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A Renaissance Reading of Aquinas: Thomas Cajetan on the Ontological Status of Essences

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Metaphysica

Abstract

Aristotelian philosophers have been always puzzled by the ambiguous status of essences: it is not clear whether an Aristotelian should admit that an essence, taken in itself, is real, even though essences do not exist over and above particular things, as Platonists posit; furthermore, it is not clear whether an Aristotelian should endorse the view that essences have a certain unity, even if they are taken in themselves, namely, by abstracting from the individuals of which they are essences. I tackle Thomas Cajetan’s analysis of this problem: this analysis is more sophisticated than that developed by Aquinas—whose texts had been commented upon by Cajetan. Cajetan distinguishes two senses of “real” and of “unity,” in order to speak of the reality and of the unity of essences, taken in themselves, though not endorsing a Platonist’s ontology. I suggest that his solution is appealing for the contemporary debate about this problem.

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Notes

  1. Cf. Thom 1996, pp. 314–351, Loux 1978; Loux 1998, pp. 117–119.

  2. This point has been developed and defended in Lowe 1998, pp. 179–183. Neo-Scholastics defined essence as “id quo res est id quod est seu quo consituitur in specie” (Gredt 1926, II, 4, n. 616), whilst kinds are abstract essences, which presuppose an act of our minds, which make these abstractions (cf. Gredt 1926, I, 113, n. 132: “universale metaphysicum est natura ab inferioribus abstracta […]. Natura ab inferioribus abstracta fit per actum absolutum abstrahentem naturam ab inferioribus”).

  3. According to Aristotle, an essence is what is shown by the definition of a thing. Since individuals do not have definitions, we must consider the case of secondary substances, if we want to appreciate the difference between kinds and essences. Whilst the kind of human beings is animal, their essence is expressed by the definition “rational animal”; hence, human beings belong to their kind, but not to their physical essence, which is really identical with them, for Aristotle (cf. Aristotle 1924, Z4-6; on Aristotle’s thesis of identity of a thing with its essence see Gili 2011a).

  4. Cf. Oderberg 2007, p. 19: “real essentialism holds that knowledge of essence is captured by means of real definition. […] To define something just means, literally, to set forth its limits in such a way that one can distinguish it from all other things of a different kind.” Oderberg does not posit that essence is a thing’s real definition, but that essence may be known through definition—essences are the reasons why something possesses this definition, which singles it out from items of other kinds.

  5. “Orthodoxy” within the Aristotelian tradition is almost an empty term, because many different and competitive Aristotelianisms have been developed during the long history of the usages of Aristotle’s philosophy (cf. on this point Rashed 2007, pp. 1–6; Gili 2011b). In this case, “orthodoxy” should be interpreted as the common opinion among contemporary Neo-Aristotelians; cf. Tahko 2012 for a picture of contemporary Neo-Aristotelian metaphysics.

  6. Aquinas designates as “essentia ut totum” the essence which I labeled as physical, whilst my “metaphysical” essence is an “essentia ut pars” in his words (cf. Aquinas 1976, ch. III).

  7. Cf. Lowe 2006; see also Oderberg 2007, pp. 12–15.

  8. This label, like “Aristotelian” too, is not philologically employed, but is rather used as a shortage for “similar to what Meinong (or Aristotle) would have thought in this case.” There is the tendency, in recent scholarship, to label the view that there are such things as nonexisting objects as “Meinongianism,” without making any actual reference to the precise thought of Meinong on this particular point (cf. Berto 2010). My usage of this label should be understood in this more loose sense too.

  9. For a Neo-Scholastic presentation of this thesis cf. Gredt 1926, II, 11–12, n. 622.

  10. Cf. Aristotle 1924, Δ, 6. On this topic see Castelli 2010.

  11. English translation: Miller 1997 (“si quaeratur utrum ista natura sic considerata [scilicet: absolute] possit dici una vel plures, neutrum concedendum est, quia utrumque est extra intellectum humanitatis et utrumque potest sibi accidere. Si enim pluralitas esset de intellectu eius, nunquam posset esse una, cum tamen una sit secundum quod est in Socrate. Similiter si unitas esset de ratione eius, tunc esset una et eadem Socratis et Platonis nec posset in pluribus plurificari,” Aquinas 1976, III, 374, pp. 37–45).

  12. On Aquinas’s distinction between esse and essence see Wippell 2000, 137 ff.

  13. On Aquinas’s theory of mental being, see Galluzzo 2010.

  14. English translation: Miller 1997 (“relinquitur quod ratio generis vel speciei conveniat essentiae, secundum quod significatur per modum totius, ut nomine hominis vel animalis, prout implicite et indistincte continet totum hoc, quod in individuo est. Natura autem vel essentia sic accepta potest dupliciter considerari: uno modo, secundum rationem propriam, et haec est absoluta consideratio ipsius. […] Alio modo consideratur secundum esse quod habet in hoc vel in illo, et sic de ipsa aliquid praedicatur per accidens ratione eius, in quo est, sicut dicitur quod homo est albus, quia Socrates est albus, quamvis hoc non conveniat homini in eo quod homo. Haec autem natura duplex habet esse, unum in singularibus et aliud in anima, et secundum utrumque consequuntur dictam naturam accidentia. Et in singularibus etiam habet multiplex esse secundum singularium diversitatem et tamen ipsi naturae secundum suam primam considerationem, scilicet absolutam, nullum istorum esse debetur. Falsum enim est dicere quod essentia hominis in quantum huiusmodi habeat esse in hoc singulari, quia si esse in hoc singulari conveniret homini in quantum est homo, nunquam esset extra hoc singulare. Similiter etiam si conveniret homini in quantum est homo non esse in hoc singulari, nunquam esset in eo. Sed verum est dicere quod homo non in quantum est homo habet quod sit in hoc singulari vel in illo aut in anima. Ergo patet quod natura hominis absolute considerata abstrahit a quolibet esse, ita tamen quod non fiat praecisio alicuius eorum. Et haec natura sic considerata est quae praedicatur de individuis omnibus. Non tamen potest dici quod ratio universalis conveniat naturae sic acceptae, quia de ratione universalis est unitas et communitas. Naturae autem humanae neutrum horum convenit secundum suam absolutam considerationem. Si enim communitas esset de intellectu hominis, tunc in quocumque inveniretur humanitas inveniretur communitas. Et hoc falsum est, quia in Socrate non invenitur communitas aliqua, sed quicquid est in eo est individuatum,” Aquinas 1976, III, p. 374, 21–29, 45–82).

  15. See again Aquinas 1976, III.

  16. Recent works about Cajetan’s philosophy include Reilly 1971; Riva 1995; Braun 1995; Hochschild 2010. In the heydays of Neothomism, Cajetan’s commentary on Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae was printed upon request of Pope Leo XIII, whose efforts helped the development of Neothomism. However, when more recent scholarship showed the historical weaknesses of the Neothomistic reconstruction of Aquinas’s thought, Cajetan fell into oblivion, although some scholars continued to study his philosophy and made available to a wider public some of his works, by providing an English translation of them.

  17. This commentary has been translated into English in Kendzierski and Wade 1964. Cajetan completed his commentary on Aquinas’s De ente et essentia in the year 1495, when he was only 27 years old.

  18. Cf. Cajetan 1934, p. 90, qu. VI, n. 57: “Dubium secundo est circa dictum S. Thomae in littera in assignatione secundae differentiae, quo dicitur, quod natura absolute sumpta nec unitatem nec pluralitatem habet. Videtur enim hoc esse impossibile, cum id, quod unum non est, definibile non sit, ut dicitur VII Metaph. text. XIII, imo non intelligibile, ut habetur VI Metaph. comm. X” (“secondly, there is a doubt concerning the words of St. Thomas in his text regarding the assigning of the second difference, in which it is said that a nature, taken absolutely, has neither plurality nor unity. This seems to be impossible since that which is not one is not definable, as is said in VII Metaph.; in fact, it is unintelligible, as is held in IV Metaph.,” Kendzierski and Wade 1964, p. 143).

  19. Kendzierski and Wade 1964, p. 145; “sciendum est quod ens reale dupliciter accipitur: uno modo ut distinguitur contra ens ab intellectu fabricatum; alio modo ut distinguitur contra non existens actu,” Cajetan 1934, p. 92, qu. VI, n. 59.

  20. Cf. Cajetan 1934, p. 92, qu. VI, n. 59: “unitas sicut et caetera realitatem habet, proprie loquendo, pro quanto ipsa existit actu extra animam et causas suas’ (‘unity just as the others has reality properly speaking in so ar as it actually exists outside its causes and the soul,” Kendzierski and Wade 1964, p. 145).

  21. It should be noticed that, for Cajetan, Aquinas excludes that essences are one or plural, only because he wants to exclude numerical unity or plurality of essences (cf. Cajetan 1934, p. 93, qu. VI, n. 60: “quod autem in littera dicitur, quod natura absolute sumpta, nec est una, nec est plures, intelligendum est de unitate et pluralitate numerali”; “what is said in the text, that a nature, taken absolutely, is neither one nor many, is to be understood of numerical unity and plurality,” Kendzierski and Wade 1964, p. 148). According to Cajetan, indeed, it is not absolutely true that essences are without unity since they are formally one.

  22. Kendzierski and Wade 1964, pp. 147–8 (“quando quaeritur, aut illa unitas est numeralis, aut specifica, dico quod est unitas formalis, quae alia est a numerali: sicut divisio formalis alia est a materiali. Nec illa unitas formalis est specifica aut generica formaliter, sed est fundamentum unitatis specificae et unitatis genericae. Hae enim unitates formaliter ab intellectu fiunt: illa vero omnes actos intellectus praevenit,” Cajetan 1934, p. 93, qu. VI, n. 60).

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    Luca Gili

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Gili, L. A Renaissance Reading of Aquinas: Thomas Cajetan on the Ontological Status of Essences. Int Ontology Metaphysics 13, 217–227 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12133-012-0105-y

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