# contrahere squalorem situ



## Belastro

Le Clerc, in his _Logica _(1692), discussing definitions, writes "A Philosophis nihil esse definitum praeter _species_, nullo verò _individua_, ut jam alibi notavimus, animadvertendum est; quod sibi _genus proximum & differentiam_ _specificam_ specierum esse notas putent, sed non audeant individuorum proprietates essentiales, quibus ab ejusdem speciei aliis differant, sibi compertas jactare." I read this as "According to the philosophers, nothing can be defined except species, indeed, no individuals [can be defined], as we have already noted, ... ; because they could propose to themselves that the nearest genus and specific differentia of a species could be known but they could not venture the essential properties of the individuals by which they could differ from another of the same species, ..." The concluding words "sibi compertas jactare" have me stumped; the closest I come to making sense of them is "they keep bringing up what should have been figured out for themselves" or "they keep discussing something they should have already figured out for themselves", which doesn't seem to be quite right, particularly at the end of this sentence. Can anyone suggest an appropriate reading? Thank you...


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## Scholiast

Wow. This is tricky! I have to confess I know little or nothing of Le Clerc. But at the risk of trying to explain _obscurum per obscurius_, here goes:

First,


Belastro said:


> A Philosophis nihil esse definitum praeter _species_, nullo verò _individua_, ut jam alibi notavimus, animadvertendum est


 must mean something like: "It has to be noticed that, as we have previously remarked, nothing has been defined [or "classified"] by philosophers except species [types], but nowhere _individual_ entities" [is the text here, _nullo vero_, quite correct?].

Secondly, it is clear to me that the problematic clause _sibi compertas iactare_ is dependent on _audeant_ (and therefore that _quibus ab ejusdem speciei aliis differant_ is a subordinate clause): "they would not venture to claim that the essential properties of individual [entities], by which they differ from others of the same species, have been apprehended [or "discovered"] by them".

Thirdly, _quod sibi...putent_ seems to me to mean "Because they would consider a nearly related type and a specific difference of species to be known [and understood]", which is then adversatively linked ("sed") with the _audeant_ clause.

The gist therefore seems to be: philosophers' discourse can and does deal in generalities, but cannot explain the brute contingencies of individual and singular entities, because although they can recognise that individual examples within a species show minor variations, they would not claim to be able to explain the essential properties of those individual examples, that is, what makes them ontologically precisely that which they are as individuals rather than as members of the type or category to which they belong.

I am reminded of Aristotle's reasoning in the _Rhetoric_, that poetry (by which he meant, chiefly, epic and tragedy) is superior to history, because history only tells us what Alcibiades said and did, while poetry tells us the _kind of thing_ that people do.

And I am also moved to wonder whether this Latin isn't influenced by Le Clerc's native French: the two instances of _sibi_ are not to me idiomatic as Latin, but might reflect an idiomatic use of French reflexive verbs.

Anyone else have any better ideas?

Σ

Edited afterthought: how delightful that an enquirer from Virginia in the USA should be "stumped" - I supposed that this metaphor would have been restricted to the English of the cricketing countries!


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## Belastro

Thank you, Scholiast! Your gist of this passage from Le Clerc is spot on. (You also answered another question about this passage that I had yet to ask.) Trying to incorporate what I have learned from your comments, my revised translation is: 

It should be noticed, as we have already remarked, that, according to the philosophers, nothing can be defined except species, and, indeed, no individuals [can be defined]. This is so because the philosophers propose that the nearest genus and specific differentia of a species can be known, but they would not venture [to propose] that the essential properties of individuals—[properties] by which these individuals could be distinguished from others of the same species—had been ascertained by them.

This might have been more elegant had I just copied your translation...

However, I still don't understand the role of the word "jactare". From your notes, "sibi compertas jactare" leads to "have been apprehended [or "discovered"] by them". I see "sibi" mapping to "by them" and "compertas" to "have been apprehended", but I don't see "jactare". Could you point out what I have missed?

Thanks again -- Belastro


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## Scholiast

salvete Belastro, collectoresque

Always engrossed by a challenge such as this, I have read and re-read the thing, and also learned a bit more about Le Clerc. Now I realise I could possibly have put the "gist" more economically.

But that aside: _iactare_ (or, in your version, _jactare_ - consonantal i is j in mediaeval and Renaissance Latin) is the infinitive dependent on _audeant_: "they venture *to claim...*". Originally an intensified form of _iacio_, "to throw". Hence modern Fr. _jeter_. It can also mean "to vaunt", "to [proudly] display", "advertise", "flaunt", hence perhaps here simply "declare".

But in the conceptual _Wortfeld_, it has another congener, "conjecture". I am beginning to feel that my tentative guess...


Scholiast said:


> And I am also moved to wonder whether this Latin isn't influenced by Le Clerc's native French: the two instances of _sibi_ are not to me idiomatic, but might reflect an idiomatic use of French reflexive verbs.


...is more likely to be right. I haven't checked this, but distant memory is saying that _s'imaginer_ is a French equivalent to _sich vorstellen_ in German, and that Le Clerc's Latin has therefore to be understood through a French linguistic prism: this would help to account for the odd (from the point of view of classical Latinity) uses of _sibi_ in the second and third sentences of the extract Belastro gave us.

I don't think this quite counts as a "home run" yet, but I think we're getting there.

Σ


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## Belastro

Ah, I see it now! This may not be a home run to you, but I can see the runner scoring...

Cheers -- Belastro


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## Scholiast

salve Belastro


Belastro said:


> Ah, I see it now! This may not be a home run to you, but I can see the runner scoring...


Good, delighted to know this. But have you checked that bit of the text which I thought suspect, namely _nullo vero_?
This doesn't look kosher to me.
And - forgive if you may my curiosity - why are you delving into this text at all?
Σ


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## Belastro

Your suspicion is correct. Even though I have proofed this passage several times, I have now checked it once more, and, to my embarrassment, these words should actually be "nulla verò".

And thank you for asking: The article on _definition in logic_ in Chambers's _Cyclopaedia_ (1728) is based upon Gildon's reasonably adequate translation of chapters 12 and 13 of Le Clerc's _Logica_. Le Clerc, in turn, reprised the discussion of definition in the Port-Royal _Logique_, but his _Logica _added an interpretation based upon Locke, who was a good friend of his. Looking ahead, Mills's translation of Chambers's article on _definition _became the core of the article on _définition en logique_ in Diderot's _Encyclopédie _(1754). However, Gildon condensed this paragraph to just: "Individuals cannot be defined, because though we know not their essential properties by which they differ from others of the same species". I have been translating myself the paragraphs translated by Gildon so that I can assess how faithful and useful Gildon's readings really are. This is all quite fascinating.


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## Scholiast

Greetings once more


Belastro said:


> these words should actually be "nulla verò".


Ha! That makes sense, as _nulla_ then agrees with _individua_: "...only species have been defined by philosophers, but no individual entities...".
I'm still slightly puzzled by what appears to be the grave accent on _verò_: this cannot be right, though it might be a printer's error, or (if you are working from a facsimile or a photocopy of an old edition), an accidental mark on the page of the original. Can you scan the page or send a link to it so that I can have a closer look (by all means in a PM if you wish)?
Independently, I have now learned of Le Clerc's time in London, and I can now see how intriguingly he fits in that interesting intellectual space between the late Renaissance and the early Enlightenment - all fascinating stuff, as you say.
Σ


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## Belastro

salve Scholiast -- I'm glad that you asked about the accent on 'o' in "verò", because I have not yet run across anything that explains diacritical marks in Latin texts. The volume of Le Clerc that I am using can be found on Google Books (books.google.com) with the identifier (/books?id=YK2Zu3gsEmQC). In addition to the "verò" in question, you will also find the words à, cùm, propriè, quòd, verùm, vulgò, minùs, quàm, secundò, quò, merè, tertiò, imò, and aequè within the next few pages. Also figurâ, motûs, certâ, dictâ, auditâ, hîc, and usûs. Any explanation of the use of these grave and circumflex accents would be appreciated. Cheers -- Belastro.


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## Scholiast

salvete Belastro quique alii legent


Belastro said:


> à, cùm, propriè, quòd, verùm, vulgò, minùs, quàm, secundò, quò, merè, tertiò, imò, and aequè within the next few pages. Also figurâ, motûs, certâ, dictâ, auditâ, hîc, and usûs.


Interesting: I have now had a good look through a few pages of the Google Books text. It is clear enough to me that these circumflexes (or _apices_) are used to distinguish long from short vowels where these may be ambiguous (_figura_ would be nominative, but _figurâ_ has to be ablative;  _dicta_ can be nom. fem. sing. or nom./acc. neut. plur., _dictâ_ is only abl. fem. sing.; _motus_ is nom. sing., but _motûs_ either gen. sing. or acc. pl.). And the great majority of the grave diacritics appear to be on the final syllables of adverbs (like _minùs_ and _verò_), and acutes only on words to which the enclitic _-que_ has been attached. But that does not account for _à_, _cùm_, _quàm_ &c., and though I can claim some experthood in classical Latin and Philosophy, I am no mediaevalist, so I remain perplexed.
Perhaps this is a topic for another thread? (Moderator, please advise).

Incidentally, with reference to my previous conjecture (#4) that Le Clerc's Latinity is influenced by his native French, I now remember reading somewhere that Erasmus complained about some of his contemporaries' Latin being incomprehensible for this sort of reason.
Σ


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