1 (1) Pythagoras of Samos instructed the region of Italy once called ...

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(32) Coming to the third term, however, what should I say about the difference between ‘I do good’ and ‘doing well’ except that ‘doing good’ is not used? But these people want it to be possible for ‘good’ to be done ‘not well,’ which is quite absurd. Suppose a person needing money annoys me and I take out my stick and give him a scolding, should I not be said ‘to have done good not well’? Who would really deny that I have done well by showing the beggar my stick? But because I scolded the beggar I have not done well, and surely I have not done good. Thus it must be said that there were two sides to the act, one good, the other not good: by showing the stick I have done both well and good, but by scolding neither well nor good. (33) Accordingly, acting ‘justly’ and doing the ‘just’ are also the same, if only such talk occurred, though we would prefer to say it either with the adverb, ‘do it reverently, piously, justly and well’ but not ‘do the reverent, pious, just and good,’ or with the plural number, ‘do reverent, pious, just and good deeds.’ (34) As Aristotle writes in the Politics: “To act justly is impossible for those who do not do just deeds.” 57 And yet the expression containing these words is absurd, as Quintilian says: “I would think it ridiculous to add it to them except that Cicero uses it, ‘those who do the just thing, doing justly,’ and evidence is certainly not lacking since ‘common pasture is permitting common pasturing.’” 58 We say ‘I seek the just,’ however, for ‘I seek the just thing.’ 57 Not at Arist. Pol. 1323a31-2, as in Zippel, though the context is right. 58 Zippel cites Quint. 5.10.85. 14 2/21/05 9:35 PM 14/44
3 EXCEPT IN A FEW SPECIAL CASES, THE TERM ‘CONCRETE’ MEANS NOTHING. (1) Because we have made a few points about adjectives which, as they say, are ‘substantivated,’ the topic requires that we discuss concrete and abstract terms since adjectives of this sort are called ‘concrete’ when changed into a substantive. 59 The subject is what these people call ‘metaphysical,’ where, as if gathering grapes from an arbor, they quickly get busy with ladders, baskets and pruning-hooks because obviously the Greek grapes grow only in this location, while Latin fruit comes from other vineyards, as it were. 60 Yet I find their wines watery or worse. (2) ‘White,’ ‘black,’ ‘ruddy’ and similar terms that they call ‘concrete’ are said to signify a white thing – two meanings, in other words: a body (when the word refers to a body) and also the quality, which in itself is called ‘abstract,’ like ‘whiteness,’ ‘blackness,’ ‘ruddiness’ and other such terms. On this matter I cannot make a general pronouncement and immediately condemn these people with a single word, even though I believe they must certainly be found guilty. 61 Lest I go too fast and stumble, I shall proceed step by step on this point. 59 Above, 2.10 for ‘substantivated’; the topic of this chapter is the grammar and syntax of adjectives and adjectival pronouns treated as substantives. Valla shows, but does not explain, that the use of these words varies by gender. When masculine and femine substantive adjectives are generic, they are mainly plural, as when barbari refers to all barbarians in general, though a singular like sapiens (‘wise’) can also be generic. Some masculine and feminine adjectives, however, both singular and plural, are specific rather than generic, like the feminine singular fera, meaning a particular wild animal, or the neuter plural hiberna, meaning a winter camp. When singular neuter adjectives are substantive, they can refer either to a single object, so that an aridum is a particular stretch of dry ground, or to an abstraction like uprightness or honestum. Neuter plurals like honesta, meaning upright acts, can also be generic. Such neuters may be in apposition with nouns of other genders or with infinitives. Almost all relative, interrogative and indefinite pronouns, which can be adjectival or substantive, are formed on the same stem (qu-) and are mainly identical. But the relative pronoun (qui, quae, quod) has three genders in both singular and plural, while the interrogative or indefinite (quis, quid) has only two in the singular when it is substantive. When used as an adjective, however, the interrogative is identical to the relative. Both the relative (qui, etc.) and the interrogative (quis, etc.) form a number of compounds: quidam, quicumque, quispiam, quisque, aliquis and so on. Valla approaches these issues empirically, citing or inventing dozens of cases to show that there is no simple pattern of ‘concrete’ terms, by which he meant the pattern implied by the distinction between ‘abstract’ and ‘concrete’ terms that arose in post-classical Latin. In classical Latin, abstractus occurs only as the past participle of the verb abstrahere, ‘to remove’ or ‘separate,’ while concretus can be an independent adjective; its primary meaning is ‘composed’ of parts or ‘compacted,’ and its uses are mainly physical, applying to ice or congealed milk, for example. Christian authors used it first in this way, in the literature on the six days of creation and elsewhere, but eventually the concretus/abstractus pair entered theological language as a semantic opposition. It was this later usage that provoked Valla, but his main point in this detailed (and tedious) chapter becomes clear only at the beginning of the next, where he reveals that his target is entitas (‘entity’), a word that cannot exist in Latin, as he will argue, because it is an abstract noun ending in -itas, a class of substantives that can be derived only from certain adjectives, never from participles like ens (‘being’), the source of entitas. 60 The words ‘ladder’ (scalae) and ‘basket’ (calathus) had attracted the attention of authorities on Latin diction, the latter as a fancy Greek substitute for the Latin quasillum: Quint. 1.5.16; Paul. Fest. 47M. 61 Zippel cites Occam, Sup. quat. lib. Sent. I.5.1; Sum. log. I.5-10. 15 2/21/05 9:35 PM 15/44
Page 1 and 2: LORENZO VALLA THE REPAIR OF THE WHO
Page 3 and 4: (8) But other Latins consider other
Page 5 and 6: (17) For this there are various rea
Page 7 and 8: they are called ‘genera’ becaus
Page 9 and 10: participle loses strength, and yet
Page 11 and 12: (18) But we note that this word doe
Page 13: practice of human beings, which is
Page 17 and 18: meaning more grief. 68 The reason g
Page 19 and 20: although the word can be better reg
Page 21 and 22: ‘who is useful for the plow?’ m
Page 23 and 24: 4 NO NOUNS IN -ITAS COME FROM SUBST
Page 25 and 26: some of them claim - it meant ‘li
Page 27 and 28: word ‘essence’ as difficult tha
Page 29 and 30: And since the ecclesiastics often d
Page 31 and 32: (7) Letting this rock pass by for f
Page 33 and 34: classified into differences or spec
Page 35 and 36: ‘substances,’ though three ‘n
Page 37 and 38: (11) Now let us hear what Aristotle
Page 39 and 40: The world is not animate, then, nor
Page 41 and 42: (6) The Epicureans and Stoics spoke
Page 43 and 44: whether that rational part is God,

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