Ontology, or the Theory of Being

by P. Coffey

We may call attention here to a few other questions of minor import discussed by scholastics. First, have all individuals of the same species the same substantial perfection, or can individuals have different grades of substantial perfection within the same species? All admit the obvious fact that individual differs from individual within the same species in the number, variety, extent and intensity of their accidental properties and qualities. But, having the human soul mainly in view, they disagree as to whether the substantial perfection of the specific nature can be actualized in different grades in different individuals. According to the more common opinion there cannot be different substantial grades of the same specific nature, for the simple reason that every such grade of substantial perfection should be regarded as specific, as changing the species: hence, e.g. all human souls are substantially equal in perfection. This view is obviously based upon the conception of specific types or essences as being, after the analogy of [pg 135] numbers, immutable when considered in the abstract. And it seems to be confirmed by the consideration that the intrinsic principle of individuation is nothing, or adds nothing, really distinct from the specific essence itself.

Another question in connexion with individuation has derived at least an historical interest from the notable controversy to which it gave rise in the seventeenth century between Clarke and Leibniz. The latter, in accordance with the principles of his system of philosophy,—the Law of Sufficient Reason and the Law of Continuity among the monads or ultimate principles of being,—contended that two individual beings so absolutely alike as to be indiscernible would be eo ipso identical, in other words, that the reality of two such beings is impossible.

Of course if we try to conceive two individuals so absolutely alike both in essence and accidents, both in the abstract and in the concrete, as to be indiscernible either by our senses or by our intellect, or by any intellect—even the Divine Intellect—we are simply conceiving the same thing twice over. But is there anything impossible or contradictory in thinking that God could create two perfectly similar beings, distinct from each other only individually, so similar, however, that neither human sense nor human intellect could apprehend them as two, but only as one? The impossibility is not apparent. Were they two material individuals they should, of course, occupy the same space in order to have similar spatial relations, but impenetrability is not essential to corporeal substances. And even in the view that each is individuated by its “materia signata” it is not impossible to conceive numerically distinct quantified matters allied at the same time to the same dimensions of space. If, on the other hand, there be question of two pure spirits, absolutely similar specifically, even in the Thomistic view that here the individual distinction is at the same time specific there seems to be no sufficient ground for denying that the Divine Omnipotence could create two or more such individually (and therefore specifically) distinct spirits:[150] such distinction remaining, of course, indiscernible for the finite human intellect.

The argument of Leibniz, that there would be no sufficient reason for the creation of two such indiscernible beings, and that it would therefore be repugnant to the Divine Wisdom, is extrinsic to the question of their intrinsic possibility: if they be intrinsically possible they cannot be repugnant to any attribute of the Divinity, either to the Divine Omnipotence or to the Divine Wisdom.

34. Identity.—Considering the order in which we acquire our ideas we are easily convinced that the notion of finite being is antecedent to that of infinite being. Moreover, it is from reflection on finite beings that we arrive at the most abstract notion of being in general. We make the object of this latter notion definite only by dividing it off mentally from nothingness, conceived per modum entis, or as an ens rationis. Thus the natural way of making our concepts definite is by limiting them; it is only when we come to reflect on the necessary implications [pg 136] of our concept of “infinite being” that we realize the possibility of conceiving a being which is definite without being really limited, which is definite by the very fact of its infinity, by its possession of unlimited perfection; and even then our imperfect human mode of conceiving “infinite being” is helped by distinguishing or dividing it off from all finite being and contrasting it with the latter. All this goes to prove the truth of the teaching of St. Thomas, that the mental function of dividing or distinguishing precedes our concepts of unity and multitude. Now the concepts of identity and distinction are closely allied with those of unity and multitude; but they add something to these latter. When we think of a being as one we must analyse it further, look at it under different aspects, and compare it with itself, before we can regard it as the same or identical with itself. Or, at least, we must think of it twice and compare it with itself in the affirmative judgment “This is itself,” “A is A,” thus formulating the logical Principle of Identity, in order to come into possession of the concept of identity.[151] Every affirmative categorical judgment asserts identity of the predicate with the subject (“S is P”): asserts, in other words, that what we apprehend under the notion of the predicate (P) is really identical with what we have apprehended under the distinct notion of the subject (S). The synthetic function of the affirmative categorical judgment identifies in the real order what the analytic function of mental abstraction had separated in the logical order. By saying that the affirmative categorical judgment asserts identity we mean that by asserting that “this is that,” “man is rational” we identify “this” with “that,” “man” with “rational,” thus denying that they are two, that they are distinct, that they differ. Identity is one of those elementary concepts which cannot be defined; but perhaps we may describe it as the logical relation through which the mind asserts the objects of two or more of its thoughts to be really one.

If the object formally represented by each of the concepts is one and the same—as, e.g. when we compare “A” with “A,” or “man” with “rational animal,” or, in general, any object with its definition—the identity is both real and logical (or conceptual, formal). If the concepts differ in their formal objects while [pg 137] representing one and the same reality—as when we compare “St. Peter” with “head of the apostles,” or “man” with “rational”—the identity is real, but not logical or formal. Finally, if we represent two or more realities, “John, James, Thomas,” by the same formal concept, “man,” the identity is merely logical or formal, not real. Of these three kinds of identity the first is sometimes called adequate, the second and third inadequate.

Logical identity may be specific or generic, according as we identify really distinct individuals under one specific concept, or really distinct species or classes under one generic concept. Again, it may be essential or accidental, according as the abstract and universal class-concept under which really distinct members are classified represents a common part of the essence of these members or only a common property or accident. Thus John, James and Thomas are essentially identical in their human nature; they are accidentally identical in being all three fair-haired and six feet in height. Logical identity under the concept of quality is based on the real relation of similarity; logical identity under the concept of quantity is based on the real relation of equality. When we say that essential (logical) identity (e.g. the identity of John, James and Thomas under the concept of “man”) is based on the fact that the really distinct individuals have really similar natures, we merely mean that our knowledge of natures or essences is derived from our knowledge of qualities, taking “qualities” in the wide sense of “accidents” generally: that the properties and activities of things are our only key to the nature of these things: Operari sequitur esse. It is not implied, nor is it true, that real similarity is a partial real identity: it is but the ground of a partial logical identity,—identity under the common concept of some quality (in the wide sense of this term). For example, the height of John is as really distinct from that of James as the humanity of John is from that of James. If, then, individual things are really distinct, how is it that we can represent (even inadequately) a multitude of them by one concept? To say that we can do so because they reveal themselves to us as similar to one another is to say what is undoubtedly true; but this does not solve the problem of the relation between the universal and the individual in human experience: rather it places us face to face with this problem.

Reverting now to real identity: whatever we can predicate affirmatively about a being considered as one, and as subject of a [pg 138] judgment, we regard as really identical with that being. We cannot predicate a real part of its real whole, or vice versa. But our concepts, when compared together in judgment, bear logical relations of extension and intension to each other, that is, relations of logical part to logical whole. Thus, the logical identity of subject and predicate in the affirmative judgment may be only inadequate.[152] But the real identity underlying the affirmative judgment is an adequate real identity. When we say, for example, that “Socrates is wise,” we mean that the object of our concept of “wisdom” is in this case really and adequately identical with the object of our concept of “Socrates”: in other words that we are conceiving one and the same real being under two distinct concepts, each of which represents, more or less adequately, the whole real being, and one of them in this case less adequately than the other.

We have to bear in mind that while considering being as one or manifold, identical or distinct, we are thinking of it in its static mode, as an object of abstract thought, not in its dynamic and kinetic mode as actually existing in space and time, and subject to change. It is the identity of being with itself when considered in this static, unchanging condition, that is embodied in the logical Principle of Identity. In order, therefore, that this principle may find its application to being or reality as subject to actual change—and this is the state in which de facto reality is presented to us as an immediate datum of experience—we must seize upon the changing reality and think of it in an indivisible instant apart from the change to which it is actually subject; only thus does the Principle of Identity apply to it—as being, not as becoming, not in fieri, but in facto esse. The Principle of Identity, which applies to all real being, whether possible or actual, tells us simply that “a thing is what it is”. But for the understanding of actual being as subject to real change we must supplement the Principle of Identity by another principle which tells us that such an actual being not only is actually what it is (Principle of Identity), but also that it is potentially something other than what it actually is, that it is potentially what it can become actually (Ch. ii.).

We have seen that, since change is not continuous annihilation and creation, the changing being must in some real and true sense persist throughout the process of change. It is from [pg 139] experience of change we derive our notion of time-duration; and the concept of permanence or stability throughout change gives us the notion of a real sameness or abiding self-identity which is compatible with real change. But a being which persists in existence is identical with itself throughout its duration only in so far forth as it has not changed. Only the Necessary Being, whose duration is absolutely exempt from all change, is absolutely or metaphysically identical with Himself: His duration is eternity—which is one perpetual, unchanging now. A being which persists unchanged in its essence or nature, which is exempt from substantial change, but which is subject to accidental change, to a succession of accidental qualities such as vital actions—such a being is said to retain its physical identity with itself throughout those changes. Such, for instance, is the identity of the human soul with itself, or of any individual living thing during its life, or even of an inorganic material substance as long as it escapes substantial change. Finally, the persisting identity of a collection of beings, united by some moral bond so as to form a moral unit, is spoken of as moral identity as long as the bond remains, even though the constituent members may be constantly disappearing to be replaced by others: as in a nation, a religious society, a legal corporation, etc.