The analogy of inequality is common in the natural or physical sciences, nay, even in our every day life, as it is found "wherever there are homogeneous notions realized variously in distinct things." Anderson (1967), 5. From neutrons, to water molecules, to spores, to walnuts, to saplings, to worms and the bass that feed on them, to condors, to elephants, to Watusis . . . the very assumptions of empiricism and the science built upon it begin with the individual and from it mentally extracts or abstracts sort of univocal mental concept, a nature, a form, a commonality which it uses in its analysis, its verifications, its measurements. "The universals conceived in such sciences, being derived from the physical composites with which they deal, are necessarily relative to them."
The abstraction pulls out, distills, as it were, the univocal μορφή, the morphē or form, from the hylomorphic individuals. This necessarily means that one can never abstract beyond the hylomorphic dimension. One does not enjoy any "leap in being" using the analogy of inequality, since what occurs is the result of abstraction of particulars into a univocal concept to which we attach a term. So we see individual African elephants, instantiations of African elephants, and we abstract from our perception of these African elephants a univocal mental concept of "elephant"-a large, gray mammal with wrinkled skin, tusks, large ears, and a trunk. And to this concept we attach a conventional name--elephant if we are English, ٱلۡفِيلِ if Arabic, ndovu if Kikuyu, слон if we are Russian, or, if we happen to be a scientist, Loxodonta africana.
All empirical knowledge therefore remains at root and at limb, physical, univocal; it remains tied down to the generic and categorical. This sort of knowledge is never able to reach out beyond the physical into the metaphysical, beyond the generic or categorical into the "supra-generic or supra-categorical." These univocal notions--nature, forms, concepts--are never independent of the matter from which they are abstracted, and never lead to the realm of the transcendentals. Anderson (1967), 6.* They never leave the "being-in-knowledge" to get to the "being-in-itself." Id. 7.
Universals, which is what the univocal notions of essence or nature are, are very different from Transcendentals. The universal of "elephant," that is to say the concept of "elephant" we have in our mind abstracted from the individual elephants we have perceived, is different from the transcendental "being" or "good" which is abstracted from every thing that we have perceived. The universal elephant is generic (mammal), and specific (elephant). "Since the concepts used are generic and specific, they are, like all class-notions, radically and rudimentarily univocal." Anderson (1967), 7.
There is perhaps a taint or wisp of analogy when it comes to the analogy of inequality, and for this reason it has been called an analogy, though it remains an analogy secundum quid, not analogy simpliciter. It is called analogy by courtesy, not by right. The individual instantiations of the concept are not entirely equivalent to the univocal concept, and to the extent there is this slight individual difference in conceptual sameness there is a part of analogical component in the analogy of inequality which justifies its name.
The analogy of inequality is not the analogy upon which we ought to build our metaphysics. A metaphysics (such as Plato's) that is built upon essences or natures (i.e., universals) and their intelligibility rather than existence or being is problematic, as we shall next explore.
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*As Anderson (1967) observes, there are some transcendental features ("certain transcendentality") in the some of the categories (e.g., quantity, quality, relation, time), but these immediately lose their transcendental quality when applied to diverse existential realizations. Weight considered abstractly has a certain transcendental quality, but it immediately becomes mundane when we speak of the weight of Abul Abbas, the elephant given to Charlemagne, Hanno, Pope Leo X's pet elephant, or Jumbo, P. T. Barnum's elephant. Anderson concludes: "We mean that univocity, properly speaking, is a property only of conceptual wholes signifying essences in abstraction from all existential diversity. Thus, while in a sense analogical unities can exist within categories, the latter, considered as such, are formally univocal." Anderson (1967), 6-7.
The abstraction pulls out, distills, as it were, the univocal μορφή, the morphē or form, from the hylomorphic individuals. This necessarily means that one can never abstract beyond the hylomorphic dimension. One does not enjoy any "leap in being" using the analogy of inequality, since what occurs is the result of abstraction of particulars into a univocal concept to which we attach a term. So we see individual African elephants, instantiations of African elephants, and we abstract from our perception of these African elephants a univocal mental concept of "elephant"-a large, gray mammal with wrinkled skin, tusks, large ears, and a trunk. And to this concept we attach a conventional name--elephant if we are English, ٱلۡفِيلِ if Arabic, ndovu if Kikuyu, слон if we are Russian, or, if we happen to be a scientist, Loxodonta africana.
All empirical knowledge therefore remains at root and at limb, physical, univocal; it remains tied down to the generic and categorical. This sort of knowledge is never able to reach out beyond the physical into the metaphysical, beyond the generic or categorical into the "supra-generic or supra-categorical." These univocal notions--nature, forms, concepts--are never independent of the matter from which they are abstracted, and never lead to the realm of the transcendentals. Anderson (1967), 6.* They never leave the "being-in-knowledge" to get to the "being-in-itself." Id. 7.
Universals, which is what the univocal notions of essence or nature are, are very different from Transcendentals. The universal of "elephant," that is to say the concept of "elephant" we have in our mind abstracted from the individual elephants we have perceived, is different from the transcendental "being" or "good" which is abstracted from every thing that we have perceived. The universal elephant is generic (mammal), and specific (elephant). "Since the concepts used are generic and specific, they are, like all class-notions, radically and rudimentarily univocal." Anderson (1967), 7.
There is perhaps a taint or wisp of analogy when it comes to the analogy of inequality, and for this reason it has been called an analogy, though it remains an analogy secundum quid, not analogy simpliciter. It is called analogy by courtesy, not by right. The individual instantiations of the concept are not entirely equivalent to the univocal concept, and to the extent there is this slight individual difference in conceptual sameness there is a part of analogical component in the analogy of inequality which justifies its name.
The analogy of inequality is not the analogy upon which we ought to build our metaphysics. A metaphysics (such as Plato's) that is built upon essences or natures (i.e., universals) and their intelligibility rather than existence or being is problematic, as we shall next explore.
_______________________________
*As Anderson (1967) observes, there are some transcendental features ("certain transcendentality") in the some of the categories (e.g., quantity, quality, relation, time), but these immediately lose their transcendental quality when applied to diverse existential realizations. Weight considered abstractly has a certain transcendental quality, but it immediately becomes mundane when we speak of the weight of Abul Abbas, the elephant given to Charlemagne, Hanno, Pope Leo X's pet elephant, or Jumbo, P. T. Barnum's elephant. Anderson concludes: "We mean that univocity, properly speaking, is a property only of conceptual wholes signifying essences in abstraction from all existential diversity. Thus, while in a sense analogical unities can exist within categories, the latter, considered as such, are formally univocal." Anderson (1967), 6-7.
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