the metaphysics of thomas aquinas.htm,essence n existence

8/23/2019 The Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas.htm,Essence n Existence

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The Metaphysics of St. Thomas

in one easy but not simple lesson( You think we are kidding, right?)

We hear the word metaphysics today often connectedwith New Age philosophy, but the way it is used here isin its classical sense. Metaphysics is the heart of aphilosophy rooted in the ancient Greeks, especially Platoand Aristotle, whose insights made their way into theCatholic Church through men like Augustine and

Thomas Aquinas. It was Thomas Aquinas who gave it adefinitive form, and it was his metaphysics that wasrenewed in the middle of the 20th century by scholars byEtienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain.Therefore, this is a philosophy that the Church has livedwith for many centuries and which it has shaped to bean instrument of theological exploration. It is a livingtradition of philosophical wisdom which we can becomea part of today.But I dont want to look at the history of themetaphysics of St. Thomas. Instead, I would like to giveyou a taste of the insight that is at the heart of thismetaphysics. This is a very simple insight that can beput down in a few lines, which St. Thomas does,himself, but it is so simple that it can be quite difficult tograsp. A large part of the drama of the various declinesand renewals of Thomist philosophy hinge on the lossand rediscovery of this insight.The metaphysics of St. Thomas is based on two centralprinciples: essence and existence. And it is therelationship between essence and existence that is thekey to the metaphysics of St. Thomas.

All around us are different kinds of things: apples,butterflies, and elephants. And we dont confuse one


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with the other. What is essence? It is what a thing is. It iswhat makes a thing to be what it is. It is its whatness.All around us are existing things. We have no doubtthere are apples, butterflies, and elephants. They are

certainly different, but they all exist. They are. Existenceis the thatness of things in the sense of the very fact thatthey exist, or the isness of things.Neither essence nor existence is hard to grasp, for bothof these ideas emerge from our experience. They are twofundamental ways in which we can look at things. Wecan ask about the elephant, what is it? And we can assertabout the elephant that it is. But we have to go deeperand explore the relationship between essence and

existence.

One way to do this is to ask ourselves what makes awhat to be a what, or what is whatness? What is theessence of essences? These are strange questions, to besure, but ones that Thomas posed in his own way, andto which he gave a fascinating answer that was torevolutionize metaphysics.

An essence, or a what, is a certain capacity for existence.Different essences or whats are partial reflections orrefractions of what it means to exist, to be, just likedifferent colors of the rainbow are partial refractions ofsunlight.

This is the heart of the metaphysics of St. Thomas in onesimple lesson, but its simplicity comes from its depth,and we need to penetrate into that depth by meditatingon the relationship between essence and existence if weare to grasp what it truly means.Still a bit puzzled? Try the reading.Now it is your turn to contribute to this discussion. Sendus your questions and comments:[email protected] regards to existence, it is better to say that
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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existence is the "is-ness" rather than "that-ness" ofbeings.Jude Chua, Singapore

Your point about "thatness" is a good one. It is meantthere in the sense that something exists, but isness will

bring it out better, and so we will change it. The Editors

Esse is better brought out by "is", you know, esp. sinceesse is better as is-ness, than a "that-ness". Is-ness bettercaptures the idea of "reality", whereas "that-ness" fails todo so. Further, that-ness or "that" might bring across themisunderstanding of existence (esse) as a "standing outthere", which "existence", coming from "exist-ere", reallymeans. Infact, to translate "esse" as "existence" is notcorrect, strictly, since existence, as was said above, is a

standing out, whereas esse really means real-ness, and isbetter translated as "act-of-being" or even "is-ness". Jude

Thanks for your further remarks about esse. We thinkthey are on target. What do you think about the questionof how people can come to a sense of the isness of thingswithout which a metaphysics like that of St. Thomascannot really thrive? The Editors

Maritain and esp. E. Gilson both stress the intuition of

being (esse) as the starting point of metaphysics, that isfor sure. Hence for them, without this sense of esse, onewould not know the "stuff" discussed in metaphysics,just as a blind man could never know what we mean byred and all other arguments involving this notion and itsrelated terms. And especially since metaphysics is thescience of ens qua ens, and ens is the composition ofessence and esse, to not know what esse is is to notknow a lot in metaphysics: at least half or more (to usequantitas metaphorically).

BUT. There is another reading of St. Thomas's essewhich is not directly arrived at by intuition or anyseeing or sensing, but by a slow process of study, byarguments and demonstration, separating concepts untilwe finally arrive at the concept of esse. In this way, theepistemic starting point of being is not seeing, but alaborious study beginning with physics and working


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towards metaphysics, by understanding reality usingnotions other than esse, and slowly arriving at othermetaphysical notions, which then in turn are used todemonstrate by conceptual separation this notion calledesse. This is the traditional reading of Thomistic

metaphysics, and you will find Ralph McInerny of thispersuasion. Hence in this case, one enters metaphysicstowards esse, and not from esse into metaphysics, whichis the above Maritain and Gilson way. In this secondcase or reading, i.e., the Ralph McInerny reading, it istherefore possible for metaphysics to "thrive" withoutthis sense of esse, since the other terms arecomphrehensible of themselves. Of course the summit isesse, but without seeing the top yet, the foundation stillstands. (Personally, I think they are both right: St.

Thomas says being is the first object of the intellectus;now if being is the first object and all other notions arebuilt on this, then unless we know implicitly what isesse, we cannot even argue or demonstrate, let aloneargue from physics to metaphysics and so on. And sincearguments presuppose esse, arguments do notthemselves furnish esse; this leaves the possibility ofsome epistemic "seeing" to furnish that notion. Ergo,Maritain is right. However, if we all see esse but we areunsure whether what you mean by "esse" is the same as

what I mean by the same "esse", then we must find someway of confirming that, and this is throughdemonstration, by proceeding from terms leastambigious to terms most ambigious. Hence proceedingfrom physics and physical terms, which we are moresure we use in the same way, we proceed to isolate whatwe mean by, ultimately "esse", and such other terms inmetaphysics. Ergo, McInerny is also correct and alsoprudent. I think this is very important, because thecommon criticism of Thomistic esse is that every bodyclaims to have been "caught alive" and to have seen essebut locate it in differing stages or use it to seeminglymean different seeings. Francis Cunningham, SJ, forexample, criticises the real distinction on this count.)However, if we follow Maritain, then as you haverightly said, it is hard to see how something can thrivewhich we do not know. Your question is a really goodone. I haven't really got an answer as yet, although I


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have been thinking about it for quite a while. Jude

The intuition of being, or to put in other words, a keensense of the primacy of existence in the metaphysics ofSt. Thomas, can be reached from two directions.

Maritain, for example, describes various concreteexperiences that can lead to it, but he also describes howit can happen "in via judicii," which is close to what youare describing as a slow process of study, etc. I supposean analogy would be to the Rinzai and Soto schools ofZen.

BUT. It is reaching the goal no matter how it is done thatis crucial, and this goal, as I said, is a sense of theprimacy of the act of existence. If we don't arrive there,

then the danger is to see the metaphysics of St. Thomasas a philosophy of essences. I don't see how it is possiblefor metaphysics to thrive without this sense of esse. Andfurther, all the central terms of Thomas' metaphysics canonly be comprehended in their fulness from theperspective of esse. Esse is not only the top of themountain, it is the foundation, as well. While it is truewe have to have a certain idea of being to reason at all,this being of common sense and the ordinary working ofthe intellect is not grasped in its full intelligibility, as it

must be for metaphysics to exist. The history of themetaphysics of St. Thomas is a history of the discovery,then eclipse, and rediscovery of this central intuition ofbeing. The real foe of Thomism and the reason why ithas declined since the Second Vatican Council is thephilosophy classroom where words rather than theintuition of being were primary. The Editors

How to contribute to this discussionReading: Essence and Existence

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