extension of a common idea or name.” These are its rules:
1. “The parts should be so distinct that no single one contains within its own [extension] the extension or part of the extension of another [part].”
2. “The division should be made into the species immediately below.”
3. “The parts should exhaust the thing divided”; or the division should be adequate.
CHAPTER 7
A metaphysical whole, or the comprehension of a complex idea, is expressed by a definition, which is “a statement which explicates the simpler ideas that are combined in a complex [idea].” There are other definitions which are improper, for instance, nominal [definition], which explicates a word, as coelum (“sky”), which is from [Greek] koilon (“hollow”). There is also accidental definition, which explicates modes, causes [and] effects. For example, man is an animal which is featherless, biped, erect, etc.; this constitutes a description. [And] there is physical definition, which explicates natural parts; for instance, man is an animal consisting of an organic body and a soul endowed with reason.
The rules [of definition] are:
1. “Definitions should be short.”
2. “They should be clear.”
3. “They should be adequate,” so that they may be reciprocating, i.e., so that the definition and the thing defined may be mutually predicated of each other distributively.
4. “Avoid metaphors.”
5. “They should consist of the nearest genus and the proper differentia.”10
Categories or predicaments are “a series of ideas or terms arranged by degrees (gradatim) under the same highest genus.” Different authorities give different categories. For Aristotle there are ten: substance, quantity, quality, relation, action, passion, place, time, position, and state.11 He means that every predication or affirmation may be reduced to one of these. If we explain one, the rest will be understood.
These are the substances:12
Hence also that of which something is affirmed or denied in any category should be called a subject.
CHAPTER 8
A term is “a name which signifies an idea or a thing, and which can be the subject or predicate of a proposition”; hence it is called a predicable (categorema).
Other components of terms are jointly predicable (syncategoremata), such as all, no. Some are mixed, such as always, i.e., in all time; no one, i.e., no man; [he] runs, [he] is running.13
An intention of signifying, or the understanding (acceptio) of a word, is called a suppositio. When it stands for an idea or a thing, it is called a formal suppositio; when it stands for the uttered word itself, it is called a material suppositio.
An example of the former is saying, Man is an animal; an example of the latter is, Man is a monosyllable. In a formal suppositio, the name is sometimes of the first intention, or of personal supposition, that is, in a normal act of understanding (acceptio): as in the phrase, Man is an animal. Otherwise it is of the second intention, or of simple suppositio for the idea or the term, that is, when a term of art (aliquid artificiale) is used of the same thing, for example, Man is a species.14
The divisions of terms into universal and singular, abstract and concrete, are evident from the divisions of ideas.
A transcendent term is one which belongs to every real thing, such as being, thing, one, something. A supertranscendent term is one which also belongs to fictions, such as imaginable, possible. All other terms are non-transcendental.
Every term where “not” is absent is finite; where the particle “not” is present, it is infinite, as in not-man, not-learned. “Not” is said to be infinitans. Finite and infinite [terms] together comprehend every being disjunctively: every being is either learned or not-learned, and so on; they exaust the whole range of being.
A univocal term is “predicable of several things individually according to the same idea,” as animal [is predicable] of man and of beast.
An equivocal term is “predicable of several things individually according to different ideas,” like Gallus. “Where there is some underlying reason for it or affinity of meaning,” a term is said to be analogous or deliberately equivocal, as [when] healthy [is predicated] of animal and of food, or Alexander of a man and of a picture. When there is no reason, it is said to be equivocal by chance, like Gallus or (in English) canon.15
CHAPTER 9
Compatible terms may be predicated of one and the same thing at the same time, like strong and pious; they are often disparate.
Conflicting or opposed terms [are those] which “cannot be predicated of each other, nor of the same thing, in the same respect, and at the same time.” This opposition of terms is noncomplex; the opposition of propositions, on the other hand, is said to be complex.16
There are four species of noncomplex opposition: contrary, contradictory, relatively opposed, and privatively opposed. Disparates do not conflict ( pugnant), for they are “terms denoting ideas in which there is very little or nothing in common, beyond the vague idea of being or of mode,” as in brave and tall or sweet and white.
Contraries are “true opposed qualities,” such as pain and pleasure.
Contradictories are “a word and its negation,” such as learned and not-learned or man and not-man.
Relatively opposed are relative terms, such as father and son.
Privatively opposed are “a quality and its absence in a subject which has the capacity for it,” as in sighted and blind in the case of an animal.
Negatively opposed are “a quality and its absence in any kind of subject,” as in sighted and nonsighted, which are also contradictories.
On the Noetic Judgment and the Proposition
CHAPTER 1
A judgment is “an action of the mind by which it gives a verdict on two ideas in comparison with each other.” That is, a verdict is given that either the ideas represent the same object, or a certain relation or connection exists between their objects.1
A noetic judgment is “when a verdict is given about ideas which are being directly compared with each other.”
A dianoetic judgment is “a verdict of the mind about two ideas, by means of comparison of both with a third.”2
