Ignacio Angelelli Predication Theory: Classical Vs Modern

This essay aims, first, at describing the conflict between the theory of predication (classical, Aristotelian) prevailing in philosophy until the end of the 19th century, and the theory arisen with the new logic (modern, Fregean). Three features characterize the preFregean period: 1) conflation of predication and subordination (extensionally: membership and class-inclusion), 2) conflation of identity and predication, 3) the view of quantificational phrases (e.g. "some men") as denoting phrases. A possible fourth feature is suggested by the consideration of the so-called Locke's "general triangle". Most of the paper is devoted to the first feature, also called the "principal" one, stated by Aristotle. Frege seems to be the first, in 1884, to reject the first feature; he also rejected, not less vehemently, the second and the third features. Fregean predication theory became standard, and just taken for granted in the subsequent developments of logic as well as in the mainstream of philosophy. The second aim of this paper is to evaluate— relative to the notion of predication submitted in section 1 — the conflict between the two traditions, and to determine if both are somehow right, or one is right and the other wrong. The main result is that the Fregean revolution in predication theory is, at least with regard to the first and second features of the classical view, a clarification that would probably be welcomed by the classical authors themselves (pace Hintikka's "logic of being"). 1 Part of the material included in this essay was presented as a "Bradley Medieval Lecture", Boston College, 1996, and in seminars at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, 1998, and Universidad Católica de Chile, 2003. I am grateful to the participants in those meetings, as well as to L. Cates, N. Cocchiarella, A. d'Ors, E. García Belsunce, J. Gracia, H. Hochberg, A. Martinich, and T. Seung, for very helpful remarks. 1. What is predication? 2 In a first, rather external approach, the phenomenon of predication can be described as follows. There is a user of language who produces an oral or written linguistic expression — the predicate— in order to declare (just as in going through customs: Aristotle says that a predicate dhloi/, declares a thing, 1949, 2b, 31) a feature or even the nature of the object. Two items are required: the predicate and the object. Normally, however, the object is not present and must be referred to by a singular term, which becomes the third item. In this preliminary approach predication appears as a relation between a linguistic expression, the predicate, and the object in question. This is predication in the external, linguistic sense, described by Quine: "Predication joins a general term and a singular term to form a sentence that is true or false according as the general term is true or false of the object, if any , to which the singular term refers" (1960, p. 96). It is quickly seen, however, that such a linguistic analysis of predication falls short of highlighting what is really important. In a customs declaration what matters is not the attaching or "joining" (Quine) the label (predicate) to the object, but the meaning of the label. The linguistic predicate means something, namely a property of the object, and this property is what one really says, or predicates of the object— the property, a non-linguistic entity, is the predicate in the relevant sense. This is the ontological sense of "predication". (My distinction seems to correspond to that between "linguistic" and "metaphysic" predication in Bogen, Introduction, in Bogen 1985). It is in the ontological sense that one may say, with Cocchiarella, that "predication has been a central, if not the central, issue in philosophy since at least the time of Plato and Aristotle" (1989 p. 253). 2. The first (principal) feature of classical predication theory The following Aristotelian passage is paradigmatic for classical predication theory: Of all the things which exist some are such that they cannot be predicated of 2 The approach of this paper is philosophical and historical; a recent, increasing interest in predication from the standpoint of linguistics is shown, for example, in Blight 1997. 3 All texts are given in English translation. When the reference is made to a nonEnglish source, the translation is mine. anything else truly and universally, e.g. Cleon and Callias, i.e. the individual and sensible, but other things may be predicated of them (for each of these is both man and animal); and some things are themselves predicated of others, but nothing prior is predicated of them; and some are predicated of others, and yet others of them, e.g. man of Callias and animal of man. It is clear then that some things are naturally not stated of anything: for as a rule each sensible thing is such that it cannot be predicated of anything, save incidentally : for we sometimes say that that white object is Socrates, or that that which approaches is Callias. We shall explain in another place that there is an upward limit also to the process of predicating : for the present we must assume this. Of these ultimate predicates it is not possible to demonstrate another predicate, save as a matter of opinion, but these may be predicated of other things. Neither can individuals be predicated of other things, though other things can be predicated of them. Whatever lies between these limits can be spoken of in both ways: they may be stated of others, and others stated of them. And as a rule arguments and inquiries are concerned with these things. (1971, Analytica Priora I, 27.) In two waves, the passage offers an inventory "of all the things which exist". All entities are divided into universals (animal, man) and individuals (Callias), and are, moreover, ordered by the relation of predication. Universals are predicates, individuals are not. All universals, except the "ultimate" ones, "may be stated of others, and others stated of them". Consider for example the universal man, which is predicated of Callias. What are the "others stated of" man? What can be said of the universal man? A modern reader would expect that, for example, the universal "universal" is predicated of man— not so. Instead, Aristotle thinks of "animal" as something predicated of the universal man. Since "animal" is also predicated of Callias, the following diagram results: