Duns Scotus defines univocal predication as follows: P is univocal provided that Px&~Px is always a contradiction, and hence P can be used in multiple lines of a syllogism. Famously, Aquinas says that no positive term can be univocally predicated of a creature and of God, while Scotus says that some can be univocally predicated, for instance "being". I suggest, however, that the disagreement could be merely verbal, due to the two philosophers using the word "univocal" differently.
For here is a way of developing Aquinas' position. When I attribute wisdom to God and when I attribute wisdom to Socrates, the truth grounds of my attribution are different but related. In the case of God, the truth ground of my attribution is the simple God, who is identical with wisdom. In the case of Socrates, the ground is Socrates' accident of wisdom inhering in Socrates. We have a ground or truthmaker heterogeneity here: the same claim is true for different reasons. If the grounds were completely different, the word "wisdom" would be equivocal. However, the grounds are not different but analogically related, and hence "wisdom" is analogical.
Now, let us plug this into Scotus' definition. "Wisdom" will be univocal in Scotus' sense if and only if it is a contradiction to suppose of x that x is wise and that x is not wise. But on Aquinas' view, as I read him, this is a contradiction. For either x is God or x is not God. If x is God, then "x is wise" and "x is not wise" are claims that are true if and only if, respectively, x is or is not identical with wisdom, and hence x cannot both be wise and non-wise. If x is not God, then "x is wise" and "x is not wise" are claims that are true if and only if, respectively, x has or does not have wisdom, and hence x cannot both be wise and non-wise. In either case, a contradiction ensues from supposing that x is wise and not wise.
The analogy thesis on my reading is about the grounds of the predication. What grounds there must be for the predication to be true differs depending on whether the subject of predication is divine. But this does not allow for a contradiction.
Consider the following predicate H: "if ___ is an animal, then it is a healthy animal, and if it is urine, then it is indicative of health, and if it is food then it is productive of health, and ..." This is meant to be an expansion of Aquinas' and Aristotle's favorite example of an analogical predicate, "is healthy". But now notice that while the grounds of "x is H" differ depending on what x is, nonetheless no x can both satisfy H and not satisfy H. That a horse is healthy and that its urine is healthy tell us different things about the horse and urine, respectively, but in the case of the horse, only one thing is said by attribution of H, and in the case of urine, only one thing is said by attribution of H.
Granted, we might expand the example and allow that there are two senses of "The horse is healthy". In the primary sense, it means that the horse is in good physical condition, while in the secondary sense, it means that if the horse were made into food, that food would be healthy. I am not aware of Aquinas allowing such a case, however. So it is quite possible that Aquinas thinks that in analogical predication, only one kind of ground is allowed for each particular subject of predication. And if so, then the predicate satisfies Scotus' definition of univocity, and can be used as the middle term in a syllogism.
22 comments:
Interesting. Two questions.
1. The first is is textual. You are saying that for Scotus, some predicate F is attributed to some x univocally iff 'x is F' and 'x is not F' are contradictory. Is that right? If so, where are you getting this definition in Scotus? I'm just curious, that's all.
2. The second question has to do with the idea you're proposing. Some people see Scotus as arguing this: Aquinas's theory of analogy is all well and good in principle, but it does not tell us how to ascertain whether our analogical predications of God are true, because we cannot know the conditions that make them true.
Indeed, it is certainly true that a horse is healthy and that a vial of its urine is a sign of the horse's health, but I know those two statements are true because I know the conditions that make them true.
In the divine case, though, Aquinas seems to hold that we do not know the sense in which God is 'wise', or the sense in which God 'exists', and so on. So, thinks Scotus, we do not know the conditions (or grounds) that make our predications of God true.
As Scotus sees it, or at least this is how the interpretation of his criticisms that I am considering goes, this means that Aquinas's view leaves us with no way to ascertain whether we are saying anything true about God.
Of course it _would_ be true (analogically) of God that he is wise or that he exists, _if_ we could know what makes those sorts of predications true. But we don't (on Aquinas's view), so Aquinas leaves us with rather empty theological statements.
What's your view on this interpretation of Scotus?
On the textual point, I take it that Alex is going from Op. Ox. I, dist III, q i (Philosophical Writings, Wolter, tr., p. 20): "I designate that concept univocal which possesses sufficient unity in itself, so that to affirm and deny it of one and the same thing would be a contradiction. It also has sufficient unity to serve as the middle term of a syllogism, so that wherever two extremes are united by a middle term that is one in this way, we may conclude to the union of the two extremes among themselves."
Yes, that's the text I had in mind. I don't know what this does to Scotus' larger point. At least it shows that lack of univocity, as Scotus defines it, isn't the problem, since Aquinas' predications are univocal in Scotus' sense.
It seems to me that Aquinas' analogy is not univocal in Scotus' sense. Here's why. Take this syllogism:
1. Ed the horse is healthy.
2. Whatever is healthy is a sign of a bodily condition.
3. So, Ed is a sign of a bodily condition.
The conclusion is false because of equivocation. The health in 2 is what we mean when we say that, say, urine is healthy. Ed isn't healthy in that sense. But Ed is in peak physical shape. So, Ed is healthy (in the primary sense) and it's not the case that Ed is healthy (in the sign sense). (The latter conjunct here doesn't mean that it's not the case that if Ed were urine, Ed would be healthy in the sign sense. It means that it's not the case that Ed as he is now is healthy in the sign sense.)
Here's another syllogism:
1. God is wise.
2. Whatever is wise is a substance.
3. So, God is a substance.
Aquinas denies the conclusion (SCG I.25). The sense of wisdom in 2 is an accident, but in 1 it's God himself, so not an accident. God is not healthy in 2's sense.
Although in some cases affirming and denying health of the same subject is a contradiction, that's only when the word is used in the same sense, so univocal. (Socrates is wise and it's not the case that Socrates is wise.) But in other cases it's not a contradiction, and that's when the word is analogical or equivocal.
I'm interested in your thoughts on this.
Good point, Chris, but it seems to me that in both syllogisms, 2 requires restricted quantifiers to be true. And if one then adds the necessary implicit premise that the entity in 1 falls within the scope of these quantifiers, the arguments become valid.
Thus, the first argument becomes:
1. Ed the horse is healthy.
1a. Ed is an observable diagnostic.
2. Every observable diagnostic that is healthy is a sign of a bodily condition.
3. So, Ed is a sign of a bodily condition.
This is valid but unsound.
The second argument becomes:
1. God is wise.
1a. God is a substance.
2. Whatever substance is wise is a substance.
3. So, God is a substance.
This is valid but question-begging, and it's sound iff the conclusion is true.
Alex, great reply, but I'm still not convinced Aquinas' analogical terms meet Scotus' criteria for univocity. Two reasons, corresponding to his criteria:
1. Even after the argument's modification, it is true that Ed is healthy and not healthy if we take the first instance of health to affirm that Ed is in good physical condition and the second conjunct to deny the sign kind of health to Ed as he now is. So, it seems health in the first conjunct and health in the second aren't univocal.
2. In the revised arguments, we're still not using health as a middle term. We're using, e.g., observable diagnostic that is healthy as a middle term. But that's only one sense of health. So the revised arguments only show that health in that sense is univocal.
Do you think I'm right about this? Do you think it's possible to use health in the bodily condition sense and health in the diagnostic sense as a middle term in a syllogism?
It may help to clarify what Scotus is going for by referring to what he argues later in the text mentioned by Brandon. He says that in the two propositions "God is a finite being" and "God is an infinite being", "being" must be an univocal concept. For someone may be sure that the First Principle exists, but dubious as to whether the First Principle is finite or infinite.
Talking about divine simplicity and Scotus, I’m curious to know what would be your refutation to my argument against only absolute divine simplicity:
P1. If God is numerically identical to God's Attributes and God's Attributes are numerically identical to each other, then items in God's Intellect are numerically identical to each other.
P2. If items in God's Intellect are numerically identical to each other, then each item in the set of all natural numbers is identical to each other item in the set of all natural numbers.
P3. Each item in the set of all natural numbers is not numerically identical with each other item in the set of all natural numbers.
C. God is not ADS.
There are two senses of an item being in the intellect (roughly corresponding to Descartes' formal-objective reality distinction). There is the reality of the act of thinking and there is the reality being represented by the thought. A single act of thinking can represent many items (in a single act of thought, I can think of seven billion people).
Dr. Pruss, I don't see what purpose making a distinction between the act of thinking and the thought thunk, also the thought itself couldn't be extrinsic so I don't see how this escapes the argument. I could just grant you the distinction though, but it doesn't refute the argument. Unless you want to say something like: "God's Thoughts are extrinsic to God's Thinking them."
Dr. Pruss, I don't see what purpose making a distinction between the act of thinking and the thought thunk, also the thought itself couldn't be extrinsic so I don't see how this escapes the argument. I could just grant you the distinction though, but it doesn't refute the argument. Unless you want to say something like: "God's Thoughts are extrinsic to God's Thinking them."
I don't think that we need to think of the contents of the thought as genuine items in our ontology, just as we don't need to think of Frodo as a real entity in our ontology.
Fundamentally, there are no distinct acts of thinking in God. We can talk of distinct objects of thought, but objects of thought are not items in our ontology, and hence distinct objects of thought do not violate simplicity.
Imagine that I have a language where the sign for both a unicorn and a dragon is a dot. And not just any dot, but a simple dot. The fact that the dot symbolizes two objects does not make the dot be complex.
Hello Dr Pruss, I apologize for commenting on an older post but I have a question about your above comments about contents of thought not being items in our ontology. If we accept that truth is grounded in being how would we ground true facts about thought content? For example if it is true that John is thinking about dogs wouldn’t John, his act of thinking, and the content about dogs all need to be items in our ontology?
Maybe, but there needn't be separate beings to ground different facts about thought content. If I believe that there is a blue cube in front of me, then I also believe there is a blue thing in front of me and that there is a cube in front of me. That's three beliefs. But it is dubious to think that there are three separate beings grounding my having each of these three beliefs. Rather, I just believe there is a blue cube in front of me, and that constitutes me as believing that there is a blue something in front of me and as believing that there is a cube in front of me.
The idea that one thing in reality can ground many different beliefs seems right, but I do still wonder if there are other concerns about truth being grounded in being and thought contents not being real entities. It seems that if John is thinking about a dog in one act of thought and then thinking about a cat in another act of thought there needs to be something real that is different. If the truth about John’s thinking changes then something real in the world must change in order to ground the change in what is true.
Suppose John is thinking that a dog is chasing a cat. Then John is thinking about dog, and John is thinking about a cat, but John is engaging in only one act of thought. Now, for us, it is false that ALL our thinking is grounded in one act of thought. But for God it is true.
I agree that the different contents can be contained in one act of thinking, but it seems that when there are multiple acts of thinking there must be something to individuate them. It seems that acts of thinking are individuated by their contents but if the contents are not real then it seems that the distinct acts of thinking are not really distinct but only conceptually distinct.
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