Interrelationship of concepts by composition or focusing

Concepts come to be mutually related in two ways: by composition or by conceptual focusing. The second way, original to Suárez, is de-scribed as contraction by a more express concept, or by a greater ex-pression (contractio per expressiorem conceptum, vel per maiorem expres-sionem). The conceptual focusing resolves the problem of the One and the Many in a wholly original way.

Interrelation of concepts by composition refers to generic and specific concepts that are not mutually inclusive, and where the genus (“ani-mal”) is combined with a species (“rational”) to constitute a composite (“man”)—the latter, in its turn, is resoluble into its components (ratio-nal + animal). Here the broader category (“animal”) does not include its particulars (“rational,” “irrational”) in its meaning.

Interrelation of concepts by conceptual focusing refers to transcen-dental concepts, in which the broader category (for instance, “heat”) in-cludes all its particulars (“eight degrees” etc. of heat). As Suárez says:

the common concept of heat is not only included in the [concept of the] total heat as having eight degrees, but also in its [other] par-ticular degrees. When mention is made of “eight degrees of heat,”

a distinct mode is not added, forming a composition with “heat as such”; but we conceive and signify “heat” in a more express manner, as it is in itself.³⁴

We can take another example, which is not that of Suárez, but of mod-ern optics, which will perhaps further clarify the notion of conceptual focusing: the general notion of “color,” which at the same time both unites and differentiates the particular notions of “blue,” “yellow” and

“red.” The differentiation between the general and the particular is sit-uated in the degree of focusing. When we consider “blue” and “yellow”

as just “color,” they signify, confusedly, what they have in common: that is to say, the quality of an object in relation to the light reflected in the various wave lengths of that object. Taken as particular colors, they refer, expressly, to the particular wavelengths that differentiate the

ef-34 DM 2: 6: 9 [25: 101]: conceptus communis caloris non solum in-cluditur in toto calore ut octo, sed etiam in singulis gradibus eius; cum ergo dicitur calor ut octo, non additur modus distinctus faciens compositionem cum calore ut sic, sed exprimitur et concipitur calor, prout est in se.

fects of light, which are “blue” (450-500 nm. or nanometers), “yellow”

(570-590 nm.) and “red” (610-780 nm.).

When we compare the general and the particular in transcendental concepts, we see that they are not resolvable into two concepts that are not inclusive. “Red” cannot be resolved into “color” and “red,” since “red”

is also “color.” What distinguishes the general from the particular in transcendental concepts can be described as follows:

The general concept is more abstract, aptitudinal and confusive, less distinctly focused, based on the knowledge “through which an object is considered not distinctly and determinately as it is in reality, but according to some similitude or conformity it has with other things”

(qua consideratur obiectum, non distincte et determinate prout est in re, sed secundum aliquam similitudinem, vel convenientiam quam cum aliis habet).³⁵ The particular concept is the same general concept more deter-minate and express, or more distinctly focused, “because all that is con-fusedly considered in the precise concept, is found in the other object more expressly conceived, and in all that object, in whatever way it is considered” (quia totum id, quod confuse concipitur in illo conceptu prae-ciso, reperitur in alio obiecto expressius concepto, et in toto illo, quacumque ratione consideretur).³⁶ In other words, “the thing is conceived accord-ing to the determinate mode in which it exists in fact” (concipitur res secundum determinatum modum quo est in re).³⁷

Let us return to the nominal and participial connotations of the unitary dyad “being.” As we remarked, for the Uncommon Doctor,

“that double acceptance does not signify a double connotation of be-ing dividbe-ing any common meanbe-ing, or common concept, but signifies a concept of being more or less precise” (illam duplicem acceptionem non significare duplicem rationem entis dividentem aliquam communem rationem, seu conceptum communem, sed significare conceptum entis ma-gis vel minus praecisum);³⁸ the more precise concept referring to being nominally considered (= aptitudinal or precisive existence), and the less precise and more express concept to being participially considered (= actual existence).

35 DM 2: 6: 10 [25: 101].

36 DM 2: 6: 7 [25: 101].

37 Ibid. [25: 101].

38 DM 2: 4: 9 [25: 90].

Of the members of the Trichotomy, the first and the third, that is, actual or possible existence, need no explanation. It is the second mem-ber, aptitudinal existence, which requires to be clarified, as it caused problems for Gilson and his successors. Suárez warns us of its erro-neous interpretation, which confuses it with possible existence—an interpretation that has had unfortunate consequences in later philo-sophical development. Aptitudinal or precisive existence is existence considered in its intelligible content, and not in its actual exercise,

“prescinding from actual existence, and not however excluding it, or negating it, but only precisively abstracting from it” (praescindendo ab actuali existentia, non quidem excludendo illam, seu negando, sed prae-cisive tantum abstrahendo).³⁹ It is thus clearly differentiated from pos-sible existence. In the words of Suárez, the term aptitudinal existence, or being nominally considered,

does not signify being in potency, in so far as it is privatively or negatively opposed to being in act, but only signifies being in so far as it precisely denotes a real essence, which is a very different matter. For just as precisive abstraction is different from the nega-tive, thus being nominally considered, although it precisely signifies being having a real essence, does not indeed add a negation, that is, of lacking actual existence, which negation or privation being in potency adds.

The proof of the difference between these two senses of existence—

aptitudinal and possible—is conclusive,

for being nominally considered [or aptitudinal existence] is com-mon to God and the creatures, and can be truly affirmed of God;

but being in potency can in no way be predicated of God; indeed, neither can it be of actually existing creatures as such, for they are not then in potency, but in act. Nevertheless, being can be affirmed of them, both as participle and as noun, for though they possess actual existence, it can be truly be said of them that they possess real essence [or aptitudinal existence], prescinding from, and not negating, actual existence.⁴⁰

39 Ibid. [25: 90].

40 DM 2: 4: 11 [25: 91]: Quod inde etiam manifeste patet, nam ens in vi nominis sumptum commune est Deo et creaturis, et de Deo affirmari vere potest; ens autem in potentia nullo modo potest praedicari de Deo; imo nec de creaturis existentibus ut sic proprie dicitur, quia iam non sunt in poten-tia, sed in actu; cum tamen de illis dici potest ens, tam ut participium quam

And while we are on the topic of aptitudinal existence, it is pertinent to note that the Thomists evidently accept a version of it too, though apparently just in the context of the Anselmian version of the onto-logical argument. The point of the argument is that the concept of God is that of a supremely perfect being, and there can be no perfec-tion without the greatest of perfecperfec-tions, existence. Existence therefore, the argument concludes, has to be affirmed of God.

In response CAJETAN⁴¹ observes that existence can be thought of as

“signified” (existentia ut significata), or belonging to the “order of rep-resentation”; and as “exercised” (existentia ut exercita), as belonging to the “order of exercise”. As signifed it is looked at solely as an object of thought, or of representation, as a mode of intelligible nature, as an idea, as no more than an object of a simple intellectual apprehension.

As “exercised” it is referred to as detained (so to speak) by a subject, as effected in extra-mental reality, as attributed in a judgment. Hence, when we attribute existence to the idea of the perfect being in the on-tological argument, we attribute it only as signified (through an act of apprehension), but not as exercised (in an act of judgment). In the latter case nothing is added to the intelligible objective content of exis-tence as signified, but only its effectuation extra causas. Cajetan notes that it is by nouns or ideas that things are conceived as signified, and by verbs as exercised or effected. He concludes that the ontological argument is fallacious because a significari et cogitari ad esse non valet argumentum. Here the Thomist “existence as signified” seems to cor-respond to the Suarezian “aptitudinal existence.”⁴²

ut nomen, quia licet habeant actualem existentiam, vere de illis dicitur quod habent essentiam realem, praescindendo, et non negando, actualem existen-tiam.

41 CAJETAN, Commentary on AqUINAS, Summa theologiae, I, q. 2, art. 1, ad 2.

42 Maritain, summarizes the Thomist understanding of aptitudinal exis-tence in the following work, Distinguish to Unite or The Degrees of Knowledge.

Translated from the fourth French Edition… University of Notre Dame Press, 1995, p. 104: “Through simple apprehension, existence is grasped and presented to the mind not insofar as a subject has it or can have it (existentia ut exercita), but rather insofar as it can be conceived per modum quidditatis, as constituting a certain intelligible object, a certain quiddity (existentia ut significata). It is only in the mind’s second operation (composition and divi-sion) and in the judgment, that existence is known ut exercita, as possessed.

Remember, the judgment does not rest content with a representation or