24 EDWARD D. SIMMONS 



the necessary (but not, to us at least, immediate) connection 

 between the subject and its property .^^ 



IV. In Conclusion 



At the very beginning of the Posterior Analytics Aristotle 

 faces up to the famous dilemma of Meno. How can one ever 

 be said to learn anything? Either he already knows what he 

 learns — and this is not learning. Or he is ignorant of what he 

 seeks to learn and thus cannot recognize it when he does come 

 upon it — so that learning is impossible. ^^ The difficulty reminds 

 us of the Parmenidean dilemma apropos of motion. Aristotle, 

 of course, defends the possibility of motion by introducing the 



** There is, of course, no difPerence between the major premise in the strict type 

 of propter quid demonstration and its conclusion unless there is a difference between 

 the fourth mode of perseity and the second mode of perseity. And there is no 

 difference here unless there is a difference between a real definition and the thing it 

 defines. There can be, of course, no difference in re between the definition and the 

 thing defined, so that the distinction between them must be a distinction of the 

 reason rather than a real distinction. There is not even a foundation in the real for 

 this distinction, so that it cannot be said to be a virtual logical distinction. Yet it 

 must be more than the distinction exemplified between subject and predicate in the 

 proposition John is John, for this is sheer tautology. If the definition and what it 

 defines do not differ somehow as objects so that a proposition in the first mode of 

 perseity is more than a tautology, then the prime instance of the per se nota 

 proposition loses its significance and ceases to function meaningfully as an absolute 

 premise at the same time that the major premise and conclusion of the strict type 

 of propter quid demonstration became formally identical. This is, quite clearly, the 

 death of demonstration. There is, however, a legitimate distinction to be made 

 between the definition and what it defines. True, there is no advance in knowledge 

 from thing to thing in defining. But there is in the definition a more perfect (clear 

 and distinct) grasp of something known obscurely and confusedly prior to definition. 

 This is enough to make the definition, from the point of view of the manner in 

 which it is conceived, an object different from the defined; though, in itself, it 

 remains identically the defined. This in turn is enough to make the per se nota 

 proposition whose predicate is of the definition of the subject something more than 

 tautologous. It is enough to guarantee a difference between the major and con- 

 clusion in the strict propter quid demonstration, and thus to guarantee the advance 

 in knowledge without which demonstration would be meaningless. Cf. Simon et al, 

 op. cit., note 14, p. 618; McArthur, Ronald, "A Note on Demonstration," The New 

 Scholasticism, XXXlV (1960), pp. 43-61; and especially Cajetan, In I Post. Anal., 

 ch. 3. 



^» Plato, Meno, 80D-86D. 



