5 On Concrete and Abstract Names That Are Non Synonyms
5: On Concrete and Abstract Names That Are Not Synonyms Leaving aside the other parts of speech, we shall discuss names. First we shall examine the distinction between abstract and concrete names.
Abstract and concrete names are names which have the same stem but different endings. Thus, in each of the following pairs we have names that begin with the same syllable or sequence of syllables, but which differ in ending:
'just'—'justive', 'brave'—'bravery', 'animal'—'animality'. Always (or at least frequently) the abstract name has more syllables than the concrete. This is clear in the examples just presented. Equally often, the concrete name is an adjective and the abstract name a noun.
Concrete and abstract names can function in many ways. Sometimes the concrete name signifies, connotes, designates, or expresses and also supposits for something, which the abstract name in no way signifies and, consequently never supposits for. Examples are 'just'—'justice', 'white'—'whiteness', etc.
'Just' supposits for men in the proposition 'The just are virtuous'; it would be incorrect to say that it supposits for justice; for although justice is a virtue, it is not virtuous. On the other hand, 'justice' supposits for the quality of a man, not the man himself. It is because of this that it is impossible to predicate this sort of concrete name of its abstract counterpart: the two terms supposit for different things.
Concrete and abstract terms of this sort can function in one of three modes; we can treat these modes along the lines of species under a genus. In the first mode either the abstract expression supposits for some accident or form inhering in a subject and the concrete expression, for the subject of that form or accident, or, vice versa. Examples of concrete and abstract names functioning in this first mode are 'whiteness'—'white'; 'heat'—'hot'; and 'knowing'—'knowledge' (provided we limit ourselves to the knowledge of finite creatures), for in all these examples the abstract name supposits for an accident inhering in a subject and the concrete name for the subject of that accident. The reverse happens with names like 'fire' and 'fiery'. Thus, while 'fire' supposits for a subject, 'fiery', a concrete name, supposits for an accident of fire; for we say that the heat of the fire is fiery, but not that it is fire; and similarly, we say that knowledge is human, but not that it is a man.
In the second mode either the concrete name supposits for a part of a thing and the abstract, for the whole thing, or vice versa. 'Soul' and 'besouled' are examples; for man is besouled, but he is not a soul. Here, 'besouled' supposits for man and 'soul', for a part of man. However, in the propositions 'The soul
On Concrete and Abstract Names That Are Not Synonyms is human' and 'The soul is not man', 'man', the abstract name, supposits for the whole and 'human', for the soul which is a part of man.
Nonetheless, it should be noticed that sometimes a concrete name can be used in two different senses, so that it can function in both the first and second modes. Thus, the name 'besouled' can supposit for a whole, since we say that man is besouled; and it can also supposit for the subject receiving the soul, since we say that the body, which is the other part of the composite, is besouled. Many other terms which can be used in a number of different senses behave like 'besouled' in this regard.
In the third mode concrete and abstract names supposit for distinct things, neither of which is a subject or part of the other. This can happen in many ways. Thus, the things signified might be related as cause and effect, as when we speak of a project as being human but not a man; or they might be related as sign and thing signified. Thus, we say that the difference of man is an essential difference, not because it is the essence of man, but because it is a sign of some part of man's essence. Another possibility is that the things signified be related as place and thing located in the place. Thus, we call a thing located in England, English. The list could go on. I shall leave the matter to those who are clever with examples.
As with the first two modes (where sometimes a concrete name supposits for a part or a form and the abstract name for the whole or the subject, and sometimes just the reverse happens), so here in the third mode, reversal of function is possible. For sometimes a concrete name supposits for an effect or a thing signified and the abstract name supposits for the cause or the sign; sometimes the reverse happens. Nor is this limited to names pertaining to causality and signification; it holds true across the third mode.
We have noted that one name can, when taken in different senses, be concrete in both the first and second modes. Likewise, a name can be concrete in both the first and third modes—indeed, in all three modes. But, then, the distinction between the three modes is not based on the fact that one is universally denied of the others. It is rather that each mode is particularly denied of the others, and that is all that is needed for the distinction. Likewise, it should not trouble us if it were to turn out that one and the same term were concrete with respect to one expression and abstract with respect to another.
It should be noted that due to the poverty of language, sometimes a concrete name will have no abstract name corresponding to it. The Latin word
'studiosus' lacks an abstract counterpart when it is taken to mean 'virtuous'.