Chapter III. On univocal things

CHAPTER III. On univocal things.

Univocal things are those through whose account the predicable is ordered in one genus, which gives its name and definition to the things subject to it; and without this account of the univocal there would be no reduction of predicables to one genus predicated of all those things which belong to that genus. And therefore Aristotle defines it thus, that those things are called univocal whose name is common, and according to that name the account or definition of substance is the same. And they are called univocal by a mode opposite to equivocal things, namely things univocated in one name, so that the thing itself is referred to being-said and to speech, because otherwise what is said would not be logical: for the thing considered in itself, not according as it stands under diction, does not belong to the logician but to the philosopher. And therefore it is added, they are called, and it is not said, they are univocal. Moreover, because speeches are finite with respect to us, but things are infinite, as Aristotle says, it is necessary that many things in genus and species and number be signified by one according to a mode. Therefore when many things agree in one nature, which is the cause of the imposition of the name, in one name, those things will be univocal. And because many things are named by one name, therefore they are more fittingly called univocal things in the plural than a univocal thing in the singular.

But as for what is added, whose name is common, name is said as though it were a mark, which is from the thing which is the cause of the imposition of the name in those many things; for this nature is one in all those things, and is not participated according to prior and posterior; for this reason such a name is simply common to all those things, naming nothing in one which is not named in another.

But as for what is said, and the account of substance is the same, the account of substance indeed says two things, as earlier in the definition of equivocal things; for account says not only definition, but also any declaration whatever which is given concerning that which is named through the name, as it also says the form from which the name is posited, which must be the same. And thus both the name and the nature and the account of the imposition of the name will be one in such things as such; and the account of substance is the substantial account adding together in those things which are univocal, and that that nature is participated equally in them, not according to more and less, nor according to prior or posterior in them, but in one mode as being is one.

But if it received more and less, it would not be wholly one, as has been determined in the preceding matters in the book On Universals. For although things are not compared except through some one thing which is in them, nevertheless that one thing which is in them according to more and less cannot belong to their being. And therefore its account is not the account of their substance. For their substance consists in participation of genus and participation of difference, which are act and potency constituting substance, because the terms of substantial being are the being of all things which are, just as man is called animal and ox is called animal. Thus the name animal makes the mark of one nature which is equally in man and ox, and that nature indeed is animate sensible substance; and therefore if the nature or substance which is expressed through the name is unfolded, just as the name is common, so the account or definition unfolding the name will be common equally to each. Hence if someone assigns the account of each, namely of man and of ox, according to this, that they are animals, that is, according to the nature concerning which the common name animal makes a mark, he will of necessity assign the same definitive account of man and of ox. And it is similar concerning Socrates and Plato in this name man. And this is so in all things which are as genus or species, or as difference, or as property, or as accident, predicated under the same name, as Avicenna and Algazel say: for if it is said, Socrates is white and Cicero is white, if the account is taken according to the common name, the predicate of Socrates and Plato will be one and the same account. It is the same if I say that Socrates is risible, and it will be the same if I say that Socrates is rational. And, to speak generally, everything that is predicated as a universal of many and of the things subject to it is said univocally.

Nevertheless there are those who sophistically object against this, saying that because a name is truly imposed from a form, but the forms of diverse things are diverse, therefore, as they say, diverse things cannot have one name. To this the answer is very slight: diverse things, in that in which they are diverse, have diverse forms, and have diverse names imposed with those forms. But nothing prevents diverse things from having one name not in that in which they are diverse, but in that in which they are one, just as they have one form; and therefore nothing prevents diverse individuals in the form of a species from having one name of the species; and nothing prevents things diverse in species from having one form of genus, and therefore one name of the genus; and so it is in other cases. And therefore it is necessary that, according to that form of which the name makes a mark, diverse things have one and the same definitive account of that substance. For that definition does not say explicitly more things than the name says implicitly.

But if someone still objects against this, saying that it is impossible for one nature or form of genus to be in many species, and so it is impossible that there be one name of a genus which is said of many things differing in species, this is proved through what is said, that one and the same thing does not have contraries at once in act. But the nature of the genus is one and the same; and therefore if it is in many things differing in species in act, and there is one and the same account, one and the same thing has contraries at once in act: for it has rational in man and irrational in ox or ass; and since this cannot be, there cannot be one name of a genus in man and ox. These things seem to be confirmed by what Aristotle says,¹ that the account of animal according to each animal is one and another; therefore it is false that there is one name and one account.

But these and similar things are not difficult to solve. For we say that one nature of genus is in diverse things differing in species and number. And what is said, that the same thing does not have contraries at once, is understood of the same thing in number and not of the same thing in genus or species. And this indeed has already been determined in the preceding matters in the book On Predicables. And what Aristotle says, that the account of animal according to each is one and another, must be understood thus: the account of animal according to each thing, that is, according to the being which it has in each one singly, is one and another. For this is true not only in species but also in the individual, because in this way animal is not taken as the essence of the genus, but as having special or singular being in the species or in the individual. But in this way it is not a genus, because it is in that thing alone and not outside that thing in another; and therefore in this way it is not in the being of a universal but of a particular. For although that which is in one thing is in another universal, nevertheless not according as it is in one is it in another, as has been determined in the treatise On Universals. Therefore it remains that univocal things are those whose name is common and whose account of substance is the same.

It must be understood, however, that although multivocal or synonymous things and diversivocal things are not among those things by which the predicable is ordered in the line of genus, because synonyms regard one particular or special thing through diverse properties which are signified in it by many names, while diversivocal things, just as the names are diverse, are attributed to diverse things; nevertheless, because Avicenna and Algazel and John Damascene put these things in their Categories, we too will put them here, not for the necessity of the science but for the perfection of the doctrine. Therefore multivocal or synonymous things are when many names are attributed to one thing, as sword, blade, broadsword, gladius, or Marcus, Tullius, Cicero; for by these names the same thing is signified according to diverse properties which are in it. But diversivocal things are when diverse names are attributed to diverse things, as wood, man, stone, and things of this kind. But we do not need these for the necessity of this science, in which, as Euclid does in geometrical matters, we preface only the definitions of those things which are required for the ordering of the predicable to one thing which in that order is first predicable or sayable, just as it is the transcendent principle which is in all principles, as the most general is. For on account of the first it is necessary to posit the account of equivocal things; but on account of the second the account of univocal things is necessary.