The Semantics of Analogy : Rereading Cajetan's De Nominum Analogia

The Semantics of Analogy is the first book-length interpretive study in English of Thomas de Vio Cajetan's (1469?-1534) classic treatise on analogy. Written in 1498, De Nominum Analogia (On the Analogy of Names) has long been treated as Cajetan's attempt to systematize Aquinas’s theory of analogy. A traditional interpretation regarded it as the official Thomistic treatise on analogy, but current scholarly consensus holds that Cajetan misinterpreted Aquinas and misunderstood the phenomenon of analogy. Both approaches, argues Joshua P. Hochschild, ignore the philosophical and historical context and fail to accurately assess Cajetan's work. In The Semantics of Analogy , Hochschild reinterprets De Nominum Analogia as a significant philosophical treatise in its own right. He addresses some of the most well-known criticisms of Cajetan's analogy theory and explicates the later chapters of De Nominum Analogia , which are usually ignored by commentators. He demonstrates that Cajetan was aware of the limits of semantic analysis, had a sophisticated view of the relationship between semantics and metaphysics, and expressed perceptive insights about concept formation and hermeneutics that are of continuing philosophical relevance.

 

The Semantics of Analogy is the first book-length interpretive study in English of Thomas de Vio Cajetan's (1469?-1534) classic treatise on analogy. Written in 1498, De Nominum Analogia (On the Analogy of Names) has long been treated as Cajetan's attempt to systematize Aquinas's theory of analogy. A traditional interpretation regarded it as the official Thomistic treatise on analogy, but current scholarly consensus holds that Cajetan misinterpreted Aquinas and misunderstood the phenomenon of analogy.

Both approaches, argues Joshua P. Hochschild, ignore the philosophical and historical context and fail to accurately assess Cajetan's work. In The Semantics of Analogy, Hochschild reinterprets De Nominum Analogia as a significant philosophical treatise in its own right. He addresses some of the most well-known criticisms of Cajetan's analogy theory and explicates the later chapters of De Nominum Analogia, which are usually ignored by commentators. He demonstrates that Cajetan was aware of the limits of semantic analysis, had a sophisticated view of the relationship between semantics and metaphysics, and expressed perceptive insights about concept formation and hermeneutics that are of continuing philosophical relevance.

Cajetan's universally scorned doctrine on analogy of proportionality has for some time been ripe for rehabilitation. Given recent philosophical and scholarly work on the semantics of analogy, it is no accident that only now could a philosopher be found who is up to the task. Joshua Hochschild is certainly that. The Semantics of Analogy will make the Thomist and Scotist alike rethink his or her position on analogy, and Hochschild's sustained argument will challenge all to take seriously the way classical semantics deals with ambiguity. It is a masterful book. --David B. Twetten, Marquette University

A reassessment of Cajetan's work on analogy is long overdue. As Joshua Hochschild shows, Cajetan's admirable and lucid little treatise on the topic deserves to be understood in its own right. Hochschild presents it to us convincingly as a treatise in which Cajetan focuses on a properly semantic question regarding the need for some common ratio in syllogistic reasoning (if such reasoning is to be saved from fallacies of equivocation). --Philip L. Reynolds, Candler School of Theology, Emory University

Cajetan's work on analogy is 'the' classic, systematic account of this logico-linguistic phenomenon and its far-reaching metaphysical and epistemological implications. While historians of philosophy, especially Thomists, tended to evaluate Cajetan's theory in terms of its faithfulness to Aquinas' intentions, Hochschild's work engages it from a systematic philosophical perspective, showing its relevance to contemporary theorizing about the subject, despite its historical and conceptual distance from contemporary research in the field. While always treating Cajetan's work in its proper historical context, Hochschild's down-to-earth philosophical style effortlessly closes the conceptual gap between Cajetan and us, breathing new life into Cajetan's difficult, rarefied philosophical prose. --Gyula Klima, Fordham University

Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Preface Introduction Part 1: Cajetan’s Question Chapter One: Systematizing Aquinas? Chapter Two: Reconstructing Cajetan’s Question Chapter Three: Analogy, Semantics, and the “Concept vs. Judgment” Critique Chapter Four: Some Insufficient Semantic Rules for Analogy Part 2: Cajetan’s Answer Chapter Five: Cajetan’s Semantic Principles Chapter Six: The Semantics of Analogy Chapter Seven: The Semantics of Proportionality: The Proportional Unity of Concepts Chapter Eight: The Semantics of Proportionality: Concept Formation and Judgment Chapter Nine: The Semantics of Proportionality Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index "Analogy was a central notion in the Thomistic tradition, and although Aquinas often discussed analogy, he never did so systematically and wrote no work dedicated to the subject. De Nominum Analogia seemed to fill a lacuna in the Thomistic œuvre and quickly went on to become the most influential work on analogy not only in Thomistic circles, but in the broader Aristotelian tradition....This study seeks a rereading of De Nominum Analogia by reconstructing the question(s) it seeks to answer, and then explaining and evaluating the answers it provide(s)."--Preface, p. xv-xvi Systematizing Aquinas? : a paradigm in crisis Reconstructing Cajetan's question : the semantic intent of De nominum analogia Analogy, semantics, and the "concept vs. judgment" critique Some insufficient semantic rules for analogy Cajetan's semantic principles The semantics of analogy : inequality and attribution The semantics of proportionality: the proportional unity of concepts The semantics of proportionality : concept formation and judgment The semantics of proportionality : syllogism and dialectic.