Ontology, or the Theory of Being

by P. Coffey

35. Distinction.—Distinction is the correlative of identity; it is the absence or negation of the latter. We express the relation called distinction by the negative judgment, “this is not that”; it is the relation of a being to whatever is not itself, the relation of one to other.

Distinction may be either adequate or inadequate, according as we distinguish one total object of thought from another total object, or only from a part of itself. For example, the distinction between John and James is an adequate real distinction, while that between John and his body is an inadequate real distinction; the distinction between John's rationality and his animality is an adequate logical distinction, while the distinction between either of these and his humanity is an inadequate logical distinction.

We have already ([23]) briefly explained and illustrated the most important classification of distinctions: that into real and logical; the sub-division of the latter into purely logical and virtual; and of the latter again into perfect (complete, adequate) and imperfect (incomplete, inadequate). But the theory there [pg 140] briefly outlined calls for some further analysis and amplification.

36. Logical Distinctions and their Grounds.—The purely logical distinction must not be confounded with a mere verbal distinction, e.g. that between an “edifice” and a “building,” or between “truthfulness” and “veracity”. A logical distinction is a distinction in the concepts: these must represent one and the same reality but in different ways: the one may be more explicit, more fully analysed than the other, as a definition is in comparison with the thought-object defined; or the one may represent the object less adequately than the other, as when we compare (in intension) the concepts “man” and “animal”; or the one may be predicated of the other in an affirmative judgment; or the one may represent the object as concrete and individual, the other the same object as abstract and universal.[153]

Comparing, in the next place, the purely logical with the virtual distinction, we see that the grounds for making these distinctions are different. Every distinction made by the mind must have an intelligible ground or reason of some sort—a fundamentum distinctionis. Now in the case of the purely logical distinction the ground is understood to consist exclusively in the needs of the mind itself—needs which spring from the mind's own limitations when confronted with the task of understanding or interpreting reality, of making reality intelligible. Purely logical distinctions are therefore seen to be a class of purely logical relations, i.e. of those entia rationis which the mind must construct for itself in its effort to understand the real. They have no other reality as objects of thought than the reality they derive from the constitutive or constructive activity of the mind. They are modes, or forms, or terms, of the cognitive activity itself, not of [pg 141] the reality which is the object apprehended and contemplated by means of this cognitive activity.

The virtual distinction, on the other hand, although it also, as an object of thought, is only an ens rationis—inasmuch as there is no real duality or plurality corresponding to it in the reality into which the mind introduces it, this reality being a real unity—the virtual distinction is considered, nevertheless, to have a ground, or reason, or foundation (for making and introducing it) in the nature of this one reality; that is, it is regarded as having a real foundation, a fundamentum in re. In so far, therefore, as our knowledge is permeated by virtual distinctions, reality cannot be said to be formally, but only fundamentally what this knowledge represents it to be. Does this fact interfere with the objective validity of our knowledge? Not in the least; for we do not ascribe to the reality the distinctions, and other such modes or forms, which we know by reflection to be formally characteristic not of things but of our thought or cognition of things. Our knowledge, therefore, so far as it goes, may be a faithful apprehension of reality, even though it be itself affected by modes not found in the reality.

But what is this real foundation of the virtual distinction? What is the fundamentum in re? It is not a real or objective duality in virtue of which we could say that there are, in the object of our thought, two beings or realities one of which is not the other. Such duality would cause a real distinction. But just here the difficulties of our analysis begin to arise: for we have to fix our attention on actually existing realities; and, assuming that each and every one of these is an individual, we have to bear in mind the relation of the real to the actual, of reality as abstract and universal to reality as concrete and individual, of the simple to the composite, of the stable to the changing, of essential to accidental unity—in any and every attempt to discriminate in detail between a real and a virtual distinction. Nor is it easy to lay down any general test which will serve even theoretically to discriminate between them. Let us see what grounds have been mainly suggested as real foundations for the virtual distinction.

If a being which is not only one but simple, manifests, in the superior grade of being to which it belongs, a perfection which is equivalent to many lesser perfections found really distinct and separate elsewhere, in separate beings of an inferior order, this is [pg 142] considered a sufficient real ground for considering the former being, though really one and simple, as virtually manifold.[154] The human soul, as being virtually threefold—rational, sentient and vegetative—is a case in point: but only on the assumption that the soul of the individual man can be proved to be one and simple. This, of course, all scholastics regard as capable of proof: even those of them who hold that the powers or faculties whereby it immediately manifests these three grades of perfection are accidental realities, really distinct from one another and from the substance of the soul itself.

Again, the being which is the object of our thought may be so rich in reality or perfection that our finite minds cannot adequately grasp it by any one mental intuition, but must proceed discursively, by analysis and abstraction, taking in partial aspects of it successively through inadequate concepts; while realizing that these aspects, these objects of our distinct concepts, are only partial aspects of one and the same real being. This, in fact, is our common experience. But the theory assumes that we are able to determine when these objects of our concepts are only mental aspects of one reality, and when they are several separate realities; nay, even, that we can determine whether or not they are really distinct entities united together to form one composite individual being, or only mentally distinct views of one simple individual being. For example, it is assumed that while the distinction between the sentient and the rational grades of being in a human individual can be shown to be only a virtual distinction, that between the body and the soul of the same individual can be shown to be a real distinction; or, again, that while the distinction between essence, intellect, and will in God, can be shown to be only a virtual distinction, that between essence, intellect, and will in man, can be shown to be a real distinction.

37. The Virtual Distinction and the Real Distinction.—Now scholastics differ considerably in classifying this, that, or the other distinction, as logical or as real; but this does [pg 143] not prove that it is impossible ever to determine with certitude whether any particular distinction is logical or real. What we are looking for just now is a general test for discriminating, if such can be found. And this brings us to a consideration of the test suggested in the very definitions themselves. At first sight it would appear to be an impracticable, if not even an unintelligible test: “The distinction is real if it exists in the reality—i.e. if the reality is two (or more) beings, not one being—antecedently to, or independently of, the consideration of the mind; otherwise the distinction is logical”. But—it might be objected—how can we possibly know whether or not any object of perception or thought is one or more than one antecedently to, or independently of, the consideration of the mind? It is certainly impossible for us to know what, or what kind, reality is, or whether it is one or manifold, apart from and prior to, the exercise of our own cognitive activity. This, therefore, cannot be what the test means: to interpret it in such a sense would be absurd. But when we have perceived reality in our actual sense experience, when we have interpreted it, got the meaning of it, made it intelligible, and actually understood it, by the spontaneous exercise of intellect, the judging and reasoning faculty: then, obviously, we are at liberty to reflect critically on those antecedent spontaneous processes, on the knowledge which is the result of them, and the reality which is known through them; and by such critical reflection on those processes, their objects and their products, on the “reality as perceived and known” and on the “perceiving” and “knowing” of it, we may be able to distinguish between two classes of contributions to the total result which is the “known reality”: those which we must regard as purely mental, as modes or forms or subjectively constructed terms of the mental function of cognition itself (whether perceptual or conceptual), and those which we must regard as given or presented to the mind as objects, which are not in any sense constructed or contributed by the mind, which, therefore, are what they are independently of our mental activity, and which would be and remain what they are, and what we have apprehended them to be, even if we had never perceived or thought of them. This, according to the scholastics, is the sense—and it is a perfectly intelligible sense—in which we are called on to decide whether the related terms of any given distinction have been merely rendered distinct by the analytic activity of [pg 144] the cognitive process, or are themselves distinct realities irrespective of this process. That it is possible to carry on successfully, at least to some extent, this work of discrimination between the subjective and the objective factors of our cognitive experience, can scarcely be denied. It is what philosophers in every age have been attempting. There are, however, some distinctions about the nature of which philosophers have never been able to agree, some holding them to be real, others to be only virtual: the former view being indicative of the tendency to emphasize the rôle of cognition as a passive representation of objectively given reality; the latter view being an expression of the opposite tendency to emphasize the active or constitutive or constructive factors whereby cognition assimilates to the mind's own mode of being the reality given to it in experience. In all cognition there is an assimilation of reality and mind, of object and subject. When certain distinctions are held to be real this consideration is emphasized: that in the cognitive process, as such, it is the mind that is assimilated to the objective reality.[155] When these same distinctions are held to be logical this other consideration is emphasized: that in the cognitive process reality must also be assimilated to mind, must be mentalized so to speak: Cognitum est in cognoscente secundum modum cognoscentis: that in this process the mind must often regard what is one reality under distinct aspects: and that if we regard these distinct aspects as distinct realities we are violating the principle, Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.