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THE DOMAIN OF LOGIC ACCORDING TO SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS THE DOMAIN OF LOGIC ACCORDING TO SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS by ROBERT W. SCHMIDT, S.]. Xavier University, Cincinnati • THE HAGUE MARTINUS NI]HOFF 1966 ISBN 978-94-015-0367-9 ISBN 978-94-015-0939-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-0939-8 Copyright 1966 by Martinus NijhoJf, The Hague, Netherlands. All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form. Imprimi potest: John R. Connery, 5.J. Provincial, Chicago Province January 7, 1966 N ihil obstat: Daniel E. Pilarczyk, 5.T.D., Ph. L., Censor January 7, 1966 Imprimatur: Most Rev. Paul F. Leibold Vicar General, Archdiocese of Cincinnati January 15, 1966 PREFACE Ever since philosophy became conscious of itself, there has been a problem of the relations between the real world which philosophy sought to understand and explain, and the thought by which it sought to explain it. It was found that thought had certain requirements and conditions of its own. If the real world was to be understood through thought, there was a question whether thought and the real correspond­ ed in all respects, and therefore whether they had the same conditions and laws, or whether some of these were peculiar to thought alone. For the solution of this problem it was necessary to study thought and the process of knowing and the conditions which the manner of know­ ing placed upon our interpretation of the real. With a consciousness of the peculiarities of thought and of its laws, philosophers could then more surely make use of it to arrive at the knowledge of the real world which they were seeking, without danger of reading into the real what is peculiar to thought. This necessity gave rise to the science of logic, a science which is still necessary, and for the same reasons. It has an importance in philosophy which it is disastrous to overlook. In the last three or four decades interest in logic has been revived and has grown enormously. While most of the renewed effort has gone into the development of new techniques and instruments, there has been an accompanying discussion of the foundations and nature of the whole enterprise caIled logic. To some extent this has led to a re­ examination of the logical doctrine of the great philosophers of the past; but for most of these the investigation remains insufficient even to the present. In the wake of the current heightened evaluation of logic there have come some excesses as weIl as benefits. Some philosophers have gone so far as to equate logic with the whole of philosophy. The present fashionable excess is almost the contrary of that of Hegel, who ex­ panded logic until it embraced all of philosophy and became especially vi PREFACE a constructive metaphysics. Many currently reduce all of philosophy to logic, understood as the analysis of language. This is something like confusing chemical formulae with the physical world. Since it is important to understand logic and its place in philosophy, it would seem to follow necessarily that, for the understanding of any man's philosophical teaching, it is important to know what he con­ ceived logic to be and just what he assigned as the field of its labors. This is what the present study attempts to do for the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. I ts aim and scope is to determine what St. Thomas considered logic to be, exactly what its domain is, and, more speeifically in Thomas' own terminology, what constitutes the "subject" (the genus subiectum) ofwhich this seience oflogic treats. Any attempt at original, independent philosophizing or even of critieism and judgment upon the teachings of Aquinas in this matter would be beyond its scope. This study is an exegetical and historical one. H seeks to discover and ex­ pound the doctrine of St. Thomas on the domain of logic, not to speculate independently on what the domain of logic should be or to evaluate the speculations of Aquinas. Hs direct concern is historical truth rather than absolute philosophical truth. Whether the two coin­ eide or diverge in this case is a question that can be left for some other more strictly philosophical study or for the private conclusions of the reader. In view of the many treatises on logic which profess to follow the doctrine of St. Thomas, it may be questioned whether there is any further need for such a study, or whether there are any exegetical and doctrinal problems left unsolved. The purpose for which most of these treatises were written, however, distinguishes them radically from the present study. Most are intended as manuals of logic for classroom use; and because logic is almost universally taught at the beginning of any course in philosophy, they must be adapted to philosophical beginners, who are not yet equipped to digest any detailed discussion of the nature oflogical being, its relations to real being, and its dependence upon the manner of human knowing. Logic manuals for beginners must usually be content to give a very brief statement of what logical being is, then go on to expose its various kinds, its prineiples, and some of its applications. Even if the capaeity of the readers for whom they are intended were no limitation upon these treatises oflogic, a mere question of size would be; for if one is to write a complete treatise on logic, one must either restrict the discussion of each of the many points involved, or write PREFACE vii many volumes. No one, it seems, has chosen the latter course. Among the most voluminous of the avowed Scholastic treatises is Coffey's, with two large octavo volumes of nearly four hundred pages each.1 Even with this size, not much philosophical discussion is devoted to the precise domain of the science or the nature of logical being. And furthermore, this work does not pretend to be an exegesis of the writing of St. Thomas. Few of the manuals, even those professing to follow the teaching of St. Thomas, enter into an exegetical exposition of his doctrines. Most, as that ofMaritain, give few citations or none.2 Some, such as the Latin manuals of Hugon3 or Pirotta,4 give some textual quatations, but necessarily few because of their small size and brief treatment of each of the questions. The best manual from the point of view of exegesis in the logic of St. Thomas is the old work of Alamannus, which dates from 1618.6 As the first section of the first volume of a Summa Philosophiae which is compiled from the works of St. Thomas, it uses many texts which it joins together with relatively little original discussion interspersed. But the mere collocation and ordering of the matter involves in itself a considerable amount ofinterpretation. In its general aspect this work differs notably from our current manuals, which seem little but cata­ logues of terms and distinctions and rules compared to its scholastic discussions in the form of questions and articles. Even its more philosophical approach, however, does not permit it within its limita­ tions of space to go into much detail regarding the subject of the science oflogic. For the questions treated in the first chapter and in part ofthe third of this present study Alamannus' work has been somewhat helpful. As an interpreter of St. Thomas' logic John of St. Thomas (1589- 1644) is considered by modern Thomists to hold the first place. His Ars Logica, a weighty tome of eight hundred and thirty-six two-column royal octavo pages, forms apart of his Cursus PhilosoPhicus Thomisti­ cus, which, according to its subtitle, is "according to the mind of Aristotle and St. Thomas": "secundum exactam, veram, genuinam 1 P. Coffey, The Science 0/ Logic (2 vols.; London: Longmans, Green, 1918). I Jacques Maritain, An Introduction to Logic (New York: sheed & Ward, 1937). 8 Edouard Hugon, P. 0., Cursus Philosophiae Thomisticus (6 vols.; Paris: Lethielleux, 1927). 4 Angelo Pirotta, O.P., Summa Philosophiae Aristotelico-Thomisticae (3 vols.; Turin: Marietti, 1931). 6 Cosmus Alamannus, S.J., Summa Philosophiae (3 vols. quarto; edited by B. FelcWin and F. Beringer; Paris: Lethielleux 1885). viü PREFACE Aristotelis et Doctoris Angelici mentem."6 After the brief first part, on formallogic (Hde dialecticis institutionibus quas summulas vocant"), in which a didactic method is followed, the rest is treated philosophi­ cally, discussing many difficulties, problems, or questions, among which are included many of the questions which are examined in the present study. Of these some are treated at length, others receive little atten­ tion. Still other questions are not treated. What chiefly distinguishes John's work, however, from the present investigation of even the same questions, is its author's aim and method. His work, though Haccording to the mind of St. Thomas," is not an exegetical investigation, but a philosophical exposition of the matter for its own sake. Though a fair number of texts from St. Thomas are brought in, there is not much effort at exegesis and the explanation of one text by another text; but the author proceeds on his own, and the quotations are incidental to his own development of the doctrine. Hence, even if John of St. Thomas had covered all of the same ground sufficiently from the point of view of philosophical truth, there would still be room left for an investiga­ tion of the historical truth regarding just what St. Thomas taught. It may even be added that, on the supposition that a careful textual examination of the works of St.

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