First and Second Substance, and How Words Take On Related Meanings (Analogy vs. Equivocation by Reason)

Orientation #

He refers back to “that other text from Thomas” on four senses of substance read “last time”, and to the distinction of names equivocal by reason he says he explained before (prev. lecture). He does not say what comes next. The previous class worked the antepredicaments and the mechanisms of equivocation by reason; the next continues the chapter on substance with its listed properties.

The class, in order #

1. Where would you put your guardian angel? (“the eight senses of in”) #

Point: “putting” something in a category uses the first sense of in, place; the senses of in and of have correspond.

• Aristotle, fourth book of Natural Hearing [ed.: Physics IV]: first meaning of in is in place. Thomas orders the eight senses following Aristotle: place, then what is most like it, part in whole, then species in genus, then genus in species (universal whole), then form in matter, then “in my power”, etc.
• Aristotle, fifth book of Wisdom [ed.: Metaphysics V]: the meanings of have correspond to the meanings of in. The room has furniture in it; the parts are in the whole and the whole has parts.
• Genus and species: each is in the other in a different sense, so each “has” the other. Species-in-genus is given first because that is actual; the species is in the genus “in ability” [ed.: potentially].
• Form in matter: the wood has a shape. “I have you in my power” (“sounds fishy”).
• Whole in the parts: the university joke (show him each building; “where’s the university?” “it’s in all these buildings”). Whole is to parts as form to matter, since matter is “that from which something comes to be and is in it”, and the whole is from the parts and they are in it.

2. Singular/universal substance and first/second substance (“Isn’t singular substance the same as first substance?”) #

Point: the antepredicaments’ four-fold division (singular/universal, substance/accident) already distinguishes the two things later called first and second substance; the substance chapter adds the order.

1. Singular substance = first substance; universal substance = “the species or genus in which these are”, said of first substance. So the distinctions correspond.
2. The antepredicaments define by affirmation and negation of “in another” / “said of another”: universal substance is said of another but not in another; individual substance is neither in another nor said of another. Order of the four: one affirmed/one denied, the reverse, both affirmed, both denied.
3. The words “first” and “second” add order. He even says species is more substance than genus, being closer to first substance: “you’re a man” is closer to you than “you’re an animal”.
4. Why distinction first, order later? “You have to see a distinction before you can see an order” (as with Shakespeare/Thomas: reason looks before and after, but you must see before you can see before and after). Student suggestion “general to particular”; he corrects: from confused to distinct, then order. He does not claim this is “the whole reason”.

• The Categories divides in three: antepredicaments (before the categories: distinctions about order), predicaments (the categories one by one, mainly the first four, “the big ones”), postpredicaments.
• Aside: the English word “predicament” seems taken from the Latin for categories; being put in a genus is like being put in jail, you can’t get out.

3. Four senses of “substance” in the Categories (“Is it purely equivocal that you call both of these substance?”) #

Point: substance is said of first and second substance and more, not purely equivocally.

• Thomas’s text (read last time): in wisdom [ed.: metaphysics] only the singular is called substance; there is no “man himself” or “dog himself” out there, the so-called forms or ideas (Greek eidos, form). So first substance is much more substance.
• Not purely equivocal: if I, William Burke, am a substance, then “man”, which grasps what I am, is called substance in a secondary sense. First substance underlies (stands under) everything else.
• The four senses: (1) logos tes ousias, the definition of what a thing is, in the opening on univocal/equivocal names (ousia is the Greek for substance; the English etymology “stands under” matches hypostasis rather); (2) first substance; (3) second substance; (4) substance common to both, as in the definition of person, individua substantia rationalis: if “substantia” there meant singular substance, “individual” would be redundant, so it is taken as common and “individual” contracts it. The logician gets away with second substance because he talks about where things are in the mind: something in my mind said of me, of you, and of the dog.
• Asides: “translators are traitors” (Italian near-words); his paraphrase of Plato: until philosophers are translators or translators philosophers, there will be bad translations. Sister Jane Persons: “I didn’t know you were a person.”

4. “The substance of God” and whether God is in the genus of substance (“having considered the substance of God”) #

Point: when Thomas passes from God’s substance to his operations, “substance” has yet another meaning, and God is not in the genus of substance.

• Structure of the Prima Pars as he recounts it: q. 1 nature of theology; q. 2 existence; q. 3 simplicity; qq. 4-5 perfection (needed because in the material world simpler is less perfect: stone, tree, dog, man); then good, infinite, unchanging; q. 11 one; qq. 12-13 how God is known and named by us (an “interlude”); q. 14 begins the operations, understanding and willing, with the words “having considered the substance of God”.
• What does “substance” mean there? Perhaps “what it is”, but he is careful; another meaning. Hebrews’ definition of faith, “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence [not ‘vision’] of what is not seen”, is further removed still, not even in the genus of substance.
• Is God in the genus of substance? Thomas: one might loosely be put in quantity as the beginning of number, though not a number; but God is the beginning of everything, so not even in that way.
• Summa contra Gentiles: substance is res cui convenit esse non in alio, a thing to which it belongs to be not in another. Argument: (1) “res cui convenit esse” supposes res and esse differ; (2) in a genus what-it-is is common but the esse differs for each individual; (3) only in God are res and esse the same (“I am who am”); therefore God is not in the genus. So “substance of God” is a distinct meaning, related to “what a thing is”.
• Why we still speak so: we know God from creatures, where what a thing is and what it does (substance and operations, my thinking, my willing) differ; in God they are the same, but we must approach him from both.

5. Digression: the good and the beautiful (“that which pleases when seen”) #

Point: whether the beautiful is the object of knowledge or of love.

• Thomas: good and beautiful are not the same but connected, both based on the perfection of form; common definition, the beautiful is that which pleases when seen. Good is the object of will, true of reason; what is beauty?
• His college reasoning from the synonym “lovely”: beauty as object of love (falling in love with a beautiful girl). But “pleases when seen” makes it the object of some knowledge, the higher senses of sight and hearing: sunsets (“come look at the sunset your heavenly Father sent you”), Mozart.
• In heaven, seeing God face to face is most pleasing, yet we see with reason and love him for the goodness seen.
• Augustine’s Confessions: he recalls “too late have I come to know thee, thou ancient beauty” (knowing, not loving); a student: the famous line is “late have I loved thee”, Book 10; he does not trust his memory and asks the student to check.
• Conclusion: beauty is in some sense both, but perhaps more the object of knowledge; “the sunset is beautiful” first means it pleases me when I see it.

6. Analogy, proportion, ratio (“it’s being said what by analogy”) #

Point: Thomas’s “analogy” is explained through ratio or likeness of ratios.

• ST I q. 13: names said properly of God and of us are not univocal, not purely equivocal, therefore by analogy; Thomas uses “proportion” as a synonym.
• His Euclid teacher: 2 to 3 is a ratio, a proportion is a likeness of ratios. Thomas uses “proportion” like a modern physicist, for ratio, though sometimes for likeness of ratios; “proportion” is itself somewhat equivocal by reason. Aside: ratio also means reason, as Greek logos.
• Aristotle: the most beautiful metaphors are by proportion. “The Lord is my shepherd”: as the shepherd leads the flock, so the king leads his people. Shakespeare’s similes (waves to the pebbled shore / our minutes; “chaste as unsunned snow”).

7. Is “equivocal by reason” wider than “analogous”? (“not all names that are equivocal by reason”) #

Point: he suspects (and blames himself for the earlier identification) that equivocal-by-reason is more general than analogous, since not every such word arises from a ratio or likeness of ratios.

• Ratio to a first: healthy (Aristotle’s example): healthy body first; healthy diet, healthy urine or blood pressure (“120 over seventy”) as sign of health, not health.
• Likeness of ratios: before: as this can be without that but not the reverse (before in being), so this can be known without that but not the reverse (before in knowledge); the second sense to the third.
• Ratio to one thing: political, equivocal the way Aristotle said being is; first meaning the polis (aside: Minneapolis, city of lakes; Minnehaha, laughing waters); government, law, revolution, preservation of regimes are political by ratio to the city, closer or further. Being is primarily substance, hence Metaphysics VII-VIII on material substance, XII on immaterial substances and God.
• “Be careful” about using “analogous” as synonymous with “equivocal by reason”.

8. Two other ways: keeping and renaming (“one kept the name and the other was given a new name”) #

Point: a name said of two things with a common meaning is kept by one and the other renamed, for two good reasons.

• (a) Kept by the one with nothing noteworthy beyond the common meaning; the noteworthy one gets a new name.
  • Disposition: the easily changed one (a mood; “attitude readjustment” cocktail signs; Nicole in Quebec who changed a colleague’s mood in minutes) keeps the name; the firm one is called habit. Hence Aristotle in the quality chapter divides habit against disposition and also says habit is a firm disposition.
  • Property: in the book on places [ed.: Topics], speech convertible with something (every A is B and every B is A) is idia, property; the convertible speech that also brings out what the thing is gets the name definition; so definition is a property and is divided against property.
• (b) Kept by the one that has the common meaning fully; the deficient one is renamed.
  • Understanding: angels, minds full of created forms, understand at once; man has an intellectus obumbratus (Thomas’s oft-quoted phrase), overshadowed by images, must reason things out, so man gets the name reason. Thomas both says reason is understanding and divides reason against understanding. (Aside: his son Marcus wishing to be born knowing: “you want to be born an angel.”)
  • Think: “I think so-and-so will win” is a guess; Thomas: opinion (produced by dialectic) and suspicion (by rhetoric; the husband suspected) are two forms of guess. “I think two is half of four” is unguarded; the guess keeps “think”, the certain case is renamed know.
• These are equivocal by reason, not by chance, and happen constantly in daily life.

9. Third way: dropping part of the meaning (“by dropping out part of its meaning”) #

Point: a name generalises by losing part of its meaning.

• Property in Porphyry’s Isagoge: what belongs to one species only, to every member, and always (half of four belongs to two alone; interior angles equal to two right angles follows on what a triangle is, unlike being green). “Two is less than ten”: every two, always, but not only two, so “property” with one part dropped. “Man is a logician”: not every man, not always, but no other animal; two parts dropped, yet connected with man’s nature.
• Undergoing (Latin passio): first meaning something harmful done to a body (the Passion; jabbing with a pin). Aristotle in On the Soul: powers known by objects; either the power acts on the object (teeth on food) or the object on the power (sound on the ear); hearing is undergoing sound. Applied to sense: keep “body receives”, drop “harm”; hearing Mozart perfects the ear (“my ear is reaching its apotheosis”). Applied to reason: the undergoing reason and the acting reason [ed.: possible/agent intellect] that separates the universal from images; Boethius: singular when sensed, universal when understood; since Plato’s separate forms do not exist, Aristotle had to posit the acting reason. Now even “body” is dropped. Not by ratio but by generalising.
• Closing: Thomas talks of these other ways of naming; they give equivocation by reason too. “So be careful these words.”
• Asides: the Mozart aria and the soprano beside herself; the parish senior with the beautiful voice going into mechanical engineering.

His words #

• Natural Hearing: the Physics [ed.: Physics].
• Wisdom: the Metaphysics [ed.: Metaphysics].
• in ability: potentially [ed.: in potency].
• first / second substance: his English for substantia prima / secunda.
• logos tes ousias: the definition of what a thing is; first sense of substance.
• ousia, hypostasis: Greek for substance; hypostasis has the “stands under” etymology.
• individua substantia rationalis: the definition of person, with substance taken as common to first and second.
• res cui convenit esse non in alio: Thomas’s account of the genus substance (SCG).
• evidence: his rendering in the Hebrews definition of faith, not “vision”.
• ratio vs proportion: ratio = 2 to 3; proportion = likeness of ratios (Euclid); Thomas uses proportion for ratio.
• equivocal by reason vs analogous: the former possibly wider.
• idia: property, convertible speech (Topics).
• intellectus obumbratus: overshadowed understanding, man’s reason.
• guess: covering opinion and suspicion.
• undergoing: his rendering of passio [ed.: passion, being acted upon]; undergoing reason / acting upon reason [ed.: possible and agent intellect].

Texts #

Read in class

• Aristotle, Categories, ch. 5 (inferred), first and second substance, species more substance than genus.
• Aristotle, Categories, Antepredicaments: said of / in another; logos tes ousias.
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles: res cui convenit esse non in alio (locus not stated).
• Epistle to the Hebrews: definition of faith.
• Porphyry, Isagoge: definition of property.

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Physics IV (senses of in); Metaphysics V (have; before), VII-VIII, XII.
• Thomas Aquinas, commentary/order of the eight senses of in (locus not stated); text on four senses of substance (last time); text that only the singular is substance for the wise.
• Thomas Aquinas, ST I qq. 1-14 as structure; q. 13 on analogy; text on good and beautiful.
• Aristotle, Topics (property, definition); Categories, chapter on quality (habit, disposition); On the Soul (undergoing, acting reason).
• Boethius (singular when sensed, universal when understood); Augustine, Confessions (Book 10 per student).
• Shakespeare, sonnet on waves and minutes; “chaste as unsunned snow”.

His questions #

• Where would you put your guardian angel? Which category? Substance, in the sense of “in” as in a genus, the first sense of in being place.
• Isn’t singular substance the same as first substance, and universal substance second? Yes; they correspond, but first/second adds order.
• Why does the distinction come in the antepredicaments and the order in the chapter on substance? You must see a distinction before you can see an order (not “the whole reason”).
• Is it purely equivocal to call both first and second substance “substance”? No; second substance is substance in a secondary sense.
• What is the fourth sense of substance in the Categories? Substance common to both, as in “individual substance” in the definition of person.
• What does “substance” mean in “having considered the substance of God”? Something like “what it is”, but a distinct meaning; God is not in the genus of substance.
• Is the beautiful the object of knowledge or of love? Both in some sense, but perhaps more of knowledge; left partly open pending Augustine’s text.
• Is ratio or likeness of ratios the only way a word becomes equivocal by reason? No; also keeping/renaming (two ways) and dropping part of the meaning.
• Is two being less than ten a property or an accident? A property only with part of the meaning (“only one species”) dropped.