DEMONSTRATION AND SELF-EVIDENCE 21 



and part. Still I would never know the meaning of whole and 

 part if I never knew any concrete whole and its parts. And, 

 what is more important, there is no intelligibility at all to 

 whole or part except that there are (at least possibly) con- 

 cretely existing wholes and parts. The whole is greater than 

 any of its parts precisely because that's the way wholes and 

 parts are. For every whole and its parts there is the fact that 

 this whole happens to be greater than each of its parts — and 

 behind this fact is the necessity which demands it, a necessity 

 which is one with the intelligible structure of whole and part. 

 The fact and the necessity which dictates it are equally real. 

 Yet they differ. The fact is incommunicable, and it alone can 

 be expressed in a factually evident proposition. The necessity 

 behind the fact is impervious to sense. Yet it is potentially 

 in what is sensed (and in what is reported on in a factually 

 evident proposition) , and it is, of course, fundamentally uni- 

 versal. It can be known only by an intuitive insight which is 

 the result of an abstractive induction, and when known it is 

 expressed in a formally universal proposition. The self-evident 

 proposition comes into being only when it is inductively 

 achieved from an experience of singulars — and it is meaningful 

 only insofar as it bears finally upon singulars. However, the 

 self-evident proposition is only materially dependent on experi- 

 ence for its verification. It is directly verified in its own 

 intrinsic intelligibility, which precludes the possibility even of 

 conceiving the opposite. 



V. Per Se Nota and Modi Dicendi Per Se 



There is a temptation to identify per se nota or self-evident 

 propositions with propositions involving a modus dicendi per 

 se or a mode of perseity. However, such an identification can 

 be seen to be erroneous once it is noted that the conclusion 

 of a strict propter quid demonstration involves the second mode 

 of perseity. As conclusion, and not premise, the proposition in 

 the second mode of perseity is obviously not a self-evident 

 proposition. Hence, not every per se proposition is per se nota 



