On Particular Metaphysical Issues

Subsections

God: Pure Act
Divine Ideas
Infinity
Truth
Hylemorphism
Matter
Form
Perception
Beauty
Good
Evil
Blessedness
Time & Eternity
Perfection
Simple & Composite

Order of Contents

Distinctions
Being
. Analogy of Being 5
. Univocity of Being 4
. Categories of Being
Essence
Accidents
Act, Potency & Change
Origin of Life
Substance
Transcendentals
Universals & Particulars
Participation
Unity & One
Individuation
Teleology
Causality
. Principle of Causality
. Principle of Sufficient Reason
Necessity & Contingency
Good & Evil
Quantity
Part & Whole
Relation
Mechanics & Physics
Personhood
Nothing

On Distinctions

Order of

Quote
Articles
Latin

Quote

2000’s

John Baidie

Balm from Gilead (London: 1681), p. 65

“…when folk begin to cast at just distinguishing and separating the precious from the vile as mere notional and metaphysical abstractions unfit for Christians or men (as some of you are pleased to talk), we fear they be found builders of Babel, not of Salem [Peace], but love [those] who will to be masters of confusion…”

Articles

1600’s

Macedo, Francisco – 1. ‘Formal distinction of the divine essence, relations and attributes’ in Collations of the Teachings of St. Thomas & Scotus, with the Differences between the Two… vol. 1 tr. AI by Vertias (Padua: Frambotti, 1671), vol. 1, bk. 1, Collation 3, pp. 88-127 A more detailed ToC is given at the beginning of the volume.

Macedo (1596-1681), known as S. Augustino, was a Portuguese Franciscan theologian. While exercising independent judgment, he tends to lean original-Scotus. He had a very good knowledge of Aquinas’s works (and of Thomists and their works) through his life (vol. 2, p. 424).

Mastri, Bartholomew & Bonaventura Belluto – question 40, ‘On the Nature of Identity & Formal Distinction, & its Usefulness’ 57 pp. tr. by AI by OmegaPoint99 in A Course of Philosophy, bk. 4

Question 40 1
Article 1: Resolution of the Question 10
Article 2: Arguments to the Contrary Solved 27-57

Mastrius (1602–1673) was an Italian Conventual Franciscan philosopher and theologian. He was deeply versed in the writings of Duns Scotus, and defended his teachings. Belluto (1600-1676) was a Franciscan. The formal distinction was a distinctive of Scotist philosophy. Here it is defended.

1900’s

Muller, Richard – Dictionary of Latin & Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology 1st ed. (Baker, 1985)

‘distinctio’
‘modus subsistendi’
‘realis’

2000’s

Feser, Edward – Scholastic Metaphysics (2014), pp. 80-87

1.3.1, ‘The Scholastic Theory of Distinctions’
1.3.2, ‘Aquinas versus Scotus & Suarez’

Cross, Richard – 3.2.2, ‘Varieties of Distinctions’ in Union & Communion: Christology & Metaphysics in the Seventeenth Century (2022), pp. 43-46

Latin

1600’s

Goclenius, Rudolf – A Twofold Philosophical Disputation: Metaphysical-Logical, on Identity & Distinction, & Physical-Medical, on the Parts of the Human Body (Marburg: 1604)

Goclenius (1547-1628) was a reformed professor of philosophy at Marburg.

On Being

Articles

1600’s

Baron, Robert – Philosophy, the Handmaiden of Theology: a Pious & Sober Explanation of Philosophical Questions that Frequently occur in Theological Disputations 2nd ed. trans. AI (1621; Robinson & Davis, 1658), 1st Exercise Latin

1. Only God is a necessary Being 18
2. Only God is Being by essence 18-20
3. How God is pure act is explained 20
4. Modes of existing 22
5. Explanation of: “being,” “essence,” “existence,”
“subsistence,” “suppositum” and “person” 25
6. Whether in creatures the suppositum and its singular nature
differ in reality [Yes] 28
7. Why composition from essence and existence, and from essence and subsistence, are attributed to created substances, but not to God 30-33

Baron (c.1596-1639) was a Scottish minister, theologian and one of the Aberdeen doctors.

1900’s

Wolter, Allan B. – Little Summary of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1958), pt. 1

Article 2, ‘On Being as Transcendental’, pp. 14-18
Article 3, ‘On Nothing & on Being of Reason’, pp. 18-22

Schmidt, Robert – ‘Rationate being’ in The Domain of Logic according to S. Thomas Aquinas (Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), ‘Conclusion’, pp. 305-6

On Disjunctive Attributes of Being

Quote

Allan Wolter

‘Allan Wolter’s Conclusions respecting Reality, Proving God’, ‘Conclusions respecting Reality’

“[see p. 75 of Wolter’s Summary]

68. When being is divided through contradictory attributes opposite to each other with respect to being, one of the dividing attributes belongs to a perfection in being and the other to imperfection.

The reason is that one extreme of the disjunction formally involves the negation of the other. But both perfections cannot formally be perfections simply or pure perfections, because, from conclusion 62, pure perfections cannot formally exclude each other.

Likewise, both extremes cannot formally be imperfections or mixed perfections, otherwise no being could be infinite (against conclusion 65). But a true disjunctive should include under one or other extreme every actual or potential being. Therefore one extreme is a perfection (a pure perfection) and the other an imperfection (a mixed perfection).

69. From this follows a general law of disjunction, namely that in disjunct properties of being, when the extreme that is less noble is posited of any being, the other more noble extreme can be deduced about some other being (see Scotus, Oxon. 1, d. 39, q. un, n. 13).

The reason is that the one extreme involves imperfection and is therefore finite, while the other involves perfection simply, or pure perfection. But from conclusion 65, if something is finite, something else is infinite and has all pure perfections in the highest degree.”

Analogy of Being

Order of

Articles 2
Historical 1
Latin 2

Articles

2000’s

Feser, Edward – ch. 4.3 ‘The analogy of being’ in Scholastic Metaphysics (2014), ch. 4, ‘Esence and existence’, pp. 284-92

Duby, Steven J. – “Reformed Catholicity & the Analogy of Being” in ed. Joseph Minich, Reforming the Catholic Tradition: The Whole Word for the Whole Church (Davenant Press, 2019)

Historical

On the Post-Reformation

Muller, Richard M. – ‘Not Scotist: Understandings of Being, Univocity & Analogy in Early Modern Reformed Thought’ (2015) 24 pp. in Reformation & Renaissance Review (Aug 2012), vol. 14, issue 2, pp. 127-50

Latin Articles

1600’s

Jacchaeus, Gilbert – 6. ‘Analogy of Being’ in Institutions of the First Philosophy, or of Metaphysics, in 6 Books (Leiden: Elsevir, 1640), pp. 28-31

Jacchaeus (c.1578-1628) was a reformed professor of philosophy at Herborn and Leiden.

Senguerdius, Arnold – 2. ‘Being & its Analogy & Concept’ in A Collection of Metaphysics, in which General Metaphysics is Briefly Propounded in 16 Disputations publicly ventilated in the illustrious Academy of Utrecht 2nd ed. (Utrecht, 1640)

Senguerdius (1610-1667) was a reformed professor of metaphysics and physics at Utrecht when this was written, and later a professor of philosophy at Amsterdam. Senguerdius was Voet’s most recommended author on metaphysics.

On Univocity of Being between God & Man

Articles

1600’s

Macedo, Francisco – 4. ‘Argument by which Thomas proves God does not fall under any genus (and univocity of being)’ in Collations of the Teachings of St. Thomas & Scotus, with the Differences between the Two… vol. 1 tr. AI by Vertias (Padua: Frambotti, 1671), vol. 1, bk. 1, Collation 5, pp. 200-2009 A more detailed ToC is given at the beginning of the volume.

1900’s

Wolter, Allan – Little Summary of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1958)

On the Univocity & Analogy of Transcendental Being 88
Notes on the Question 88
B. Is being univocally predicable of God and creatures? 90
C. Is the concept of being simply one or one in a certain respect? 91-93

Allan B. Wolter (1913-2006) was an American, Franciscan, John Duns Scotus (d. 1308) scholar and professor of philosophy, who affirms the univocity of being, with qualifications.

Quote

1900’s

Allan Wolter

Little Summary of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1958), p. 89

“When we speak of a concept that is predicated univocally, we say, with Scotus, that that concept is univocal “which is one in such a way that its unity suffices for contradiction, by affirming and denying it of the same thing. It suffices too for a middle term in syllogisms, so that extremes united in a middle term that is thus one are shown, without the fallacy of equivocation, to be united with each other” (Oxon. 1 d.3 q.2 n.5).”

[This definition does not exclude all analogy, and it is something Christians tend to affirm of God. For example:

We speak of humans powerful or holy, and of God being powerful or holy. Yet power and holiness is rather different in humans than in God.

While there are some things we would affirm of God in one sense, and deny of God in another sense, yet when power or holiness is attributed to God, we would deny that God does not have power or holiness. Likewise, in the syllogism:

Anything with power is powerful. God has power. Therefore God is powerful.

God having power, or being known to have power, is not considered an equivocation that invalidates the syllogism. Scripture speaks and reasons in such a way about God and it would seem persons holding to analogical being and knowledge affirm such syllogisms, and must.]

Historical

On the Post-Reformation

On the Categories of Being or Predicaments

1900’s

Article

Wolter, Allan B. – pp. 9-11 & 66-67 in Little Summary of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1958), pp. 13-32

On Esence

Articles

1600’s

2. Only God is Being by essence 18-20
3. How God is pure act is explained 20
4. Modes of existing 22
5. Explanation of: “being,” “essence,” “existence,”
“subsistence,” “suppositum” and “person” 25
6. Whether in creatures the suppositum and its singular nature
differ in reality [Yes] 28
7. Why composition from essence and existence, and from essence and subsistence, are attributed to created substances, but not to God 30-33

Baron (c.1596-1639) was a Scottish minister, theologian and one of the Aberdeen doctors.

2000’s

Feser, Edward – Scholastic Metaphysics (2014), ch. 4, ‘Esence and existence’

4.1 Essentialism 234
4.1.1 The reality of essence 234
4.1.2 Anti-essentialism 240
4.1.3 Moderate realism 247
4.1.4 Esence and properties 254
4.1.5 Modality 261
4.1.6 Essentialism in contemporary analytic metaphysics 263
4.2 The real distinction 267
4.2.1 Arguments for the real distinction 267
4.2.2 Objections to the real distinction 273
4.3 The analogy of being 284-92

Book

Oderberg, David – Real Essentialism (Routledge, 2007)

Oderberg is an analytical Thomist.

Quote

1700’s

Isaac Watts

Logic, 1.2.1. cf. Aquinas, Of Being.

“A being is considered as possible, or as actual. When it is considered as possible, it is said to have an essence or nature; such were all things before their creation; When it is considered as actual, then it is said to have existence also; such are all things which are created, and God himself the Creator. Essence, therefore, is but the very nature of any being, whether it be actually existing or not…

There is but one Being which includes existence in the very essence of it, and that is God, who therefore actually exists by natural and eternal necessity; but the actual existence of every creature is very distinct from its essence, for it may be, or may not be, as God pleases.”

Latin Articles

1600’s

Alsted, Johann Heinrich – Theorem 12, ‘The perfection of acts follows the perfection of essence’ in A Metaphysical Disputation on Uncreated Substance (Herborne, 1615), p. 24

Burgersdijck, Franco – 8. ‘On Uncircumscribed Principles, or on Essence & Existence’ in Institutions of Metaphysics in Two Books... last ed., largely emended (Hague, 1657), bk. 1, pp. 49-57

On Accidents

Order of

Articles 2
Quotes 2

Articles

1600’s

Mastri, Bartholomew & Bonaventura Belluto – Disputation 10, ‘On the Individuation of Nature, or the Principle of Individuation’ 199 pp. tr. by AI by OmegaPoint99 in A Course of Philosophy, bk. 5

Q. 5. ‘Whether accidents are the principle of individuation’ 48

Article 1, Neither the collection of accidents, nor the relation to extrinsic circumstances, is
the principle of individuation 49

In opposition it is argued 55-58

…
[sic] Q. 7, ‘Whether substantial forms are individuated by matter, and accidental forms by the subject’ 116 [Contra Thomists]

Mastrius (1602–1673) was an Italian Conventual Franciscan philosopher and theologian. He was deeply versed in the writings of Duns Scotus, and defended his teachings.

Belluto (1600-1676) was a Franciscan.

2000’s

Feser, Edward – Scholastic Metaphysics (2014)

ch. 2, Causation

2.4.2 Per se versus per accidens 165-71

ch. 3, Substance

3.1.2 Substantial form versus accidental form 181
…
3.2 Substance versus accidents 210
3.2.1 The scholastic theory 210-13

Quotes

Order of

Voet
Wolter

1600’s

Gisbert Voet

Disputation 29, ‘On Regeneration’, pt. 1 (1639) tr. AI by Roman Prestarri in Select Theological Disputations (1655), vol. 2, pp. 432-65 Latin at Confessionally Reformed Theology

“Material and formal cause, properly so called, does not have place in accidents, although by some all beings promiscuously, whether substances or accidents, are wont to be explained through four kinds of causes.

Yet if anyone wishes to form analogical concepts of it [regeneration] after the manner of physical generation, let him consider:

I. The Holy Spirit as the one generating, 1 Jn. 5:1.

II. The transient matter or matter of generation, the Word of God, which is compared to seed, 1 Pet. 1:23.

III. The proximate constituting matter, the intellect.

IV. The form, faith or the new creature.

V. The composite from man’s intellect with will and from the image of God or new creature: let it be the new man, the man of God, the spiritual man.

VI. That introduced form informs and actuates the matter, and thus renders man active for spiritual life; moreover constitutes him in a certain kind of things and distinguishes him from all other men not regenerate; finally renders him fit for every good work.”

1900’s

Allan B. Wolter

‘Allan Wolter’s Conclusions respecting Reality, Proving God’ (1958), ‘Conclusions respecting Reality’

“If there is Anything, the Uncausable is Susbtance
[see pp. 56-68 of the Summary]

48. If something accidental exists, something substantial exists.

Proof:

An accident depends essentially on its substrate. This dependence is of the same order as that which is found between formal cause and material cause. For substance is as it were the matter of accidents. Hence for any accident that actually exists there is required the simultaneous existence of another being, namely that in which the accident is. If this other is not something substantial but on the contrary an accident, then some third being is required. But there cannot be a regress to infinity, both because there would be at the same time an infinite number and because dependence in any essential order ends in some independent being in the same order.

Hence every effect demands an ultimate being that is not an effect; a thing in matter requires eventually a being not in matter, namely prime matter. Likewise a being in another or to which existing in another belongs, involves a being not in another, or to which existing in itself belongs.

If you object that some accident, namely quantity, can exist in itself, that is, supernaturally, the objection is not valid; for even in this case God, as first efficient cause, would be making up for the natural, material, secondary causality of the substance. And so, even on this supposition, at least one substance would exist, namely God himself.

49. If there is anything, substance exists.

If there is anything, it is either accident or substance. But if it is accident, substance too exists (from conclusion 48). Therefore in either case, if there is anything, there is substance.

50. Being is divided into substance and accident.

The existence of accidents must be proved from experience. And on this point one must note that, on the evidence of experience, many things exist that are not only beings but beings in another, as color, shape etc. It does not matter whether these are formally objective or subjective, for in either case they are real modifications of something. One must say the same about our internal acts, as thoughts, affections, volitions; for we experience these beings as empirical modifications of the ‘ego’. — From the fact of actual accident follows the fact of actual substance (from conclusion 48). Thus both accident and substance exist; therefore being is divided into substance and accident.

About knowledge of the formal idea of accident one must note that ‘in another’ or ‘in-anotherness’ is correlative, for it involves something in which it is. But to perceive some relation, there is need of knowledge of the terms of the relation in themselves. Our first knowledge of reality, therefore, seems to be knowledge of things as absolute objects and not in their relation to other beings. But when we say that accidents are immediately experienced as beings in another the sense is: this knowledge is not by way of reasoning out but, from phenomenological analysis of the givens of experience, we perceive through simple apprehension this relation of ‘in-anotherness’. Shape, for instance, is not only perceived in itself and as something absolute but also in its relation to extension and color, namely as the limit of a colored expanse. But in other cases it seems we do not immediately perceive the idea of ‘in-anotherness’, but rather we infer it by reasoning out. This happens, for example, with quantity. No wonder then that some, as Descartes, identified extension with material substance as such.

51. If something is altogether independent, it must be substance and not accident. Hence the uncausable, for instance, is substance.

This conclusion is sufficiently clear from what was said above in proof of conclusion 48.

…

Proof of God

…
11. God’s knowledge is really the same as the divine essence.

Plain both from the physical simplicity of God and from the infinite perfection of the divine essence, which is perfectible neither accidentally nor substantially (conclusion 2). [A difference between the divine essence and its knowledge would be a difference between substance and accident.]

…
15… Corollary: On a Personal God

We show, against those who conceive God to be an impersonal cosmic force, that God is a rational being and hence personal.

For a personal God is here understood as a rational supposit, that is, a singular substance simply complete, in its own right, and endowed with reason. God’s simply complete substantiality and singularity, and being in his own right, follow from our principal argument. In the present chapter God’s rationality is proved.

Hence everything requisite for a personal being is verified of God.

…
29. Every being is good, or being and good convert.

…
Further, creatures are also good for other creatures; for example, substance upholds accidents, accidents give further perfection to substance, etc.”

On Act, Potency & Change

See also ‘On God as Pure Act’.

Order of

Articles
Quotes
Transient Being

Articles

Feser, Edward

The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism (St. Augstine’s Press, 2008)

ch. 2, ‘Greeks Bearing Gifts’, ‘Aristotle’s Metaphysics’, A. ‘Actuality & Potentiality’

Aristotle’s Revenge: the Metaphysical Foundations of Physical & Biological Science (Editiones Scholasticae, 2019)

1.2 Aristotelian philosophy of nature in outline 12
1.2.1 Actuality and potentiality 13
1.2.2 Hylemorphism 20
1.2.3 Limitation and change 27-32

Scholastic Metaphysics (2014), ch. 1, ‘Act and potency’

1.1 The general theory 34
1.1.1 Origins of the distinction 34
1.1.2 The relationship between act and potency 39
1.1.3 Divisions of act and potency 42
1.2 Causal powers 45
1.2.1 Powers in Scholastic philosophy 45
1.2.2 Powers in recent analytic philosophy 51
1.2.2.1 Historical background 52
1.2.2.2 Considerations from metaphysics 58
1.2.2.3 Considerations from philosophy of science 69
1.2.2.4 Powers and laws of nature 75
1.3 Real distinctions? 79
1.3.1 The Scholastic theory of distinctions 80
1.3.2 Aquinas versus Scotus and Suarez 85
1.3.3 Categorical versus dispositional properties in analytic metaphysics 87-97

Quotes

1900’s

Allan Wolter

‘Allan Wolter’s Conclusions respecting Reality, Proving God’, ‘Conclusions respecting Reality’

“Potential Being to Something is Pure Act
[see pp. 50-55 of the Summary]

40. Act and potency¹ divide being and every kind of being.

This Scholastic axiom must be understood of act and potency as disjunctive attributes of being, where its truth is sufficiently plain. The sense is: everything of which the definition of being holds (namely, what existence is not repugnant to) either actually exists or does not actually exist. This disjunctive is valid not only of being as a transcendental but also of categorical being, so that everything of which the definition of substance or any of the accidents is true, either actually exists or is in objective potency to existing.

41. Potency involves some imperfection if it is understood in the sense of subjective or objective potency (potential being) [see pp. 51-52] or of passive or obediential potency¹ [see pp. 52-53]; but not if it is understood as: the possible is opposed to the impossible.

¹ [See also ‘On Obediential Potency’.]

The point is plain from the definitions of these potencies; for all these potencies adduced before agree in that they express the capacity of receiving some real perfection, and so that which is said to be in this sort of potency is in itself perfectible and hence in some way imperfect.

Actual being on the contrary does not involve imperfection. The same must be said of the logically possible and of active potency¹ [that these do not involve imperfection].

¹ [The importance here is because the First Cause (i.e. God) has no passive potency, or capability to be acted upon or effected, but has all active potency, that is, to act upon others. This is not special pleading for God, but is plainly necessary for what a First Cause must be. See ‘On the Distinction Between Passive Power (Denied) & Active Power (Affirmed) About God’.]

42. Act and potency as constitutive principles involve imperfection insofar as they are mutually perfectible in themselves; for only the imperfect is perfectible.

43. Potential being considered in itself is not simply real, that is, does not really exist, save virtually in its causes.

But it differs conceptually from the absolutely nothing and from being of reason [that which only exists in a mind]; for the idea of a possible quiddity [what-ness or essence] involves the relation of non-repugnance to existence, while the others do not.

44. Therefore that which is a potential being cannot have the reason for its existence in itself but in its cause; so the potential is the causable.

45. If something is a potential being, something else is actual.

Potential being does not in fact exist; therefore if it can in fact exist, some being is required that can effect it; therefore (from conclusions 24 and 26) something actually exists, namely at least the first ineffectible efficient cause.

46. If something is in subjective, passive, objective, or obediential potency it is causable.

The point is plain from the definitions, at least as concerns the real perfection to which something is in potency.

47. Therefore if something is uncausable, it is not in this sort of potency,¹ but is pure act (from negation of the previous conclusion).

¹ [The importance again, is that the First Cause (i.e. God) can have no passive potency to be acted on (which would be an imperfection), but, in the words of Wolter, has all logical potency, or active potency to cause others (which is no imperfection, but the height of perfection).]

…
59. Every composite consists of act and potency. For parts have in their formal concept the idea of mutual perfectibility, and so are in potency to the whole.”

2000’s

Edward Feser

Five Proofs of the Existence of God (Ignatius Press, 2017), ‘The Divine Attributes’, ‘Immutability’

“Change, as we saw in chapter 1, is the actualization of potential.”

Travis Fentiman

‘A Proof for God’s Existence from Change’ (2024), 1. Preliminaries to the Proof

“1.1 Change

Change occurs. Besides that we acknowledge and assume this in our daily actions (such as in reading this proof), and couldn’t live without doing so, to rationally deny change occurs, one would have to think of a reason for this, possibly another, and conclude that change does not occur. This involves change. That change occurs is undeniable; therefore it is true.

Change necessarily involves the actualization of a potential, that something has a potential for something, and that potential thing comes into being or is made actual. That is, change cannot be sufficiently explained or justified apart from potentiality and actuality. Potentiality and actuality must lie beneath all change, though these metaphysical concepts cannot be seen of themselves.

Change occurs, therefore potentiality and actuality exist, functioning in relation to each other.

1.2 Train Cars

A flatbed train car has much potential. Given its axles and wheels it can roll down the railway. It can also hold many heavy things on it off the ground. Yet there are many things a train car has no potential for. If you see bunny rabbits hopping around the car and hear violin music, you would look around for their cause because you know train cars can’t, by their nature, turn into bunnies or produce bunnies or violin music. A metal train car doesn’t have those potentials, due to its unique nature in being a train car.

One may think perhaps: the train car could be melted down and turned into a metalic violin with metalic strings and produce violin music. Perhaps it may, but then it wouldn’t be a train car with axles and wheels that could hold heavy things off the ground and roll down the rail. You also wouldn’t be seeing a flatbed and hear violin music at the same time. If something is a train car, it can’t produce things beyond what its nature has the potential for.

If the car sits on a flat railway, how long will it sit there till it moves down the railroad? Of course not until something else comes and pulls it along. The flatbed has no ability or potential to move itself or to activate its own potentials. Something else has to do that.

1.3 The Law of Causality

Say two train cars sit on the railroad next to each other. Both have the potential to move. Yet the potential of the one never moves the other. Why? Because the one flatbed’s potential to move is not actual; it is not actually moving, and that is what it would take to move the second flatbed, to activate its potential to move.

That one thing must be moved by another is not only a common observation all around us, it must be true for everything that has potential, precisely because something not actual cannot do anything. A possibility does not exist as anything but a possibility. These things must be true by what potentiality and actuality must be. The principle is called the Law of Causality:

Something potential can only be made actual by something actual.

This is not only universally true by empirical experience, but it must be true by definition from the laws that constitute nature, given change. If change occurs, it must be done by something actual. Something must bump into or pull the train car before it will move, because it has no nature or potential to move itself.”

On Transient Being

Quote

Allan Wolter

‘Allan Wolter’s Conclusions respecting Reality, Proving God’, ‘Conclusions respecting Reality’

“Something Transient to Absolutely Permanent Being

[see pp. 32-36 of the Summary for background and arguments for conclusions 1-8]

Premise

“As we noted above, the existence or fact of something transient is so manifest and evident that no one can rationally doubt of it… Our own personal experience teaches us the reality of transient being…” pp. 32-33

Conclusion 1. If the transient exists the relatively permanent exists.

2. If the relatively permanent exists the absolutely permanent exists.

“Whatever can begin to be or cease to be is in itself indifferent to existing and not existing, otherwise it would either always exist or never exist. Everything thus indifferent does not, as such, have in itself the total reason for its existence or for its permanence. Therefore if such thing really is and persists, the reason not only for its beginning to be, after not being, but also for its persisting or continuing to be must be looked for in something else. Such a reason for the existence of another thing is by definition called the cause…

But what of the reason that a being persists? Either it is something that depends on another with respect to its existence and permanence or it is not. If it is independent with respect to existence and permanence it has in itself the reason of both and so cannot not exist. If it is not independent then either:

a) there is a regress to infinity, or
b) there is a circle in dependent things, or
c) there will be a stand at some being that is simply first, namely first in being independent both as to existence and as to permanence in existence.

a) An infinite series of [dependent] things existing simultaneously is impossible, because such a series would be simultaneously dependent and independent:

dependent because it would be indifferent to existing and would not have in itself a reason for existing;

independent because nothing would exist outside the series for it to depend on, otherwise it would not be an infinite series since [it would be] limited and brought to an end in the being on which it depends.

By such a series then cannot be explained why something exists. This argument is confirmed by an example. Who would say that a sufficient reason for the suspension of the whole of a chain could be found in the length itself of the chain even though it could not be found in any ring of the chain?

b) Similarly a circle of mutually dependent things involves a contradiction unless we suppose a sufficient cause outside the circle as such. Otherwise every individual cause would be the total cause of itself and so would be dependent and independent, caused and uncaused, at the same time, which is manifestly absurd.

c) If a) and b) are excluded, c) is what is left. So in every case there must be a being altogether independent as to its existence and its permanence.” pp. 34-35

3. If the transient exists the absolutely permanent exists.

4. An actually infinite series of simultaneously existing dependent things is impossible. [see 2]

5. A circle of mutual dependent things cannot be independent in itself. [see 2]

6. If the transient exists, it is caused, imperfect and dependent [see 2].

It is caused because the transient does not have in itself a reason for its existence and permanence; it is dependent because it is caused; it is imperfect because it does not have its total perfection from itself but receives its perfection from another.

7. A permanent being actually exists [see 2], or there is among beings actually existing¹ something absolutely permanent.

¹ “…no one can rationally doubt that several things exist.” p. 11

8. Being is therefore divided into the transient and permanent. That the transient exists is continuously verified by experience; that the permanent exists follows from conclusion 7.

Scotus: “But in the case of disjunctive features [of being]… when the extreme that is less noble is posited of some being, the extreme that is more noble can be proved of some being – just as it follows that if some being is finite then some being is infinite, and if some being is contingent then some being is necessary. For in these cases the more imperfect extreme could not be present in some being in particular unless the more perfect extreme were present in some being on which the former would depend.” p. 21

Transient to Something Eternal & Unchangeable

[See pp. 36-38 of the Summary for background to 9-15]

9. If there is something transient, there is something temporal.

10. If there is something temporal, something is eternal.

“Whatever has in itself the total reason for its being and remaining such (as a being altogether independent and absolutely permanent, whose existence was proved in the preceding article [conclusion 7]) is also in itself unchangeable, for the changeable, whether taken in a broad sense or a strict sense, is indifferent as between existing and not existing. But what is the total reason for its existing and remaining is not thus indifferent; therefore it is not changeable. But if it is a being in itself unchangeable it is also an eternal being.” p. 37

11. If there is something changeable there is something unchangeable.

“If the changeable [being] is taken strictly [see p. 11], there must be a subject of the change that is relatively permanent; therefore there is something else that is absolutely and independently permanent (from conclusion 2…); therefore there is something that is in itself unchangeable.

If the changeable is taken in a broad sense then either it always existed thus or it did not; if it did not it is transient, and then too the unchangeable must exist. If the changeable always existed thus in fact, nevertheless it could not be altogether independent with respect to its persistence, for otherwise it would not be changeable in the broad sense. Therefore it would be dependent as to its persisting; therefore it would, like the relatively persistent, require a first independent thing existing simultaneously that is unchangeable also in the broad sense.” p. 37

12. An eternal being actually exists, or something actually existing is eternal.

13. An unchangeable being actually exists, or something actually existing is unchangeable.

14. Therefore being is divided into temporal and eternal (from conclusions 8, 9, and 10).

15. Therefore being is divided into unchangeable and changeable.

If changeable is taken broadly [see p. 11], this conclusion follows from conclusions 8, 9, and 13. If it is taken strictly the existence of the unchangeable follows from what was said above about constant elements of our experience [see p. 33]. The existence of the unchangeable follows from conclusion 13.”

On the Origin of Life

Fulford, Andrew

‘The Metaphysics of Biogenesis’ (2014) 14 paragraphs

This article surveys the metaphysical argument of Dr. David S. Orderberg (a neo-Thomist) for why a naturalized biogenesis, or life arising from non-living matter, cannot on principle happen.

Oderberg distinguishes between ‘immanent causation’ and ‘transient causation’. Immanent causation, a characteristic of all living things, is a “causation that originates with an agent and terminates in that agent for the sake of its self-perfection.” Immanent causation involves:

“1. Homeostasis: living things regulate themselves internally and thereby preserve themselves.
2. Metabolism: the living being takes in external matter/energy and uses it to sustain itself.
3. Adaptation: the organism changes its internal condition so as to maintain itself in its environment.”

Transient causation is where “the activity terminates in something distinct from the agent.” Oderberg argues that transient causation can never, by definition, arise so as to become immanent causation.

On Substance

Order of

Articles 2
Quotes 2
Latin 1

Articles

1600’s

5. Explanation of: “being,” “essence,” “existence,”
“subsistence,” “suppositum” and “person” 25
6. Whether in creatures the suppositum and its singular nature
differ in reality [Yes] 28
7. Why composition from essence and existence, and from essence and subsistence, are attributed to created substances, but not to God 30-33
8. Whether, this being posited, that all perfection is of the essence of God [which it is], it follows that personal subsistence is of his essence? [basically No, but it is distinguished] and whether God, insofar as he is communicable to the three persons of the Trinity, is a person, as Cajetan states [not properly, but may be called such improperly; but this is not advisable] 33
9. Whether God, as He is common to the three persons, is a
singular substance [Yes & No]: and whether the three persons of the Trinity are three singular substances [No] 35

Baron (c.1596-1639) was a Scottish minister, theologian and one of the Aberdeen doctors.

2000’s

Feser, Edward – Scholastic Metaphysics (2014), ch. 3, Substance

3.1 Hylemorphism 177
3.1.1 Form and matter 177
3.1.2 Substantial form versus accidental form 181
3.1.3 Prime matter versus secondary matter 189
3.1.4 Aquinas versus Scotus and Suarez 194
3.1.5 Hylemorphism versus atomism 196
3.1.6 Anti-reductionism in contemporary analytic metaphysics 204
3.2 Substance versus accidents 210
3.2.1 The scholastic theory 210
3.2.2 The empiricist critique 213
3.2.3 Physics and event ontologies 218
3.3 Identity 220
3.3.1 Individuation 220
3.3.2 Persistence 223
3.3.2.1 Against four-dimensionalism 223
3.3.2.2 Identity over time as primitive 230-34

Quotes

Order of

Lagrange
Wolter

1900’s

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

God: his Existence & his Nature, vol. 1 (B. Herder: 1945), p. 131

“It is the same with the idea of substance, which is but a determination of the idea of being. Substance is being capable of existing in itself and not in something else.

The intellect, which at once perceives being underneath the phenomena (something which is), observes that these phenomena are many and variable, while being, on the contrary, is one and the same, and that it exists in itself, and not as an attribute in another. Being considered as such is called substance.”

Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Theought (n.p., 1946), ch. 4, ‘Intelligible Being & First Principles’, p. 25

“We come now to the principle of substance. It is thus formulated: ‘That which exists as the subject of existence is substance, and is distinct form its accidents or modes.’ Thus in everyday speech we call gold or silver a substance. This principle is derived from the principle of identity, because that which exists as subject of existence is one and the same beneath all its multiple phenomena, permanent or successive.

The idea of substance is thus seen to be a mere determination of the idea of being. Inversely, being is now conceived explicitly as substantial. Hence the conclusion: The principle of substance is simply a determination of the principle of identity: accidents then find their raison d’etre in the substance.”

Allan B. Wolter

‘Allan Wolter’s Conclusions respecting Reality, Proving God’ (1958), ‘Conclusions respecting Reality’

“If there is Anything, the Uncausable is Susbtance
[see pp. 56-68 of the Summary]

48. If something accidental exists, something substantial exists.

Proof:

49. If there is anything, substance exists.

If there is anything, it is either accident or substance. But if it is accident, substance too exists (from conclusion 48). Therefore in either case, if there is anything, there is substance.

50. Being is divided into substance and accident.

51. If something is altogether independent, it must be substance and not accident. Hence the uncausable, for instance, is substance.

This conclusion is sufficiently clear from what was said above in proof of conclusion 48.

…

Proof of God

…
11. God’s knowledge is really the same as the divine essence.

…
15… Corollary: On a Personal God

We show, against those who conceive God to be an impersonal cosmic force, that God is a rational being and hence personal.

Hence everything requisite for a personal being is verified of God.

…
29. Every being is good, or being and good convert.

…
Further, creatures are also good for other creatures; for example, substance upholds accidents, accidents give further perfection to substance, etc.”

Latin Article

1600’s

Alsted, Johann Heinrich – A Metaphysical Disputation on Uncreated Substance (Herborne, 1615) 24 pp.

Table of Contents

Dedication 6

An Introduction to God 7

Theorem 1, Substance is a being through itself subsisting 8

Theorem 2, Substance is uncreated or created. Uncreated Substance is God. 11

Theorem 3, God is being, one, true, good, simply simple, independent and simply perfect 11

Theorem 4, One is that which is indivisible in itself and divided from every other thing 13

Theorem 5, Truth is being, congruent with the intellect, and therefore such is thus able to be conceived 15

Theorem 6, Good is being congruent with the will 6

Theorem 7, An act is either directed to an accomplishing power [potentia], or is said to be an immunity from all potential [potentia] 17

Theorem 8, An act which is more pure, that is simpler 18

Theorem 9, That which is infinite is that which by no measure is able to be measured 20

Theorem 10, Independence is that which is first, whether in some genus, or simply 22

Theorem 11, That which is perfected is that which there is known to be no addition absent from its nature 23

Theorem 12, The perfection of acts follows the perfection of essence 24

Epilogue 24

On Transcendentals

Intro

Transcendentals, such as unity, thing, one, something, true, good, can be, and are necessarily, predicated of each and every being. Universals on the other hand, may not be predicated of everything, but have at least one instance, and may have many instances, such as animal, redness, or ability to play the piano.

Articles

1900’s

Wolter, Allan B. – pt. 1, ‘On Transcendental Being and its Attributes Considered in General, and Specifically on the Attribute ‘One’’ in Little Summary of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1958), pp. 13-32

2000’s

Strunk, Nathan R. – ‘Is the Doctrine of the Transcendentals Viable Today? [Yes] Reflections on Metaphysics & the Doctrine of the Transcendentals’ (2011) 10 pp. at The Metaphysical Society of America

Feser, Edward – III. ‘The Transcendentals’ in Neo-Scholastic Essays (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2015), pp. 303-7

“Being is what is called in A[ristotelian]-T[homistic] metaphysics a transcendental, something above every genus, common to all beings and thus not restricted to any category or individual. The other transcendentals are thing, one, something, true, and good, and each is ‘convertible’ with being in the sense that each designates one and the same thing—namely being—under a different aspect. (To put the point in terms made familiar by Frege, the transcendentals differ in sense but not in reference, referring to the same thing under different names just as ‘Superman’ and ‘Clark Kent’ do.)” – pp. 304-5

Rubin, Michael J. – chs. 1-2 in The Meaning of “Beauty” & its Transcendental Status in the Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas PhD diss. (Catholic Univ. of America, 2016), pp. 21-149

Abstract: “This dissertation investigates whether ‘beauty’ is a transcendental in the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas. For Thomas, a transcendental is a term that expresses a distinct attribute of every being insofar as it exists, and which therefore reveals something unique about the nature of all reality…

Chapter One examines the historical question regarding beauty’s transcendental status, namely whether Thomas himself considered beauty a transcendental. The chapter proceeds by extracting from his writings the characteristics that distinguish the transcendentals from all other terms, and then determining whether he attributes these marks to beauty.

Chapter Two begins our investigation of the systematic question regarding beauty’s transcendental status, namely whether Thomas’s metaphysics implies or entails that beauty is a transcendental. The chapter examines the attempts of certain contemporary Thomists to prove either that beauty is a transcendental or that it is not.”

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – ‘Medieval Theories of Transcendentals’

Books

Aertsen, Jan

Medieval Philosophy & the Transcendentals: The Case of Thomas Aquinas Ref (Brill, 1996) 468 pp.

“Students of Thomas Aquinas have so far lacked a comprehensive study of his doctrine of the transcendentals. This volume fills this lacuna, showing the fundamental character of the notions of being, one, true and good for his thought.”

Aertsen, Jan A. – Medieval Philosophy as Transcendental Thought since Philip [c. 1225] to Suarez [1597] (Brill, 2012) 765 pp. ToC

“This book provides for the first time a complete history of the doctrine of the transcendentals, from its beginning in the “Summa de bono” of Philip the Chancellor (ca. 1225) up to its most extensive systematic account in the “Metaphysical Disputations” of Francisco Suárez (1597)… Metaphysics is called “First Philosophy”, not because it deals with the first, divine being, but because it treats that which is first in a cognitive sense, the transcendental concepts of “being”, “one”, “true” and “good”.” – bookflap

On Universals & Particulars

Transcendentals, such as unity, can be, and are necessarily, predicated of each and every being. Universals on the other hand, may not be predicated of everything, but have at least one instance, and may have many instances, such as animal, redness, or ability to play the piano.

Universals

Franco Burgersdijk

Institutionum Metaphysicarum, ch. 13, “On Universal Unity” tr. T.J. Floyd

“Thesis VIII: In the meantime, we do not agree with Nominalists who think that universals are purely nominal. For not only do we admit that things exist before the operation of the mind, which are called universals, as they also concede, but we also admit that there is in things the foundation of universality without the operation of the mind, namely, that exact similarity of many individuals of the same species in formal unity, which they do not concede.

In this, we also differ from Scotus, who wants that exact similarity of many individuals in formal unity to be true unity, and thus, universal unity itself.

However, we assert that, as singular individuals are per se one thing, and this not only by numerical unity but also by formal unity, we genuinely deny that the natures of many individuals without the operation of the mind are one nature. We acknowledge some similarity and agreement but not unity.”

Articles

Loux, Michael – “Perspectives on the Problem of Universals” Documenti E Studi Sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale (2007), 18:601-22

Galluzzo, Gabriele – “The Problem of Universals & Its History. Some General Considerations” Documenti E Studi Sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale (2008), 19:335-69

Chiaradonna, Riccardo & Galluzzo Gabriele – ‘Introduction’ in Universals in Ancient Philosophy (Edizioni Della Normale, 2013)

Galluzzo, Gabriele – ‘Universals in Aristotle’s Metaphysics’ in Universals in Ancient Philosophy (Edizioni Della Normale, 2013)

Wanless, Brandon L. – ch. 8, ‘Universality & Particularity’ in Universality & the Divine Essence: St. Thomas Aquinas on the Unity Characteristic of the Trinitarian Persons a Masters thesis (University of St. Thomas, 2015), pp. 72-84

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – ‘The Medieval Problem of Universals’

Books

Lawande, G.N. – The Problem of Universals: a Metaphysical Essay (Bombay: New Book Co., 1943) 235 pp. ToC

Lawande is a Platonic idealist who argues against Aristotle. For a summary of his view see the second paragraph of the foreward.

Shwayder, D.S. – Modes of Referring & the Problem of Universals: an Essay in Metaphysics (University of California Press, 1963) 170 pp. ToC

Butchvarov, Panayot – Resemblance & Identity; an Examination of the Problem of Universals (Indiana Univ. Press, 1966) 230 pp. ToC

ed. van Iten, Richard J. – The Problem of Universals (Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970) 310 pp. ToC

This is an anthology of texts through the Western tradition.

ed. Landesman, Charles – The Problem of Universals (NY: Basic Books, 1971) 315 pp. ToC

This is an anthology of modern philosophers on the topic.

ed. Spade, Paul – Five Texts on the Mediaeval Problem of Universals: Porphyry, Boethius, Abelard, Duns Scotus, Ockham (Hackett Publishing, 1994) 250 pp. ToC

eds. Chiaradonna, Riccardo & Galluzzo Gabriele – Universals in Ancient Philosophy Ref (Edizioni Della Normale, 2013) Introduction Most of the chapters in this book are on Academia.edu under their respective authors.

Heider, Daniel – Universals in Second Scholasticism: a Comparative Study with Focus on the Theories of Francisco Suárez S.J. (1548-1617), João Poinsot O.P. (1589-1644)… Buy (John Benjamins Publishing Co., 2014) 355 pp.

eds. Galluzzo, Gabriele & Michael Loux – The Problem of Universals in Contemporary Philosophy Abstract (Cambridge University Press, 2015)

eds. Di Bella, Stefano & Tad M. Schmaltz – The Problem of Universals in Early Modern Philosophy Pre (Oxford Univ. Press, 2017) 345 pp. ToC

On Participation

See the section on our page on Creation.

Koterski, Joseph W. – ‘The Doctrine of Participation in Thomistic Metaphysics’, pp. 185-96

Koterski is a Jesuit.

On Unity & One

Wolter, Allan B. – article 2, ‘On Unity & One’ in Little Summary of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1958), pt. 1, pp. 22-24

On Individuation

Order of

Articles 2
Book 1
History 2
Latin 3

Articles

1200’s

Duns Scotus, John

Early Oxford Lecture on Individuation… tr. Allan B. Wolter Ref (Franciscan Institute, 2005) 114 pp.

The Ordinatio, bk. 2, Creation, dist. 1-3, Act of Creation, Angels, Duration of, Place of, Individuation…

1600’s

Q. 5. ‘Whether accidents are the principle of individuation’ 48

Article 1, Neither the collection of accidents, nor the relation to extrinsic circumstances, is
the principle of individuation 49

In opposition it is argued 55-58

…
[sic] Q. 7, ‘Whether substantial forms are individuated by matter, and accidental forms by the subject’ 116 [Contra Thomists]

Mastrius (1602–1673) was an Italian Conventual Franciscan philosopher and theologian. He was deeply versed in the writings of Duns Scotus, and defended his teachings.

Belluto (1600-1676) was a Franciscan.

1900’s

Wolter, Allan B. – ‘On the Principle of Individuation’ in Little Summary of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1958), pt. 1, article 3, pp. 24-28

Wolter was a Scotus scholar and writes from that perspective, though he seeks a consensus answer, as far as possible, on the problem of individuation. At the end he gives four propositions which all the schools can agree on, which cover the main issues of the subject.

2000’s

Feser, Edward – Scholastic Metaphysics (2014), ch. 3, Substance

3.3 Identity 220
3.3.1 Individuation 220
3.3.2 Persistence 223
3.3.2.1 Against four-dimensionalism 223
3.3.2.2 Identity over time as primitive 230-34

Books

1500’s

Francis Suarez on Individuation: Metaphysical Disputation V: Individual Unity & its Principle trans. Jorge J.E. Garcia in Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation Buy (Marquette Univ. Press, 1982) 304 pp.

1600’s

Mastrius (1602–1673) was an Italian Conventual Franciscan philosopher and theologian. He was deeply versed in the writings of Duns Scotus, and defended his teachings.

Belluto (1600-1676) was a Franciscan.

Disputation 10 1

Q. 1, ‘Whether every thing is singular, and a principle of its individuation must be assigned, so that it is not singular of itself’ 1

Q. 2, ‘How the principle of individuation is something added to nature, and distinct from it’ 12

Article 1: Resolution of the Question 12
Article 2: Arguments to the contrary resolved 21

Q. 3, ‘Whether the principle of individuation superadded to nature is something positive or rather negative’ 32

Q. 4, ‘Whether existence is the principle of individuation’ 39

Q. 5, ‘Whether accidents are the principle of individuation’ 48

Article 1, Neither the collection of accidents, nor the relation to extrinsic circumstances, is
the principle of individuation 49

In opposition it is argued 55

Article 2, The quantity is not the principle of individuation 58

Q. 6, ‘Whether matter taken nakedly, or at least designated quantity is the principle of individuation’ 67

Article 1, Matter taken nakedly is not the principle of individuation 70
Article 2, Designated matter is not the principle of individuation 83 [Contra Thomists]

Objections [of Thomists] are met 95

Q. 7, ‘Whether form taken by itself, or at least with matter, is the principle of individuation’ 98 [Contra Averroists]

Objections are solved 108

[sic] Q. 7, ‘Whether substantial forms are individuated by matter, and accidental forms by the subject’ 116 [Contra Thomists]

Q. 8, ‘What really becomes the principle of individuation of any thing in creation?’ 133 [the individual difference, or singularity, or haecceity, ‘this-ness’]

Article 1, The individual difference called haecceity is the principle of individuation of all
things 134
Article 2, The arguments of the Thomists are met 142

[sic] Q. 10, ‘Whether there is given a common concept of individuation or haecceity as such’ 154

Article 2, ‘Whether among individuals of the same species there is given an inequality of perfection, and also some greater dissimilarity beyond this, that one is not the other’ 172

[sic] Q. 12, ‘Whether individual unity is the principle of number, and whether this is found in all things; also, where the root of individual multplication is found’ 190 [on number] 190-99

History

On the Middle Ages

Articles

On Duns Scotus

Tonna, Ivo – ‘The Problem of Individuation In Scotus & Other Franciscan Thinkers of Oxford in the 13th Century’ in De Doctrina Ionnis Duns Scoti (Acta Congressus Scotistici Internationalis Oxonii et Edimburgi 11-17 Sept. 1966), vol. 2, pp. 257-70

Paasch, J.T. – ‘Scotus on Universals & Individuation’ (2012)

Garcia, Jorge & Jonathan Vajda – ‘Individuation & the Realism/Nominalism Dilemma: The Case of the Middle Ages’ Abstract International Philosophical Quarterly

Books

King, Peter & Jorge J. E. Gracia – Introduction to the Problem of Individuation in the Early Middle Ages (Catholic University of America Press, 1984) 300 pp. ToC

Gracis, Jorge J.E. – Individuation in Scholasticism: the Later Middle Ages & the Counter-Reformation, 1150-1650 Pre (State Univ. of New York Press, 1994)

Latin Articles

1600’s

Adama, Lollius – A Metaphysical Disputation on the Principle of Individuation (Franeker, 1606) 83 theses

Adama (c.1544-1609) was a reformed professor of philosophy at Franeker.

Revius, Jacobus – Suarez Repurged, or a Syllabus of the Metaphysical Disputations of Francis Suarez, a Theologian of the Society of Jesus, with the Notes of Jacob Revius… (Leiden: 1644)

4. Of transcendental unity in common 48
5. Of individual unity & its principle 67
6. Of formal & universal unity 75
7. Of general varieties of distinctions 98

Revius (1586-1658) was a reformed, professor of philosophy at Leiden who was anti-Cartesian.

Burgersdijck, Franco – Institutions of Metaphysics in Two Books... last ed., largely emended (Hague, 1657), bk. 1

8. On Uncircumscribed Principles, or on Essence & Existence 49
9. On Circumscribed Principles of Metaphysics 57
10. On the Affections of Being in General 59
11. On Unity & Multiplicity in General 61
12. On Numerical & Formal Unity, & on the Principle of Individuation 66
13. On Universal Unity 75
14. On Species & Grades of Unity 82
15. On Diversity or Distinction, & Convenience 87
16. On Opposition 95

Burgersdijck (1590-1635) was a Dutch, reformed logician and professor of moral and natural philosophy. He was also earlier a professor of philosophy at the French University of Saumur.

On Teleology

Articles

Schmidt, Robert – ‘Intention’ in The Domain of Logic according to S. Thomas Aquinas (Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), ‘Conclusion’, pp. 306-8

Truman, Carl – Appendix 1, ‘The Role of Aristotelian Teleology in Owen’s Doctrine of Atonement’ in The Claims of Truth: John Owen’s Trinitarian Theology (Paternoster, 1998), pp. 233-40

Feser, Edward –

Scholastic Metaphysics (2014), ch. 2, ‘Causation’

2.1 Efficient versus final causality 97
2.2 The principle of finality 101
2.2.1 Aquinas’s argument 101
2.2.2 Physical intentionality in recent analytic metaphysics 111-16

ch. 2, ‘Teleology: a Shopper’s Guide’ in Neo-Scholastic Essays (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2015), pp. 28-49

“The telos of a thing or process is the end or goal toward which it points… Naturalists generally hold that teleological descriptions of natural phenomena are either false or, if true, are reducible to descriptions cast in non-teleological terms. Non-naturalists generally hold that at least some natural phenomena exhibit irreducible teleology.” – p. 28

“To summarize the five main approaches to teleology: Teleological eliminativism denies that there is any teleology at all in the natural world. Teleological reductionism allows that there is, but holds that it can be reduced to non-teleological phenomena. Platonic teleological realism holds that there is irreducible teleology in the natural world but only in the sense that an external ordering intellect orders things to certain ends. Aristotelian teleological realism holds that there is irreducible teleology in the natural world and that it is immanent, existing in things simply by virtue of their natures and in no way dependent on an ordering intelligence. Scholastic teleological realism holds that there is irreducible teleology in the natural world and that it is immanent to things given their natures, but also that the fact that they exist with natures directing them to those ends cannot itself ultimately be made sense of apart from a divine ordering intelligence.” – p. 36

“…there are at least these five levels at which irreducible teleology might be said to exist: in basic causal regularities; in complex inorganic processes; in basic biological phenomena; in distinctively animal life; and in human thought and action.” – pp. 39-40

“Is there any other way the end or goal might exist already [as it must]? There would seem to be only four possibilities: It might exist in the natural object itself; it might exist in a Platonic “third realm”; it might exist in some human intellect, or in another intellect within the natural world; or it might exist in an intellect outside the natural world altogether.

But it obviously doesn’t exist in the natural object itself; if the form of an oak were already in the acorn itself, it would be an oak, and it’s not. It cannot exist in a Platonic “third realm” either, at least not if one endorses (as the Scholastic teleological realist does) the Aristotelian realist critique of Platonic realism about universals. Nor can it exist in some human or other intellect within the natural order, at least not without a vicious regress. Humans obviously are not the ones directing acorns and other natural objects (including human beings themselves) to their natural ends…

The only possibility remaining, then, is the last one: Final causation in the natural world is intelligible because there is an intelligence altogether outside the natural order that directs natural objects to their ends. To the “How can something non-existent be a cause?” objection to final causation, then, the Thomist’s reply is to say “It can’t. That’s why the final cause of a natural object must exist already as an idea or form in an intellect existing altogether outside the natural order.”” – pp. 46-47

“In summary, then, the thrust of the Fifth Way [of Aquinas] is this: (1) Irreducible teleology is immanent to the natural order; (2) But such teleology is unintelligible unless there is an intellect outside the natural order; so (3) There is an intellect outside the natural order.

The argument differs from [William] Paley [early-1700’s] style design arguments and the arguments of ID [Intelligent Design] theorists in ways other than those already mentioned. For example, since the entities comprising the natural world have the final causes they have as long as they exist, the intellect in question has to exist as long as the natural world itself does, so as continually to direct things to their ends. The deistic notion that God might have “designed” the world and then left it to run independently is ruled out.” – p. 47

Books

Woodfield, Andres – Teleology Pre (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1976) 230 pp. ToC

Historical

All of History

ed. McDonough, Jeffrey K. – Teleology: a History in Oxford Philosophical Concepts Pre (Oxford University Press, 2020) 280 pp. ToC

Antiquity

Rocca, Julius – Teleology in the Ancient World: Philosophical & Medical Approaches Pre (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2017) 272 pp. ToC

On Aristotle

Johnson, Monte R. – Aristotle on Teleology Pre (Oxford Univ. Press, 2005) 300 pp. ToC

Leunissen, Mariska – Explanation & Teleology in Aristotle’s Science of Nature Pre (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010) 225 pp. ToC

On Causality

Order of

Articles 3
Quotes 2
History 1

Articles

1600’s

Voet, Gisbert – Disputations 29-30, ‘On Regeneration’, pt. 1, 2 (1639) in Select Theological Disputations (1655), vol. 2, pp. 432-65 tr. AI by Roman Prestarri at Confessionally Reformed Theology

Voet here brings forth a multitude of scholastic distinctions and types of causes in precisely and fully describing regeneration, which can be used as a helpful toolbox for other topics.

“The adjuncts of regeneration, as also of all other themes (let it be permitted παρόδῳ [parodō, in passing] on this occasion to indicate this once to younger students) in theology and other disciplines, if anyone wishes to search them out, let him first run through all the metaphysical notions and formalities of both the first and the second part; and let him see how from them he can fit affirmative, negative, positive, privative, absolute, respective, and comparative attributes to their subject.

Then, with selection made, let him choose those which most suit his purpose and whose explanation is most necessary at this time or place.

Third, for the sake of easier understanding and memory, let him distribute them into certain classes: so that, namely, some are positive, some negative. The former again are either absolute or respective and comparative. And both are either antecedent, or concomitant, or consequent. The consequent again are of two kinds: either those which hold themselves more after the manner of properties, accidents, and affections, either inhering (whether internally and by emanation, or externally and hypothetically) or adhering; or those which hold themselves more after the manner of effects and results.

The latter likewise are either strictly so called negative, or privative; the former again either absolute or comparative.

Finally, from all those delineated adjuncts (together with the explanation of genus, subject, causes, cognates, and opposites) let him take for himself a copious harvest for εὐπορία [euporia, abundance] of arguments of every kind pro and contra in proofs and disputations, likewise for εὐπορία παθῶν [euporia pathōn, abundance of properties], as also of motives, means, and signs in amplifications, uses, and practical applications.” – Regeneration, pt. 2

1900’s

Wolter, Allan B. – ch. 4, ‘On the Caused & Uncaused’ in Little Summary of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1958), pt. 2, pp. 38-47

Wolter was a Scotist. This is very helpful.

2000’s

Feser, Edward – Scholastic Metaphysics (2014), ch. 2, Causation

2.1 Efficient versus final causality 97
2.2 The principle of finality 101
2.2.1 Aquinas’s argument 101
2.2.2 Physical intentionality in recent analytic metaphysics 111
2.3 The principle of causality 116
2.3.1 Formulation of the principle 116
2.3.2 Objections to the principle 120
2.3.2.1 Hume’s objection 120
2.3.2.2 Russell’s objection 126
2.3.2.3 The objection from Newton’s law of inertia 130
2.3.2.4 Objection from quantum mechanics 133
2.3.2.5 Scotus on self-motion 140
2.3.3 Argument for the principle 142
2.3.3.1 Appeals to self-evidence 142
2.3.3.2 Empirical arguments 143
2.3.3.3 Arguments from PNC 148
2.3.3.4 Arguments from PSR 152
2.4 Causal series 161
2.4.1 Simultaneity 161
2.4.2 Per se versus per accidens 165
2.5 The principle of proportionate causality 171

Quotes

1900’s

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

God: his Existence & his Nature, vol. 1 (B. Herder: 1945), pp. 131-32

“Efficient causality is nothing else but the realization or actualization of something which did not previously exist. It is clear that this realization, defined in terms of its immediate relation to potential and actual being, is perceived by the intellect, the faculty of being, under the appearances of color, heat, etc., which are perceived by the senses.”

Allan Wolter

‘Allan Wolter’s Conclusions respecting Reality, Proving God’ (1958), ‘Conclusions respecting Reality’

“Transient to a First Uncausable Efficient Cause

[see pp. 38-46 of the Summary for background for 16-21]

16. In the same class of essentially ordered causes, the series cannot be infinite, for otherwise there would be an actually infinite series of simultaneously existing dependent things, which is impossible (from conclusion 4). Hence there cannot be an infinite series of essentially ordered efficient causes. The like must be said of final causes, or of material or formal causes.

17. A circle of essentially ordered causes cannot exist as independent or uncaused in itself (conclusion 5). Since a circle of causes must always be understood of things simultaneously existing,¹ this conclusion extends to every circle of causes.

¹ “But just as the cause which gives being to something must exist in the moment when the transient thing begins to exist,² so too the reason that the transient thing persists in being must coexist as long as the transient thing continues to exist.” p. 34

² [This is confirmed in that only something actual can actualize something potential.]

18. A material cause does not behave as matter unless the formal cause forms it and vice versa.

The point is plain from the definitions of these causes [see pp. 39-40], for unless that which is composed of both exists, matter and form cannot have an inflow on the thing caused [see pp. 38 & 40]. Here from follows another conclusion, namely:

19. If something has behaved as matter, something else has behaved as form, and vice versa.

20. What is not effected is not caused by a final cause.

The point is plain from the definitions of each [see pp. 39-40], for the final cause is that for the sake of which the efficient cause produces the effect; therefore it causes only by mediation of the efficient cause. This conclusion can thus be formulated in another way, namely that if something depends on a final cause it also depends on an efficient cause.

21. What is not effected is not mattered or formed, or, if something is caused by a material and formal cause, it is also caused by an efficient cause.

For matter and form are parts; therefore they are in themselves indifferently disposed to forming one thing. Therefore something in the order of efficient cause is required to effect this one thing.

22. If something is transient or changeable or temporal, something is effectible or able to be effected.

For nothing of this sort has in itself the total reason for its existence; therefore it is from another, namely from an efficient cause; therefore it is something that can be an effect or is effectible.

23. If something is effectible, something can effect. Cause and effect are correlatives¹ so that the possibility of one involves the possibility of the other.

¹ [Correlatives are things that are by definition depedent on each other; if there is one, there must be the other. An example is: if there is a father, there must be, or have been, a son; if there is a son, there must be, or have been, a father.]

24. If some efficient cause can exist, some first efficient and uncausable thing can exist.

The proof is as follows: If there is an efficient cause it is either a first efficient cause (that is, not itself effectible) or not.

If it is not the first ineffectible efficient cause, there is either:

a) a circle of efficient causes such that the circle as a whole is altogether independent of anything outside it, but its individual members are effected by each other, or

b) there is an infinite series of efficient causes that are either i) essentially ordered or ii) accidentally ordered.¹

¹ “Causes are said to be accidentally ordered among themselves if one depends on the other in being, but not in actually causing; hence if the first cause of such a series ceases to exist, the others can still exist and still cause. Thus a father, when grandfather and great-grandfather are dead, can generate a son.” p. 44

But a) is impossible (from conclusion 17) and so is b) i) (from conclusion 16). But b) ii) would also be impossible unless there existed something outside the series on which the whole series depends. The proof is twofold:

First, that from the fact that the individual members are dependent, the series consists, as a totality, of dependent things, and so the series as a whole is dependent and thus requires some cause outside itself.

Second, from the fact that if the individual causes are not simultaneously existent, [then] they begin to be and cease to be; therefore they are transient. But if something is transient, there is also something absolutely permanent and independent both as to its existence and as to its permanence (from conclusion 3).

Such a being, to the extent it keeps the series in being, is also an efficient cause, otherwise it would not be altogether independent as to its permanence in being. For if it were merely a material or formal cause, it would depend on some other efficient cause so that it be formally a cause (from conclusions 18 and 21). If it were merely a final cause, it would also require an efficient cause in order to exercise its final causality (from conclusion 20).

There is a confirmation from the fact that to persist in being is formally an effect, at least in its beginning. Therefore if it is an efficient cause, it is in every case the first ineffectible efficient cause.

That this first efficient cause is simply uncausable is plain from conclusions 20 and 21.

25. What is ineffectible cannot be caused by a final or material or formal cause; therefore it is simply uncausable.

26. If an ineffectible being can exist, it must exist; for if it did not actually exist, it could not receive existence from a cause. So it could not in fact exist but would be simply impossible.

27. A first uncausable efficient cause actually exists.

The point is plain from the fact that there is something transient, changeable and temporal (from conclusions 8, 14, 15); therefore there is an uncausable first efficient cause (from conclusions 24 to 26).

It follows next that there exists at least one efficient cause. Hence if something can be transient, changeable, etc. some ineffectible efficient cause must exist as the condition sine qua non [without which: nothing] of the possibility of something else.”

History

Whole of

Book

ed. Schmaltz, Tad M. – Efficient Causation: a History in Oxford Philosophical Concepts Pre (Oxford University Press, 2014) ToC

On the Principle of Causality

Order of

Articles
Quote

Articles

1900’s

Wolter, Allan B. – ‘On the Principles of Causality & of Sufficient Reason’ in Little Summary of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1958), pt. 2, pp. 40-44

Wolter was a Scotist.

2000’s

Feser, Edward

‘The Inescapable Law of Causality’ (2014) 3 paragraphs at Calvinist International ‘PSR’ is the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which is very related to the Principle of Causality.

in Five Proofs of the Existence of God

Quote

2000’s

Travis Fentiman

‘A Proof for God’s Existence from Change’ (2024), 1. Preliminaries to the Proof

“If the [train] car sits on a flat railway, how long will it sit there till it moves down the railroad? Of course not until something else comes and pulls it along. The flatbed has no ability or potential to move itself or to activate its own potentials. Something else has to do that.

1.3 The Law of Causality

Something potential can only be made actual by something actual.

On the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)

Order of

Articles 2
Quote 1
Latin 1

Articles

1900’s

Wolter, Allan B. – ‘On the Principles of Causality & of Sufficient Reason’ in Little Summary of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1958), pt. 2, pp. 40-44

Wolter was a Scotist.

2000’s

Edward Feser

‘The Inescapable Law of Causality’ (2014) 3 paragraphs at Calvinist International This is an extended quote from Edward Feser.

ch. 5, ‘The Rationalist Proof’ in Five Proofs of the Existence of God (Ignatius Press, 2017)

This gives an extended treatment and defense of PSR. PSR need not be tied to theological rationalism, but rather it is simply a given of reality.

Quote

1900’s

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Theought (n.p., 1946), ch. 4, ‘Intelligible Being & First Principles’, pp. 24-25

“To this principle of contradiction or of identity is subordinated the principle of sufficient reason, which in its generality may be formulated thus: ‘Everything that is has its raison d’etre, in itself, if of itself it exists, in something else, if of itself it does not exist.’ But this generality must be understood in senses analogically different.

First. [Formal cause] The characteristics of a thing, e.g.: a circle, have their raison d’etre in the essence (nature) of that thing. [In a siimlar way the sufficient reason for God is in Himself]

Secondly. [Efficient cause] The existence of an effect has its raison d’etre in the cause which produces and preserves that existence, that is to say, in the cause which is the reason not only of the ‘becoming,’ but also of the continued being of that effect. Thus that which is being by participation has its reason of existence in that which is being by essence [namely God].

Thirdly. [Final cause] Means have their raison d’etre in the end, the purpose, to which they are proportioned.

Fourthly, [Material cause] Matter is the raison d’etre of the corruptibility of bodies.

This principle, we see, is to be understood analogically, according to the order in which it is found, whether that order is intrinsic (the nature of a circle related to its characteristics [or in something being material and corruptible]): or extrinsic (cause, efficient or final, to its effects). When I ask the reason why, says St. Thomas, I must answer by one of the four causes. Why has the circle these properties? By its intrinsic nature. Why is this iron dilated? Because it has been heated (efficient cause). Why did you come? For such or such a purpose. Why is man mortal? Because he is a material composite, hence corruptible. [Unfallen Adam was capable of dying though He would not have died by the providence of God if he had remained upright.]

Thus the raison d’etre, answering the question ‘why’ (propter quid): is manifold in meaning, but these different meanings are proportionally the same, that is, analogically. We stand here at a central point. We see that the efficient cause presupposes the very universal idea of cause, found also in the final cause, and in formal cause, as well as in the agent. Thus the principle of sufficient reason had been formulated long before Leibnitz.”

Latin Excerpt

1700’s

Stapfer, Johann F. – Thesis 274 in ch. 3, sect. 1, ‘Of the Divine Existence’ in Institutes of Universal Polemical Theology, Ordered in a Scientific Arrangement (Zurich, 1756), vol. 1, p. 68

Stapfer (1708-1775) was a professor of theology at Bern. He was influenced by the philosophical rationalism of Christian Wolff, though, by him “the orthodox reformed tradition was continued with little overt alteration of the doctrinal loci and their basic definitions.” – Richard Muller

On Necessity & Contingency

Senguerdius, Wolferdus – ‘Senguerdius on Necessity & Contingency’ in ch. 15, ‘De Necessario et Contingente, Idea Metaphysicae Generalis et Specialistr’ tr. T.J. Floyd (d. 1724)

Senguerdius (1646-1724) was a Dutch philosopher, professor of philosophy, librarian and author.

On Quantity

Bruno, Francesca – The Quantity Debate in Late Medieval & Early Modern Europe: a Question at the Intersection of Physics, Metaphysics & Theology (Cornell Univ., 2019) 165 pp.

Abstract: “My dissertation aims to challenge the standard narrative in post-Kantian histories of philosophy and science about the 17th century shift from Aristotelianism to mechanism as involving a fundamental reconceptualization of continuous quantity, or extension, and material substance, and as creating a deep divide between the ‘modern’ and ‘medieval’ periods. On that view, René Descartes’ understanding of extension as the nature of material substance is seen as one of the hallmarks of that shift. I show that, in fact, (a) late medieval philosophers did not hold one uniform theory of extension but a rich, wide array of views; and (b) a deeper continuity underpins Descartes’ metaphysics and the views of (some) late medieval philosophers. To this end, I examine in detail the views of three representative 14th century thinkers: William Ockham, John Buridan, and Nicole Oresme; and the implications of their views for Descartes’
metaphysics.

For each of these authors, I aim to answer the following questions: (1) what kind of entity is extension? (2) Is extension accidental or essential to material substance, using ‘accidental’ and ‘essential’ in this sense: is extension a feature that material substances can, at least by divine power, lack? I investigate these philosophers’ arguments in connection with two phenomena, one natural and the other supernatural: (i) condensation and rarefaction (C/R); and (ii) transubstantiation (T), the Catholic interpretation of the sacrament of the Eucharist.

First, on the Aristotelian understanding of C/R, when a body condenses or rarefies, only its extension changes while everything else (prime matter, substantial form, and qualities) stays the same. Thus, C/R was considered a good test case for examining the ontological status of quantity and its relation to material substance. Second, according to T, when the priest blesses the host, the body of Christ takes the place of the bread and comes to be really present on the altar. Yet the accidents of the bread, including its extension, remain without inhering in the substance of the bread. As a result, T has far-reaching implications for the metaphysics of bodies and their accidents…

Ockham, Buridan, and Oresme hold three different positions on the ontological status of quantity. Yet because of their commitment to T, they agree that a material substance can exist without extension, at least by divine power; so, extension is an accidental feature of material substances. This view is the target of severe attack by early modern thinkers, such as Descartes [who was a Romanist], for whom material substance is essentially extended. Yet my study reveals some interesting and often overlooked deeper continuities between Descartes’ metaphysics and late medieval thinkers, such as Ockham’s mechanistic theory of C/R and Oresme’s view of accidents as modes of substance.”

On Parts & Wholes

Historical

Middle Ages

Henry, Desmond Paul – Medieval Mereology in Bochumer Studien zur Philosophie, vol. 16 (Gruner, 1991)

On Relation

Articles

1900’s

Wolter, Allan B. – Article 3, ‘On the Infinite & Finite’ in Little Summary of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1958), pp. 73-75

Wolter was an American Scotus scholar.

Schmidt, Robert – ‘Relation’ in The Domain of Logic according to S. Thomas Aquinas (Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), ‘Conclusion’, pp. 308-10

Quote

1900’s

Allan B. Wolter

‘Allan Wolter’s Conclusions respecting Reality, Proving God’ (1958), ‘Conclusions respecting Reality’

“50. Being is divided into substance and accident.

…
About knowledge of the formal idea of accident one must note that ‘in another’ or ‘in-anotherness’ is correlative, for it involves something in which it is. But to perceive some relation, there is need of knowledge of the terms of the relation in themselves. Our first knowledge of reality, therefore, seems to be knowledge of things as absolute objects and not in their relation to other beings. But when we say that accidents are immediately experienced as beings in another the sense is: this knowledge is not by way of reasoning out but, from phenomenological analysis of the givens of experience, we perceive through simple apprehension this relation of ‘in-anotherness’. Shape, for instance, is not only perceived in itself and as something absolute but also in its relation to extension and color, namely as the limit of a colored expanse. But in other cases it seems we do not immediately perceive the idea of ‘in-anotherness’, but rather we infer it by reasoning out. This happens, for example, with quantity. No wonder then that some, as Descartes, identified extension with material substance as such.

…

Relative Being to Absolute Being
[see pp. 69-72 of the Summary]

52. If there is relative being, absolute being must exist.

For once the existence of a purely relative being has been admitted, some other beings must exist, namely subject, term and foundation [p. 69]. But all these are as it were the matter of relation and so are not formally the relation, nor formally ‘existing-to’; therefore they are absolute beings.

But even on the other opinion, this proposition can in some way be saved. For if relative being is formally a being of reason with a foundation in the thing, something truly real and therefore absolute is required, namely the foundation itself.

53. From the nature of relation, it is plain that relation cannot be found, nor be known, unless subject, term, and foundation are present and known respectively at the same time.

And in this sense can the Aristotelian-Scholastic dictum be understood: ‘relatives are simultaneous in nature and in understanding’.

…

Proof of God

…
7. God knows all individuals, not only as absolute beings and in themselves, but also knows them according to all the relations that one has to all the others.

This conclusion too is plain from the perfection of God’s knowledge.

…

Conclusions Respecting Reality

…
29. Every being is good, or being and good convert.

Just as ontological truth states the relation of being to the cognitive faculty, so goodness involves a relation to the appetitive faculty, or the will…”

On Mechanics & Physics

Articles

Wallace, William A. – ‘Mechanics from Bradwardine to Galileo’ Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 32, no. 1 (Jan-Mar, 1971), pp. 15-28

Feser, Edward – ch. 1, ‘Motion in Aristotle, Newton & Einstein’ in Neo-Scholastic Essays (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2015), pp. 3-28

Isaac Newton’s First Law is that “every body continues in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.” While this “principle of inertia” seems to be de facto true, and modern science is built upon it, the law is difficult to account for on an Aristotelian framework. Feser seeks to explain and harmonize the issues while upholding Aristotelianism.

Books

On the Middle Ages

Grant, Edward – Physical Science in the Middle Ages (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1977) 140 pp. ToC

Cross, Richard – The Physics of Duns Scotus (Clarendon Press, 1998) 315 pp. ToC

On an Individual

Thomas of Bradwardine, his Tractatus de Proportionibus: its Significance for the Development of Mathematical Physics ed. & trans. H. Lamar Crosby Jr. (Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1961) ToC

This includes an English translation of Bradwardine’s Tractatus with an introduction.

On Personhood

History

Book

ed. Lolordo, Antonia – Persons: a History in Oxford Philosophical Concepts Pre (Oxford University Press, 2019) 390 pp. ToC

On Nothing

Article

1900’s

Wolter, Allan B. – ‘On Nothing’ in Little Summary of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1958), pt. 1, article 3, pp. 18-19 Wolter was a Scotus scholar and writes from that perspective.

Related Pages

Reformed Books Online

Free, Biblical, Reformed, Historic Books & Articles Online

On Particular Metaphysical Issues