The Univocity of Being…
The Highest Category of Human Thought
“To be, or not to be? That is the question” …
– William Shakespeare
“We can speak and think only of what exists. And what exists is uncreated and imperishable for it is whole and unchanging and complete. It was not or nor shall be different since it is now, all at once, one and continuous” …
– Parmenides
Humans interpret the world through their consciousness and infer relationships of meaning between their Conscious Self & the Physical World and their Conscious Self & the Metaphysical World (a higher-order Reality).
A Triadic relationship between an Observer ( Conscious Self — Subject), Sign (Sign-Vehicle of Meaning) and Observed ( Non Conscious Self — Object).
“Objectivity is the delusion that observations could be made without an observer’’…
— Heinz von Foerster
Ever expanding their fabric of knowledge, through open inquiry, asking questions, and embracing a process of discovery.
Through abduction and the gift of reason, Humans can uncover potential new relationships of meaning.
“Abduction is the process of forming an explanatory hypothesis. It is the only logical operation which introduces a new idea: for induction does nothing but determine a value and deduction merely evolves the necessary consequences of a pure hypothesis”…
— Charles Sanders Peirce
The entire history of Western Civilisation’s Intellectual Thought can be understood as one of ongoing inquiry into the nature of Reality anchored in the pursuit of Truth (i.e. correspondence of Human Beliefs to Reality) grounded in Triadic Relationships of Meaning ( i.e. Peircian Semiotics) and a Triadic process of Reason.
Divine Order of Things
“The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is”…
― St. Thomas Aquinas
Medieval Priest, Theologian and Philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas distinguished between different types of Truth (e.g. Ontological (Being), Logical (relationship of Intellect (Thought) and Reality), Moral (Natural & Divine Law), Divine (God as the ultimate source of Truth) and Eternal (unchanging) vs Temporal (contingent — bounded- changing) ) that were necessary to bring unity and order to Reality.
It was a perspective of Truth based on a Divine Order of Things.
A distinction between the nature of God and Man and a distinction between a Temporal Immanent World and an Eternal Transcendent World.
An Order of Things that requires the Human Consciousness to integrate its semiotic relationships of meaning with the:
- Immanent World — horizontal metaphysics ( Nominalism — Mind’s temporal generalisation of the meaning of the concept or category with particular objects in the world); and
- Transcendent World — vertical metaphysics ( Realism — correspondence of the Mind’s temporal generalisation of the meaning of the concept or category ( i.e. belief) with the Soul’s eternal universals and Reality (i.e. Truth) ).
An Order of Things that for Human Consciousness to bring a sense of coherence between our beliefs and these two worlds ( Immanent and Transcendent ) there must be a common first principle abstract concept or category that applies to both of these Worlds.
A concept or category of Human Consciousness that has the same meaning in the Immanent and Transcendent World.
“Reason is God’s crowning gift to man”…
— Sophocles
Embracing the Gift of Reason that combines Faith and Reason.
What could that concept or category be?
The Scholastics
The Middle Ages scholastics were attempting to reconcile Ancient Greek Philosophy with the Theology of Judeo-Christianity to understand the nature of Reality.
It was a further inquiry into the relationship between:
- Human Consciousness and God ( Transcendent World ); and
- Human Consciousness and the Natural World ( Immanent World).
The notion of a higher-order Reality was a central tenet of Judeo-Christian Philosophy (God) and Ancient Greek Philosophers such as Plato (Form of the Good) & Aristotle (Unmover Mover).
Medieval Scholastics, John Duns Scotus and Saint Thomas Aquinas grappled with this question.
If Humans understand the World through their consciousness then what was the highest order first principle category of thought common to both the Immanent and Transcendent World?
It would have to be a concept or category of understanding and meaning that could apply to Humans and the Natural World but also God.
God was also perfectly good, and all creation depended upon God.
So what could that highest first-order concept or category of meaning be that exists in the nature of Humans (contingent, finite, imperfect) and is also prevalent in the nature of God ( necessary, infinite, perfect)?
At the time, these two Scholars developed distinct approaches to answer this question.
Univocity of Being – John Duns Scotus
Scotus proposed that the concept of Being itself is univocal.
“How can the “concept of being” be univocal without there being a nature common to God and to Creatures?” …
He believed the meaning of the concept Being applies in the same sense to both God and Humans, even though God’s mode of Being is necessary and infinite, and Human’s mode of Being is contingent and finite.
According to Scotus, Being is the most general concept that can apply to everything that exists, including God and Humans.
This did not mean that God and Humans exist in the same way (God is infinite and self-sustaining, while Humans are finite and dependent), but that the concept of Being itself applies to both in a basic, universal sense.
This common concept of Being allows Humans to meaningfully talk about God.
If we had no common concept, the language we use about God would be incomprehensible.
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world” …
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logigo-philosphicus, 1922
Analogy of Being – Saint Thomas Aquinas
In contrast, Aquinas rejected the univocal use of Being and instead believed in the analogy of Being (analogia entis).
This means that concepts like Being, wisdom, goodness etc, are used in an analogical sense when applied to both God and Humans.
In other words, these concepts have different degrees of meaning.
Hence, a need to bridge the concepts' meaning via a kind of analogy that recognises the vast differences in their nature.
Synthesis of these Two Perspectives
The synthesis of John Duns Scotus's notion of the Univocity of Being and Saint Thomas Aquinas's Analogy of Being perspectives on the concept of Being can provide a common pathway forward.
Both recognise the importance of the notion of Being as a first-order principle of thought that bridges the transcendent (eternal) and immanent (temporal).
A common nature to God and Humans.
If one were to shift from a concept of Being to a category of Being that reflects the different degrees of meaning of Being in God and Humans it provides a way to reconcile these two perspectives.
In this view, Being could be seen as both univocal ( in its most abstract conceptual sense, describing the most fundamental characteristic of all that exists) and analogous ( in its particular instantiations, where the Being of God and the Being of Creatures including Humans differ ).
Being could function as a universal category or concept that encompasses all forms of existence but is actualised in God and Creatures differently.
The Importance of Being as a First Principle of Thought
Why is the notion of Being important as a first principle of Human Thought?
By defining Being as the highest category of Human Thought it provides the foundational basis for Human Consciousness understanding of the nature of Reality.
Because Being pertains to everything that can be said to be in any form.
Being is the bedrock of ontology — what it means for something to exist — and it addresses questions about the nature of existence and Reality at the most abstract conceptual and universal level.
Without Being, no other categories or properties – like substance, form, essence, quantity, relation, time or quality – can be applied to anything, since nothing would exist to which they could apply.
These categories and concepts depend on the notion of existence, but Being itself does not depend on anything more fundamental.
It is through the category of Being that human consciousness can seek Truth.
A Logical Truth through the Triadic of Reason that reflects the correspondence of human beliefs to Reality noting metaphysics is the study of Being — the science of Reality.
“If the sign were not related to its object except by the mind thinking of them separately, it would not fulfil the function of a sign at all”…
– Charles Sanders Peirce
Towards a Kantian Unity of the Manifold and Peircian correspondence of the meaning of the Sign ( concept and category) with the practical effects of the Object being observed.
An alignment of our Conscious Beliefs with Reality. A Reality independent of the Conscious Self.
“It is, rather, solely an act of the understanding, which itself is nothing but the faculty of combining “a priori” and of bringing the manifold of given representations under the unity of apperception; and the principle of this unity is, in fact, the supreme principle of all human knowledge”…
— Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
Being is the categorical foundation of the Gift of Reason – Faith and Reason — connecting all forms of existence, from the contingent Being of Humans (created — temporal) to the necessary Being of God (creator — eternal).
The essence of the Logos that unifies the metaphysical ( nature of Being), epistemological ( knowledge and Truth) and physical ( material world).
The Semiotic Triadic of Humans' relationship with God — Human Consciousness (Observer), Sign (the Category of Being ) and God (Observed).
The Univocity of Being.
“for God is not known to us naturally unless being is univocal to the created and uncreated”…
— John Duns Scotus
