Question 1. Whether being is univocal or analogous both with respect to created and uncreated being and with respect to substance and accident?
The first question is treated in Disputation 28, Section 3,27 and the second in Disputation 32, the last Section.28
Question 2. Did Aristotle correctly compare the analogy of being with the analogy of healthy?29 The reason for the question is that it seems to be of a very different character, as is clear from the aforementioned disputa-tions.
The question can be answered in two ways: first, he compared these in analogy simply (absolute) but not in the [same particular] mode of analogy since they are not similar in mode. For “healthy” is analogous in such a way that the form which it signifies is intrinsically present in only one significate, while it is in the others by an extrinsic denomination. But
“being” signifies a form or a character which is intrinsically inhering in all the significates. From this it results that “healthy” does not signify one concept which is common to all, such as “being” signifies. /p. XV/
From this it further results that when Aristotle equates being and healthy in this that just as one science treats of healthy with regard to all of its sig-nificates, inasmuch as they are all derived from one health, so one science treats of being, when (I say) he compares these, it must also be understood according to likeness and not according to equality. For healthy, according to its whole analogy, is not the adequate object of one science which directly under itself comprehends its significates as proper subjective parts of such an object,30 directly, or as they say “straightway” (in recto), belonging to the object of such a science. For only the principal significate of healthy is the adequate and direct object of the science of medicine. But the rest of the things which are analogically called healthy belong indirectly (in obliquo) to that science, as signs of health, or the instrument of health, or something of this kind. But being is an adequate object which directly comprehends its own, as it were, subjective parts, as has been sufficiently shown in the Disputations cited in the previous chapter. Hence, it results that being according to its adequate signification can be an extreme [term]
of a demonstration in which properties adequate to it are demonstrated of it.31 But healthy cannot in any way [be that] except by reason of the primary significate.
Secondly, we can answer that we can speak about being in two ways: in one way, as it comprehends only true real beings32—and it transcends and contains under itself all of these. In another way, as it is extended to many things which are not beings truly and intrinsically and which are called beings only by a certain extrinsic attribution, for example, privations, or beings which are entirely by accident, or beings of reason.33
Aristotle seems in the chapter above to have spoken [of being] in the first way, and in that way it is a properly adequate and direct object of one science so that it is analogous,34 with a unity of concept and
objec-Metaphysics Book IV 71 tive character found intrinsically in all its significates, including those which are secondary, as we show in the mentioned places. And taken in this way it is comparable with healthy not in a way that is equal,35 but only in that way which we have just explained.
In this chapter Aristotle seems to speak about being in the second way.
And in this way it includes an analogy of several concepts with respect to many significates and [is said] according to an extrinsic denomination with respect to some. And in respect to these it is compared with healthy, even in its way of analogy and in the way in which it falls under one science, as is simply clear from what has been said.
And it should not seem strange that Aristotle takes the word “being” in different significations in these two chapters, since in them he is speaking in different ways. For in the first, inasmuch as he is defining the adequate object of metaphysics, he is treating being according to its proper objec-tive concept. But in this chapter he is treating of the whole expanse of the signification of the word “being.” Hence, he enumerates explicitly enough several things which are not true beings, such as privations36 and the like, which he himself excludes from the direct and adequate object of metaphysics at the end of Book 6.37
Question 3. Whether it pertains to metaphysics to treat of the proper nature of substance and its proper principles? See Disputation 1, Section 2.38
Question 4. Whether metaphysics treats the species of being according to their proper natures? And whether in general the science of a genus is also concerned with its species? This is treated in Disputation 1, Section 2.39 And the answer is plainly negative. However, the words of Aristotle in Text 2 on which this question is based, namely: “Of one genus there is one science—wherefore, also about being, however many are its species, it is the task of a generically one science to contemplate and [also to con-template] the species of its species,”40 these words (I say) are ambiguous and they are extensively explained in that place [Text 2]. In this place it should only be noted that the discussion is formal[ly] about the species of being in the genus of “being scientifically knowable” (scibilis).41 And in this way it can be said that the genus of “being scientifically knowable as such” (scibilis ut sic) pertains to the genus of science, but the various spe-cies of things scientifically knowable pertain to various spespe-cies of sciences.
Or also all beings insofar as they agree in one character of “scientifically knowable” fall under one science, which although it is one in species is called general on account of its universal treatment of all beings under this other character. Nevertheless, the species of beings under their proper
characters (of being objects in some way scientifically knowable) pertain to sciences which are specifically diverse.
Question 5. Whether being and one are the same and one in nature?
Disputation 4, Sections 142 and 2.43
Question 6. Whether being and one are converted, or (as Aristotle says) mutually follow one another? See Disputation 4, Section 1 [sic].44
Question 7. Whether in this mutual relation (reciprocatio) Aristotle rightly compared being and one to a principle and a cause? Cf. Disputa-tion 13 [sic], SecDisputa-tion 1, in the soluDisputa-tion of the arguments.45
Question 8. Whether those things are one which are generated by the same generation and corrupted by the same corruption? Cf. Disputation 7, Section 2.46
Question 9. Whether one is privatively opposed to multitude, as Aristotle indicates here? Cf. Disputation 4, Section 6.47
Question 10. Whether dialectics and sophistics are concerned with every being, and in that agree somehow with metaphysics? For Aristotle seems to affirm that in the text. However, it pertains /p. XVI/ more to dialec-ticians than to us. Therefore, briefly we should observe that this must not be understood about genuine dialectical doctrine and sophistic art but about their use. For the doctrine of dialectics or topics (for here it is taken in the same meaning) is only concerned with teaching the way of concluding or arguing with probability, especially by reason of subject matter. But sophistics is concerned with the way of concluding apparently.
Hence, understood in this way it is not employed about being, or about all beings, but about such operations48 of the intellect. But the use of the arts of dialectics and sophistics is extended to all things, because in every thing or subject matter there can be probable or apparent reasons. In this, these parts of logic go beyond demonstrative doctrine. For the use of that doctrine is not extended to all things, but it is employed only in the case of true and necessary things. Metaphysical doctrine, therefore, is not equated with the doctrine of dialectics, but with the use [of that doctrine]. And the comparison is proportional and not completely similar, and in this way the matter is clear.
However, even though Aristotle in this Chapter is not so much dis-cussing unity as saying that it should be discussed, customarily all ques-tions pertaining to unity, and indeed to all other properties of being, are treated in this place. About these properties we have treated at length from Disputation 4 to 11,49 as may be seen in the Index above,50 in order not to give a useless repetition here. Some [authors] in this place also discuss the being of existence (esse existentiae)51 and how it is compared
Metaphysics Book IV 73 with being or essence. About this matter we have extensively spoken in Disputation 31.52