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ОглавлениеSpecimen of a Dictionary of the Terms of Logic and allied Sciences: A to ABS
MS 145: November 1867
This is not supposed to be complete, but only as illustrating the state of my materials, Nov. 1867.
Dictionary A-ABS
A
The first letter of the alphabet is used as a sign in logic.
1. In Aristotle’s Analytics, A denotes the major extreme of a syllogism of the first figure. He very seldom employs it otherwise.
2. Since the middle of the thirteenth century, it has been usually employed to denote a universal affirmative proposition. E, I, and O, denote the other forms of categoricals, according to the verse,
Asserit A, negat E, sunt universaliter ambae;
Asserit I, negat O, sunt particulariter ambae.
It is doubtful whether this use of the vowels originated in the East or in the West. Prantl shows that it had been usual to represent the four forms of propositions by writing simply, and and he supposes that the A, E, and I, are the accented vowels of the first three words and that the O represents the OY of Hamilton thinks that the four vowels are the first two of the words affirmo and nego. The opinion of the last writer that they were invented by Petrus Hispanus can in any case hardly be sustained.
3. A has been used in several other senses which it is unnecessary to specify.
A
A parte ante. In reference to the past.
See Universal.
A parte post. In reference to the future.
See Universal.
A posse. See Consequence.
A posteriori. Explained under A priori.
A potiori. See Denomination.
A priori. This term and a posteriori are said to be directly derived from the use by Aristotle of prior and posterior, . I do not, however, know of the occurrence of these expressions in any writer previous to Cajetan, though per priora is found (Aquinas, Summa, Prim, prim., quaest. 2, art. 2) in the same sense. The well-authorized senses of these terms are as follows.
1. “Previously to Kant, the terms a priori and a posteriori were, in a sense which descended from Aristotle, properly and usually employed,—the former to denote a reasoning from cause to effect—the latter, a reasoning from effect to cause.” Hamilton, Reid’s Works, p. 762. See also Trendelenburg, Elementa Logices Aristoteleae, §19.
2. By Baumgarten and the Wolffians, a priori demonstration was confounded with synthetical demonstration, and a posteriori demonstration with analytical demonstration. The terms had previously been used in this way by Le Clerc and others. See Hollmann, Part 3, cap. 3, §517.
3. Finally, there is the metaphysical sense of the terms, now universal, and introduced by Kant. There are some traces of this use before him, as in the two quotations which follow.
“Sense apprehends individual bodies without, by something derived from them, and so a posteriori, the senses being last are the images of things. The sensible ideas of things are but umbratile and evanid images of the sensible things, like shadows projected from them; but knowledge is a comprehension of a thing proleptically, and as it were a priori.” Cudworth, Eternal and Immutable Morality, Ch. 3, §5, p. 99.
“It is easy to see that these two concepts must be taken relatively. For if we should make not only immediate experiences but also all that we can discover by means of them a posteriori, then the concept a priori could only be used in a few of those cases in which we predetermine something by arguments, since in such case we must in no degree depend on any of the premises of experience. And so there would be scarcely anything at all in our cognition which was a priori.” Lambert, Book 1, ch. 9, §637, vol. 1, p. 413.
The following passages show Kant’s use of the terms. “The rules of logic can therefore be regarded as a priori, that is, independent of all experience, since they contain merely the conditions of the use of the understanding in general, without distinction of objects.” Logik, Einleitung I. “Although all our cognition begins with experience, it does not necessarily on that account arise out of experience. For it might easily be that even our experiential cognition was a compound of that which we receive by impressions and of that which our cognitive faculties (only stimulated by sensuous impressions) bring forth from themselves. … Is there such a cognition independent of experience and even of all impressions of sense? One terms such cognitions a priori, and distinguishes them from the empirical, which have their sources a posteriori. “ Kritik d. reinen Vernunft, 2nd Ed., Einleitung I.
A priori employment of a synthesis. Its employment in reference to representations which are not empirical. Kant, Kritik, p. 99.
A priori knowledge “embraces those principles which, as the conditions of the exercise of the faculties of thought, are, consequently, not the result of that exercise.” Hamilton.
A priori possibility. “We know possibility a priori when we resolve a notion into its requisites or into other notions of known possibility, and know that there is nothing incompatible in them. We know a posteriori the possibility of a thing, when we actually experience its existence.” Leibniz, p. 80.
Ab esse. See Consequence.
Abdication. Abdicatio. An abdicative judgment. Scotus Erigena.
ABDICATIVE
Applied by Appuleius and Martianus Capella to propositions, in the sense of negative.
ABDUCTION
This is the English form of abductio, a word employed by Julius Pacius, as the translation of (Prior Analytics, lib. 2, cap. 25), which had been rendered deductio by Boëthius and reductio and even inductio by the schoolmen.
It is a form of argument described by Aristotle as follows:—“Abduction is when it is evident that the first term [that which occurs in the syllogism only as a predicate. See Analytica Posteriora, lib. i, ch. 21, p. 82.b.2.] is predicable of the middle, but that the middle is predicable of the last [that which is only subject] is inevident, but is as credible or more so than the conclusion, further if the media of the last and middle are few; for it is being altogether nearer knowledge. Thus, let A be ‘what can be taught’, while B is ‘science’, and Γ ‘justice’. [A, B, Γ always denote the major, middle, and minor of a syllogism of the first figure.] Now, that science can be taught is plain, but that virtue is science is inevident. If then ΓB is as credible or more so than ΓA, there is an abduction. For by assuming the science of ΓA, we not having it before, are nearer to knowledge. [That is, we come nearer to knowing that justice can be taught, on account of the credibility of justice being a science.] Or again, if the middles of ΓB are few; for thus one is nearer knowledge. As, if Δ were ‘capable of being squared’, while E were ‘rectilinear figure’, and Z ‘circle’; if there were only one middle of ZE, that a circle becomes equal to a rectilinear figure by menisci, would be near knowledge. But, when ΓB is neither more credible than ΓA nor are the middles few, I do not call it abduction. Nor when ΓB is immediate, for that is knowledge.”
It will be seen that abduction has no connection with ‘apagogical proof’. See Waitz, Organon, i.534.
ABILITY
The power to act in a certain way. See Moral, Natural.
ABSENCE
1. The not being in a place.
2. “Mind, since it has no parts whose position can be considered relatively to other corporeal things, is not absent from corporeal things locally, but is absent, according to Thomas and DesCartes, from everything in which it does not operate.” Chauvin.
“Such things as, Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you, are said of God in scripture, metaphorically. For as it is said that the sun enters a house or leaves it, in so far as his rays extend to the house, so God is said to approach us or to recede from us, as far as we perceive the influence of his goodness or withdraw from it.” Aquinas, prim, prim., quaest. 9, art. 1.
3. “Every privation is a certain negation of the opposite habit, which we designate by the word absence.” Burgersdicius.
ABSOLUTE
Absolutum is good Latin. It is now used in a great variety of senses.
1. Absolutum a restrictione. Without restriction, in the logical sense. See below, absolute distribution, and absolute scepticism.
2. Absolutum a conditione. Unconditionate. See below, absolute proposition, absolute necessity, etc.
3. Absolutum a causa. “The Absolute is that which is free from all necessary relation, that is, which is free from every relation as a condition of existence; but it may exist in relation, provided that relation be not a necessary condition of its existence; that is, provided that relation may be removed without affecting its existence.” Calderwood.
Mansel expressly says that this is what he means by ‘absolute, in the sense of free from relation’. Philosophy of Conditioned. This is its sense in the Limits of Religious Thought; not sense 4.
‘Absolutum means what is freed or loosed; in which sense the absolute will be what is aloof from relation, comparison, limitation, condition, dependence, etc., and thus is tantamount to of the lower Greeks. In this meaning the absolute is not opposed to the infinite.” Hamilton.
4. ‘Absolutum means finished, perfected, completed; in which sense the Absolute will be what is out of relation, &c, as finished, perfect, complete, total, and thus corresponds to and of Aristotle. In this acceptation,—and it is that in which for myself I exclusively use it—the Absolute is diametrically opposed to, is contradictory of the infinite.” Hamilton.
“Absolute expresses the attribute of totality (incomposite unity or indivisibility).” F. E. Abbot.
“In our vulgar language, we say a thing is absolutely good when it is perfectly good.” Knox, History of Reform. Quoted in Fleming’s Vocabulary.
5. “The term absolute in the sense of free from relation, may be used in two applications;—1st, To denote the nature of a thing as it is in itself, as distinguished from its appearance to us. Here it is used in a subordinate sense, as meaning out of relation to human knowledge.” Mansel, Philosophy of Conditioned.
6. “Eschenmayer asserts that God is infinitely higher than the absolute, which is only the last object of knowledge, while God is only an object of faith, which is infinitely higher than knowledge.” Furtmair.
7. Absolutum a termino. A term is said to be absolute which can of itself be the subject or predicate of a complete proposition; as man, tree, and which implies the existence only of what it denotes. Opposed to connotative or relative terms, such as, greater, father of.
8. Without any modifying clause; like the simpliciter of the schoolmen.
Absolute adjunct. “An adjunct which belongs to its subject simply and absolutely.… Thus, mortality is an absolute adjunct of man; immortality a limited one; because man is not absolutely immortal, but only so as to his soul.” Burgersdicius.
Absolute affection. An affection “which belongs to its subject per se, “ and not on account of its relation to another. Chauvin.
Absolute beauty. “Beauty has been distinguished into the Free or Absolute, and into the Dependent or Relative. In the former case, it is not necessary to have a notion of what the object ought to be, before we pronounce it beautiful or not; in the latter case such a previous notion is required. Flowers, shells, arabesques, etc. are freely or absolutely beautiful. We judge, for example, a flower to be beautiful though unaware of its destination, and that it contains a complex apparatus of organs all admirably adapted to the propagation of the plant.” Hamilton, Metaphysical Lecture 46, p. 624.
Absolute distribution “is the distribution of a term without limitation: as, every man is Philargyrus. “ Example of the contrary distribution (the limited): “Every animal except the swan dies groaning.” Eck, In summulas Petri Hispani, fol. 91a.
Absolute good. “The moral good, which concerns the highest interest.” Kant, Kritik d. Urtheilskraft, §4.
Absolute ground of proof. A ground of proof not itself proved or needing proof, but intuitive.
Absolute horizon. “The congruence of the limits of human cognition with the limits of collective human perfection in general.” Kant, Logik, Einleitung VI, p. 207. See Horizon.
Absolute identity. “The system which reduces mind and matter to phenomenal modifications of the same common substance.” Hamilton.
“Nature should be the visible mind, and mind invisible nature. Here, therefore, in the absolute identity of the mind within us, and nature without us, must we solve the problem how it is possible for a nature out of us to be.” Schelling.
Absolute impossibility. “The absolutely impossible is that which involves a contradiction; as, that a man is a stone.” Burgersdicius.
Absolute independence. “That is said to be absolutely independent which does not owe its being to another; and that, either positively, in which way God alone is independent, or negatively, in which way non-ens owes its being to nothing, in as much as it has none.” Chauvin.
Absolute indivisibility. “The absolutely indivisible is that which has no parts into which it can be divided, and so is a simple ens. “
Absolute intellection. Intellection not performed by means of comparison. “Absolute intellection can only be of some simple object contained under the object of the concept (intellectus). “ Scotus, In sententiarum, lib. 2, dist. 6, qu. 1, vol. 2, p. 242.
Absolute knowledge. Knowledge not relative. See Relativity of knowledge.
Absolute liberty. “The absolutely free is free from servitude, from a law established over him by others, from compulsion, and from natural necessity.” Burgersdicius, Institutionum Logicarum, p. 66.
Absolute locality. “I call absolute locality, provisionally until an apter word occurs, that by which a thing exists alone anywhere, that is, without respect to another thing; of which sort was the locality of God before the foundation of the world, and even now is, out of the circuit of the world, where there are no things.” Burgersdicius, Institutionum Metaphysicarum, lib. 1, cap. 21.
Absolute motion “is the translation of a body from one absolute place into another.” Newton.
Absolute name. Names not connotative. “Merely absolute names are those which do not signify one thing principally and another or the same secondarily, but whatever is signified by such a name is alike primarily signified, as appears concerning this name, ‘animal’.” Occam. Quoted by Prantl, iii, 364.
Absolute necessity. “The absolutely necessary is that whose negation implies contradiction.” Burgersdicius.
Absolute pain. See absolute pleasure.
Absolute perfection. Perfection in every respect. “That to which no imperfection of any sort belongs.” Burgersdicius.
Absolute philosophy. A philosophy which is absolute knowledge, if true.
Absolute place. “The part of absolute space which a body occupies.” Newton.
Absolute pleasure. “Absolute pleasure is all that pleasure which we feel above a state of indifference and which is therefore prized as a good in itself, and not simply as the removal of an evil.” Hamilton, Metaphysical Lecture 42.
Absolute power. The power of a despot or autocrat.
Absolute prescience. “Is that by which God knows that things absolutely and without condition will be.” Burgersdicius, Institutionum Metaphysicarum, lib. 2, cap. 8.
Absolute principle. Absolute principles are those “from which in the construction of a science, cognitions altogether certain not only are, but must be derived.” Hamilton.
Absolute problem. Where it is asked whether an attribute belongs to a subject or not, not to which of two subjects it belongs the most. Burgersdicius.
Absolute proposition. A term which Hamilton recommends in place of categorical proposition. He cites the authorities of Gassendi and Mocenicus. Logic, Lecture 13, p. 165 note.
Absolute reality. Inherence in things as a condition or mark without regard to the forms of human intuition and thought. See Kant’s Kritik d. r. Vernunft, 1st Ed., p. 35 ad fin.
Absolute scepticism. That is, the very last degree of scepticism. But different writers understand this differently. The simple negation of understanding in inanimate objects is not considered scepticism; neither is idiocy. It is the employment of the reason exclusively “to inquire and debate, but not to fix and determine.” It is the adoption of the principle that all possible opinions upon all possible subjects are equally probable,—the adoption of this not as a doctrine but as a principle actually determining the state of mind. See Montaigne’s Essays, Book 2, cap. 12. This is what the ultima thule of scepticism really is. But what is usually meant by absolute scepticism is one or other of the following dogmas—
1. “Absolute scepticism declares everything to be illusion.” Kant, Logik, Einleitung X.
2. It is the doctrine “that unconditionally certain knowledge is from its own nature impossible.” Seydel, Logik, §4.
Absolute space “is that which remains always similar and immovable.” Newton.
“The space in which all motion must ultimately be thought, is called pure or absolute space.” Kant, Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft
Absolute term “is a term which connotes nothing; as, elephant, cedar.” Eck, In summulas Petri Hispani, Tractatus 2, text 2, Note 1.
Absolute time. “Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself and from its own nature, flows equably without regard to anything external, and is called duration.” Newton.
I give the definition of Newton since he invented the term, although it is a little nonsensical.
Absolute truth “is the agreement of the content of cognition with the actuality.” Überweg.
Absolute utility. “We may call the higher utility or that conducive to the perfection of a man viewed as an end in himself, by the name of absolute.” Hamilton.
ABSOLUTELY
Absolutely first and last. The very first and last.
Absolutely practical What relates to the absolute good. Kant.
Absolutely proper adjunct. A proper adjunct “which emanates from the essence of the subject; and that either immediately (thus, the faculty of laughing and wondering emanates immediately from the human essence) or by the medium of another property (thus to occupy space emanates from the essence through the quantity of the body).” Burgersdicius.
Absolutely pure. “A cognition is termed absolutely pure in which no experience or impression is mixed.” Kant.
ABSTINENCE
“is whereby a man refraineth from anything which he may lawfully take.” Elyot, Governour. Quoted by Fleming.
ABSTRACT
1. That which signifies or represents an attribute or relation, apart from any reference to a subject.
This appears to be the original meaning of the term. The word is said to be employed by the Roman philosophers and grammarians. It certainly was not in common use in logic before Scotus who uses it frequently. Before him, we meet the expressions, ex abstractione, per abstractionem, inabstractum, abstrahens, ablatum, and remotum, where abstractum might be expected.
2. That which signifies or represents objects in certain of their elements apart from others, whether these latter be the matter, certain forms, or the individuality. See Abstract concept.
3. Kant uses this adjective in a peculiar sense. The following is from his elucidator Schmid.
“Abstract concepts are, 2ndly, in particular, abstract concepts in the narrower signification, sensuously abstracted (Critik d. r. Vernunft, 2nd Ed., p. 38) that is, such as can arise only in this way and throughout suppose a previous synthesis, since they themselves represent something which is only given by sensuous impressions, something sensible; as, the concept of red colour. In this signification, neither pure intuitions (Space and Time) nor pure intellectual concepts (as Substance, Cause, Totality) are to be termed abstract concepts, since they are not contained as sensuously given constituents in the concrete concepts of sensuous objects, but first make these themselves possible, that is, are conditions which must be present in the cognitive power itself, in order to be empirically intuited or thought by the latter. The prescinded consciousness of them, however, supposes the operation of abstraction, since we at first become acquainted with them only by their immediate application to individual objects, and therefore in concreto. Hence arises the illusion of their being sensuously abstracted. That A, from which something else B is abstracted as a mark, we must still be able to represent to ourselves after the abstraction has taken place. But if, for instance, we abstract space from a body, every other representation which belongs to the body, vanishes along with Space.” See further under the verb to abstract.
4. The immediate object of an abstract representation is termed an abstract form or attribute, &c.
See Logical, Metaphysical, Physical.
Abstract concept. Abstract, as applied to concept, is commonly used in the second of the above senses. More properly in the first sense; by Kant sometimes in the third.
“The use of some logicians which identifies abstract and universal is not to be commended. Grammar distinguishes the two sharply. Wolff, also, has the more proper terminology which agrees with that of grammar since he (Logik, §110) defines the abstract notion as that which represents something which is in a certain thing (to wit, the attributes, modes, relations, of things) apart from the thing which it is in, but the universal notion as that which represents what is common to several things.” Überweg.
Abstract freedom “consists in that indetermination or equality of the ego with itself, wherein there is a determination only so far as it makes it its own or puts it into itself.” Hegel.
Abstract knowledge. Used by Hamilton (Reid, p. 812) in place of abstractive knowledge, q.v.
Abstract name. 1. “The question is whether a denominative name signifies the same as an abstract one, to wit, a form only.” Scotus, Quaestiones in Praedicamentis, Qu. 8. Abstract is here used in the first sense.
2. “A practice has grown up in more modern times, which, if not introduced by Locke, has gained currency chiefly from his example, of applying the expression ‘abstract name’ to all names which are the result of abstraction or generalization, and consequently to all general names, instead of confining it to the names of attributes. The metaphysicians of the Condillac school,… have gone on imitating him in this abuse of language, until there is now some difficulty in restoring the word to its original signification. A more wanton alteration of the meaning of a word is rarely to be met with; for the expression ‘general name’, the exact equivalent of which exists in all languages … was already available for the purpose to which abstract has been misappropriated, while the misappropriation leaves that important class of words, the names of attributes, without any compact distinctive appellation. The old acceptation, however, has not gone so completely out of use, as to deprive those who still adhere to it of all chance of being understood.” Mill, Logic.
Abstract Logic “considers the laws of thought as potentially applicable to the objects of all the arts and sciences, but as not actually applied to those of any.” Hamilton.
Abstract object. The object of an abstract concept in the first or second sense.
TO ABSTRACT
“It is necessary here to note the very great ambiguity of the word abstract. For we should properly say ‘to abstract from anything’ not ‘to abstract anything’. The former denotes that we do not attend in a certain concept to others in any way bound up with it, but the latter that it is not given unless in the concrete and so that it may be separated from the things conjoined with it. Hence, an intellectual concept abstracts from all that is sensitive, but is not abstracted from sensitive objects; and perhaps it would be more correct to call it abstrahent than abstract. Wherefore, it is better to name intellectual concepts pure ideas, but those which are only given empirically abstract.” Kant, De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis.
It is difficult to see what ground there is for saying that the expression to abstract anything has the implication here attributed to it. It is certainly improper to speak, as Berkeley does, of abstracting things apart; but the opinion that some entertain that mentem is the understood object of abstrahere is neither supported by the original metaphor, nor by good usage in any age of the world.
The following are examples of the use by Scotus, who chiefly formed the modern custom with reference to the derivatives of abstractio. “Intellectus noster in cognoscendo abstrahet ab hic et nunc”; “Prius cognoscit intellectus singulare quam universale; impossibile est enim, quod rationem universalis ab aliquo abstrahet, nisi id, a quo abstrahit, praecognoscat.” Of course ratio does not here mean reason; ratio universalis is the mode of the universal.
ABSTRACTION
Abstractio is the translation by Boëthius of
1. Abstraction is the separation in thought of an attribute or relation from its subject, by neglecting the latter. This seems to be its sense, in Aristotle.
2. Mental separation of any elements by neglect of one and attending to the other; that is, by supposing one not to exist.
3. Such a separation of matter and form, or of certain characters from others, but not of one thing from another.
4. Any sort of mental separation.
5. Any separation, mental or real.
6. The power of performing mental abstraction. See Concrete, Formal, Logical, Mathematical, Metaphysical, Modal, Objective, Partial, Physical, Real, Ultimate.
ABSTRACTIVE
Abstractive cognition. The distinction between abstractive and intuitive cognition is found in St. Anselm (Monologium, Caps. 62, 63, 66, 67), but the word first occurs in Scotus.
1. “In order that I may use brief words, I will call that cognition abstractive, which is of the quiddity itself as it is abstracted from existence and non-existence.” Scotus, lib. 2, dist. 3, qu. 9, p. 197.
2. “Abstractive knowledge is the cognition of a thing not as it is present; for example, the knowledge by which I know Socrates when absent, and that by which an astronomer in the house considers an eclipse which he does not observe, supposing that he knows that at that time the earth is between the moon and the sun. And also, that by which the philosopher from creatures knows that God is. For although these cognitions are directed to the thing as to its existence, yet they are not so directed to it that the presence of their object is discerned.” Conimbricenses, De Anima, lib. 2, cap. 6, qu. 3, art. 1.
ABSTRAHENT
This term was often used in the 12th century (see the treatise De intellectibus. Cousin, Fragments Philosophiques, p. 481). Kant has suggested the revival of the term to denote pure concepts of the understanding.
Abstrahentium non est mendacium. This is an awkward way of saying that a quality which is abstracted from is not denied. If abstraction is not denial, far less is generalization. Yet the two seem to be confounded by Hegel when he says that being and nothing are the same because they are equally the absence of all determination.
ABSURD
1. That which involves an error obvious to common sense.
2. That which would involve an error, which would offer no illusion or deception whatever; as, That to have a hundred dollars is absolutely the same as to be without it.
ABSURDITY
1. The absurd in either sense.
2. “An absurdity to a particular person is a proposition, true or not, which conflicts with a proposition which has to that person the force of an axiom.” Chauvin.
3. The quality of the absurd.
See Simple.
ABSURDUM
See Reductio.
ABUNDANT
Abundant definition. One which contains derived marks.
List of words, beginning with AC
Academic
Academy
Acatalepsy
Acceptation
Acceptilation
Accident
Accidental—agreement—definition—difference—distinction—form—mode—predicable—predication—quality—supposition.
Accidentally—subordinate causes.
Accommodated—distribution
Accountability
Accurate—knowledge
Acedia
Acervus
Achilles
Acousmatic—disciple
Acquired—logic
Acquisitive—faculty
Acrisy
Acroama
Acroamatic—disciple—method—proof
Act
Action
Active—cause—instrument—power
Activity
Actual—cognition—composition—distinction—ens—essence—existence—object—part—whole
ACADEMIC. A platonist.
ACADEMY. The School of Plato.
See Old, Middle, New.
ACATALEPSY. Incomprehensibleness, or incapacity of being known with complete certainty.
ACCEPTATION. This is not a very precise term. It means either (1) the sense in which a term is taken, or (2) the manner in which it is used, or (3) the special application of it. The term suppositio which was replaced by this term by the purists of the revival, was much better.
See Collective, Concrete, Distributive, Formal, Material, Simple. ACCEPTILATION. Originally a term of the civil Law. Used in theology, for a discharge from an obligation without payment of an equivalent. ACCIDENT. The word accidens, as a noun, occurs first in Quintilian as the translation of . This term in its strict sense belongs to Aristotle, but was derived from the ordinary usage of the Greek language.
1. Whatever is in substance; that is, whatever cannot be supposed to exist without supposing that something else (the substance) exists. In this sense, it is opposed to substance. This is a common sense in Aristotle and in all later philosophers.
2. A quality or mark which does not necessarily belong to its subject. In this sense (opposed to property), it is also used by Aristotle and all subsequent writers.
“Accident is that which is present and absent without the corruption of its subject.”
See Conversion by Accident, Inseparable, Separable, Abstract, Causal, Concrete, Predicamental, Predicable, Verbal.
ACCIDENTAL.
Accidental Agreement is agreement in respects extraneous to the essence of the subjects.
Accidental definition. An expression of the nature of a subject by means of its accidents (in the second sense). Occam.
Accidental difference. A difference in respect to accidents, in the second sense.
Accidental distinction. A distinction relating to accidents in the second sense.
Accidental form. A form whose subject may be without it; that is, it is an accident in the second sense.
“Forms are divided into substantial and accidental. A substantial form is one which completes the matter and informs it, and so constitutes the corporeal substance. An accidental form is an addition inhering in the complete substance, and with it constituting the concrete ens, and that which is one per accidens. In these definitions, four discrimina are expressed, by which these two genera of forms differ from each other. The first is, that the substantial form is referred to the matter of the substance, the accidental to the substance itself; and because the matter of substances is of itself imperfect and incomplete in the genus of substances, therefore the substantial form is said to complete the matter in the genus of substances, and to constitute it into a certain species. An Accidental form is not a complement of but an addition to the substance; and this is the second point of difference. From this arises the third, that the substantial form truly informs the matter, while the accidental form does not inform the complete substance, unless in some general and less proper sense, but rather inheres in it as in a subject. Hence now arises the fourth discrimen, that the substantial form makes the substance one perse, while the accident makes some concrete Ens, which is one per accidens, only.” Burgersdicius, Institutionum Metaphysicarum, lib. i, cap. 25, §6.
Accidental form of syllogism, “depends on the external expression of the constituent parts of the syllogism, whereby the terms and propositions are variously determined in point of number, position, and consecution.” Esser.
Accidental mode. A mode which either modifies an accident, or if it modifies the substance is not included in the notion of the substance. Burgersdicius.
Accidental mode of signifying is one which belongs to a term from any grammatical or logical accident; thus amo signifies present time by an accidental mode.
Accidental perfection is ‘an addition pertaining to the essence either for causing it to do or to suffer what is fit for it, or for ornament’. Burgersdicius.
Accidental predicable. Property and accident. “They are called accidental because they are not substance, or of the essence of the subjects of which they are predicated. It is to be observed that the real ens is divided into substance and accident; whence taking accident as opposed to substance, property is an accident.” Pseudo-Aquinas, Summa logices.
Accidental predication.
Accidental quality. An accident in the second sense. Hamilton.
Accidental supposition. A term of the Parva logicalia; opposed to natural supposition. “Accidental supposition is the acceptation of a common term for all things, for which its adjunct requires that it be taken.” Petrus Hispanus. Thus, in the proposition ‘homo erit’, homo supposes for all future men. “The supposition of a term is accidental in respect to a copula which is not freed from time; as ‘homo fame moritur septimo die’.” Eck.
