Abstract to Hochschild, Analogy

J. P. Hochschild

"Thomas de Vio Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia (1498) is usually interpreted as
an attempt to systematize Thomas Aquinas’s views on analogy. This approach ignores
historical and philosophical context and fails to make sense of Cajetan’s teaching on
analogy."

"The present study offers a reinterpretation of Cajetan’s treatise, beginning with a
reconstruction of the specific questions De Nominum Analogia tries to answer.
Traditionally understood as a mean between equivocation and univocation, analogy is
usually described as a kind of equivocation whose diverse significations are somehow
related. This raises two questions: What is the character of this relation? And if analogy
is a kind of equivocation, how can this relation provide unity sufficient to avoid causing
the fallacy of equivocation? These semantic questions, latent in the Aristotelian logical
tradition, were brought to the fore by Scotus’s arguments against analogy. Insufficiently
answered in the writings of Aquinas, they became preoccupations of Cajetan’s immediate
predecessors and contemporaries.
Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia is fruitfully read as a semantic analysis of
analogy designed to address these questions. Cajetan’s two well-known central teachings
on analogy are:

(1) that there are three modes of analogy—analogy of inequality, analogy
of attribution, and analogy of proportionality; and

(2) that analogy of proportionality is
the most proper mode of analogy. The threefold division of analogy constitutes three
alternative accounts of how diverse significates can be somehow related, and Cajetan
favors analogy of proportionality because only the unity of this mode of analogy allows a non-univocal term to avoid the fallacy of equivocation. This study finds, then, that
proportional unity is the key to Cajetan’s semantic analysis of analogy, and that most of
De Nominum Analogia articulates the ramifications of proportional unity through all the
three parts of traditional Aristotelian logic: simple apprehension, composing and
dividing, and discursive reasoning."

"This interpretation makes sense of Cajetan’s attention
to “concepts,” and confirms that semantic analysis is consistent with an appreciation for
the role of judgment in the use of analogical terms."

"An appendix contains the author’s English translations of De Nominum Analogia
and the letter De Conceptu Entis, parallel with the Latin text.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: FROM CAJETAN’S TEXT TO CAJETAN’S QUESTION
1.1 Introduction .......................................................................
1.2 Cajetan’s Recent Interpreters.............................................................3
1.3 Common Ground: The Received Paradigm .......................................... 12
1.4 Some Anomalies......................................................................... 15
1.5 Towards Cajetan’s Question: Historical Background ............................... 18
1.6 Conclusion ............................................................................... 25
CHAPTER 2: CAJETAN’S QUESTION: THE SEMANTICS OF ANALOGY
2.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 26
2.2 Cajetan’s Logical/Semantic Intent ..................................................... 26
2.3 Cajetan’s Question....................................................................... 32
2.4 Conclusion ............................................................................... 41
CHAPTER 3: IN DEFENSE OF A SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF ANALOGY
3.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 42
3.2 A Semantic Analysis of Analogy: Objections ........................................ 42
3.3 A Semantic Analysis of Analogy: Replies ............................................ 52
3.4 Conclusion ............................................................................... 63
CHAPTER 4: SOME INSUFFICIENT SEMANTIC RULES FOR ANALOGY
4.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 64
4.2 Thomas’s Semantic Specifications of Analogical Unity ............................ 65
4.3 Res Significata and Modi Significandi ................................................ 77
4.4 Indisjunction, Order, and Unequal Participation..................................... 82
4.5 Conclusion ............................................................................... 89
CHAPTER 5: CAJETAN’S SEMANTIC PRINCIPLES
5.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 91
5.2 Signification.............................................................................. 92
5.3 Predication................................................................................ 99
5.4 Denomination ...........................................................................102
5.5 Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Denomination .................................................103
5.6 Conclusion ..............................................................................109
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CHAPTER 6: THE SEMANTICS OF ANALOGY: INEQUALITY, ATTRIBUTION
6.1 Introduction .............................................................................110
6.2 The Categories and De Ente et Essentia Commentaries ............................110
6.3 The Definitions from De Nominum Analogia .......................................118
6.4 Analogy of Inequality ..................................................................120
6.5 Analogy of Attribution .................................................................124
6.6 Conclusion ..............................................................................136
CHAPTER 7: THE SEMANTICS OF ANALOGY: PROPORTIONALITY (I)
7.1 Introduction .............................................................................138
7.2 “Analogy” is an Analogous Term.....................................................138
7.3 Similis Secundum Proportionem .....................................................141
7.4 Proportionality and Divine Names: The “Two Unknowns” Objection...........143
7.5 The Circularity Objection ..............................................................145
7.6 Two Conditions for an Acceptable Analogy Theory ...............................150
7.7 Analogy of Proportionality and Proportional Unity ................................152
7.8 Privileging Analogy of Proportionality ..............................................157
7.9 Conclusion ..............................................................................159
CHAPTER 8: THE SEMANTICS OF ANALOGY: PROPORTIONALITY (II)
8.1 Introduction .............................................................................160
8.2 The Analogue: Perfect and Imperfect Concepts.....................................161
8.3 The “Abstraction” of the Analogue and the Confusion of the Analogues........166
8.4 Predication: Universal but not Univocal .............................................170
8.5 Definition: Signifying the Foundation of a Relation................................173
8.6 Comparison, Division, Resolution ...................................................178
8.7 Scientific Reasoning....................................................................180
8.8 Cajetan’s Parting Advice...............................................................184
8.9 De Conceptu Entis......................................................................189
8.10 Conclusion..............................................................................189
CONCLUSION....................................................................................193
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................197
APPENDIX: “ON THE ANALOGY OF NAMES” AND “ON THE CONCEPT OF BEING”
A Note on the Translations..................................................................208
“On the Analogy of Names” ................................................................211
“On the Concept of Being”..................................................................257
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ABBREVIATIONS
Works of Cajetan

CDEE Commentaria in De Ente et Essentia (1495)
ed. M.H. Laurent, Turin, 1934

CPA Commentaria in Praedicamenta Aristotelis (1498)
ed. M.H.Laurent, Rome, 1939

CPI Commentaria in Porphyrii Isagogen ad Praedicamenta Aristotelis (1497)
ed. I. Marega, Rome, 1934

CST Commentaria in Summam Theologiae St Thomae (1507-1522)
Leonine ed., Rome, 1906

DCE De Conceptu Entis (1509)
ed. N. Zammit, Rome, 1934; rev. H. Hering, Rome, 1951

DNA De Nominum Analogia (1498)
ed. N. Zammit, Rome, 1934; rev. H. Hering, Rome, 1951

DCE, DNA, and CDEE are cited by section numbers as they appear in the editions
indicated (e.g. DNA §1). CPA and CPI are cited by page numbers of the editions
indicated (e.g. CPA 19). CST is cited by the part, article, and question of the text
of Aquinas on which Cajetan comments, followed by a Roman numberal indicating
the section of Cajetan’s commentary as it appears in the Leonine edition (e.g. the
second section of Cajetan’s commentary on Prima Pars, question 13, article 5, is
CST I.13.5, n. ii)