Collected Works

Prima pars 3

Comparison of logic to internal speech.

The comparison of this doctrine to the internal intellect, which is called internal speech, is like the comparison of the grammarian to the manifest signification which is called speech; and like the comparison of melody to meter. However, a melody is not as useful for the measure as two meters are; for nature suffices for the rustics regarding Arabic grammar. A man who acquires sciences by considering and thinking requires this doctrine, unless he is a man inspired by the divine, whose comparison to those who consider is like the comparison of an Arabic rustic to those learning Arabic.

Credulity and faith are not from a single intellect alone.

It is impossible for the soul to be moved by a single intellect alone to believe something. For this intellect is not a judgment making faith in the existence or non-existence of a thing. If it were faith, this intellect would posit the thing as existing or not existing, and then the intellect itself would not be worth that faith in any way; for that which makes faith is the cause of faith. But it is impossible for something to be the cause of faith for another, whether it has being or not.

Intellect is often had from a single word.

An intellect is often had from a single word. If, however, one [word] does not suffice for understanding that it exists or does not exist in its essence or disposition, it will not create faith regarding something else. But when you have added the intellect of existence or non-existence, you have already added to it and aggregated with it another intellect, as will be declared later in its proper place.

Understanding from a single word happens in few cases.

This, however—namely, to understand from a single word—happens in few cases; and for this reason, with many, there is a diminution and evil. That which gives understanding in many cases are intellects of composite sentences. A composite, however, is composed of many things, and among the many things are some which are one. Therefore, in every composite there are some things which are one. A one, however, in every composite is called a simple.

The one in every composite is called simple.

A composite cannot be known in general without its parts and components.

And that which is composed of many things cannot be known if its simples are ignored. Therefore, it is more convenient to first know the simples rather than the composites.

The cognition of composites is achieved in two ways: either they are known according to the fact that they are apt to form the aforementioned composition, or they are known according to the fact that they are things to which this intellect happens.

Against the Peripatetics, Physics, book 3. All composites are more known to us through causes, as God says, etc. He answers by denying the premise: he does not speak here of perfect cognition, which in men is by causes, as Averroes says in Physics, through similarity.

A woodcut depicts a structure similar to a house being built, composed of wood and other materials, illustrating that to know the whole, one must first know the simple components like timber and clay.

For instance, [consider] the similarity of a house which is composed of wood and other components: the work of the builder is to know the simples of the house, namely, the timber, the bricks, and the clay.

But the timber, bricks, and clay have dispositions by which they are apt for the house and its construction, and other dispositions besides these—such as the fact that the timber is from this substance in which the vegetative soul resided, or that they are not hot or cold, or that their operation among those things that exist is such and such.

How timber, bricks, and clay pertain to the consideration of the builder, and how they do not.

But to know this is not necessary for the builder of houses. Rather, it is necessary for the builder of houses to know whether a beam is soft or hard, or whether it is sound or rotten.

How logic considers simple or complex intentions, and how it does not.

It is similar in the doctrine of logic. It does not consider the incomplex things of these matters according to the fact that they are in one of the two modes mentioned—whether as they are in these sensible things or in the intellect—nor as it is in the essence of these things from the fact that they are essences. Rather, [it considers them] according to the fact that they are predicates or subjects, universals or particulars, or things of this kind which do not happen to these intellects except from what we have said in the premises.

In what way the consideration of words becomes necessary in logic, and how the logician should not be occupied with words.

Necessity leads us to the consideration of expressions; for a logician, from the fact that he is a logician, does not have to be occupied with words primarily, except as far as speaking and acting are concerned. For it would not be possible for a logician...

...to speak by intellect alone, in such a way that nothing of it is considered except the intellect alone; then that would suffice.

From this it is evident that logic is not primarily about words.

And if a master of the art could reveal that which is in his soul in another way, he would always forgo words. But because necessity leads us to act with words, especially (for reason cannot compose intellects without bringing forth words with them; indeed, thought is as if it were speech between the man himself and his thought, through imagined words), it follows that words have diverse dispositions through which the dispositions of the intentions that accompany existence in the soul differ, so that they become signs for them which would not be had except through words.

He concludes it is necessary for logic to treat of words.

And therefore it is necessary in the doctrine of logic that one part of it should be the consideration of the dispositions of words. For if it were not as we have said, it would not be necessary to have this part with this necessity. To speak, then, of the words accompanying the intellects is like speaking of their intellects. It is long, therefore, to speak of words first.

He elicits the error of someone who thought logic should be about words in that they signify intellects.

And for this reason, what that person said is not valid—namely, that logic was instituted for considering an expression according to the fact that they signify intellects, and that the doctrine of logic is to speak of words according to the fact that they signify intellects. However, it is necessary to understand this in the way we have stated. That person did not rave in such a way except because he did not apprehend with certainty the subject of logic and its proper mode of existence.

How those things which are in the intellect can be considered in two ways.

For he found the existence that things have in the intellect, and therefore he posited that considering the existence that is external pertains to doctrine or to physical doctrines. But to consider the existence that is in the intellect, and how it is understood within it, pertains to another doctrine or part of a doctrine, not distinguishing and not knowing that those things which are in the intellect are either things formed in the intellect apprehended from the outside, or they are things accidental to it according to the fact that they are in the intellect and were not represented in something external.

He hints that the subject of logic is the being of reason.

The cognition of these two pertains to one doctrine, of which one is the subject of the doctrine of logic according to the accident that happens to it. But the remainder is not part of this, namely the second.

And that which is according to the accident that happens to it—this is that which leads us to have another intelligible form which we did not have, or is useful for leading [to it]. And because those people did not truly know the subject of logic, nor the purpose for which it was instituted, they erred.

To treat of the science of the subject is of one doctrine, and to treat of its accidents is of another doctrine; this statement needs consideration.

But you will know later more clearly that every speculative doctrine has a subject, and that it does not treat except of its dispositions and accidents. And you will know that the treatise on the science of the subject is of one doctrine, and the treatise on its accidents is of another doctrine; and similarly, you must know [this] concerning the disposition of logic.

A chapter on speaking of the complex and incomplex word, and of speaking of the universal and particular, and of speaking of the essential and accidental, and of that which answers to "what," and that which does not.

Twofold use: Complex, Incomplex.

What a complex word or complex expression is.

In teaching and learning, we necessarily need words. We shall say that a word is either incomplex or complex. A complex [word] is that in which a part is found that signifies an intellect, which is a part of the intellect signified by the whole essential signification; just as this which we say, "a man is a writer." For the word "man" signifies one intellect, and the word "writer" signifies another, of which each one is a part of this which we say, "man is a writer," by a signification required by the word.

What an incomplex word or incomplex expression is.

An incomplex [word], however, is that whose part does not signify a part of the intellect in its whole essential signification; such is that which we say, "man," because "m" and "a" and "n" do not signify parts of the intention which "man" signifies.