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Chapter 4 Form, Being, and Name We must now return to D.50.16.14, a fragment by Jurist Paul, which states, as we have seen: Labeo et Sabinus existimant si vestimentum scissum reddatur, vel res corrupta reddita sit: veluti sciphi collisi: aut tabula rasa pictura: videri rem abesse: quoniam earum rerum pretium non in substantia, sed in arte sit positum. [Labeo and Sabinus think that if a garment is returned torn, or if a thing is returned corrupted, such as a broken vessel or a scratched painting, the thing is assumed to be absent, because the value of those things does not reside in their matter,1 but in the art that produced them.] A humanist addendum to the ordinary gloss states that the process of specificatio applies to the tabula picta, even if it restates that the specificatio dominates the matter in painting, but not in writing: Id est plus constat specificatio quam valat materia: ut in tabula picta [. . .] unde Ovidius : Materiam superabat opus. Et contra quandoque minus: ut in litteris. [That is to say, the specification has more power than the matter has value, as is the case with a painted tablet; (. . .) this is why, according to Ovid, work triumphs over matter. However, it sometimes is inferior to it, as is the case with writing.] (D.50.16.13 Plus est) This excerpt is, to my knowledge, the only one evoking the existence of a specificatio rationale for writing in the context of the tabula picta—even though it denies it. According to the Accursian gloss, the idea of a thing that is mutata applies as follows: “de materia in speciem: vel contra: vel de specie in speciem: vel prima facies deteriorata vel destructata est” (either a matter changed into species, or a species changed into species, either a first form deteriorated or destroyed ), D.50.16.13; and also, at Transfigurata, “in aliam speciem.” Odofredo 48 Chapter 4 reaffirms this interpretation. The extinction of the thing by specificatio, which allows one to qualify it as transformata, implies a cessation of existence (esse desinit) similar to that of dead things and things that stopped being in rerum natura.2 This is true for things where the work is worth more than the matter : “plus est in manus pretio quam in re [. . .] nam opus aliquando superat materiam” (the price depends on the labor more than on the object [. . .] because labor sometimes prevails over matter).3 In that case, the specificatio is the expression of the presence of art and technique, with one caveat: art must be strictly understood as a set of transformation skills, since Paul’s text refers to garments, vessels, and paintings. Strictly speaking, the problem of the thing that is mutata is that of form as the being of a thing, as dominating the material principle. In his Summa to the Institutes, Azo states: Speciem factam intelligo etiam imperfectam ex quo rudis materiae nomen exuerit [. . .] et videtur quod in specificationis modo deficiat regula, meum est quod ex re mea superest, cuius vendicandi ius habeo [. . .] forte quia videtur res extincta, cum novam formam receperit: quia forma rei est esse rei. [By facta, I mean a species, be it an unfinished one, stripped of the name for the unprocessed material (. . .) and a rule is obviously missing from the mode of specification : what remains of an object I owned belongs to me, and I have the right to claim it (. . .) it happens, in fact, that an object seems destroyed after being given a new form, because the form of an object constitutes the being of that object.] (ad 50) The rationale points both to the naming and the form. The principle “forma rei est esse” responds to one of the fundamental principles of Aristotelian metaphysics. All material things are composed of two elements or principles: matter, which is the passive principle, the indeterminate element; and form, which is the active principle, the determinate element. Form can assume a permanent and fundamental modality, which places it inside a determinate species: this is the substantial form (the soul for humans or dogs); or it can be a variable and transitory modality, and the form is then accidental (for example , color, weight, position, etc.). One could cite numerous excerpts from Saint Thomas pointing that way: Forma per seipsam facit rem esse in actu, cum per essentiam suam sit actus. [The form suffices to render a thing actual, since its proper essence is to be actual.]4 Cum omne esse sit a...

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