the abbreviation "v.c." in "neque enim v.c. caecitas"

In Heereboord (1681), I find the abbreviation “v.c.” :

“Cum privationes dicuntur negationes entium, intellige realium, neque enim v.c. caecitas, est, aut substantia, aut accidens, aut Deus, aut creatura, qua quatuor sunt entia realia, . . .”

See the original here: https://books.google.com/books?id=03NgAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA204#v=onepage&q&f=false

Unfortunately, I have found no explanation for “v.c.” that seems appropriate. Can anyone tell me what this abbreviation abbreviates? And what it means?

Thanks – Belastro

Hi, I haven’t read this book but it just looks like an abbreviation of verbi causā, similar to e.g. in English.

It looks like, in your linked page, blindness (being privation of sight) is being given as an example of the types of things that don’t have a true essence and so are not perfectly definable.

You can see this expression verbi causā in e.g. (or v.c.!) LS verbum B2:

https://logeion.uchicago.edu/verbum

I haven’t read the book you link, but a quick search for “v.c.” in the book shows that the author uses it frequently. I also started reading the book over lunch and the author uses the unabbreviated form verbi causā on pages 5 and 6 in the prolegomena.

Cheers, Chad

Actually “e.g.” too is Latin: exemplī grātiā.

Hi bedwere, yes that’s well understood thanks: now the OP not only has the meaning in English but also a Latin parallel, and so hopefully they have the full picture now.

Cheers, Chad

Thank you, not only for your spot-on answer but also for the link to Logeion.

Oh, as long as we’re on abbreviations, what does “OP” signify?

Is that used in Aristotle translations? The other place that I found the abbreviation was in Pierre Gassendi, where I could tell that it always meant something like “for example”, although I had no idea of the exact meaning. I was guessing something like “vide cetera”, but the cetera couldn’t work.

Aristotle’s Greek seems to me to have a bunch of odd (fine in later Greek, but apparently invented by him) ways of saying “for example”.


On very refined boards like ours, o.p. stands for “orator primus.”

…or for less refined people like me, simply “original poster”, ie the person initiating the thread. Cheers, Chad

Thank you all for also explaining OP.