of singulars. Parables are an extended metaphor.
• Aside: the English department head whose talk praising John Dewey was, they realized after he left, tearing him apart — irony that is “not very effective.”

7. One member keeps the common name, the other gets a new one: examples from the three acts (“keep the common name and this get a new name”) #

The point: closing the first part of the art of definition, he illustrates from logic the division where one part adds something or falls short.

• Peri Hermeneias: statement divided into noun and verb, both names (finite). Greek and Latin have no separate word for name and noun (onoma/rhema, nomen/verbum), so Ammonius Hermaeus — perhaps once a teacher of Boethius, whose commentary Thomas follows closely and even borrows examples from, Thomas’s commentary reportedly breaking off where a medieval translation of Ammonius breaks off — must keep explaining whether onoma is used as opposed to verb or as common to both. English is richer with “noun.” Why the verb gets the new name: both are vocal sounds signifying by agreement, no part signifying by itself, but the verb signifies with time, the noun without; the verb adds, the noun is negative and keeps the old name. “Very, very interesting example.”
• Categories: disposition divided into disposition and habit; habit adds firmness (stable, not easily lost: a just man does not become a thief today, nor a jailed criminal just tomorrow); an unfirm disposition keeps the name — “ill disposed,” mood, changed by a joke; “attitude readjustment” cocktail hours.
• Physics: doing and making; “extremely important” for ethics, where practical reason has two virtues, prudence (foresight) = right reason about doing, art = right reason about making. Making is a doing, so doing is divided into doing and making; making gets the new name because a product remains (the chair) — not more perfect (doing is the more perfect activity), but standing out by its exterior product.
• Third act: syllogism divided into syllogism and enthymeme (also “rhetorical syllogism”). Enthymeme is to syllogism as boy to man: it falls short of the complete universality a syllogism needs in a premise (“no odd number is even,” “every mother is a woman”), proceeding from likelihood (“boys will be boys”; politicians say what gets them elected — the man who would “rather be right than president,” and the historian’s “probably some guy who didn’t have a chance”) or from signs more universal than what they signify (staggering out of a bar; his wife’s brain-injury patients taken for drunk). It gets its own name; syllogism keeps the common one; induction the same way. A quotation attributed to Cicero here is [unclear in recording].
• Poet: Greek simply “maker” (poiein); among all makers he is the maker; Aristotle calls Homer “the poet” — antonomasia.

8. Two figures of speech in one phrase (“The White House announced today”) #

The point: a phrase may carry two figures at once.

• “The White House announced”: antonomasia (the president’s house among all white houses) plus metonymy (the man for the house, container for contained).
• Same metonymy in “a glass of water,” “a cup of tea,” “let this chalice pass from me”; the words of consecration say “this is my body” but “the cup/chalice of my blood.”
• Pharaoh originally the palace; the Pentagon (a building, the men are not pentagon-shaped), the Vatican, “Rome has spoken, case is closed”; Urbi et Orbi, the city = Rome; in Northern California “the city” = San Francisco.

9. Digression on the categories: position, when, acting/undergoing (“time already involves the idea of before and after”) #

The point: how position and “when” differ, and why acting upon and undergoing bring in something outside.

• Position: falling with a parachute my body is intrinsically the same as now, yet I am not standing; standing requires something outside (the floor) toward which the parts are arranged; lying down orders the parts differently; standing on a chair is still standing. “In this room” says nothing of how parts are arranged.
• Thomas: time already includes before and after and order, so there is no further category corresponding to time; definition of time: number of motion according to before and after. Hence Aristotle’s first central meaning of “before” is before in time, before in place being led back to it.
• Acting upon and undergoing (Latin actio, passio; he prefers “acting upon” and “being acted upon”): kicking / being kicked; fire heating water / water being heated. “Fire is hot,” “water is warm” are qualities in the thing; “heating,” “being heated” bring in something outside.
• One always divides into two or three: the Ten Commandments — two tablets, three and seven; affirmative and negative; deeds (kill, adultery, steal), words (false testimony), desires (covet) — recording breaks off here.

His words #

• carried over: how a name becomes equivocal by reason, either by dropping part of its meaning or by ratios [ed.: translatio nominis].
• undergo / undergoing: his English for passio, pathos; “acting upon” for actio.
• ability: [ed.: potency, power] of the soul, distinguished by acts and objects.
• looking philosophy: [ed.: speculative philosophy].
• ratio: the order or relation of one thing to another.
• proportion: likeness of ratios, four terms; he regrets its second use for a single ratio.
• analogous: originally a likeness of ratios; naming equivocal by reason is called “analogous” from a part of a part of a part.
• name equivocal by reason: the whole range from almost-univocal to almost-metaphor [ed.: analogous name].
• metaphor: Greek for “carried over”; carrying over the name when the meaning is at a tremendous distance.
• foresight: [ed.: prudentia], right reason about doing; art, right reason about making.
• habit: a firm disposition; mood as his example of a non-firm disposition.
• enthymeme: rhetorical syllogism, from likelihoods or signs, lacking complete universality.
• antonomasia, metonymy: as used of “the White House.”

Texts #

Read in class (commented, not read verbatim)

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, on being said of substance, quantity and quality (locus not stated)
• Thomas Aquinas, whether sacred scripture should use metaphors, objection and reply (ST I q.1 a.9, inferred)
• Aristotle, Peri Hermeneias, division of the statement into noun and verb Mentioned
• Aristotle, De Anima (loud sound / very understandable); Metaphysics IV (healthy); Categories (before; disposition and habit; position); Physics (doing and making; time)
• De Trinitate (as heard) on logic and speculative philosophy
• Euclid, proportion as likeness of ratios
• Ammonius Hermaeus and Thomas, commentaries on Peri Hermeneias
• Gregory the Great, “anger disturbs the eye of the soul”
• Shakespeare: Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Richard III, Hamlet; the “waves … pebbled shore” lines
• Dante, Divine Comedy, and his letter on the title; Homer, Iliad
• Gabriel Marcel on Sartre; Philip Hughes on the Reformation; Titian; Mozart; National Review

His questions #

• Would you say your understanding something is a form of suffering? No — “suffering” has not been moved that way; “undergo” is the better word.
• Is my eye acting upon color, or color acting upon the eye? The latter: sensing is an undergoing.
• Is seeing or hearing a suffering, or a fulfilling of the eye and ear? A perfecting; only an excessive object harms the bodily organ.
• Is it purely by chance that we call “less than ten” a property of two? No — part of the meaning (“only”) is dropped.
• Is logic philosophy in the sense of knowledge pursued out of wonder? Not at all; it is called philosophy as the tool for acquiring such knowledge.
• Is “son” said of Paul and Marcus univocally? Yes — same ratio to the same thing.
• Why does the verb get a new name while the noun keeps the common name? The verb adds signifying with time; the noun adds nothing.
• Why does making get the new name and doing keep it? Making has an exterior product that stands out, though doing is the more perfect activity.
• How many figures of speech in “The White House announced today”? Two: antonomasia and metonymy.
• Am I standing while falling with a parachute? No — standing requires parts ordered to something outside, the floor.