The problem of Aristotelian being lay not in the pollachos but in the leghetai. Whether it is said in one or many ways, being is something that is said. It may well be the horizon of every other evidence, but it becomes a philosophical problem only when we begin to talk about it, and it is precisely our talking about it that makes it ambiguous and polyvocal. The fact that this ambiguity can be reduced does not alter the fact that we become aware of it only through speech. As it is thinkable, being manifests itself to us right from the outset as an effect of language.
The moment it appears before us, being arouses interpretation; the moment we can speak of it, it is already interpreted. There is no help for it. Not even Parmenides escaped this circle, despite his having labeled the onomata unreliable. But the onomata were fallacious names that we are led, prior to philosophical reflection, to give to that which becomes. But Parmenides was the first to express in words the invitation to recognize (and interpret) the many signs (semata) through which being arouses our discourse. And for being to exist, it is necessary to say as well as to think (DK 6).
A fortiori, in Aristotle’s view, without words being neither is nor is not: it is there, we are within it, but we don’t think we are. Aristotle’s ontology, and this has been widely commented on, has verbal roots. In the Metaphysics every mention of being, every question and answer on being lies within the context of a verbum dicendi (be it leghein, semainein, or others). When we read (1005b 25–26) that «it is impossible for anyone to suppose that the same thing is and is not,» we come across the verb ypolambanein, which is indeed «to believe,» «to grasp with the mind,» but—given that the mind is logos—it also means «to take the word.»
It might be objected that we say without contradiction that which appertains to the substance, a substance independent of our speaking about it. But up to what point? How do we talk about the substance? How can we say without contradiction that man is a rational animal, whereas saying that he is white or that he runs indicates only a transient accident and cannot therefore be the object of science? In the act of perception the active intellect abstracts the essence from the synolon (matter + form), and therefore it seems that in the cognitive moment we immediately and effortlessly grasp the to ti en einai (1028b 33.36), what being was and therefore stably is. But what can we say of the essence? All we can do is give its definition: «And definition results from the necessity of its meaning something. Definition is the notion (logos) whose name (onoma) is the sign (semeion)» (1012a 22–24).
Alas! We have irrepressible proof of the existence of individuals, but we can say nothing about them, except by naming them through their essence, that is to say by genus and differentia (not therefore «this man» but «man»). The moment we enter the universe of essences, we enter the universe of definitions, that is to say the universe of language that defines.10
We have few names and few definitions for an infinity of single things. Therefore recourse to the universal is not strength of thought but weakness of discourse. The problem is that man always talks in general while things are singular. Language names by blurring the irrepressible proof of the existing individual. And all attempted remedies will be vain: the reflexio ad phantasmata, reducing the concept to flatus vocis with respect to the individual as the sole intuitive datum, entrenching oneself behind the indexicals, proper names, and rigid designators … all panaceas. With the exception of a few cases (in which we might not even speak, but point a finger, whistle, seize by an arm—but in those cases we are simply being and not talking about being), we are invariably already situated in the universal when we talk.
And therefore the anchorage of substances, which should make up for the many senses of being, owing to the language that says it, brings us back to language as the condition of what we know about the substances themselves. As has been shown (Eco 1984: 2.4), in order to define, it is necessary to construct a tree of predicables, of genera, of species, and of differences; and Aristotle, who in fact suggested such a tree to Porphyry, never managed (in the natural works in which he really intends to define essences) to apply it in a homogeneous and rigorous fashion (see Eco 1990: 4.2.1.1).
1.5 The Aporia of Being in Aristotle
But the trouble with being is not that it is just an effect of language. It is that not even language defines it. There is no definition for being. Being is not a genus, not even the most general of them all, and it therefore eludes all definition, if it is necessary to use the genus and the differentia in order to make a definition. Being is that which enables all subsequent definitions to be made. But all definitions are the effect of the logical and therefore semiosical organization of the world. Every time we tried to warrant this organization by turning to that safe parameter that is being, we would revert to saying, i.e., to that language for which we are supposed to be seeking a guarantee. As Aubenque observed, «Not only can we say nothing about being, but being tells us nothing about those things we attribute it to» (1962: 232). And this is natural: if being is the horizon of departure, saying that something «is» adds nothing to what was already self-evident by the very fact of naming that something as the object of our discourse. Being underpins all discourses except the one we hold about it (which tells us nothing we did not already know the very moment we began to talk about it).
Some solutions have been put forward to offer a way around this aporia. We could place being elsewhere, in an area where it should not and could not be conditioned by language. This was what Neoplatonism attempted to do, right to its extreme consequences. In order to elude our definitions, the One, the foundation of being, is collocated before being itself and made ineffable: «That being may be, the One may not be being» (Enneads, V, 2.1). But in order to place the One beyond the reach of being itself, language becomes negative theology; it circumscribes the unsayable by means of exclusions, metaphors, and negations, as if negation were not itself a motor of semiosis, a principle of identification by opposition.
Or it was possible, as the Schoolmen did, to identify the foundation of being with God as ipsum esse. It was as theology that philosophy first filled the empty spaces left by metaphysics as the science of being. But philosophically this is an escamotage: it is thus for the philosopher with religious convictions, who must accept that faith will act as a stand-in where reason can say nothing; it is thus for the nonbelieving philosopher, who sees theology constructing the ghost of God in reaction to philosophy’s incapacity to control what, while it is more evident than any other thing, is still a mere ghost as far as he is concerned. Besides, just to be able to talk of the ipsum esse, which is supposed to be the foundation of our very power of speech, it is necessary to elaborate a language. Since this cannot be the same language that names the entities univocally, and in accordance with the laws of argumentation, it must be the language of analogy. But it is imprecise to say that the principle of analogy allows us to talk of being. It is not that the analogy comes first and then the possibility of applying it to the ens or even to the ipsum esse. We can talk of God precisely because we admit right from the start that an analogia entis exists: of being, not of language. But who says that being is analogous? Language. It is a circle.
And therefore it is not analogy that enables us to speak of being; it is being that, through the way in which it is expressible in words, allows us to speak of God by analogy. Locating being in the ipsum esse, which is its own foundation and makes being a part of the worldly entities, does not exempt theology from talking about it (otherwise it is a pure beatific vision, and we know that even «a l’alta fantasia qui mancò possa»).*
Other solutions? There is one, philosophically sublime and almost impregnable: to
