Analogy

ANALOGY T HE FIRST part of this essay is a discussion of a few points concerning the interpretation of the Thomist texts on anology} The second part is an attempt to show how our actual use of language supports what St. Thomas says quite independently of the question of whether any theory of analogy is possible. The last concerns the use of analogous terms in theological contexts. I "Analogy of proportionality" is understood in importantly different senses by different authors, and it is not always entirely clear what problem the analogy is designed to solve or how it would solve it. The clearest interpretation of the analogy of proportionality appears to be its construal as exactly like the following simple mathematical case: x is to a as b is to c; a, b and c are knowns, x is not; solve for x. This is then applied to problems of meaning in religious contexts through its apparent exact analogy with (for example)," God's wisdom (x) is to God (a) as a man's wisdom (b) is to the man (c);" " solve" for God's wisdom. But as Geach 2 and others have remarked, this is of no use at all for here a is an unknown also (or, at least, as unknown as x). (Another sense of proportionality is considered later in this essay.) Proportionality is often contrasted with analogy of attribution or proportion and with analogy of inequality. The first (textual) question then is how Aquinas intended his various classifications of analogy 1 I owe some of the references to Aquinas and their interpretation in the first section to Robert E. Meagher's valuable paper, "Thomas Aquinas and Analogy: A Textual Analysis," The Thomist XXXIV, no. ~ (April 1970), pp. ~30-253. • P. T. Geach and G. E. M. Anscombe, Three Philosophers (Oxford: Blackwell's, 1963), p. 128. U7 128 TOBIAS CHAPMAN to be understood. This question overlaps with two others: what sort of analogy did St. Thomas think was theologically important; and what sorts of relations are there between the various types of analogy? One view is that there is a development in St. Thomas's views about analogy. In his early works he favors analogy of proportionality as the most useful in theological contexts and in his later works, analogy of attribution.3 But this seems to be correct only in the following respect: that Aquinas allows a sense of "analogy of proportionality" (not the above one) which has some application in religious discourse but this sort of analogy of proportionality appears to be really just a species of analogy of atribution and, further, depends on the prior applicability of attribution to give it a sense. (In some non-religious contexts the last condition need not be met.) This constitutes a schematic answer to the first two questions above. In the course of trying to justify this answer I hope to provide an answer to the third question. In the early Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard Thomas distinguishes 4 three sorts of analogy: (1) according to intention and not according to being for which he gives his stock example of "health" as applied to animals (properly), to urine (a certain kind being an effect of health), and to diet (a certain kind being a cause of health). The label here seems confusing: what must be meant, I think, is that there is no analogy" according to being" but an actual (causal) relationship whereas the term is being used analogously. (2) Analogy according to being but not intention: here the analogous term is used as if there were some property which the entities referred to had in common but actually there is none (or, at least, if there is a common property, it is not what is meant by the term) . St. Thomas gives the antique example of " body" as applied to corruptible and incorruptible bodies, but " existent," • H. A. Wolfson, "St. Thomas on Divine Attributes," Melanges offerts a Etienne Gilson (Paris, 1959), 673-700. (I owe this reference to Julius R. Weinberg, A Short History of Medieval Philosophy, Princeton, 1964.) • I Sent., d. 19, 9. 15, a~. ad 1. ANALOGY 129 " beautiful," " good," " thing," and...