No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Aquinas on The Distinction Between Esse and Esse: How the Name ‘Esse’ Can Signify Essence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
In a number of texts throughout his career, Thomas Aquinas identifies different senses of the term ‘esse’. Most notably, he notes that according to one sense, the term signifies the act of existence (actus essendi), which he famously holds is really distinct from essence in all beings other than God. Perhaps surprisingly, he also notes on a number of occasions that according to another sense, the term ‘esse’ can signify that very principle that he says is distinct from the act of existence, namely, essence. In light of Aquinas's semantic theory, this paper investigates how he coherently holds within his metaphysical system that this term ‘esse’ can signify in different ways both essence and the act of existence. More broadly, what it shows is how, for Aquinas, the metaphysician can look to the modes of signification (modi significandi) of terms and as well as their modes of predication (modi praedicandi) to draw careful conclusions about the modes of existence (modi essendi) of real beings. These considerations reveal that in Aquinas's view, although the grammarian and logician in their way are also concerned with these semantic modes, it is not their job to employ them to discern the various senses of the term ‘being’ or the fundamental modes of being. In the end, this is a task for the metaphysician.
Keywords
- Type
- Original Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2023 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 In what follows, I will employ the convention of using single quotation marks to indicate terms (e.g. ‘being’, ‘substance’) and italicization to indicate the notions, natures, etc. that these terms signify (e.g. being, substance). Some valuable scholarly treatments of this question on the different senses of ‘esse’ are offered by Owens, Joseph, ‘The Accidental and Essential Character of Being in the Doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas’, Mediaeval Studies 20 (1958): 1–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McInerny, Ralph, ‘Being and Predication’, in Being and Predication: Thomistic Interpretations, vol. 16Google Scholar, Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1986), 173-228Google Scholar. This chapter includes two earlier published articles: ‘Some Notes on Being and Predication’, The Thomist 22 (1959): 315-35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Notes on Being and Predication’, Laval théologique et philosophique 15 (1959): 236-74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 All dating of Thomas's works follows Torrell, Jean-Pierre, Initiation à saint Thomas d'Aquin: Sa personne et son œuvre, Nouvelle édition profondément remaniée, vol. 1 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2015)Google Scholar.
3 Scriptum super libros Sententiarum magistri Petri Lombardi episcopi Parisiensis I (hereafter Super Sententiis I), ed. P. Mandonnet, vol. 1 (Paris: Lethielleux, 1929), d. 33, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1 (pp. 765–66): ‘Sed sciendum, quod esse dicitur tripliciter. Uno modo dicitur esse ipsa quidditas vel natura rei, sicut dicitur quod definitio est oratio significans quid est esse; definitio enim quidditatem rei significat. Alio modo dicitur esse ipse actus essentiae; sicut vivere, quod est esse viventibus, est animae actus; non actus secundus, qui est operatio, sed actus primus. Tertio modo dicitur esse quod significat veritatem compositionis in propositionibus, secundum quod est dicitur copula: et secundum hoc est in intellectu componente et dividente quantum ad sui complementum; sed fundatur in esse rei, quod est actus essentiae, sicut supra de veritate dictum est’. (Emphasis added in translation). Mandonnet notes that the Parma edition has ‘dupliciter’ instead of ‘triplicter’ (766).
4 Maurer, Armand, Thomas Aquinas. On Being and Essence (Toronto, 1968), 15–16Google Scholar.
5 The texts identified in this table were located in part through a search through the work of prior scholarship and in part through searches of the Index Thomisticus (e.g., [ens/esse *2 dicitur *2 dupliciter/tripliciter]). For prior work in this area, see Weidemann, Hermann, ‘The Logic of Being in Thomas Aquinas’, in The Logic of Being, ed. Knuuttila, Simo and Hintikka, Jaakko, vol. 28, Synthese Historical Library (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1986), 181–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klima, Gyula, ‘The Semantic Principles Underlying Saint Thomas Aquinas's Metaphysics of Being’, Medieval Philosophy and Theology 5 (1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: esp. 92, n. 9; Klima, Gyula, ‘Aquinas’ Theory of the Copula and the Analogy of Being’, Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy 5 (2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: esp. 160, n. 1.
6 One liberty I have taken, however, is to simplify and standardize the phrases decem genera and decem praedicamenta as ‘ten categories’, since those are what Aquinas clearly has in mind.
7 On how the copulative sense of being answers the question an est, see Weidemann, ‘The Logic of Being’, esp. 183–86; Martin, C. F. J., ‘The Notion of Existence Used in Answering an est?’, in Thomas Aquinas: God and Explanations (Ediburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997), 50–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dewan, Lawrence O.P., ‘Which Esse Gives the Answer to the Question: ‘Is It?’ for St. Thomas’, Doctor Communis N.S. 3 (2002): 80–97Google Scholar; Brock, Stephen L., ‘Thomas Aquinas and “What Actually Exists”’, in Wisdom's Apprentice: Thomistic Essays in Honor of Lawrence Dewan, O.P., ed. Peter A. Kwasniewski (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 13–39Google Scholar.
8 Sup. Sent., III.6.2.2 co. (Moos, 3.238): ‘Alio modo dicitur esse quod pertinet ad naturam rei, secundum quod dividitur secundum decem genera. Et hoc quidem esse in re est, et est actus entis resultans ex principiis rei, sicut lucere est actus lucentis’.
9 Quodlibet IX, 2.2 [3] co. (Leon. 25/1.94–95:31–66): ‘Alio modo esse dicitur actus entis in quantum est ens, id est quo denominatur aliquid ens actu in rerum natura; et sic esse non attribuitur nisi rebus ipsis que in decem generibus continentur, unde ens a tali esse dictum per decem genera diuiditur’.
10 A question arises with Text 12, from the Prima Pars, whether Aquinas is in fact identifying the categorial sense of ‘ens’ with the quidditative sense of the term since here he speaks of the entitas of a thing as divided by the categories rather than speaking of the thing's essentia, quidditas, or natura. As will be discussed below, there are texts where Aquinas appears to identify (or at least associate) the notion of entitas with that of actualitas. Still, in the context of Text 12 (q. 48, a. 2, ad 2), it is clear that he means it to signify essence.
11 Metaphysics, V.7, 1017a8–b9.
12 Aristotle himself is ambiguous on this point. Although the third and fourth senses of ‘being’ that he identifies could be read this way, they could also be read as distinct from and in addition to the accidental and per se senses of ‘being’. For a consideration of Aquinas on the ordering and interrelation of these four senses of being, see Llano, Alejandro, ‘“Being as True” According to Aquinas’, Acta Philosophica 4 (1995): 73–82Google Scholar; Llano, Alejandro, ‘The Different Meanings of “Being” According to Aristotle and Aquinas’, Acta Philosophica 10 (2001): 29–44Google Scholar. See also Brock, ‘What Actually Exists’.
13 De ente, c. 1 (Leon. 43.369:1–26): ‘Sciendum est igitur quod, sicut in V Methaphisice Philosophus dicit, ens per se dupliciter dicitur: [1] uno modo quod diuiditur per decem genera, [2] alio modo quod significatpropositionum ueritatem’.
14 In Metaphysicam, V.9 (Marietti 238.889): ‘Deinde cum dicit «secundum se». Distinguit modum entis per se: et circa hoc tria facit. Primo distinguit ens, quod est extra animam, per decem praedicamenta, quod est ens perfectum. Secundo ponit alium modum entis, secundum quod est tantum in mente, ibi, «Amplius autem et esse significat». Tertio dividit ens per potentiam et actum: et ens sic divisum est communius quam ens perfectum. Nam ens in potentia, est ens secundum quid tantum et imperfectum, ibi, «Amplius esse significat et ens»’. Italics in original.
15 It is noteworthy that on this point, Aquinas goes beyond the text of Aristotle, which makes no clear mention of this third sense of ‘per se being’ as dividing the prior two, nor does he make mention of the sort of res rationis described by Aquinas (Metaphysics V, 7, 1017b1–10). In Meta. V.9.897: ‘In omnibus enim praedictis terminis, quae significant decem praedicamenta, aliquid dicitur in actu, et aliquid in potentia. Et ex hoc accidit, quod unumquodque praedicamentum per actum et potentiam dividitur. Et sicut in rebus, quae extra animam sunt, dicitur aliquid in actu et aliquid in potentia, ita in actibus animae et privationibus, quae sunt res rationis tantum’.
16 In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio, X.3.1982, M.-R. Cathala and R. M. Spiazzi eds. (Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1950), 472: ‘Sed ens quod dividitur per decem praedicamenta, significat ipsas naturas decem generum secundum quod sunt actu vel potentia’. Emphasis added in translation.
17 De malo, q. 7 a. 1 ad 1.
18 In Metaphysicam, V.9 (Marietti 238.890): ‘Unde oportet, quod ens contrahatur ad diversa genera secundum diversum modum praedicandi, qui consequitur diversum modum essendi; quia «quoties ens dicitur», idest quot modis aliquid praedicatur, «toties esse significatur», idest tot modis significatur aliquid esse. Et propter hoc ea in quae dividitur ens primo, dicuntur esse praedicamenta, quia distinguuntur secundum diversum modum praedicandi. Quia igitur eorum quae praedicantur, quaedam significant quid, idest substantiam, quaedam quale, quaedam quantum, et sic de aliis; oportet quod unicuique modo praedicandi, esse significet idem; ut cum dicitur homo est animal, esse significat substantiam. Cum autem dicitur, homo est albus, significat qualitatem, et sic de aliis’. Italics added in translation.
19 Ibid. See n. 18 for the Latin.
20 To draw this connection between essence and modus essendi is not to identify the two, as though modus essendi were another name for essence. Rather, as already mentioned, it is to point out that a being's mode of existing follows from the kind of essence that it has. On mode and essence, see Tomarchio, John, ‘Aquinas's Division of Being According to Modes of Existing’, The Review of Metaphysics 54 (2001): 585–613Google Scholar.
21 Expositio libri Peryermeneias (hereafter In Peri.), I, lect. 2 in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 1*/1 (Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1989), 9–13. The common account of signification for Aquinas and his contemporaries is that ‘“to signify is to establish an understanding” (‘significare est intellecturn constituere’)’. Ashworth, E.J., ‘Signification and Modes of Signifying in Thirteenth-Century Logic: A Preface to Aquinas on Analogy’, Medieval Philosophy and Theology 1 (1991): 44Google Scholar. This formulation is from Aristotle's Peri hermeneias, 16b19–21.
22 Summa theologiae: Pars Prima (hereafter ST I), 13.4 co. in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 4 (Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1888), 144: ‘Ratio enim quam significat nomen, est conceptio intellectus de re significata per nomen’ (Emphasis added in translation). Cf. ST I.5.2 (Leon. 4.58). ‘Analysis’ is Ashworth's preferred translation of ratio in these contexts (see Ibid., 50–52.).
23 On the distinction between significatum and res significata, see Ashworth, ‘Signification and Modes of Signifying’, 50–53.
24 I say ‘paradigmatically’ because, as we have already seen in Aquinas's consideration of the different senses of being, we can have meaningful language also about privations, such as blindness. Regarding how there is meaningful signification not only in the cases of names for entia rationis such as privations and second intentions, but also for names of fictions such as the chimera, see Klima, Gyula, ‘The Changing Role of Entia Rationis in Mediaeval Semantics and Ontology: A Comparative Study with a Reconstruction’, Synthese 96, no. 1 (1993): 25–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klima, ‘Semantic Principles’, esp. 91–97; Klima, ‘Aquinas's Theory of the Copula’.
25 See Ashworth, ‘Signification and Modes of Signifying’, 52–53. There are occasions where the two—referent (suppositum) and res significata—coincide, such as when the name ‘Socrates’ is said of Socrates. In the context of such a proposition, the name signifies that which it also references.
26 Scriptum super Sententiis magistri Petri Lombardi III (hereather Super Sententiis III), 6.1.2 ad 4, vol. 3, ed. R. P. Maria Fabianus Moos, O.P. (Paris: Lethielleux, 1933), 231: ‘Homo significat humanam naturam, et supponit pro subsistente in natura illa’.
On the doctrine of supposition and its relation to signification, see Spade, Paul Vincent, ‘The Semantics of Terms’, in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, ed. Kretzmann, Norman, Kenny, Anthony, and Pinborg, Jan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 192–96Google Scholar; Schoot, Henk J. M., ‘Aquinas and Supposition: The Possibilities and Limitations of Logic In Divinis’, Vivarium 30 (1993): 193–225CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
27 Ashworth, ‘Signification and Modes of Signifying’, 52–53; Klima, ‘Semantic Principles’, 103–106; Vargas Della Casa, Rosa E., ‘Thomas Aquinas on the Apprehension of Being: The Role of Judgement in Light of Thirteenth-Century Semantics’ (Dissertation, Marquette University, 2013), 53–54Google Scholar. It should be noted that to say that the res significata of a word is some form is not to say that it is always some metaphysical form. For example, there is no extramental metaphysical form with terms for second intentions (like ‘genus’ and ‘species’), privations (like ‘blindness’), and fictions (like ‘chimera’). On this point, see Quaestiones disputatae de potentia (hereafter De potentia), 7.10 ad 8 in vol. 2, Quaestiones disputatae, 8th rev. ed., ed. M. Pession (Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1949), 65; Super Sententiis I.19.5.1 (Mandonnet 1.486); Klima, ‘Semantic Principles’, 107, n. 37; Vargas Della Casa, ‘Apprehension of Being’, 59.
28 Schoot catalogs these and twenty other modi significandi acknowledged by Aquinas. See Schoot, ‘Aquinas and Supposition’, 200–201. For the distinction between grammatical and logical modi significandi, see Vargas Della Casa, ‘Apprehension of Being’, 40–43.
29 In Metaphysicam, VII.1 (Marietti, 317.1253): ‘Licet modus significandi vocum non consequatur immediate modum essendi rerum, sed mediante modo intelligendi; quia intellectus sunt similitudines rerum, voces autem intellectuum, ut dicitur in primo Perihermenias’.
30 On the tendency of the Modistae to treat speculative grammar as entailing an isomorphism between modi significandi and modi essendi, see Buersmeyer, Keith A., ‘Aquinas on the “Modi Significandi”’, The Modern Schoolman 64 (1987): 75–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
31 The exception would be the case of divine names, in which concrete names are said of God who is perfectly simple and in whom there is no composition. See, e.g., ST I.13.1 ad 2 (Leon. 4.139–40).
32 In De hebdo. c. 2 (Leon. 50.272:129–31): ‘Aliter autem se habet in hiis que significantur in concreto, nam homo significatur ut qui habet humanitatem, et album ut quod habet albedinem’.
33 In De hebdo. c. 2 (Leon. 50.271–72:36–54).
34 See, e.g., In Meta. XII.l (Marietti, 567.2419): ‘Nam ens dicitur quasi esse habens […]’; Summa theologiae: Prima Secundae (hereafter ST I-II), 26.4 co. in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 6 (Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1891), 144: ‘[…] ens simpliciter est quod habet esse […]’.; In De hebdo. c. 2 (Leon. 50.271:52–59): ‘Set id quod est significatur sicut subiectum essendi […]’. (Italics added for emphasis).
35 SCG I.30 (Leon. 13.92.3): ‘Unde intellectus noster, quidquid significat ut subsistens, significat in concretione: quod vero ut simplex, significat non ut quod est, sed ut quo est’. See also ST I.13.1 ad 2 (Leon. 4.140); Super Sententiis I.8.5.2 (Mandonnet 1.229). Vargas Della Casa, ‘Apprehension of Being’, 74–83, 123–29.
36 Super Sententiis III.6.2.2 co. (Moos 3.238): ‘Secundum Philosophum, V Meta. (δ 7. 1017a, 31–35; l. 9, n. 895–896) esse duobus modis dicitur. Uno modo, secundum quod significat veritatem propositionis, secundum quod est copula; et sic, ut Commentator ibidem (text. 6) dicit, ens est praedicatum accidentale. Et hoc esse non est in re, sed in mente, quae conjungit subjectum cum praedicato, ut dicit philosophus in VI Meta. (ϵ 4. 1027b 25–27; l. 4, n. 1230–1231). […] Alio modo (1017a 22–27; l. 9, n. 889–895) dicitur esse quod pertinet ad naturam rei, secundum quod dividitur secundum decem genera. Et hoc quidem esse in re est, et est actus entis resultans ex principiis rei, sicut lucere est actus lucentis. Aliquando tamen esse sumitur pro essentia, secundum quam res est; quia per actus consueverunt significari eorum principia, ut potentiae vel habitus’.
37 Sup. Sent., I.33.1.1 ad 1 (Mandonnet, 1.765–66): ‘Esse dicitur tripliciter. Uno modo dicitur esse ipsa quidditas vel natura rei, sicut dicitur quod definitio est oratio significans quid est esse; definitio enim quidditatem rei significat. […]’
38 I take it that this is why in t.2 Aquinas starts by noting that ‘Esse dicitur duplicter’ and then quickly shifts word form to note that ‘uno modo secundum quod ens significat essentiam …’ (Super Sententiis I.19.5.1 ad; Mandonnet 1.488).
39 For the Latin, see n. 18 above.
40 In Peri., I.5 (Leon. 1*/1.31:391–97): ‘[H]oc uerbum ‘est’ consignificat compositionem, quia non principaliter eam significat, set ex consequenti: significat enim id quod primo cadit in intellectu per modum actualitatis absolute; nam ‘est’ simpliciter dictum significat esse actu et ideo significat per modum uerbi’.
41 Unlike the term ‘ens’, however, which signifies in the mode of a noun, ‘est’ signifies in the mode of a verb and, thus, according to the ‘mode of action, namely as proceeding from a substance and inhering in it as a subject’.In Peri., I.5 (Leon. 1*/1.26:55-66): ‘[…] per modum actionis, ut scilicet est egrediens a substantia et inherens ei ut subiecto, et sic significatur per uerba aliorum modorum, que attribuuntur personis’.
42 The subject term, however, may be merely implied in Latin, for example in response to the question, Socrates est albus? (‘Is Socrates white?’) one can simply reply Est! to indicate ‘He is!’.
43 For a thorough account of how Aquinas derives the categories by an analysis of modes of predication, see Doolan, Gregory T., ‘Aquinas's Methodology for Deriving the Categories: Convergences with Albert's Sufficientia Praedicamentorum’, Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 30 (2019): 654–89Google Scholar.
44 In Peri hermeias II, lect. 2 (Leon. 1*/1.87–88:34–52): ‘Quia uero actualitas, quam principaliter significat hoc uerbum ‘est’, est communiter actualitas omnis forme uel actus, substancialis uel accidentalis, inde est quod, cum uolumus significare quamcunque formam uel actum actualiter inesse alicui subiecto, significamus illud per hoc uerbum ‘est’, simpliciter quidem secundum presens tempus, secundum quid autem secundum alia tempora; et ideo ex consequenti hoc uerbum ‘est’ significat compositionem’.
45 The above formulation of the inherence theory is derived from that presented by Klima, ‘Semantic Principles’, 106.
46 In Peri hermeias II, lect. 2 (Leon. 1*/1.87–88:34–52).
47 For the Latin, see n. 18 above.
48 In Peri hermeias II, lect. 2 (Leon. 1*/1.87–88:34–52): ‘[H]oc uerbum ‘est’ quandoque in enunciatione predicatur secundum se, ut cum dicitur: «Sortes est», per quod nichil aliud intendimus significare quam quod Sortes sit in rerum natura’.
49 In Metaphysicam, V.9 (Marietti, 239.896): ‘Accidit autem unicuique rei quod aliquid de ipsa vere affirmetur intellectu vel voce. Nam res non refertur ad scientiam, sed e converso. Esse vero quod in sui natura unaquaeque res habet, est substantiale. Et ideo, cum dicitur, Socrates est, si ille est primo modo accipiatur, est de praedicato substantiali. Nam ens est superius ad unumquodque entium, sicut animal ad hominem. Si autem accipiatur secundo modo, est de praedicato accidentali’.
50 I have not included this text in Table 1 since it presents a distinction between these senses of being in terms of these two questions rather according to the ways that word ‘being’ is said.
51 Quodlibet Secundum, 2.1 [3] co. in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 25/2 (Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1996), 214–15:50–72. ‘Vnde participatur sicut aliquid non existens de essencia rei, et ideo alia questio est ‘an est’ et ‘quid est’; unde, cum omne quod est preter essenciam rei dicatur accidens, esse, quod pertinet ad questionem ‘an est’, <est> accidens. Et ideo Commentator dicit in V Methaphisice quod ista propositio: ‘Sortes est’, est de accidentali predicato, secundum quod importat entitatem rei uel ueritatem propositionis […]’. Italics added in translation. As regards the second question (quid est), Aquinas addresses it in terms of ens, noting the quidditative sense of that term and what it signifies is divided by the categories.
52 Dewan, for his part, raises questions about authenticity of this quodlibetal text given Aquinas's handling of Averroes. See Dewan, ‘Which Esse’, 97.
53 Regarding Aquinas's view that it is the metaphysician's job to clarify the senses of ‘being’, see e.g. In Metaphysicam, IV.1 (Marietti, 151–53.534–43); ibid., IV.4 (Marietti, 160–62.570–87).