Anselm inherited a Platonizing approach to philosophy from Augustine and Boethius. But he characteristically reworked what he found in their texts by questioning and disputing it into something more rigorous. In this paper, I compare and contrast Anselm’s treatment of the trope ‘evil is nothing, not a being’ withBoethius’s use of it in The Consolation of Philosophy. In the first section, I expose a fallacious argument form common to them both: paradigm Fness is identical with paradigm Gness; X participates in (...) paradigm Fness and so is F; therefore, X participates in paradigm Gness and so is G. In the second section, I contrast Philosophy’s “strong medicine”—‘evil is nothing,’ ‘evil-doings are nothing,’ ‘evil humans do not exist’—with Anselm’s development of the point that injustice is a privation and so parasitic on the beings that are deprived. By contrast with Boethius, Anselm emphasizes that the willinstrument, will-power, the will’s action and turnings are something and so from God. Likewise, Anselm insists—pace Boethius—that Adam’s fallen race is still the human race. In the final section, I turnto Anselm’s distinction between injustice (iniustitia) and disadvantage (incommoda), his concession that some disadvantages are something, and his explanation of happiness in terms of advantage or bona sibi. For Anselm, happiness and justice break apart, so that it is possible in this world for the just to lack advantage. Moreover, in the world to come, the damned will suffer radical deprivation—not only of the justice, which they deserted, but of advantages. I contrastthis with Boethius’s insistence (based on the argument in section I) that virtue suffices for happiness and vice for unhappiness, and that there is no such thing as bad fortune. I conclude by pondering why Anselm treated disadvantage as a something rather than as a misfit between somethings. (shrink)

How can the Body and Blood of Christ, without ever leaving heaven, come to be really present on eucharistic altars where the bread and wine still seem to be? Thirteenth and fourteenth century Christian Aristotelians thought the answer had to be "transubstantiation." -/- Acclaimed philosopher, Marilyn McCord Adams, investigates these later medieval theories of the Eucharist, concentrating on the writings of Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Rome, Duns Scotus, and William Ockham, with some reference to Peter Lombard, Hugh of St. Victor, (...) and Bonaventure. She examines how their efforts to formulate and integrate this theological datum provoked them to make significant revisions in Aristotelian philosophical theories regarding the metaphysical structure and location of bodies, differences between substance and accidents, causality and causal powers, and fundamental types of change. Setting these developments in the theological context that gave rise to the question draws attention to their understandings of the sacraments and their purpose, as well as to their understandings of the nature and destiny of human beings. -/- Adams concludes that their philosophical modifications were mostly not ad hoc, but systematic revisions that made room for transubstantiation while allowing Aristotle still to describe what normally and naturally happens. By contrast, their picture of the world as it will be (after the last judgment) seems less well integrated with their sacramental theology and their understandings of human nature. (shrink)

This book provides for the first time a complete history of the doctrine of the transcendentals and shows its importance for the understanding of philosophy in the Middle Ages.

Dans le plan de la première partie de la Somme Théologique de Thomas d’Aquin, les questions 12 et 13, dédiées aux noms divins, occupent une place privilégiée et confèrent une perspective inédite au discours théologique grâce à leur double fonction. D’une part, leur fonction est normale dans l’ordre du discours : après avoir établi les principaux attributs de Dieu, dont on a justement affirmé dans la 2e question qu’il est, les deux questions fixent les limites dans lesquelles il peut être (...) connu. D’autre part, les deux questions jouent le rôle de clivage dans l’ordre du discours qui établit comment est Dieu. Ainsi les deux interrogations fondent la connaissance de l’intellect humain par rapport à l’objet véritablement transcendant à toute expérience et questionnent, par conséquent, les conditions de possibilité de la connaissance intellectuelle générique de Dieu sur l’objet. Ce dernier aspect se réfléchit y compris chez les tenants de cette connaissance de telle façon que la légitimation des noms divins ait le rôle d’une légitimation de la théologie comme science, dont l’existence était annoncée et débattue au début de la Somme. (shrink)

In Quodlibet XV q.13, Henry of Ghent considers whether the Virgin Mary was immaculately conceived. He argues that she was not, but rather possessed sin only at the first instant of her existence. Because Henry’s defense of this position involves an elaborate discussion of motion and mutation, his discussion marks an important contribution to medieval discussions of Aristotelian natural philosophy. In fact, a number of scholars have identified Henry’s discussion as the source of an unusual fourteenth-century theory of change referred (...) to as “quasi-Aristotelianism” (so-called because the account purports to be Aristotelian but is not). My aim in the paper is two-fold: first, to show that Henry's position is not quasi-Aristotelian in the sense that scholars have supposed; second, to show that, even so, his discussion in q. 13 does involve a novel interpretation of Aristotle’s account of instantaneous change. (shrink)

One important part of Aquinas’s theory of the nature of corruptible corporeal substances is his account of the individuation of such entities. In this paper, I examine an aspect of Aquinas’s account of individuation that has not received as much attention as some others, namely, how Aquinas applies his account of individuation specifically to cases involving non-living corporeal substances. I first offer an interpretation of a key passage in Aquinas’s corpus where he explains his theory of individuation. Second, I examine (...) a text where Aquinas applies his account of individuation to a case involving non-living substances. Finally, I raise a possible objection to what Aquinas says about the individuation of non-living substances and in answering the objection suggest that Aquinas holds the view that non-living substances enjoy a less perfect mode of individuality when compared to living substances. (shrink)

One cannot go far in the reading of St Thomas Aquinas and other medieval writers without coming across a multiplicity of usages of the Latin term for ‘being’ or ‘to be’, esse, such as esse intentionale, esse intelligibile, esse naturale, esse sensibile and so on.3 It is not always easy to appreciate the distinctions which these terms are intended to mark and if one is inclined to scepticism one might indeed suspect that these are distinctions without a difference. However, such (...) a judgment would be both precipitate and incorrect. Even if the distinctions marked by such terms are not immediately perspicuous it is essential, if one wishes to understand and appreciate the thought of the medievals, that one come to understand them. Within the compass of a short paper it will not, of course, be possible to be comprehensive, so I shall investigate the notions of immateriality and intentionality with a view to clarifying their relationship.4 In so doing, I hope some light will be thrown.. (shrink)

The goal of this article is twofold. First, it revises the historiographic partition proposed by John Deely in Four Ages of Understanding (2001) by arguing that the moment marking the beginning of philosophical Modernity has been vividly recorded in Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy with the experiment with the wax. Second, an upshot of this historical study is that it helps make sense of Deely’s somewhat iconoclastic use of the words “subject” and “subjectivity” to designate mind-independent worldly things. The hope (...) is that successfully accomplishing these twin tasks will give semiotic inquiry a better appreciation of its own history, as well as resources genial to furthering its ongoing development. (shrink)

This paper looks to revive and advance dialogue surrounding John Nijenhuis’s case against ‘existence language’ as a rendering of Aquinas’s esse. Nijenhuis presented both a semantic/grammatical case for abandoning this practice as well as a more systematic argument based on his reading of Thomist metaphysics. On one hand, I affirm the important distinction between being and existence and lend qualified support to his interpretation of the quantitiative/qualitative correlation between esse and essentia in Aquinas’s texts. On the other hand, I take (...) issue with Nijenhuis’s relegation of exist(ence) to a second-rate ontological principle, and to this end undertake a brief historical and etymological survey, noting its emergence in Greek thought (ὑπάρχϵιν, ἥπαρξις), its translation into medieval Latin (ex(s)istere, ex(s)istentia) and thus something of the pedigree of this terminology in modern usage. I conclude with some brief remarks on the task of exegeting Aquinas vis-à-vis the revivification of contemporary metaphysical ontology in general. (shrink)

This paper is a defense of John Duns Scotus’s theory of individuation against one of William of Ockham’s objections. In the Ordinatio II. D.3. P. 1, John Duns Scotus argues for the existence of haecceity, a positive, indivisible distinction which makes an individual an individual rather than a kind of thing. He argues for the existence of haecceity by arguing for a form which is a “real less than numerical unity” and is neither universal nor singular. In the Summa Logicae, (...) William of Ockham objects to Scotus’s theory of haecceity by attacking his theory of universals, claiming that the same thing would be proper and common simultaneously. The basis of Ockham’s objections is that only a real distinction is possible: if things are distinct, then they can exist separately. Without universals, a principle of individuation is unnecessary. To defend Scotus’s principle of individuation, an account and defense of the formal distinction is necessary. Without the formal distinction, metaphysical categories, such as being and one, are incoherent or contradictory. The formal distinction gives rise to a new law of contradiction:two or more entities are formally distinct if and only if contradiction or non-being results from their separation and the properties of one being do not match theproperties of the other being(s). (shrink)

Duns Scotus defends the view that we can speak univocally of God and creatures. When we do so, we use words in the same sense in the two cases. Scotus maintains that the concepts that these univocal words signify are themselves univocal: the same concept in the two cases. In this paper, I consider a related question: does Duns Scotus have the notion of analogous concepts—concepts whose relation to each other lies somewhere between the univocal and the equivocal? Using some (...) neglected texts from Scotus’s attempt to refute Henry of Ghent’s rejection of univocity, I argue that he does, and that he uses his account of univocity to ground the relation of analogy between two concepts. According to Scotus, analogous concepts are compositional, and overlap at a univocal concept. (shrink)

This paper examines interpretations of the doctrine that "exists" is not a predicate (existence is not a property). None, it is concluded, is both true and a refutation of St. Anselm's "ontological" argument for the existence of God.

In the fiftieth disputation of his Disputationes metaphysicae (1597), Francisco Suárez distinguishes three notions of time. Suárez offers an account of the ways in which the predicate ‘when’ can be taken and presents a more general perspective based on the principle of duration, rather than the Aristotelian definition of time. His view differs from Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ account because Suárez emphasizes that time cannot be reduced to the number of the movement of the last sphere in the Aristotelian model of (...) the cosmos. The intrinsic duration of a thing is its true time; this duration can be taken in an absolute or a relative sense. In an absolute sense, intrinsic time is an internal property of a thing that cannot be really distinguished from existence itself and cannot be compared with other durations. In a relative sense, we can imagine this intrinsic duration as filling up a certain interval within an infinitely extended imaginary succession. This imaginary succession is an ens rationis. The third concept of time is the Aristotelian notion: this is just an extrinsic time, a measurement of one movement by means of a comparison with another movement, especially the motion of the last sphere. Finally, in order to show the value of Suárez’s insights, I compare them with some contemporary issues in the analytic philosophy of time. (shrink)

Rory Fox challenges the traditional understanding that Thomas Aquinas believed that God exists totally outside of time. His study investigates the work of several mid-thirteenth-century writers, including Albert the Great and Bonaventure as well as Aquinas, examining their understanding of the topological and metrical properties of time. Fox thus provides access to a wealth of material on medieval concepts of time and eternity, while using the conceptual tools of modern analytic philosophy to express his conclusions.

This paper examines and compares the ways in which the Latin Avicenna, that is the Persian thinker’s work as known in Latin translation to medieval Christianthinkers, and Aquinas alter Aristotle’s conception of the breadth and scope of the subject of metaphysics. These two medieval philosophers inherited the problem that Aristotle posed in the Metaphysics concerning the relationship between the study of being as being and the natural study of God. Both thinkers reject the idea that God is the subject of (...) metaphysics and maintain that the one subject of this science is being qua being. They differ, however, in their analysis of the relationship between this subject and God. Avicenna does not directly address this problem, but certain passages from the Liber de prima philosophia seem to suggest, and were interpreted during the middle ages as suggesting, that God falls within the scope of being qua being. Aquinas, on the other hand, analyzes this relationship in detail and firmly denies that God falls within the scope of the subject of metaphysics. (shrink)

In this paper I examine Aquinas’s commentary on a text of Aristotle in which the type of order between substance and accidents is discussed. I claim that Aquinas maintains that there cannot be any reference to sensibility, despite any prima facie interpretation of Aristotle’s texts, according to which it could be thought that substance is temporally prior to accidents and, hence, that we must presuppose a perceivable change in the world on the basis of which it is possible to consider (...) something temporally prior to something else. This interpretation – which is possible on the basis of Aristotle’s texts – would be a misinterpretation, according to Aquinas. Aquinas’s assumption is philosophically worthwhile because it confi rms that every metaphysical proposition must abstract from sensibility. (shrink)

De indole Suarezii doctrinae metaphysicaeTractatio proposita septem principales proprietates Francisci Suarezii doctrinae metaphysicae describit: scil. “univocalisationem” conceptus entis eiusque passionum; “reificationem” actu et potentiae, “ontologisationem” individualitatis, “conceptualisationem” Scotisticae doctriane, “existentialem” naturamconceptus entis, “epistemologisationem” et “methodologisationem” metaphysicae. Quarum cum quinque priores bene intra scholasticam traditionem maneant, relictae duae iam methodologicam prioritatem subiectivitatis, qua philosophia modernorum insignitur, praesignant. Translatio: Lukáš NovákThe nature of Suárez’s metaphysicsThe paper presents seven basic features of Francisco Suárez’s metaphysics. They are as follows: “Univocalization” of the concept of (...) being and transcendental properties, “reification” of the act-potency doctrine, “ontologization” of individuality, “conceptualization” of the Scotist perspective, “existential” character of the concept of being, “epistemologization” and “methodologization” of metaphysics. Whereas the first five are indicated as remaining in the preserve of the traditional scholastic philosophy, the last two are taken as portending the methodological priority of the subjective states of affairs of early modern “main-stream” philosophy. (shrink)

In what follows, I argue that the thinkers of the twelfth to thirteenth century rediscovered and passed on the questions of metaphysics; in what I call the second beginning of metaphysics they also developed those questions in such a way that they could be received into the thinking of the modern era in the first place. It was precisely the theological context which forced this development and lead the theologians of the Latin West, inspired by their Arabic predecessors, to redesign (...) metaphysics according to the rules of Aristotle’s logic and philosophy of science. Put differently, through the challenge of theology medieval metaphysics was forced to become what it had claimed to be from the onset: first philosophy. (shrink)

With the English translation of the two Latin works contained in this present book, which is a sequel to Nicholas of Cusa: Metaphysical Speculations: [Volume One],1 I have now translated all2 of the major treatises and dialogues of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), except for De Concordantia Catholica.3 My plans call for collecting, in the near future, these translations into a two-volume paperback edition—i.e., into a Reader—that will serve, more generally, students of the history of philosophy and theology. Reasons of economy (...) dictate that footnotes and introductory analyses be left aside, so that the prospective Reader cannot be thought of as a replacement for the more scholarly previously published volumes. (shrink)

In 1513 the Fifth Lateran Council determined that the immortality of the rational soul is not true only in theology, but also in philosophy. The determination can be related also to the actual teaching of philosophy. In the university of Erfurt, Bartholomaeus Arnoldi de Usingen and Jodocus Trutfetter wrote expositions on natural philosophy at that time. Usingen's and Trutfetter's expositions of De anima represent a position, which faithfully follows in methodology and aspirations the tradition of the via moderna. Furthermore, they (...) give an interpretation of the relationship between philosophy and theology, which Trutfetter considered consonant with the intentions and the formulations of the Fifth Lateran Council; and finally, Trutfetter even presents a practical application of the Council's recommendations. (shrink)

This article considers three medieval approaches to the problem of future contingent propositions in chapter 9 of Aristotle's De Interpretatione . While Boethius assumed that God's atemporal knowledge infallibly pertains to historical events, he was inclined to believe that Aristotle correctly taught that future contingent propositions are not antecedently true or false, even though they may be characterized as true-or-false. Aquinas also tried to combine the allegedly Aristotelian view of the disjunctive truth-value of future contingent propositions with the conception of (...) all things being timelessly present to God's knowledge. The second approach was formulated by Peter Abelard who argued that in Aristotle's view future contingent propositions are true or false, not merely true-or-false, and that the antecedent truth of future propositions does not necessitate things in the world. After Duns Scotus, many late medieval thinkers thought like Abelard, particularly because of their new interpretation of contingency, but they did not believe, with the exception of John Buridan, that this was an Aristotelian view. (shrink)

This article examines one aspect of Thomas Aquinas' understanding of abstraction. It shows in which way, according to Aquinas, universal material objects and individual material objects are the starting point for mathematical objects. It comes to the conclusion that for Aquinas there are not only universal mathematical objects (circle, line), but also individual mathematical objects (this circle, that line). Universal mathematical objects are properties of universal material objects and individual mathematical objects are properties of individual material objects. One type of (...) abstractio formae leads from individual material objects to universal mathematical objects, a second type from universal material objects to universal mathematical objects, and a third type from individual material objects to individual mathematical objects. Therefore, the concept of abstractio formae is ambiguous. (shrink)

Although metaphysics as a discipline can hardly be separated from Aristotle and his works, the questions it raises were certainly known to authors even before the reception of Aristotle in the thirteenth century. Even without the explicit use of this term the twelfth century manifested a strong interest in metaphysical questions under the guise of «natural philosophy» or «divine science», leading M.-D. Chenu to coin the expression of a twelfth century «éveil métaphysique». In their commentaries on Boethius and under the (...) influence of Neoplatonism, twelfth century authors not only anticipate essential elements of thirteenth century metaphysics, they also make an original contribution to the history of metaphysics by attempting to integrate the theory of first principles, philosophical theology and ontology. This volume presents and examines the contributions of the twelfth century to metaphysics made by selected Jewish, Christian and Muslim authors of the Iberian Peninsula and Francia. -/- Contributors include Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (Frankfurt am Main), Andreas Speer (Würzburg), Charles Burnett (London), Alexander Fidora (Frankfurt am Main), Thomas Ricklin (Neuchâtel), Yossef Schwartz (Jerusalem), Josep Udina (Barcelona), Jack C. Marler (St. Louis/USA), Gillian R. Evans (Cambridge), Andreas Niederberger (Frankfurt am Main) and Françoise Hudry (Paris). (shrink)

This paper examines the theories of the soul proposed by Girolamo Cardano in his De immortalitate animorum (1545) and his De subtilitate (1550-4), Julius Caesar Scaliger's comprehensive critique of these views in the Exercitationes exotericae de subtilitate of 1557, and Cardano's reply to this critique in his Actio in calumniatorem of 1559. Cardano argues that the passive intellect is individuated and mortal, and that the agent intellect is immortal but subject to constant reincarnation in different human beings. His theory of (...) cognition leads him to claim that at its highest level, the intellect is converted into the object of its perception. In his refutation of the various elements of Cardano's theories, Scaliger uses his knowledge of the Greek text of Aristotle to stress the reflexive faculty of the soul, its ability to conceive of objects greater than itself, and its status as the individuating principle of the hylemorphic human being. In spite of Cardano's pretention to novelty and Scaliger's humanist credentials, both thinkers are shown to conduct their discussions in an inherited scholastic matrix of thought. (shrink)

It is a common view that Ockham’s critique of Scotus’s position on the issue of contingency is “devastating,” for it seems obvious that a possibility that does notactualize is simply no possibility. This rejection however does not commit Ockham to necessitarism, for the consideration of the temporal discontinuity of volitions should suffice to save contingency. But does it? Is it the case that diachronic volitions (which Scotus also acknowledges) are sufficient?This essay argues that (1) the debate between Ockham and Scotus (...) is not to be reduced to a logical disagreement (Scotus’s and Ockham’s modal logics are actually substantially similar) but is properly ontological inasmuch as it concerns the reduction and eventual identification of being with actuality and of actuality with reality in the sense of manifest; (2) the retrograding movement of truth from the present (Ockham’s 3rd suppositio) entails a temporal gap between present and future; and (3) Ockham’s solution depends on a conception of the will that cannot simply be identified with, and accounted for in terms of successive volitions. (shrink)

In his Repastinatio . . . Lorenzo Valla launched a heavy attack on Aristotelian-scholastic thought. While most of this book is devoted to metaphysics, language and argumentation, Valla also incorporates chapters on the soul and natural philosophy. Using as criteria good Latin, common sense and common observation, he rejected much of standard Aristotelian teaching on the soul, replacing the hylopmorphic account of the scholastics by an Augustinian one. In this article his arguments on the soul's autonomy, nobility and independency from (...) the body are studied and analysed. His critique of Aristotle's opinions on natural phenomena as being untrue to what we observe will also be briefly studied. His arguments do not show him always to be deep or consistent thinker, but the critical review of Aristotelian philosophy proceeds from some philosophically interesting assumptions. Moreover, from a broader historical perspective his undermining of Aristotle's authority may be regarded as a contribution to the final demise of the Aristotelian paradigm, even though the humanist critique was just one factor in this process. (shrink)

1 The Roots of the Laws Perhaps the most ready assumption of any reader of the Laws-it only because of its title-is that its primary purpose is to provide a ...

In William Ockham on Metaphysics, Jenny E. Pelletier gives an account of Ockham's concept of metaphysics as the science of being and God as it emerges sporadically throughout his philosophical and theological work.

The existence of everlasting punishment has sometimes been thought to be incompatible with God’s goodness and omnipotence. John Duns Scotus focused on the key issue concerning everlasting punishment, i.e., the impossibility for the damned to repent of their evil deeds and so to obtain forgiveness. Scotus’s claimwas that such an impossibility is not logical but nomological, i.e., it depends on the rules God established to govern the world, specifically on what I call ‘the rule of the permanence of the last (...) volition.’ Scotus does not try to defend God’s decision to implement the rule of the permanence of the last volition. I suggest, however, that that decision can be taken as an indication of God’s preference for a world where this life is given unique value as the only test rational creatures have to prove themselves as moral agents. (shrink)

Scotus claims that the extramental world is divided into ten distinct kinds of essences, no one of which can be reduced to another one. Although by the end of the thirteenth century this claim was not new, Scotus's way of articulating it into a comprehensive metaphysical doctrine resulted into a ground-breaking contribution to what became known as 'late medieval realism'. This paper shows how Scotus's view of the categories as ten kinds of irreducible essences should be seen as a development (...) and correction of his predecessors' (including Thomas Aquinas's and Henry of Ghent's) views. The main elements of Scotus's doctrine are his application of the real distinction to the categories, his view of inherence as a categorial item separated from accidents, and his distinction between absolute and non-absolute accidents. Finally, although Scotus's doctrine of the univocity of being seems to pose a challenge to his claim that categories are irreducible to each other and do not have anything in common, this paper shows how Scotus's doctrine of univocity and his realist conception of the categories can be reconciled as two theories that describe the world from different points of view. (shrink)

This essay considers Edith Stein’s account of “essential being” and finds therein a point of continuity with medieval metaphysics. Scholarly attention has already been given to this feature of Stein’s metaphysics; it has been argued that “essential being,” while serving as a crucial point of distinction between Stein andThomas Aquinas’s own metaphysics, functions as a point of similarity between Stein and Duns Scotus. However, I argue that, while there are certainly manypoints of congruence between Stein and Scotus on the topic (...) of essential being, the position that Stein advances comes much closer to Henry of Ghent’s doctrineof esse essentiae. Finally, I show that the consequence of her adopting a position so similar to Henry of Ghent is that it opens Stein to a number of criticisms raised by Scotus himself against esse essentiae. (shrink)

This paper is an examination of the theory of materia prima of the fifteenth century Platonist Marsilio Ficino. It limits its discussion of Ficino's theory to the ontological and epistemic status of prime matter in his Platonic Theology. Ficino holds a "robust" theory of prime matter that makes two fundamental assertions: First, prime matter exists independent of form, and second, it is, at least in principle, intelligible. Ficino's theory of prime matter is framed in this paper with a discussion of (...) the divergence among Scholastic philosophers over the nature of prime matter. (shrink)

1 There have been several editions of Fridugisus’ letter. I have consulted those in Jaques-Paul Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus … series latina, 221 vols., (Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1844–1864), vol. 105, cols. 751–756; Francesco Corvino, “Il ‘De nihilo et tenebris’ di Fredegiso di Tours,” Rivista critica di storia della filosofia (1956), pp. 273–286; and the most recent and authoritative edition, in Concettina Gennaro, Fridugiso di Tours e il “De substantia nihili et tenebrarum”: Edizione critica e studio introduttivo, (“Pubblicazioni dell’istituto universitario di (...) magistero di Catania,” serie filosofica — saggi e monografie, no. 46; Padua: Casa editrice Dott. Antonio Milani, 1963). Fridugisus’ letter survives in four manuscripts. Nevertheless the text is corrupt in places, and all editors have had to suggest emendations here and there. For my translation I have followed Gennaro’s edition, but not always her interpretation. There is another translation, by Hermigild Dressler, in John F. Wippel and Allan Wolter, eds., Medieval Philosophy from St. Augustine to Nicholas of Cusa, (New York: The Free Press, 1969), pp. 104–108. Note that references to the Psalms in this translation are given according to the numbering in the Revised Standard Edition. (shrink)

Franciscus Suarez de additione Unitatis ad Ens et prioritate Unitatis respectu MultitudinisSolutio quaestionis de natura additionis conceptuali Unius ad Ens, quam Suarez proponit, traditionem Aristotelico-Averroisticam (per Aquinatum mediatam) primo sequitur. Secundum hanc traditionem, Unum non superaddit Enti nisi determinationem negativam. Suárez similiter negat Unum dicere perfectionem positivam ab Ente ut sic distinctam, sive ex natura rei, sive ratione tantum. Sententiam suam exponens, Suarez multas alias conceptiones critice pertractat, praecipue autem doctrinam auctorum quorundam (plerumque Franciscanorum) impugnat, qui docent Unum superaddere ad (...) Ens perfectionem quandam positivam, quae tamen ratione tantum ab Ente ut sic distinguitur. Argumentum principale pro ista sententia assumit, indivisionem ut negationem negationis intelligendam esse, quae dicit affirmationem. Secundum Suarezium istam notionem indivisionis etiam D. Thomas defendit, qui negationem, quam Unum dicit, divisionem unius entis ab altero negare tenet. Istam solutionem Suarez reicit, sententiam propriam proponens, secundum quam Unum non negativam divisionem unius entis ab alio, sed intrinsecam et essentialem divisionem unius entis in semetipso negat, quae est divisio realis et positiva. Hac explicatione innitens Suarez consequenter doctrinam Aquinatis et Thomistarum de prioritate concpetuali Unius prae Multitudine, quem ut solutionem difficultatis in doctrina Aristotelis de oppositione privativa Unius ad Multum repertae confecerunt, reicit. Suárez prioritatem realem indivisionis prae divisione, itemque et realem et conceptualem prioritatem Unius prae Multo defendit. Haec Suarezii sententia cum doctrina eius de additione mere negativa Unius ad Ens bene consona esse videtur. Translatio: L. NovákFrancisco Suárez on the Addition of the One to Being and the Priority of the One over the ManySuárez’s solution to the problem of the conceptual Addition of the One to being follows firstly the Aristotelian-Averroistic tradition mediated by Aquinas. According to this tradition, the One adds to being only a negative determination. Suárez claims that the One does not signify any positive perfection either really or conceptually distinct from being as such. Suárez’s own solution to the problem is presented in a critical discussion with many different conceptions, but Suárez pays most attention to the theory of certain, mainly Franciscan, authors who hold that the One adds to being a positive perfection which is only conceptually distinct from being as such. The main argument for this thesis is based on the assumption that indivision is to be taken as a double negation, by which an affirmation is expressed. This concept of indivision was, according to Suárez, also defended by Aquinas, who holds that the negation which is expressed by the One negates the division of one being from another. Suárez rejects this solution and proposes his own conception, according to which the One does not negate the negative moment of the division of one being from another, but the positive moment of an essential division of a being in itself. The One thus negates a real positive division of being in itself. On the basis of this theory, Suárez further rejected Aquinas’s (and the Thomistic) conception of a conceptual priority of the One over the Many, which was put forth as an answer to the old Aristotelian problem of a privative opposition between the One and the Many. Suárez defends the real priority of an indivision over a division as well as a real and conceptual priority of the One over the Many. Suárez’s conception seems to us to be compatible with his concept of a negative Addition of the One to being. (shrink)