Ante-Predicaments I: Highest Genera, Being as a Name for Everything, and Equivocal, Univocal and Derived Names

Orientation #

He recalls the question raised in transition from the Isagoge: why species is defined by what is above it (prev. lecture). He says the Categories divides into ante-predicaments, predicaments, post-predicaments, and that next time they will look at “a text” or “a couple of texts of Thomas” distinguishing the highest genera by the “rule of two or three”. The previous class covered Porphyry’s five predicables and the next continues into Categories chapters 1-3.

The class, in order #

1. Division of the Categories (“the anti predicaments, and then the predicaments”) #

The point: the commentators (Thomas etc.) divide the book into three: ante-predicaments, the predicaments (the ten categories, above all substance, how much, quality, towards something), and post-predicaments. The reason for the ante-predicaments is easier to see than the reason for the post-predicaments; the ante-predicaments prepare the way for the ten.

• Aside: the angel in the Easter picture of his old Dominican edition, “why do you seek the living one among the dead?”

2. Recap: the same thing genus and species; relatives (“can be both a genus and a what species”) #

The point: species is defined by what is above it because what is below is ambiguous (individuals under a lowest species like man or circle; species under a higher one like virtue under habit); hence the same thing (virtue) is both genus and species, which does not spoil the distinction.

• Father and son: the same man is both, but “not towards the same what” — so genus and species are relative names.
• Whole and part: New England is a whole to Massachusetts, a part of the United States; his boyhood address from Stanford St., St. Paul, Ramsey County … to the universe.
• Cause and effect: something can be both, not of the same thing. These raise the question: is every cause an effect, every effect a cause? Looking before, causes that are effects of prior causes would “go on forever” — he is rereading Thomas’s exposition of the “fourteen books of wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics], now in book eleven, and in the middle of book twelve expects to find what the first cause is.
• 20th-century physics: relativity led to cosmology looking for a whole that is not a part (Einstein: the universe finite, “Aristotle was right”); quantum theory and elementary particles look for a part that is not a whole (earth-air-fire-water; water made of hydrogen and oxygen; hydrogen of proton and electron; Heisenberg did not think it goes on forever).
• Father and son again: Adam the first father who is not a son (“son of God” being equivocal); there are sons who are not fathers.
• Aside: the man who wandered the city looking at orphans to see if any looked like him.

3. Lowest species and highest genus (“Does every genus have a genus above it”) #

The point: whether we reach a lowest species is for the particular sciences; the Categories asks the other direction, whether there is a highest genus.

• Lowest species: circle (all circles have the same shape, differing only in size); equilateral triangle perhaps, isosceles not (many shapes) — for geometry; whether dog is a lowest species — for the zoologist.
• Aristotle’s answer: not every genus has a genus above it; there must be a highest genus or highest genera.

4. First reason: there are names said of all (“names don’t get more universal at infinity”) #

1. A genus is said of more things than its species.
2. If every genus had a genus above it, there would always be a name said of more things than any given name.
3. But there are names said of all — the “transcendentals” (a “terrible name”; he calls them “the set of alls”, about six of them; Thomas explains them where he treats truth, Aristotle says goodness is in all the genera). Chief is “being”: being means what is, said of anything that is in any way; nothing can be something that is not a being. Conclusion: names do not keep getting more universal forever; there is either one highest genus or many. Is one name said of all enough to conclude one genus of all? Go back to the five-part definition of genus: a name said with one meaning of many things other in kind, signifying what each is (he told Monsignor Dion Porphyry should have said “with one meaning”; Dion agreed). So the question is whether being (or “something”) is said with one meaning of all; if not, there must be many highest genera.

• Aristotle shows in many places in the fourteen books that being is not said with one meaning. Examples: “how many are coming to dinner? — Duane Berquist and the shape of Duane Berquist”: Berquist and Father Michael are two things (“you are something else”), but Berquist and his shape, health, knowledge, size are not two things in that way, though “in some sense there’s two things there” (his 19 grandchildren growing taller, “but it’s still Sophia”). “If you leave this room today, you will cease to be”: in court, “cease to be in the room” is not ceasing to be except in a particular sense.

5. Second reason: genus not in the definition of the difference (“being can’t be a genus said of all”) #

1. The genus is not in the definition of the difference (otherwise the genus would be in the definition twice).
2. But being must be part of the understanding of everything, including every difference. Conclusion: being cannot be a genus; therefore, rightly, many highest genera. Aristotle will enumerate and exemplify them in the ante-predicaments; Thomas distinguishes them by the “rule of two or three” (next time).

• Being seated: “a very strange kind of something”; I do the sitting, the sitting does not sit; I am the fundamental something, sitting is minor — so “something” is not said of me and my sitting the same way.

6. Third reason: knowledge could not begin (“How many genera would you have to know”) #

1. If every genus had a genus above it, to know what anything is you would have to know an endless series of genera first; you could not begin.
2. Parallel: if every statement were known through other statements (A through B, B through C …), no statement would be known — not even “every statement is known through other statements”; so some statements must be known through themselves.
3. Likewise definition: a definition is by genus and difference; if every genus had a genus, you could never begin to define; but we do know what some things are by definition. Conclusion: not every genus has a genus; there is a highest genus or many — and not one, because the names said of all are not said with one meaning.

7. Categories ch. 1, homonyma (“Things named what? Equivocally”) #

He reads the Greek: homonyma, of which only the name is common, but the logos of the ousia according to the name is other; example zoon said of a man and of the painting (or statue) of a man. If one gives what it is for each to be an animal, one gives a different account for each.

• Lafayette returning to America after Washington’s death: at other statues “that’s not really Washington”; at the Virginia statue “That’s Washington” — not Washington in the sense of flesh and blood. Why does Aristotle start with the equivocal? The names said of all the highest genera (being) are equivocal — but equivocal by reason, not by chance. His guardian angel’s thought: a name equivocal by chance (Richard: his student, his oldest brother, his grandfather, the package-store manager — “somebody line you up and say these guys all got the same shaped nose”?) is not extended to everything; if a name is said of all, there must be a connection among the meanings. “Very orderly this guy Aristotle.”

8. Synonyma (“things are univocally named”) #

Synonyma: name common and the logos tes ousias according to the name “the same” (autos); example zoon of man and ox. This is how the highest genera are said of what is below them: univocally, all the way down.

• Etymology: zoon from life, Latin animal from anima (soul, the source of life in a living body) — the animal is named from life because life is manifest in it, hidden in plants. Eve’s name in Greek is Zoe (from the Hebrew, whence “Eva”); Charles DeKoninck’s wife was Zoe, twelve children.
• autos: automobile, self-moving; farmers looking under the hood for the horse; a horse-drawn carriage is not an automobile.

9. Paronyma / denomination (“Berquist is a logician”) #

Paronyma (translated “derivatively”; better the Latin denomination): named from something but differing in ending — grammatical from grammar, courageous from courage. Its place: a name in one highest genus (quality: geometry, health, courage, justice) said of the first genus, substance, only denominatively. “Berquist is health/geometry/justice” — no; Berquist is healthy, a geometer, just, temperate, courageous. To say “I am justice” would mean “I have justice”; denominative words could also be translated “I have this”: the knowledge of triangles exists only in me and cannot be put beside me, yet I am not it, I am a man.

• Figurative speech: Euclid is geometry, Aristotle is philosophy, Mozart is music (properly a musician); Mary holy, not holiness — yet she says “I am the immaculate conception”, for a special reason; “Hillary is deception” — properly a liar; the doctor said “very healthy for my age”, not health itself (“if I was health itself I could never be sick”); granddaughter Grace, “the graceful one”.
• Summary of the order: names said of all (equivocal by reason), each highest genus of what is below (univocal), then sideways from one genus to another (denominative). Logic is very abstract, “greatest difficulty, Thomas says”, yet Aristotle follows the natural road, going through words first — like the senses of “before”, where the third sense is order in the discourse of reason.

10. “Have” and “in” (“have seems to have as many meanings as the word in”) #

The point: “have” (a post-predicament) runs all through logic: a thing has a name, has a definition; a genus has species, a species has a genus — not in the same sense. Aristotle in the fifth book of wisdom: have has as many meanings as in; so distinguish senses of have from the eight senses of in, “and that would just be the beginning”.

• His list of senses of in: (1) in a place, a room; (2) part in a whole — teeth in my mouth (grandma’s false teeth aside); (3) genus in species; (4) species in genus; (5) form in matter; (6) whole in its parts; then active ability, “I have you in my power”. Corresponding haves: species has genus (3), genus has species (4), wood/marble has a shape (5), I have a car/house/books/money — is that the same sense as “I have knowledge, I have health”? Substance has accidents, which exist in substance.
• “Before” likewise: genus before species, substance before accident, thought before word, genus before difference in definition.
• Haver and had are distinct: genus and species; me and my house; even me and my health — composition in me. But God “has mercy”, “has knowledge of me”: no real distinction; our way of speaking, appropriate to creatures, is inadequate to God, so we say God is whatever He has. Christ: “I am the way” (as man), “the truth and the life” (no difference between God and His life, truth). Thomas in both Summas: first that God is good, then that He is goodness itself (by simplicity) — for us goodness names that by which we are good, something we have, not what we are; third, nothing bad in God; then (from Augustine) God is the good of every good; and the summum bonum — four in the Summa Theologiae, five in the Contra Gentiles (his favourite book, the big-print Oxford edition). Church fathers: the mind “stutters” speaking of God.
• Aside: Warren Murray, “people put up with you because of your mind”; he is not goodness itself.

11. Closing summary and turn to chapter two (“Now we come to what they call the second chapter”) #

Chapter one is three ways of naming — equivocal, univocal, denominative — relevant to the categories: overarching, equivocal by reason; straight down each genus, univocal; from one genus to another, denominative (virtue and vice, species of habit, species of quality: of a man we say virtuous or vicious). The recording ends as he begins chapter two.

His words #

• ante-predicaments / predicaments / post-predicaments: the three-part division of the Categories (Latin praedicamenta for categories).
• lowest species: a species with only individuals below it (man, circle).
• “the set of alls”: his name for the transcendentals, names said of all, about six of them.
• being: “what is”, said of anything that is in any way.
• genus (five parts): a name said with one meaning of many things other in kind, signifying what each is.
• “fourteen books of wisdom”: Aristotle’s Metaphysics [ed.: Metaphysics].
• homonyma: equivocally named, name common, logos of the ousia other.
• synonyma: univocally named, name and logos tes ousias the same (autos).
• equivocal by chance vs. equivocal by reason: Richard vs. being.
• paronyma: denomination (Latin), preferred to “derivatively”; named from something, differing in ending.
• have: one of the post-predicaments; as many meanings as “in”.
• “the rule of two or three”: Thomas’s way of distinguishing the highest genera (to be seen next time).

Texts #

Read in class

• Aristotle, Categories, ch. 1 (homonyma, synonyma, paronyma, in the Greek). Mentioned
• Porphyry, Isagoge, definitions of genus and species (prev. lecture).
• Aristotle, Metaphysics (“fourteen books of wisdom”), bks. 11-12 (first cause), many places on being not said with one meaning; bk. 5 on “have” and the senses of “in”.
• Thomas, exposition of the Metaphysics.
• Thomas on truth and the transcendentals (De Trinitate / De Veritate — he corrects himself, uncertain).
• Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles and Summa Theologiae, chapters on God good, goodness itself, nothing bad in God, good of every good, summum bonum (no locus stated).
• Augustine, “God is the good of every good”.
• Scripture: the angel at the tomb; “I am the way, the truth and the life”; Eve/Zoe.

His questions #

• Why does Porphyry define species by what is above it? Because what is below it is ambiguous — individuals or further species.
• Can the same thing be both a genus and a species? Yes, not towards the same thing, as one man is father and son.
• Is every cause an effect and every effect a cause? Every whole a part, every part a whole? Left open here (first cause awaited in Metaphysics 12; physics looks both ways).
• Does every genus have a genus above it? No: names said of all show genera cannot rise forever; and knowledge/definition could not begin.
• Is one name said of all enough to conclude one highest genus? No: being is not said with one meaning, and cannot be a genus; hence many highest genera.
• Are Berquist and the shape of Berquist one thing or two? Not two as Berquist and Father Michael are, yet in some sense two — being said in different ways.
• If a name is equivocal by chance, would it be said of everything? No; a name said of all must be equivocal by reason.
• Do you say Berquist is health, or geometry? No — healthy, a geometer: denominatively, i.e. he has it.
• When a genus has species and a species has a genus, does “have” mean the same? No; senses of have follow the senses of in.
• Does God have knowledge of me, and is there a real distinction? Yes He has; no distinction — God is whatever He has.