priori possibility. “We know possibility a priori when we resolve a notion into its requisites or into other notions of known possibility, and know that there is nothing incompatible in them. We know a posteriori the possibility of a thing, when we actually experience its existence.” Leibniz, p. 80.
Ab esse. See Consequence.
Abdication. Abdicatio. An abdicative judgment. Scotus Erigena.
ABDICATIVE
Applied by Appuleius and Martianus Capella to propositions, in the sense of negative.
ABDUCTION
This is the English form of abductio, a word employed by Julius Pacius, as the translation of
It is a form of argument described by Aristotle as follows:—“Abduction is when it is evident that the first term [that which occurs in the syllogism only as a predicate. See Analytica Posteriora, lib. i, ch. 21, p. 82.b.2.] is predicable of the middle, but that the middle is predicable of the last [that which is only subject] is inevident, but is as credible or more so than the conclusion, further if the media of the last and middle are few; for it is being altogether nearer knowledge. Thus, let A be ‘what can be taught’, while B is ‘science’, and Γ ‘justice’. [A, B, Γ always denote the major, middle, and minor of a syllogism of the first figure.] Now, that science can be taught is plain, but that virtue is science is inevident. If then ΓB is as credible or more so than ΓA, there is an abduction. For by assuming the science of ΓA, we not having it before, are nearer to knowledge. [That is, we come nearer to knowing that justice can be taught, on account of the credibility of justice being a science.] Or again, if the middles of ΓB are few; for thus one is nearer knowledge. As, if Δ were ‘capable of being squared’, while E were ‘rectilinear figure’, and Z ‘circle’; if there were only one middle of ZE, that a circle becomes equal to a rectilinear figure by menisci, would be near knowledge. But, when ΓB is neither more credible than ΓA nor are the middles few, I do not call it abduction. Nor when ΓB is immediate, for that is knowledge.”
It will be seen that abduction has no connection with ‘apagogical proof’. See Waitz, Organon, i.534.
ABILITY
The power to act in a certain way. See Moral, Natural.
ABSENCE
1. The not being in a place.
2. “Mind, since it has no parts whose position can be considered relatively to other corporeal things, is not absent from corporeal things locally, but is absent, according to Thomas and DesCartes, from everything in which it does not operate.” Chauvin.
“Such things as, Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you, are said of God in scripture, metaphorically. For as it is said that the sun enters a house or leaves it, in so far as his rays extend to the house, so God is said to approach us or to recede from us, as far as we perceive the influence of his goodness or withdraw from it.” Aquinas, prim, prim., quaest. 9, art. 1.
3. “Every privation is a certain negation of the opposite habit, which we designate by the word absence.” Burgersdicius.
ABSOLUTE
Absolutum is good Latin. It is now used in a great variety of senses.
1. Absolutum a restrictione. Without restriction, in the logical sense. See below, absolute distribution, and absolute scepticism.
2. Absolutum a conditione. Unconditionate. See below, absolute proposition, absolute necessity, etc.
3. Absolutum a causa. “The Absolute is that which is free from all necessary relation, that is, which is free from every relation as a condition of existence; but it may exist in relation, provided that relation be not a necessary condition of its existence; that is, provided that relation may be removed without affecting its existence.” Calderwood.
Mansel expressly says that this is what he means by ‘absolute, in the sense of free from relation’. Philosophy of Conditioned. This is its sense in the Limits of Religious Thought; not sense 4.
‘Absolutum means what is freed or loosed; in which sense the absolute will be what is aloof from relation, comparison, limitation, condition, dependence, etc., and thus is tantamount to
4. ‘Absolutum means finished, perfected, completed; in which sense the Absolute will be what is out of relation, &c, as finished, perfect, complete, total, and thus corresponds to
“Absolute expresses the attribute of totality (incomposite unity or indivisibility).” F. E. Abbot.
“In our vulgar language, we say a thing is absolutely good when it is perfectly good.” Knox, History of Reform. Quoted in Fleming’s Vocabulary.
5. “The term absolute in the sense of free from relation, may be used in two applications;—1st, To denote the nature of a thing as it is in itself, as distinguished from its appearance to us. Here it is used in a subordinate sense, as meaning out of relation to human knowledge.” Mansel, Philosophy of Conditioned.
6. “Eschenmayer asserts that God is infinitely higher than the absolute, which is only the last object of knowledge, while God is only an object of faith, which is infinitely higher than knowledge.” Furtmair.
7. Absolutum a termino. A term is said to be absolute which can of itself be the subject or predicate of a complete proposition; as man, tree, and which implies the existence only of what it denotes. Opposed to connotative or relative terms, such as, greater, father of.
8. Without any modifying clause; like the simpliciter of the schoolmen.
Absolute adjunct. “An adjunct which belongs to its subject simply and absolutely.… Thus, mortality is an absolute adjunct of man; immortality a limited one; because man is not absolutely immortal, but only so as to his soul.” Burgersdicius.
Absolute affection. An affection “which belongs to its subject per se, “ and not on account of its relation to another. Chauvin.
Absolute beauty. “Beauty has been distinguished into the Free or Absolute, and into the Dependent or Relative. In the former case, it is not necessary to have a notion of what the object ought to be, before we pronounce it beautiful or not; in the latter case such a previous notion is required. Flowers, shells, arabesques, etc. are freely or absolutely beautiful. We judge, for example, a flower to be beautiful though unaware of its destination, and that it contains a complex apparatus of organs all admirably adapted to the propagation of the plant.” Hamilton, Metaphysical Lecture 46, p. 624.
Absolute distribution “is the distribution of a term without limitation: as, every man is Philargyrus. “ Example of the contrary distribution (the limited): “Every animal except the swan dies groaning.” Eck, In summulas Petri Hispani, fol. 91a.
Absolute good. “The moral good, which concerns the highest interest.” Kant, Kritik d. Urtheilskraft, §4.
Absolute ground of proof. A ground of proof not itself proved or needing proof, but intuitive.
Absolute horizon. “The congruence of