DEMONSTRATION AND SELF-EVIDENCE 5 



can be said to constitute a method, and the reflexive investi- 

 gation of them can be spoken of as methodology. It should be 

 clear that this is not method in the manner of Cartesian 

 method, nor is it methodology in the manner of epistemological 

 critique. 



There is for man but one reason. Hence, there is generally 

 but one method, that is, the discursive method which measures 

 up to the demands of that one reason. But there are many 

 different things to be known, on radically different scientifically 

 relevant levels. As a consequent, the general method of the 

 reason must be proportioned to each scientifically different 

 object for each formally different scientific effort. The general 

 method of the reason is logic. Logic is at best analogously 

 common to every scientific inquiry. By itself it is inadequate 

 to any particular scientific subject matter. Logic must be con- 

 tracted, and in analogously different ways, to the needs of 

 every scientifically different subject. This contraction of logic 

 is realized in the particular scientific methods proper to each 

 formally different scientific subject.^ Note that while logic by 

 itself is inadequate to any given scientific inquiry because of 

 the special demands of the proper subject of that inquiry, there 

 can, because of the demands of the reason itself, be no particular 



logic, because discourse is aimed ultimately at a fully defended scientific knowledge 

 of things, the rules of the art must themselves be evident in themselves or demon- 

 stratively defended. Since only the most fundamental rules of logic are evident in 

 themselves the majority of them must be demonstrated. Thus, in order for logic 

 to be the art that it is, it must be at once the demonstrative science of the rules 

 of discourse. As a matter of fact, the rules of discourse are the canons which 

 express the demands of the second intentions which accrue to objects as known and 

 m virtue of which these objects are to be ordered in discourse. Thus logic is simul- 

 taneously the art of sound discourse and the demonstrative science of second 

 intentions or rules of discourse. For a more complete exposition and defense of this 

 position, cf., Simmons, Edward, " The Nature and Limits of Logic," The Thomist, 

 XXIV (January, 1961), pp. 47-71. 



®In In Boeth. de Trin., q. 6, a. 1, St. Thomas distinguishes between the demon- 

 strative method characteristic of natural science (rationabiliter) , the method of 

 mathematics (disciplinabiliter) ,. and the method of metaphysics {intellectualiter) . 

 These represent different contractions of the general logic of demonstration in favor 

 of formal differences in diverse scientific subjects. 



