WOD: Nihileitas

We've had nihilitates, so now make way for "Nihileitas", a term the humanists would most definitely screamed "Barbarism!" at. Now, you gentle readers may think that such a monster was coined by the decadent 14th century, by the likes of a Peter Auriol or Peter Thomae, but hark:

Duns Scotus Ordinatio I d.36 q. un (VI 296): "Prima ergo omnino ratio et non reducibilis ad aliam, quare homini non repugnat 'esse', est, quia homo formaliter est homo (et hoc sive realiter in re sive intelligibiliter in intellectu), et prima ratio quare chimaerae repugnat 'esse' est chimaera in quantum chimaera. Aliter ergo inest ista negatio 'nihileitas' homini in aternitate, et chimaerae, et tamen non propter hoc est unum magis nihil altero."

I won't bore you with an explanation of the context (whether the divine intellect by knowing created essences ab eterno gives them some real or intelligible being), but I will give a snippet about what the term means:

Petrus Thomae, Quaestiones de esse intelligibili q.9 a.1:

"Quantum ad primum, primo explicabo aliqualiter nihileitatis quid et modum, secundo nichileitatis ortum, tertio nihileitatis gradum, quarto ipsius habitum. Quantum ad primum, dico ista per ordinem. Primum est quod nihileitas non est aliud quam negatio aliquitatis; idem enim est nihil quod non aliquid. Secundum est quod nihilitas quedam est totalis quod partialis, nam aliqua negatio est que negat totum que vocatur negatio extra genus; aliqua que non totum sed aliquid ut negatio in genere. Tertium quod quedam est nihileitas non repugnantie quedam repugnantie."

Word of the Day: Aliusitas

Today's word of the day is aliusitas. It apparently is a certian kind of alietas. I am not exactly sure what kind. As one might surmise, it comes from the 14th century theologian and Scotist philosopher Peter Thomae, from his Formalitates seu Quaestiones de modis distinctionis q.5 a.4. Here it is, in all its glorious context.

Omnis enim alietas vel facit aliud et sic potest vocari alietas aliuditatis vel alium et sic alietas aliusitatis; et ista alietas est proprie inter diversa supposita sicut prima inter diversas essentias; vel facit alterum et haec est alietas alteritatis quae est non alietas essentiae nec suppositi sed alicuius accidentalis dispositionis.

Honestly, I don't even know how to translate this. "For otherness either makes another and so can be called otherness of otherness, or other, and so otherness of [some other kind of otherness]; and that otherness is properly between diverse supposits, just as first among diverse essences. Or it makes an other, and this is otherness of otherness which is not otherness of essence or supposit but otherness of an accidental disposition.

Admittedly, it is utterly out of context.

Word of the Day

Today's Word of the Day is..."nihilitates", (assuming I resolved the abbreviation properly) a gem of a term used, if not coined, by Petrus Thomae in his Quaestiones de modis distinctionum q.7 (Utrum ponentes attributa divina distingui sicut aliqua positiva vel sicut diverse formalitates habent ponere necessario quod ipsi distinguuntur sicut res et res). One can see why the humanists hated the scholastics, and perhaps also why Petrus Thomae does not seem to have been read after the 15th century. Here it is, in all its glory in its original context; note that it is one of the principal arguments at the beginning, and not necessarily one he endorses.

Praeterea tertio arguitur sic: realitas unicumque est simpliciter sua formalitas; et idem est res et sua formalitas, ergo impossibile est ponere plures formalitates quin ponatur plures realitates; ista enim attributa sive formalitates ut distinctae vel sunt aliquid et res vel nihil. Si sunt aliquid et res, propositum. Si nihil, ergo formalitates sunt nihilitates.