STUDIES IN ANALOGY. University oj Notre Dame THE HAGUE MARTINUS NIJHOFF RALPH MCINERNY

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1 STUDIES IN ANALOGY

2 STUDIES IN ANALOGY by RALPH MCINERNY University oj Notre Dame II THE HAGUE MARTINUS NIJHOFF 1968

3 ISBN DOl / ISBN (ebook) 1968 by Martinus NijhoJ!, The Hague, Netherlands All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form

4 SORORIBUS FRATRIBUSQUE MEIS: Roger Raymond Austin Dennis Mary Margaret Theresa Maurice Stephen

5 PREFACE The present volume brings together a number of things I have written on the subject of analogy since the appearance of The Logic of Analogy in In that book I tried to disengage St Thomas' teaching on analogous names from various subsequent accretions which, in my opinion, had obscured its import. The book was widely reviewed, various points in it were rightly criticized, but its main argument, namely, that analogical signification is a logical matter and must be treated as such, was, if often confronted, left finally, I think, standing. The studies brought together now reflect the same concentration on the teaching of Aquinas. I am not of the opinion that everything important on the question of analogy, and certainly not everything of importance on those problems which elicit the doctrine of analogy, was said by Thomas Aquinas. But it was my decision, for my personal work, first to achieve as much clarity as I could with respect to the teaching of Thomas, and then to go on to other writers, both ancient and modern. I am currently engaged in working out the relations among equivocation, analogy and metaphor in Aristotle. When that study is completed, I shall turn eagerly to some quite recent contributions to the nature of religious language. In short, the present work, which is by and large a prolongation of my attempt at an exegesis of Thomistic texts, marks the end of one phase of my research into the problem of analogy. Three of the essays brought together here have appeared in English in the same form, the essays which make up Chapter Two, Four and Five. The date and place of their previous appearance is noted in the appropriate place and I wish to thank the editors who first published them for permission to reprint them. A version, considerably shorter, of the first essay appeared in print, but it was so truncated that I feel it fair to say that this essay has not before been published. Chapter Six appeared in French; Chapter Three had been read on a number of occasions but this is its first appearance in print. Scholarly research is a lonely task but, as everyone who has engaged

6 VIII PREFACE in it knows, it is as well an intensely social if not necessarily gregarious enterprise: one's cohorts are numbered among both the quick and dead and one's gratitude, accordingly, must traverse that grim boundary. I shall not list here all those to whom I am grateful. They know who they are, however, and being what they are, neither desire nor require my poor thanks. I commend them in my prayers to the dispenser of the ultimate accolade. RALPH McINERNY Notre Dame, Indiana November, 1966

7 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE V CHAPTER I: The "Ratio Communis" of the Analogous Name 2 I. Texts which reject a ratio communis 2 II. Texts which imply a ratio communis 7 III. The analogy of names The Imposition of Names Id a quo nomen imponitur Ways of Signifying Ways of Being Named The Extension of the Name 21 IV. Some analogous names "Virtue" as Analogous Name "Passion" as Analogous Name "Word" as Analogous Word 33 V. Analogy and Metaphorical Usage 39 VI. Being is not a Genus Species cannot be Predicated of Difference Genus cannot be Predicated of Difference Genus and Inequality Aside on "Ens commune" 55 VII. Resolution and Conclusion 61 CHAPTER II: Metaphor and Analogy 67 I. Cajetan on metaphor 68 II. Analogy vs. Metaphor 71 III. Ratio Propria non invenitur nisi in uno 72 IV. The signification of names 73 V. Ratio communis and ratio propria 77 VI. Proprie, Communiter, Metaphorice 78 VII. Concluding summary 81

8 x TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER III: Metaphor and fundamental ontology 83 CHAPTER IV: "Analogy" is analogous 95 CHAPTER V: Reply to a Critic 105 I. Cajetan and Intrinsic and Extrinsic denomination 105 II. Professor Beach as exegete 107 III. Professor Beach's confusion of the Logical and Real 108 CHAPTER VI: Is the term soul analogous? 112 ApPENDIX 130