Friday, January 4, 2013

Blackfriars Aquinas Seminar

Readers in England might be interested to know that on February 14 I will be speaking at Blackfriars, Oxford University, as part of the Blackfriars Aquinas Seminar.  The title of the talk is “Aquinas and the Immaterial Aspects of Thought.”  Information about the Seminar can be found here.

Very busy trying to meet a couple of deadlines and attend to some other matters at the moment, so posting may be light for a week or so.

453 comments:

  1. Furthermore, if all of this is true – or “true” – then all arguments based upon principles of act and potency cannot apply to God, because once they try to, they become idols that are not about God at all, and thus saying that God is Pure Act is not about God at all, but just a fiction created by our mind.

    God is of course not Pure Act. This is merely Aristotle's version of the Unmoved Mover, who is an onto-theological construct. "Pure Act" is a divine name based on the best elements of creation, since act is superior to potency. Higher still is ipsum esse subsistens, since esse is the "actuality of actuality". This does not mean that Pure Act is a false name: just that it is a analogous symbol, based on ontological components that themselves analogously symbolize God.

    In fact, Aquinas was being facetious in his Five Ways, because when he concludes each argument with “and this is what people call ‘God’”, he was basically saying that his proofs do not demonstrate the existence of anything, except a mental aberration, a psychological quirk of our intellect.

    The Five Ways are based on empirical and rational principles available to everyone. They necessarily lead to a non-existent non-cause, on pains of onto-theological incoherence. At best, you might deny the reality of act/potency, esse/essence and so forth in a desperate gambit to undermine the Five Ways--but there aren't any alternatives from which you could argue. You would be reduced to total skepticism.

    But they do have a positive and affirmative core, i.e. God as Pure Act and Esse Subsistens, from which all his other properties flow.

    These are divine names, dguller. Nothing more, nothing less. There are no absolute statements about God (not even this one, or that one, or that one).

    But see what you just did? The principle of causality involves causes and effects, not “causes” and effects. Once you have put “cause” in quotation marks, you have abandoned the principle of causality, because you are no longer talking about causality, but rather “causality”.

    Given the incoherence and vicious regressiveness of any account of the principle of causality that ends in just another cause, your objection is empty.

    Furthermore, even if God is necessarily present in all our referents as their immanent sustaining activity, it does not follow that our thought about our referents is necessarily about God, as well.

    It actually does, per above.

    They are necessarily present in all my talk about my wife as part of what constitutes my wife’s identity, and yet I clearly do not think about them when I think about my wife.

    Even for Heidegger, facticity is prior to history. Facticity is the condition of history, presupposed by all history. You're equivocating between two completely different senses of relation. If the Trinitarian trace entirely cashed out as a historical, ontic relation no different than the one between a father and son, then we would still be left asking about the condition of history and ontic relations.

    You cannot even say that God is “ontology, factical, ‘always already’”, because all of these terms do not refer to God at all, but rather to mental fictions that devastatingly fail to reach God at all.

    God is not ontology, nor is he our facticity. Your confusion here is the result of collapsing the distinction between God and the Trinitarian trace, as I explained above.

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  2. Why is it that Aquinas is allowed to make ontological conclusions based upon ontic phenomena, but I cannot?

    Where does he do this? He would be committing a fallacy of equivocation.

    First, you can’t bring in Hilbert’s Hotel, because it is an ontic phenomena, and thus cannot be used to elucidate ontology.

    I'm aware that it's ontic, but it doesn't make my case any less true. I was using it to explain the ontic practice of attributing higher names to God, which, per Hilbert's Hotel, can go on forever. Further, you cannot place a limit of quantity on the concepts of "goodness", "beauty", "truth", "nobility" and suchlike even as we apply them to esse commune, because these are all names for esse. Esse is above the ten categories, and hence above the very idea of quantity. As a result, it is possible to perform a quantitatively limitless number of affirmations, in both ontic and ontological terms.

    Second, Hilbert’s Hotel has a definite reference, i.e. the hotel itself, even if its rooms are infinite, which makes it further unlike God, or “God”, or “‘God’”, or …

    I don't see how this is relevant given the current topic.

    No, it is not. You cannot say that God is immanent, because you cannot say anything about God at all, including that he is immanent and transcendent.

    When I say that God is immanent and transcendent, I mean that he is beyond the dialectic of immanence and transcendence, as I said earlier. His presence everywhere is a logical necessity given certain empirical facts, even though this presence cannot be defined as "immanence" or even as "presence" in non-analogous terms. We see it in the Trinitarian trace but this does not tell us "who it is", as Aquinas says, behind that trace. None of this undermines my point.

    Your ontological conclusions are rooted in ontic premises. And yet when I try to make ontological conclusions based upon ontic premises, you always object. Why can’t I do the same thing when Aquinas says that no potency can be actualized except by something actual? After all, that is certainly true of ontic phenomena, but how can you conclude that it is also true of ontological phenomenona?

    You've gotten confused about the difference between ontics and ontology, as I'm using those terms here. Your talk of act/potency is indeed true on an ontological level, because esse is a super-act and essence the original potency. This does not, however, mean that it applies to God, who is beyond the ontico-ontological difference. When I say that the Trinitarian trace is present on an ontological level, I mean that it appears in the ontological components of reality. It is also present on the ontic level (such as in the relation of each substance to God), but this is derivative of its deeper ontological appearance.

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  3. Similarly, just because you cite major Church Fathers to justify your position does not make it “any more coherent”. Also, it would be more helpful if you could detail where my interpretation goes wrong. I just can’t see where.

    My position is that modern Thomist commentators have completely screwed up the doctrine of analogy by divorcing it from tradition and interpreting it in contemporary terminology. The influence of Cajetan's poor, nominalistic and ultimately univocal writing on Thomistic analogy cannot have helped.

    The agreement of the church fathers with my interpretation of Aquinas lends it weight. Also, the first clue that you're wrong about something Aquinas said is when it seems to blatantly contradict one of his other positions. The second is when it makes Aquinas's thought seem totally unprecedented. The third is when a harmonious counternarrative can be supplied that links Aquinas's ideas with one another and with his sources.

    Given Aquinas’ ontology and his theory of mind and language, one cannot talk about fundamental ontology (i.e. God)! Unless you can show where I go wrong, this is a huge problem for Thomism in which his epistemology and linguistics deconstruct his ontology, making it literally unsayable and meaningless.

    If this is your case, then it appears to be undermined by the fact that God is not part of Aquinas's ontology.

    Like who?

    I was skimming stuff on Google books, so I don't recall all of the names. David Burrell was one of the ones that showed up a few times.

    If what he meant was clear, then why the dispute?

    Analytic philosophers and nominalists in general who have collapsed the ontico-ontological difference and forgotten Christian tradition. Remember that Aquinas was one of the last Western theologians before the rise of Scotus, who basically created Christian onto-theology. That combined with nominalism and the idiocy of the early modern period crippled theology beyond repair until recent times. It's not particularly surprising that there's so much controversy over the doctrine of analogy, given all of that.

    What is the difference between God being fully present and just present? You seem to want to say something more by adding the adjective “fully”, and that’s what I don’t understand.

    There was no hidden significance in that adjective. If that's what this side-debate was about, then I think it's settled.

    But the Five Ways are based upon the meaningful content and truth of premises that are fundamentally ontic, because they are rooted in the activity of beings, and not Being itself. Once you have left the ontic framework, you have left the meaningful content and truth of the terms involved.

    "Being itself" for Heidegger and "Being itself" for Thomism are two completely different things. From a Thomist point of view, Heidegger never gets beyond the level of esse commune. That he gets even that far is to his infinite credit, considering the rest of modern philosophy. This appears to be another case of confusion like the one with semiotics: same words, totally different meanings.

    You are trying to save Aquinas by imputing to his words things that betray their clear meaning.

    What Aquinas said about analogy is open to a vast array of interpretations, and any claim to a "clear" one merely ignores the competing views in the literature. My view is compatible with everything Aquinas said, epistemologically, linguistically, ontologically and theologically--and it meshes with Christian tradition in general. I see no reason to prefer your version over mine.

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  4. @dguller

    >If you accept his account, then you have to explain to me how my definitions are wrong. If you accept the account and my definitions, then you have to critique the inferences that I have drawn from them. That is the proper way to refute my argument. Just saying that you “see no reason why” is not good enough.

    Fair enough.

    >Right, but you can still refer to the infinite set of whole numbers at once, and that referent has a clear sense in your mind, even if you cannot imagine every whole number at once. The problem with God is that there is no sense that is in your mind at all,

    That last bit is IMHO arbatrary.

    Anyway I read an account of Analogy of Attribution & Analogy of Proportion.

    QUOTE"The purpose of religious language here is to talk meaningfully about God, and gain some understanding of God.

    Despite Aquinas’ reservations about the adequacy of religious language to convey facts about God, analogy might be seen as cognitive language due to Aquinas’ metaphysics – since God is creator and sustainer of all things, by referring to objects in this world, we are also talking about God (who is present in all observable things).

    Hence analogical language, to some extent, conveys facts about God. Religious language could be seen as cognitive to an extent, then, except not as scientific statements of fact in the Logical Positivist tradition."END QUOTE

    see here:
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:BO-ymCW31UQJ:http://www.missbadgersphilosophysite.com/resources/Notes%2520on%2520analogy%2520and%2520symbols.doc%2BAquinas+-+The+Analogical+View+of+Religious+Language+Believers+have+always&hl=en&gbv=2&gs_l=heirloom-hp.3...31.29253.0.29659.64.55.2.0.0.5.859.15428.9j7j2j7j6j7j5.43.0...0.0...1c.1.z2pdfjTttXU&safe=active&ct=clnk

    I think simply put dguller you might be treating Analogy here as a "scientific statements of fact".

    Or too put it another way you might be using analogy as a means to spell out God's nature in concrete terms but I don't think Aquinas meant us to use it that way.11531 Eupox

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  5. Here is a good link on analogy.

    http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gjmoses/relang2a.htm

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  6. Here is a logical positivists critique of Religious Language(which looks suspiciously like dguller's critique of analogy).

    But mind you I tend to use the charge of "positivism" as a pejorative for Atheists who know little of Thomist philosophy.

    I am not using it here in this case since dguller has a way way better command of Thomism then even some Theists here(myself included).

    I am merely noting the similarity without accusation.

    http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gjmoses/relang3.htm

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  7. Ben,

    While dguller's criticism has consequences similar to those, it's on much firmer ground. Those notions of language neglect the role of intentionality and intelligible species. Thomism's theory of language is a bit like Putnam's externalism combined with Searle's intentionality, but with a whole lot more sophistication. The material cited in that article doesn't even put a dent in the issue of religious language, when you understand it from a Thomist point of view. On the other hand, dguller is actually basing his argument on Thomism's own theory of language, as well as the linguistic analysis of deconstructionist/post-structuralist continental philosophy. He's wrong, but the reasons are pretty complex--even a lot of the modern Thomists are stumped on this issue.

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  8. @RS

    I am so out of my league here.

    But Aquinas says a small mistake can lead to a larger one. So after watching on the sideline dguller spar with you, godregez the O'Flynn & others I wonder if there is a small error here that is being overlooked?

    Any thoughts?

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  9. Rank:

    Things are busy with me right now. I'll be working on my response to your posts over the next few days, hopefully have something up by the weekend. Thanks for taking so much care with your response. I'll try to do the same.

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  10. dguller,

    Sounds good. I'll be waiting.

    Ben,

    Unfortunately, I don't think it's a small error. What dguller has found is a large contradiction at the heart of modern understandings of Aquinas's doctrine of analogy. He's not the only one who's made the argument that it reduces to univocity--I've seen it in the literature, written by respectable contemporary Thomists. Rather than call it a small error, I would say that it's a giant error that rests on centuries-old misreadings (dating back at least to the 1400s) and the corrupting influences of Scotism and nominalism. I do not believe that Aquinas's writings on analogy mean the same thing that dguller and those other Thomists think they do. If they did, then they would contradict Aquinas's own system and place it in conflict with the entirety of the tradition he was summarizing.

    So, while dguller has fallen victim to snowballing errors in the past (his claim that some humans have more being than others rests on a basic conflation of ideas, for instance), I wouldn't number this among them. That doesn't mean that he's right, of course. It just means that the solution is going to be a bit messy and a bit damaging to analytic Thomism.

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  11. I think have been doing some light reading on this & would this be the "Cajetan was wrong" school of thought?

    I've seen some mention of it on the Thomist Blogs.

    Ralph McInerny has a book on it.

    Anyway it would be interesting to note the distinctions between Cajetan vs the Traditional School.


    Where does Rocca fall into this?

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  12. dguller,

    (Note: Since you're investing a lot of time and energy in composing responses to Rank's comments, I don't consider that you have an obligation to respond to this or the next comment.)

    I'm afraid I didn't follow what you wrote. Sorry.

    1. You agreed that, "If some sense of a word means 'this' over here, and another sense of it means 'that' over there, then clearly the senses are not univocal."

    2. You then responded to the following pair of statements: "Nonetheless, and strictly speaking, one can (find some way to) talk about the two senses in a, as you put it, 'univocal fashion'. But this does not establish an actual univocity anymore than speaking nicely of a mean person establishes that that person actually is a nice person."

    3. Your response to this pair of statements was, "If univocity is defined as a comparison in which two predicates both have the same term, the same sense, and the same referent, then it absolutely does establish an actual univocity."

    4. You make use of the word 'it' in your response. The word 'it' is a pronoun which may serve any of several purposes, one of which is to reference something previously mentioned.

    5. Now, a) since it had been said (in the pair of statements to which you were responding) that talking in a 'univocal fashion' about two different senses of a single word "does not establish an actual univocity"; and, b) since you said in your response (to that same pair of statements) that, assuming a certain definition of 'univocity', "it absolutely does establish an actual univocity"; it is, c) reasonable to see the purpose of the pronoun 'it' as intending to refer to talking in a 'univocal fashion' about two different senses of a single word.

    6. So I did three things: a) I started with your response to the pair of statements; b) replaced the pronoun 'it' in the response with the previously mentioned something to which the pronoun refers; and, c) preceded the resulting statement with, "It sounds to me like you're saying that".

    If there was difficulty in following what I wrote, then, aside from the possibility that my meaning was poorly expressed, it may be due to not keeping separate the different levels involved.

    There are two levels involved, one lower and one higher. One level, the lower level, may be called "what is" (W). The other level, the higher level, may be called "talk about 'what is'" (T).

    At the lower level of "what is", i.e., at level W, we have: the actual two different senses of a single word. And at the higher level of "talk about 'what is'", i.e., at level T, we have: talking in a 'univocal fashion' about these actual two different senses of the single word.

    When I said that "talk about the two senses in a, as you put it, 'univocal fashion'...does not establish an actual univocity", I was saying that the result of (e.g., cognitive, dialectical, linguistic and/or logical) manipulations taking place at (the higher) level T does not alter the actual reality at (the lower) level W.

    Now, "talk about the two senses in a, as you put it, 'univocal fashion'" may indeed establish a 'univocity' at or on level T (and this may be why you objected that "it absolutely does establish an actual univocity"). It does not, however, undo the non-univocal reality of the two different senses at the level which matters, i.e., at or on level W.

    As for the hypothetical conversation... well, I see no real need to continue the tedium just now, so will just say that it was meant to show in sharper relief what can result when the different levels (T and W) are injudiciously mixed.

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  13. dguller,

    (Certainly, as Glenn pointed out, if you focused upon the different sub-senses, then you would end up with an equivocal component.)

    I'm not comfortable with this characterization of what I pointed out. A better characterization, one I'd feel more comfortable with, is that I pointed out that your line of reasoning is such that it allows one to do that. My reason for pointing that out was to show that your line of reasoning is such that it permits one to arrive at contradictory conclusions. (The contradictory conclusions are "since analogy can be shown to ultimately reduce to something univocal, that which is called 'analogy' is misnamed, and is really something univocal", and "since analogy can be shown to ultimately reduce to something equivocal, that which is called 'analogy' is misnamed, and is really something equivocal".)

    Also, speaking of breaking a sense into sub-senses or components (and these into sub-components (and these into sub-sub-components (etc.))), how is it that the fallacy of composition isn't being committed when claiming that that two matching component parts (one each from an acknowledged different sense) are univocal (or equivocal) means that the two, whole different senses themselves are likewise univocal (or equivocal)?

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  14. I think have been doing some light reading on this & would this be the "Cajetan was wrong" school of thought?

    I've seen some mention of it on the Thomist Blogs.

    Ralph McInerny has a book on it.

    Anyway it would be interesting to note the distinctions between Cajetan vs the Traditional School.


    Where does Rocca fall into this?


    This is partly related to the rejection of Cajetan, but not even McInerny or Wippel, both of whom dismiss Cajetan's interpretation, escape the problem of analogy reducing to univocity. I think Rocca is with McInery and Wippel in this.

    I'm only moderately familiar with Cajetan's thought, so I couldn't tell you the exact details of his position. I know that he claimed that Aquinas had three or four types of analogy when he only had two, and that Cajetan's versions were ultimately based on Scotist univocity. As for the traditional (Christian, not Thomist) view, I believe it's roughly what I've been arguing in this combox. Creation is made in God's image and so it serves as a symbol for God prior to language. Hence, when we signify God linguistically (which necessarily relies on our having elements of creation in our passive intellects), we are referring to elements of creation that themselves refer to God. Our language is incapable of referring to God directly, because we would need to have God in our passive intellect for that to work.

    As for the ways in which the goodness of creatures resembles God, this is a truth prior to analysis that is always presupposed when one goes to consider it. As such, it can't be attacked without begging the question. We know that it's true because effects resemble causes, and we know that higher things (being, act) are closer to God than lower things (potency, matter)--and so we apply those higher names to him while not applying the lower names. However, because we can only know created goodness (which offers only a vague representation of God), it remains true that nothing we say of God can avoid falling short. Hence, we should, as Pseudo-Dionysius says, "[P]osit and ascribe to [the Cause of being] all the affirmations we make in regard to beings, and, more appropriately, we should negate all these affirmations, since it surpasses all being. Now we should not conclude that the negations are simply the opposites of the affirmations, but rather that the cause of all is considerably prior to this, beyond privations, beyond every denial, beyond every assertion."

    It's complicated stuff that few modern Thomists, if any, have tackled properly. This is largely because, unlike Aquinas himself, modern Thomists are ignorant of the writings of the Church Fathers. For the most part, I fall into this group as well, although I have the advantage of having read David Bentley Hart's defense of analogy--which makes liberal use of the Church Fathers' work--in The Beauty of the Infinite. If I hadn't done that, chances are I'd find myself as lost as dguller on this issue.

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  15. Rank:

    Thank you for repeating what Aquinas says in ST Ia q12 a1 and basically everywhere else in all of his writing. Maybe now we'll start getting somewhere.

    If I am correct, then we cannot think or talk about God, and so what exactly are we talking about? We certainly are not talking about God, and if all we can talk about are cognitive fictions, then we are trapped within the realm of signifiers without ever reaching the signified. If that is true, then you have completely undercut all divine talk into meaninglessness, because it literally has no referent.

    I already explained why your interpretation was off the mark way back when, and I am fully satisfied in my understanding of the Beatific Vision; so I don't really feel like dredging this one up again. It's too complicated and off-topic.

    That’s too bad. You never told me where you got the idea that when an intelligible form is received by the potential intellect, that the intelligible form is not limited. I cited a number of Thomists, as well as Aquinas, to support the claim that if an actual X is received by a potential Y, then X is limited by Y. Wippel endorsed this principle, as does Norris, as does Klubertanz, as does Aquinas. You never cited anyone to support your position, neither Aquinas nor Thomists. And without a refutation of this key Thomist principle, my argument stands, and the beatific vision is impossible, on Thomist principles.

    As to your question of how we recognize it: it's present in all things. We recognize it by recognizing any form or esse. By cognizing anything good, we always already cognize the Trinitarian trace. It comes along for the ride, signifying that "someone has passed by but not who it is". Honestly, I'm not sure why this was even particularly mysterious. It's kind of obvious given Aquinas's direct realism.

    Think about it this way. A microscope is made up of atoms, but it does not follow that the microscope can see the atoms that compose it, even if it can see parts of itself that are, in fact, made up of the atoms. So, in one sense, yes, the microscope sees the atoms, because it sees the things made up of the atoms, but in another sense, it is impossible for it to see the actual atoms themselves (unless it is a scanning tunneling microscope, that is), because they are beyond its visual capacity.

    Similarly, with language, if we are talking about X, and X is made up of Y, then in one sense we are referring to both X and Y, because where there is X, there is necessarily Y. But for us to say and think that X is made up of Y, we must first have the thought of Y, and if we cannot even have the thought of Y, then we cannot have the thought that X is made up of Y. We can think about X, but anything and everything about Y would be a blind spot of darkness in our thinking, even if Y was actually present in X in reality. And furthermore, given that everything is related to everything else, and hangs together as a totality, your position would imply that when I talk about anything in particular, I am simultaneously talking about everything in general, which would completely destroy the specificity of intentionality. After all, what makes my thought about X not a thought about Y if every thought about X is necessarily also about Y?

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  16. And again, the bottom line is how you can say that X is “present in all things”, if “X” can never be about X, but rather about a cognitive fiction that we call “X”, which is itself a cognitive fiction, and so on, ad infinitum, never actually referring to X at all, but only to our thoughts about X. It would be like trying to talk about dogs, but only talking about our talk about dogs, which is certainly related to dogs, but not about dogs per se. So, if our term cannot have a referent, then our terms cannot have meaning, and if our terms have no senses, then they cannot have a referent.

    Only when you're comparing beings to beings. Compare beings to their principle and it's a whole different ballgame.

    The entire question is how we can make such a comparison. If the principle of beings is beyond the comprehension and thought of beings, then it is beyond all language, meaning that we cannot talk about this principle.

    All created goodness is already about God simply by virtue of its containing the Trinitarian trace: it is very literally a symbol of God. Hence, when you abstract created goodness and consider it in itself, your thought always already symbolizes God. The more perfect the goodness, the more accurate the symbol.

    I’ve already argued against this idea. It presupposes the truth that if X is composed of Y, then all thought about X is also necessarily about Y. And the problem is that if that assumption is true, then the specificity of intentionality is destroyed, meaning that we cannot talk about anything at all. For example, if I say that “a dog is walking”, then I am simultaneously saying that “the sun is shining”, because the dog is walking because the sun is shining, and they are connected at that moment in time. It would then follow that when I say X, I am simultaneously referring to everything that is not-X, and so what makes my speech about X at all?

    Honestly, this is the only coherent way to understand Aquinas's talk of sense and referent. The sense relates to the ontic baggage necessarily attached to every known thing, while the referent contains the factical presence of the Trinitarian trace that is in every created goodness, and that always already refers those things to God. Every divine name is compromised by ontic baggage, but, because of the Trinitarian trace within created goodness, these names always already signify God. Hence Aquinas's statement in ST Ia q13 a3 that the created goodnesses applied to God via divine names "belong properly to God, and more properly than they belong to creatures".

    The problem is that we can only reach the referent via the sense. That is the key reason why univocity is supposed to be impossible when it comes to the divine names. All our understanding is mediated by the mode of signification of reality to our minds (i.e. the sense), and thus the sense is the lens through which we access reality. If you remove the lens, then you remove the ability to see anything at all. Similarly, if you remove the form of dogness from the intellect, then you remove all thought about dogs from the intellect, because the form of dogness is the medium through which we understand the dogs of the world.

    If you take this principle seriously, then it fatally compromises Aquinas’ mystical theology. I actually respect a mystical theology that keeps silent about what is beyond esse commune, including all talk about any beyond whatsoever. Our mind literally goes dark and blind when trying to think about it, and that darkness must also encompass our rational principles, because the very content of them is rooted in esse commune. Once you leave esse commune, they become unmoored and empty.

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  17. It is when negative theology tries to sneak in affirmations about what is beyond esse commune that I object. Even saying that you are merely making a “higher affirmation” in the sense of an overflowing and excess that is simply too much for our minds to contain in its entirety is something that you literally cannot say, because the terms “higher” and “overflowing” have specific senses, and those senses are rooted within esse commune, and not beyond it. If you want to say that the sense of “higher” is completely different when applied to “esse commune” versus “esse divinum”, then you cannot even meaningfully say “esse divinum”, because it is a term without a sense, and thus you have no ability to reach a referent. You have removed the very lens through which you could see it, and thus see nothing at all. If you say that the sense of “esse commune” is similar to the sense of “esse divinum”, then you open the door to my argument against analogy. And what that means is that either esse divinum is completely immanent, which is impossible, or it is completely transcendent, which is impossible.

    This seems to me wholly compatible with both Aquinas's writings and Christian tradition, while not resulting in a reduction to univocity or equivocation.

    But you would have to give an account of how one can specifically refer to something that is completely unavailable to the human mind. Again, the sense is simply the mental representation of the referent, which necessarily carries with it all the “ontic baggage”, as you put it, of the human perspective and understanding. There must be some way to zero in on the referent via a human sense as the lens through which we experience the referent. If you remove the lens (i.e. the sense), then you remove all ability to see the referent.

    Aquinas does not provide such an account, given that his account explicitly rules out exactly what is necessary. I do not know if anyone else in the broader pre-Scotist Christian tradition has provided such an account. I think it is highly unlikely, but I’m open to the possibility, if you can elaborate.

    It would have been better to say that we're different from God in kind rather than that God was different from us in kind. My mistake.

    Again, these are relational terms that make no sense without the other side. It would be like saying that X is taller than Y, but Y is not smaller than X. The former necessarily implies the latter, and vice versa. If you deny the latter, then you also deny the former by logical necessity. So, if X is in a different kind than Y, then Y must be in a different kind than X. You could say that Y is not in any kind at all, but then you cannot say that X is in a different kind from Y. That would be like saying that X is on a different team than Y when Y does not play on any team at all. What you could say is that X is on a team while Y is not on a team. There are no different kinds in this scenario at all.

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  18. The Trinitarian trace is the factical condition of being by which being symbolizes God: it is present within all things by virtue of their existence. It is ultimately inseparable from the beings it appears in: I have highlighted for the sake of clarity. It is not God's presence itself (pure immanence), but is rather the immediate effect of that presence, which shows that God is always in creation without being creation. It makes no sense to say that the Trinitarian trace in itself is unrepresentable, because, as the factical condition of all being, it is representation itself. It's the ontological representation always already presupposed by every ontic representation. Through it, God is always already represented by creation.

    But how are you talking about the trace at all? You keep stating that the trace must be present in the human mind in order for there to be a human mind at all, but this is not the right kind of presence in the mind. Neurons are present in the human mind, in the sense that they are constitutive of important parts of the human mind, but it does not follow that all our thoughts refer to neurons. What this means is that it is not the case that if X is constitutive of the mind, then X is always referred to the thoughts of the human mind. And without this principle, your argument is invalid.

    The problems are the same. To say that the Trinitarian trace is the trace of God, then you have to be able to talk about God, which you have admitted you simply cannot do. All your words miss their mark, and so how can you claim to hit a target that you always miss. And if you happen to graze the target or strike it incidentally, then that opens the door to a univocity that you deny. Either you hit the target or you miss the target. There is no middle ground, which is precisely what you are trying to occupy.

    How is that presupposed? We know that an idol is a misrepresentation independently, in that, as effects, we cannot be a good as the "non-cause" (in analogical rather than purely negational terms) from which we came. Further, you can repeat that our idols don't represent God all you like, but you're just begging the question until you refute the existence of the Trinitarian trace in the beings from which our ideas gain their meaning.

    You are equivocating on “in”. When I say that the trace is not present in the mind, what I mean is that it is not present as a representation in the mind, and when you say that the trace is present in the mind, what you mean is that it is present as a constitutive ground in the mind. For example, the brain is a constitutive ground in the mind, such that without the brain, the mind would not be what it is, but the brain is not a representation in the mind. It is “in” the mind in one sense, but not “in” the mind in another sense. My argument is that unless the trace can be present as a representation in the mind, then you cannot say that the trace is a constitutive ground in the mind, even if it actually is such a ground.

    Under Thomism, at least in terms of God-analogies, the referent is an ontological element of creation. And, insofar as these ontological elements contain the Trinitarian trace, our statement is directed toward God.

    But that’s a problem, too. Just because our language is directed towards God does not mean that it is about God. My statements about my father are also directed towards my mother, because my father could not be my father without my mother, but they are not about my mother. They are about my father. Again, if you are correct in your position, then any referent simultaneously refers to all referents, and it becomes impossible to know what someone is talking about. It severely compromises the specificity of intentionality, which blows up our language.

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  19. Because semiotics is purely ontic by necessity, it is impossible to talk about God being a referent in that system without reducing him to the ontic level. This is why I have been saying that God is always already signified (the referent) prior to ontic signification--something that all ontic signification always already contains. Semiotics and Derrida make it easier to talk about analogy in modern language. In terms of Thomistic signification, though, it's better to say that God is the referent of the referent, insofar as a referent is always an ontological element that contains the Trinitarian trace.

    Here’s another way to put it. You say that God is present in everything as the source of its existence, and thus whenever we refer to anything, we must also refer to God as the source of everything, because without God, there would be nothing to refer to at all. The problem is how you can say all of that at all. To say that, God would have to be reduced to ontic signification, which you say is impossible, because he is prior to ontic signification, which is likely a metaphysical priority.

    The question then becomes whether the human mind can present to itself that which is prior to ontic signification. Aquinas, and presumably yourself, would deny that this is possible, because our minds are saturated by ontic signification, being entities of finitude and composition, and thus our minds simply lack the mechanisms and resources to present to themselves that which is metaphysically prior to ontic signification, especially that which is infinite and simple. This is the underlying argument against univocity, i.e. we can never represent in our minds God as he is in reality without tainting that representation with composition, which contradicts God’s simplicity. So, any thought we have about God is necessarily a composite one, which means that it cannot be about God who is metaphysically simple. In other words, we always miss the mark.

    The further claim made by yourself and Aquinas is that even though our minds cannot represent what is prior to ontic signification -- because ontic signification is the lens through which all reality is filtered by the human mind -- one can still refer to that which is prior to ontic signification. In other words, even though there is no sense, there is still a referent. But the problem is that the sense is the lens through which a particular referent is signified and presented to our minds. And if you remove the lens, you cannot see, because you cannot focus, which connects with my argument that your account would destroy intentionality by making all specificity in reference impossible, because when I refer to anything, I simultaneously refer to everything. So, to save some ability to talk about God, you end up giving up your ability to talk about anything at all, which would have to include talking about God!

    The same is not true of Christian theology, which uses analogy to convert distance from tragic to beautiful, in that the gap between God and creation can be traversed via infinite affirmations. This is the direct result of the Trinitarian trace, which always already refers creation to God.

    First, I’ve provided my arguments against analogy, given Thomist principles. You haven’t criticized my definitions of “univocal”, “equivocal”, “analogous”, “identical”, “similar”, and “different”. My claim is that given those definitions, my conclusions necessarily follow. I am interested in which definitions you would reject, because they seem pretty obvious to me, and supported by Aquinas.

    Second, every affirmation must contain a core of truth that is being affirmed, and that affirmative core of truth must be presentable to the human mind in order for it to be affirmed at all. Unfortunately, this is argued to be impossible, which compromises the whole system of mystical theology.

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  20. So, again: until you defeat the notion of the Trinitarian trace, none of your other arguments hold any water.

    I’ve provided several arguments against such a trace above.

    It isn't idolatry any more than the existence of anything at all is idolatry, since the idols are compiled out of existing things that are always already idols.

    If an idol is a misrepresentation of God, then everything is a misrepresentation of God, and thus everything is an idol. They all claim to point towards God, but do so in a completely inadequate way, and thus must be rejected as reliable directions towards God.

    And it is not self-refuting to say that logic leads us to a conclusion that is beyond comprehension. Why would it be?

    Because an incomprehensible conclusion of a logical argument is a reductio of that argument. One of the fundamental assumptions in every logical argument is that the meaning of the terms do not change. If the meaning of the terms in the conclusion is different from the meaning of the terms in the assumptions, then the argument is invalid, because the truth-preserving mechanism of a logical argument necessarily involves constant term meaning. And since both meanings cannot be true simultaneously, it follows that you have a contradiction, and thus a reductio ad absurdum.

    The Five Ways tell us that all things are contingent and not self-sufficient, and that they are caused to exist by a non-existent non-cause (which is, by logical necessity, impossible to describe or comprehend) whose trace remains in creation. It's that simple. I see no contradiction in saying that the ground of act/potency must be something that cannot be known.

    As I mentioned earlier, you presume that the principle of causality extends from ontic phenomena to ontological phenomena, which cannot be the case, because it only deals with causes and effects. There is nowhere in the principle of causality where it deals with non-cause “causes”. Again, for an argument to work, the meaning of the terms must remain constant, and the meanings clearly shift from the premises, which involve causes and effects, and the conclusions, which involve non-cause “causes” and effects, which makes them invalid due to equivocation. Here is where analogy is supposed to save the day, and it saves the arguments from equivocation by agreeing to partial identity between the causes and the non-cause “causes”, but then it also denies such partial identity, because it would lead to univocity, which is declares off limits by virtue of our cognitive inability to conceive of the commonality between causes and non-cause “causes”, which is necessary for analogy. And so, you have a contradictory mess.

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  21. I think my interpretation of Aquinas's argument is backed up by his own writing, as I've attempted to show above. In fact, given the tremendous problems that ensue from the majority of modern readings--stuff that Aquinas himself would have been pretty stupid not to have seen--, I'd say that mine is to be preferred. It makes perfect sense with Christian tradition and with the statements Aquinas makes in the ST, DP, SCG and elsewhere, while most of the other readings I've seen simply do not. They toss out Aquinas's careful distinctions between God and creation, reducing the entire system to onto-theology.

    First, Aquinas would not be the first brilliant thinker to have had inconsistencies in his thought.

    Second, you haven’t explained what Aquinas means when he talks about modus significandi (= ratio) and res significandi (= substantia), and how these concepts relate to his account of univocity, analogy and equivocation. I have explained myself pretty well, I think. Perhaps if you could expand upon what you think these terms mean in your interpretation, and how yours differs from mine, then we can make headway here.

    However, insofar as the referents (Thomistic, not semiotic) of your words in turn refer to God, you will always already be talking about God regardless of your intentional content. This rule applies to nothing else--not even to esse. That's because of God's completely unprecedented relationship to creation as a result of his creating it from nothing and sustaining it so that it does not return to nothing. Your counterexamples do not undermine this.

    But this is precisely the key question, i.e. whether the web of relationships associated with a referent is simultaneously a referent itself. My argument against this is that if it were, then all specificity in reference would be abolished. There must be a way to refer to a referent without necessarily referring to the web of relationships associated with it. Sure, that web is always implicit, which means that it could become explicit, and when it becomes explicit, it becomes the referent of a thought. And if that is true, then it follows that just because God is part of the web of relationships associated with a referent, that God is not himself a referent. Once you focus upon God as a particular part of the web of relationships, then he becomes a referent. Until then, he is in the background, outside of our awareness, and thus cannot be a referent, because the only way to refer to anything is via the mental constructs of senses that are present to our minds as the media through which we reach the referents in question.

    These are no more than assertions.

    It is not an assertion to say that the principle of causality deals with causes and effects, and that causes and effects are necessarily related. X would not be a cause unless it had caused an effect, and X would not be an effect unless it was caused by something else. You cannot have one without the other.

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  22. The principle of causality leads to a "non-cause" by logical necessity.

    I’ve already stated my objections to this account. A non-cause is excluded from the principle of causality, because it only covers causes and effects, and thus a non-cause “cause” is outside of its purview. If a logical argument involving the principle of causality results in a conclusion involving a non-cause “cause”, then it has led nowhere. It led to a point where we hit utter darkness and blindness, where our words lose their sense and reference, become unmoored, and we are lost in the blackness. You are hoping and straining to see some light in the darkness, even if it is the faintest hint of light, but if there was light, then there would be causality, which is specifically banned, because the non-cause “cause” is not a cause, and thus there cannot be light any at all.

    Only a non-cause is capable of doing the job.

    A non-cause cannot do anything, because doing implies activity, which implies causality, which cannot be applicable to a non-cause “cause”. You could maybe save the day by saying that the non-cause “cause” is like a cause, but then it would be partially identical and partially different, and then the onus is upon you to specify what is partly identical and what is partly different. In order to do that you would have to talk fairly precisely about esse divinum, which is impossible to do, for all the reasons that I’ve mentioned in this thread.

    The Five Ways are based on empirical and rational principles available to everyone. They necessarily lead to a non-existent non-cause, on pains of onto-theological incoherence. At best, you might deny the reality of act/potency, esse/essence and so forth in a desperate gambit to undermine the Five Ways--but there aren't any alternatives from which you could argue. You would be reduced to total skepticism.

    Or, I could say that those principles all work well in the world of composite entities, but that they hit a brick wall of incoherence when they try to reach simple entities, because simple entities have characteristics that make those principles inoperative. It would be like sailing in a little boat with a small light to illuminate the immediate surroundings, but be surrounded by total darkness and blackness, which cannot be penetrated by the light.

    There are no absolute statements about God (not even this one, or that one, or that one).

    Can’t you see how this position is akin to relativism? “There are no absolute statements” is self-refuting, much like your statement above.

    Given the incoherence and vicious regressiveness of any account of the principle of causality that ends in just another cause, your objection is empty.

    It’s a paradoxical aporia, no doubt.

    Where does he do this? He would be committing a fallacy of equivocation.

    By starting with ontic phenomena, and concluding about ontological phenomena. Is that a legitimate move?

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  23. I'm aware that it's ontic, but it doesn't make my case any less true. I was using it to explain the ontic practice of attributing higher names to God, which, per Hilbert's Hotel, can go on forever. Further, you cannot place a limit of quantity on the concepts of "goodness", "beauty", "truth", "nobility" and suchlike even as we apply them to esse commune, because these are all names for esse. Esse is above the ten categories, and hence above the very idea of quantity. As a result, it is possible to perform a quantitatively limitless number of affirmations, in both ontic and ontological terms.

    I don’t see how you can talk about “higher” without “quantity”, because “higher” implies “more”, and “more” implies “quantity”. It is like your attempt to say that God is “fully” present, but saying that “fully” does not contain any reference to “all” or “none”, which I showed renders it empty of meaningful content. Similarly, claiming that “higher” does not depend upon “quantity” just does not work.

    I don't see how this is relevant given the current topic.

    It is relevant, because the precise issue is how we can refer to God. You state that you cannot, and yet proceed to do so whenever necessary. Hilbert’s hotel clearly has a referent, even if it is an infinite one, because we have a sense of a hotel with full rooms, and a sense of the infinite as that without limit. God is different, because we have a sense of the infinite, but have no sense of the infinite X that God is supposed to be, and that is one major reason why we cannot refer to God, i.e. that we lack the proper sense to do so.

    When I say that God is immanent and transcendent, I mean that he is beyond the dialectic of immanence and transcendence, as I said earlier.

    But if God is “beyond” X, then God “transcends” X. To transcend transcendence is still to be transcendent. You cannot escape the dialectic at all. Again, it is like setting a limit, and then proceeding to violate that limit while pretending that the limit is still applicable. If it is a limit, then you cannot go beyond it. If it is not a limit, then you can go beyond it. You cannot say that it is both a limit and not a limit, because that it s a contradiction. And again, it is like the self-refuting nature of relativism, which makes an absolute statement that there are no absolute statements.

    You've gotten confused about the difference between ontics and ontology, as I'm using those terms here. Your talk of act/potency is indeed true on an ontological level, because esse is a super-act and essence the original potency.

    First, “super-act” is still a kind of act.

    Second, my point was that all our concepts about ontology are rooted in ontic phenomena, and that necessarily includes key principles, such as act, potency, essence, form, and so on. The question is how we can use these principles, which are saturated by ontic reality, and then apply them in a consistent fashion to that which is ontological, which is supposed to be completely different from ontics, especially if there is a gap between what is ontic and what is ontological. If there is continuity between ontics and ontology, then there is no gap. There is a common unity of which ontics and ontology are both divergent expressions of. This is kind of like Heidegger’s idea of focusing one’s thought upon what gives both ontology and ontics.

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  24. This does not, however, mean that it applies to God, who is beyond the ontico-ontological difference.

    Exactly! And if he is beyond ontics, ontology, as well as the difference between them, then we cannot apply any ontic or ontological concepts to him, and so the Five Ways -- which are rooted in ontological conclusions from ontic phenomena, neither of which is applicable to God -- all collapse into equivocation and thus invalidity. That is why analogy is so critical, because without a partial identity between ontic phenomena, ontological foundations, and God, then there is simply no connection or continuity whatsoever between them, and that places an unbridgeable gap between the God and creation such that we cannot think or say anything affirmative about him, including “higher affirmations”. There is no never-ending series of superceding affirmations. There is not even a first affirmation to transcend. There is only the full negation of any affirmation, which means that everyone should just shut up.

    The agreement of the church fathers with my interpretation of Aquinas lends it weight. Also, the first clue that you're wrong about something Aquinas said is when it seems to blatantly contradict one of his other positions. The second is when it makes Aquinas's thought seem totally unprecedented. The third is when a harmonious counternarrative can be supplied that links Aquinas's ideas with one another and with his sources.

    Again, show that what Aquinas means by ratio (= modus significandi = sense) and substantia (= res significandi = referent) differs from the interpretation that I am making. Also, show how his definition of univocal, equivocal and analogical differ from my interpretation. You keep saying that my interpretation is wrong, because there is an alternative interpretation more in keeping with Christian tradition, but have yet to supply that interpretation. Just saying that it is wrong is insufficient.

    There was no hidden significance in that adjective. If that's what this side-debate was about, then I think it's settled.

    Great. Something is settled.

    "Being itself" for Heidegger and "Being itself" for Thomism are two completely different things. From a Thomist point of view, Heidegger never gets beyond the level of esse commune. That he gets even that far is to his infinite credit, considering the rest of modern philosophy. This appears to be another case of confusion like the one with semiotics: same words, totally different meanings.

    You did not address my argument at all. I am arguing that if our words derive their sense and reference from ontic phenomena (or ontological phenonema), then unmooring them from that context robs them of all meaning, because without sense, you cannot reach a referent, and without a referent, there is simply nothing to talk about. You have to show how our words, saturated by ontico-ontological aspects, can possibly reach that which is beyond ontico-ontological reality. My contention is that you are like someone trying to fire a bullet at the moon. The bullet is shot high into the sky, but inevitably gravity pulls it down to the earth, and it never actually reaches the moon at all. And yet, you pretend that it has struck the moon somehow, and proceed to build a career upon being a moon-shooter.

    What dguller has found is a large contradiction at the heart of modern understandings of Aquinas's doctrine of analogy.

    Thank you!

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  25. I do not believe that Aquinas's writings on analogy mean the same thing that dguller and those other Thomists think they do. If they did, then they would contradict Aquinas's own system and place it in conflict with the entirety of the tradition he was summarizing.

    So, the onus is upon you to demonstrate precisely what Aquinas’ terms actually mean other than what I have claimed they mean. If you cannot, then Aquinas’ system must be ultimately incoherent.

    So, while dguller has fallen victim to snowballing errors in the past (his claim that some humans have more being than others rests on a basic conflation of ideas, for instance), I wouldn't number this among them.

    I still contend that I was right about that. As I recall, my argument was that if being is coextensive with goodness by virtue of the interconvertability of the transcendentals, then the more goodness, the more being an entity has. The difficulty was that there are different kinds of being, some of which are all-or-nothing (i.e. esse) and others of which admit of degrees (i.e. act, potency), and that saying that if an entity is more good, then it is more real, only applies to the latter kind of being and not to the former kind of being, which is good, full stop.

    This is partly related to the rejection of Cajetan, but not even McInerny or Wippel, both of whom dismiss Cajetan's interpretation, escape the problem of analogy reducing to univocity. I think Rocca is with McInery and Wippel in this.

    I haven’t read Cajetan or McInery, but I can say that both Wippel and Rocca reject the idea that analogy can be reduced to univocity. In fact, they argue strenuously against such a position.

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  26. Glenn:

    When I said that "talk about the two senses in a, as you put it, 'univocal fashion'...does not establish an actual univocity", I was saying that the result of (e.g., cognitive, dialectical, linguistic and/or logical) manipulations taking place at (the higher) level T does not alter the actual reality at (the lower) level W.

    It does not have to alter the actual reality. The actual reality is that the two senses S1 and S2 necessarily must have sub-senses, because otherwise, you could not have a similarity relationship between them, which implies partial identity and partial difference. So, when we talk about that actual reality of S1 and S2, that actual reality also contains sub-senses that constitute S1 and S2.

    Now, "talk about the two senses in a, as you put it, 'univocal fashion'" may indeed establish a 'univocity' at or on level T (and this may be why you objected that "it absolutely does establish an actual univocity"). It does not, however, undo the non-univocal reality of the two different senses at the level which matters, i.e., at or on level W.

    But there could be no actual similarity relationship between S1 and S2 at W without the sub-senses, some of which are identical between S1 and S2, and others of which are different from S1 and S2. That is what “similar” means. You would have to show that similarity could exist without partial identity and partial difference. Talking about the identical sub-senses between S1 and S2 at T does not falsify the actual existence of those identical sub-senses between S1 and S2, no more than talking about the atoms that compose a human falsifies the existing of actual atoms that compose a human being.

    My reason for pointing that out was to show that your line of reasoning is such that it permits one to arrive at contradictory conclusions. (The contradictory conclusions are "since analogy can be shown to ultimately reduce to something univocal, that which is called 'analogy' is misnamed, and is really something univocal", and "since analogy can be shown to ultimately reduce to something equivocal, that which is called 'analogy' is misnamed, and is really something equivocal".)

    Not at all. A contradiction would occur only if I said that the same parts were univocal and equivocal. Fortunately, I am saying that some parts are univocal when compared between analogates and other – different – parts are equivocal when compared between analogates. It is a matter of where you put the focus when analyzing the analogates in question. If you focus upon the identical parts between them, then while talking about the identical parts, you are using univocal predication. If you focus upon the different parts between them, then you would be using equivocal predication, but only if you chose – for some stupid reason – to use the same term to describe the differences, which I can’t imagine any reason to do. So, actually, what you have is analogy composed of univocity and difference. So, I was wrong about how I construed it earlier, but the important point regarding univocity still stands.

    Also, speaking of breaking a sense into sub-senses or components (and these into sub-components (and these into sub-sub-components (etc.))), how is it that the fallacy of composition isn't being committed when claiming that that two matching component parts (one each from an acknowledged different sense) are univocal (or equivocal) means that the two, whole different senses themselves are likewise univocal (or equivocal)?

    Great point, but not relevant. Whatever you want to call this process, the bottom line is that Aquinas’ system depends upon the impossibility of analyzing an analogous relationship to involve a univocal core. This is to preserve God’s transcendence. So, don’t call the whole analogy “univocal”, but if while talking about a part of the analogy, you end up using a relationship that can only be described as univocal, then you have refuted Aquinas.

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  27. if while talking about a part of the analogy, you end up using a relationship that can only be described as univocal, then you have refuted Aquinas.

    Assuming--though not granting--that this is true, it must be the case that Aquinas says that some part of the analogy cannot be described as univocal. Can you cite where he says so?

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  28. Glenn:

    Assuming--though not granting--that this is true, it must be the case that Aquinas says that some part of the analogy cannot be described as univocal. Can you cite where he says so?

    I’m not too sure I understand. Aquinas clearly in many locations in his writings makes an absolute denial of any univocity between God and creation. So, whether that univocity occurs anywhere in our language about God, it must be banished as compromising God’s transcendence. I mean, what difference would it make if the univocity was present at the level of sense or the level of sub-sense? A sub-sense is still a sense, much like a sub-concept is still a concept, but at a deeper level of analysis.

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  29. I mean, what difference would it make if the univocity was present at the level of sense or the level of sub-sense? A sub-sense is still a sense, much like a sub-concept is still a concept, but at a deeper level of analysis.

    Yikes!

    If the analogy is based at the level of sense, then to descend to some sub-concept at a deeper level of analysis, and work with that, is to work with something different.

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  30. Glenn:

    If the analogy is based at the level of sense, then to descend to some sub-concept at a deeper level of analysis, and work with that, is to work with something different.

    First, that depends upon what you mean by “something different”. If you mean that the sub-sense has nothing in common with the sense, then you would be wrong, because the sub-sense must have something in common with the sense, or else it would not be a sub-sense of that sense. It would be completely distinct and independent of the sense. A brick has something in common with the house that it constitutes.

    Second, if you agree that the sub-sense level can be univocal, but the sense level cannot, then you have already contradicted Aquinas. In order for the sub-sense level to be univocal, there must be an identical content in the sub-sense when it applies to creation and when it applies to God. And since the same sense must have the same referent, it follows that you have a situation in which a comparison is being made between God and creation in which the terms are the same, the sense is the same, and the referent is the same, which ultimately means that you have just made a univocal predication between God and creation. And that refutes Aquinas, who states that this cannot be possible.

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  31. A brick has something in common with the house that it constitutes.

    Hmm. In the interest of doing my part to keep this conversation from devolving into a joke, I'll refrain from mentioning that, excluding aunts, neither I nor any of my relatives live in a brick.

    if you agree that the sub-sense level can be univocal, but the sense level cannot, then you have already contradicted Aquinas

    Again, assuming--though not granting--that this is true, please provide the relevant citation(s).

    To make this easier for you, I'll ask for something a bit more general, i.e., one or more citations where Aquinas talks about sub-senses--not merely different senses of some word, but the sub-senses of a single sense of some word.

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  32. When we say (1) God is Good, and (2) Bob is good, let's grant that some sub-sense in (1) "Good/God" is the same as some sub-sense in (2) "good." Can we pinpoint exactly where and what this overlap is, or can we only argue that there is some overlap?

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  33. Glenn:

    To make this easier for you, I'll ask for something a bit more general, i.e., one or more citations where Aquinas talks about sub-senses--not merely different senses of some word, but the sub-senses of a single sense of some word.

    To my knowledge, he never talks about sub-senses at all. My argument is that, given Thomist principles, there must be sub-senses. I can provide quotes in which Aquinas says that senses (i.e. ratio, modus significandi) are similar between analogates. I don’t have the relevant texts with me here, but I can quote an earlier comment of mine where I wrote:

    “Wippel writes that “the intelligible content corresponding to an analogical term is partly the same and partly not the same when that term is applied to different analogates. Simply to describe the intelligible content as diverse would run the risk of reducing analogous predication to pure equivocation. Simply to describe it as one and the same would reduce analogy to univocity” (Wippel, p. 570). What he calls the “intelligible content” is what Aquinas calls ratio, and Rocca has written that “the medieval contrast between ratio and substantia is equivalent to Frege’s famous distinction between Sinn and Bedeutung, sense and reference” (Rocca, Speaking the Incomprehensible God: Thomas Aquinas on the Interplay of Positive and Negative Theology, p. 293 n.9).”

    Given the information in that paragraph, I based my conclusion that, for Aquinas, the senses must be neither identical nor different, but rather similar, and that their similarity is distinct from their referents, at least according to the Thomists I cited earlier. I’ll return to those passages later tonight to directly quote Aquinas, but Wippel and Rocca both cite him extensively, and so I’d trust them when they make the above claims.

    Now, if it is true that the senses of the analogates must be similar, then the rest of my argument follows. The only way to make sense of the similarity relationship between the senses of the analogates is if there is partial identity and partial difference between them, and the question then becomes what is partially identical and what is partially different? It is here that I think that there must be sub-senses, because what else could be partially identical and partially different?

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  34. I’ll return to those passages later tonight to directly quote Aquinas,

    Okay, thanks. At your leisure (by which I mean the quality of your responses to Rank oughtn't suffer as a result; he was first in queue, after all).

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  35. Black Luster:

    When we say (1) God is Good, and (2) Bob is good, let's grant that some sub-sense in (1) "Good/God" is the same as some sub-sense in (2) "good." Can we pinpoint exactly where and what this overlap is, or can we only argue that there is some overlap?

    I don’t think that we necessarily can in all cases, but I would argue that the overlap must be there, on pain of logical contradiction, given the premises. The limitations of our minds is not necessarily an argument against the truth of a claim. For example, we cannot conceive of a metaphysically simple being, but we can know that such a being must exist, due to rational argumentation. Anotehr example is that whenever we think about triangularity, we necessarily also imagine a particular triangle, and yet just because our thoughts about universal triangularity are tainted by particular triangles does not detract from our thoughts being about universal triangularity anyway.

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  36. Black Luster,

    When we say (1) God is Good, and (2) Bob is good, let's grant that some sub-sense in (1) "Good/God" is the same as some sub-sense in (2) "good." Can we pinpoint exactly where and what this overlap is, or can we only argue that there is some overlap?

    Good question.

    And if there is some overlap, where exactly is the univocity?

    What I mean by this is that, if some overlap is claimed, then, since Aquinas says that "when anything is predicated of many things analogically, it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature", is it also simultaneously claimed that "it" (the same original thing) is now found in both according to its proper nature?

    It doesn't seem that that can be the case--for if it were, then it would be a case of claiming that it is both: a) in only one of them according to its proper naturel and. b) in both of them according to its proper nature.

    And if it isn't the case, then it would seem that what has really happened is that the original predication has been altered. But if a predication is analogical, how does altering that predication show that the predication prior to having been altered is not analogical?

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  37. Glenn:

    What I mean by this is that, if some overlap is claimed, then, since Aquinas says that "when anything is predicated of many things analogically, it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature", is it also simultaneously claimed that "it" (the same original thing) is now found in both according to its proper nature?

    Here’s one way to think about it.

    In an analogy, you have two analogates, A1 and A2. A1 is the primary one, and A2 is the secondary one. What that means is that A1 has the primary sense S1 and the primary referent R1, whereas A2 has the secondary sense S2 and the secondary referent R2. The secondary sense S2 consists of S1 plus a difference, whereas the primary sense S1 consists of just S1.

    To express it formally:

    (1) S1 = S1
    (2) S2 = S1 + difference

    The commonality between S1 and S2 would be S1, which occurs primarily in A1 and secondarily in A2.

    The same would hold with the referent, which would be:

    (3) R1 = R1
    (4) R2 = R1 + difference

    When you spell it out like that, you can see how A2 contains A1 by containing S1 and R1 plus some differences, and that is how you get partial identity and partial difference in the analogous relationship between A1 and A2.

    The problem with regards to the analogy between God and creation is that God is A1 and creation is A2, which means that A1 with respect to God must have S1 and R1, and A2 with respect to creation must have S2 and R2, each of which necessarily contains S1 and R1. And if A2 contains S1 and R1, then when we talk about “the overlap”, as you put it, and label that overlap with a common term, then you have a situation in which you can talk about A1 and A2 with respect to an identical S1 and R1, which is the definition of univocity.

    And if it isn't the case, then it would seem that what has really happened is that the original predication has been altered. But if a predication is analogical, how does altering that predication show that the predication prior to having been altered is not analogical?

    Because the definition of analogy includes partial identity and partial difference, which implies composition, and thus parts, which should be identifiable, at least in theory. If they could not be identified, then how do you know that there is a partial identity at all?

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  38. But what if I make an analog between an Existent thing within Existence vs Existence Itself?

    What is their partial identity and partial difference?

    >which implies composition, and thus parts, which should be identifiable, at least in theory. If they could not be identified, then how do you know that there is a partial identity at all?

    Then with this line of thinking no comparison between an existent thing vs Existence Itself is possible?

    Does dguller's objection prove too much?

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  39. Iwonder if this is helpful? Some random thoughts & citations.

    http://thomism.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/is-analogy-a-lot-simpler-than-the-controverises-over-it/

    QUOTE"I’m starting to wonder whether the reason St. Thomas never wrote a separate question on analogy is because he saw it as much more simple and unobjectionable than we do, and that our confusions are based on a convoluted and over-dramatic notion of what analogy is. Why not say that analogy is a second imposition, and that’s it? As second, it is known only in relation to a first. So taken, when we say “being is said analogously of God and creatures” what we mean is “The meaning of the word ‘being’, when it includes God, can only be a secondary imposition of the word, and the first imposition of the word is not said of him” or “when we consider what the word being first means, it cannot include God, though a second meaning can”. St. Thomas gives various reasons why this is so (God is a cause while we first know effects, etc, see ScG I 32-34) We might even, for all I know, have a meaning of the word being that can be said of God and creatures- but all St. Thomas insists on is that the first meaning can’t include God.

    Why this order in impositions or meanings? Because there is an order in our knowing. That is all. Contemporary English speakers figure that a word can mean whatever we want it to, whenever we want it to, and so we find it odd when St. Thomas insists there must be an order in meanings. In fact, our tone-deafness about order in meaning is probably founded on our general tone-deafness about any order of knowing- or maybe even of hierarchies altogether."END QUOTE

    also see:
    http://thomism.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/2150/

    QUOTE"Aristotle says that words are symbols of thoughts, and thoughts are likenesses of things. Notice that he doesn’t say that words and thoughts are both immediately subordinate to things, but things immediately, words mediately. Thought is conditioned by real things, but words are essentially subordinate to thought, and therefore to the conditions of thought. Because of this, words have an essential limitation that thought does not have, since they have a subordination that thought does not have. This is why we can distinguish in thought between the thing understood and the way we understand it; or even between the thing signified and the mode of signification, but we can never speak without using a mode of signification. This distinction between the res significata and the modus significandi is the key observation that St. Thomas makes concerning how we can affirm things about God."END QUOTE

    I note dguller's criticism is very similar to Pannenberg's at the point of demanding Analogy has a "core of univocity" or that "partial identity is univocity"etc. (see Rocca SPEAKING THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE GOD page 100)

    But Rocca goes on to say on pages 102-103 Aquinas escapes the net of objections deployed by Barth & Pannenberg at various points from chapters 5 threw 8.

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  40. One other quibble.

    dguller wrote QUOTE"Rocca has written that “the medieval contrast between ratio and substantia is equivalent to Frege’s famous distinction between Sinn and Bedeutung, sense and reference” (Rocca, Speaking the Incomprehensible God: Thomas Aquinas on the Interplay of Positive and Negative Theology, p. 293 n.9)"

    What this means is that I am actually right that Aquinas must endorse the view that in an analogy, the senses must be similar to one another, in addition to having the same term and referent.END QUOTE

    I looked this up in my copy of Rocca & technically this is not a reference to Aquinas' giving an endorcment to a particular view of analogy but it is under a sub-chapter titled Theory of Names.

    I read a little before and further. Deep stuff.

    BTW in Rocca according to the index, analogy's primary & secondary meanings in Aquinas are discussed on pages 129, 133, 135-39.

    I have no copy of Wippel so I can't comment.

    Brian Davies brings up the very problem dguller has been discussing since forever. in his book THINKING ABOUT GOD on pages 142-144 & discusses that in terms of res significata & modus significandi. Rocca discusses RS & MS in Chapter 11 of his book. If we believe James Chadwick this concept is the key observation Aquinas makes etc...

    Just some random thoughts.

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  41. dguller wrote:
    >Again, show that what Aquinas means by ratio (= modus significandi = sense) and substantia (= res significandi = referent) differs from the interpretation that I am making.

    Could it be you are basing your argument on reading too much into one reference to Gottlob Frege on page 293 of Rocca & thus overly restricting Aquinas' rather rich understandings of ratio, substantia, res significandi modus significandi etc to you own ideas?

    Hey I've remarked to you in the past there seems to be an equivalence between Classic concepts of God & Classic Theism(i.e. Being Itself, Unconditional Reality, Subsistent Being Itself etc) and your personal concept of Deep Reality.

    But naturally I didn't mean they where absolutely unequivocal & identical concepts.

    But there was an equivalence. Just as if memory serves there os an equivalence between your belief rationality ceases to exist at the deep reality vs the classic view God is above our rational capacity.

    So I might have reason to doubt your understanding dguller.

    But not mind you your good will.

    Cheers.

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  42. Mor random blather before I go to bed.

    God is Good.

    Bob is Good.

    Is ambiguous.

    When we say God is Good we mean God is Goodness Itself. God is desirable. God is Subsistent Being Itself and we know from Aquinas that Being is convertible with goodness. God is Pure Act and something is Good and perfect as far is it is in Act and God being Pure Act must be Good etc.

    Bob is relatively good. He is good as far as he has being but he is Potency in Act and not pure act. Bob also has privations and or imperfections.

    Of course Being is itself an analogous term not an unequivocal one.

    Bob can be a good man or a good person or a good writer etc but Bob can't be goodness itself since he is caused by Goodness Itself and Bob existence is distinct from his essence and thus can't be goodness itself.

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  43. Think about it this way. A microscope is made up of atoms, but it does not follow that the microscope can see the atoms that compose it, even if it can see parts of itself that are, in fact, made up of the atoms. So, in one sense, yes, the microscope sees the atoms, because it sees the things made up of the atoms, but in another sense, it is impossible for it to see the actual atoms themselves (unless it is a scanning tunneling microscope, that is), because they are beyond its visual capacity.

    Begs the question again.

    Similarly, with language, if we are talking about X, and X is made up of Y, then in one sense we are referring to both X and Y, because where there is X, there is necessarily Y. But for us to say and think that X is made up of Y, we must first have the thought of Y, and if we cannot even have the thought of Y, then we cannot have the thought that X is made up of Y.

    And again.

    You cannot analyze facticity in this way without presupposing it.

    And again, the bottom line is how you can say that X is “present in all things”, if “X” can never be about X, but rather about a cognitive fiction that we call “X”, which is itself a cognitive fiction, and so on, ad infinitum, never actually referring to X at all, but only to our thoughts about X.

    The Trinitarian trace is not God. It is the facticity of being that always already makes being a symbol of God. This is why I told you to read my entire response first--to avoid pointless exchanges, like this one.

    The entire question is how we can make such a comparison. If the principle of beings is beyond the comprehension and thought of beings, then it is beyond all language, meaning that we cannot talk about this principle.

    We always already talk about it, because our words refer to the facticity of being that is always presupposed. That facticity is the Trinitarian trace, which in turn always already refers our language to God. It's very simple, and I wish you would grasp it so that we could make some progress here.

    I’ve already argued against this idea. It presupposes the truth that if X is composed of Y, then all thought about X is also necessarily about Y. And the problem is that if that assumption is true, then the specificity of intentionality is destroyed, meaning that we cannot talk about anything at all. For example, if I say that “a dog is walking”, then I am simultaneously saying that “the sun is shining”, because the dog is walking because the sun is shining, and they are connected at that moment in time.

    Perhaps I should be a bit clearer, since I'm manipulating Heidegger's terminology as I go. Facticity, as I'm using this word, is prior to history. It is an ontological condition in which all beings always already find themselves. It is prior to ontic events. There is no analogate to facticity, because any analogate you come up with is always already invaded by facticity. Further, intentionality is not destroyed by this system. We always mean creatures, but creatures always already mean God. Even the ontic, teleological directedness of all things is toward God, making God the final cause of all things even though it may appear that their final causes are ontic particulars (ST Ia q44 a4). Hence, everything is always already "about God", in its every respect. The reason that you think this destroys our ability to refer to beings intentionally is that you still think of God as a being. You've collapsed the distinction between primary and secondary causes.

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  44. The problem is that we can only reach the referent via the sense. That is the key reason why univocity is supposed to be impossible when it comes to the divine names. All our understanding is mediated by the mode of signification of reality to our minds (i.e. the sense), and thus the sense is the lens through which we access reality. If you remove the lens, then you remove the ability to see anything at all.

    The sense is not removed. Who said it was? But the sense is always a creature (a created thing), just like the referent. We cannot think or talk about anything uncreated unless we have that uncreated thing in our minds; and only God is uncreated. This does not mean that the things we think and talk about do not themselves refer to something uncreated.

    If you take this principle seriously, then it fatally compromises Aquinas’ mystical theology. I actually respect a mystical theology that keeps silent about what is beyond esse commune, including all talk about any beyond whatsoever. Our mind literally goes dark and blind when trying to think about it, and that darkness must also encompass our rational principles, because the very content of them is rooted in esse commune. Once you leave esse commune, they become unmoored and empty.

    Only if you remove the factical analogy between creatures and God that is always already present in creatures prior to consideration. But you haven't done that: you've just begged the question against it.

    But you would have to give an account of how one can specifically refer to something that is completely unavailable to the human mind. Again, the sense is simply the mental representation of the referent, which necessarily carries with it all the “ontic baggage”, as you put it, of the human perspective and understanding. There must be some way to zero in on the referent via a human sense as the lens through which we experience the referent. If you remove the lens (i.e. the sense), then you remove all ability to see the referent.

    Let me put this in the form of a syllogism.

    1. Anything in our minds is based on something in nature.
    2. Things in nature "mean God".
    3. Therefore, things in our minds "mean God".

    Why can't you understand this? It's extremely simple.

    Again, these are relational terms that make no sense without the other side. It would be like saying that X is taller than Y, but Y is not smaller than X. The former necessarily implies the latter, and vice versa. If you deny the latter, then you also deny the former by logical necessity.

    You've merely begged the question. When speaking of the ground of all distinctions and dialectics, you cannot apply those same distinctions and dialectics. Otherwise, what you have is onto-theology, and a further ground must be posited to infinity.

    But how are you talking about the trace at all? You keep stating that the trace must be present in the human mind in order for there to be a human mind at all, but this is not the right kind of presence in the mind. Neurons are present in the human mind, in the sense that they are constitutive of important parts of the human mind, but it does not follow that all our thoughts refer to neurons. What this means is that it is not the case that if X is constitutive of the mind, then X is always referred to the thoughts of the human mind. And without this principle, your argument is invalid.

    Once again, you show that you don't understand the distinction between secondary and primary causes. Both brains and neurons are about God, even though brains are not about neurons. Every existent has as its facticity the Trinitarian trace, which means that it is always already about God. Neurons are not the facticity of brains. You can provide ontic counterexamples until you turn blue, but you haven't even started talking about my argument yet.

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  45. The problems are the same. To say that the Trinitarian trace is the trace of God, then you have to be able to talk about God, which you have admitted you simply cannot do.

    This in no way undermines my argument. All that's necessary for my argument to work is that the Trinitarian trace exists. That discussing it leads to an infinite regress is absolutely irrelevant if it is the factical condition of all being--which it is.

    You are equivocating on “in”. When I say that the trace is not present in the mind, what I mean is that it is not present as a representation in the mind, and when you say that the trace is present in the mind, what you mean is that it is present as a constitutive ground in the mind. For example, the brain is a constitutive ground in the mind, such that without the brain, the mind would not be what it is, but the brain is not a representation in the mind. It is “in” the mind in one sense, but not “in” the mind in another sense. My argument is that unless the trace can be present as a representation in the mind, then you cannot say that the trace is a constitutive ground in the mind, even if it actually is such a ground.

    The Trinitarian trace is not actually separable from the things in which it appears. I've been using this term to highlight the way in which all things represent God. Literally, beings just do represent God, and there is no third element or medium connecting them to God. This is why I keep referring to the Trinitarian trace as their facticity: it is the condition into which they have always already been thrown, simply because they exist. It cannot be considered without being presupposed.

    But that’s a problem, too. Just because our language is directed towards God does not mean that it is about God. My statements about my father are also directed towards my mother, because my father could not be my father without my mother, but they are not about my mother. They are about my father. Again, if you are correct in your position, then any referent simultaneously refers to all referents, and it becomes impossible to know what someone is talking about. It severely compromises the specificity of intentionality, which blows up our language.

    You are very close to being right. However, God is the only thing to which this rule applies, because he is the principle of all things to which even secondary principles refer. A child does not, on an ontological level, have this sort of connection to its parents. Its connections are ontic--part of the ten categories--, such as those of relation. Creation has an ontic relation to God as well, but this is a separate issue.

    Here’s another way to put it. You say that God is present in everything as the source of its existence, and thus whenever we refer to anything, we must also refer to God as the source of everything, because without God, there would be nothing to refer to at all. The problem is how you can say all of that at all. To say that, God would have to be reduced to ontic signification, which you say is impossible, because he is prior to ontic signification, which is likely a metaphysical priority.

    That makes no sense. We are capable of referring to the ontological truths in which the trace of God resides. Unless, that is, you're thinking in semiotic terms--which I am not. Further, this does not mean that God is reduced to any kind of verbal or mental signification. Here is how it works:

    Word <--> idea <--> reality -> God

    If we are capable of having reality in our minds, then we are capable of speaking about God by virtue of reality's a priori connection to God.

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  46. The question then becomes whether the human mind can present to itself that which is prior to ontic signification. Aquinas, and presumably yourself, would deny that this is possible, because our minds are saturated by ontic signification, being entities of finitude and composition, and thus our minds simply lack the mechanisms and resources to present to themselves that which is metaphysically prior to ontic signification, especially that which is infinite and simple.

    Our minds understand ontological as well as ontic truths. If this wasn't possible, then it would follow that our minds could not witness being, which in turn would mean that there were no truths at all. Truth, if you'll recall, is just a way that being presents itself to our intellect. Hence, the impossibility of seeing being is the impossibility of truth.

    But, acknowledging that we can indeed see being and thus analyzing esse, it follows that we are capable of referring to ontology. This, in turn, means that we are capable of referring to things that in turn refer to God.

    The further claim made by yourself and Aquinas is that even though our minds cannot represent what is prior to ontic signification -- because ontic signification is the lens through which all reality is filtered by the human mind -- one can still refer to that which is prior to ontic signification. In other words, even though there is no sense, there is still a referent.

    Why are you still saying that God is ontological and creation ontic when I explained that this was not the case in my last post?

    And if you remove the lens, you cannot see, because you cannot focus, which connects with my argument that your account would destroy intentionality by making all specificity in reference impossible, because when I refer to anything, I simultaneously refer to everything.

    Let's say that I'm talking about a created goodness. This has a sense and a referent. Whatever that referent is itself refers to God, and hence I am referring to God (via the medium of creation). Creation is not connected to creation in the same way that it is connected to God, because all things are "about God" in a way that is simply different than the way they are about each other.

    Second, every affirmation must contain a core of truth that is being affirmed, and that affirmative core of truth must be presentable to the human mind in order for it to be affirmed at all.

    The truth presented to the mind is created goodness, which contains the trace of God factically.

    If an idol is a misrepresentation of God, then everything is a misrepresentation of God, and thus everything is an idol. They all claim to point towards God, but do so in a completely inadequate way, and thus must be rejected as reliable directions towards God.

    That is a non sequitur.

    1. Image X is a poor representation

    does not lead to

    2. Image X is not a representation.

    Because an incomprehensible conclusion of a logical argument is a reductio of that argument.

    As yet, you have failed to provide any explanation of the vicious regresses or contradictions that occur if your conclusion on this issue is true. Hence, I see no reason to accept your claim.

    As I mentioned earlier, you presume that the principle of causality extends from ontic phenomena to ontological phenomena, which cannot be the case, because it only deals with causes and effects.

    You honestly do not seem to have read my entire post before responding, despite my request. Your repeated errors (God is ontological! causality is self-grounding!), which I addressed later on in my post, attest to this.

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  47. Second, you haven’t explained what Aquinas means when he talks about modus significandi (= ratio) and res significandi (= substantia), and how these concepts relate to his account of univocity, analogy and equivocation. I have explained myself pretty well, I think. Perhaps if you could expand upon what you think these terms mean in your interpretation, and how yours differs from mine, then we can make headway here.

    From Leo Elders:

    "God is the source of all perfections present in created things and possesses them in an eminent way. Although the names by means of which we signify such perfections, indicate the mode in which these perfections exist in created things and as such signify created perfections rather than God's being, we must nevertheless say that with regard to the thing itself they signify (e.g., goodness) this is found more properly in God than in creatures. For this reason these names are properly (and even more properly) said of God (than they are of created things).

    In his reply to the first objection Aquinas further elaborates what is meant by the modus significandi: we sometimes use terms of God which not only signify what in creatures is an accident (e.g. 'good'), but also terms which have an imperfection in their own essential contents. An example is 'stone' which signifies a material thing. Because the restrictive modus significandi is inherent in the name, this class of names is only metaphorically used of God. In later Scholastic terminology these terms, signifying 'impure perfections' are sometimes called 'closed names'. Terms expressing substances and their generic or specific essences as well as terms signifying material accidents such as colours, temperature etc. are 'closed' while names not signifying particular substances (and their essence) nor qualities belonging to material reality, are 'open' names."

    This seems to me a mostly adequate summary of Aquinas's theory of referent and sense.

    However, it is still faulty in that it forgets that nothing we discuss can be uncreated. There is no such thing as a completely open name, even if some are more open than others. It illicitly assumes that language can refer to "goodness" rather than to a certain created good, when in fact this is only possible when God is in the intellect. As Aquinas says in the article cited (ST Ia q13 a3):

    "Now our intellect apprehends them [perfections] as they are in creatures, and as it apprehends them it signifies them by names. Therefore as to the names applied to God--viz. the perfections which they signify, such as goodness, life and the like, and their mode of signification. As regards what is signified by these names, they belong properly to God, and more properly than they belong to creatures, and are applied primarily to Him. But as regards their mode of signification, they do not properly and strictly apply to God; for their mode of signification applies to creatures."

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  48. There is only one coherent way to take this. Unless we are to believe that Aquinas really thought that humans could directly, intentionally refer to the uncreated (which means having it in our minds), we must opt for the solution I have been suggesting: every created goodness is itself a symbol of an uncreated goodness that we cannot comprehend, to which we can refer linguistically only through deferral to the ontological symbolism of creation. Anything less presupposes Scotist univocity of degree, which contradicts all of Aquinas's arguments (and his 2,500 citations of Pseudo-Denys) in the rest of his work.

    In that same article, Aquinas responds to an objection based on Pseudo-Dionysius that says, "Further, no name can be applied literally to anything if it should be withheld from it rather than given to it. But all such names as "good," "wise," and the like are more truly withheld from God than given to Him". Aquinas responds:

    "Such names as these, as Dionysius shows, are denied of God for the reason that what the name signifies does not belong to Him in the ordinary sense of its signification, but in a more eminent way. Hence Dionysius says also that God is above all substance and all life."

    In other words, it is absolutely impossible to refer directly to an uncreated good. We can only refer to the created perfections of creatures, which symbolize the perfection of God. And, when we refer to this symbol, we must undertake an infinitely regressive denial of its ability to encompass God.

    But this is precisely the key question, i.e. whether the web of relationships associated with a referent is simultaneously a referent itself. My argument against this is that if it were, then all specificity in reference would be abolished. There must be a way to refer to a referent without necessarily referring to the web of relationships associated with it.

    There is--in the realm of created things and secondary causes. By necessity, it cannot be so with God, because he is the source of everything in a way that nothing else can be. There is no analogate to creation from nothing.

    It is not an assertion to say that the principle of causality deals with causes and effects, and that causes and effects are necessarily related. X would not be a cause unless it had caused an effect, and X would not be an effect unless it was caused by something else. You cannot have one without the other.

    Another assertion. Until you can demonstrate how your solution avoids onto-theology, your arguments on this issue are worthless.

    If a logical argument involving the principle of causality results in a conclusion involving a non-cause “cause”, then it has led nowhere. It led to a point where we hit utter darkness and blindness, where our words lose their sense and reference, become unmoored, and we are lost in the blackness.

    Yet more assertions. Why should I pay any attention when your answer leads to A) a contradiction or B) a vicious infinite regress? My solution, which is the solution of church tradition (and of Aquinas), is that principles such as causality must have an absolute ground. The only possible option for such a ground is one that is prior to causality. Anything less places causality prior to its own ground--which is, again, either a contradiction or an infinite regress.

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  49. A non-cause cannot do anything, because doing implies activity, which implies causality, which cannot be applicable to a non-cause “cause”. You could maybe save the day by saying that the non-cause “cause” is like a cause, but then it would be partially identical and partially different, and then the onus is upon you to specify what is partly identical and what is partly different.

    All we need to do is say that there are effects. This is perfectly acceptable, seeing as we are effects. As long as there are effects, we know that there is something like a cause that created us. But to say that it is a cause absolutely is pure onto-theology.

    Or, I could say that those principles all work well in the world of composite entities, but that they hit a brick wall of incoherence when they try to reach simple entities, because simple entities have characteristics that make those principles inoperative. It would be like sailing in a little boat with a small light to illuminate the immediate surroundings, but be surrounded by total darkness and blackness, which cannot be penetrated by the light.

    Then you are telling me that act/potency, esse/essence and so forth have no ground, which means that they are self-grounding. This means that they are prior to themselves. Your conclusion once again nets us a contradiction.

    Can’t you see how this position is akin to relativism? “There are no absolute statements” is self-refuting, much like your statement above.

    The problem is that "there are no absolute statements" is not the same thing. It's a flat-out contradiction. The statement that "there are no absolute statements about God", unlike the other, is not just a liar paradox. It has two possible solutions: a basic contradiction, or an infinite regress. Given analogy, the second option will not be vicious; and so it is to be preferred.

    By starting with ontic phenomena, and concluding about ontological phenomena. Is that a legitimate move?

    Aquinas does not discuss ontological phenomena through the ontic. He merely makes the observation that we have always already seen esse prior to any other comprehension, and that esse is always already present by the time some ontic entity is present. He also explains that the ontic forms that enter our intellects allow us to view ontological essences.

    I don’t see how you can talk about “higher” without “quantity”, because “higher” implies “more”, and “more” implies “quantity”.

    I never said otherwise. Our affirmations themselves are quantitative, being ontic events contained under the ten categories; the thing that they affirm (esse) is not limited. Hence, we can affirm it forever. That's all I was saying.

    Hilbert’s hotel clearly has a referent, even if it is an infinite one, because we have a sense of a hotel with full rooms, and a sense of the infinite as that without limit. God is different, because we have a sense of the infinite, but have no sense of the infinite X that God is supposed to be, and that is one major reason why we cannot refer to God, i.e. that we lack the proper sense to do so.

    I was using Hilbert's Hotel to refer to the ontic event of our affirmation: not to God. Now, let's please drop this irrelevant digression.

    But if God is “beyond” X, then God “transcends” X. To transcend transcendence is still to be transcendent. You cannot escape the dialectic at all.

    Begs the question. To say that there is a transcendent/immanent dialectic automatically invites onto-theology, because the two would have to be grounded in a third thing. You have to explain your unargued conclusion that this can be avoided.

    Second, my point was that all our concepts about ontology are rooted in ontic phenomena, and that necessarily includes key principles, such as act, potency, essence, form, and so on.

    Act, potency and essence are all ontological phenomena. Out of those things you mentioned, only form is actually ontic.

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  50. If there is continuity between ontics and ontology, then there is no gap. There is a common unity of which ontics and ontology are both divergent expressions of.

    That common unity is God, who grounds both.

    Exactly! And if he is beyond ontics, ontology, as well as the difference between them, then we cannot apply any ontic or ontological concepts to him, and so the Five Ways -- which are rooted in ontological conclusions from ontic phenomena, neither of which is applicable to God -- all collapse into equivocation and thus invalidity.

    Then all of the events described by the Five Ways are self-grounded, which is a contradiction.

    You keep saying that my interpretation is wrong, because there is an alternative interpretation more in keeping with Christian tradition, but have yet to supply that interpretation.

    I have been doing so throughout this discussion.

    You have to show how our words, saturated by ontico-ontological aspects, can possibly reach that which is beyond ontico-ontological reality.

    1. Ontico-ontological phenomena are effects/contingent/impermanent/imperfect.
    2. Effects and the contingent/impermanent/imperfect must be grounded in something else.
    3. Therefore, ontico-ontological phenomena have a ground.

    1. Anything grounded must be inferior to its ground.
    2. Ontico-ontological phenomena are grounded.
    3. Therefore, ontico-ontological phenomena are inferior to their ground.

    1. If something is inferior to something else, then it is measured in proportion to that thing.
    2. Ontico-ontological phenomena are inferior to their ground.
    3. Therefore, ontico-ontological phenomena are measured in proportion to their ground.

    1. If something is in proportion to something else, then it may be said to be like it.
    2. Ontico-ontological phenomena are in proportion to their ground.
    3. Therefore, ontico-ontological phenomena are like their ground.

    1. The imperfect must be grounded in the perfect.
    2. If something is proportionate to something else, then it is imperfect.
    3. Therefore, the ground of all things cannot be proportionate to anything else.

    I still contend that I was right about that. As I recall, my argument was that if being is coextensive with goodness by virtue of the interconvertability of the transcendentals, then the more goodness, the more being an entity has. The difficulty was that there are different kinds of being, some of which are all-or-nothing (i.e. esse) and others of which admit of degrees (i.e. act, potency), and that saying that if an entity is more good, then it is more real, only applies to the latter kind of being and not to the former kind of being, which is good, full stop.

    The concepts of "more" and "less" are ontic: they're part of the ten categories. The concept of "being" is ontological: it's above the ten categories. Pretty simple case of collapsed distinctions.

    I haven’t read Cajetan or McInery, but I can say that both Wippel and Rocca reject the idea that analogy can be reduced to univocity. In fact, they argue strenuously against such a position.

    None of the people I mentioned actually endorsed a univocal view. My point was that univocity was smuggled in through the back door in their arguments.

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  51. dguller,

    In an analogy, you have two analogates, A1 and A2. A1 is the primary one, and A2 is the secondary one. What that means is that A1 has the primary sense S1 and the primary referent R1, whereas A2 has the secondary sense S2 and the secondary referent R2. The secondary sense S2 consists of S1 plus a difference, whereas the primary sense S1 consists of just S1.

    Before responding to this, some backing up is required.

    (cont)

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  52. In your comment of January 14, 2013 at 7:43 PM, you quoted (my partial quotation of) Aquinas' ST Q16 A6: "...when anything is predicated of many things univocally, it is found in each of them according to its proper nature... But when anything is predicated of many things analogically, it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature, and from this one the rest are denominated."

    To this you responded: "Right. In an analogy, one analogate has the primary meaning and referent, and the other analogate has the secondary meaning that necessarily is relative to the primary meaning and referent."

    Now, let us do some wordsmithing with the partial quotation of ST Q16 A6I. By 'wordsmithing' I mean altering the phrasing without altering the essential meaning of what is phrased. We'll do this in three steps.

    The first step will address the first of the two large phrases of the partial quotation (i.e., the 'univocal' phrase); the second step will address the second of the two large phrases of the partial quotation (i.e., the 'analogical' phrase); and the third step will stitch together, i.e., connect, the wordsmithed results of the first two steps.

    1. When in the first phrase (i.e., the 'univocal' phrase) Aquinas says "it is found each of them according to its proper nature", what is he referring to? He is referring to that which has been predicated.

    So, the first phrase "when anything is predicated of many things univocally, it is found in each of them according to its proper nature"...

    ...may be rephrased as...

    ..."when anything is predicated of many things univocally, that which has been predicated is found in each of them according to its proper nature."

    This rephrasing in turn may be rephrased as...

    ..."when anything is predicated of many things univocally, the proper nature of that which has been predicated is found in each of them."

    If we let PN = "the proper nature of that which has been predicated", then have...

    ..."when anything is predicated of many things univocally, PN is found in each of them."

    The first step is now concluded.

    2. When in the second phrase (i.e., the 'analogical' phrase) Aquinas says "it is found each of them according to its proper nature", what is he referring to? As is the case in the first step, he is referring to that which has been predicated.

    So, the second phrase "when anything is predicated of many things analogically, it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature, and from this one the rest are denominated"...

    ...may be rephrased as...

    ..."when anything is predicated of many things analogically, that which has been predicated is found in only one of them according to its proper nature, and from this one the rest are denominated".

    This rephrasing in turn may be rephrased as...

    ..."when anything is predicated of many things analogically, the proper nature of that which has been predicated is found in only one of them, and from this one the rest are denominated".

    If we let, as we do in step 2 above, PN = "the proper nature of that which has been predicated", then we have,

    ..."when anything is predicated of many things analogically, PN is found in only one of them, and from this one the rest are denominated".

    The second step is now concluded.

    3. Here in the third step we stitch together the wordsmithed results of the first two steps, using the 'But' in the original partial quotation to connect the two:

    "...when anything is predicated of many things univocally, PN is found in each of them... But when anything is predicated of many things analogically, PN is found in only one of them, and from this one the rest are denominated".

    The third step is now concluded, and we're finished backing up.

    (cont)

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  53. Now, let's get back to...

    In an analogy, you have two analogates, A1 and A2. A1 is the primary one, and A2 is the secondary one. What that means is that A1 has the primary sense S1 and the primary referent R1, whereas A2 has the secondary sense S2 and the secondary referent R2. The secondary sense S2 consists of S1 plus a difference, whereas the primary sense S1 consists of just S1.

    The first statement seems fine.

    But the second statement seems to go off the rails by effectively claiming that in an analogy both S1 and S2 involve PN ("S2 consists of S1 plus a difference"). In an analogy, however, S2 does not involve PN.

    This can be gotten around, of course, by saying that the difference is "sans PN", in which case you would then have S2=S1+("sans PN"), which works out to S2=S1–PN.

    Claiming 'univocity', however, on the grounds that S1 is to be found on the right-side of both S1=S1 and S2=S1-PN, seems to make about as much sense as claiming 'equality' on the grounds that the numeral 3 is to be found on the right-side of both "3=3" and "2=3+(-1)".

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  54. Yikes. I had two chunks in mind, and misreferred to each chunk as a statement.

    The first chunk (which seems fine) is:

    In an analogy, you have two analogates, A1 and A2. A1 is the primary one, and A2 is the secondary one. What that means is that A1 has the primary sense S1 and the primary referent R1, whereas A2 has the secondary sense S2 and the secondary referent R2.

    And the second chunk (which seems to go off the rails) is:

    The secondary sense S2 consists of S1 plus a difference, whereas the primary sense S1 consists of just S1.

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  55. Glenn:

    ..."when anything is predicated of many things univocally, PN is found in each of them."

    I have no problem with this, as long as it is clear that the “proper nature”, or ratio, is in this context an epistemological and linguistic entity that corresponds to the sense of the predication, or its modus significandi.

    ..."when anything is predicated of many things analogically, PN is found in only one of them, and from this one the rest are denominated".

    Good, except that Aquinas also says that the PN “must be placed in the definition of all” and that “the analogous name must be predicated primarily of that which is placed in the definition of the others, and secondarily of the others” (ST I.13.6). In other words, the PN must be present in the definitions of both analogates A1 and A1, but it occurs primarily in A1 and secondarily in A2.

    But the second statement seems to go off the rails by effectively claiming that in an analogy both S1 and S2 involve PN ("S2 consists of S1 plus a difference"). In an analogy, however, S2 does not involve PN.

    Except that S2 does involve PN. Aquinas says that it must be part of the definition of S2, as well as the definition of S1. The only difference is that PN is primarily in S1 and secondarily in S2. So, what does “primarily” and “secondarily” mean here? I think it means the degree of proximity to the common individual reality R that is being referred to.

    So, take the example of “healthy” again:

    (1) John is healthy
    (2) Penicillin is healthy

    “Healthy” in (1) is primary, because it refers directly to John’s physical well-being (= PN), and “healthy” in (2) is secondary, because it refers indirectly to John’s physical well-being by means of a cause of John’s physical well-being (= cause of PN). Again, the sense of PN is the same in both (1) and (2), and remains unchanged. The only difference is that PN is referred to directly in (1) and indirectly in (2), but it is the same PN in both. My contention is that when one focuses directly upon PN in S1 and S2, then PN must have the same sense in both, and thus the same referent, and thus must be univocal.

    Claiming 'univocity', however, on the grounds that S1 is to be found on the right-side of both S1=S1 and S2=S1-PN, seems to make about as much sense as claiming 'equality' on the grounds that the numeral 3 is to be found on the right-side of both "3=3" and "2=3+(-1)".

    Except that it does in this case. If PN were different in S1 and S2, then you would have severed any link between them, making S1 completely different from S2, and thus could not possibly have the same referent. Again, the strongest argument you can make against my position is to show an instance where you have a scenario where a common referent has two completely different senses that have absolutely nothing in common qua sense.

    My overall argument is that either S1 and S2 have identical, similar or different qua sense, i.e. ignoring their referents for the time being. If S1 and S2 are identical, then you have univocity, because identical senses refer to identical referents. If S1 and S2 are different, then you have equivocation – if the terms are the same for S1 and S2 – which also means different referents, because two senses that have nothing in common cannot have the same referent. If S1 and S2 are similar, then you must have partial identity and partial difference, which I believe implies sub-senses in which S1 and S2 must share some identical sub-senses and some different sub-senses. When one focuses upon the identical sub-senses, they must have the same referents, and if one labels them identically, then you have univocity.

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  56. Glenn and dguller,

    There is a simple reason why any explanation of analogy along those lines must fail. For X to be predicated of something intentionally, X must be in our minds. However, God cannot be in our minds outside of a mystical vision. This means that, whatever X is, it cannot be God.

    Now, you might object by saying that X is "goodness", and that goodness is something predicated of multiple entities--differentiated by mode. But goodness, in this sense, is just a name for being (esse). Hence, if goodness is something present in both God and creatures, then it follows that being is present in both God and creatures. This conclusion is unacceptable for the reason that creatures are different in kind rather than degree from God. Even their being (esse commune) is totally different from God's (esse divinum). As Pseudo-Dionysius and even Aquinas admit, God does not exist. As a result, to say that we can apply the term "goodness" to God in this way is to say that God's being is knowable. That, of course, is completely impossible. To accept it leads to the conclusion that God's being is only different in degree from esse commune, and that we can see him in creatures not as a representation but literally.

    All of this confirms that, for the doctrine of analogy to work, nothing we know can be God. Everything we know is created--even goodness, which derives from created esse. To accept anything less is to jump into univocity or pantheism or the language of the Wholly Other. The only option is to say that the created is a faulty representation the uncreated, and that our words, by intending some created goodness, signify God through the medium of creation. This is what I've been arguing, and it is, as far as I can see, the opinion of the Church Fathers and of Aquinas.

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  57. @RS

    >Hence, if goodness is something present in both God and creatures, then it follows that being is present in both God and creatures. This conclusion is unacceptable for the reason that creatures are different in kind rather than degree from God.

    But it seems to me if there is "any" univocity here then it is trivial.

    The Good is what everything desires. Logically Creatures desire their own good(which comes from God) and in so doing they desire God.

    We don't know what that good in God must be like till we experience it but it is there even if it is The Other but we can still say it's good/desirable.

    >Even their being (esse commune) is totally different from God's (esse divinum).

    I think we should also point out that the very concept of Being is an analogous concept not an univocal one.

    Thomists should resist the temptation to construct a "tree of Being" that descends from Being Itself to individual beings. Even privations are beings of a sort(not real beings but beings of reason).

    See REAL ESSENTIALISM page 105.

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  58. But it seems to me if there is "any" univocity here then it is trivial.

    The Good is what everything desires. Logically Creatures desire their own good(which comes from God) and in so doing they desire God.


    There is no such thing as "trivial" univocity when you're dealing with the problem of God's relationship to creatures. Any univocity at all automatically removes God's total transcendence from creation and makes him just another being, rather than the ground of all being. It's the first step on the road to theistic personalism.

    I think we should also point out that the very concept of Being is an analogous concept not an univocal one.

    Thomists should resist the temptation to construct a "tree of Being" that descends from Being Itself to individual beings. Even privations are beings of a sort(not real beings but beings of reason).

    See REAL ESSENTIALISM page 105.


    Oderberg is a very intelligent writer, and I appreciate his commentary on essence and existence in that book. However, he is no theologian. To say that the analogy between beings and beings is the same as the analogy between beings and God is to reduce God to the level of esse commune--just another created entity. It also contradicts Aquinas, who says that esse divinum (God) is infinitely distant from esse commune (being)--so much so that esse divinum cannot even be called being as we understand that term. What we know as being is just a faulty representation of God, similar to God in that it is inferior to and derives from him; but we could never say that an instance of created esse was like God in the way that it was like other instances of created esse. That's where dguller, Glenn and modern Thomists go off the rails and misinterpret Aquinas's actual beliefs.

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  59. >Oderberg is a very intelligent writer, and I appreciate his commentary on essence and existence in that book. However, he is no theologian. To say that the analogy between beings and beings is the same as the analogy between beings and God is to reduce God to the level of esse commune--just another created entity.

    Dude Oderberg doesn't say that the analogy between beings and beings is the same as the analogy between beings and God.

    I though "resist the temptation" was pretty clear.

    As for trivial univocity. If I say God has Intellect then I am merely saying God "knows". How he know or what the form of His Intellect is happens to be beyond comprehension because it is transcendent.

    If God has being here merely exists. Of course He doesn't exist the way we do.

    Indeed Aquinas, Denys, Davies and even modern Theologians like Tillich can say in a sense God does not exist.

    You didn't get what I was saying.

    I talk more later. Busy weekend.

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  60. Rank,

    Glenn and dguller,
    There is a simple reason why any explanation of analogy along those lines must fail. For X to be predicated of something intentionally, X must be in our minds. However, God cannot be in our minds outside of a mystical vision. This means that, whatever X is, it cannot be God.


    1. Where have I said that what is predicated of God is God?

    2. Relaxing it a bit, where have I merely intimated that what is predicated of God is God?

    3. And, in fairness to him, I'd have to say that, although I see no reason to believe that dguller's reasoning is valid, and likewise see no reason to accept that his conclusion is true, I also do not see where he has said, or merely intimated, that what is predicatd of God is God.

    The whole point of dguller's approach, his strategy if you will, is to manipulate symbols and terms in such a way so as to feel justified in claiming that one cannot speak about God in any way which is meaningful--as well as feeling justified in believing that others are thereby obligated to hold to the same thing.

    If attempting to drive wedges into what I see as chinks in dguller's reasoning constitutes going off the rails, then I suppose I would have to agree that, yes, I have gone off the rails.

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  61. dguller,

    Except that S2 does involve PN. Aquinas says that it must be part of the definition of S2, as well as the definition of S1. The only difference is that PN is primarily in S1 and secondarily in S2. So, what does “primarily” and “secondarily” mean here? I think it means the degree of proximity to the common individual reality R that is being referred to.

    When it is primarily in the one and only secondarily in the other, it is essentially in the one and not essentially in the other. And it is precisely because it is essentially in the one and not the other that we have something analogical rather than univocal.

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  62. Trust us RS nobody here is doing any Theistic Personalist crap.

    You know how I truly hate TP & believe there are not sufficient four letter anglo-germanic metaphors to express my hatred for it.

    We are all rocking the Classic Theism here Yo!*

    *I've been watching TV with the kids and I am starting to talk like young people.

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  63. Glenn,

    1. Where have I said that what is predicated of God is God?

    2. Relaxing it a bit, where have I merely intimated that what is predicated of God is God?


    First, God is absolutely simple; and so any property you attribute to God is God. Second, to say "God is good" without simultaneously doubling back and denying this affirmation (with another affirmation) is to say that God is good absolutely and not merely in a qualified sense. But this is impossible, because, in order to make an absolute statement about God, we would have to fully comprehend his essence. Even angels or those with the Beatific Vision do not have this ability. Further, the name "God" in itself cannot be directed intentionally toward God, because we would need to have God in our minds for that to work. Hence, the proposition "God is good" is not only incorrect--it's not even about God. It's about some mental entity X who shares the created property "good" with other created things, only to a higher degree. This is why a purely semantic defense of analogy is doomed to fail: it must always reduce God to the level of creation.

    So, when you say that an analogous term is primarily applied to one entity and secondarily to others, what you are essentially saying is, "Some entity X is 'good' to the highest possible degree, and from this X all others are named through participation." That is obviously not what Aquinas meant when he said that God was the primary referent of "good". It isn't even coherent to say that God is good without simultaneously negating that affirmation, because any "good" to which we refer is composite and created. It cannot be applied to God absolutely, even if it can be applied "literally" (as Aquinas uses that term) rather than metaphorically. Hence, it is impossible to say that God and creation share anything in the way that a semantic defense of analogy requires. There is no property Y that appears in both God and creation.

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  64. Trust us RS nobody here is doing any Theistic Personalist crap.

    You know how I truly hate TP & believe there are not sufficient four letter anglo-germanic metaphors to express my hatred for it.

    We are all rocking the Classic Theism here Yo!*

    *I've been watching TV with the kids and I am starting to talk like young people.


    I understand that, Ben. But I'm convinced that these kinds of semantic distinctions about analogy do not solve the problem of "secret univocity", as certain Thomists call it. They are also contrary to the tradition of analogy that existed before Aquinas, which located the significance of analogy in ontology rather than semantics.

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  65. Glenn,

    Here's my point in a more condensed fashion. To say that "God is good" in absolute terms presupposes knowledge of God's essence in the same way that the ontological argument does--and so it cannot possibly be valid. As Aquinas says, we can only know effects, and we name their cause from those effects. Hence, to say "God is good" is to say that the created goodness we see originates from God (as Maimonides believed) and also represents God (as Maimonides did not believe), who in himself is so distant from creation that he is beyond and prior to all definite knowledge. All of this is clearly summarized by Pseudo-Dionysius, who was one of Aquinas's biggest influences next to Aristotle.

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  66. Rank,

    " Hence, to say "God is good" is to say that the created goodness we see originates from God (as Maimonides believed) and also represents God [...]."

    but then you can't, presumably for the same reasons, even say 'created goodness originates from God', and so on for every other way of construing the relation.

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  67. but then you can't, presumably for the same reasons, even say 'created goodness originates from God', and so on for every other way of construing the relation.

    Aquinas accepts this, more or less. He views the situation as twofold: from the perspective of creation and from the perspective of God. We are allowed to make absolute statements with respect to creation, but not in respect to God. One of his clearest summaries of this idea and its application to causality appears in De potentia 3:3, which I cited earlier in my debate with dguller. Here is part of the article:

    "We must accordingly say that creation may be taken actively or passively. Taken actively it denotes the act of God, which is his essence, together with a relation to the creature: and this is not a real but only a logical relation. But taken passively, since, as we have already said, it is not properly speaking a change, it must be said to belong, not to the genus of passion, but to that of relation. This is proved as follows. In every real change and movement there is a twofold process. One is from one term of movement to the other, for instance from whiteness to blackness: the other is from the agent to the patient, for instance from the maker to the thing made. These processes however differ from each other while the movement is in progress, and when the term has been reached. While the movement is in progress, the thing moved is receding from one term and approaching the other: which does not apply when the term has been reached: as may be seen in that which is moved from whiteness to blackness, for at the term of the movement it no longer approaches to blackness, but begins to be black. Likewise while it is in movement the patient or the thing made is being changed by the agent: but when it is at the term of the movement, it is no longer being changed by the agent: but acquires a certain relation to the agent, inasmuch as it has its being therefrom, and is in some way like unto it: thus at the term of human generation the offspring acquires sonship. Now creation, as stated above (A. 2), cannot be taken for a movement of the creature previous to its reaching the term of movement, but denotes the accomplished fact. Wherefore creation does not denote an approach to being, nor a change effected by the Creator, but merely a beginning of existence, and a relation to the Creator from whom the creature receives its being. Consequently creation is really nothing but a relation of the creature to the Creator together with a beginning of existence."

    In essence, we are allowed absolutely to say that creation is an effect, but it is not absolutely true that God caused it. To say that God causes something requires knowledge of his essence, because his action is his essence; and we have no knowledge of his essence. The sentence of mine that you quoted is merely shorthand for this longer explanation.

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  68. Rank,

    "[...]. We are allowed to make absolute statements with respect to creation, but not in respect to God. [...]."

    but to say 'the world is effect of God" is just to say 'God is the cause of the world'.

    " We must accordingly say that creation may be taken actively or passively. Taken actively it denotes the act of God, which is his essence, together with a relation to the creature: and this is not a real but only a logical relation.[...]. Now creation, as stated above (A. 2), cannot be taken for a movement of the creature previous to its reaching the term of movement, but denotes the accomplished fact. Wherefore creation does not denote an approach to being, nor a change effected by the Creator, but merely a beginning of existence, and a relation to the Creator from whom the creature receives its being. Consequently creation is really nothing but a relation of the creature to the Creator together with a beginning of existence."

    all the same; it seems to me we cannot, for the same reasons you mentioned, say creation is the 'act' of God or a kind a of 'relation', or etc.

    "In essence, we are allowed absolutely to say that creation is an effect, but it is not absolutely true that God caused it."

    well, at this point, either (a) God caused it in some sense or (b) God didn't cause it at all (i.e., in no sense). but on your view, we can't hold either. this is a reductio ad absurdum of your position.

    "To say that God causes something requires knowledge of his essence, because his action is his essence; and we have no knowledge of his essence."

    it isn't an all or nothing affair; why can't we have *some* knowledge of Him?

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  69. but to say 'the world is effect of God" is just to say 'God is the cause of the world'.

    It isn't the same, as Aquinas himself acknowledged. Further, in the statement "the world is an effect of God", the "God" named is not God in himself. No divine name is capable of signifying God in himself (including the name used in this sentence, and my recognition of that fact, and the previous recognition, onward forever), as Pseudo-Denys says when he writes that God is "beyond privations, beyond every denial, beyond every assertion". What we say is that creatures begin to exist, and that they have a relation to an unfathomable something (referred to by many names but pinned down by none), which creatures represent on an ontological level.

    all the same; it seems to me we cannot, for the same reasons you mentioned, say creation is the 'act' of God or a kind a of 'relation', or etc.

    I've been arguing these very points with dguller for a week or more, so I'll refer you to the rest of this combox for the arguments for and against my claim.

    well, at this point, either (a) God caused it in some sense or (b) God didn't cause it at all (i.e., in no sense). but on your view, we can't hold either. this is a reductio ad absurdum of your position.

    God caused it in some sense, in that creation began to exist and so must have been preceded by something else. We know that it began to exist because it is imperfect, impermanent and contingent. This does not mean that the proposition "God caused creation" is true, because the "God" and "cause" named here are mere symbols generated by contact with created things and so do not signify anything but the created. Analytic philosophy ends its investigation here--before the case has even begun. Once we move to continental philosophy, it becomes clear that there is a way to discuss facts that are true before they are "true": ontological facts that exist prior to semantics. One such ontological fact is creation's status as a representation of God, which cannot be discussed in analytic terms without a contradiction ensuing. This is because analytic philosophy lazily, unreflectively presupposes ontology; and so it has no language for it. Aquinas can only properly be discussed when one realizes that he is both an analytic and continental philosopher in different aspects of his work.

    With the representational status of creation affirmed, it becomes possible to say that our propositions don't signify God but always already do, because they are symbols of creatures that in turn symbolize God. The graph I provided earlier went like this:

    word <-> idea <-> creation -> God

    it isn't an all or nothing affair; why can't we have *some* knowledge of Him?

    We do have some knowledge of him, via what we gain from examining creation. If creation is a representation of God, then it follows (for complex reasons I've argued out in this combox) that studying the best aspects of creation gives us a vague, disparate image of God. This image is no more than a symbol, just like creation itself; but it is a symbol that is true (ontologically) prior to being "true" (semantically). By denying that this symbol is the full picture and then building a new, better symbol to take its place, we engage in a never-ending series of affirmations, all of which glorify God but none of which absolutely define him.

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  70. Rank,

    In reverse order...

    > This is why a purely semantic defense of analogy is doomed to fail: it must always reduce God to the level of creation.

    I've no problem with agreeing that a purely semantic defense of analogy is doomed to fail.

    I was not attempting to provide a purely semantic defense of analogy, however, but attempting to shine some light on some perceived weaknesses of a semantic attack against analogy.

    > So, when you say that an analogous term is primarily applied
    > to one entity and secondarily to others, what you are
    > essentially saying is, "Some entity X is 'good' to the highest
    > possible degree, and from this X all others are named
    > through participation." That is obviously not what Aquinas
    > meant when he said that God was the primary referent of
    > "good".

    Perhaps. Perhaps not.

    o [T]he words, "God is good," or "wise," signify not only that He is the cause of wisdom or goodness, but that these exist in Him in a more excellent way. ST 1 Q13 A6

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  71. Rank:

    Begs the question again.

    No, it doesn’t. I’m trying to help you see a distinction between the referent, and the web of relationships that the referent is embedded within. In one sense, when I refer to X, I simultaneously am involving the web of relationships that X is associated with, but it does not follow that I am referring to that totality, because then any time I refer to anything, then I would necessarily refer to everything, because everything is connected in a web of relationships. Therefore, it must follow that when I refer to X, I am not also referring to the web of relationships that X is embedded within. And that means that if I refer to a dog, and even if God is the underlying ground that sustains that dog, then it does not follow that I am referring to God.

    You cannot analyze facticity in this way without presupposing it.

    I am not talking about what is ontic or ontological, but what is beyond both. Facticity involves what is ontic and what is ontological. It cannot involve what is beyond both, because we cannot refer to something that we cannot present to our minds in any way, because all referents must have senses that act as the lenses through which our minds can even perceive the referents at all. So, we have to stop at ontology as the limit, and recognize that all talk of what is beyond ontology simply lacks any sense, and thus lacks any reference, and thus is meaningless.

    The Trinitarian trace is not God. It is the facticity of being that always already makes being a symbol of God. This is why I told you to read my entire response first--to avoid pointless exchanges, like this one.

    But a symbol is only a symbol when presented to a mind as a signer that refers to a referent. If there is no possible way for something to be signified to a mind -- i.e. presented to a mind as a representation or medium that connects the mind to a referent -- then there is no referent, either. To have a referent, you must have some language about a referent, and you cannot have meaningful language without a sense to the term used. You keep using words that you admit have no sense in the human mind, and yet still want to pretend that they refer to something. Again, it is like looking into darkness and claiming that you see light where there simply cannot be any.

    We always already talk about it, because our words refer to the facticity of being that is always presupposed. That facticity is the Trinitarian trace, which in turn always already refers our language to God. It's very simple, and I wish you would grasp it so that we could make some progress here.

    It is simple, and you are missing the point, I think. The Trinitarian trace is supposed to be a sign embedded within creation that refers to God. In order for that to be possible, the Trinitarian trace must have a sense that is present to the human mind, which then refers to God as the referent. What is the sense of the Trinitarian trace?

    Perhaps I should be a bit clearer, since I'm manipulating Heidegger's terminology as I go. Facticity, as I'm using this word, is prior to history. It is an ontological condition in which all beings always already find themselves. It is prior to ontic events. There is no analogate to facticity, because any analogate you come up with is always already invaded by facticity.

    Okay.

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  72. Further, intentionality is not destroyed by this system. We always mean creatures, but creatures always already mean God.

    First, for your argument to be valid, you have to assume that if “X” refers to X, and X is related to Y, then “X” also refers to Y. And if that assumption is true, then “X” refers to everything and anything, because everything is related to everything else, which means that the specificity of intentionality is destroyed. Perhaps you could respond that this assumption is too broad, and you would narrow it down to something like: if “X” refers to X, and X depends for its very existence upon Y, then “X” also refers to Y. But this wouldn’t help, either, because my existence depends upon the food that I eat, which depends upon the people that make it, which depends upon the earth that produces it, which depends upon the solar system, which depends upon … the universe. So, that formulation doesn’t help, either. The only way that it would work is if you just beg the question and assume that: if “X” refers to X, and X is sustained in its very being in only the way that God can sustain a being’s existence, then “X” also refers to God. But, again, that is just begging the question.

    Second, when we refer to God, we simultaneously would have to refer to all of creation, because he has, in fact, created it, and we are a part of it, and we would not be referring to God unless we were already a part of creation, which means that it is all part of web of relationships, each part referring to each other part. So, the referent would not just stop at God, but would boomerang back to creation, and again explode all meaning by destroyed the specificity of intentionality.

    Third, even if X refers to Y, it does not follow that when I talk about X, I am simultaneously talking about Y. When I redirect my mind towards Y, then I am talking about Y, even if Y was always part of the reality of X. As I said, to accept this principle would destroy the specificity of intentionality. For example, to be a dog is to be a mammal, and so when I talk about dogs, I am also talking about mammals, but there is a distinction in my mind between a dog and a mammal, and so, even though the two are necessarily related, I can talk about dogs and talk about mammals distinctly. And this is possible because I can direct my intentionality towards either dogs or mammals, irrespective of the fact that they are connected. If you were correct, then we could not do so, and every time I talk about dogs, I must be talking about everything associated with dogs, which ultimately means talking about everything at the same time, including cats, rocks, water, and so on. That is clearly absurd.

    The sense is not removed. Who said it was? But the sense is always a creature (a created thing), just like the referent. We cannot think or talk about anything uncreated unless we have that uncreated thing in our minds; and only God is uncreated. This does not mean that the things we think and talk about do not themselves refer to something uncreated.

    You keep talking ontologically, and I want to talk about how you can talk ontologically. Given your ontological commitments, I would like to know how you are able to talk about what is beyond ontology in a meaningful fashion. You seem to agree that all talk necessarily requires a sense that is present to the human mind that directs and focuses the mind towards its referent. Now, if we cannot have a sense of what is beyond ontology, then we also cannot refer to what is beyond ontology, because having a sense in mind is essential to our ability to reach a referent at all, such that no sense implies no referent. That does not mean that the referent does not exist independently of our thoughts about the referent, but rather that we cannot talk about that referent, given the conditions of our cognition and language.

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  73. Only if you remove the factical analogy between creatures and God that is always already present in creatures prior to consideration. But you haven't done that: you've just begged the question against it.

    And you haven’t explained how we can talk about a referent without any sense. Say that in reality one referent X is connected to another referent Y in a necessary fashion such that the existence of X always involves the existence of Y, which means that X refers to Y. Fine. The problem is that if our minds are only capable of having the sense of X and not the sense of Y, then our minds can only refer to X, even if X refers to Y. To actually refer to Y takes a step other than just referring to X. Otherwise, as I have been arguing, you would explode all meaning and cognition and destroy intentionality. Your position depends upon equivocating about “referring”. I am talking about how the mind can use its intentionality to refer to something via its internal cognitive representation, and you are talking about objective relationships between entities, which are totally different. There could be objective relationships in reality that we are utterly blind to, and so just because X refers to Y in the sense of X having an objective relationship with Y, it does not follow that if our minds can refer to X, then our minds can also refer to Y, because all intentionality requires a mediating representation, or sense, to reach a referent. No sense, no referent, even if the referent exists.

    Let me put this in the form of a syllogism.



    1. Anything in our minds is based on something in nature.

    2. Things in nature "mean God".

    3. Therefore, things in our minds "mean God".



    Why can't you understand this? It's extremely simple.


    Because (3) does not follow from (2). You are equivocating between the objective associations between entities and our ability to refer to those associations with our minds.

    You've merely begged the question. When speaking of the ground of all distinctions and dialectics, you cannot apply those same distinctions and dialectics. Otherwise, what you have is onto-theology, and a further ground must be posited to infinity.

    But if all our thought is governed by those distinctions, then you are talking about something that is literally outside of our ability to think!

    Once again, you show that you don't understand the distinction between secondary and primary causes. Both brains and neurons are about God, even though brains are not about neurons. Every existent has as its facticity the Trinitarian trace, which means that it is always already about God. Neurons are not the facticity of brains. You can provide ontic counterexamples until you turn blue, but you haven't even started talking about my argument yet.

    I have already refuted it by showing that you are conflating objective relationships and cognitive representations. Although the latter depend upon the former, the former do not depend upon the latter. What that means is that even if all things refer to God in the former sense of “referring”, it does not follow that our thoughts about things also refer to God in the latter sense of “referring”. You keep focusing upon the former, and I am focusing upon the latter. The funny thing is that I’m granting you the former, i.e. the objective and ontological truths that you support, and am just waiting for you to explain how our minds can refer to things that cannot show up to our minds at all.

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  74. This in no way undermines my argument. All that's necessary for my argument to work is that the Trinitarian trace exists. That discussing it leads to an infinite regress is absolutely irrelevant if it is the factical condition of all being--which it is.

    First, all that’s necessary for my argument is that you cannot say that the Trinitarian trace exists. Thought and language reach a barrier beyond which is incoherence and meaninglessness. The trace would have to be that barrier, but you could not call it a trace, because a trace refers to something else, which you have already admitted is un-representable to the human mind, and thus meaningless.

    Second, why is this infinite regress okay, but the infinite regress of per se causes is impermissible? The whole power of the First Way, for me, was that an infinite regress of per se causes must stop somewhere, i.e. must hit bottom, solid ground, firm under our feet, in order to support the whole. It is the absence of such a rock bottom foundation where everything stops that makes infinite regresses hazardous. However, you seem to be saying that an infinite regress is not a problem after all, and that one can go from one thing to another forever without ever reaching the end, and that is all just fine. But if it is fine in the case of the divine names, then why isn’t it also fine with the infinite series of per se causes?

    The Trinitarian trace is not actually separable from the things in which it appears. I've been using this term to highlight the way in which all things represent God. Literally, beings just do represent God, and there is no third element or medium connecting them to God. This is why I keep referring to the Trinitarian trace as their facticity: it is the condition into which they have always already been thrown, simply because they exist. It cannot be considered without being presupposed.

    Again, you are confusing the objective relationships between X and Y as necessarily leading to the human mind’s ability to think about X and Y. Just because X and Y are ontologically related somehow does not mean that if we can think about X, then we must also be able to think about Y.

    You are very close to being right. However, God is the only thing to which this rule applies, because he is the principle of all things to which even secondary principles refer. A child does not, on an ontological level, have this sort of connection to its parents. Its connections are ontic--part of the ten categories--, such as those of relation. Creation has an ontic relation to God as well, but this is a separate issue.

    But this rule cannot just apply to God, because if creation refers to God, then God refers to creation. For creation to refer to God, creation must exist, and if creation exists, then God has already created it, and thus God must refer to what he has created. And so the references do not just stop with God, but end up exploding, meaning that everything refers to everything, which destroys the specificity of intentionality, because whenever you try to refer to one part of reality, you end up referring to every part of reality, which means that you are not actually referring to anything in particular.

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  75. That makes no sense.

    We are capable of referring to the ontological truths in which the trace of God resides. Unless, that is, you're thinking in semiotic terms--which I am not. Further, this does not mean that God is reduced to any kind of verbal or mental signification. Here is how it works:



    Word <--> idea <--> reality -> God



    If we are capable of having reality in our minds, then we are capable of speaking about God by virtue of reality's a priori connection to God.


    Not necessarily. To speak about God, we must have an idea in our mind about God, which we both agree is impossible, because in Thomist epistemology, to have an idea of X is to have the form of X in its intentional mode of being, and this cannot happen (at least in this life) with regards to God. Again, you keep stepping outside of your mental apparatus to talk about ontology as if this was enough, but you keep ignoring the fact that even within that very ontology, the kind of mind that we are supposed to have and the mechanisms of cognition that it operates according to, make it impossible for us to talk about what is beyond ontology impossible, because to talk about X requires us to have an idea about X, and we both agree that we have no idea about what is beyond ontology. All you can say is that ontology points towards what is beyond ontology, and my counter-argument is that even if this is true in reality, it cannot be represented, according to Thomist principles, by the mind, and thus is literally unsayable.

    Our minds understand ontological as well as ontic truths. If this wasn't possible, then it would follow that our minds could not witness being, which in turn would mean that there were no truths at all. Truth, if you'll recall, is just a way that being presents itself to our intellect. Hence, the impossibility of seeing being is the impossibility of truth.

    But all of those terms can be taken to apply only to ontic and ontological truths, and not to what is beyond both. So, we can know ontic and ontological being and truth and beauty and goodness, and so on, but that is it. Talk about what is beyond all of that dissolves into meaninglessness. It is like talking about the time before creation. You seem to be saying something, but are actually saying nothing, because there is no temporal “before” creation as time was simultaneously created with creation. Same idea here.

    Why are you still saying that God is ontological and creation ontic when I explained that this was not the case in my last post?

    Okay, let’s clarify things here. Do you think that the mind can refer to something even if it literally has no idea of it? Do you think that a term can refer to something even without a mediating sense?

    Let's say that I'm talking about a created goodness. This has a sense and a referent. Whatever that referent is itself refers to God, and hence I am referring to God (via the medium of creation). Creation is not connected to creation in the same way that it is connected to God, because all things are "about God" in a way that is simply different than the way they are about each other.

    I’ve explained why this won’t work above. If our minds lack a sense associated with a term, then our minds cannot associate that term with a specific referent. The sense is the medium and lens through which we are able to think and talk about a referent. And just because our minds can form a sense with a different referent, even though that referent is ontologically related to the first referent does not mean that we can refer to the other referent, because for our minds all referents necessarily require a sense presented to the mind.

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  76. That is a non sequitur. 

1. Image X is a poor representation

does not lead to

2. Image X is not a representation.

    To be a representation is to be a representation of something. If you never have any sense of what the representation is supposed to be about, then it is not a representation at all. It is just a bunch of images and sensations that don’t signify anything.

    As yet, you have failed to provide any explanation of the vicious regresses or contradictions that occur if your conclusion on this issue is true. Hence, I see no reason to accept your claim.

    I don’t have to explain them. If your position is true, then you cannot even think or state your position. If your position is false, then there are vicious regresses and contradictions. It’s a truly vexing situation, no doubt.

    You honestly do not seem to have read my entire post before responding, despite my request. Your repeated errors (God is ontological! causality is self-grounding!), which I addressed later on in my post, attest to this.

    I did read it, actually. I may have misspoke at times, but I think I’ve responded to your points with arguments.

    This seems to me a mostly adequate summary of Aquinas's theory of referent and sense.

    It doesn’t even explain what sense or modus significandi is supposed to be.

    Here’s what I think, and you can feel free to correct me where I’m wrong.

    Say you have a thing T. In order for T to be known or talked about by a human being, T would have to present itself to the mind in some way. How T presents itself to the mind is the modus significandi, or sense S. If T could never present itself to the mind as an S, then it is literally invisible to the mind. There is just nothing there in the mind about T at all. However, once T has presented itself to the mind as an S, then it becomes a referent R.

    Prior to that, it is just a thing that exists in a complex web of relationships with other things, and thus can be thought to refer to other things in an ontological sense, but not in the epistemological and linguistic sense, which is all I am interested in. In the latter sense, there is no referent without a sense, because a referent is what the mind is directing itself towards, and the only way that a mind can direct itself towards something is if that something presents itself to the mind in some way, i.e. via its modus significandi, or sense. If there is no sense, then there is no referent, much like if there are no eyes, then there is no vision.

    There is only one coherent way to take this. Unless we are to believe that Aquinas really thought that humans could directly, intentionally refer to the uncreated (which means having it in our minds), we must opt for the solution I have been suggesting: every created goodness is itself a symbol of an uncreated goodness that we cannot comprehend, to which we can refer linguistically only through deferral to the ontological symbolism of creation. Anything less presupposes Scotist univocity of degree, which contradicts all of Aquinas's arguments (and his 2,500 citations of Pseudo-Denys) in the rest of his work.

    But I’ve already explained why this does not work. The mind can only refer to what presents itself to the mind. If a thing cannot present itself to the mind, then the mind cannot refer to it. You yourself agree that the idea is the mediator between a term and reality, and thus if there is no idea, then there is no connection between a word and reality, making it meaningless.

    And this has nothing to do with Scotus, but rather with Aquinas’ own theory of knowledge and language. Perhaps the best solution is just to toss it out as inadequate? I don’t have a problem with your solution, insofar as I understand it. I just don’t think that it is Aquinas’ solution, because it contradicts his own theory of knowledge and language.

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  77. In other words, it is absolutely impossible to refer directly to an uncreated good. We can only refer to the created perfections of creatures, which symbolize the perfection of God. And, when we refer to this symbol, we must undertake an infinitely regressive denial of its ability to encompass God.

    I think I’ve provided good reasons to call this account into question from a Thomist standpoint. For Aquinas, all terms are associated with senses, which direct our minds towards referents. Both Aquinas and yourself argue that there cannot be any sense, because there cannot be any idea, of the perfection of God, because all our ideas are created and composite entities, and no created or composite entity can fully encompass the reality of an uncreated and simple entity. That is how God’s transcendence is preserved.

    The question is how you can still have a referent without any sense present to the human mind. My contention is that this is impossible, because all terms must have a sense to mediate the mind’s directedness towards a referent. Your contention is that this is possible, because if the mind can refer to something that depends upon something else – in the right way – then due to the dependency relationship, when the mind refers to the former, it must refer to the latter. I have argued that this does not make sense, because there is a difference between ontological relationships and semantic relationships, which you keep conflating and confusing, and that if your principle is correct, then you have destroyed the specificity of intentionality, because every thing is related to everything, in varying degrees, and so referring to anything means that you are simultaneously referring to everything. Again, the truth of your theory implies the impossibility of saying your theory, or at least this part of your theory.

    There is--in the realm of created things and secondary causes. By necessity, it cannot be so with God, because he is the source of everything in a way that nothing else can be. There is no analogate to creation from nothing.

    But see? Even you make a distinction between God and the trace of God, which means that you can refer to either one or the other, even if they are both necessarily related to one another. And that just proves my point, i.e. that just because X and Y are objectively related -- no matter how profoundly -- one’s mind can still refer to either X or Y, and not necessarily to both simultaneously. And that means that one’s mind can refer to reality, and yet even though reality may objectively point towards God, that one’s mind does not necessarily also refer to God when reflecting upon reality. There would have to be a way for the mind to subsequently shift its attention and focus upon God, which you and I both agree is impossible. So, the mind can refer to creation, but cannot refer to God, even if creation objectively refers to God, because cognitive and semantic reference is distinct from ontological reference.

    Another assertion. Until you can demonstrate how your solution avoids onto-theology, your arguments on this issue are worthless.

    First, I honestly don’t know what to say if you honestly believe that there are effects without causes and causes without effects. If so, then the principle of causality is falsified, because it specifically states that wherever there is an effect, there must be a cause of that effect.

    Second, are you saying that the principle of causality also applies to non-causes? How does that make sense? And if a non-cause is now to be considered a cause, then it is not a non-cause at all, but just a different kind of cause! And so there is no need for scare quotes around “cause”. You can say that God causes1 X, whereas a creature causes2 Y. Is that permissible?

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  78. Yet more assertions. Why should I pay any attention when your answer leads to A) a contradiction or B) a vicious infinite regress? My solution, which is the solution of church tradition (and of Aquinas), is that principles such as causality must have an absolute ground. The only possible option for such a ground is one that is prior to causality. Anything less places causality prior to its own ground--which is, again, either a contradiction or an infinite regress.

    First, your own position leads to contradiction (e.g. a non-cause is still a cause, the mind can refer to what it cannot think about, God himself must be received and limited by the intellect, there must be both continuity between God and creation, but also a complete disconnect, and so on).

    Second, if the ground is prior to causality, then the principle of causality cannot apply to the ground, as I mentioned above. And if the principle of causality does not apply to the ground, then upon what basis do you even argue that there is such a ground? From what I know, the entire argument of such a ground presupposes the validity of the principle of causality, and yet you are now saying that it cannot apply, because the ground is prior to the principle of causality, and thus the ground justifies the principle, and not the other way around. And that results in severing the only justification for the ground at all, making it a baseless claim!

    All we need to do is say that there are effects. This is perfectly acceptable, seeing as we are effects. As long as there are effects, we know that there is something like a cause that created us. But to say that it is a cause absolutely is pure onto-theology.

    How is the ground “like a cause”? As far as I can tell, both a cause and an non-cause “cause” result in being of some kind. A cause results in actual being from potential being. A non-cause “cause” (i.e. esse subsistens) results in esse commune (which includes act, potency, substance, accident, etc.) from nothingness. Does that work?

    Then you are telling me that act/potency, esse/essence and so forth have no ground, which means that they are self-grounding. This means that they are prior to themselves. Your conclusion once again nets us a contradiction.

    No. I say that I make no comment about whether they have a ground or are groundless, because the question itself is meaningless. To talk about a ground of those principles goes beyond the capacity of our mind to conceive of, and unmoors our words from the context that gives them meaning, thus making them meaningless. And one must have meaning prior to contradiction, after all.

    The problem is that "there are no absolute statements" is not the same thing. It's a flat-out contradiction. The statement that "there are no absolute statements about God", unlike the other, is not just a liar paradox. It has two possible solutions: a basic contradiction, or an infinite regress. Given analogy, the second option will not be vicious; and so it is to be preferred.

    How is “there are no absolute statements about God” not a contradiction? You have the following:

    (1) There are no absolute statements about God
    (2) (1) is an absolute statement about God
    (3) Therefore, (1) and (2) contradict one another

    I never said otherwise. Our affirmations themselves are quantitative, being ontic events contained under the ten categories; the thing that they affirm (esse) is not limited. Hence, we can affirm it forever. That's all I was saying.

    But how is unlimited not quantitative?

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  79. Begs the question. To say that there is a transcendent/immanent dialectic automatically invites onto-theology, because the two would have to be grounded in a third thing. You have to explain your unargued conclusion that this can be avoided.

    The point is that one is screwed either way. If you have the dialectic, then you have onto-theology. If you reject the dialectic, then the rejection itself is necessarily contained within the dialectic, and thus you have onto-theology. There is no way to transcend transcendence, unless by “transcendence” you actually mean immanence of some kind, and once can certainly transcend an immanence, but to transcend transcendence is impossible.

    Then all of the events described by the Five Ways are self-grounded, which is a contradiction.

    Yup.

    1. Ontico-ontological phenomena are effects/contingent/impermanent/imperfect.
2. Effects and the contingent/impermanent/imperfect must be grounded in something else.
3. Therefore, ontico-ontological phenomena have a ground.

    The meaning of “ground” from (2) to (3) changes. In (2), the “something else” that serves as the ground is another contingent/impermanent/imperfect entity, which is all we ever experience. To get to (3), you would have to change “something else” to include that which is beyond all comprehension and meaningful reference, because it would have to be beyond ontico-ontology.

    The concepts of "more" and "less" are ontic: they're part of the ten categories. The concept of "being" is ontological: it's above the ten categories. Pretty simple case of collapsed distinctions.

    What about saying that X is more good than Y? Is this also an ontic claim? If it is an ontic claim, then goodness is an ontic phenomena, and since goodness = being, it would follow that being is an ontic phenomena, which is wrong. So, if being is an ontological phenomena, then goodness is also an ontological phenomena, and if goodness admits of degrees, the degrees is also a matter of ontology, as well.

    Even their being (esse commune) is totally different from God's (esse divinum).

    Then how can esse commune participate in esse divinum, if the former has absolutely nothing in common with the latter? The whole basis of Aquinas’ metaphysics of participation is a similarity relationship between the participating and the participated, which necessarily presupposes partial identity or commonality. Without that commonality or identity at some level of analysis, you have total difference, utter transcendence, and a total disconnect, which all nullify any sense to participation.

    What we know as being is just a faulty representation of God, similar to God in that it is inferior to and derives from him; but we could never say that an instance of created esse was like God in the way that it was like other instances of created esse. That's where dguller, Glenn and modern Thomists go off the rails and misinterpret Aquinas's actual beliefs.

    How is being-according-to-us similar to God, if “it is inferior to and derives from him”? That makes no sense to me. There must be a commonality or identity involved between being-according-to-us and God, or else there is no similarity relationship, but total difference. You keep wanting to have it both ways. You want the total and utter transcendence and difference to the point that God cannot ever be represented in any way at all by our minds, and yet you want to endorse a similarity relationship. The problem is that to endorse a similarity relationship, you have to have the mental representation of the similarity relationship between us and God, which you keep saying is necessarily impossible. So, if you are right, then you can never say or think that you are right, which contradicts everything that you have said thus far.

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  80. Further, the name "God" in itself cannot be directed intentionally toward God, because we would need to have God in our minds for that to work. Hence, the proposition "God is good" is not only incorrect--it's not even about God. It's about some mental entity X who shares the created property "good" with other created things, only to a higher degree. This is why a purely semantic defense of analogy is doomed to fail: it must always reduce God to the level of creation.

    But don’t you see, again, that you cannot even say anything that you just said if you are correct. You keep talking about God, and yet you immediately say that you are not talking about God, but about a false representation of God in your mind. And that means that everything you say is just an examination of your subjective psychology, and cannot have any ontological bearing whatsoever, because your terms have no sense or referent outside of your own mind.

    Hence, it is impossible to say that God and creation share anything in the way that a semantic defense of analogy requires. There is no property Y that appears in both God and creation.

    And yet Aquinas and you keep saying things about God’s relationship to creation, and vice versa. The question is how you can say any of it, and in order to justify your texts, you must have a “semantic defense of analogy”, because semantics is precisely the issue. You have already endorsed everything to refute your position, because you agree that all the divine names have no sense, and if a term has no sense, then it has no referent. As you say: “the name "God" in itself cannot be directed intentionally toward God, because we would need to have God in our minds for that to work.” And that means that if your ontology is true, then you cannot think or say anything about its fundamental ground at all, which is all that I have been trying to convince you of.

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  81. Glenn:

    When it is primarily in the one and only secondarily in the other, it is essentially in the one and not essentially in the other.

    But it is essentially in both. The physical health of an organism is present in both senses of “healthy”. You cannot have any sense to (1) or (2) without necessarily and essentially involving this concept of “healthy”. It is non-negotiable, and so you are wrong here, I think. I prefer my account as degrees of proximity, or how many levels of analysis you have to reach to get to the PN in question. In A1, PN is available at the first level of analysis, and in A2, PN is available at the second level of analysis. But PN is necessary and essential in both A1 and A2.

    And it is precisely because it is essentially in the one and not the other that we have something analogical rather than univocal.

    You are missing the point. The point is that you cannot have univocity at any level of analysis when comparing predicates used by God and by creation. If I am correct, then for every analogy between God and creation, there necessarily must be a deeper level of semantic analysis in which there is a commonality between the two, which would have the same sense, and thus the same referent, which Aquinas says is impossible, because if this were to be possible, then you would compromise God’s transcendence, and land you right into onto-theology, bringing God within the horizon of being and meaning.

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  82. dd:

    I totally agree with you, and have been trying to argue the same position.

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  83. Rank:

    In the interest of shortening the length of our discussion, here’s a simple form of my argument:

    (1) Thomist epistemology and linguistics is true
    (2) If (1) is true, then if a term T has no sense S, then T has no referent
    (3) Therefore, if a term T has no sense S, then T has no referent (by (1), (2))
    (4) If a term T has no sense or referent, then T is meaningless
    (5) All terms derive their senses from ontology
    (6) All terms referring to what is beyond ontology have no sense (by (4))
    (7) Therefore, all terms referring to what is beyond ontology have no referent (by (3), (5))
    (8) Therefore, all terms referring to what is beyond ontology are meaningless (by (4), (7))
    (9) If Thomist ontology is true, then that which is beyond ontology must be true
    (10) Thomist ontology is true
    (11) Therefore, that which is beyond ontology must be true (by (9), (10))
    (12) If a proposition about X is true, then a proposition about X must be meaningful
    (13) If a proposition about X is meaningless, then a propositions about X cannot be true
    (14) Therefore, a propositions about that which is beyond ontology must be meaningful (by (11), (12))
    (15) BUT (8) and (14) contradict one another

    So, if you assume the truth of Thomist epistemology/linguistics and the truth of Thomist ontology, then you arrive at a contradiction. You are forced into the impossible situation of having to reject either one of them, or both. The problem is that if you reject the ontology, then you reject the epistemology and linguistics, because the epistemology and linguistics depend upon the ontology. And if you reject the epistemology and linguistics, then you cannot even think or talk about the ontology. The only way to keep both is to either view this as an example of Caputo’s “necessary impossibility”, or to just be quiet about the whole thing, because as soon as you talk about ontology, you have to mention what is beyond ontology, and all mention of what is beyond ontology is meaningless, and thus empty of truth content. So, either talk about it, but then embrace the necessity of an impossibility, or be silent about it. I don’t see any other options here.

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  84. dguller,

    >> When it is primarily in the one and only secondarily in the
    >> other, it is essentially in the one and not essentially in
    >> the other.

    > But it is essentially in both.

    You have already explicitly stated your agreement with Aquinas that "[W]hen anything is predicated of many things analogically, it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature[.]"

    So, either you are ostensibly claiming to have found an exception to the First Law of Thought, or you are equivocating.

    Which is it?

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  85. So, either you are ostensibly claiming to have found an exception to the First Law of Thought, or you are equivocating.

    My mistake. Should be:

    So, either you are ostensibly claiming to have found an exception to the Second Law of Thought, or you are equivocating.

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  86. Glenn,

    Perhaps. Perhaps not.

    o [T]he words, "God is good," or "wise," signify not only that He is the cause of wisdom or goodness, but that these exist in Him in a more excellent way. ST 1 Q13 A6


    I'm aware of this passage. What Aquinas means here is that every created goodness represents the more perfect divine goodness, which is out of reach of us outside of mystical vision.

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  87. Glenn:

    You have already explicitly stated your agreement with Aquinas that "[W]hen anything is predicated of many things analogically, it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature[.]"

So, either you are ostensibly claiming to have found an exception to the First Law of Thought, or you are equivocating.

    Think about it this way. You have X, and you have Y. Y is a cause of X, and so the definition of Y must include X, because otherwise Y would not be Y, but something else. In other words, being a cause of X is part of the essence of Y. So, in order to understand Y, you must also understand X, because X is an essential part of what Y is. If you cannot understand X, then you cannot understand Y, either.

    And that is how you can say that X is analogous to Y -- X is similar to Y -- in that they both involve X as defining what they are. To understand X, you must understand X. To understand Y, you must understand X. That is the partial identity between them. Sure, there are differences in that to understand X, you just need to understand X, whereas to understand Y, you have to not only understand X, but also understand that Y is a cause of X. Remember, Aquinas also said that the proper nature (or ratio) must be present in the definitions of both X and Y.

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  88. dguller,

    I'll provide a longer response later on, but for now I'll just look at your point-by-point argument.

    (1) Thomist epistemology and linguistics is true
    (2) If (1) is true, then if a term T has no sense S, then T has no referent
    (3) Therefore, if a term T has no sense S, then T has no referent (by (1), (2))
    (4) If a term T has no sense or referent, then T is meaningless
    (5) All terms derive their senses from ontology
    (6) All terms referring to what is beyond ontology have no sense (by (4))
    (7) Therefore, all terms referring to what is beyond ontology have no referent (by (3), (5))
    (8) Therefore, all terms referring to what is beyond ontology are meaningless (by (4), (7))
    (9) If Thomist ontology is true, then that which is beyond ontology must be true


    I agree with everything you say up until (9), which is A) a non sequitur and B) an equivocation. Nothing beyond ontology can be "true" in the sense that a binary true/false can apply to it. The first binary is being/non-being (and even this is only a logical binary), but anything beyond ontology would be beyond even this distinction.

    (10) Thomist ontology is true
    (11) Therefore, that which is beyond ontology must be true (by (9), (10))
    (12) If a proposition about X is true, then a proposition about X must be meaningful
    (13) If a proposition about X is meaningless, then a propositions about X cannot be true
    (14) Therefore, a propositions about that which is beyond ontology must be meaningful (by (11), (12))


    We've both agreed that there can be no propositions about what is beyond ontology. In fact, there can't even be propositions about esse commune in itself, which we can only think about by "reduction" to a being of reason. Esse commune as we describe it is a logical entity compiled out of the being we witness throughout creation (SCG b1 ch. 26). To comprehend esse in itself is impossible, because esse cannot enter into the mind. Our minds encounter esse but can't take it on as they do forms. We merely recognize esse as already already being true, prior to propositions or truth: an original "truth" always already presupposed by propositions.

    Basically, you've equivocated the word "truth" again. To say that something is true when it can be given a true/false binary is to forget the difference between being and beings. All truth presupposes esse as its ground (seeing as Aquinas uses the correspondence theory of truth), which is not itself subject to propositional analysis or further true/false binaries to verify its truth. And esse itself must rely on something even further beyond propositions. None of this is based on the enfeebled analytic notion of truth. All semantic analysis is grounded in non-semantic "truth"--facticity of some kind. In this case, that facticity would be esse.

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  89. No, it doesn’t. I’m trying to help you see a distinction between the referent, and the web of relationships that the referent is embedded within. In one sense, when I refer to X, I simultaneously am involving the web of relationships that X is associated with, but it does not follow that I am referring to that totality, because then any time I refer to anything, then I would necessarily refer to everything, because everything is connected in a web of relationships. Therefore, it must follow that when I refer to X, I am not also referring to the web of relationships that X is embedded within. And that means that if I refer to a dog, and even if God is the underlying ground that sustains that dog, then it does not follow that I am referring to God.

    What you have done is beg the question again. Whether God is part of any "web of relationships" with other beings would have to be argued before being asserted. And, once you go to make that argument, it becomes clear that you've reduced God to the ontico-ontological level and presupposed a univocal predication of being between God and creation. In truth, our names for God are compiled out of creaturely traits and effects that in turn resemble God, and so our names only reference God insofar as those traits do. Because nothing is called "good" except as it participates in the divine good, it does not follow that this system of reference creates a web of references to everything that exists: every application of the words "good" and "true" and "being" and suchlike always already refers to God as a "prior", "primary" referent, in that all of these traits are more properly applied of God as their cause and exemplar. This is to say that the created perfections signified by these terms always already refer to God before they refer to creatures, but that their mode of existing (as diverse, as imperfect) is totally different than it is in God. Even more simply: perfections like "goodness" and "nobility" are just symbols for a more original ground that is different in kind from and unfathomably superior to them.

    I'm just going to fire off a bunch of references to Aquinas's texts, in a mostly random order, to show why my interpretation must be right and yours wrong. I'll come back with arguments of my own soon.

    "Everything is therefore called good from the divine goodness, as from the first exemplary effective and final principle of all goodness. Nevertheless, everything is called good by reason of the similitude of the divine goodness belonging to it, which is formally its own goodness, whereby it is denominated good." (ST Ia q6 a4)

    "Now a relation of God to creatures, is not a reality in God, but in the creature; for it is in God in our idea only: as, what is knowable is so called with relation to knowledge, not that it depends on knowledge, but because knowledge depends on it. Thus it is not necessary that there should be composition in the supreme good, but only that other things are deficient in comparison with it." (ST Ia q6 a2)

    "Objection 2. Further, the essence is the middle term of demonstration. But we cannot know in what God's essence consists, but solely in what it does not consist; as Damascene says (De Fide Orth. i, 4). Therefore we cannot demonstrate that God exists.

    Reply to Objection 2. When the existence of a cause is demonstrated from an effect, this effect takes the place of the definition of the cause in proof of the cause's existence. This is especially the case in regard to God, because, in order to prove the existence of anything, it is necessary to accept as a middle term the meaning of the word, and not its essence, for the question of its essence follows on the question of its existence. Now the names given to God are derived from His effects; consequently, in demonstrating the existence of God from His effects, we may take for the middle term the meaning of the word 'God'." (ST Ia q2 a2)

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  90. "From effects not proportionate to the cause no perfect knowledge of that cause can be obtained. Yet from every effect the existence of the cause can be clearly demonstrated, and so we can demonstrate the existence of God from His effects; though from them we cannot perfectly know God as He is in His essence." (ST Ia q2 a2)

    "Because we know and name God from creatures, the names we attribute to God signify what belongs to material creatures, of which the knowledge is natural to us. And because in creatures of this kind what is perfect and subsistent is compound; whereas their form is not a complete subsisting thing, but rather is that whereby a thing is; hence it follows that all names used by us to signify a complete subsisting thing must have a concrete meaning as applicable to compound things; whereas names given to signify simple forms, signify a thing not as subsisting, but as that whereby a thing is; as, for instance, whiteness signifies that whereby a thing is white. And as God is simple, and subsisting, we attribute to Him abstract names to signify His simplicity, and concrete names to signify His substance and perfection, although both these kinds of names fail to express His mode of being, forasmuch as our intellect does not know Him in this life as He is." (ST Ia q13 a1)

    "We cannot know the essence of God in this life, as He really is in Himself; but we know Him accordingly as He is represented in the perfections of creatures; and thus the names imposed by us signify Him in that manner only." (ST Ia q13 a2)

    "The many aspects of these names are not empty and vain, for there corresponds to all of them one simple reality represented by them in a manifold and imperfect manner." (ST Ia q13 a4)

    "Thus whatever is said of God and creatures, is said according to the relation of a creature to God as its principle and cause, wherein all perfections of things pre-exist excellently." (ST Ia q13 a5)

    "Things not of the same genus are in no way comparable to each other if indeed they are in different genera. Now we say that God is not in the same genus with other good things; not that He is any other genus, but that He is outside genus, and is the principle of every genus; and thus He is compared to others by excess, and it is this kind of comparison the supreme good implies." (ST Ia q6 a2)

    "Because therefore God is not known to us in His nature, but is made known to us from His operations or effects, we name Him from these, as said in 1; hence this name 'God' is a name of operation so far as relates to the source of its meaning. For this name is imposed from His universal providence over all things; since all who speak of God intend to name God as exercising providence over all; hence Dionysius says (Div. Nom. ii), 'The Deity watches over all with perfect providence and goodness.' But taken from this operation, this name 'God' is imposed to signify the divine nature." (ST Ia q13 a8)

    "For the words, 'God is good,' or 'wise,' signify not only that He is the cause of wisdom or goodness, but that these exist in Him in a more excellent way. Hence as regards what the name signifies, these names are applied primarily to God rather than to creatures, because these perfections flow from God to creatures; but as regards the imposition of the names, they are primarily applied by us to creatures which we know first." (ST Ia q13 a6)

    "Thus the name "God" signifies the divine nature, for this name was imposed to signify something existing above all things, the principle of all things and removed from all things; for those who name God intend to signify all this." (ST Ia q13 a8)

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  91. "Objection 5. Further, No one can signify what he does not know. But the heathen does not know the divine nature. So when he says an idol is God, he does not signify the true Deity. On the other hand, A Catholic signifies the true Deity when he says that there is one God. Therefore this name
    God' is not applied univocally, but equivocally to the true God, and to God according to opinion.

    Reply to Objection 5. Neither a Catholic nor a pagan knows the very nature of God as it is in itself; but each one knows it according to some idea of causality, or excellence, or remotion (12, 12). So a pagan can take this name 'God' in the same way when he says an idol is God, as the Catholic does in saying an idol is not God. But if anyone should be quite ignorant of God altogether, he could not even name Him, unless, perhaps, as we use names the meaning of which we know not." (ST Ia q13 a10)

    "So we must say that these kinds of divine names are imposed from the divine processions; for as according to the diverse processions of their perfections, creatures are the representations of God, although in an imperfect manner; so likewise our intellect knows and names God according to each kind of procession; but nevertheless these names are not imposed to signify the procession themselves, as if when we say "God lives," the sense were, "life proceeds from Him"; but to signify the principle itself of things, in so far as life pre-exists in Him, although it pre-exists in Him in a more eminent way than can be understood or signified." (ST Ia q13 a2)

    "Now our intellect cannot know the essence of God itself in this life, as it is in itself, but whatever mode it applies in determining what it understands about God, it falls short of the mode of what God is in Himself. Therefore the less determinate the names are, and the more universal and absolute they are, the more properly they are applied to God. Hence Damascene says (De Fide Orth. i) that, 'HE WHO IS, is the principal of all names applied to God; for comprehending all in itself, it contains existence itself as an infinite and indeterminate sea of substance.' Now by any other name some mode of substance is determined, whereas this name HE WHO IS, determines no mode of being, but is indeterminate to all; and therefore it denominates the 'infinite ocean of substance.'" (ST Ia q13 a11)

    "Since it is possible to find in God every perfection of creatures, but in another and more eminent way, whatever names unqualifiedly designate a perfection without defect are predicated of God and of other things: for example, goodness, wisdom, being, and the like." (SCG b1 ch. 30)

    "These names 'good,' 'wise,' and the like, are imposed from the perfections proceeding from God to creatures; but they do not signify the divine nature, but rather signify the perfections themselves absolutely; and therefore they are in truth communicable to many. But this name 'God' is given to God from His own proper operation, which we experience continually, to signify the divine nature." (ST Ia q13 a9)

    "It is not necessary that all the divine names should import relation to creatures, but it suffices that they be imposed from some perfections flowing from God to creatures. Among these the first is existence, from which comes this name, HE WHO IS." (ST Ia q13 a11)

    "Now, the mode of supereminence in which the abovementioned perfections are found in God can be signified by names used by us only through negation, as when we say that God is eternal or infinite, or also through a relation of God to other things, as when He is called the first cause or the highest good. For we cannot grasp what God is, but only what He is not and how other things are related to Him, as is clear from what we said above." (SCG b1 ch. 30)

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  92. "[4] Dionysius is in agreement with this argument when he says: 'The same things are both like and unlike God. They are like according as they imitate as much as they can Him Who is not perfectly imitable, they are unlike according as effects are lesser than their causes' [De div. nom. IX, 7].

    [5] In the light of this likeness, nevertheless, it is more fitting to say that a creature is like God rather than the converse. For that is called like something which possesses a quality or form of that thing. Since, then, that which is found in God perfectly is found in other things according to a certain diminished participation, the basis on which the likeness is observed belongs to God absolutely, but not to the creature. Thus, the creature has what belongs to God and, consequently, is rightly said to be like God. But we cannot in the same way say that God has what belongs to the creature. Neither, then, can we appropriately say that God is like a creature, just as we do not say that man is like his image, although the image is rightly said to be like him." (SCG b1 ch. 29)

    "From this we see the necessity of giving to God many names. For, since we cannot know Him naturally except by arriving at Him from His effects, the names by which we signify His perfection must be diverse, just as the perfections belonging to things are found to be diverse. Were we able to understand the divine essence itself as it is and give to it the name that belongs to it, we would express it by only one name." (SCG b1 ch. 31)

    "Hence from the first being, essentially such, and good, everything can be called good and a being, inasmuch as it participates in it by way of a certain assimilation which is far removed and defective". (ST Ia q6 a4)

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  93. Rank,

    I'm aware of this passage. What Aquinas means here is that every created goodness represents the more perfect divine goodness, which is out of reach of us outside of mystical vision.

    I'm inclined to think that it is the "more perfect divine goodness" itself which is out of reach of us outside of mystical vision, not knowing that there is a "more perfect Divine goodness".

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  94. dguller,

    You have X, and you have Y. Y is a cause of X, and so the definition of Y must include X, because otherwise Y would not be Y, but something else.

    Your reasoning may be a bit too generic here; for example, it seems to allow for instantiations such as:

    e. coli (Y) is not e. coli (Y) unless a definition of e. coli (Y) includes, e.g., menegitis (X).

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  95. dguller and rank

    I think we should we dispute dguller’s (2), and so (3). Where does St. Thomas say this? Or please could you point me to where dguller has argued for (2).

    It seems that St. Thomas is explicit in opposing your (2), and rank sophist gives many references in his recent posts. For example, in the First Part of the Summa Theologica, Question 13, Article 3, he answers, “As regards what is signified by these names, they belong properly to God, and more properly than they belong to creatures, and are applied primarily to Him. But as regards their mode of signification, they do not properly and strictly apply to God; for their mode of signification applies to creatures. “

    I’ve italicized what your terminology calls the referent, and made bold what it calls the sense. While, regarding God, we have no strict sense for the term (is this another meaning of the unspeakable name of God?), there is no indication that the most proper and primary referent is not God. So unless you can prove (2), I think your argument fails.

    This seems to me a more fundamental weakness in dguller’s reasoning than (9), which, by at least one reading, is unobjectionable (for example, if we consider dguller as saying “God is necessary but somehow above the ontological order.”)

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  96. Rank:

    I agree with everything you say up until (9), which is A) a non sequitur and B) an equivocation. Nothing beyond ontology can be "true" in the sense that a binary true/false can apply to it. The first binary is being/non-being (and even this is only a logical binary), but anything beyond ontology would be beyond even this distinction.

    It is not a non sequitur. It is probably the key issue here. If ontology is grounded and sustained by that which transcends ontology, then there must be something doing the grounding and sustaining, even if we cannot conceive of that “something”. That has been your position the whole time.

    Remember, you can say that this “something” is really nothing in the sense that it is not like anything in ontology, and if ontology defines all of reality, then what is beyond ontology is necessarily nothing at all. However, this “something” is clearly not nothing in the sense that the “something” both grounds and sustains and causes ontology, even if we cannot conceive of what this grounding, sustenance and causality is like. It must be analogous to the grounds, sustaining energy and causality that we understand in ontology, or else it literally, in every sense of the word, becomes complete nothingness and non-being, which is not something that you would endorse.

    Your position is not that this “something” is less than being, but rather that it is more than being in the sense of being an infinite overflowing of being that is unlimited by any constraining potency whatsoever, and is best described as ipsum esse subsistens. As I said earlier, we exist in darkness with respect to this “something”, but that could be due to a complete absence of light or being blinded by too much light. You clearly support the latter more than the former, and thus we must know something about this darkness, making it illuminated in some way, and thus not pure darkness at all!

    And this ipsum esse subsistens must be true, because it is Truth Itself, and so it is simply false to say that what is beyond being is not true. It is the most perfect truth there is, and all other kinds of truth flow from it. So, I stand by (9) as both highly relevant and essential. The only change that I would make is:

    (9*) If our propositions about Thomist ontology are true, then our propositions about that which is beyond ontology must be True

    Unfortunately, that doesn’t change my argument. If it is impossible for our propositions to ever refer to Truth itself, because our propositions can never contain the sense of Truth, which is the exclusive purview of the divine intellect which knows itself as itself, and thus cannot refer to Truth, then our propositions about that which is beyond ontology are neither true nor True, which makes them either false or False. Either way, we should reject them, because they have no basis in either ipsum esse subsistens (i.e. Truth) nor the entia that participate in esse commune (i.e. truth). They are not even partially True, because they are always infinitely distant from reaching the Truth, and so even after an infinite number higher affirmations, you are still no closer to reaching the goal of the Truth.

    We've both agreed that there can be no propositions about what is beyond ontology.

    Right, except that you still want to use such propositions to talk meaningfully about what is beyond ontology.

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  97. To comprehend esse in itself is impossible, because esse cannot enter into the mind. Our minds encounter esse but can't take it on as they do forms. We merely recognize esse as already already being true, prior to propositions or truth: an original "truth" always already presupposed by propositions.

    How can you “recognize” that which “cannot enter into the mind”? Again, you seem to want to have it both ways, i.e. X is present to the mind and X is not present to the mind.

    All truth presupposes esse as its ground (seeing as Aquinas uses the correspondence theory of truth), which is not itself subject to propositional analysis or further true/false binaries to verify its truth.

    Then why all the rational argumentation about it? After all, the conclusions to the arguments are supposed to be true. If you are now saying that the propositions involved in Aquinas’ arguments lack any content or truth values, but only vaguely point to something incomprehensible and inconceivable, then how would you demonstrate such a conclusion? There would have to be a shift in the very meaning of the terms involved in the arguments in question, because they all start with premises that contain terms whose sense and reference is either ontic or ontological. Once you leave those spheres, those terms become meaningless.

    And esse itself must rely on something even further beyond propositions. None of this is based on the enfeebled analytic notion of truth. All semantic analysis is grounded in non-semantic "truth"--facticity of some kind. In this case, that facticity would be esse.

    Again, how would you demonstrate such a conclusion without equivocating on the terms in the arguments? In fact, how could you even apply logic to that which transcends everything, which must include logic?

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  98. Jack:

    It seems that St. Thomas is explicit in opposing your (2), and rank sophist gives many references in his recent posts. For example, in the First Part of the Summa Theologica, Question 13, Article 3, he answers, “As regards what is signified by these names, they belong properly to God, and more properly than they belong to creatures, and are applied primarily to Him. But as regards their mode of signification, they do not properly and strictly apply to God; for their mode of signification applies to creatures. “

    That specific passage has already been cited. The mode of signification is the modus significandi or ratio of the term, which is distinct from the thing signified, or res significandi or substantia. I cited a book by Rocca where he says that the modus significandi and res significandi is identical to the Fregean distinction between sense and referent.

    Using these terms, I’ve provided a definition of analogy in which identical terms have non-identical senses, but identical referents. The question is whether these non-identical senses are either similar (i.e. have something in common) or different (i.e. have nothing in common).

    If they have something in common, then there are sub-senses that are identical, and my argument is those identical sub-senses are also senses, and being identical, must have the same referent. If you apply the same term to both sub-senses, then you have the same term, the same sense, and the same referent, which is the definition of univocity.

    If they have nothing in common, then that contradicts every other example of analogy, and the onus is upon you to show how it is possible to have the same referent that presents itself to the human mind in totally different ways with absolutely nothing in common between them. I don’t think this is possible.

    I’ve italicized what your terminology calls the referent, and made bold what it calls the sense. While, regarding God, we have no strict sense for the term (is this another meaning of the unspeakable name of God?), there is no indication that the most proper and primary referent is not God. So unless you can prove (2), I think your argument fails.

    The problem is how you can have a referent without a sense. Rank has been arguing our minds have no proper sense of the divine names, because the proper sense is metaphysically simple ipsum esse subsistens, and our minds are inherently composite entities that cannot possibly contain or receive ipsum esse subsistens (outside of the beatific vision, but that’s a whole other argument). So, it is impossible for our minds to have the proper sense of the divine names, which means that whatever sense we have associated with the divine names is completely inadequate and essentially a cognitive fiction that serves as an idolatrous representation.

    Given that we lack the sense that allows us to refer to God himself, the question is how you can have a referent for a term that lacks a sense if the sense is the precise way the referent shows up to the human mind. The sense is the medium through which our minds use their intentionality to reach the referent, and if you remove the medium, then you remove the mind’s ability to reach the referent. It would be like claiming to see a tree after blinding oneself.

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  99. Glenn:

    Your reasoning may be a bit too generic here; for example, it seems to allow for instantiations such as: 

e. coli (Y) is not e. coli (Y) unless a definition of e. coli (Y) includes, e.g., menegitis (X).

    And that is not part of what it means to be E. coli? If you found a bacteria that looked like E. coli according to all our biochemical investigations, but never caused meningitis, then you would not call it E. coli at all, but some other kind of bacteria.

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  100. Rank:

    Whether God is part of any "web of relationships" with other beings would have to be argued before being asserted.

    The only point that I wanted to make was that beings point towards other beings by virtue of their inherent teleology, and that I thought this was the objective ground that could possibly justify your claim that even if “X” has sense S(X) and referent X, then if X had a teleological relationship with Y such that X’s existence points towards Y’s existence, then “X” must also refer to Y, even if it has no sense S(Y) at all in a person’s mind. I wanted to keep this objective teleological grounding as distinct from the subjective intentionality of the human mind when referring to particular beings through thought and language. The kinds of referral are different in that the former do not involve the human mind whereas the latter do.

    Because nothing is called "good" except as it participates in the divine good, it does not follow that this system of reference creates a web of references to everything that exists: every application of the words "good" and "true" and "being" and suchlike always already refers to God as a "prior", "primary" referent, in that all of these traits are more properly applied of God as their cause and exemplar.

    Again, how could you possibly think or say such a thing, or even argue for such a conclusion? To think or say anything about what is beyond ontology would require “beyond ontology” to have a sense, which you agree it does not. And since you also agree that if “beyond ontology” has no sense, then it also cannot have a referent, and thus is meaningless. Furthermore, all arguments that derive conclusions about what is beyond ontology are rooted in premises and concepts that are bound to ontology, which means that using ontological concepts to justify transcendent truths that are beyond ontology must change the meanings of the terms involved, and thus commit the fallacy of equivocation. An ontological cause is governed by the principle of causality, but a non-cause “cause” that non-causally “causes” ontology is beyond the principle of causality, which means that it does not apply. In fact, what is beyond ontology, truth, meaning, and so on, should also be beyond logic itself, and thus logical argumentation should not even be used.

    This is to say that the created perfections signified by these terms always already refer to God before they refer to creatures, but that their mode of existing (as diverse, as imperfect) is totally different than it is in God. Even more simply: perfections like "goodness" and "nobility" are just symbols for a more original ground that is different in kind from and unfathomably superior to them.

    You have to keep the different kinds of reference separated. There is ontological reference and there is cognitive and linguistic reference. The former can refer independent of human intentionality, but the latter cannot. You keep talking about the former as if the fact that it can occur independent of the human mind has implications about the latter, when it doesn’t. In other words, just because the former can refer without the mind’s intentionality does not mean that the latter can also do so. The reality is that the latter necessarily require the human mind to direct its intentionality towards a particular referent via a specific sense that is presented to the mind, and that the specific sense refers to a specific referent, which is how specificity of intentionality occurs. If you want to say that the same sense can refer to multiple referents, then you have destroyed the specificity of intentionality, because all referents refer to all other referents since everything is interconnected, and so “dog” not only refers to dogs, but also to cats, rocks, stars, and so on.

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  101. dguller writes:
    “That specific passage has already been cited. The mode of signification is the modus significandi or ratio of the term, which is distinct from the thing signified, or res significandi or substantia. I cited a book by Rocca where he says that the modus significandi and res significandi is identical to the Fregean distinction between sense and referent. “

    This I’ve understood.

    dguller also writes:
    “Using these terms, I’ve provided a definition of analogy in which identical terms have non-identical senses, but identical referents. The question is whether these non-identical senses are either similar (i.e. have something in common) or different (i.e. have nothing in common).”

    It’s your definition of similarity that persistently falls down. Glenn has shown you this, and some 1000 combox posts prior, I quoted Coffey extensively in an attempt to explain that your logical gymnastics are destroying what’s real.

    As Glenn has pointed out, you have explicitly agreed with the statement "[W]hen anything is predicated of many things analogically, it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature[.]" Now can’t we argue: Everything found in the created order is imperfect; But what is imperfect is not according to its proper nature; therefore everything found in the created order is not according to its proper nature?

    Hence all language about God is analogous. You don’t seem to take issue with that. But instead it seems you go looking for sub-senses for the thing signified that don’t really exist. When you take a thing according to its proper nature and then abstract some sub-sense in your search for univocity, in what way do you still have the thing according to its proper nature?

    It may or may not be in your secondary analogates really, but it isn’t really in the primary one. In this case your definition of similarity implies that what is imperfect really is (in) God.

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  102. dguller,

    I'm working on my longer response, but, in all honesty, I see no reason to continue this argument unless you can show how your interpretation squares with those Aquinas quotes. I've already called Rocca's analysis into question, as well as that of every other modern Thomist: so continuing to cite him without argument is merely to beg the question. If you can't reconcile the quotes I posted with your account--which I find very likely--, then I see no reason to accept your conclusions over mine. This means that Aquinas meant essentially the same stuff as Hart or Pseudo-Denys, who explained it in clearer terms. This, in turn, would mean that I was right all along and that the doctrine of analogy was completely coherent.

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  103. dguller:

    “The problem is how you can have a referent without a sense.”

    The snippet that you said had already been cited is part of a longer passage that explains how you reach the referent without a strict sense (only, he doesn't use these terms and I'm not sure converting to them facilitates anything, while I do suspect it may aggravate small misunderstandings.) The many combox posts rank sophist has written have variously enlightened and confused me, but St. Thomas’s answer, even to my plodding mind, is not hard to follow.

    “It would be like claiming to see a tree after blinding oneself.”

    Or maybe like reading with your fingers. Seriously, if I asked a blind man to feel a bonsai, would he be able to conceive of, say, an oak, by stretching his arms as wide as they could go, and giving himself to the thought “like this but much rougher, bigger, much more so”? Imperfectly, yes, but to deny he’d approach the referent whatsoever strikes me as aborted thinking.

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  104. dguller:

    Focusing on your simple form argument, you haven't yet in any of your replies proven "(2) If (1) is true, then if a term T has no sense S, then T has no referent" and you haven't shown where St. Thomas argues for it.

    It apparently just follows from modes of signification not properly and strictly applying to God?

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  105. Jack:

    As Glenn has pointed out, you have explicitly agreed with the statement "[W]hen anything is predicated of many things analogically, it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature[.]" Now can’t we argue: Everything found in the created order is imperfect; But what is imperfect is not according to its proper nature; therefore everything found in the created order is not according to its proper nature?

    First, if that is true, then Aquinas’ choice of an example of an analogy is horrible. If the cause is always more perfect than the effect, and if a thing’s proper nature must be perfect, then “healthy” is more perfect in medicine than in a healthy organism. So, “healthy” really refers to medicine and not to the healthy organism. That is clearly wrong, though.

    Second, you keep missing the part where Aquinas also says that the proper nature must be found in the definitions of both analogates. It is just in a more perfect mode in the primary analogate and in a less perfect mode in the secondary analogate. So, you have a perfect PN in A1 and an imperfect PN in A2. But notice that a perfect PN is still a PN, and an imperfect PN is still a PN, and so there is a PN in both A1 and A2, and it must be the same PN, but in a different mode of being. It is like the form of dog in a dog an in the intellect. It is the same form of dogness in both, but in a different mode of being in a dog versus in an intellect. It has to be the same form, or else knowledge becomes impossible. Same thing here. It must be the same PN in both A1 and A2 or else you have no basis for any comparison between them, whether identity or similitude.

    Hence all language about God is analogous. You don’t seem to take issue with that. But instead it seems you go looking for sub-senses for the thing signified that don’t really exist. When you take a thing according to its proper nature and then abstract some sub-sense in your search for univocity, in what way do you still have the thing according to its proper nature?

    I don’t know what you mean. Are you saying that it is not a part of the proper nature of medicine to cause physical health? Or are you saying that physical health is not part of the proper nature of medicine? That is true in the sense that medicine is not physically healthy, but rather causes physical health. But so what? It is still part of the nature of medicine to cause physical health, and thus physical health must be present in medicine in a virtual state, and the physical health present in medicine virtually is also present in a biological organism in either a potential or an actual state. But it is the same physical health, albeit in a different mode of being. See my above points about the absolute necessity of identical forms in the intellect and in material entities in order to ground our knowledge of the empirical world. Without that core identity, there is no continuity, and without a continuity between mind and world, there is no knowledge. Same thing here.

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  106. It may or may not be in your secondary analogates really, but it isn’t really in the primary one. In this case your definition of similarity implies that what is imperfect really is (in) God.

    No, it just means that the same quality must be present in both God and creation, but in a perfect fashion in God and an imperfect fashion in creation. Take goodness. In God, goodness is perfect and in creation, goodness is imperfect. But it is the same goodness in both, but in a different mode of being. I mean, the definition of goodness is the degree of actuality that something has relative to its degree of potency. God is perfect goodness, because God is pure actuality, and thus has a maximal degree of actuality and no potency whatsoever. Creation is imperfect goodness, because it is an admixture of act and potency. But it is the same core definition of “goodness” that is operative in both. (Rank would object to this account, because we can absolutely no sense whatsoever of what “goodness” means with respect to God, because God is a metaphysically simple ipsum esse subsistens, and our minds cannot conceive of anything along those lines, given that our minds trade in the composite entities of creation, which they simply cannot transcend. And he would have a point.)

    The snippet that you said had already been cited is part of a longer passage that explains how you reach the referent without a strict sense (only, he doesn't use these terms and I'm not sure converting to them facilitates anything, while I do suspect it may aggravate small misunderstandings.) The many combox posts rank sophist has written have variously enlightened and confused me, but St. Thomas’s answer, even to my plodding mind, is not hard to follow.

    Let’s look at the passage again:

    “As regards what is signified by these names, they belong properly to God, and more properly than they belong to creatures, and are applied primarily to Him. But as regards their mode of signification, they do not properly and strictly apply to God; for their mode of signification applies to creatures.”

    Aquinas is distinguishing the reality being signified by the names, and how the names signify that reality. This is just the distinction between res significandi and modus significandi. It is my understanding that the modus significandi is how the res significandi is presented to the human mind, and that there must be something present in the human mind for the mind to direct its intentionality towards something else. The modus significandi is an idea, or an associated group of ideas, in the human mind that directs the mind towards what the idea is about. The problem, as Rank has mentioned many times, is that an idea is just another creation, i.e. composite, imperfect and finite. So, what is present to the human mind as the modus significandi is just another creation. Therefore, the modus significandi of the human mind cannot be identical to the modus signficandi of the divine intellect, because the human mind is saturated by composition whereas the divine intellect is metaphysically simple, and thus there is an unbridgeable gulf between their ways of signifying God. That is what Aquinas means when he says that the “mode of signification applies to creatures” and “do not properly and strictly apply to God”.

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  107. The question is how a composite modus significandi can possibly refer to a metaphysically simple res significandi. According to Thomist epistemology, there must be an isomorphism between the mind and reality in order for there to be a connection between the two. (This is typically an isomorphism between form.) Regardless, there must be something identical present in the human mind and in reality that grounds the relationship between the two. So, there must be something identical in the res significandi and the modus significandi that grounds the relationship between the two. Unfortunately, there is nothing identical between a metaphysically simple, perfect and infinite being and a composite, imperfect and finite thought. Therefore, there can be no relationship between the two, and all our thoughts can only directly refer to creation. And if our thoughts can only refer to creation, then they cannot refer to God.

    That is why I have been saying that the modus significandi is the lens through which we perceive the res significandi. A lens has isomorphic aspects of the reality perceived within it, and it is those isomorphic aspects that makes the subsequent perception about the reality being perceived. There must be something in mind (= modus significandi) that is like the reality being signified (= res significandi) for the mind to use its intentionality to refer to the reality being signified. If the modus signficandi has nothing in common with the res signficandi, then the modus significandi cannot possibly be about the res significandi, because intentionality presupposes isomorphism, which does not exist in this case. And that is why you cannot have a referent in mind without having a proper sense, too.

    Or maybe like reading with your fingers. Seriously, if I asked a blind man to feel a bonsai, would he be able to conceive of, say, an oak, by stretching his arms as wide as they could go, and giving himself to the thought “like this but much rougher, bigger, much more so”? Imperfectly, yes, but to deny he’d approach the referent whatsoever strikes me as aborted thinking.

    Not a good analogy. The bonsai has something in common with an oak. Even the thought of a bonsai has something in common with the thought of an oak. There are multiple isomorphisms available in this scenario to allow it to proceed as you described. This is not analogous to the scenario between God and the human mind.

    Focusing on your simple form argument, you haven't yet in any of your replies proven "(2) If (1) is true, then if a term T has no sense S, then T has no referent" and you haven't shown where St. Thomas argues for it.

    I don’t think that you will deny that terms are meaningless without the thoughts of a human mind associating those terms with particular meanings. I also don’t think that you’ll deny that there is a distinction between our thoughts about X and X itself. It follows that the human mind is the mediating element between the terms that we use and the things that those terms refer to. The sense is the mediating element within the human mind that associates the terms with their referents. Hence, T is meaningful iff T has a sense iff T has a referent. Or, as Rank put it: term <-> idea <-> reality. If a term is associated with no ideas in the mind, then the term cannot refer to the referent. In fact, it is not even a term at all, but rather an empty sequence of sounds or marks on paper.

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  108. dguller writes:

    “Second, you keep missing the part where Aquinas also says that the proper nature must be found in the definitions of both analogates.”


    Guilty as charged. Because he never says that. Unless you can point me to the text you have in mind, it seems to me that “[…] analogically, it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature,” explicitly contradicts what you assert above. I’ve emphasized “only” because I don’t see a meaning of “only one” that is consistent with the proper nature being found in the definitions of both (or all) analogates.

    True, earlier in the passage St. Thomas writes, “[…] when anything is predicated of many things univocally, it is found in each of them according to its proper nature[,]” but notice that here he is talking about univocally and not analogically.

    Your insistence to the contrary baffles me, so perhaps you could simply quote where he says anything in support of your interpretation? Because (ST Ia q16 a6) “[…] when anything is predicated of many things univocally, it is found in each of them according to its proper nature; as animal is found in each species of animal. But when anything is predicated of many things analogically, it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature, and from this one the rest are denominated[,]” just does not say what you keep saying it says.

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  109. Rank:

    I'm working on my longer response, but, in all honesty, I see no reason to continue this argument unless you can show how your interpretation squares with those Aquinas quotes.

    Which quotes has my account contradicted?

    I've already called Rocca's analysis into question, as well as that of every other modern Thomist: so continuing to cite him without argument is merely to beg the question.

    And what is your problem with Rocca’s analysis? Have you even read his book? Have you read the work of “every other Thomist”? That’s quite a sweeping rejection based upon some selective reading!

    If you can't reconcile the quotes I posted with your account--which I find very likely--, then I see no reason to accept your conclusions over mine.

    What’s the reconciliation needed? If those quotes support the idea that our minds can refer to something that cannot present itself to our mind via a modus significandi, or sense, then the position itself is problematic, for the reasons that I’ve discussed. That position equivocates between ontological referral and cognitive-semantic referral, and if true, it would imply the destruction of the specificity of intentionality. You haven’t refuted either of these arguments, and thus the position remains compromised, from my standpoint. Just saying that it has to work isn’t an argument in its favor, and saying that Aquinas says it should work is alsonot an argument in its favor.

    This means that Aquinas meant essentially the same stuff as Hart or Pseudo-Denys, who explained it in clearer terms. This, in turn, would mean that I was right all along and that the doctrine of analogy was completely coherent.

    I don’t understand why Hart is the primary authority here such that his interpretation supercedes the interpretation of Wippel, Clarke, Rocca, Gilson, Davies, and every other contemporary Thomist scholar. I mean, do you really think that they are unaware of the importance of Pseudo-Denys’ work for Aquinas’ theorizing? Rocca devotes the whole first chapter of his work to an examination of the negative theology of the Church Fathers, including Pseudo-Denys, and cites Pseudo-Denys more often than any other author, other than Aristotle, in his book. So, I don’t see how you can say that he has ignored the patristic tradition in his interpretation of Aquinas. I mean, do you really think that the totality of contemporary Thomism has simply missed the fact that Aquinas cites Pseudo-Denys over 2,500 times, and thinks that his thought should not be understood in reference to what preceded him? That would be the grossest of negligence.

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  110. Jack:

    Guilty as charged. Because he never says that. Unless you can point me to the text you have in mind, it seems to me that “[…] analogically, it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature,” explicitly contradicts what you assert above. I’ve emphasized “only” because I don’t see a meaning of “only one” that is consistent with the proper nature being found in the definitions of both (or all) analogates.

    Aquinas writes:

    “In names predicated of many in an analogical sense, all are predicated because they have reference to some one thing; and this one thing must be placed in the definition of them all. And since that expressed by the name is the definition, as the Philosopher says (Metaph. iv), such a name must be applied primarily to that which is put in the definition of such other things, and secondarily to these others according as they approach more or less to that first.” (ST I.13.6)

    This is perfectly consistent with what I have been saying. The proper nature PN is found primarily in the meaning of the primary analogate A1, but it is also found secondarily in the meaning of the secondary analogate A2. You have the PN in A1 first, and A2 necessarily makes reference to the PN in A1 as part of the definition of A2 itself. It must be the same PN in both A1 and A2, but expressed in different ways: direct, primary, perfect, complete, proper in A1 and indirect, secondary, imperfect, incomplete and improper in A2.

    And even your quote supports mine:

    “But when anything is predicated of many things analogically, it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature, and from this one the rest are denominated.” (ST I.16.6)

    This passage does not say that the PN is not part of the meaning of A2, but only that PN is primarily present in A1, and that its presence in A2 must make indirect reference to A1. And Aquinas even cites the example of “healthy” to bolster his case. “Healthy” primarily applies to the physical health of a biological organism, and secondarily applies to urine as an indicator of health and to medicine as a cause of health. It is the same “health” in all the analogates’ definitions, but approached from different directions and relationships.

    Again, this is not a problem for ontic-ontological analogates, but it becomes a huge problem when God is one of the analogates. To preserve God’s transcendence, there cannot be anything in God that is identical to what is in creation. Otherwise, there is continuity and God differs on in degree when there must be radical discontinuity and God must differ in kind. And yet, according to Aquinas’ own definition and elucidation of analogy, the PN must be present in our definitiosn of both creation and God, but present in different ways. But again, a perfect PN is still a PN, and an imperfect PN is still a PN. That would make them differ only in degrees of perfection, and not in kind, which makes God immanent rather than transcendent, and that is intolerable to Aquinas (and Rank Sophist). That is the core problem here.

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  111. Here's how it seems to me, after some thinking.

    The res and modus are not Frege's referent and sense. Modus, as it relates to analogy, refers to the mode of being that we can perceive. Because a res considered in itself points toward God as its primary referent (for the ontological reasons we have discussed already), which is to say that God is the prior referent, denying the modus automatically makes the res point toward God rather than creatures. Aquinas says that "HE WHO IS" is the highest name because its res and modus are existence itself, which is the highest, least determinate and most universal thing that we know. He would deny the modus here and say that God does not exist in any sense that we can comprehend, even though the res continues to point toward him. Now, it is impossible to consider a res without a modus, and, even after denying one modus, we are left with another. We keep denying, then, in an effort to reach higher.

    If there's any problem with this system, it isn't secret univocity or secret equivocity. It's that, by relying on the virtual distinction, Aquinas puts words like "good" and "true" on the same level as "rock" and "bird": all of these things exist by a different modus in God. Garrigou-Lagrange noted this same problem. Why should we say that God is good "literally" when we don't say that God is a bird literally? Both pre-exist in God virtually and eminently in one and the same simple essence. It does no good to say that one is a creature and the other not, because esse (goodness, etc.) no less than a bird is a creature. Nothing we know is uncreated.

    So, dguller, if you're going to attack Aquinas's doctrine of analogy, I'd attack from that angle. I'm going to go think about it some more to see if I can make more sense out of it. As it stands, Aquinas's version of analogy seems similar but still inferior to the interpretations of the Church Fathers, which makes me think I've missed something.

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  112. dguller,

    In names predicated of many in an analogical sense, all are predicated because they have reference to some one thing; and this one thing must be placed in the definition of them all.

    This doesn't mean what you think it means. Aquinas is saying that God is placed in the definition of all things.

    But when anything is predicated of many things analogically, it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature, and from this one the rest are denominated.

    You've misinterpreted this line as well. When Aquinas says that "it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature", the "it" is not intended when he refers to "proper nature". The "proper nature" refers to "one of them", in that God is the only thing that is essentially good according to his proper nature (ST Ia q6 a3).

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  113. >Garrigou-Lagrange noted this same problem.

    He's a name from what might be called the traditional thomist school which is anti-Cajetan.

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  114. >I don’t understand why Hart is the primary authority here such that his interpretation supercedes the interpretation of Wippel, Clarke, Rocca, Gilson, Davies, and every other contemporary Thomist scholar.

    You do realize there are different schools of Thomism when you get deeper into it and Feser pretty much identifies more with the
    traditional schools that use traditional metaphysics?

    http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/10/thomistic-tradition-part-i.html

    http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/10/thomistic-tradition-part-ii.html

    http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/07/scholastics-bookshelf-part-i.html

    So it gets even more complicated.

    Hart sounds like he might be more "traditional".

    It seems it might effect one's view of analogy.

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  115. http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/10/thomistic-tradition-part-ii.html


    QUOTE" This approach might be said to give both the “analytical” and the “Thomistic” elements of analytical Thomism equal emphasis, and is represented by thinkers like Geach, Brian Davies, and C. F. J. Martin (all of whom would attempt to harmonize Aquinas’s doctrine of being with Frege’s understanding of existence) and Germain Grisez and John Finnis (who would reinterpret Aquinas’s ethics so as to avoid what Moore called the “naturalistic fallacy”). The work of Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump also possibly falls into this second category, though since it is often interpretative and scholarly rather than programmatic, it is harder to say."END QUOTE

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  116. The position of the Church Fathers is that all being is inscribed with the likeness of God, since everything good, in true Neo-Platonist fashion, must originate from one source that contains and transcends all things. Hence, being is always already like God, even though we cannot say how. We do know that the highest aspects of being are closer to God, even though they're still infinitely different in kind from him. Hence, we simultaneously affirm creation and deny that it encompasses God.

    Aquinas appears to have tried to systematize this framework with his language of res and modus. The only coherent way to interpret his system, then, is to view it through the lens of the Church Fathers. I'm about to try that.

    If creation is measured according to God (which we know from the analogy of proportion), then it must be similar to him in some way. It is not clear exactly how we are similar to him, since total comprehension of that would require knowledge of God himself. Hence, creation's similarity to God must be taken as factical: a condition into which all things are thrown simply because they exist. However, given the knowledge that God only created being (non-being does not exist), and that being is good, it follows that God only created good. The factical similarity must then be in goodness, since there is nowhere else for it to be: only goodness exists. Now, if creation is similar to God by way of the analogy of proportion, and this similarity is in goodness, then it follows that creation's goodness is inferior to God. These leads us to conclude, at least on the level of beings of reason, that God is more good than creation.

    However, none of this means that the proposition "God is good" is true, because any "good" named in this proposition is necessarily created, while God is uncreated. We only know two things: 1) that God caused goodness; 2) that creation's goodness is infinitely inferior to God. This is enough to tell us that God is the cause and exemplar of all goodness. So far, we're still in the realm where the Church Fathers and Aquinas seem to agree. Now I'm going to try to reconcile the more difficult part. Aquinas says that a res signifies a perfection in itself: so let's start using "res" to signify "goodness". We know that applying the term "goodness" to God directly is false, except on the level of beings of reason. But let's say that res refers to that property "goodness" which is simultaneously infinitely inferior to God in kind but still measured against him via the analogy of proportion. It follows that the res will refer to God by inheriting the analogy of proportion. Now let's consider the modus, which is the way that a res has revealed itself. The modus does not inherit the analogy of proportion, since it does not refer to an aspect of creation of which God is the exemplar: it only refers to an aspect that God has caused. Hence, we deny the modus so that the res can refer to God more directly.

    All of the squares with both Aquinas and the Church Fathers, while dguller's version, which sees the res as some property X shared by God and creation, is doomed to univocity. Plus, it doesn't fit with the majority of what Aquinas says--particularly about the analogy of proportion. My version fits with all of it; and so I see no reason to accept dguller's over it.

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  117. dguller,

    >> Your reasoning may be a bit too generic here; for example,
    >> it seems to allow for instantiations such as: 

e. coli (Y) is not
    >> e. coli (Y) unless a definition of e. coli (Y) includes, e.g.,
    >> meningitis (X).

    > And that is not part of what it means to be E. coli? If you
    > found a bacteria that looked like E. coli according to all our
    > biochemical investigations, but never caused meningitis, then
    > you would not call it E. coli at all, but some other kind of
    > bacteria.

    It happens to be the case that most strains of E. coli are harmless. This being so, it follows from your reasoning that most strains of E. coli are not "E. coli at all but some other kind of bacteria"--from which it further follows that it isn't true that most strains of E. coli are harmless.

    - - - - -

    But I must be missing the point. Let's see if I can get myself back on track. Hmm. Ok, got it.

    If "part of what it means to be E. coli" is 'causes menengitis', then 'causes menengitis' is part of the PN of E. coli. And if we let

    A1 = "strains of E. coli which cause menengitis"

    ...and...

    A2 = "strains of E. coli which are harmless",

    then the fact that most strains of E. coli are harmless simply and innocuously means that "you have a perfect PN in A1 and an imperfect PN in A2. But notice that a perfect PN is still a PN, and an imperfect PN is still a PN, and so there is a PN in both A1 and A2, and it must be the same PN, but in a different mode of being."

    It might be noted, as an aside, that there is no difference, never mind a difference which may be taken as meaningful or significant, between a car which has been totaled and a car which has not been totaled. Totaled or not, a car is a car, and there you have it. Besides, a harmless strain of E. coli isn't E. coli but some other kind of bacteria.

    - - - - -

    Aquinas writes:

    “In names predicated of many in an analogical sense, all are predicated because they have reference to some one thing; and this one thing must be placed in the definition of them all. And since that expressed by the name is the definition, as the Philosopher says (Metaph. iv), such a name must be applied primarily to that which is put in the definition of such other things, and secondarily to these others according as they approach more or less to that first.” (ST I.13.6)


    Aha. That explains it. No matter the time of day or night, no matter the day of the year, whenever I'm sitting at the computer in the den there is a constant, thunderous rumbling pounding away at my eardrums. Now I know why.

    Alongside the computer is a dictionary. And in this dictionary is a definition of 'avalanche'. Not only is an avalanche to be found in the definition of 'avalanche', so too is its PN to be found there. No wonder I'm constantly beset by a cacophonous, deafening roar.

    It also helps to explain another heretofore mysterious recurrence, i.e., why, when my wife uses the computer after me, she clucks her tongue, shakes her head and says, "For someone who hasn't any dandruff, you sure do leave a lot of the stuff behind. Call the Murphys next door, won't you dear? See if they'll lend you their snow blower. Again."

    It is a small dictionary, relatively speaking. Still, judging by the sound of it the avalanche itself must be rather humongous. So, all things considered, I guess it is inevitable that there should be some spillage from between the pages. Now, you can well imagine that during the winter it is embarrassing to have to use a snow blower inside one's home. But during the summertime? Why, it is positively mortifying.

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  118. >Garrigou-Lagrange noted this same problem.

    >He's a name from what might be called the traditional thomist school which is anti-Cajetan.

    I may be mistaken to imply Garrigou-Lagrange was anti-Cajetan but rejection or acceptance of Cajetan seems to be an element of this dispute.

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  119. Add this to the list of Feser links to schools of Thomism.

    http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2008/11/neo-scholastic-revival.html

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  120. Glenn:

    It happens to be the case that most strains of E. coli are harmless. This being so, it follows from your reasoning that most strains of E. coli are not "E. coli at all but some other kind of bacteria"--from which it further follows that it isn't true that most strains of E. coli are harmless.

    Good point.

    I suppose my response would be that with regards to the strains of E. coli that cause meningitis, those types of E. coli would not be those types of E. coli unless they could cause meningitis. After all, if not all kinds of E. coli cause meningitis, then it wouldn’t make sense to say that the very definition of E. coli itself must involve causation of meningitis.

    And that means that none of this affects my point, which was: “You have X, and you have Y. Y is a cause of X, and so the definition of Y must include X, because otherwise Y would not be Y, but something else.” I think that with the above clarification, this principle still stands.

    Any thoughts?

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  121. Rank:

    This doesn't mean what you think it means. Aquinas is saying that God is placed in the definition of all things.

    You haven’t contradicted my interpretation of that passage at all. The passage is talking about the primary referent of the analogates. The analogates both must refer to the same referent, but they do so in different degrees. The primary analogate does so directly via the ratio propria, which Wippel calls the “intelligible content” of the term, and what Rocca calls “the fullest, the most basic, and the most characteristic meaning of the predicate in question” (Rocca, p. 130). The secondary analogate does so indirectly by making its referent a few steps removed from the primary referent, i.e. “approach more or less to that first”. For example, there is a difference between health and the cause of health. Both refer to health, but the former does so directly and primarily, and the latter does so indirectly and secondarily. But the reality is that health is included in both definitions.

    With respect to God, God would have to be the primary referent, because he is the source and cause of everything that exists, and thus all our language about reality must ultimately trace its way to him. But for the divine names to have a referent, they must have a sense, and our composite minds cannot receive the sense of a metaphysically simple God, which can only be present to the divine intellect, itself being metaphysically simple. It follows that the senses associated with the divine names are grossly inadequate distortions of what they purport to refer to, which you call “idols”, and actually can only refer to the composite reality that God has created, i.e. another “idol”, but cannot refer to God himself.

    But this contradicts what Aquinas claims. He claims that even though we cannot have the ratio propria associated with God himself, since we have composite minds that saturate all our concepts and ideas with composition, thus leaving no space for anything about metaphysical simplicity, we can still refer to God himself.

    My question throughout this discussion is how can this be possible? If all reference is mediated by the senses present to our minds, then how can you have a referent without a mediating sense in our mind? We all agree that we lack the ratio propria that refers to God himself, and thus our minds are literally empty of anything that direct them towards God himself. All they can be directed towards is creation, because a composite sense can only refer to a composite entity, because that is the only way for there to be an isomorphism between the two, and without an isomorphism, there is simply no connection between the sense and the referent. There can be no isomorphism between a composite sense and a simple referent, because the simple referent would have to be fully present to the composite sense, which is impossible.

    And notice that this holds irrespective of whether creation itself refers to God in the sense of pointing beyond itself towards its cause and source, because this is ontological reference whereas my question solely exists on the level of cognitive-semantic reference. So, even assuming the truth of ontological reference, the question is how we can think or talk about what is beyond ontology. Thus far, no answer has been provided.

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  122. You've misinterpreted this line as well. When Aquinas says that "it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature", the "it" is not intended when he refers to "proper nature". The "proper nature" refers to "one of them", in that God is the only thing that is essentially good according to his proper nature (ST Ia q6 a3).

    Where did I say that the “it” was not the referent?

    We only know two things: 1) that God caused goodness; 2) that creation's goodness is infinitely inferior to God. This is enough to tell us that God is the cause and exemplar of all goodness.

    Except that we do not know that, because those conclusions presuppose the validity of the principle of causality and the principle of proportionate causality, both of which only apply to causes, and do not apply to non-cause “causes”. Again, you want to have it both ways.

    If creation is measured according to God (which we know from the analogy of proportion), then it must be similar to him in some way. It is not clear exactly how we are similar to him, since total comprehension of that would require knowledge of God himself. Hence, creation's similarity to God must be taken as factical: a condition into which all things are thrown simply because they exist.

    What do you mean by “similar” here? My understanding of “similar” implies partial identity and partial difference. Would you agree with this? Would Aquinas? Would the Church Fathers? And if you all disagree, then what is your alternative?

    Now let's consider the modus, which is the way that a res has revealed itself. The modus does not inherit the analogy of proportion, since it does not refer to an aspect of creation of which God is the exemplar: it only refers to an aspect that God has caused. Hence, we deny the modus so that the res can refer to God more directly.

    Thanks for that explanation. I appreciate all the effort that you are putting into this discussion, by the way.

    But I don’t think your analysis will work.

    You agree that the modus “is the way that a res has revealed itself” to the human mind, and thus seem to concur with my interpretation of the modus as the lens through which our minds reach out and connect to reality. The res must be presentable to the mind via the modus, and if the res cannot be presented to the mind via the modus, then the res cannot be present to the human mind at all, and a term without any cognitive content whatsoever cannot possibly have a referent at all. You also seem to agree that a composite modus can only refer to a composite res (i.e. “an aspect [of creation] that God has caused”), which would completely preclude its ability to directly refer to a simple res.

    Your solution to this insurmountable difficulty is to say that one can accept that the composite modus is completely inadequate as a means of reaching a simple res, and by negating the composite modus, one is then brought closer to referring to the simple res.

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  123. There are some problems with this.

    First, negating a composite modus can have one of three possible outcomes:

    (1) there is a different composite modus
    (2) there is a simple modus
    (3) that there is no modus at all.

    I think that you’ll agree that only (2) can allow you to directly refer to a simple res, but (2) is also impossible. (1) would just result in another referral to a composite res, which would still be infinitely far removed from the simple res, and (2) would result in no referral at all, because in the absence of a modus, the term involved is meaningless and empty. So, negating the modus will not lead a direct reference to a simple res, and you are still stuck with the impossibility to talking about what is beyond ontology.

    Second, I don’t see how you can say one can get closer to something infinitely far away. Even if you took an infinite number of steps towards it, it is still infinitely far away. There is no sense to “closer” in this context.

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  124. dguller,

    And that means that none of this affects my point, which was: “You have X, and you have Y. Y is a cause of X, and so the definition of Y must include X, because otherwise Y would not be Y, but something else.” I think that with the above clarification, this principle still stands.

    Any thoughts?


    I do have some thoughts, yes. But only two:

    1. My original comment opened with, "Your reasoning may be a bit too generic here; for example, it seems to allow for instantiations such as..."

    I then provided an example instantiation (your original response to which has since been clarified).

    Here is another example instantiation:

    Internal bleeding (Y) is not internal bleeding (Y) unless a definition of internal bleeding (Y) includes death (X).

    That internal bleeding is a cause of death is true; also true is that internal bleeding is defined as bleeding which occurs inside the body and is not seen from outside the body.

    Substituting for the principle's placeholders, we now have:

    "You have death, and you have internal bleeding. Internal bleeding is a cause of death, and so the definition of internal bleeding must include death, because otherwise internal bleeding would not be internal bleeding, but something else."

    2. If the principle stands fine as it is, then Scotus' case against Aquinas' take on analogy appears to be weakened.

    How so?

    A not insignificant part of Scotus' case involves defining 'being' as "opposed to nothingness". This definition of 'being', however, does not include anything which might be caused by 'being'.

    In light of the principle, then, either Scotus' definition implies that 'being' isn't causative of anything, or what Scotus defined as "opposed to nothingness" is something other than 'being'.

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  125. dguller,

    The res and modus are the signified perfection and a perceived mode of being, respectively. The modus is not a purely linguistic construct: it merely refers to the mode of being in which we have perceived a res. These terms, to my (limited) knowledge, have no parallels in Frege. In fact, Frege's very idea of "being" is utterly incompatible with Aquinas's, and so I can't imagine that his linguistic ideas would make much sense when combined with Aquinas's predication of the transcendentals.

    In any case, I see absolutely no reason to say that, once a res X is in the mind (as a logical being, if X is a transcendental), the modus Y cannot be discarded. Y is the mode of being in which X was found; and, once X has been found, it is possible to consider it in abstraction. I'm still a bit vague on this, but it seems like X would be connected to our mental esse commune, which is an impersonal abstraction without a modus. (Aquinas himself, when saying that "HE WHO IS" is the highest name for God, explicitly states that it is the best because it signifies simple existence itself--which would be our mental abstraction of esse--, which is the highest and most indistinct created thing.)

    Now, as I've argued, a res only refers to God via the analogy of proportion. No res can be in God simply by another modus, as in a direct interpretation of the medicine example would have it, because this would lead us to the conclusion that God and creation shared some kind of perfection (a transcendental reducible to being) in a hidden two-way attribution or Heideggerian double-grounding. Even if one argued that the goodness in creation had God as its primary referent, thanks to its superior modus in him, God would still be reduced to an onto-theological "highest being" who had something from creation in a superior way. The modern Thomists who take this route were probably influenced by Cajetan, even if indirectly; because this is obviously a Scotist idea. The only answer that avoids this is that everything we know is created: both the res and the modus.

    This seems to be in line with Aquinas's thought, because he continuously denies that any created goodness can be God. Aquinas writes that even the name "HE WHO IS", which (if I remember correctly) has no modus, merely points toward the divine essence. The res signified (being) does indeed denote God, but by way of the analogy of proportion: creation is being, which is in proportion to its cause, and thus the analogy of proportion would give us the "infinite distance" between esse commune and esse divinum.

    Another option would be to say that God contains goodness and being eminently by way of the virtual distinction, and not because of the analogy of proportion. This would allow us to use a direct interpretation of the medicine example in the case of God. The problem is that, if God merely contained "goodness" and "being" virtually, then it would follow that these terms were on even ground with a term like "bird"; and we would be reduced to saying that God is good simply because he contains and causes goodness, rather than because he is the exemplar of it. He only option that meshes with Aquinas's writing, then, is that a res is created but signifies God via proportion, while a modus is created but does not involve that analogy.

    [CONTINUED]

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  126. Now, it is not true that we have to presuppose the validity of the principle of causality in the case of God--and thus reduce God to an infinitely magnified univocal cause--, because we do not comment on God at all when we discuss the contingency of beings or use the analogy of proportion. Beings just are contingent, and this means that they are not self-sustaining. Anything not self-sustaining is sustained by another. Again, this is all an analysis of effects: God is no part of it. In the case of the analogy of proportion, we can simply say that whatever is sustained by another is in proportion to that other, because it necessarily must be inferior to its sustaining cause. This is a logical fact taken from creation, which makes no assertions about anything beyond the ontico-ontological. Hence, if creation is contingent, then creation cannot be self-sustaining; and so it must be inferior. At no time do I mention an actual sustainer, nor a superior being.

    Once we have this groundwork in place, though, we can safely begin to construct the arguments I have already made.

    And if you all disagree, then what is your alternative?

    Any version of similarity that rests on partial similarity and partial difference breaks down when applied to God, because it must predicate some res in both God and creatures that is differentiated by a modus. This ends in two ways: the contradiction of Scotist onto-theology, or the Maimonidean claim that God is called something merely because he causes and thus contains it.

    The third option, which I have presented here and with which both Aquinas and the Church Fathers seem to agree, is that something is called similar to God via the analogy of proportion. This is to say that it is inferior to God even though God can only via a being of reason be called superior to it. As a result, creatures are compared to God "as their principle" and "by way of excellence or remotion", to quote Aquinas: he becomes, in a very indirect way, the exemplar of created res. It also preserves the distinction between predicating "good" and "bird" to God, since God's analogy of proportion with a bird is on the level of universal res (like esse), rather than on the level of the bird's essence--which he contains virtually but does not substantially exemplify. This is why Aquinas is adamant that such names as "bird" only be used metaphorically.

    The res must be presentable to the mind via the modus

    You seem to be confused, here. There is no such thing as a Platonic "res" that is revealed dimly through a modus. All res and all modus are created: they exist firmly within beings, and neither is shared with God in any way. Hence, both can be considered distinctly in the mind. However, the res, once severed from the modus, has a more perfect analogy of proportion with God; and so we apply the res to God while denying the modus, which has no analogy of proportion with God. I am pretty firmly convinced that this is what Aquinas intended, after having read the relevant sections of the ST, SCG and DP, as well as Hart's work and the writings of the Church Fathers. This is the only way to reconcile Aquinas with himself, let alone with the wider tradition.

    [CONTINUED]

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  127. In conclusion, I think that your case is based on a fundamental misreading of what Aquinas intended with his language of res and modus. The modern Thomists you cite are just as confused, because they consider Aquinas's language (his "exquisitely refined terminology", as Hart called it) in separation from the patristic ideas it was intended to describe and systematize. Heidegger was similarly confused when he attempted to comment on Aquinas's ontology, since he read about terms like "esse" divorced from the Dionysian ideas (among others) that they were referencing. Maybe this is why Caputo concluded, ignorantly, that Eckhart had liberated Aquinas's "hidden subtext" from its onto-theological prison: he was seeing Eckhart's return to the more traditional, poetic and extreme language that Aquinas had refined. A change in language, however, is not a change in ideas: both men were just offering recapitulations of patristic theology.

    If you want to show where I've gone wrong in my interpretation of res and modus, then you're going to have to drop Wippel, Rocca and McIrney and pick up the ST, SCG and DP. Cite passages that contradict my version--I'll almost guarantee that I can reconcile them with it. Continuing to cite modern Thomists whose work I've called into question is not going to cut it, at this point.

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  128. Rank:

    The res and modus are the signified perfection and a perceived mode of being, respectively. The modus is not a purely linguistic construct: it merely refers to the mode of being in which we have perceived a res. These terms, to my (limited) knowledge, have no parallels in Frege. In fact, Frege's very idea of "being" is utterly incompatible with Aquinas's, and so I can't imagine that his linguistic ideas would make much sense when combined with Aquinas's predication of the transcendentals.

    I never said that the modus was “a purely linguistic construct”. It is what I have called a cognitive-linguistic construct. It is the how we conceive and perceive a res in our minds. It is like the difference between a tree (res) and how the tree looks from our perspective (modus). The most important point is that the modus is what is present in our mind that makes it possible for us to use our intentionality to refer to a res at all.

    In any case, I see absolutely no reason to say that, once a res X is in the mind (as a logical being, if X is a transcendental), the modus Y cannot be discarded. Y is the mode of being in which X was found; and, once X has been found, it is possible to consider it in abstraction.

    True.

    Now, as I've argued, a res only refers to God via the analogy of proportion.

    Are you talking about ontological reference or cognitive-semantic reference? It seems to me that you are talking about the former here.

    Now, it is not true that we have to presuppose the validity of the principle of causality in the case of God--and thus reduce God to an infinitely magnified univocal cause--, because we do not comment on God at all when we discuss the contingency of beings or use the analogy of proportion. Beings just are contingent, and this means that they are not self-sustaining. Anything not self-sustaining is sustained by another. Again, this is all an analysis of effects: God is no part of it.

    The principle of causality is that every thing is caused by something else. Our experience is exclusively of composite entities, and thus the principle’s applicability hinges upon what we mean by “every thing” and “something else”. If the principle of causality is abstracted from our everyday experience, then it must mean every composite thing is caused by some other composite thing, because that is all we know. If the principle ultimately concludes with the necessity of that which is non-composite, then it has left its range of applicability, because that which is non-composite cannot be considered a cause by this principle, which exclusively deals with composite causes and effects. If all causes and effects must be composite, then that which is non-composite cannot be considered a cause at all, and thus cannot be part of the principle of causality at all.

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  129. In the case of the analogy of proportion, we can simply say that whatever is sustained by another is in proportion to that other, because it necessarily must be inferior to its sustaining cause. This is a logical fact taken from creation, which makes no assertions about anything beyond the ontico-ontological. Hence, if creation is contingent, then creation cannot be self-sustaining; and so it must be inferior. At no time do I mention an actual sustainer, nor a superior being.

    But again, this talk about all causes must be superior to their effects must remain within the realm of the principle of causality, which you would have left once you try to talk about that which transcends composition into metaphysical simplicity. You have literally reached a conclusion that contradicts the very meaning of the premises, and thus must be rejected. A non-cause “cause” is still not a cause, and thus not something that is under the purview of the principle of causality.

    The third option, which I have presented here and with which both Aquinas and the Church Fathers seem to agree, is that something is called similar to God via the analogy of proportion.

    But proportion also involves partial identity and partial difference. Take the following proportion: 4:2 :: 8:4. You have two proportions being compared, 4:2 and 8:4. You have partial difference, because 4:2 is a different pair of numbers than 8:4. But you also have partial identity, because the relation or proportion between the pair of numbers is the same, i.e. the first number is double what the second number is. This double is the partial identity between them. So, even the analogy of proportionality necessarily is subsumed under partial identity and partial difference, which means that it cannot help you escape the problems associated with that construal of similarity.

    This is to say that it is inferior to God even though God can only via a being of reason be called superior to it. As a result, creatures are compared to God "as their principle" and "by way of excellence or remotion", to quote Aquinas: he becomes, in a very indirect way, the exemplar of created res.

    But this means that the relation that grounds the proportion between God and creation is ultimately a causal relation, and thus must be governed by the principle of causality. But we have already seen that this way is fraught with difficulties.

    You seem to be confused, here.

    You say that a lot.

    There is no such thing as a Platonic "res" that is revealed dimly through a modus.

    I never said that there was. My only point was that if you want to think and talk about a res, then that res must be capable of being present in our minds in a particular way, and that is what the modus is. It is the way that a res shows up in our minds to ourselves. If it does not show up in our minds, then we literally cannot think or talk about it.

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  130. All res and all modus are created: they exist firmly within beings, and neither is shared with God in any way. Hence, both can be considered distinctly in the mind. However, the res, once severed from the modus, has a more perfect analogy of proportion with God; and so we apply the res to God while denying the modus, which has no analogy of proportion with God. I am pretty firmly convinced that this is what Aquinas intended, after having read the relevant sections of the ST, SCG and DP, as well as Hart's work and the writings of the Church Fathers. This is the only way to reconcile Aquinas with himself, let alone with the wider tradition.

    This partly makes sense. Since God lacks a modus, i.e. is modeless, then by negating the modus in our mind, we are coming closer to him, in some sense. The partial identity would have to be modelessness in our conception of God and of God’s conception of himself via the divine intellect. In other words, there is simply God, and no mode.

    The problem is that this does not address the trilemma that I mentioned above. Let me remind you of the only logical consequences of negating the modus:

    (1) there is a different composite modus

    (2) there is a simple modus

    (3) there is no modus at all 



    As I said, all are highly problematic. (1) would not refer directly to God at all, because a composite modus can only refer to a composite res, and God is not a composite res. (2) is just impossible, because we cannot have a simple modus in our minds at all. And (3), which seems to be your preferred solution, means that you have no referent at all, because to refer to a res necessarily requires a modus in order for that res to show up in our minds at all. Thus, the mind would literally be empty, and an empty mind cannot refer to anything.

    Furthermore, even if (3) were possible, there would have to be a way to distinguish between (a) there being a res that cannot have a modus in mind (for whatever reason), and (b) nothingness itself, which also cannot have a modus in mind, because there is no res to present itself to the mind. (This comes down to the distinction mentioned earlier between being in darkness due to too much light versus too little light.) But to make a distinction between (a) and (b) would demand that there be something in mind that represents the difference, and that could only be another modus, which would have to be composite, and so the problems of (1) rear their ugly head, even if (3) was a possibility.

    So, you have a deep contradiction between two key principles:

    (A) For us to think and talk about a res at all, that res can only be signified by virtue of a modus significandi that is present to our mind
    (B) A composite modus significandi can only refer to a composite res significata

    The fact that you seem to endorse both (A) and (B) just means that you are trapped in an inconsistency. You want to be able to refer to a simple res significata, but have eliminated any possible way for yourself to actually do such a thing. You cannot do so via a simple modus signficandi, because our minds cannot possibly contain such a modus at all, being composite entities ourselves. You cannot do so via a composite modus significandi, because a composite modus significandi can only refer to a composite res significata. You cannot do so via the utter absence of any modus significandi in the mind, because that would refer either to utter non-being, or to yet another composite modus signficandi in order to hold the distinction between utter non-being and ipsum esse subsistens, which itself just repeats the problem once again, because the precise issue was how you can refer to this ipsum esse subsistens to begin with.

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  131. In conclusion, I think that your case is based on a fundamental misreading of what Aquinas intended with his language of res and modus. The modern Thomists you cite are just as confused, because they consider Aquinas's language (his "exquisitely refined terminology", as Hart called it) in separation from the patristic ideas it was intended to describe and systematize.

    I honestly cannot believe that you would make this case. I have already said that Rocca begins his study with an analysis of the very tradition that you claim he ignores.oWith the regards to citations of other authors, other than Aristotle, he cites Pseudo-Denys the most often, and you have already established the baseline principle that if an author cites another author excessively, then the latter must be significant for the former. Even Wippel frequently mentions Aquinas’ indebtedness to Pseudo-Denys, and so (again) I don’t see how you can say that his interpretation of Aquinas is considered “in separation from the patristic ideas” themselves. I mean, you can certainly disagree with their interpretation of “patristic ideas” within Aquinas’ thought, but to say unequivocally – in some cases without even reading the books in question – that those authors completely ignore “patristic ideas” altogether is to criticize a caricature of their positions rather than their positions themselves.

    Heidegger was similarly confused when he attempted to comment on Aquinas's ontology, since he read about terms like "esse" divorced from the Dionysian ideas (among others) that they were referencing.

    Heidegger was certainly confused about a number of things, and if Caputo’s interpretation is correct, then he was certainly ignorant about key aspects of Aquinas’ thought.

    Maybe this is why Caputo concluded, ignorantly, that Eckhart had liberated Aquinas's "hidden subtext" from its onto-theological prison: he was seeing Eckhart's return to the more traditional, poetic and extreme language that Aquinas had refined. A change in language, however, is not a change in ideas: both men were just offering recapitulations of patristic theology.

    Caputo’s point in his book was that Aquinas cannot escape the metaphysics of presence, because there is nothing absent or potential in ipsum esse subsistens, and thus his thought remains captive to Heidegger’s critique of metaphysics as the oblivion and forgetting of the coming and going of being in the clearing and during the event of appropriation. The only way to escape this critique would be to include elements of absence within God himself, which is simply impossible, according to Aquinas. So, even though Aquinas’ thought has an inherent tendency or dynamism towards transcending metaphysics in the sense of the study of esse commune and entia participatum towards ipsum esse subsistens as the cause and ground of both, the ultimate foundation is overflowing and infinite presence. The solution, according to Caputo, is to look to Eckhart who said that “the Being of God is as much absence as it is presence, that it is presence in absence and absence in presence, that intellectus properly understood is not a matter of seeing but of letting-be and of openness to the Mystery” (Caputo, p. 274).

    This is quite consistent with what you have been arguing, i.e. that our experience and understanding of God is woefully inadequate and that to be open to God himself, we must empty ourselves of everything that could obstruct our reception of himself, and even when he shows up, it is not him, because anything that could show up to us cannot be God, and thus he is the “presence in absence and absence in presence”. And by explicitly including elements of absence in the core features of God, the Eckhartian extraction of what is implicit in Aquinas escapes Heidegger’s critique altogether.

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  132. Just one more thing about Caputo. I already explained to you before that Caputo's critique of Aquinas was not that he was trapped in onto-theology. He explicitly states on a number of occasions that he is not. The critique is based upon Heidegger's ideas about a metaphysics of presence, and Aquinas certainly is enmeshed in that critique, as I mentioned above. God is fully present to himself via his understanding of himself in his intellect. There is no absence in Aquinas' conception of ipsum esse subsistens. The only absence is in our limited understanding of ipsum esse subsistens, but not in ipsum esse subsistens itself.

    Personally, I think that Heidegger's conception of the metaphysics of presence is based upon his idiosyncratic reading of the history of Western metaphysics and the transition from an openness to the coming and going of Being in beings to the hardening of the presence into something rigidly and permanently present. Certainly, this is a possibility, but I don't think the case has been made that it is the truth.

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  133. Glenn:

    "You have death, and you have internal bleeding. Internal bleeding is a cause of death, and so the definition of internal bleeding must include death, because otherwise internal bleeding would not be internal bleeding, but something else."

    And? Internal bleeding that could not possibly cause death is not internal bleeding. All internal bleeding could cause death, but it does not mean that all internal bleeding will cause death. Some will, and some won’t. All that is necessary is that the possibility of being the cause of death be included in the definition of internal bleeding. Certainly, it will not be part of the propria ratio of “internal bleeding”, but it will be part of the broader web of meaning of it.

    A not insignificant part of Scotus' case involves defining 'being' as "opposed to nothingness". This definition of 'being', however, does not include anything which might be caused by 'being'. 



    In light of the principle, then, either Scotus' definition implies that 'being' isn't causative of anything, or what Scotus defined as "opposed to nothingness" is something other than 'being'.


    That’s not true. Being can cause something to come from nothingness, and being can cause something to come from something else. Ipsum esse subsistens causes entia participatum via the latter’s esse commune participating in the former’s esse divinum, and that is what brings it forth from nothingness. Once entia participatum exists, however, then they can be modified and changed in various ways, both by ipsum esse subsistens itself, as well as by one ens participatum changing another ens participatum by actualizing its potency. The bottom line is that being brings something that did not exist before, either absolutely or relatively.

    I can appreciate Scotus’ point that there must be a common thread from ipsum esse subsistens through entia participatum, even if this commonality manifests itself in different ways. Again, I go back to the Thomist idea that for two things to be connected, there must be an isomorphism between them, which means a partial identity that is present in both, even if that identity is presented in a different mode of being. For example, for us to think about dogs, we have to have the form of dogness in our intellect in its esse intentionale mode of being, and for dogs to be dogs, they must have the form of dogness in their matter in its esse reale mode of being. So, you have the same form present in the intellect and in the particular dog, and that identity is what grounds our ability to think and talk about the dog at all. So, without isomorphism, there is no connection at all.

    The problem that I see with the doctrine of analogy is that it recognizes this key Scotist principle, but tries to reject its implications. It knows that it needs this isomorphism to ground any kind of relationship between ipsum esse subsistens and entia participatum, but also recognizes that this isomorphism will compromise the divine transcendence of ipsum esse subsistens by putting ipsum esse subsistens on the same horizon as entia participatum, which is intolerable. And so it is stuck in an aporia in which what is necessary is simultaneously impossible.

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  134. >The principle of causality is that every thing is caused by something else.

    No it's not. That is a classic mis-formulation(i.e. everything as a cause).

    Whatever "is moved" is moved by another(which would exclude that with "is not moved") is the classic formulation.

    Feser has a modern reformulation to clear up modern confusion.

    Don't mind me carry on.

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  135. dguller

    In replying to Rank, you asserted:
    “The principle of causality is that every thing is caused by something else[.]” (emphasis yours)

    This is not the principle of causality, certainly not as St. Thomas would have understood it. It’s clear, to borrow from the Gipper, that the problem is not that you know nothing, but that you know so much that simply isn’t so!

    The principle of causality tells us, “All contingent being must have a cause.” There is no “something else” that must be read as another contingent being or composite of act and potency; and so I don’t see the difficulty that you claim when we speak of God as First Cause.

    you also asserted:
    “ If all causes and effects must be composite, then that which is non-composite cannot be considered a cause at all, and thus cannot be part of the principle of causality at all.”

    All causes need not be composites of act/potency. And in fact the principle of causality doesn’t speak about all causes and their effects, but only to efficient causation. A cause, properly understand, is a thing upon which some other thing depends for its being, but how is our understanding limited to things as act/potency composites? Aquinas was a moderate realist, not an empiricist. Just because one does not have direct experience of pure act, what prevents us from reasoning to it?

    Let’s take infinity. There is no physically existing infinite quantity. Nor are our intellects, being finite, capable of a strict isomorphism with infinity. So, if I follow what you’re trying to argue in the simple form you posted, we could have no sense of infinity and so no referent for infinity and so the idea of infinity is a meaningless term. “And yet,” as Coppens explains in his Brief Textbook of Logic and Mental Philosophy, “we perceive beings with a certain amount of perfection and no more; we distinguish between perfection and limit, or the absence of further perfection; next, by our power of abstracting, we mentally remove all limit, and thus conceive abstractedly perfection without limit, i.e. infinity.”

    There’s a difference between “imperfect” and “none at all” that you seem to obliterate in your arguments.

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  136. Ben

    I do prefer the formulation you just gave.

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  137. dguller

    I see on re-reading that you mean composite as in not-simple.

    Regardless it doesn't change my thoughts: why does a lack of direct experience with what is simple prevent our (imperfect) understanding of such, via reasoning as given in the example on infinity?

    Or is infinity a meaningless term?

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  138. Ben:

    I’m sure you saw my more specific formulation of the principle of causality as: “every composite thing is caused by some other composite thing”, because that is what our experience tells us, and this principle is abstracted from our experience.

    Jack:

    The principle of causality tells us, “All contingent being must have a cause.” There is no “something else” that must be read as another contingent being or composite of act and potency; and so I don’t see the difficulty that you claim when we speak of God as First Cause.

    See my above response to Ben. If the principle of causality is abstracted from our experience, and our experience is exclusively of composite entities, then the principle must also exclusively apply to composite entities, and thus should be formulated as every composite thing is caused by some other composite thing.

    All causes need not be composites of act/potency.

    Yes, they do. That is all our experience of causality grants us. To go beyond that kind of causality is to simultaneously go beyond the principle of causality and into something else entirely. But that also means that you cannot use the principle of causality to reason to that which transcends causality.

    And in fact the principle of causality doesn’t speak about all causes and their effects, but only to efficient causation.

    That doesn’t change my argument. Focus upon efficient causation, if you like, and everything else still follows, I think.

    A cause, properly understand, is a thing upon which some other thing depends for its being, but how is our understanding limited to things as act/potency composites? Aquinas was a moderate realist, not an empiricist. Just because one does not have direct experience of pure act, what prevents us from reasoning to it?

    Because for an argument to be valid, the meaning of the terms in the premises must be the same as the meaning of the terms in the conclusion. If the terms in the conclusion differ from the terms in the premises, then the argument cannot be valid. If the types of causes and effects that the principle of causation involve are exclusively composite causes and effects, then any argument that leads to a conclusion involving non-composite causes has reached incoherence, because all causes must be composite, and thus a non-composite cause is the equivalent of a non-cause cause. That is why Rank calls it a non-cause “cause”. He thinks that this has led one to transcend composite causality and reach something higher, and I think that it results in a reductio ad absurdum of the entire argument, because of the contradiction at the end.

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  139. Let’s take infinity. There is no physically existing infinite quantity. Nor are our intellects, being finite, capable of a strict isomorphism with infinity. So, if I follow what you’re trying to argue in the simple form you posted, we could have no sense of infinity and so no referent for infinity and so the idea of infinity is a meaningless term.

    I don’t think so. Infinity is an abstraction of the human mind, and as such, it is a composite entity, and thus we can have a modus of it. My argument is that we cannot have a modus of a metaphysically simple “being”, not that we cannot have a modus of finite and infinite composite entities.

    “And yet,” as Coppens explains in his Brief Textbook of Logic and Mental Philosophy, “we perceive beings with a certain amount of perfection and no more; we distinguish between perfection and limit, or the absence of further perfection; next, by our power of abstracting, we mentally remove all limit, and thus conceive abstractedly perfection without limit, i.e. infinity.”

    But perfection is necessarily related to limit. Perfection is the degree to which something actualizes the potency of its secondary actualities, i.e. the degree to which it actually exemplifies the ideal form in its nature. A perfect triangle is one that corresponds to the ideal contained in the essence of triangularity, for example. The limit is the ideal. Once you reach the ideal, there is no going beyond it, and so perfection is necessarily related to limitation. Another way that it is related is that a being is limited when it fails to actualize its ideal, because there must be something else preventing it from actualizing its nature in an ideal fashion. So, there is limitation in the sense of the final end, and there is limitation that prevents a being from actualizing its final end.

    (Another kind of perfection does involve a different kind of limitation. Form is more perfect when it is not actualized into a potency, because whenever act is received into a potency, that act is limited, and form is more perfect when it is available to multiple particular entities, and thus when it is not limited by potency. So, some things are more perfect, the more limited they are, and other things are more perfect, the less limited they are.)

    So, I don’t know what it means to say that there is perfection without limit, because perfection is necessarily related to limitation, whether perfection is due to be absence of external limits or due to the presence of external limits, but it must always involve a limitation in terms of an ideal beyond which a thing cannot go.

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  140. Jack:

    Regardless it doesn't change my thoughts: why does a lack of direct experience with what is simple prevent our (imperfect) understanding of such, via reasoning as given in the example on infinity?

    Here’s the difference. I can conceive of something going on without end. I cannot conceive of a metaphysically simple “being”. In the former, my mind can process the information in a coherent fashion. In the latter, my mind just shuts down completely. So, I think that the mind can understand infinity just fine, but it cannot understand divine simplicity.

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  141. >I’m sure you saw my more specific formulation of the principle of causality as: “every composite thing is caused by some other composite thing”, because that is what our experience tells us, and this principle is abstracted from our experience.

    Which is an empirical observation but not specifically the metaphysical description of motion/change nor the logical implications of not being able to have an infinite essential causal series. Thus it makes me nervous since it could lead to fallacies of equivocation & Humean denial of causality which is wrong.

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  142. Ben:

    Which is an empirical observation but not specifically the metaphysical description of motion/change nor the logical implications of not being able to have an infinite essential causal series. Thus it makes me nervous since it could lead to fallacies of equivocation & Humean denial of causality which is wrong.

    But metaphysical principles are abstracted from empirical observations. There are two principles at issue here:

    (1) Every compound entity is caused by another compound entity

    (2) Every compound entity is caused by either another compound entity or another simple entity

    (2) is what would be necessary for the argument to a first cause, but (2) would beg the question, as you can see. The only option is (1), because that is absolutely grounded in our empirical experience, and thus can be a justified abstraction of a metaphysical principle. Unfortunately, you cannot conclude to a first cause with only (1), because the first cause would not be a cause at all, but rather a non-cause “cause”, which I happen to think is contradictory, especially if our only experience of causes is of composite causes. A non-composite cause is the equivalent of a non-cause cause, and thus serves as a contradictory conclusion that results in a reductio of the entire argument.

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  143. But dguller, you are now confusing abstraction with induction

    You are wrong where you write:
    “(2) Every compound entity is caused by either another compound entity or another simple entity

    (2) is what would be necessary for the argument to a first cause, but (2) would beg the question, as you can see.”

    Understand that for Aquinas the principle of causality finds its formula as a function of being. "Every contingent being, even if it exists without beginning, needs an efficient cause and, in last analysis, an uncreated cause." Being is abstracted from the multitude of existing things in reality. Being may be further divided into composite being and simple being, and causes are beings upon which effects (other beings) depend for their existences. None of that means the principle of causality applies only to composite entities.

    You seem to know the meaning of composition. . Simplicity is a perfection which makes a being identical with everything that constitutes it; a positive perfection, but conceived of in a negative way by the exclusion of all composition. I’m talking about metaphysically simple being. This really causes your mind to shut down?

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  144. Ben and Jack,

    Thanks for the back-up on the principle of causality.

    I never said that the modus was “a purely linguistic construct”. It is what I have called a cognitive-linguistic construct. It is the how we conceive and perceive a res in our minds. It is like the difference between a tree (res) and how the tree looks from our perspective (modus).

    As far as I can tell, this interpretation is completely wrong. I'm fairly certain that the res is "health" in the medicine/animal example, while the modus is its varying appearance in those entities. The modus has nothing to do with our cognition or language or perspective.

    Are you talking about ontological reference or cognitive-semantic reference? It seems to me that you are talking about the former here.

    I'm talking about both.

    The principle of causality is that every thing is caused by something else. Our experience is exclusively of composite entities, and thus the principle’s applicability hinges upon what we mean by “every thing” and “something else”. If the principle of causality is abstracted from our everyday experience, then it must mean every composite thing is caused by some other composite thing, because that is all we know.

    This is a logical impossibility, and so it must be rejected.

    If the principle ultimately concludes with the necessity of that which is non-composite, then it has left its range of applicability, because that which is non-composite cannot be considered a cause by this principle, which exclusively deals with composite causes and effects. If all causes and effects must be composite, then that which is non-composite cannot be considered a cause at all, and thus cannot be part of the principle of causality at all.

    Just as arche-writing cannot, by logical necessity, be bound by its own rules, so too must the ground of causality escape any notion of "cause" except via the most distant analogy of proportion. Otherwise, onto-theology ensues, etc. We must reject all other options on the grounds that they lead to logical contradictions: the one that leaves us with an epistemological hole is to be preferred.

    But again, this talk about all causes must be superior to their effects must remain within the realm of the principle of causality, which you would have left once you try to talk about that which transcends composition into metaphysical simplicity.

    I never said that causes had to be superior to their effects. I said that effects had to be inferior. God is not superior to anything, except when considered through beings of reason, because superiority requires relation and thus violates divine impassibility. There is a big difference between calling creation inferior and God superior--a difference that Aquinas and the Church Fathers cite regularly.

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  145. You have literally reached a conclusion that contradicts the very meaning of the premises, and thus must be rejected. A non-cause “cause” is still not a cause, and thus not something that is under the purview of the principle of causality.

    Again, the principle of causality must have an ultimate ground. If it didn't, then it would be prior to all things: which would mean that it was self-grounding--a contradiction. Whatever grounds the principle of causality will be beyond its normal rules. There is no special pleading going on here, except perhaps in your assertion that the principle of causality can be self-grounding.

    But proportion also involves partial identity and partial difference. Take the following proportion: 4:2 :: 8:4. You have two proportions being compared, 4:2 and 8:4. You have partial difference, because 4:2 is a different pair of numbers than 8:4. But you also have partial identity, because the relation or proportion between the pair of numbers is the same, i.e. the first number is double what the second number is.

    There are two kinds of analogy of proportion. This is not the one that applies to God. Aquinas:

    "Proportion is twofold. In one sense it means a certain relation of one quantity to another, according as double, treble and equal are species of proportion. In another sense every relation of one thing to another is called proportion. And in this sense there can be a proportion of the creature to God, inasmuch as it is related to Him as the effect of its cause, and as potentiality to its act".

    But this means that the relation that grounds the proportion between God and creation is ultimately a causal relation, and thus must be governed by the principle of causality. But we have already seen that this way is fraught with difficulties.

    It has no difficulties whatsoever, as long as one acknowledges the limits of metaphysics.

    I never said that there was. My only point was that if you want to think and talk about a res, then that res must be capable of being present in our minds in a particular way, and that is what the modus is. It is the way that a res shows up in our minds to ourselves. If it does not show up in our minds, then we literally cannot think or talk about it.

    A modus is the mode of being in which a res was perceived. Hence, it is the "medicinal health" in Aquinas's example, as opposed to the "animal health". The res is "health"; the modus is the way that it appears in and is determined by beings. When the mind perceives "medicinal health" and "animal health", both the res and the modus can be considered separately.

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  146. This partly makes sense. Since God lacks a modus, i.e. is modeless, then by negating the modus in our mind, we are coming closer to him, in some sense. The partial identity would have to be modelessness in our conception of God and of God’s conception of himself via the divine intellect. In other words, there is simply God, and no mode.

    Neither res nor modus applies to God absolutely. Even we can create a name without a mode of being: HE WHO IS, about which Aquinas writes, "Now by any other name some mode of substance is determined, whereas this name HE WHO IS, determines no mode of being, but is indeterminate to all". But HE WHO IS is not the same name by which we would know God if we could see his essence, since the res signifies God in himself by way of the analogy of proportion, which is to say "literally" but not "absolutely".

    As I said, all are highly problematic. (1) would not refer directly to God at all, because a composite modus can only refer to a composite res, and God is not a composite res.

    God is not a res at all. He is the principle of created res, which we know by way of the analogy of proportion. This is what Aquinas means when he says that God is signified by the res. To say that God was a res absolutely, with only a difference in modus, would be to say that God and creation shared being via univocal predication. Cajetan strikes again.

    I mean, you can certainly disagree with their interpretation of “patristic ideas” within Aquinas’ thought, but to say unequivocally – in some cases without even reading the books in question – that those authors completely ignore “patristic ideas” altogether is to criticize a caricature of their positions rather than their positions themselves.

    I missed your comment about Rocca, and I didn't know that about Wippel; I guess they're more connected than I thought. This does not mean, though, that they understood the patristic tradition--as their analysis of Aquinas clearly demonstrates.

    Just one more thing about Caputo. I already explained to you before that Caputo's critique of Aquinas was not that he was trapped in onto-theology. He explicitly states on a number of occasions that he is not.

    "It is no wonder that Eckhart answered his accusers in the Inquisition by saying that he said no more than is taught in the Summa of Brother Thomas. And indeed this is what is said in Thomas if not by Thomas, now stripped of its onto-theo-logical encasement, pushed to mystical conclusion and now recast, not in the terms of Scholastic objectivism, but in terms of a living alethiology." (p. 279)

    This is all I was referring to. I remember our long exchanges about Caputo, so there's no reason to delve back into them.

    Personally, I think that Heidegger's conception of the metaphysics of presence is based upon his idiosyncratic reading of the history of Western metaphysics and the transition from an openness to the coming and going of Being in beings to the hardening of the presence into something rigidly and permanently present. Certainly, this is a possibility, but I don't think the case has been made that it is the truth.

    Of course, I would agree with you on this count. Heidegger wrapped up Western metaphysics in a metanarrative of his own creation, excluding or misinterpreting everything (particularly late Neo-Platonism and early/medieval Christian ontology) that did not fit into it.

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  147. Jack:

    Understand that for Aquinas the principle of causality finds its formula as a function of being. "Every contingent being, even if it exists without beginning, needs an efficient cause and, in last analysis, an uncreated cause." Being is abstracted from the multitude of existing things in reality. Being may be further divided into composite being and simple being, and causes are beings upon which effects (other beings) depend for their existences. None of that means the principle of causality applies only to composite entities.

    Where does the principle of causality come from, if not as an induction or abstraction from empirical phenomena?

    You seem to know the meaning of composition. . Simplicity is a perfection which makes a being identical with everything that constitutes it; a positive perfection, but conceived of in a negative way by the exclusion of all composition. I’m talking about metaphysically simple being. This really causes your mind to shut down?

    Yes, because my mind is a composite entity, and all my thoughts are composite entities, and no composite entity can adequately represent a simple entity, because it would have to be that simple entity itself.

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  148. rnal bleeding can occur in the eye (orbital bleeding). And while it may lead to a loss of vision, it won't lead to death. So, you are saying that despite the fact that orbital bleeding which occurs inside the body (the eye in this case) and is not visible outside the body, i.e., despite the fact that orbital bleeding is internal bleeding, orbital bleeding is not internal bleeding.


    >> A not insignificant part of Scotus' case involves defining
    >> 'being' as "opposed to nothingness". This definition of
    >> 'being', however, does not include anything which might be
    >> caused by 'being'. In light of the principle, then, either
    >> Scotus' definition implies that 'being' isn't causative of
    >> anything, or what Scotus defined as "opposed to
    >> nothingness" is something other than 'being'.

    > That's not true.

    Not true?

    If 'being' is defined as "opposed to nothingness", how does the definition "opposed to nothingness" include what 'being' does or might cause?

    You mentioned earlier the "broader web of meaning". While this has a nice poetical ring to it (and it does), the "broader web of meaning" is not the definition, but a kind of conceptual halo. It is in the "broader web of meaning" or the conceptual halo, rather than in the defintion, that what 'being' does or might cause is included.

    However, it is the defintion, rather than the "broader web of meaning" or conceptual halo, which your principle says must include whatever is caused by 'being'.

    So, again, in light of the principle, either Scotus' definition implies that 'being' isn't causative of anything, or what Scotus defined as "opposed to nothingness" is something other than 'being'.


    > The problem that I see with the doctrine of analogy is that it
    > recognizes this key Scotist principle, but tries to reject its
    > implications. It knows that it needs this isomorphism to
    > ground any kind of relationship between ipsum esse
    > subsistens and entia participatum, but also recognizes that
    > this isomorphism will compromise the divine transcendence
    > of ipsum esse subsistens by putting ipsum esse subsistens
    > on the same horizon as entia participatum, which is
    > intolerable. And so it is stuck in an aporia in which what is
    > necessary is simultaneously impossible.

    Jack has already addressed the isomorphism angle, so I'll just ask what you might make of this:

    o ...I concede that being is not said univocally of all things, even though it is not said equivocally either, because something is said equivocally when those things of which it is asserted are not attributed to one another. But when such an attribution exists, then something is said analogously. Since it does not have one concept, therefore it signifies all things essentially according to their proper meaning and simply equivocally according to the logician. But because those things it signifies are attributed essentially among themselves, it follows that it is attributed analogically according to the metaphysician, who deals with reality. -- Duns Scotus

    (See the top of page 23 in Giorgio Pini's Univocity in Scotus's Quaestiones super Metaphysicam: The Solution to a Riddle.)

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  149. In terms of the principle of causality.

    If we have a universe that always existed we would still need something outside it to cause it to exist from all eternity and keep it going given it's tendency to be merely a set of things that go from potency to actuality.

    Causing it to exist here and now to have the being it has would be a type of causality that doesn't involve potency becoming actual.

    In a similar sense creation ex nilo can't be potency to actuality sense from nothing, nothing comes.

    Creation is a radical causing of being not changing "nothing" into something as if nothing where a thing with the potential to become something.

    Hey we aren't Lawrence Krauss here & or someone else who doesn't have even one tenth dguller's knowledge of Thomism or worst even mine.

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  150. I somehow left out part of the beginning; here it is in is entirety:

    dguller,

    > Internal bleeding that could not possibly cause death
    > is not internal bleeding.

    Internal bleeding can occur in the eye (orbital bleeding). And while it may lead to a loss of vision, it won't lead to death. So, you are saying that despite the fact that orbital bleeding which occurs inside the body (the eye in this case) and is not visible outside the body, i.e., despite the fact that orbital bleeding is internal bleeding, orbital bleeding is not internal bleeding.

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  151. dguller, you wrote:
    “. If the principle of causality is abstracted from our experience, and our experience is exclusively of composite entities, then the principle must also exclusively apply to composite entities, and thus should be formulated as every composite thing is caused by some other composite thing.” (emphasis yours)

    No. Abstraction takes us from the concrete facts of our direct experience to general knowledge. From direct experience of composite, contingent being we abstract to being in general. From dguller and BenYachov and Rank Sophist and Glenn we may abstract to “rational animal,” (or even "being") not only to “American male above the age of the age of consent” (assuming plenty about all of you, apologies!)

    “Where does the principle of causality come from, if not as an induction or abstraction from empirical phenomena?”

    All concepts in the intellect, be they infinity or metaphysical simplicity, are mental abstractions. “Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius in sensu” and all that. So what’s so special about composition that it can’t be abstracted away from empirical data or intermediate notions?

    “Yes, because my mind is a composite entity, and all my thoughts are composite entities, and no composite entity can adequately represent a simple entity, because it would have to be that simple entity itself.”

    Your mind, too, is a finite entity, and all your thoughts are finite entities, so I guess that no finite entity can adequately represent an infinite entity, because it would have to be that infinite entity itself? Sorry, no sale. You yourself said, “I think that the mind can understand infinity just fine.” Again, what’s so special about composition? And define “adequately” because it reads a lot as though you mean “perfectly.”

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  152. ...I guess that no finite entity can adequately represent an infinite entity, because it would have to be that infinite entity itself? Sorry, no sale.

    All 8s have fainted with relief.

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  153. (I agree--that was rather dumb.)

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  154. Glenn

    That made me laugh aloud (when I finally got it)

    I wish it could be the last word!

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  155. Here's a 'cousin': Even an eight can feint.

    I wish it could be the last word!

    If only...

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  156. Rank:

    As far as I can tell, this interpretation is completely wrong. I'm fairly certain that the res is "health" in the medicine/animal example, while the modus is its varying appearance in those entities. The modus has nothing to do with our cognition or language or perspective.

    But those varying appearances must appear to something and as something, which must mean to present themselves to a mind can perceive and understand them as a particular appearance. There is no appearance to a stone, after all. So, the modus is how the res presents itself to a mind.

    This is a logical impossibility, and so it must be rejected.

    No, it leads to an infinite regress, which you already accepted as valid in some cases.

    Just as arche-writing cannot, by logical necessity, be bound by its own rules, so too must the ground of causality escape any notion of "cause" except via the most distant analogy of proportion.

    But I showed how even the analogy of proportion is one of partial identity and partial difference, which you claim is impossible, and thus it does not help here.

    Otherwise, onto-theology ensues, etc. We must reject all other options on the grounds that they lead to logical contradictions: the one that leaves us with an epistemological hole is to be preferred.

    Why isn’t agnosticism an option? Saying that we actually do not know what is going on, because logic is tying us up in knots?

    I never said that causes had to be superior to their effects. I said that effects had to be inferior. God is not superior to anything, except when considered through beings of reason, because superiority requires relation and thus violates divine impassibility. There is a big difference between calling creation inferior and God superior--a difference that Aquinas and the Church Fathers cite regularly.

    I understand that they cite it, but it still doesn’t make any sense. Superior-inferior is a dyadic and dialectical relationship such that the former implies the latter, and vice versa. It would be like saying that X is taller than Y, but Y is not shorter than X. The latter is implied by the former. I would chalk this up to yet another contradiction, because if God cannot be superior to creation, then creation cannot be inferior to God.

    Again, the principle of causality must have an ultimate ground. If it didn't, then it would be prior to all things: which would mean that it was self-grounding--a contradiction. Whatever grounds the principle of causality will be beyond its normal rules. There is no special pleading going on here, except perhaps in your assertion that the principle of causality can be self-grounding.

    But what major premise are you basing your argument upon? From what I can tell, your argument utilizes the principle of causality in your reasoning about what transcends the principle of causality, which is an illicit move. If the ultimate ground operates according to different rules, then that’s fine, but how do you reach the ultimate ground without using the principle of causality?

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  157. "Proportion is twofold. In one sense it means a certain relation of one quantity to another, according as double, treble and equal are species of proportion. In another sense every relation of one thing to another is called proportion. And in this sense there can be a proportion of the creature to God, inasmuch as it is related to Him as the effect of its cause, and as potentiality to its act".

    I’ve read that quote, and it doesn’t help your case. The proportion is between:

    God:creation :: cause:effect :: act:potency

    Sure, this is not a quantitative proportion, but there must be a partial identity between these three proportions that is common to all of them, or else they have nothing in common with each other.

    So, when you have the following: A:B :: C:D :: E:F, then you have the following relations:

    (1) A:B
    (2) C:D
    (3) E:F

    I would elaborate upon those relationships with the following:

    (1*) A:B with respect to relation R
    (2*) C:D with respect to relation R
    (3*) E:F with respect to relation R

    If it wasn’t for the common R between (1), (2) and (3), there could be no proportion at all. And again, you have partial identity (i.e. R) and partial difference (i.e. A:B, C:D, E:F).

    It has no difficulties whatsoever, as long as one acknowledges the limits of metaphysics.

    The difficulty is to explain how one can transcend metaphysics. If our very thought and language is within the boundaries of metaphysics, then how can we think or talk about what is beyond metaphysics? There is still no answer to this question.

    A modus is the mode of being in which a res was perceived. Hence, it is the "medicinal health" in Aquinas's example, as opposed to the "animal health". The res is "health"; the modus is the way that it appears in and is determined by beings. When the mind perceives "medicinal health" and "animal health", both the res and the modus can be considered separately.

    None of this changes my point.

    God is not a res at all. He is the principle of created res, which we know by way of the analogy of proportion. This is what Aquinas means when he says that God is signified by the res. To say that God was a res absolutely, with only a difference in modus, would be to say that God and creation shared being via univocal predication. Cajetan strikes again.

    You are taking my terms too literally. I meant the referent, the thing (or “thing”) signified by the term in question. If you want to say that the divine names have neither a modus significandi nor a res significata, then by Aquinas’ own philosophy of language, the divine names are meaningless.

    And anyway, you still haven’t undermined my argument that there is no way, under Aquinas’ theory of mind and language, for the divine names to possibly refer to God.

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  158. Glenn:

    rnal bleeding can occur in the eye (orbital bleeding). And while it may lead to a loss of vision, it won't lead to death. So, you are saying that despite the fact that orbital bleeding which occurs inside the body (the eye in this case) and is not visible outside the body, i.e., despite the fact that orbital bleeding is internal bleeding, orbital bleeding is not internal bleeding.

    We can keep shifting the goal posts if you want, but I don’t think that it is productive. Remember my principle:

    “You have X, and you have Y. Y is a cause of X, and so the definition of Y must include X, because otherwise Y would not be Y, but something else.”

    If internal bleeding of the eye cannot cause death, then “cause of death” will not be a part of the definition of “internal bleeding of the eye”. Now, if you are talking about internal bleeding of the abdomen, then it certainly can cause death, and so the possibility of causing death would be part of the meaning of “internal bleeding of the abdomen”.

    I don’t think this is so controversial. Obviously, if Y is not a cause of X, then the definition of Y will not include X.

    If 'being' is defined as "opposed to nothingness", how does the definition "opposed to nothingness" include what 'being' does or might cause?

    Why wouldn’t it?

    You mentioned earlier the "broader web of meaning". While this has a nice poetical ring to it (and it does), the "broader web of meaning" is not the definition, but a kind of conceptual halo. It is in the "broader web of meaning" or the conceptual halo, rather than in the defintion, that what 'being' does or might cause is included.

    Why wouldn’t it be part of being, especially if being is essentially actualitas, especially since ipsum esse subsistens, the source of all being, is pure actuality?

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  159. Jack:

    No. Abstraction takes us from the concrete facts of our direct experience to general knowledge. From direct experience of composite, contingent being we abstract to being in general.

    First, the principle of causality is general knowledge, i.e. universal in its scope rather than particular in its instantiation.

    Second, the most that we could abstract from contingent being is esse commune, which is just a product of reason, and not anything real.

    All concepts in the intellect, be they infinity or metaphysical simplicity, are mental abstractions. “Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius in sensu” and all that. So what’s so special about composition that it can’t be abstracted away from empirical data or intermediate notions?

    Because to conceive of a metaphysically simple being, that very metaphysically simple being itself would have to be present in our minds. Remember that a simple being would have to be ipsum esse subsistens in which its essence is identical to its esse, and thus to hold its abstracted essence in mind would be to hold its esse in mind, as well. I think that you will agree that this is impossible, and so we cannot think about a metaphysically simple being in our minds.

    Your mind, too, is a finite entity, and all your thoughts are finite entities, so I guess that no finite entity can adequately represent an infinite entity, because it would have to be that infinite entity itself?

    Who says that my mind is finite? My mind has an intellect, which is capable of infinite reception of forms, and furthermore, my intellect, according to Thomism, is immortal, and thus will exist forever.

    Sorry, no sale. You yourself said, “I think that the mind can understand infinity just fine.” Again, what’s so special about composition?

    I already explained it above. To think about a simple entity would be to have God himself in your intellect, because the only simple entity is God, and to think God’s essence would be to receive God himself into your intellect, which is impossible.

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  160. >Who says that my mind is finite? My mind has an intellect, which is capable of infinite reception of forms, and furthermore, my intellect, according to Thomism, is immortal, and thus will exist forever.

    Here you are equivocating between an actual infinity vs a potential one.

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  161. Rank,

    Heidegger wrapped up Western metaphysics in a metanarrative of his own creation, excluding or misinterpreting everything (particularly late Neo-Platonism and early/medieval Christian ontology) that did not fit into it.

    But isn't that what everyone (especially the post-modernists) try to do? Like nietzsche with the will to power, Derrida with difference, and so on?

    I wonder if all these meta narratives were mere attempts at emulating Hegel?

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  162. But those varying appearances must appear to something and as something, which must mean to present themselves to a mind can perceive and understand them as a particular appearance. There is no appearance to a stone, after all. So, the modus is how the res presents itself to a mind.

    According to you, I guess it's impossible to abstract universal concepts from singulars. I suppose esse commune doesn't exist, then--let alone intelligible species.

    No, it leads to an infinite regress, which you already accepted as valid in some cases.

    It leads to a vicious regress, because it is ontological rather than linguistic. The Third Way conclusively disproves any possibility of contingent beings grounding contingent beings forever. Also, even Derrida's linguistic regress has an ultimate ground.

    But I showed how even the analogy of proportion is one of partial identity and partial difference, which you claim is impossible, and thus it does not help here.

    The analogy of proportion, as Aquinas uses it, is that one thing is inferior to another. That's it. It has nothing to do with partial identity on both sides, which would be a double-grounding in any case and so would lead to a contradiction.

    Why isn’t agnosticism an option? Saying that we actually do not know what is going on, because logic is tying us up in knots?

    The Five Ways make agnosticism impossible, because they show the contradictions and vicious regresses that occur when you disagree with the notion that creation is grounded in non-creation.

    I understand that they cite it, but it still doesn’t make any sense. Superior-inferior is a dyadic and dialectical relationship such that the former implies the latter, and vice versa. It would be like saying that X is taller than Y, but Y is not shorter than X. The latter is implied by the former. I would chalk this up to yet another contradiction, because if God cannot be superior to creation, then creation cannot be inferior to God.

    If everything was reducible to dialectical oppositions, then you would be allowing metaphysics to eat both ontology and its ground. This is, again, just another manifestation of the Greek and Roman onto-theology that Christianity escaped, but which modern thinkers revived. How can you justify this move? All you keep saying is, "It has to be this way, because this is the way it is!" That isn't an argument. On the other hand, I have explained why this type of onto-theology is incoherent: it is either A) self-grounding or B) grounded in something else. So, your argument is a flat assertion, while mine shows the necessity of your assertion being false. I don't see how your argument could come out on top in this situation.

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  163. But what major premise are you basing your argument upon? From what I can tell, your argument utilizes the principle of causality in your reasoning about what transcends the principle of causality, which is an illicit move. If the ultimate ground operates according to different rules, then that’s fine, but how do you reach the ultimate ground without using the principle of causality?

    By looking at the effects. We know that creation is contingent, imperfect and impermanent. All options that ground creation in yet more creation end in contradiction or vicious regress. Hence, creation must spring from something that is not creation--something that is not subject to the principle of causality or to dialectics. Further, any deity or absolute concept that we cite as the ground of being cannot fall into a double-grounding; or else it is reduced to just another being that must itself be grounded by a third entity. Hence, you can't jump from positing a vicious regress of creation to settling for some Scotist univocal god or dialectical Unmoved Mover, since all of these options have the same core flaws.

    I’ve read that quote, and it doesn’t help your case. The proportion is between:

    God:creation :: cause:effect :: act:potency

    Sure, this is not a quantitative proportion, but there must be a partial identity between these three proportions that is common to all of them, or else they have nothing in common with each other.


    If something is caused, then it is inferior to its cause. If something is inferior to something else, then it may be said to be like it, insofar as it fails to meet some kind of standard. This is the core of Aquinas's doctrine of analogy, on which every other element is based. And before you jump on me for referring to God as a "cause", please remember that this is shorthand that can be cashed out in the proper apophatic/analogous terms whenever necessary.

    If it wasn’t for the common R between (1), (2) and (3), there could be no proportion at all. And again, you have partial identity (i.e. R) and partial difference (i.e. A:B, C:D, E:F).

    That's fine and dandy if you're dealing with ontico-ontological phenomena, but it doesn't work when you're trying to discuss their ground. What you're talking about is an illicit double-grounding, plain and simple. Further, there can be a proportion of entity X to entity Y even if there is no converse proportion of Y to X. All that's necessary is that X fails to meet a certain standard represented by Y. It isn't fitting that Y, as the standard, should have to stand in proportion to the very things that try to reach it. Now, in most cases, both X and the standard Y would be encompassed by some third entity Z, which grounded both. But if Y is the ground of all things, and X is creation, then there cannot be a Z under which both Y and X fall. It's that simple.

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  164. The difficulty is to explain how one can transcend metaphysics. If our very thought and language is within the boundaries of metaphysics, then how can we think or talk about what is beyond metaphysics? There is still no answer to this question.

    We neither think nor talk about what is beyond metaphysics, except through analogies based on those entities that fall under metaphysics. These analogies, based as they are solely on proportion, make no claims at the supra-metaphysical nature of God. They only tell us that we are infinitely inferior to God in kind, which indirectly makes God the exemplar of all of creation's best traits.

    None of this changes my point.

    Well, for starters, it completely undermines your earlier case that some res X appears in both God and creation by different modes. If you had been correct on this count, then it would indeed follow that God is a univocal being--so it's a pretty big deal that you've abandoned this claim. Moreover, the partial similarity/partial difference equation that you've constructed to replace it is fairly flimsy by comparison, given that it, unlike your last one, rests not on a beefy amount of logical analysis and high-quality scholarship but on a bald assertion that leads to a double-grounding.

    You are taking my terms too literally. I meant the referent, the thing (or “thing”) signified by the term in question. If you want to say that the divine names have neither a modus significandi nor a res significata, then by Aquinas’ own philosophy of language, the divine names are meaningless.

    And anyway, you still haven’t undermined my argument that there is no way, under Aquinas’ theory of mind and language, for the divine names to possibly refer to God.


    The divine names are based on created res, which, by its analogy of proportion with God, may be applied to him as an infinitely distant affirmation. Because any res considered in itself has God as its primary referent (ST Ia q13 a3), since it automatically points toward its standard and exemplar, it is possible to affirm these of God. Whatever universal res ("good", "being", etc.) we apply to God will always already signify God, just as it does in non-mental creation, even when we do not have God's essence in our minds to signify him in the standard way. As for the name "God" itself, it follows the same rules as our affirmations of God--only, as Aquinas holds, it is based on God's providence via the final cause, rather than on a res. (I personally would argue that the name "God" signifies more attributes than just his providence, but that's neither here nor there for the present discussion.)

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  165. But isn't that what everyone (especially the post-modernists) try to do? Like nietzsche with the will to power, Derrida with difference, and so on?

    I wonder if all these meta narratives were mere attempts at emulating Hegel?


    It is true, to a large extent. Heidegger did it a bit differently than Nietzsche or Derrida, though, since he didn't try to show how all of metaphysics fell into his system: he just rejected it outright, using a metanarrative to generalize the history of metaphysics as a history of missing the point.

    As for this tendency in general, I'm not sure where it comes from. My personal guess would be Kant, since he, unlike many of his predecessors, attempted to totalize reality in one all-encompassing metaphysics. I'm not sure one could say the same even about Descartes.

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  166. dguller,

    >> Interrnal bleeding can occur in the eye (orbital bleeding).
    >> And while it may lead to a loss of vision, it won't lead to
    >> death. So, you are saying that despite the fact that orbital
    >> bleeding which occurs inside the body (the eye in this case)
    >> and is not visible outside the body, i.e., despite the fact that
    >> orbital bleeding is internal bleeding, orbital bleeding is not
    >> internal bleeding.

    > We can keep shifting the goal posts if you want, but I don't
    > think that it is productive. Remember my principle:

    > "You have X, and you have Y. Y is a cause of X, and so the
    > definition of Y must include X, because otherwise Y would
    > not be Y, but something else."

    > If internal bleeding of the eye cannot cause death, then
    > "cause of death" will not be a part of the definition of "internal
    > bleeding of the eye". Now, if you are talking about internal
    > bleeding of the abdomen, then it certainly can cause death,
    > and so the possibility of causing death would be part of the
    > meaning of "internal bleeding of the abdomen".

    > I don't think this is so controversial. Obviously, if Y is not a
    > cause of X, then the definition of Y will not include X.

    Some people might take the view that there is, in fact, something quite controversial going on, even if that quite controversial something is not immediately obvious:

    1. There is "internal bleeding", "internal bleeding of the abdomen" and "internal bleeding of the eye."

    2. "Internal bleeding" was defined as "bleeding which occurs inside the body and is not seen from outside the body."

    3. "Internal bleeding of the abdomen" causes death, so "causes death" must be part of the definition of "internal bleeding of the abdomen".

    4. "Internal bleeding of the eye" does not cause death, so "causes death" is not part of the definition of "internal bleeding of the eye".

    5. Though "internal bleeding of the abdomen" and "internal bleeding of the eye" are different things (e.g., the former causes death, whereas the latter does not), both "internal bleeding of the abdomen" and "internal bleeding of the eye" qualify as "internal bleeding" as defined under 2. above.

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  167. The fifth item might be clearer if wordsmithed to read as follows:

    5. It would seem that "internal bleeding of the abdomen" and "internal bleeding of the eye" are different things (e.g., the former causes death while the latter does not); yet both "internal bleeding of the abdomen" and "internal bleeding of the eye" satisfy the defintion of "internal bleeding" as given in 2. above.

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  168. Rank:

    According to you, I guess it's impossible to abstract universal concepts from singulars. I suppose esse commune doesn't exist, then--let alone intelligible species.

    Of course not. My point is that in order to think or talk about something (res), it must be presentable to the human mind, and the modus significandi is how it is presentable to the human mind.

    It leads to a vicious regress, because it is ontological rather than linguistic. The Third Way conclusively disproves any possibility of contingent beings grounding contingent beings forever. Also, even Derrida's linguistic regress has an ultimate ground.

    Why is an ontological infinite regress a problem, but a linguistic infinite regress not big deal? I mean, to talk about X, one’s linguistics would have to be able to reach X via the meaning of the words one uses. If X is infinitely separated from the meaning of the words we use to talk about X, then our words never reach X at all, and thus cannot be about X. It seems to me that both presuppose that the series in question must stop somewhere, and the fact that they do not is the problem.

    The analogy of proportion, as Aquinas uses it, is that one thing is inferior to another. That's it. It has nothing to do with partial identity on both sides, which would be a double-grounding in any case and so would lead to a contradiction.

    First, why wouldn’t “inferiority” be the partial identity, and the way the analogates are inferior to one another be the partial difference? After all, all the compared proportions involve the inferiority relation, and so this particular relation would have to be common to all of them. It would have to be the R in my (1*) to (3*) above.

    Second, you still haven’t explained how inferiority does not imply superiority. Again, saying that X is inferior to Y, but Y is not superior to X makes as much sense as saying that X is smaller than Y, but Y is not larger than X.

    The Five Ways make agnosticism impossible, because they show the contradictions and vicious regresses that occur when you disagree with the notion that creation is grounded in non-creation.

    Except that the Five Ways violate their own premises, and so don’t really show anything, except that our thought reaches a limit beyond which nothing makes sense.

    If everything was reducible to dialectical oppositions, then you would be allowing metaphysics to eat both ontology and its ground. This is, again, just another manifestation of the Greek and Roman onto-theology that Christianity escaped, but which modern thinkers revived.

    No, it just puts a limitation to our thought and language, beyond which is incoherence and meaninglessness.

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  169. How can you justify this move? All you keep saying is, "It has to be this way, because this is the way it is!" That isn't an argument.

    I really don’t know what to say if you really believe that intrinsically relational concepts do not mutually imply one another. Inside-outside, up-down, tall-short, superior-inferior, big-small, etc. One term is defined by the negation of the other.

    On the other hand, I have explained why this type of onto-theology is incoherent: it is either A) self-grounding or B) grounded in something else. So, your argument is a flat assertion, while mine shows the necessity of your assertion being false. I don't see how your argument could come out on top in this situation.

    Both (A) and (B) are horribly flawed, yes. (A) is flawed, because a thing would have to exist before it could actualize its own existence. (B) is flawed, because you have to account for what “grounded” means without making reference to causality.

    By looking at the effects. We know that creation is contingent, imperfect and impermanent. All options that ground creation in yet more creation end in contradiction or vicious regress. Hence, creation must spring from something that is not creation--something that is not subject to the principle of causality or to dialectics.

    Again, what do you mean “spring from” without involving the principle of causality? I think you keep helping yourself to what you have prohibited yourself from using.

    Further, any deity or absolute concept that we cite as the ground of being cannot fall into a double-grounding; or else it is reduced to just another being that must itself be grounded by a third entity. Hence, you can't jump from positing a vicious regress of creation to settling for some Scotist univocal god or dialectical Unmoved Mover, since all of these options have the same core flaws.

    All the options have grave flaws. That’s the point. Picking the one with the least grave flaws is not much of an improvement. Better to just admit that we are lost here.

    If something is caused, then it is inferior to its cause. If something is inferior to something else, then it may be said to be like it, insofar as it fails to meet some kind of standard. This is the core of Aquinas's doctrine of analogy, on which every other element is based.

    Then the standard is what is partially identical, and what is partially different is how well the analogates measure up to the standard, as well as how the standard exists within the analogates.

    That's fine and dandy if you're dealing with ontico-ontological phenomena, but it doesn't work when you're trying to discuss their ground. What you're talking about is an illicit double-grounding, plain and simple.

    And what you’re trying to do is use a similarity relationship that necessarily involves a partial identity of some sort, and yet deny that there is any partial identity at all, which completely undermines the similarity relationship. I consider that just as illicit.

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  170. Further, there can be a proportion of entity X to entity Y even if there is no converse proportion of Y to X. All that's necessary is that X fails to meet a certain standard represented by Y. It isn't fitting that Y, as the standard, should have to stand in proportion to the very things that try to reach it.

    Of course it does. It stands as the perfect exemplar of the standard whereas the other things trying to reach it are imperfect exemplars of the standard. The fact that it is perfect is why the other things are measured according to it. A perfect X and an imperfect X are still both X, albeit in different modes of being.

    Now, in most cases, both X and the standard Y would be encompassed by some third entity Z, which grounded both. But if Y is the ground of all things, and X is creation, then there cannot be a Z under which both Y and X fall. It's that simple.

    I’m not saying that they have to.

    We neither think nor talk about what is beyond metaphysics, except through analogies based on those entities that fall under metaphysics. These analogies, based as they are solely on proportion, make no claims at the supra-metaphysical nature of God. They only tell us that we are infinitely inferior to God in kind, which indirectly makes God the exemplar of all of creation's best traits.

    First, to make an analogy between metaphysics and supra-metaphysics is to presuppose some commonality between them, even if it is just a proportional relationship. I’m sorry, but there’s just no escaping this necessity. Even Aquinas says that “proportion comes to signify a ‘relation of order’ (SS 3.1.1.1 ad3) or any relation of one thing to another” (Rocca, p. 104)

    Second, you still haven’t explained how it makes any sense to say that X is inferior to Y, but Y is not superior to X. If you want to say that Y is beyond the superiority-inferiority dialectic, then Y also cannot have anything inferior to it, because inferiority is also part of the same dialectic that you claim does not apply to Y.

    Well, for starters, it completely undermines your earlier case that some res X appears in both God and creation by different modes.

    What I meant was that you said that “A modus is the mode of being in which a res was perceived”, I took this to agree with my point that a res must be perceived by a mind according to particular mode. And a res would appear differently in the divine intellect versus a human intellect. In the former it would exist in a single act of simple intuition whereas in the latter it would exist as part of a sequential and ratiocinative composite understanding.

    If you had been correct on this count, then it would indeed follow that God is a univocal being--so it's a pretty big deal that you've abandoned this claim.

    Good thing I never abandoned it.

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  171. Moreover, the partial similarity/partial difference equation that you've constructed to replace it is fairly flimsy by comparison, given that it, unlike your last one, rests not on a beefy amount of logical analysis and high-quality scholarship but on a bald assertion that leads to a double-grounding.

    I could cite Thomists to support this interpretation (e.g. Wippel, pp. 81-2) but I suppose you would just say that they are ignorant of patristic tradition. Fortunately, Aquinas also uses this formulation:

    “And sometimes it is predicated of them according to meanings which are partly different and partly not (different inasmuch as they imply different relationships, and the same inasmuch as these different relationships are referred to one and the same thing), and then it is said “to be predicated analogously,” i.e., proportionally, according as each one by its own relationship is referred to that one same thing.” (Metaphysics IV.1)

    “But in the case of those things which are spoken of in the way mentioned previously, the same term is predicated of various things with a meaning that is partly the same and partly different—different regarding the different modes of relation, and the same regarding that to which it is related; for to be a sign of something and to be a cause of something are different, but health is one.” (Metaphysics XI.3)

    The divine names are based on created res, which, by its analogy of proportion with God, may be applied to him as an infinitely distant affirmation. Because any res considered in itself has God as its primary referent (ST Ia q13 a3), since it automatically points toward its standard and exemplar, it is possible to affirm these of God. Whatever universal res ("good", "being", etc.) we apply to God will always already signify God, just as it does in non-mental creation, even when we do not have God's essence in our minds to signify him in the standard way. As for the name "God" itself, it follows the same rules as our affirmations of God--only, as Aquinas holds, it is based on God's providence via the final cause, rather than on a res. (I personally would argue that the name "God" signifies more attributes than just his providence, but that's neither here nor there for the present discussion.)

    Now translate the above in the language of modus significandi and res significata, which is the language of Aquinas’ theory of thought and language, and we’ll be good.

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  172. Rank:

    And a bit more about the modus/res distinction.

    The modus significandi is the way a thing is signified to the human mind, and it is different from the thing signified (i.e. res significata), which exists in its own mode of being. Of course, the two are related in a deep way, because a thing would not present itself to the human mind in a particular way if it did not already exist in the world in a particular way. However, there remains a difference between how a thing exists in the world and how a thing presents itself to the human mind, because the thing would exist in its particular mode of being even if no human mind ever encountered it, and thus the dependency is between the mode of signification upon the mode of being of the thing signified, and not vice versa.

    If this is correct, then the only way for the human mind to refer to a thing is through the modus significandi, and if it cannot reach the res significata through a modus significandi, then the res significata is altogether invisible to the human mind. Aquinas endorses this idea when he writes that “a name signifies the conception of the intellect before it signifies the thing itself understood by the intellect” (SCG 1.35). This indicates priority of knowledge, and not priority of ontology. A thing must first exist before it is known and talked about, but it must first be known by the human mind in a modus significandi in order to be talked about. It is this middle step that I believe is highly problematic.

    If this is correct, then my previous argument remains valid. If it is true that any modus significandi that we have in our minds to refer to a res significata is necessarily composite, and since a composite modus significandi can only refer to a composite res significata – because a
    simple modus significandi in the would be God himself in the intellect – then no human modus significandi can possibly refer to a simple res significata. And that only leaves the option of negating the composite modus significandi as unworthy of the eminence of the res significata. However, negating the composite modus significandi has only three logical possibilities:

    (1) there is a different composite modus



    (2) there is a simple modus



    (3) there is no modus at all 





    All are highly problematic. (1) would not refer directly to God at all, because a composite modus can only refer to a composite res, and God is not a composite res. (2) is just impossible, because we cannot have a simple modus in our minds at all, which would be the equivalent of having God himself in our intellect. And (3) means that you have no referent at all, because to refer to a res necessarily requires a modus in order for that res to show up in our minds at all. Thus, the mind would literally be empty, and an empty mind cannot refer to anything. 



    Furthermore, even if (3) were possible, there would have to be a way to distinguish between (a) there being a res that cannot have a modus in mind (for whatever reason), and (b) there being no res at all, i.e. pure nothingness itself, which also cannot have a modus in mind, because there is no res to present itself to the mind. (This comes down to the distinction mentioned earlier between being in darkness due to too much light versus too little light.) But to make a distinction between (a) and (b) would demand that there be something in mind that must represent the difference between (a) and (b), and that could only be another modus significandi, which would have to be composite, and so the problems of (1) reappear.


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  173. So, there still does not seem to be any way for us to think or talk about that which transcends ontology, given Aquinas’ own philosophy of mind and language. Analogy of proportion does not help, because there must be a common relation shared by the analogates, which would compromise God’s transcendence, denying any commonality whatsoever between God and creation, because if there was a commonality between them, then they would be different in degree, and not in kind. Now, that does not mean that there is no possible way out of this aporia, but some part of Aquinas’ system would have to be jettisoned in order to make this happen. If his philosophy of mind and language is true, then we cannot think or talk about that which transcends ontology. So, if you want to think or talk about that which transcends ontology, then you must reject his philosophy of mind and language. Certainly, you can keep other parts of Thomism in your own system, but you cannot keep all of them without inconsistency.

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  174. Glenn:

    5. It would seem that "internal bleeding of the abdomen" and "internal bleeding of the eye" are different things (e.g., the former causes death while the latter does not); yet both "internal bleeding of the abdomen" and "internal bleeding of the eye" satisfy the defintion of "internal bleeding" as given in 2. above.

    I would say that they are similar and not different. They are both forms of internal bleeding, but they differ in terms of where in the body the bleeding is occurring, as well as in the consequences of that bleeding.

    And what follows from this that is devastating to my account of similarity and analogy? I really don’t know.

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  175. Ben:

    Here you are equivocating between an actual infinity vs a potential one.

    That’s not relevant. An actual X and a potential X are both kinds of X. So, whether an infinity is actual or potential makes no difference to the definition of infinity, much like whether a dog is actual or potential makes no difference to the definition of “dog”, which would be the form of dogness.

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  176. Rank:

    Sorry, one more thing. One point that I mentioned earlier that you never responded to that I’d like to bring up again. You claim that one can never make any absolute statements about God, and I think it leads to the following inconsistency:

    (1) There are no absolute statements about God

    (2) (1) is an absolute statement about God

    (3) There is at least one absolute statement about God
    (4) (1) and (3) contradict one another

    If that is correct, then your own system has an inherent contradiction at its heart – one of many, if I am correct – and I’m wondering if this is an instance of a necessary impossibility? I don’t see any way out of this impasse. You either accept a necessary contradiction, or you accept that one can make absolute statements about God. Both are highly problematic.

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  177. dguller

    That’s not relevant. An actual X and a potential X are both kinds of X. So, whether an infinity is actual or potential makes no difference to the definition of infinity, much like whether a dog is actual or potential makes no difference to the definition of “dog”, which would be the form of dogness.

    You are wrong here, and Ben has it right. The potential infinite is the finite conceived as capable of constant increase; the word you're looking for to describe this is: indefinite not infinite.

    Anyway, even if your mind is potentially infinite, your argument seems to need our minds to be limited to understanding (in any way) composite things only.

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  178. dguller

    If that is correct, then your own system has an inherent contradiction at its heart – one of many, if I am correct – and I’m wondering if this is an instance of a necessary impossibility? I don’t see any way out of this impasse. You either accept a necessary contradiction, or you accept that one can make absolute statements about God. Both are highly problematic.

    I believe Rank has already addressed this, but I do look forward to seeing his further reply to you when he has a chance.

    Just wanted to turn your argument back on you - how is it you know that we cannot know anything at all about simple being, when surely that is knowledge about simple being that you are using to argue your point?

    Similarly, as you've been waiting on Rank's reply, I've been waiting for you to distinguish between between adequate and perfect knowledge.

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  179. dguller

    Second, the most that we could abstract from contingent being is esse commune, which is just a product of reason, and not anything real.

    Tell me how you think we reach triangularity, say, from actual triangles which all have accidents of some sort or other, and not one of which is perfect.

    And, secondly, given that now a "product of reason" is not anything real, how does dguller's doctrine of similarity apply to real things?

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  180. Jack:

    Anyway, even if your mind is potentially infinite, your argument seems to need our minds to be limited to understanding (in any way) composite things only.

    Yup. But if infinity is created by God, then infinity is composite, and thus comprehensible.

    Just wanted to turn your argument back on you - how is it you know that we cannot know anything at all about simple being, when surely that is knowledge about simple being that you are using to argue your point?

    Because a simple being would be one without composition, and the only possible simple being is God whose essence is identical to his esse. There is no possible way for God to be received into our intellect, because whenever act is received into potency -- as God would have to be to be received by our potential intellect for us to know him -- then that act is limited by that potency. Since it is impossible for God, being unlimited, to be limited by anything, then it follows that God cannot be limited by our intellect. And if God cannot be limited by our intellect, then God cannot be received by our intellect. And if we cannot know anything that is not received by our intellect, then we cannot know God. And since God is the only simple being, then we cannot know a simple being, according to Thomist principles.

    The more interesting question that how one can account for the above cognitive argument at all, given Thomist principles. After all, if our only way to refer to anything is via a modus significandi, and the only modus significandi that we can have in our mind is a composite modus significandi, then how can a composite modus significandi refer to a simple res significata? I don’t think it is possible, because for a composite modus significandi to be about a simple res significata, then there must be a similarity, or isomorphism, between the two, which means a partial identity and partial difference, as per the doctrine of analogy. However, this is impossible, because a simple res significata has no parts -- because it lacks all composition -- and thus the simple res significata itself must either be fully present in the composite modus significandi or totally absent from the composite modus significandi. If it is fully present, then God himself in his entirety is received into the composite modus significandi, which is impossible, and if it is fully absent, then the modus significandi has nothing in common with the res significata, and thus cannot be about it at all, because all intentionality presupposes an isomorphism between the signifier and the signified.

    Furthermore, as I mentioned above to Rank, even if you say that you can reach the simple res significata by negation of the composite modus significandi, then you are stuck with a trilemma, because there are only three logical possibilities:

    (1) there is a different composite modus





    (2) there is a simple modus





    (3) there is no modus at all 







    All are highly problematic. (1) would not refer directly to God at all, because a composite modus can only refer to a composite res, and God is not a composite res. (2) is just impossible, because we cannot have a simple modus in our minds at all, which would be the equivalent of having God himself in our intellect. And (3) means that you have no referent at all, because to refer to a res necessarily requires a modus in order for that res to show up in our minds at all. Thus, the mind would literally be empty, and an empty mind cannot refer to anything. 





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  181. Furthermore, even if (3) were possible, there would have to be a way to distinguish between (a) there being a res that cannot have a modus in mind (for whatever reason), and (b) there being no res at all, i.e. pure nothingness itself, which also cannot have a modus in mind, because there is no res to present itself to the mind. (This comes down to the distinction mentioned earlier between being in darkness due to too much light versus too little light.) But to make a distinction between (a) and (b) would demand that there be something in mind that must represent the difference between (a) and (b), and that could only be another composite modus significandi, and so the problems of (1) reappear.


    Similarly, as you've been waiting on Rank's reply, I've been waiting for you to distinguish between between adequate and perfect knowledge.

    Why is this distinction important?

    Tell me how you think we reach triangularity, say, from actual triangles which all have accidents of some sort or other, and not one of which is perfect.

    We abstract the form of triangularity that is contained within the actual triangles as the essence part of composite ens, leaving its esse component behind.

    And, secondly, given that now a "product of reason" is not anything real, how does dguller's doctrine of similarity apply to real things?

    You have to keep the different senses of “real” in mind. When I say that esse commune is not real, what I mean is that it is not something with independent existence, like a dog or a cat. Esse commune is the abstraction of the esse component that is an intrinsic principle of any composite entity or ens. Much like the essence that is abstracted by the mind does not exist on its own in a Platonic fashion, the esse commune is also not a free-floating independent entity or any kind. But that does not mean that it does not exist at all. It does exist, but only when the abundant and overflowing esse divinum is limited and constrained by an essence into an ens.

    Does that help?

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  182. Jack:

    Also, I think that the interesting question is whether knowing that you know nothing about X counts as knowledge about X at all. It would be similar to Socrates’ wisdom consisting in his knowledge of his ignorance, I suppose. But I don’t think that’s what most people would consider knowledge about X, because it would follow that we have knowledge about everything, including the things that we know absolutely nothing about, which is kind of absurd. Perhaps it could be considered a kind of second-order knowledge, or meta-knowledge? It’s knowledge about our knowledge, and not about the content of our knowledge itself.

    Any thoughts?

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  183. >There are no absolute statements about God
.

    This is either ambiguous or false.

    God is Supreme. Obviously if anything is equal or greater than God then God would by definition not be God.

    Obviously there are absolute statements about God just no unequivocal comparisons between the Divine Nature and Ours.

    >up. But if infinity is created by God, then infinity is composite, and thus comprehensible.

    This is also ambiguous.

    What "infinity" is being created & in what way?

    If God from all eternity caused the Universe to exist with an infinite past & no formal beginning he could only make the present actual the past would no longer exist & would no longer be actual and the future would be mere potential.

    He couldn't make it all exist at once.


    so your are still equivocating between potential vs actual infinity.

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  184. Ben:

    Obviously there are absolute statements about God just no unequivocal comparisons between the Divine Nature and Ours.

    Tell Rank.

    If God from all eternity caused the Universe to exist with an infinite past & no formal beginning he could only make the present actual the past would no longer exist & would no longer be actual and the future would be mere potential.

    Not from his atemporal and eternal perspective. From that perspective, the universe would be an actual infinity.

    He couldn't make it all exist at once.

    From his atemporal perspective, it does “all exist at once”.

    so your are still equivocating between potential vs actual infinity.

    Nope.

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  185. @dguller
    >Tell Rank.

    I doubt Rank would disagree.

    >Not from his atemporal and eternal perspective. From that perspective, the universe would be an actual infinity.

    Can we "know" God's perspective anymore then we can "know" what it is like to be a bat?

    Anyway it would exist that way virtually in the Divine Intellect but it would only be actual as creation in the present outside the Divine Intellect but of course inside the Divine Conservation.

    The Christian Neo-Platonic concept of the Archatypal ideal might be helpful here.

    >Nope.

    Believe what you like my friend I am not convinced.

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  186. Ben:

    I doubt Rank would disagree.

    Rank: “These are divine names, dguller. Nothing more, nothing less. There are no absolute statements about God (not even this one, or that one, or that one).”

    Can we "know" God's perspective anymore then we can "know" what it is like to be a bat?

    We know that God is pure actuality, and thus lacks any potency whatsoever, which means that he is immutable and unchanging, which means that there is no flow of time with him. Instead, there is an atemporal and eternal present in which he “sees” all of existence in a single act of intellection. That’s all we need to know.

    Anyway it would exist that way virtually in the Divine Intellect but it would only be actual as creation in the present outside the Divine Intellect but of course inside the Divine Conservation.

    It is not virtual, because he actually created it. Look around you. It’s actually there. So, creation would be an actual infinity as presented to God’s intellect in his eternal and atemporal present. There is a difference between contemplating a virtual entity and an actual entity, and God’s intellect would have to be able to make that distinction or else there would be something outside of his knowledge.

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  187. RS wrote:
    >These are divine names, dguller. Nothing more, nothing less. There are no absolute statements about God (not even this one, or that one, or that one).

    In terms of exhaustively describing the Divine Nature well I agree.

    But this doesn't mean a statement like "God can't save your soul without imparting Grace" isn't an absolute statements about God.

    In a sense Infinity is larger then the #10 and in another sense 10 is less then infinity.

    In a sense it makes no sense to "subtract" 10 from infinity since infinity can't by nature be made smaller & the same with adding.

    Thus in a sense it makes no sense to say infinity is <> 10 since Infinity can't be made greater or less then 10 by addition or subtraction.

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  188. RS wrote:
    >These are divine names, dguller. Nothing more, nothing less. There are no absolute statements about God (not even this one, or that one, or that one).

    In terms of exhaustively describing the Divine Nature well I agree.

    But this doesn't mean a statement like "God can't save your soul without imparting Grace" isn't an absolute statements about God.

    In a sense Infinity is larger then the #10 and in another sense 10 is less then infinity.

    In a sense it makes no sense to "subtract" 10 from infinity since infinity can't by nature be made smaller & the same with adding.

    Thus in a sense it makes no sense to say infinity is <> 10 since Infinity can't be made greater or less then 10 by addition or subtraction.

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  189. >We know that God is pure actuality, and thus lacks any potency whatsoever, which means that he is immutable and unchanging, which means that there is no flow of time with him. Instead, there is an atemporal and eternal present in which he “sees” all of existence in a single act of intellection. That’s all we need to know.

    Lovely, but how is that us knowing His Perspective or a Bat's for that matter?

    >It is not virtual, because he actually created it. Look around you. It’s actually there.

    But it isn't actual all at once except virtually in the Divine Intellect.

    Your equivocating between God creating us vs Knowing us.

    >So, creation would be an actual infinity as presented to God’s intellect in his eternal and atemporal present.

    Of course. God's virtual knowledge is God.

    >There is a difference between contemplating a virtual entity and an actual entity,

    Rather there is a difference between causing an actual entity vs it's reflection which exists virtually in the Divine Intellect.

    >and God’s intellect would have to be able to make that distinction or else there would be something outside of his knowledge.

    God "can't make a distinction" the way we can. He simply knows.

    Anyway I am getting McInerny book on analogy and some other dude's whose name escapes me & I am reading Hart.

    So I have a lot more to learn here.

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  190. Of course not. My point is that in order to think or talk about something (res), it must be presentable to the human mind, and the modus significandi is how it is presentable to the human mind.

    A modus is the mode of being in which a res is witnessed in the real world. It is equivalent to the particular beings from which the active intellect abstracts universal concepts. However, because we can't have a res in our minds without converting it into a logical being, it seems as though the modus generally comes along for the ride. This is not because it is critical to considering a res. Think about it like this.

    A: An intellect witnesses the res "healthy" in two different modes of being: animals and medicine.
    B: The intellect turns this res into the logical being "health", which then takes with it something of the modes in which it was first seen.
    C: Now that it's in the intellect, the res "healthy" can be separated from the two instances of "health".

    Now, in the case of God, we often use variations of the logical being "being", which contains with it the other transcendentals.

    A: An intellect witnesses the res "being" in two different modes of being: in a human and in an animal.
    B: The intellect turns this res into the logical being "esse commune", which takes with it something of the modes of being in which it was first seen.
    C: Now that it's in the intellect, the res can be considered in abstraction from the modes in which it was witnessed. It isn't necessary that we always think of "human being" and "animal being" whenever we think of esse commune.

    What Aquinas seems to be saying when he denies the mode of being signified in relation to God is that any name necessarily, even when abstracted, refers to the created rather than the uncreated. This is a specific circumstance that applies only to analogies with God, because, generally, our logical universal concepts can be separated from the "baggage" of particular instantiations. However, since everything we know is created--including every modus and res--, all of our logical beings will always already signify some created mode of being. Hence, even when you abstract esse commune and deny the modes of being in which it was found, you're still left with the fact this it is created.

    However, it's still possible to deny the created modus and focus on the analogy of proportion between the res and God. It is, of course, impossible to escape some sort of created modus, since every res is itself created: we just keep denying it; writing under erasure. We say, "Every goodness is like God via the analogy of proportion, but every goodness is created; and so every goodness is also necessarily unlike God." At no time do we have to posit some property X that is contained in both God and creation, but which is separated by a mode of being.

    Why is an ontological infinite regress a problem, but a linguistic infinite regress not big deal?

    This should be pretty obvious. An ontological regress is a real-world contradiction. A linguistic regress is an epistemological problem. If an ontological regress of the type argued against by Aquinas was true, then we would have the following conclusions:

    1. Nothing could change (First Way).
    2. Nothing could be caused (Second Way).
    3. Nothing could exist (Third Way).

    By comparison, a linguistic, epistemological regress is no problem at all.

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  191. First, why wouldn’t “inferiority” be the partial identity, and the way the analogates are inferior to one another be the partial difference? After all, all the compared proportions involve the inferiority relation, and so this particular relation would have to be common to all of them. It would have to be the R in my (1*) to (3*) above.

    Second, you still haven’t explained how inferiority does not imply superiority. Again, saying that X is inferior to Y, but Y is not superior to X makes as much sense as saying that X is smaller than Y, but Y is not larger than X.


    Inferiority is the partial similarity of the creature to God, while its mode as created (contingent, finite, composite, etc.) is its partial difference--if we must go down this road. My argument, though, was against your claim that both God and creation are partially similar and partially different, which is a double-grounding.

    Further, I have already given you copious arguments to the effect that there cannot be a ground of existence that is in a dialectic with existence. And given that Aquinas and the Church Fathers agree that there can be an inferiority without a superiority, and that you have no similar authority to back up your objection to this claim, I think the onus is on you to demonstrate why this position contradicts itself. You seem to think that it's prima facie contradictory, but I disagree--and you have not given one single source that agrees with you. What you're doing verges on an argument from personal incredulity, at this point.

    Except that the Five Ways violate their own premises, and so don’t really show anything, except that our thought reaches a limit beyond which nothing makes sense.

    You haven't demonstrated this. Further, if this was true, do you really think that you would have been the first to discover it--almost a thousand years after Aquinas wrote it? Are you joking?

    No, it just puts a limitation to our thought and language, beyond which is incoherence and meaninglessness.

    You do realize that you have, at this point, accepted the proposition that nothing exists... right?

    I really don’t know what to say if you really believe that intrinsically relational concepts do not mutually imply one another. Inside-outside, up-down, tall-short, superior-inferior, big-small, etc. One term is defined by the negation of the other.

    But God is above negation, as basically the entirety of pre-Scotist tradition affirms. He is impassible: completely free from being defined by creation, even in the sense that he is superior to it. Also, your Hegelianized view of reality isn't consistent with the actual views of dialectics that were held by many pre-modern philosophers. Why should I accept yours over theirs? You haven't explained it.

    Again, what do you mean “spring from” without involving the principle of causality? I think you keep helping yourself to what you have prohibited yourself from using.

    It's shorthand for saying that we are an effect without any cause, at least as we use that term. But the Five Ways confirm that we are an effect, which means that something similar to a cause must have created us. (Similar to a cause in that it produces effects, that is.) However, to say that God is a cause absolutely is to presuppose knowledge of his act, which is his very essence; and so we can't call him a cause in the standard sense. Now, given that we know that we're effects, that means that we're inferior to something else. That's how the world of effects works. But the cause-like thing of which we are effects is not bound by the same rules. Hence, we are inferior to it but it is not superior to us.

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  192. And what you’re trying to do is use a similarity relationship that necessarily involves a partial identity of some sort, and yet deny that there is any partial identity at all, which completely undermines the similarity relationship. I consider that just as illicit.

    And yet, while I cite Heidegger, Hart, Aquinas and the Church Fathers to support my argument, you continue to base yours on personal incredulity.

    Of course it does. It stands as the perfect exemplar of the standard whereas the other things trying to reach it are imperfect exemplars of the standard. The fact that it is perfect is why the other things are measured according to it. A perfect X and an imperfect X are still both X, albeit in different modes of being.

    This is only the case when you're talking about one kind of analogy of proportion: "a certain relation of one quantity to another, according as double, treble and equal are species of proportion." This is univocal proportion, and it fails not only to describe God but even to describe equivocal causes in general. The sun is an equivocal cause to which men are related not as "one quantity to another"--which would be incoherent--, but simply in the sense that "every relation of one thing to another is called proportion". This is how men are related to God.

    First, to make an analogy between metaphysics and supra-metaphysics is to presuppose some commonality between them, even if it is just a proportional relationship. I’m sorry, but there’s just no escaping this necessity. Even Aquinas says that “proportion comes to signify a ‘relation of order’ (SS 3.1.1.1 ad3) or any relation of one thing to another” (Rocca, p. 104)

    I think it should be kind of obvious that the relation is from metaphysics to supra-metaphysics, but not vice versa.

    Second, you still haven’t explained how it makes any sense to say that X is inferior to Y, but Y is not superior to X. If you want to say that Y is beyond the superiority-inferiority dialectic, then Y also cannot have anything inferior to it, because inferiority is also part of the same dialectic that you claim does not apply to Y.

    Bring out something besides an argument from personal incredulity to attack Aquinas's case, then.

    I could cite Thomists to support this interpretation (e.g. Wippel, pp. 81-2) but I suppose you would just say that they are ignorant of patristic tradition.

    I was referring specifically to your claim that there is some two-way relation between God and creation. That was the "partial identity/partial difference equation" with which you replaced your earlier partial identity/partial difference equation.

    “And sometimes it is predicated of them according to meanings which are partly different and partly not (different inasmuch as they imply different relationships, and the same inasmuch as these different relationships are referred to one and the same thing), and then it is said “to be predicated analogously,” i.e., proportionally, according as each one by its own relationship is referred to that one same thing.” (Metaphysics IV.1)

    In the wider context of the article, which I just looked up, Aquinas makes it clear that he is referring to the analogy between beings and beings. The "one same thing" to which all of these beings refer is esse.

    “But in the case of those things which are spoken of in the way mentioned previously, the same term is predicated of various things with a meaning that is partly the same and partly different—different regarding the different modes of relation, and the same regarding that to which it is related; for to be a sign of something and to be a cause of something are different, but health is one.” (Metaphysics XI.3)

    Again, Aquinas is not talking about God here. He's dealing with the relation between beings and beings, which hinges on the different-yet-unified appearances of esse. God does not have esse, and so you can't use this when discussing him.

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  193. Now translate the above in the language of modus significandi and res significata, which is the language of Aquinas’ theory of thought and language, and we’ll be good.

    I did so in the paragraph you quoted, as well as above.

    If this is correct, then the only way for the human mind to refer to a thing is through the modus significandi, and if it cannot reach the res significata through a modus significandi, then the res significata is altogether invisible to the human mind.

    Then you have accepted the idea that there cannot be logical beings like "esse commune" or "non-being", since the res involved could never be separated from the modes of being in which it inheres--meaning that no universal version could be created.

    Aquinas endorses this idea when he writes that “a name signifies the conception of the intellect before it signifies the thing itself understood by the intellect” (SCG 1.35).

    The meaning of this sentence should be obvious to anyone familiar with Aquinas's philosophy of mind. No word can refer to ontology without first relaying through the mind. Again:

    word <-> idea <-> creation -> God

    No word can jump to creation without relaying through the mind, and no idea can jump to God without relaying through creation. Even logical beings only gain their meaning by referencing some created thing.

    This indicates priority of knowledge, and not priority of ontology.

    That is not at all what it means.

    A thing must first exist before it is known and talked about, but it must first be known by the human mind in a modus significandi in order to be talked about. It is this middle step that I believe is highly problematic.

    That's understandable, given that it's false. A modus significandi is just a signification of the mode in which a res was found. The correct formulation is that the mind must know some res Y in real-world mode X before it can abstract Y from X. After that, Y can be considered in separation from X. If that wasn't the case, then esse commune could not exist.

    In the case of God, all of our names are based on created res, which comes bundled with created modus by necessity. But every res has an analogy of proportion with God, even though it is unlike him in kind. There is nothing self-refuting about denying that a res fully encompasses God (denying the mode of being of every res) and then still saying that the res is like God via the analogy of proportion.

    If it is true that any modus significandi that we have in our minds to refer to a res significata is necessarily composite, and since a composite modus significandi can only refer to a composite res significata – because a simple modus significandi in the would be God himself in the intellect – then no human modus significandi can possibly refer to a simple res significata.

    You are still confusing Thomism with Platonism. Every res that we know is wholly separate from God. There is no res X in God that all other things participate in: whatever res we have in our minds is no less created than any modus in our minds. However, there is an analogy between our res and God. This has nothing to do with God and creation possessing a res in different modes, though, which would reduce analogies with God to the level of analogies with beings. Further, because the analogy of being gains its meaning from a third shared aspect (being) in two created entities, applying this to God would mean that being was prior to God. I'm forced to recall the Hart quote about the onto-theological god "who (even if he is changeless and eternal) in some sense becomes the being he is by partaking of that prior unity (existence) that allows his nature to persist in the composite reality it is".

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  194. Basically, the only coherent option is that God "causes" being/goodness (res) in created things (modus). We deny that the created mode of every res defines God, but we acknowledge that the res has an analogy with him. That's how Aquinas's system works. It isn't a matter of completely removing every modus (which is impossible, since every knowable res is created), but merely of denying that the modus encompasses God.

    Analogy of proportion does not help, because there must be a common relation shared by the analogates, which would compromise God’s transcendence, denying any commonality whatsoever between God and creation, because if there was a commonality between them, then they would be different in degree, and not in kind.

    Your case for there being a common relation between God and creation thus far comes down to multiple arguments from personal incredulity and a handful of out-of-context Aquinas quotes.

    One point that I mentioned earlier that you never responded to that I’d like to bring up again. You claim that one can never make any absolute statements about God, and I think it leads to the following inconsistency:

    (1) There are no absolute statements about God

    (2) (1) is an absolute statement about God

    (3) There is at least one absolute statement about God
    (4) (1) and (3) contradict one another


    As Denys says, God is prior to every denial and assertion. When I say that there are no absolute statements about God, I am saying that there are no statements about God that do not cash out as either A) analogous, B) metaphorical or C) completely false. The statement that there are no absolute statements about God is not self-refuting for two reasons. First, it is not actually about God: it is about statements about God. Second, the "God" named in this statement is an idol, since every discussion of God is based on analogies from his effects. Hence, on closer examination, the statement "there are no absolute statements about God" deconstructs itself into yet another analogy for God, which simultaneously reveals the impossibility of making an absolute statement about him.

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  195. In terms of exhaustively describing the Divine Nature well I agree.

    But this doesn't mean a statement like "God can't save your soul without imparting Grace" isn't an absolute statements about God.


    This is mostly true, but, as I just said to dguller, I would say that your statement was about effects rather than about God himself. A better way to phrase it, I think, would be "you will not be saved unless your soul is imparted with grace by God". Aquinas himself writes in the ST that "it is better to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them."

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  196. I see that comment moderation has been turned on, finally. I find debates incredibly tedious with this thing on, so I'm probably going to call it quits here soon.

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  197. RS, thanks much for patiently explaining these things. You may get frustrated with dguller, but you are helping tenderfoots like myself to understand concepts that have heretofore been beyond our grasp. I very much appreciate it.

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  198. Rank:

    Sorry for the lateness. I was away with the family this weekend.

    A modus is the mode of being in which a res is witnessed in the real world. It is equivalent to the particular beings from which the active intellect abstracts universal concepts. However, because we can't have a res in our minds without converting it into a logical being, it seems as though the modus generally comes along for the ride.

    Exactly. It is “witnessed in the real world”, which means that the being must be presented to a witness’s mind in some way in order for the witness to be able to perceive and understand it at all. All your accounts keep making reference to the res being presented to a mind in some way.

    However, it's still possible to deny the created modus and focus on the analogy of proportion between the res and God. It is, of course, impossible to escape some sort of created modus, since every res is itself created: we just keep denying it; writing under erasure.

    But when you deny it, you have three basic possibilities, none of which helps you ever reach the referent with your mind, which means that you cannot ever refer to the referent with your mind’s intentionality.

    We say, "Every goodness is like God via the analogy of proportion, but every goodness is created; and so every goodness is also necessarily unlike God." At no time do we have to posit some property X that is contained in both God and creation, but which is separated by a mode of being.

    I never said it had to be a “property”, but there must be something in common between the two, or else you do not have similarity at all, but rather total difference. Again, you haven’t even defined “similarity”. It should be easy: X is similar to Y iff … And as I wrote earlier, even an analogy of proportion involves a common relationship shared by the compared comparisons.

    This should be pretty obvious. An ontological regress is a real-world contradiction. A linguistic regress is an epistemological problem.

    Isn’t that what I’ve been saying? An “epistemological problem” is a problem, because if your own theory makes it impossible for one to know that theory at all, then it is impossible to meaningfully talk about that theory, which means that all your writings about it are meaningless, which completely undermines the theory itself. This is not some small problem that can be brushed aside, unlike the serious ontological issues. It would be like if the theory of evolution necessarily implied that humans could never evolve, which would falsify it immediately by virtue of the fact that humans have evolved.

    1. Nothing could change (First Way).

    I don’t see why this would follow. Just because we cannot account for change does not make it impossible.

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  199. Inferiority is the partial similarity of the creature to God, while its mode as created (contingent, finite, composite, etc.) is its partial difference--if we must go down this road.

    I’m going to assume that when you say “partial similarity”, you mean “partial identity”. I also assume that when you say that “inferiority” is identical in both God and creation, it is probably present in God in a virtual mode of being and in creation is either an actual or potential mode of being.

    My argument, though, was against your claim that both God and creation are partially similar and partially different, which is a double-grounding.

    But they are both. They both contain “inferiority”, but in different modes of being, i.e. virtual inferiority in God and actual/potential inferiority in creation. In fact, God’s virtual inferiority would have to be perfect inferiority whereas creation’s actual/potential inferiority would have to be imperfect inferiority.

    And given that Aquinas and the Church Fathers agree that there can be an inferiority without a superiority, and that you have no similar authority to back up your objection to this claim, I think the onus is on you to demonstrate why this position contradicts itself. You seem to think that it's prima facie contradictory, but I disagree--and you have not given one single source that agrees with you. What you're doing verges on an argument from personal incredulity, at this point.

    First, just because Church authority has agreed to bite the bullet and endorse an absurd position does not lend the position authority.

    Second, assume that you are correct that God transcends every orderly hierarchy involving any variation of higher-lower and superior-inferior. That would have to include the orderly hierarchy of perfection-imperfection, actuality-potency, cause-effect, and so on. Thus, we also could not say that God is perfect, act or cause, which you have admitted in the past, so I’ll give you credit for consistency. Now, Aquinas writes that “act is more excellent than potency; and that which is the reason for a thing’s existence must be the more excellent component” (CT 71). Since God cannot be considered to be “more excellent” than anything, because that would imply the applicability of an orderly hierarchy to that which transcends all such hierarchies, then God cannot be considered to be “act” or “the reason for a thing’s existence”, either, which you have admitted, to your credit.

    But if none of these fundamental principles can be applied to God, then God would be outside the principle of causality altogether, because the principle of causality necessarily covers orderly hierarchies involving act-potency, perfect-imperfect, cause-effect, and so on. In fact, as you have admitted, he could not count as an act at all, and thus could not be held to be a cause of anything, because all causes exist in actuality in order to change potency to act, as per the principle of causality, and since he is neither cause nor act, he cannot change potency to act. And if he cannot change potency to act, then he cannot be a cause of anything, again, which you have admitted. I think that this fatally undermines the Five Ways to the same extent as an infinite regress does, and thus they cannot be used to show that God exists at all. In fact, I think that they show that God cannot exist, because if he existed, then he would be beyond the principle of causality, and thus beyond the only principle that could possibly show his existence, meaning that he is beyond any argument that could possibly demonstrate his existence.
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  200. The only solutions are to either admit God into orderly hierarchies in order to enclose him within the applicability of the principle of causality, but that would compromise his transcendence, or deny all orderly hierarchical relational properties of him, but that would necessarily exclude the principle of causality, which is saturated with concepts that involve orderly hierarchies, and thus eliminate any way for us to reason anything about God.

    You haven't demonstrated this. Further, if this was true, do you really think that you would have been the first to discover it--almost a thousand years after Aquinas wrote it? Are you joking?

    I’m sure that you’d find arguments from authority and tradition just as convincing to support the validity of Hinduism, which has been around much longer than Christianity.

    You do realize that you have, at this point, accepted the proposition that nothing exists... right?

    I don’t think so. I’ve only accepted the proposition that we do not know why anything exists. After all, not knowing why X exists does not necessarily imply that X does not exist.

    But God is above negation, as basically the entirety of pre-Scotist tradition affirms. He is impassible: completely free from being defined by creation, even in the sense that he is superior to it.

    God cannot be impassible, because his impassibility is rooted in his pure actuality, infinite and simplicity, which are all strictly interrelated. The fact that God has no potency that can be actualized means that he cannot be affected by anything, because to be affected by something is to be transitioned from potency to act by something else that is in act. Since this is impossible for God, it follows that he is impassible. But, since you have said that God transcends all orderly hierarchies, and is “above negation”, it must follow that any analysis involving act and potency cannot be applied to him, including the one involving pure actuality and impassibility, which means that you cannot even conclude that he is impassible. I hope that you can see that the logical implications of your position are that you cannot know anything about God, including that he exists.

    It's shorthand for saying that we are an effect without any cause, at least as we use that term. But the Five Ways confirm that we are an effect, which means that something similar to a cause must have created us. (Similar to a cause in that it produces effects, that is.)

    But it must produce effects by being actual. That is what the principle of actuality demands, i.e. that the transition from potency to act can only be caused by another being in act. If you say that God cannot be act, because act is a term that is necessarily involved in an ordered hierarchy, which is impossible to associate God with, then God cannot be a cause, or even like a cause, because to be a cause of any kind means that the cause must be actual, and not virtual, formal or potential.

    So, here’s how it boils down to:

    (1) X is a cause iff X is actual iff the principle of causality applies to X
    (2) If X and Y are such that X is superior to Y and Y is inferior to X, then X and Y exist in an ordered hierarchy
    (3) Act is superior to potency and potency is inferior to act
    (4) Thus, actuality is part of an ordered hierarchy (by (2), (3))
    (5) God is beyond all ordered hierarchies (= divine transcendence)
    (6) Thus, God is beyond the ordered hierarchy between act and potency (by (4), (5))
    (7) Thus, God cannot be called either act or potency
    (8) Thus, God is not actual (by (7))
    (9) Thus, God is not a cause (by (1), (8))
    (10) Thus, the principle of causality cannot apply to God (by (1), (9))

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