Aquinas and Analogy

The Prospect Before Us

THE PROSPECT BEFORE US There is no extended formal discussion of analogy in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. What we find are many identifications of terms as analogous and, here and there, the elements of a formal account of what it is such names are instances of. Aquinas's teaching on analogy, accordingly, must be gleaned from a variety of places in his work and fashioned into a systematic account. One who develops such an account and calls it Thomistic must therefore mean that (a) the elements of the doctrine are drawn from Thomas, and (b) the systematic statement of doctrine is suggested by and/or compatible with what Thomas explicitly says. Thus it is that Cajetan and many others in his wake have sought to formulate the account Thomas did not write. This book is an effort in that same line, with the commendable difference that it is preferable to all the others. In Part One we called into question the value of Cajetan's De nominum analogia as a guide to what Thomas explicitly and implicitly says about analogous names, and we gave reasons to question Cajetan's understanding of the relation between Aristotle and Thomas on these matters. Cajetan's misunderstanding of a text in Thomas's commentary PART TWO: ANALOGOUS NAMES on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, which he wrongly took to be a list of types of analogous names, continues to influence even those who set out to criticize Cajetan. The Cajetanian interpretation has flowed over into Aristotelian studies, and we find eminent scholars wondering whether Thomas's 'analogy of being' is to be found in Aristotle.! No doubt is expressed that it is to be found in St. Thomas. And no wonder. Cardinal Cajetan maintained that the only kind of analogous name that was truly an analogous name was the misbegotten hybrid he called proper proportionality whose principal role was played in metaphysics. The thesis of Part One was that there is no basis in St. Thomas for the Cajetanian division of analogous names. This thesis has the consequence of making the contrast between names analogous by attribution and names analogous by proper proportionality without value for interpreting St. Thomas. Nonetheless, both friend and foe of Cajetan continue to use this terminology. It is not simply that it cannot be found in Aristotle; it cannot be found in St. Thomas. In Part One, however, we did not argue that whatThomas means by analogous names is different from, in conflict with, or even an advance on, what Aristotle means by "things said in many ways but with reference to some one nature." The two men teach the same thing about the behavior of such words but they dub their doctrines differently. In Part Two we put before the reader a systematic account of what Thomas Aquinas means by analogous names. This part also has a negative thesis, and it is this: Just as Aristotle never used the Greek term avaAoYLa to refer to what Thomas Aquinas calls analogous names, so Thomas Aquinas never used the Latin term avaAoyta to refer to what has come to be called the analogy of being. I. It is of passing interest to note that when Pierre Aubenque pursues this question he writes as follows: "Si la doctrine de I'analogie de l'etre a occupe une place importante dans l'histoire de la metaphysique, ce ne fut pas chez Aristote, mais au Moyen Age, en particulier chez Thomas d'Aquin. La formulation et la justification la plus claire de cette doctrine sous sa forme thomiste se recontrent aux chapitres 4 et 5 du petit traite de jeunesse De ente et essentia, meme si Ie terme analogia ne s'y trouve pas employe" ("Sur la naissance de la doctrine pseudo-aristotlicienne de l'analogie de l'etre," Les Etudes philosophiques, no. 3-4 [1989], p. 2.92.). "Even though," as he says, "the term 'analogy' is not used!" ...