The Collaborative International Dictionary
Predicable \Pred"i*ca*ble\, a. [Cf. F. pr['e]dicable, L. praedicabilis praiseworthy. See Predicate.] Capable of being predicated or affirmed of something; affirmable; attributable.
Predicable \Pred"i*ca*ble\, n.
Anything affirmable of another; especially, a general attribute or notion as affirmable of, or applicable to, many individuals.
(Logic) One of the five most general relations of attributes involved in logical arrangements, namely, genus, species, difference, property, and accident.
Wiktionary
a. 1 Capable of being predicated or affirmed of something; affirmable; attributable. 2 (context grammar of an adjective English) That may be used in the predicate of a sentence, especially following a form of the verb "to be". n. 1 Anything affirmable of another; especially, a general attribute or notion as affirmable of, or applicable to, many individuals. 2 (context logic English) One of the five most general relations of attributes involved in logical arrangements, namely, genus, species, difference, property, and accident.
Wikipedia
Predicable (Lat. praedicabilis, that which may be stated or affirmed, sometimes called quinque voces or five words) is, in scholastic logic, a term applied to a classification of the possible relations in which a predicate may stand to its subject. It is not to be confused with ' praedicamenta', the schoolmen's term for Aristotle's ten Categories.
The list given by the schoolmen and generally adopted by modern logicians is based on the original fivefold classification given by Aristotle ( Topics, a iv. 101 b 17-25): definition (horos), genus (genos), differentia (diaphora), property (idion), accident (sumbebekos). The scholastic classification, obtained from Boëthius's Latin version of Porphyry's Isagoge, modified Aristotle's by substituting species (eidos) for definition. Both classifications are of universals, concepts or general terms, proper names of course being excluded. There is, however, a radical difference between the two systems. The standpoint of the Aristotelian classification is the predication of one universal concerning another. The Porphyrian, by introducing species, deals with the predication of universals concerning individuals (for species is necessarily predicated of the individual), and thus created difficulties from which the Aristotelian is free (see below).
The Aristotelian classification is:
- The definition of anything is the statement of its essence (Arist. τὸ τί ᾖν εἶναι), i.e. that which makes it what it is: e.g. a triangle is a three-sided rectilinear figure.
- Genus is that part of the essence which is also predicable of other things different from them in kind. A triangle is a rectilinear figure; i.e. in fixing the genus of a thing, we subsume it under a higher universal, of which it is a species.
- Differentia is that part of the essence which distinguishes one species from another. As compared with quadrilaterals, hexagons and so on, all of which are rectilinear figures, a triangle is differentiated as having three sides.
- A property is an attribute which is common to all the members of a class, but is not part of its essence (i.e. need not be given in its definition). The fact that the interior angles of all triangles are equal to two right angles is not part of the definition, but is universally true.
- An accident is an attribute which may or may not belong to a subject. That the colour of a human's hair should be black, for instance, is an accident, for blackness-of-hair belongs in no way to the essence of humanity, nor do all humans have black hair.
This classification, though it is of high value in the clearing up of our conceptions of the essential contrasted with the accidental, the relation of genus, differentia and definition and so forth, is of more significance in connection with abstract sciences, especially mathematics, than for the physical sciences. It is superior on the whole to the Porphyrian scheme, which has grave defects. As has been said, it classifies universals as predicates of individuals and thus involves the difficulties which gave rise to the controversy between realism and nominalism. How are we to distinguish species from genus? Napoleon was a Frenchman, a man, an animal. In the second place how do we distinguish property and accident? Many so-called accidents are predicable necessarily of any particular persons. This difficulty gave rise to the distinction of separable and inseparable accidents, which is one of considerable difficulty.
Usage examples of "predicable".
Actualization is predicable in the Intellectual Realm and whether all is in Actualization there, each and every member of that realm being an Act, or whether Potentiality also has place there.
Subject, but both these terms are never predicable of the same Subject in the same relation: such pairs of terms are called Contradictories.
The Antinomy is a combination of arguments by which contradictory attributes are proved to be predicable of the same subject.
Form is not an attribute of Matter hence, is not predicable of Matter it is simply a constituent of the Couplement.
Being, since without unity these could not be each one thing: of course what is here meant is not the unity postulated as transcending Being but the unity predicable of the Ideas which constitute each several thing.
There are peculiarities in the soul removing it out of the range of physical combinations and making a distinct destiny fairly predicable of it.
Subject, but both these terms are never predicable of the same Subject in the same relation: such pairs of terms are called Contradictories.