Question Fourteen
[QUESTION FOURTEEN
Is the Differentia of the Genus of Substance a Substance?] It is common to every substance not to be in a subject. This, however, is not proper to a substance, but is also <proper> to a differentia.1
n speaking about that which is under an intention,
it is asked concerning this whether a differentia in the
genus of substance is a substance.
1. According to the text here, it seems that <a differentia in the genus of substance> is not <a substance>:
Since a primary property does not inhere only in a substance, but also in a differentia; but if a differentia were to be a substance, <a primary property> could inhere in it and nevertheless only in a substance.
2. Second, <a differentia> is neither a primary substance, since it is said of a subject; nor <is it> a secondary <substance>, since it is neither a species nor a genus in the genus of substance; these alone are secondary substances according to Aristotle.2
3. Third, <a differentia> has a contrary, since it has something at the greatest distance from itself in the same genus; and contrariety is such a distance, according to Aristotle in Bk. X of the Metaphysics.3 Nothing, however, is contrary to substance, according to Aristotle a little lower <in the Categories>.4
1. Categories, Ch. 5 (3a 21–22).
2. Categories, Ch. 5 (2b 30–31).
3. Metaphysics, Bk. X, Ch. 4 (1055a 9–10).
4. Categories, Ch. 5 (3b 25).
JOHN DUNS SCOTUS
4. Fourth, according to Aristotle in Bk. V of the Metaphysics,5 the first kind (modus) of quality is the differentia of a substance; quality, however, is not a substance.
5. If it is said that Aristotle understands in Bk. V <of the Metaphysics> that it has a mode of predicating "as a quality" (in quale):
This does not seem to be true, since the metaphysician differs from the logician in the fact that the metaphysician considers being insofar as it is being; the logician <considers being> insofar as it is considered by reason. Therefore, what has only a mode of predicating "as a quality" (in quale), even though a quality can be expressed in some mode by the logician, nevertheless <can> not <be expressed only as a quality> by the metaphysician, unless it is essentially a quality.
6. To the opposite:
Non-substance is not prior to substance, since substance is the first being.6 Differentia is naturally prior to the species, which is a substance.
7. Second, substance is not destroyed by the destruction of non-substance; but a species, which is a substance, is destroyed by the destruction of the differentia.
8. Third, differentia is part of the definition of species;7 therefore, it indicates something of its essence. Nothing, however, pertains to the essence of substance except substance.
9. Fourth, if <a differentia> were an accident, it would make one accidental (unum ens per accidens) being with the genus.
And since <the differentia> added to the genus makes a species, therefore every species in the genus of a substance would be an accidental (per accidens) being; and so <there would> not be any species.
5. Metaphysics, Bk. V, Ch. 5 (1020b 13–15).
6. Metaphysics, Bk. VII, Ch. 1 (1028a 32–33).
7. Porphyry, Isagoge, Ch. "On Species" (AL I6 9; ed. Busse, 4.12–13).
QUESTION 14
[I. To The Question] 10. To the question one can say that a differentia in the genus of substance is a substance, since it is essentially (per se) the same as that which is essentially (per se) a substance. Nevertheless, it is not a species or an individual in the genus of substance, nor is it essentially a substance. Nevertheless, such a predication as "rational is a substance" is truer than this <predication>,
"how much as (quantum) is a substance," although each one is necessary and each one is accidental (per accidens). For the first is accidental (per accidens), not since something is a substance to which rational happens <to be accidental> (cui accidit rationale), but in which rational essentially (per se) inheres (cui per se inest rationale). But the second is accidental (per accidens), since that is a substance to which "how much as" (quantum) happens <to be accidental> (cui accidit quantum).8
[II. To The Principal Arguments] 11. To the first argument,9 I say that he understands <this proposition>, "this is not proper to substance"—<in this way>, that is, <it is not proper> to that which is directly in the genus of substance as a species or a genus—but <it is> also <proper> to a differentia which is not a substance in this way.
12. To the second <argument>,10 he shows the same.
13. To the third <argument>,11 I say that contrariety12 is commonly said in one way for the greatest distance. And in this way opposites are said privatively <to be> contrary, as principles, namely, form and privation, are said <to be> contrary <to one another> in Bk. I of the Physics;13 that is, in every genus <form and matter are said to be> among the differentiae of a genus, of which it is said in Bk. X of the Metaphysics,14 because every
8. For a fuller discussion of this difference, see Pini, Categories and Logic in Duns Scotus, 193.
9. Cf. supra, n. 1.
10. Cf. supra, n. 2.
11. Cf. supra, n. 3.
12. For a fuller discussion on opposition, see infra, q. 38.
13. Physics, Bk. I, Ch. 7 (191a 3–5, 13–14).
14. Metaphysics, Bk. X, Ch. 8 (1058a 15–18).
JOHN DUNS SCOTUS
differentia according to the species is a contrariety. In another mode <contrariety> is taken properly as it is the greatest distance of forms mutually expelling each other concerning the same <thing>.15 And this is the way in which <contrariety> is taken here and in Bk. V of the Physics,16 and where such contrariety exists, there is motion properly said.
14. To the fourth <argument>,17 I say that Aristotle, as <he does> in many <places> in Bk. V <of the Physics>, divides utterances into significations and into the diverse modes of being accepted, which he does less <often> about quality (ad minus facit de qualitate). For he does not divide <quality here>, as it is a most general <genus>, into its species, positing the differentia of substance to be its first species, but he divides this utterance "quality" into its significates; and one of its significates is a "differentia of substance." For just as "form" is said equivocally to a substance which gives being absolutely, and to an accident which gives being according to the essence (quid), so "act" <is said equivocally> to a first act and to a second act; and so "quality" is said equivocally to an essential quality and to an accidental <quality>. And the differentia of substance is an essential quality; in no way is "quality" <to be regarded here> as the most general <genus>.
15. Metaphysics, Bk. X, Ch. 4 (1055a 5–33).
16. Physics, Bk. V, Ch. 1 (224b 28–30).
17. Cf. supra, n. 4.