The Division of Analogy

Abstract

How many kinds of analogous name arc there? If we should put this question to Cajetan, the answer received could be that there are four kinds, or it could be that there is but one. Recent interpreters have often proposed different types than Cajetan; some even tend to treat every instance of analogous name as a special type. The texts of St Thomas, at first reading, give us a straightforward answer to our question. In the majority of texts, we find a twofold division of analogous names. However, on one occasion,1 St Thomas gave a threefold division and, as it happened, it is that division which forms the structure of Cajetan’s De nominum analogia. Indeed, when the threefold division is considered together with Quaestio Disputata de veritate, question two, article eleven, the interpretation of Cajetan seems to command assent; we find ourselves disposed to accept his way of treating the twofold division which is to relegate it to the status of a subdivision of what is not really analogy at all, namely, “analogy of attribution.” In this chapter, we shall first examine the texts in which the twofold division is given; the other two texts will then be taken up as difficulties to be resolved in the light of the twofold division. The result of this analysis should make it clear that Cajetan has based his opuscle on texts which adopt a very special point of view and do nothing towards calling into question the fact that, for St Thomas, there are but two kinds of analogous name.