73 On Merely Confused Supposition
On Merely Confused Supposition frequently been said, if such abstract names are names of first intention, they will, as I understand Aristotle's view, be names synonymous with their concrete forms. And this is the reason why so few such abstract names are employed by Aristotle, for he construed expressions like the following as synonymous: 'man'—'humanity', 'cow'—'cowness', 'quantum'—'quantity',
'relative'—'relation', 'similar'—'similarity', 'father'—'paternity', 'two'—'duality,, 'three —'trinity'. But, sometimes, those who use the terms employ the abstract terms as names of second intention or second imposition; in those cases, there is no synonymy.
Others, however, claim that all such abstract names signify really distinct things or relations of the reason and that they supposit for such things.
Response to (7) The response to the seventh difficulty is that in 'Socrates was twice white', there is an expression that incorporates a negation, the expression
'twice'. Thus, given the force of that expression, "Socrates was twice white' has a negative exponent; for the proposition is equivalent to 'Socrates was first white and at a later time he was not white and at a still later time he was white'. Because of the negative expression underlying the proposition, the term does not stand merely determinately. Consequently, it is not possible to descend by means of a disjunctive proposition to pronouns or proper names expressing the things for which the predicate supposits.
The same point holds in the case of propositions like 'Socrates begins to be white', 'Man ceases to be literate', and generally in the case of propositions having a negative exponent.
Response to (8) In the same way the proposition 'Only what is an animal is a man' incorporates an expression of exclusion and, consequently, has a negative exponent. But neither the subject nor the predicate supposits determinately.
The response to the ninth doubt is that if they are taken strictly, the relevant terms supposit just as they do in other propositions. Nonetheless, those using the expressions so employ them that they supposit for things other than their normal supposita.
73: On Merely Confused Supposition Now that we have examined determinate supposition we shall examine merely confused supposition.
A number of rules hold here.
First, where a common term mediately follows an affirmative sign of universality, it has merely confused supposition. That is, in an affirmative
On Merely Confused Supposition universal proposition the predicate has merely confused supposition. Thus, the predicates in 'Every man is an animal' and 'Every man is white' have merely confused supposition. But where a sign of universality is placed on the subject-side but where the proposition is not a universal affirmative proposition or where the sign of universality does not distribute the whole subject, the predicate does not have merely confused supposition. For example, in 'Seeing every man is an animal', the word 'animal' stands determinately; for the sign of universality does not distribute the whole subject nor does it yield a universal proposition so that the predicate does not stand merely confusedly. Likewise, in 'The Creator of all creatures is a being', the word
'being' has determinate supposition and not merely confused supposition.
Another rule is that when a sign of universality or an expression incorporating such precedes a term on the subject-side of a proposition but does not determine the whole expression preceding the copula, then that which follows on the same side of the copula stands merely confusedly. At least we can say this if we so extend the term that a part of an extreme can stand or supposit. In the relevant case it is not possible to make a descent under the term to a disjunctive proposition. This is clear with 'At every time some created being existed'. Likewise, in 'At every time after Adam some man existed'. Here, the word 'man' has merely confused supposition; for if it were to supposit determinately or confusedly and distributively, the proposition would be false; for each of the relevant singular propositions is false as is clear inductively. The same point is clear in "Until the end of the world an animal will exist' and in 'Until the end of the world a donkey will exist'. The same thing should be said in the case of 'Until the end of the world men will exist' and in the case of 'The whole day some man was inside' (provided we stipulate that different men were inside at different hours of the day.) Again, the point holds in 'Always a man existed', 'Always a man will exist', and so on with similar examples. | am not concerned whether or not these propositions are, strictly speaking, true. The point is rather to provide an account of their sense.
In stating this rule I stipulated that the relevant syncategorematic term not determine the whole extreme, for if it does,the rule does not hold. This is clear in 'Every donkey of the man runs'. Here the word 'every' determines the whole 'donkey of the man' and neither just 'donkey' nor just 'man'.
Likewise, the syncategorematic expression in 'Every man's donkey runs' distributes the whole 'man's donkey'; so that the two are distributed by just one distribution. The same thing happens with terms like 'white man' and 'white animal'. But the situation is different with 'The whole day some man was inside' and 'At every time after Adam some man was'; for the whole expression 'time after Adam some man' cannot be a subject with respect to just any verb, but the whole 'man's donkey' and the whole 'donkey of the man' can be subjects with respect to any verb.