Nota quod quoddam potest esse licet non sit

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Kachikawawa
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Nota quod quoddam potest esse licet non sit

Post by Kachikawawa »

Hello!! This is a line from DE PRINCIPIIS NATURAE:
"Nota quod quoddam potest esse licet non sit, quoddam vero est."

Is this "nota" a noun or verb here?

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bedwere
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Re: Nota quod quoddam potest esse licet non sit

Post by bedwere »

I vote for verb, since there is a quod immediately following.

Kachikawawa
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Re: Nota quod quoddam potest esse licet non sit

Post by Kachikawawa »

What about this "licet non sit"? "It's not allowed to be"?

Aetos
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Re: Nota quod quoddam potest esse licet non sit

Post by Aetos »

Kachikawawa wrote:What about this "licet non sit"? "It's not allowed to be"?
I think it's being used as the conjunction "although", so "although may not be". There's a rather long entry on licet in the Lewis & Short dictionary which is available at:
http://logeion.uchicago.edu/licet

Kachikawawa
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Re: Nota quod quoddam potest esse licet non sit

Post by Kachikawawa »

Thank you!!

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Re: Nota quod quoddam potest esse licet non sit

Post by anphph »

There are some imperative verbs that are used as filler words, such as puta (think, consider) or vide (see) or nota (notice). These even get paired with other words, like utputa (don't confuse it with utpote), and in that case would mean something like "There are many such examples of these, think this or that." I think in your case it's a more straightforward imperative.

Bear in mind that something may be [esse] even though it is not (i.e., even though it doesn't exist).

Licet is standard word meaning "despite" or "even though". Here's two close examples:

'licet ingens janitor antro 400
æternum latrans exsanguis terreat umbras,
casta licet patrui servet Proserpina limen.'

(Aeneid VI.400-402)

... even though, standing at the cave, a huge doorkeeper,
barking eternally, scares the bloodless shades,
even though the chaste Proserpina guards her uncle's house.

Kachikawawa
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Re: Nota quod quoddam potest esse licet non sit

Post by Kachikawawa »

Thank you!!

"Quod autem illud quod est in potentia ad esse accidentale dicatur subiectum, signum est quia;"

What this "quod" is here, is a pronoun that agrees with "illud"? And "signum est quia": "there is a sign because"?

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Re: Nota quod quoddam potest esse licet non sit

Post by anphph »

Kachikawawa wrote:Thank you!!

"Quod autem illud quod est in potentia ad esse accidentale dicatur subiectum, signum est quia;"

What this "quod" is here, is a pronoun that agrees with "illud"? And "signum est quia": "there is a sign because"?
No, it doesn't agree with illud. Here it's a conjunction. It functions exactly like the English 'that', which can be a relative pronoun ("The film that we saw was called...") but also as a conjunction, usually a causal one. ("That the film we saw was a good one is beyond dispute.")

Here you have the second one.

'That however that which is in potentia... etc

"Signum est quia", without seeing what comes after, I'd assume it's just sloppy writing. The sign is because etc

Kachikawawa
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Re: Nota quod quoddam potest esse licet non sit

Post by Kachikawawa »

anphph wrote: "Signum est quia", without seeing what comes after, I'd assume it's just sloppy writing. The sign is because etc
What comes right after is this:
"(...) signum est quia; dicuntur esse accidentia in subiecto, non autem quod forma substantialis sit in subiecto."


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Re: Nota quod quoddam potest esse licet non sit

Post by anphph »

Kachikawawa wrote:
anphph wrote: "Signum est quia", without seeing what comes after, I'd assume it's just sloppy writing. The sign is because etc
What comes right after is this:
"(...) signum est quia; dicuntur esse accidentia in subiecto, non autem quod forma substantialis sit in subiecto."
Yeah, it's just sloppy writing.

The sign (of this) is because accidents are said to be in the subject, but not that the substantial form is in the subject.

You could phrase it in more lucid English, but that's what the Latin says.

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Re: Nota quod quoddam potest esse licet non sit

Post by mwh »

Sloppy writing? Aquinas?! Never! And quia does not mean “because.”

On the original questions:
Nota as in nota bene, n.b.
Nota quod “Note that,” “Note the fact that.”
quoddam “something,” “a certain thing,” neuter of quidam.
The two quoddam clauses are in mutual opposition. quoddam potest esse licet non sit, “something can be although it’s not,” quoddam vero est “(while) something (else) actually is.” Aquinas is making the distinction between potential and actual existence.

All that’s straightforward enough, right? Your new question is trickier, and this can’t be properly understood without more context—and more familiarity both with Aquinas’ Latin and with his handling of Aristotelian philosophy than I possess. But the last thing he can be accused of is sloppiness, either of thought or expression!

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Re: Nota quod quoddam potest esse licet non sit

Post by anphph »

mwh wrote:Sloppy writing? Aquinas?! Never! And quia does not mean “because.”
[...]
But the last thing he can be accused of is sloppiness, either of thought or expression!
Quia does not mean because? Maybe because doesn't mean because!

Here quia is, of course, standing for something like quod -- but, and this is my point, it's still quia. Causal conjunctions get all jumbled in medieval texts. The fact that you can see, say, quatenus standing for quia (in the same way that quod stands for it abundantly in Classical texts) does not mean that the text is in any way less clear, but it still makes for very odd phrasings. Which is what I called sloppy.

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