Time” and “Everything Necessarily either Is or Is Not”
Aristotle takes up these five chapters refuting certain philosophers who either deny or imagine themselves to deny these principles—unless perhaps he himself is imagining that for the sake of debate. However that may be, almost nothing occurs in these chapters which brings any special benefit or gives an occasion for any question, apart from one or two passages.
A first question can be raised in Chapter 4, with regard to Texts 13 and 14:56 whether one accident can be the subject of another? We have treated this question in Disputation 14, Section 4.57 And [in that place] the present passage is explained.
Question 2. could be raised with respect to Text 15: whether what is not can effect something? This is occasioned by the words of Aristotle: “But those things which are not, how will they speak or how will they walk?”58 However, a question of this sort is far enough away from the present concern of Aristotle and it has been indicated in order only to note what Aristotle said. But we treat it at length in Disputations 1859 and 31.60
Question 3. A question can be raised about Chapter 8 [sic]: whether and what kind of definite judgment of good is required to move the will? For in regard to this question the passage here should be carefully noted—as we observe in Disputation 23, Section 8,61 where we treat the question.
Question 4. There can be a fourth question around the end of Chapter 4: whether truth and falsity can be greater or lesser, that is, is one [truth or falsity] greater than another? For Aristotle thought the affirmative answer was so certain that he used that principle to demonstrate the first principle: “It is impossible that the same thing simultaneously both be and not be.”62 However, as he himself says in the beginning of this Chapter, in these reasonings the argument is not from things more known, but rather the adversaries are refuted from what they have conceded. Hence, it is probable that the affirmative side had been conceded by an adversary.
However, in an absolute sense, that opinion can seem to be false. For since truth consists in something indivisible, and in an adequation in every way of the intellect to the thing, it does not seem that it can be more or less. And for the same reason, neither can falsity [be more or less]; for if it takes away truth, it takes it away entirely, and in this way no falsity can be greater.
But it must be said, there can be more or less in falsity, not formally by an admixture of truth and falsity, as the argument made rightly proves, but “radically” by a greater or lesser distance from truth. And this clearly is what the Philosopher intends. For this is enough for him:
that he conclude that something is determinately true; but there is not said to be more or less in truth by access or removal from falsity. For falsity is opposed to truth by way of privation, and therefore it is mea-sured from that [truth] but not vice versa. Therefore, only by reason of a foundation, or of a greater firmness or necessity of that thing in which a truth is founded, can /p. XVII/ one truth be called greater than another.
However, this whole matter can become more fully evident from what we say about truth and falsity in Disputations 863 and 9.64
Question 5. Whether contraries with respect to the same subject are opposed as much as contradictories with respect to anything at all? For Aristotle seems to affirm that in this place. From this some infer that even in relation to the absolute power [of God] it is repugnant that two perfect contraries be in the same subject. We speak about this matter in Disputation 45, in connection with the category of Quality.65 It is evident that Aristotle now is speaking only insofar as one contrary im-plies the privation or the negation of another. But if this is impeded, it is clear that there cannot be equal repugnance. But whether it can be impeded, Aristotle did not know, and indeed he would deny [that it can]. However, there is no reason for us to deny it, except where there would be a special reason—about which we speak in the cited place.
Metaphysics Book IV 75 Question 6. Whether two contraries can naturally be simultaneous in imperfect being (in esse remisso) in the same thing, as Aristotle thinks here—this is disputed in the same place.
Question 7. Further, it can be asked: whether all things are always moved, or all things are always at rest, and whether something is ut-terly immobile, which is the first mover. But these things are treated in physics, and they are proper to that science, even though we treat in Disputations 2066 and 2967 of the Prime Mover, not under the character of first mover, but of first cause, or first being.
Question 8. About all these chapters it is usually asked: whether truth exists pure and without falsity in affirmations and negations and can it be grasped by us? Concerning this matter, we have said what seems worthy of discussion in the Disputations about truth and falsity.68
Notes
1 Tricot (Aristote ..., pp. xxii–xxii) speaks of this Book as follows. In its eight chapters, Aristotle treated being in so far as it is being, some axioms related to being, and the principle of non–contradiction, with dependence in places upon Books 1 and 3. The fourth Book resolves several of the problems from Book 3. The unity, therefore, of Books 1, 3, and 4 is manifest. There are two parts which can readily be distinguished within this Book: (1) Chapters 1 and 2, which deal with the object of metaphysics, and (2) Chapters 3 to 8, which give an indirect demonstration of first principles, most notably the principle of non–contradiction, whose value is affirmed in encounters with Heraclitus and the Sophists. The two parts are linked inasmuch as the first principles are related to being insofar as it is being and are, like it, of universal application. With regard to the object of metaphysics, there is a progression in this Book beyond Book 1: here the First Philosophy is designated as the science of being insofar as it is being, and no longer only as the science of the absolutely first causes of beings.
2 Cf. Metaphysics 4.1.1003a21.
3 Cf. DM 1, s. 1, vol. 25, pp. 2–12, which answers the question: “What is the object of metaphysics?.” Let me note again that in this place (n. 26, p. 11) Suárez adds to Aristotle’s
“being insofar as it is being” (; cf. Metaphysics 4.1.1003a21) the qualification
“real.” The phrase then becomes “being insofar as it is real being” which, in a way that Aristotle would not disapprove, decidedly excludes “beings of reason” and “accidental beings” from the subject matter of metaphysics. The further import of this will be seen in seventeenth–century Scholasticism which will emphasize intentional or objective being, which will often be equated with “being of reason” and with Aristotle’s “being as true” (; cf. Metaphysics 6.2. 1026a34—5). For some of what will be involved here, see my articles: “’Extrinsic Cognoscibility’: A Seventeenth Century Super–transcendental Notion,” The Modern Schoolman, 68 (1990), pp. 57–80; “Another God, Chimerae, Goat–Stags, and Man–Lions: A Seventeenth–Century Debate about Impossible Objects,” The Review of Metaphysics, 48 (1995), pp. 771–808; “Silvester Mauro, S.J. (1619–1687) on Four Degrees of Abstraction,” International Philosophical Quarterly, 36 (1996), pp. 461–474; “Between Transcendental and Transcendental: The Missing Link?” The Review of Metaphysics, 50 (1997): 783—815; “Supertranscendental Nothing: A Philosophical Finisterre,” Medioevo, 24 (1998), pp. 1–30; and “On the Pure Intentionality of Pure Intentionality,” The Modern Schoolman, 79 (2001), pp. 57–78.
4 DM 1, s. 2, vol. 25, pp. 12–22, where the question is: “Whether metaphysics is concerned with all things at the level of their proper natures?”
5 Cf. DM 1, s. 4, vol. 25, pp. 26–37, where the question is: “What are the tasks of this science? What is its goal? Or what is its utility?” A closer match here might be DM 3, s.
1, pp. 103–107, which asks: “Whether being insofar as it is being has some properties and of what kind they are?”
6 DM 3, s. 2, vol. 25, pp. 107–111, which raises the question: “How many properties are there and what order do they have among themselves?”
7 Cf. DM 1, 4, nn. 15–27, vol. 25, pp. 29–34, where metaphysics is assigned the tasks of confirming and defending first principles.
8 Cf. DM 1, 5, nn. 44–52, vol. 25, pp. 50–53.
9 Cf. DM 3, s. 3, vol. 25, pp. 111–115, which asks: “By what principles can properties be demonstrated of being? And whether among these, this is the first: ‘It is impossible that the same thing be and not be.’”
10 Cf. DM 1, 3, nn. 19–24, vol. 25, pp. 31–32.
16 Suárez literally writes: “Whether being has in us one formal concept.”
17 Cf. DM 2, s. 1, vol. 25, pp. 64–70, where the question is: “Whether being insofar as it is being has in our mind one formal concept which is common to all beings?” As indicated above in a note (Book 2, Chapter 1, Question 6), in this Section (n. 1, pp.
64–5) we find Suárez’s description of the important distinction between formal and objective concepts.
18 Ibid., pp. 82–87, where the question is: “Whether the character or the concept of being is, in reality and prior to being understood, in some way prescinded from its inferiors?”
19 DM 4, s. 2, vol. 25, pp. 122–5, where Suárez asks: “Whether ‘one’ as such expresses only a negation which it adds to being? Or [does it express] something else?”
20 Cf. esp. DM 2, 2, n. 21, vol. 25, p. 77.
21 Ibid., nn. 22–24, pp. 77–8. Something to remark here is that when Suárez uses the verb
“signifies” he is focusing on the term being rather than its concept; cf. n. 23, p. 78.
22 Cf. DM 2, s. 4, vol. 25, pp. 87–92, in which the question is: “In what does the character of being insofar as it is being consist? And how does it belong to inferior beings?” In this Section we find Suárez’s account of the distinction between “being as a noun” and
“being as a participle” (n. 3, pp. 88–9) as well as his discussion of what a “real essence”
is (nn. 6–7, pp. 89–90).
23 Ibid., nn. 13–14, pp. 91–2.
24 DM 2, s. 5, vol. 25, pp. 92–98, where it is asked: “Whether the character of being transcends all the characters and differences of inferior beings, in such a way that it is intimately and essentially included in them?” This Section contains Suárez’s understand-ing of and opposition to the Scotistic doctrine of intrinsic modes; cf. 8, p. 95.
25 DM 2, s. 6, vol. 25, pp. 98–102, which asks the question: “How being insofar as it is being is contracted or determined to its inferiors?”
26 Cf. in Opera, vol. 26, pp. 224–312.
Metaphysics Book IV 77
27 DM 28, s. 3, vol.26, pp. 13–21, which asks: “Whether [the division of being] is analo-gous, in such way that being is not said univocally but rather analogically of God and creatures?
28 Cf. DM 32, s. 2, vol. 26, pp. 319–29: where the question is: “Whether being is analogi-cally divided into substance and accident?”
29 Cf. Metaphysics 4.2.1003a33–b4.
30 That is to say, as parts which would divide a universal whole.
31 This is a most important notion for the whole progression of the Suarezian metaphysics.
Being has enough unity to be the middle term in demonstrations. This is especially presupposed by the basic plan of the Disputationes metaphysicae, which in the first 27 Disputations deals with being in general and then in Disputations 28 to 53 descends in a quasi–deductive way to the subjective parts (God and creatures, substance and accidents) contained under being in general. In this way, it is the unity of the com-mon concept which in different places mediates the passage to and through the beings contained under that concept.
32 That is, what is or can be; cf. above, my note 3, this Book.
33 About this latter meaning of being, which is what Aristotle (cf. Metaphysics 6.2.1026a33) has called “being as said in an unqualified way” () and which comes to be treated in post–Suarezian seventeenth–century philosophy as “supertranscendental being,” I have written extensively elsewhere; cf. e.g. John P.
Doyle: “Supertranscendental Being: On the Verge of Modern Philosophy,” in Meeting of the Minds: The Relation between Medieval and Classical Modern European Philosophy, ed. Stephen F. Brown (Brepols, 1998/9), pp. 297–315 and “Supertranszendent,” in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 10 (1999), cols. 643–649.
34 Suárez exactly says: “it has an analogy”.
35 Suárez exactly says: “not according to equality.”
36 For Suárez, beings of reason, which are not real beings and which are excluded from the subject matter of metaphysics, comprise negations, privations, and relations of reason;
for this cf. DM 54, vol. 26, pp. 1014–1041; in English: Francisco Suárez, S.J., On Beings of Reason (De Entibus Rationis) Metaphysical Disputation LIV, translated from the Latin, with an Introduction and Notes, by John P. Doyle, Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1995.
37 Cf. Metaphysics 6.4.1027b33–34.
38 Cf. esp. DM 1, 2, nn. 5 and 14, vol. 25, pp. 13 and 17.
39 Cf. DM 1, s. 2, vol. 25, pp. 12–22, which asks: “Whether metaphysics is concerned with all things at the level of their proper natures?”
40 Cf. “…… …...
.”
Metaphysics 4.2.1003b19–22.
41 Over and above knowability (cognoscibilitas), scientific knowability (scibilitas) involves the possibility of a complex inferential passage from causal premisses to conclusions.
On this, cf. DM 44, 11, n. 63, vol. 26, p. 713.
42 Cf. DM 4, s. 1, vol. 25, pp. 115–22, where Suárez asks: “Whether transcendental unity adds some positive character to being, or only a something privative?”
43 Ibid., s. 2, pp. 122–5, where the question is: “Whether ‘one’ as such expresses only a negation which it adds to being? Or [does it express] something else?”
44 Rather cf. DM 4, s. 4, vol. 25, pp. 131–3, where the question is: “Whether unity is an adequate property of being? And about the division of being into the one and the many.”
45 Rather, see DM 12, 1, n. 26, vol. 25, p. 382.
46 Cf. DM 7, 2, nn. 15–18, vol. 25, pp. 266–9.
47 Cf. DM 4, s. 6, vol. 25, pp. 135–6, in which the question is: “How are the one and the many opposed?”
48 That is, concluding and arguing.
49 See Opera, vol. 25, pp. 115–372.
50 The Spanish translators have changed this to “the following index.” This makes more sense for the present volume as well.
51 The terms “esse essentiae” and “esse existentiae,” go back at least to the doctrine of Henry of Ghent; cf. e.g., Quodl. I, 9 (ed. Paris, 1518), fol. 72v. On Suárez’s use of this termi-nology, cf. J. Owens, “The Number of Terms in the Suarezian Discussion of Essence and Being, The Modern Schoolman, 34 (1957), esp. pp. 151–2.
52 Cf. DM 31, vol. 26, pp. 224–312: “About the Essence and Existence of Finite Beings as such, and their Distinction.” For English, see: Francis Suarez, On the Essence of Finite Being as such, On the Existence of that Essence and their Distinction, translated from the Latin with an Introduction, by Norman J. Wells, Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1983.
53 Cf. “…” Meta-physics 4.3.1005b19–20.
54 Rather, cf. DM 3, s. 3, vol. 25, pp. 111–115, which asks: “By what principles can properties be demonstrated of being? And whether among these, this is the first: ‘It is impossible that the same thing be and not be.’”
55 Cf. DM 1, s. 4, vol. 25, pp. 26–37, where his questions are: “What are the tasks of this science? What is its goal? Or what is its utility?” For discussion of first principles, see esp. nn. 19–27, pp. 31–4.
59 DM 18, vol. 25, pp. pp. 592–687: “About a Proximate Efficient Cause and its Causal-ity, and about Everything it Requires in order to Cause.” For English, see: Francisco Suárez, On Efficient Causality: Metaphysical Disputations 17, 18, and 19, translated by Alfred J. Freddoso, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
60 Cf. DM 31, vol. 26, pp. 224–312: “About the Essence and Existence of Finite Being as such, and their Distinction.”
61 For this, cf. DM 23, 8, n. 5, vol. 25, p. 880, where Suárez records St. Thomas (Summa theologiae I, q. 82, a. 3) citing Aristotle from Metaphysics VI, Text 8 (cf. Metaphysics 6.4.1027b25–7) and also: DM 23, 8, nn. 9–11, pp. 880–881, where he discusses the judgment involved in apprehending the good which is required to move the will.
62 See note 9, this chapter.
63 DM 8, vol. 25, pp. 274–312: “About Truth or the True which is a Property of Being.”
64 DM 9, vol. 25, pp. 312–328: “About Falsity or the False.”
65 Cf. DM 45, 4, nn. 15–16, vol. 26, pp. 752–3.
66 DM 20, vol. 25, pp. 745–785: “The First Efficient Cause and its Action, which is Cre-ation.” For English, cf.: Francisco Suárez, S.J., On Creation, Conservation, and Concur-rence: Metaphysical Disputations 20, 21, and 22, translation, notes, and introduction by Alfred J. Freddoso, South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2002.
67 DM 29, vol. 26, pp. 21–60: “Whether there is a First and Uncreated Being.” English translation: Francisco Suárez, The Metaphysical Demonstration of the Existence of God (Disputationes Metaphysicae 28 and 29), Translated from the Latin by John P. Doyle, South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press, 2004.
68 That is, Disputations 8 and 9 (vol. 25, pp. 274–328).