The One and the Many

W. Norris Clarke

Description

When it is taught today, metaphysics is often presented as a fragmented view of philosophy that ignores the fundamental issues of its classical precedents. Eschewing these postmodern approaches, W. Norris Clarke finds an integrated vision of reality in the wisdom of Aquinas and here offers a contemporary version of systematic metaphysics in the Thomistic tradition. The One and the Many presents metaphysics as an integrated whole which draws on Aquinas' themes, structure, and insight without attempting to summarize his work. Although its primary inspiration is the philosophy of St. Thomas himself, it also takes into account significant contributions not only of later philosophers but also of those developments in modern science that have philosophical bearing, from the Big Bang to evolution.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Métaphysique
• Philosophie de la religion
• Religion
• Christianisme
• Religious
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Teoría del Big Bang
• Thomas Aquinas
• Metaphysics
• Catholic
• Christianity
• Big Bang
• Science
• Thomas d'Aquin

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780268077044
• Langue: English

Extrait

The One and the Many
A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics
W . N ORRIS C LARKE, S . J .
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
Copyright © 2001 by University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved Reprinted in 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010 Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Clarke, W. Norris (William Norris), 1915— The one and the many: a contemporary Thomistic metaphysics/W. Norris Clarke. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-268-03706-x (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 13: 978-0-268-03707-9 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN 10: 0-268-03707-8 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Metaphysics. 2. Thomists. I. title. B945.C483 054 2001 110—dc21 00-055987 ∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper . -->
E-ISBN 978-0-268-07704-4
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 G ERALD M C C OOL, S . J .,
in gratitude for the many shared insights of his philosophical and theological wisdom, and for the quiet support and inspiration throughout my own Thomistic journey.
Contents
Introduction
ONE
What Is Metaphysics and Why Do It?
TWO
The Discovery and Meaning of Being
THREE
Special Characteristics of Our Idea of Being as Transcendental and Analogous
FOUR
Unity as Transcendental Property of Being
FIVE
Being as One and Many: Participation in Existence through Limiting Essence
SIX
The One and the Many on the Same Level of Being: Form and Matter I
SEVEN
The World of Change: Act and Potency
EIGHT
Self-Identity in Change: Substance and Accident
NINE
Essential or Substantial Change: Form and Matter II
TEN
The Metaphysical Structures of Finite Being: An Interlocking Synthesis
ELEVEN
Being in Time: What Is Time?
TWELVE
The Extrinsic Causes of Being and Becoming: A. The Efficient Cause
THIRTEEN
The Extrinsic Causes of Being and Becoming: B. The Final Cause
FOURTEEN
The Final Unification of All Being: The Search for the Ultimate Source of All Being
FIFTEEN
The Metaphysics of Evolution
SIXTEEN
Being as Good
SEVENTEEN
Evil and Being
EIGHTEEN
The Transcendental Properties of Being: The Many Faces of Being
NINETEEN
The Great Circle of Being and Our Place in It: The Universe as Meaningful Journey
Glossary of Terms Index of Names -->
Introduction
My aim here is to provide an advanced textbook of systematic metaphysics in the Thomistic tradition, one which is alert not only to developments within Thomism but also to contemporary problems and other movements in philosophy. Its inspiration is primarily St. Thomas’s own rich and profound metaphysical “system”—in the loose, general meaning of the term—which I think is still unsurpassed in its depth, comprehensiveness of vision, and coherence not only with direct human experience but with what is known in other fields of knowledge. But my own adaptation of his system for contemporary readers also draws upon various fruitful developments in philosophy since Aquinas’s time and so is not merely a repetition of his own thought but a “creative retrieval” of it (to use a term from Heidegger) and sometimes a “creative completion” of themes implicit in Aquinas but never explicitly developed by him.
Hence this is not intended as a work of historical scholarship aimed at distilling the exact thought in Thomas’s texts. It is, rather, a creative appropriation of his central metaphysical themes, gathered into a systematic order—partly traditional and partly my own—which he himself did not have the occasion to do. It is presented as far as possible in simplified, streamlined terms more accessible to a contemporary reader than Thomas’s own writings with their heavy technical apparatus taken over from Aristotle, which was his chosen medium of expression but is not easy for us to be at home in today without a long apprenticeship. Hence I prefer to call my presentation a “Thomistically inspired metaphysics,” taking my own responsibility for its philosophical validity. There is always risk involved in transposing a philosopher’s thought into the framework of a different language and cultural background. But the risk is worth it, I think, if Thomas’s own profound seminal insights and rich integrating vision of reality are to enter effectively into the bloodstream of contemporary thought and be made available to those, young and old, who are seeking to appropriate for themselves our rich medieval cultural heritage, and especially to develop for themselves some kind of holistic vision of the intelligibility and meaningfulness of our universe as a whole and our human life within it.
The need for such a contemporary rethinking and representation of the core of Aquinas’s philosophical wisdom, his metaphysics, has become more and more evident. In the recent past, in what has been called the “heyday of American Thomism,” there were a number of distinguished textbooks of Thomistic metaphysics available; but most have now gone out of print and few new ones are available, at least at a price accessible to students. Outside of the Thomistic and Scholastic traditions, textbooks in “Metaphysics” today usually mean something quite different from the great classical tradition of systematic metaphysics in the style of Aristotle, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Whitehead, etc. The very notion of constructing a unified systematic philosophical inquiry into being as a whole, distinct from other philosophical disciplines, has been abandoned by most contemporary philosophers (Whiteheadian Process philosophy is one of the few exceptions still flourishing). This is largely due to the many attacks on the very possibility of such a systematic metaphysics stemming from modern philosophers like Hume and the empiricists, Kant and analytic philosophers generally—for whom, like Strawson, “descriptive metaphysics is in; explanatory metaphysics is out.” Not to mention the latest phase of deconstruction and postmodernism, which, according to Prof. Miller of Yale, “has dismantled the entire engine of Western metaphysics beyond hope of repair”—a premature epitaph for a discipline which, as Gilson puts it graphically, “has always buried its undertakers.”
As a result, what goes by the name of “Metaphysics” in most contemporary American textbooks bearing the name is not a systematic study of being at all, but a grab bag of diverse particular philosophical problems whose only common bond is that they cannot be solved by scientific inquiry, logical analysis, or the descriptive methods of phenomenology. Examples are the mind-body problem, realism vs. idealism in epistemology, free will, the existence of God, and the like.
The present text is, therefore, a return to a systematic metaphysics of being in the classical Thomistic tradition. The need to make this tradition available to our own day is more urgent now than ever, in the face of the growing tendency of our culture toward specialization and fragmentation of inquiry into “careful piecemeal work,” as the well-known American philosopher Sidney Hook approvingly described the current fashion in American philosophy (in the editorial preface to his American Philosophers at Work ). But with no integrating vision of reality and human life as a whole to balance off this piecemeal approach, we tend to become fragmented people, with our lives “in pieces,” so to speak, “perpetually condemned to fragmentary perspectives,” as one former student of mine and lover of metaphysics recently expressed it colorfully. This textbook, therefore, is dedicated to the search for an integrated vision of reality as a whole, to fulfill the need “to balance off the fascination of the part with the vision of the whole,” as someone described the role of philosophical inquiry within a liberal education. I present it, accordingly, as a “Thomistically inspired” exploration of the central problems of such a metaphysics in the classical tradition, for which I am indebted principally, but not exclusively, to the profound insights and disciplined method of inquiry of St. Thomas himself (but for whose contemporary transposition and expression I alone take full responsibility). Now let us validate the project, we hope, by its execution!
I must end by warning my readers, lest their expectations be disappointed, that this does not pretend to be a history of metaphysical systems in any way, nor does it regularly compare the position of St. Thomas with that of other rival systems on each point. That is in itself an important and illuminating part of one’s philosophical education, especially for graduate students. But it would make the book impossibly long to attempt to do this adequately in a single volume. I believe anyway that metaphysical systems are more properly compared as wholes, not as parts abstracted from the whole. Hence, my purpose is to offer only a systematic exposition of Thomistic metaphysics in itself. A teacher using it will have to provide historical background and comparisons with other resources. I believe also that the best method to train anyone in metaphysical thinking is not to stand back and compare brief snapshots of many different thinkers, none in depth. Rather, it is to engage the subject like an apprentice, going deeply and thoroughly into one great system of thought, seeing how the problems and solutions are systematically connected, so that if one holds something in one area, one cannot implicitly deny it in another and remain consistent. Having once learned how a metaphysical system is put together and holds together, one can then step back and evaluate it critically, compare it with others, and decide how much one wants to accept, adapt, revise more radically, or reject for some other position. One can learn metaphysical thinking only by fi