PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON THE IDEA OF RELATION AND ITS DIVISION

These notes are briefly recalled by St. Thomas in the body of the first article, and it is suggested that the reader consult the first part of the body of the article.

The category of relation is distinguished by Aristotle from the categories of substance, quantity, quality, transitive action, passion, etc. Thus a man is called relatively a father of another and a son of another. Aristotle calls relation "to prosti", or the "ad aliquid", or the "to something"; it is also called the reference (to something else), the order (to something else) or the habitude.

Many Nominalists declare that there are no real relations in creatures; that all the relations are relations of reason. On the other hand, moderate realism sees real relations in creatures, for apart from anyone's thinking about it a man is really the father of the son he begets. So also two white things are really alike apart from any consideration of the mind. Paternity and likeness, however, are merely relations; therefore there are real relations in things. St. Thomas explains that the good of the universe, which is something real, consists mainly in relation, namely, in the order of things to themselves and to God, and if this order is removed, all things will be in confusion as when an army is without any coordination and subordination of the soldiers.[202]

Relation is twofold: real and of reason. Real relation is the order in things themselves. Thus, for example, an effect is related to the cause on which it depends, a part to the whole, potency to act, and an act to its object. A relation of reason is the order cogitated by the mind, as the order of the predicate to the subject, and of species to genus. From various texts of Aristotle and St. Thomas[203] we present the following synopsis of the division of relation.

Real relation,

transcendental or essential, such as essence to existence and matter to form, and the relation of faculties, habits, and acts to the specific object.

predicamental or accidental,

according to quantity, as equal, unequal, twofold, threefold

according to quality, as like and unlike

according to action, as paternity

according to passion, as filiation

Relation of reason between things not really distinct as predicate to the subject in a judgment as the relation of real identity of one thing with itself between things really distinct as the knowable to knowledge as God to the creature.

Real relations are divided into transcendental and predicamental. A transcendental relation is the order included in the essence of a thing as, for example, the soul's transcendental order to the body, that of matter to form, essence to being, accident to the subject, science to its object, etc. All these things have these relations by their very essence, and the transcendental relation perdures even when the term disappears. Thus a separated soul continues to be individuated by its relation to the body which is to rise again. It is called transcendental because it transcends the special predicament of relation and is found also in other categories, for example, in substance and quality; indeed there is scarcely anything that is not ordered to something else by its nature.

Predicamental relation, which is also called relation according to being (secundum esse), is defined by Aristotle as a real accident whose whole being is to be ordered to something else.[204] This relation is not included in the essence of the thing, but it comes to the essence as an accident. It is pure order or reference to a term, as, for example, paternity, filiation, the equality of two quantities, likeness.

The real existence of these relations is certain, for, antecedent to any consideration of the mind and apart from anyone's thinking, two white things are really alike and this man is really the father of another. On the contrary, the relation of the predicate to the subject in a sentence is a relation of reason, which does not exist until after the consideration of the mind and as the result of the mind's activity.

The predicamental relation requires a real basis in the subject and a real terminus really distinct from this basis in the subject; this relation does not perdure after the terminus disappears, and in this it differs from the transcendental relation. The basis of the predicamental relation is the reason for the reference or ordering. Thus, in the relation of paternity the man who begets a son is the subject, the son is the terminus, to whom the father has a reference, and generation is the basis of the relation, since the reason why the father is referred to the son is the fact that he begot him.[205]