Don Bosco College of Philosophy and Education,

Moshi, Tanzania

Metaphysics

Introductory Chapter to the Course

1. The Name of the Discipline

The term “Metaphysics” originated from: a title given to some of
Aristotle's works in the catalogue of the edition of them produced by
Andronicus of Rhodes in the second half of the first century, 60/50 B.C.1
“META-PHUSICA”, τἀ μετἀ τἀ φυσικἀ, (ta meta ta phusika) meant the works
after physics in the catalogue of Aristotle or simply what comes ‘after
natural things’ (ta phusika). The naming simply conforms to their location
after the physical treatises. Physics in Aristotle’s usage then implies “the
study of natural phenomena in general, and not just to physics in the
narrow sense.” Thus, the term, Metaphysics has no historical link to the
object of this science. The rendering in Latin is Metaphysica, i.e., after or
beyond the physical.
It is the later Scholastics who read philosophical meaning in the
name Metaphysics. The Scholastics think that the science of being was
called metaphysics because it was, “later than” and “superior to”
physics… (Post Physicam et Supra Physicam). The ‘later’ here is ascribed
to its object which is reached through the third degree of abstraction. The
first and second degrees of abstractions are the physical and the
mathematical respectively. Meta- as superior according to the Scholastics
meant its object is: “attained by the highest degree of abstraction”, so
considered entirely freed from matter.2
1
It is contested whether it is Andronicus of Rhodes or Eudemus of Rhodes (3 rd
century B.C) as the first editor of Aristotle’s works. It seems that from Eudemus
of Rhodes, “it is reflected not only the subject matter in some sense that
transcends the physical aspect of things, but also the corresponding Aristotelian
concern for the order of learning as proceeding from the more immediately
sensible to the transcendent.”
2
These type of understanding Metaphysics from its etymology has never gained
traction. This is because the science of being “does not in any way suppose a
physics, whether we take ‘Physics’ to mean experimental physics or cosmology.”
In addition, the object of metaphysics cannot be construed “as if it were an
intelligible completely freed from matter and situated ‘above’ the physical or the
sensible.” The science of being has its object the concrete real taken in all its
richness. On this topic refer Canon Fernand Van Steenberghen, Ontology (New

1
 The Metaphysics works in the Aristotelian sense were mainly
concerned with being as such, and such being in its various categories
particularly substance.3 In this regard, Aristotle’s work, Metaphysics, is the
first known systematic treatise on Metaphysics. For Aristotle, the
philosophy that aims at inquiring into the most general investigation
possible into the nature of reality, as in “the principles applying to
everything that is real, to all that is”, he called the first philosophy. 4
Aristotle also referred to such as the ‘the science of being.’
The Aristotle’s treatises put together as Metaphysics were originally
united in ten books and then later fourteen. As Louise Ropes Loomis
reminds in the introduction to the translation to what comes to us as,
Aristotle’s metaphysics, “is a compilation of a number of originally
separate blocks of notes, all dealing with the most fundamental problems
of philosophy but put together without much care to make them fit.” 5
Whatever, the case, Metaphysics is a knowledge sought for its own sake,
since it is devoid of any utilitarian end.
Hence, the discipline of Metaphysics also bears different names like
ontology, theology, wisdom, or “the philosophical science having as object
being as being. Thus, the term ontology is derived from the Greek, τὸ ὄѵ ἧ
ὅѵ, i.e., “ontology.” As ontology, it is the study of the “meaning, structure,
and principles of whatever is and in as much as it is or exists.” 6 Ontology
is generally taken to imply the science of being. However, there is more to
that. The term ontology as reference to Metaphysics, develops in the 17 th
century referenced to Christian Wolff.
Metaphysics as a divine science: This is because according to
Aristotle, Metaphysics treats the ‘most divine beings’ i.e., substances
which are separated from matter. However, the term divine science is not
entirely acceptable. This is because, science “should be specified and
defined by its object.”7 God or the divine in general since Aristotle was not
having in mind, the God of Revelation, is NOT the object of the science of
being. Instead, God seems to be the final term of the science of being
given that the affirmation of the existence of God is the principal
conclusion. However, Metaphysics, is also understood as the science of
the first principles and causes.

York: Joseph F. Wagner, 1952), 14 – 15.

3
Refer to D. W. Hamlyn in the “metaphysics, history of” in The Oxford
Companion to Philosophy.
4
Edward Craig, “Metaphysics” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed.
Edward Craig, Volume 6 (London: Routledge, 1998).
5
Louise Ropes Loomis, ed. Aristotle, On Man In The Universe (New York: Walter J.
Black, 1943), 3.
6
G.F. Mclean, “Metaphysics” in New Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX
(Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America, 1967).
7
Van Steenberghen, Ontology, 14.

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Metaphysics: As a science of first principles and causes: This is equated
to Wisdom. Philosophical wisdom is considered the most universal (in
terms of inclusivity) science and most difficult, and the most deserving to
be taught. In Metaphysics, Book 1, Aristotle holds that the main character
of wisdom is science of first causes and first principles. The source for
such wisdom, according to Aristotle is the inborn curiosity about things.
He calls it, “a natural desire to know” the causes. Hence, whatever
science can deliver ultimate explanations i.e., the ultimate of first causes,
is Wisdom. There are different nuances to the term Wisdom:
 In Greek usage, Sophia/Wisdom, in its earliest meaning, had
utilitarian connotation, i.e., meant a skill or excellence in any craft.
It is said that Polycleitus was wise because of his exceptional
competence as a sculptor.
 Wisdom as Mastery in the conduct of one’s life. In the Socratic sense
of the Wise, as who “knowing himself well” knows how to govern
himself truly. Plato understood Wisdom as art of governing, by the
norms of justice and prudence, “not merely oneself but the whole
city or state.”8 Wisdom is thus assimilated to theoria/contemplation
of Ideas, then finally God.
 In Judeo-Christian Revelation: Contemplation of God is the ultimate-
goal of wisdom. Here Wisdom is NOT “attained from below as by
mere human effort”, but it ensues from above, heaven. In this
regard, St. Thomas Aquinas and Catholic thinkers in general
acknowledge three possible forms of wisdom as:
a. Infused Wisdom, as the Gift of the Holy Spirit…That the soul
infused with the Holy Spirit judges in the light of connatural
knowledge. It is connatural by grace with God’s knowledge. The
Foundation of infused wisdom is Love, and its object is God. Such
wisdom is attained through supernatural mode of acting.
b. Theological Wisdom: This is under the rule of the supernatural
faith. Its object is God, as He is in Himself. The immediate
foundation for such wisdom is Revelation, and its mode of
activity is essentially human mode of reason.
c. Metaphysical wisdom: It is purely human wisdom founded on the
light of natural reason. It seeks to know the ultimate reality, God
as the supreme principle of things. Metaphysics knows God as
the inferred cause (indirectly) and not as he is himself (an object
directly apprehended).

1.1 Metaphysics and degrees of Abstraction

Metaphysics/ontology is the crown of Speculative Philosophy. In terms of
abstractions, Metaphysics is preceded by Logic, Cosmology, Psychology
and Mathematical philosophy. Metaphysics as a fundamental philosophical
8
H.D. Gardell, Introduction To The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas IV:
Metaphysics, trans. John A. Otto (St. Louis Missouri: Herder Books, 1967), 6.

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discipline is grafted on Epistemology, continues in Philosophical
Anthropology and Cosmology. There are THREE degrees of abstraction:
First: Physical Abstraction, where the individual sensible matter yields an
object relevant on the level of natural science. It is referred to as “the
abstraction of the whole (abstraction totius).” Thi sis because it abstracts
the whole essence of the natural thing from the matter that individuates
it. Its object is defined by common sense matter.
Second: Mathematical abstraction, is where freedom from sensible matter
yields an object of mathematical nature. It is the abstraction of form
(abstactio formae). The form of quantity is abstracted from all matter save
common intelligible matter.
Third: Metaphysical abstraction, yields an object separated from all matter
and seen independent of matter both in meaning and existence. Thus,
metaphysics goes deeper than any merely empirical science even Physics,
given that metaphysics provides the very framework within which such
sciences are conceived and related to one another.

1.2 The Scope of Metaphysics: Material and Formal Object

 Metaphysics occupies the central place given that its concern i.e.,
main concern is the fundamental structure of reality as a whole. 9
 Metaphysics is the in-eliminable and conceptually necessary as the
intellectual backdrop for every other discipline. This is because the
world or reality as a whole is unitary and necessarily self-consistent.
Therefore, all the forms of truths envisaged in different disciplines if
they are to succeed in their aim, must acknowledge the need to be
consistent with each other. None of the special sciences can
adjudicate beyond their own limited domain, such adjudication can
only be provided by the practitioners of an intellectual discipline
that aspires to complete universality in its subject-matter...this is
metaphysics as it is traditionally conceived.
Given that Metaphysics is a universal intellectual discipline, no rational
being can avoid engaging in it or with it.
The nature of Metaphysics, as shown above has been conceived
differently, but traditionally, it is considered as science of being qua being,
hence, the most general of “all the disciplines.” 10 In its general sense,
Metaphysics aims at identifying the nature and structure of reality, i.e., all
that there is. In this regard, Metaphysics deals with the categories of
being. Her categories are the most general or highest kinds under which
anything which exists falls under.

9
E. J. Lowe, A Survey of Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University press, 2009), 3.
10
Michael J. Loux, Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (New York: Routledge,
1998), 3.
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Metaphysics takes its initial object, i.e., any datum of experience, in the
sense of “whatever and, therefore, all the data of experience” accessible
or available. The material object (the number of things it studies) of
metaphysics, is all inclusive, since it extends to everything and
“everything aspect of whatever is or can exist, whether of a material,
sensible, physical nature or of a higher, non-material nature.” The
material object of Metaphysics is conceived under the following
hierarchies:
A. Being, as that which is given to us, as a fact, “something that
exists”, but NOT why it exists.
B. The “given”, as the real is complex, since it involves diverse
aspects, i.e., multiplicity of modes.
C. The real “given” to us, as the diverse in a state of becoming.
This means its scope is from extension to the most perfect and divine.
Thus, the name first philosophy or theology.
Nevertheless, Metaphysics still retains its formal object (the specific,
or the distinctive vision, its formality, its point of view, from which
material object is considered) in its concern with being qua being. The
Formal object of metaphysics synthesizes all experience and considers:
Being as “the fundamental notion” from which one builds entire structure
of intellectual representations.
In its formality, Metaphysics is concerned with that
common/impartial/universal/abstract framework of all reality, being.
Hence, formal object of metaphysics is “the value of being” implicit in
every object of experience. Metaphysics engages with “datum” of
experience, “Insofar as it is being” and “Insofar as it is real.”
IN this regard, Metaphysics can investigate in what way the many
are related to the one in the form of which is existence. Furthermore,
since things are reflected in knowledge, metaphysics orders and evaluates
various types of speculative and practical knowledge. This capability of
ordering and evaluating is what warrants Metaphysics to be referred to as
wisdom. On relation between knowledge and wisdom, Aristotle holds “that
knowledge and proficiency belong to art rather than to experience and
hence regard artists as wiser than men of experience on the grounds that
wisdom depends always upon knowledge. And we think this because the
former understands the cause and the latter do not.” 11 Thus, metaphysics
as wisdom implies it knows the “the why and the cause.” Wisdom in
Aristotelian sense has to do with “first causes and principles of things.” 12
Metaphysics as wisdom is about knowledge of principles and causes.

11
Metaphysics, Book 1, Chapter 1.
12
Metaphysics, Book 1, Chapter 1.
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1.3 Historical Development of Metaphysics
The initial problem of Western Philosophy in ancient Greece was
about the arche. This means the origin of everything. The arche meant
“what causes and maintains in existence, not only this or that reality, but
all reality.”13 This problem led the Greek philosophers into a frenzy of
seeking. Regarding Metaphysics, understood as the science of “ultimate
ground of absolutely everything.”14 Metaphysics proposes a final answer
to the total problem.
The Eleatics, i.e., Parmenides vouched for being as esti, what exists
as one, permanent, immobile, and undivided yet corporeal reality
“resembling a vast sphere.” Parmenides held that being is i.e., exists
while non-being is the absolute opposite, an absolute nothing. Absolute
nothing implies, “it is not.” Non-being is a negation of being/existence.
However, the only challenging aspect of Parmenidean conception of
reality, is the obliteration or forgetting of the notion of becoming with its
counterpart, multiplicity.
The closest follower of Parmenides is Plato, who gives the “quest”
for the first principles a different turn. Plato seem to emphasise that
ultimate explanation of a thing lay in its end, i.e., in its perfection or good.
In Plato, the master Idea is the “Good” where the science of dialectics,
science par excellence finds its light and inspiration. For Plato, the notion
of the One is the source of the many. It is suggested that: “Beyond the
concrete, individual, and changing objects of this world, Plato postulated
an invisible realm of eternal, universal, and necessary essences.” 15 In
Plato’s philosophy, what is perceivable to the senses is only appearances
(mè on), and the Ideas are endowed with real existence (ontôs on). For
Plato, according to Goreth: “The human mind is made for the world of
Ideas, and transcends sense reality towards the suprasensible. Knowledge
of the Ideas is the condition and the norm of our knowledge of the
world.”16 The task of philosophy from the Platonic perspective, is to make
the knowledge of the suprasensible as “the only real reality.” Such is the
role of Metaphysics, as the science of the suprasensible which is the
universal and necessary Ideas, the causes and models of the visible world.

1.3.1 Plato’s Form of the Good: Ontological and Logical

perspective
The Platonic "Idea" with capital “I” is not just equivalent to Greek, ίδέα or
είδός. Instead, what Plato refers to is the Form - Morph. Greek language,
form, semantically is an equivocation: form as mere shape or appearance
13
Emerich Goreth, Metaphysics, trans. Joseph Donceel (New York: The Seabury Press, 1973),
17.
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid., 17 – 18.
16
Ibid., 18.
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and form as the expression of what a thing is, essence. The Platonic Form
conceivably is concerned with the essences of things not mere
appearances. Already from this understanding, Metaphysics for Plato,
deals with essences. Plato seems to be after the real essence of the entire
reality - the Form, the Good that he links to the sun in his theory of
Knowledge.
In Plato's corpus, the question of forms rises in the Socratic dialogues and
the maximum clarity is in the Phaedo and the Symposium. However,
forms take a central place in the Dialogues, The Republic, Phaedrus, and
the Parmenides.
Let us focus briefly on what Plato is doing in Book VI of The Republic,
sections 507 – 511. The general context, the theme of Book VI is the
education of rulers, the possible mechanism for having rulers imbibe
virtues of justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom. It seems that, the
greatest study, is yes participation in just and honorable things.
Nevertheless, knowing everything else minus, the knowledge of the Form
of the Good is considered inadequate. The dialogue between Adeimantus
and Socrates goes:

However, as to what you mean by the greatest study and what it

concerns, do you think
anyone is going to let you go without asking what it is?"
"Certainly not," I said. "Just ask. At all events, it's not a few times
already that you have heard it; but now you are either not thinking
or have it in mind to get hold of me again and cause me trouble. I
suppose it's rather the latter, since you have many times heard that
the idea of the good is the greatest study and that it's by availing
oneself of it along with just things and the rest that they become
useful and beneficial. And now you know certainly that I'm going to
say this and, besides this, that we don't have sufficient knowledge
of it.
And, if we don't know it and should have ever so much knowledge
of the rest without this, you know that it's no profit to us, just as
there would be none in possessing something in the absence of the
good.
Or do you suppose it's of any advantage to possess everything
except what's good? Or to be prudent about everything else in the
absence of the good, while being prudent about nothing fine and
good?"

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 "No, by Zeus," he said. "I don't.17

Plato in his development of what he refers to as the Form of the Good,

grants it, two statuses: ontological and epistemological priority over all
the other forms, i.e., the forms of justice, courage temperance and
wisdom. In possessing the Form of the Good, one is seemingly guaranteed
its knowledge.
In Plato's pattern of operation, there is a relationship between thought
and reality. However, the Form of the Good is not just prior ontologically
and epistemologically to everything else in the Plato's cosmos, but it is
conceivably the final cause of everything we do. Hence, it is also involved
in ethical realm. The exposition of the nature of the Form of the Good, is
not only technical, but also immersed in metaphorical expressions if one
should have recourse to the similes employed in its reference – the sun,
the divided Line, and the allegory of the cave.
On the nature of the Form of the Good, Plato points out in reference to its
condition: "Therefore, say that not only being known is present in the
things known as a consequence of the good, but also existence and being
are in them besides as a result of it, although the good isn't being but is
still beyond being, exceeding it in dignity and power."' 18 It could plausibly
be claimed that, Plato's process in attempting to grasp the Form of the
Good, does amount to the classification of the universal ideas/concepts.
This is because, as Taylor and Copleston compellingly claim, Plato thought
that in solving the logical problem of classification of ideas he could have
settled the ontological unification. This could be out of the understanding
that the forms are ontological essences of ideas which refer to objective
content or universal concepts.19 In this regard, the Form of the Good
could still be claimed to be the cause of truth and knowledge, given that
the objects of knowledge receive their being and essence from it. The
close relationship between the epistemology and ontology of the forms on
one hand and the Form of the Good on other hand is apparently captured
in the simile of the sun and the divided line.
Plato compares the Form of the Good with the Sun. It gives objects of
reason their truth, and to reason, it gives its knowledge of them. The sun
simile provides us with a dichotomy of thought: There are good things and
beautiful things as objects of vision and not thought on one hand; and
then we have the Good itself and the Beautiful itself – as objects of

17
Plato, The Republic, trans, Allan Bloom, second edition (USA: Basic Books, A division of
Harpers Collins Publishers, 1968), Book VI, 504e – 505b.
18
Plato, The Republic, Book VI, 509b.
19
The theory of Forms section has been adapted from Taylor, Greek Philosophy, an Introduction, and Copleston,
A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1 Greece and Rome.

8
thought but not vision on the other. 20 The dilemma is that, one may have
the faculty of vision – the capacity to see, and even a thing may be visible,
but still no actual vision. There is no seeing if there is no light source- in
this case provided by the sun. It is the sun's light that:

'Which of the gods in heaven can you point to as the lord responsible for
this, whose light makes our sight see in the finest way and the
seen things seen?" "The very one you and the others would also point to,"
he said.
"For it's plain your question refers to the sun.' 21

The sun provides light, which gives the objects of sight their visibility and
the power of sight is given its vision. Hence, the light is the cause of light
and vision. The light and vision are identified with the sun in so far as the
sun empowers them to be light and function as such. However, though
identified with the sun, the two are not sun. The conclusion can be drawn
that, the Form of the Good, like the sun, causes truth and knowledge. The
truth and knowledge are like the Form of the Good but are not identical.
The objects of thought, the attributes of the forms/ ideal, receive not just
their being known from the presence of the Good, but also their
being/existence and essence.22 It is from this supposedly privileged
position that the Form of the Good holds the ontological and
epistemological priority over every other form.
The Good is the exemplary pattern of all things, the ultimate ontological
reality. The Good is self-sufficient unlike other forms. It is also immanent
since the phenomena participate in it and manifests it in varying degrees.
Plato's Form of the Good is Eidos – Idea as something supersensible - the
object of thought. Therefore, for Plato the One, the Good and the essential
Beauty are the same. The Platonic Form of the Good arguably is the
epistemological and ontological principle of reality.
In The Republic – 509c-511e, a simile of the line is given. The line could be
referred to as probably Plato's representation of the degrees of
knowledge. The degrees of knowledge imply the levels of knowledge,
which for Plato is according to the objects – the sensible things and the
forms. Nevertheless, the concern with the objects may not be possibly the
focus of the simile of the line. The simile of the divided line arguably is
meant to illustrate the relation between the two orders of reality (the
20
Santas, Gerasimos X., "The Form of the Good in Plato's Republic" (1977).The Society for
Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter. 85., P. 4 (Electronic version,
http://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp/85, visited 16/03/2017.
21
Plato, The Republic, 508a.
22
Santas, Gerasimos X, "The Form of the Good in Plato's Republic", 5.
9
visible and the intelligible) with which the sun simile dealt. This is from the
point of view of the states of mind, in which we apprehend these two
orders or realms. Pertaining to the objects and states of mind the dialogue
goes as follows:23

'Well, then," I said, "conceive that, as we say, these two things are, and
that the one is king of the intelligible class and region, while the other is
king of the visible.' […] Now, do you have these two forms, visible and
intelligible?"
"I do."
"Then, take a line cut in two unequal segments, one for the class that is
seen, the other for the class that is intellected—and go on and cut each
segment in the same ratio. Now, in terms of relative clarity and obscurity,
you'll have one segment in the visible part for images. I mean by images
first shadows, then appearances produced in water and in all close-
grained, smooth, bright things, and everything of the sort, if you
understand."
[…]
"Now, in its turn, consider also how the intelligible section should
be cut."
"How?"
"Like this: in one part of it a soul, using as images the things that were
previously imitated, is compelled to investigate on the basis of hypotheses
and makes its way not to a beginning but to an end; while in the other part
it makes its way to a beginning that is free from hypotheses; starting out
from hypothesis and without the images used in the other part, by means
of forms themselves it makes its inquiry through them."'

The mental states comprise four subdivisions, which are: (A) Intelligence
(noēsis) - full understanding that culminates in the vision of ultimate truth
(intellectual intuition). This understanding is conceivably realized through
the process Plato refers to as, διὰλεκτικη – dialectic, understood in this
context as a unified vision. (B) Reasoning/understanding (dianoia) - the
procedure of purely deductive and uncritical assumptions of the laws and
governing principles - the realm of first principles and possible
springboard for science. (C) Belief (Pistis) -could be linked to common
sense beliefs on matters both moral and physical, which are a fair
practical guide to life but may not have been fully thought out and, (D)
Illusion (eikasia). The main concern at this point in not full analysis of all
the states of the mind, but concentration of how the Form of the Good is

23
Plato, The Republic, 509d -510b.
10
grasped through noēsis. Taking a lead from what dianoia entails, the
dialogue unravels, what seems to be the destiny of the understanding:
I suppose you know that the men who work in geometry,
calculation, and the like treat as known the odd and the even, the
figures, three forms of angles, and other things akin to these in
each kind of inquiry. These things they make hypotheses and don't
think it worthwhile to give any further account of them to
themselves or others. as though they were clear to all. Beginning
from them, they go ahead with their exposition of what remains and
end consistently at the object toward which their investigation was
directed.'24

The noetic – intelligible encompasses the things that reason grasps in no

other way than with thought through the dialectical process. The
dialectical process here is understood most probably as the reasoning that
utilizes no sensible thing but applies the use of forms themselves, as Plato
says: "going through forms to forms, it ends in forms too." We can thus,
compellingly state that, dialectical knowledge is autonomous given that it
is derived from absolute principles of dianoia (rational discourse itself)
through the power of dialectic – dialegesthai dunamei.25
The Form of the Good is most likely arrived at when the aute noēsei
(intellect itself) is applied to lay hold of that which is absolutely good.
Hence, the consummated activity of the intellect so conceived, has fairly
to be the grasping of the Form of Good. Even though, the claim is that the
noetic through the dialectic results into grasping of the absolute good –
the Form of the Good, it is still not clear how the intuitive objects – ideas
yields one idea of the Form of the Good.
The intellectual intuition ultimately, could simply imply the pure
intellectual act of grasping the essences of things. The aligning of
intellectual intuition – noēsis with the vision of the mind is evident in other
Platonic dialogues apart from The Republic. For instance, in Phaedrus,
intuition is described as seeing with the mind – Θεατη νώ.26 The Form of
the Good, with its characters already laid out in the simile of the sun,
being self-sufficient, is ipso facto, the formal cause of the other forms,
that have their own ideal attributes. For instance, justice, courage,
temperance and wisdom. However, given the noēsis, its consummation
leads to unified thinking, and as such most probably moves toward a
coherent and synthetic account of the whole of reality, as an ordered
system – κόσμος. In this regard, we could claim that, noēsis grasps things
in the light of its affinity to the whole – what Plato calls the Form of the
Good. Therefore, the claim by Santas, that, the Form of the Good serves
24
Plato, The Republic, 510c – d.
25
Plato, The Republic, 511b.
26
Plato, Phaedrus, 247c.
11
Plato's metaphysics by bringing relief into ideality of forms – eternal order
and stability of entities in the world, without which the world could be a
'vast sea of dissimilarity'27, could fairly be considered compelling on the
measure of organic whole. And even, the argument of intelligible as
identifiable with the real is more plausible in Plato's Theaetetus, in that;
'That which is completely real (Pantelos on) is completely intelligible
(gnoston)."'28

1.4 The Metaphysics of Aristotle

Aristotle opens his Metaphysics book with a very positive assertion

concerning the human beings. He says; “All men by nature desire
understanding. A sign of this is their liking of sensations; for, even apart
from the need of these for other things, they are liked for their own sake,
and of all sensations those received by means of the eyes are liked
most.”29 This is the basis of all the works of Aristotle, the motivation and
hence the basis of Aristotelian philosophy.

However, even if all desire is to know there are degrees of Knowledge, we

have sensations. Knowledge of Senses for Aristotle just like Plato is the
knowledge of the particulars.
In order to grasp this fact, let us go back to his book Α (one), where he
distinguishes between art and experience.

Now art comes into being when out of many notions from
experience we form one universal belief concerning similar facts.
for, to have a belief that when Callias was having this disease this
benefited him, and similarly Socrates and many other individuals, is
a matter of experience; but to have a belief that this benefited all
persons of a certain kind who were having this sickness, such as the
phlegmatic or the bilious or those burning with high fever, is a
matter of art.
Experience does not seem to differ from art where something is to
be done; in fact, we observe that men of experience succeed more
than men who have theory but have no experience. The cause of
this is that experience is knowledge of individuals but art is
universal knowledge, and actions and productions deals with
individuals. […]. Nevertheless, we regard understanding and
comprehension as belonging to art more than to experience, and
we believe that artists are wiser than men of experience; and this
indicates that wisdom is attributed to men in virtue of their
understanding rather than their experience, inasmuch as men of
understanding know the cause but men of experience do not. For
men of experience know the fact but no the why of it; but men of
art know the why of it or the cause.30
27
Santas, Gerasimos, X, "The Form of the Good in Plato's Republic", 24.
28
Plato, Theaetetus, 477a.
29
Metaphysics, Book Α, 980a ff.
30
Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book Α, 981a 5-30.

12
Metaphysics, therefore, from the Aristotelian perspective, goes to the
causes of things; it is not for the utilitarian purpose. Since, as the highest
wisdom, it does not aim at production, but at apprehending the first
principles. Thus, the science of the first principles and causes. “Aristotle
places the man who seeks for knowledge for its own sake above him who
seeks knowledge of some particular kind of view to the attainment of
some practical effect. In other words, that science stands higher which is
desirable for its own sake and not merely with a view to its results.” 31 How
does Aristotle describe this science?

[…] all men believe that what is called ‘wisdom’ is concerned with
the first causes and principles; so that, as is stated before, a man of
experience seems to be wiser than a man who has any of the
sensations, a man of art wiser than a man of experience, a master-
artist wiser than a manual worker, and theoretical sciences to be
wisdom to a higher degree than productive sciences. Clearly, then,
wisdom is a science of certain causes and principles. 32

Aristotle asserts that Wisdom is the science that we are all seeking,
because it goes to the core of all things, the causes, and principles. It is
from the sense of man’s wonder that this science finds its origin, and it
comes about when all the necessities of man have been met, hence it is a
leisure activity; it is the nature of the desire for understanding.
Metaphysics, then according to Aristotle is wisdom par excellence.

Metaphysics for Aristotle is the first philosophy, since it deals with being
qua being, i.e. being as being. And in what we have seen so far, he has
already shown how Metaphysics is a superior science. And it came as the
last invention when the other necessities of life concerning pleasure had
been met.

Hence when all such inventions were already established, the sciences
which do not aim at giving pleasure or at the necessities of life were
discovered and first in the places where men first began to have leisure.
Therefore, the mathematical arts were founded in Egypt; for there the
Priestly caste was allowed to be at leisure. 33 For Aristotle, leisure is related
to education. Since the main purpose or goal of education, is LEISURE.
And he insists that Happiness depends on Leisure. However, Leisure here
should not be understood as idling. In Aristotelian conception, Leisure
occupies the central place in the Philosophy of education. That Leisure is
understood here as: “The faculty of being able and knowing how to
use one’s time freely. […].” Leisure then comes about as the freedom
to apply oneself to essential matters of life, and, “it is this form of freedom
that leads to wisdom: a life devoted to philosophy and contemplation that
is true happiness. Through leisure, which is an indication of freedom,
education should lead to man’s ultimate goal, an intellectual life rooted in
31
Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1 Greece and Rome, 287.
32
Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book Α, 981b 28- 982a 1 -3.
33
Aristotle, Metaphysica, Book,Α, 981b 19 -20 ( This is W.D. Ross’s Translation).

13
the mind. That is the true ‘business of man’ which is the function of
education to teach. And man can only learn it through education.” 34

From what we have seen so far, the Philosopher then according to

Aristotle, is the one who is after wisdom, the Lover of wisdom, the one
who desires knowledge for its own sake. This is universal knowledge in the
highest degree, in that it is the science which is furthest removed from
the senses, hence, the most abstract and also then the hardest since it
encompasses the greatest effort of thought. 35 What emerges from
Aristotle in terms of classifying the realms of knowledge is as follows
according to Dario Composta;36

Metaphysics of knowledge Physics

Mathematics
Sciences of action: Logic, ethics, dialectics, politics

of production: art, Poetry, rhetoric, technology, medicine, etc

It must be realized that the First philosophy for Aristotle, is Theoria

(Knowledge) and then the others action i.e. prattein, and production,
poien. Physics and Mathematics are part of Metaphysics in so far as they
just study an aspect of being.

Metaphysics for Aristotle is the first philosophy because, it deals with both
material and immaterial beings i.e. God and the what he calls the celestial
movers, the divine realities, hence, Metaphysics for Aristotle is a
“theological science” however not in the sense of our Theology in the
Christian understanding. Why God, because he is also in the realm of
being, as Metaphysics is about ‘τò òn e όn’ i.e. being insofar as being.

In summary for Aristotle, Metaphysics is:

 About the absolutely primary “notion of things.” Thus, being, “to on”
is about the thing that exists. Since being is prior to what a thing is.
For Aristotle, knowledge of the suprasensible unlike Plato is derived
from the knowledge of sense objects. Some of the topics in this
regard for Aristotle include:
 The object of metaphysics as being qua being…In this case,
the object of metaphysics is all reality “visible and invisible:

34
Hummel, “Aristotle”, 43.
35
F. Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1, Greece and Rome, 288.
36
D. Composta, History of Ancient Philosophy, 256.

14
 whatever exists.”37 This means that metaphysics investigates
all realities as they are beings, it tries to discover what
belongs to them in their quality of beings. In this case,
Metaphysics is also the science of “the last causes of beings
and the science of the suprasensible and divine being.” 38 In
this case, we have two poles of metaphysics: on one hand,
metaphysics as science of being qua being, i.e. the universal
science which investigates the totality of beings; and all
particular domains of beings. On the other hand, metaphysics
is the science of the divine, of the “primordial cause of all
beings, it is (natural) theology.” In this case, case metaphysics
deals with the first cause uncaused.
 Substance is the fundamental mode of being… In this case,
metaphysics deals with immaterial substance as its subject
matter.
 Act and potency…
 The science of causes of all things, and the causes being for
Aristotle: the material, the formal, the efficient and the final.

Let us round off the Aristotelian conception of what

Metaphysics is with the following observation from the
Stagirate himself:
Since this is the science we are seeking, we must inquire what are
the kinds of causes and principles whose science is wisdom. If we
were to go over the beliefs which we have about the wise man, this
might perhaps make the answer more evident. we believe (a) first,
that the wise man knows all things in a manner in which this is
possible, not, however, knowing them individually; (b) second, that
a wise man can acquire knowledge of what is hard and not easy for
any man to know (ability to have sensations is common to all, and
therefore easy, but not a mark of wisdom); (c) third, that he who is
more accurate and more able to teach the causes in each science is
wiser; (d) fourth, that of the sciences, the one pursued for its own
sake and for the sake of understanding is wisdom to a higher
degree than the one pursued for the sake of what results from it; (e)
fifth, that the superior science is wisdom to a higher degree than
the subordinate science, for the wise man must not be placed in
rank by another but must set the ordering, and he must not obey
another but must be obeyed by the less wise. 39

Metaphysics, therefore, deals with the first principles of reality and the
principles that are the most knowable, and in themselves are more truly
knowable than their applications. It is through the process of abstraction
that proceeds from what is directly known to us i.e., sense-objects, to their
ultimate principles.40 Those Principles are intrinsic to being. The notion of
37
Goreth, Metaphysics, 18.
38
Goreth, Metaphysics, 18.
39
Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book Α, 982 a 5 – 19.
40
Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1, Greece and Rome, 288.

15
causes in Aristotle must be linked to his understanding of the categories.
Here categories understood as: The highest or most general kinds under
which things fall. Metaphysics identifies those highest kinds and specifies
features peculiar to. Thus, metaphysics provides the map of “all that there
is.” In terms of first causes, metaphysics identifies the causes underlying
the primary feature of things.

1.4.1 The Four Causes of Aristotle

In the book, Physics, Aristotle, gives the causes which the first philosophy
deals with. For Aristotle, “It is the job of a theoretical science to explain
things, and that means that it must answer ‘Why?’ questions. To answer
such a question is to give a
cause.”41 Metaphysics is a not only a speculative science, but theoretical
as well. Aristotle’s Greek term for cause is aition, which means
explanation as well. The word ‘cause’, has various nuances in Physics,
book II, 3. The senses of cause are as follows:
 The Formal cause, i.e. the Substance, or essence of the thing,
expression of what it is. This is the form or essence stated in a
definition of a thing. Aristotle observes: “the form-i.e., the pattern-is
a cause. The form is the account (and the genera of the account) of
the essence.”42
 The Material cause, the subject, the element out of which it is made
of. In Physics Book II, Aristotle describes material cause as: “that
from which, as a <constituent> present in it, a thing comes to be is
said to be that thing's cause-for instance, the bronze and silver, and
their genera, are causes of the statue and the bowl.” 43
 The Efficient Cause, the source of motion, the means by which it is
made; the source of stability or change. This is the primary principle
of change or stability. Aristotle explains “the adviser is a cause <of
the action>, and a father is a cause of his child; and in general, the
producer is a cause of the product, and the initiator of the change is
a cause of what is changed.”44
 The Final cause, the good, the end/telos, purpose for which the thing
is for. Aristotle’s justification for the final cause is that: “something's
end-teleo what it is for-is its cause, as health is of walking. For why
does he walk? We say, 'To be healthy'; and in saying this we think
we have provided the cause.”

The complete account of reality must entail the four causes. This is
because, “Artefacts clearly have causes in all four senses: A house is
made of wood, by a builder, with a form and structure suitable to provide

41
S. Marc Cohen, Patricia Curd, and C.D.C. Reeve, eds. Readings in Ancient
Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle, Fourth Edition (Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing Company, 2011), 688.
42
Aristotle, Physics, Book II, §§ 27 – 28.
43
Aristotle, Physics, Book II, §§ 24 – 26.
44
Aristotle, Physics, Book II, §§ 31 – 33.
16
a shelter for human beings and their possessions.” 45 Aristotle’s position on
nature is teleological given that it is central to his philosophical system.
In the case of the artifacts, the final causes are linked to the conscious
intentions. For the artifacts:
The final causes of artefacts are found in the minds of the artisans who
made them; they are in that sense external to the artefacts themselves.
(It is for this reason that artefacts do not count for Aristotle as genuine
substances. Lacking final causes that are internal to them, they do not
engage in activity of their own, and hence they have no essence, strictly
speaking.) But final causes in nature are not like this at all. 46 Thus, in the
case of the natural objects, for Aristotle in relation to final causes:
 Are internal to those objects. The question here in relation to our
study of traditional Cosmology, can corporeal realities lay claim to
final cause?
 They are related to what they are for or act for…this even refers to
functional aspects of their organs. That the parts of the natural
objects enable them to fulfil the functions more or less successfully.
The organs of the natural objects are typically beneficial to the
organism and they enable it to survive and to engage in the
activities that define its being. Thus, “It is function and activity, not
purpose, that Aristotle claims to discern in nature.” In Physics,
Aristotle’s teleology, “helps to explain why he believes that final,
formal, and efficient causes often coincide” (Physics Book II.7).
With the four causes, Aristotle in a way sees his own philosophy as
synthesis of all the philosophies of his predecessors hence, it is on a
higher plane. To develop Aristotelian Metaphysics the Four causes are
important.

1.3 Possible themes for Research

1. The Subject Matter of Metaphysics.
2. Aristotle’s conception of “the First Philosophy.”
3. Metaphysics as the Science of being qua being.
4. The notion of the act of being in Thomistic thought.
5. The Metaphysical dependence as the appropriate state of being a
creature.
6. The understanding of the Transcendental properties of being.
7. Being as One.
8. Being as True.
9. The relationship between Essence and Existence in creatures.

Cohen, et. al., eds. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 688.

45

Cohen, et. Al., Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 688 – 689.

46

17
 10. Suppositum and Personhood, and Augustinian doctrine of the
Trinitate.
11. The notion of being in Plato and Aristotle compared.
12. Ethics as First Philosophy in Emmanuel Levinas.
13. The Metaphysical dependence and impossibility of Nietzsche’s
“Philosophy of indifference.”
14. The Analogia Entis, explored…
15. Heidegger’s notion of Dasein and Metaphysics.
16. The possible effects of Hume’s denial of causality on
Traditional Metaphysics.
17. Metaphysical explanation of the notion of one and many.
18. Key aspects of Aquinas’ De Ente et Essentia.
19. The Metaphysical Principles of being.
20. The Metaphysical structure of being.

1.5 St. Thomas Aquinas on Metaphysics

Aquinas’ Major philosophical arguments are summarized in the first work,
De ente et essentia (On Being and essence). In this work, the
fundamentals of his philosophy are already established. Aquinas on
Metaphysics did write also:
Commentaries on Aristotle:
Physics, 1265 – 1268
Metaphysics (first 12 books), 1265 – 1270.
The object of metaphysics for Aquinas is manifested in the role of intuition
where: “The object of metaphysical inquiry must be thought in something
first and unconditioned, hence not derived from or reduced to anything
else, while everything reduces to it.” Through the intuition of being,
Aquinas holds the universality of the primacy of being where he holds:
‘What the intellect first conceives, on the ground that it is the most known
object, is being; and to being it reduces all its conceptions.” 47 In this case,
every conception of the mind can be reduced to the notion of being, i.e.,
everything is being.
In Aquinas’ understanding, to grasp the object of metaphysics, i.e., being,
is through the third level of abstraction. Here the mind is needed to
apprehend being formally as being qua being. Aquinas makes the
distinction between “being as the object of metaphysics and being as the
first and most universal object of thought. Such a conception is in line with
the etymology of the terms:
 Greek, “to on”

47
Aquinas, De Veritate, q.1, a.1.
18
  Latin, “ens”…..Both translated as “the something which is.” In this
regard, every being has two aspects:
 The subject/receptor of being, i.e., The “something”, Essentia.
 The actuation/determination of the Subject (Which is),
esse/existence.
Thus, being is “something” whose actuality/nature/proper determination is
to exist (to be). Hence, essence cannot be conceived, except in relation to
existence, and existence likewise calls for “determination by essence.”
Being is thus understood as:
1. Noun/word: Where the primary reference is essence (res), being as
What is.
2. Verbal/participial noun), to be: being here stresses existence, being
as existence…
Note:
 Being in primary sense as being qua being, signifies existence/esse,
i.e., “in its immediate sense of real and actual existence” called ens
actuale.
 Being as being can also include, “possible being”, ens possibile as
“anything capable of entering the world of concrete existence.”
 Being as “ens rationalis” being of reason. This is the subject of logic;
it exists logically but not ontologically. It exists only in the mind
conceiving it. This is NOT part of the metaphysical domain.
 In Thomistic thought, being is neither essence nor existence alone.
Rather, it is the composite of the two: “an essence actuated by its
ultimate perfection existence.”
Therefore, for Aquinas, Metaphysics is:
1. The science of God or theology, since it considers God and the other
suprasensible beings, the pure spirits.
2. Investigates beings and all that which belongs to beings as beings.
3. First philosophy as far as it looks for the first causes of all things…

1.6 The Subject of Metaphysics in 17th century

With the emergence of modern philosophy, the concept of metaphysics is
modified in many ways. Such development could be summarized as
follows:
 Francis Bacon, divided philosophy into three parts as:
 Treating of God, of Nature and of Man… which are based upon
fundamental philosophical doctrine as: First Philosophy, later
called ontology. Thus, metaphysics as the combination of the
doctrine of being and God seen as the crown and conclusion

19
 of Philosophy. Such philosophy takes its place after logic and
before the philosophy of nature and philosophy of man.
 Christian Wolff’s classification of sciences:
 Metaphysics equated with theoretical philosophy…this
widened its object.
 He further distinguished between general metaphysics and
special metaphysics. General metaphysics called Ontology as
the basic discipline dealing with beings as such. Here Wolff
maintained the traditional understanding of metaphysics.
Nevertheless, Wolff held that, the real task of metaphysics is
“to deduce from clearly defined concepts and axioms, the
statements which apply to every possible object of thought.”
With such understanding, metaphysics is not a real study of
being, but a mere formal discipline of axioms or principles.
Thus, “it is no longer rooted in being.”
 Divided Special Metaphysics into:
a. Cosmology
b. Psychology (philosophical anthropology), and
c. Natural Theology (Philosophy of God).
As such, he separated the science of beings from the science of God. This
is because, Ontology as the science of beings, no longer considers God,
the first universal cause of beings. Wolff, transformed the very notion of
metaphysics since, he defined philosophy as: “the science of all possible
things, insofar as they are possible. He was interested not in reality, but in
mere possibility as such.”48 Given his rationalistic stance, for Wolff,
possibility referred to the possibility of thinking the objects without
contradiction.
NB: The consideration of some of Wolffian backers will be dealt with in the
second part of the course, Some contemporary in Metaphysics.

1.6 Method used in Metaphysics

One criterion of a science is the possession of a method. The problem, for
method and metaphysics will be, where can it appeal on its findings, given
that it involves the highest level of abstraction? Metaphysics reaches its
object being qua being, through the reflection upon the beings of
our experience. This is already a metaphysical reflection. The object of
metaphysics is what determines the possibility of the discipline of
metaphysics, and its method. This is the transcendental method.

48
Goreth, Metaphysics, 21.
20
The method applicable to metaphysical endeavour is called the analytic-
deductive way. This method derives “the whole of metaphysics from a
simple self-evident starting point, which it merely analyses and from
which it deduces all other metaphysical truths.” In our sense experience,
there is also the “experience” of having that experience, which is much
deeper than the sense experience. In our knowledge of sense experience,
i.e., of object, we are also aware of knowing this object (intellectual
intuition). Hence, every instance of sense experience contains elements
which transcend that experience. Therefore, human thinking can reach
being because it is already with being, since the reflection of metaphysics
occurs within the horizon of being. For Kant, transcendental method deals
with and aims at:
 Every knowledge which occupies itself not so much with objects,
rather with our way of knowing objects, in so far as this is to be
possible a priori.
 Discovering and explains the knowledge which precedes and makes
possible every knowledge of objects. This is a pre-knowledge, a
basic knowledge which enters implicitly into every kind of empirical
knowledge. Such knowledge is made explicit through a reflection
upon the previous conditions of the “possibility of empirical
knowledge.”
Such method existed before Kant. Plato was aware of the basic principles
in logic and metaphysics not derived from sense-experience but makes
experience possible. St. Augustine in his theory of Illumination, attributes
a divine illumination the eternal truths present in the human mind.

1.7 Role of Metaphysics

 Governs and directs all other sciences. Metaphysics as the most
intellectual science, is the ruling science since its object is the “most
intelligible” of beings and modes of being of the highest
intelligibility. The most intelligible involves the things from which
the intellect derives certitude, i.e., knowledge of causes. The
intellect also comprehends universals, not particulars. Metaphysics
deals with most universal principles, i.e., principles of being and
things which accompany them like unity and plurality; act and
potency…
 Metaphysics never discovers or demonstrates anything totally new
or unknown. Being is the most common reality. The purpose of
metaphysics is to explicate the implicit, to bring out the animating
principle of every kind of human knowledge.
 Metaphysics makes abundantly clear that man is a metaphysical
being, and his knowledge is metaphysical knowledge.
 Metaphysics is the science of the human self-actuation, which
follows that this science possesses a plurality of aspects.

21
 Chapter one

Wonder and Existence

As already pointed out in the elaborate introduction, Metaphysics is about
the meaning of being. The first and fundamental question here could:
What is being? As it will shortly be realized this may turn out to be a
wrong question or a good question posed in a wrong way. And how is
being encountered? The highest Metaphysical reality, Being itself, “Ipsum
Esse Subsistens” i.e. Subsistent Being itself whose “what-ness does imply
existence” expresses itself to human beings on:
 A natural level, i.e. through creation…with the aid of natural human
mind…(our current concern).
 A supernatural level, through revelation… (Studied in Theology,
Fundamental Revelation).
Humankind in general “stands before God listening for the words which
will express His presence and His Being, and which will unfold the
meaning of human existence and the meaning of the world for man.” 49 It
is partly the work of philosophy to be part of this listening. To the question
“what is Being?” Its answer itself demands listening or the spirit of
wonder. However, Being defies categorization, thus the “what” purports to
delimit being which in many ways eludes such an approach. The notion of
Being itself is shrouded in mystery since as Luis Bogliolio opines, “Being
does not fall under the immediate and direct grasp of human intellect.” 50
It is not easily conceptualized. The wonder of being is central to the
beginning of philosophy itself.
In the Dialogue Theaetetus, Socrates remarks that the “sense of
wonder is the mark of the philosopher. Philosophy indeed has no other
origin.”51 This Platonic assertion is repeated by Aristotle in his
Metaphysics, though in a different context when he avows, “For it is owing
to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to
philosophize.”52 More pertinently for the consideration of poiesis Aristotle
links wonder to ignorance and myth since “the lover of myth is in a sense
a lover of wisdom, for myth is composed of wonders.” 53 Thomas Aquinas
interprets Aristotle’s “love of myth” as a characteristic of the poets.
Aquinas’s justification for comparing the philosopher to the poet is “that
both are concerned with wonders.” 54 The philosophers themselves are
moved to philosophize because of wonder. In Plato’s and Aristotle’s
49
James V. McGlynn, and Paul Mary Farley, A Metaphysics of Being and God (New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1966), 15.
50
Luigi Bogliolo, Metaphysics (Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 1987), 6.
51
Plato, “Theaetetus” in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Including Letters, ed. Edith
Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1961), 155d.
52
Aristotle, “Metaphysics” in A New Aristotle Reader, ed. J.L. Ackrill (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1987), 982b12.
53
Ibid., 982b 18–19.
22
philosophy, wonder must be conceived as a state of contemplation and as
the end of philosophy.55 Philosophy wonders about being.
The object of that wonder is the present world of existing finite
beings in the light of the Being. But, “How shall those of us who may not
have raised the question/wondered even about the existence of being, let
alone of how and why beings exist, look philosophically, metaphysically,
at reality?” What does it mean to exist? The Greek thinkers moved by
wonder were not satisfied with answers to the specific questions about
change, by pushing their inquiries to the basic metaphysical question of
being.
Now, how can the question of being be properly posed?
Preliminarily, the answer to “What is being?” must be that “Being is not a
‘what.’”56 Thus, the question of being is about existence, ‘that it is.’ Being
is that which “actually exists.” In this regard, Being must be understood
existentially as “the act of perfection” that makes “the being present,
making it exist, placing it outside of nothingness.” 57 This amount to saying
that: “Being is the act in virtue of which the existent exists.” And as such,
“Being does not fall under the immediate and direct grasp of the human
intellect.” The Being we are wondering or pondering about here ought to
be understood as that “which possesses the perfection of ‘to be,’” i.e.,
existence. The fundamental conclusion here is: Being as a perfection is
existence, as that which is. ‘To be’ as a verb, is the action-word, which in
this case as F.J. Klauder remarks “brings out the dynamic aspect of
being.”58 Such a conception of Being is much akin to the notion of the
Christian God as the perfection and guarantor of all beings. However, this
is only one sense of conceiving being. It is Being as existence that eludes
categorizations, and thus demands to be pondered.
The wonder is on the fact “that it is.” Pondering is important here
since the temptation is to pass too quickly from that it is to what it is.
Fathoming the wonder of being requires what in philological terms is
called lento, slow reading. In this case, it is allowing “existence” to
manifest itself. Such attitude requires an approach that Nietzsche
references as “laws are totally absent, and every power draws its final
consequences at every moment.”59 This attitude lets reality express itself.
This means, letting existence come to us devoid of our own conceptual
frameworks. The problem is that existence seem not to excite us, because
of its ordinariness. Being is found everywhere, in the words of Klauder, “It
is so commonplace!... We are unable to think without positing it in our
minds. It saturates all things.” 60 This is the amazing wonder. A Neo-
Thomist, Jacques Maritain writes:
54
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, trans. John P. Rowan (Indiana:
Dumb Ox Books, 1961), §55, 19.
55
Arendt, The Human Condition, 302.
56
McGlynn, and Farley, A Metaphysics of Being and God, 52.
57
Bogliolo, Metaphysics, 6.
58
Francis J. Klauder, The Wonder of The Real: A Sketch in Basic Philosophy (USA: Cph,
1992), 21.
59
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, §22.
60
Klauder, The Wonder of The Real, 19.
23
 [W]e must remember that the best way of hiding anything is to
make it common, to place it among objects. We all thus understand
that the being of metaphysics, the highest and most hidden thing in
the natural order, is concealed in the being of common sense.
Nothing is more ordinary than being, if we mean the being of
everyday knowledge; nothing more hidden if we mean the being of
Metaphysics. …It is by reason of its pure simplicity, because it is too
simple, almost superhumanly simple, that it eludes philosophers
who have not risen to the necessary degree of abstraction and
visualization.61

In this regard, we know being naturally, spontaneously, and necessarily

because it is the “most basic of all our ideas” since it arises in us by the
very fact of “be-ing,” existing. Thus, in this, being is known intuitively. It is
the “very consciousness” of reality, and as such, “It cannot be proven but
only recognized.”62 In this recognition, the idea of being is accepted as the
simplest, the most important and the most far-reaching. It is the simplest
because, there is nothing easier to understand than “to-be.” This is
grasped through the recurring intuition/immediate knowledge. From the
offing, we can recap the question of Being by affirming that: “Being is all
encompassing, transcending all divisions and classifications, applicable to
the very differences among the various categories of different things; and
for this reason, it is called transcendental, i.e. applying to all things, all the
divisions or kinds of things, and to the very differences which mark off the
varying classes of things.”63 It in this regard, of not being categorized that
“Being” is considered as an analogical term. We will consider the Analogy
of Being in the next chapter. For now, it is important to clarify that being
is not simply a that, but there is a possibility of considering it as a what.
The act of being, “that it is,” is irreducible to “what it is.” Existence,
i.e. that it is, is shared with “everything else that is,” but, “what it is”, i.e.
nature, essence is unique and particular to a thing. In this regard, beings
are one insofar as they share the fact of existence, and one also given
that they fall in various classifications as genera and species. However,
existence is multiple and diversified in the manner of existence, i.e., in the
manifestations of existence. Hence, “to exist is not precisely the same as
to-exist-as-man or to-exist-as-tree. As such, something must then account
for both existence and kind of existence, which is manifested in each
thing. Such as a principle will later be known as act and potency. Through
the constitutive principle of act and potency being is grasped both as
existence and essence. Based on existence, essence, and being, it can be
concluded that: “If beings are many and different, they must somehow be
limited; they must not possess the fullness of being, the fullness of
existence. Each is limited to its own particular share because it has not
what another has; it has not all of being, because another has some of

61
Jacques Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics (New York: Mentor Omega Books, 1962), 87-
89.
62
Klauder, The Wonder of The Real, 22.
63
Klauder, The Wonder of The Real, 25.
24
it.”64 To account for the many and differentiated beings, there must be
one unlimited, which is the fullness of existence, it is differentiated from
all other beings, since it has all of what they share in.
Wondering on existence in the light of being leads to the following
“truths” of philosophy:

 From Thomistic metaphysics, the reality of being as the perfection

of existence is independent of man. Being as the act of perfection
contains man. It is such ontological reality that “Manifests in the
world a finite and imperfect structure that refers to God as Supreme
Being and Creator of the world.” 65 Without possessing the fullness of
Being, God could not create, given that creation is a fruit of a
perfection. Such Being, may only be properly contemplated but not
categorized or conceptualized… This is existence as the That-ness.
Here “Being” is rendered as the first and most evident thing that the
intellect knows, and all other conceptions of the intellect are
reducible to this one.66 Such is Being as absolute actuality, signified
by in actu esse (the actuality of be-ing).
 The common being in general does not exist. It must be realized by
the act of being according a particular measure of being, in the
particular beings/existents.
 However, beings exist in their different natures. Thus
particular/common being appears to be made up of two inseparable
components, Being and essence. As Boglioglio remarks, it is
impossible to think of a particular being “without this intrinsic
constitutive duality.”67 The role of Being here is acting as a principle
that joins with the essence to make up the being (this particular,
actual reality).
 Being as a realizing principle renders the existent being real and
concrete. It makes the existent being consist and subsist. To subsist
implies to make exist the entirety of being, i.e., in totality. Thus:
Being + essence = an existent being.
 Real composition of essence and being (existence) follows from the
fact that no creature is its own being. Every creature receives its
being from God according to the measure of its essence.

 Essence receives being, not as one being receives another, but as

the measure according to which the creature is endowed with being.

 The name ‘being’ for Thomas signifies an act, i.e., the act of
existing, essence is a possible measure or limit of being.

 The whole perfection of a being comes from the act whereby it

exists. This is the reason why Thomas calls it the act of being (esse)
64
McGlynn, and Farley, A Metaphysics of Being and God, 61.
65
Juan Jose Sanguineti, Logic and Gnoseology (Banglore: Theological Publications in India,
1988), 15-16.
66
Aquinas, Truth, 1,1.
67
Bogliolo, Metaphysics, 7.
25
 i.e., ‘the actuality of all acts and consequently the perfection of all
perfections.’

 Existence is that which is innermost in each thing and more

fundamentally present within all things, and this is understood in
the sense that God is the Pure Act of Being. “Nothing in a created
being could be more important or noble than its existence, in which
it reflects most luminously the proper perfection and mystery of
God.”

The act of existence (esse) warrants closer scrutiny. It has been

pointed out above that, common being in general must be realized
according to a well determined richness and greater or lesser measure
of that being/existence. Being to be realized must be thought of as:
this one having a precise and determined nature and measure. The
determined measure and richness of being is called essence.

Recap on the wonder and notion of being

 Metaphysics from its Formal object, i.e., from the point of view
which material object is considered:
 Being is the “fundamental notion” from which one
builds the entire structure of intellectual
representations.
 Metaphysics is about such
universal/impartial/abstract framework of all reality.

Thus, the formal object of Metaphysics is “the value of being” implicit in

every object of experience. Metaphysics engages with the datum of
experience, “In so far as it is being” and “in so far as it is real.”

The Notion of being is easily affirmed from the Existential-

phenomenological judgements. Such judgements are given in
spontaneous datum of experience. In this regard:

 Being is indefinable, given that defining/delimiting is about the

nature of something, situating it. And to define a concept is to
oppose “it to other concepts.” But the question is: What can we
oppose being to? The predicate ‘to exist’, or the content of the
“concept” being is indefinable.
 The notion of being is very primordial, simple and general. It is
simple since all other concepts are determinations,
particularizations and mode of it. Being since, it is given to us
goes beyond and includes all determined essences, i.e., all
modes of being.

26
  Being is the most common and general, since only non-being is
outside its extension.

Hence, Being is truly the primum notum; it is strictly per se notum. Since
nothing is clearer or simpler or more evident than being itself. The notion
of being is not opposed to anything. The human being as sensitivo
rationalis animalis, is the only one who understand the word “is.” The
proposition: “This exists,” has an immediate meaning for a human being.
The idea of being in grammatical forms of verbs and nouns can be
expressed as follows:

Verbs: I exist…Implies

 An act or activity: meaning for me, to exist belong to me…This is

metaphysically sound, being as an activity…
 In participle form: ‘this is existing’, ‘this is being’…Implies the
subject which exists

Noun: This is something, a thing, an entity, an essence…Implies

 A reality, a being, which is real. These are subjects, implying being

as a fundamental subject.

Reflection questions on Wonder and Existence

1. Explain why being qua being eludes delimitation/definition.
2. Why does being essentially, imply existence.
3. Explain the fact that, being may not exist from the general sphere.
4. How is being/existence determined.
5. Explain the fact that: “in knowing being we come to have a glimpse
of God.”
6. Explain the notion of wonder in Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy.

Chapter Two
The Act of Being
In her long history of existence, Western Philosophy i.e., from Parmenides
to Heidegger has struggled with the question: “What does it mean to be or
to exist? This is both the easiest and most difficult question to answer.” 68
In moments of human crisis like birth and death, mystery of existences
impacts on us forcefully. However, for Aquinas, being is the “name of
God.” In traditional metaphysics, which is largely Thomistic in
68
Armand Maurer, “Introduction” to St. Thomas Aquinas On Being and Essence, second
edition (Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Mediaevel Studies, 1968), 7.
27
understanding Being and Essence, we need to move from a posterior to a
prior, i.e., from what is easier to the harder one. In this case Being can be
as divided by the 10 categories (Substance), and Being is the truth of
propositions whereby any affirmative proposition is being.
 For the Substance, it must be positive in reality for it to be a being
(What is).
 Essence derives its meaning from actual beings. Since Substance
signifies the essence of a thing. Essence here is common to all
different beings placed in different genera and species.
 By definition, Essence is what a thing is, i.e., by which a thing is
located in its genus/or species. In the case of species, it is about
quiddity, as the concept, i.e., in abstract sense, e.g., humanity.
Quiddity, is that which makes a thing to be what it is. According to
Avicenna, quiddity is form of determination of each thing.
 We speak of nature as essence in operation. The concept of nature
is largely derived from Boethius’ four senses, as the essence of a
thing in relation to its specific operation.
In the Metaphysics of Aquinas, “Ens” is a concrete term, referring to that
which is. Ens signifies a subject as possessing an act of being/existing.
The act of being is expressed by infinitive esse as the exercise by the
subject. In this case, esse is an abstract term, since it abstracts form from
their subject e.g., noun whiteness, is a quality in abstraction from the
subject quality…of white. Thus, ens is a concrete reality, e.g., This book.
While esse, denotes only the act of being, in the abstraction from the
subject of the act. Esse, for Aquinas, better expresses the active character
of being.
It refers to Act of existence generally, “esse as act” and existence which is
the fact of being. Esse, here simply implies “to be” or existence.
 Aquinas: Same existence (esse) is conceptualized both as an
actuality and as a fact i.e., “esse as facticity” and “esse as intrinsic
actus essendi”, i.e., act of being, to be.
The participations of being in the ‘act of being.’ Positions:
1. Intellect, perceives only essence, and does not reach to existence.
IN this case, existence is indefinable by us, since it has no
‘distinctive way’ of presenting itself to our intellect, except through
the essence, which it is act. However, Aquinas is more at home with
descriptions of the act of esse than essence. In this regard, Aquinas
is Aristotelian in approach.
2. Esse as act of being, is not just the fact of existing, it is also the
external effect of the ‘act of being’, i.e., that by which every
formality can be indicated as real i.e., distinct from every other
formality, as really distinct (not just notionally), but separate in the

28
 nature of things. Such act of being is the act of essence (particular
determination).
Therefore, the act of being is the act of that being, and the Act of essence
is act belonging to essence (is a genitive possession of meaning).
It is notable that Facts are ‘visible’ to our intellect in a sense in which the
act of being (existence) is not. Thus, to understand things we must
articulate them.
In Husserl, he considers truth as:
 Correctness of a judgment, or
 Actuality which underlies truth as correctness. Truth as actuality
refers to ‘a truth of being or “truth of disclosure.”
Heidegger seems to pick from Husserl when he describes truth as a-
letheia, un-concealment. Where the “thatness” of facts is emphasized.
Heidegger in Being and Time mainly uses a Greek term a-letheia in his
endeavour to explain the Dasein's disclosure and hiddenness. He writes:
"The goddess of Truth who guides Parmenides, puts two pathways before
him, one of uncovering, one of hiding; but this signifies nothing else than
that Dasein is already both in the truth and in untruth." 69 Depending on
the translation, uncovering and hiding implies un-concealment and
concealment respectively. For Heidegger:
 The term a-letheia expresses what he calls "the essence of truth." 70
The nature of truth for Heidegger entails un-concealment and
concealment.
 Aletheia is equated to the un-concealment/disclosure of the Dasein
through the myriad of beings/entities. Heidegger holds that aletheia
which Aristotle equates with "pragma" and "phainomena" signifies
the things themselves, "it signifies what shows itself–entities in the
'how' of their uncoveredness."71
 Aletheia must be about manifestation of being. Thus, truth of being,
i.e., act of being is concealment which is realized in various entities.
Truth as un-concealment for Heidegger must always first be seized from
entities.

 The entities are snatched from their hide-out, their concealment.

This concealment Heidegger calls it Being-in-untruth as part of the

69
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans, John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, (Oxford,
Basil Blackwell, 1962), Section 44, 265.
70
Ibid.
71
Ibid., 262.
29
 essential characteristic of Being-in-the world. 72 Heidegger is
emphatic about being concealed and Dasein. He says:

To be closed off and covered up belongs to Dasein's facticity. In its

full existential-ontological meaning, the proposition that 'Dasein is
in the truth' states equiprimordially that 'Dasein is in untruth'. But
only in so far as Dasein has been disclosed has it also been closed
off; and only in so far as entities within-the-world have been
uncovered along with Dasein, have such entities as possibly
encounterable within-the-world, been covered up(hidden) or
disguised.73

According to G. Figal, the Dasein's mode of Being is primarily existence. 74

Thus the un-concealment and concealment or truth and untruth are
referents of existence:
 The Dasein in its full existential-ontological meaning as truth and
untruth is the foundation of beings. In this regard as Figal observes,
the Dasein "bears within itself the intrinsic possibility of every
concrete factual humanity."75 This means the neutral Dasein is not
the one that exists. Instead, the Dasein exists as is expressed in the
truth of being as its factual concretion.
Therefore, from the above, it can be asserted that so far from the
Husserlian and Heideggerian understanding of truth, Aquinas’s doctrine of
esse has to be largely understood as reference to simple “fact of
existentia” i.e., that by which something is constituted outside its own
causes. This is rendered in Latin as: Esse ut actus, an act deeply hidden in
things, which ought not to be confused with esse in actu, which is the
immediate, experienced fact that can be pointed to. The entities of beings
that surround us, are only surfaces “mistaken for depth.” Thus, esse as an
act, is never grasped in judgement, given that judgement grasps only
essences, “merely fact of existence.”
What has transpired in this section on the act of being, is best captured in
Rahner’s words that: in knowing being, one knows the Being. In taking the
act of being in such complex sense, points to the fact that act of being
and analogy of being are correlates. In fact, the idea of the act of being

72
Heidegger, Being and Time, Section 44, 265.
73
Ibid.
74
Günter Figal, The Heidegger Reader, trans, Jerome Veith, (Bloomington, Indiana
University Press, 2009), 63.
75
Ibid.,
30
seems empty without one ascertaining analogy of being. This statement is
justified as follows:76
 The foundational relation of the analogical formality of being for the
doctrine of God is the realization that there can be nothing in the
conclusion of our reasoning that is not implicitly and present in the
premises.
 If “being” means only “being material” in the premises that found
our reasoning to the existence of God, then “being” can only mean
“being material” in our conclusion. Hence the analogical character
of being is prior to, and the foundation for, the philosophic judgment
that God exists, although some recognize the nature of this premise
only after realizing the conclusion they have drawn.
 The judgment that being is only material being is possible in a
notional or merely conceptual sense because this is imaginable; this
judgment is not valid, because the causal inference to God is
warranted. But this causal inference to God is itself possible
because “to be” or “being” does not originally mean merely and
exclusively “to be material” or “material being.”
Therefore, given the complexity of the understanding of being, it suffices
to observe that
the difference is not contained in the genus, so that if being were held
formally to mean merely “material being” then the differentiae of material
being would be held not to be real: which is contrary to fact, showing that
being is irreducible to any genus or species. This calls for the
understanding of being in terms of identity and diversity. IN this sense of
analogy, every being has with all other beings something identical and
something diverse. Diversity is taken in the “mode, the grade, the
essence, the measure” according to which such beings possess
being/esse/existence.

Chapter Three
Analogia Entis: Analogy of Being…

In the Aristotelian scheme of things, analogy is discussed as we saw in the

first year, under the theory of general logic. That is the theory of
predication, where the notable case of application is being. Thomas
Aquinas follows suit in basically acknowledging “analogy as a mode of
logical predication, the mode that is neither univocal nor equivocal” but is
analogical.77
76
This section is an adaptation from Steven A. Long, “The Doctrine of God and the Analogy
of Being” Nova et vetera, Volume 17, Number 4, (The Catholic University of America Press,
Fall 2019): 1102.
77
Gardell, Introduction to The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas IV: Metaphysics, 50.
31
From the experiential perspective, there are many and diverse beings. Yet
all of them share or are similar in so far as they are all being. Thus, for the
notion of being to correspond to the palpable variety/diversity in the
actual world, then that diversity must be accounted for.
Question: What kind of unity must characterize the notion of being if it is
to apply to every being and to the differences that obtain between
beings? This is an important question because: “Our knowledge can never
be wholly conceptualized, it never catches up with its ultimate term.” 78 It
is such dialectics in our knowledge of being, that is called analogy of
being. In analogy we seek for the unity between the conceptual
knowledge of being, which is unified and the actual knowledge of the
same which is diversified (beyond what is expressed in concepts). This is
because our knowledge of being proceed “beyond all conceptual
knowledge about beings.”79 In this case, the concept of being is not
denied but exceeded by the act, reality of diversity.
 Being is predicated analogically rather than univocally or
equivocally. Thus, Parmenides wrongly thought “that which is” is
used only in “one way.”
 For Aquinas, the term/concept of “being” is used in different ways.
For instance, as substance and in another as an accident (having
multiple meanings as categories). In this case, being may apply to
both substance and accident.
 When we grasp being as being, we grasp what is basically common
to all beings, but we are unable to separate it clearly from the
diversity of these beings, since being of beings posits
simultaneously what is common and what differs in them.
 An analogous concept: Is general since it implies what is common
and proper to all beings (as a concept), but although one, it applies
to the single cases in an essentially different sense. 80 Thus, apart
from the conceptual understanding, existents offer us more being.
Hence, being is always realized differently or analogously.
 Analogous concepts generally, are predicated of their subjects in a
sense that is partially identical and partially diverse. 81 For instance,
the concept of life…could imply physiological state, spiritual state
etc…The reason is that life as a perfection, while remaining the
same, is possessed in a diverse way. Such is the case with the
“concept of being.” A diverse mode of being imposes a diverse
mode of meanings. For instance, God and creatures are beings, but
they are not in the same way, because God is being in the total
sense, while creatures are such in a partial sense. Our knowledge
78
Goreth, Metaphysics, 110.
79
Ibid., 111.
80
Ibid.
81
Juan Jose Sanguineti, Logic and Gnoseology (Banglaore: Theological Publications in India,
1988), 58.
32
 about being, must therefore, grasp each being, “while reaching out
beyond every single one of them to other beings, and thus,
ultimately, to being itself, as the final goal of all inquiring and
knowing.”82
 In analogy there is unity-diversity of the real. This is because by its
nature, the analogical concept “expresses only one perfection, in
which many concur (God and creatures both have being), but at the
same time a diversity in the mode of possessing it.”83 The concept
of being, though remaining unchanged, it is used in quite different
senses when applied to different things. God’s manner of being is
different from that of any creature. Since GOD IS Being, of which
cannot be said of any creature. Thus, in the world there is a
hierarchy of “existents”, One possessing the perfection, and others
more or less…
 Another way of describing notion of analogy is through similarity
and dissimilarity. Every existent is un-confusable with every other
existent, and at the same time has a similarity with. The similarity is
founded on the like characteristic.
 In general terms, analogy implies order of some kind, and order
presupposes a unifying principle. As such true analogy requires:
 A plurality of things
 Related to each other
 According to certain order, and
 Brought together by the mind under one, unifying concept.
 The notion of similarity and dissimilarity gives way to types of
analogy: Proportionality and Attribution.

Analogy of Proportionality: it is about similarity of relations

Such analogy is arrived at from proportions among the analogates based
on their similarity. In this case, analogical denomination speaks of a
relation or relations between certain things. 84 Wherever there is a relation,
there is a community or simply a common element which in the case of
analogy is considered from two sides: 1) From the analogates, i.e., things
which are related to each other, 2) of the concept in which the mind seeks
to unify the diversity confronting it.
Hence, a concept “is analogous in a proportional sense when it applies to
different subjects not in the same way, but in a proportional way.” 85 The
reality of being is realized in the world in the proportion to the nature of
beings. Each being exists in its own way, according to its capacity. The
more perfect natures “possess the act of being” in a more intense, more

82
Goreth, Metaphysics, 112.
83
Sanguineti, Logic and Gnoseology, 59.
84
Gardell, Introduction to The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas IV: Metaphysics, 51.
85
Sanguineti, Logic and Gnoseology, 60.
33
noble way and finally the being of God proportioned to His infinite essence
as an infinite Being identical to His essence.
As already stated, being is not univocal which signifies one thing however
disparate its instances but is intrinsically analogical with the analogicity of
proper proportionality. In De Veritate, Aquinas identifies the analogy of
being, true, and good, with that of proper proportionality. Proper
proportionality is only properly applicable to God in relation to creatures.
It is not a reciprocal proportion but does allow for a “one way”
proportioning of creature to God. It is not strictly speaking a proportion
that could determine God in relation to creatures. Hence, in an elaborate
manner Long explains:

The analogy of proper proportionality—as distinct from any

analogy of proportion—does not require proper reciprocal
proportion to
exist between the things analogically likened to one another. It
allows such
an analogical proportion where it may be found—as it is found
among finite
created analogates—but it does not of itself require it, and it
transcends
generic and specific unity. =us the analogy of being as an analogy
of proper
proportionality can extend to God, who is infinitely transcendent of
the
creature. The creature is really ordered to God, but not the
converse: and
the analogy of proper proportionality alone permits intrinsic
attribution of
God without implying any determinate real relation of God to
creature.86

Hence, analogy of proportionality so considered covers a large spectrum

of Thomistic metaphysics where the relation between potency-act,
essence-act of being, and accident-substance are analysed. However,
proper proportionality also points out to a deeper relation in being.

Analogy of attribution: the comparison of several to one

Is the most explicit in Aristotle, even applying it as the special case of
being, and considered the object of metaphysics. Here the unity of the
analogous concept stems, from the “fact that al analogates (except the
principal) are referred to one and the same term (principal analogate).” 87
In the analogy of attribution, there is:
 A primary analogate, i.e., analogue in which alone the idea signified
by the analogous term is intrinsically realized.

86
Long, “The Doctrine of God and the Analogy of Being” Nova et vetera, 1108.
87
Gardell, Introduction to The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas IV: Metaphysics, 53.
34
  The secondary analogates have the formality predicated of them
through extrinsic determination.
Question: Why are things similar? In this case, one is seeking for what
accounts for the similarity, or simply stated on what measure is the
similarity explained. Thus, there is hierarchy where there is a principal
analogates on whose others depend. In the analogy of attribution, there is
an organization of meanings according to the order of reference to a
unity. For instance, being is said of the accident insofar as it orders itself
to substance. In this case, the beingness of the accident to attributed to
the beingness of the substance. The colour green is but is always in
relation to substance. The creature is, but God is in the stronger sense,
given that the beingness of the creature depends on the being of God.
Hence, analogy of attribution entails when: “A concept is predicated of
one in the principal sense, and of others in a secondary and derived
sense.”88 It is analogous concept so long as that it is spoken of many
senses (multipliciter dicitur). However, these many are organized, to a
subject which will be spoken of per prius, while the others will be spoken
of per posterius (through a certain attribution of the central meaning). The
principal analogate in this case is one that has indicated perfection in a
superior way.
Thus, the analogy of attribution is improper where the perfection is only
realized in the principal analogate. If being exists only in God (as the
Ipsum Esse Subsistens), and not in the many creatures (in accidental
manner), it is improper. Instead, in the proper analogy of attribution “the
perfection corresponds to all the analogous, ‘just as being is said of the
substance and of the accident.’” For instance:
 The proposition, The Substance is. This contains a primary, but not
absolute meaning of being when compared to: The accident is.
 But when saying: God is, the sense of being is absolute, to the point
that the predicate identifies itself with the subject given that: God is
the subsistent being.
It must be noted that the two types of analogies are not in reality
separated from one another…but they include each other reciprocally.
Instead, the two represent two moments of participation, the static and
the dynamic where: “proportionality tarries on the similarities of structure,
on isomorphisms of reality, while attribution adds an essential
dependence of a causal type (dynamic).”
Thus, the concept of being is analogous, since it is transcendent. It
comprises absolutely all reality and is not determined by anything else. It
is the concept possessing the wider extension and the smallest
comprehension. In this regard, it could be misleading, to refer to the
concept of being as the most abstract. The concept of being “abstracts
88
Sanguineti, Logic and Gnoseology, 62.
35
from nothing, since all that from which it might abstract, all the concrete
determinations of beings, are themselves being. Therefore, the concept of
being is not the most abstract, but the most concrete of all concepts:
since absolutely every reality is being, the concept of being comprises it
unto its last concrete particularities.” 89 It is mainly Thomistic thinkers who
propagate the analogy of being. Opposed to Thomistic notion of analogy,
we have Dun Scotus who defended the Univocity of being.

Metaphysics of Dun Scotus, 1266 -1308

He is known for his originality, since his work is neither Aristotelian nor
Augustinian. He was born in Scotland and joined the Franciscan order in
1278, the Order of Friars Minor (OFM), and was ordained a priest in 1291.
He did his studies at Oxford when the anti-Thomistic sentiments were
high, the main work was the monumental commentary on the Sentences
that was known as Opus Oxoniense, came to be known as the Ordinatio.
For Scotus, Metaphysics is an autonomous science concerned with being
as being and its transcendental attributes. He saw the transcendental
notion as one that is applicable to reality but not included in the
Aristotelian ten categories. This is a super-category. Hence, the concept of
being is irreducibly simple, indefinable and designates a subject whose
existence implies no contradiction. The three concepts, one, true and
good, are interconvertible with being and with one another. The
transcendental attributes and predicates like wisdom, knowledge,
freedom and benevolence transcend all definite genera. And thus, there is
no real distinction between the Mercy, and Justice of God.
That Metaphysics deals with being, but not being as the greatest
perfection, but as ‘ens commune’, being as the most common perfection
that precedes every determination, including the division between finite
and infinite. “This is being that is predicable of all that is.” This is the
univocal conception of being, and is thus predicated in the same way of
everything, in all the cases being means the same. 90
Individuation is not according to Scotus due to quantity of matter the
individual has, but individuation is accounted for through the particular
form, ‘ecceity’, that is superimposed on the specific form. It is the specific
form that gives the individual its specific characteristics, hence each
individual has his own individual form, Peter has Peterness, and Tom,
Tomness.

89
Goreth, Metaphysics, 114.
90
Mondin, A History of Mediaeval Philosophy, 372.
36
Chapter Four

The Metaphysical Structure of Being

Introduction
Structure of being is primarily applies to contingent realities. Contingent
beings have distinct and definite character of some sort. In that realm one
can talk of the structure of being. The metaphysical structure of being i.e.,
is concerned with primary determination that constitutes the most
fundamental distinctions of being in general. The question of the structure
in contingent being is crucial; since from the concept of being as
analogous i.e., similarity and dissimilarity, being reveals twofold
characteristics of similarity and dissimilarity thus cannot be simple, it
must be composed. This is because, a contingent reality is entirely similar
as being to every other reality and is also dissimilar or opposable as
contingent to every other reality.
The universe contains beings that are diverse, not only in number but also
in species and the perfection of the universe demand these diversity and
inequality. Aquinas explains this in terms of the divine goodness that no
particular being can claim the fullness of that goodness, hence, the notion
hierarchy in being. And together they form a whole, universe, being the
representatives though not fully of the divine goodness. At the peak of the
hierarchy, we have the angels, conceived as immaterial substances. 91
Below the angels we have the human beings that are partly spiritual and
partly material. The material beings exhibit composition, hence a
constitutive co-principle of perfection,” ‘in virtue of which of which a
substance is called a being’, and a constitutive co-principle of limitation ‘in
virtue of which it is such- and –such a being.’” The constitutive principles
inhere in the mobile being thus co-principles of corporeal being, hence
they are objectively distinct yet they are incapable of existing apart.
Aquinas points out that this composition in being governs all finite beings,
i.e., limited to being such and such a particular kind of being. 92 The
question of limitation is tied up with the issue of God’s creation, since God
cannot just create Being, since this would be to create himself, hence he
creates angelic beings, human beings, and below human beings we have,
Animals and plants, and lastly the four elements fire, air, water and earth.
“There is consequently limiting factor within each created being which is
not being itself. This St. Thomas calls the creature’s essence, quiddity, or
nature.”93

91
Maurer, A History of Philosophy, Medieval Philosophy, 175.
92
Walsh, A History of Philosophy, 126.
93
Maurer, A History of Philosophy, Medieval History of philosophy, 176.
37
Metaphysics, is interested in finding out what accounts for the multiplicity
in contingent beings. Whatever accounts for composition in contingent
beings is about the constitutive parts of one single subject. It is the
composition based on principles of being. The structure of a contingent
being consists co-relative elements, real co- principles such as: substance
and accident; act and potency; essence and existence; matter and form.

4.1 Act and Potency

4.1.1 Origin of the notion
Originates in Aristotle, and regarded by some as the cornerstone of his
philosophy. The doctrine of act and potency draws its origin for the
Eleatics on the one hand, and Heraclitus on the other pertaining the
question of change (becoming) and permanence (being). The scholastics
will consider it under the question of multiplicity versus unity.
In his book, Physics, Aristotle searches for “what accounts for change.”
In relation to the principle of change Accounts employs the notion of
Act and Potency. Aristotle, even before he explains about Act and
Potency, had already explained the co-principles of matter and form are
distinguished as act (form) and potency (matter). He later invokes Act and
Potency as “the key to the understanding of motion, which is defined in
these very terms as the act of what is in potency as such, that is, so far as
it is in potency.”94
In Metaphysics for Aristotle act and potency constitutes the first division of
being. Aristotelian solution to the problem of motion, through act and
potency is the mid-ground to the extremes represented by Parmenides
and Heraclitus.
For Parmenides:
 Between being and non-being, there is no alternative. In so doing
Parmenides, denies the fact of change/becoming.
 In his writing, a poem called On What Is.95 The first part of the poem
is called The Way of Truth, Parmenides holds the position that there
is no change, no becoming, no coming to be. Reality turns out to be
unchanging, eternal, motionless, perfect, and single. There is just
one thing: the World. His monism is absolute. What we think is a
changing world is only the result of illusion and deception.
 The case of reality is states as follows:
 What is, is.
 What is not, is not.

94
Gardell, Introduction to The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas IV: Metaphysics,183.
95
On this refer to the article, Gustavo E. Romero, “Parmenides reloaded”
38
  Nothing can come to be from what is not, because ‘what is not’ is
not something. Creation ex nihilo is nonsense. Change is impossible
since, for Parmenides,
Hence, for Parmenides, change is the occupation of empty space, but
there cannot be ‘empty space’. Reality must then be an unchanging block.
The effect of Parmenides’ thinking is that being “cannot come from being
which already is; in other words, what is cannot become (what it already
is).”96 Where there is nothing, nothing can emerge. Parmenides from his
deduction fails to account for becoming.
On the contrary, Heraclitus forges for becoming. For Heraclitus:
 The only reality is becoming/change.
 Behind the incessant flow of appearances, no abiding principle or
reality is to be found.
The problem with Heraclitus’s position is that “if being is denied and only
becoming affirmed, even becoming would seem to be ruled out; for what
possible meaning is there to a becoming that does not become
something, some being?”97 The following are some of the positions on
change attributed to Heraclitus:
 “The total balance in the cosmos can only be maintained if change
in one direction eventually leads to change in the other, that is, if
there is unending ‘strife’ between opposites.” 98 In Heraclitus, strife
and war are metaphors for the dominance of change in the world, or
becoming as the reality.
 “You do not step in the same river twice.” The river-image illustrates
the kind of unity that depends on the preservation of measure and
balance in change.
4.1.2 Explanation, Act and Potency
From both Parmenides and Heraclitus, the problem is to salvage both
being and becoming. Such is the context of co-principles of act and
potency. How do we metaphysically account for change and being?
 Need for the recognition of an intermediate state between
being as fully determined, which is being in act, and non-being
which is considered as pure nothing, i.e., becoming.
 The intermediate state is being in potency, “which is real
though not yet perfectly realized.”
 Change becomes possible and explained as a transition from
being in potency to being in act. For example, a statue carved

96
Gardell, Introduction to The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas IV: Metaphysics, 184.
97
Ibid.
98
This is taken from G. S. Kirk, J.E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers,
second edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 193.
39
 from the marble, first does not exist in act in the naked
marble. In the fabrication, a statue changed from a statue in
potency to a statue in act.99
 In reality, every change is a transition or a going from being in
potency to being in act. In this both being and becoming are
safeguarded. Therefore, notions of act and potency resolves
the problem of change and being.

4.1.2.1 Potency: Among the Thomistic theses, one of them reads:

“Potency and act are a complete division of being. Hence, whatever is
must be either pure act or a unit composed of potency and act as its
primary and intrinsic principles.”
Potency like possibility must be related to existence, it can exist.
Whatever can exist, may not yet exist in reality, “it exists only in the mind
of the one conceiving it, ultimately and basically in the mind of God.”
However, the potency must exist in real subject, since it is something real
in the subject. Being in potency belongs to the order of reality. Potency
determines the realization or actualization of reality. Nevertheless, to be
in reality, it is not necessary to be in act. This point escaped Parmenides.
Instead, potency is real, it is a real mode of the subject, though not actual.
For instance, in the case of the marble: The statue is in the marble that
has been carved, but it is there in potency.
 Potency is always conceived in relation to act. This is the key nature
of potency. Potency in relation to act is always an imperfection to
the state of perfection or completion.
 Where there is potency, there is imperfection, of necessity: Thus,
potency is characterized by:
 Relation to act…
 And imperfection…
 Aristotle names two types of potency:
 Active Potency, the power to effect a change in another as
other…
 Passive Potency, the capacity a thing has to be changed by
another as other.
 In general, Potency is considered as subjective or objective. It is the
subjective potency that is rendered either as active (the principle of
activity in an agent) or passive potency (the capacity of a thing to
be changed by another).
 Being-in-potency, is the middle ground between being-in-act on the
one hand, and sheer nothingness or non-being on the other.
However, becoming or change is “not a matter of being arising from
non-being, but rather of being-in-act arising from being-in-potency.

99
Gardell, Introduction to The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas IV: Metaphysics, 186.
40
 It is the actualization of a potential – of something previously non-
actual but still real.”100
It can thus be stated that: Change and permanence, multiplicity and unity,
are all real features of the world”, but they are real features of the world
only if there is a distinction between “what they are in act and what they
are in potency.”101 There is a distinction in things between what they are
in act and what they are in potency. Thus, from the modern perspective:
 If the Eleatics, i.e., Parmenides and Zeno of Elea were correct, there
would be no world of distinct, changing things and events for the
physicist, chemist, or biologist to study. Even perceptual
experiences, fundamental to modern science would be entirely
illusory.
 On the other hand, if Heraclitean position is to be held, there would
be no stable, repeatable patterns for the scientist to uncover, i.e.,
no laws of physics, or even periodic table or biological species. In
other words, no way to infer from the observed to unobserved.
 To affirm both the Eleatic and the Heraclitean positions, the
distinction between act and potency is important.

4.1.2.2 Act: When a thing is, but is not as in potency. Act can only be
manifested through contrast with potency. But there is a notable
difference:
 Where act is included in the very notion of potency, the converse is
not true. Act does not necessarily imply potency.
 The first meaning of act is completed being (perfection), which may
be only relatively complete. But we know of Pure Act, which is
relative to nothing.
 Act is prior to potency.
 Division of act: As
1. Movement to potency, Operative act, as operation…
2. Substance, i.e., as form of some matter, Entitative act, act under
its static aspect
Also as:
1. Pure Act, it is the unreceived act, devoid of potency and is not
received in potency… God is the Pure Act.
2. Mixed Act: It admits of potency. It is any act that enters into
composition with potency. Mixed act is divided according to the
following:
 Form or
 Operation

100
Edward Feser, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction
(Heusenstamm/Germany: Editiones Scholasticae 2014), 33.
101
Ibid., 35 – 36.
41
  In the static order/entitative act, mixed act may refer to the
essence, this will be essential act, or it may also refer to existence,
as an existential act.
 From the dynamic order/operation, there is a distinction, i.e.,
 The spiritual activity/immanent act or
 The physical activity/transeunt act

Therefore, a pictorial representation of Act can be rendered as follows:

Pure: Unreceived

ACT substantial
form
essential
In the order of being
accidental form
(Static order) existential =
existence (esse)

Mixed
Immanent
action
In the Order of Operation
Transeunt
action

4.1.3 Some principles governing the relation between

act and potency
1. There is priority of act to potency: Though they are co-
constitutive/correlative of mobile beings, act and potency, there is a
definite order, a sequence between them. Act is always prior, since

42
 it accounts for potency. But potency does not account for act as
such. According to Aristotelian Metaphysics:
 Act is prior to potency in terms of concepts, or definition. This
is because potency is defined by act. Potency is always in
relation to act.
 In the order of time, there is a distinction. The individual is in
potency before being in act; the imperfect precedes the
perfect. The “potentially existent must always come from the
actually existent.”102
 According to substance or perfection, here act is again first
because for Aristotle: “Everything that comes to be moves
toward its principle and end; for the principle is the final
cause, and the becoming is for the sake of the end, but the
end is the actuality.”103 The priority of act here stems from the
priority of the final cause, which must be act.
 That Eternal beings are prior to corruptible ones. However,
eternal beings have no potency to nothingness/nonbeing,
thus, they are not in potency.
2. Every activity has its principle in act: Activity must proceed
from a being in act with respect to the aim and scope of activity. In
other words, as the Scholastics expressed it: What is in potency
cannot be reduced to act unless by a being in act (quod est in
potentia non reducitur in actum nisi per ens actu). Potency cannot
raise itself to the level of act. Thus, only a being already in act,
exercising efficient causality can bring that about. However, though
necessarily in act, the agent “must also have the potency to act.” 104
This possible in the created reality, where it is possible to be in act
and potency, but not in the same respect. Hence: “For the exercise
of efficient causality the agent must be in act through possession of
form (or perfection) which is to be produced in another; and must at
the same time be in (active) potency as regards the action to be
performed.”105
3. The limitation of act by potency: In Aquinas, the doctrine of and
potency receives greater attention than it does in Aristotle. Finite
being is explained as a composition of act and potency. Finite,
generally implies, limited. Thus, the metaphysical principle of
limitation of being raises the question: What is it that limits a being
intrinsically? The act can only be limited by potency. In the
composition of act and potency, act is related to potency as the
limited to the limiting. For instance: Act of itself means perfection.
But if the perfection is limited, there must be a reason for the
limitation. And the reason cannot be in the perfection itself; “for if
102
Gardell, Introduction to The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas IV: Metaphysics, 194.
103
Metaphysics, Book θ, 1050 a 6 – 9.
104
Gardell, Introduction to The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas IV: Metaphysics, 195.
105
Ibid.
43
 perfection is limited by itself then perfection is by nature
imperfection, which is a contradiction. The only principle that can
limit a perfection must be distinct from it yet united with it, that is
potency.
4. Multiplication of act by potency: If potency is the intrinsic
principle of limitation, it is also, the principle of multiplication.
Wherever there is plurality of perfection, the perfection must be
limited. We know such limitation is not by itself. It is only limited by
potency, which linted act by receiving it and making its plurality
possible.
The final concern is whether there is a distinction between act and
potency? Thomists regard the distinction between act and potency as a
real distinction. The real distinction “reflect differences in extra-mental
reality itself.”106 In keeping with the Thomists, for it is only potency which
ultimately accounts for the limitations on a thing’s actuality. Hence, the
second Thomistic theses reads:
Because act is perfection, it is limited only by potency which is
a capacity for perfection. Hence, a pure act in any order of
being exists only as unlimited and unique; but wherever it
(act) is finite and multiplied, there it unites in true composition
with potency.
Matter limits the material thing to be such, in particular time and place.
However, for Scotists (followers of Dun Scotus), they hold that the
limitations of a thing’s actuality is accounted for by reference to a thing’s
cause. For them, the cause of the imperfections in a thing is because the
cause put it. The Thomistics counter such argument by stating that: such
an extrinsic principle (cause) of limitation is possible only if there is an
intrinsic principle, i.e., something in the limited thing itself by virtue of
which its cause is able to limit its actuality. Such intrinsic limiting principle
can only be potency.
For Thomas Aquinas, Reality i.e., being itself, has existence understood in
terms of ACT and POTENCY or both. Since any reality must be either
mutable or immutable. However, the mutable reality is what concerns us
here. A mutable being is in act in regard to all the perfections it has and in
potency in regard to all perfections is capable of. A contingent being is a
composite of act and potency.
The ‘to be’ of a contingent being is limited. And whatever limits it to that
‘to be’ is a principle of limitation as its potency. For instance, man’s
substantiality, life and rationality are `’acts’ since they perfect and
determine his being in its respective order as man. Potency is correlative
to act. Any being, [contingent] in so far as it has not yet received certain
perfection, is capable of receiving it. It has the aptitude for act. For
106
Feser, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, 36.
44
instance, Hydrogen is in act as Hydrogen, same to Oxygen, but both have
the potency of being water.
Therefore, the relation between act and potency in a contingent being is
of the completing to the incomplete and perfecting to the perfectable.
From the Middle Ages, philosophers began to look upon composition of
existence and essence as particular instance of the potency and act
relation. Act and Potency are related closely to Existence and Essence. In
a contingent being, existence is to their essence as like a determining act
to a determinable potency.

4.2 Existence and Essence

How can being be analysed under the terms of essence and existence?
Aquinas holds that in created being “the principles of essence and
existence differ by real distinction.” 107 On real distinction, essence and
existence aspects are primary data for the intellect and inseparable from
the very notion of being. In our ordinary life, being “comes to us” as that
which is, meaning “as something, an essence, endowed with the
significant trait of be-ing or existing.”108 Essence and existence are thus
constituent principles of being, and one is eliminated or the other from the
notion of being, the notion of being itself is eliminated.
On the distinction between essence and existence there are two positions:
1. Denies the real distinction,
2. Affirms the real distinction.
Denying the real distinction amounts to being having no real composition,
no structural differentiation. This means, being will be a crude reality like
a solid rock or simply all of a piece. Those who deny real distinction, hold
that: essence and existence is taken as a manner of speech only with
subjective value. Such speech lacks foundation in reality. That essence
and existence is only conceived by the mind.
On the other hand, affirming real distinction implies that essence and
existence are distinct ontological principles, where the ultimate structure
of being comes as the composition of the two. However, such distinction
does not render the two independent existents. Essence and existence are
interdependent principles that constitute one and same being. Thus,
essence and existence is not a distinction of things having existence
before composition.
In philosophy, the problem of essence and existence arises:
1. Out of the formal multiplication and limitation of created beings

107
Gardell, Introduction to The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas IV: Metaphysics, 201.
108
Ibid., 202.
45
 2. Out of the relation of created beings to uncreated, unique and
infinite.
We know beings as many and limited. The explanation for this
multiplication and limitation (many and limited) must be derived form
some principles either intrinsic or extrinsic. In the material realities/being,
is composed of matter and form. In composed beings, matter receives
form and in receiving limits it and makes possible its multiplication.
However, this solution does not include the angelic substance, given that
they are not composed. In this the explanation of matter and form does
hold in angelic substances. The solution lies in the notions of essence and
existence.
4.2.1 Historical note on Essence and existence
Aristotle does not explicitly deal with essence and existence. Though
there is nothing in his philosophy that opposes distinction. Aristotelian
logical tendency is toward the real distinction.
The Neo-Platonists offer some clarity on the essence and existence.
Boethius (477 – 570). contrasts “to be” (esse) with “what is” (quod est).
However, Boethius does not use esse in the existential sense (like
Aquinas), and is not even concerned with the reality of our distinction.
Boethius’ terminologies ‘esse’ and ‘id quod est’ becomes very useful in
the scholastic period. Boethius states that creatures are different from
God because in God the ‘esse’ and ‘id quod est’ are the same thing, while
in creatures these two factors are distinct.”109
 esse, means here the second substance or Aristotle’s secondary
substance i.e., the universal essence.
 id quod est, means the primary substance, i.e., the individual
(concrete) with all his specific and essential characteristics and all
his particular and accidental notes.
Hence, for Boethius, the distinction between esse and id quod est does
not mean like Aquinas’ distinction between existence and essence.
It is the Arabian philosophers, Alfarabi (+ 950) and Avicenna (980 – 1036)
the real distinction between essence and existence is clearly affirmed.
Alfarabi made use of Aristotle’s arguments from motion and from
contingency to argue for the existence of a first mover, and the necessary
Being, God.
For Avicenna, it is claimed he read Aristotle’s works 40 times until when
‘the scales fell from his eyes’ and he was able to capture its profound
sense. Avicenna interpreted existence as a sort of accident to essence. On

109
Mondin, A History of Mediaeval Philosophy, 186.
46
Necessity Avicenna, saw that is a primary concept, in that all beings are
necessary. However, necessity is of two kinds:
 Particular objects in the world; its essence does not involve
existence necessarily i.e., comes into being and goes. It is necessary
in the sense that its existence is determined by the necessary
action of an external cause. This is the realm of contingency.
 The necessary Being, the uncaused Being, it cannot receive its
essence from another nor can its existence form part of its essence.
Existence and Essence are identical. This ultimate Being is
necessary of itself, unlike the contingent beings.
It is in St. Thomas Aquinas, that the doctrine of real distinction for essence
and existence is put into proper perspective and due consideration. On
real distinction, Aquinas starts from:
 The conception/objective distinction of essence and existence.
 The consideration of received existence, where the argument is that
a received existence is “really distinct from the essence receiving
it.”110
From Ente et Essentia, Aquinas provides the following arguments:
 From chapter one of Ente et Essentia, Aquinas clarifies the
following terms:
o Ens…as a concrete term, as “that which is.” It is like
“Currens”, ‘one who is running.’ Thus, ens signifies a
subject possessing an act of being.
o Act of being is expressed by the infinitive, esse as the
exercise by the subject. Esse as such is an abstract
term, from their subject, for instance, whiteness is a
quality in abstraction from the subject of quality.
o Esse, denotes only the act of being, in the abstraction
from the subject of the act. For Aquinas, it better
expresses the active character of being. Esse, before
meant essence.
 Describes being (esse) as the actuality of essence, and the
two forms a composition that results in a being (ens). In
relation to God, that He has no other essence or nature than
being; “he is being in all its purity (esse tantum).”111 For the
creatures, receive being as a participation of the divine being,
their essences limiting the degree of this participation.
However, as Maurer rightly observes, there is nowhere does
Aquinas explicitly state that, being (esse) is a more perfect

110
Gardell, Introduction to The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas IV: Metaphysics, 205.
111
Armand Maurer, “Introduction” St. Thomas Aquinas On Being and Essence (Toronto: The
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1968), 9 – 10.
47
 actuality than form/essence. That is only implied in his
statements. Later in his metaphysical maturity, Aquinas is
clear that “to be (esse) is the actuality of all acts and
consequently the perfection of all perfections.” 112 IN this case,
existence holds the primacy of place in the order of being.
o For Aquinas, Essence, “Is that through which and in
which, that which is has being.” It is the subject of being
or that which possesses being. Essence is also the
formal cause of being of a thing. Like humanity formally
specifies the being of human being and renders him a
human being.
o Thus, from De Ente et Essentia, whatever is not included
in the concept of essence of a thing is extrinsic to the
essence, hence superadded from without. Existence is
not included in the concept of the essence of anything,
therefore, is added from without.
o In the created beings, essence and existence are really
distinct, where with the first being, they are identical.
Thus, if the identity of essence and existence is an
uncaused being, it necessary follows that the caused
being does not have this identity. Since in the
created/caused being, its essence is not its existence.

4.2.2 Systematic summation on essence and existence

 The being whose constituent principles are rendered distinct, is the
concrete substance, the actual existent and not merely the possible.
 The two principles: one is an essence/subject; the transcendental
thing (res); the other is existence. Aquinas refers to existence as:
the “to be as such”, “the act of being,” and “existence” respectively
rendered as ipsum esse, actus essendi, and existentia. Between
essence and existence lies a real distinction, which is not simply in
the mind, not a product of reason (logical), but it is embedded in
reality (ontological), a mark of its structure.
 Though essence and existence are really distinct, they are not pre-
existent things which come together to form a third. In the world of
creatures, “before being there is neither essence nor existence,
entities which are absolutely incapable of standing alone.” 113 Thus,
neither essence nor existence exists apart. This is why, it is said that

112
Thomas Aquinas, De Potentia, VII, 2, and 9.
113
Gardell, Introduction to The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas IV: Metaphysics, 207 –
208.
48
 essence and existence are correlative principles having no reality
except as “complement of each other.”
 Essence and existence complement each other or are related to
each other as potency and act respectively. Existence (esse), is all
act, and for any given being it is said to be the ultimate act or
perfection. If existence is act, essence represents potency, a real
capacity for act.
 Real composition of essence and being (existence) follows from the
fact that no creature is its own being. Every creature receives its
being from God according to the measure of its essence.
 As correlative principles, essence and existence function as
determining principle. However, existence, not essence is the
ultimate act, last perfection.
 The essence of a thing, is referenced as What it is. It is what is
“grasped intellectually when we identify a thing’s genus and
specific difference.”114 An essence accounts for the many
particulars.
Note: In spiritual essences/substances like angels, there is potency but no
prime-matter, thus their matter is simply their essences. The spiritual
essence is in potency to existence, but as essence it is all act. Hence,
there are no individual angels, but species of angels.

4.2.3 Essence and Properties

The distinction is important in the Contemporary analytic philosophy,
where there is usage of the term property. Analytic philosophers use
property to mean “any characteristic, feature or attribute of a thing.
But for Scholastics, a property is not simply any characteristic, instead
it a proper accident of a thing. Something proper to the thing “in the
sense of belonging to it given its essence.” 115
 Contemporary analytic philosophers typically characterize the
essence of a thing as itself a property or a set of properties, as
the property or properties the thing cannot exist without.
However, this is not what traditional metaphysicians had in
mind, and their differences is crucial.
 The essence of a thing is not a property or cluster of
properties. Rather, the essence is that “from which a thing’s
properties flow.” The essence is that which explains the
properties. For instance, given their essence as sensitivo
animalis rationalis, human beings have properties like: the
capacity for the perceptual experience, the capacity for
locomotion or self-movement, the ability to conceptualize,

114
Feser, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, 211.
115
Ibid., 230.
49
 ability to reason from one judgement to another in a logical
way.
 The essence of a thing must be distinct from the properties.
Remember an essence as a set of properties is as problematic
as treating a substance as a cluster of accidents. A thing’s
essence must be distinct from its properties as the ground of
their unity. This is just as a substance must be distinct from
the accidents that it grounds.
 Essence indicates what a reality is, whereas substance
indicates the mode of being of this reality.
Closely related to the notion of essence is nature, which strictly speaking
is distinct from essence.
4.2.4 NATURE: Commonly refers to the totality of objects in the
universe, or the total of all the forces operating in the bodies according to
the laws controlling these bodies.
In metaphysics, nature, refers to concrete, individual beings, and
applies to immaterial as well as material things. Therefore, it is the
ultimate principles of all operations in an individual being. Action follows
being so we say, the action manifests the being. Activities of being do not
just happen; they are determined by some principles within the being
itself. There is one ultimate principle in each being that is essence.
Therefore, nature is the essence of a thing in operation.
4.2.5 HYPOSTASIS: Latin, Suppositum. This is considered as self-
contained and autonomous in its being and operation. It is subsistence. Is
identical in its reality with substance, nature, and essence of a thing.
However, concept wise they are different. Hypostasis is generally
considered together with a notion of a person.

4.2.5.1 Metaphysical notion of a person

4.2.5.2 Origin
The term person is never used for the plants or animals, apart from man
and God. It must be stated that, Biology cannot account “for
personhood.”116 It must be stated that until the advent of Christianity,
there never existed the concept of person either in Greek or Latin. This is
because in pagan culture such a concept did not exist, because the
concerned cultures did not recognize the absolute value of the individual
as such, given that value was placed on the class, status and rank.
The term person came into use in first centuries of our era, from the
Christian revelation, especially, the Doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity. It
was chosen to indicate, what ‘in God’ is Three and what in Christ ‘is one’.

Ilia Delio, Re-Enchanting the Earth, why AI needs religion (Bangalore:

116

Theological Publications In India, 2021), 23.

50
There were two words adopted for that; one Greek, another Latin.
 ∏ρόσω∏ον: it meant a mask used by actors in the ancient theatre
performances. It was meant to hide the actor’s face and made the
voice to resound strongly. In this case, prosopon, also meant
character i.e. the one who is represented the actor’s mask.
Prosopon, referenced the “wearer of the mask.” However, in
theological discourse, the term lost its original meaning, and it came
to refer to the Greek term; ύ∏όσταις i.e. hypostasis, that was
translated in Latin as substantia, suppositum, substratum.
 Persona; it’s the Latin equivalent of the original meaning of the
Greek term, Prosopon. Persona, i.e., per (through) and sonare, i.e.,
to sound through. In this case a person is “one in whom there is a
‘sounding through.’”117 The word person implies relationality.
4.2.5.3 Development in its usage
It is from this understanding, of the substantia, suppositum, hypostasis
that various definitions of the “concept” person have come up, i.e., the
ontological understanding; psychological, ethico-axiological, and relational
etc. However, as it will be seen, only the ontological understanding
reaches the ultimate foundation of the person.
The Latin and Greek words, Persona and ypostasis, signifies something
singular and individual. Hence, in the Augustinian understanding, a
person means the single individual; it stands for a man, an individual of
the human species at the time of Augustine. On the term person and its
evolution, it is Augustine who gives us a clear picture as the following
explanation attests:

The first deepened examination of this concept was performed by

Augustine. His objective was to find a term which could be applied
distinctly to the Father, Son, and Spirit – without falling, on one
hand, into the danger of making of them three divinities, and, on
the other hand, into the danger of dissolving their individuality.
Augustine makes it seen that the terms ‘essence’ and ‘substance’
do not have this twofold virtue, in that they refer to aspects
common to all three members of the Trinity. This distinction instead
belongs to the term ‘ypostasis’ and its Latin correspondent
‘persona’, which ‘does not signify a species, but something singular
and individual’. Analogically, other than to God, this term is also
applied to man: ‘singulis quisque homo (…) una persona est’ (Every
single man (. . .) is a person).

117
Delio, Re-Enchanting the Earth, 23.
51
However, in Augustine we do not find a complete definition of person as
the one given by Severinus Boethius which has stood the test of time in
philosophy where it is taken up later by Thomas Aquinas. Hence, the first
proper ontological definition of Person comes from Boethius i.e. A Person:
Persona est rationalis naturae individua substantia; The person is an
individual substance of a rational nature. Which St. Thomas Aquinas takes
up as: ‘subsistens in rationale’, i.e. an individual subsistent of a rational
nature. Thomas Aquinas simplified the definition of Boethius, to a person
as a rational subsistent. Here subsistence here stands for; individual;
nature and substance. The following can be ascertained from the
definition:
 The person is the individual and concrete man i.e. in all his
concreteness; uniqueness and unrepeatability.
 Human nature is only part of the person.
 The Person as the totality of the individual being embraces; matter;
substantial form(soul), the accidental forms (height, colour, etc) and the
act of being (actus essendi). All in all, the act of being is the maximum
perfection as we already saw, since it confers actuality to substance and
all its determinations.
 Therefore; ‘the personality belongs necessarily to the dignity and
perfection of a reality, inasmuch as this exist by itself; that which is
understood in the name of a person.’
 The actus essendi gives the person, the property of
incommunicability where he/she becomes complete in himself/herself, i.e.,
ontologically/metaphysically closed.
The concept of person is all inclusive since it allows that what is being
spoken of is something distinct, subsistent and inclusive of all that is in
the thing. The concept of nature only deals with the essential elements of
a thing.
It has to be remembered that, for St. Thomas Aquinas, the principle of
personality is not the Soul but the act of being. Let sum up this reflection
on the meaning of person by quoting R. Guardini who says:
‘Person means that I, in my being, definitively, cannot be inhabited by any
other, but that in relation to me, I am only with myself; I cannot be
represented by any other, but I am guaranteed to myself; I cannot be
substituted by any other, but I am unique – this remains closed even if my
sphere of reserve is strongly damaged by intrusions and exteriorizations.’

The understanding of personhood touches on the unity of being. This will

be explained in the next chapter on Transcendental properties of being.
However, the original aspect of relationality in personhood seems not be
clearly brought out in Augustine, Boethius and Aquinas.

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4.2.5.4 A More Holistic Understanding of Personhood
It is the Greek Cappadocian fathers that develop relationality aspect
better in the 4th century. In this regard, Catherine LaCugna observes:
The ontological question of these theologians was not
answered by pointing to the ‘self-existent,’ to a being as it is
determined by its own boundaries, but to a being which in its
ekstasis through these boundaries in a movement of
communion. A person is thus not an individual but an open
and ecstatic reality, referred to others for his or her existence.
The actualization of personhood takes place in self-
transcendence, the movement of freedom toward communion
with other persons.118
What is the foundation of the Cappadocian idea of Personhood? It is in the
way they understood God, as the ultimate person. The personhood of God
does not lie in Him glossing over Himself, but in Communion, which entails
kenosis (Emptying of Himself). The implication is that:
 God’s ultimate reality cannot be located in Substance (What it is in
itself), but…
 God’s ultimate reality is found in personhood, (what God is toward
another). This is a different understanding of personhood from the
Boethius, and Aquinas, which we are familiar with founded largely
on Substance. Boethius, a Roman Senator emphasized Substance
over relationality.
The privileging of Substance solidifies individualistic connotations of
person as a centre of consciousness. Such understanding impacted the
Scholastic theology.
In the 20th century, Beatrice Bruteau, distinguished between an
Individual and a Person as follows:
 An individual is on the lower stage of reflexive consciousness,
while,
 Personhood reflects a higher stage of self-reflexive
consciousness. This means that, only “persons can enter into
communion consciousness.” Individuals tend to remain external
to one another.
Now, how can we describe a person in the contemporary setting?
“A Person is a conscious being in relation to everything else, one in whom
the matrix of relational life is expressed in a particular way and who
contributes to the unfolding of the world in a particular way.” 119 The
implications of such description of person are as follows:

118
As quoted by Delio, Re-Enchanting the Earth, 23 – 24.
119
Delio, Re-Enchanting the Earth, 24 – 25.
53
  The world is created through our relationships…and in turn the
world makes a demand on us to respond in relationship.
 The human person emerges from the dynamic interplay of nature
and environment.
 Personhood is a formative process of establishing a centre of
identity founded on: biological, physical, and cultural materials, and
shaping those materials in to an understanding of self, insofar as
“self is in relation to the world in which it lives.”
Emergence of Personhood is marked out by:
1. Coherence, and
2. Fecundity…
These two entails, struggling to exist amid diverse materials by making
every effort to:
 Integrate the forces of existence….and
 Optimising life by regulating, judging, perceiving, planning, and
decision making.
Thus, coherence and fecundity can be summed up in terms of self-
cultivation, as the mark of personhood. Coherence entails the world as
well. Since what we are persons is “never in isolation but always
embedded in the universe from which personhood emerges.”
 There must be integral relationship between person and universe….
thus, when our understanding of personhood changes, so does our
understanding of the universe, and when our understanding of the
universe changes, so does our understanding of personhood.
 Our world comes about, as a mutual creative dialogue between
mind and body, between personal and material context, and
between human culture and the natural world.
 Today with the development in natural sciences, we speak of the
human self as a being free and responsible, responsive to others
and to the environment, thus, essentially related and naturally
committed, and at every moment creative.
 Today with the scientific development in quantum theories, Physics
of matter and relationship, becomes impossible to imagine “a single
aspect of our lives that is not drawn into a coherent whole.” In this
case, the human person today represents the highest level of self-
reflective consciousness, and thus the most intense “physical being
open to the spirit.”
What does it mean to be a human person today?
 Is to be conscious of belonging to a whole and to act as a whole
within a larger whole.

54
  It is in the human person (who is open to ultimate meaning and
concern) that the orientation of matter toward spirit finds a new
level of meaning.

4.3 Matter and Form

All corporeal substances are composed of matter and substantial form.
The form is the nobler constituent, since it makes the substance to be
what it is. For instance, Substantial form of man is the soul, determines
him to be a human substance. The matter that enters into composition
with the substantial form has no determination or specification of its
own. It is a potency determinable by form, that it actualizes matter by
making it to be the matter of a particular substance.
4.3.1 The Principle of Individuation and Hylomorphism
Matter is what accounts for the presence of many individuals or
multiplicity in the same species. This is because, matter is extended in
space, it is divisible into parts, each of which may share in the same
form and thus belong to the same species.
Hence, the principle of individuation is Matter with extension, i.e.,
matter signed with quantity; it makes possible the multiplicity of
individuals in one species.
Experience of change either substantial or accidental, leads the mind
to discover a distinction in objects between substance and accidents,
and to the discovery of the hylomorphic composition of every material
substance. This will be taken in greater detail, as it warrants greater
attention.
The notion of change/becoming is ascribed to the material element in
their composition. In the process of change, some things change
radically, but also in the process there always remains an underlying
indeterminate substrate of change, called prime matter by Aristotle.
Hence, in order to explain change, there must be a principle in the
beings that change which accounts for that change. That is called the
principle of determinability, i.e., potency which is correlative to the
principle of determination i.e., esse.120
Thomas did accept Aristotelian doctrine of Hylomorphism, concerning
the composition of material substances, defining Prime matter as pure
potentiality and substantial form as the first act of a physical body. The
first act implies the principle that places the body in a specific class
and determines its essence.
4.3.2 Prime Matter
120
Walsh, A History of Philosophy, 127.
55
  Is in potentiality to forms which can be the forms of bodies, but in
itself, it is without form, hence pure potentiality.
 Cannot exist by itself.
 Thus, it was created together with form.
Thomas therefore is quite clear that only actual, concrete substances,
with individual compositions of matter and form actually exist in the
material world. However, Thomas realizes that the form needs to be
individuated, since, “The form is the universal element, being that
which places an object in its class, in its species, making it to be horse
or iron: it needs, then, to be individuated, in order that it should
become the form for this particular substance. What is the principle of
individuation?” The principle of individuation;
 Can only be matter.
 However, not just matter since is itself pure potentiality, has no
determinations that are necessary to individuate the form. Hence,
Thomas had to bring the accidental characteristic i.e., quantity, he
called the principle of individuation to be, materia signata
quantitate, that matter has the exigency for quantitative
determination that it receives from the union with form. The reason
is explained by Walsh, in that: “In the material things, this principle
of determinability is a principle of quantitative determinability, or
materia quantitate signata; and any form which is quantified is
thereby a form which is individuated.” This is the vestige of the
Platonic thinking that found its way to Thomas through Aristotle,
especially the notion of forms as ‘universal’, hence calling for
individuation.
However, for Thomas, the angels are finite, incorporeal, spiritual forms,
also called intelligences. And each of these intelligences is composed
of a constitutive co-principle of perfection and also a principle of
limitation or suchness. These beings have no Primary matter, thus no
principle of individuation within a species. Therefore, each angel is
totally its own species, differing in kind from others. Hence, each angel
is a subsisting form differing from other angels not only in number but
also in species, and this difference is not material, but purely formal
difference. “The angels are therefore arranged in a hierarchy according
to their degrees of formal perfection, from the angel nearest to God to
the angel most akin to the human species.”121
To wind up on the principle of individuation, Thomas tells us; “What we
must realize is that the matter which is the principle of individuation is
not just any matter, but only designated matter. By designated matter

121
Maurer, A History of Philosophy, Medieval Philosophy, 179.
56
 I mean that which is considered under determined dimensions.” 122 It is
owing to such matter that human beings differ in terms of sizes, weight
and shapes.

4.5 Substance and Accident

Being can be studies under its various modes or categories. For Aristotle,
there are ten ultimate genera of being, i.e., categories of being.
Categories are regarded as the most general kinds under which things fall.
The ten divides into Substance and accident. Substance understood being
which exists in itself, i.e., the one with a to be in itself, which inhering in
another. While accident understood that which inheres in another such as
a substance. There are nine distinct modes of accident: quantity, quality,
relation, action, passion, place, position, time, and possession.
The various accidents are said to be by virtue of relation to substance.
The being of accidents too is being in a formal sense. However, the
primary and fundamental being of the “predicamental order” is
substance.
The realm of categories/predicaments cannot be ascribed to every order
of being, but only to material beings. As such quantity and its derivatives
has no place in the world of spiritual substances. Aquinas, conceives of
the predicamental order as only applying to creatures. Thus, God remains
outside such domain or above it.
The relationship between substance and accident is founded on the reality
of change.
Chapter Five

TRANSCENDENTAL PROPERTIES OF BEING

Introduction
The question that ought to disturb is that, given the limitations of the
human mind, and we are not able to see the fullness of Being, how does
being “open” itself to us? This is because, being as we already stated
transcends any definition, and some concepts cannot account for all
reality. Thus, transcendentals express other ways of understanding and
saying being. They are not synonyms of being, but “rather refer to the
same reality.” That to which they refer is identical with being. The
transcendentals render explicit, an aspect of being, that was implicit. The
properties of being entail whatever is inseparable from and convertible
with being.123
However, as it will be noticed, distinctions among transcendentals are
only logical. The logical distinction is made by the mind to grasp what is
122
Aquinas, On Being and Essence, §, 4.
123
Gardell, Introduction to the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 117.
57
not distinct in reality. Thus, ontologically, there is no distinction among
the transcendentals. They are called properties of being, since they are
attributes valid for every existent, as being. This is because every act of
being, places a “thing” out of nothingness. The following are the
properties that illumine being:
 Unity/Oneness: Every being is one, undivided.
 Truth/intelligibility: Every being is said to be knowable.
 Goodness/desirability: Every being is desirable.
 Beauty
Hence, popularly rendered as being is one, true, good, and beautiful. They
are within that which makes being, the act of existing. However, in terms
of finite beings, their unity, truth, goodness, and beauty are justified only
within the First Cause. In other words, the being of the finite beings is
explainable through the Infinite Being. Hence, the First Cause Uncaused is
the emblem of Unity, Truth, Goodness and Beauty.
Every existing being is driven towards activity, i.e., action, or simply acts.
In this regard, transcendental aspects of being can be related to their
corresponding activities like knowledge, love and joy in relation to truth,
goodness, and beauty.
Therefore, when we think of being:
 It is always first as one/unity and not something else.
 We look at it through the intellect as true, i.e., intelligible, capable of
being known, and
 Is always perceived as desirable.
Each of the transcendental properties, includes in terms of meaning, the
meaning of the other, they are convertible not only with being, but with
each other too. It is in this case, that the transcendental properties
manifest the fullness of being. Each being is unity, and unity is truth, and
truth is goodness and beauty. Transcendentals, are also the foundation of
activities as “aspects of being.” This could be tabulated as follows in finite
beings:

TRANSCENDENTALS ACTIVITY
UNITY i.e., negation of division in The UNITIVE activity
being
TRUTH KNOWLEDGE,
Knowability/intelligibility

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GOODNESS LOVE, as desirability
BEAUTY JOY

In relation to Infinite Being the Transcendentals and their Activity, in

ontological terms, the Absolute Being, possesses the PURE ACT OF
EXISTENCE, from which ensues the operative activity of life, which is
creation. Thus, in the Absolute Being we could have the following
corresponding activities:
UNITY CREATION, as a unitive act of God
TRUTH WISDOM, i.e., perfect knowledge.
GOODNESS LOVE
BEAUTY JOY

Therefore, God is a self-possessing reality, a personal reality, entirely

present to Himself. It is from such self-possession, that He is Understood
as a Perfect Unity, the Trinitarian God in Christian sense encompassing
Immanent and Economic Trinity.

5.1 The Transcendental attribute of Unity

This is an aspect of being as undivided. The fact of undividedness about
every being is unity. Every being in our realm of experience presents itself
to us as a unity. It is “somehow one in itself.” This can be said of every
being. A being loses unity and ceases to be such being when it is
dismembered e.g., as tree through cutting into wood…
Thus, being and undividedness are the same reality. This is so given that
a disintegrated being does not remain. We are can talk of as many kinds
of unity as there are beings. Every single act of existing/being makes all
that is real in a being. In this case, the ultimate intrinsic principle of a
being, is the act of existing which is one, and at the same time its unifying
principle. Thus, the constituent principles like substance and accident, act
and potency, essence and existence in a contingent being are only
logically distinct but they are one as principles of one being. Where there
is one act of existing, all the principles constitute one and the same being.
But:
 A unity of non-living is different from one of a living being.

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  A unity of a spiritual being does not possess material unity.
 A Unity of the Absolute Being is not identical with unit of finite
being.
NB: Wherever there is more than one act of existing, there is more than
one being. Thus, in contingent beings:
 Existence is always joined to essence.
 Essence limits existence so that it is this certain kind of existence.
 In limiting existence, essence determines the mode of being which a
thing has.
 Thus, it is the essential mode of existence which a being exercises
that determines its unity. In this case, whether a being is multiple in
parts of few parts, is not a factor of determination. Hence, even
complex beings like some living beings could be more unified than
beings with fewer parts, e.g., non-living beings.
 Living beings with a higher mode of existence are radically more
unified than non-living beings. This is because of the demands of life
which call for a more concentrated direction of activity.
From the aforesaid, every act of existing brings actuality and
undividedness. There is unity throughout reality. Hence, unity is a
transcendental property since it applies to all being regardless of genus or
species.
Types of unity:

a. Composed/imperfect unity: A being is composed of parts

where the act of existing makes actual more than one principle in a
being. Such a unity a being has is of composition. Any composed
being is a limited being. Furthermore, a thing limited in being i.e., in
act of existing, will also be limited in its unity.
A composed being, as a being is undivided, but its unity is not absolute. In
this case, a limited being is dependent upon an external efficient cause
given that it has “itself no necessary claim to existence, and thus no
necessary claim on unity.” To be any being which is undivided, “unity of
composition”, it is undivided yes, but it is not indivisible. Since wherever
there are parts, there is always a possibility of disintegration, thus a
possibility of loss of unity and being.
All beings of experience are composed, thus have imperfect/unity of
composition. In this regard, there are many kinds of unities of composition
as there are kinds of composed beings.

b. Perfect unity: In the absence of composition or division, or a

being not being divisible, the implication is that such a being is “a

60
 whole from within itself.” It is cohesive in whatever parts or lack of
parts it may have. Thus, it is said to be integral in itself.
The more perfect a being’s unity is, “the more is its being.” The degree of
unity in any being is a sign of its perfection as being. Unity is a sign of
being, and a sign of perfection. As such, “where there is limited being
there will always be limited unity.” On the contrary, “where there is being,
there must be perfect unity. He who is Absolute Being, must be Absolute
One.”
 The fact is that unity in being is derived from the act of
existing.
 God is “His own Pure Act” of existing, joined to no potency,
unlimited, uncomposed, infinite.
 A being without composition, at any level is utterly simple,
without parts “outside” parts/extension. Such a being is
identified with himself in every respect, and that is the nature
of a unity of simplicity. It is the perfect unity, perfect integrity,
and perfect self-possession.
 Such a being is dependent on no other being, thus sufficient
unto itself. It is itself an undivided and indivisible unity… (Such
is the language rendered in the development of the Mystery of
God, as Trinity).
 Here there is no question of particular mode of existence or
modification of unity, since essence and existence are
absolutely one.

5.1.1 Unity in beings

Primary unity is exhibited within each being. However, there could be
unity between beings. Here we have more than one act of existing and so
the unity will be quite different, i.e., “from the unity within an individual
being.”

 Finite beings: Are united by their very participation in being.

They are united to one another and to God as finite sharers in Pure
existence.
 Each being here has its own existence and its own unity by
participation.
 Thus, there is not just a unity in each being but a “com-munity
among beings.”

61
  They are also united not only by their participation in
existence, but also by participation in same essence. For
instance, human beings are united in participating in the Pure
Act of existence, but also in their essence as Homo Sapiens
Sapiens.
 Beings with the same essence are united in same species.
That is the same essence multiplied in many individuals.
 Beings can also be united by sharing in some accidental
perfections. For instance, White/Black beings share in
Whiteness/blackness, they share one quality of colour. Here
we will also have some accidental unity, not based on an
intrinsic perfection, i.e., colour. However, there could be other
accidental unities based on spatial-temporal domains, or even
posture…Such are accidental unities given that they do not
affect essential nature of beings.
 From the unity in beings, we can work out a table of kinds of unity in
beings:

Within individual beings

Unity of composition (among parts, undivided but

divisible)
a. One act of existing-Unifying
one being…
This is a per se unity…(intrinsic
b. One essence determining unity)…or the essential unity
one kind of unity…
1. Unity between substances
and
This is unity per Accidens (non-
a. Accidents in one being… essential unity)
b. Unity between different
accidents in one being

5.1.2 Unity and Activity

Activity is derived from the “dynamic drive of beings to seek and express
fuller being.” This is also a spur to seek and fuller unity. It is the activities
that account for the unity of being. The activities also apart from
accounting for unity, they relate being to other beings, thus developing a

62
new unity. Refer to Martin Buber’s ICH- DU (I-THOU) relationship, that
entails the activities two subjects, leading to an inter-subjectivity of the
WE (This is explained below in relation to a person and activity).
A human being who grows in personal unity (integration, self-cultivation),
grows in unity; and then stretches out for a broader unity with “other
people and other things in a conscious and loving affirmation of being.”
The person (refer the previous chapter on the notion of Person), engages
in the activity of relating with other subjects. From the inter-subjective
thinking of Buber and partly Mounier, the person is marked by
incorporated existence and incarnate existence; he is continually
projected outside of himself into the world. Hence, that the person can
only be in rapport with others. In this regard, as a measure of inter-
subjective living the following are prominent characteristics that mark
person in rapport with others:124
 Vocation: that every person has an un-substitutable place in
the universe, i.e., in the universe of persons, hence an
inherent value.
 Action: The person in his life is marked by incessant action,
i.e., the longed-for unity until death since it is not realized.
 Communication: This is the area of the encounter, meeting
with others. That we discover our personhood in others or
through others. Hence, the first experience of person is the
experience of the second person, the other person i.e., “the
you;” and then, “the we,” later then comes, “I.” This is very
much close to the African underpinnings of self-understanding
that; “We are, therefore, I am”.
The true human community is where there is communion among persons,
where there is profound bond in the interiority of the incarnate existences
that are living in communion. Hence, “The community of persons is the
community of the neighbour, of the ‘I’, and of others capable of realizing a
‘we’.” However, before, this inter-subjectivity is realized, every person
needs to return to himself and realize his own act of being, to repossess
ourselves in terms of being. On the return to one’s own act of being, i.e.,
call to integration, self-possession, Mondin remarks that we:
“Who has lost the sense of being, who has voted for things and not
for men, has fallen into the most painful of alienations. What will be
spoken of is to bring man back to himself, again making him
conscious of his dignity, value, grandeur, and vocation.” 125

In Buber’s conception of the person from the dialogical perspective, he

constructs two major approaches.
124
Mondin., 254.
125
Mondin, 255.

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Ich –Es i.e. I –it: The Relationship to things
 This assumes the character of possession and monopoly.
 It includes experimentation, objectivity, and utilization; having
 Man lives on the things, he alters them, through use and governs
them. Man assumes these behaviours towards his peers, and hence
start relating as thing-person, of which one disposes as he wishes.
The relationship is like, ‘I will be your slave and your thing.’ This
attitude does not foster the intersubjective aspect in persons. Kant
observes

Beings whose existence does not depend on our will but on nature, if they
are not rational beings, have only a relative worth as means and are
therefore called “things”; on the other hand, rational beings are
designated “persons”, because their nature indicates that they are ends in
themselves, i.e., things which may not be used merely as means. 126
In this case, in the I-it, relationship the person is likely to be treated as a
thing. However, Buber also admits; ‘Without the It man cannot live. And
yet he who lives only with the It is not a man.’

Ich – Du i.e. I-thou: Relationship with others

 This encompasses mainly the dialogue approach…
 There is stress on encounter, presence, love, freedom and being…
 The person as a subject is called to interest himself with another in
such a way as to understand and respect his I, given that; ‘I have
my origin from my relationship with the Thou: when I become ‘I’,
then I say Thou.’ This means, it is in the recognition of our
personhood, as subjects that we can relate with the other. 127
However, with the slant towards descriptive definitions, the person has to
be considered in terms of
 Subsistence
 Communication
 Consciousness and
 Transcendence …this is an important note because, man is not
simply an ex-sistent (Heidegger); co-existent (Buber), or subsistent
(boethius), above anything else, he is transcendent, a project
towards the infinite that leaves himself behind in all that he is, does

126
Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, Sec. 11.
127
Mondin, 255.

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 and knows since he is endowed with self-transcendence in all
directions.

Thus, from a personal being, such an individual will know his place in the
world better and will love his fellow human beings not only well but wisely.
As such, the powers of a being are only perfected through its activity.
Since in activities, being itself becomes more “integrated within itself.”
This is self-possession. What this entails is that, as “a being becomes
more unified in its own being, it becomes increasingly itself.” This implies,
that the more unified/integrated a being is, the greater the possibility of
increasingly being actualized in the fullness of its own nature and mode of
existence.
From the self-integration of such a being, there is a like-hood of it
becoming more and more united with other beings, in existence and
nature in various accidental ways.
This little section on unity and activity brings out a serious metaphysical
explanation for wars and brokenness in human society. How? Therefore,
Unity follows being, and the highest unity and source of all unity rests in
the absolute being and absolute unity of God. Ultimately the value of the
human person lies in his openness to God, the absolute. This is because,
in this openness through the Intellect, the person can grasp being, as the
proper object to the intellect. Let us look at being as true.

5.2 Truth of being

Introduction
What is truth? This is an eternal question that bedevils humankind. In
terms of the transcendental properties, it is said that “We know truth in
the measure in which we know reality, not only in that which reality is
immediately, but also in its profound structures, in its implicit
references.”128 In the ancient history of philosophy, Parmenides;
 Links thought to being i.e., thinking and being.
 There is a strict identification of epistemic thought and object.
 Being is that which is simple, homogeneous, everlasting, and does
not permit of division or differentiation. In the famous Fragment 8,
Parmenides what is famous called qualitative homogeneity (no room
for qualitative differentiation). He says: “Thinking and that for the
sake of which thought is is the same.” 129 That for the sake of which,
is being. In this regard, Bogliolo, opines, “It is impossible that man

128
Bogliolo, Metaphysics, 25.
129
Parmenides, B38, 34.
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 think without thinking of being – that is, of truth – even if this
thought is partial, unilateral, and perhaps even deformed.” 130
Plato a keen follower of Parmenides. Holds;
 Thought coincides the idea exactly with the truth, where the fullness
of truth is fullness of reality.
However, one of the fundamental ways of engaging with the property of
truth is the question: What does the object of the intellect in its claims to
knowledge? In other words: “The existent begins to exist for me when it
manifests itself as present to me; but in becoming manifest to me as
present, I establish it as an existent, because I constitute it as an existent
in my self-awareness.”131 Self-awareness, implies there is an object.
The existent/being begins to exist for me as this or that to the extent that
it makes itself “manifest” to me…i.e. unveils itself, makes itself
intelligible. This is explainable as follows that: “The being or existent in its
immediate rapport with the intellect transforms itself into truth.”
To grasp being,
 It must unveil itself, as truth. In this case, it is asserted that every
being in intelligible, knowable, or true. In this, any claim to truth, is
about knowing “something” or any claim to consciousness, must of
some “object.” It is in this regard, of the object of the intellect or
truth that it is claimed that: “Only nothingness has no rapport with
truth, and thus with intelligence.”
Being is the foundation of truth;
 In every being there exists truth. Thus, “Whatever is, is true.” 132
Claiming to know the truth, encompasses knowing the objects as
they manifest themselves.

5.2.1 Truth as the object of the intellect

Being continually manifests itself. Thus, prima face, unveiling of truth is
always a process and work in progress. The case of unveiling impacts on
the subject, the one conscious of the object, that: “as the existent[being]
unveils itself I discover that that existent which originally manifested itself
as one, distinct both from me and from every other existent, begins to
manifest itself as many, […]. So what was originally referred to as the
other is found to consist of many others, that is, what was supposed to be
one was really many.”133

130
Bogliolio, Metaphysics, 25.
131
John Micalief, Philosophy of Existence (New York: Philosophical
Library,1969), 152.
132
Klauder, The Wonder of the Real, 117.
133
Micalief, Philosophy of Existence, 152.
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In human beings, a state of knowing the truth, which entails self-
awareness, is also a way of existing as a man. In this regard, if a human
being were to lose his self-awareness, there would be “no way of
distinguishing oneself from the other, for all existents would merge into
one global existent and one would cease to function as a self-aware
individual.”134 Hence, in this regard, it is through self-awareness that one
comes to exist as a human being, distinct from the other. Truth as a
property of being, then entails the stress on the human way of being i.ee.
self-awareness.
Being as true thus, implies;
 The existent manifesting itself in so far as it can be broken into
distinct existents.
 The existent, manifests itself, makes itself present through the
process of structurization, which is the work of the intellect. This is
because, the existent unveils itself through the impact on self-
awareness (work of the intellect).
 Intelligence has the natural rapport with truth that is
transcendental, and ontological. It is in this sense that, it is said
every being is true. This is because everything “lies open to the
vision of God. […] all things, which are based on God’s creative
ideas and therefore correspond to them, exhibit an intelligibility,
design, pattern or structure that lie open to any intellect.” 135
Ultimately, then truth, is desired by the intellect, thus, truth is the
good of the intellect.
According to Aquinas, “The same form that is in the object is in the
subject.” Meaning that there exists an identity of form in one and the
other, implying that there is an affinity with the existent, i.e. with all
things. The affinity with all things is the essential property of the spirit.
Thus:
 At the level of spiritual beings, knowability is an active knowing. The
spiritual existents are knowers, while at the material level, existents
are only knowable.
Therefore, it is said that there is a universal tendency in “being to pass
from the grade of passive knowability to the grade of active knowledge. It
is impossible to think of a spiritual existent that is not a knower.” 136 There
exist progression and ascent of reality upwards in relation to knowing. The
passage is from the object of consciousness to the conscious subject. The
progression is from an inferior to a superior grade of being. The spiritual
beings by nature are knowing-knower. In this regard, the grades of truth
coincide with the grades of being, whereby the human mind is not the
134
Ibid., 153.
135
Klauder, The Wonder of the Real, 118.
136
Bogliolio, Metaphysics, 26.
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author, but only the explorer, seeker of truth, hence the need for the
ascent towards the first source of truth and identically the source of
existence is needed. Such is evident in Augustinian philosophy, when he
proves the existence of God from the truth intended as the universal and
eternal value.
One of the convictions of Augustine is that:
 Truth as such, transcends us; it exists above the human mind. It
consists of attributes like immutable, eternal, and universal. These
are actually attributes of God.
 God is the object of contemplation, and hence “To prove the
existence of truth is thus at the same time to prove the existence of
God, who is Truth.”137 Hence, the Augustinian path to Truth is by
contemplation which is from without to within; from the inferior to
the superior. Eternal, Necessary and Unchangeable truths are
attained through contemplation that is the one that governs all
activity.

The Goodness of Being

In Plato, the Idea of Good, as the sun and the centre of the ideas, are only
true realities. In that, all reality reveals itself as Good radiating itself, the
principle of all radical generosity, diffusing itself and communicating itself.
In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle holds that: “The good is what all things
desire.” Thus, all beings act, and in acting they tend toward a good. There
is always a motive for acting, which is called a desirable end and such
beings tend toward their own perfection. The radical tendency towards
perfection in all things is called by Aristotle, “entelechy” or “teleology.”
This tendency is considered as the imitation of God, whose supreme
perfection is the cause of this inner drive for perfection.
In Thomistic thought, creation is Generosity which communicates itself.
This is because, “Being (esse) has the primacy in the constitution of
reality, and God is primordially defined as subsistent Being. God as Good
is the final Principle of everything.” In Aquinas, it is God’s love that is the
compelling force that gives existence to things and beings them to their
end. Thus, all being is good. Since, every being embodying in itself the
sum total of perfections that it possesses is good, i.e. desirable. Thus, an
object of desire is the end toward which an appetite tends.
God is the Supreme Being, since He is the Supreme Principle
communicating Himself by creatively donating being to all things.
 He is Good as the Supreme End attracting all things to Himself.
 In this case God is referred to as the Summum Bonum, the Highest
Good.
137
Maurer, A History of Philosophy, Mediaeval Philosophy, 8.
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Thus, Being and Good are the two sides of the Creator. The Good is the
prime mover of every created dynamism, both cosmic and human. The
Good is the radical act of every activity. Thus, Being determines the
existent, while the good (end) determines the activity.
Being as good, transfigures itself into good through will. The will desires a
thing insofar as the thing is perfect and capable of enriching the willing
object. In this case, being is good insofar as it is the object of appetite.
The good is a revelation arising from the encounter between the interior
fullness of the existent and the will.
Every is good, is desirable, or appetitive implies that, every existent is
naturally inclined to perfect itself, to enlarge its his own being.
In human beings, the appetite of good is conditioned by intellective
knowledge, thus it assumes the dignity of intellective natural appetite or
will. Thus, we can talk of grades of Goodness:
 The pleasurable good
 The apparent good/ the useful good…utility…
 The Befitting Good, the Summum Bonum.
A note on the Beautiful: Kalein: In GK – Word for ‘the beautiful is το
καλον (to Kalon) is related to καλειν (Kalein) notion of “call” “when we
experience beauty, we feel called.” The beautiful stirs Passion and
urgency in us and calls us forth from aloneness into the warmth and
wonder of an eternal embrace [wanting to share it with others].

Chapter Six

The Metaphysical principles of Being

Introduction
In traditional metaphysics, it has been shown that every being insofar as it
participates in being, reveals itself. The manifestation of being, is
constitutive of being. In Aristotelian terms, Metaphysics is the science of
the first principles and causes. In this sense, the first principles are thus,

69
absolutely apodictic and transcend experience and are concerned with the
essence of being.
The first principles can be taken as valid propositions for being as being,
regardless of any presuppositions that one makes. The following are the
pertinent principles of being:
a. The Principle of identity: That whatever is, insofar as it is, is and
is what it is. This is considered a primordial judgement that finds
expression in a limited way in all particular judgements. The
principle of identity seems to govern all particular judgements, thus
it is called “Judgement of Judgements.” It is that by which all
judgements are made, and in this sense, it is the first or the most
excellent, the most general form of affirmative categorical assertion.
The principle of identity makes present the very foundation of all
that one can know, the being itself of that which is. The judgement
of being in terms of identity, simply shows that “to be”, is self-
sufficient, self-explanatory, and refers to what is unconditional and
necessary. This principle connects “what by being is with the being
by which it is.” The principle of identity predicates of being that “it
is-itself that it is” in itself, unconditionally and necessarily.
b. The principle of non-contradiction: Every affirmation is about
connection. Judgement in general either connects or separates, i.e.
is affirmation or negation, yes or no. With the principle of Non-
contradiction, the concern is whether the judgement that affirms the
connection entails also a negation of the separation. The connection
and separation of one and the same thing in the same respect, i.e.
the same mode of being, cannot go together, since only one of the
two is true. This is a logical principle based on an ontological insight
that: Whatever is, insofar as it is, is-not not, i.e. cannot not-be, and
is not what it is not. The principle of non-contradiction is founded on
the nature of being. That a thing cannot be and be in the same
respect. Since, outside being, there is only and of necessity only,
non-being, but non-being cannot be.
c. The Principle of Sufficient reason: Is a powerful and very
controversial metaphysical principle, which states that everything
must have a reason, cause, or ground for its being. That there must
be an explanation for the existence of the finite reality. Spinoza
holds that: “Nothing exists of which it cannot be asked, what is the
cause (or reason) [causa (sive ratio)], why it exists.” Spinoza’s
explanation goes: “Since existing is something positive, we cannot
say that it has nothing as its cause. Therefore, we must assign some
positive cause, or reason, why [a thing] exists—either an external
one, i.e., one outside the thing itself, or an internal one, one
comprehended in the nature and definition of the existing thing
itself.” However, in Spinoza, one principle has no cause. He argues:

70
 “[T]hat Thought is also called true which involves objectively the
essence of some principle that does not have a cause and is known
through itself and in itself.” Given its qualification as “known
through itself and in itself”, such uncaused principle may refer to
God. The principle of Sufficient Reason is properly associated with
Leibniz. It is claimed that he was the first to call it by name and,
arguably, the first to formulate it with full generality. Often, he
presents it along with the principle of non-contradiction, as a
principle of Reasoning. For instance, in Monadology he claims:

Our reasonings are based on two great principles, that of contradiction, in

virtue of which we judge that which involves a contradiction to be false,
and that which is opposed or contradictory to the false to be true.
And that of sufficient reason, by virtue of which we consider that we can
find no true or existent fact, no true assertion, without there being a
sufficient reason why it is thus and not otherwise, although most of the
time these reasons cannot be known to us.
Though the two principles, i.e. non-contradiction and sufficient reason, are
about judgements thus considered in epistemic terms, Leibniz intends
them as metaphysical principles. Leibniz explicitly states that there are
sufficient reasons for every truth or fact even if such reasons
are unknowable by us.
In Leibniz, sufficient reason, could imply, “a priori proof” which does not
mean in Kantian sense of not requiring sense experience, instead it means
an argument from causes to effects. An a priori proof is a proof that
reflects the causal order.
d. As a being is, so it acts/Action follows being: Agere sequitur
esse: In other words, the way a being acts gives us a clue to its
intrinsic nature. This principle is not only metaphysical but moral,
since “one’s moral duties are grounded in one’s being.”
Agere sequitur esse is a principle of Thomist ontology (St Thomas
Aquinas - the study of being) according to which the action of each
entity depends on the designated nature of the entity itself.
Additionally, the object is, in itself, an act. Being active derives from
being in existence. Anything in existence has agency i.e. the
capacity to act according to its existence or to manifest its capacity
through its existence. As sentient creatures, we realise that agere
sequitur esse is a moral principle: we are obliged to do what we are
created to be. The moral ‘ought’ is founded on the ‘is’ and one’s
moral duties are grounded in one’s being. This is the given reality of
the individual.

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 e. Ex nihilo, nihil fit (“from nothing, nothing comes”) principle
stipulates that an existing thing and its perfections (or qualities)
cannot have nothing or a non-existing thing as their cause.

f. You cannot give what you do not have: This is a principle founded
on ontological dependence of the effects upon their causes.
For Aquinas, causation covers any sort of ontological dependence
between things: it is primarily a vertical relation, not a horizontal
one. In his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics Aquinas states that
“those things are called causes upon which other things depend for
their being (esse) or their coming to be. In ST, Aquinas holds that
“every effect depends on its cause, insofar as it is its cause.”
However, it is in Descartes that this principle is properly alluded to
when he claims: “Now it is manifest by the natural light that there
must be at least as much reality in the efficient and total cause as in
the effect of that cause.” The following is Descartes example to the
effect that you cannot give what you do not have:

A stone, for example, which previously did not exist, cannot begin to exist
unless it is produced by something which contains, either formally or
eminently everything to be found in the stone similarly, heat cannot be
produced in an object which was not previously hot, except by something
of at least the same order of perfection as heat, and so on.
For metaphysical purposes, a being cannot ascribe a perfection to
another, which is missing in the first instance.

Chapter Seven

On Causality

Introduction
Being exists in two aspects:
 Dynamic, i.e., the principle of activity, the cause.
 Static, acted upon.

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Cause is one of the most frequently used notions in human thought.
Notion of causality rests on the assumptions held between Causality and
Necessity that:
1. There is a necessary connection between cause and effect. Events
follow their antecedents. This is the position espoused by traditional
metaphysics.
2. There is Not always a connection between cause and effect. This is
the Neo-Humean position.
On causality a classical metaphysical position, i.e., the necessary
connection between cause and effect originates from Aristotle’s
Metaphysics that: one acts and the other is acted on of Necessity.

Origin and Development of the notion of Causality

Aristotle
There is no complete treatise in Aristotle on Causality. His treatment of
causality is in relation to other themes. For Aristotle causality is discussed
in term of science. This is found in two of Aristotle’s works:
1. Posterior Analytics
2. Physics, Book II
From the two works, two major conclusions stand out:
1. Science is knowledge through causes. This is Aristotle’s
understanding of science as well.138 Aristotle holds that one
possesses “unqualified scientific knowledge of a thing […] when we
think we know the cause on which the fact depends, as the cause of
that fact and of no other […].” 139 While in Metaphysics, Aristotle
talks of science as the knowledge of causes (scientia est cognito per
causas). Thus, for Aristotle, we know a thing “when we know the
cause (or causes) of it.”140 In Aristotelian terms, cause is the proper
principle of scientific explanation. It should not be construed that
Aristotle implies that causes are merely logical tools. Causality for
Aristotle, does not lack validity in the real world. This is because, the
need for cause answers to the basic question: “Why” of a thing, and
thus, serves as “principle of explanation for the very reason that it

138
It is relevant for you to know that, the meaning that Aristotle uses the
term science may not be the current understanding of the same.
139
Aristotle, “Posterior Analytics” in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed.
Richard McKeon (New York: Random House 1941), Book 1, Chapter 2, 71 b 8
– 11
140
Gardell, Introduction to the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 217.
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 is, first of all, a principle of reality.” With this understanding, the
principle of causality is “essentially a principle of reality.” 141 The
denial of causality bears heavily on existence (esse), affecting what
by nature the most real, most concrete.
2. In Aristotle, causal explanations in the sciences are made possible
under the four causes. Even in the physical doctrine, demonstration
is about all four causes: material, formal, efficient, and final.
 Material cause: Accounts for that by which the thing is made
of. The immanent material, from which a thing comes into
being. For instance, bronze is the cause of the statue.
 Formal cause/the pattern: It accounts for the definition of the
essence, and the parts included in the definition.
 Efficient cause: Is that which brings something into existence
or changes it in some way.142 It is also called an agent, agent
cause. Here the maker is the cause of the thing made.
Unfortunately, this is what contemporary philosophy means by
cause.
 Final Cause: An end, goal, purpose “for the sake of which”
something exists or occurs. Aristotle gives the example of
health as “the cause of walking. For ‘Why’ does one walk?’ we
say; ‘that one may be healthy.’” 143 Final causality deals with
what is called teleology. In Aristotelian thinking, there is
directedness toward an end in natural objects. An acorn is
directed toward becoming an oak simply because that is what
it is to be an acorn. For Aristotle, the nature of the thing alone
suffices “to explain their directedness toward an end.” 144 This
position today is called natural teleology, as it is opposed to
directedness in terms of a divine intelligence.

Thomas Aquinas
Aquinas, speaks of Causality under the study of God. He espouses what is
called transcendent causality. The cause from Thomistic thought is what
gives the “Why” or reason of a thing.
Essentially, a cause is ‘that on which a thing depends for its being or its
becoming.’ This in Aquinas is expressed as: Causae autem dicuntur ex
quibus res dependent secundum esse vel fieri. Analysing this, it
necessarily implies that causality entails three particulars:
1. A real distinction between cause and effect
2. A real dependence of being
141
Gardell, Introduction to the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 217.
142
Feser, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, 88.
143
Metaphysics, Book V (Δ) 1013a 33 – 34.
144
Feser, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, 89.
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 3. Consequently, priority of the cause to the effect.
In the transcendent sense or metaphysical perspective, causality is
applied in the study of God. This is particularly in the central problem of
existence or demonstration of it. Aquinas in his fifth way affirms that
“finality is intrinsic to natural phenomena while nevertheless arguing that
it must ultimately depend on God.” In Thomistic thought, natural teleology
depends necessarily on God.
For Aquinas, all the four causes of Aristotle, presuppose final causality.
Commenting on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, Aquinas observes:
Even though the end is the last thing to come into being in
some cases, it is always prior in causality. Hence it is called
the cause of causes, because it is the cause of the causality of
all causes. For it is the cause of efficient causality, as has
already been pointed out…and the efficient cause is the cause
of the causality of both the matter and the form, because by
its motion it causes matter to be receptive of form and makes
form exist in matter. Therefore, the final cause is also the
cause of the causality of both the matter and the form. Hence
in those cases in which something is done for an end (as
occurs in the realm of natural things, in that of moral matters,
and in that of art), the most forceful demonstrations are
derived from the final cause.
From the offing, formal and material causes depend on final causes
through the efficient cause. Thus, Aquinas holds further that: “The end
does not cause that which is the efficient cause, rather it is a cause of the
efficient cause’s being an efficient cause. For health---and I mean the
health resulting from the physician’s ministrations---does not make a
physician to be a physician; it causes him to be an efficient cause.”
The end is thus, the cause of the causality of the efficient cause, since it
makes the efficient cause be an efficient cause.

The Principle of Causality: The Formulation

From the general understanding, the formulation of the principle of
causality centres on the efficient cause. It is the efficient cause which
normally comes under scrutiny and attack in modern and contemporary
philosophy. Its formulation is drawn from two proofs:
1. That whatever is moved, is moved by another (quidquid movetur ab
alio movetur). This is the formulation from Aristotle’s thought. From
the metaphysical grounds this principle is explained in terms of act
and potency. Aquinas’ expression of the principle based on act and
potency is a dictum that: ‘nothing can be reduced from potentiality

75
 to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality.’ 145 An
efficient cause, be it of a thing’s existence or of some change to it,
“always actualizes some potency or other.” 146
 From the efficient causality, the principle of causality points to
the fact that if a potency is actualized, that can only be
because of some already actual cause actualized it.
 Potency qua potency is merely potential rather than actual, it
cannot do anything. Such potency cannot actualize anything,
including itself. In this case, it must be actualized by
something already actual.
 Thus, the going from potency to act, can only be effected
through the agency of another, i.e. a being in act.
Thus, whatever is changed is changed by another.
2. Being which is not of itself, is necessarily of another. In other words,
whatever comes in to existence has a cause. The beings whose
existence does not necessarily follow from its essence warrants for a
cause. Such are the contingent beings, since nothing in their nature
says they must exist. Contingent beings are a union or a
composition of diverse elements: essence and existence. Things
which in themselves differ from each other cannot as such
constitute a unity. Such beings to be unified, they require some
extrinsic cause to unite them.
 For Aquinas, by the fact that a thing has being by
participation, it follows that it is caused. Some Thomists
consider this as the fundamental formulation of the principle
of causality
 Popularly the principle of causality is formulated as: Every
effect has a cause. Such rendering ought to be discarded
because, it is not necessary that every effect has a cause. This
is especially effect is construed to mean ‘that which has been
caused.” It would be a tautology. In the same realm the claim
that everything has a cause…since in order to be caused, a
thing must in some way be a mixture of act and potency.
Whatever is pure actuality, is devoid of potentiality need not
have a cause. This is because the principle of causality
asserts: what changes requires a cause; what comes in to
being has a cause. This is different from saying that
“absolutely everything has a cause.”

Objections to the Principle of Causality

145
Summa Theologiae, q.1.section,2.part,3.
146
Feser, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, 105.
76
Thomas Hobbes: Cause is simply an aggregate of all accidents. This
implies accidents of agent and patient.

David Hume
He is the famous objector to the principle of Causality. Hume threw out a
logical connection between cause and effect.
 Understood that necessary connection between cause and effect is
essential to the idea of cause and effect.
 That connection, he thought could not be found in the objects or
events called cause, but in the human mind’s being determined by
experience of constant conjunction (connections).
 Hume’s contribution to the debate on causality is his connection of
the notion of causality with deterministic laws, whereby he calls into
question the notion of causality with necessitation.
Following Hume, the second approach to causality that: There is Not
always a connection between cause and effect, gained ground from
modern philosophy onwards. Thus, historically, Hume is the most
influential critique of the principle of causality.
Kant: Tried to give back to causality a justified concept that Hume had
taken away. He reinforces the connection between causality and
necessity. Those opposed to Hume have always tried to establish
necessitation in causation either a priori or a posteriori.

Chapter Eight

SOME CONTEMPORARY CURRENTS

IN METAPHYSICS

Kant and the Possibility of Metaphysics

Though Kant is not strictly speaking a contemporary Philosopher, his
contribution to the question of metaphysics is opposed to the traditional
view.
Kant was the first to pose the question: “How is Metaphysics possible?”
His answer was contrary to the traditional view that metaphysics is a
rational inquiry into the fundamental structure of reality.
 According to Kant, Metaphysical claims do not concern the
fundamental structure of a mind-independent reality, even if such a
reality exists, but rather the fundamental structure of rational

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 thought about reality. Hence assumption was that, “the structure
of our own thought is something un-problematically accessible to us
in a way in which the structure of the mind-independent reality is
not.” Mind-independent reality implies the sum total of things whose
existence is not dependent upon our thinking of them.

Metaphysics endeavours to discover what the totality of existence could

embrace, i.e. the categories of entities, which of them could exist, and
which could co-exist. Some Contemporary philosophers agree with Kant
that “the structure of the world as it is in itself is inaccessible to us and
that metaphysicians must content to describe the structure of our thinking
about that world.” Through dealing with categories, metaphysics gives us
the map of the structure of all that there is.
Metaphysics from the historical perspective of Aristotle, examines “things
as beings or as existents and attempts to specify the properties or
features they exhibit just insofar as they are beings or existents.” It goes
further i.e. metaphysics to underlie general concepts like unity or identity,
difference, similarity, and dissimilarity that apply to everything that there
is.
The Continental rationalists of 17th and 18thcenturies expand the scope of
Metaphysics beyond the Aristotelian and the Medievals. And they include
issues that according to Aristotle were of natural sciences, like mind and
body, nature, and extent of freedom as part of the sphere of metaphysics.
It is in this regard, they evolved sub-disciplines within metaphysics like:
1. Examination of being from just the perspective of being…this was
called General metaphysics, [ontology].
2. Examination of being from the more specialized perspectives…
called special metaphysics…e.g. being as changeable...i.e.
cosmology; being in rational beings like ourselves, i.e. rational
psychology and consider being from the divine perspective i.e.
natural theology.

However, in Kantian conception, “human knowledge involves interplay of

concepts innate [categories] to the human cognitive faculties and the raw
data of sense experience.” Hence the object of knowledge is not really
a thing external to and independent of our cognitive machinery, but it is
the product of the application of innate conceptual structures to
the subjective states of our sensory faculties.
According to Kant, Metaphysics from the Aristotelian or the rationalists’
perspective is an attempt to know what lies beyond the scope of human
experience. “It seeks to answer questions for which sense experience is

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incapable of providing answers.” Like the immortality of the soul,
existence of God, and freedom and will. These are beyond the limits of
human knowledge. Hence no genuine scientific knowledge in Metaphysics
[Kant was using probably a wrong method or tool, Metaphysics as a
philosophical discipline calls for philosophical tools not empirical ones]. In
this regard, Kant constructs:
1. Transcendent Metaphysics and
2. Critical Metaphysics
Transcendent Metaphysics characterizes a reality that goes beyond sense
experience, while critical delineates the most general features of our
thought and knowledge. It seeks to identify the most general concepts at
work in our representation of the world…this is the project that Kant works
on when he gives us the account for the conditions of knowledge.
The work of metaphysics according to Kant and followers:
 Is to identify and characterize the most general features of our
thought and experience…hence, the defenders of Kant today aim at
conceptual framework!!
 They assert that any thought or experience, must involve the
application of a single unified body of representations. The body of
representation constitutes a picture of how things are…it has a
structure, organized by concepts, and use those concepts is
regulated by principles…i.e. framework principles.
 Some conceptualists agree with Kant, that there is a single
unchanging structure that underlies anything that can be called
human knowledge or experience.
 Another group of conceptualists…focus on the dynamic and
historical character of human thought…hence talk of alternative
conceptual frameworks. The previous or current picture of the world
is displaced and taken over by the new picture e.g. in scientific
world. [However, this does not entail the change in the structure of
the reality, but it is merely the better grasp of that same reality.
This raises still further and serious issues; is reality dynamic or is
our understanding of that reality that is dynamic? Does the human
condition change i.e. despair, fear, suffering struggles or the
understanding of these?].
 Those who take conceptual theory of metaphysic seriously, see
metaphysics as concerned with our way or ways of representing the
world.
 The Pre-Kantians view metaphysical task as that of giving an
account of the nature and structure of the world itself. Note; “An

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 inquiry into the structure of human thought is, however, something
quite different from an inquiry into the structure of the world
thought is about.” However, conceptual schemers claim,
metaphysics has as its subject matter “the structure of our
conceptual scheme or schemes precisely because, like Kant, they
think that the world as it really is, is something that is in accessible
to us.” This is because:
 Our thought, they think about the world is always mediated by
the conceptual structures in terms of which we represent that
world [These structures is my view are epistemological, and
thus play a vital role in unraveling reality to us. These include,
language, concepts that are key tools in naming one’s world.
These cultural underpinnings have lacked in the case of the
African ontological cognition]. In order to think of something
external, I need to apply concepts that represent the thing as
being some way or the other and what is grasped is not the
object as it really is independently of my thought about it:
“What I grasp is the object as I conceptualize or represent it,
so that the object of my thought is something that is, in part
at least the product of the conceptual or representational
apparatus I bring to bear in doing the thinking.” [The human
person as a cultural being constructs the world, is an actor on
the natural terrain to make it a world, and the reality becomes
what has been constructed by the human person since we do
not have the access to any other given the conceptual
frameworks].
 The traditional metaphysicians hold that, the concepts we
employ in our thinking are the vehicles for grasping the things
to which they apply. Concepts are routes to the objects…
reality…
 The debate over methodology in metaphysics hinges on
relationship between thought and the world…This has been
and will always be the key metaphysical challenge…right from
the time of Plato… [shadow world and world of Forms].

Implications from Kant’s Position

1. Critical Metaphysics is possible and profitable.
2. Transcendent metaphysics is impossible - we cannot have
knowledge of things in themselves.
3. If 'things-in-themselves' are the proper subject of metaphysics, then
Kant may be accused of doing metaphysics an injustice.

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 Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) on Metaphysics
Nietzsche is critical of Traditional Metaphysics from his Middle period
onwards, i.e. 1878. Nietzsche privileges Historical philosophy as opposed
to Metaphysical philosophy. In Human ALL Too Human, Nietzsche
observes that philosophy has basically remained stack, since;
Almost all the problems of philosophy once again pose the
same form of question as they did two thousand years ago:
how can something originate in its opposite, for example
rationality in irrationality, the sentient in the dead, logic in
unlogic, disinterested contemplation in covetous desire, living
for others in egoism, truth in error?147
Nietzsche seeks to overcome such type of metaphysics, which he calls
“Oppositional Metaphysics.” Metaphysics for Nietzsche is the believe in
another world, which is considered as ideal and true in itself. This is
Metaphysics particularly from the Platonic view-point. IN this case,
Nietzsche ought to be informed that, Metaphysics from the Aristotelian
and Thomistic slant is about the first and foremost the concrete, this one,
this-ness! In his seeming lopsided understanding of traditional
metaphysics, Nietzsche advocates for the overcoming of such
metaphysics. How?
Through what he calls, Historical Philosophy. Nietzsche describes
Historical philosophy as follows:
That “which can no longer be separated from natural science, the
youngest of all philosophical methods, has discovered in individual cases
(and this will probably be the result in every case) that there are no
opposites, except in the customary exaggeration of popular or
metaphysical interpretations,…”148 This is what according to::
 Analytic philosophy been called the naturalistic approach to
philosophy.
 For Nietzsche, it values the immanence of reality, which is
equivalent to returning fully to the earth.
 For Nietzsche, it is reaffirming the uniqueness of the world, as the
Greeks had done before Socrates and Plato.

147
Nietzsche, Human ALL Too Human, A Book for Free Spirits, trans. R.J.
Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), §1 (Hereafter,
HAH)
148
HAH, §1.
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  For Nietzsche historical philosophy is indifferent to the “first and last
things” (Origin and end).149

Alfred Ayer and anti-metaphysics

 There are several positions that are actively identified as 'anti-

metaphysics'. One such position is that of logical positivism.
 A.J. Ayer sits within the school of logical positivism. He concludes
that we should get rid of metaphysics because it is ultimately
meaningless. Only tautologies and empirical claims can be meaningful.
Real philosophy consists in logical and linguistic analysis.
 Ayer criticises a metaphysics' that claims a 'knowledge of a reality
transcending the world of science and common sense.' (Language, Truth
and Logic, 13)
Ayer's claim is to do with both the scope and the methodology that he
takes metaphysics to make claim to:
 He takes it to be a claim about scope because he thinks that
metaphysics makes claim to a transcendent reality which he just
denies exists – he thinks that claims to a 'metaphysical reality' that
go beyond science and common sense are claims about a made-up
reality – and more specifically, to an unintelligible reality. The
implication here is that the metaphysician is fated to be a
transcendent metaphysician.
 He takes the methodology to be wrong because the only legitimate
modes of enquiry are logical and linguistic analysis, or empirical
analysis – and he take metaphysics to be neither of these.
In addition, for Ayer, Metaphysical claims are not simply false – they are
meaningless. The metaphysician 'is misled by a superficial grammatical
feature of his language.' (LTL, 25) ....is 'duped by grammar...a failure to
understand the workings of our language.' LTL, 29.
'We shall maintain that no statement which refers to a 'reality'
transcending the limits of all possible sense experience can possibly have
any literal significance; from which it must follow that the labours of those
who have striven to describe such a reality have all been devoted to the
production of nonsense.' Language, Truth and Logic,14.

149
Nietzsche, The Wanderer and His Shadow, §§ 7, 16,37, and350.
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  The first claim that Ayer is making is that there must be criteria of
significance to our claims. The second claim is that the only criteria
that can qualify as criteria of significance are the criteria of
empirical science. In effect, then, Ayer says that science has the
monopoly on the conditions of the possibility of meaning.
Ayer and the other logical positivists were extremely influential, and this
was the standard position on metaphysics in analytic philosophy in the
first half of the twentieth century. So much so that many associate
analytic philosophy in the twentieth century with 'the rejection of
metaphysics.' (Simmons 2013, 709). And that 'a general suspicion of
metaphysics as reactionary and backward looking lingered through
analytic philosophy's establishment as a dominant movement.'
Implications from Ayer
1. 'Metaphysics' is always an appeal to something transcendent.
2. It is meaningless to try to talk about that which transcends empirical
science and common sense.
3. Metaphysics is both meaningless and impossible.

Emmanuel Levinas
Levinas also criticises 'traditional metaphysics', but for different reasons
to Heidegger (he accused traditional metaphysics for having forgotten the
Question of Being), and includes Heidegger within the tradition he is
criticising.
 Levinas claims that Heidegger's prioritisation of 'ontology' over
'metaphysics' is problematic, and so with Levinas we have a swing back to
talking in terms of metaphysics as the legitimate way of relating to and
investigating the structures of Reality, and 'ontology' is labelled a
distortive way of doing metaphysics.
 Levinas' criticism of Heidegger, and of all Western metaphysics, is
that it runs the risk of trying to understand reality in terms of systems
which do not make room for what he calls 'radical alterity', where by
alterity we are to understand something like 'otherness'.
 Metaphysical systems, as we have already discussed in looking at
them, tend to want to have a complete account of reality. Typically, we
are looking for a framework within which everything can be understood,
everything can be made intelligible, everything can be understood in
terms of everything else, everything coheres. Levinas notes that
structures or systems of this kind operate in terms of what is intelligible to
the subject, and so whatever is not fully intelligible to the subject is
necessarily excluded from the system, and so barred status as 'real'. If the

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system does not recognise something, it has no hope. Again, Levinas is
specific in claiming that other human beings are not fully intelligible to the
subject. The subject cannot make 'the Other', in Levinas' terminology,
fully intelligible without doing violence to this Other. Good metaphysics
makes room for the Other subject as something which has a reality
outside one's own totality.
 Good metaphysics thus cannot be transcendent in the old sense,
that is, it cannot be the attempt to comprehend that which cannot be
comprehended. Not only is this impossible and a waste of time, but it also
becomes morally and politically dangerous, and involves a power-dynamic
where we try to assimilate the other to our own comprehension.
Thus, for Levinas ethics is 'first philosophy':
We know that this is reference to Aristotle's metaphysics. So, for Levinas,
metaphysics properly understood is ethics.
 Since, only in extending oneself towards the Other in an ethical
movement can put us in touch with the Reality of alterity (of the
other/otherness) – constructing a totalising system will never
achieve this.
 Ontology (bad metaphysics) attempts to reduce the other to the
same, while Ethics (good metaphysics) attempts to forge a
relationship between same and other, without reducing either to the
other.
'The relation between the same and the other, metaphysics, is
primordially enacted as a conversation where the same, gathered up in its
ipseity as an 'I', as a particular existent unique and autochthonous
(primordial, an inhabitant), leaves itself.' (Totality and Infinity, hereafter,
T&I 39).
'The primacy of ontology for Heidegger:...To affirm the priority of Being
over existents is to already decide the essence of philosophy; it is to
subordinate the relation with someone who is an existent, (the ethical
relation) to a relation with the Being of existents, which, impersonal,
permits the domination of existents (a relationship of knowing).' (p.45 T&I)
'A philosophy of power, ontology is, as first philosophy which does not call
into question the same, a philosophy of injustice....Heideggerian ontology,
which subordinates the relationship with the Other to the relation with
Being in general, remains under obedience to the anonymous, and leads
inevitably to another power, to imperialist domination, to tyranny.' (pp.46-
47 T&I)
Levinas' understanding of 'radical alterity' is God-involving. Metaphysics
is thus understood in God involving terms, but this is not the God of first
causes or the God of onto-theology.

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Implications from Levinas
1. Metaphysics is possible.
2. Metaphysics is to be distinguished from ontology, that is,
metaphysics cannot be the construction of a totalising system.
3. A virtuous metaphysics is a 'metaphysics of transcendence', but this
is not an attempt to comprehend things that are beyond the sphere of
reason but concerns an ethical movement from subject to other.
4. Metaphysics embraces philosophical theology.

Georg Gadamer on Metaphysics

Metaphysics for Gadamer, in his Truth and Method entails the following:
a. Concept of being: as “to be” is to be manifested.
 To be is not static condition, it means ‘to be’ involves constantly
showing oneself to other beings…
b. Proper method of Metaphysics…
 Gadamer reminds us that, there is no such thing as a ‘perspective
free’ metaphysics…since “I cannot simply remove myself from the flurry
of beings manifesting themselves in order to study them from a totally
objective and rationalist.”
c. How to conceive of a substance…
 Gadamer’s take on how a performance relates to a text, can
enhance classical issue of how an accident relates to a substance.
 Thinkers like Locke asserted that, all we experience of any given
thing is an accident, since accident and substance have no inherent
relation to one another…”Substance is simply what is under the accidents
supporting them. All we experience of any given thing are the accidents,
but only accidents are manifest to our sense powers; it actualizes the
substance.”
 In Gadamer’s conception, the performance makes actual what in the
text is only possible, so too with accident and substance. [Accident
actualizes substance, hence the presence of accidents point to a greater
reality of substance thus existence of metaphysics].
Contribution of Gadamer to understanding of classical
metaphysics
a. Being as manifestation.

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 According to Aristotle, metaphysics as being qua being…is
concerned mainly with Substance. Hence, substantial form, accidental
form, matter etc, can only have real reference.
 Aquinas follows Aristotle in this, that being is first of all spoken of in
substance. However, the categories of Aristotle have no real source of
unity, (94) However, Aristotelian commentators like Copleston, point out
that, ‘the ways in which we think of being as realized’ is the source of
unity. However, the category of Substance and the other nine categories
of accidents are all ways in which being occurs.
 The question is; what have being-as-a-substance and being-as-an-
accident have to do with one another? (94) [There is a big temptation in
modern and contemporary metaphysics or philosophy to deal with
accidental properties of being only]. What do the categories have in
common that we can say, they are the categories of the same basic
phenomenon? (95)
 Given the above challenges, Wesphal and Gadamer have observed
that ‘to be is to be shown, manifested revealed.’ According to Gilson and
Clarke, credible thomists, Aquinas shows that “the heart of being is self-
revealing action.” Therefore, being is understood in terms of activity,
operation, with all the dynamism that activity and operation entail…(95)
 Gadamer uses the example of the work of art, ‘by being presented it
experiences, as it were, an increase in being.’ Truth and Method, TM, p.
135. What is being presented artistically is capable of being manifested to
other beings thus allowing the thing to enter more fully into the
community of beings and to exist in a fuller way.
 W. Norris Clarke, in his book, The one and the many, P. 32, that ‘a non-
acting, non-communicating being is for all practical purposes…equivalent
to no being at all.’ Gadamer, ‘an image is a manifestation of what it
represents.’ TM, P. 143.

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