7 The Correct Account of Abstract and Concrete Names
The Correct Account of Abstract and Concrete Names hold the relevant views about quantity must concede that propositions like the following are true: 'Substance is quantity', 'Quality is quantity', 'Substance is length', 'Quality is width'; and, as a consequence, they must grant the following propositions: 'Quantity runs', 'Width disputes', 'Width speaks', and so on.
Those who hold the views I mentioned about figure must grant that propositions like the following are true: 'Substance is figure', 'Curvature is a substance',
'Figure is white', and 'Figure eats'. Those who hold the views I have outlined about relation must grant that 'Man is a relation' is true, and also that propositions like the following are true: 'Relation is substance', 'Quality is a relation',
'Man is a relation', 'Similarity runs', 'Paternity is fielty', and 'Similarity is duplicity'.
Later I shall show how one can hold the roots of these views without being committed to the truth of such propositions. Similarly, I shall show how one can deny propositions like the following: 'Matter is privation', 'Air is darkness',
'Man is blindness', 'The soul is original sin', 'The soul is ignorance', 'Man is negation', and 'The body of Christ is death', while preserving the view that 'privation', 'shadow', 'blindness' and similar expressions do not designate any thing on the part of the thing distinct from what is designated by the subjects of these propositions, i.e., man, matter, etc.
7: The Correct Account of Abstract and Concrete Names Since I have claimed it to be the view of Aristotle and his Commentator that the names 'man' and 'humanity' are synonymous, I shall digress long enough to state the truth of the matter and to indicate whether these terms really are synonymous. According to Aristotle, nothing is signified by the name 'man' that is not in the same way signified by 'humanity' and vice versa. In Aristotle's view every created entity is either matter, form, a composite of matter and form, or an accident; but when we list the various possibilities, it becomes obvious that none of them is designated more by one of these expressions than by the other. Granting this, it is clear that the following proposition is false: 'The intellective soul is humanity'.
Nor will it do any good to split hairs in the way that those do who wish to say that while 'humanity' signifies only the specific nature, 'man' signifies the individual difference, for, as I shall show, this account is not only false but incompatible with Aristotle's view.
The Correct Account of Abstract and Concrete Names We can establish this by a single argument. The argument runs as follows: just as man and humanity are related, so also are Socrates and Socrateity related.
(Those I am arguing against frequently speak by forming an abstract expression out of the name 'Socrates' in the same way that one forms an abstract name from the term 'man'). These thinkers hold that 'Socrates' does not signify anything formally or really distinct from what is signified by 'Socrateity' and vice versa; therefore, 'man' does not signify anything different from 'humanity' and vice versa. The assumption is proved as follows: if something is signified by one of the terms 'Socrates' and 'Socrateity', which is not signified by the other, then it would have to be either the specific nature, the matter, the form, the composite of matter and form, or some accident. It is clear that the specific nature is signified equally by neither or both of the two names, and proponents of this view all agree that none of the other items listed above is signified by one of these terms to the exclusion of the other. Nor can they claim that the individual difference which they postulate is signified by either of the terms to the exclusion of the other. For in their view it is Socrates that confers the individual difference upon the specific nature, but the same must be said of Socrateity. Otherwise, Socrateity would not differ in any way from humanity; but, then, given their way of arguing, just as humanity is present in Plato, so also would Socrateity be present in Plato. Thus, there is nothing these thinkers can point to on the part of the thing which is signified by 'Socrates' and not also signified in the same way by 'Socrateity' and vice versa. Consequently, they must grant that the following proposition is true: 'Socrates is Socrateity', from which it follows that Socrates is this humanity exhibiting Socrateity. This, in turn, implies that Socrates is humanity. The inference here is from the less general to the more general on the part of the predicate. But, then, Socrates is humanity; therefore, man is humanity, and if that is true there is nothing signified by the name 'man' which is not also signified by 'humanity' and vice versa.
It follows from all of this that in Aristotle's view nothing is signified by the name 'man' which is not also signified by the name 'humanity' and vice versa.
This, at least, is his intended view; therefore, he would either grant that 'Man is humanity' is literally true or he would deny the proposition, but only because one of the two terms incorporates, in a disguised way, some syncategorematic expression not incorporated in the other. I shall say more about this later.
Nevertheless, even though this is Aristotle's intended view, theology shows it to be false; for even if we were to grant that neither of these expressions includes any syncategorematic elements not included in the other, it would still be incorrect to say that 'man' and 'humanity' are synonymous. The fact is that these terms can supposit for distinct things, and one of them can signify or consignify something which the other cannot. The name 'man' truly supposits for the Son of God; and, therefore, it signifies or in some way designates the Son of God; but the name 'humanity' does not supposit for the Son of God, nor does
The Correct Account of Abstract and Concrete Names it, any more than the name 'whiteness', signify the Son of God. Thus, whereas,
'The Son of God is man' is true, 'The Son of God is humanity' is false. But not every thing designated by one of these terms is designated in the same way by the other, so that they are not synonymous.
One easily can see how it is that these names do not, in all contexts, signify the same thing if he examines their respective nominal definitions. The name 'humanity' signifies a nature composed of body and intellective soul; it connotes nothing about the sustenance of that nature; i.e., whether it is sustained by some subject, such as the Divine Person or not sustained at all. It
Supposits always for the relevant nature; and, consequently, it can never supposit for the Son of God; for He cannot be the relevant nature. The name,
'man', on the other hand, signifies the nature in question, indicating besides that the nature is either a self-subsistent entity (not residing in any other subject) or that it is sustained by some subject. Thus, we can state the nominal definition of 'man' as follows: a man is either a nature composed of body and intellective soul residing in no subject or some subject sustaining a nature composed of body and intellective soul. Take any man and one of the two elements in the description will hold. For it is true that Socrates is a nature composed of body and intellective soul, not sustained by some subject, but the following is false: 'Socrates is a subject sustaining such a nature.' That the latter proposition is false should be clear. Suppose that Socrates is a subject sustaining the relevant nature. For what, then, does the name 'Socrates' supposit? If it supposits for that nature, then the nature sustains itself, which is impossible; for nothing can sustain itself. Further, it is impossible that the name supposit for something distinct from that nature, for then it would have to supposit either for a part of the nature or for some substance distinct from the nature or for a composite of that nature and something else; but each of these suggestions is hopeless, as T shall indicate in what follows.
It will not do to say that 'Socrates' supposits for a composite of the nature and the individual difference and that the composite sustains the nature. As I shall show further on there is no such composite. Besides, even if we grant this point, the explanation does not succeed, for if Socrates sustains the nature, it is necessary that Socrates also sustain some individual nature. But Socrates sustains no individual nature; for the individual nature, in their view, always includes the relevant difference; and, as a consequence, a composite of the nature and the individual difference sustains a composite of the nature and the individual difference, which is absurd.
Nor will it do to say that the subject in 'Socrates sustains human nature' supposits for something composedof a singular nature and a negation of dependence upon some subject; for then Socrates would be a thing composed of both an affirmation and a negation; but this is absurd on two counts. First, no truly subsistent thing can be composed of such things and, second, no composite
The Correct Account of Abstract and Concrete Names can sustain the relevant nature—it is not supposed to depend on any subject— and the relevant composite is a subject. The conclusion, then, is that the proposition 'Socrates is a subject sustaining human nature' is literally false. Nevertheless, Socrates is a nature composedof a body and an intellective soul, sustained by nothing; and, as a consequence, he is a man. Still, 'The Son of God is a man' is true, not because the Son of God is such a nature composed of body and intellective soul, but because He is a subject sustaining such a nature and terminating its dependence.
Several conclusions follow from the above remarks. First, even if 'A man is humanity' were to be granted, the proposition 'Every man is humanity', is false. Indeed, the proposition 'Some man is not humanity' is true. Assume for the sake of argument that neither of the names 'man' and 'humanity' includes, in a disguised way, any syncategorematic terms not included in the other.
Then, it would be true that a man is humanity since this man (say, Socrates) is humanity, for if we grant the above assumption we cannot claim that the subject and predicate supposit for distinct things. We must say that they supposit for one and the same thing. Consequently, the proposition would be true. But even if we make the relevant assumption, it would still be false to say that every man is humanity; for there would be one exception. If we should say, referring to the Son of God, 'This man is humanity', we would be saying something false. Thus, the subjects of the two true propositions, 'A man is humanity' and 'A man is not humanity' stand or supposit for different things. But should anyone make the above assumption he must, to be consistent, grant that sometimes it is possible to predicate an abstract termofits concrete counterpart and vice versa. Indeed, he should even say that it is possible for an abstract term to be both truly affirmed and truly denied of its concrete counterpart and vice versa; the qualification is that the subject be construed particularly. Such predication is not, however, possible when the subject is taken universally. He ought to grant that in such cases the concrete term supposits for different things. Take for example the proposition 'This humanity is a man'. The proposition is true when we are referring to the humanity of Socrates; however, if the humanity referred to, be that of the Divine Word or some other Divine Person, then the proposition is false. The reason is that the name 'man' always supposits for humanity, except in those cases where the humanity in question is something added to some other thing. Thus, because humanity sometimes is added to another thing and sometimes is not, 'man' sometimes supposits for humanity and sometimes does not. Consequently, the concrete sometimes is predicated of the abstract and sometimes is not and vice versa.
Another conclusion can be derived from the foregoing remarks. Every proposition (composed of a similar concrete and abstract term) in which the verb or a determination of the verb so functions that the things designated by the subject and predicate are said to be distinct is, if taken universally, false. This
The Correct Account of Abstract and Concrete Names point holds even if the nature under consideration is very different from the one we have examined. The reason is as follows: concrete and abstract terms of this sort do not supposit for distinct things except in the case of the Divine
Person Who sustains the human nature in Christ. This should be clear, for if it were otherwise the term would have to function in one of the following ways: one of the terms supposits for a part ofa thing and the other for the whole; the two supposit for (wo different parts of the same thing; the two names supposit for two totally different substances; or one of the names supposits for a substance and the other for an accident. But each of these is obviously false.
The conclusion, then, is that they do not supposit for distinct things except when one of them supposits for a Divine Person. Consequently, any proposition asserting that the entities signified by such names are distinct is false.
As a consequence we must grant that each of the following propositions is literally false: 'Every man possesses humanity', 'Every humanity is in man',
'Every animal has animality', etc. Nothing can possess itself or be in itself, and such propositions do indeed assert that the thing for which the subject supposits has that or is in that for which the predicate supposits. But clearly they are all false since the subject and the predicate supposit for the same thing.
Thus, in chapter 16 of the Monologion, Anselm indicates that it is not proper to say that the Highest Nature, God, hasjustice. but rather that the Highest
Natureis justice.' Likewise, it is not, strictly speaking, correct to say that this man, referring to Socrates, has humanity, but rather that he is humanity.
Nonetheless, when the saints say that God possesses justice, that God possesses wisdom, goodness, and knowledge, and that in God is wisdom, they are, despite the false implications, saying something that is true. In the same way although propositions like 'Man has humanity' and 'Humanity is in Socrates' are literally false, they are, in ordinary contexts, unexceptionable.
It also follows that, strictly speaking, it is false to say that humanity subsists in its proper subject or that humanity depends upon its proper subject or that the proper subject terminates the dependence of the nature. On the contrary, it should be granted that humanity is itself a subject. Thus, unless some syncategorematic element impedes the predication, the proposition 'Humanity is a subject' ought to be granted without qualification. Nevertheless, even if we were to make the relevant assumption about syncategorematic elements, it would still be true that humanity is not a subject when it is added to something else. For when it is so added it immediately ceases to be a subject. The name 'subject' has the connotation of not being added to something else. The nominal definition of that name or any term equivalent to it runs as follows: a subject is a complete thing, one and not many, and sustained by no subject.