Aquinas on Being and Essence

Joseph Bobik

Description

In Aquinas on Being and Essence: A Translation and Interpretation, Joseph Bobik interprets the doctrines put forth by St. Thomas Aquinas in his treatise On Being and Essence. He foregrounds the meaning of the important distinction between first and second intentions, the differing uses of the term “matter,” and the Thomistic conception of metaphysics.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie de la religion
• Philosophie antique
• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Theology
• Surveys
• Religious
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Thomas Aquinas
• God
• Thomism
• Classical
• Ancient
• History
• Saint
• Thomas d'Aquin

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 31 mai 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268158972
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

AQUINAS ON BEING AND ESSENCE
A QUINAS ON B EING AND E SSENCE
A Translation and Interpretation
by
JOSEPH BOBIK
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
Notre Dame, IN 46556
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, IN 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States of America
Copyright 1965 by University of Notre Dame
Reprinted in 1970, 1988, 1995, 2004, 2007
LC 65-23516
ISBN-13: 978-0-268-00617-4 (paper: alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-268-00009-7 (hardback)
ISBN 9780268158972
This book is printed on acid-free paper .
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] .
TO TERESA AND THE CHILDREN
PREFACE
This book has but one aim: to present an intelligible interpretation of the doctrines put forth by St. Thomas Aquinas in his treatise On Being and Essence . By intelligible in intelligible interpretation I mean (1) an interpretation which squares with the observed facts, i.e., one which does the least violence to what is given to a man in sense observation and in introspection, (2) an interpretation which is free of internal inconsistencies, and (3) an interpretation which is in principle capable of coping intelligently with objections, and with other interpretations, one which is thus capable in principle of illuminating its own positions. By interpretation in intelligible interpretation I mean exactly what one can find in the dictionary, namely, an attempt to bring out the meaning of the treatise by sympathetically entering into it. And this to my mind entails at least two things: not only (1) an attempt to explain, wherever necessary, the sense of the claims made in the text of the treatise but also (2) an attempt to argue, wherever necessary, for or against each of these claims, as each may require.
The aim of this book is not a scholarly one. There will be no attempt, therefore, to take into account each of the many commentaries which have been written on On Being and Essence . 1 Nor will there be any attempt to pursue in footnotes, or wherever, any of those extraordinarily uninteresting asides which are ordinarily found in books of a scholarly sort.
The aim of this book, most simply stated, is to do a bit of genuine philosophy.
Apropos of the translation, it is to be noted that it was made from the text of Ludovicus Baur; 2 comparisons were made with the Marietti 3 text and with that of Fr. Roland-Gosselin. 4 Secondly, the translation, and accompanying interpretation, were undertaken as (1) an attempt at the beginnings of a removal from philosophical discourse of the grammatically unpleasant expression act of existing, which is employed by Fr. Maurer 5 to render the Latin word esse in his widely used translation of On Being and Essence (and elsewhere, and by other existential Thomists as well); and (2) as an attempt at the beginnings of freeing philosophy from certain unacceptable theses of existential Thomism which hover over its use. The attempt throughout, both in translating and in interpreting, has been to use as ordinary an English as possible, and still communicate the philosophical content intact.
The ideas contained in this interpretation were used and developed, in part, in conjunction with my teaching of metaphysics, both undergraduate and graduate, at the University of Notre Dame. In its present form the interpretation is aimed at serious students of philosophy, whether undergraduate or not, whether teachers or not. It is nonetheless a version from which the serious undergraduate can gain much. It is a version, too, which would have considerable appeal for undergraduate teachers of metaphysics. For, following the treatise On Being and Essence , it covers the whole of metaphysics in a most economical way, in terms of a reduction to the human intellect s analytically first concepts, those of being and essence; it considers uses of the words being and essence, it investigates the essence of natural substances, the immateriality of the human soul, the existence and the essence of God; and it lays the foundations for avoiding the pitfalls of attributing to things what belongs to our knowledge about them, and of attributing to our knowledge of things what in fact belongs to things themselves. And it is the only interpretation in English of St. Thomas Aquinas On Being and Essence which is anything like a commentary.
For most of what is good in this book, I am indebted to many kind and patient souls, my teachers and students and colleagues and friends, too numerous to call by name. For what is bad, I am indebted to no one.
To my wife and children, a special citation for heroic patience in their respective roles of writer s widow and widow s children.
J OSEPH B OBIK
Notre Dame University
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Text of the treatise : 1-2
What the intellect first conceives is being
What the intellect first conceives is being and essence
Metaphysics and the investigation of the meanings of words
Second intentions, logic, and metaphysics
CHAPTER ONE
Text of the treatise : 3-4
The order of determination: from what is easier to what is more difficult
From the meaning of the word being to that of the word essence
Two uses of the word being : (1) apropos of real being and (2) apropos of the truth of propositions
Other uses of the word being
Further remarks on being as first conceived by the intellect
Text of the treatise : 5-11
Meanings of the word essence
CHAPTER TWO
Text of the treatise : 12-13
The reasons for the order in approaching the second task
A possible objection
The word being is an analogical word
Further remarks on second intentions
Some remarks on being as subject of metaphysics
Text of the treatise : 14-16
To investigate the essence of a thing is to investigate its being
It is useful for doing metaphysics to have done some natural philosophy
Neither matter alone, nor form alone, can be the essence of a composed substance
Text of the treatise : 17-21
The essence of a composed substance includes both matter and form
Text of the treatise : 22-23
Designated matter is the principle of individuation
CHAPTER THREE
Text of the treatise : 24-30
The generic essence is related to the specific essence as the nondesignated to the designated
Text of the treatise : 31-34
The genus, the specific difference, the species, and the definition-all four signify the same essence, but each differently
Text of the treatise : 35-37
Taken from
Matter-form definitions and genus-difference definitions
Text of the treatise : 38-41
Genus is to difference as matter is to form, but not in all respects
The oneness of prime matter
Text of the treatise : 42-49
The relation of the indeterminate to the determinate is not the same as the relation of the nondesignated to the designated
The species too, like the genus, can be signified as a whole or as a part
Looking back and looking ahead
What being expresses cannot be a genus
CHAPTER FOUR
Text of the treatise : 50-53
In order to be called a genus, or a species, or a difference, the essence must be signified as a whole
Text of the treatise : 54-65
The essence signified as a whole must be taken according to the existence it has in knowledge, and as related to the individuals of which it is the common likeness
Summary of the point of chapter four
CHAPTER FIVE
Text of the treatise : 66-75
The sort of matter which is found in physical substances cannot be found in spiritual substances
The human soul is completely immaterial
Further remarks on matter
The human soul is incorruptible
Has the above shown that the human soul is incorruptible?
It is not necessary that the essence of an intelligent substance be other than form alone
Some conclusions about the simple substances
Text of the treatise : 76-83
In natural substances existence is other than essence
There can be but one thing in which existence is identical with essence
There exists a thing which is existence alone, and which is the cause of the existence of all other things
Difficulties
Although intelligent substances are pure forms, they are not pure act
Text of the treatise : 84-87
If there were no potency in the intelligences, there could not be many of them
The potentiality of our possible intellect, and that of the intelligences
The lower forms and the way in which they rise above matter
Looking back
Further remarks on being as first conceived by the intellect
CHAPTER SIX
Text of the treatise : 88-91
God cannot be in a genus
The existence said of God and that said of creatures
Is God the least perfect of all things?
Text of the treatise : 92-98
The separated substances and the logical intentions
The individuation of diverse sorts of substance
The human soul and the logical intentions
CHAPTER SEVEN
Text of the treatise : 99-107
Accidents have an imperfect definition because they have an imperfect essence
An accident is neither a complete essence nor is it part of a complete essence
Substance, having first place in the genus of being, is the cause of accidents
The different ways in which a substance is efficient cause of its accidents
Text of the treatise : 108-113
Genus, species, and difference in the case of accidents
The ultimate genera
The individuation of accidents
NOTES
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
1 . A small mistake in the beginning is a big one in the end, according to the Philosopher in the first book of On the Heavens and the Earth . And as Avicenna says in the beginning of his Metaphysics , being and essence are what is first conceived by the intellect.
2. Thus, to avoid making mistakes out of ignorance of them, and to become familiar with the difficulties they entail, we must point out what is signified by the words being and essence, and how th