Abstract
From Parmenides onwards, ancient and medieval thought had a special liking for metaphysical speculation. No doubt, speculative thought was most influentially outlined by Plato and Aristotle. However, what the Christian thinkers achieved in metaphysics was definitely more than just applying and adapting what was handed down to them. No student of medieval speculative thought can help being struck by the peculiar fact that whenever fundamental progress was made, it was theological problems which initiated the development. This applies to St Augustine and Boethius, and to the great medieval masters as well (such as Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus). Their speculation was, time and again, focused on how the notion of being and the whole range of our linguistic tools can be applied to God’s Nature (Being).
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Notes
Mair 1981, p. 211.
See Mair 1981, p. 211. It was quite understandably viewed later on as a set of axioms (‘Axiomenschrift’); see Schrimpf 1966, passim.
For Parmenides, see Owens 1975 and De Rijk 1983; for Plato, see Kretzmann 1971 and De Rijk 1985; for Aristotle, see De Rijk 1980, passim.
Karl Meiser, Anicii Manlii Severini Boethii commentarii in librum Aristotelis, recensuit Carolus Meiser. Pars posterior secundam editionem et indices continens; Leipzig: Teubner, 1880.
See also In Periherm. I 41.3–5 and 62.16–19.
Cf. Plato, Sophist 237B7–E7 and De Rijk 1985, 4.21.
De Rijk 1981, pp. 146–147.
Using Kretzmann’s translation in Kretzmann 1974, p. 4.
Rather than “it is always a sign of what holds, that is, holds of a subject” (Ackrill).
The autonymous use of an expression is indicated in both classical and medieval Latin by formulas such as id quod dicimus (dico, dixi, dicitur) or hoc ipsum put before the expression. (When following an expression such a formula is often used in classical and Vatican Latin to introduce a term taken over from another language; e.g. ‘motorcycle quod dicitur’ = a so-called ‘motor-cycle’); cf Thesaurus linguae latinae V 1, col. 982.2–15.
‘Not properly said to inhere’; lit. ‘not said in such a way that it is said to inhere’. Remember that inherence (esse in subiecto) is one of the characteristics of ‘accident’.
It seems useful to distinguish between ‘actuality’ and ‘factuality’. For a sentence such as ‘A man runs’ to have meaning, the actuality of running in somebody must be supposed (or rather ‘conceived of). In order for the sentence to have reference as well, some factual occurrence in the outside world is required. (Whether or not the occurrence is rightly supposed does not matter until the question of truth of falsity is in order). For the distinction between ‘actuality’ and ‘factuality’, see also De Rijk 1981, pp. 28–32.
Of course, other nouns (viz. the substantive nouns) signify substantial forms, e.g. ‘man’, ‘tree’, ‘stone’. The substantive noun has its counterpart in the meaning of the verb ‘be’, which is called verbum substantivum, to distinguish it from the adjective verbs.
For this interpretation, see De Rijk 1985, 14.3 and 15.23; see also p. 10–11 below.
The MSS read non est malum, but the Aristotelian passage has twice the indefinite expression ‘non-malum’; at b15 (ou kakon) and at b17 (ou kakôi).
Used by Aristotle in De int. 14, 23b16. See also below, p. 5ff.
‘Tunc fit paralogismus secundum accidens quando aliquid prius accipitur coniunctim, postea divisim. Ut, cum dico: ‘Socrates est albus; sed album est color; ergo Socrates est color’, dicit (viz., James of Venice) quod hoc nomen ‘album’ significat albedinem coniunctam vel coherentem Socrati, in prima propositione; sed cum dico postea: ‘album est color’, significat albedinem per se, idest separatim, ita quod non coniunctam alicui… Fit quoque idem in aliis; ut, cum dico: ‘Socrates est homo; sed homo est species; ergo Socrates est species’, sophisma est secundum accidens secundum ilium [James], quia ‘homo’ in prima propositione significat illam speciem coniunctam illi individuo, scilicet Socrati; sed postea, cum dico: ‘homo est species’, significat illam speciem non ut iunctam alicui individuo, sed seorsum vel separatim (357.6–23; ed. in De Rijk 1962.
Unlike Greek and Latin, most modern languages (esp. English) do not (easily) admit the substantial use of adjectives (esp. in the singular) and require adding such ‘tiresome makeweights’ (as Guthrie A History of Greek Pholosophy V 404, n. 1, labels them) as ‘thing’, ‘entity’. See also De Rijk 1985, 13.1 n. 12 and 14.2, n. 13.
So Boethius (75.5–22) takes the expression ‘verbum secundum se dictum’ to come down to ‘the verb (predicate) apart from its relation to the subject of the proposition’, rather than ‘apart from its relation to the subject of inherence’.
In my view, the (mostly unconscious!) equating of ‘naming’ and ‘predicating’ by modern commentators (and a great many of their predecessors) is at the root of quite of lot of misunderstanding about ancient and medieval doctrines. For Plato’s metaphysical doctrine the issue is discussed in De Rijk 1985, passim, and for Aristotle’s doctrine of the categories of being, in De Rijk 1980, passim. However, James of Venice’s view of the fallacy of accident (see above, p. 6) does start from the semantic, not the syntactic, approach in that his remarks on the different meanings of ‘white’ do not consider the word’s acting as a subject or a predicate (see below).
See Summa sophist. Elenc. I, p. 357.5–359.31 ed. in De Rijk 1962, where the anonymous author mentions the different views of James of Venice and Alberic of Paris and then adds his own.
A similar use of symbainein (symbebêkota) is found in Cat. 7, 7a35–36, where ‘being a man’ is instanced as an ‘accident’ of a master (despotês). See also De Rijk 1980, 62.
De Rijk 1980, pp. 18–33.
See Oxford Latin Dictionary, art. ‘praedico’.
Cf. above, p. 4.
Note that the Latin expression ‘sapit’ is a one-word expression. For the verb’s being a noun (name) when uttered just by itself, see above, p. 4.
For this interpretation of Aristotle’s words see De Rijk 1985, 14.3, n. 11 and 15.23, n. 8, and also what Boethius tells us (In Periherm. II 74.9–33) about Aspasius (discussed below, p. 1 Of.).
Cf. For this interpretation of Aristotle’s words see De Rijk 1985, 14.3, n. 11 and 15.23, n. 8, and also what Boethius tells us (In Periherm. II. 71.29–30; p. 4 above.
E.g., by Thomas Aquinas, In Arist. Periherm., prooemium.
This topic is extensively discussed in Nuchelmans 1973, pp. 221–271.
This may be compared with what was later called the distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘total abstraction’, or, with what Thomas Aquinas distinguishes as ‘abstracte significatum’ and ‘significatum in concreto’ (in his commentary on De hebdomadibus). See De Rijk 1970, pp. 14–15.
II 45.11 – 14: “Si quis hoc solum dicat, ‘homo’ vel ‘album’ vel etiam ‘hircocervus’: quamquam ista quiddam significent; quoniam tarnen significant simplicem intellectum, manifestum est omni veritatis vel falsitatis proprietate carere”; cf. 50.17–23.
Cf. also in rebus (= among the things of the outside world) nulla illi substantia est. (II 50.7).
See De int. 3, 16b19–25.
See De Rijk 1981b, pp. 29–30.
See De Rijk 1985, 2.5, 4.21, 5.3.
Kretzmann 1974, p. 16.
Kretzmann 1974, p. 4.
Kretzmann 1974, p. 5.
Cf. De Rijk 1985, 11.2, n. 12; 14.2, n. 10; 15.23.
See De Rijk 1975, pp. 206 f. and Dillon 1977, 29, 95, 255, 410.
For the decisive role played by the notion of ‘immanent form’ (or rather, the Transcendent Form in its immanent status) in Plato’s own development, especially in the Sophist, see De Rijk 1985, passim. Among many others, Dillon failed to see this, in Dillon 1977, pp. 137 and 274.
Cf. De Rijk 1981, esp. pp. 146–56. In the present paper I am correcting it in some respects. The interpretation of this treatise in the Steward-Rand translation [1926] is misleading and even untenable in many cases. A clear summary of its content is found in Gilson 1955, pp. 104–105, and the first modern over-all interpretation is due to Schrimpf 1966, which presents a penetrating study which is, however, rather unclear in its exposition (esp. of Boethius’s terminology) and even its composition. The author, who seems unfamiliar with basic semantics, even comes to “discover” a number of terminological deficiencies in Boethius (pp. 23; 24–26; 28, n. 2) or to force some bizarre distinction upon him (pp. 16; 21).
Its complement being ‘undetermined Matter’ (Aristotle’s materia prima, Plato’s chôra (discussed in the Timaeus)); see De Rijk 1985, 14.3.
The first of them deals with the general nature of ‘axiom’ or ‘common conception’ defined as “a statement generally accepted as soon as it is made”; 40.18–19, ed. SR.
For this (quite common) use of Greek autos and Latin ipse, see the lexica and De Rijk 1985, 4.21.
Also the famous ‘Communion of Forms’ (Kinds) discussed (especially) in Plato’s Sophist should not be viewed as (mutual) participation, as it is frequently viewed by modern scholars. See De Rijk 1985, 7.3; Cf. 8.
See De Rijk 1985.
For this opposition (which also concerns the basic difference between Aristotelian and Platonic metaphysics), see De Rijk 1970, pp. 11–21 and 1981, pp. 32–35.
I am afraid SR’s translation is sheer nonsense: “merely to be something and to be something absolutely are different”. What on earth could be meant by the phrase ‘to be something absolutely’ as opposed to ‘merely to be something’? Schrimpf [1966] is of the opinion that Boethius’s use of three different expressions for ‘being’ (‘esse’, ‘ipsum esse’ and ‘id quod est esse’) betrays the complexity of his notion of being. That conclusion is completely wrong in that (1) ipsum is intended only to bring into relief the notion of esse (see n. 59 above), and (2) the phrase id quod est esse surely does not mean anything like ‘that which is being’, but is used only for grammatical reasons (see p. 20f. and n. 67 below), as may appear from the fact that it is found only in the oblique form ‘(ex) eo quod est esse’. See also De Rijk 1981, 154–155 and n. 22 there.
As usual; see Migne P.L. 64, col. 1311 C; SR, p. 42.1; as to my knowledge, also the medieval commentators of De hebdomadibus all read “omne quod est participat”.
One may be reminded of the hot debates (from the 13th century onwards) on the pluralitas formarum.
Gilson 1955, p. 105.
Note that the solution to the main question (see 38.1–4 and 42.56ff.) starts from the commonly accepted view (supported by Axiom I, which has no semantic import) that “everything that is tends to Good”, from which it is inferred that “things which are, are good” (see 42.56–60).
Peiper’s punctuation (ut essent, alba minime) followed by SR and SR’s translation is incorrect in that it fails to recognize the objection. Gilbert of Poitiers and Thomas Aquinas did recognize it. A similar objection is raised at 50.162–164.
The editions add the superfluous ea quae alba sunt (a gloss on the preceding alba?), which was not read by Thomas (or Gilbert?).
Wrongly omitted by the editions. It should be read because of the subsequent dative albis, which requires a preceding dative case referring to things that are white. Cf. Gilbert’s reading and his explanation of the construction (225.9–12, ed. Häring).
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De Rijk, L.M. (1988). On Boethius’s Notion of Being. In: Kretzmann, N. (eds) Meaning and Inference in Medieval Philosophy. Synthese Historical Library, vol 32. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2843-5_1
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