0013 What is “dici”?

0014 Most translate the word into English as “speech”.

What happens when I consider the English word, “talk”.

0015 For the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, hominins walk with their feet and talk with their hands.  The initial motivation is obligate collaborative foraging in mixed forest and savannah ecologies, during the late Pliocene and the Pleistocene.

Hominins forage in teams, as evidenced by Oldowan stone tools.  Oldowan stone tools are hastily constructed, on the spot, during a scavenging team-situation.  One rock is struck against another is such a fashion that the target rock fractures, creating a “referent”, a sharp edge, that indicates what is is capable of doing.  It is capable of acting like giant tooth.

To me, the Oldowan stone tool represents the occasion of a relationes secundum esse (a relation according to esse_ce).  There is a sharp edge hidden within the target rock.  A few well-placed blows from another rock reveals that edge.  The edge is its essence.  The edge is what the original target rock refers to, if that stone could talk.

0016 Hand talk within team activities evolves along the same lines.  Every team has needs for members to indicate what they intend to do.  Such indication requires reference.

At first, manual-brachial gestures pantomime or point to their referents.  Then, each particular pantomime and pointing gets routinized into a gesture word, distinct from other gesture words.  So, hand-talk in teams becomes sort of (or proto) linguistic.  The key?  The referent precedes the gesture-word and is imaged or indicated by the gesture-word.  Plus, the gesture-word is used sensibly and avoids confusion.

0017 For example, the raven may be pantomimed in a way that distinguishes it from other birds (such as sparrow or vulture).  

0018 Now, this looks like a relationes secundum dici that is very close to a relationes secundum esse.   So, maybe I should call it relationes secundum dici (hand talk).  Since hand talk images and indicates its referents, and since the referent precedes the gestural-word, dici (hand talk) is just about the same as esse.

0019 What about this “proto-linguistic” business?

Well, the hand-talk word, [RAVEN], can be used in a statement about a raven or ravens in the course of a team activity.  Here, the term serves as a noun.

The same hand-talk word may be used in a way that stretches sensible construction (until it becomes a habit within the team’s repertoire).  That is to use [RAVEN] as an adjective to indicate a color.

For example, black fruits from a particular plant are ripe and ready for a team to harvest.  So, the elder of the team hand-talks the following.

0020 Surely, hand-talk naming of [RAVEN], plus its use as color, associate to relationes secundum esse, but technically belong to relationes secundum dici (hand talk).

Compared to Aristotle’s hylomorphe, both esse and dici (hand talk) occupy the slot for matter and relationes go into the slot for form.  The contiguity is [secundum].

Perhaps, this business about hand talk is a surprising development for philosophers engaged in the application of the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas to various questions.

Thus begins the added layer.

0021 Where am I going with this?

According to Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) (by Razie Mah and available at smashwords and other e-book venues, also appearing in Razie’s Mah blog for January through March, 2024), hominin evolution can be divided into three stages.  The first corresponds to adaptation to the social circle of teams.  The second corresponds to adaptation to the social circles of community, mega-band and tribe.  The third corresponds to a twist in human evolution.

0022 Another way to imagine the three stages?

The first goes with the evolution of proto-linguistic hand talk, sensible construction and implicit abstraction.

The second goes with the evolution of fully linguistic hand talk, sensible and social construction, and implicit abstraction. Speech is added to hand talk at the commencement of our own species, Homo sapiens.  Our species practices a dual-mode way of talking, hand-speech talk, for over 200,000 years, until something happens.

The third goes with a recent twist in human evolution, social (and sensible) construction and explicit (and implicit) abstraction.

0023 A twist?

Before the first singularity, there are no civilizations (actually, there is only constrained social complexity).  Plus, all human cultures practice hand-speech talk, as they have for 200,000 years.

The hypothesis of the first singularity proposes that the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the first speech-alone talking culture, in a world full of hand-speech talking cultures.  Then, speech-alone talk spreads as nearby hand-speech talking cultures imitate the Ubaid, because the Ubaid has something that they don’t have (wealth and power, due to labor and social specialization).  Then, as these neighboring cultures drop the hand-component of their hand-speech talk, trends towards unconstrained social complexity increase their wealth and power.

Why does speech-alone talk facilitate unconstrained social complexity?

Speech-alone talk allows explicit abstraction. Hand-talk and hand-speech talk do not.

Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.

0024 Here is a picture of the evolution of talk.

0025 The implications take this examination to a place that the author does not anticipate.

There is more than one meaning to the Latin term, “dici”.

0026 At first, there are only relationes secundum esse.  These relations inspire implicit abstraction.  If one imagines that every team operates according to its own set of relationes secundum esse, and adapt to those relations, then as the number of teams (or “ways of getting stuff to eat”) increases, so must the mental powers of the hominins increase.  One phenotypic expression for the multiplication of specialized mental modules attuned to sets of esse relations is the increase of neocortical size over evolutionary time.

Then, adding to the first, relationes secundum dici (hand talk) begins as members of each team uses manual-brachial gestures to “talk”.  The contiguity between a hand-talk word-gesture and its referent involves sensible construction and implicit abstraction.

Then, adding to the first and second, dici (hand talk) becomes linguistic.  The contiguity between a fully linguistic hand-talk statement and its meaning involves sensible (and increasingly, social) construction and implicit abstraction.

Speech is added to hand talk at the start of our species, Homo sapiens.  Implicit abstractions sing with symbolic accompaniments.

Finally, relationes secundum dici (speech-alone talk) introduces the possibility of explicit abstraction.

0027 Let me say that again, more slowly, starting with the first period.

0028 The top row concerns archaeological landmarks.  The word, “hominid”, is used to designate bipedal apes.  The word, “hominin”, designates hominids who belong to the family tree that ends with Homo sapiens.

In adding the term, “hominin”, to their vocabulary, archaeologists commit a funny sort of misdirection.  The further back in evolutionary time, the more difficult it gets to tell whether a particular fossil is ancestral.

0029 Nonetheless, evolutionary anthropologist, Robin Dunbar, identifies a relation that holds for mammals.  Larger brain size (more or less) corresponds to larger group size (more or less).  For the brain size to body ratio of the australopithecines (the so-called “southern apes” who walked before 3.5Myr), the group size is 50.

0030 In Comments on Clive Gamble, John Barrett and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2104) “Thinking Big”, Mah picks up on the anthropologists’ claim that the band (50) is a social circle, and that social circles seem to scale by a factor of three.  The idea of social circles places the family (5) and intimates (5) as the smallest social circle.  The band (50) is the largest social circle at the start of hominin evolution.  Plus, in the distant future, community (150) is the next social circle that will constellate.

0031 Of course, this leaves an unattended, yet theoretically anticipated, social circle of around 15.  Notably, most teams in contemporary sports consist in around 15 members.  Five may be on the field at any moment.  But, those five positions have two back-up players ready to go, at a moments notice.  To me, the number 15 associates to teams.  Once this association is made, then the obvious social circle to support obligate collabortive foraging is the team.

“Obligate collaborative foraging”?

Michael Tomasello coins the term, as far as I can see.

The term means that individual foraging is less successful than when a team forages together.  Team foraging makes sense when the foraging strategy is to figure out food that other predators and herbivores are either unaware of or ignore.  Teams opportunistically band and disband, depending on what is available at a particular time and location.  

Communication among team-members is required.

0032 So, proto-linguistic hand-talk is an adaptation.

The semiotic types of manual-brachial gestures are icon (images, picturing, pantomiming) and index (pointing, indicating, orienting).

0033 Now, a comparison between Aristotle (belonging to our current Lebenswelt) and a member of early Homo erectus(belonging to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in) may be configured in the following manner.

0034 For Aristotle, an inquirer encounters a thing.  Scientists might call it a noumenon.  The thing is a subject for implicit abstraction.  That implicit abstraction may follow the logics of firstness, secondness and thirdness.  

In firstness, the thing is an intuitive whole in the same way that the referent that is pictured or pointed to in hand talk is an intuitive whole.  So, for the hominin, a thing may be what can be pictured and pointed to with a manual-brachial gesture.

In secondness, the thing has matter and form.  But, hand talk cannot picture or point to these explicit abstractions. Nevertheless, the brain and body adapts to a distinction between esse_ce and essence.  This adaptation is the most likely basis for phenotypic propensities to recognize relationes secundum esse (relations according to existence) as both real and relevant.  Recognition does not involve explicit abstraction.  Recognition is an implicit abstraction.

In thirdness, a thing is an actuality₂ that occurs in a normal context₃ and arises from a potential₁.

0035 Now for an exercise, allow me to recall the example of hand-talk about ravens.

In the previous figure, as far as Aristotle is concerned, a thing is “a thing”.  This comports well with the first-phase hominin’s sense that a thing is “what can be pictured or pointed to using hand talk”.

0036 Aristotle, living in our current Lebenswelt, can use spoken language to label two real elements that belong to a thing, in the same way that a sharp edge resides in a ready-to-hand rock at a scavenging site.  The thing has two real elements, matter and form.

0037 The first-phase hominin, living in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, can use hand talk to refer to a raven through sensible construction and implicit abstraction.  Perhaps, if explicit abstraction is possible, the gesture-word would pertain to a relationes secundum esse, even though it is literally a relationes secundum dici (hand talk).

0038 Yes, the above dyad portrays a dici (hand talk) relation.

And, this relationes secundum dici (hand talk) calls to mind a continuum between Aristotle’s dyad and the dyad of esse relations (which are here, explicitly stated as dyads).  

Perhaps, I can say that naming “raven” is more on the matter [substance] form side of the continuum.

It is almost as if the left-side of the continuum is like a rock that may be a candidate for an Oldowan stone tool and the right-side is like the sharp-edge achieved by striking the rock.

0039 This sensibility is even more relevant to the next statement.

Clearly, the relationes secundum dici (hand talk) is sensibly constructed using implicit abstraction.

At the same time, the dyad may be characterized (by today’s inquirer) as resting on the sharp-edge side of the realist continuum.

0040 What am I saying?

Because hand talk is composed of routinized iconic and indexal manual-brachial gestures, it is as if its relationality points to a continuum between a thing encountered and the hand-talk word as a sign of the thing, itself.

Here is a picture of what I suggest.

0041 In sum, if I have a bucket labeled, “esse”, then I would put relationes secundum dici (hand talk) into that bucket.

0042 The next phase in hominin evolution starts with the domestication of fire and continues with the earliest appearance of humans.   For convenience, I divide this period into “the intention of humans” and “the creation of humans”.

Here a table for the intention of humans.

0043 What does the domestication of fire do?

Of course, cooking releases calories from raw food by degrading the collagen of animal tissues and cellulose of plants.  Also, cooking detoxifies many foods.

As a result, there are more ways to gather food and more successful teams.  The fulcrum of natural selection shifts from the social circle of teams to the social circle of community (which, at 150, is just about a team of teams).

0044 What else?

0045 In the first phase, proto-linguistic hand talk is practiced by teams, for situation-based sensible construction.

In the second phase, the domestication of fire allows hand talk to become its own activity, not subservient to team structures, but available to all… especially after… everyone eats a nice fire-cooked meal.  Hand-talk adapts by becoming fully linguistic.

Then, fully linguistic hand-talk has a trick up its sleeve.

Hominins start to produce grammatically correct nonsensical hand-talk statements.  This dramatically expands the range of implicit abstraction from sensible to social construction.

0046 Social construction is the meaning underlying the word, “religion”.

Consider the following example, where a fully linguistic statement demands social construction.

Yes, the statement is counter-intuitive.  How is a raven supposed to gather a pebble from the bottom of a creek then fly away?  Each gesture-word categorically expresses each referent within a grammatical structure.  Yet, the entire sentence defies sensible construction, so resulting the implicit abstraction (here, denoted with speech-alone words) transcendentally expresses the meaning of the counter-intuitive statement.

0047 Duma introduces two types of relations: categorical and transcendental.

Both types of relation appear to be in play in this example.

The relation between each gesture-word and its referent is categorical.  Both the gesture and the referent are real.  The gesture images or points to its referent.  Can images and indications also be called “categorical”?  

Similarly, the relation between the entire statement and whatever it is referring to is transcendental.  The statement’s meaning transcends the grammatically correct hand-talk utterance.

0048 Now, I ask, “How would Aristotle’s tradition deal with this whatever?

Well, here is one guess.

Aristotle would recognize that the translated statement is not really a sensible statement, because how does a raven swim?  The claim is counter-intuitive, even though every hand-talk word associates to mind-independent being.

If “matter” is material to a form, and if “being” is relational to a form, then one could imagine that the two contiguous real elements are being (relation as opposed to material) and form (the counter-intuitive image of a raven obtaining a pebble from the bottom of a creek).

Perhaps, the raven’s being is the one that swims, while the material raven cannot.

0049 Here is a picture.

0050 How would a hominin… er… human living before the first singularity deal with this whatever?

Well, the implicit abstraction engages in social, not sensible construction.  If each hand-talk word is sensibly constructed, the entire statement is still counter-intuitive and demands social construction.

Now, I can go one more step and ask, “If an observer of the hominin making this counter-intuitive statement has knowledge of Aquinas’s philosophy, what term would he use to refer to this occasion?”

0051 In this instance, the term, relationes secundum dici (hand talk), is more than sensibly guessing the referent given the gesture-word, it requires socially constructing a referent that cannot be pictured or pointed to in hand talk.

Each gesture-word pictures or points to its referent.  Without the gesture-word, one would not think of its referent.  So, I may say that the contiguity between dici (associating to being) and relationes (associating to form) is categorical.

However, the statement is counter-intuitive, creating an implicit abstraction of a… what?  Does the dyad, being [substance] form, apply?  Again, dici associates with being, since the relation would not be apparent without the statement.  Relationes goes with the form, which must be a social constuction. 

0052 Now, I wonder whether my evolutionary associations and speculations are relevant to Duma’s five samples of Aquinas’s use of dici relatives.  These five cases appear in section two.

 0053 The first case occurs in Summa Theologica (I, q.13, a.7, ad 1).  Predicated relatives are like master and servant.  Transendental relatives are like body and soul.  So the following, would be a predicated relative.

Here is a dyad.  The two real elements are the creature and what the creature says.  The contiguity is the “cause” that brings the two real elements together in Peirce’s secondness.

0054 In the second sample, from Peter Lombard’s Sentences (d.30, q.2 a.1.c., ad.4), Aquinas mentions the above example, adding that a term such as “knowledge” signifies something that is founded within this relation, and may be labeled as a secundum dici relation.

My guess is that the creature knows that “master” is an appropriate label to apply to one’s creator.

So, the creature knows what to say and how to say it.  

0055 In hand talk, the appellation would be a gesture of self-humiliation, such as laying flat on the ground or kneeling.  Tradition establishes the protocol.  The one who kneels associates to matter and dici (hand talk).  The one who is being knelt to associates to form and relationes.  The kneeling one (like matter and dici) honors (the contiguity or “cause”) the one who is being knelt to (like form and relationes).

In hand talk, dici (hand talk) [predicates] relationes (the relation).

Hand talk does so because it coheres with esse (existence) [secundum] relationes (relation).

0056 Speech-alone talk produces an odd reversal.  The creature who would be gesturing, but is now speaking, associates to matter and relationes.  The specific terminology of the appellation associates to form and dici (speech-alone talk). The contiguity involves knowledge.

Does this imply that relationes (the relation) [predicates] dici (speech-alone talk)?

0057 In the third sample, Aquinas considers Disputed Questions on the Power of God.

What is the character of the distinction between relationes secundum esse and relationes secundum dici?

Well that should be obvious.

0058 If I ask, “How do I get to the farmer’s market.”

The answer, “Go to the town square.”, expresses the esse relation.

The answer, “Go down the street until St. Mary’s Church, then turn right and go two blocks.”, expresses the dici relation.

0059 Esse relations have one terminus in the real (in this answer, the town square).

Dici relations have one terminus in reason (in this answer, a right turn at a landmark).

0060 So, I wonder, what is Aquinas up to?

Why does philosophy arise in ancient Greece?  Why is Aristotle so revered?  Here is one answer.

Opinions (beings of reason or ens rationis) cannot be trusted.  What is real (beings of realness or ens reale) are far more trustworthy.  So, the task of the philosopher is to ascertain what is real in the face of a variety of opinions.

0061 Ah, that sounds like Aquinas’s agenda.

Relationes secundum esse have one terminus in the real.

Relationes secundum dici (speech-alone talk) have one terminus in… well… whatever anyone wants to say is real.

0062 The fourth sample, goes back to Commentary on Sentences (d.26, q.2, a.1.c., ad. 4)

Consider the possibility of a real (mind-independent) distinction among the divine Persons in the Trinity.  The word, “Trinity”, labels a relation.  The Divine Persons label content within the relation.  In other words, the relation is real and the elements within the relation are real as well.  Explicit abstraction and speech-alone talk may label all the real elements.  Three real persons occupy slots for an immaterial triadic relation.  Each of the three persons receives a name.

0063 Of course, the full story is a little more complicated, as discussed in the first interlude in How To Define the Word “Religion” (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

0064 In the above application, as with the previous example of a dici (speech-alone talk) relation, relationes associates to the slot for matter and dici (speech-alone talk) associates the slot for form.

0065 What about hand talk?

One could never discuss the nature of the Trinity using hand talk, because there is no thing to picture or point to.  But, that does not mean that there is no triadic relation.  If relationes goes with form and dici (hand talk) goes with matter and ifdici (hand talk) cannot picture and point to referents in such a manner as to articulate an explicit abstraction, then one cannot presume that there is no esse.  One cannot presume that there is no relationes secundum esse.

This reminds me of the distinction between categorical and transcendental affordance (secundum).  Each gesture-word in a hand-talk statement categorically pictures and points to things (that is, referents).  But, the connection between the statement and the recognition of the referent of the statement borders on transcendental, especially when the connection is embedded in a grammatically correct counter-intuitive statement.

The bottom line?

Our lineage adapts to the potential of triadic relations.

So, if the Trinity constellates a triadic relation, then humans are prepared by evolution to contour their awareness according to that relation.  This contouring of awareness may be diagrammed as a triadic relation, because the diagram pictures and points to the way that each label occupies each slot.

0066 Here is a prior example, formatted in order to show how a fully linguistic hand-talk statement may generate a relationes secundum dici (hand talk).  The statement serves as matter.  A category-based nested form serves as form.  The statement informs the slot for actuality₂.  Social construction provides the normal context₃ and potential₁.

0067 The lesson?

In the above application, typical of dici (hand talk) relations, hand-talk goes into the slot for matter and relationesassociates to the slot for form.

0068 So, where am I going with this?

Well, the first four samples offered by the author of the term, relationes secundum dici, reveal that Aquinas consistently offers samples for dici (speech-alone talk).  This suggests that Aquinas works with explicit abstractions, typical for our current Lebenswelt.

Yet, when human evolution is taken into consideration, our genus evolves while practicing dici (hand and hand-speech talk) and working with implicit abstraction.

In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, dici (hand talk) pictures and points to its referents, even when fully linguistic and even when gesture-words are used in counter-intuitive grammatically correct statements. Consequently, dici (hand talk)has the same hylomorphic character as relationes secundum esse.

0069 Furthermore, the hylomorphic structure for the term, relationes secundum X, changes when X is hand talk as opposed to when X is speech-alone talk.

Dici (speech-alone talk) offers labels that go into the slot for forms.  The corresponding relations associate to the slot for matter, in a reversal of the foundational relationes secundum esse. 

So, the specificity of dici relations turns out to differ when dici is hand talk, as opposed to speech-alone talk.

How strange is that?

0070 Here is the list for human evolution starting with the earliest appearance of anatomically modern humans in the fossil record, over 200,000 years ago.  From its inception, Homo sapiens practices hand-speech talk.  The hand-talk component remains iconic and indexal.  The speech-talk component serves as a symbolic adornment, at first, then takes on a life of its own.  At the time of the first singularity, hand-speech talking cultures intentionally abandon the hand-talk component of their hand-speech talk, in imitation of speech-alone talking cultures.

0071 Say again?

Speech is an exaptation following an adaptation to singing.  As larger and larger social circles become typical after the domestication of fire, singing is used to synchronize hominins at the start of seasonal get-togethers of mega-bands and occasional gatherings of the tribe.  Then, singing is further enhanced through sexual selection.  Over generations, the vocal tract comes under voluntary neural control.  Then, the exaptation of speech for use with hand talk occurs at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens.

0072 Hand-speech talk is fully linguistic.

Since speech cannot image or point to its referent, the semiotic qualities of hand-speech talk maintain continuity with hand-talk.

Consequently, hand-speech talk facilitates only implicit abstraction.

0073 Then what happens?

Around 7800 years ago, the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is clearly evident along the edge of the Persian Gulf, after the Gulf has filled due to rising ocean levels.  According to the e-book, The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), the Ubaid emerges as a speech-alone talking culture. At the time of the Ubaid’s inception, all other Neolithic, Mesolithic and Epipaleolithic cultures practice hand-speech talk.

0074 Speech-alone cannot picture or point to its referents.  So, the only way that one knows what a spoken word refers tois through habit and convention.  Speech-alone talk is purely symbolic.  Spoken words can be used to label parts of a whole, how the parts operate within the whole, as well as the whole.  Such specificity is called “explicit abstraction”.  Explicit abstraction promotes both labor (wealth) and social (power) specializations.  Realizing such specializationsentails a historical process and yields higher and higher levels of social complexity (wealth and power).

Well, at least until a social collapse occurs. 

0075 Indeed, the Ubaid starts with more labor and social specialization than surrounding hand-speech talking cultures.  Why?  First and foremost, it practices speech-alone talk from the start. Speech-alone talk facilitates explicit abstraction. Explicit abstraction encourages labor and social specializations.  Second, the Ubaid is a fusion of land-loving Neolithic and marsh-dwelling Mesolithic cultures. Two complementary styles of production spur economic activities.  Third, the low cost of transportation on waterways favors trade.

Some archaeologists suggest that the second and third points are sufficient to explain why the Ubaid is the earliest culture to trend towards unconstrained social complexity.  But, I don’t think the claim is sufficient.  The difference in the semiotic qualities between hand-speech talk and speech-alone talk provides a more adequate explanation for why southern Mesopotamian cultures spiral towards higher and higher levels of social complexity, eventually reaching the Sumerian Dynastic Period, 2800 years after the nominal start of the Ubaid.

A new timeline can be constructed, starting with definitive archaeological evidence of the Ubaid.  Years are denominated as U0′ (Ubaid Zero Prime).  This year is 7824 U0′.

0076 For the purposes of this examination of Duma’s article, I can imagine comparing implicit and explicit abstraction in regards to a classic example of a relationes secundum dici, the relation between a thing and an accident of the thing.  

0077 My example consists of the hand of my friend, where the tip of his middle finger has been bitten off by a dog… er… little wolf.  Indeed, the accident occurs so long ago, that his name is [WOLF][FINGER].

0078 To start, my friend and I live in a hand-speech talking culture just north of the Ubaid.  So, we practice hand-speech talk, even though we have been visited by Ubaid missionaries.

My friend’s hand-talk name precisely captures both the thing (my friend) and the absence of the tip of the finger (accident of his hand).

0079 If an Aristotelian formulates a hylomorphe for my friend, the classic hylomorphe works fine.  Then, for the missing tip of his middle finger, Aquinas’s use of relationes secundum dici will do.  The dici (hand talk) relation coheres withrelationes secundum esse.  For this reason, I replace [secundum] with the word, “categorical”, where “categorical” implies a relation with one terminus in ens reale, where the mind-independent being is the gesture-word’s referent.

Dici (hand talk) associates to matter and relationes associates to a lack of complete form.

0080 Later, my friend and I live is the same culture that has dropped the hand-talk component of hand-speech talk.  We now practice speech-alone talk.

If an Aristotelian formulates a hylomorphe for my friend, the classical hylomorphe works fine.  Then, for the missing finger tip, the relation associates to matter and the spoken words, “A dog bit off his finger.” associates to form.

0081 I suppose that distinction between “categorical” and “transcendental” does not seem to be decisive when it comes to relationes secundum X.

At the same time, it is relevant, because the “referent” for a word and a statement differ.

0082 Section three of Duma’s article wrestles with the views of thinkers within the scholastic tradition.

0083 Right after Aquinas, scholars want to classify relationes secundum dici (relations according to talk) as ens rationis(mind-dependent beings).  They are like opinions, which are also ens rationis.  So, maybe they may be safely ignored.

They cannot be ignored.

0084 Four hundred years after Aquinas, John of St. Thomas (or John Poinsot) says that relationes secundum dici (speech-alone talk) matter.  They are real beings.

Indeed, relationes are the ens reale (mind-independent beings) that brings ens reale (mind-independent being) into relation with ens rationis (mind-dependent being).

Here, relationes are mind-independent even though they are immaterial beings.  So, they are not like matter.  But, they are like form, because they entangle mind-independent material things.

So, there are two styles of ens reale (mind-independent being), one is purely relational (where the relation can be depicted as a figure with empty slots) and the other is material (which is what comes to mind immediately with the term, ens reale).

Surely, Poinsot’s realization is significant.

0085 Yet, difficulties are apparent, expecially when four hundred years later, this examiner notes that there are two styles of dici, hand-talk and speech-alone talk.

0086 Overall, I can imagine two buckets for relationes secundum X, as shown below.

0087 Yes, the two buckets have appropriate labels.

I’m talking about relationes secundum X.

With X=”esse“, the foundational contiguity is [secundum] or [according to].

Relation associates to form.  Relation is like essence.  Esse_ce associates to matter.  So, essence accords to esse_ce.  Form accords to matter.

With X=dici (hand talk), the foundational contiguity includes a qualifier, either “categorical” or “transcendental”, as discussed earlier.  In both cases, dici (hand talk) is like matter because the referent is like esse_ce.  Once again, the essence (the relation) accords to esse_ce (the images and indicators of hand talk).  Form accords to matter.

0088 With X=dici (speech-alone talk words), humans expect the same type of performance as dici (hand talk).  Take the words, “chair” and “raven”.  These terms seem to be located in the esse bucket, because the accordance is categorical.

However, the spoken words “chairperson” and “ravenous” are not so categorical.  They are more transcendental.  The bucket turns dicey, especially as a spoken term becomes more and more like a statement, as in the adjective-noun combination, “ravenous chairperson”.

To wit, I always make it a point to bring a dozen fresh donuts to faculty meetings.

0089 With X=dici (speech-alone statement), one cannot expect the same type of linguistic performance as with hand-talk.  The relation becomes like matter and the spoken statement slips into the slot for form.

The switch is awkward, in so far as the relation enters the slot previously held by esse and dici (hand talk) and the spoken statement enters the slot previously held by the relation.  It is as if the term, “ravenous chairperson” is a form (a dici (speech-alone talk)) that brings the appearance of donuts at each faculty meeting (a relationes) into um… accordance, as if saying, “Donuts [in accordance with the] ‘ravenous chairperson'”.

That is not all.

The relation can shift from “donuts” to “an invitation to co-author a publication that the chairperson has made no contribution, outside of mere administration”.

Yes, relationes secundum dici (speech-alone talk) can be dicey.

0090 The dyad can be shifty.

I ask, “What is a thing?”

And the listener hears, “What is your thing?”

Dici (speech-alone talk) goes into the slot for form and offers the aroma of essence.

Relation goes into the slot for matter and makes me wonder and ask, “Who nose?”

I hope that makes scents.

0091 For the scholar working in Peirce’s tradition, the relatives that Aquinas mentions belong to Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  Here, one real element is relationes (for Aquinas) and the category of secondness (for Peirce).  The other real element is dici (speech-alone talk) (for Aquinas, dici is speech) and Aristotle’s fundamental hylomorphe, matter [substance] form (for Peirce).

In both cases, the realness that associates to matter substantiates the realness that associates to form.

For matter, relationes, expressed as dyadic structures, exemplify Peirce’s category of secondness. 

For form, matter [substance] form is an example of dici (speech-alone talk).

0092 Then, there is the distincdtion between implicit and explicit abstraction.

0093 This figure intimates the difficulties faced by 20th century commentators, writing long after 13th century Aquinas.  The dyadicity of relationes secundum X engages Peirce’s category of secondness, even though none of the commentators knows this.  Plus, Aquinas’s discussion of relatives, along with similar terms, leads to the discovery of the nature of triadic relations, such as signs and mediations, in the 16th century.

0094 Georg W. Volk captures one facet of the conundrum.  Relationes secundum dici signify the relation itself as well as what is related by the relation.  Does this apply to the distinction between categorical (the referent for each hand-talk word-gesture) and transcendental (the referent for an entire grammatically correct counter-intuitive hand-talk statement)? Or does this apply to two ens reale, the relation (which does not seem like ens reale, because it consists of empty slots in a purely relational structure) and its contents (which seem to be mind-independent, especially with technical terms like “cushion” and “job”).

Relationes secundum dici (speech-alone talk) may be particularly dicey, because of juxtapositions, such as “cushy job”, a term (going into the slot for form) that accords to certain relations (going into the slot for matter).

And, that is no accident.

Or is it?

0095 Krapiec starts with relationes secundum dici as an accidental being that is subordinate to substantial being, constructed as a relation or one of its components.  Similarly, the missing fingertip is subordinate to my friend and “cushion” is subordinate to my boss’s job.

This accidental being is “transendental”, because it is (or may be) characteristic of any being (depending on the normal context₃ and potential₁).

Three problems arise when considering these transcendental accidental beings. (1) How do the elements enter into the relation?  (2) Does the absolute (mind-independent) characteristic of the relational being violate the (mind-dependent) character of elements entering into relation? (3) How does a Creator God originate creation through speech acts that surely classify as relationes secundum dici?

Well, if relationes secundum dici is an accident, then can I say that this crashing success is worth raving about?

0096 Section four conveys how secundum dici relations are to be understood, according to the author, Thomasz Duma.

First, let go of the distinction between categorical and transcendental.

Second, all these relations have two termini, the relation and the elements that go into the relation.  Both are expessed in the diagram of Peirce’s category of secondness, using Aristotle’s hylomorphe as an standard.  Both dici and relationes are real elements.  The contiguity is [secundum], translated into English as [according to].  The contiguity may be considered as “mental” or “logical”.  The contiguity may be associated with implicit or explict abstraction.

Third, as soon as a relationes secundum X (X = esse or dici) is formulated as a dyad in Peirce’s realm of actuality₂, it is subject to the laws of contradiction and noncontradiction.  For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, matter and form are real elements associated to explicit abstraction.  If the contiguity between them is labeled, [substance], then internal contradictions should be resolved.

0097 In this examination, I swerve from what Duma actually says.

Am I trying to avoid an accident?

Or, am I on my way to create one?  

My course correction adds one more item to the list.

Fourth, because relationes secundum X cohere to a dyadic expression consistent with Peirce’s secondness, in order to be understood, this actuality₂ requires a normal context₃ and potential₁.

Here is an example.

Ah, this sort of looks like Krapiec’s point about accidental being acting subordinate to substantial being.

But, now the dyadic actuality₂ is ordinate and its normal context₃ and potential₁ are subordinate.

Which makes me wonder whether the ordinate (the actuality₂) is really subordinate (to the entire nested form).

Or worse, if actuality₂ is missing, does the normal context₃ and potential₁ act like an accident waiting to happen?

0098 No wonder the hominin brain increases in volume over evolutionary time.  Imagine a hominin building an adaptive neural network₂ devoted to the normal context₃ and the potential₁ of a subordinate being adding value to an ordinate being₂ for a number of social circles₃, including diverse teams₃.  Surely, natural selection can work on that.  As each hominin grows up, other members of the band learn the range of this hominin’s aptitudes and respond accordingly, with either invitations to join a team or neglect, due to perceived lack of “talent” or “interest”. 

In other words, the normal context₃ of the team and the potential of the individual₁ are subordinate to the ordinate, the individual joining a team₂.

Joining a team correlates to reproductive success.

The irony is that no element is fully subordinate or completely ordinate in a category-based nested form.

The category-based nested form is triadic relation.

0099 May I add one more item?

Five, what does the contiguity between esse or dici and relation imply for the esse bucket?

Surely, implicit abstraction consists of the operations of adaptive neural networks, honed by evolution in the service of some team or other social circle.  Implicit abstraction comes “naturally”, so to speak.

Explicit abstraction is the outlier. It is not necessarily “naturally” easy unless it somehow coheres with the mental and logical processes of an innate implicit way of thinking.

For example, why do humans learn to read so easily.  Of course, some kids (and adults) have more difficulty than others, but once literate, the human mind effortlessly performs an implicit abstraction between a set of written words and its corresponding meaning, presence and message?

The answer is that so-called, “decoding”, of spoken and written words on the content-level consists of the same implicit abstractions involved in hand talk.  Dici corresponds to parole.  Relationes corresponds to langue.

Thus, the definition of “language”, formulated by Ferdinand de Saussure early in the 20th century, looks very much like a style of relationes secundum dici.

0100 Implicit and explicit abstraction (as well as the terms “categorical” and “transcendental”) appear to associate to the contiguity between dici and relationes, that is [secundum].  “Secundum” is often translated as “according to” or “accordance”.  Secundum is not a real element.  Secundum is a contiguity between two real elements.  It cannot be reduced to something comparable to matter or form.

0101 Oh my, this examination is already as long as the article.

Oh, maybe I can use a different label for what I am doing.

May I call this examination “a reconfiguration”?

The reconfiguration starts with a distinction between esse, dici (hand talk) and dici (speech-alone talk), drawing human evolution into the discussion.

In the long run, I suspect that Aquinas’s philosophy may be (to a significant degree) “re-expressed” using Peirce’s diagrams, if only because diagrams allow one to visualize a relation, as well as content within the relation.

Okay, maybe I should call this examination, “a speculation”.

0102 I conclude by offering a couple more blogs, with lots of pictures.

One blog focuses on the difference between implicit and explicit abstraction in regards to relationes secundum X.

The other blog concern the category-based nested form and how Peirce’s categories may be regarded in terms of explicit and implicit abstraction.

0103 I start with the counter-intuitive hand-talk statement discussed earlier.

Here is relationes secundum dici for this implicit abstraction.

0104 In the statement, each gesture-word categorically pictures or points to its referent.  In doing so, each hand-talk wordassociates to matter.  The form, here provided in speech-alone talk, is a relation that is counter-intuitive because ravens do not swim.

0105 But, maybe they do not have to.

0106 In speech-alone talk, the matter-slot is occupied by an interpretation (a relationes), corresponding to the form-slot for hand talk.  The speech-alone word which solves the riddle of the slogan is “drought”.  This word mimimizes contradictions to the extent that the interpretation only requires sensible construction.

0107 At this moment, I pose a question in regards the way that my attention proceeds in the previous two figures.

To me, it seems easy to proceed from (A) the matter-slot for implicit abstraction to (C) the form-slot for explicit abstraction.   Dici (hand talk) flows through relationes to dici (speech-alone talk).

The other direction seems much more problematic.  For example, if I say the word, “drought”, I do not spontaneously imagine that a drought allows ravens to pick up pebbles from the bottom of creeks.

The difficulties multiply when considering a return passage from dici (speech-alone talk) to dici (hand-talk).