Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle

Question One

BOOK FOUR QUESTION ONE Is everything called being in a univocal sense? Text of Aristotle: “There is a science that investigates being as being.”1 [Arguments Pro and Con] 1 [1] That it is: In equivocals there is no contradiction, according to On Sophistical Refutations;2 being and not-being contradict one another. The minor is proved. The Philosopher in Physics I,3 refuting Parmenides charges him with this incongruity that not-being is being. 2 It is said that he arrives at this by conceding that all things are one.—To the contrary: in that same work the Philosopher says:4 “The principle to use against them is to admit that the term being is used in many senses”; but if these [men] had in mind that being is asserted without qualification, then the Philosopher would be begging the question by using as his argument against them something not proven to be true, namely, that being is used in many senses. 3 Also, there is proof that [“not-being is being”] is simply a contradiction . “Something is and nothing is” is a contradiction; but “something” is no less common than “being,” for according to Avicenna in Metaphysics I, ch. 5:5 “Being and something have many names, [but are one in concept”]. 4 If you say there is no contradiction here, then there will never be a contradiction between “someone” and “no one,” because the 1 Aristotle, Metaphysics IV, ch. 1, 1003a 21. 2 Aristotle, De sophisticis elenchis ch. 30, 181b 1-3. 3 Aristotle, Physics I, ch. 3, 186a 22-186b 5. 4 Aristotle, Physics I, ch. 2, 185a 20-21. 5 Avicenna, Metaphysica I, ch. 6, AviL 34. 256 THE METAPHYSICS OF JOHN DUNS SCOTUS concept “someone” cannot be more common than the concept “something .” 5 Also, nothing equivocal can be determined to a particular thing it signifies by adding something to it; but being can. Proof of the major: every equivocal implies actually everything that it signifies ; whereas everything determinable is indifferent to being this or that. Proof of the minor: otherwise “white being” would be no easier to contract than “being” without anything added. 6 Also, this follows: “This is a substance, therefore, it is a being.” The antecedent could not be true without the consequent; from equivocals nothing follows, for they have no opposites. 7 [2] Also, being is predicated of everything of which it is predicated according to one notion of predicating, because it is predicated “in quid”; therefore, it is predicated according to one abstract meaning. 8 This is confirmed, because as one real attribute requires a subject that is one in reality, so it seems that one conceptual attribute requires one conceptual subject, that is to say, one intelligible grasped in a single concept. For how will one conceptual attribute be in many things per se unless it is primarily in one thing common to all those, as is argued about a real attribute? 9 Also, act and potency are differences of being;6 therefore, potency is no more univocal than being; but potency is used univocally, because possible and impossible contradict one another, and possible follows from necessary. But neither contradiction nor implication holds for equivocals. 10 Also, according to Physics VII,7 there is no comparison in equivocals, but there is a comparison in regard to being. There are two proofs of the minor: first, because substance is more of a being than accident is, and one accident is more a being than another; second, because in Bk. II of this work8 it says: “A thing has a quality in a higher degree than other things, if in virtue of it the similar quality belongs to the other things as well.” 6 Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics V, ch. 12, 1017a 35—1017b 4. 7 Aristotle, Physics VII, ch. 4, 1019a 33-1020a 4. 8 Aristotle, Metaphysics II, ch. 1, 993b 24-25; Posterior Analytics I, ch. 2, 72a 27-28. BOOK IV QUESTION ONE 257 11 Hence, “the principles of eternal things must be always most true”9 because they are the cause of the truth of other things. But i t is the same with being as with truth;10 therefore, if there is a comparison in regard to truth, there is also a comparison in regard to being. 12 Also, essentially the same notion of what is divided is retained in the parts into which it...