New Book on the Analogia entis

 Several Italian scholars have put together an anthology of texts, available for free here. It has the original language plus Italian translations and introductions to the texts. but they are all important, from Aristotle, the Greek commentators on Aristotle, Avicenna and Averroes, Aquinas, Scotus, Eckhart and Cajetan. The volum jumpts from Eckhart to Cajetan, omitting the author who wrote the most about analogy, in the middle ages, at least, Petrus Thomae. An odd omission, since there was a section in the companion volume on Peter Thomae by Porro. Also, Alexander of Alexandria has a fair bit on analogy in his commentary on the Metaphysics. But enjoy what we have.

Norris Clarke on Univocity

 W. Norris Clarke was a Jesuit philosopher who taught at Fordam, dying in 2008. His books are still used as textbooks, so I thought it useful to comment on his characterization of Scotistic univocity. The following text is from his book The One and the Many, p. 45. For some discussion of Clarke's views, see this.

The Analogy of Being vs. the Univocity of Being. Some metaphysicians in St. Thomas’s own time, e.g., Duns Scotus (d. 1308), and William of Ockham (d. 1347), with their followers to this day, defended the univocity of the concept of being against Thomas. Both were leaders in the strong development of logic at the end of the Middle Ages (anticipating many of the developments of modern symbolic logic), and logicians tend to be uncomfortable with flexible ideas, “systematically vague concepts” like the Thomistic analogy of proper proportionality, especially as applied to being in God and creatures. And since their metaphysics were “essentialist,” i.e., focussed on being as essence (not including the act of existence as part of its content), it was hard for them to see how the concept of being could be applied to different essences without breaking up into several distinct concepts ceasing to have the same meaning at all, hence useless as a valid term in any syllogism or other logical argument, where all the terms must remain strictly fixed in the same meaning. Therefore, to retain any unity at all, being always had to be a univocal concept, even applied to God and creatures with their immense diversity as finite and infinite. But they had to pay a heavy price for this apparent logical clarity: they had to make the concept of being so extremely abstract as to empty it of practically all content and make it merely an empty linguistic marker standing for both God and creatures but, as Ockham explicitly admitted, expressing nothing common at all between God and creatures! The result was to render God considerably more remote and inaccessible to human reason than St. Thomas’s God, with important repercussions for the philosophy, theology, and finally spirituality of the late Middle Ages.

Comments:

1.The first thing to note here is that Clarke reads Scotus and Ockham (though he does not distinguish between them) though the lens of Thomism, specifically the real distinction of essence and existence. Hence the label "essentialist", inherited from Gilson. The claim here is that Scotus and Ockham ignore existence and are talking about being as a purely non-existential essence. Wolter, way back in his transcendentals book, commented on this claim of Gilson to the effect that it was an ingenious account of what Scotus would have said if he were a Thomist. But of course, Scotus is not a Thomist. Scotus denies the real distinction of essence and existence.

2. Clarke does grasp that part of the concern of univocity is to have valid syllogisms. He, Clarke, seems to think that being does not have a distinct concept, however, given that he thinks Scotus was also motivated by discomfort with vague ideas. This is a matter of debate among Thomists themselves, historically and today. Some agree with Scotus that there is a distinct concept of being that includes nothing else, some, like Clarke, think you can't separate the concept of being from the concept of God or of something in the categories. One then has to "stretch" created being to get a notion of the divine. Scotus, as we know, did think being had a distinct concept. 

3. The heavy price of univocity. Here I think Clarke's explanation goes awry. He claims that Scotus and Ockham make the concept of being abstract and empty, just a linguistic marker, but also that it stands for God and creatures. Of course, the concept of being, as such, does not stand for God and creatures. As it is included in the concept of God and the concept of a creature it is univocal, but of itself the concept of being is neither the concept of God nor the concept of a creature.  Clarke does not give a reference to the remark of Ockham's that he claims is explicit, to wit, that there is nothing common to God and creatures. This seems to clinch matters for Clarke, we arrive at basically a contradiction, being is univocal, but there is nothing common (which equals univocal, anyway). This appears to be a garbled awareness on the part of Clarke to the problem of the reality of the concept of being. This is the problem that the concept of being, qua abstract and univocal, signifies no corresponding reality outside the mind. This runs against the common notion from the Aristotelian commentary tradition that concepts map directly onto things. Normally, Scotus would agree; but to get to concepts of the transcendentals, you have to abstract from the concept you have derived from the actually existing thing. That abstraction does not correspond to the reality outside the soul. And note, this is a different sense of the word 'abstraction' than you get in Aquinas or even when you are talking about the three acts of the Aristotelian intellect. There is abstraction from the phantasm, that gets you the concept of a nature, say catness. To get being, you abstract from this nature, present in the intellect as an intelligible species, by stripping off the modes of finitude and so on. So in the end, considering God and creatures as they exist outside the soul, there is nothing in common. But one can abstract from the concept of a creature to the concept of being, which can also be applied to God.

4.  The alleged result is to make God more remote and unknowable. But since we have now seen that Scotus does not hold that the concept of being is both pure and contains the concept of God and creatures, the result doesn't follow either. Scotus himself, interestingly, defends the univocity of being not in metaphysics, but in the context of describing the natural knowledge of God. Not only being is univocal, but all the transcendentals, general divine attributes, are as well. So a lot more is known, both by an intellect trying to have a general cognition of the divine nature, as well as scientifically by means of forming valid demonstrations. Indeed, it has always seemed to me that Scotus is the affirmative theologian par excellence, who ought rather than Aquinas to be paired with Dante. But that can wait for another day.

5. Repurcussions. The alleged effect of rendering God more remote has repurcussions many later areas of life. The usual Thomist claim from the 20th century, disagreement with our man leads to societal decay. I've always been rather struck that the ones who trumpet this the loudest, the RO crowd, are by practice theologians who supposedly believe in sin, or at least weakness of will. sin seems to me to be a far better explanation than that of univocity for the apparently inevitable march from Scotus to whatever modern thing you don't like. If I were to have lived during the reformation period and watched christians killing each other over the proper definition of the eucharist I would probably try to set up a non christian secular state of skepticism as well. To be fair to Clarke, this is not the focus of the discussion, just a throwaway line at the end.

Scotist analogy

A new essay on the Scotist analogy of being (analogia entis) has appeared. Here is the abstract.

It is widely believed today that John Duns Scotus’s doctrine of the univocity of being ushered in various deleterious philosophical and theological consequences that resulted in the negative features of modernity. Included in this common opinion, but not examined, is the belief that by affirming univocity Scotus thereby also denied the analogy of being (analogia entis). The present essay challenges this belief by recovering Scotus’s true position on analogy, namely that it obtains in the order of the real, and that complex concepts of creatures are analogically related to complex concepts of God. Scotus’s doctrine is then compared to the later Scotist tradition. The common opinion of the Scotist school from the fourteenth century onward followed Scotus’s position on analogy and considerably expanded upon his scattered remarks.

The Analogia Entis as Nigromantical Principle

For various reasons I was poking about in contemporary theological writing on analogy of being and Duns Scotus. The usual wasteland of wild claims, textual misinterpretation, and historical inaccuracy abounds now as ever (the belief that Scotus taught in Cambridge is impervious to all argument), but I did come across an interesting discussion of analogy in John Betz's article (which does not mention Scotus) "The Analogia entis as a Standard of Catholic Engagement..." in Modern Theology 2018. The following paragraph caught my eye:

Nevertheless, Barth was right that Przywara did not invent the analogia entis and that it has long been part of the Catholic tradition. Not only is it found in Augustine, specifically in Book XV of De Trinitate, which appears to have been the basis for the decision of the IV Lateran Council. It is also the implicit (but obvious) teaching of Aquinas, whom Przywara calls the teacher of the analogia entis, especially on account of Thomas’s teaching on secondary causes (since this teaching underscores, more so than NeoPlatonic models of exemplarism, including Augustine’s, the difference between God and creation). It is also, for that matter, the implicit teaching of Gregory of Nyssa, as is evident from Gregory’s reading of Exodus 3:14 and his corresponding understanding of the relation between Being and non-being. But it remained for centuries more of an implicit than an explicit teaching and thus stood in need of theological explication (precisely in keeping with Newman’s understanding of the development of doctrine, but here in terms of the Church’s understanding of creation). In fact, it does not appear as a terminus technicus until Cajetan and John of St. Thomas, and only thereafter, by way of Suárez’s Disputationes Metaphysicae, made its way into the Jesuit manuals in which Przywara first encountered it

Two thoughts arise from considering this passage:

First.  As I and probably many other specialists writing on Scotus have pointed out, there are multiple senses of the "analogy being". There is a 'thick' sense, much like what is described in the passage quoted here, which involves dissimilarity-similarity, participation, causality, basically a whole cluster of metphysical notions. There is also a 'thin' sense, which is about the relations between terms and concepts. The thick sense includes the thin sense of analogy. Modern critics of Scotus generally don't distinguish these senses, and, without distinguishing where Henry's theory of analogy falls that Scotus rejects (and to be fair to modern theologians, many now seem to be aware that Scotus attacked Henry's theory of analogy and not Thomas'), assume Scotus rejects the analogia entis, simpliciter et totaliter, that is, that he throws out the thick sense of analogy.

Second. The claim here, backed by an article from 1970 (though, interestingly enough, the article is not by an author who is a medievalist, but apparently by another Przywara scholar) is that the usage of Analogia entis as a technical term is first found in Cajetan. Interestingly enough, the 17th c. Scotist theologian and philosopher Mastri made a similar claim, asserting that "the ancient scholastics wrote little about analogy" and that the debate over analogy began with Cajetan's book on the topic. One sees here the so-called tyranny of print: there was much discussion of analogy by authors such as Petrus Thomae who were never printed in the early days of the press, and so works such as the Quaestiones de ente (which dwarfs Cajetan's De nominum analogia) were lost to later ages. But John Betz and Mastri are both wrong. The usage of 'analogia entis' in both the thick and thin senses is found in the aforementioned Quaestiones de ente of Petrus Thomae, first printed in its entirety last year but written at Barcelona in 1325. This work also contains the first known mention of the Scotist school (Schola scotica). So the first professedly Scotist author is also the coiner of the Analogia entis? Given the widespread belief that Scotus himself and thus all his "progeny" rejected analogy, this is quite the historical irony. Moreover, given that Peter Thomae died in prison under charges of necromancy, perhaps the Analogy of Being is tainted, some attempted spell cast by Peter Thomae from across the ages; in the end perhaps it is, to paraphrase the (Latin) trial documents, a Nigromantical Principle.

For statements on analogy in PT, see Petrus Thomae, Quaestiones de ente q. 10 (thick analogy; see here). See also the same question for thin analogy, ed. me, p. 272: "Ad secundum et tertium et alias similes auctoritates dico quod explicant analogiam entis respectu substantiae et aliorum, sed haec analogia non repugnat verae univocationi."  The edition records no variants here, but one wonders whether "aliorum" shouldn't be "accidentium".

Franciscus de Mayronis on Univocity

Here is the conclusion to a question on univocity of being probably by Francis of Meyronnes that I transcribed today.

Ideo dico quod ens dicitur secundum eandem rationem formalem de Deo et creatura, licet nullo modo secundum eandem realitatem, quia licet Deus sit in perfectione excellentissimus ut eius entitas omnia transcendit, ita est benignissimus ut sua dona quibuscumque communicet, et ideo sicut illi qui negant univocationem ipsam laudant quoad eius sublimitatem, ita isti quoad eius liberalissimam largitatem, nec tamen isti minus extollunt divinam excellentiam quia ipsam ponunt perfectum, non solum quoad excellentiam et sufficientiam sed etiam quoad redundantiam, unde Paulus eius divitias extollens Ro. 10 dicit quod Deus est dives in omnes ad quas divitias nos ipse perducat. Amen.

Therefore I say that being is said according to the same formal notion of God and creatures, although in no way according to the same reality, because, although God is most excellent in perfection so that his entity transcends all things, so also he is most kind so that he communicates his gifts to everyone, and therefore, just as those who deny univocity praise him according to his sublimity, so those [who affirm univocity praise him] according to his most liberal abundance, nor nevertheless do they [who affirm univocity] less extol the divine excellence because they posit it as perfect, not only as far as excellence and sufficiency but also as far as his overflowingness, whence Paul extolling his riches  says in Romans 10 that God is rich in all to which riches he will lead us. Amen.

Petrus Thomae's De ente: Prologue

Here is a translation of the prologue from the Quaestiones de ente, the critical edition of which was recently published here.

[Quaestiones de ente]

[Prologue]

Just as the Philosopher says in I Physics chapter 7, “first according to nature we say common things and thence speculate about proper things.” For with common things unknown, so also are proper things unknown, according to him elsewhere, and therefore “it is necessary to proceed from universals into singulars,” from I Physics chapter 1. Since therefore the transcendentals are the most common, it is opportune to treat something of them for the acquisition of scientific knowledge; among the transcendentals being itself holds the first and chief place, as will be seen below. And therefore, in order to acquire knowledge of the transcendentals, we will procede in this order: first we will inquire about the concept of being, second about what follows [consequentibus] it, third about the first parts of being.

Concerning the first [part] we proceed thus:

First we ask whether the concept of being is known per se or is knowable from others

Second whether the concept of being is quidditative

Third whether the concept of being is maximally first

Fourth whether being has a proper concept distinct from the concept of every special being

Fifth whether the argument from a certain and doubtful concept concludes necessarily

Sixth whether among quidditative concepts only the concept of being is irreducibly simple

Seventh whether true analogy and true univocity are compatible in the same concept

Eighth whether the concept of being is one only by a unity of equivocation

Ninth whether the concept of being is one only by a unity of confusion

Tenth wehther the concept of being is one by a unity of univocity

Eleventh whether the univocity of the concept of being is real

Twelfth whether being is predicated ‘in quid’ of its proper attributes

Thirteenth whether being is predicated ‘in quid’ of ultimate differences

Fourteenth whether the concept of being is immediately contractible by some differences

Fifteenth whether there can be something univocal to real being and being of reason.

My MicroNarrative

The common Thomist narrative of the rise of theology and philosophy to its zenith in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, the common doctor of all and the angelic doctor, a rise which soon turned into a flaming nosedive needs no introduction here. It is so widespread that Milbank can refer to it as "scarcely then controversial". The text-base defense of Scotus seem to have all failed, at least rhetorically. The "semantic" defense of Scotus has been effectively undermined by Milbank (in the linked piece) on the grounds of a-historicity (think about that for a minute, then try not to spill your beer). The narrative normally focuses on the "twin scissors" (to use Hans Boersma's turn of phrase) of univocity and voluntarism that snipped the "sacramental tapestry" that Scotus had inherited from Christ and the Apostles via Thomas Aquinas.

Here I want to propose a counter-narrative, though it is more fact-based than interpretative, so it probably does not count as a narrative. And it does not explain the present, but is the sequence of what went on in the 12th-14th centuries. The narrative is ultimately more driven by the waves of Aristotelian translations than anything else.

Step 1: In the twelfth century, the common opinion among the theologians was that perfections or attributes are said univocally of God and creatures. The basic sense of univocity was that of Aristotle's Categories.

Step 2: Aristotle's Metaphysics and Posterior analytics were translated. Aristotle's view in the former is that being is said in many ways. This sense is what became the "analogy of being". Following the Arab commentators one could posit it as "midway" between equivocity and univocity, or following Boethius, one could take the division of the Categories as immediate; there is no medium between univocity and equivocity, analogy becomes  equivocity, in particular, 'equivocal by design', as opposed to pure equivocity. Aquinas himself seems a bit ambiguous here. He often says analogy is a middle way between the extremes, but he clearly knew the Boethian definition, for in Summa contra gentiles when he rejects equivocity he rejects "pure" equivocity. But he does not identify analogy as an equivocal by design. At this step, there is no attempt to unite the metaphysics with the notion of a science in the Posterior analytics

Step 3: The posterior analytics' criteria for science are applied to the science of being, requiring univocity. An early defense of univocity was launched in the 1280's, though I have not found who it was. Their attempt posited a real agreement between God and creatures. Scotus himself attacks this person, as did William of Ware and Peter Sutton. Scotus also posits univocity, at some stage, the univocal concept of being may well be common to God of creatures, the object of the intellect, and the subject of metaphysics. Scotus retains the analogy of being.

Step 4: Criticism of Scotus. Scotus is the locus of the discussion. Early critics reject his position and return to equivocity of being, linked to some 12th c. discussions as well as Porphyry and Boethius. Ockham jettisons analogy.

With the emerge of Ockham, the basic positions of the scholastic discussion are set until the dissolution of scholasaticism itself: equivocity of being, univocity of being with analogy, univocity alone, analogy of being alone. There was much discussion of the issue during the 14th century. I have found little discussion in Franciscans of the fifteenth century on the topic. Perhaps I haven't looked hard enough. Most mention it, but say nothing interesting and don't devote questions to it. Thus there is some justice in Mastri's comment that there was little discussion of analogy before Cajetan. Cajetan revived the debate (note I deny the existence of a distinction between first or second scholasticism and the fanciful claims made today about Cajetan restarting scholasticism). By Mastri's day (17th c.) there were extensive debates among the schools about analogy and univocity, long after the RO narrative has jumped to Luther and Kant. In truth, analogy was never abandoned by anyone save Ockham and the nominalists, certainly not by Scotus and the Scotists.

Get to work in the comments and tear this apart!

A New Front Opens in the War over Being

Civilization seems to be crumbling around us these days. Governments are corrupt and ineffectual, political rhetoric has become increasingly unhinged, the universities, flush with cash, spend it on hiring legions of non-teaching middle managers. The controversies within the Church grow ever darker and run deeper...

If all this is getting you down, why not spend the remaining years of your life coming to grips with a new 830 page book from Leuven University Press?

For a cool 200 euros, you can own the new critical edition and study of Petrus Thomae's Quaestiones de ente. Available here. This work details various properties of being, such as univocity and analogy, defending the Scotist conception, though reworking the position a fair bit and abstracting from the applications in which Scotus discussed it (i.e. natural knowledge of God, divine simplicity). Thus one could almost say that it is "systematic". It should be noted, that while many theologians and philosophers think that the analogist and univocalist positions are incompatible, Scotists have always held the opposite, that in fact univocity and analogy are complementary. Peter Thomae is no exception, and of all the Scotists, he probably discusses analogy the most. Hence the title of the post: A New Front, in that it is a (today) unknown take on being.

Anyway, here is the publishers blurb:

Editio princeps of Peter Thomae’s De ente

It is generally acknowledged by historians of philosophy that medieval philosophers made key contributions to the discussion of the problem of being and the fundamental issues of metaphysics. The Quaestiones de ente of Peter Thomae, composed at Barcelona ca. 1325, is the longest medieval work devoted to the problem of being as well as the most systematic. The work is divided into three parts: the concept of being, the attributes of being, and the descent of being. Many of the philosophical tools that Peter pioneered in this work, such as the distinction between objective being and subjective being, and various modes of quiddities and abstraction, were adopted by later thinkers and discussed up to the eighteenth century. Apart from defending and further extending Scotistic doctrine, one of Peter’s achievements in the De ente is to fully reconcile Scotistic univocity with the traditional doctrine of the analogy of being.

In addition to the critical edition, the present volume also contains a detailed introduction and study of the philosophy and the manuscripts of the De ente, with an appendix containing the question on univocity by Francis Marbres (John the Canon), who copied extensively from the De ente.

From the Thomist perspective, it must look something like this:

The Ratio Algazaelitica

Scotus' argument from certain and doubtful concepts (see this post for explanation) was been given a variety of descriptions during the Middle Ages. Francis de Mayronis calls the major premise at least "Scotus' rule", Peter Thomae describes the whole thing as the "ratio famosa," and one can also find marginalia indicating that it is Scotus' "Achilles argument" in Peter of Aquila's Sentences Commentary. By Achilles, presumably, is meant that it is the strongest weapon in Scotus' arsenal, not that it is his fatal weakness. 

In the fifteenth century, the French Franciscan and (eclectic?) Scotist William of Varouillon made some interesting remarks on the argument, which have been noted a few times in modern literature, though I don't think they have been quoted. After quoting the argument, William lodges the following objection against it:

Sent. I d. 3 q. 1 a. 2 (Venezia 1502, f. 10vb): Huic fortissime rationi aliqui dicunt quod est regula Scoti et quod transeat cum regula sua.

Quibus ego respondeo quod si non curant de Scoto, vadant ad Metaphysicam Algazaelis, qui maximus reputatus est metaphysicus, et istam regulam quasi iisdem verbis reperient. Unde regula ista, si ab inventore nominetur, dicitur non Scotica sed Algazaelitica nuncupatur. 

Translation:

Some say to this strongest argument that it is the rule of Scotus and that he passed away with his rule.

To which I say that if they don't care about Scotus, let them go to the Metaphysics of al-Ghazali, who is deemed the greatest metaphysician, and they will find that rule almost with the same words. Whence that rule, if it should be named by its discoverer, should be called not Scotic but Algazalitic.

The object is that Scotus came up with the rule, and since he is dead, it is no longer valid. The rule here probably being the major premise, though the whole thing is loosely in al-Ghazali. William's reply locates a deeper lineage to the argument than simply Scotus. In some of the modern literature the algazalian origin is discounted in favor of Avicennian, but in truth it is in both.

Aufredo Gonteri Brito on the Analogy of Being

Aufredo Gonteri Brito was a Franciscan who taught at the Barcelona convent in the early 1320's. He wrote a commentary on the Sentences at Barcelona and one at Paris, the latter around 1322. In many texts, Gonteri copies Henry of Harclay into his own commentary (see the article by Friedman-Schabel-Duba), and the work as a whole is described as a "compilatio" The following text, however, is not from Harclay. It is a discussion of analogy, in which Aufredo offers a definition of analogy. There are resonances here with Scotus' discussion of analogy of attribution in Ord. I d. 8 q. 3.

Gonteri is a Scotist, who helds the common opinion of the Scotists, running from Scotus to the 20th century, that being is both analogical and univocal.

I offer here a translation of the text, which I have cobbled together from two manuscripts. For reference sake, see Vat. lat. 1113, f. 54vb-55ra. Happily, the Vatican library has digitized the manuscript.

Gonteri, Ord. I d. 3 q. 2 a. 1.

Furthermore, it must be known that an analogus concept is a medium between a univocal and equivocal [concept]. And an analogous concept is that by which some things are conceived by one name at once according to a certain relation of one to another or of both to some third. 

Nevertheless, it should be known that analogy is twofold. A certain one is properly said which is between some many things agreeing in one name which are of diverse rationes having a relation of one to another or of others to a third, just as this name 'healthy' is said of health in the animal and in bread and in urine analogically, as is said in IV Metaphysics, because health is formally in the animal, in urine significatively, in bread in virtue of the supposite, in medicine [i. m. = lec. inc.] effectively, and so not according to the same notion [ratio]. The other analogy is between some things in one name which agree in one formal univocal notion [ratio] found in them, nevertheless they participate in that notion according to more and less, prior and posterior, and in that way there is equivocation [and analogy adds. one MS]; in species of the same genus is there equivocation and analogy according to the Philosopher in VII Physics, because, as he says there, many equivocations lie hid in the genera, and such an analogy is always between equivocal causes and their effects. 

Now the first unity of the analogical concept excludes the unity of univocity from those between which it is, but the second unity of the analogous concept, although it is formally other than the unity of univocity, and distinct from it and lesser than it, nevertheless it does not exclude it, indeed it is compatible with it, nor does it restrict it. For although the unity of analogy alone does not posit the unity of univocity properly said, just as neither does the unity of a genus alone posit the specific unity among some things, because a minor unity does not posit a greater, as was said, nevertheless the unity of analogy does not necessarily exclude the unity of univocity properly called from those between which it is, indeed it is compatible with it, just as also the unity of the genus is compatible with the specific unity by which some things are one in genus and one in species concretely, although this unity of the genus is formally other than the specific unity abstractively, as was said.

So. Two kinds of analogy. The first is of many to one or one to another, in which the ratio (definition, meaning, formal character, etc.) is diverse in the analogates, but focused on one central notion. The second is in which there is only one ratio, that itself is said univocally, but it is found in its univocates in relations of prior-posterior, more-less. This latter kind of analogy is that which obtains between God and creatures. So God is prior, creatures posterior; creatures participate in God, and such is seen by Gonteri (and indeed by Scotists) to be compatible with univocity, even in the same concept. The description of analogy as predication of the prior and posterior goes back to the Arabs, and the combination with univocity perhaps is a result of the ambiguity in Avicenna. Avicenna describes being as being said in the prior and posterior way, and yet scholars of the latin and arabic texts have never managed to agree wither or not he holds to univocity as well.

Symposium on Horan's 'Postmodernity and Univocity'

There is now an online symposium up at the "Syndicate" website: here. As my co-blogger once reminded me, this website, devoted to symposia in several academic fields, such as philosophy and theology, shares its name with the terrorist organization in the previous "Mission Impossible" film and indeed in the one currently in production. It is hard to imagine a more apt term to describe current academic disciplines and practices, and I say that as one who has benefited in various ways from the current system.

Regarding the syndicate symposium itself, I did not read it, nor will I do more than skim. It has an entry by Richard Cross, no stranger to readers of this blog, and no stranger to publishing critiques of Milbank. There is an entry by Justus H. Hunter, a theologian who was worked on Grosseteste and some other medieval figures. There is one by another theologian working in medieval, Lydia Shoemaker, on the horizon.

Rather amazingly, they got Milbank to reply. And, given that Milbank usually just trashes Scotus en passant, we have here what may prove to be his lengthiest discussion of Scotus. But it is the same old story. Lots of postmodern verbiage, which, once one pairs it away, all that he says is that Scotus says something different than Aquinas, everything Aquinas says is right or will be right once it gets its proper development, everything in Scotus is bad and leads to bad things in every area of modern life. Some errors here in there, for example in a Deleuze quote that Milbank thinks expresses Scotus' position (no quote here, I paraphrase from memory, in true Milbankian style) in which Deleuze fails to grasp the twofold primacy of being as it pertains to ultimate differences. To give Milbank his due, he does cite one of the most obscure passages in the Ord., in which Scotus suggests that the univocal concept of being may potentially contain God and creatures, in that it is formally neither one (since if that were the case, one could not contract it to what it is supposed to be univocal of). This was against Cross' description of the abstracted univocal concept of being as being only "semantic". Milbank's argument is just that this term does not occur in Scotus, and he adds some remarks that I can't decipher about that if Cross were right, the univocal concept of being would be in a middle ground, the ground the formal and transcendental. That of course is what it is, in Scotus' own terms. In any case, though Milbank, to be fair, seems to have given the status of the univocal concept of being more thought, his particular sniping here at Cross seems to me to reek of a preference for continental jargon over analytic.

Two other points seem worthy of comment.

1. At the beginning, Milbank claims that there were debates among later Scotists regarding whether univocity was a feature of logical being or real being. Milank provides no reference, and I am half tempted to read the whole thing to see what he has in mind. I gather that Milbank takes it to mean whether the concept of being taken as such has or signifies something actually existing or not, i.e. some nature in the world. Indeed, there was some debate on this, which I would describe as being whether the concept of being is "real" or not. By real, Scotus would mean a first intention concept. And here Scotus is unambigouous. The concept of being is a real concept, in the sense that it has been abstracted from the cognition of a creature. There was some debate on this, so Milbank is right, though the debate was mainly between those who defend Scotus' or at least the common 14th (and 21st) century interpretation and those who wanted to have an easier reconciliation with Aquinas and posited univocity as pertaining to second intentions (Peter of Navare, John Bassols). The only thinker who went in a more "real" direction than Scotus was Antonius Andreae, who, despite the fact that most of his question is verbatim quotation and paraphrase from Scotus, did say there was a real similitude on which the concept of being was based. But this was part of a two sentence attack on peter of Navarre that he did not explain in any detail, so it is hard to see what AA was getting at. So this one remark of Milbank's is accurate. I suppose he probably had the info from Boulnois.

2. Milbanks suggests that Gilson is basically right, and that the research of the past decades has rather confirmed his interpretation. Included in this discussion is the claim that the historical claims of causation regarding univocity and other positions of Scotus have been verified by the majority. Of course, Scotus scholars still deny these historical claims. So Milbank seems to think the majority determines truth. Basically, he has won. And he is right: certainly in theology his views on Scotus are the majority, and look to be that way for a long time to come. Perhaps Horan's book will make a dent in the Cambridge hegemony, but it seems unlikely. Cross has been writing against them for years. A scotist could comfort themselves by noting that all the references in the theological majority all go back to a few bad readings, but it really is rather hollow comfort. Or one can ponder how academic trends rise and fall, and hope one's students will be open minded. But in general it seems that to be a Scotist now is more akin to the esotericist or gnostic, blowing on the secret fire and passing it once or twice to a novice whom one judges worthy of teaching.

I didn't see comments on the Syndicate site. Feel free to comment here in the more relaxed atmosphere of The Smithy, where anonymous posting is welcome.

New Book on Analogy of Being

An interesting collection of essays on the analogy of being has been issued as an issue of the journal Archivio di Filosofia 84 (2016). It has wide coverage from the ancient world to the contemporary, and varies between systematic study and treatment of neglected figures. For a convenient table of contents, see the page of one of the authors.

Of course, like all modern scholarship on analogy, the volume suffers from complete blindness where the contribution of the Scotist tradition is concerned. The Thomists have successfully buried it with their narrative of Scotus' introduction of corruption and decline into philosophy, theology, social life, etc. Not that medieval Thomists seem to have bothered with it either. I have yet to find a Thomist responding to Peter Thomae's theory of analogy, though, to be fair, no one else did either (save, perhaps for Guillelmus Farinerii). It has been buried in manuscripts since the fourteenth century. Anyway, for a sketch of Peter's theory, which both incorporates the traditional Scotist theory as well as develops it, see this initial stab at interpretation on academia.edu.

Ashworth on Analogy

Here:

"Despite the vast modern literature devoted to Aquinas's theory of analogy, he has very little to say about analogy as such."

Discuss

The Destroyers of Philosophy

Are those who deny the univocity of being. So says the Doctor.

Lectura I d. 3 p. 1 q. 1-2 (Vat XVI) ...

n. 105:

But to the contrary it seems that to posit the univocity of being to all destroys philosophy, although it is not predicated essentially of all, as of differences.

n. 110:

I say that I do not destroy philosophy, but the ones positing the contrary necessarily destroy philosophy, because if there is not a common concept of being, then it would be impossible that we would have a concept of substance, because substance does not have its own species in the possible intellect, but only the concept of being abstracted from the species of accidents. If therefore being did not have one concept, we would have no concept of substance, neither in common nor in particular.

n. 112:

Whence I say that our intellect first has a cognition of accidents, from which it abstracts the intention of being, which predicates the essence of substance just as accidents; and we only intuitively know substance, and not in any other way. This, as I said, each one experiences for himself, that he does not know more of the nature of substance save that it is being. The total other which we know about substance are properties and accidents proper to substance, through which we intuit those aspects which are essential to substance.

n. 113:

Again, unless being had one univocal intention, theology would be completely destroyed. For theologians prove that the Word in the divine proceeds and is generated by the intellect, and the Holy Spirit proceeds through the mode of the will. But if 'intellect' and 'will' would be only equivocally found in us and in God, there would be no evidence that just because the word is generated in us, so also it is in God, and likewise concerning love in us, because then 'intellect and 'will' would be of another kind here and there. Now it does not follow 'just as it is in our intellect and will, therefore it also is in an intellect of another kind and a will of another kind'. Therefore there would not be any evidence.

So. If you deny the univocity of being, you have no way to know substance. Now, this has some consequences. For much of the pre-modern tradition, metaphysics consisted in reasoning into the knowledge of God and the separated substances. For Scotus, then, in order keep doing metaphysics as traditionally conceived we need univocal concepts. So to conclude:

If no univocity of being,

1. No metaphysics

2. No theology

Musings

As is well known, the two main doctrines in which the contemporary postmodern theological homogeneous hegemony faults Scotus are analogy and participation. I have responded to these charges in the "fundamental positions" series. Scotus is not interested in Thomistic analogy at all, but rather Henrician. His discussion is on the order of concepts, not reality. The Thomists, nouvelle theologists, Cambridge phantasists, Balthasarians and other hegemonists assume Scotus affirms univocity in the same sense that Aquinas rejects it. As for participation, it just never comes up. Scotus seems to just assume it's true on the "real", that is extramental, level.

Now the above-mentioned crowd (which includes Brad Gregory, who teaches at the premier American Catholic university and who - the rumor has it - has been promoted to a position of even higher prestige) generally takes Ockham as the logical development of Scotus' ideas. Which is a little strange doctrinally, as Ockham argues against Scotus all the time. Now maybe you might say, well, but he just takes things farther than Scotus was willing to go with 'potentia ordinata, absoluta' etc. Perhaps, perhaps, but then Scotus just goes farther than Aquinas is willing to go with the same distinction (this crowd never gives an explanation of how Scotus' use of potentia ordinata/absoluta is bad but Aquinas' use is good). But a far more likely guide to the "inheritance" if you will of Scotus is the (ahem) Scotist school (yes yes, debate over medieval schools is intractable, but there was a self-conscious Scotist school by 1320, the year of Pierre Roget' and Francis of Meyronnes' debate). I've started some preliminary research on F. of M.'s views on analogy and participation, and will report more on him later. (in the meantime, see this earlier post).

But another character springs to mind, the inestimable Petrus Thomae. I have been laboriously editing his QQ. de ente for the past three years (there are hundreds of isolated accidents per ms. per question). This work is probably the first independent treatise on the transcendentals ever written (depending on how one balances the relative chronologies of Peter thomae and Francis of Meyronnes, who also wrote a Tractatus de transcendentibus). Whether or not it was the first, it certainly is the longest. Francis of Meyronnes and John de Prato both weigh in at under 100 pages, while Petrus thomae's work is ca. 600. And what are the contents? Lengthy discussion of early 14th century critics of Scotus, massive quotations and discussion of the entire previous tradition concerning univocity and analogy, from Aristotle, Boethius and their commentators up through arabic philosophy to early 13th century authors such as Grosseteste, and yes, Aquinas.  Significantly for my present musings, Peter is all for the analogy of being (he has ten or twelve grades of analogy) as well as participation.

So perhaps Scotus' legacy consists in more rigorous versions of analogy and participation?

Scotus on Participation

It's a common claim made by contemporary intellectuals of various disciplines (I have in mind the Brad Gregorys, Fr. Barrons, the Cambridge fantasists, etc.) that Scotus denies participation. They never bother to cite a text of course, because none of these people have ever bothered to read Scotus. The claim is usually linked to univocity. To hold univocity is to automatically reject analogy and particpation. I've talked about analogy before, how Scotus holds analogical concepts but just isn't interested in talking about them. I've known for a number of years that the same is true of participation, but I never bothered to write any of the passages down. This time I did and offer for your delectation an unequivocal endorsement of participation.


Reportatio II d. 16 q. un. (Wad.-Viv. 23, 70-71):

Ad aliud alterius Doctoris dicit unus Doctor quod nihil agit per essentiam, nisi solus Deus, et ipse semper agit. Vel potest dici quod 'per essentiam' potest accipi dupliciter: aliquando ut distinguitur contra illud, quod est per participationem; aliquando ut distinguitur contra per accidens. Primo modo, dico quod nihil est per essentiam nisi Deus, quia omnis veritas, et entitas creata est talis per participationem, et isto modo agens per essentiam semper agit. Secundo modo agens per essentiam, hoc est, non per accidens, non semper agit necessario.

To the other [argument] of the other doctor, one doctor says that nothing except God alone acts through essence, and he always acts. Or it can be said that 'by essence' can be understood doubly: sometimes as it is distinguished against that which is by participation, sometimes as it is distinguished against 'per accidens'. In the first way, I say that nothing is by essence except God, because every truth and created entity is such by participation, and in that way an agent always acts through its essence. In the second way an agent by essence, this is, not per accidens, does not always act necessarily.

Not much, sure, but clear enough to show that simply because Scotus does not talk a lot about a particular feature of the philosophical tradition does not allow us to infer that he rejects it.

Recent Dissertation on Univocity and Analogy

Perusing the blogosphere I came across an announcement of a recent dissertation defense by one Domenic D'Ettore in the Houston Thomistic Studies Program.  I wanted to post it here to applaud such research. If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times, there are enough books and articles on the analogy of being in Thomas Aquinas troubling the unhappy world.  What is needed is research into Thomistic attempts to deal with Scotus, who has no theory of analogy at all in his mature writings.  So here have just such a dissertation.


Here's the announcement:

The purpose of D’Ettore’s dissertation, titled “Early Thomists on Demonstration with Analogous Terms,” is to defend the demonstration through analogical terms given by early Thomists, such as Thomas of Sutton (1250-1315/20) and John Capreolus (1380-1444), in the face of objections that such demonstration is fallacious from John Duns Scotus (c.1265-1308) and those influenced by Scotus, such as Henry of Harclay (ca. 1270-1317) and Peter of Auriol (ca. 1280-1322). 

The virtue of the Scotist position is its preservation of the apparent integrity of arguments from perfections in creatures to those same perfections in God. The weakness of this position is that it blurs the distinction between God and creatures. The strength of the Thomist position is the preservation of the distinction of God from creatures. 

D’Ettore’s dissertation considers whether or not the early Thomist tradition provides the contemporary Thomist with an adequate answer as to how Thomas’s doctrine of analogy avoids the problems Scotus and his early successors find in it and what aspects these Thomists left for future Thomists to develop. 

Franciscus de Mayronis on Analogy

Franciscus de Mayronis, Conflatus, Prologus q. 12 (ed. Venezia f. 8rb):

Whether being is said analogically of those things of which it is said.

I say that there are four ways of speaking. Some [people] say that it is said univocally because according to one notion [rationem]. Others say that equivocally because according to diverse notions. Others say that analogically because per prius of one and per posterius of others. Others say that [it is said] ambiguously. They distinguish this, however, from analogy because a certain thing is something according to one notion is said of two, nevertheless more perfectly of one than the other. For the other kind of analogy is what is said of one proprerly and of others by attribution to it. And that is reduced to equivocal.

With this premised, it is said that every term either is equivocal or univocal because when the definitions of some things are given by immediate contraries, they are immediately contrary; but equivocals and univocals are of this kind; therefore, etc.  But this is one definition, if being is said equally or unequally of its inferiors.

To this [argument] [we answer/respondetur] with four conclusiones. The first is that being is not predicated according to more and less. The second is that it is not predicated according to prior and posterior. Third that it is not predicated inequally. Fourth that it is not predicated dissimilarly.

They prove all those conclusions with one argument:  because when there is some essential predication, it cannot be varied per posterius; but quantitity of power is attended to according to more and less, prior and posterior, equal and unequal, similar and dissimilar.  All these are posterior to being and also those of which being is predicated; therefore they do not vary the predication of being which is essential. When therefore something is said to be more perfect than being, it is by something posterior to being and consequently in that prior in which the predication of being is made, it will be uniform.

[that's all, folks. It turned out to be less exciting than I had hoped when I initially saw the question title.]

Analogy

Here is Steve Long discussing his book on analogy. I wonder what the relation of all this is to Aristotelian third-mode relations. Recall that the third mode of relations are one-way. The example is that of human knowing: one can know an object and consequently there is a relation from the knowing mind to the object but not from the object to the knowing mind.  This isn't so hard to understand. My thinking about a rock isn't going to affect the rock ex natura rei but it is going to affect my thinking. So to return to Long, could one dispense with this talk of analogical analogy and univocal analogicity simply by saying that the relation of God to creatures and e converso is an Aristotelian third-mode relation? This is course what Henry and Scotus do, though they also feel the need to discuss analogy and univocity, so perhaps not.

Analytic Appropriations of Univocity

Check out the following two links: Proslogion and Alexander Pruss. For Scotus' texts on univocity see our fundamentals post.

But let's consider whether Aquinas and Scotus disagree.

We know the following:

Scotus thinks there are two conditions for a univocal concept.

1. to affirm and deny with respect to the same results in a contradiction.

2. It can be used as a middle term in a syllogism without there being a fallacy of equivocation.

Aquinas defines univocity (see for example Summa Ia q. 13 and De unioni verbi a. 2 ad 4) as when two things have the same name and the same definition. This is Aristotle's definition from the Categories.

Aquinas also thinks (Summa Ia q. 13 a.5?) that analogical concepts are such that they can serve as the middle term in a syllogism without there being a fallacy of equivocation.

Now some notes about the history of equivocity/univocity. We have seen Aristotle's view of univocity. His view of equivocity is when the name is the same but the definition is different. In the Metaphysics he admits of a kind of equivocity that is "focused" or has related meanings, and uses the health example. This is Aquinas' analogy. Aristotle's analogy shows up in the Ethics and consists of a proportion, and always involves four terms (A:B::C:D). Scotus' definition of univocity allegedly comes from Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's categories (I say allegedly because I've never been able to find it. Of course, I haven't looked very hard either).

Scotus sees only two options: univocity or equivocity. There is no medium. Analogy is a subset of equivocity, and as such will result in a fallacy of equivocation. Aquinas sees three options: equivocity, univocity, and analogy. Mysteriously, he thinks that analogy is a medium between the extremes and so does not commit a fallacy of equivocation. I tend to side with Scotus on this point, given the history of the problem.

In rather annoying (perhaps, truly Scotistic?) fashion, Scotus also thinks there can be analogical concepts, and never bothered to attack Aquinas' notion of analogy (what may be important today was not necessarily seen as such in the 13th century), save in Collatio 23, which doesn't have a resolution. So we can fault Aquinas for confusing analogy with equivocity, and Scotus for not telling us how univocal concepts relate to analogical ones and for not analyzing Aquinas' position.

What does all this mean? Well, given the 700 year history of this debate, my readers should not be surprised that I arrive at no definitive conclusions. But if we ignore for the moment Aquinas' belief that analogical concepts avoid fallacies of equivocation and focus on his definition of univocity, a way of harmonization presents itself. For it is clear from Scotus' account that he is primarily interested in concepts, and there is no "real" correspondence between the univocal concept of being and being outside the mind. But Aquinas' definition of univocity concerns two things; and given all his other discussions of analogy in which it is clear that univocity is impossible because of the nature of the divine causality (ie., its equivocal), it's clear that Aquinas is primarily concerned with the "real", and that any analogical concepts are isomorphically related to their real foundations (hence, he has to say analogical concepts don't cause fallacies, because otherwise there would be no systematic theology, only mystical experience a la David Burrell's "theology is a dance"). So, to conclude, we could harmonize our medievals by the claim that they are in fact complementary, for Scotus thinks univocity is on the level of the concept, while Aquinas thinks that analogy is on the level of the real.