AQUINAS

A New Introduction

J O H N P E T E R S O N

AQUINAS

A NEW INTRODUCTION

ISBN-13: 978-0-7618-4104-3
ISBN-10: 0-7618-4104-0

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Aquinas provides an in-depth analysis of basic philosophical concepts
in the thought of Aquinas. These concepts include: being, essence,
existence, form, matter, truth, goodness, freedom and necessity,
knowledge, willing and choosing, and right action. These ideas
are approached from an analytical point of view but the analysis
is not exceedingly technical, which allows beginners to follow the
discussion.

Many other works consider only one aspect of Aquinas’s thought
such as his treatment of persons, his arguments for God’s existence,
or his theory of truth, but Peterson’s Aquinas combines readability with
both depth and close analysis to give a comprehensive overview
of Aquinas’s work without sacrifi cing either accuracy or depth.

John Peterson

(Ph.D.) is Professor of Philosophy in the University

of Rhode Island. He is the author of Realism and Logical Atomism
(1976), Introduction to Scholastic Realism (1999), and critical
papers in a dozen philosophical journals.

AquinasPODPBK.indd 1

8/6/08 2:16:08 PM

Aquinas

A New Introduction

John Peterson

U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S O F A M E R I C A , ® I N C .

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ISBN-13: 978-0-7618-4104-3 (paperback : alk. paper)

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To Gary, Mary Hope, Margaret, Sam and Sarah

Acknowledgments

vii

Introduction

Change and Its Causes

Being

Truth

Universals

114

Persons

131

Ethics

207

Select Bibliography

239

Index

241

Contents

vii

I should like gratefully to acknowledge the support of the Center for the
Humanities in the University of Rhode Island and its director, Prof. Galen
Johnson, in the publication of this book. I wish also to thank the University
of Rhode Island Alumni Association and M. Beverly Swann, Vice-President
for Academic Affairs and Provost of the University of Rhode Island, for
their help in this project. Last but not least, my gratitude goes out to the Phi-
losophy Department of the University of Rhode Island and its Chair, Prof.
Donald Zeyl, for their support and encouragement.

Acknowledgments

Metaphysics is the core of philosophy in Aquinas. It is first philosophy. ‘First’
here does not mean temporally first. The science of metaphysics is not first in
the order of our knowledge. On the contrary it is the last, or nearly the last,
science in the order of learning. But while it is last or nearly last temporally
speaking, metaphysics is absolutely first logically speaking. Metaphysics is
first philosophy because, while all the other sciences include the principles of
metaphysics, metaphysics does not include the principles of any one of the
other sciences. It is thus the independent science, the science that studies be-
ing just as being. The causes or elements of being as being enter into mobile
beings, immobile beings, living beings and non-living beings. But the causes
or elements of mobile beings, immobile beings, living beings and non-living
beings do not enter into the principles of being as being. So all the other sci-
ences depend on metaphysics as the logically posterior depends on the logi-
cally prior. That just means that something can be a being without being a liv-
ing being. For it might be a non-living being. Or something can be a being
without being a non-living being. For it might be a living being. Or something
can be a being without being an immobile being. For it might be a mobile be-
ing. And so on. But something cannot be living or non-living being or mobile
or immobile being without being a being.

As for epistemology, Aquinas devotes no separate treatise to that subject. He

does not question whether it can be known that there is an external world,
whether it can be known for what it is, and whether, in fact, anything at all can
be known for certain. Aquinas is a direct realist in epistemology. He does not
ask whether there can be knowledge of basic principles or whether knowledge
has the independently real as its object. He focuses instead on the ontological
status and structure of knowledge. His concern in knowledge is always with

Introduction

what might be called the ontology of knowledge. He asks what knowledge is,
what the conditions of knowledge are, how knowledge takes place, what the
effects of knowledge are, and what implications the fact of knowledge has for
understanding what knowers are. In fact, except when he speaks of divine or
angelic knowledge, Aquinas deals with knowledge only in the larger context
of the nature of human beings. A correct account of knowledge is important
not just or even primarily for its own sake but for the sake of understanding
what persons are. This is in turn important for the wider metaphysical question
of whether the created world consists of matter alone. For if it turns out that
knowledge implies that persons are in some way independent of both their
own bodies and bodily states as well as the bodies or bodily states of other
things, then the world has a non-material dimension.

As for Aquinas’s ethics, it is once again clear that metaphysics is its

ground. The fundamental notion in his ethics is that of good. But ‘good’ in
Aquinas has the nature of an end or final cause. And the end, good or final
cause that is relevant in ethics is the objective end, good, or final cause of per-
sons taken just as persons. Aquinas is thus far from being a mechanist like
Hobbes or Spinoza. But it is not just that his ethics presupposes a general tele-
ological view of nature. It is that the very standard by which acts are called
right or wrong in Aquinas is a certain objective end in nature, the natural end
or good of human beings. If you want to know what acts of a human being
are right you first have to know what a human being is and that requires
knowing what a human being is “for”. This knowledge is the basis of what he
calls the natural law. Thus, Aquinas’s ethics is metaphysical just because it is
built on the idea of a natural end. And it is the concept of natural end that is
behind the idea of natural law. Conformity to the natural law for human be-
ings is the proximate criterion of right action. But the concept of natural law
itself implies a teleological view of the world. Every natural thing is “for”
something which is the end or good of that thing and that end or good deter-
mines the law of its nature. A more thoroughgoing teleological ethics than this
it would be difficult to imagine.

But the metaphysics of Aquinas’s ethics runs even deeper. Human beings

have a distinctive operation or function which is identified with their natural
end or good. This function or operation consists in rational activity. But all ra-
tional activity or thought is directed beyond itself. It has an extrinsic object.
And the higher or more intelligible that object is, the more the rational activ-
ity or thought of a person is perfected. So a person’s natural end finds its per-
fection in a person’s knowing or contemplating the most intelligible object,
i.e. God. A human being, then, is not just “for” rational activity. To the extent
that rational activity reaches its natural end, good, or perfection in and
through acquaintance with the most intelligible object, a person is “for”

Introduction

knowing or contemplating God. To the extent, then, that ethics has to do with
the final natural end of persons just as persons and not as teachers, physicians,
builders, etc., the idea of God is central to ethics. But since God alone is His
own being and the cause of all other being, metaphysics, the science of being,
is directed above all things to God, the highest being. So in the philosophy of
Aquinas ethics is linked to metaphysics in and through the concept of God
which is central to both.

To turn to metaphysics per se, it is useful to say what, metaphysically

speaking, Aquinas is not. He is not a materialist either in the sense of being
one who believes that persons are identified with their bodies or bodily states
or in the wider sense of being one who believes that to be is to be in space.
As for the latter, Aquinas believed in God and in angels. He called them sep-
arated substances. These substances are called “separated” just because, be-
ing purely spiritual, they are separated from matter. God and angels do not
have spatial dimensions. And as for the former, he holds that each person has
an immaterial soul and that that soul survives death. From this, the temptation
is to conclude that Aquinas was a Cartesian before Descartes. For both
philosophers avoid the extremes of materialism on the one hand and idealism
on the other. They both deny either that all is matter or that all is mind.

Yet there are important differences between the two philosophers. That is

partly due to the fact that Aquinas was less of a Platonist than was Descartes
on the matter of persons. For Descartes, a person’s soul or mind is a complete
substance, just as it is for Plato. But for Aquinas, who is here closer to Aris-
totle, a person’s soul is not a complete substance in its own right but rather
the form of his or her body. For wider philosophical reasons, Descartes re-
jected outright the analysis of natural things into form and matter. For that
reason, he could not and would not have applied the form-matter schema to
the analysis of persons. So even though they are together in denying what is
now called identity materialism (as well as, for that matter, epiphenomenal-
ism), the two philosophers part company as regards the sort of thing the spir-
itual human soul is, i.e. whether it is a complete substance or the (incomplete)
form of a substance.

But while he is no materialist, Aquinas is no idealist either. He would have

opposed both the subjective idealism of Berkeley as well as the objective Ide-
alism of Hegel. To be is not either to perceive, experience, think or to be per-
ceived, experienced or thought. Though he is one with Berkeley in holding
that ordinary things like trees and toads exist independently of finite minds,
Aquinas would have rejected Berkeley’s view that, when they are unper-
ceived by finite minds, these same things are nothing but ideas in God’s mind.
For he held that ordinary things like trees are material exemplifications of
their respective immaterial Ideas or Archtypes in the mind of God. They have

Introduction

a material as well as a noetic mode of existence. Thus, so far from being
themselves ideas in the Mind of God or anyone else, individual trees and
toads are physical exemplifications of the divine Ideas of treeness and toad-
ness. This represents the influence of neo-Platonism on the thought of
Aquinas, as modified by St Augustine. And as for Hegel, Aquinas would have
rejected the latter’s rationalism. By ‘rationalism’ here it is not meant ration-
alism as opposed to empiricism but rationalism in the sense of the identifica-
tion of the real with the rational. For it was the view of Aquinas that to the ex-
tent that ordinary things are individual, they are unknown by intellect alone.
That is because the principle of their individuality is matter and it is a condi-
tion of intellect’s knowing what things are that it abstracts from matter. What
makes a thing knowable to us is its universal form. But a thing’s individual-
ity, which is real and not just phenomenal, and which Aquinas attributes to
matter, is something that escapes pure intellect. We have no purely intellec-
tual intuition of individuals. Here, it is easy to put Aquinas on a slippery slope
to Kantianism. But the temptation must be resisted. Aquinas, no less than
Hegel and the post-Kantian Idealists, would reject Kantian skepticism or the
view that what is ultimately real is unknown. But that is quite consistent with
holding that there is nonetheless something in or about the ultimately real,
namely, its radical individuality, that evades intellect or at least pure intellect
or intellect acting on its own. Aquinas, then, is to be seen as occupying a po-
sition mid-way between Kant and Hegel on the matter of the rationality of the
real. Individual things are neither totally rational nor totally non-rational.
What makes for their individuality, for their being this as opposed to that, is
not something conceptual. It cannot be grasped by intellect alone. It is only
grasped by intellect on the condition that intellect turns to sense. This is one
strand in what may be called Aquinas’s existentialism, if by ‘existentialism’
it is meant that the real is unidentical with the rational or universal, be it the
abstract universal of Plato or the concrete universal of Hegel. But at the same
time, individual things can be known by us for their species, for what they are
or for what they have in common with other individuals.

But it is not just the identification of the real with the rational that Aquinas

would have opposed in Hegel. He would have opposed the latter’s absolutis-
tic monism as well as his idealism. By ‘monism’ here it is meant the view that
reality, despite its diversity, is ultimately one Subject. Hegel’s monism is the
view that Reality is one, all-pervasive Subject struggling through history in
order to become fully self-conscious. This monism Aquinas would have op-
posed on both philosophical and theological grounds. On the theological side,
it conflicts with Christianity. Under the latter, the infinite God is separate
from the finite world which He creates out of nothing. But this dualism of the
finite and the infinite, like every other hard and fast dualism, is incompatible

xii

Introduction

with Hegelianism. And on the philosophical side, Aquinas would have won-
dered how, in the philosophy of the Absolute, it is possible to keep the dis-
tinction between a person and his or her experiences. If I am but a moment in
a larger Self or Subject, somewhat like a wave is part of the ocean, how am I
a discrete self or person in my own right? And if I am not, how does the dis-
tinction between myself and my experiences make sense? For under
Hegelianism, it is difficult to see how this ‘I’ or ‘me’ is itself anything more
than an experience, namely, an experience of the Absolute. And then, since
both myself and my experiences are nothing but experiences that belong to
the Absolute, how the difference between myself and my experiences is re-
tained becomes problematic. Further, like Russell and Moore in the early
years of the last century, Aquinas would have objected to the doctrine of in-
ternal relations which is implied by Hegelianism. For one thing, he would
have objected that that doctrine implies skepticism. If something is made
what it is only in and through its relations to everything else in the one Sys-
tem or Absolute, then the consequence seems to be that in order to know any-
thing I must know everything. But since I am evidently not omniscient, it fol-
lows that I do not know anything. Doubtless, an Hegelian would reply that all
the doctrine of internal relations implies is that I do not know what something
is in any adequate or complete way unless I know how it interrelates with
everything else. It does not imply that I do not know it at all. But with Rus-
sell and Moore, Aquinas would have insisted that knowing what at least some
things are is not a matter of degree. You either know them or you do not. Ei-
ther I know what color, sound, and being hot or cold are or I do not. But I do
know what these things are even though I am ignorant of all the relations in
which they stand to other things.

Finally, Aquinas would find any monism troublesome, be it the monism of

Hegel, Spinoza, Parmenides or of any other philosopher. Unless the many
are completely swallowed up by the one (as Hegel complained was the case
in the philosophy of Schelling), difference must be accounted for in any
metaphysical monism. But it is not so easy to see how this is done. In any
unity-in-difference that is a true and not just an aggregate unity, the one lives
in the many making them what they are, somewhat the way in which a vine
lives in its branches. The individual differences among the many must then
be accounted for by something other than the one. For what explains the
sameness of the many (i.e. the one) cannot simultaneously explain the indi-
vidual differences that obtain among the many. By analogy, what accounts
for the sameness of myself and a hedgehog, namely, animal, evidently does
not also account for the difference of rationality that separates me from the
hedgehog. The difference falls outside the genus. But since in any monism
there is nothing outside the one, those same individual differences in the one

Introduction

xiii

go unaccounted for. Either, therefore, all differences in the one are only ap-
parent, making for a monism which, in Hegel’s words, is “a night in which
all cows are black”, or else, the self-identity of the many being retained in
the one, the individual differences that preserve that self-identity go unex-
plained.

But besides being neither a materialist nor an idealist nor even a Cartesian

before Descartes, Aquinas was also neither a Platonic realist nor a nominal-
ist. On the issue of universals, he bypassed both these extreme views as well
as the more moderate position of conceptualism. Platonism, he says, confuses
the way something is with the way it is known while nominalism confuses the
way something is known with the way it is. By carefully distinguishing know-
ing and the known, conceptualism skirts these two opposed errors. That is its
strength. But in their eagerness not to confuse the two orders, conceptualists
overshoot the mark. They so separate mind from reality that nothing in the
one answers to anything in the other. And then knowledge of reality by mind
becomes impossible. Aquinas would have pointed to the philosophy of Kant
as a case in point of this skeptical consequence of conceptualism. And so,
leaving these three views behind, Aquinas adopts instead what has come to be
known as moderate realism on the question of universals. And in this he fol-
lows Aristotle.

But to this Aristotelian realism he gives an Augustinian twist. Mention was

made of the influence on Aquinas of Neo-Platonism as modified by St. Au-
gustine. But Neo-Platonism is not Platonism. One difference between them
centers on the issue of universals. While Plato’s Ideas are self-subsistent en-
tities, the Ideas of the Neo-Platonist Plotinus exist only in Mind or Nous
which is the first emanation from ultimate Reality or the One. Taking his cue
from Plotinus and giving it a Christian twist, St Augustine placed the Ideas in
God’s Mind. And in this, Aquinas follows Augustine. Plato was right that
there are timeless Ideas but wrong in assuming that they enjoy independent
existence. They depend on God’s Mind and in that status Aquinas calls any
one of them universale ante rem.

Holding that universals have ontological status as divine Ideas is sufficient

to exclude Aquinas from the camp of nominalism. For the latter deny onto-
logical status of any sort to universals. But it is not sufficient to keep him
from conceptualism. For under the latter universals exist only in minds. What
keeps Aquinas from conceptualism is his Aristotelian realism. This is his in-
sistence that universal concepts in minds have a foundation in re in terms of
the real similarity among spatial-temporal particulars as regards their essen-
tial or accidental properties. But conceptualists deny that universals have any
foundation whatsoever in reality. In their view mental universals answer to
nothing in reality. And so it is that, like Aristotle, Aquinas gets between Pla-

xiv

Introduction

tonism, nominalism and conceptualism on the issue of universals. But at the
same time and following St. Augustine, he departs from Aristotle by accord-
ing ante rem status to universals in the Mind of God.

Aquinas, of course, was opposed to both atheism and agnosticism. He was

a theist who thought that theism could be proved by metaphysical argu-
ments. These include but are not confined to the celebrated “five ways”.
Moreover, he thought that the God that is proved by these arguments can be
shown to be necessarily one, eternal, immaterial, simple and changeless.
That means that Aquinas stands opposed not only to materialism but also to
naturalism, scientism, logical positivism and evolutionism. Naturalism is the
view that nature or the world of space and time is a self-enclosed, self-ex-
planatory system. As a result, it is unnecessary to posit anything transcen-
dent, such as a God, a soul or a Platonic Form, in order to explain either na-
ture itself or any thing, state or event in nature. From naturalism follows
scientism or the view that there are no events, states or entities in space-time
that cannot in principle be fully explained by empirical science. As for evo-
lutionism, it is defined as the view that all there is has been generated out of
previously existing things. Everything has been evolved from other things
and is even now in the process of evolving into still other things, says the
evolutionist. And as for logical positivism, since Aquinas allowed meaning-
ful statements that were neither analytic nor empirically verifiable, he parts
company with logical positivists. Naturalism, scientism, logical positivism,
evolutionism, and even Hegelianism are all falsified, Aquinas would argue,
by the fact that it can be meaningfully and truly said that a transcendent, im-
mutable God is both the creator and sustainer of all things. These philoso-
phies are also falsified in his view by the existence of individual human
souls. Though immaterial in nature, the latter nonetheless explain some ob-
servable human actions. Not just that, but they have not come to be by evo-
lution. Instead, they are directly created by God. This he believed for philo-
sophical as well as religious reasons. For he argues that only what is a
composite of matter and form can come to be by generation or evolution and
that the human soul is not such a composite but form alone. What is essen-
tially simple is neither generated out of some previous thing nor corrupted
into some further thing. It can come to be only by creation and it can cease
to be only by annihilation. This may sound more like Leibniz speaking about
monads than Aquinas talking about the human soul. But though no one
would foist on Aquinas either the theory of monads or a theory of mind-body
parallelism (such as the pre-established harmony theory), nevertheless, on
the soul’s ingenerability and incorruptibility the two philosophers agree.
Neither Aquinas nor Leibniz is a pan-evolutionist just because both believed
in simple entities.

Introduction

From the foregoing, a general, if woefully negative and inadequate, picture

of Aquinas’s philosophy emerges. It is a philosophy that rejects one and all of
the following positions: both identity and global materialism, mechanism,
Cartesian dualism, epiphenomenalism, panpsychism, parallelism, rationalism
(as opposed to existentialism in the sense specified), fatalism, atheism, ag-
nosticism, both subjective and objective idealism, monism, Platonism, nomi-
nalism, conceptualism, Kantianism, naturalism, scientism, logical positivism,
evolutionism, and most forms of existentialism. Just how and why Aquinas
ends up in opposition to these as well as other views is seen only when, in a
positive way, the details of his system are spelled out. Toward that end I be-
gin with what Aquinas himself would consider an appropriate starting point,
namely, change and its causes.

xvi

Introduction

CHANGE, FLUX, AND SUCCESSION

Change is always change of something from something to something. It is ei-
ther the generation of some form in a subject or the corruption of some form
in a subject. Thus a leaf changes from green to brown in autumn. Since the
‘of’ here signifies a substrate or thing-that-changes i.e. the leaf, change is not
flux. The latter, if it exists, has been compared to a fast flowing stream. Here,
it is alleged that nothing is the same from one moment to the next. There is
no enduring substrate. From this comes the adage that one cannot step in the
same river twice. But unlike flux, change implies an enduring substrate.
Change also differs in this respect from succession. One drop of water suc-
ceeds another in a dripping faucet. That is evidently different from saying ei-
ther that a stream of water flows continuously or that the water in the faucet
becomes warmer or cooler. Again, one flashing light succeeds another on a
panel. That is not the same as saying either that a stream of colors occurs con-
tinuously without interruption on the panel or that the panel itself changes
from one color to another. In each case the first is succession, the second flux,
and the third change.

Philosophers differ on which one, if any, of these is ultimately real. Is the real

identified with pure flux? If so, then change and succession are appearances of
this flux. Are both flux and change appearances of succession? Are succession
and flux both appearances of change? Are all three of them appearances of
some deeper, changeless reality? Or are all three of them equally real?

Defenders of universal flux must explain the appearance of breaks in the

flow. If all there is is a uniform flow, why does the flow appear to us to be
static and chopped up both spatially and temporally? Either these breaks or

Chapter One

Change and Its Causes

stops in the flow belong to the flow or not. If they do, then reality is not a uni-
form flux or flow after all. If they do not and the breaks or stops are intro-
duced into the flow from without, then once again it follows that reality is not
identified with a uniform flow. For then something outside the flow interacts
with the flow. And that means that reality is a dualism of flow and non-flow
and not a monism of pure flow.

It might be countered that breaks in the flow are just the way the flow ap-

pears to mind which, says Bergson, stops the flux through forming abstract
ideas for the sake of analysis.

From this, though, it follows that mind or in-

tellect does not know reality. And a flux philosopher like Bergson consis-
tently draws that consequence. To the extent that it uses mind or intellect to
know the world, then, natural science is in principle defeated. For the ‘knowl-
edge’ it achieves is not knowledge of the world at all but a distortion of the
world.

Yet one might question a philosopher like Bergson as regards the place of

intellect in the ubiquitous flow. For intellect, which stops the flow that char-
acterizes reality, either belongs to that flow or not. Either it is part of reality
or part of appearance. But either way spells trouble for the flux philosopher.
If intellect, which distorts reality, is itself part of reality, then intellect distorts
itself. And then the flux philosopher scarcely says without distortion that in-
tellect stops or breaks up the uniform flow. But if intellect belongs to appear-
ance, then it is something static or frozen. As such, it is the product of another
intellect which, if it belongs to appearance, is the product of still another in-
tellect and so on, ad infinitum. Along the same lines, the proposition that re-
ality is a flux is a true proposition according to flux philosophers. But that
very truth is either part of the flow or it is not. If so, then it is not really true
at all but forever passing into falsehood. If not, then truth belongs to appear-
ance and not to reality. And then no flux philosopher makes true propositions
about reality, including the proposition that reality is a flux.

CHANGE VERSUS CREATION AND ANNIHILATION

Besides being irreducible to either pure flux or mere succession, change also
excludes creation and annihilation. ‘Change’ means either generation or cor-
ruption. All change or becoming is the coming to be of some new form (ac-
cidental or essential) out of pre-existing matter. Since in any change there
must be a thing that changes, no change is pure flux. Moreover, the very
meaning of ‘change’ excludes creation.

For change implies a pre-existing

substance that was once one way and is now another. Prior to change there is
a substance. But in creation there is no preexisting substance. Prior to creation

Chapter One

is nothing. Change, then, is evolution as opposed to creation or mere succes-
sion, so long as it is understood that the new form that is evolved out of mat-
ter is not necessarily higher or more perfect than its predecessor. For exam-
ple, death is an example of a substantial change. It is also a case of a corpse
evolving out of living matter, just as the living person herself at one time
evolved out of a fertilized egg. By contrast, creation is the production of
something all at once in its entirety i.e. out of no preexisting material. That
occurs when, in the view of Aquinas and others, God makes the world or an
individual human soul. And mere succession occurs when one event simply
follows another without having been generated out of the latter. Thus, we say
that one marching band succeeds another in a parade or that one knock on a
door succeeds another. In both creation and succession there is no enduring
substrate or thing-that-changes as there is in change or becoming.

Moreover, that change in the sense of generation or corruption occurs not

only in us but also in the external world philosophers like Aristotle and
Aquinas do not doubt. They do not employ anything like Cartesian doubt
about the external world. They take change as a datum and then ask what the
conditions are under which alone it is possible. These conditions are brought
out by reviewing Aquinas’s account of how Aristotle answers the Par-
menidean dilemma of change.

THE DILEMMA OF CHANGE

Aquinas summarizes the celebrated Parmenidean dilemma as follows: if be-
ing comes to be it comes to be either from being or from non-being. But be-
ing does not come to be from being or else being already is and hence does
not come to be. And being does not come to be from non-being since being
cannot come from nothing.

So being does not come to be at all and all

change is illusory. When Socrates becomes musical, musical comes to be ei-
ther from musical or from unmusical. But once again neither one is allowed.
Musical does not come to be from musical or else it already is and hence does
not come to be. And musical evidently does not come to be from unmusical,
at least from the unmusical as such. So Socrates’ friends are wrong in believ-
ing that Socrates has become musical. Aristotle’s celebrated way out takes off
from the foregoing phrase, ‘just as such.’ Of course musical does not come to
be from unmusical as such or per se. Nothing comes to be from its privation
per se. Otherwise Parmenides is right and we are saddled with saying that
something comes to be from nothing. But from this it does not follow that
musical does not come to be from unmusical in any sense. Musical comes to
be from unmusical per accidens. What this means is that musical comes to be

Change and Its Causes

from unmusical in the sense that, that from which musical does come to be
per se, i.e. Socrates, happens to be unmusical. Thus, change is made possible
only by presupposing a substrate that perdures throughout. It is not that mu-
sical comes to be from unmusical but that unmusical Socrates becomes mu-
sical Socrates. And this substrate is a principle of potentiality with respect to
the new actuality (in this case being musical) that comes to characterize it.
Thus, when Socrates becomes musical being does not come to be from non-
being as such. And that is because being comes from something in which not
all being is removed. This avoids the contradiction of saying that being comes
to be from non-being since it is from non-being per accidens and not from
non-being per se that being comes to be.

Thus does one avoid the second

horn of Parmenides’ fork.

Moreover, just as in any change being comes to be from non-being per ac-

cidens and not per se (otherwise being comes from non-being), so too is it
true that in all change being comes to be from being per accidens and not
from being per se. Otherwise the first horn of Parmenides’ fork takes hold and
being already is before it comes to be. When Socrates becomes musical, be-
ing comes to be from being. Otherwise something comes from nothing. But
being here does not come to be from being as such but from being as having
in it some non-being or privation. When Socrates becomes musical being
does not come to be from being as such just because being here comes from
something in which not all non-being is removed. So being comes to be from
being per accidens and not from being per se just as we saw that being comes
to be from non-being per accidens and not from non-being per se.

The mat-

ter is conveniently summarized by saying that when Socrates becomes musi-
cal it is not that musical comes to be from either musical or unmusical as such
but that the composite thing, unmusical Socrates becomes the composite
thing, musical Socrates. Generally stated, when being comes to be it comes
to be neither from being as such nor from non-being as such but from being
with a privation and from non-being in a subject, respectively.

Aquinas observes in this context that the same reply to Parmenides’ fork is

explained by the distinction between potency and act, as Aristotle indicates in
the Metaphysics.

What he has in mind is this. We can deny both that actual

being comes from actual being and that it comes from simple non-being by
distinguishing actual from potential being. For it can be said that actual being
comes to be from potential being, which is neither actual being nor simple
non-being.

We thus get between the horns of the dilemma. When Socrates

becomes musical, being comes to be from being in the sense that musical
Socrates comes to be from Socrates as potentially musical. Of course, not
everything is potentially musical. The potentialities a thing has evidently vary
with the sort of thing it is. Potentialities are relative to actualities. A rock is

Chapter One

neither actually nor potentially musical. Being musical is not in a rock and the
sense of ‘is not’ here is non-being pure and simple. That shows the difference
between potential being and simple non-being. But when Socrates, who is not
musical, becomes musical, the sense of ‘is not’ here is non-actual or potential
being and not simple non-being.

The actuation of potentiality is a case of being coming to be from being per

accidens and not from being per se. For the being from which musical comes
to be, Socrates, includes non-being. In Socrates is found the absence or pri-
vation of musical. Further, that from which being musical comes to be, i.e.
unmusical Socrates, does not remain after the change. But, says Aquinas, that
from which a being comes to be per se does remain after the change.

Thus,

Socrates and the form musical are that from which musical Socrates comes to
be per se since these two things, the matter and the form, remain after the
change.

THE SUBSTRATE OF CHANGE

Under this solution to the dilemma of change, change requires three princi-
ples in the changeable object. These are matter or substrate, form, and priva-
tion. In our example the matter is Socrates, the form is musical and the pri-
vation is the lack of being musical in Socrates. But it is evident that Socrates,
though substrate in this context, is not ultimate substrate. For Socrates him-
self passes away as well as Socrates’ being unmusical, pale, seated, clothed,
and so on. And when that happens, it is once again not a case of some new
being coming to be from either being as such or simple non-being. It is a case
of being coming to be from being per accidens and from non-being per acci-
dens. It is a case of some deeper substrate T behind Socrates losing the form
of humanity and assuming the form of a corpse. It is a case of a more funda-
mental principle of potentiality acquiring a new actuality. Otherwise we are
on the horns of Parmenides’ fork again and change is excluded.

Let it be assumed, then, that all change requires an enduring substrate.

Then if, like our first substrate, Socrates, the deeper substrate T is itself sus-
ceptible of corruption, then a still deeper substrate U is required. And if for
its part U is corruptible then an even more basic substrate V is required, and
so on. If this goes on to infinity, then there is no ultimate substrate, i.e. no sub-
strate that has not itself been generated out of a further substrate. Is that pos-
sible? Aristotle and Aquinas say that it is not possible.

Given that the notion

of a substrate or matter enters into the definition of a changeable thing, it fol-
lows that if there is no ultimate substrate then any one substrate, say, Socrates,
is made up of an infinite number of logically prior substrates as conditions. If

Change and Its Causes

Socrates came to be out of T and T came to be out of U and U came to be out
of V and V came to be out of W, and so on, then Socrates contains T,U,V,W
and an infinite number of other substrates. But any whole that requires an in-
finite number of parts cannot be. For the internal conditions necessary for its
existence are never completed. All explanation goes back to primitive things
or truths for which the quest for further explanation is senseless. Besides,
what has an infinite number of principles is unknown.

But if natural things

are unknown then there is no natural science. Therefore, to explain the exis-
tence of any one substrate like Socrates and to make science possible, an ul-
timate substrate must be posited. This, of course, is a substrate which is not
itself either generable or corruptible. With what is this ultimate substrate iden-
tified?

PRIMAL MATTER AS ULTIMATE SUBSTRATE

As opposed to pre-Socratic natural philosophers, Aristotle denies that this ul-
timate substrate is some actual physical thing like water, earth, air or fire. And
this for at least two reasons. First, the view implies that everything in the
world is of the same sort. If Thales is right and the ultimate substrate is wa-
ter, then all is water. That not only flouts our experience but it means that
what appears to be substantial change is really only alteration. It implies the
oddity that when, for example, a tree burns into ashes only an accidental
change occurs. Arboreal water becomes ashen water. Second, the view fails
to explain difference. If all is water, what accounts for the different states that
water takes on? The fact that something is arboreal water rather than ashen
water is evidently due to something besides water. But if there is nothing but
water, how is this difference possible? Nor does it help to relegate all differ-
ences to appearance as opposed to reality. For something in reality must ac-
count for the apparent differences. Unless they are illusory, these differences
must be well-founded appearances. But that means that differences in reality
account for differences in appearance. Otherwise the appearances are not
well-founded. But the trouble is, there cannot possibly be such differences in
reality if reality is simply water.

It might be countered that while this tells against identifying the ultimate

substrate with water, air, fire, etc., it does not exclude identifying it with
things about which both ancient and medieval philosophers were ignorant,
namely, atoms (in the modern sense) or energy. Here again, since all change
is nothing but re-configuration of atomic (or of subatomic) particles or the
transition from one state of energy to another, it follows that all change is al-
teration. But the difference makes no difference. For once again the problem

Chapter One

is that no account is given of difference. At least this holds in the case of en-
ergy. For suppose that all is energy. Then it is evidently not energy that ex-
plains the different states of energy. That energy is in one state or of one type
instead of being in another state or of another type is due to some differentia
that is outside the genus energy. By comparison, rationality, which separates
humans from brutes, is outside the genus animal. But if all is energy or en-
ergy is the ultimate substrate, then there is nothing outside energy from which
any difference can come. So either the different states of energy are illusory
or else it is not the case that all is energy and hence that energy is the ultimate
substrate.

The argument might be generalized such that it excludes identifying the ul-

timate substrate with any actual thing whatsoever and not just with energy.
Thus,

1. Suppose that the ultimate substrate behind all change is some actual thing, A.
2. Then A is the widest genus.
3. But since difference is outside genus, then all difference within A is due to

something other than A.

4. So, either the ultimate substrate is not identified with some actual thing A,

or else there is another actual thing, B, that causes the differences in A.

5. But if the latter is true, then, in causing differences to come to be in A, B must

move from potentially causing those differences to actually causing them.

6. In this latter change, B is not only itself a substrate, but it is also a substrate

that does not include, and hence is independent of, the supposed ultimate
substrate. Otherwise B is not something other than A as is stated in 2.

7. But no substrate is independent of the supposed ultimate substrate. For by

definition, the ultimate substrate is behind all substrata and all change.

8. Therefore, 1 above is false and the supposed ultimate substrate is not iden-

tified with some actual thing.

But an even broader reason bars any actual thing, be it energy, atoms, etc.

from serving as the ultimate substrate or substrata in change. It is based on
the logical relations of genus, difference and species. Genus is the abstraction
from difference which is related to genus as act to potentiality. Thus, animal
is the abstraction from the difference rational with respect to the species hu-
man. But any genus is wider or narrower according as it is abstracted from
more or less difference. Thus, organism is wider than animal since it abstracts
not only from the difference rational but also from the difference sentient. It
follows that the widest genus, substance, is the abstraction from all differ-
ence. It is potentiality to all difference. Otherwise the widest genus is not
genus alone but a composite of genus and difference. And then, since the

Change and Its Causes

composite of genus and difference is species and species falls under genus, it
follows that some genus is wider than the supposed widest genus. But genus
is taken from matter (potentiality) while difference is taken from form (actu-
ality). Therefore, the widest genus, substance, signifies ultimate matter or
substrate. It is matter as abstracted from all specificity or form. This is primal
matter or substrate which, because it must be potential to all form (act), is in
and of itself bereft of any form (act). So unless the logic of genus, difference
and species is abandoned, the ultimate substrate is identified with no actual
thing like water, air, atoms or even energy, but with the pure potentiality of a
thing to be the kind of thing it is or to become a different kind of thing. Thus,

1. Suppose that there is no widest genus but that for any genus g, there is a

wider genus, g + 1.

2. Then any one genus is composed of an infinite number of genera as logi-

cal conditions.

3. But an infinite number of logical conditions cannot be met.
4. So if 1 is true, then no genus has determinate sense and so is indefinable.
5. But some genera are definable.
6. Therefore, 1 is false and there is a widest genus.
7. This highest genus is genus alone without difference; otherwise it is a

species of a wider genus and so is not the widest genus.

8. But genus is taken from matter and difference from form.
9. Therefore, corresponding to the widest genus, substance, is matter without

form, i.e. primary matter.

A DIFFICULTY WITH SUBSTANCE

But right here a difficulty surfaces about substance. If genus is taken from
matter, then the widest genus signifies ultimate or primary matter. But the
widest genus is substance. Therefore substance is ultimate or primary matter.
But in the Categories, Aristotle identifies substance not with matter but with
the composite of matter and form, say, a particular tree. True, in one respect
the two are similar. For neither one is predicable of a subject. In that respect
they both differ from form which is predicable. But they differ as the com-
posite differs from the simple. This particular tree is not present in something
else the way in which primal matter is present in it. And so the question is one
of consistency. How can substance be identified both with matter and with the
composite of matter and form?

The answer is that in Aristotle and Aquinas, as in Descartes and Locke four

centuries later, ‘substance’ is not an univocal term. In the view of Aquinas,

Chapter One

‘substance’ refers either to God or to creatures. Here, ’substance’ has the gen-
eral sense of being essentially independent, i.e of being neither present in nor
predicable of something. But even here substance as predicated of God and
substance as predicated of creatures is not the same. For since God is his own
act of existence while creatures are not, essential independence in God incor-
porates but goes beyond essential independence in creatures. Second, among
created things, substance sometimes refers to form, sometimes to matter, and
sometimes to the composite of form and matter both. Here, ‘substance’ has
the sense of being susceptible of form, of being subject. Matter, for example,
is by definition the potentiality for form in the sense of species. As for form
in the sense of species, it is for its part something that is susceptible of fur-
ther (accidental) form. Thus, it can be said of a human being that it is the sort
of thing that is risible. Further, in accidental change it is form as species that
is the enduring subject of the change. And finally, as regards the composite of
matter and form, it is once again something that is susceptible of further (ac-
cidental) form. Thus, Socrates who is now standing may later be seated. In all
three cases the common element is the idea of being subject with respect to
specificity or form. But of these three entities, matter alone is susceptible of
all specificity or form. For in and of itself it has no form. It follows that ‘sub-
stance’ in this second sense belongs most properly to ultimate or primary mat-
ter. And it is substance in this sense of ultimate matter or substrate that is sig-
nified by the highest genus.

Care must be taken not to identify this primary matter or substrate of

Aquinas and Aristotle with Locke’s celebrated idea of substance in general.
True, both of them are ultimate substrata. And Locke’s characterization of
substance in general as “something I know not what” invites the conclusion
that it is one with primary matter in being formless. After all, what Berkeley
seizes upon in his criticism of Locke is true, namely, that what the latter calls
the general idea of substance does not have attributes of its own. For it stands
beneath all attributes. Locke’s substance, then, is bare or characterless just
like primary matter.

But despite these similarities, at least two differences separate the two no-

tions. First, Locke’s substance is evidently substance in the first of the two
senses mentioned above. It is independent in that it is neither present in nor
predicable of something else. By contrast, we saw that primary matter is,
along with form, always present in some physical thing as one of its princi-
ples. So in the sense in which Locke’s substance is independent, Aristotle’s
primary matter is dependent. Second, while it is bereft of attributes of its own,
Locke’s substance is none the less (and curiously) an actual thing. But pri-
mary matter is no actual thing at all but just the potentiality in a thing to be
what it is or to become something else.

Change and Its Causes

MATTER AS INGENERABLE AND INCORRUPTIBLE

Finally, as to the question of the origin of primary matter, the answer is that
it has no origin, if by ‘having an origin’ it is meant being generated out of
something. For primary matter is ingenerable and incorruptible

As the

ground of all generation and corruption, primary matter is not itself either
generated or corrupted. Otherwise primal matter exists both before it is gen-
erated and after it is corrupted. For it is clear from the foregoing analysis of
change that all generation is generation out of matter and that all corruption
is corruption into matter. Yet that leaves open the possibility that primary mat-
ter is created, since creation is not generation. Thus, while Aquinas is one
with Aristotle in denying that matter is generated, he refuses to follow Aris-
totle’s view that matter is eternal. For the other possibility is that it is created.
And while Aquinas denies that the creation of matter in or with time can be
proved, he none the less believes that it is true as an article of faith.

THE FOUR CAUSES

From the preceding assay of change in terms of matter, form, and privation
the celebrated theory of the four causes emerges. Aristotle views each one of
the four causes as being necessary but not sufficient conditions of change.
Two of these four causes, the formal and material causes, are identified with
form and matter respectively, the two per se principles of change. They are
called pe se principles because they remain after any given change whereas
the privation does not. In any case, ‘matter’ here has the sense of substrate or
that which changes from one thing to another. This as opposed to three other
senses of ‘matter’ which Aquinas, for one, distinguishes. These are a) that of
which something is made (as a chair is made of wood), b) that from which
something comes (as an oak comes from an acorn) or c), that into which
things dissolve, as living bodies dissolve into dust.

In any case, it is easy to see how the other two causes, i.e. the efficient and

final causes, are also extracted from change. As for the efficient cause, some-
thing x is reduced from a state of being potentially F to a state of being actu-
ally F only by something else which acts on x. Stone goes from potentially
being Athene to actually being Athene by the action Phidias. Hume’s billiard
ball goes from potentially moving to actually moving by the stroke of the bil-
liard-player. These activities of Phidias and the billiard-player are examples
of efficient causality. And in ordinary discourse it is with activities like this
that causes are usually identified. Moreover, when they are either agents or
the instruments of agents, these moving or efficient causes are themselves

Chapter One

spoken of as being either potential or actual. Thus, Phidias and the billiard-
player are the potential efficient causes while Phidias-qua-sculpturing and the
player-qua-striking-the-ball are the actual efficient causes of the coming to be
of Athene and the ball’s movement, respectively. Thus, when they are either
agents or instruments of agents, actual efficient causes are always simultane-
ous with their effects while potential efficient causes are not. Phidias exists
long before the coming to be of Athene but the actual efficient cause, i.e.
Phidias-qua-sculpturing Athene both begins with the coming to be of Athene
and ceases with the completion of Athene.

EFFICIENT CAUSE

For their part, acting efficient causes may be either primary or secondary.
Secondary efficient causes are instrumental efficient causes when the primary
efficient cause is a person. The stick’s impact on the ball is the secondary or
instrumental efficient cause of the ball’s moving down the table while the bil-
liard-player who directs the stick’s motion against the ball is evidently the pri-
mary efficient cause of the movement. Such an hierarchical causal series in
which instrumental causes are subordinated to a primary efficient cause ex-
emplifies what Aquinas calls a causal series per se. That is because it is es-
sential to the causal action of the instrumental efficient cause in the series that
it be caused by something else. Thus, since the stick moves the ball only be-
cause it is itself moved by the player, it is essential and not accidental to the
causal action of the stick that it is moved by the player. And Aquinas denies
that there can be an infinite regress of efficient causes that are per se required
for any effect or change. Otherwise the change does not occur. In causal
chains of this sort, the absence of a first mover implies the absence of any
other mover and hence of the effect.

Aquinas also admits non-hierarchical series or what he calls causal series

per accidens. These are temporal or historical chains of efficient causes. There
is no subordination of secondary causes to a primary cause. Instead, the causes
line up horizontally, so to speak. Thus, a paramecium, P, generates an off-
spring, R, which in time generates another offspring, T, and so on. Here it is
accidental and not essential to T qua generating that T was previously gener-
ated by R. True, T must have been itself generated in order for it now to gen-
erate. But it is not essential but accidental to T’s now generating that it was
generated by R. It is not like the case of the stick that moves only because it is
being moved. Otherwise one must say that P is more properly the cause of T
than R is, and that is counterintuitive. And when it comes to this kind of causal
series, a causal series per accidens, Aquinas does not rule out the possibility

Change and Its Causes

of an infinite regress of efficient causes.

For here, unlike the case of a per se

causal series, no member of the series depends for its causal action on its be-
ing caused by another agent’s action. It does not move only because it is si-
multaneously being moved by another. Each one is a mover in its own right.
And just because of that, each one’s action is sufficient for its effect in the
sense that it does not require a further action working simultaneously behind
it. But it was stated that according to Aquinas the only reason why in a per se
series a first efficient cause must be posited is that otherwise there is no suffi-
cient reason for the effect. For a sufficient efficient cause is then lacking. But
since any arbitrarily selected cause in a per accidens causal series is a suffi-
cient efficient cause of its effect, it follows that in such a series it is not neces-
sary to arrive at a first efficient cause.

In fact, it seems that positing an absolutely first efficient cause in such a se-

ries is impossible. For suppose that there is such a cause, F. Then something
must move F from being a potential efficient cause to being an actual one. For
since the members of a per accidens causal series are not always causing their
effects, they are moved to do so by another. And under the Aristotelian-
Thomistic account of change, that can only be another efficient cause. But in
that case F is not an absolutely first efficient cause after all.

Nor can there be in a per accidens causal series any such thing as an ab-

solutely first change or an absolutely last change. For suppose that there is an
absolutely first change, G, in some subject, S. Then under the Aristotelian ac-
count of change, G requires an efficient cause or mover, M. But in causing G
in S, M itself goes from potentially moving S to actually moving S, and this
change is evidently prior to G. Hence, if there is an absolutely first change G
in a subject S, then there is a change before the supposed first change and that
is contradictory. Therefore, there is no absolutely first change in any string of
causes in which the causation of one member is only incidentally or acciden-
tally the cause of the causation of another member.

A similar argument excludes there being in such a series an absolutely last

change. For suppose that there is an absolutely last change L in some subject
S. Then either some further change L+1occurs in S or not. If so, then L is ev-
idently not the absolutely last change. If not, then L is still not the absolutely
last change. For S’s ceasing to change after the supposed last change L is it-
self a change. For up to and including the occurrence of L, S is a mobile be-
ing. But if L is the absolutely last change, then after the occurrence of L S is
no longer a mobile being. And this change from S’s being a mobile being to
S’s not being a mobile being is evidently a change after the supposed last
change L. It follows that there can no more be an absolutely last change in a
causal series per accidens than there can be an absolutely first change.
Change always occurs in the material universe. But from that it does not fol-

Chapter One

low that the latter is eternal. For it is possible that the world along with its
continuous change is created and creation, as was said, is not change.

FINAL CAUSE

But what about the final cause? Is it true that any change requires a final cause
which is the end or purpose for which the change occurs? While this might
not be disputed in cases where the efficient cause is a person, it might and has
been disputed in so-called natural changes i.e. in changes in nature that occur
independently of us human beings. I act for an end in walking, i.e. for the sake
of health, but do the activities in animals and plants occur for the sake of an
end, not to mention the events that take place in non-living things? In short,
is there purpose in nature, quite apart from human purpose?

Explicit and direct arguments in behalf of natural purpose appear in

Aquinas’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. There, Aquinas recounts with
approval five arguments of Aristotle in Physics Book II (198b 34–199a 33).
None of these arguments appear to be conclusive and none of them are as
strong as one which is implicit in Aristotle’s account of efficient causality.
This latter argument will be considered subsequently.

In any case, the first argument proceeds as follows. All natural changes oc-

cur either in all or in most instances. But nothing that occurs by chance oc-
curs either in all or in most instances. Thus, we do not say that it happens by
chance that heat occurs during the dog days. But everything that happens hap-
pens either by chance or for the sake of an end. Therefore, all natural changes
occur for the sake of an end. Here, one might challenge the last premise of the
argument. Why should it be assumed that the disjunct exhausts all possibili-
ties? For it seems that something might occur by physical necessity instead of
by chance or by design.

The second argument is this. As something is done naturally, so is it dis-

posed to be done and vice versa. But things that happen naturally happen in
such a way as to lead to an end in the sense of an a final result. Therefore, as-
suming that there are no impediments, things that happen naturally happen in
such a way that they are disposed to be done. But to be disposed to be done
is to be done for the sake of an end. Therefore, change in nature occurs for
the sake of an end.

As to the second premise, Aquinas gives an example. In the growth of

trees, first comes the roots, then the trunk, and finally the branches on top. Art
follows nature in this temporal priority. In house-building, first comes the
foundation, then the walls, and finally the roof. In each case one stage follows
another until a final result is reached.

Change and Its Causes

One might here challenge the first premise. Why should it be true that be-

cause things in fact occur in nature in a certain order, that they are disposed
to occur in that order? Aquinas might answer that the fact that they regularly
do occur in a certain order excludes their occurring by chance. Even so, it
does not follow from this that they are a priori disposed to occur the way they
do, i.e. that they occur by design. Once again, the assumption behind the ar-
gument seems to be that things occur in nature either by chance or by design
and that there is no third alternative.

Third, some things are produced by art but not by nature and vice versa.

Thus, a house is produced by art but not by nature while a tree is produced by
nature but not by art. However, in those things that are produced both by art
and by nature (e.g. health) art imitates nature. As nature heals by heating an
cooling, so too does art. But things made by art are made for the sake of an
end. Therefore, things made by nature are made for the sake of an end.

Even if one assumes that some things are made both by art and by nature

and that in such cases art imitates nature, the question still remains as to
whether, in such cases, art in all respects imitates nature. Only if that as-
sumption is made does the argument succeed.

The fourth argument runs as follows. Since some animals always act in the

same way, it is clear that they do not act either through art, inquiry, or delib-
eration. For what acts through art, inquiry, or deliberation acts through intel-
ligence. But what acts through intelligence does not always act in the same
way. Thus, not every builder builds a house in the same way. But spiders,
ants, bees, birds, etc. always make things in the same way. That is what
prompts some to believe that they do act through intelligence. Therefore,
since the actions of such animals are evidently for the sake of an end but are
not due to intelligence, they are due to nature. But in that case it follows that
nature acts for the sake of an end.

To this it might be objected that the supposed fact that some animals al-

ways act in the same way excludes their acting from intelligence does not im-
ply that nature acts for the sake of an end. For it is possible that these animals
always act in the same way because they act out of natural necessity and not
because they act for an end.

The fifth and last argument turns on the definition of nature. Nature signi-

fies either the matter or the form. But the form is the end of generation and
the nature of an end is that other things come to be for the sake of it. There-
fore, to be and to come to be for the sake of something is found in natural
things.

It is difficult to see how this argument escapes begging the question. If the

form that is generated out of matter in any change is simply defined as the end
of that generation, then it must be true that things in nature occur for the sake

Chapter One

of an end. But by what warrant is the end-result of a natural change identified
with an end in the sense of a goal or target?

But as was mentioned, a more promising argument for natural purpose

might be culled from examining the interrelation of the four causes. To see
how it goes, I begin with purpose in us and then consider purpose in nature.

Philosophers and scientists generally deny natural purpose. They say that

the latter was previously used to explain what was later found to be entirely
covered by efficient causes. That suggests that present and future natural phe-
nomena will be likewise explained, again making final causes unnecessary.
Besides, “explanation” by final cause is empirically unverifiable and hence
unscientific. It is therefore metaphysical explanation and this has long since
been abandoned. So joining induction, Ockham’s Razor and the principle of
verifiability, contemporary scientists and philosophers can only shun natural
purpose.

Yet classical pragmatists like James and Dewey were right that at least in

us, purpose is central. It links or stands between our choices and actions. This
involves a reciprocity whereby ends are both causes and effects. They are
causes of action though effects of choice. They thus get between and connect
the two. If I am bent on building a skiff, I scan various models before choos-
ing one of them. Then I start to replicate it in wood. Choosing that model over
its rivals makes it an end or goal. Before my choice, the other patterns as well
as the chosen one are possible ends only. Since it is my choice of the latter
that makes it an actual end, that choice is the efficient cause of the selected
model’s becoming an end. So the efficient cause is the cause of some pattern’s
becoming a final cause. Yet the chosen model or pattern is clearly the final
cause of the subsequent efficient cause of my building the skiff. It is that for
the sake of which I build. So while a prior efficient cause makes some form
a final cause, the latter instigates a subsequent efficient cause, thus making for
a reciprocity between efficient and final causes.

The subsequent efficient cause temporally follows and depends on its pred-

ecessor. After all, I choose to build before I build. Moreover, the choice con-
ditions the action and might even exist without it. I might choose to build but
later face unseen obstacles. But there is no action without the choice. Since I
build because I choose and not vice versa, the choice is the first and the ac-
tion the second efficient cause of the end, in this case, the skiff. And the two
are tied by a final cause, in this case, my chosen model or pattern.

In this mutual causal activity the end or final cause is necessary for both

the being and connection of the two efficient causes. It is nonsense to say that
I choose a model to build unless that model is by that choice made the end of
my building. And since all action is for the end, if no model is end then no
building begins. As for the linkage, how does my choosing a model to build

Change and Its Causes

instigate my building it unless that model pre-exists my action as target?
Here, as in all cases of human operations, two successive efficient causes,
choice and action, are linked only by a final cause.

Moreover, that choice and action are tied via a cause of a different kind

avoids a regress. As soon as I choose one of the plans, my building becomes
a live possibility. I now become bent on building. What ties my choice to
my building, actualizing the bent, is not a third event or efficient cause
standing between the other two, i.e. the choice and the action. Otherwise a
fourth event is needed to join the third to the events it ties, and so on. To
bypass this regress and actuate my tendency to build, therefore, two condi-
tions must be met. First, the tie must be something actual like the events it
ties. For only the actual realizes the possible. Second, though actual, the tie
must be a different kind of cause than the events it ties if the regress is to
be blocked. Both conditions are satisfied when the tie is identified with my
chosen ideal pattern which, as end, elicits my building. Thus, reason and
common sense both require final causes to link the efficient causes of
choice and action in all our activities. Choice, action and end thus comprise
an interrelated causal triad.

TELEOLOGY IN NATURE

Nevertheless, bracketing human choices and actions, does this causal triad
appear in nature?

True, modern philosophers either deny natural purpose

outright or else they doubt that we can know whether or not nature is telic.
But is it really true that this triad is never found in nature? Can it be said that
claims to the contrary only amount to anthropomorphism, i.e. to foisting onto
nature our own human ways and means of organizing our world? If so, then
Aristotle is guilty of putting the cart before the horse. It is not art and craft
which copy nature; it is nature which we falsely construe as copying art and
craft.

Even so, reflection shows that Aristotle and his medieval follower Aquinas

had a case. That nature can plausibly be said to exemplify our triad is indicated
by reproduction. Consider a paramecium (call it m) which as the result of
growth changes reaches full maturity. The maturation of m inclines it toward
reproductive changes just as my choosing a skiff-model inclines me toward
skiff-building. What happens is that m develops a new mouth and gullet and
these break off from the old ones. In what is called the anastage, its micronu-
cleus develops two sets of chromosomes at its two ends. The two offspring mi-
cronuclei in the telophase become separated and move toward m’s two poles.
In addition, m’s macronucleus grows along m’s length and then splits into two

Chapter One

offspring macronuclei. These then move away from each other. Next m begins
to narrow around the middle, eventually splitting in two and spawning a new
paramecium, p.

So two paramecia, m and p, are produced in the end, each

one having its own mouth, gullet, micronucleus and macronucleus.

In all of this, it is as if m’s reproductive changes happen in order to repli-

cate m’s very form. And yet from Galileo to modern biology this prima facie
purpose has been denied, and philosophers and scientists have assayed m’s
splitting in terms of efficient causes alone. In any mature paramecium regu-
lar changes precede and occasion its splitting. m’s growth changes mechani-
cally explain its reproductive changes and the latter also mechanically occa-
sion the appearance of p by binary fission or by m’s splitting. It is, they say,
unjustified to claim that m aims at its own form, or in other words that the ma-
ture form of paramecium in m elicits m’s reproductive changes as an end elic-
its the means to that end. This alleged design in nature is a relic of outdated
metaphysics. Instead, m’s reproductive changes are due in their entirety to a
series of antecedent efficient causes which act from behind to produce p.

And yet, does not this one-sided mechanism spawn a vicious regress? The

maturation of m makes it liable to reproduce just as my choice of a skiff-
model sets me to building it. Yet what joins the growth to the reproductive
changes, thus actualizing the latter, is no third event or events, standing be-
tween the other two. For then a fourth is needed to link the third to the events
it ties, and so on. Once again, this regress is dodged only by linking the
growth and reproductive changes with a link of a different ontological kind.
That is no event or efficient cause like the growth and reproductive changes
it joins but the mature form or nature of paramecium which, as end, elicits m’s
reproductive changes as means.

It might be countered that nothing to begin with is needed to tie the growth

changes in m to its reproductive changes. For the former suffice for the latter.
The supposed regress being blocked at its source, therefore, the argument for
final causes unravels. And with this, Ockham’s Razor is served too since
types of causes in nature are not unnecessarily multiplied.

This objection contains a nugget of truth. While no third event or efficient

cause ties m’s growth changes to its reproductive changes, still, to say that
nothing whatsoever ties the two implies that the reproductive changes, which
lie dormant in the maturation of m, actuate themselves. But that is unaccept-
able. Events like m’s growing a second mouth and gullet, its micronuclei
moving to either one of its poles, the elongation of its macronucleus, etc., re-
side in m as live options once m attains maturity via its successive growth
changes. By analogy, my building the skiff exists in me as a live option once
I choose its model as over against others. But in each case the live option re-
mains just a possibility unless and until it is actualized. But it is in each case

Change and Its Causes

actualized only by what is behind and common to the sets of events in ques-
tion, i.e. the growth and reproductive changes in the one case and my choos-
ing and building in the other. This link or mediator is no event or efficient
cause but an intelligible form or pattern taken as final cause from which the
sets of events in each case issue.

In both cases, the connection works like this. The effect in question is an

event, i.e. the skiff’s coming-to-be and p’s coming-to-be. The two efficient
causes in the first are my choosing the skiff as model and my replicating it in
wood. The two efficient causes in the second case are m’s maturation and its
ensuing reproductive activities. In the first case what ties the two is the ideal
model of the skiff in me which, by my choosing it, becomes the target of my
building. This serves as a go-between, joining my choice and my building.
This it can do because it is behind them both and internal to the agent. Before
I choose the skiff, the latter is just one among other models, none of which
have yet become my goal. But no sooner do I choose the model of the skiff
than the latter becomes attractive, instigating my building-process. It is the
same form that is behind both my choice and my building. One only chooses
and builds what one knows. In this way, three causes occur successively,
forming a triad of unity amid diversity. The ideal model of the skiff conditions
my choosing it. For I choose only what I know. That choice in turn gives that
ideal model the status of a goal or end. Finally, that same ideal pattern as end
elicits my building as means. Thus are two moving or efficient causes con-
nected by a final cause, making a systematic or integrated causal triad.

The same holds for m’s birthing p. The form or essence of m is the condi-

tion of the growth changes that occur in m before m’s reproductive changes.
The former are what make the form or nature of paramecium in m the end or
goal of the latter. Thus do formal and efficient causes jointly exemplify a thor-
oughgoing reciprocity. No sooner does m mature than the form of parame-
cium in m takes on attractiveness, drawing out of m the reproductive changes
that were mentioned. The latter, then, occur for the sake of reproducing that
form. Similarly, no sooner do I choose the model of the skiff than the latter
becomes a magnet, drawing out of me the process of building. And once
again, the latter occurs for the sake of reproducing that form or model. The
difference is that in the former case the pre-existing form is in re whereas in
the latter it is in mente. But in each case does the first efficient cause cause
the pre-existing form to become an end or final cause. Just as, once chosen,
the form of the skiff in me becomes the goal of my building, so too does the
nature of paramecium in m become the goal of m’s reproductive changes once
m’s the growth changes occur. When in each case the one efficient cause oc-
curs, the nature or form, which already pre-exists in the agent, becomes a
goal, drawing out of the agent the other efficient cause or activity which is

Chapter One

means to that goal. These are my building and m’s reproductive changes, re-
spectively. Thus is that nature or form a final cause, bridging the two other
causes. And in each case, the result of this systematic causal triad is the repli-
cation of that same pre-existing nature or form.

To sum up the foregoing account, while in each case the first efficient cause

converts a form into an end to start with, it is the second efficient cause that
realizes that end in matter. And while the second efficient cause realizes the
final cause in matter, the final cause for its part initiates that causality. Exer-
cising makes for fitness, observes Aristotle, and fitness makes for exercis-
ing.

He might have said instead that in human carpentry building makes for

a skiff but that a skiff makes for building. And in nature as opposed to human
affairs, he might have said instead that splitting makes for paramecium and
that paramecium makes for splitting. Only by positing this causal triad in
which a final cause stands between two efficient causes do we explain the
self-same phenomenon in art and nature both, namely, that pre-existing forms
or patterns of all sorts are reproduced in new particulars.

OBJECTION: FINAL CAUSE AS SELF-CONTRADICTORY

Opponents of this analysis might object that the idea of a final cause is contra-
dictory. A final cause both conditions the activity of the efficient cause and is
the result of that activity. It is thus at the same time both logically prior to that
activity and consequent upon it. It is both the condition of the agent’s activity
and conditioned by that activity. Thus, as the target of his sculpturing, Athene
in Phidias’ mind directs his sculpturing as a model directs the thing modeled. It
thus logically (as well as temporally) precedes his action. In this way does the
final cause cause the efficient cause, as was said. But since in another sense the
end or goal of Phidias’ sculpturing is evidently the completed Athene and not
Phidias’ preconception of it, Phidias’ sculpturing logically (and temporally)
precedes the final cause. The efficient cause thus causes the final cause.

The clash is no less apparent in supposed non-human final causes. The

form of a paramecium in the budding paramecium determines as an end the
reproductive activities that produce a new paramecium. As final cause, that
form logically (and temporally) precedes those activities. Once again, the fi-
nal cause is the cause of the efficient cause. But since the natural end or goal
of those activities is the production of a new paramecium it can be said that
those same activities logically (and temporally) precede the supposed final
cause and not the other way around.

The objection, therefore, is that invoking final causality to solve the forego-

ing dilemma of efficient causes is implausible. The cure, so it seems, is worse

Change and Its Causes

than the illness. Only if this prima facie contradiction in the idea of a final
cause is resolved is the solution viable. But the question is, how is it resolved?
How can final causes both condition and be conditioned by efficient causes?

THE OBJECTION ANSWERED

The answer to this goes back to the dual status of a final cause. Any final
cause is both first and last in different respects. It is both form as plan and
form as realization of a plan. As the former it is first while as the latter it is
last. Form as plan always exists in the agent and explains as an end the agent’s
activities. Thus, the model of Athene exists intelligibly in Phidias, directing
his activities as an end toward which he works. Form as realization of a plan,
however, always exists in the end-result or product and is explained by the
agent’s activities instead of explaining them. Thus, the form of the completed
Athene exists in stone and is explained by the sculpturing of Phidias. As plan
in the agent, a final cause is the cause of the efficient cause; as realization of
a plan in the product, a final cause is the effect of the efficient cause. Since it
is not the same respect in which ‘final cause’ is taken each time, no contra-
diction accrues.

The same is true in non-human causes. As plan, the form of a paramecium

exists in the budding paramecium, directing its activities as an end to the re-
alization of that same form in something else. The latter is this time not stone,
of course, but primal matter. But as realization of a plan, the form of a para-
mecium exists in the offspring paramecium and is explained by the activities
of the budding or agent-paramecium. The point is that since it is not the very
same thing that conditions the agent’s activities and that is conditioned by
those activities, the alleged contradiction evaporates. What conditions those
activities is the form as such taken apart form either real or psychological ex-
istence. Thus, what conditions Phidias’ sculpturing as end or final cause is
neither the actual Athene nor an idea (in the sense of a mental entity) of
Athene in Phidias’ mind. For the former does not yet exist and the latter is not
that for the sake of which Phidias sculptures. Phidias evidently does not work
in order to produce a mental entity. What conditions Phidias’ activities is in-
stead a certain form of Athene taken just as such apart from any real or men-
tal being it has. But what is conditioned or made by Phidias’ activities is the
real Athene, i.e. not the form of Athene as such but the form of Athene as re-
alized in stone.

The same applies to our agent-paramecium, m. What conditions m’s activ-

ities as end or final cause is neither the new paramecium p nor an idea in the
sense of a mental entity in m’s mind. For the former does not yet exist and the

Chapter One

latter, even if it did exist, is not that for the sake of which m generates. Even
if the latter had a mind in which the idea of a paramecium existed as a model,
it is evidently not for the sake of reproducing that mental entity that m gener-
ates. What conditions m’s activities is instead the form of paramecium taken
as such apart from any real or psychological being it has. But what is condi-
tioned or made by m’s activities is not the form or species of paramecium as
such but a real or existent paramecium, i.e. its offspring, p. Since, therefore,
it is not the same thing that conditions and that is conditioned in each case,
the supposed contradiction vanishes and the objection is answered.

Thus, the relation between efficient and final causes is one of reciprocity.

The efficient cause is cause of the final cause and the final cause is the cause
of the efficient cause, though in different respects. Concurring with Aristotle,
Aquinas states,

. . . The efficient cause is the cause of the final cause inasmuch as it makes the
final cause be, because by causing motion the efficient cause brings about the fi-
nal cause. But the final cause is the cause of the efficient cause, not in the sense
that it makes it be, but inasmuch as it is the reason for the causality of the effi-
cient cause. For an efficient cause is a cause inasmuch as it acts, and it acts only
because of the final cause. Hence, the efficient cause derives its causality from
the final cause. . .

Aquinas goes on to say that the final cause is not only the cause of the

causality of the efficient cause but that it is also the cause of the causality of
all the causes. For the efficient cause is the cause of the causality of the mat-
ter and the form. It is the agent that makes a certain form exist in matter. Thus,
Phidias makes the form of Athene exist in stone. In so doing he causes that
form as well as matter (the stone) to be causes of the statue. Assuming, then,
the transitivity of the causal relation, if the final cause is the cause of the
causality of the efficient cause and the efficient cause is the cause of the
causality of the matter and form, then it follows that the final cause is the
cause of all the causes.

Hence the priority and centrality of final causation

in the metaphysics of Aristotle and Aquinas.

TWO FURTHER OBJECTIONS

Nevertheless, dissolving the foregoing alleged contradiction in this way oc-
casions two more objections to the foregoing notion of final causation. First,
it might be alleged that the belief that in nature effects pre-exist in their effi-
cient causes is simply wrong. But that shows that the idea that final causation
is required for efficient causation is false. For the idea of the pre-existence of

Change and Its Causes

the effect in the efficient cause comes from making the latter subserve the fi-
nal cause. True, the form of our generated paramecium p pre-exists in the
generating paramecium m where it functions as plan. But this is far from be-
ing generally true.

Thus, take the case of the fertilizing of a hen’s egg. Here, the actual effi-

cient cause is the chicken sperm qua penetrating the egg. The effect, a
chicken zygote, is, in the view of Aquinas, that for the sake of which the ac-
tivity of the sperm occurs. The development of the zygote in turn has a fur-
ther end, i.e. the mature chicken. Yet, that seems to compromise the Aris-
totelian account of the relation of final and efficient cause. For that assay
stipulates that the likeness of the form of the effect pre-exists in the agent or
efficient cause. But that is evidently untrue in this case. The form of the ef-
fect is that of a chicken zygote while the form of the agent is that of a chicken
sperm. True, the zygote is potentially in the egg prior to the sperm’s activity.
But the zygote does not pre-exist in the sperm. Or again, consider an acorn
from which an oak sprouts. Here the final cause is the oak-shoot and the im-
mediate moving or efficient cause is some change in the acorn. Yet the like-
ness of the form of oak, which is the form of the thing made, once again fails
to pre-exist in the efficient cause or agent. Yet it would have to do so if, un-
der the doctrine of the four causes, an efficient cause in nature is always di-
rected by a final cause. How would Aristotle or Aquinas answer these prima
facie counterexamples to the principle that, in nature as well as in art, the like-
ness of the effect pre-exists in the efficient cause?

Second, one might challenge final causation with the following dilemma.

Either a supposed final cause pre-exists the efficient cause or not. If it does,
then it already exists and hence is not something toward the realization of
which the efficient cause acts. If it does not, then it can hardly direct the ac-
tivity of the efficient cause as end or goal. How would Aquinas answer these
two objections?

REPLY TO THESE OBJECTIONS

As to the first objection, Aquinas has an answer. It is that the principle must be
interpreted more broadly. In nature as in art, a likeness of the thing to be made
does always pre-exist in the agent. But it need not be a simple likeness of
species. Instead, it might be a likeness of genus or, even more remotely, a like-
ness of analogy.

It might also be a likeness of species inclusively speaking,

i.e. in that the same species enters into the definition of both agent and effect.

In the case of a paramecium, it is a simple likeness of species. By splitting

m produces p. By a simple likeness, the species of p pre-exists in m. In the

Chapter One

case of the chicken zygote, the likeness is one of genus. But it is also indi-
rectly one of species. The likeness of the genus of chicken zygote, organism,
does pre-exist in the chicken sperm. But the likeness is more than just
generic. It is specific in an indirect, inclusive sense. For when you go to de-
fine what a chicken sperm is and what a chicken zygote is, you in each case
bring in the idea of the species chicken as formal cause. It is like defining a
necessary property of a species. You cannot do so without including that
species in the definition.

Thus, you cannot define acting morally responsi-

bly without including in the definition the idea of a human being. Therefore,
since it is the very same species i.e. the species chicken, that enters into the
definition of the effect, chicken zygote, that also enters into the definition of
the agent, chicken sperm, it follows that the likeness of effect to agent here is
indirectly or inclusively specific. The form of the effect does pre-exist in the
agent in the same way i.e. indirectly or by specific inclusion.

A similar, but not exactly the same analysis holds for the acorn and the oak-

shoot. The specific form of the effect is the form of an oak. But since you can-
not define what an acorn is without bringing in the idea of an oak, it follows
that the specific form of the effect, i.e. oak, does pre-exist in the agent for-
mally, i.e. by dint of entering into the latter’s definition. Therefore, the prin-
ciple that the likeness of the effect pre-exists in the agent in nature as well as
in art is not compromised by the supposed counter-examples. And since ac-
cording to Aquinas that principle is required to preserve the primacy of final
causes over efficient causes, it follows too that those same examples do noth-
ing to challenge the latter.

Yet this reply occasions an evident counter-reply. It is that this broader

statement of the principle that effects pre-exist in their efficient causes is too
anemic to satisfy the requirements of teleology. In terms of or example, let it
be granted that the species chicken, which enters into the definition of the ef-
fect i.e. chicken zygote, also enters into the definition of the cause, i.e.
chicken sperm. Loosely interpreted, the dictum that the likeness of the effect
is found in the cause is then satisfied. But that likeness is too vague and indi-
rect to satisfy the requirement of teleology. For the immediate end here is not
a chicken but a chicken zygote. What is more, neither the form of chicken nor
the form of chicken zygote pre-exists in the sperm. What, if anything, nature
aims at here is a chicken zygote. So the form of chicken zygote must pre-ex-
ist in the sperm as goal or target if the priority of final to efficient causes in
nature is to be defended. By analogy, since what Phidias aims at is the form
of Athene, it is that very form and no other that pre-exists in Phidias.

This objection is right on the mark. In fact, the only to answer it is to fall back

on that distinction between actual efficient causes and their effects and poten-
tial efficient causes and their effects. For it seems that counterexamples to the

Change and Its Causes

principle in question crop up only when it is the latter and not the former that
is concerned. But in that case the objection in question misses the mark.

To explain, instead of a chicken sperm and a chicken zygote, consider a

chicken sperm qua fertilizing an egg and the egg qua being fertilized by the
chicken sperm. This is a case of an actual efficient cause and its effect. But
note that it is also a case in which the form of the effect, i.e. the fertilizing of
the egg, straightforwardly pre-exists in the cause. Hence, it is possible that
that form is the end or target of the cause just as the form of the completed
Athene is Phidias’ end. True, the form of the effect pre-exists in the cause here
in a logical and not in a temporal sense. For actual efficient causes are simul-
taneous with their effects. Still, the point is that a straightforwardly common
element exists between the two. That, to repeat, is the fertilizing of the egg.
That activity is found both in the effect and in the cause, just as the form of
Athene is found both in the completed statue and in Phidias. It is just that it is
what Aquinas calls “second form” i.e. activity and not “first form” or species.
For Aquinas says that the thing in the effect that pre-exists in the efficient
cause is not always a form by which he means a first form or species.

In any

case, the activity here, i.e. the fertilizing of the egg, is in the cause (the sperm)
as that from which while it is in the effect (the egg) as that in which. Follow-
ing Aristotle, Aquinas holds that this is true of all transient activity. Action
and passion are always one motion or activity and not two. It is just that that
one motion is in the cause in one way and in the effect in another.

Teaching,

for example, is in the teacher as in that from whom. But that very same action
is also simultaneously in the student as in that in whom, i.e. as something re-
ceived and not given. Thus, teaching and learning are but two names for the
same thing. The different names just reflect the active and passive ways, re-
spectively, in which it exists. That being the case, one can then say that, at
least in the case of actual efficient causes and their effects in nature, the re-
quirement of teleology is met. The effect does straightforwardly pre-exist in
the efficient cause. Agreeing with Aristotle, Aquinas says,

. . . For since action is the act of the agent . . . then if action and passion are one
motion, it follows that the act of the agent is in some way in the patient, and thus
the act of one thing will be in another . . . .

He (Aristotle) says, therefore, first that it is not inconsistent for the act of one

thing to be in another. For teaching is the act of the teacher, tending, neverthe-
less, from him to someone else continuously and without interruption. Hence,
the same act is his, i.e. the agent’s, as ‘from whom,’ and also in the patient as re-
ceived in him. However, it would be inconsistent if the act of one thing were in
another in the way in which it is the act of the former.

As for the second objection, Aristotle and Aquinas might answer it the same

way they answer the foregoing objection that the notion of final causation is

Chapter One

self-contradictory. They would distinguish final cause as a plan and final cause
as completion or realization of a plan. The final cause does pre-exist the effi-
cient cause. But that does not imply that, since it then already exists, it cannot
be realized by the efficient cause. For it is before the efficient cause in one
sense of ‘is’ and after the efficient cause in another sense of ‘is.’ As was said,
while it is before the efficient cause as plan or possibility, it is after the effi-
cient cause as realized plan or actuality. In the first case the ‘is’ is the ‘is’ of
essence. But in the second case the ‘is’ is the ‘is’ of existence. When final
cause is form as possibility or essence, it conditions the efficient cause; but
when it is form as actuality or as existing, the efficient cause conditions it.

From the fact that the efficient cause always depends on the final cause

which is prior to it, it follows that every efficient cause taken as such resembles
its effect. Thus, defenders of the doctrine of the four causes would contend that
the idea, common to many philosophers, that effects resemble their causes, is
based on the notion of final cause and more particularly on the priority of final
to efficient causes. In any case, one might summarize the argument as follows.
As an agent is so it acts. The activity that is proper to a thing, in other words,
follows on its form. But the proper activity of a thing is its good or perfection.
Thus, the good or perfection of a physician qua physician is healing. Hence,
that activity of an agent or efficient cause that conforms to its being or form is
that thing’s proper good or perfection. Thus, rational activity is the good or per-
fection of human beings. Moreover, the good or perfection of a thing is its end.
For something is end to the extent that it is desirable and a thing is desirable to
the extent that it is good. But the end of an efficient cause pre-exists in it. Oth-
erwise it does not direct the efficient cause to the effect. But if y pre-exists (ei-
ther naturally or intelligibly) in x as end, then x resembles y. Moreover, the end
of any efficient cause is its effect. Thus, the end of a builder qua building, i.e.
a house, is the effect of a builder qua building. It follows that every efficient
cause taken as such resembles its effect.

A FINAL OBJECTION ANSWERED

Shifting their ground, opponents of natural teleology would now fire their fi-
nal salvo against invoking final causality to escape the dilemma of efficient
causality. Ends, they will say, exist only in minds. Purpose is mind-depen-
dent. Where something is aimed at there is some mind that aims at it. If, there-
fore, the forms of non-human agent-causes are ends to which the generating
activities of those agents are oriented, then it must be those same agents that
are aiming at those ends. But to think that they are is to succumb to anthro-
pomorphism, to read human purpose into the behavior of non-cognitive
agents. So while forms are ends for human agents, determining in advance the

Change and Its Causes

actions of those agents, they are not ends for non-human agents and hence do
not exist in those agents as final causes. Otherwise it should have to be coun-
tenanced that an agent-cause like our paramecium is endowed with a mind in
which forms function as final causes of that agent’s behavior just as they do
in human minds.

In answer, Aquinas, for one, would agree that where a form is aimed at

there is some mind behind the purpose. But he would deny that it follows
from this that the behavior of non-human agents is purposeless. True, there is
no mind in our agent-paramecium m that is conscious of the form of parame-
cium that exists in it as final cause of its activities. Generating paramecia are
not human artists. Still, though there are surely exceptions, the generating or
budding operations in paramecia regularly occur and new paramecia regu-
larly follow those reproductive operations. That means that paramecia are in-
clined by their very natures to engage in activities of this sort which are con-
ducive to their species.

But that things in the physical world are naturally prone to generate their

likenesses in things, Aquinas holds, can only be explained teleologically. It
can only be traced to some directing mind which ordains each thing to its
end.

For the regularity with which natural things generate their likenesses

cannot be explained either by chance or by efficient causation.

To spell it out, the fact that new paramecia generally follow the budding ac-

tivities of agent-paramecia is not due to chance. Otherwise it does not regu-
larly happen. Nor are the two connected as efficient cause to its effect. For we
saw that Aquinas views an acting efficient cause and its effect not as separate
things but as the active and passive sides of the same thing. That being the
case, where the one is so must be the other. Where Phidias is cutting Athene,
Athene is being cut. Efficient causes and their effects are thus necessarily con-
nected. But though new paramecia generally follow the reproducing activities
of agent-paramecia, they evidently need not and in fact do not always do so.
Here, Hume and the empiricists are correct. Surprises, intrusions, and inter-
ruptions can and do occur in nature.

It seems that Aristotle and Aquinas would contend, then, that there is but

one other alternative. The fact that new paramecia regularly follow the bud-
ding activities of existing ones is due to purpose. A new paramecium, taken
as paramecium, is the natural end or goal of the budding of an existing para-
mecium. Quite generally, in and through their activities, individual members
of a given species aim at their own species. The inclinations of species to en-
gage in patterns of reproductive and other activity both spring from those
species as formal causes and are oriented to those same species as final
causes. In this way does causation in nature form a circle, though Aquinas
would insist that it is a benign and not a vicious circle.

Chapter One

No less than with human purpose, this natural purpose implies a mind that

orders the actitvities to their ends. Ends are made to be ends, according to
Aquinas, by mind. But the mind in this case is evidently not human. Phidias
has Athene as his end and decides what activities will realize that end. But
neither Phidias nor any other person makes a new paramecium qua parame-
cium the end of the budding activities of an agent-paramecium. We discover
and do not make that relationship. And one way we discover it is by seeing
that the fact that new paramecia regularly follow reproductive activities in
agent-paramecia is unexplained by either chance or by efficient causation
alone.

The mind behind this natural purpose, Aquinas thinks, is God’s. Just as en-

gineers program robots to make automobiles on an assembly line, so God pro-
grams living things to act for their own species. In both cases the regularity
with which the results follow on the activities of the agents in question is un-
explained by either blind chance or efficient causation. That either an auto-
mobile or some stage of its production regularly follows the repetitious ac-
tivities of agent-robots is not due to chance. Nor is it due to mechanical
causation. Where robots make, something is being made. Efficient cause and
effect must accompany each other as two sides of a single process. Yet there
is no guarantee that the automobile or some stage of its completion will fol-
low those robotic activities. Unexpected events can break the cycle. So we
say in this case that the robotic activity is due to design. But it is not active
design but passive or imposed design. It is secondary, received, unconscious
purpose and not that primary, unmeasured, conscious purpose that character-
izes human actions.

The analogy, of course, is inexact. Organisms like paramecia act for their

own species while robots act not for that but for finished or unfinished prod-
ucts on an assembly line. Further, the end of an agent-organism’s activities
pre-exists in the agent-organism while the form of the product does not pre-
exist in the agent-robot. To improve the analogy, we might imagine a case in
which robots are used to make other robots and not automobiles. Be that as it
may, the point is that Aquinas would argue that natural events like the repro-
duction of paramecia can only be ascribed to purpose even though that pur-
pose is, in the agents involved, imposed or unconscious purpose.

This natural or secondary purpose is measured purpose as opposed to pur-

pose that measures. Aquinas identifies the latter with eternal law in God’s
mind and the former with the embodiment or instantiation of that law in things.
Law, for Aquinas, is always a rule of activity by which things are directed to
an end.

It is primarily in mind and secondarily in things.

Thus, the law of a

State is primarily in the mind of the governor and secondarily in the conform-
ing actions of citizens. Analogously, the rule or pattern of activity by which

Change and Its Causes

new paramecia emerge out of existing paramecia is primarily in God as eter-
nal law and secondarily in the conforming activities of existing paramecia. As
eternal, the law of activity for paramecia has an end. That end exists intelligi-
bly in God’s mind analogously to the way in which human ends exist intelli-
gibly in human minds. As embodied, the same rule of activity for paramecia
exists in individual paramecia. And there too it has an end. That end, as was
said, is the very species of the acting paramecia. All living things act for their
own species.

The law of nature for a given organism, then, is just the sum-total of those

activities to which that organism is naturally prone and which has the nature
or species of that organism as its end. But since all law aims at an end and
since end is properly speaking in mind, then all law is primarily in mind.
What we call the law of a thing’s nature, then, is imposed, measured, and sec-
ondary law. It necessarily reflects the eternal law of that nature in God’s mind.
The former is the law of a thing’s nature taken in re and the latter is the law
of a thing’s nature taken ante rem. The reason why paramecia are naturally
inclined to engage in operations that have their own species as their end is that
that law is imposed on their natures by the eternal law in God’s mind. The law
of nature for paramecia i.e. the pattern of activity whereby any paramecium
is directed to its end, is first in God’s mind as measure and derivatively in cre-
ated paramecia as something measured. The end toward which agent-para-
mecia are inclined, i.e. their own species, pre-exists in them naturally. That
same end, together with the rule or law of activity that tends toward it, pre-
exists in God’s mind intelligibly. It is, says Aquinas, the exemplar of God’s
wisdom taken as law.

The activities of non-rational things, therefore, tend toward an end that is

unknown to them. They act, says Aquinas, “without knowing the causes, inas-
much as they are directed to their proper ends by a superior intellect.”

They

know neither their own ends nor the rules of activity or laws of their natures
which serve that end. Even so, it can hardly be denied that they act for an end.
True, activity that is oriented to an end implies knowledge of that end. Pur-
pose, as was said, implies mind. But it does not imply knowledge of the end
on the part of the agent. By analogy, young children in a large family often
blindly follow the rules of the family. In so doing they tend toward their own
end, happiness, in promoting, by their obedience, the end or good of the fam-
ily as a whole. What the end of the family as a whole is, what their own ends
are in relation to that larger end, and what patterns of action realize these ends
are things about which these children are ignorant. Yet it cannot be denied
that they act for an end i.e. the end of the head or lawmaker of the family,
even though that end is both unknown to them and imposed on them.

Chapter One

Once again, it is not just by chance that the good of the family as a whole fol-

lows their law-like action. Nor does that end follow their actions by mechani-
cal necessity. Unexpected outside events might intervene to preempt the end.
That the end of the family as a whole as well as that of the children normally
follow the latter’s law-like actions is therefore due to purpose, the purpose of a
wise head and lawmaker of the family. The obvious difference is that while the
actions of the children flow from habit, the activities of brute animals and plants
such as paramecia flow from nature.

But habit and nature are alike in that they

are each prone to a definite end, i.e. a certain kind of activity.

NOTES

1. Henri Bergson, An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. T.E. Hulme, (Indi-

anapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,1955), 28–30.

2. Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, Book Two:Creation, trans. J.F. Anderson,

(Garden City, NY.: Doubleday, 1955), 17 [4], 54.

3. Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, trans. Blackwell, Spath and

Thirlkel, (New Haven:Yale Univ. Press,1963), I.L.14:120–28, 57–61.

4. Aquinas, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, trans. J.P. Rowan,

(Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1961), I. L.9: C.138–40, 58–59.

5. ———, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, I.L.10: 78, 39; I.L. 12:101, 49.
6. ———, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, I.L.14: 124, 59.
7. ———, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, I.L.14: 124–25, 59–60.
8. Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. W.D. Ross, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed.

R. McKeon, (New York: Random House, 1941), 1045b 28–36, 818–19.

9. ———, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, I.L.14: 127, 60.

10. ———, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, I.L.14: 127, 60.
11. ———, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, II, L.3: C. 305, 126.
12. ———, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, I.L.9: 64, 33.
13. ———, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, I.L. 15: 139, 65–66.
14. ———, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, I. L.4: C.74, 31–2.
15. ———, Summa theologica, in Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. A. Pegis,

(New York: The Modern Library, 1948), I q46 a2: reply obj.7, 256.

16. The following paragraphs use arguments which also appear in my “Is There

Natural Purpose”? See International Philosophical Quarterly, June, 2008.

17. J.R. Preer, Jr., “Surface Antigens of Paramecium” in J.G. Gall, ed, The Mole-

cular Biology of Ciliated Protozoa, (Orlando, Fla: The Academic Press, 1986), 303–4;
I. B. Raikov, “The Macronucleus of Ciliates” in T. Chen, ed., Research in Protozool-
ogy, (New York: Pergamon Press, 1969), 32–44; Ralph Wichterman, The Biology of
Paramicium, (New York: Blakiston, 1953), 254–58.

18. Aristotle, Physics, trans. R.P.Hardie and R.K.Gaye in R. McKeon, ed. The Ba-

sic Works of Aristotle (New York: Random House, 1941), 195a 9–11, 241.

Change and Its Causes

19. Aquinas, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, V.L.2: C. 775, 308.
20. ———,Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, V. L.3: C. 782, 311.
21. ———, Summa theologica in A. Pegis, ed. Basic Writings of Saint Thomas

AquinasI (New York: Random House, 1945), I q4 a3, 40–1; ———,Commentary on
Aristotle’s Physics, II.L.11: 242, 111–12; ———,Commentary on the Metaphysics of
Aristotle, VII. L.6: C 1393, 531.

22. ———, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, V. L.19: C.1055, 397.
23. ———, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, II.L. 11: 242, 111.
24. ———,Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, III.L. 5: 315–16, 148.
25. ———, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, III.L. 5: 315–16, 148.
26. ———, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, I. L.15: C. 233, 96.
27. ———, Summa theologica, in A. Pegis, ed. Introduction to Saint Thomas

Aquinas (New York: Random House, 1948), I-II q93 a3, 632–33.

28. ———, Summa theologica I-II q90 a1: reply obj.1, 610.
29. ———, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, I.L.1: C.28, 14.
30. ———, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, I.L.1: C.28, 14.

Chapter One

THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF METAPHYSICS

What is metaphysics? Aquinas’s answer is the same as Aristotle’s. It is the sci-
ence of being as being. Since they evidently do not deal with non-being or
nothing, all other sciences study being too. But unlike metaphysics they do so
from some limited point of view. Thus, biology studies being insofar as it is
living being and anthropology studies being insofar as it is human being.
Every specialized science cuts off a certain area of being and studies that area
and no other. By contrast, metaphysics does not cut off or focus on any one
area of being as over against another. It deals with any and all being. That is
because it makes no difference to metaphysics whether being is living or not
living, human or not human. For its concern is with being just as being.

This characterization of metaphysics as over against the other sciences in-

vites two objections. First, it is objected that it assumes to begin with that
metaphysics is a science along with biology and anthropology. But how can
this be when metaphysics neither conducts experiments nor frames or tests
hypotheses? Second, it is objected that the characterization implies that meta-
physics studies everything in general and nothing in particular. But how is
something a legitimate science that studies nothing in particular and every-
thing in general? That sounds nonsensical. It is like saying that a zoologist
studies animals but never any particular animal, neither horse, nor cow, nor
dog, nor chicken, nor any other type of animal.

Both objections are captious. In classifying metaphysics as a science

Aquinas does not and could not have meant by ‘science’ what was later meant
by it. Nor could he have meant by ‘science’ what is meant by it today. Aquinas
lived three centuries before the birth of modern science in the Renaissance. By

Chapter Two

Being

‘science’ he just means a body of knowledge that employs first principles.
Thus, arithmetic and geometry are sciences in his view even though they in-
volve neither experimentation nor the framing or testing of empirical hy-
potheses. As for the second objection, it feeds on the misconception that par-
ticular sciences study types or species of being, while metaphysics studies the
genus being under which these species fall. But Aquinas denies in the first in-
stance that being is a genus. Sciences other than metaphysics do not study
types or species of being for the simple reason that being is not to begin with
a genus. And because it is not, it is untrue to say that metaphysics is an empty
(and hence pseudo) science since it studies nothing in particular and every-
thing in general. True, there is a sense in which everything comes under the
purview of metaphysics. But from this it follows that metaphysics studies
everything in general and nothing in particular only if it is assumed that its ob-
ject, being, is the widest genus.

Aquinas points out the consequence of that assumption for metaphysics.

is the same consequence that was drawn by Parmenides. If there are many types
or species of being, then, since difference is outside genus, something outside
being is added to being to account for this diversity. But nothing can be under-
stood as being added to being by which it is so diversified. Therefore, there are
not many types or species of being but being is one. This argument feeds on the
assumption that being is a genus. If it is, then of course no difference can be
added to diversify being since outside of the genus being is nothing. It is then
concluded that being is one and that all observed multiplicity is illusory.

From this counterintuitive conclusion Parmenides would have been saved,

says Aquinas, had he only realized that ‘being’ is a pros hen equivocal and not
an univocal concept. With Aristotle it must be said that ‘being’ is said in many,
though related, senses. But if that is so, being is no genus since any genus is
univocal. Not being a genus to begin with, being is not the widest genus. So
even though it is true that difference falls outside genus, we are not forced on
that account to conclude that difference is illusory. That follows only if being
is a genus and this it cannot be since it lacks univocity of sense. It cannot be
said, then, that stones, apples, horses, human beings, God, etc. are types or
species of being, as if all of them fall coordinately under the genus ‘being.’ It
is not like the case of foxes, horses, dogs, wolves, etc. falling under the genus
‘animal.’ For ‘animal’ and all other genera have one sense and ‘being’ does
not. Otherwise Parmenides is right and the differences among stones, apples,
horses, human beings, God and other supposed types of being are eliminated.

HIERARCHY OF SPECULATIVE SCIENCES

Metaphysics is the highest speculative science according to Aquinas. Why
speculative and why highest? It is a speculative science because it aims at

Chapter Two

knowledge for its own sake and not at knowledge for the sake of action. In
this it is like mathematics and unlike medicine. The latter is a practical sci-
ence since its end is healing. Knowledge of medicine is for the sake of the
specific activity of healing while knowledge of metaphysics or of mathemat-
ics is not for the sake of any activity above and beyond the knowledge itself.
Thus, the distinction between a speculative and a practical science is that the
former is knowledge for the sake of knowledge and the latter is knowledge
for the sake of action. Moreover, metaphysics is the highest speculative sci-
ence. That is because its principles are included in the objects of the two other
speculative sciences, i.e. mathematics and physics (in Aristotle’s sense of
‘physics’). But the principles of the latter are not included in the objects of
metaphysics. That means that metaphysics is logically prior to mathematics
and physics. And according to Aquinas, if one thing is logically prior to an-
other the former is higher or more fundamental than the other.

To spell it out, physics studies mobile being. But since any mobile thing is

both quantified and being, it includes not only those principles by which it is mo-
bile but also those principles by which it is quantified and those principles by
which it is being. For its part, mathematics studies quantified being. But since
quantified being is being, it includes not only those principles by which it is
quantified but also those principles by which it is being. Finally, metaphysics
studies being period or being just as being. But since with Aristotle Aquinas
holds there are beings that are neither mobile nor quantified, any being taken just
as being does not include the principles of either mobile or of quantified being.

So among the three speculative sciences there is a hierarchy. The highest is

metaphysics since its objects depend on the fewest principles. To be being
something need not be quantified or include matter. Next comes mathematics
the objects of which include quantity together with the principles of being as
such. To be a number something need not and does not include sensible mat-
ter. But it must include quantity as well as the principles of being as such. Fi-
nally, there is physics whose object is being as changeable. Since a changing
thing is a fortiori both quantified and a being, it on that account includes not
only primal matter, the principle of change, but also quantity, the principle by
which it is numerically one thing, as well as essence and existence, by which
it is being. Therefore, physics assumes the most principles. For that reason it
is the least exact and elegant of the three speculative sciences. The more ex-
act and elegant a science the fewer are its principles. That is why, in mathe-
matics, arithmetic is more exact and elegant than geometry. The latter include
the principles of the former but not vice versa. The idea of a point includes
the idea of a unit but not the other way around.

But the three speculative sciences are hierarchically ordered not only on

the basis of their relative simplicity. They are also so ordered, says Aquinas,
according to the order of the abstraction from matter.

But the two aspects,

relative simplicity and relative abstraction from matter, go hand in hand. The

Being

simpler a speculative science is (i.e. simpler in the sense of its employing the
fewest principles), the less dependent are its objects on matter. And the less
simple a speculative science is, the more dependent it is on matter. That
means that metaphysics is the most independent of matter and physics is the
least independent of matter. In between is mathematics whose objects are
conceptually dependent on matter in the sense of quantity (either discrete or
continuous) but conceptually independent of matter in the sense of sensible
matter.

The objects of the lowest speculative science, physics, can neither exist nor

be defined without matter. A stone or a tree is evidently can neither exist nor
be defined without matter. A notch above these changing objects are the ob-
jects of mathematics. Like stones and trees, numbers and geometrical figures
such as triangles and circles cannot really exist without matter. In this,
Aquinas follows Aristotle who denied Plato’s separation of mathematical en-
tities. But unlike stones and trees, numbers and geometrical figures can be de-
fined without matter. When you define a stone you must include sensible mat-
ter in the definition. Not so when you define a triangle. Finally, the objects of
the highest speculative science, metaphysics, do not necessarily depend on
matter either for their existence or for their definition. Either they are never
found in matter, says Aquinas (he mentions God and angels as examples), or
else they are sometimes found in matter and sometimes not. Among the latter
notions are being, substance, actuality and potentiality.

SENSES OF ‘BEING’

St. Thomas follows Aristotle in holding that ‘being’ is said in many senses.
Even though he is no essentialist, Aquinas insists that in one sense ‘being’
means essence. Essence primarily signifies being in the sense of what some-
thing is. What something is is called by different names depending on the
point of view from which it is considered. What something is is called
essence (essentia) from the standpoint of its relation to existence (esse) by
which it is actualized. For that reason, essence conveys something potential,
i.e. potential to existence. What something is is also called quiddity by
Aquinas when it is viewed as the basis of a thing’s definition. Third, what
something is is called nature when it is considered as being the source of a
thing’s operations and activities. When it is said that the proper operations
and activities of honey-bees spring from what they are, ‘what they are’ here
has the sense of ‘nature.’ Fourth, what something is is called form when it is
viewed as determining or specifying matter. Fifth, what something is is called
species when it is viewed as being the ground of a concept of it in the mind.
Just as matter is the ground of the logical intention of genus and form is the

Chapter Two

ground of the logical intention of difference, so the composite of matter and
form is the ground of the logical intention of species.

Aquinas contrasts what something is (essence) with at least three other

senses of ‘being.’ These are, whether something is (existence), how some-
thing is modified by attributes and affections (accident) and the subject of
such modification (substance). Being in the sense of essence is properly sig-
nified by predication by species, as when it is said that Socrates is human. Be-
ing in the same sense of essence, says Aquinas, is taken from being in the
sense of a thing, i.e. being as a composite of both essence and existence.

this he does not mean that the composite is logically prior to essence but that
it is prior to essence in the order of knowledge. It is a cardinal tenet of
Aquinas’s epistemology that what we first know are conglomerate wholes,
the elements of which we later discern by analysis. In this, he again follows
Aristotle. These wholes are composites of essence and existence both and
they are identified with primary substances. The word ‘primary’ is used here
in order to distinguish these concrete composites of essence and existence
from secondary substances. The latter are identified by Aquinas, as they are
by Aristotle, with essences in the strict sense, namely, what is signified by
species.

Being, then, now signifies essence, now existence, and now the composite

of essence and existence both. Of these three senses, which one is logically
prior as opposed to being prior in the order of our knowledge? To this,
Aquinas does not hesitate to answer that it is being in the sense of existence.
Since the simple is logically or metaphysically prior to the composite, being
in the sense of the composite of essence and existence cannot be the primary
sense of ‘being’ even though it is first in the order of our knowledge. Nor is
essence the primary sense of ‘being.’ For essence is related to existence as po-
tentiality to actuality and actuality is always prior to potentiality. Aquinas
says that any determinate form or essence is known to exist actually only by
the fact that it is held to be.

Esse, he there says, is the actuality of all acts and

therefore the perfection of all perfections.

AN OBJECTION ANSWERED

But here a problem surfaces. For Aquinas affirms Aristotle’s view that ‘being’
is primarily said only of substance.

Everything else is called being only by

reference to substance. But by ‘substance’ here it is meant primary substance
and this is always a composite of essence and existence both. And so the
question becomes one of consistency. How does St. Thomas consistently both
affirm this Aristotelian thesis and also say that ‘being’ is primarily existence
and not either essence or the composite of essence and existence?

Being

The answer to this turns on distinguishing the sense and referent of ‘being.’

For when Aquinas agrees with Aristotle that ‘being’ primarily applies to sub-
stance and that all else is called being only by reference to substance, it is the
referent of ‘being’ that is concerned. But this is quite compatible with saying
that the primary sense of ‘being’ is existence and not either essence or the
composite of essence and existence. ‘Being’ primarily means existence but
the primary referent of ‘being’ is substance. That is because to be or to exist
has its fullest and most perfect expression in substance as opposed to acci-
dent. And this, in turn, is due to the independence of substance as over against
the dependence of accident. For substance is not present in another the way
in which accident is present in substance. The apple in my hand is, of course,
present in something. It is present in my hand. But it is not in my hand in the
same sense of ‘in’ that the redness of the apple is in the apple. Thus, the ap-
ple is said to be or exist in a more complete and independent sense than its
redness is said to be or exist.

St. Thomas would carry this further. For even among substances, some ex-

ist more independently than others. Because matter enters into their defini-
tions, some substances depend on matter to be while others do not. So the lat-
ter are more simple and hence more independent than the former. For what is
composite depends on that of which it is composed. To the extent that imma-
terial substances are more independent than material substances, therefore,
the former have a higher mode of being (esse) than the latter. Since matter is
the principle of individuation within a species, all and only immaterial sub-
stances are identical with their own essences.

Further, even among material substances which are unidentical with their

essences, a hierarchy of esse obtains. For esse in some of these actualizes
higher potentialities than it does in others. A dog, for example, is capable of
feeling and sensation while a stone is not. So the esse that actualizes a dog is
higher than that which actualizes a stone. Finally, there is a hierarchy of esse
among immaterial substances too. For while all of these are identified with
their own essences, some of them are not their own esse while another one is.
And since the one that is its own esse, i.e. God, is to that extent simpler than
those that are not their own esse, the former is substance in an even more in-
dependent sense than the latter. So esse in God is higher than esse in all other
substances, even those that, because they are immaterial, are identified with
their own essences.

In sum and broadly speaking, even among substances there is a hierarchy

of esse. On the lowest rung of the ladder of being are those substances that
are neither their own essence nor their own being (esse). These are all of them
material substances and they comprise the overwhelming majority of sub-
stances. A notch above these are substances which, while they are not their

Chapter Two

own being (esse) are nonetheless their own essence. And finally, at the top of
this ladder of being is substance that is both its own essence and its own be-
ing (esse). All of this means that among various substances esse is found anal-
ogously and not univocally. Esse in a stone is not the same as nor is it totally
different from esse in a human being. For its part, esse in a human being is
not the same as nor is it totally different from esse in an angel or in God.

DIVISIONS OF BEING

When ‘being’ encompasses both essence and existence, five divisions of be-
ing are found in Aquinas. First, when the principle of division is whether be-
ing is in one category or two, being divides into essential being (ens per se)
and accidental being (ens per accidens).

Second, when the principle of divi-

sion is whether being is mind-dependent or not, being divides into real being
and being of reason.

Third, when the principle of division is whether real be-

ing is dependent or independent, being divides into accident and substance.

Fourth, when the principle of division is whether being is categorial or propo-
sitional, being divides into being as either substance or accident and being in
the sense of the true.

And fifth, when the principle of division is whether

something is form or the possibility of form, being divides into actual and po-
tential being.

These divisions overlap and are not intended by Aquinas to be mutually ex-

clusive. For example, the division between substance and accident is a subset
of real being. So too is the division between essential and accidental being.
And categorial being and being as actuality and potentiality are both of them
subsets of essential being. Of these five divisions the one between real being
and being of reason is the broadest or most basic. Real beings are those that
are independent of minds while beings of reason are beings that are mind-de-
pendent. Under real being are included three subdivisions: essential and acci-
dental being, actual and potential being and generation and corruption. In-
cluded under being of reason are: chimeras, logical intentions, privations, and
negations.

In the first chapter of On Being and Essence Aquinas states that one sense

of ‘being’ is being as divided into the ten categories of Aristotle. And from his
Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, it is clear that he does not
equate being in this sense with essential being (ens per se).

For essential be-

ing is wider than categorial being since it divides into the ten categories and
into actual and potential being. The ten categories to which he refers, of
course, are those of Aristotle. These categories are: substance, quantity, qual-
ity, relation, activity, passivity, position, time, place and dress. He contrasts

Being

being in the sense of the ten categories (categorial being) with being in the
sense of the true. As logical being, the latter falls under the heading of being
of reason. Being in the sense of the true is propositional being. It is the being
that is expressed by the copula ‘is’ in any true judgment.

While all essential being is real being, not all real being is essential being.

For Aquinas counts change, whether it is generation or corruption, as real be-
ing even though it does not fall under essential being. As for potential and ac-
tual being, to the extent that they transcend the categories they may be called
trans-categorial or transcendental being. For any one of the ten categories
may be said to be either actually or potentially. Thus, being in the sense of ac-
tuality and potentiality is more common than categorial being. Take, for ex-
ample, the category of quality. The oak leaf I now see has the quality of ac-
tually being green. But it is at the same time potentially brown. Further, the
oak leaf itself is actually an oak leaf but it is potentially nothing but dust. It
will actually become dust when it drops from the tree and disintegrates.
Moreover, Aquinas states that beings of reason as well as real beings can be
either actual or potential.

In particular, he mentions privations and knowl-

edge. As for the former, an example is blindness. One person might be actu-
ally sighted but potentially blind while another person might be actually blind
but potentially sighted. As for knowledge, a person might potentially have a
concept that is later actualized in the person. Thus, a toddler potentially has
the concept of right and wrong but later on, upon reaching the age of reason,
comes to have that concept actually.

In the first chapter of On Being and Essence Aquinas states that being in

the sense of the true is wider than categorial being. Being taken in the latter
sense is included in being taken in the former sense but not vice versa. The
reason is that anything that belongs to one of the ten categories might be the
subject of a true proposition. Thus, I can say that Socrates is wise or that
green is a color. But not everything that is or can be the subject of a true
proposition is real being. Hence not everything that is or can be the subject of
a true proposition belongs to one of the ten categories. Aquinas’s example is
the true proposition, “Blindness is.” Blindness, says Aquinas, is not some-
thing real but the lack of something real. It is the lack of something real in a
subject in which it naturally ought to be. This is what he calls a privation and
privations are in his view beings of reason and not real beings. Nonetheless,
though blindness has no real being, it does have propositional being or being
in the sense of the true. For it is truly said that blindness is in the eye. In other
words, because blindness can be a term in the relation of combining and sep-
arating that the mind makes when it judges, blindness has propositional be-
ing. Other privations include falsity, evil, lameness, and deafness. They de-

Chapter Two

pend on our minds to be. Other beings of reason are chimeras (imaginary be-
ings) and negations. Thus, a centaur is an imaginary being and non-being is a
negation. With respect to the latter, Aquinas says that the fact that we can say
that non-being is non-being implies that non-being in some sense is.

A nega-

tion like non-being has being in the sense that the mind conjures it up as it
makes a true affirmative proposition about it. Non-being is only in the sense
that it is something about which a true proposition is made.

Here it may be objected that in counting non-being as being, i.e. as mental

being, St. Thomas goes too far. True, we have concepts of chimeras such as
centaurs and mermaids. But do we also have a concept of non-being? Aquinas
says that we do since we can judge that non-being is non-being and all judg-
ments have a subject-concept. It may be countered that just because ‘non-be-
ing’ is the grammatical subject of ‘Non-being is non-being,’ it does not fol-
low that behind the grammatical subject is a logical subject, namely, the
concept non-being. Some would deny there is any concept corresponding to
the word. But Aquinas would insist that there is. In addition to accidents and
privations, which are beings in an extended sense, non-being too is being in
an extended sense. Accidents are called being only because they are present
in and hence dependent on being (substance) and privations are called being
only because they are the lack of something that naturally ought to be in a be-
ing or substance. By the same token, non-being is called being only because
it is the absence of being or substance. Hence, though the word ‘non-being’
evidently lacks reference, it nonetheless has sense. And the sense it has is the
one we give to it and which is in our minds, namely, the idea of the lack of
substance. But this implies that there is a concept behind the word ‘non-be-
ing’ after all, that behind the grammatical subject in ‘Non-being is non-being’
is a logical subject. At least, so Aquinas would argue.

A PROBLEM OF CONSISTENCY

If propositional being is anything about which a true proposition can be made,
it is easy to see how Aquinas holds that being in this sense is wider than cat-
egorial being. For we can make negations, privations, chimeras and logical
intentions the subjects of true propositions just as we can make the ten cate-
gories the subjects of true propositions. But right here a problem surfaces. For
Aquinas states that being in the sense of the true depends on the mind’s com-
bining and separating concepts in a judgment.

But how, if being in this sense

is psychological, can it include categorial being? For the ten categories are
real and not psychological being. But it must include categorial being if, as

Being

Aquinas says, being in the sense of the true is wider than categorial being.
Succinctly, these two Thomist theses seem to be prima facie inconsistent:

1 Being in the sense of the true is anything about which a true proposition is

made.

2 Being in the sense of the true depends on the mind’s combining and sepa-

rating.

How is 1 consistent with 2 when 1 is a genus under which fall both real be-
ing and beings of reason? For 2 states that being in the sense of the true is
psychological and not real. And then, unacceptably, something psychological
includes as a subset something real.

To block this objection, Aquinas would answer that it feeds on imprecision

in the statement of 1. No contradiction results when 1 is (correctly) rewritten as,

1’ Being in the sense of the true is anything that is subject of a true propo-

sition.

For Aquinas, subjects and predicates are logical as opposed to real beings.

As such they are beings of reason. 1’ is therefore perfectly consistent with 2.
For in 1’ ‘subject’ is a genus which includes two species. Subjects may refer
to beings of reason (as in ‘Blindness is in the eye’) or essential (real) being
(as in ‘This tree is an oak’). In 1’ and 2, therefore, it is not the case that some-
thing psychological is said to include something real as a subset. For subjects
that refer to real beings are not themselves real beings. They are beings of
reason.

BEING AS THE TRUE GROUNDED ON REAL BEING

St. Thomas states that being in the sense of the true is related to real being as
effect to cause. For it is because something is in reality that a proposition is
true.

‘Grass is green’ is true only because grass is green. There is a real com-

bination or separation on which the logical combination or separation in judg-
ment is based. For example, the logical combination in a predication by
species such as ‘Socrates is human’ is caused by the real combination of mat-
ter and the form or essence humanity. Again, the logical combination in a
predication by accident such as ‘Socrates is seated’ is based on the real com-
bination of substance and accident.

While this dependence of logical combination and separation on real com-

bination and separation is evidently true for the most part, it is difficult to see
how it is true in the case of propositions about privations and negations. If pri-
vations and negations (not to mention imaginary things) are not to begin with

Chapter Two

real beings, how is a true proposition about them the effect of any real being
or state of affairs?

In answer, it might be argued that Aquinas consistently has it both ways by

both identifying the bearers of ‘true’ with sentences used assertively and us-
ing ‘real being’ to cover both non-mental and mental facts. The truth of the
statement, ‘Grass is green’ is then the effect of the non-mental fact that grass
is green and the truth of the statement, ‘Unicorns have a single horn on their
foreheads’ is then also the effect of something real (i.e. non-linguistic),
namely, the mental or fictional fact that unicorns have a single horn on their
foreheads.

But this way out conflicts not only with Aquinas’s repeated contrast of the

real with the psychological but also with his identification of truth-bearers
with (mental) judgments as opposed to sentences. For Aquinas, as for Locke
four centuries later, a sentence or statement is true only because it is the sign
of a true judgment. Thus, Aquinas states that it is the judgment behind the
sentence or statement and not the sentence or statement itself that is primarily
true.

Whether he has an answer to this problem or not, it is clear that the differ-

ence between real being and being of reason is that the latter does while the
former does not depend on minds. That is why Aquinas states that only being
in the former sense belongs to metaphysics.

For metaphysics deals with the

real as opposed to the psychological. Since the cause of the latter is mind or
some state of mind, being in this sense, i.e. being in the sense of being of rea-
son, belongs to that science that studies mind or intellect. Presumably,
Aquinas has psychology in mind though he also includes logic. For he says
that logic deals with second intentions such as genus, species, syllogisms, etc.
and second intentions are beings of reason in his view.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY BEING

However, within real being some things are called being in a primary sense
and others are called being in a secondary sense. Only actual being that is
substance is being in the primary sense of ‘being.’ Anything else that is called
being is so called in a qualified sense. In this Aquinas is one with Aristotle.
By ‘substance’ here Aquinas means a concrete individual thing such as this
tree. It is that which is neither present in nor predicable of anything but that
of which other things are predicable and in which other things are present. All
potential being and all actual being that is not substance is being in an ex-
tended sense of ‘being.’ The latter includes all actual accidents as well as all
actual change, be it generation or corruption. Thus a quality is called being

Being

only because it is the modification of a substance and generation is called be-
ing only because it is on its way to a substance, and so on. Aquinas says that
this priority of substance to accident is reflected in language.

When a thing

comes to be white we do not say that it comes to be in an unqualified sense.
Rather do we say that it begins to be white. By contrast, when Socrates be-
gins to be human he is said to begin to be in an unqualified sense. This lin-
guistic difference mirrors the real order in which a substance like a human be-
ing has being in an unqualified sense while an accident like white has being
only in a qualified sense.

ESSENTIAL VERSUS ACCIDENTAL BEING

It was stated that Aquinas includes being that is either substance or accident
under essential being. Essential being (ens per se) he contrasts with acciden-
tal being (ens per accidens). This is different from the distinction between
substance and accident. This is evident from the fact that Aquinas includes the
nine accidents under essential being. The division of being into essential and
accidental being refers, respectively, to being in one category only and being
as combined of elements from different categories. The former is substance
or some accident considered just in themselves. The latter has three species:
1) the combination of two accidents. For example, such a combination is re-
ferred to by the statement, ‘The just is musical’; 2) the combination of sub-
stance and accident. This combination is referred to by the statement, ‘The
man is musical’; 3) the combination of accident and substance. This is re-
ferred to by the statement, ‘The musician is a man.’

BEING AS A SUBSTANTIAL OR ACCIDENTAL PREDICATE

To recur to categorial as opposed to propositional being, Aquinas says fur-
ther that being taken in the first sense is a substantial predicate and pertains
to the question of what a thing is.

But taken in the second sense being is

an accidental predicate and pertains to the question of whether a thing is.
Part of what he means by saying that being in the second sense is an acci-
dental predicate is that it is accidental to any real being that some property
is truly affirmed of it in thought or in speech. For example, suppose
Socrates is wise. Then it is accidental to Socrates that someone judges or
says that he is wise. But Aquinas means more than this by saying that being
in the second sense is accidental. He thinks that propositional being signi-
fies existence or the fact that something is the case. Since it is facticity or

Chapter Two

existence that makes a proposition true, being in the sense of the true signi-
fies existence. But since existence is outside the essence of a thing and since
anything that is outside the essence of a thing might in a broad sense of ‘ac-
cidental’ be said to be accidental to it (since, narrowly speaking, being an
accident applies only within essence or essential being), it follows that ex-
istence is accidental to the essence of any creature. It is neither genus nor
difference. Since it is participated in by any creature but is not from the lat-
ter’s essence, existence is external to any creature’s essence. It also follows
that the question of whether a thing is must be distinguished from the ques-
tion of what it is.

TWO KINDS OF PARTICIPATION

Speaking of the relation of participation, St. Thomas distinguished two kinds,
neither one of which is the same as the Platonic notion of participation.

The

first is the one just mentioned. All creatures participate in being in the sense
of esse. Here, what is participated in, being, is to what participates in it, crea-
tures, as act is to potentiality. But what is participated in, being, does not en-
ter into the definition of what participates in it. All creatures are contingent
beings and existence is accidental to such beings. The second is the partici-
pation of something in what does belong to its definition. Thus, the species
human participates in the genus animal. Here, what is participated in, being
in the sense of essence, is to what participates in it either as act is to poten-
tiality or as potentiality is to act. As for the former, individual humans partic-
ipate in the difference rational. As for the latter, the species human partici-
pates in the genus animal. But in both cases what is participated in is not a
different kind of thing that is altogether separated from what participates in it.
And that is why Aquinas’s notion of participation is Aristotelian and not Pla-
tonic.

CATEGORIAL BEING AS A SUBSTANTIAL PREDICATE

What Aquinas means by saying that categorial being is a substantial predicate
is that being in that sense signifies not a subject’s act of existence (esse) but
rather its essence. Thus, suppose that it is said that x is a substance or that y
is a quality or that z is a relation. Here, ‘is a substance,’ ‘is a quality’ and ‘is
a relation’ signify the what or essence of the subject in each case. Being a sub-
stance is what x (substantially) is, being a quality is what y (substantially) is
and being a relation is what z (substantially) is. None of these predications are

Being

accidental. Being in this sense divides into the ten categories and expresses
essence as opposed to existence. Moreover, essence is not predicated univo-
cally of substance and accident. That is because (1) ‘being’ is not predicated
univocally of substance and accident and (2) ‘essence’ is taken from ‘being’
in this same first sense of ‘being.’ The latter is true because, otherwise, things
like negations and chimeras have an essence. Substance is being and has
essence in an unqualified sense but an accident is being and has essence only
in a qualified sense. That means that in the two preceding statements, ‘x is a
substance’ and ‘y is a quality’ the copula ‘is’ is not used univocally. It ex-
presses unqualified being and essence in the first case but qualified being and
essence in the second case.

From this it comes as no surprise that by the essence of a thing a Aquinas

means the proper answer that is given to the question of what a is where a is
the name of some individual substance. But since the proper answer to ask-
ing what a thing is is a definition and definition comprises both genus and dif-
ference, it follows that species alone signifies essence. For only species is de-
fined since only species comprises both genus and difference. In other words,
for something to have an essence is for it to be some specific thing, say a
horse or a toad or a tree. So those things that do not signify a specific thing
do not have an essence, at least in the strict sense of the word. But to be some
specific or definite thing belongs to substance alone. For accidents are not
some specific or definite thing but how some specific or definite thing is.
Thus, white is not a specific thing but how some specific thing is. Thus, we
say how some specific thing such as a horse is when we say that it is white.
But we do not say how a specific thing is when we say that it is a horse. We
only say that it is some specific or definite thing. So, while a thing like a horse
has an essence, an accident like white does not. Stated differently, any acci-
dent is said to have essence only in a derived sense, i.e. only because it is re-
lated to something that properly speaking has essence, namely, a substance.
And that relation is one of dependence since, to be, an accident must be in a
substance.

AN APPARENT INCONSISTENCY REMOVED

But here an apparent inconsistency surfaces. If essence is being some specific
thing as opposed to how some specific thing is disposed or characterized, it
seems that ‘being a mermaid’ or ‘being a centaur’ signifies an essence. For to
say that something is a mermaid or a centaur is to say what something specif-
ically is. It is not to say how some specific thing is, as, for example, we say

Chapter Two

how a mermaid is when we say a mermaid is seated. But on the other hand,
Aquinas denies that entia rationis such as chimeras, negations, and privations
either are or have an essence.

For that reason, he there says, essence is not

taken from being in the sense of propositional being but from being in the
sense of categorial being. For negations, privations, chimeras and the like are
being in the sense of the true (propositional being). So it looks as if Aquinas
says both that chimeras such as mermaids and centaurs have essence since
they are specific things and do not have essence since they are beings of rea-
son only and not real beings.

This contradiction is apparent and not real. Moreover, to resolve it brings

out the priority in Aquinas of existence to essence. True, in ‘d is a mermaid’
or ‘c is a centaur’ the predicate in each case signifies that the subject is a spe-
cific thing. It does not signify how some specific thing is further character-
ized as in, say, ‘This mermaid is seated.’ But that is quite compatible with
denying that ‘being a mermaid’ or ‘being a centaur’ signifies an essence. For
when Aquinas states that for something to have an essence is for it to be some
specific or definite thing, the word ‘something’ here refers to a real substance
and not to some imaginary or psychological being. ‘Something’ here refers to
what in Aristotle is called first or primary substance. Thus, since real exis-
tence is a precondition of something’s having an essence in Aquinas’s view—
at least of its having essence in the strict sense—it follows that existence is
prior to essence. When he says at the start of chapter one of On Being and
Essence that essence in taken from being, ‘being’ here refers to existing sub-
stances like this tree or that stone.

As for the difference between categorial and propositional being, much of

what Aquinas says can be put this way. In expressions such as ‘being human,’
‘being wise,’ ‘being six feet tall,’ ‘being asleep,’ etc., ‘being’ expresses cate-
gorial being. For the fact that there is no subject-term here (since there is no
judgment) signifies that it is only the predicate that is concerned. But predi-
cates signify what something is or how something that has a what or species
is further determined. All this is in the order of essence, either ‘essence’ in the
strict sense or ‘essence’ in a derived sense. But by contrast, in expressions
such as, ‘Socrates is human,’ ‘Socrates is wise,’ etc., being, expressed by the
copula ‘is,’ takes on an additional function. For here it is facticity or existence
that is concerned and not just essence. The ‘is’ signifies the fact that there is
an individual that satisfies the properties of being human and wise. Here, the
predicate is separated off from the subject only for the purpose of being
joined to it by the copula. And it is just here as copula in a judgment that ‘is’
signifies being in the sense of existence. Judgment is the mind’s way of sig-
nifying facticity or existence.

Being

IMPLICATIONS FOR LOGIC

All this has implications for the question of existential import in logic. If true
judgments and the statements that express them signify being in the sense of
existence, then every true judgment and statement has existential import. So
unlike what is the case in modern logic, true universal statements have exis-
tential import according to St. Thomas. That means that all the relations on
Aristotle’s celebrated “square of opposition” remain intact. Since the univer-
sal affirmative, ‘All men are mortal’ has existential import then it implies the
particular statement, ‘Some men are mortal.’ By the same token, since the
universal negative statement, ‘No crows are white’ has existential import then
it implies the particular negative statement, ‘Some crows are not white.’

As for true statements whose grammatical subjects do not refer to real

things such as, ‘Some mermaids are females’ and ‘All mermaids are females,’
Aquinas would say that even they have existential import. It is just that the
mode of existence to which they refer is psychological and not real. In the do-
main of entia rationis there are such things as mermaids. It is just that ‘are’
here signifies existence in an extended sense. Mermaids are only because they
are made up of things that are, namely, women and fish. And centaurs are
only because we make them up of things that are, namely, horses and men.
Finally, as regards a sentence that has a contradictory subject-term such as
‘Round-squares are round,’ Aquinas would deny that there is either a judg-
ment or statement corresponding to the sentence. For since one cannot in the
first instance form a concept of a round square, then a fortiori one cannot
make a judgment that has as its subject the concept of round square. But since
truth belongs primarily to judgments in his view, it follows that the sentence,
‘Round-squares are round’ cannot be said to be either true or false. Where
there is no judgment behind a sentence there is no truth or falsity in the sen-
tence. For sentences are called true only because the judgments they express
are true.

THE THREAT OF PSYCHOLOGISM

But right here it might be objected that Aquinas succumbs to what since
Husserl has been called the error of psychologism. If the primary bearers of
‘true’ are neither sentences, statements nor timeless propositions but rather
mental judgments, then is not St. Thomas guilty of predicating ‘true’ of men-
tal acts of a kind? And to do this is surely to fall into psychologism.

In reply, Aquinas would point out that it is not the act of judging that is true

in his view but rather the result of that act. And the latter is identified with the

Chapter Two

relation of predicate to subject that the mind makes when it judges that some-
thing is the case. Still, the objection of psychologism might persist. For this
relation of predicate to subject is no real relation but a mental relation, a re-
lation of reason. And this Aquinas himself underscores when he says that,
though they have a foundation in reality when they are true, the combining
and separating in which judgment consists is the work of mind. So are all log-
ical entities which, as second intentions, fall under beings of reason.

Nevertheless, to silence the objection finally, Aquinas would answer that it

is not just the relation of predicate to subject that is true but the complex of
that relation together with the state of affairs it signifies that is true. When I
judge that grass is green I relate two concepts, a predicate to a subject, and
this is surely a mental relation. But at the same time, something is intended
by that mental relation. And that is the objective state of affairs of grass be-
ing green. So it is not the bare mental relating of subject and predicate that is
true but rather the complex of that relating and what is related by it. To use
an Aristotelian analogy, the relating is the form and the objective state of af-
fairs that is related by it is the matter or content of the relation. And it is nei-
ther the one nor the other that is the bearer of ‘true’ but rather the composite
of both. But psychologism consists in predicating ‘true’ solely of the form, i.e.
of the mental side of this complex. One commits the error of psychologism
when one predicates ‘true’ of the act of judging taken apart from what is
judged or the content or matter of judgment.

THE ESSENCE-EXISTENCE

DISTINCTION AND EPISTEMOLOGY

The distinction between essence and existence is not only shown by the dis-
tinction between categorial and propositional being. It is also required,
Aquinas would say, by epistemology. In particular, St. Thomas sees the dis-
tinction as necessary to avoid skepticism. Here, Aquinas reminds one of Kant.
It is not just that Kant and he both fault the ontological argument for God’s
existence for blurring the distinction between essence and existence. In addi-
tion, they both view the obliteration of the distinction as implying skepticism.
Along these lines, one of Kant’s arguments in the Critique of Pure Reason for
distinguishing essence and existence is close to Aquinas’s argument to that
same effect.

In the latter Aquinas argues that one adequately knows what a

phoenix is even though one does not know whether there are phoenixes. A
more modern example might be that of an endangered species, say, the con-
dor. An ornithologist knows what a condor is even though he does not know
whether there are condors. But this would be false if existence is counted as

Being

a property of condors. Besides, suppose that as a matter of fact the last few
condors ceased to be just when they were being thought about by the or-
nithologist. Then, if existence is a property of condors, then his idea (not im-
age) of a condor is not the same now as it was a moment ago when the con-
dors were still living. But as evidenced by the fact that our ornithologist
would define the bird the same way each time, this is simply false.

Not only that, but if existence is a property of phoenixes or condors, then

neither the knowledge of what a phoenix is in Aquinas’s example nor the or-
nithologist’s knowledge of what a condor is in our own example would really
be knowledge of phoenixes and condors after all. For the concept of a
phoenix or condor would then fail to correspond to its object. Kant makes a
similar point. If existence is a property of a thing, he says, then we must ac-
cept a universal skepticism as regards all our concepts.

For our concept of

anything whatsoever would then always lack a property, i.e. existence, that is
found in the object. If existence is to be counted among a thing’s properties,
then, says Kant, . . .” it would not be exactly the same thing that exists, but
something more than we had thought in the concept; and we could not, there-
fore, say that the exact object of my concept exists.”

Either, therefore, exis-

tence must be distinguished from essence or a universal skepticism as regards
our concepts must be countenanced. With this argument of Kant’s Aquinas
would concur.

Alternatively, the independence of knowing what a thing is and knowing

that it is may be linked to the notions of essence, species and definition in
Aquinas. And when it is, the following argument can be framed. Essence is
what the definition signifies. But since definition is equivalent to species,
essence is what the species signifies. But to be or exist is not what the species
signifies. Otherwise, since species signifies what something is, to know what
something is is to know that it is. But as was shown in the foregoing exam-
ple of the ornithologist, that is patently false. It follows that essence is not ex-
istence.

METAPHYSICAL ARGUMENTS

More frequently, though, Aquinas’s arguments for the real distinction of
essence and existence are drawn from metaphysics itself rather than from ei-
ther logic or epistemology. In particular, they often rest on the distinction be-
tween potentiality and actuality. Thus, in Summa contra gentiles

he argues

as follows. Every participator is related to that in which it participates as po-
tentiality to actuality. But every kind of thing that shares existence with other
things is a participator with respect to existence which is participated in by

Chapter Two

those various kinds of things. Thus, since horses, trees and toads share exis-
tence with other kinds of thing, they are participators in existence. And exis-
tence, for its part, is participated in by them. Therefore, any kind of thing that
shares existence with other things is related to existence as potentiality to ac-
tuality. But since this implies that existence is actuality and essence is poten-
tiality and further, since actuality is not potentiality, it follows that existence
is not essence.

Using this same distinction of actuality and potentiality in the context of

generation, Aquinas would also argue as follows. When a substance comes to
be, some species or kind of thing is actualized. But the species of a substance
is its essence. Therefore, when a substance comes to be some essence is ac-
tualized. But anything that is actualized stands to what actualizes it as poten-
tiality to actuality. Therefore, essence stands to existence as potentiality to ac-
tuality. But then, a fortiori, essence and existence are distinct in any
substance.

ESSENTIAL AND ACCIDENTAL PREDICATES

To recur to categorial being, it was stated that this divides into substance and
accident. But accidents are divided by Aquinas in a twofold way. According
to what they are just in themselves, accidents divide into the nine kinds that
were previously specified. But according to how they are related to substance,
accidents divide into two kinds, necessary and contingent. Aquinas some-
times calls the former properties, reserving the name ‘accident’ just for the
latter.

As regards the latter division and as is indicated by the words ‘necessary’

and ‘contingent,’ the difference is that a necessary accident or property is one
that must belong to the subject while a contingent accident is one that need
not belong to it. For example, risibility necessarily belongs to a human being
but whiteness does not. All humans are capable of laughing but not all hu-
mans are white.

Since all accidental predicates, whether necessary or contingent, are out-

side the essence of the subject, no accidental predicate is an essential predi-
cate. Thus, even though it necessarily belongs to the subject, a necessary ac-
cident does not enter into the definition of the subject. With respect to the
subject it is neither genus, difference nor species. In the language of Kant, it
does not, when joined to its subject, result in an analytic judgment. It would
be correct to say that such a judgment is a synthetic a priori judgment only if
‘a priori’ here means ‘necessary.’ But if ‘a priori’ means ‘does not arise from
experience’ Aquinas would deny that judgments such as “Humans are risible’

Being

is an a priori judgment. For on the question of the origin of our knowledge
Aquinas sides with empiricism as over against rationalism.

Finally in this connection, St. Thomas contrasts essential predicates, acci-

dental necessary predicates and accidental contingent predicates in this way.
First, as regards essential predicates, they are either identified with or in-
cluded in the definitions of their subjects. However, their subjects are not in-
cluded in them. In ‘Man is an animal,’ for example, ‘animal’ is included in
‘man’ but not vice versa. Second, as regards accidental necessary predicates,
it is just the other way around. Such predicates are not included in their sub-
jects, says Aquinas, but their subjects are included in them.

In ‘Every hu-

man is risible,’ for example, ‘risible’ is not included in ‘human’ but ‘human’
is included in the definition of ‘risible.’ ‘Risible’ means ‘having the ability to
laugh.’ But since something laughs only if it is a rational animal, the concept
of having the ability to laugh includes the concept of being human. So ‘risi-
ble’ includes in its notion the idea of being human. Finally, as regards acci-
dental contingent predicates, they are not included in their subjects nor are
their subjects included in them. Thus, in ‘Some human is white’ it is not the
case either that ‘white’ is included in ‘human’ or that ‘human’ included in
‘white.’

TYPES OF JUDGMENTS

From this it appears that, from the viewpoint of the relation of their subject
and predicate terms, subject-predicate judgments divide into three types for
Aquinas. First, there are those self-evident judgments that cannot be denied
without self-contradiction. And because these judgments have essential pred-
icates they might be called essential judgments. Thus, it cannot be denied
without direct contradiction that an animal is an organism. Second, there are
those judgments which, while they can be denied without direct contradic-
tion, nonetheless cannot be denied without indirect or virtual contradiction.
Thus, it can be denied without direct self-contradiction that a human being is
risible. For the predicate here is not related to the subject either as its genus,
its species or its difference. Hence, the predicate is not included in the sub-
ject. But it cannot be denied without indirect or virtual self-contradiction that
a human being is risible. For as was stated, though the predicate is not in-
cluded in the subject, the subject is included in the predicate. But whenever
this is so, to deny the predicate is necessarily connected to the subject is to
deny that the subject is included in the predicate. But here it cannot be denied
without direct contradiction that the subject is included in the predicate. For
the concept of being human is included in the concept of risible. Therefore, it

Chapter Two

cannot be denied that being risible necessarily (though not by definition) be-
longs to a human being. To make such a denial amounts to a virtual contra-
diction just because it implies denying that being human is included in the
definition of being risible and this denial is a direct contradiction. This sec-
ond type of judgment in Aquinas might be called a necessary but non-essen-
tial judgment.

Third and last, there are those judgments, such as ‘some human is white,’

that can be denied without either direct or virtual contradiction. These judg-
ments comprise the overwhelming majority of judgments. The fact that they
can be denied without either direct or virtual contradiction means that their
subject and predicate terms are logically independent of each other. The sub-
ject terms of such judgments are not included in their predicate terms nor,
vice versa, are the predicate terms of such judgments included in their subject
terms. For that reason they are contingent judgments. And when they are true,
they signify and are caused by contingent facts, according to Aquinas. They
are necessary neither in the sense that their subjects include their predicates
nor in the sense that their predicates include their subjects.

To ask here whether this tripartite division of judgments in Aquinas corre-

sponds to Kant’s later division of judgments into analytic, synthetic a priori
and synthetic a posteriori is almost unavoidable. The answer is both yes and
no. Aquinas’s essential judgments are like Kant’s analytic judgments in that
their predicates are either identified with or included in their subjects. For that
reason, both essential judgments and analytic judgments cannot be denied
without direct contradiction. But the difference is that while Aquinas’s essen-
tial judgments signify real relations, Kant’s analytic judgments are only about
the relations between ideas or concepts. To take Kant’s own example, to say
‘All bodies are extended’ is not to signify a fact in the real world. It is merely
to say that the concept ‘extended’ is included in the concept ‘body.’ But for
Aquinas, the same judgment does signify a necessary fact in the world. He
would say that the necessary tie between the two concepts both mirrors and
is the effect of a necessary connection in the real world between being a body
and being extended. As for Kant’s synthetic a posteriori judgments and
Aquinas’s contingent judgments, there is a closer parallel. In each case the
subject and predicate terms are logically independent of each other and in
each case the judgment, when true, goes beyond the concepts involved and
signifies a fact in the world. Still, there is a difference. For Kant’s synthetic a
posteriori judgments signify how things are in the world as it appears to us
and not how things are in the world as it is in itself. But when they are true,
Aquinas’s contingent judgments tell us how things are in themselves.

Finally, as for Kant’s synthetic a priori judgments and Aquinas’s necessary

but non-essential judgments, once again there is both similarity and difference.

Being

In each case the judgment is necessary even though the predicate falls outside
of the subject. And just because of that, the judgment is more than simply a re-
lation of ideas. But there are differences. First, as its name indicates, Kant’s
judgment is a priori. It is not drawn from sense experience but is rather the
condition of sense experience. Not so with Aquinas’s necessary but non-es-
sential judgment. Second and following on this, Kant’s judgment does not re-
veal how things are in themselves but only how things appear to us. But
Aquinas’s judgment reveals how things are in themselves. Third, Aquinas’s
necessary but non-essential judgment is one in which the subject is included
in the predicate. That explains why the judgment is necessary even though the
predicate is neither the definition nor part of the definition of the subject. Thus,
the explanation Aquinas gives of the necessity of such judgments is logical.
But as is well known, the necessity of Kant’s corresponding synthetic a priori
judgment is explained epistemologically rather than logically. The necessity of
such judgments is not explained by the fact that their denials are virtually (if
not directly) contradictory. That is Aquinas’s logical explanation. They are ex-
plained by the fact that without them experience would not be possible. In
short, they are explained by Kant’s taking his celebrated transcendental turn in
epistemology.

THE TRANSCENDENTAL TURN AS UNWARRANTED

But from Aquinas’s point of view this transcendental turn of Kant’s, so influ-
ential to the course of modern philosophy, is entirely unnecessary. The nec-
essary but non-analytic judgments that Kant is at such pains to explain can be
otherwise explained. For all such judgments, according to St. Thomas, are
classified as necessary but non-essential judgments. And then their necessity
can be justified logically just as is the necessity of essential judgments. The
only difference is that while the necessity of the latter is justified by the fact
that their predicates are included in their subjects, the necessity of the former
receive a logical justification that is just the converse of this. Their necessity
is grounded in the fact that their subjects are included in their predicates. But
this is a logical justification nonetheless. And if it is successful, then every
one of Kant’s synthetic a priori judgments may be grounded in this way as
opposed to grounding them, as does Kant, in what he calls his Copernican
revolution in epistemology.

But Aquinas would go further. He would say that the transcendental turn of

Kant’s is not only unnecessary but disastrous as well. To understand why his
judgment in this regard would be so negative, we must return to the cate-
gories. For Aquinas, the ten categories of Aristotle characterize how things

Chapter Two

are in themselves. But Kant’s twelve categories are not descriptive of how
things are in themselves. Instead, they characterize how things are as known
by us. For these twelve categories are nothing but twelve ways in which we
conceptually combine sense data in knowledge. They constitute the form as
over against the content of our knowledge. And as knowledge for Kant al-
ways comprises form and content both, the object of knowledge is in part
made by us. What is known, then, is reality as it appears to us and not as it is
in itself.

But St. Thomas would have rejected this idealist turn as regards the cate-

gories. For he would have shunned the consequences this turn has for judg-
mental knowledge or the truth of judgment. For Aquinas, this always consists
in the conformity of mind to object. But if categories are nothing but the ways
in which we organize and combine sense data, then that same knowledge and
truth is not the conformity of mind to object but the conformity of object to
mind. And so far as Aquinas is concerned, this puts the cart before the horse.

The confusion also invites skepticism. If judgmental knowledge is the con-

formity of object to mind instead of the other way around, then such knowl-
edge is always knowledge of appearance and not of reality. How things really
are in themselves is cut off from our view. Moreover, if such knowledge is
thus severed from reality it is also severed from truth. For if judgmental
knowledge is the conformity of object to mind and the truth of judgment is
the conformity of mind to object then knowledge and truth run in opposite di-
rections. And then it can no longer be said that judgmental knowledge implies
the truth of judgment.

To heal this split and bring knowledge and truth back together again, ide-

alists after Kant make the transcendental turn with respect to truth just as
Kant had made it with knowledge. To make idealism consistent on the matter
of knowledge and truth, truth as well as knowledge is made to consist in the
conformity of object to mind. Among the absolute idealists, truth is no longer
the conformity of judgment to isolated, extra-mental fact. It is the logical co-
herence of a judgment to other judgments. Truth thus becomes a conformity
to mind in the sense of rationality. Thus, along with judgmental knowledge,
true judgment is construed as the conformity to mind or reason. Since knowl-
edge and truth now run in the same direction, Kant’s transcendental turn is
made complete.

This might be a more consistent and full-fledged idealism than Kant’s ideal-

ism. But St. Thomas would urge that reuniting knowledge and truth in this way
only invites skepticism once again. If a true judgment is one that squares with
other judgments to make a unified system, then, says the idealist, it is this whole
system with which truth is primarily identified. Judgments that enter into the sys-
tem are only partial truths. They are made true only by their relations of reason

Being

to all the others. “Die Wahrheit ist das ganze,” says Hegel. But under this holism
of absolute idealism to know anything we must know everything. But since that
is impossible, it follows that nothing at all is known by us. And so, however con-
trary it is to their intended correction of Kant, the price absolute idealists pay for
making truth run parallel to knowledge is universal skepticism.

St. Thomas would have had another objection to making the categories

forms of understanding only. It is that it ushers in a theory of truth that in his
judgment is mistaken. That is the celebrated coherence theory of truth. To see
how the latter is implied by a transcendental gloss of the categories, recall that
under that gloss knowledge is the conformity of object to mind, where ‘mind’
means rational connectedness. And lest knowledge and truth run in different
directions, truth too must be the conformity of object to mind and not the
other way around. But to construe the truth of judgment as the conformity of
object to mind is to embrace the coherence theory of truth. For no other view
of truth does justice to the idea that truth is the conformity of object to mind
where ‘mind’ means rational connectedness. Hence, to follow Kant and take
the transcendental turn as regards the categories is to invite the coherence the-
ory of truth. It is no accident that coherentism as regards the definition of
truth first appears in the shadow of Kant. In embracing it, Hegel and his fol-
lowers thought they were fulfilling, and not undermining, the Kantian philos-
ophy.

But from the coherence theory Aquinas would have recoiled. And he would

have done so partly for the same reasons as did Moore and Russell in the last
century. That is because he both believed that the law of contradiction is true
and that it is the ground of all coherence. But he would have seen that these
two propositions exclude the possibility that truth of judgment is defined in
terms of coherence.

To explain, suppose truth is defined in terms of coherence. Then, since to

say P and Q cohere is to say P cannot be affirmed and Q denied or vice versa
without contradiction, then the law of contradiction is the ground of coher-
ence. But the law of contradiction is not itself true because it coheres. Other-
wise it is not the ground of all coherence and a new ground of coherence is
required. It follows that the supposition is false and propositional truth is not
defined as coherence. True, as explicitly stated, this is a Russellian argument
against coherence. But the argument is implicit in any philosopher who both
sees the law of contradiction as the logical ground of coherence and counts
that law as true. And Aquinas is one such philosopher. But to continue, truth
would be defined as coherence if the transcendental turn is taken as regards
the categories. For to repeat, no other plausible theory of propositional truth
is available when such truth is defined as the conformity to mind in the sense
of rational connectedness. Therefore, Aquinas would conclude that, since it

Chapter Two

leads to the untenable coherence theory of truth, to take the transcendental
turn as regards the categories is to take a wrong turn in philosophy.

THE CONCEPT OF FORM

Besides the notions of being, essence, existence, substance and accident, the
notion of form is prominent in Aquinas’s metaphysics. Part of the reason for
this is that form is a wider notion in Aquinas than it is in Aristotle. And the
wider a notion is the more apt it is to belong to metaphysics. In Aristotle form
is always form of matter. For that reason form in Aristotle is glued to the
physical world. Along with matter, it is the highest concept in the philosophy
of nature or what Aristotle called physics.

But in Aquinas form is not necessarily in or of matter. The human soul is a

form and yet exists independently of matter, according to Aquinas. It survives
the death of the body. And essence as found in separated substances such as
angels is form without matter. Angels are identified with their own forms or
essences. That is why, says Aquinas, there is with angels no multiplication of
individuals within a species. For within any given species it is matter, says St.
Thomas, that is the principle of individuation.

Aquinas states that essence sometimes has the sense of form.

It does so

when essence signifies the determination of a thing. For form is the determi-
nation of matter. What Aquinas has in mind here is that essence might be con-
sidered either in relation to existence, in relation to accident or in relation to
that in which essence is found, i.e. supposit. Looked at in the latter way,
essence specifies matter and so is said to be the determination of matter. But
this is exactly the definition of form. Form is the specification of matter. So
from this point of view essence is correctly said to be form.

Further, when essence signifies form, form is taken in the sense of form of

the whole as opposed to form of the part. Aquinas states that the form of the
whole signifies the whole essence which, when it informs or specifies pri-
mary matter, results in an individual substance.

Thus, humanity is a form of

the whole. It signifies the whole essence of a person which, when it informs
or specifies matter, results in an individual person, say, Socrates. But the form
of the part signifies the formal part of a complete essence which, together
with the material part, makes up the complete essence. Thus, rationality sig-
nifies a form of the part. It does not signify the whole essence of a human be-
ing but only the formal part of that essence from which the difference is de-
rived. The material part is, of course, animality from which the genus is
derived. Rationality and animality make up the complete essence of a person.
This is reflected in the definition, i.e. “A person is a rational animal” which,

Being

like any definition, includes both difference (derived from the form of the
part) and genus (derived from the material part). As for the material part of an
essence, this is evidently not the form of the whole. But Aquinas does not
count it as being the form of the part either, even though it signifies part of a
complete essence, i.e. the material part. That is because any material part of
an essence is by definition not the formal part of an essence and hence not
form of the part.

But right here one must be guarded against misinterpretation. The form of

the part is not difference, the form of the whole is not species and the mate-
rial part which is potential with respect to the form of the part is not genus.
For strictly speaking, difference, species and genus are logical beings for
Aquinas. As such they are beings of reason. But the form of the part, the form
of the whole and the material part which is specified by the form of the part
are real being. For they signify either an essence or a part of an essence. But
except in an extended sense of the term, beings of reason do not have essence.
Recall Aquinas’s statement that essence is taken from categorial being (which
is real being) and not from being in the sense of true judgment.

And the rea-

son for this is that since the latter is mind-dependent it does not strictly speak-
ing have essence.

But while the form of the part, the form of the whole, and the material part

are not identified with difference, species and genus respectively, they are
nonetheless the ground of these notions. For Aquinas, logical entities are the
effects and signs of real entities. Difference is taken from the form of the part
as signifying what is formal (actual) in the essence. Genus is taken from the
material part as signifying what is material (potential) in the essence. And
species is taken from the form of the whole as signifying the complete
essence, i.e. both form and matter together.

A sign of the difference between these two sets of entities, logical and real,

is this. The latter are present in a subject but never predicable of a subject.
Neither the form of the part nor the form of the whole nor the material part
are predicable of a subject. We cannot say that Socrates is rationality or that
he is humanity or that he is animality. For no part is ever predicated of a
whole and each one of these things signifies a real part of Socrates. By con-
trast, these same three elements in the real person Socrates might be consid-
ered logically as well as really. They might be taken as difference, species and
genus, respectively. And when they are, they are predicable of Socrates. That
is because, as difference, species and genus, they signify the whole and not
just part of what Socrates is. Thus, while we cannot say that Socrates is ra-
tionality or humanity or animality, we can and do say that Socrates is rational,
human and an animal.

Chapter Two

But considering essence as form of the whole and as form of the part can

be misleading. It can invite the error of thinking that for Aquinas essence is
in every respect formal or actual. For the form of the whole is the form of pri-
mary matter. But matter is pure potentiality with respect to form. So the form
of the whole is evidently act with respect to matter or potentiality. And as for
the form of the part, it too is form or act with respect to what the genus sig-
nifies. And this is the material or potential part of an essence. Thus, the for-
mal and material parts of the essence humanity are rationality and animality
respectively. And here, the relationship is one of actuality to potentiality. For
rationality specifies or determines animality to make a certain kind of animal,
namely, a human being. But animality is in potency to being specified by
other forms too. For example, it can be specified by a form that results in the
kind of animal we call a fox. So, since the material part of an essence is re-
lated to the formal part as potentiality to actuality, it follows that the form of
the part is also a principle of actuality, just as is the form of the whole. The
difference is that they are principles of actuality with respect to two different
things. The form of the whole actualizes primary matter while the form of the
part actualizes the material part of an essence.

However, that essence is not in every respect formal or actual is shown

when it is taken in relation to existence. Here, it is existence that is actual and
essence that is potential. For whether essence is form of the whole or form of
the part, it has being only in and through esse. It is the act of existence that
makes any essence actually be. Otherwise it is a mere possibility. But unlike
essence, existence is in no respect potential. It is not actual with respect to
essence but potential with respect to some deeper, more fundamental princi-
ple of actuality. For that reason, it is the deepest and most fundamental actu-
ality. But in the view of Aquinas, the actual is prior to the possible or the po-
tential. In this, he once again follows Aristotle. He must therefore conclude,
as he does, that existence is prior to essence. If the actual is prior to the po-
tential and existence is in all respects actual while essence is potential with
respect to existence, then existence is prior to essence. It is, says Aquinas,
“the actuality of all actualities and for that reason the perfection of all per-
fections.”

It is in this sense that St. Thomas is correctly called an existen-

tialist.

But over and above its being potential with respect to esse, essence has its

own positive role to play in the composite of essence and existence. And this
is predicated on its actual as opposed to its potential side. True, essence is sec-
ondary to esse to the extent that it is by esse that it is made to be. But though
esse makes any essence actual, it is essence that makes how one esse is higher
than how another one is. And this essence could not do if, like primal matter,

Being

it were mere potentiality. One way of putting this is to say that existence is
adverbially incomplete. It requires essence to complete it. If we say that x ex-
ists, the natural question is, “exists how”? Does x exist as stone, as tree, as
horse, as human or as what? And depending on how this is answered, a higher
or lower mode of esse results. If x exists as a stone and y exists as a human
being, then the latter mode of being or esse is evidently higher than the for-
mer. So it is essence that makes any one esse higher or lower than another. In
sum, while it is esse that makes essence be, it is essence that makes esse how
it is.

DEGREES OF BEING

From what has been said, it is evident that Aquinas recognizes degrees of be-
ing. At the bottom of the ontological ladder are negations and privations.
These have propositional being only. They are only because they are subjects
of true judgment. Next come chimeras which, like negations and privations,
are beings of reason and not real beings. But unlike negations and privations,
chimeras are comprised of elements that are taken from real being. Thus, the
idea of a centaur is taken from two real things, i.e. a horse and a man. A notch
above these is the lowest form of real being. This is generation and corrup-
tion. Generation is said to be only because it is on its way to what is and cor-
ruption is said to be only because it is falling away from what is. Thus, the
process of an acorn’s becoming an oak sapling is said to be only because it is
on its way to what is in the primary sense of ‘what is,’ namely, a substance.
Or the process of an acorn’s becoming warm as the earth heats up in the
spring is said to be only because it is on its way to what is in a more primary
sense of ‘what is’ than the process, namely, warmth. True, as an accident of
some substance (in this case the acorn), warmth is not itself being in the pri-
mary sense. For this belongs to substance alone. But warmth is being in a
more primary sense than is the process of becoming warm. For process of any
kind is a mixture of the actual and the non-actual (potential) in a way an ac-
cident is not. A process toward form, for example, whether the form is acci-
dental or essential, has the character of being “not-yet.” But though an acci-
dent like warmth is not being in the primary sense, it is, as it were, fully
arrived. It does not have the character of being “not-yet.” And just to that ex-
tent is it no mixture of the actual and the non-actual the way a process is. So,
not being a mixture of being and non-being in that sense, accidents are a rung
above generation and corruption on the ladder of being. Finally comes sub-
stance which is said to be in a higher sense than accident. For unlike accident,
substance is not said to be only because it is the modification of something

Chapter Two

else that is said to be. Rather, substance is the something else of which other
things are modifications and on account of which the latter are said to be.

But the ladder of being continues. For even among substances some are

said to be in a higher sense than others. Broadly speaking, there are three di-
visions. In last place are substances (the overwhelming majority) that are
unidentical with either their being or their essence. They both are and are
what they are per accidens. However different they are among themselves
(and they range from being dust and dirt to being humans) they are all of them
peas in the same pod. For they have dependent being and dependent essence.
Their being and essence, like the light of the moon, is not their own. They
have both being and essence participatively and not originally. True, these
precarious beings are substances and not either accidents, processes,
chimeras, negations or privations. So ontologically speaking, things could be
worse for them. But among substances they are the lowest. Though they are
beings, they are beings with a mixture of non-being. For they are not just act
but a composite of act and potentiality. And the worst of it is that they are this
mix both on the side of being and on the side of essence. As for the latter, they
are not just essence but essence in matter. And as for the former, they are not
just being but the being of a distinct essence. In first place, of course, is God.
God is substance that is the polar opposite of all these material substances. So
far from His being neither His own being nor His own essence, God is both
His own being and His own essence. That means that in God being and
essence are one. Since God’s essence is His being and being as such is purely
actual, there is in God no mix of act and potency either on the side of essence
or on the side of being. As a result, God is ontologically simple.

There is one more logical possibility and that is substance that falls in be-

tween these two. Such a substance would not be its own being but would be
its own essence. The converse, by the way, is not possible. It is impossible for
something to be its own being but not its own essence. For it was previously
shown that whatever is its own being is also its own essence. In any case, this
logical possibility Aquinas believed to be actual. And this he held on faith.
For it is part of Christian (as well as some non-Christian) belief that there are
separate substances in between God and material substances. These are an-
gels. Moreover, Aquinas thought that belief in angels was not unreasonable,
even though it could not be strictly proved. It made sense under a hierarchy
of being, he thought, that there should be something to fill the gap between
human beings and God. On the one hand you have a separated substance that
is its own being and essence (God). On the other hand you have a non-sepa-
rated substance (a human being) which, though it has a spiritual form, is
nonetheless neither its own being nor its own essence. So given a hierarchy
of being, it is fitting that in between is a separated substance which, while not

Being

its own being is nonetheless its own essence. An angel is not its own being.
Otherwise an angel is God. Like human beings, then, angels are creatures.
But unlike human nature, the angelic essence is not received in matter. Oth-
erwise angels are not separated substances. It follows that, like God, any an-
gel is its own essence. Every angel, therefore, is a species unto itself.

BEINGS AS DEPENDENT ON GOD

At the core of Aquinas’s metaphysics are two theses which today are widely
doubted. They are 1) that nothing is unless God is and 2) that something’s
having the property F implies that the exemplar of F exists in God’s mind.
The first is the conclusion of his celebrated argument for God’s existence
based on the contingency. The second is the doctrine of divine ideas. Of
course, if nothing is unless God is, then nothing has the property F unless God
is. For a thing must be to have properties. But going beyond 1), 2) states that
to the extent that a thing a is F, a is modeled after the Idea of F-ness in God’s
mind. This relation of things to their models in God’s mind Aquinas calls the
truth of things as opposed to the truth of propositions. It is a view that can be
traced to Augustine.

History aside and to focus first on 1), Aquinas holds that just as a certain

length exists only because some body exists of which it is the length, so too
any body for its part exists only because God exists. Each case involves total
dependency though in different ways. Length is an accident and accidents in-
ternally depend on the substance of which they are the accident. By this it is
meant that the idea of substance enters into the definition of accident. You
cannot define length or for that matter any other accident taken as accident
without bringing into the definition something else on which it depends i.e.
substance. A body, on the other and, is a substance in its own right and not an
accident. It does not, therefore, qua substance, depend on substance inter-
nally, i.e. in that substance enters into its definition. Apart from anything else,
that would issue in a circular definition. Nonetheless, a body does depend on
substance externally, if not internally, according to Aquinas. By this it is
meant that any body depends on another substance, God, as the cause of its
being or existence. Unless God exists, therefore, no body exists.

Aquinas thinks that this follows from the fact that bodies are contingent be-

ings and that contingent beings depend on a non-contingent being to be. A
contingent being is one that is not identified with its own existence. Other-
wise its essence would be to be and thus it would not be a contingent being
after all but a necessary one. In any case, it is evident that in this three things
must be shown. First, that bodies are contingent beings, second, that contin-

Chapter Two

gent beings depend on a non-contingent being to be and third, that this non-
contingent being is identified with God.

That bodies are contingent beings follows from the fact that they are not

identified with their own essences. To explain, if something x is identified
with its own existence so that x’s essence is one with its existence, then x is
ipso facto identified with its essence. Otherwise, there being more to x than
its essence, there is more to x than its existence. And then it is untrue to say
in the first instance that x is identified with its existence. But bodies are evi-
dently not identified with their own essences. It follows that bodies are not
identified with their acts of existence and so are contingent beings. In behalf
of the second premise, take, for example, Fido. Fido is not identified with
dogness. Otherwise to be dog is to be Fido. And then Fido and Rex are not
two dogs but one. Fido, then, is more than his essence dogness. If, though,
Fido were one with his act of existence so that his essence and existence were
one, then Fido would not be more than his essence dogness. It follows that
Fido is more than his act of existence and so is a contingent and not a neces-
sary being.

Second, for the proposition that contingent beings like bodies depend on a

non-contingent being Aquinas argues as follows. Whatever is, say A, but is
not identical with its own act of existence, is evidently composed of existence
and some essence of which it is the existence. Thus, if Fido is not identified
with his act of existence, then Fido is evidently composed of that existence
plus the essence dogness which is actualized by it. But if A’s existence is dis-
tinct from A’s essence, then the former is accidental to the latter. But if some-
thing is accidental to an essence, then its presence with or in that essence is
due to some external thing. Thus, if heat is accidental to water then that some
water is hot is due to something external to water, say, fire. Therefore, if A is
not identified with its own act of existence but is a composite of existence and
essence both, then A’s existing, like the heat of the water, is due to something
else external to A, say, B.

Now as it is with A so is it with B. If B’s existence is distinct from B’s

essence, then the former is outside of or accidental to the latter. And then once
again, B’s existence is due to some external thing C, and so on. But if this
chain of existential dependency proceeds to infinity, then none of the mem-
bers of that chain in the first instance exist. B’s existence is not a sufficient
reason of A’s when B’s existence is itself simultaneously caused by C’s. By
analogy, the movement of a cane is not a sufficient reason of the movement
of a rock on the ground if the cane moves the rock only because it, the cane,
is simultaneously being moved by me. Unless, then, there is a being the
essence of which is to be, there is no being like A, B, or Fido whose essence
is not to be. If there are things that exist per accidens then there must be

Being

something that exists per se. Otherwise something that is not its own suffi-
cient reason exists without sufficient reason.

Third, even if the foregoing shows that something exists per se or is a non-

continent being, how does Aquinas move from “x is a non-contingent being”
to “x is God or the highest being”? For with Kant philosophers might object
that this inference is licensed only by the simple converse of “x is a necessary
being implies that x is the highest being,” namely, “x is the highest being im-
plies that x is a necessary being.” But the trouble is, the latter proposition, on
which the ontological proof turns, falsely construes existence as a property of
the highest being. For to say that the highest being is a necessary being is to
say that the concept of the highest being includes the concept of existence.
So, since the proof of God from the contingency of things in the long run re-
verts to the error of the ontological proof, i.e. counting existence as a prop-
erty, then the former proof falls along with the latter.

Aquinas would reply that his own proof makes no such inference from

something’s being a necessary being to its being the highest being. It is there-
fore untouched by Kant’s objection. Thus would Aquinas deny Kant’s blan-
ket assertion that any proof from contingency turns on that inference. For
Aquinas, necessary being is opposed to possible being and non-contingent
being is opposed to contingent being. Any non-contingent being is a neces-
sary being and any merely possible being is a contingent being. But it is not
necessary nor is it the case that a necessary being is a non-contingent being.
Some necessary beings, i.e. angels, are not necessary in themselves but re-
ceive their necessary being from the non-continent necessary being, God.
Since, then, some necessary beings are contingent beings (i.e. beings which
are not one with their acts of existence), and no contingent being is the high-
est being, it follows that the move from a necessary being to God or the high-
est or most perfect being is illicit.

Aquinas, then, concurs with Kant that you cannot move from something’s

being a necessary being to its being the highest being. What you can do, says
Aquinas, is to move from something’s being a being whose essence is one
with its existence to its being the highest being or God. Here, ‘being whose
essence is one with its existence’ is not synonymous with ‘necessary being.’
It is a species of the latter. So, since it is not in the first instance a case of de-
ducing the highest being from a necessary being, Aquinas’s own proof from
contingency (call it ACP) falls outside the circle of such proofs at which
Kant’s criticism is aimed. Aquinas’s proof proceeds as follows:

ACP

1. If there is a being whose essence is not one with its existence, then there

is a being whose essence is one with its existence.

Chapter Two

2. But there is a being whose essence is not one with its existence.
3. Therefore, there is a being whose essence is one with is existence.
4. But a being whose essence is one with its existence is the highest being or

God.

5. Therefore, God or the highest being exists.

Here, Aquinas moves in 4. from “x is a being whose essence is one with its

existence” (E) to “x is God or the highest being” (H). But this succeeds only
if, assuming that E is true, there is at most one being whose essence is one with
its existence (O) and being a being whose essence is one with its existence is
equivalent to the highest being (B). For his part, though, St. Thomas would de-
fend both O and B. And in so doing would he justify the move in 4. from some-
thing’s being a non-contingent being to its being the highest being or God.

As for O, Aquinas would proffer the following reductio: suppose there are

two beings, x and y, in each one of which essence and existence are one.
Then, since they are two and not one, neither one of them is identical with its
essence. Otherwise to be such a being is to be x, in which case y does not ex-
ist, or to be such a being is to be y, in which case x does not exist. But then
in each one of them, in x and in y, essence and existence are distinct. And so,
the supposition that there are two (or more) beings in which essence and ex-
istence are one is contradictory. It implies that in these same beings essence
and existence are distinct. By analogy, suppose that essence and existence are
one in Socrates. Then Socrates is his essence, in which case, to be human is
to be Socrates. But since Socrates and Plato are two humans, to be human is
not to be Socrates. Hence, essence and existence are not one in Socrates. Ac-
cordingly, to say that there are two beings, x and y, in which essence and ex-
istence are one is at the same time to say that in these same beings, x and y,
essence and existence are not one.

As for B, Aquinas would again turn a reductio. For suppose that to be the

one being whose essence is one with its existence is not equivalent to being
the highest being. Then since this being is identified with its esse which is act,
then this same being is just act without any potentiality. And then a being
which is purely actual is not the highest being. But that is contradictory. For
the highest being is ipso facto the most perfect being and something is most
perfect to the extent that it is act without mixture of potentiality.

GOD AS EXEMPLAR

To move toward Aquinas’s defense of 2), we begin with his belief that no body
is its own essence or form. It is always a combination of form and matter both.

Being

Thus, Socrates is not his own essence humanity. Otherwise to be human is to
be Socrates. Whenever form or act is found in matter or potentiality the re-
sulting composite is unidentical with that form or act. Otherwise a whole is
identified with its part. Since, therefore, sensible things such as Socrates are
not form or essence alone but form or essence in matter, form or essence is said
to be in sensible things participatively. To say that Socrates participates in hu-
manity is to say that in Socrates matter is actualized by the form humanity. On
the side of essence, the relation of participation is thus a relation of matter to
form. What participates is to what is participated in as matter is to form. In
other words, sensible things are not their own essence or form F but rather do
they participate in F. For, says Aquinas, if some whole x has the form F but
also has something else y added to it then x is properly said to participate in
F.

Thus, humanity in Socrates exists by participation just because Socrates is

not the essence humanity but is humanity together with individuating matter.
Stated differently, Socrates is not just humanity but in Socrates humanity is
joined to another thing matter of which it is the form. But a form F is in some
individual x by participation just when x is not just F but F plus another thing,
matter, of which F is the form. Therefore, humanity exists participatively in
Socrates.

As was noted previously, this same relation of participation holds for being

as well as for being F. Socrates is not his own esse any more than he is his
own essence. Otherwise it is of Socrates’ very essence to be. In Socrates, esse
is act with respect to potentiality. But this time the potential principle is the
essence humanity. Therefore, since in Socrates esse is act with respect to the
essence humanity, Socrates is unidentical with his esse. A person is no more
his own being than he is his own essence. Otherwise, once again, a whole is
said to be one of its parts. Therefore, instead of identity, the relation between
Socrates and his esse is once again one of participation. Socrates exists only
participatively just as he is human only participatively. He participates in esse
just because he is not his own esse just as he participates in essence just be-
cause he is not his own essence. And in each case Socrates is to that in which
he participates as potentiality is to actuality.

In any case and as to being F participatively, one is reminded of Plato’s du-

alism of particulars and Forms. That which is participated in, the timeless
Forms, are both separated from the temporal particulars that participate in
them and self-subsistent. So the question is, does Aquinas claim for essences
or forms this same separate, self-subsistent status? From the fact that essences
are in particulars participatively does it follow in his view that those same
essences exist non-participatively and separately?

Aquinas spells out what he takes to be the Platonist’s argument for an-

swering this question affirmatively. The premises of the argument St. Thomas

Chapter Two

accepts. But he denies that the conclusion follows. He raises the argument, G,
as an objection to his own view that the only exemplary cause is God. Thus,

Whatever is by participation is reduced to something self-existing. . . . But what-
ever exists in sensible things exists by participation of some species . . . Therefore,
it is necessary to admit self-existing species, as, for instance, a per se man, and a
per se horse, and the like, which are called the exemplars. . .

Aquinas holds that G is invalid. When the premises of G are true, all that

follows, says he, is that something exists non-participatively if things exist
participatively. It does not follow that this self-existing thing is a self-existing
species, i.e. a Platonic Form. G feeds on an ambiguity. The first premise con-
cerns participation of being in the sense of existence. It is, in fact, the princi-
ple of his own proof of God from contingent things. What is, but is not by its
own essence (i.e. what is participatively), depends on what is self-existing or
what is by its own essence (i.e. what is non-participatively). But the second
premise concerns participation of being in the sense of essence or species. It
concerns what is F participatively and not what is participatively. So even
though the premises of G are true in their own right, G fails due to equivoca-
tion. The Platonic conclusion that there is a self-existing or per se man, horse,
etc. does not follow. Just because the non-participative being that is implied
by participative being is self-existing when ‘being’ means ‘existence,’ it does
not follow that the non-participative being that is implied by participative be-
ing is self-existing when ‘being’ means ‘essence.’ True, Plato is right as over
against Aristotle that form in matter implies form that is separate from mat-
ter. But from the fact that form is separate from matter, it does not follow that
form is separate altogether. It might be the case that the forms or essences
that are separate from matter are not separate from God.

But Aquinas goes further. Not only does the Platonic conclusion of G not

follow but it is in his view false. If it is true, then real stone, i.e. stone that ex-
ists independently of minds, is immaterial. And as it is with stone so is it with
every other natural thing. To the extent that any natural thing is real it does
not exist in matter. But Aquinas thinks that it is plainly impossible for real
stone to exist immaterially. True, our concept of a stone exists immaterially.
For when we form a concept of a stone our intellect forms the universal stone-
ness which abstracts from particular material existence. Also, the Idea of
stone in God’s Mind exists immaterially. But this is far from saying that real
stone i.e. stone that is independent of mind exists immaterially. This unac-
ceptable conclusion Aquinas thinks comes from confusing how natural things

Being

are with how they are known.

Just because such things are and must be

known immaterially it does not follow nor is it the case that their real (mind-
independent) being is also immaterial. Thus, like Aristotle and unlike Plato,
Aquinas denies that universals or forms exist self-subsistently. But like Plato
and unlike Aristotle, Aquinas affirms that these same forms or universals ex-
ist separately from matter. Striking a synthesis, he holds with Augustine that
they exist ante rem in God’s Mind.

Yet an Aristotelian would persist in the following question. From the fact

that F exists participatively in a, how does it follow that F exists non-partici-
patively? This inference must be shown and not just stated. And even if that
inference does hold, how does Aquinas show that the non-participative exis-
tence of F takes the form of an eternal Idea in God’s Mind?

To answer, it is convenient to begin with Aquinas’s distinction between ob-

ject and condition in predication. Blurring that distinction invites what recent
philosophers call confusing use and mention. St. Thomas provides an exam-
ple of this error in the following pseudo-syllogism: “Socrates is human, hu-
man is a species; and so Socrates is a species.”

Human is used and not men-

tioned in the first statement but it is mentioned and not used in the second
statement. Removing the ambiguity means rewriting the second statement,
correctly, as “Human is a species,” thereby exposing the four-term fallacy.

Alternatively, one can say that in the second statement ‘human’ signifies

the device of predication whereas in the first statement it signifies the form or
property that is predicated in and through that device. Recall the scholastic
distinction between id quod and id a quo. Thus, in “Humans are animals” and
“Socrates is human” the genus animals and the species human are each one
of them the id a quo (that by which) we judge that humans are animals and
that Socrates is human, respectively. And in using these predicables for that
end, we are the efficient or agent causes of those judgments. But animals and
humans are in each case the id quod or that which is predicated of humans
and of Socrates in and through those same predicables. Just because you use
animals and human to predicate animals and human of humans and Socrates,
respectively, it does not follow nor is it the case that animals and human are
what are predicated, again respectively, of humans and of Socrates.

Now the point of all this is that blurring object and condition is not con-

fined to logic. It surfaces in metaphysics in the issue of universals. What it
means to say that two things share or participate in some form F is that nei-
ther one of them is identical with F. Instead, each one is a composite of F and
what participates in F. With Aristotle we can call the latter matter or poten-
tiality. By contrast, something is or has form non-participatively just when it
is identified with its form. Recall Plato’s Forms. They are each one of them
form alone and do not have this other thing, matter, joined and related to them
as potentiality to its actuation.

Chapter Two

If something x has form participatively (i.e. if it is a composite of form and

matter) then the form in question, though it might be internal to x, is external
to the matter in x that participates in it. Thus, suppose that Fritz is a fox. Then,
though the form of being a fox is essential to Fritz, it is not essential but ac-
cidental to the matter in Fritz which participates in the form of being a fox.
Otherwise matter is essentially form and in particular the form of a fox. How-
ever, if form of any kind is accidental to matter, then it is caused to be in mat-
ter by something else. This cause is an efficient cause which actuates matter
to assume the form in question. By analogy, since being 100 degrees Fahren-
heit is accidental to water, then water’s being that temperature is due to some
external efficient cause, say, fire.

This cause of the matter in x assuming some form F evidently cannot be

identified with some other individual F-thing y which, like x, participates in
F. For the question is, what causes the matter in any individual at all to take
on or assume some form that is accidental to it? To this the answer cannot be
some other individual that is also participatively F. For the matter of this sec-
ond individual, no less than that of the first, takes on or assumes F which, in
a manner of speaking, is accidental to it. For it is added onto it, as it were,
from the outside. But since it is just this that must be explained, any such “ex-
planation” begs the question. A is not explained in terms of B when B is ei-
ther the same as or includes A. No explanatio is or includes the explanatum
without circularity. By analogy, if existence is something added to and hence,
in a manner of speaking, accidental to essence in some individual y (i.e. if y
is a contingent being) then existence in y is caused by something else. Yet the
latter cannot be said to be something else z in which existence is also added
or “accidental” to essence. Otherwise one explains something in terms of it-
self. Be that as it may, our question here concerns essence and not existence.
If what causes matter in x to assume the form F, which is added to that mat-
ter, is not another thing y that is also participatively F, then with what is that
cause identified?

Some say that this question is moot. For ‘matter’ here refers not to the mat-

ter of modern physics but to Aristotle’s primal matter. But that individuals are
composed of matter in this sense is allegedly of historical interest only. Aris-
totle’s primal matter, so the objection runs, has long since been replaced by
succeeding notions of matter in modern science, beginning with Galileo’s
atoms and extending to Newton’s, Einstein’s, and even to contemporary con-
cepts of matter.

Yet the answer to this is that Aristotle’s primal matter remains untouched

by scientific notions of matter, old or new. That is because its rationale is not
science but the philosophy of nature and logic. To focus just on the latter, pri-
mal matter is implied by classification into genera. Genus is essentially ab-
straction from form. I abstract from the form or difference rational in humans

Being

to form the genus animal; and I further abstract from the form or difference
sentient in animals to form the wider genus organism. That implies that there
is a widest possible genus which is bereft of all form. One genus is sensibly
said to be wider than another only in relation to a widest genus. Besides, un-
less there is a widest genus, then, since any species includes the genera above
it, it follows that any species includes an infinite number of genera. Among
other things, that excludes definition. For one thing, the definition of a species
is in terms of its proximate genus. But specifying a genus as proximate im-
plies that some genera are wider than others, and saying this, as was said, re-
quires a widest genus. For another, definition presupposes that the definien-
dum has determinate sense. This is excluded, though, if a species includes an
infinite number of genera.

All this implies that if there are real definitions, then something in material

things answers to genus and something to difference. These are matter and
form, respectively.

Moreover, any such thing includes its species as well as

all the genera above it, the widest genus included. It follows that any material
thing includes primal matter or the pure potentiality for form. Wittgenstein
once asserted that simple signs (and hence, in his view, simple objects) are re-
quired for determinate sense.

Aristotle might be interpreted as having prof-

fered a similar argument. There must be simple (primal) matter if there is real
definition, i.e. if the species of things are to have determinate sense.

Nevertheless, that genus and difference reflect constituents in real things

has been challenged. In the place of this realism in logic, some favor a con-
ceptualism. Under it, classification answers to nothing in reality but is the
work of minds. Accordingly, genus, difference, and species signify appear-
ance and not reality, i.e. how we construe things and not how things are. In
the scientific revolution at the time of Galileo a quantitative view of the world
replaced Aristotle’s qualitative one. Under this change, only those features are
real which are measurable. All others are based on the measurable and belong
to appearance. Based on quality and not quantity, then, genus, difference, and
species just reflect the way we human beings view or organize reality and not
reality itself. But if so, then from the genus-difference dichotomy in logic one
falsely infers the matter-form complex in reality. And in that case no one suc-
cessfully deduces simple or primal matter from the idea of the widest genus.

This objection does contain a kernel of truth. And that is that classification,

along with the predicables of genus, difference and species that figure in it,
are the work of minds. Like syllogisms and judgments, they are not real be-
ings but that type of entia rationis which some scholastics called second in-
tentions. However, the objection also harbors a glaring irony. For the idea that
science reveals the real world is one which science itself has long since aban-
doned. Consistent with Kant’s “Copernican revolution” in epistemology, sci-

Chapter Two

entists have insisted for the past century or so that science does not reveal the
world as it is in itself but the world only insofar as it can be made intelligible
to us at a given stage of scientific opinion. So science too, it seems, is about
appearance and not about reality. But in that case, the foregoing objection to
a realist construal of the genus-difference schema is compromised. For then
the option looms large that it is our genus-difference schema that mirrors re-
ality and science that mirrors appearance and not the other way around.

Be that as it may and assuming for the sake of argument that genus, differ-

ence and species in mind reflect something in reality, let us recall the ques-
tion. If what explains why primal matter in x assumes the form F is not some
other thing y that is also participatively F, then what explains it? The answer
can only be in terms of what is both efficient cause and non-participatively F.
Something is required to make matter take on form and that can only be an
efficient cause. By analogy, something is required to make marble take the
shape of Athene and that can only be an efficient cause, in this case Phidias.
That excludes a Platonic form as the cause of matter’s being F in a. For to
identify the required non-participative F here with a Platonic Form falsely
substitutes a formal for an efficient cause. Recall that Plato installed the
Demiurge to explain matter’s being F in a. He saw that what is required here
is an efficient cause.

Yet what the Demiurge has on the one side it lacks on

the other. For in addition to being efficient cause, the cause of matter’s being
F in a must be non-participatively F and the Demiurge is not. Plato’s forms
are separated not just from their copies but also from the Demiurge who
makes the copies. What meets both criteria is something that is both agent-
cause and non-participatively F. As both agent-cause and non-participatively
F, such a being might be called a divine being or a god.

However, a plurality of such gods is ruled out. For suppose that there is one

such agent-cause that is non-participatively F, another that is non-participa-
tively G, a third that is non-participatively H, etc., each one being the agent-
cause, respectively, of F-things, G-things, H-things, and so on. Then, sharing
the form of being both agent cause of

Φ-things and non-participatively Φ,

each one is participatively divine. Each one is both participatively agent-
cause of

Φ-things and participatively non-participatively Φ. For all of them

share the properties of being agent-cause and of being non-participatively

Φ.

As such, they are not identified with their own forms of divinity but are each
one of them a composite of that form and some matter or potentiality. Other-
wise they are one and not many.

Yet right here our previous logic takes hold. In any composite of form and

matter or of the actual and the potential the former is added to the latter as some-
thing external or “accidental” to it. Hence, under the assumption of two or more
gods, the form of divinity in each god is added to the matter or potentiality which

Being

it specifies. And then to explain the fact that matter or potentiality in each one
takes on the form of divinity, i.e. the form of being both agent-cause of

Φ-things

and non-participatively

Φ, one must invoke what is non-participatively divine,

i.e. what is both non-participatively agent-cause and non-participatively non-
participatively

Φ. Thus, if the idea of god includes being ultimate and uncaused,

then the supposed many caused gods in the end imply a single uncaused God.
Finally, to explain how this one divine being or God can be both non-participa-
tively

Φ and also maker of all Φ-things, this same God is said to have the Idea

Φ in His Mind from all eternity. Otherwise this God is ignorant of what He

makes. Whence the doctrine of divine Ideas.

So it is that logic and reality correspond. Just as in judgment the condition

under which alone one attributes P to S is different from what, under that con-
dition, one does attribute to S, so too in reality the condition under which
alone a exemplifies F is different from the F which, under that condition, a
does exemplify. The condition of predication, to repeat, is one of the predica-
bles, say, a genus or a species. As opposed to an hypostasized Platonic Form,
genera and species are what scholastics call second intentions, i.e. forms as
existing in our minds. They are thus mind-dependent. They are not essences
as such but essences as known by us, i.e. universalia post rem. And what by
means of these predicables is assigned to a subject is some form taken just as
such, apart from existing in minds or in things. By the same token, the con-
dition under which alone particulars exemplify forms is different from the
forms they exemplify. The latter is again identified with some form or prop-
erty taken just as such while the former is identified with that form or prop-
erty taken as existing ante rem in the mind of God. So once again the condi-
tion is mind-dependent, though here the mind in question is God’s and not
ours.

Thus, the condition of my judging that Fritz is a fox is the species fox,

whereas the object predicated is the form of fox taken as such, apart from ex-
istence either in minds or in things. By the same token, from what was said
above, the ultimate condition of Fritz’ exemplifying fox is the divine Idea of
foxhood, while the object exemplified in and through that condition is once
again the form of fox taken as such, apart from existing either in minds or in
things. For we saw that the fact that makes my judgment, “Fritz is a fox” true
comes from matter’s taking on what is accidental to it, i.e. the form of fox-
hood. That requires something that is both the efficient cause of matter’s be-
ing fox in Fritz and non-participatively F, in this case, non-participatively fox.
That can only be God taken as participable by creatures, and this is the divine
Idea of Fox. But the object as opposed to the condition of this exemplifica-
tion is once again the form of fox taken as such, apart from existing either in
minds or in things.

Chapter Two

Accordingly, in logic and reality both one distinguishes the dimensions of

essence and existence. To the former belong the existentially neutral objects
that are predicated of subjects in logic and that are exemplified by particulars
in reality. These are identified with universals or essences taken absolutely,
apart from any mode of existence. To the latter belong the mental or ideal
conditions under which alone judgment in logic and exemplification in real-
ity are possible. And these are identified with universals post rem in our
minds (i.e. the second intentions of genus, species, etc.) and with universals
ante rem in God’s mind, respectively.

It remains to answer a stock objection. For it will be alleged that no one

consistently posits many Ideas in the divine Mind and retains divine simplic-
ity. Either our transcendent agent has many Ideas but is not God or there are
no such Ideas in God. To skirt this, one might again invoke, with Aquinas, the
distinction between the id quod and the id a quo in knowledge. If God’s mind
contains many ideas in the sense of mental likenesses by which (id a quo) He
understands, then it is not consistent with God’s simplicity to say that many
ideas are in God. But if the many ideas in God refer to that which (id quod)
is understood by God and not to mental likenesses by which He understands,
then it is not inconsistent with God’s simplicity to say that many Ideas are in
God. For it is hardly inconsistent with God’s simplicity to say that God un-
derstands many things. Aquinas puts it this way:

. . . Now it is not repugnant to the simplicity of the divine mind that it under-
stand many things; though it would be repugnant to its simplicity to be informed
by a plurality of likenesses. Hence many ideas exist in the divine mind as that
which is understood by it; . . .

Yet it might be countered that this reply falls short of the mark. True, the

foregoing distinction excludes a plurality of ideas in God in the sense of a plu-
rality of likenesses. To that extent is divine simplicity preserved. Still, even
granted that ‘idea’ refers to what is understood and not to likenesses by which
something is understood, to say that these objects of understanding exist in
God still seems to contradict divine simplicity. How is it any more consistent
with divine simplicity to say that many distinct objects of thought are in an
absolutely simple being than it is to say that many distinct mental likenesses
of objects are in such a being?

To this Aquinas responds,

. . . Inasmuch as God knows his own essence perfectly, He knows it according
to every mode in which it can be known. Now it can be known not only as it is
in itself, but as it can be participated in by creatures according to some kind of
likeness. But every species has its own proper species, according to which it

Being

participates in some way in the likeness of the divine essence. Therefore, as
God knows his essence as so imitable by such a creature, He knows it as the
particular model and idea of that creature: and in like manner as regards other
creatures. So it is clear that God understands many models proper to many
things; and these are many ideas.

Stated in terms of our line of argument, this counter-reply of Aquinas is

glossed as follows. One distinguishes God as He is in Himself and God as
cause of creatures. Accordingly, God is knowable in both ways. Since, then,
God knows Himself perfectly, then He knows Himself in all the ways in
which he is knowable, including knowing Himself as cause of creatures. But
being the cause of creatures includes being the cause of matter’s being F in
these creatures. But since matter’s being F in a creature is the same as the lat-
ter’s being participatively F, it follows that being the cause of a creature in-
cludes being the cause of its being participatively F. However, we saw that the
cause of something’s being participatively F can only be some agent that is
non-participatively F, and that this is identified with a single God. Therefore,
in knowing Himself as cause of some creature God knows Himself as being
non-participatively F. But every creature has its own proper form

Φ. There-

fore, to the extent that God knows Himself as cause of creatures of various
kinds, it follows that God knows the Ideas of these creatures as objects of
thought. In this sense only is it consistently said that many Ideas are in God.

The answer can be put differently. To that end, it is useful to compare ‘a is

F participatively’ with ‘a is participatively.’

As to the latter, to say that a is or exits participatively is to say that, instead

of being identified with a, existence in a is combined with some distinct thing
in a, essence, to which it stands as actuality to potentiality. Existence being
thus distinct from essence in a, it follows that, not being due to its essence,
a’s existence is due to something else. This is only as it should be since the
actual is accidental to the potential. Thus S, if a composite x has a potential
side and an actual side, then x is neither identified with either side nor is ei-
ther side of x due to the other. But in that case each side of x is due to some-
thing external to x.

So it is in this case. Since a’s existence (its actual side) is not due to a’s

essence (its potential side), then a’s existence is due to some other act of ex-
istence that is external to a. And we saw that since this existential dependency
cannot proceed to infinity (otherwise that a exists goes unexplained), there
must be something according to Aquinas that is or exists non-participatively,
i.e. something which is its own act of existence as opposed to its having or
possessing some act of existing.

As it is with a is participatively, so is it with a is F participatively. To say

that a is F participatively is to say that, instead of being identified with a,

Chapter Two

form in a is combined with some distinct thing in a, matter, to which it stands
as actuality to potentiality. Essence or form thus being distinct from matter in
a, it follows that, not being due to its matter, a’s form is due to something else.
And once again, this is only as it should be since, the actual is accidental to
the potential. Invoking S once again, then, it must be said that since a’s form
(its actual side) is not due to a’s matter (its potential side) and since a is not
identified with its form F, then it follows that a’s being F is due to some other
F that is external to a. And once again, this essential (as opposed to the pre-
vious existential) dependency cannot proceed to infinity. Otherwise a’s being
F goes unexplained. There must therefore be something that is F non-partici-
patively, i.e.something which is its own form or essence, as opposed to hav-
ing or possessing some form or essence.

Now either this non-participative F—this form that is separated from

matter—is separated from Mind too or not. It is either a Platonic or an Au-
gustinian Idea. For several reasons, some of which he takes from Aristotle,
Aquinas rejects the former. The concepts of dirt and stone, say, evidently in-
clude matter in their definitions. Otherwise there is no difference between
physical and mathematical definitions, says Aquinas. Moreover, a defini-
tion signifies the real essence of a thing. If, then, there is a self-subsistent
Stoneness and Dirtness and if, as Plato holds, real stone and dirtness are
identified with these and not with sensible stones and dirt, then it follows
that real stone and dirt are both immaterial and changeless. It follows too
that the difference between physical and mathematical definitions is oblit-
erated.

THE “THIRD MAN”

Second, Aquinas accepts Aristotle’s celebrated objection that Plato’s view in-
vites a “third man.” The phrase ‘third man,’ though, might be understood in
three ways. First, says Aquinas, it might refer to the ideal man who is a third
man as distinct from two perceived men, say, Socrates and Callias. Second, it
might refer to the man that is common to the ideal man and some perceived
man. Third, it might refer to an intermediate man that falls between the ideal
man and some perceived man. Such a third man would thus belong to the
same level in Plato as do individual numbers, lines and other mathematical
objects.

So the first question is, which one of these three meanings does Aristotle

have in mind when he accuses Plato’s view as inviting a third man? And the
second question is twofold: how does Plato’s view imply a third man in that
sense and why does that implication unravel that view?

Being

As for the first question, Aquinas rightly eliminates the first sense of ‘third

man.’ This sense simply states the position against which Aristotle is arguing,
i.e. the dualism of self-subsistent forms and particulars. It does not point to an
absurdity that issues from that position. Unlike the first meaning, the second
one does produce an absurdity, i.e. the indefinite regress of the same Form, in
this case the Form man. This is the celebrated objection to the Forms that is
raised in the Parmenides. Yet Aquinas denies that by ‘third man’ in Meta-
physics Book One, chapter nine Aristotle has in mind this second meaning.
For he correctly notes that Aristotle raises this objection immediately after
raising the absurdity of the third man, counting the former as a distinct ob-
jection to Platonic Forms. And that would be pointless and repetitious if the
third man absurdity is here taken by Aristotle in the second sense. So he takes
Aristotle to mean by ‘third man’ here the third meaning, i.e. a man that falls
between the Form Man and perceived men. This is a plausible interpretation
especially since Aristotle clearly and explicitly uses the expression ‘third
man’ in this same third sense elsewhere.

In fact, in the view of A. E. Taylor,

Aristotle always uses ‘third man’ in this sense when he broaches the problem
of the third man in Plato.

In any case, assuming that Aquinas is right about what Aristotle means by

‘third man’ here, how does the theory of Forms imply a third man in that
sense? And further, how does that implication undermine the theory of
Forms?

To answer, agreeing with Aristotle, Aquinas states that if in addition to the

Form line and sensible lines there are intermediate lines according to Plato,
then consistency demands that there is an intermediate man (a third man) in
addition to the Form Man and perceived men. But Plato denies that there are
such intermediates in the case of things like man and horse. There are just the
Forms of man and of Horse on the one hand and sensible men and horses on
the other with nothing in between. Intermediate entities are limited by Plato
to mathematical entities such as particular lines, circles, and numbers.

With Aristotle, Aquinas agrees with Plato’s denial of intermediate men and

horses, i.e. men and horses that, like Plato’s lines and numbers, are immate-
rial. But he thinks that it is to just such mathematicized men and horses that
one is committed if one posits self-subsistent Forms. For if the Forms of man
and horse are one with the Forms of Line and Number in being immaterial,
why should not immaterial men and horses be admitted along with immate-
rial lines and numbers? So, to the extent that the theory of Forms admits im-
material Forms such as the Form of Man and Horse and yet excludes partic-
ular immaterial men and horses corresponding to particular immaterial lines
and numbers, it is an arbitrary theory.

To this the Platonist might answer that particular lines and numbers must

be treated differently from particular men and horses. And as a result, one

Chapter Two

need not admit an intermediary or third man, given the Form Man, just be-
cause one admits intermediary lines and numbers, given the Form Line and
Number. And they must be treated differently because whereas matter enters
into individual men and horses, matter does not enter into individual lines and
numbers. Therefore there is nothing arbitrary about admitting intermediary
lines and numbers, given the Forms of Line and Number, while excluding in-
termediary men and horses, given the Forms of Man and Horse.

But Aquinas and Aristotle both would counter that this just begs the ques-

tion. Even if matter enters into perceived men and horses but does not enter
into the unperceived lines and numbers of mathematics, why should not Plato
also admit unperceivable and immaterial men and horses? If the forms of
Man and Horse are one with the forms of Line and Number in being imma-
terial, why admit immaterial lines and numbers but exclude immaterial men
and horses? Says Aristotle,

. . . . But it is hard to say, even if one suppose them (the Forms) to exist, why in
the world the same is not true of the other things of which there are Forms, as
of the objects of mathematics. I mean that these thinkers place the objects of
mathematics between the Forms and perceptible things, as a kind of third set of
things apart both from the forms and and from the things in this world; but there
is not a third man or horse besides the ideal and the individuals. . . .

Aquinas, then, would urge the following dilemma against Plato’s theory of

forms. Either it recognizes a third man and horse as between the form of Man
and Horse and perceived men and horses or not. If it does, the absurdity fol-
lows that there are immaterial men and horses like the immaterial lines and
numbers of mathematics. If it does not, then the Platonist is inconsistent in
excluding individual men and horses while admitting immaterial lines and
numbers. And like Aristotle, Aquinas thinks that this dilemma is avoided only
by denying its source, the Platonic theory of separated Forms.

What Aquinas calls the second sense of ‘third man’ also unravels the theory

of forms in his view. As was said, this is similar to though not identical with
the third man objection of the Parmenides. Here again, the problem can be cast
in the form of a dilemma. Either the form of Twoness is one in definition with
twoness as found in both sensible and mathematical twos or it is not. If it is,
then there is something in common as between them. But then, just as Plato
says that there must be a separate form of Twoness because there is something
in common between the many sensible twos and the many mathematical twos,
so must he say that there is another form of Twoness for the same reason, i.e.
because there is something in common between the sensible and mathematical
twos on the one hand and the form of Twoness on the other. For no reason can
be given why the former form should exist but not the latter.

But this invites

Being

the absurdity of an indefinite multiplication of forms of Twoness. Nor can Pla-
tonists answer this objection, says Aquinas, by saying that forms do not require
any higher forms since they are immaterial and incorporeal whereas sensible
twos are not. Otherwise the objects of mathematics in Plato, which are also im-
material and incorporeal, do not stand in need of higher forms. And according
to Plato they do.

But if the form of Twoness is not identical in definition with twoness as

found in both sensible and mathematical twos, then the latter twos cannot be
said to participate in the form of Twoness. It would be like saying that many
cranes (in the sense of birds) can be said to participate in the form of Crane
(in the sense of a of machine). Plato’s theory of forms, therefore, either im-
plies an indefinite regress of forms or denies that sensible and/or mathemati-
cal F-things ever do participate in the form F.

Aquinas anticipates a Platonic reply. It is that the form Twoness and

twoness as found in sensible and/or mathematical twos are neither the same
nor totally different in definition. The definitions are equivocal not by chance
but by reference. In this are they like ‘healthy’ as predicated of organisms and
food. Under this reply, therefore, the form of Twoness is twoness strictly
speaking while the twoness found in both sensible and mathematical twos is
twoness only by reference to the form of Twoness. But then it follows that
two perceived twigs, say, and the twos I add and subtract are no more really
two, (or for that matter twigs or numbers) than food is really healthy. And in
that case it is as difficult to understand how they are said to participate in the
forms of Twigness and Twoness as it is to understand how food is said to par-
ticipate in the form of health.

The Platonist will finally protest that the problem of the third man (when

‘third man’ is taken in what Aquinas calls the third sense) feeds on a nonsen-
sical objection. To get started, it must assume that F is predicated of F-ness just
as it is predicated of particular F-things. But that is nonsense. You cannot say
that Twoness is two but only that Socrates and Callias are two, that Fido and
Rex are two, and so on. For the expression ‘x is F’ signifies that F exists par-
ticipatively in x. But we saw that even in the view of Aquinas this implies that
x is not form alone but a composite of form and matter. But the form of F by
definition exists non-participatively and so cannot be a composite of form and
matter but form alone. It is F-ness itself and not something that is F. It follows
that to say that F-ness is F is neither true nor false but unmeaningful.

If it is a premise of this third man argument that F-ness is F, then Aquinas

would agree that the objection is senseless. For Aquinas would be the first to
say that F-ness is F falsely assimilates what is simple and form alone to a
composite of form and matter. If saying that x is F presupposes that x is a
composite of form and matter and implies that x is caused by F-ness, then you

Chapter Two

cannot say that F-ness is F without implying another form of F-ness in virtue
of which the first F-ness is F, and so on, ad infinitum. Aquinas agrees with the
Platonist that the regress here is capped by denying to begin with that ‘F-ness
is F’ is meaningful. ‘F-ness is F’ is meaningless because it is contradictory.
And it is contradictory because any subject is taken as a composite of matter
and form. It is taken as a whole with respect to the predicate which picks out
some part of that whole. But the “subject” here is F-ness itself and not the
thing that is F. It is form alone and not a composite or whole of form and mat-
ter. The contradiction, then, is that F-ness here made to be a subject when it
cannot possibly be a subject.

Nevertheless, Aquinas disagrees that this third man argument requires the

premise that F-ness is F. It can be stated without that premise. It does not, in
fact, assume that premise as it appears in Aristotle.

To raise this third man

objection, one need not argue that if Twoness is two and sensible things are
two then there is another form of Twoness by virtue of which they are two.
That is the third man argument of the Parmenides. Alternatively, one could
(and Aquinas thinks Aristotle does) instead argue this way. If the form of
Twoness is one in definition with twoness as found in sensible and mathe-
matical twos, then, since there is something in common as between them,
then there must be another separate form of Twoness.

This argument clearly admits the problem of the third man even though it

makes no use of the senseless premise, “F-ness is F.” Moreover, it is an argu-
ment which Plato cannot consistently reject. For according to Aristotle and
Aquinas, Plato himself uses the argument to prove that forms exist. Plato ar-
gues that because there is something common as between sensible and math-
ematical twos (since the twoness found in sensible and mathematical twos is
one in definition) it follows that there must be a separate form of Twoness.

OTHER OBJECTIONS TO SEPARATED FORMS

Besides the two third man arguments against Platonic Forms, Aquinas accepts
and comments on Aristotle’s argument that if forms are substances, then no
particular sensible thing is a substance.

But since the latter is evidently false,

forms are not substances and the theory of forms is collapses.

To explain, suppose that it is assumed with Platonists that forms are sub-

stances. Then forms are not predicable of a subject. Otherwise, forms exist in
a subject and it is proper to a substance not to exist in a subject. But if sensi-
ble particulars are substances, they must be such by participating in the forms.
For substance in the primary sense belongs to the forms. But in that case the
forms do exist in a subject after all and hence are not substances. Therefore,

Being

since in Plato the forms are substances in the strict sense it follows that sensi-
ble particulars cannot be substances. But it is evident that sensible particulars
are substances. Therefore, the theory of separated forms goes down to defeat.

Platonists would answer that the alleged absurdity here, i.e. that sensible

particulars are not substances, is not absurd at all but true. For appearance
must be distinguished from reality. Sensible things do appear to be substances
so far as common sense is concerned. But philosophically speaking they are
no more really substances than the image of a tree in a pool is really a tree.
They are, like images, relational. As the image is nothing but a reflection of
the real tree, so sensible particulars are only reflections of real substances.
And these are the forms.

But Aristotle and Aquinas would counter that if a sensible particular is not

a substance in its own right, then it must belong to something else that is sub-
stance. But what it belongs to cannot be a form. Otherwise immaterial, time-
less forms have material, temporal parts which is absurd. Therefore, if under
Platonism sensible particulars must not be construed as being substances,
then they must belong to something else that is substance. The latter, though,
can only be matter. But if matter is substance, then it is substance only be-
cause it participates in or is the subject of the forms which are properly speak-
ing substances. And then it follows once again that the forms do inhere in a
subject (i.e. matter) and hence that they are not substances after all.

As in the case of sensible particulars, the Platonist might retort that matter

is only substance in an extended sense, i.e. only because it is the subject of
substance, i.e. the forms. But this will not do. If matter is not really substance
then it must belong to something else that is substance. But since the latter is
not either matter, a Platonic form, or a sensible particular, it must be some
fourth thing. And since that fourth thing is evidently not really substance ei-
ther (otherwise, once again, the forms are not separated substances), it must
belong to some further substance, and so on, ad infinitum. In the end, there-
fore, it follows that there is no alternative to surrendering Plato’s theory of
Forms.

Platonists might more effectively reply that the fact that sensible particu-

lars are not in their view substances does not imply that they exist in some-
thing else that is substance, i.e. that they are accidents. As was previously
suggested, they might insist that sensible particulars are relations. But with
the early Russell they might say that relations are neither substances nor ac-
cidents. The relation ‘north of’ is neither a substance nor, like any accident or
attribute, is it predicable of a substance. But in that case the objection that if
the forms are substances then sensible things are not substances stands dis-
armed. For Platonists would answer that the consequent here is simply true.
Sensible particulars are not substances but relations. But as relations, they are

Chapter Two

impredicable of a substance. Since, then, there is no substance to begin with
in which sensible particulars inhere, it is pointless to say that that phantom
substance is substance only by participating in the forms. But then the objec-
tion that saying the latter implies that forms do inhere in a subject and so are
not separated forms after all cannot even be raised.

And yet one can anticipate how Aristotle and Aquinas would answer. True,

relations like ‘north of’ are neither substances nor do they inhere in a sub-
stance. When A is north of B ‘north of’ is neither present in nor predicable
of either A or B. Instead, it stands between A and B without being a property
of either one. But that sensible particulars are not plausibly construed as re-
lations is evident from their status as universals. ‘North of’ holds not only
between A and B but also between many other pairs. It is one with respect to
many and so is universal and not particular. But no one can say that a sensi-
ble particular like this tree or that person is one as over against many. Being
unique and unrepeatable, this tree or that person is particular and not uni-
versal.

Agreeing with this, Platonists might reply that sensible particulars are not

relations but relational entities. And unlike relations relational entities are
particular and not universal. An image in a pool is unique and unrepeatable.
It is not something common to many as are relations like ‘north of.’

But this rejoinder only serves to re-invite the main objection. Suppose that

the image of Socrates in a pool is neither a substance nor a relation but a re-
lational entity. Does it not then follow that such an image is an accident? For
the image in question is necessarily present in something, i.e. a pool. If, then,
sensible particulars are relational entities like images in a pool, then they too
must be present in a subject and hence be accidents. But then whatever it is
that sensible things inhere in is a substance. But according to Platonists, this
substance, be it identified with matter or anything else, is substance only be-
cause it participates in the forms to which ‘substance’ properly applies. And
then it follows once again that the supposed separated forms are instantiated
in a subject and so are not separate forms or substances after all.

I consider one more Aristotelian objection to the forms with which Aquinas

agrees.

St. Thomas once again frames the objection as a dilemma. Suppose

that some organism B comes to be. B’s character is due either to the fact that
some agent looks to a separated exemplar in making or not. If not and the spe-
cific likeness of B to A, another organism of the same type, is just due to A,
then it is superfluous and pointless to posit separate exemplars of any kind.
The latter would not be the exemplar of B. But the fact is that in Plato exem-
plars are formal causes of things like A and B. But if the likeness of B to A is
due to some agent’s looking to a separate exemplar in making B (and A), then
the absurdity accrues that B’s being and nature is not due to A. B would no

Being

more owe its being and character to A than one automobile in a production
line owes its being and character to its predecessor. B will come to be whether
A exists or not. Thus, would it be pointless and superfluous to posit either one
of Socrates’ parents as having anything to do with Socrates’ being and nature.
And that is unacceptable. Under the Platonic theory of forms, therefore, ei-
ther those forms are pointless and superfluous (or as Aristotle says, “have no
work”) in the generation of Socrates (or anything else) or Socrates’ parents
have nothing to do with Socrates’ coming into being as a new human being.

In short, as regards Socrates coming to be, either the form of humanity is
causally superfluous or Socrates’ parents are causally superfluous. But the
former contradicts Plato’s own view and the latter is unbelievable. It follows
that the theory of separated Forms must be abandoned.

Here, Aquinas notes that even though this dilemma defeats the Platonic

theory of separated exemplars, it does not disprove exemplars in the sense of
Ideas in God’s mind.

That organisms are naturally inclined to produce their

likenesses in the things that are generated might be due to some intellect that
knows and wills the end to which these inclinations are directed as well as the
relationship of things to that end. That organisms naturally and regularly pro-
duce their likenesses in the things generated might be due to an exemplar in
the sense of a plan or purpose directing all things to their due ends. And
Aquinas holds that an exemplar in this sense of a divine plan directing things
to their ends bears the character of law.

OBJECTIONS TO DIVINE IDEAS ANSWERED

To recur to divine Ideas, it was mentioned that Aquinas was not unaware of
objections to the thesis. The most obvious difficulty is reconciling the plural-
ity of these Ideas with the absolute oneness and simplicity of God. God, we
saw, is identified with his own being and hence with his own essence. There
is in God, therefore, no division either of being and essence or of essence and
supposit. God simply is his own act of existence. Yet, Aquinas also holds that
the Ideas are both many and unseparated from God. How, then, are these two
views to be made compatible? If God’s essence is not only one but even one
with his own act of being, how are many essences or Ideas included in God?
To this it cannot be answered that the many Ideas are included in his mind but
not in his essence, just as the many ideas I have are included in my mind but
not in my essence. For God’s mind is not distinct from his essence.

Aquinas’s answer is that it does not infringe on God’s simplicity to say that

God knows many Ideas as objects of knowledge. It would only infringe on his
simplicity if, in knowing Ideas, his mind were informed by a plurality of like-

Chapter Two

nesses. In other words, since the many Ideas are what God knows and not that
by which he knows, God’s simplicity is not sacrificed by saying God knows
many Ideas. At first this seems to save God’s simplicity at the cost of placing
the Ideas outside God, thus giving them the separate, Platonic status Aquinas
himself denies they have. For saying that Ideas are what God knows instead
of the internal acts by which God knows them seems to make the Ideas as sep-
arate from God as the tree in my yard is separate from me when I say that it,
the tree, is what I know or perceive. But Aquinas’s answer is that, in know-
ing Ideas, what God knows is Himself and no external thing. It is just that he
knows Himself not in Himself but as participable by creatures. Being perfect
in his knowledge, God knows Himself in all the ways He is knowable, in-
cluding as participable by creatures. But to know Himself as participable by
creatures is to know many Ideas. For though the Ideas are not distinct from
the divine essence, they are multiplied according to the relation of that
essence to creatures. The reason for this is that, unlike the divine essence, the
essence of every creature is distinct from its being. In creatures essence falls
away from being while in God it does not. That is why they are only crea-
tures. And this division of essence and being in creatures (as opposed to their
union in God) implies that being in creatures participates in divine being only
analogously and imperfectly. For instead of being being pure and simple, the
being of creatures is always the being of some essence, as of something other
or external. And so the being of creatures is always being that is limited or re-
stricted by something other than itself, namely, essence. And the different
ways in which the being of creatures thus comes to be limited or restricted by
something other (i.e. essence) is just the multiplicity of species among crea-
tures. Since, then, every creature participates in the being that is the divine
essence only as it is the being of this or that particular species, it follows that
to know the divine essence as participable by creatures is necessarily to know
many species or Ideas.

The distinction between the divine essence in itself and the divine essence

as participable affords an answer to a second objection to divine Ideas. It is
the objection of ontologism. If I know Ideas and the latter are identified with
God’s essence, does it not follow that in knowing Ideas I have direct knowl-
edge of God in this life? But it is part of Christian doctrine that no person di-
rectly knows God in this life. In fact, Aquinas himself affirms this when he
says that God is known directly only in the Beatific Vision after death. But as
was just indicated, St. Thomas would answer that in knowing Ideas I know
only the divine essence as participable by creatures and not the divine essence
in itself, apart from its being participated in by creatures. That is to say, I
know the divine essence relatively to creatures and not absolutely. So the
same distinction that serves to answer to the first objection that the plurality

Being

of Ideas is incompatible with God’s simplicity serves to answer the second
objection of ontologism.

THE CONCEPT OF GOOD

This chapter is incomplete without recurring to the idea of teleology in
Aquinas, especially as it is linked to the act of existence. This calls for ex-
amining the idea of good in Aquinas and showing how it is related to esse.

Aquinas’s account of ‘good’ in several respects parallels his treatment of

‘true.’ ‘Good,’ like ‘true,’ is a categorial property. Any real thing, no matter
what category it falls under, is good, just as any real thing, no matter which
category it belongs to, is true. Moreover, like ‘true,’ ‘good’ does not add any-
thing real to being but only something conceptual. Aquinas states that some-
thing, A, can be added to another thing, B, in three ways. First, A is an acci-
dent of B and so is outside the essence of B. Second, A delimits or restricts
B, as human delimits or restricts animal by the difference rational. Third, A is
added to B according to reason. Thus, being blind, which is outside the
essence of human, is predicated of some human. Nonetheless, being blind sig-
nifies nothing in reality but is a privation in a human being, namely, the ab-
sence of sight. And privations are beings of reason only.

Like true, ‘good’ does not add to being in either the first or the second

sense. For accident is outside of essence and difference is outside of genus.
But since outside of being is nothing, good does not add to being as an acci-
dent or a difference. Nor does ‘good’ add to being by limiting or contracting
being. This is the way a category adds to being. Each one of the ten categories
adds to being by limiting, contracting or restricting being. But a category does
not do this like a difference. Otherwise being would be a genus and outside
being taken as a genus is nothing. Instead, a category limits, contracts or re-
stricts being by being a determinate mode of existence.

Thus, since being is

not in the first place univocally predicated of substance, quality, quantity, etc.,
it cannot be said that, in adding something to being, a category adds some-
thing to the genus being. In other words, the objection cannot be made that a
category cannot add something real to being (since outside being is nothing).
For this objection assumes that being is a genus and it is not.

Nonetheless, ‘good’ does not add to being the way a category does. And

this, says Aquinas, for the simple reason that good divides into the ten cate-
gories just as being does.

For ‘good,’ just like ‘true,’ is a transcendental. And

that means that ‘good’ is found in all the categories. If good is not a category
but is found in all the categories, then ‘good’ does not add to being in the
manner of a category.

Chapter Two

‘Good’ is like ‘true’ not only in adding to being something conceptual and

not real but also in adding to being some relation.

But the relation is differ-

ent in each case. Being is called true because it is related to intellect. But be-
ing is called good because something else that is oriented to it.

But that to

which something is oriented is an end. So something is good to the extent that
it is end. But something is end to the extent that it perfects that of which it is
the end. Thus, health, which is the end of a physician’s activities, is the per-
fection of those activities. Hence, good is a perfection toward which some-
thing tends or is oriented. But further, something perfects that of which it is
end to the extent that it is act with respect to potentiality. Thus, a state of
health in a patient is the actualization of the potentiality in the physician’s ac-
tivities to produce health in that patient. Therefore, something is good to the
extent that it is act.

Being is end with respect to something oriented to it either as essence or as

existence. As regards the former, all material beings are composed of primal
matter. But primal matter is nothing but orientation to form. And form here is
essence or nature. So any material being such as a tree or a toad is called good
just because, as essence or form, it is end with respect to its own matter. But
it is important to point out here that the matter of anything is oriented to its
form or essence only because that form or essence exists. Goodness is conse-
quent upon essence or form only to the extent that the latter is existentially re-
alized in some thing. In this, goodness differs from truth. Truth is consequent
upon essence or intelligible specificity alone, regardless of whether or not the
latter really exists. Some essence or form is called true because it is con-
formable to by intellect, even though that essence or form is a mere possible,
having no real existence. For example, suppose some endangered species,
say, the whale, ceases to exist. Still, the form or essence whale is called true
because, in knowing what a whale is, our intellects are conformable to whale-
hood. But according to Aquinas, that same essence whalehood could not be
called good when whales have ceased to be. It can only be called good when
it is existentially realized in whales. Socrates would gain no good or perfec-
tion from the form wisdom unless Socrates were wise. That is what Aquinas
means when, contrasting truth and goodness, he says that while truth belongs
to intellect, goodness belongs to things.

He approvingly refers to Boethius’

statement to the effect that a thing is said to be good in virtue of its own act
of existing.

This link between goodness and existence explains why Aquinas follows

Aristotle in denying that goodness is found in mathematics. For mathematics
deals with purely conceptual entities, i.e. entities that are abstracted from real
being. Where there is abstraction from being in the sense of existence there is
no goodness. Thus, though abstract notions like line and number are true

Being

(since, in being known, they are conformed to by intellect), they are not good.
Final causality has no place in mathematics. Nothing in mathematics is
proved by final cause, says Aristotle.

This gives rise to an objection. If being is found in mathematics but not

goodness, then being and good are not perfectly convertible. But it is
Aquinas’s view that being and good are perfectly convertible. To this St.
Thomas replies by making a distinction.

The objects with which mathemat-

ics deal are good when they are considered as existing in things. Numbers as
existing in things such as five apples or seven pears are good as are lines that
indicate yards on a football field. For it is real and not conceptual being that
is here concerned. But numbers and lines as considered by mathematicians
have conceptual and not real being. But when it is said that being and good-
ness are convertible, ‘being’ refers only to real being and not to conceptual
being.

But the paradox is that, though good is in things and truth is in intellect,

truth is prior to goodness. Since both true and good follow on and include be-
ing, being is prior to them both. But truth is closer to being than goodness.
Therefore, truth is prior to goodness.

In behalf of the first premise, Aquinas

would say that truth by definition is the conformity of intellect and being and
goodness is by definition being in the sense of end or fulfillment. So being
enters into the definitions of both truth and goodness. As for the second prem-
ise, Aquinas says first that if there is some mode of being in which there is
truth but not goodness then truth is closer to being than goodness. But this is
in fact the case. Mathematical essences such as line and number are true be-
cause they are knowable. But they are not good since, as was said, they lack
real being. Second and what is really behind the first reason, true is closer to
being than goodness because true follows on being in any sense of being
while good follows on being as in some way perfected. Thus, true follows im-
mediately on being while good does not. This comes down to saying that true
follows even on possible being or essence while good follows only on actual
being or existence. For even possible being is knowable while, since no mere
possible being is perfect (since it is not fulfilled or actualized), no mere pos-
sible being is good.

If something is good to the extent that it is end, then to know what end is

is to know what good is. End, of course, is a relational notion. End is not only
related to means but it is also related to the subject of which it is the end. An
acorn is the subject that has an oak as its end. At the same time, activities that
take place in the acorn are means to the end in question. Looked at in relation
to its subject, any end is the actualization or fulfillment of that subject. It is to
its subject as the actualization of an orientation is to that orientation. Stated
differently, end is act with respect to potentiality. And since act perfects and

Chapter Two

fulfills potentiality, it follows that end perfects and fulfills the subject whose
end it is. If, therefore, good has the nature of an end, it follows that to the ex-
tent that any being is good it perfects and is act with respect to some poten-
tiality. After noting that whatever has the nature of an end also has the nature
of goodness, Aquinas says,

. . . Two things, however, pertain to the nature of an end: 1) that it be sought af-
ter or desired by those things that have not yet attained it, and 2) that it be loved
by, and as it were lovable to, those things which share in its possession; for it
pertains to the same nature to tend toward its end, and in some way to rest in it.
. . . Now these two things belong to the very act of existing. For those things
which do not yet have this act tend toward it by a certain natural appetite. Thus
matter, as the Philosopher says, desires form. All things that presently have ex-
istence, however, naturally love that existence, and preserve it with all their
power. . . .

But to continue, if good is act with respect to potentiality which it perfects,

then the higher a thing is act the higher the sense in which it is good. And
since good has the nature of an end, the higher the sense in which something
is act, the higher the sense in which it is end. But it was stated that existence
is act in a higher sense than essence. For though it is act with respect to mat-
ter, essence is potentiality with respect to the act of existence. But since exis-
tence is not potentiality with respect to some further act, it is the act of all
acts.

But since in the view of Aquinas God’s essence is to be, God is act

alone without potentiality. It follows that God is in the highest sense end and
good. Thus,

1. Something is good to the extent that it is end.
2. Something is end to the extent that it perfects that of which it is the end.
3. But something perfects that of which it is the end to the extent that it is

form or act.

4. So, something is good to the extent that it is form or act.
5. But existence is the act of all acts.
6. So a thing is most properly good to the extent that it exists.
7. But only God is His own being or act of existence.
8. Therefore, only God is ultimately good or goodness itself.

Coming to a similar conclusion differently, one can say:

A. The being (esse) of any contingent thing is the fulfillment or perfection of

its essence.

B. But the fulfillment or perfection of a contingent being is its good.

Being

C. So the being of any contingent being is its good.
D. But in God, the non-contingent being, there is no division of what fulfills

or perfects and what is fulfilled or perfected. That is because God’s essence
is His being.

E. So in God there is no division of good and what is perfected by good.

There is just good.

F. Therefore, God is the highest good or goodness without any mixture of

non-good.

NOTES

1. Aquinas, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, trans. J.P. Rowan

(Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1961), I.L.9:C 138.

2. ———, Commentary on the Trinity of Boethius, q5 a1 in J.F.Anderson, ed., An

Introduction to the Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas (Chicago: Henry Regnery,
1953), 7–8.

3. ———, On Being and Essence, trans. A. Maurer (Toronto: Pontifical Institute

of Medieval Studies, 1949). 2, 35.

4. ———, On Being and Essence 1, 26.
5. ———, On Being and Essence 1, 28.
6. ———, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, IV, L.1: C 539, 218–19.
7. ———, Commentary, V.L9:C 885–7, 344–5.
8. ———, Commentary, IV.L.4: C 574.
9. ———, Commentary, V.L.9:C 885, 344; ———,On Being and Essence, 1, 26.

10. ———, On Being and Essence, 1, 26–7.
11. ———, Commentary, V.L.9: C 897, 347.
12. ———, Commentary, VII.L1:C 1245, 488.
13. ———, Commentary, V.L.9: C 897, 347.
14. ———, Commentary, IV.L1:C 539–40, 218–19.
15. ———, Commentary, VI.L.4: C 1241, 483.
16. ———, Commentary, V.L.9:C 895,346–7;———, Commentary, IX.L.11:C

1898, 700.

17. ———, Commentary, VI.L.4:C 1227, 480.
18. ———, Commentary, VI.L.4:C 1242, 483.
19. ———, Commentary, IV.L4: C 574, 232.
20. ———, Commentary, VII.L1: C 1256, 491.
21. ———, Commentary, V.L.9: C 896, 347.
22. ———, Quodlibetal Questions in J.F.Anderson, ed. An Introduction to the

Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas (Chicago:Henry Regnery, 1953), II q2 a3, 26.

23. ———, On Being and Essence, 1, 27.
24. ———, On Being and Essence, 4, 45–6.

Chapter Two

25. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith, (Lon-

don: Macmillan, 1958), B628, 505–6.

26. ———, Critique, A600; B628, 505–6.
27. Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, Book Two: Creation, trans. J.F. Anderson,

(Garden City, NY.: Doubleday, 1955), 53 [4], 156.

28. ———, Commentary, VII.L.3: C 1313, 506–7.
29. ———, On Being and Essence, 1, 28.
30. ———, Commentary, VII. L.9: C 1467–69, 556.
31. ———, On Being and Essence, 1, 26–7.
32. ———, Disputed Questions on the Power of God, q7 a2: reply obj.9. in J.F.An-

derson, ed. An Introduction to the Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas, 22.

33. ———,Commentary, I. L.10: C 154, 64.
34. ———, Summa theologica, trans. A. Pegis, (New York:The Modern Library,

1948), I q44 a3 obj.2, 238.

35. ———, Commentary, I.L.10: C 158, 65–6; ———, Summa theologica, I q84 a2,

380–83.

36. ———, On Being and Essence, 4, 42.
37. ———,On Being and Essence, 2, 35–36.
38. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. Pears and
McGuinness (London:Routledge & Kegan Paul,1961), 3.23, 23; 2.021–2.0211, 11.
39. Plato, Timaeus, in B. Jowett, trans. The Dialogues of Plato (Oxford: The

Clarendon Press, 1953), vol. III, 28a-29a, 716.

40. ———, Summa theologica, ed. Pegis, I q15 a2, 164.
41. ———, Summa theologica I q15 a2, 164.
42. Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. W.D.Ross, in Richard McKeon, ed.The Basic

Works of Aristotle, (New York: Random House, 1941), 1059b8, 851.

43. A. E. Taylor, Plato: the Man and his Work, (New York: Meridian, 1958), 356.
44. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1059b1–9, 851.
45. Aquinas, Commentary, I.L.14: C 222, 91–2.
46. ———, Commentary, I.L.14: C 222, 91–2.
47. ———, Commentary, I.L.14: C 223, 92
48. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 990b 6–7, 706.
49. Aquinas, Commentary, I.L.14: C 221–222, 91–2.
50. ———, Commentary, VII. L5: C 1370,524.
51. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 991a, 707–08.
52. ———, Metaphysics, 991a 9–26, 707–08.
53. Aquinas, Commentary, I. L.14: C 223, 92.
54. ———, Summa theologiae I-II q93, a1, 629.
55. Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Truth, in J.F. Anderson, ed. An Introduction to

the Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas, q21 a1, 75.

56. ———, Disputed Questions on Truth, q21 a1, 75–6.
57. ———, Disputed Questions on Truth, q21 a1, 77.
58. ———, Disputed Questions on Truth, q21 a1, 77–8
59. ———, Disputed Questions on Truth, q21 a1, 77.

Being

60. ———, Disputed Questions on Truth, q21 a2 reply obj.8, 85.
61. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 996a 29.
62. Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Truth, in J.F. Anderson, ed. An introduction to

the Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas, q21 a2 reply obj.4, 82.

63. ———, Summa theologica, I q16 a4, 174–175.
64. ———, Disputed Questions on Truth, q21 a2, 83.
65. ———, Disputed Questions On the Power of God, in J. F. Anderson, ed., An In-

troduction to the Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas, q7 a2 reply obj.9, 22.

Chapter Two

TWO DEFINITIONS OF CORRESPONDENCE

Truth in Aquinas is either the conformity of mind to thing or the conformity
of thing to mind. That is why, following Isaac Israeli, Aquinas defines truth
as the adequation of thought and thing and not either as the conformity of
thought to thing or of thing to thought. Placing the connective ‘and’ in the
definition makes the definition applicable to truth under either aspect.

It al-

lows the relation of conformity to run in either direction. But inserting the
preposition ‘to’ between ‘thought’ and ‘thing’ disallows that reciprocity. The
definition is then too narrow to catch truth under both aspects.

Truth as the conformity of thought to thing might be called the realist as-

pect of truth. For under it truth is the conformity of our judgments to what is
independent of our minds. If the latter is called the independently real, it can
be said that for Aquinas whenever there is conformity of our judgments to the
independently real there is truth. Under this aspect, truth resides in mind and
not in things. It is our judgments that are true when and only when they mir-
ror the world. My judgment that grass is green is true just because it corre-
sponds to a fact, i.e. the fact that grass is green. My statement to the effect that
grass is green, where by ‘statement’ it is meant the assertive use of a sentence,
is called true in the view of Aquinas only secondarily speaking, i.e. only be-
cause it expresses the true judgment that grass is green.

Truth as the conformity of thing to thought might be called the idealist as-

pect of truth. For here the measure of truth is thought and not thing. This is
not to be understood along Kantian lines. Aquinas would not have endorsed
Kant’s Copernican revolution. Nor is it to be construed as being idealist in the
sense of being an Hegelian or coherentist theory of truth. Instead, by saying

Chapter Three

Truth

that truth is sometimes the conformity of thing to thought Aquinas means ei-
ther one of three things: i) that artifacts are called true because they conform
to ideal models in the minds of artists or crafts-persons or ii) that natural
things are called true because they conform to the Ideas of those things in
God’s mind and iii) that words are called true because they conform to the be-
liefs of the speaker or writer. As to the latter, suppose that I say what is true
while believing it to be false. Then what I say is propositionally true but
morally false. In any case, i) is practical truth, ii) is ontological truth and iii)
is moral truth. These three truths consist in the conformity of the outer to the
inner or of thing to mind, whereas the truth of judgment consists in the con-
formity of the inner to the outer or of mind to thing. Ontological truth or the
theory of divine Ideas is a dominant theme in St. Augustine, St. Anselm, and
St. Bonaventure. It is ultimately traced to Plotinus for whom natural things
are modeled after their eternal ideas in Nous, the first emanation from the
One. History aside, the point is that for Aquinas truth is in mind either a) as
conformed to the real or b) as that to which the real conforms. The former is
the truth of judgments while the latter is either the truth of things, natural or
artifactual, or moral truth.

A NOMINALIST OBJECTION

Nominalist defenders of the correspondence theory would object that
Aquinas’s account of correspondence is too broad. The relation of correspon-
dence does not run in both directions but only in one. Following Aristotle,
they say that of the various referents of ‘true,’ only one of them, i.e. a state-
ment or a judgment, is called true in a straightforward sense. Artifacts and
natural things are called true only in a derived sense i.e. only because true
statements can be made about them. ‘True’ is thus what Aristotle calls equiv-
ocal pros hen. Gold is called true because it is the ground of the true state-
ment or judgment, “That is gold.” An artifact is called true only because, once
again, it is the ground of a true statement or judgment that either is or can be
made about it. When an art-expert picks out the real Mona Lisa from various
reproductions, he might refer to it as “the true one.” It is so called by him only
because it is the ground of the true statement, “That is the Mona Lisa.”

Which one of these definitions of correspondence is correct, the broader

one of Aquinas or the narrower one of Aristotle? Is something called false
gold only because it elicits the false judgment, “That is gold” or is something
called false gold simply because it fails to conform to the idea of gold?

From

what was said, this comes down to asking whether ‘false’ in expressions like
‘false gold,’ ‘false teeth’ ‘false bottom’ etc. is equivocal pros hen or not.

Chapter Three

The narrower definition is consistent with nominalism while the broader

one is not. To say that something is called false gold only because it tends to
cause the false judgment, “That is gold” carries no commitment to universals
either in re or in mente. But to say that something is called false gold because
it fails to conform to the standard of goldness implies that universals exist at
least in minds. That is why Aristotle’s device of pros hen equivocity might be
viewed as a minimalist tactic under the strategy of Ockham’s Razor. The rule
that defines the device might be called the rule of derivative predication (DP).
Thus,

For any predicate G, G is attributed to x derivatively or pros hen in some con-
text c just when the sense of G in c includes some relation in which x stands to
the primary referent of G

In the expressions ‘false gold and ‘true diamond’ ‘false’ and ‘true’ are un-

der the narrower definition construed as exemplifying DP. Something is
called false gold only because it elicits the false judgment, “That is gold” and
something is called a true diamond only because it elicits the true judgment,
“That is a diamond.”

THE OBJECTION ANSWERED

To return, then, to the question, is the narrower or the broader definition of
correspondence correct? Is something called false gold because it elicits the
false judgment “That is gold” or is it called false gold simply because it fails
to conform to the idea of gold?

A clue to the answer comes from noting the restrictiveness of DP. Under

DP ‘true’ cannot be attributed to any non-judgment y whatsoever without in-
cluding in its sense some relation in which y stands to a true judgment. Coun-
terexamples to this, though, are easily cited. Not all non-judgments are called
false only because, masquerading as something else, they elicit a false judg-
ment about that non-judgment. Suppose Phidias makes a false start on the
way to making the Athene. When he tells friends that the botched attempt they
see is a false start on the way to the true Athene, everyone understands what
is meant. The start is called false simply because it fails to conform to
Phidias’ ideal model. Otherwise he should not have abandoned it. It is not
called false because it elicits the false judgment or statement, “This is the
Athene.” For no one but Phidias is in a position to make that judgment since

Truth

no one but Phidias is acquainted with Phidias’s ideal model. Nor would
Phidias himself make that judgment since he evidently is acquainted with his
own model. Clearly, the start is called false simply and straightforwardly be-
cause it fails to match Phidias’s ideal pattern.

But if that is so, then as against DP, it cannot be said that, when called false,

any non-statement whatsoever includes in its sense the idea of a false state-
ment. But since DP would hold if ‘false’ (and ‘true’) were equivocal pros hen
which apply strictly to statements alone, it follows that ‘true’ and ‘false’ are
not equivocal pros hen terms which apply primarily to statements or judg-
ments and derivatively to everything else. DP is just too narrow to catch all
cases in which ‘false’ (and hence ‘true’) are attributed to non-statements or
non-judgments. But in that case Aquinas’s broader definition of correspon-
dence is defended.

TRUTH AND KNOWLEDGE

If on its realist side truth is the conformity of mind to thing, how does
Aquinas distinguish truth from knowledge? For knowledge too, according to
him, is the conformity of mind to thing.

As might be expected, his answer is that while knowing that something is

the case entails truth, it does not work the other way around. One can evi-
dently truly believe that something is the case without knowing that it is the
case. And this belief is true in the straightforward sense of the term. In this
sense is truth independent of knowledge. However, one’s knowing that some-
thing is the case does entail one’s truly judging it to be the case. Yet truth is
not entirely independent of knowledge, in the view of Aquinas. For it is a con-
dition of true belief which is not knowledge that the believer is acquainted
with, and in that sense knows, the subject of the belief. My true belief that
Jones is a millionaire presupposes that I am acquainted with Jones, and my
true belief that dogs have a keener sense of smell than humans presupposes
that I know, however inchoately, what dogs are. In each case this knowledge
is not knowledge that but knowledge what, i.e. simple apprehension or ac-
quaintance. Aquinas characterizes these cases of true belief which fall short
of being knowledge that as cases of true knowledge. Here, ‘true’ refers to the
truth of the belief or judgment while ‘knowledge’ refers not to knowledge that
but to the simple apprehension or acquaintance which the believer has with
the subject of the belief or judgment.

To true knowledge Aquinas opposes false knowledge. This is no contra-

diction in terms. Like true knowledge, false knowledge also occurs only in
judgment. It occurs only when I have some non-judgmental knowledge of

Chapter Three

what a thing is but make a mistake about one of its properties.

All judgments

presuppose and include this non-judgmental knowledge on the part of the
judger. This is the apprehension of simple essences. In this function intellect
is never false. We either apprehend a simple essence or we are entirely igno-
rant of it.

Simple apprehension is thus like what Russell called knowledge by

acquaintance.

You are either acquainted with green or, like a blind person,

you are altogether ignorant of it. There can no more be false simple appre-
hension than there can be false acquaintance. Falsity enters in only when, in
judgment, mind moves from the sphere of essence to that of existence. Here,
mind does not deal just with essence, but with the composite of essence and
existence. For unlike simple apprehension which intends essence, judgment
intends existence. And when it does do this in judgment, mind can be wrong
about the contingent accidents of a thing, i.e. those accidents that arise out of
a thing’s relations to other things in actual existence. And since the latter are
other than its proper object, essence, mind can be mistaken about them.

In any case, an example of how what Aquinas calls false knowledge oc-

curs is as follows. Suppose I have seen many swans over a period of years
and on that basis judge (falsely) that all swans are white. Aquinas would say
that it is a condition of my even falsely judging that all swans are white that
I know or am acquainted with the simple essence of a swan. It is just that it
is not on that essence that I focus. Unlike the simple apprehension of swan,
the false judgment, “All swans are white” has as its object not the essence
swan per se but that essence as mixed with the accidental property of being
white. It focuses not on swan simply but on the composite of white swan. It
has as its object not just swan but swan as mixed with existence or facticity.
For a swan’s being white is evidently not due to the simple essence of swan
(otherwise there are no black swans) but to existential factors that are acci-
dental to essence. It is similar to the case of sight that sees not just white
when it sees the submerged oar but white as mixed with a certain bent shape
on which it focuses and which is accidental to white. In any event, focusing
on swan as white instead of on some white thing as swan, I go beyond my
simple apprehension of swan. In so doing I set up the possibility of falsely
judging that all swans are white. Due to my focus on the accidental com-
posite as opposed to the essential simple, I run the risk of taking the acci-
dental for the essential. And I do actually confuse the two when I judge that
all swans are white. By analogy, due to its focus on the shape of the colored
oar as opposed to its color, sight induces the false judgment that the oar is
bent. All the same, the irony is that this false judgment “All swans are white”
(as well as every other false judgment) presupposes and includes knowledge
of simple essences. And that is why Aquinas consistently speaks of false
judgment as being false knowledge.

Just as every evil is founded in some

Truth

good since evil is a privation in something that is good, so too is every fal-
sity founded in some truth. For false judgment is a privation in some mind
that truly apprehends those simple essences that figure in every false (and
true) judgment.

Thus, suppose that I judge that condors nest in valleys. Here the logical

combination of subject and predicate fails to conform to any real combination
of substance and accident. As a result, the judgment is false. But even this
false judgment presupposes knowledge on my part. It presupposes knowledge
of condors by simple apprehension. All false judgment presupposes some
knowledge of the thing about which the judgment is made. With Royce
Aquinas insists that one can be wrong only about what one is acquainted with,
however imprecise that acquaintance might be.

By the same token, whenever one judges that S is not P one removes from

the thing signified by the subject some form that is signified by the predi-
cate.

In so doing one judges that the thing signified by the subject fails to

conform to the form that is signified by the predicate. When the judgment is
true, then the thing signified by the subject really does fail to conform to the
form signified by the predicate. And then one not only knows something
about S when one judges that S is not P but one also knows the likeness of
the thing signified by S to the idea one has of it, i.e. the idea of its not being
P. But when the judgment is false, then the thing signified by the subject does
not fail to conform to the form signified by the predicate as the judgment
specifies. And then one not only fails to know something about S when one
judges that S is not P but one also fails to know the likeness of the thing sig-
nified by S to the idea one has of it, i.e. the idea of its not being P. For the
judgment being false, there is no such likeness to begin with. Even so, one is
conscious of the apparent conformity of the thing to one’s concept of it in the
false negative judgment S is not P just as one is in the case of the false posi-
tive judgment S is P.

In the sense of the conformity of mind to thing, then, truth is strictly speak-

ing found only in judgment.

And it is this judgmental or propositional truth

that fails to entail knowledge-that, as was said. It is only in a secondary sense
that truth is found in the first apprehension we have of a thing or in the sense
perception we have of a thing. We can in a manner of speaking call concepts
or percepts true when they conform to a thing, but strictly speaking it is only
judgments or propositions that are called true. Thus, suppose that for the first
time I am acquainted with condors. This is not truth in the strict sense, even
though it is a kind of knowledge, i.e. knowledge by acquaintance. For in the
mere acquaintance or simple apprehension of a thing I make no claim about
how a thing really is and it is only when I make such claims that the question

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of truth or falsity strictly speaking arises. And making claims about how
things really are occurs only in judgments.

At the outset, my knowledge of things, say of condors, is vague and im-

precise. It is knowledge by acquaintance or simple apprehension. This is the
first act of the mind. But suppose that my knowledge of condors increases so
that I come to know more about them. This new knowledge might include,
say, the knowledge that condors nest on high cliffs. This added knowledge of
condors is had only in my judgment to that effect. Thus, in addition to and
later than our first apprehension of a thing is our knowledge about that thing.
This second act of the mind is achieved in and through judgments or propo-
sitions. And it is in these judgments, as was said, that truth in the sense of the
conformity of mind to thing is strictly speaking found.

Not that it is the act

of judging itself that is true but rather the complex of that act together with
the state of affairs that is judged. When I judge that condors nest on high
cliffs, what is true is neither the state of affairs of condors nesting on high
cliffs taken as such nor the mental act of judging taken as such. It is the com-
posite of the two. Otherwise truth is falsely predicated of the real and of the
merely psychological, respectively.

In any case, when through the logical combination of subject and predicate

in judgment I affirm some combination in reality, then for the first time is
something (i.e. the judgment) properly speaking true when truth means the
conformity of mind to thing. All other cases of such conformity, be they the
conformity of idea to essence or of sense to object sensed, are true in a sec-
ondary sense of the term. Moreover, the real combination that true judgment
reflects might be one of form and matter, as, say, the composite of condor-
hood in this matter. Or it might be, as in “Condors nest on high cliffs,” the
composite of accident and substance.

In either case, truth is present only

when I mirror these real combinations in and through the judgments, “This is
a condor” and “Condors nest on high cliffs,” respectively.

KNOWLEDGE OF TRUTH AS PERFECTING INTELLECT

Now as with anything else, intellect is perfected when it actually knows
something as over against only potentially knowing it. For the actual is prior
to the potential. At the same time, Aquinas states that truth is the end of the
intellect and the end of a thing is its good or perfection. It follows that the in-
tellect is perfected when it has truth and that its having truth is simultaneously
a state of knowledge. Truth, then, is always knowledge of some sort, though
not, to be sure, always knowledge-that. For as was said, Aquinas recognizes

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the difference between mere true belief that P and knowledge that P. Truth in
any sense of the term implies knowledge in some sense of the term (i.e.
knowledge-what or knowledge-that) and truth in some specific sense of the
term, say, a true judgment or a true idea, implies knowledge in some sense of
the term. By the same token, knowledge in any sense of the term, be it knowl-
edge-what or knowledge-that, implies truth in some sense of the term. Thus,
knowledge-what and knowledge-that imply the truth of ideas and the truth of
judgment, respectively. And knowledge in some sense of the term implies
truth in some specific sense of the term. Thus knowledge of essence or of
what something is implies the truth of ideas and knowledge of fact or knowl-
edge-that implies the truth of judgment.

From all this it follows that the end or perfection of the intellect is not just

truth but truth as known. And that is just what Aquinas states.

For the intel-

lect is true in a straightforward sense of ‘true’ when it has true belief. Yet
since this mere true belief falls short of being knowledge and it is better for
the intellect to know than merely to believe, then it is not just truth that is the
end and good of the intellect but truth as known.

This knowledge of truth is achieved, says Aquinas, only in judgment and

only in those judgments in which the judger knows that the object of judg-
ment conforms to his own idea of it. I have knowledge of truth and not just
truth when in judging that S is P I know that what S signifies conforms to
my idea of it in the predicate P. Thus, in truth as known, the mind knows its
own conformity to the thing known. This occurs only in knowledge-that and
not either in sense perception or in simple apprehension.

Thus, suppose

that I judge that a whole is greater than any one of its parts. Then, says
Aquinas, I not only know this but in knowing it I know the conformity of the
thing known, i.e. a whole, to my own idea of it. In short, I have knowledge
of truth. By contrast, suppose that I judge truly but without knowledge that
Jones has left town. Though my judgment is straightforwardly and strictly
speaking true, I fail to apprehend the conformity between Jones and my idea
about him. Thus, while truth is in my intellect knowledge of truth or truth as
known is not.

Mind is perfected in another way too in judgment. For in the view of

Aquinas true judgment has the function of amplifying the knowledge of a
thing that is gained by simple apprehension. In so doing it is perfective of
simple apprehension. To spell it out, it belongs to the nature of a material
thing, says Aquinas, to exist in some individual.

Thus, it belongs to the na-

ture of a stone to exist in an individual stone. But in simple apprehension the
nature of a material thing is known as abstracted from existence in an indi-
vidual thing. In simply apprehending the nature of stone, I abstract from the
existence it has in this or that individual stone. Since, then, it belongs to the

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nature of material things to be in individual things and since that is not how
those natures are known in simple apprehension, it follows that the mind
needs to return to the phantasms or images of such things in order to have
more complete and accurate knowledge of material natures. But this return to
the phantasm is accomplished by judgment.

In judging that this object is a

stone the mind overcomes the abstractness of the simple apprehension of
stone and predicates that nature of an individual. In so doing it knows stone
according to its nature since it now knows stone as existing in a particular
stone.

TRUTH AND MIND

Since, then, truth in the sense of conformity to thing is always for Aquinas a
conformity of mind to thing, it follows that truth in that sense is in mind.
Moreover, since for him truth in that same sense is strictly speaking predica-
ble of judgments and judgments, as beings of reason, are in minds, it follows
that truth is in minds. Finally, that truth is in mind and not in things is shown
by falsity.

Being contraries, truth and falsity are found in the same thing.

But since falsity is in mind and not in things, so too is truth. That falsity is in
minds is shown by its being a privation. Aquinas holds that like evil, blind-
ness, or deafness, falsity is not either a thing in its own right or even some
real accident of a thing. It is instead the absence of some character or relation
in a thing which, if present, would make it better than it is. Intellect is false
just when its judgment fails to conform to the facts, i.e. when it lacks that con-
formity which, if present, would bring it more in line with its end. For its end
is truth as known and truth as known includes truth and excludes falsehood.
Thus, falsity is the privation in mind of something which mind naturally
ought to have.

Whenever one judges that S is P one claims that the thing signified by the

subject conforms to the predicate. And since a predicate signifies a form of the
thing as apprehended by the mind, then in judging that S is P one affirms that
the thing signified by the subject conforms to one’s idea of it in mente. When
the judgment is true, then the thing signified by the subject really does con-
form to the predicate, though one knows that conformity only in those judg-
ments that convey knowledge of truth or truth as known. But when the judg-
ment is false the thing signified by the subject does not, of course, conform to
our idea of it in the predicate. In false judgment, therefore, there is no second-
order knowledge of the likeness of the thing known to the idea of it in the mind
since there is no such likeness to begin with. Nonetheless, even in falsely judg-
ing that S is P I not only assert something about S but I also allege that the

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thing signified by S conforms to how I understand it in and through the pred-
icate P. I claim not only that S has the property P but also (and because of that)
that the thing signified by S conforms to the way I understand it.

Thus, even

in false judgment, says Aquinas, the difference between judging and sensing is
clear. A particular sense perception may be illusory. But the sense power in
question is neither conscious of nor does it affirm that the thing sensed con-
forms to the way it senses it. But even when one falsely judges that S is P one
is simultaneously conscious of one’s own false knowledge i.e. of the alleged
conformity of the thing to one’s own idea of it.

Thus, false judgment claims

second-order or reflective knowing just as true judgment does.

In any event, the following passages indicate the views of Aquinas i) that

truth in us is not just first-order knowledge of the thing known but also sec-
ond-order knowledge of the likeness of the thing known to our concept of it
and ii) that judgment is the bearer of this truth. Contrasting simple apprehen-
sion and judgment Aquinas says,

And although the intellect has within itself a likeness of the things known ac-
cording as it forms concepts of incomplex things, it does not for that reason
make a judgment about this likeness. This occurs only when it combines or sep-
arates. For when the intellect forms a concept of mortal rational animal, it has
within itself a likeness of man; but it does not for that reason know that it has
this likeness, since it does not judge that “Man is a mortal rational animal.”
There is truth and falsity, then, only in this second operation of intellect, ac-
cording to which it not only possesses a likeness of the thing known but also re-
flects on this likeness by knowing it and by making a judgment about it. Hence
it is evident from this that truth is not found in things but only in the mind, and
that depends upon combination and separation.

And once again,

. . . For although sight has the likeness of a visible thing, yet it does not know the
comparison which exists between the thing seen and that which it itself is appre-
hending concerning it. But the intellect can know its own conformity with the in-
telligible thing; yet it does not apprehend it by knowing of a thing what a thing
is. When, however, it judges that a thing corresponds to the form which it appre-
hends about the thing, then it knows and expresses truth. This it does by com-
posing and dividing: for in every proposition it either applies to, or removes from,
the thing signified by the subject some form signified by the predicate. . . .

JUDGMENT AND REASON VERSUS INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE

Moreover, Aquinas thinks that we require both judgment and reasoning as
compensation for and as aids to our inadequate intuitive or apprehensive

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power. It is due to the weakness of the intellectual light of our understanding
in apprehending the essences of things that our intellects need to function
judgmentally and discursively.

True, we know something of the essence of

a material thing in simple apprehension. But our intellectual intuition is lim-
ited. Unlike God or angels, we cannot grasp all at once everything that is vir-
tually contained in those essences.

We can only do this in stages and by acts

other than intuition or simple apprehension. In and through these follow-up
acts, i.e. the composing and dividing of judgment and the deduction of rea-
son, we gradually advance and perfect the imperfect knowledge that is first
had in simple apprehension.

Thus, knowledge acquired by apprehension is

perfected by knowledge gained by composing and dividing in true judg-
ment.

And the knowledge gained by true judgment is in turn perfected by

the knowledge achieved when from these same true judgments true conclu-
sions are drawn by reason. Thus,

. . . the human intellect does not acquire perfect knowledge of a thing by first ap-
prehension; but it first apprehends something of the thing, such as its quiddity,
which is the first and proper object of the intellect; and then it understands the prop-
erties, accidents, and various dispositions affecting the essence. Thus it necessarily
relates one thing to another by composition and division; and from one composi-
tion and division it necessarily proceeds to another, and this is reasoning.

SIMPLE APPREHENSION, JUDGMENT

AND REASON COMPARED

Finally, since for Aquinas the perfection of a thing is its good and the good of
anything is its end, it can be said that true judgment is the end and good of
simple apprehension even as reason is the end and good of true judgment. As
apprehension is for the sake of true judgment, and true judgment is for the
sake of sound reasoning, it follows that the crowning perfection of the human
mind consists in its discursive function, in its correctly drawing conclusions
from true premises.

This is reflected in Aquinas’s definition of a human being. In any defini-

tion the difference is taken from form where ‘form’ has the sense of the end,
good or perfection of the definiendum. Thus, animal is defined as the sentient
organism because sentience is form in the sense of the entelechy or perfection
of animal. Going by this view of definition, Aquinas defines a human being
as the rational animal. But by ‘rational’ here Aquinas has something rather
specific in mind. He does not mean by it simply having the power of abstract
thought. ‘Rational’ for him is taken from ‘reason’ and reason in Aquinas al-
ways refers to the discursive power, i.e. the power of deducing conclusions
from principles. To define a human being as the rational animal is therefore

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to say that the power of reasoning, i.e. of advancing from principles to the
conclusions that are implied by those principles, is the end and perfection of
persons taken just as persons.

JUDGMENT AND EXISTENCE

From the fact that it belongs to the nature of material things to exist in indi-
viduals and from the fact that this proper existential knowledge of material
natures is achieved only when mind returns to the phantasm in judgment, it
follows in the view of Aquinas that all true judgments affirm existence. This
also follows from the status of judgment as second-order knowledge of the
conformity of a thing taken as subject to our concept of it in the predicate.
When I judge that Washington defeated the British at Yorktown, I claim that
Washington conforms to the idea I have of him as being the one who won that
battle. And when I judge that Washington did not sign the Declaration of In-
dependence I affirm that our First President conforms to the idea I have of
him as being a non-signer of that document. What we always do in judgment
is to say that some particular thing (or things) accords with the way we un-
derstand that thing in and through our abstract concept of it. Thus, all judg-
ment is a comparison whereby we affirm that some thing conforms to our
concept of it. When we do this, the thing we compare to our concept of it be-
comes subject and the concept to which we compare it becomes predicate.
Thus, a subject is not the thing itself but the thing taken as related to our con-
cept of it. And a predicate is not the mere abstract concept itself but the con-
cept to which some particular thing (or things) is said to conform. By this
comparison of subject to predicate we overcome the abstractness that the lat-
ter has as a mere concept by affirming that some particular thing (or things)
exemplifies that concept. Concepts thus cease to be the merely abstract ideas
of simple apprehension when they are put to use and become predicates of
subjects. For then we affirm that some particular thing (or things) conforms
to those concepts. That is why scholastic philosophers say that judgments af-
firm existence whereas concepts do not.

Even when Smith judges that the crow is black where the subject-name is a

noun and not a proper name, the object of Smith’s judgment is still not some
separated universal crow but any and all particular crows. Otherwise it is not
a function of judgment to overcome the abstraction of simple apprehension by
returning to the phantasm, thereby knowing material natures as they truly are,
i.e. as existing in individuals. Otherwise too, it is not the function of judgment
to select some particular thing (or things) and compare it to our concept of it,
thereby once again overcoming the abstractness of simple apprehension.

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REAL AND LOGICAL COMPOSITION

This reference to existence is in fact reflected, Aquinas thinks, in the contrast
between the real composition of a thing and one of its properties and the log-
ical composition of subject and predicate in a judgment. The former is a re-
lation of a whole to one of its parts. And since no whole is its part, the two
are diverse. That is why it is senseless to say that the crow is blackness. For
blackness signifies a part and no whole is said to be one of its parts. But the
latter signifies the identity of those components in the existing thing. That is
why we can sensibly say that the crow is black. For in saying that the crow is
black we do not predicate a part of a whole as we nonsensically do when we
say that the crow is blackness. We mean to assert instead that the crow is
something having blackness. Here the copula signifies identity and not diver-
sity. In so doing it has existential import since it asserts that there is some-
thing in which crow and blackness are united. Says Aquinas,

. . . Now in a material thing there is a twofold composition. First, there is the com-
position of form with matter. To this corresponds that composition of the intellect
whereby the universal whole is predicated of its part: for the genus is derived
from common matter, while the difference that completes the species is derived
from the form, and the particular from individual matter. The second composition
is of accident with subject; and to this composition corresponds that composition
of the intellect whereby accident is predicated of subject, as when we say the man
is white. Nevertheless, the composition of the intellect differs from the composi-
tion of things; for the components in the thing are diverse, whereas the composi-
tion of the intellect is a sign of the identity of the components. For the above com-
position of the intellect was not such as to assert that man is whiteness; but the
assertion, the man is white, means that the man is something having whiteness.
In other words, man is identical in subject with the being having whiteness. It is
the same with the composition of form and matter. For animal signifies that
which has a sensitive nature; rational, that which has an intellectual nature; man,
that which has both; and Socrates, that which has all these things together with
individual matter. And so, according to this kind of identity our intellect com-
poses one thing with another by means of predication.

OPEN AND CLOSED CONCEPTS

Speaking of predicates and predication in Aquinas, one can say that a predi-
cate might be either a genus or a species. You can say that humans are ani-
mals or that Plato is human. But you evidently cannot say that humans are the
set of animals or that Plato is the set of humans. From this some might con-
clude that a predicate is not just another name for a set.

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101

Spelled out, the argument is this: 1) ‘Animals’ and ‘human’ are predicated

of humans and Plato, respectively. 2) But ‘animals’ and ‘human’ are a genus
and a species, respectively. 3) So what is predicated of humans and Plato re-
spectively here are a genus and a species. 4) But the set of animals and the set
of humans are not, respectively, predicated of humans and Plato. Therefore,
5) the genus ‘animals’ and the species ‘human’ are not, respectively, just other
names for the set of animals and the set of humans.

The mistake here is in 1). 1) is false because it confuses the vehicle of pred-

ication with the object predicated. ‘Animals’ and ‘human’ are admittedly a
genus and a species, respectively. But it is not ‘animals’ or ‘human’ in that or-
der that are predicated of humans and Plato. It is animals and human. Just be-
cause you use ‘animals’ and ‘human’ to predicate animals and human of hu-
mans and Plato, respectively, it does not follow nor is it the case that
‘animals’ and ‘human’ are what are predicated, again respectively, of humans
and Plato. ‘Animals’ and ‘human’ are the vehicles of predication while ani-
mals and human are the objects of predication. Recall the scholastic distinc-
tion between id quod and id quo. ‘Animals’ and ‘human’ are the id quo (that
by which) animal and human are predicated of humans and of Plato. But an-
imals and humans are id quod (that which) are predicated of humans and
Plato, respectively.

Yet despite the failure of this argument for 5), 5) is nonetheless true. A

predicate is not just another name for a set. A predicate is necessarily of some-
thing as its signatum. The predicate ‘human’ is of or about the property hu-
man. In this a predicate is like an idea which is always of some ideatum. By
contrast, a set is not of something as its signatum. True, a set is necessarily
the set of something. But the ‘of’ here is genitive and not intentional. What
follows the ‘of’ in ‘set of’ belongs to a set as geese belong to a flock. Thus,
‘set of animals’ is like ‘flock of geese.’ But what predicates are of or about
does not belong to predicates. They are not to predicates as geese are to a
flock but as external signata are to their signs. That is why predicates but not
sets can be said to have sense and reference. For only signs have sense and
reference. True, sets can be signified by signs. But unlike predicates they are
not themselves signs.

Exactly how predicates signify comes out only by understanding the nature

of the subject-predicate tie. The latter becomes clear when two puzzles of
predication are raised and solved. The puzzles and their solutions come from
Aquinas.

The answers to both define the copula or subject-predicate tie. In

so doing they shed light on what figures in that relation, including the notion
of a predicate.

The first puzzle is a dilemma. One might name it the dilemma of predi-

cates. The lion that is predicated of Leo is either particular or universal. In ei-

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ther case predication is pre-empted. No particular is predicated of a subject.
And if it is the universal lion that is predicated of Leo, then the particular
thing Leo is said to be a universal. If Leo is a lion and lion is a universal then
the absurdity follows that Leo is a universal.

Yet we do truly say that Leo is

a lion. How is that possible?

Aquinas escapes the dilemma by recourse to the idea of an essence taken

absolutely, i.e. taken apart from any mode of existence. To spell it out, the
‘lion’ that is here predicated of Leo is neither particular nor universal.

True,

any thing is either particular or universal but what the predicate ‘lion’ signi-
fies is not a thing. It is lion taken in abstraction from how it is either in par-
ticular things like Leo or in universal things like concepts. By analogy, sup-
pose that the same person Jones both jogs in the morning and golfs in the
afternoon. Just as the jogging-mode and the golfing-mode are accidental to
Jones who is susceptible of taking on either one, so too are the particular and
universal modes accidental to lion which can take on either one, depending
on whether it exists in re or in mente. It is therefore something neutral be-
tween the two just as Jones is something neutral between his two modes. This
neutral core is a possible of which Leo and the concept lion are two actua-
tions. It is what Aquinas calls essence.

One might approach the second problem by noting the formality of math-

ematical concepts. Concepts like threeness and triangularity signify those
properties to the exclusion of anything that happens to be three or triangular,
such as three swans or a triangular kite. That is why they are closed concepts,
signifying form alone apart from matter. And just because they are closed
(formal) and not open (material) concepts. Taken as cut off from any things
that exemplify them, these mathematical concepts denote but do not connote.
Triangularity denotes that by which something is a triangle to the exclusion
of anything that happens to be triangular. Moreover, they are not just formal
but purely formal concepts. That is because matter is not included in their def-
initions.

Suppose, then, that ‘lion,’ by means of which lion is predicated of Leo, sig-

nifies lion to the exclusion of those things that are lions. Then, like ‘three-
ness’ and ‘triangularity,’ ‘lion’ signifies form alone apart from matter. It sig-
nifies the property of being a lion as severed from individual lions. To keep
the parallelism with threeness and triangularity, call it the concept lionhood.
Because it is taken in precision from the things that exemplify it, lionhood de-
notes without connoting, just as do ‘threeness’ and ‘triangularity.’ The differ-
ence is that, unlike ‘threeness’ and ‘triangularity,’ ‘lionhood’ is not a purely
formal concept. Matter evidently enters into its definition.

What follows from this is that all formal concepts, mathematical or other-

wise, are impredicable. They are decent enough concepts. It is just that they

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103

are closed and not open concepts. And just for that reason do they fail to be
logical concepts. You can no more say that these swans are threeness or that
that object is circularity than you can say that Leo is lionhood. The reason is
that, having denotation only, these closed concepts signify a part and not the
whole of their subjects. That is because they signify the form of the subject
as cut off from its matter. So predicating lionhood of Leo is non-sensical be-
cause it says that a whole is one of its parts.

The solution is perhaps evident. It is to identify predicates with open and

not with closed concepts. Open concepts are the five predicables of classical
logic. I refer to genus, species, difference, property and accident. We can say
“Leo is a lion” but not “Leo is lionhood.” That is because ‘lion’ is a predica-
ble, in this case a species. Like ‘lionhood,’ the predicate ‘lion’ signifies the
form or definition of a lion. But it does so differently. The former signifies it
as a part while the latter signifies it as a whole.

In “Leo is a lion” the pred-

icate ‘lion’ is not severed from the subject that exemplifies it. It inchoately in-
cludes it. That is what is meant by saying that predicates connote their sub-
jects. Even as it denotes the form or definition of a lion (which is the same for
all lions) the predicate ‘lion’ in “Leo is a lion” connotes the individual Leo.
Therefore, ‘lion’ is predicated of Leo without predicating a part of a whole.
Just because ‘lion’ includes the whole of what Leo is and ‘lionhood’ does not,
‘lion’ but not ‘lionhood’ is predicable of Leo.

What do these solutions tell us about the copula or subject-predicate tie?

To answer, note first that these solutions hang on distinguishing sense and ref-
erence in predicate terms. In ‘Leo is a lion’ the predicate ‘lion’ denotes a cer-
tain objective sense or essence which is found in Leo as well as in Larry,
Lester, and every other lion. At the same time it refers by connotation to the
whole individual Leo of which the sense or essence lion is a part.

That predicates have sense and reference, though, is not primitive but fol-

lows the dual function of judgment. Judgment, says Locke, not only keeps
two ideas apart but also brings them together.

In judging that S is P I both

distinguish P from S and unite P with S. It is this diversity-in-unity that de-
mands that predicates have sense and reference, respectively. Insofar as I dis-
tinguish P from S, P denotes a character which I pull out of the subject for the
sake of analysis. The subject from which I extract that sense is, like the pred-
icate, a logical and not a real entity. It is from my idea of some substance and
not from the substance itself that I cull the sense or character that is signified
by the predicate. Otherwise false judgments go unaccounted for. Thus the
copula signifies the relation of a complex idea to some feature that enters into
it. Viewed from this standpoint, predicates are separated from their subjects
by the device of abstraction. They are extracted from their subjects by mind
in its effort understand those subjects. The ‘is’ here is therefore the ‘is’ of

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analysis. To use the terminology of the tradition, it is the ‘is’ of essence as op-
posed to the ‘is’ of existence.

But insofar as I unite P with S, P refers to the same individual to which the

subject refers. The same real individual that is named by the subject is re-
ferred to by the predicate. This device of referential identity overcomes and
counterbalances the device of abstraction. It reflects mind’s intent to say that
the character signified by the predicate is in reality united to and never sepa-
rated from the individual that is named by the subject. So here the copula is
the ‘is’ of synthesis or what the tradition calls the ‘is’ of existence as opposed
to the ‘is’ of essence. Taking both functions of judgment together—the ana-
lytic and the synthetic—is equivalent to taking both devices together, ab-
straction and referential identity. Under that consideration it is then true to say
that the copula-relation in any subject-predicate judgment is a logical iden-
tity-in-difference of subject and predicate reflecting, in case the judgment is
true, the real identity-in-difference of substance and property.

MIND, JUDGMENT AND GOODNESS

One final point about the relation of true judgment, mind and goodness in
Aquinas. As judgment is the end of simple apprehension so too is truth the
end of mind. From what has been just said, it is more precise to say that mind
aims at truth in the sense of true conclusions. And since end for him has the
nature of good, it follows that truth in the sense of true conclusions is the
good of mind. Mind is to truth as appetite or tendency is to that which fulfills,
satisfies or completes that appetite or tendency. For always in Aquinas is it
the case that good is the terminus of a natural tendency or appetite. For ex-
ample, since matter naturally tends to form, form is the good of matter; and
since potentiality naturally tends to act, act is the good of potentiality. Since,
then, good is what fulfills a natural tendency, any such tendency is called
good not because it is itself good but because it is related to good as that
which tends toward good. In other words, since good is in the object, ten-
dency toward that object is called good only because the object is good. Thus,
a person’s desire is called good in the moral sense only because what he or
she desires is good. Good thus passes on from the object to the tendency. Our
intellect, then, is called good only because it tends toward its good or object
which is truth. But with truth it works the other way. Truth does not pass on
from objects to something else but from something else to objects. Since truth
is in the mind and not in the object, objects are called true not because they
are in themselves true but because they are related to a mind that is true. Re-
call that natural objects are called true only because they either measure our

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minds or are measured by God’s mind. Truth thus passes on from mind to ob-
jects.

ONTOLOGICAL TRUTH AND PRACTICAL TRUTH

As was said at the outset, mind as conformed to things in judgment is the re-
alist aspect of truth. It is truth in mind taken as conformed to things. But
Aquinas holds that truth in mind is also something to which things conform
or are conformable. Under this idealist aspect of truth, it is thing or being that
is said to be conformed or to be conformable to mind and not the other way
around. Here, the point of reference and measure of truth is mind and not
thing.

Viewed from this angle, ‘true’ applies to things in reference to or as or-

dained to mind in two ways. First, things are looked on as being conformable
to our minds. One thing that means is that they can be known by us. And that
is because the same structure that exists really in them can also exist inten-
tionally in our minds. In that way are things said to be conformable to our
minds. Thus, Fido is conformable to my mind in that the same dogness that
exists particularly in Fido can exist universally in mind when I come to know
what Fido is. In that way can it be said that Fido is conformable to my mind.
Or again, the real composite or fact of Fido’s sleeping on his mat is con-
formable to my mind in that the same complex or state of affairs of Fido’s
sleeping on his mat can exist intentionally in the judgment I make to that ef-
fect. Second, things are considered as being conformed to God’s mind in that
they exemplify divine Ideas. Thus, any particular creature exemplifies the
pattern or Idea of it that exists eternally and ante rem in the mind of God. To
the extent that dogness in Fido is modeled after the timeless Idea of Dogness
in God, Fido is conformed to God’s infinite mind even as he is conformable
to our own finite minds. Third, artifacts are considered as conformed to the
minds of artists when they exemplify the mental models that are present in the
minds of those artists.

These three ways in which things are true by dint of being ordained to

mind, be it ours or God’s, are both the same and different. They are the same
because the things in question are in each case called true in an improper and
secondary sense of the term. For properly speaking truth is only in mind and
not in things. They are (improperly) called true only because they are related
to something that properly is true, i.e mind. It is analogous to the case of food
or environment which are called healthy only because they are related to what
is really healthy, i.e. animals. And they are in a secondary sense called true
because they are exemplifications of something else as exemplar or model.

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But they are different in that when things are called true because they are con-
formable to our minds, the relation of things to mind is one of measure to
measured, exemplar to exemplatum. For as was said, the real composition of
matter and form or of substance and accident is the exemplary cause of the
logical composition in judgment of subject and predicate. But when things are
called true because they conform to the Ideas of them in God’s mind, then the
relation of things to intellect is one of measured to measure, of modeled to
model. But whether things are called true because they are conformable to
mind or because they are conformed to either a human mind or God’s mind,
they are called true only because they are related to something else in which
alone truth is properly found, namely, mind.

CATEGORIES OF TRUTH AND THEIR RELATIONS

The relations between proper and improper truth on the one hand and primary
and secondary truth on the other are as follows.

All that is primarily true is

properly true but not all that is properly true is primarily true. Our judgments
are properly speaking true but, since their truth is caused by things, they are
not true in the primary sense. But truth in God’s mind is found both properly
and primarily. For here the subject of truth is mind and not thing. What is
more, truth in God’s mind is cause or measure without in any sense being
caused or measured. Analogously, this practical or productive truth in God is
also found in human beings. It is found in them in their capacity as artists or
crafts-persons. The ideas or archetypes of artists, after which they model their
artifacts, correspond to the divine Ideas, after which God creates natural
things. Such models are true in the proper sense since they are found in mind.
But they are not true in the primary sense. True, the creative ideas of artists
are not modeled after some real exemplar. Otherwise they are not creative in
the human sense but mere copies of other things. But this practical truth in the
mind of a human artist falls short of truth in the mind of the Creator. That is
because it shares the status of the mind on which it depends and from which
it issues. And that mind, the human mind, is dependent and secondary. For it
is caused by and modeled after the Idea of the human mind in the mind of
God. It follows that the humanly creative ideas of artists and crafts-persons
are true in a secondary and not in the primary sense.

Finally, while all that is improperly true is secondarily true, not all that is sec-

ondarily true is improperly true. As for the former, all that is improperly true is
either a natural thing or an artifact. But both are secondarily true since they are
caused or measured by mind, divine or human. Therefore, all that is improperly
true is secondarily true. As for the latter, our judgments are secondarily true

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107

since they are measured by things. But they are nonetheless properly speaking
true since they are found in mind.

Aquinas also distinguishes logical (propositional) and ontological truth.

This is the truth of judgment as opposed to the truth of things. The distinction
turns on whether mind is called true because it is measured by a thing or
whether a thing is called true because it is measured by a mind.

The former

is logical truth while the latter is ontological truth. Since in either case it is a
matter of measured truth and not truth that is measure, whatever is logically
or ontologically true is true in a secondary sense. The converse also holds.
What is true in a secondary sense is either logically or ontologically true.

‘Logical truth’ in this context does not characterize those truths or judg-

ments which it is self-contradictory to deny. It refers to propositional or judg-
mental truth. Thus, if some apples are green then the judgment “Some apples
are green” is true in the logical sense no less than is “All apples are apples.”
As for ontological truth, Aquinas calls natural things true in this sense be-
cause they are modeled after mind. Thus, things like tulips and tigers are true
in this sense because they exemplify the Ideas of Tulip and Tigerhood in
God’s mind. This is not truth that depends on human minds. However, there
is a kind of human ontological truth. An artifact such as the Mona Lisa is on-
tologically true in that it measures up to the model of it in DaVinci’s the mind.
All things whatsoever, judgments included, are ontologically true, but judg-
ments alone are logically true.

In this connection, Aquinas says that judgments have truth both in the on-

tological and in the logical sense.

Besides being true because they measure

up to the Idea of a Judgment in God’s mind, some judgments are also true be-
cause they jibe with and are measured by the real. To the extent that any judg-
ment conforms to the Idea of it in God’s mind, it is ontologically true. No gen-
uine judgment is false in this sense of ‘true.’ But a judgment might also
conform to things and hence be logically true. But in this same propositional
sense of ‘true’ a judgment might contradict the facts and hence be false.

Now what is intriguing is that what makes our intellect qua knowing logi-

cally true is the same thing that makes it ontologically true.

Like anything

else, our mind is ontologically true in knowing something just when it exem-
plifies the form proper to its nature. In knowing intellectually, mind conforms
to the divine Exemplar of human nature taken as source of distinctly human
activity.

Moreover, in the case of mind alone, the form proper to it qua

knowing is the form of another. Paradoxically, intellect acts as mind (i.e. it
knows) just when it takes on the form of something else. That is what Aristo-
tle meant by saying that in its act of knowing mind is in a sense all things.

Mind in act is ontologically true just when the form it exemplifies is the form
of another. But for mind to have in it the form of another so that there is a

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likeness between it and that other is just what is meant by calling mind logi-
cally true. For by this likeness mind conforms to things and is hence true in
that same sense. Therefore, only of mind in act is it truly said that its being
logically true is equivalent to its being ontologically true.

St. Thomas also distinguishes essential and accidental truth.

This is again

a division of secondary truth. Whatever is secondarily true is either essen-
tially or accidentally true and vice versa. And since all secondary truth is mea-
sured truth, then all that is either essentially or accidentally true is measured
truth. Something y is essentially speaking true if and only if (i) y is known by
some mind m which is distinct from y and (ii) m is the measure of y. Thus,
because they are both known and measured by God’s mind, all natural things
are essentially true. Something z is accidentally true if and only if (i) z is
known by some mind m from which it is distinct and (ii) z is not measured by
m. For example, a tree is accidentally true just because it is known but not
measured by our minds. It follows that in the view of Aquinas the same thing,
i.e. the tree, is both essentially and accidentally true depending on whether it
is taken in relation to the divine mind or to the human mind.

Joined with two Aristotelian axioms, the notions of essential and acciden-

tal truth imply that truth is strictly speaking found in mind. And assuming
these same axioms, it also works the other way around. The axioms in ques-
tion are these: (1) that a thing is judged by what it is essentially and not by
what it is accidentally, and (2) that when a thing y is called G only because it
is the effect of another thing, x, of which G is predicated, then G is strictly or
properly found properly in x and not y. To bring out (1), since it is accidental
to a tree that it is known by some person R, we do not define what a tree is
by adverting to R or to R’s knowledge of a tree. However, it is not accidental
to the notion of an artifact that it is made by an artist. Therefore, we do ad-
vert to an artist in saying what an artifact is. To explain (2), since we call
events sad only because they make people sad, sadness is found properly in
persons and not in events. So if something is called true in the essential sense
only because it is both known and measured by some mind m and if (2) is
true, then it follows that truth is strictly or properly found in minds. Things
other than minds are then improperly called true. From all of this, then, the
following definitions emerge:

T1 y is properly speaking true =df (i) y is in mind and (ii) y either measures

something x in reality or y is measured by x

T2 y is in improperly speaking true =df (i) y is some real thing and (ii) ei-

ther y measures some mind z or y is measured by z

T3 y is primarily speaking true =df (i) y is properly speaking true, (ii) y

measures some contingent thing x and (iii) y is an unmeasured measure

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109

T4 y is secondarily speaking true =df (i) y is either properly or improperly

speaking true and (ii) y is in some sense measured either by some mind z or
by some thing x

T5 y is logically (judgmentally) true =df (i) y is properly speaking true, (ii)

y is secondarily speaking true and (iii) y is measured by some thing x

T6 y is ontologically true =df (i) y is either properly or improperly speak-

ing true, (ii) y is secondarily speaking true and (iii) y is measured by some
mind z

T7 y is essentially speaking true =df (i) y is secondarily speaking true, (ii)

y is known by some mind z and (iii) y depends on and is measured by z

T8 y is accidentally speaking true =df (i) y is secondarily speaking true, (ii)

y is known by some mind z and (iii) y neither depends on nor is measured by z

SOME IMPLICATIONS

By these definitions only God’s mind is primarily and properly true. If our
minds were destroyed then truth would remain in the divine mind. But if the
divine mind were destroyed (which is impossible) so too would all truth be
destroyed.

As for our minds, they are properly but secondarily true while

natural and artificial things are both improperly and secondarily true.

This

echoes Aquinas’s idea that a thing has truth the same way it has being.

Our

minds as well as all contingent things are caused and what is caused is being
in a secondary sense. So our minds and things have secondary truth. Our true
judgments too are caused or measured by things. It is because snow is white
that my judgment, “Snow is white” is true.

So both our minds and the true

judgments they deliver are secondarily true. The former are measured by the
Idea of the human mind in the divine mind whereas the latter are measured
both by the Idea of a human judgment in the divine mind as well as by facts.

All eight definitions include the idea of one thing measuring another.

Aquinas accepts the Augustinian idea that if one thing measures another, then
the former is to that extent superior to the latter.

Recall St. Augustine’s state-

ment that though our minds measure our senses, judging how they work, our
minds are themselves measured by truth.

But truth is unmeasured measure

since nothing measures truth. St. Augustine then identifies truth or the un-
measured measure with God. For both philosophers, nothing that measures
another thing is its effect but sometimes its cause. Both hold that the divine
Ideas are the exemplary causes of created things as well as their measure. But
though they measures our senses, judging over them, our minds no more
cause our senses than thermometers, which measure heat, cause heat.

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Chapter Three

The relation of measure to measured in T1 through T8 refers to a particu-

lar cause-effect relation. It is the relation of exemplary cause. Exemplary
causes for Aquinas are a type of formal cause. Like Plato’s Forms, they are
formal causes that are separate from their effects instead of being those for-
mal causes (such as the humanity of Socrates) that are constitutive of their ef-
fects. The measure is exemplary cause whereas what is measured is its exem-
platum or effect. Exemplary causes are patterns after which exemplata are
made. The latter are similar to their respective patterns. These patterns might
be true either in the proper sense or in an improper sense of ‘true.’ As for
propositional or logical truth, the patterns are improperly speaking true. That
is because they are things or facts and not minds. The real combination of the
accident musical and the substance Plato is the real model or pattern of the
logical combination of subject and predicate in my judgment that Plato is mu-
sical. Since the subject-predicate combination is patterned after and is caused
by the former real combination of substance and accident, the former is the
measure or exemplary cause of the latter.

Moreover, the model is either primarily or secondarily true. It is the lat-

ter when natural things measure our minds but the former when the divine
Ideas measure natural things. In addition, the model or exemplary form is
either essentially or accidentally true. Natural things that measure our
mind are essentially true in relation to the divine intellect but accidentally
true in relation to our mind. For they are made after God’s ideas and not
ours.

Finally, the relation of model to modeled implies an agent cause. In on-

tological truth the agent measures but in the case of judgmental or logical
truth the agent is measured. In the former, the measure is in the mind of the
agent, human or divine, who measures according to it. But in the case of
the latter the measure is separate from the agent whose mind is measured
by it. Thus, God fashions creatures after His Ideas and artists create arti-
facts after their artistic models. But in and through the true judgments
which we make about things, it is our minds that are measured by those
things. But the difference between the things measured in ontological and
judgmental truth, respectively, is this. In the former, what is measured is
purely passive. Natural things have no more say or active role in their cre-
ation than does clay in the hands of a potter. But though our minds are
measured by things in propositional or logical truth and so are passive,
they nonetheless make the judgments that are so measured. It is we who
combine and separate subjects and predicates, thereby making the very
judgments the truth of which is measured by facts or things. So it is that
while judgments depend on facts for their truth, they none the less depend
on minds for their being.

Truth

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NOTES

1. Aquinas, Summa theologica , trans. A. Pegis (New York: The Modern Library,

1948), I q16 a1, 168–71.

2. ———, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, trans. J.P. Rowan

(Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1961), VI.L.4: C1227, 480.

3. The answer to ths question in what follows is more fully developed in my

“Subjectivity and Objectivity in Truth.” See Acta Philosophica II, 14, 2005, 299–312.
See also my “Conceptualism and Truth,” Ratio vol. XIII no. 3. Sept. 2000, 234–38.

4. ———, Summa theologica I q85 a6, 416–17.
5. ———, Summa theologica I q17 a3, 187–88.
6. Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (London: Oxford University

Press, 1970),46–52.

7. Aquinas, Summa theologica I q17 a3, 188.
8. ———, Summa theologica I q17, a4, 174–75.
9. Josiah Royce, “The Possibility of Error” in The Religious Aspect of Philoso-

phy (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1885), 385–433.

10. Aquinas, Summa theologica I q16 a2, 171–72.
11. ———, Summa theologica I q16 a2, 171–72.
12. ———, Summa theologica I q85 a5, 414–16.
13. ———, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle IX. L.11: C 1898, 700.
14. ———, Summa theologica I q16 a2, 171–72.
15. ———, Summa theologica I q16 a2, 171–72.
16. ———, Summa theologica I q84 a7, 397.
17. Aquinas links the return to the phantasm with the proposition which is the

work of judgment. See ———, Summa theologica I q86 a1, 423–24; I q85 a5 2,
414–16.

18. ———, Summa theologica I q84 a7, 396–97.
19. ———, Summa theologica I q17 a1, 183–84.
20. ———, Summa theologica I q17 a3, 177–78.
21. ———, Summa theologica I q17 a3, 187–88.
22. ———, Commentary on the Metaphysics VI.L.4: C1236, 482.
23. ———, Summa theologica I q16 a2, 171–72.
24. ———, Summa theologica I q58 a4; See also, I q85 a5.
25. ———, Summa theologica I q85 a5, 414–15. See also, ———, Summa theologica

in Pegis, ed. The Basic Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Random House,
1945), vol. I, I q58 a4, 543.

26. ———, Summa theologica I q85 a5, 414–15.
27. Aquinas states that understanding pertains to apprehension but that wisdom

(which is higher than understanding) pertains to judgment. See Aquinas, Commentary
on Aristotle’s De Anima, trans. K. Foster and S. Humphries (New Haven: Yale Univ.
Press, 1965), III.3 #629, 381–82; III.4 #672,402–03.

28. ———, Summa theologica in Introduction to St. Thoms Aquinas, trans. Pegis

(New York:1948), I q85 a5, 414–15; See also ———, Summa theologica I q17 a3,
188–89.

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Chapter Three

29. This is the final natural and not the final supernatural perfection of persons.

The latter for Aquinas consists in acquaintance with God in the next life or what he
calls the Beatific Vision.

30. For a lucid, modern account of this relation between apprehension and judgment

see H.B. Veatch, Intentional Logic (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1952), 164–169.

31. Aquinas, Summa theologica I q85 a5 reply obj.3, 415–16.
32. ———, On Being and Essence, trans.A. Maurer (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of

Medieval Studies, 1949), ch.2–3, 30–42.

33. ———, On Being and Essence, ch.3, 42.
34. ———, On Being and Essence, ch. 3, 40–41.
35. ———, On Being and Essence, ch. 2, 37–38.
36. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. A. S. Pringle-

Pattison (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1960), 93

37. Summa theologica I q16 a1,169–70.
38. Summa theologica I q16 a1; See also ———, Disputed Questions on Truth in

J.F. Anderson trans. An Introduction to the Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas
(Chicago:Henry Regnery, 1953), q I a2, 67–8.

39. In this section I use material and the line of argument taken from my “Truth

and Judgment in Aquinas,” in The Modern Schoolman, LXXVI, Nov. 1998.

40. Summa theologica I q16 a8, 180–82; I q16a1, 168–71; I q16 a5, 175–6.
41. Summa theologica I q16 a5.
42. Summa theologica I q16 a8 reply obj. 3, 182.
43. Summa theologica I q16 a. 2, 171–2.
44. Aquinas says that taken as the source of the activities of creatures the exem-

plar of divine wisdom has the character of law. See Summa theologica I-II q93, a1,
628–30.

45. Aristotle, De Anima, III, 8 (431b, 21).
46. Aquinas, Summa theologica I q16, a1, 168–71.
47. ———, Disputed Questions on Truth in Pegis, trans. An Introduction to the

Metaphsics of St. Thomas Aquinas, qI a2, 68.

48. ———, Disputed Questions on Truth, qI a4, 69–70.
49. ———, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, II. L2: C 298,122.
50. ———, Summa Theologiae I q16 a8; See also ———, Commentary on the Meta-

physics of Aristotle, V. L9: C896,346–347.

51. St. Augustine, “On the Free Choice of the Will,” in Medieval Philosophy, eds.

Baird and Kaufmann (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003) book II, 5–6, 78–80.

52. ———, “On the Free Choice of the Will,” Book II, 12, 13, 89–91.

Truth

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114

VARIOUS VIEWS ON UNIVERSALS

The doctrine of divine Ideas to which reference was previously made sug-
gests the fundamental issue of universals. And from what has been said, it is
clear that on this issue too, Aquinas falls between Plato and Aristotle. The is-
sue is sometimes put in the form of the question, “Do universals or essences
exist independently of minds?” But this begs the question about universals
since it assumes that universals exist at least in minds. And this is denied by
nominalists. More accurately, the issue is put as follows: “Do universals have
ontological status of any sort?”

The negative reply to this question is nominalism. Realism and conceptu-

alism are the positive answers. Aquinas sides with the realists. He holds that
universals have being when the word ‘universal’ has the sense of essence. But
he shuns both conceptualism and nominalism. Against the former, he denies
that universals are in minds only when ‘universal’ has that same sense of
essence. Yet he is hardly a Platonic realist. With Aristotle, he denies that uni-
versals are ever separated from particulars. These particulars are either natu-
ral substances, human minds, or God.

This thesis that universals can exist

separately from minds but not separately from both individual minds (human
or divine) and individual bodies is moderate realism. As regards the latter, it
sides with conceptualism and departs from Platonic realism. As regards the
former, it joins Platonic realism and shuns conceptualism. Finally, it agrees
with nominalism only in denying Platonic or separated universals.

Moderate realism might easily be confused with conceptualism. Under the

latter, universals exist only as abstract general ideas. Thus do conceptualists
part company with nominalists like Berkeley and Hume who deny abstract

Chapter Four

Universals

ideas. But conceptualists are one with nominalists and stand against moder-
ate realists in denying anything common among real individuals. In any case,
all this yields the following definitions :

A person r is an Platonic realist = df r believes that universals exist transcen-

dently i.e. independently of matter and minds.

A person r is a nominalist =df (i) r denies that universals exist either tran-

scendently or otherwise.

A person r is a conceptualist =df (i) r affirms that universals exist only in hu-

man minds and (ii) r denies that universals have a foundation in things.

A person r is a moderate realist =df r denies that universals exist transcen-

dently and (ii) r affirms that universals exist in matter and in human minds.

A person r is an Aristotelian realist =df (i) r is a moderate realist and (ii) r does

not affirm that universals exist in God’s mind.

A person r is a Thomistic realist =df (i) r is a moderate realist and (ii) r af-

firms that universals exist in God’s mind.

‘UNIVERSAL’ AS AMBIGUOUS

Nevertheless, the word ‘universal’ is not always synonymous with ‘essence.’
In the thought of Aquinas, the word ‘universal’ strictly speaking refers not to
essence but to concept.

For Aquinas universals are concepts and not the ob-

jects of concepts. Further, since concepts are not real beings but beings of rea-
son, it follows that universals exist only in minds, according to Aquinas. This
does not mean that Aquinas is a conceptualist, however. When the latter says
that universals exist only in minds, the word ‘universals’ is synonymous with
the word ‘essences.’ In this sense of the word ‘universals,’ Aquinas denies
that universals exist only in minds. When, therefore, universals are identified
with concepts and not with the objects of concepts, a different set of defini-
tions emerges. But this set is entirely compatible with the previous one. Thus,

A person r is a Platonic realist =df (i) r believes that there are universals and

(ii) r believes that universals signify transcendent essences.

A person r is a nominalist =df r denies that there are either universals or

essences.

A person r is a conceptualist =df (i) r believes that there are universals and (ii)

r denies that universals signify essences, transcendent or otherwise.

A person r is a moderate realist =df (i) r believes that there are universals, (ii)

r believes that universals signify essences and (iii) r affirms that such
essences do not exist transcendently but rather in matter and human minds.

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115

A person r is an Aristotelian realist =df (i) r is a moderate realist and (ii) r does

not affirm that the essences signified by universals exist in the mind of
God.

A person r is a Thomist realist =df (i) r is a moderate realist and (ii) r affirms

that the essences signified by universals exist in the mind of God.

It can be said that for Aquinas, then, being universal is a way of being which

essence takes on as a result of being known. By us, essence is known univer-
sally although that is not the way it really is. As for conceptualists, they too
hold that things are known by us universally even though they exist particu-
larly. The difference is that for conceptualists no essence or nature in the real
world corresponds to any universal concept which we form in our minds. They
thus join nominalists in holding that physical things are purely particular.

AQUINAS’S VIEW

From this Aquinas dissents. Otherwise, he would insist, Socrates and Plato,
say, would not have the very same definition and they evidently do. Being a
rational animal is what Socrates and Plato are and this definition is common
both to them and to all other humans. But this is the case only if being a ra-
tional animal is not particular.

The implication is that a particular like

Socrates is not purely particular but includes something non-particular. The
purely particular in the view of Aquinas is a false abstraction. And as it is with
Socrates, so is it with all other particulars. Though they are particular, they
nonetheless include in them something non-particular. Each and every one of
them includes some essence or species. Besides, if an essence like humanity
were intrinsically particular, it could never be universal. Yet it is universal in
thought. When I understand the essence humanity, I do so by means of the ab-
stract idea of humanity.

And yet, these same forms or essences that every particular includes are not

intrinsically universal either. For in that case they could never be found in
particulars. Instead, they would always be found in an abstracted, generalized
way. But as evidenced by the fact that humanity is concrete and particular in,
say, Plato, this is false. Therefore, concludes Aquinas,

humanity or any other

essence or form G is neither particular nor universal. Being particular and be-
ing universal are only accidental to G. The same is true of the characters of
being one and of being many. If humanity is by definition one, it could not be
many. And if it is by definition many, then it could not be one. But humanity
is evidently many in Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. It is also evidently one in
Plato. Therefore, humanity taken in and of itself is neither one nor many any
more than it is in and of itself either particular or universal.

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This is conveniently expressed in terms of predication. If the human that is

predicated of Plato is by definition universal, then it follows that Plato is uni-
versal. For if Plato is human and human is universal then Plato is universal.
But if the human predicated of Plato is particular, i.e. includes the individu-
ality of Plato, then human is impredicable of Aristotle or of any other person.
Aquinas’s answer is that the human that is predicated of Plato is in itself nei-
ther universal nor particular. This does not mean that humanity is ever found
in this neutral state, any more than a rose, say, is ever found without color.
But just as any color a rose has, i.e. red, yellow, white, etc. is accidental to be-
ing a rose, so too, any mode of existence an essence has, i.e. universal or par-
ticular, is accidental to that essence. So it can be said that behind Aquinas’s
escape from this dilemma of predication in logic is his distinction of essence
and existence in metaphysics.

PLATONIC REALISM

In the light of this, the errors of Platonic realism, nominalism and conceptu-
alism can be distinguished. Each one harbors a nugget of truth. take Platonic
realism. In chapter xix of the Republic, Plato distinguishes knowledge and
opinion. He says that knowledge answers to the real and has the real as its ob-
ject. By contrast, appearance is the object of opinion.

Further, since defini-

tion is the device or vehicle of knowledge for Plato, then definition must cor-
respond to the real or the thing defined. And since definition must always do
so, immutability is required on the part of the definiendum. But since no sen-
sible thing is immutable, it follows that knowing through definition is not
knowing individual sensible things but separated universals. There is thus a
one-to-one correspondence between the universality of definitions and the
universality of their respective definienda. In the Parmenides, Plato fields the
objection that these Forms or universals exist only in mente.

Partly to answer

the celebrated “third-man” objection to the Forms, Socrates proffers the hy-
pothesis that the Forms are really only ideas in the mind. Speaking for Plato,
Parmenides counters that thoughts must be thoughts of something other than
themselves. In that case real Forms or universals are admitted after all. Be-
sides, if Forms are nothing but ideas or thoughts, then to say that things par-
take of Forms is to say either that all things think or that there are thoughts
that do not think. By this dilemma, at least according to Plato, conceptualism
is defeated.

Aquinas agrees that definitions are basic to knowledge. But he denies that

it follows that the objects of these universal definitions are real universals.
Plato goes too far in his realism. This is shown by the fruits of that extreme
realism. If like the definitions by which they are known the real is universal

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and separated from material conditions, then the oddity follows that things
like real dirt and real stone are both universal and immaterial.

This shows the crux of Plato’s error. It is to confuse how something is with

how it is known.

It is the mistake of reducing the real to the rational, of ra-

tionalizing the real. And this is done to the detriment of the real. For the real
is then construed as being abstract and universal instead of being (as it is)
concrete and particular. The task for epistemology, as Aquinas sees it, is to
avoid confusing the real with the rational without sacrificing the correspon-
dence to reality required by knowledge. This is accomplished, says St.
Thomas, by negotiating a unity-in-difference between knowledge and reality.
Between a known object and the knowing of it is an essential (formal) iden-
tity but an existential diversity. Intellect knows things only according to its
own way, which is abstract and universal. But that is not the way of things
which are concrete and particular.

Preserving this diversity of knowing and being blocks the absurdity that

real dirt and stone are immaterial. But it does so without sacrificing the cor-
respondence to reality that knowledge requires. For the diversity that has just
been struck is all on the side of existence. How knowledge is is not how the
known is. In the case of the former, you have some form F that exists ab-
stractly and universally. In the case of the latter, the form F exists concretely
and particularly. But it is all along the very same form F.

So whereas there

is diversity on the side of existence there is identity on the side of essence. In
other words, between concept and object there is a formal identity despite the
existential diversity. And this identity is sufficient to account for the corre-
spondence that must obtain between knowledge and reality.

NOMINALISM

The error of nominalism is just the reverse. If extreme realists pattern reality
after knowledge to the detriment of reality, nominalists model knowledge af-
ter reality to the detriment of knowledge. Instead of confusing how something
is with how it is known, nominalists confuse how something is known with
how it is. Classical nominalists concede that knowledge is a one-to-one cor-
respondence of ideas to reality. But denying separated essences on the real-
ity-side of that relation, they then reject abstract concepts on the idea-side of
the relation. Nominalists do not start with abstract ideas as requirements of
knowledge and then deduce abstract real entities from those ideas. They first
deny that reality is abstract and then deny the doctrine of abstract ideas. For
like Platonic realists, they think that the latter implies the former. In their
view, the mistake of extreme realists is not that of moving from abstract ideas

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to abstract things. It is the mistake of positing abstract ideas in the first in-
stance. It is the mistake of thinking that abstract ideas are behind nouns and
adjectives. Once this assumption is surrendered, it is no longer necessary to
posit real universals to satisfy the correspondence of ideas to reality in which
knowledge consists. Still, nominalists agree that knowledge does require this
same one-to-one correspondence of ideas to reality. It is just that the ideas that
thus correspond to reality are not universal concepts but sense impressions or
sense images.

Aquinas would object that nominalism compensates by committing the op-

posite error. It models knowledge after reality to the detriment of knowl-
edge.

To avoid Platonic universals, one need not go to the extreme of turn-

ing the rational into the real. The culprit is not abstract ideas but something
that, ironically enough, is assumed by nominalists and extreme realists alike.

Before naming that assumption, let us see what happens when, in order to

sidestep Platonic universals, nominalists replace abstract ideas with sense im-
ages. True, like the reality some of them represent, sense images are concrete.
That is their strength. For viewing knowledge as exact correspondence of
thought to reality, nominalists must make thought match reality. But armed with
sense images only, one is at a loss to say what some real, concrete thing is. To
say that Plato is human is to use the predicate word, ‘human.’ Suppose that in-
stead of signifying a universal concept, ‘human’ signifies an image of a partic-
ular human. Either it is the image of Plato or the image of someone else. If the
former, then to say that Plato is human is to say Plato is Plato; if the latter, then
to say that Plato is human is to say that Plato is some other person. Apart from
the dilemma of either tautology or contradiction, you fail in either case to say
what Plato is, to make a predication by species. And it is not just predication by
species that is eliminated but any predication at all. You cannot predicate P of
S unless ‘P’ is universal. It makes no difference whether ‘P’ is species, genus,
difference, property, or accident with respect to S. Kant, who was no advocate
of moderate realism, would applaud Aquinas on this point. Judgment, in his
view, either subsumes intuitions under universal concepts or lower concepts un-
der higher concepts.

And without judgment there is no knowledge.

Moreover, nominalists have trouble being consistent too. If the denial of

abstract ideas excludes judgment, then no nominalist consistently makes
judgments, including the judgments that nominalism is true and that he is a
nominalist. For ‘being true’ and ‘being a nominalist’ are predicable of their
respective subjects and nothing particular is predicable. Besides, no nominal-
ist consistently urges nominalism on others. For this implies that they can
share his idea. But persons cannot have the very same idea if nominalism is
true. In addition, if persons cannot have the same idea then they cannot hold
contradictory views either. If one person affirms and another denies that S is

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P, their ideas of S and P must be the same if the one judgment is to contradict
the other.

Things can be carried even further. If there are no universal ideas, then

there are no judgments. But if there are no judgments there are no arguments.
For arguments are composed of premises and conclusions all of which are
judgments. So not just judgments but arguments too feed off abstract ideas.
Nominalism excludes argument in another way too. If no two persons have
the very same idea then two or more persons always go past each other in de-
bate. Being about different things, their “arguments” are futile.

All this is what is to be expected once how things are known is confused

with how they are. When you equate the way things are known with the way
they are you eliminate knowledge. The irony is that by trying so much to
make the rational conform to the real, you end up turning the rational into the
real. And then the rational is stripped of its very function, i.e. to know the real.
The fact is that the real or extra-mental does not know anything. That is why,
strangely, the error of nominalism parallels that of its opposite, i.e. Platonic
realistm. The latter is so intent on making the real conform to the rational that
it turnss the real into the rational. Acquiring abstractness, the real is then de-
stroyed. Abstractions of reason are nothing real.

Aquinas would say that it is a case of exaggerating the correspondence in

both directions. And the result is a prodigy on both ends. In nominalism the
real swallows up the rational and in extreme or Platonic realism the rational
swallows up the real. But the same error is behind both. And that is the as-
sumption that knowing is an exact one-to-one correspondence between the ra-
tional and the real. When this correspondence is carried too far then the pos-
sibility of any correspondence between the two is lost. For there needs to be
two orders, rational and real, between which the correspondence holds.

CONCEPTUALISM

Conceptualism saves the dualism that nominalism and Platonism collapse.
That is its strength. Conceptualists avoid confusing the real with the rational
or vice versa. The mind has its own way of dealing with real individuals. And
that is through abstract ideas. But neither is the real a copy of the rational. On
this score conceptualists go further than Aquinas and Aristotle. Socrates re-
sembles Plato in being human but this similarity is ultimate and irreducible.
It needs no universal to ground it. Socrates and Plato are not similar by virtue
of some common humanity that informs the matter of each one. They share
nothing in common despite their evident similarity. The logic of similarity re-
quires no universal. All that is needed is a selected individual that is used as
a model or paradigm. In this case let it be Adam. What it then means to say

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that Socrates and Plato are human is that they resemble Adam. So conceptu-
alists join nominalists in denying that particulars incorporate a common form.

Yet so far from collapsing the real and the rational as do realists and nom-

inalists, conceptualists forge an nonnegotiable gap between them. Without
making St. Thomas an Hegelian before Hegel, the saint does see that what is
needed here is a unity-in-difference. True, the real is not the rational. But that
does not mean that they are the total foreigners that conceptualists construe
them as being. As conceptualists would have it, you have on the one side pure
universality and on the other pure particularity. Just look at Kant, the most
celebrated conceptualist. Between mind and reality-in-itself the critical
philosopher forges an unbridgable gap.

The trouble with such a gap between the real and the rational is that it pre-

vents knowledge of the former by the latter. It excludes knowledge of the real.
One cause of this skepticism is dismantling the tool of knowledge. That is
what nominalists do when they pattern the rational exactly after the real. Then
there is no knowledge of the real because there are no concepts by which the
real can be known. Another cause of the skepticism is to save the tools of
knowledge, abstract ideas but render them useless. That is what conceptualists
do. They have the tools but the tools are in their hands quite useless. Saws cut
nothing when nothing is cuttable. Similarly, concepts know nothing real when
nothing real is knowable or intelligible. And of things which philosophers call
real, none lack intelligibility more than the pure particulars of nominalism and
conceptualism. To be intelligible means to be knowable by mind. But since
mind knows only through abstract ideas, particulars are knowable by mind,
and hence intelligible, only to the extent that they are not particular. For while
the particular as such is sensible, it is not intelligible. But what is purely par-
ticular is from no standpoint non-particular. It is something real without hav-
ing a trace of the rational. It is a bare particular, harboring no form or essence
whatsoever. But then, Aquinas would say, it is unknown by mind. Conceptu-
alism so divides the real from the rational as to prevent any tie between them.
To be related, things cannot be totally different any more than they can be to-
tally the same. If ideas are universal and reality purely particular then to know
the latter by the former is to know it totally otherwise than it is. But to know
something totally otherwise than it is is not to know it. It follows that under
conceptualism intellectual knowledge of the real is impossible.

Conceptualists are not blind to the gap they open between concepts and re-

ality. Nor do they miss the implication of skepticism. To save knowledge and
the correspondence of idea and object in which knowledge consists, they re-
verse the direction of that correspondence. This is Kant’s celebrated “Coper-
nican revolution.” Under this move, instead of being the conformity of ideas
to objects, knowledge is the conformity of objects to ideas. To be an object of
knowledge in the first place, something must be colored by our a priori ideas.

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The gap between idea and object is thus spanned. True, ideas are universal
structures of mind. But since, to be known, every object must bear the stamp
of these a priori ideal categories, it follows that ideas and objects necessarily
correspond. By definition, then, objects of knowledge are rational just like the
ideas by which they are known. For it is these very ideas that are the form of
every object. Just because they are, idea and object are not split. And as a re-
sult of this a priori correspondence of the two, knowledge of objects is saved.

AQUINAS AND THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION

This “Copernican revolution,” of course, post-dated Aquinas. But it is clear
that he would respond to it as follows. You cannot both alienate the real and
the rational and then try and save knowledge by taking the transcendental
turn. For the knowledge you save thereby is knowledge of appearance and not
of reality. When knowledge is the conformity of object to concept instead of
concept to object, the object of knowledge is partly made by mind. And then
what is known is not reality itself but reality as colored by mind. But it might
be objected that knowledge that is not knowledge of reality is not knowledge
at all. This is because knowledge implies truth and the measure of truth is not
appearance but reality. Things may appear to us one way. But unless that is
also the way they are, any claim to that effect is untrue. When conceptualists
cut all ties between the real and the rational, therefore, they also cut the string
that ties knowledge and truth to reality.

To escape this, conceptualists must deny either that knowledge implies

truth or that truth is the conformity of mind to reality. This is not an enviable
choice. Few challenge the dictum that ‘P is known implies P is true.’ So the
only course open to them is to take the transcendental turn with truth as well
as with knowledge. Truth is not the conformity of mind to object any more
than knowledge is. Instead, it is the conformity of object to mind. That at least
renders their view consistent. For if you believe that knowledge implies truth,
you cannot consistently say both that knowledge is the conformity of object
to mind and that truth is the conformity of mind to object. If you go by the
idea that knowledge implies truth you must hold that knowledge and truth run
in the same direction.

THE THEORY OF COHERENCE

Making truth and knowledge both a matter of conformity of object to mind is
consistent conceptualism. Yet it is counterintuitive. The reason is that what is

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meant by saying ‘There are lions’ is true is not that that statement conforms
to the fact that there are lions. Instead, what is meant is that it conforms to
mind or reason. This can only mean that the statement in question coheres
with the whole body of other accepted statements. Here, ‘coheres with’ is de-
fined either in terms of consistency or in terms of mutual implication. In ei-
ther case, it seems that ‘true’ is defined in terms of ‘true,’ making the defini-
tion circular. To say that P is consistent with Q, R, S, etc. is to say that when
Q,R,S, etc. are true, it is possible that P is also true. And to say P implies and
is implied by Q,R,S, etc. is to say it is impossible that P is true and Q,R,S, etc.
false and that it is impossible that Q,R, S, etc. are true and P false.

Further, whether ‘coherence’ means consistency or implication, the ground

of coherence is the law of non-contradiction. Aside, then, from the oddity of
saying that it is not the fact that there are lions that makes the statement
‘There are lions’ true, this coherence view of truth implies that the basis of
coherence, the law of non-contradiction, is itself true because it coheres.

Therefore, to the extent that conceptualists embrace the coherence view of
truth to make their own transcendental turn as regards knowledge consistent,
they either ground coherence in coherence or else concede that the law of
non-contradiction is true in some sense other than coherence. Otherwise, they
render coherence groundless. It follows that unless they accept that conse-
quence, conceptualists cut the string that ties both knowledge and truth to re-
ality at the cost of either circularity or inconsistency.

But even aside from that dilemma, cutting the tie between knowledge and

truth on the one side and reality on the other is unacceptable. Otherwise, it is not
the case that some state of affairs in the world that both makes ‘There are lions’
true and is necessary for knowing that there are lions. In sum, the conceptualists’
total alienation of the real and the rational opens another gap, namely, a gap be-
tween knowledge and truth on the one side and reality on the other.

Finally, as regards the stronger sense of ‘coherence,’ the gap between

knowledge and reality breaks out in another way. If truth consists in the mu-
tual implication of judgments, it follows that if a person knows something
then he or she knows everything. This follows from the doctrine of internal
relations to which defenders of the stronger coherentist view are committed.
For under the latter, facts and truths form an unbroken web, an integrated sys-
tem. There are no isolated, independent facts or truths. But Aquinas would
point out that no person knows everything. But then it follows, if the stronger
coherentist view is assumed, that no person knows anything. Thus, the
stronger view of coherence implies absolute skepticism.

Coherentists might counter that the doctrine of internal relations implies

only that if one thing is known then all things are known indistinctly. Then, it
cannot be objected that under that doctrine no one knows anything on the

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grounds that no one knows everything. For the skepticism takes hold only if
‘knows everything’ here means ‘knows everything distinctly.’ True, no one
knows all things distinctly but might it not be the case that we know or at least
are able to know all things indistinctly?

But this reply is ineffective. For we no more know all things indistinctly than

we know all things distinctly. A person who has been blind since birth does not
know what color is indistinctly or inchoately. Such a person does not know at
all what color is. Again, none of us can claim to know, even indistinctly, sounds
that are heard by animals that have a keener sense of hearing than we do. We
not know those sounds at all. And so on with many other things. So if it is a
condition of my knowing any arbitrarily selected thing x that I know all other
things indistinctly, then it follows that I cannot know x. The defender of coher-
ence hardly avoids the objection of skepticism by substituting indistinct knowl-
edge of everything for distinct knowledge of everything.

THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL: AQUINAS’S SYNTHESIS

Aquinas sidesteps these troubles with coherentism by denying their source,
namely, the hard and fast separation of the real and the rational. But this does
not mean that we should fuse the real and the rational. Behind this reduction-
ism is the false assumption, common to Platonic realists and nominalists
alike, that knowledge is an exact, one-to-one correspondence between the ra-
tional and the real. The only difference is that Platonic realists model the real
exactly after the rational while nominalists model the rational exactly after
the real. But it is basically the same mistake. For in both cases there is no
identity-in-difference but rather a relation of mapping or copying. In Plato,
intellectual concepts are abstract and universal and so are the Forms that are
known by those concepts. The two are a perfect match. Otherwise, says Plato,
something is known otherwise than it is and hence not known. And in a nom-
inalist like Hume the same thing holds. All simple ideas, says Hume, are “ex-
act representations” of impressions.

All knowledge is derived from impres-

sions, and to determine the truth of any simple idea is to trace its origin to the
impression from which it has been derived. All empirical knowledge consists,
for Hume, in the conformity of ideas to impressions. Here, because Hume is
a phenomenalist, ideas are the rational and impressions the real. But the point
is that this conformity-relation is once again one of mapping or exact copy-
ing and not one of identity-in-difference.

The solution is to get between the non-negotiable dualism of conceptual-

ism and the reductionist ontologies of Platonic realism and nominalism. And
that is what St. Thomas does. Under this synthesis, which is known as mod-

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erate realism, all three pitfalls are bypassed. First, the dualism of real and ra-
tional is saved without having to take the transcendental turn to cover the con-
formity of concept and object. That makes it unnecessary to turn knowledge
upside down and say that it is the conformity of object to concept instead of
the other way around. Knowledge thus has reality and not appearance as its
object. Since it is implied by knowledge, truth here runs the same way as
knowledge. That means that the statement, ‘There are lions’ is true because it
conforms to fact and not because it conforms to reason. Second, the unity of
rational and real in knowledge is retained without reducing the real to the ra-
tional, without confusing how things are with how they are known. And then
one need not say that real dirt and stone are neither particular nor material.
And third, the unity of the rational and the real in knowledge is once again
saved without reducing the rational to the real, without confusing how things
are known with how they are. And then one need not witness the death of
mind, thereby excluding knowledge of the real by the rational.

RELEVANCE OF THE ESSENCE-EXISTENCE DISTINCTION

All this is accomplished on the shoulders of the distinction of essence and ex-
istence. On the side of existence, how things are is the very opposite of how
they are known. That is why the extremes of nominalism and Platonism are
false. For Hume ideas must be particular just like their real source, impres-
sions. To be known, the real for Plato must be just like ideas, i.e. abstract and
universal. It is as if, reducing knowing reality to reality, Hume reduces
essence to existence. And it is as if, reducing reality to knowing reality, Plato
reduces existence to essence. More circumspect on this score than either
Hume or Plato, Aquinas would have said, is the conceptualist Kant. Insisting
with Aquinas on the importance of keeping essence and existence distinct,
Kant no more confuses the orders of being and knowing than does Aquinas.

But though concept and object stand existentially opposed, they are essen-

tially one. Though I know lion universally even though it exists particularly,
what I know universally and what exists particularly is the same “what” or
essence. They are one in species or definition. That is why, despite the fact that
how something is known is always (existentially) otherwise than it is, it is par-
adoxically still knowledge and not deception. For the word ‘otherwise’ here is
adverbial and not accusative. It refers to the difference between the manner in
which something is known and the manner in which it is. It does not refer to a
difference between what is known and what is. Just because he tended to blur
the manner of existence and essence (the “how” and the “what”) Plato did not
view the relation of concept and object as one of identity-in-difference. To

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save knowledge, then, he could not admit any sense in which how something
is known is otherwise than it is. He had to insist on an exact correspondence
between concept and object. Seeing, then, that universality is the condition of
knowledge (as opposed to opinion) he concluded that it is also a condition of
the real. Otherwise, definienda fail to correspond to definitions and things are
otherwise than they are known.

Moreover, this same relation of identity-in-difference that holds between

concept and object is missed by nominalists and conceptualists too. In the
case of nominalists, it is once again rooted in the failure to distinguish and
preserve both essence and existence. That is because, denying Platonic real-
ism with a vengeance, nominalists throw out essence and universality alto-
gether. If all is purely particular and nothing is common, then there is noth-
ing common between concept and object. Hence, how something is known
cannot be otherwise than it is without being totally otherwise than it is. To
save the conformity in which knowledge consists, therefore, nominalists join
Platonists in denying that how something is known is otherwise than how it
is. But since there is nothing common between the two, there must be an ex-
act one-to-one correspondence, an isomorphism, between concept and object.
But because they are nominalists and not Platonic realists, the correspon-
dence must be one of particular to particular and not (as in Plato) of univer-
sal to universal. Finally, with conceptualists too, no identity-in-difference ob-
tains between the real and the rational. That is because, along with
nominalists, conceptualists hold that all there really is is particular. Retaining
universals in mind, conceptualists must then find some way to save knowl-
edge. For concepts being universal and reality being purely particular, a gap-
ing hole opens between the two. Nor can they fill the hole and save knowl-
edge the way Aquinas does. That is because, believing that all there really is
is purely particular, they recognize in real things no distinction between
essence and existence.

But then it is not open to conceptualists to counter-

balance the existential diversity of concept and object with essential unity. To
bridge the gap and save knowledge, then, their only recourse is taking the
transcendental turn. By so doing, they restore the identity-in-difference be-
tween concepts and objects. Under that move, objects are still different from
concepts. But instead of being purely particular, they incorporate the univer-
sal patterns of concepts. The gap is thus bridged and knowledge is made pos-
sible. The trouble is, since the unity-in-difference that is thus achieved be-
tween concept and object is all within appearance and not between
appearance and reality, the “knowledge” that issues from it is knowledge of
appearance and not knowledge of reality. And what (among other things)
spoils this Kantian twist is that we must think that ‘Two and two are four’ is
true not because two and two really are four but ‘Two and two are four’ is true
because we are so constituted as to think it true. As Russell once observed,

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this transcendental twist on truth will scarcely guarantee the certainty of that
arithmetical truth, Kantian intentions to the contrary. For tomorrow, undergo-
ing a mind-change, we might be so constituted as to think otherwise.

Aquinas agrees with conceptualists that knowledge is achieved only by uni-

versal concepts. He also agrees that reality is particular and not universal. But
from this he does not draw the conceptualist’s conclusion that reality is un-
known. The gap between universal concepts and particular things is bridged
once, among those real particulars (and not just within appearance) the dis-
tinction between essence and existence is retained. For it can then be said that
the gap between rational and real is all on the side of existence, i.e. all adver-
bial. How things are known is otherwise than how they are. But in addition to
existence, says Aquinas, there is that whole other dimension of essence. And
in essence, concept and object are one. It is formally speaking one and the
same essence that has universal being in concepts and particular being in ob-
jects. And this essential identity satisfies the conformity of concept and object
in which knowledge consists. And so a condition of there being knowledge of
reality is that the real and the rational, concept and object, are existentially di-
verse but essentially one, a unity-in-difference. Without the real distinction of
essence and existence, therefore, knowledge of reality collapses.

To sum it up, then, Aquinas would charge that each one of these three com-

peting views on universals issues out of its own misrepresentation of the
essence-existence distinction. Contending that how something is is not other
than how it is known, Plato reifies and hypostatizes essences, separating them
from material particulars. With Plato and against conceptualists like Kant,
Aquinas agrees that reality and not appearance is the object of knowledge. He
even agrees that how something is is not other than how it is known. Even so,
says he, it does not follow that the objects of knowledge are separated
essences. That follows only if, fusing essence and existence, you make how
something is part of its essence, part of what it is. And that was Plato’s error.
In the dictum, “how something is is not other than how it is known” the “not
other” refers just to the identity of what is and what is known (i.e. just to
essence), says Aquinas. That he thought that the “not other” also refers to the
identity of the way something is and the way it is known means that Plato con-
strues the way as part of the what, existence as part of essence. To save
knowledge, then, Plato consistently concludes that there must really be sepa-
rated essences corresponding to universal definitions. From thus reducing the
real to the rational, existence to essence, Plato would have been saved had he
appreciated the ogre of saying that real dirt and stone are immaterial.

Agreeing with extreme or Platonic realists that how something is is not other

than it is known, nominalists prefer to put it the other way around. How some-
thing is known is not other than it is. For with them, the real is the measure of
the rational and not vice versa. Therefore, instead of reifying and hypostasizing

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universal concepts, they eliminate them. If the real is particular and is the mea-
sure of ideas, then the latter are particular too. Aquinas agrees that the real is
particular and that how something is known is not other than it is. But, says he,
it does not follow that universal concepts are eliminated. That follows only if,
reducing essence to existence, you identify a thing with how it differs from
other things. And then instead of hypostatizing essence, you hypostatize exis-
tence. It follows only if, turning what a thing is into its own unique way of be-
ing, you make it purely particular. These pure particulars are just as much false
abstractions as are Plato’s hypostasized essences. They are just what you get
when, shunning making a prodigy of essence or universality, you make a
prodigy of existence or particularity, usurping the rights of essence.

Finally, imbalance in the essence-existence distinction is also behind con-

ceptualism. Like extreme realists and nominalists, conceptualists construe
knowledge as the conformity of idea and object. But, say conceptualists, it is
wrong either to model the real after the rational or the rational after the real
as do extreme realists and nominalists, respectively. So knowledge must be
the conformity of idea and phenomenal object. Aquinas agrees that knowl-
edge is the conformity of idea and object. He also agrees that the real is not
to be patterned after the rational or vice versa. Things as known take on a
mode of being they do not otherwise have. But he would insist that it does not
follow that knowledge is knowledge of appearance and not of reality. That
follows only if it is once again assumed that the real is purely particular. But
we just saw that that assumption feeds on identifying a thing with how it dif-
fers from other things, thus creating the prodigy of a pure or bare particular.
And this mistake is the very opposite mistake to Plato’s. You skew the real by
identifying it with its existential side just as Plato skews it by reducing it to
its essential side. If the latter is the false hypostatization of essence to the
detriment of existence, the former is the false aggrandizement of existence at
the expense of essence.

CONCLUSION: DIVINE IDEAS ONCE AGAIN

Aquinas could have made the foregoing criticisms of Platonism, nominalism,
and conceptualism just as an Aristotelian. But as the previous definition of
‘Thomistic realism’ shows, Aquinas went beyond Aristotle on universals.
Universals in the sense of essences exist not only post rem and in re but also
ante rem in the divine mind. And this doctrine of divine Ideas Aquinas took
not from Aristotle but from St. Augustine. So it may next be asked why
Aquinas went beyond the moderate realism of Aristotle and posited univer-
sals ante rem.

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The answer goes back to his belief that all creatures have being (esse) par-

ticipatively. A thing, x, has being participatively just when x is not identified
with its being. Instead, being in x is the act of some distinct potentiality,
namely, x’s essence.

For Aquinas says that every participator is related to

that in which it participates as the potential is related to the actual.

And since

x’s being is distinct from its essence, x’s being is caused by another thing y.
But unlike x, y, at least in the last analysis, is God or the self-existing being.
For Aquinas holds, P1, that whatever is participatively is caused by some
self-existing thing.

And this self-existing thing has being non-participa-

tively. Otherwise, it is caused by something and so is not self-existing. A
thing, y, then, has being non-participatively just when y is identified with its
own being and does not have this distinct thing, essence, joined to it and to
which it is related as act to potentiality.

Now by the same token, for something x to have essence participatively

means just that x is not identified with its essence but that essence in x has this
other thing, matter, joined to it. This matter shares or participates in that essence
or, put literally rather than figuratively, is related to that essence as potentiality
to actuality. By contrast, something, x, has essence non-participatively just
when x is identified with its essence. It is essence alone and does not have this
distinct thing, matter, joined to it and related to it as potentiality to actuality.

It follows from this that if a thing x has essence participatively ( i.e. if it is a

composite of essence and the matter which shares in that essence) then the
essence in question is accidental to the matter that participates in it. For since
matter considered as matter can take on or assume any form or essence what-
soever, then no form or essence is essential or necessary to it. Instead, it is ac-
cidental to it. But if one thing is accidental to another, then it is caused to be in
the latter by something else. Thus, since heat is accidental to water, then heat is
caused to be in water by something else, say, fire. This cause evidently cannot
be another thing y which, like x, participates in the same essence. For then y,
like x, is a composite of that essence and the matter that participates in it. But
then, the essence in question being once again accidental to the matter that par-
ticipates in it, something else is again required to cause that matter to take on
or assume that form or essence. As this cannot proceed to infinity, it follows that
something has the essence in question non-participatively and that this is the
cause of whatever has that same essence participatively. Therefore, just as, by
P1, something that has being participatively (per accidens) is reduced to some-
thing that exists non-participatively (per se) so too, by what we might now call
P2, whatever has essence participatively is caused by what has essence non-
participatively. The logic cuts both ways.

But to conclude and to come to the point, what has essence non-participa-

tively is identified with either a self-subsisting Platonic Form or a divine Idea.

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And that the latter is the case or that there are divine Ideas has already been
shown by invoking the scholastic distinction between object and condition,
between id quod and id a quo.

NOTES

1. To answer this question in what follows, I incorporate material taken from my

paper, “The Real and the Rational:Aquinas’s Synthesis” which appeared in Interna-
tional Philosophical Quarterly Vol. XXXVII, No. 2 Issue No. 146 (June 1997).

2. Aquinas, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, translated by J. P.

Rowan (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1961), I.L.10:C 158, 65–6.

3. Aquinas, On Being and Essence, trans. A. Maurer (Toronto: Pontifical Institute

of Medieval Studies, 1949), 3, 41.

4. ———, On Being and Essence, 3, 40.
5. ———, On Being and Essence, 3, 40.
6. ———, On Being and Essence, 3, 40.
7. Plato, Republic, in The Dialogues of Plato ed. B. Jowett (Oxford: The Claren-

don Press, 1953), vol.2 474B-480, 333–41.

8. Plato, Parmenides, in B. Jowett, ed. The Dialogues of Plato vol.2 132 b-c, 675–6.
9. Aquinas, Commentary ,I.L.10: C 158, 65; ———, Summa theologica, ed. A.

Pegis (New York: The Modern Library, 1948), I q84 a1, 377–8.

10. ———, On Being and Essence, 3, 40–1.
11. To the extent that nominalists deny universal abstract concepts Aquinas would

say they rule out intellectual knowledge of reality. For universality is a condition of
such knowledge. See Aquinas, On Being and Essence, 3, 40–1.

12. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith, (Lon-

don: Macmillan, 1958) B93,105–6.

13. See Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, (London: Oxford Univer-

sity Press, 1970), 122–3.

14. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, (Oxford:

Oxford Univ. Press, 1967), 3.

15. Kant insists that existence is not to be included among the properties of a con-

cept. (See Critique of Pure Reason, B625–628). But for Kant this distinction between
property and existence holds in appearance and not in reality. Recall that existence is
in his view an a priori category of the understanding.

16. Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, 89.
17. Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, Book Two: Creation, trans. J.F. Anderson

(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956), 53 [4], 156.

18. ———, Summa contra gentiles, 53 [4]; ———, Commentary, I.L.10: C 154, 64.
19. ———, Summa theologica, I q44, a3: reply obj.2; ———, On Being and Essence,

4, 46–7.

20. See chapter two, 66–71.

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131

A PROBLEM OF CONSISTENCY

Some construe Aquinas’s view of persons as a case of defending two in-
compatible theses at once. A more sympathetic assessment is that it skirts
extreme, one-sided accounts of what persons are and achieves the balanced
truth. These impressions come out of Aquinas’s attempt to get between
Plato and Aristotle on the issue of persons. With Plato St. Thomas holds
that the human soul is immaterial and subsistent. But with Aristotle he
holds that the soul is so closely related to the body as to be its very form.
Can he have it both ways? Can he say that a person is composed of form
and matter and yet not be identified with his or her body? Can he be, as he
is, an Aristotelian on the matter of the soul’s relation to the body and yet
deny, as he does, that the soul depends on the body to exist? This seeming
contradiction is the outstanding problem in Aquinas’s philosophy of the
person.

A second and corresponding paradox greets Aquinas’s account of the will.

Here again Aquinas is read either as both affirming and denying the freedom
of the will or as striking a balance between freedom and determinism.
Aquinas insists that human beings have free choice. Yet he affirms that the
will is moved by the intellect as regards its object and is moved by God as re-
gards its end. Once again, can it be both ways? Aquinas’s position here is not
unlike that of today’s soft determinists. They too are seen by some as either
trying to have it both ways on the issue of freedom or as achieving a mediat-
ing synthesis. In this chapter I consider these two paradoxes together with re-
lated matters in Aquinas’s philosophy of the person.

Chapter Five

Persons

APPROACHING A SOLUTION

An answer to the first paradox comes from reviewing the theory of hylomor-
phism and Aquinas’s account of the nature and operations of the human soul.
As to the former, what is true of other bodies is true of human bodies. And
that is that they are both generated and corrupted. As such, our bodies are
composed of form and matter. Form and matter are thus logically prior to our
bodies just as they are to any other body. Further, we human beings fall un-
der a genus and have a difference just like every other natural thing. A person
is a rational animal where rational is difference and animal is genus. But
genus signifies what is material in a thing while difference signifies what is
formal. So persons are composed of matter and form as are all other natural
things.

But though persons are living bodies, the form of a person is not a body.

That is because no form is possibly a body. For any body is composed of form
together with matter and no part is the whole. Besides, no body is in some-
thing as in a subject. But form is in something as a subject. So, if the soul is
defined as the form of the body, it follows that no soul is a body.

Further, it

is not by being body that something is living, says Aquinas. Otherwise all
bodies are alive. Instead, something is living by virtue of being such a body,
just as something is human by being such an animal. But that a thing is such
a thing is due to its form. Thus, that Socrates is such an animal, i.e., a human
animal, is due to the form rational. It follows that something is a living body
by virtue of some form.

But this form by virtue of which some body is liv-

ing is not an accidental form, like green is accidental to apple. Otherwise,
since the two are only accidentally different, a living thing has the same def-
inition as a non-living thing. Therefore, the form by virtue of which some
body is living is its essential or substantial form. It is, in other words, its first
act or form, and not a secondary or accidental form.

By analogy, the nature

of being apple is the first form of an apple while its being green and crisp are
secondary or accidental forms. In any case, this same first act or form by
virtue of which some body is living is what Aquinas means by ‘soul.’ By
‘soul’ it is just meant the principle of life in what is living.

From this broad definition of ‘soul’ it follows that plants and brute animals

have souls too. But since difference is outside genus and is related to the lat-
ter as form to matter, plants and animals are living as opposed to non-living
bodies by virtue of some form that is not itself a body. And all that is meant by
‘soul’ here is that very form. This must be borne in mind in order not to read
into Aquinas the more narrow Cartesian sense of ‘soul.’ When ‘soul’ is the
Cartesian res cogitans, it is evident that neither plants nor animals have souls.

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FUNCTIONS OF THE SOUL AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS

Aquinas follows Aristotle not just in his definition of ‘soul’ but also in the
matter of the soul’s functions. The nutritive soul has the functions of nutri-
tion, growth, and reproduction, the animal soul has the additional function of
sensation, and the human soul has all these functions plus the distinct func-
tion of reason.

But there are not three souls in a person but only one. Other-

wise, since soul is defined as first and not secondary or accidental act, any one
person is three things and not one.

Further, if a person is living by one soul,

sentient by another, and rational by a third, then “Man is an animal” and “An-
imals are living things” are accidental predications. For things derived from
various forms are predicated of one another accidentally. For example, sweet
is accidentally predicated of white.

But the foregoing are evidently essential

and not accidental predications.

One might object that it does not follow that these predications are acci-

dental when the three souls are diverse. For the souls are subordinated to each
other. Thus, the sense soul is subordinated to the intellectual soul and the nu-
tritive soul is subordinated to the sensitive soul. But Aquinas counters that the
sense soul is subordinated to the intellectual soul and the nutritive soul to the
sensitive soul as the potential is subordinated to the actual. Therefore, if this
order makes the foregoing predications essential and not accidental predica-
tions, it makes them that sort of essential predication in which subject is re-
lated to predicate as potentiality to actuality.

This Aquinas calls the second-

ary type of essential predication. Examples of this are “The surface is white”
and “The number is even.” Here subject is to predicate as the potential is to
the actual. Here too, the subject is in each case included in the predicate and
not the other way around. (By contrast, in totally accidental predication nei-
ther the subject nor the predicate are included in each other). But in “Man is
an animal” and “Animals are living things,” it is just the other way around.
Not only is subject related to predicate as the actual to the potential but also
the predicate is included in the subject and not vice versa. And that is what
Aquinas calls the first type of essential predication.

Therefore, one cannot object that, due to the order of their subordination to

each other, the diversity of the souls is compatible with the fact that the pred-
ications in question are essential predications. For the type of essential pred-
ication that follows from that subordination is secondary and not first essen-
tial predication, whereas “Man is an animal” and “Animals are living things”
are evidently first essential predications. In sum, if it is by one soul that a per-
son is man, by another that she is animal, and by a third that she is a living
thing, then one of two falsehoods accrues. Either none of these things are

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predicated of each other except accidentally or else one is predicated of the
other according to the secondary type of essential predication.

Further, if a person is living by one form, an animal by another form, and

rational by a third form, then to avoid saying that a person is three things and
not one, one of these forms must be essential and the other two accidental.
For whatever comes to a thing after or in addition to its substantial form
comes to it accidentally.

Suppose, then, that it is said that the nutritive form

or soul is the one that is essential since being alive is essentially predicated of
both man and animal. In that case, it follows that a person is accidentally an-
imal and rational. Just as unacceptably does it follow that neither animal nor
man signify a genus or species in the category of substance but instead denote
something in one of the categories of accident.

THE PLATONIC VIEW REJECTED

To the Platonic view that a person is a soul using a body, Aquinas responds
that this means one of three things. First, that the intellectual soul uses a body;
second, that all three souls use a body; and third, that two of the three souls
use a body. If either the second or third alternative is true, then a person is not
one being but two or three beings, and that is evidently false. Further, if ei-
ther the second or the third option is true, then something must unite these
separate souls in order for them to form one person. But this “something”
cannot be the body since it is the body that is united together by the soul. This
is shown by the fact that the body disintegrates after death. So that which
unites the two or three souls must be still another formal principle or soul. But
some further soul is then needed to unite this latter soul with the souls it
unites, and so on, ad infinitum. Therefore, one must conclude that the second
and third alternatives above are false and that a person is neither two souls us-
ing a body not three souls using a body.

That leaves the first alternative. But even this view, which seems to have

been Plato’s actual position on the question, is false. If one is identified with
one’s immaterial, rational soul, then “Man is an animal” and “Man is corpo-
real” are accidental and not essential predications. And this, says Aquinas, is
patently false.

Besides, suppose that Socrates is simply identified with his

rational soul. Then it follows that Socrates understands by his whole self and
not by some part of himself. But this cannot be true since it is one and the
same person, Socrates, who both understands and senses and who is con-
scious of doing both. But since one cannot sense without a body, the body is
a part of what Socrates is. It follows that Socrates does not understand by his
whole self but by something that belongs to Socrates, i.e. his intellect. But

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then the Platonic thesis that persons are simply identified with their rational
souls is false.

SUBORDINATION OF FUNCTIONS

For these as well as for other reasons, Aquinas concludes that a person is liv-
ing, animal, and rational by one and the same soul or first act of the body.
True, the human soul is distinctively rational. But that does not exclude its be-
ing virtually both sentient and living. And that is in fact the case. Just by be-
ing rational, the human soul automatically includes in it the powers of the
sense and nutritive souls, just as a bishop automatically has the powers of a
priest. In this same connection, Aquinas cites with approval Aristotle’s com-
parison of the various souls to types of geometrical figures one of which con-
tains others. To expand Aristotle’s comparison, just as a hexagon virtually in-
cludes both a pentagon and a tetragon, so too the intellectual soul virtually
includes whatever powers that belong to the sensitive and nutritive souls. And
just as a hexagonal surface is not hexagonal by one shape, pentagonal by an-
other and tetragonal by a third, so too a person is not rational by one form,
animal by another and living by a third.

All this is straightforward Aristotelianism. Soul in any living thing is the

form of matter. From this Aristotle concludes that no soul exists without mat-
ter any more than can any other form can exist without matter. As a result, no
soul survives the death of the body and there is no personal immortality. But
St. Thomas disagrees. He argues that the human soul, at least, can exist with-
out matter and hence that persons can survive death. True, anything corporeal
is composed of matter and form and, vice versa, anything that is composed of
matter and form is corporeal. But that does not imply that composites of mat-
ter and form are nothing but corporeal. Nor can that identification be made in
the case of a human being. That is because the human form or soul has an act
of existence that is independent of the body. The easiest way to show this,
Aquinas thinks, is from the fact of intellectual knowledge. That fact implies
that the soul’s activity, and hence its esse, is independent of matter.

IMMATERIALITY OF THE SOUL

One line of argument for this in Aquinas runs as follows. Intellectual knowl-
edge by definition extends to various things outside the mind. For such knowl-
edge is knowledge of some essence or universal F which is or can be found in
many particulars. Thus my concept of horse extends to many individuals. But

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135

if such knowledge were the reception of F in matter, then F would not extend
to various things but would be restricted to some one particular thing. For mat-
ter is the principle of individuation. But in that case intellectual knowledge
would not extend to many things and so would not be intellectual knowledge
after all. Hence, in intellectual knowledge the form that is received in intellect
is not received in matter. The receptive or passive intellect is therefore an im-
material potentiality.

Stated differently, properties as received in intellect are

predicable of many. In fact, the character of being predicable of many belongs
to a property only as a result of its being received in intellect. But properties
as existing in material things are not predicable of many. For matter is the prin-
ciple of individuation and what is individual is impredicable. It follows that
properties as received in intellect are not received in matter.

Alternatively, since anything is what it is by virtue of its form, then any-

thing is known for what it is only through knowledge of its form. But suppose
things are known for what they are. Then, it is the very forms or determinate
natures of such things that are known. But then, in coming to know things for
what they are, it must be the identical forms of those things that a person
comes to know and not forms other than or even like those forms. But that
implies that coming to know a form F is a change in which a person goes from
not knowing F to knowing F. The informed person goes from not having F in
her mind to having F in her mind. Yet, in being actualized by the form F, the
mind does not become an F-thing. By contrast, when matter is actualized by
the form feline, it becomes a cat and when matter is actualized by the form
round it becomes round. But the intellect does not become a cat or round in
knowing what a cat or roundness is nor does something know what a cat or
roundness is in becoming feline or round. Since in each case some potential-
ity for having a certain form is actualized by that form, what accounts for the
difference?

Aquinas answers that the potentiality that is actualized by form in knowl-

edge is immaterial potentiality. Intellect does not physically become a cat in
coming to know what a cat is because here form is not received in matter. To
come to know forms, then, the passive intellect must be an immaterial or spir-
itual potentiality. Otherwise the difference between coming to know the form
F and physically becoming the form F goes unexplained. Thus,

Now, immutation is of two kinds, one natural, the other spiritual. Natural im-
mutation takes place when the form of that which causes the immutation is re-
ceived, according to its natural being, into the thing immuted, as heat is received
into the thing heated. But spiritual immutation takes place when the form of
what causes the immutation is received, according to a spiritual mode of being,
into the thing immuted, as the form of color is received into the pupil which does
not thereby become colored.

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This difference between the two types of change is behind another argu-

ment to show that the intellectual soul, though immaterial, is nonetheless so
intimately tied to the body as to be its substantial form. Implicit in chapter
two of On Being and Essence, the argument runs as follows. The nature of a
thing is shown by its proper operation. As a being is, so it acts. But the
proper operation of a human being is to understand. Hence, the principle of
understanding, the intellect, either is or belongs to the nature of a human be-
ing. But the intellect is no body. Otherwise no account is given of the dif-
ference between coming to know F and physically becoming F, as was said
above. Yet corporeity is essential to being human. Otherwise being an ani-
mal is accidentally and not essentially predicated of persons. Hence, the in-
tellect is not identified with a person but, along with animality, belongs to
the nature of a person. But as regards being human, animal is evidently the
genus and understanding the difference. Moreover, genus is derived from
matter and difference from form. For example, organism is open to, but not
confined to, being animal. Otherwise to be an organism is to be an animal.
Organism is therefore genus since it is open or potential to some difference
or form that makes it animal. And that difference or form is sentience. There-
fore, since in persons the genus is animal and the difference rational, the
principle of understanding in persons, the rational soul, is related to the hu-
man body as its form.

Another Thomist argument for the intellect’s immateriality turns on the in-

tellect’s ability to know all bodies. Intellect is not restricted but can know any
and all bodies. The irony is that this universality in range or scope on the part
of the intellect—the fact that it is can know any and all bodies—excludes the
intellect’s being itself a body. For suppose that the intellect is a certain body.
To make the case plausible, suppose that it is identified with the brain. Then,
since nothing is actually what it is potentially, it follows that the brain is not
something which the intellect can come to know. If the intellect is the brain,
then, so long as it is intellect, it always actually has the form of the brain. But
if the intellect’s coming to know the brain is a case of its coming to receive
the form of the brain, then the contradiction ensues that the intellect is both
actually and potentially the brain at the same time. But it is a fact that not just
the brain but any other body can come to be known by the intellect. It follows
that the intellect is identified with no body whatsoever, not even the brain.

Further, if the intellect is the brain or any other part of the body, then it is

composed of form and matter just as is any other material thing. Otherwise
hylomorphism is false. But matter does not exist apart from this matter any
more than man exists apart from this man. So, if the intellect is the brain or
any other bodily part, then it is composed of individual matter and form. But
the intellect cannot be composed of individual matter and form. The reason

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137

for this is that the species of things understood, which are potentially intelli-
gible as they exist in individual matter, are made actually intelligible only by
being abstracted from individual matter.

But for a species to be made actu-

ally intelligible by this abstracting activity of the intellect is just what it
means for a species to be known. But when species are known they become
one with the intellect. Otherwise it is not the species or forms of real things
that the intellect knows but rather appearances only. Therefore, the intellect
must also be without individual matter.

Alternatively, the species of things are known only by being abstracted

from individual matter, i.e. only by being actually intelligible. But since the
actually intelligible and the intellect in act are one,

the intellect too must be

devoid of individual matter. In short, either the intellect does not know the
species of things or else it is not composed of individual matter. Otherwise ei-
ther the intellect is not one with the object known or species are not made ac-
tually intelligible by being abstracted from individual matter. But neither one
of these alternatives is true.

The same point can be made from the standpoint of the nature of the ob-

jects of intellect. If the intellect is some body like the brain, then it is com-
posed of matter and form. But then, matter being the principle of individua-
tion, the forms of things received in intellect are received as individuals. And
then, to the extent that such reception results in knowledge, intellectual
knowledge is knowledge of individuals only. But the reverse is true. The in-
tellect’s objects are universals and not individuals. Therefore, the intellect is
not composed of matter and form and so is no body.

Yet, since the intellect moves from potentially knowing forms to actually

knowing them, it might be countered that, though it is not a body, the intel-
lect is nothing but the material potentiality within a person’s body to know
forms, even though it is not itself a body. But this possibility must be rejected.
Just because it is in potentiality to knowing many things, it does not follow
that that potentiality is material potentiality or primal matter. Otherwise any-
thing at all that is composed of primal matter is cognizant of the forms that
specify it. And since all bodies are composed of primal matter and form, it
follows that all bodies, even sticks and stones, know the forms by which they
are characterized. Says Aquinas,

Then, too, prime matter is not cognizant of the forms which it receives. If, then,
the receptivity of the possible intellect were the same as that of prime matter, the
possible intellect would not be cognizant of the forms received. And this is false.

Still another argument for the soul’s immateriality is based on the activity

of the intellect. The activity of understanding, says Aquinas, does not need a
bodily organ. In this, understanding differs from sense. As regards the latter,

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seeing takes place only through the eye, hearing only through the ear,
smelling only through the nose, and so on. That means that the power of these
activities also depends on the body. These sense activities, then, have as their
subject the composite of body and soul and not soul alone.

The reason for

this is that as an act is, so is its power, a dictum that reflects the general prin-
ciple that actuality determines potentiality.

To spell it out, because sense operations take place only through an organ,

then the power of the soul that is the principle of those operations is the act or
form of the organ through which those operations are performed. Thus, sight
is the act of the eye, sound the act of the ear, smell the act of the nose, and so
on. By contrast, understanding does not take place through a bodily organ.
Otherwise that organ would restrict and limit intellect to knowing just some in-
telligible things, as the eye restricts and limits sense to knowing just some sen-
sible things, i.e. colors. The fact that sight knows colors and not sounds, tastes,
or smells is not due to the sensitive power. For that power is of itself open to
all sensible things, i.e. to colors, sounds, tastes, smells, and so on. Rather is the
restriction of sight to colors (as its proper object) due to the fact that the power
of sight is the act of the eye. And it is this matter, the eye, that restricts sight to
colors. The same goes for the other sense powers. Their objects are restricted
to certain sensible things because in their case too, the sense power in question
is the act of a bodily organ. Because hearing is the act of the ear, the objects of
hearing are limited to sounds. Because the power of smell is the act of the
nose, the objects of that power are limited to odors, and so on.

But while the sense powers are limited to certain sensible objects, the power

of understanding is not limited to certain intelligible objects. By the under-
standing, any and all intelligible things are known. Nor is understanding lim-
ited to intelligible things only. Understanding knows not only any intelligible
object but it also knows (though cannot sense) any proper sensible. Intellect
not only knows what a toad, a tree, a triangle, and the number three is, but it
also knows what a sound, a taste, or a smell is. Therefore, since its objects are
not restricted and such restriction is due to a bodily organ, Aquinas concludes
that understanding does not take place through a bodily organ. It is not the act
of a bodily organ.

It is to that extent independent of the body. But if so, then

going once again by the dictum that power follows act, it follows that the
power of understanding in the soul is independent of the body and therefore
has as its subject not the composite of body and soul but the soul alone.

AN OBJECTION ANSWERED

The obvious reply here is that the intellect exercises its function only through
the brain, even if it is not identified with the brain. And then intellect is like

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sense after all. As sight needs the eye to see, so too does intellect need the
brain to understand. The brain is then the organ of thought as the eye is the
organ of sight or the ear is the organ of hearing. One could even push the anal-
ogy further and say that as sight is the act of the eye so too is thought the act
or function of the brain.

Aquinas would reply by distinguishing intrinsic and extrinsic dependence.

When it concerns the latter, it is consistent with St. Thomas’s view to say that
the intellect needs the brain to exercise its function. But the brain is not the
cause or ground of the former, but a necessary extrinsic condition of the for-
mer. If the intellect needs the brain to think as sight needs light to see, then it
follows that one cannot think without a brain any more than one can see with-
out light. But because one cannot think without a brain it does not follow ei-
ther that the brain enters into the definition of thought or that thought is the
brain’s function. By analogy, from the fact that one cannot see without light
it does not follow either that light is part of the definition of sight or that see-
ing is the function of light. True, since he holds that all knowledge is derived
from sense experience and the latter requires matter, Aquinas believes that
even intellectual knowledge needs matter as an extrinsic condition. But from
that it cannot be inferred that the intellect intrinsically depends on the brain
for its activity. The brain is not the matter of which the intellect is the form or
act. It is not the organ whose function is thought as the eye is the organ whose
function is sight or ear is the organ whose function is hearing.

Some might object that this extrinsic dependence of thought on brain ac-

tivity does not go far enough. They would opt for a closer tie between them.
Under this more intimate tie, thought is simply a function of the brain as sight
is the function of the eye. But Aquinas would invite those who favor that view
to consider its consequences. If thought and brain are intrinsically linked in
this way, then, being matter, brain would restrict or limit the intellect to know-
ing only some intelligible things just as the ear limits sensing to sounds. Be-
sides, as matter, the brain would restrict or limit the intellect in another way.
The reason why the object of sight is this or that color and not just color as
such is that matter is the principle of individuation. It is because sight is the
act of matter (the eye) that the object of sight is this or that color and not just
color. It is because hearing is the act of matter (the ear) that the object of hear-
ing is this or that sound and not just sound. And so is it with all the other sense
powers. So, if the intellect too is the act or function of matter, i.e. the brain,
then its objects would be particular and not universal.

But in fact it is just the opposite. What the intellect knows are universals

and not particulars. Even sensible universals like color as such or sound as
such are known by intellect and not by sense. To even the score, this color or
that sound is known by sense and not by intellect. As Kant was to emphasize

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centuries later, sense and understanding cannot exchange their functions or
objects. In any case, since matter is the cause of individuation and the objects
of the intellect are universals and not particulars, it follows that the intellect
is not the act or form of the brain, or for that matter, the act or form of any
other bodily organ.

INTELLECT: NEITHER SUBSTANCE NOR ACT OF THE BRAIN

That understanding as opposed to sensing is not intrinsically dependent on an
organ, even the brain, seems to imply that the intellect is a separate substance.
But this Platonism as regards the intellectual soul Aquinas also denies. Just
because it is not the act or form of an organ it does not follow that the intel-
lect is an independent substance in its own right. Otherwise a person is not
one substance but two. If Socrates’ intellect is one substance and his body an-
other, then Socrates is not unqualifiedly one. Insisting that the soul is a sepa-
rate substance, Plato answers this difficulty of unity by identifying Socrates
with his soul. Thus, Socrates is a soul using a body rather than being a com-
posite of two substances, soul and body, just as Peter is not composed of man
and clothes but is a man using clothes.

But as was pointed out previously,

this solution simply exchanges one error for another.

If Socrates is identi-

fied with his immaterial intellectual soul, then Socrates’ body is accidental to
Socrates. And from that it follows that, since animal includes body, being an
animal is accidentally predicated of Socrates. But from this it follows that an-
imal is not the genus of human. Since that is intolerable, it cannot be said that
Socrates is identified with his immaterial soul. Plato is caught in the dilemma
of either denying the unity of humans or denying that animal is the genus of
human. Even so, Plato correctly holds that the human soul is immaterial. For
its characteristic function, understanding, is only extrinsically and not also in-
trinsically dependent on matter.

The intellectual soul, then, is both intrinsically independent of matter for its

activity and also the form of the body. Prima facie these two assertions con-
flict. But deny either one and you come to grief. If you say that the soul is a
separate, self-subsistent substance, then you ruin a person’s unity. If soul and
body in Socrates are two things, then Socrates is two things and not one. But
Socrates is evidently one substance. Besides, if Socrates is two substances ac-
cidentally united, then what coordinates these substances? If it is said that a
third substance does this, then a fourth substance is necessary to coordinate the
three, and so on, ad infinitum. Plato’s answer to this is that the soul is the con-
trolling substance and that the body is the controlled or directed substance.
And as regards the question of unity, Plato’s answer is that a person like

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Socrates is identified with his soul. But the effect of this move is to deny that
animal is the genus of Socrates, since being a body is essential to animal. So
anyone who makes the soul a separated substance saves personal unity at the
cost of denying that being human includes being an animal.

At the other extreme, if the intellectual power is a function of the brain or

some part of it, then the objects of the intellect are restricted in two ways.
First, as regards their range or scope. Certain intelligible things are known by
intellect and not others, just as the power of sight knows colors but not
sounds. Second, those objects are restricted as regards their status. They are
limited to this or that thing, as sight senses this or that color. But the intellec-
tual power of the soul is restricted in neither one of these ways. Intellect not
only can know any arbitrarily selected intelligible object but it is not re-
stricted to knowing just instantiations of intelligible objects, to knowing only
this or that object. For the intellect’s objects are universals. Therefore, the in-
tellectual power is not a function of the brain or any part of the brain.

Nor is the intellectual power the very form of the brain or any part of it, as

was said. For in that case the forms received by the intellect in knowledge are
received in matter. And then, since matter is the principle of individuation, in-
tellectual knowledge does not extend to various things. But intellectual knowl-
edge does extend to many things since the objects of that knowledge are uni-
versals and universals by definition extend to or are predicable of many.

IMMATERIALITY ONCE AGAIN

This occasions another argument for the soul’s immateriality. It turns on link-
ing three things, i.e. object, act, and source or subject. Things are understood
according to the intellect’s own mode, i.e. according as they are abstracted
from or taken apart from matter. That is because the forms existing in matter
are individual forms and the intellect does not know individuals as such. So
the objects of intellect are universal, i.e. objects that are taken apart from mat-
ter. But the status of its object is a sign of the status of the act or operation
whose object it is. Hence, intellectual activity is activity that is also indepen-
dent of matter. But the act or operation of anything is in accordance with the
being of the subject or principle of the operation. For mode of action follows
mode of being. Therefore, the intellectual soul in a person is also apart from
matter or immaterial.

Thus,

1. The status of an act is known by its objects.
2. But the objects of understanding, universals, are immaterial.
3. Hence, the acts of understanding are immaterial.

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4. But the mode of an act reflects the mode of being of its subject.
5. Therefore, the human intellectual soul is immaterial.

One knows the status of a cognitive power from the status of its objects.

But in the order of being (as opposed to that of knowing) the status of the
power determines the status of the object. Since there are three grades of pow-
ers i.e. sense, intellectual, and intuitive, it follows that there are three grades
of objects. These are, respectively, individuals, material essences, and imma-
terial essences. Thus, because the sense powers are the very forms of bodily
organs (as for example, sight is the form or act of the eye) it follows that the
objects of sense are individual and concrete. Moreover, from knowing that
these same objects are individual and concrete instead of being universal and
abstract, we can infer that the corresponding powers are so many forms or
acts of matter. By the same token, because the intellectual power is not the
form of an organ, it follows that the objects of that power are not particular
and concrete but rather universal and abstract. Furthermore, from knowing
that these same objects are universal and abstract we can infer that the corre-
sponding intellectual power is not the form or act of an organ.

POWER OF THE SOUL VERSUS ITS ESSENCE

Yet one must distinguish the power of the soul from its essence. And when
one does, the paradox is this: that while the soul’s intellectual power is not the
act or form of matter the soul’s essence is. For the soul is the form of the body.
That explains why the intellect’s proper objects are material and not immate-
rial essences. Though they are admittedly universal, the intellect’s proper ob-
jects include common matter in their concepts. Thus flesh and bone (as op-
posed to this flesh and these bones) enter into the idea of a horse. Suppose,
then, that there is a cognitive power which is like our intellectual power in
that it is not the act of any organ but which is unlike our intellectual power in
that its essence is not the form or act of matter. Then, says Aquinas, the proper
object of such a power would exclude both individual and common matter. In
short, the proper objects of this intuitive power would be non-material or spir-
itual essences. Such an intuitive cognitive power, Aquinas holds, is found in
angels. Says Aquinas,

I answer that, as stated above, the object of knowledge is proportionate to the power
of knowledge. Now there are three grades of the cognitive powers. For one cogni-
tive power, namely, the sense, is the act of a corporeal organ. And therefore the ob-
ject of every sensitive power is a form as existing in corporeal matter; and as such

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matter is the principle of individuation, therefore every power of the sensitive part
can have knowledge only of particulars. There is another grade of cognitive power
which is neither the act of a corporeal organ, nor in any way connected with cor-
poreal matter. Such is the angelic intellect, the object of whose cognitive power is
therefore a form existing apart from matter; for though angels know material
things, they do not know them save in something immaterial, namely, either in
themselves or in God. But the human intellect holds a middle place; for it is not the
act of an organ, and yet it is a power of the soul, which is the form of the body, as
is clear from what we have said above. And therefore it is proper to it to know a
form existing individually in corporeal matter, but not existing in this individual
matter. But to know what is in individual matter, yet not as existing in such matter,
is to abstract the form from individual matter which is represented by the phan-
tasms. Therefore we must needs say that our intellect understands material things
by abstracting from phantasms; and that through material things thus considered we
acquire some knowledge of immaterial things, just as, on the contrary, angels know
material things through the immaterial.

Aquinas would therefore counter the seeming contradiction that the soul is

both independent of the body and the body’s form by distinguishing the
power of the soul from its essence or substance. The essence of the soul is not
its power. Power is correlated to activity and power and act must be referred
to the same genus or category. But activity is not in the genus of substance or
essence but in the category of accident. But soul is in the genus of substance
or essence. Therefore, the essence of the soul is not its power.

Further, as

substantial form of the body, the soul is first act of the body and not second
act or act that is ordained to further act. Therefore, for the soul to be in po-
tentiality to another act (which it is when, for example, it senses or under-
stands) does not belong to it according to its essence as a form but according
to its power.

In any case, given this distinction between essence and power, one can say

the following: that while it is by its power that the soul performs its charac-
teristic activities, it is through its essence that the soul gives existence to the
body. If, then, the activity of the soul is carried out through a bodily organ,
then the power of the soul that is the principle of that activity is the act of
some bodily organ. However, if that activity is not effected by means of a
bodily organ, then the corresponding power of the soul is not the act of any
organ. But since, for the reasons given, intellectual activity is not carried out
through a bodily organ, then the intellectual power in humans is separate from
a bodily organ. But this separateness from matter as regards its intellectual
power is consistent with the soul’s being, so far as its essence is concerned,
the very form of the body.

The two assertions are both entirely compatible

and indispensable to understanding the nature of a human being.

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Behind this distinction of essence and power is the wider distinction be-

tween essence and existence. Activity is to power as act is to potentiality. But
activity is secondary act, act that follows on what is act in a prior sense. But
act in the primal sense is existence and not essence. Therefore, because intel-
lectual activities are separate from matter for the reasons given, it follows that
the primal act from which those activities proceed, the soul’s existence, is
also separate from matter. For as always with Aquinas, activity follows being
where by ‘being’ it is meant existence as well as essence. This is best put ad-
verbially and not adjectivally. Through its intellectual power, the soul acts im-
materially. So the soul must be immaterially.

Even so, a whole other dimension of the soul is its essence. And when the

soul is viewed from this angle, it is seen as that through which being is given
to a human body. For essence or substantial form in Aquinas is always that in
and through which something exists. What the soul (i.e. its essence) is is the
form of a human body. Thus, essence being what the definition signifies,
body enters into the definition of the soul. But this is quite compatible with
saying that the soul’s act of existence is independent of the body or any bod-
ily organ. Hence the importance of the essence-existence distinction for un-
derstanding Aquinas’s philosophy of the person.

AQUINAS’S MODIFICATION OF ARISTOTLE

But right here a final objection emerges. And that is that under hylomorphism,
form cannot exist without matter any more than matter can exist without
form. Therefore, Aquinas must choose between denying that the soul is form
of the body and denying that the soul can exist apart from the body. He can-
not have it both ways and cling to the Aristotelian theory of hylomorphism.

Aquinas would concede that he cannot have it both ways and keep the Aris-

totelian view of hylomorphism. But he would add that his own view of hylo-
morphism differs from Aristotle’s on the notion of form. Though he affirms
that matter exists only through form, he denies that form exists only in and
through matter. If something loses being then it loses its form and, vice versa,
if it loses its form then it loses being. Yet, in each case the matter remains. That
shows that being is more closely tied to form than it is to matter. When a horse
loses being it ipso facto loses the form of being a horse and when a horse loses
the form of being a horse it ipso facto loses being. It is no longer the act of ex-
istence of a horse. But in each case the matter remains throughout as enduring
substrate. That shows a tie between esse and form that is absent between esse
and matter. It is just this: that though a thing’s being is not included in its form
(otherwise, no being is contingent), it nonetheless belongs to it through its

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form and not through its matter.

So form is directly tied to existence in a way

that matter is not. Since, then, matter has being only through form but form for
its part does not have being only through matter, then while matter cannot be
without form, form can be without matter. In short, if form is equivalent to
(though not identical with) being and matter is not, then form is inequivalent
to matter. That inequivalence means that either matter can be without form or
form can be without matter. But since it is form that makes matter be and not
vice versa,

then matter evidently cannot be without form. Therefore, form

can be without matter. But if so, then one compatibly holds both that the hu-
man soul is form of the body and that it can exist without the body. It depends
on the body for the completion of its essence but is independent of the body
for its act of existence.

POWERS OF THE SOUL

The distinction between the soul’s essence and its power to which reference
was previously made leads to the subject of the various powers of the soul.
Here, St. Thomas distinguishes five genera of powers in the soul. They are the
vegetative, the sensitive, the appetitive, the locomotive, and the intellectual.
In this division he follows Aristotle. These powers are divided by their ob-
jects. That is because powers are divided by their acts and acts are divided by
their objects.

In any case, the higher a power is, says Aquinas, the more uni-

versal is the object to which it extends.

In this relation there is a triple or-

der. The vegetative power is on the lowest level. That is because, acting only
on the body itself to which soul is united, the vegetative power has as its ob-
ject the body itself. This is shown in each one of the three powers into which
the vegetative power subdivides, i.e. the augmentative, the nutritive, and the
generative powers. The first of these is the power whereby the organism ac-
quires its size or quantity. The operation of this power, growing, evidently has
the body itself as its object. The same is true of the nutritive power. When
food is assimilated to form new tissue, this operation again has only the body
itself as its object. So, since power follows act, the nutritive power has only
the body as its object. Finally, by the activity of reproduction or generation,
new matter, i.e. seeds or eggs, are produced in the organism. Since this oper-
ation again directly has the body itself as its object (seeds and eggs being pro-
duced in the generating body), the generative power directly has the body as
its object. But Aquinas notes that since seeds or eggs may be transferred from
the generating body to some extrinsic body (and so extends to an object be-
yond its own body), it follows that the generative power approaches the level
of universality of the next highest power, the sensitive power.

For the object

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of the operation of sensing, and hence of the power of sense, is not just the
body of the sensing agent but all extrinsic bodies. Sensing agents see, hear,
touch, etc. not just their own bodies but, more universally, all or many sensi-
ble bodies. Aquinas thinks that this is just one instance of the general rule of
hierarchy according to which the highest notch on any lower level of the
chain of being approaches the lowest notch on the immediately higher level.

Above the vegetative powers is the sensitive power. The priority is due to

the fact, just stated, that the object of sensing is more universal than the ob-
ject of vegetative activity. Sensing, and hence the power of sense, extends to
extrinsic sensible objects. Unlike vegetative activity and power, its object is
not just the body of the composite whose subject it is. Even more universal in
this respect is the object of understanding and hence of the intellectual power.
Understanding extends not only to all extrinsic sensible beings but to any and
all extrinsic beings, whether they are sensible or not. Intellect has universal
being as its object. Therefore, the intellectual power is the highest power of
the soul.

The relative priority of a power in the soul is shown not only by the scope

of its object but also by the extent to which it is end or final cause of other
powers. The priority here is logical and not temporal. Sense is the good or
perfection of life and not vice versa. And understanding is the good or per-
fection of sense and not the other way around. Therefore, the sense power is
higher than the nutritive power and the intellectual power is higher than the
sense power.

And in this sense of final cause, the higher power is the source

of the lower power.

But in another sense of ‘source,’ the lower power is the source of the

higher. This is the case when ‘source’ means not final or efficient cause but
material cause. From this standpoint of material development, the nutritive
power is prior to the sense power and the sense power is prior to the intellec-
tual power. But here, the priority is temporal and not logical. Temporally
speaking, non-sensitive life came first. Out of this life came sentient life.
Then, finally, out of sentient life, came intelligent life. Plants preceded ani-
mals and animals preceded humans.

As regards activities or operations of the soul, Aquinas says something else.

And that is that whatever operates must in some way be united to its object.

In the case of vegetative operations this is clear. The vegetative powers evi-
dently all have acts that bear upon the body that is united to them. The object
of growing and assimilating food is the very body of the composite of body
and soul which is the subject of those operations. But Aquinas thinks that this
principle holds for sensitive, intellectual, and appetitive operations as well.
From this same principle it follows, he says, that the extrinsic object of these
latter operations must be related to the soul in either one of two unifying ways.

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First, the extrinsic object has a natural aptitude to be united to the soul. Thus,
both a sensible object such as a color or sound and an intelligible object such
as the form or essence of a thing, can be by its likeness in the soul. And ac-
cording to this kind of unity of soul as operating and object two powers are
distinguished, i.e. the sensitive and intellectual powers. Second, the soul itself
(as opposed to its object) has a natural tendency or inclination towards the ob-
ject. And according to this way of unity, there are again two powers, namely,
appetitive and locomotive. As regards the first, the soul is referred to its ex-
trinsic object as an end. For just by being first in the order of intention an end
is in the soul as something sought. As for the second, the soul is here referred
to an extrinsic object as the term of movement in the sense of natural desire.
Thus, to the extent that animals are moved by natural desire to travel to the
source of food and water, they are through this inclination of their souls united
to the objects of their desire.

IMMANENT AND TRANSIENT ACTIVITY

But whether it is growing, assimilating food, reproducing, sensing, under-
standing, or willing, these activities of the various powers in the soul are clas-
sified by Aquinas as being immanent and not transient activity. To bring out
the difference, consider first transient activity. As the name implies, transient
activity carries over to something over and above the activity itself. This is
the end or goal of the activity. But for Aquinas, the end of any activity is the
good of both that activity and of the agent engaged in it. For the end of any-
thing is its good. And since the good of anything is its perfection, it follows
that in transient activity the end of the activity is the perfection of both the ac-
tivity in question and the agent engaged in it. Typically, transient activity be-
gins in agents but ends in the production of some thing or state of a thing in
something else. Thus, building begins in the carpenter and ends in a house.
From what has just been said, the house in this example is the end, good, or
perfection both of the activity of building and of the carpenter qua building.
Atypically, transient activity begins in an agent and ends in the same agent.
Suppose a physician treats his own wound. Here, action begins in the agent
and ends in the production of a change in a bodily part of the agent himself.
Yet even here there is transitivity. The action is means to an end that is dis-
tinct from the action itself. The physician’s act begins in his psyche and ends
in quite a different part of himself. In any case, since it is always good for
something else beyond itself, transient action derives value from the end it
serves, as surgery derives its value from the health it produces.

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Further, transient action is always accidental and never essential to the

agent whose action it is. Thus building is not essential but accidental to per-
sons because it is not as persons that they build. This implies that in transient
action agents act in some specialized and incidental capacity. Thus, in build-
ing, persons act as builders and not as persons. This is the case in all crafts.
That is why in building as in other crafts means and end-result, cause and ef-
fect, exclude each other. The means or cause in building, the transient activ-
ity of builders, neither is nor is included in the end or effect, the house. And
that is true in all transient activity. It can be said, then, that something is a
transient action of an agent if and only if it is the action of an agent in some
specialized or incidental capacity and is neither identical with nor part of the
effect it produces. From this it follows that if a person acts just as a person
and not as in some incidental capacity, then his or her action is neither tran-
sient action nor is it the means or cause of some end or effect that is above
and beyond itself. Such is the case with immanent activity.

Immanent activity is always the activity of a thing just as that kind of thing.

It is not the activity of a thing as in some incidental capacity. For as the name
implies, immanent activity does not pass over to some end or effect that is be-
yond and distinct from the activity itself. Instead, the activity is itself end or
effect. Growing and the assimilation of food are examples of immanent activ-
ity. They are activities that belong to an organism just as organism. They do
not pass over into some external thing or state as end or effect but rather both
begin and end in the organism itself. Moreover, since it is itself end and the ac-
tivity of an organism as organism, growing or assimilating food is the good of
the organism as organism. So immanent activity not only begins and ends in
an agent but it also perfects the agent. This runs parallel to what is the case in
transient activity. The end of a person as builder, building, is the good of a per-
son as builder (but not as person) and hence perfects the person as builder
(though again, not as person). Correspondingly, growing or maturing, which is
the good of an organism as organism, perfects the organism. Or take the sen-
tient activities of animals. Since these belong to animals as animals, they are
immanent activities and hence constitute the end and good of animals as ani-
mals. Thus, seeing and hearing begin and end in the animal and also perfect
the animal. The important difference is that in immanent activity, it is the ac-
tivity itself that is end, good, and perfection of the subject rather than being, as
it is in transient activity, simply a means to some further extrinsic end or good.

In sum, the following both imply and are implied by each other: a) being an

immanent activity, b) being the end, good, and perfection of the agent just as
agent, c) being the kind of activity of a thing just as that kind of thing, d) being
an activity that is not simply a means to some end beyond itself and e) being an

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activity that does not find its perfection in something else to which it is directed
as end but is itself the perfection of the agent qua kind of thing it is. By the same
token, the following also both imply and are implied by each other and so are
equivalent notions: a’) being a transient activity, b’) being the end, good, and
perfection of the agent qua acting in some specialized capacity, c’) being the ac-
tivity of a thing in some incidental capacity, d’) being an activity that is always
a means to some extrinsic end, and e’) being an activity that finds its perfection
in something else to which it is directed as end and not an activity that perfects
the agent qua kind of thing it is.

ACTIVE VERSUS PASSIVE INTELLECTUAL POWER

To recur to the intellectual power, included under this heading are both pas-
sive and active intellectual powers. About the passive intellect enough has
been said. But one element in the previous account of the receptive or pas-
sive intellect introduces the active intellect. And that is the function of ab-
stracting from individual matter. Aquinas goes by the general dictum that
whatever receives anything receives it according to its own manner.

But as

opposed to prime matter, the intellect receives form immaterially and uni-
versally. Otherwise, for intellect to know a certain form F that exists in mat-
ter is for it physically to become another instance of that form. From this it
follows not only that the passivity of the receptive intellect is immaterial but
also that, to make it conform to the universal way in which the passive in-
tellect receives form, some intellectual power strips the form of its individ-
uality. And since individuality is due to matter, it has a power the function of
which is to de-materialize things.

That power is what Aquinas calls the active intellect. It is the active as op-

posed to the passive side of the understanding. And its sole function is ab-
straction. Now in abstraction, something is taken into consideration and
something is left out. In one type of abstraction, what may be called imagi-
native abstraction, one part of a concrete whole is considered apart from the
other parts. Thus, I imagine the head of a horse without its body. This, though,
is not the kind of abstraction that Aquinas attributes to the active intellect. For
though what is left out of consideration in this abstraction is individual, what
is taken into consideration is also individual. The head of the horse is this
head of this horse. But what is taken into consideration by the abstraction of
the active intellect is universal. Thus, by the active intellect horseness itself is
abstracted from individual horses. Here, what in sense images or phantasms
is abstracted from is the individuality of particular horses and what remains
is universal and not individual. Aquinas agrees with Aristotle’s comparison of

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the active or agent intellect to light.

The active intellect is required for un-

derstanding as light is required for seeing. What in phantasms the active in-
tellect illumines or makes knowable to the passive intellect are the forms or
natures of individual things in the world. This it does by focusing on those
forms or natures in abstraction from the individual conditions in which they
are found, just as one focuses a flashlight on the keyhole of a door in ab-
straction from other parts of the door. This evidently presupposes that the
forms or essences of things must first be in the phantasms of sense. Nothing
can be abstracted from sense perception unless it is in the first place given in
sense perception. And to answer the objection that this implies that the uni-
versal forms or natures of things are known by sense Aquinas would add that
not everything that is given in sense perception is recognized by sense per-
ception. The senses do not know the contents of all the baggage they receive.

TYPES OF ABSTRACTION

Moreover, corresponding to different types of real relations in things are dif-
ferent types of abstraction. To the real relation of an accidental, quantitative
form to matter corresponds the abstraction of such a form from its matter.
Thus, ovalness is abstracted from a stone. This Aquinas calls abstractio for-
mae a materia sensibili.

To the real relation of essential form taken as a log-

ical whole to its parts corresponds the abstraction of that whole from its parts.
Thus we have either the abstraction of species from indivduals (i.e. human
from Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc.) or the abstraction of genus from species
(i.e.animal form horse, lion, bear, etc.). This Aquinas calls abstractio totius.

The two types of abstraction have been called, respectively, formal and to-

tal abstraction. Despite the foregoing examples, the difference between them
is not that the former is the abstraction of an accidental, mathematical form
from individual matter while the latter is the abstraction of an essential, non-
mathematical form from individual matter. The difference instead turns on
whether what is abstracted is cut off by the mind from matter or not. A form
may be abstracted from a material individual in such a way that it is impred-
icable of that individual. Thus, ovalness is impredicable of a stone and hu-
manity is impredicable of Socrates. Here, ovalness and humanity are ab-
stracted from things in precision from matter. We cannot say either that this
stone is ovalness or that Socrates is humanity. Otherwise we should say that
a whole is one of its parts. But by contrast, a form might be abstracted from
a material individual in such a way that it is predicable of that individual.
Thus, oval is predicated of a stone and human is predicated of Socrates. We
can say that the stone is oval or that Socrates is human. In any case, when they

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talk of formal abstraction, Thomists refer to the former and when they speak
of total abstraction, they refer to the latter.

Use of the analogy of light in connection with the active intellect inevitably

recalls St. Augustine’s doctrine of divine illumination. But the influence on
Aquinas here is not St. Augustine but Aristotle. For one thing, the illumina-
tion Augustine refers to is due directly to God and not to a power in each one
of us. For another, the function of divine illumination in Augustine is not to
abstract forms or essences from their individual conditions but to reveal to us
the character of necessity in a priori truths. Nevertheless, Aquinas does not
doubt that the power of the active intellect in each person to illumine phan-
tasms in us is derived from a higher intellect which he identifies with God.

In this connection, he quotes Psalm 4,6: “The light of your countenance, O
Lord, is stamped upon us.” And so, to the extent that he holds that we know
nothing without the power of our active intellect and that the latter is derived
from God, Aquinas is one with Augustine in believing that our knowledge de-
pends on God. But the kind of knowledge for which we need God’s help is
different for each philosopher. While in Augustine we depend on God’s light
to see the necessity in a priori truths, in Aquinas we ultimately depend on
God’s light even for our empirical knowledge of things, i.e. for our abstract-
ing the forms of things from sense images or phantasms.

In any case, the reason why our intellectual power is derived from the

higher intellect of God is that the human soul is intellectual only by partici-
pation. This is shown by the fact that the human soul is not wholly intellec-
tual but only partly so. For unlike separate substances, it has this other thing,
matter (the body), joined to it. But whatever is not some form F by itself but
has another thing joined to it is F by participation and not F pure and simple.
For example, since any contingent being is not just being but has this other
thing, essence, joined to it, then any contingent being has being participa-
tively. And that means that its being is derived from something that has being
non-participatively. It follows that the human soul is intellectual by virtue of
some higher intellect that is intellectual per se or by its whole nature rather
than by part of its nature.

INTELLECT AS LIMITED

Moreover, that our intellect is limited and imperfect is shown by the fact that
it passes in knowledge from potentiality to act. It does not know everything
it knows all at once or intuitively. Instead, most of its knowledge is non-intu-
itive and discursive, either by way of composing and dividing (judging) or by
way of reasoning. Since in both judging and reasoning our intellect moves

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from potentially knowing to actually knowing, it is susceptible of being per-
fected in its knowledge. But only what is imperfect can be perfected. Thus,

. . . For since the intellect passes from potentiality to act, it has a likeness to gen-
erable things, which do not attain to perfection all at once but acquire it by de-
grees. In the same way, the human intellect does not acquire perfect knowledge
of a thing by the first apprehension; but it first apprehends something of the
thing, such as its quiddity, which is the first and proper object of the intellect;
and then it understands the properties, accidents, and various dispositions af-
fecting the essence. Thus it necessarily relates one thing with another by com-
position or division; and from one composition and division it necessarily pro-
ceeds to another, and this is reasoning.

Further, from the fact that our intellect moves from potentiality to act in

this way it follows not only that it is imperfect but also that it is derived from
a higher intellect. For since it passes from potentiality to act in knowing, our
intellect must rely on some efficient cause outside of itself to do so. It does
not move itself to understand but must be helped to understand by a higher
intellect.

Finally, what intellect first conceives, says Aquinas, is being. That it does

by its first operation which is apprehension. But no fact or principle is un-
derstood by the second operation of intellect, i.e. composing and dividing
(judging), says Aquinas, unless the principle of non-contradiction is under-
stood, i.e. that a thing or being cannot both be and not be at the same time in
the same way. But further, no conclusion is understood by reasoning unless
something is understood by judgment. For all reasoning to conclusions is
from judgments. Furthermore, the law of non-contradiction is understood
only if the concept of being is understood since the former includes the latter.
From all this it follows that nothing is understood by either apprehension,
judgment, or reasoning unless being is understood. From this it also follows
that since reasoning depends on judging and judging depends on simple ap-
prehension then all our intellectual operations depend on simple apprehension
and more particularly on the simple apprehension of being.

TRUE AND GOOD COMPARED

Persons both know and want things. They do the former by the power of in-
tellect and the latter by the power of will. Moreover, since one only wants
what one knows, knowing things is a condition of wanting them. Since will
aims at the understood good, the intellect moves the will as an end.

In that

sense does the intellect logically precede the will. Moreover, since knowing

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something precedes wanting it and truth relates to knowing while good relates
to wanting, the object of the intellect, true, is by nature prior to the object of
the will, good.

Included in and hence prior to both true and good is the idea

of being.

Truth adds to being the idea of good or perfectiveness in relation to intel-

lect.

This relation can run either way. Truth is being either as perfective of,

or as perfected by, intellect. The first is being in intellect as the end of intel-
lect. This is judgmental truth in which being specifies or informs the (passive)
intellect as the actual informs or fulfills the potential. And as the actual per-
fects or is the end and good of the potential, being as it is in intellect, i.e. truth,
perfects or is the act, end, and good of the intellect. Thus, I truly judge that S
is P because what I judge or what specifies or actualizes my intellect in so
judging is the very likeness of being or fact. In this way can it be said that be-
ing is perfective of intellect in judgmental truth. The second is once again be-
ing in intellect. But it is being in intellect not as the end of intellect but as the
end of being. This is ontological truth in which the very likeness of some Idea
or model in intellect is in being or reality as the actual is in the potential. And
once again, as the actual perfects and is the end and good of the potential, this
Idea or model in intellect, i.e. truth, perfects or is the end and good of being.
Thus, an artisan’s product is called true because the form that actualizes it is
the very likeness of the artisan’s ideal model. And natural things are called
true because their forms are the very likenesses of the Ideas of them in God’s
intellect. In this way can it be said that intellect is perfective of being in on-
tological truth. But in either case, truth is a relation of conformity of intellect
and being. And that relation is either one of being’s conforming to intellect or
of intellect’s conforming to being.

Under this view of truth, therefore, truth

is in intellect and not in things, except in relation to intellect.

On the other hand, good adds to being the idea of perfectiveness or end ab-

solutely speaking. It does not add the idea of an end to being in relation to in-
tellect or any other particular thing. Good adds to being the idea of being an
end to any potentiality whatsoever, i.e. the idea of being an end period.

this way is good the genus of true, the latter being a type or species of good,
i.e. the good of the intellect.

Moreover, since what perfects potentiality is

act and act is the end of potentiality, good adds to being the idea of being an
end with respect to that of which it is the end. Further, something is not called
good because it is perfected but because it perfects. Good is what perfects or
fulfills any potentiality, cognitive or real. But since what perfects potentiality
is actuality and the actual is the end of the potential, then good has the nature
of act and end. Thus, form is the good of matter, and existence, the act of all
acts, is the good of essence. So good is being as desirable, as the term, goal,
or end of some activity, tendency, or appetite. It is actual fulfillment with re-

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spect to what has potentiality for, or is bent toward, that fulfillment. What
good is is seen by contrasting it with its opposite, evil. As evil consists in a
thing’s being defective in some way, i.e. in its lacking a form it ought to have,
so good consists in a thing’s having the form it ought to have.

Good and true, as well as their respective powers, will and intellect, mutu-

ally include each other as genus includes species. “The intellect understands
the will and the will wills the intellect to understand.”

As to their objects, to

the extent that truth is a kind of good, i.e. that toward which intellect tends,
good is universal and truth particular. In this way is good prior to truth as
genus is prior to species. One can say that truth and falsehood are the good
and evil, respectively, of intellect.

Like any other thing, intellect is good

when it has the form it ought to have and evil when it lacks that form.

But

as a knowing power, the form it ought to have is the form of another.

So in-

tellect is good when it is true, i.e. when it has in it the likeness of the real or
factual, and intellect is evil when it is false, i.e. when it lacks or falls short of
that likeness. On the other hand, to the extent that good is a kind of being and
hence intelligible or true, true or being is universal and good particular. Since,
as knowable, good is one among a myriad of things that is a possible object
of intellect, it follows that good is a species of the true. In this way is truth
prior to good, once again as genus is logically prior to species.

Yet as was mentioned, behind both true and good is the idea of being,

which is the absolutely first thing the intellect conceives. No concept in the
first act of the intellect, simple apprehension, is understood unless being is
understood. Behind the concepts of tree, animal, stone, atom, etc. is the idea
of being. Moreover, nothing is understood in the second act of the mind, i.e.
judgment, unless the law of non-contradiction is understood in judgment. Be-
hind my understanding “Humans are animals,” “Stones are composed of
atoms,” “These trees are oaks,” etc. is “Nothing can simultaneously both be
F and not be F” or “No judgment is both true and false.” Further, according
to Aquinas, nothing is understood by the third act of the mind, reason, unless
something is understood by judgment. For knowledge of the conclusions of
reason depend on knowledge of the premises, and this is knowledge by judg-
ment. But now, the law of non-contradiction in judgment is understood only
if the idea of being is understood in simple apprehension. Therefore, nothing
at all is understood by simple apprehension, judgment, or reason unless being
is understood by simple apprehension.

In any case, besides these powers of the intellect, i.e., apprehending, judg-

ing, and reasoning, there are two powers of the will, i.e. willing ends and
choosing means. But the functioning of a power is related to that power as act
to potentiality, and act always perfects potentiality.

As a power, then, intel-

lect is perfected when it actually apprehends, actually judges, and actually

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reasons, and will is perfected when it actually wills and chooses. All these op-
erations are done either well or not well. One apprehends the essence or na-
ture of a thing either adequately or inadequately. One judges either truly or
falsely, and one reasons either validly or invalidly. Just so, one chooses either
virtuously or viciously.

Moreover, in knowing we move by reason from what is directly and more

easily known to what is indirectly and less easily known, and this is to move
from what is only potentially known in premises to what is actually known in
conclusions. But since the actual perfects the potential, this movement of rea-
son from what is more directly known in premises to what is less directly
known in conclusions perfects reason and hence the intellect itself. Thus,
since the good or perfection of a thing is its end, it follows that the end of the
intellect is truth and in particular the reasoned truth of conclusions.

Further, the functioning of a rational power is perfected according to the

perfection of its object.

Hence, the power of will is perfected to the extent

that what is wanted or attained is end or what is desirable in itself as opposed
to what is desired for another. The latter is a mix of the desirable and the non-
desirable since it is desired only as means and not as end.

But since a thing

is good to the extent that it is desirable for itself, the power of will is perfected
to the extent that what is wanted or attained is the good itself as opposed to
means which is a mix of good and non-good. Similarly, the power of intellect
is perfected to the extent that what is known is the intelligible itself as op-
posed to a mix of the intelligible and the non-intelligible. And since a thing is
intelligible, as it is appetible, to the extent that it is form or act, the power of
intellect is perfected to the extent that what is known is act or form itself as
opposed to a mix of form and matter or of the actual and the potential.

And yet the difference between knowing and wanting and hence between

intellect and will is this: whereas knowledge is according as the thing known
is in the knower, desire is according as the desirer tends toward the thing de-
sired as to something outside. Thus Aquinas notes that Aristotle places a kind
of circle in the acts of the soul. The thing outside moves the intellect, the thing
as apprehended in intellect instigates desire, and the desire then tends to the
attainment of the thing outside whence the movement first began.

So while

truth is in the intellect goodness is not in the intellect but in things. Thus the
aspect of good passes from the thing desired to the desire, whereas the aspect
of the true passes from knowing to the thing known. Desires are called good
because the things desired are good, whereas things are called true because
the intellect which knows them is true. It is mind that is true and reality is
called true only in relation to mind. By contrast, it is the real that is good and
mind or desire is called good only by reference to the real. Says Aquinas,

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. . . Now as good exists in a thing so far as that thing is related to the appetite—
and hence the aspect of goodness passes on from the desirable thing to the ap-
petite, in so far as the appetite is called good if its object is good; so, since the
true is in the intellect in so far as the intellect is conformed to the thing under-
stood, the aspect of the true must needs pass from the intellect to the thing un-
derstood , so that the thing understood is said to be true in so far as it has some
relation to the intellect.

TRUTH AND JUDGMENT

If Aristotle and Aquinas are right that truth is in mind while good is in things,
then the bearer of ‘true’ is strictly speaking mental being while the bearer of
‘good’ is real being. But it is not any mental being at all, according to
Aquinas, that is true, even when they give us knowledge. For example, nei-
ther sense images nor the concepts we have in simple apprehension are true,
even though those images and concepts do, when they conform to their ob-
jects, provide knowledge of those objects. We can say that sense images that
conform to their objects are in a sense true and that concepts that conform to
their objects are likewise in a sense true. But strictly speaking, they are not
true, says Aquinas.

The reason for this is that it is not by either one of them

that we make a claim about how things are in fact or in reality. I might see a
green patch on a wall, but so long as I confine myself to my experience of
seeing green and do not refer the green I see to the real wall, I make no claim
about how the external world is. And just for that reason the question of truth
or falsity fails to arise. Likewise in the case of concepts. I might have the ab-
stract concept of a condor, but so long as I confine myself to the concept it-
self I once again make no claim about the external world. But once I use the
concept of condor as the predicate and judge that the bird I see is a condor,
then for the first time I make a claim about how things are. And just because
of that does the question of truth or falsity in the strict sense come into play.
And it comes into play not with respect to the concept condor but with respect
to the whole judgment in which that concept figures. To scholastic philoso-
phers, that showed a link between judgments and existence. Whereas con-
cepts bear upon essence only, judgments purport to signify existence.

Nevertheless, persons evidently judge that S is P without knowing that S

is P. But if truth is in intellect and not in things, how is that possible? The
function of intellect being to know, how can truth be in intellect without in-
tellect’s knowing truth? To answer, this seeming contradiction comes from
equating intellect’s function with knowing. But persons believe things as

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well as knowing them and belief involves intellect too since believing that S
is P implies judging that S is P and judging is combining or separating ideas
in intellect. So given that intellect believes as well as knows, no one is forced
to choose between affirming that judging implies knowing and denying that
truth is in intellect.

Still, if truth does not imply knowledge and yet is in intellect, how can one

say, as does Aquinas, that truth is the end of the intellect? For Aquinas holds
that the end of a thing is its good or perfection and that intellect is perfected
by knowledge. How, then, does he compatibly say that truth perfects intellect
when intellect truly believes but does not know that S is P? Holding that truth
is in intellect and that truth does not imply knowledge, Aquinas would then
seem to be on the horns of a dilemma. Either (A) he affirms that knowledge
perfects intellect and denies that truth is the end of intellect or else (B) he af-
firms that truth is the end of intellect and denies that knowledge perfects the
intellect. And yet it seems that St. Thomas shuns both (A) and (B).

Stated baldly in this way, these two propositions, i.e. “Truth is the end (and

hence the perfection) of intellect” and “Knowledge perfects the intellect” are
incompatible for any philosopher to hold who also both affirms that truth is in
the intellect and denies that truth implies knowledge. Yet a closer look at what
Aquinas says about truth shows that it is not truth as such in his view that is the
end or perfection of the intellect but truth as known.

Truth as known occurs

not just when one’s judgment conforms to reality but when one is acquainted
with that conformity.

Truth as known is thus reflective knowledge. If only the

first condition is met truth is in the intellect since the latter conforms to being.
But it does not know or apprehend its own conformity to being. This might be
called first-order truth. It is how truth is in intellect in its simple apprehension
of essences. But when the second condition is met, this ignorance is overcome.
Intellect not only conforms to being or is true, but it is acquainted with its own
likeness to being. This might be called second-order truth or truth as known. It
is how truth is in intellect in judgment or what Aquinas often calls “composing
and dividing.” In and through the copula in judgment, one affirms that the ref-
erent of the subject conforms to one’s idea of it in the predicate.

In so doing,

one not only has a likeness of the thing known in one’s intellect but one also
“reflects on that likeness by knowing it and by making a judgment about it.”

Thus, suppose I truly judge that Jones is in his office. Then, not only is

truth in my intellect but also, in making that judgment, I know reflectively the
composition I make of subject and predicate, of Jones and the idea of his be-
ing in his office. And since that composition conforms to reality or is true, I
know the conformity of Jones to my own idea of him. In other words, I know
or am acquainted with truth. And it is in this second-order, reflective truth—

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in this condition of knowing truth in judgment—that intellect reaches its end
or is perfected.

As it is with truth, so is it with falsity. Suppose I falsely judge that Jones is

in the classroom. Here again, not only is falsity in my intellect but also I am
acquainted with that falsity.

For in making that judgment I am acquainted

with the composition I make of the subject and the predicate, of Jones and the
idea of his being in the classroom. But since that composition is false, what I
am acquainted with this time is falsity or a composition in mind that fails to
match reality.

Yet the paradox is that from the fact that I am acquainted with truth and fal-

sity in and through making true and false judgments, respectively, it does not
follow that I know that those judgments are true and false. Except in the case
of lies, when I falsely judge that S is P I neither believe nor know that it is
false that S is P. Even so, since I am evidently acquainted with my own com-
position of S and P and the latter fails to conform to reality, I am none the less
acquainted with falsity. The same goes for truth. Suppose that I truly judge
from afar that Jones is in his office. In and through that judgment I am surely
acquainted with my own composition of S and P. Just to that extent am I ac-
quainted with truth since that composition conforms to reality. Yet from the
fact that I am so acquainted it does not follow that I know that the composi-
tion or judgment with which I am acquainted is true.

No doubt the latter is sometimes the case. And like many other philosophers,

Aquinas holds that it is better for intellect to know than not to know, i.e. that
knowledge is better than either belief or ignorance. So in his view intellect is
perfected when it is not only acquainted with its own true compositions or judg-
ments (which is always the case) but when it also knows that those same com-
positions or judgments are true. For example, suppose I judge that I exist. Then,
not only is it the case that my judgment is true and that therefore, in being ac-
quainted with my judgment, I am ipso facto acquainted with truth. It is also the
case that I know that I am acquainted with truth, i.e. I know that the (true) judg-
ment with which I am acquainted is true. By contrast, suppose I judge truly that
a person with whom I have had no contact for many years exists. Then once
again, in being acquainted with my own judgment, I am necessarily acquainted
with truth. But the difference is that in this case I do not know that what I am
acquainted with is truth or in other words I do not know that the (true) judg-
ment with which I am acquainted is true. By analogy, in being acquainted with
Jones who happens to be chair of the curriculum committee, I am ipso facto ac-
quainted with the chair of the curriculum committee. But from that it does not
follow that I know that I am acquainted with the chair of the curriculum com-
mittee or in other words that I know that Jones is chair of that committee.

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THE ORDER OF KNOWLEDGE

Further, intellect is perfected in its knowledge of truth by knowing true con-
clusions as opposed to knowing true premises in sound arguments. For rea-
soning is not an end in itself in the view of Aquinas but has its term in true
conclusions and the term or end of something perfects it.

Besides, except in

mathematics where the better known absolutely and the better known to us
are perhaps the same, argument proceeds from what is better known to us but
not better known absolutely to what is better known absolutely but not better
known to us.

That is simply to say that, whether we argue from cause to ef-

fect or from effect to cause, the premises must be more obvious to us than
their conclusions. Otherwise we should never use the premises to prove the
conclusions but instead would end up trying to prove the more evident in
terms of the less evident. A case in point is arguing from first principles in
metaphysics, philosophy of nature, and ethics. These he regards as knowledge
that is common to all persons and as the starting point in the quest for knowl-
edge. Knowledge of first principles is the beginning and not the end or apex
of known truth. Armed with the knowledge of these first principles which are
directly and most easily known by us, we proceed to use those principles to
gain knowledge of truths in those sciences that are not either directly or eas-
ily known by us. Thus, we move in these areas from the obvious to the more
hidden and recondite. This is a movement from knowing the latter potentially
in the principles to knowing them actually as conclusions drawn from those
principles by reason. These conclusions, to repeat, are less knowable to us
whereas the principles from which they are drawn are more knowable to us.
At the same time, since (i) the conclusions are more specific than the prem-
ises or principles from which they are inferred, and since (ii) increased speci-
ficity follows upon form, and since finally, (iii) something is intelligible in it-
self to the extent that it is or has form, it follows that conclusions are more
knowable or intelligible in themselves than are the principles from which they
are drawn, even though they are less knowable or intelligible to us.

This sounds esoteric until we see what is behind it. And what is behind it

are two things. First (1), in the order of being, something is knowable to the
extent that it is form or act. Thus God, who is pure form or act without any
potentiality is supremely knowable in Himself, though not, of course, first
known to us. Second (2), in the order of knowledge, what we first know is far
from being form or act alone or anything close to that. For what we first know
are certain wholes or mixes of the actual and the potential. And they are dou-
bly composite in this way, i.e. they are composite both in the order of essence
and in the order of existence. Ordinary things like trees and toads are not
identified with their own forms but are instead a composite of form and mat-

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ter. And being contingent beings, they are not identified with their own acts
of existence either but are rather a composite of existence and essence. And
in both orders the relationship of the two elements is one of the actual to the
potential.

As to (1), since Aquinas construes knowledge as the reception of form as

abstracted from matter, then any being at all is knowable to the extent and de-
gree that it is form as opposed to matter, act as opposed to potentiality. That
is why, as was said, God is supremely knowable in his view. As to (2), just as
I first sense physical wholes or substances the parts of which I only later sense
by closer scrutiny, so too I first understand logical wholes and only later dis-
cern their parts. Among concepts, I know genus before species. For to know
the species I must needs know the difference and this takes time. Thus,
though I know that a condor is a bird, it takes some time and effort on my part
to uncover the differentia which marks off condors from other birds. But
genus is taken from matter and difference from form. Thus, in the matter of
concepts and in the temporal order I first know the more general or what is
the more potential before knowing the more specific or what is less potential
and more actual. The paradox is that even though a thing is knowable on ac-
count of its form—so that a formless entity is not strictly speaking known to
us—nevertheless, the more something approaches pure form or the less it is
mixed with potentiality the less knowable it is to us.

As it is with concepts so is it with propositions. I know the more general

logical principles before acquiring specific knowledge in botany, geology, an-
thropology, and so on. And in fields like mathematics and ethics, I use basic
principles to come to understand more recondite truths in those sciences.
Through knowledge of axioms and definitions in mathematics I come to dis-
cover hitherto unknown theorems. For example, reasoning from the axioms
and definitions of Euclidean geometry, I come to know the theorem that the
exterior angle formed by extending the lines of the base and hypotenuse of a
right triangle is equal to its adjacent interior angle. And though it is untrue to
say that ethics is a purely deductive science, nevertheless, through knowing
ethical principles I come to know that more specific ethical propositions are
true. Thus I justify the latter in terms of the former. All persons know that they
ought to do good and avoid evil, that kindness is better than cruelty, that jus-
tice is better than injustice, etc. And in the light of these principles we judge
that certain specific actions are to be taken or eschewed. Whether mathemat-
ical or ethical, the general principle is behind the more specific truths in those
areas the way in which, in concepts, knowledge of genus is behind knowledge
of species. It is behind it or first not in the order of being but in the order of
discovery or knowledge. Putting (1) and (2) together, then, we then under-
stand the previously mentioned view of Aquinas that principles or premises

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are more knowable to us but less knowable in themselves while conclusions
are less knowable to us but more knowable in themselves.

SOME OBJECTIONS

Be that as it may and recurring to truth, for at least two reasons philosophers
balk at the idea that truth is in mind and not in things. First, to say this sug-
gests a hiatus between mind and reality, between mind and matter. This in-
vites a recalcitrant dualism. If mind is one thing and world another—the two
standing over against each other as two self-enclosed systems—then you end
up with an unnegotiable dualism. And in that case it is difficult to see how it
makes sense to say that mind corresponds to or is true of reality. That implies
a unity behind the difference which the stark Cartesian dualism excludes.
This is just one dimension of the mind-body mystery. Or suppose that saying
that truth is in minds and not in things implies a hard and fast division of
thought and world. Then is that very claim i.e. that thought and world are ab-
solutely different really consistent? To say either that thought is absolutely
different from world or that world is absolutely different from thought is to
define each one of them in terms of the other, thus spiking the supposed ab-
solute distinction between them. Second, saying that truth is in minds seems
to invite psychologism under which truth-bearers are wrongly identified with
certain mental acts or entities.

Nevertheless, these concerns about the claim that truth is in mind and not

in things feed on misconceptions about how intellect and judgments are con-
strued in Aristotle and Aquinas. For one thing, neither Aristotle nor Aquinas
are Cartesian dualists and for another, neither one of them predicates ‘true’ of
bare psychological acts. Intellect in Aristotle and Aquinas is far from being
the separated substance that res cogitans is in Descartes. And if it is not, then
the threatened gap between mind and matter fails in the first instance to sur-
face. And when Aquinas says that truth is found in the intellect as “compos-
ing and dividing,” i.e. in intellect as judging, he refers not to the psychologi-
cal act of composing and dividing but to what is formed in and through those
acts. The latter are judgments or propositions and they fall not in the category
of activity, mental or otherwise, but in the category of relation. When I truly
judge that Jones is seated that judgment consists in the relation of a predicate
to a subject. True, that relation is a relation of reason and not a real relation.
That is to say, intellect makes it just as it makes universal concepts. But from
the fact that intellect makes judgments and concepts through its own acts it
hardly follows that what we predicate of those judgments and concepts is
predicated of those acts. As it is the concept, and not the act that makes it, that

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has the properties of being universal, of being a genus, of having extension,
etc., so it is the proposition or judgment, and not the mental act which makes
it, that bears the property of being true or of being false.

THE BEARER OF ‘TRUE’

Yet even if this answers the charge of psychologism, identifying truth-bearers
with beings of reason like judgments faces another challenge. For we some-
times call statements true or false when no judgment is behind them. Liars
disbelieve the lies they tell and yet no one hesitates to call their statements
false. Likewise, no one balks at calling them true even when, like Pablo in
Sartre’s The Wall, the liar disbelieves what he says even though what he says
happens to be true. But since no one judges that S is P without believing that
S is P, it follows that Aquinas is wrong and truth is not predicated of judg-
ments in the sense of entia rationis.

To answer this, defenders of Aquinas might counter that the objection feeds

on falsely assuming that judging that S is P implies believing that S is P.
Though no one believes that S is P without judging that S is P, one can judge
that S is P without believing that S is P. Judging is simply combining two
ideas and we can do this without assenting to the combination. Thus the ob-
jection fails.

It seems, though, that this defense fails. True, one can judge that S is P with-

out either knowing or stating that S is P. Thus, I might judge that Jones is in
his office without either knowing or stating that he is. But what would it be
like for a person to judge that S is P without believing that S is P? When be-
lief is removed, it seems that judging too is removed. What would it be like for
me to judge that Jones is in his office without my believing that he is in his of-
fice? The combination of my judging that he is in his office and my not be-
lieving that he is in his office is plainly inconceivable. The reason is that to
judge that S is P is not, as the would-be defense proposes, simply to combine
two ideas. I combine two ideas when I wonder or wish that S is P. Yet won-
dering or wishing that S is P falls short of judging that S is P. Judging that S is
P is combining two ideas plus accepting it and that is belief. Therefore, judg-
ing implies believing no less than believing implies judging. They are, in fact,
two names for the same thing, as ordinary language confirms. But if so, then
the objection still stands. Since, as in the case of lies, we call statements false
(or, as the case might be, true) even when there is no belief and hence no judg-
ment behind them, and since the same analysis is given of truth as is given of
falsehood, it follows that truth does not reside in the “composing and dividing”
of two concepts in intellect. In short, if you can have straightforward truth

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without judgment and if among mental entities none but judgments are strictly
speaking true, then truth is not primarily predicated of judgments and hence is
not strictly speaking in intellect.

And yet it seems that Aquinas would have a counter-reply to this objection.

For the latter feeds on the assumption that statements are straightforwardly
true when there is no judgment or belief behind them, and this Aquinas would
challenge. Sentences must be contrasted with the uses to which they are put.
Thus, I might use one and the same sentence-type S is P to illustrate a point
in grammar, to elicit an emotion, or more typically, to assert that S is P. One
might say that these are three different sentence-tokens of the same sentence-
type. In any case, it is evidently not of sentences used in the first two ways or
in other non-assertive ways that the question of truth and falsity arises. In-
stead, as P. F. Strawson showed, we call sentences either true or false only
when they are used to make an assertion.

But to say this is to say that what

is added to a sentence to make it an assertion (and hence susceptible of truth
or falsity) is the judgment or belief on the part of the speaker or writer that S
is P. In other words, since what makes any given sentence-token an assertion
is nothing else but the accompanying judgment or belief which the sentence
expresses, then it follows that there is no truth without judgment and hence
that statements are not straightforwardly true when there is no belief or judg-
ment behind them. And since the same assay is given of falsehood as is given
of truth, it follows that, since liars disbelieve the lies they tell, their lies are
neither true nor false in the strict sense but are called false (or true, as in the
case may be) because the belief or judgment which would accompany them
is false (or true).

To this it might be replied that liars do in fact use their lies to make a state-

ment and not to express an emotion, to illustrate a point in grammar, or for
any other purpose. The very success of their lies depends on their using them
in this way. No one is ever deceived by lies, nor are they in fact lies, unless
the sentences used by liars are used in this way. But then in that case lies are
straightforwardly false (or true) after all, since they are used to make state-
ments. Otherwise there would be no lies and hence no one would or could be
deceived by lies. But if lies are straightforwardly false (or true) then it follows
that saying that truth is primarily predicated of beliefs or judgments and pred-
icated of statements secondarily or only by reference to the truth of beliefs or
judgments is wrong. Under this analysis, Aquinas is one of many philoso-
phers who simply underestimated the role of language in truth.

Nevertheless, in true medieval fashion, Aquinas could reply to this by

drawing a distinction. True, liars use sentences to make statements and both
their lies and the success of them depend squarely on that use. Statements,
though, are not the same as assertions. Moreover, even if they were, what at

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best follows from this is that they are secondarily and not straightforwardly
true. To spell it out, liars use sentences to make statements because otherwise
they do not even begin to achieve their goal of deception. In other words, their
goal in making statements is to hide and not to mirror their inner beliefs or
judgments. That is the essence of a lie. But just because of that do their state-
ments masquerade as assertions. They are dummy-assertions. Liars do not as-
sert that S is P but pretend to do so by using sentences in a statement-making
way. Thus, while all assertions are statements, not all statements are asser-
tions. While both are units of language, the difference between them is that
whereas beliefs or judgments always accompany assertions, they do not al-
ways accompany statements, as is evidenced by lies. In any case, all state-
ments, whether they are assertions or not, are called true only by reference to
beliefs or judgments. All assertions are secondarily true or false because they
express what really is true or false, namely, the beliefs or judgments behind
them. However, dummy-assertions or lies are in a tertiary sense called true or
false because the assertions for which they masquerade are secondarily true
or false. At least this is what it seems Aquinas’s answer would be.

Yet some would deny either that truth-bearers are identified with beliefs or

judgments in Aquinas’s sense or with statements in the sense of the assertive
use of sentences. These are proposition-theorists. As the name suggests, these
philosophers identify truth-bearers with propositions, and the latter are nei-
ther mind-dependent nor linguistic entities. Instead, they are what might be
called the objective senses of beliefs or statements. Anyone who makes an as-
sertion asserts something and anyone who believes believes something, and it
is this “something” or the object of belief that is properly speaking true and
not either i) the believing or the asserting of it or ii) the complex of the be-
lieving or asserting together with the object believed or asserted.

This view admits of two possibilities. Either propositions have independent

being or dependent being. Under the first, propositions are timeless, or, as is
sometimes said, subsistent (as opposed to existent) entities. They are also in-
dependent or self-subsistent entities. If this view is correct, then truth is nei-
ther in mind nor in things but in a Platonic heaven along with the propositions
of which it is predicated. Thus, suppose I believe that John loves Mary. Then
what I believe, i.e. the proposition that John loves Mary, has objective being
in a transcendent realm. Moreover, just when that same object or proposition
is a simple proposition and true, there is a fact in the world which it mirrors
or pictures. Under the second, propositions are not self-subsistent entities but
have being only in and through some complex. That complex is one of a be-
lieving or asserting plus the object believed or asserted, and that believed or
asserted object is exactly what is meant by a proposition. Under this view,
when I believe that John loves Mary, then once again what I believe is a

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proposition, i.e. the proposition that John loves Mary. This time, though, the
proposition has no independent being but exists only in and through the be-
lief. It is the object-side as opposed to the subject-side of the belief where by
‘belief’ it is meant the whole or complex which comprises these two sides, i.e.
the complex of the believing-plus-the-thing-believed. Common to both ver-
sions of the proposition-theory, though, is the idea that truth-bearers are
propositions and that the latter are neither mental nor linguistic entities but
rather objective entities, be they independent or dependent. Under the propo-
sition-theory, therefore, truth and falsehood are not tout court mental entities
even though, under the second version of that theory, they are the objective
content of mental entities, i.e. beliefs or judgments.

DIFFICULTIES WITH THE PROPOSITION-THEORY

Since the proposition-theory was in large part adopted by philosophers who
lived long after Aquinas, one can only surmise how he would have reacted to
it. His general criticism of the theory would doubtless be that it confuses a
whole with one of its parts or constituents. For we have seen that the bearer
of ‘true’ in the propositional sense is in his view identified with the complex
of a judgment together with what is judged in and through that judgment and
not either the former or the latter alone. But aside from what Aquinas would
have said about the theory, one can raise several objections to the first or full-
fledged version of the theory, not the least of which is that it countenances ob-
jective falsehoods.

Under this robust proposition-theory, objective falsehoods are the objects

of false beliefs. When I believe falsely that John loves Mary, I must believe
something. Moreover, as against Russell, proposition-theorists affirm that this
“something” is a kind of unitary thing and not a mere aggregate of things.

What I believe is not a loose concatenation of things taken severally, i.e. John,
loves, and Mary, but the unified complex, that-John-loves-Mary. And this unit
is nothing less than an objective falsehood. Belief, after all, is a dyadic exter-
nal relation and as such requires two terms, in this case, myself and the ob-
jective falsehood that John loves Mary. Moreover, to deny the real status of
falsehood by placing falsehood in minds makes the bearers of truth and false-
hood mental entities and this invites the error of psychologism. It is not acts
of believing or judging that are true or false but the objects of those acts. At
least, this is how these proposition-theorists would argue.

Yet if it is not contradictory, this combination of being both real and false

defies common sense. Falsehood is not a thing but signifies the lack of some-
thing. False judgments are those to which no fact corresponds. When it is not
raining and I judge that it is, what I judge to be the case is absent or missing

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in reality. Since, then, falsehood is not real being and yet is a property of judg-
ments, it must be in the sense of being in mind as a being of reason. This ac-
cords with our commonsense belief that it is what we think or judge to be real
that is false and not the real itself. And since the same assay is given of truth
as is given of falsehood, it follows that truth too is in minds and not in things.

Moreover, positing objective falsehoods as the objects of false beliefs com-

promises the difference between true and false beliefs.

If something real

corresponds to mind in false as well as in true belief, it then becomes difficult
to see, as Russell says, how the difference between true and false beliefs is
preserved.

To answer this, proposition-theorists distinguish two kinds of

real or mind-independent objects. There are existent things such as the events
or facts to which our true judgments correspond and there are subsistent
things such as objective truths and falsehoods. The difference, then, between
our true and false judgments is this. Each one of our true judgments has an
objective sense which is a subsistent true proposition and in addition refers to
some corresponding existent fact or event. By contrast, each one of our false
judgments has an objective sense which is a subsistent false proposition but
does not in addition refer to some corresponding existent fact or event. Thus,
the difference between our true and false beliefs or judgments is preserved
without assigning truth and falsity to minds.

Nevertheless, other things being equal, it is better not to multiply entities be-

yond necessity. Therefore, if by assigning truth to minds one can explain the
truth-relation without falling victim to psychologism, then why admit in addition
to existent minds and things a separate realm of subsistent truths and falsehoods?

Besides, it seems that the full-fledged proposition-theory spells skepti-

cism.

For suppose that knowledge entails truth. Thus,

If a person R knows that something is the case then it is the case or is true.

If we go by the proposition-theory, then .’ . . is true’ in T is said of a propo-

sition. But then T is intelligible only if in T the object of R’s knowledge is
also a proposition. For the pronoun ‘it’ of which ‘true’ is predicated evidently
refers to what is known. So, if propositions are truth-bearers and if T is as-
sumed, then it follows that propositions are the objects of knowledge-that.
But then, when it is known that something is the case what is known is always
a proposition and not a fact. Hence, if T is true, then making propositions
truth-bearers implies that facts are unknown. Thus,

1. If a person R knows that grass is green then it is true that grass is green.
2. However, no fact is true.

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3. Hence, in knowing that grass is green, R does not know a fact.
4. But if R’s knowing that grass is green is not a case of knowing a fact then

nothing is and facts are unknown.

To answer, proposition-theorists could simply identify true propositions

with facts. The former conform to the latter in that they are the latter. Saying
that a proposition is true is not saying that some other thing, a fact, is mirrored
by it but that it, the proposition, is a fact. Therefore, for any person R to know
that P is true is ipso facto for R to know a fact, in which case the threat of
skepticism dissolves.

Still, identifying true propositions and facts implies that beliefs have dif-

ferent objects depending on whether they are true or false and that is coun-
terintuitive. If what I believe is a true proposition when I truly believe some-
thing, then if true propositions are facts, then it is a fact that I believe when I
truly believe something. But facts are evidently not what are falsely believed.
It follows that what I believe or the object of my belief varies with the truth-
value of the belief. And that is unacceptable.

Second, equating true propositions and facts installs a category mistake. If

two or more species fall under a genus then they have the same type or mode
of being. It can be said that dogs and cats fall under the genus animal but it
is crossing categories to say that dogs and mermaids fall under the genus an-
imal. In the first case the species have real being while in the second there is
an illogical mix. Instead, one has real being and the other has imaginary be-
ing. This clash of categories comes from ambiguity on the genus animal. In
the second case but not in the first ‘animal’ simultaneously means two differ-
ent things, i.e. real animal and fictional animal. Not surprisingly, therefore,
the species in the second division are incoordinate.

When true propositions are only other names for facts, the same mistake

occurs. The two species that come under the genus proposition are facts and
false propositions. Yet because facts and false propositions (objective false-
hoods) have different modes of being, this division too is crossed. When one
says that facts are and that objective falsehoods are, it is not the same sense
of ‘are’ that one uses. Otherwise, either falsehoods are ontologically on a par
with facts or else facts lose their ontological advantage over falsehoods. But
once again, this conflict among the species signifies ambiguity in the genus.
The incoordinate mix of species comes from ambiguity on the genus proposi-
tion just as previously it came from ambiguity on the genus animal. When
facts are included in the genus proposition then the latter must refer to real
being. A species that has real being cannot include a genus that has only ob-
jective being. Otherwise, since any species includes a genus, the contradic-
tion follows that the species in question has simultaneously both real and ob-

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jective being. Yet when objective falsehoods are made a sub-set of the genus
proposition then the latter must have only objective and not real being. And
this is for the same reason. To avoid contradiction, species like objective
falsehoods that have only objective being cannot be said to include a genus
that has real being.

In short, the proposition-theory is untenable whether one construes the cor-

respondence-relation as similarity or as identity. And there is no other way in
which one can plausibly construe that relation. Assaying that relation in terms
of similarity implies skepticism as regards facts. The identity account does
avoid this consequence. But it does so at the price of implying both a cate-
gory mistake and the repugnancy that what a person believes varies with the
truth-value of her belief. Proposition-theorists, therefore, must either give up
the correspondence theory or else abandon their proposition-theory alto-
gether.

INTENTIONALITY OF THE TRUTH-PREDICATE

That truth is not predicated of some timeless proposition but rather depends
on minds is shown by the intentionality of the truth-predicate. Though he
identifies truth-bearers with sentences and not with judgments in Aquinas’s
sense, W.V. Quine draws our attention to this fundamental intentionality of
the truth-predicate. The expression ‘is true’ he says, has the express purpose
of reconciling our technical need for sentences with our interest in the objec-
tive world.

Identifying truth-bearers with mind-independent entities like ob-

jective propositions, then, comes from not appreciating that fact.

Though in-

terested in the world and not in language (or thought), we nonetheless need
to frame sentences or judgments.

This tends to block or divert our interest.

We therefore need the truth predicate to overcome and bridge this obstacle of
sentences or judgments. This it does by referring them beyond themselves to
the world. In that way is the truth predicate a bridge or fundamentally inten-
tional. Says Quine,

Truth hinges on reality; but to object, on this score, to calling sentences true, is
a confusion. Where the truth predicate has its utility is in just those places where,
though still concerned with reality, we are compelled by certain technical con-
siderations to mention sentences. Here, the truth predicate serves, as it were, to
point through the sentence to the reality; it serves as a reminder that though sen-
tences are mentioned, reality is still the whole point.

Our purpose in calling something x true objectively speaking is to move or

spring us beyond x to another thing y, where y is the real or what is independent

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of mind. That implies that x is not itself reality but mind or at least something
that is mind-dependent. Otherwise x or a truth-bearer would be itself real. But
then it would be nonsense to say that the truth-predicate conveys us beyond
truth-bearers to the real. The English Channel Tunnel does not carry us beyond
England to France if it is already in France when we enter it. Accordingly, being
by definition intentional and having the property of getting us beyond truth-bear-
ers to reality, the truth-predicate is placed among mind-dependent things like
sentences or judgments and not among objective entities like objective proposi-
tions. But that implies that truth is in minds and not in things.

WILL AS INTELLECTUAL APPETITE

From the power of intellect in the soul one is naturally led to the power of
will. For besides the power of knowing in us there is also the power of want-
ing or desiring. And Aquinas links intellect to will so closely as to define the
will as the intellectual appetite. If for no other reason than that he includes in-
tellect in the definition of will but not vice versa, Aquinas makes intellect log-
ically prior to will. Further, the intellect is higher than the will when they are
taken in themselves and not in relation to anything else. That is because the
object of the intellect is simpler than the object of the will and a power is
ranked by its object. But the simpler a thing is the higher it is. An appetitive
good is the object of the will but the objective sense or meaning of an ap-
petible good is an object of the intellect. But the meaning of an appetible good
enters into that good as the simpler enters into the more complex.

Further,

when the intellect is taken in relation to the universality of its object and the
will is taken as a determinate power, then the intellect is higher than the will.
For the will, its act, and its object all fall under universal being which is the
intellect’s object.

The voluntarism of a Scotus or an Ockham, therefore, not

to mention that of a Nietzsche or a Schopenhauer, Aquinas would reject.

APPETITE IN GENERAL

What is behind this definition of the will as the intellectual appetite? As to the
genus, St. Thomas takes up the question of appetite in general at Summa the-
ologiae I, question eighty, article one. Here, appetitus is used in a broad sense
to cover not just what we call animal appetites like hunger, thirst, and the sex-
ual impulse but also any kind of inner tendency or inclination even when it
exists in non-living things. The latter might seem odd to us since we do not
straightforwardly predicate tendencies or inclinations of inanimate things.

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But recall that Aquinas follows Aristotle in holding that final causality is op-
erative throughout nature and is not confined to the operations of living
things. Any tendency or inclination is by definition the tendency or inclina-
tion toward something, and that toward which something tends is an end.
Heavy things like boulders have an inner tendency to descend, while fire has
an inner inclination to spread and rise. Both fall under the category of non-
animal appetites which for Aquinas is a sub-category of natural appetites. He
contrasts these natural activities with violent activities which always work
against a thing’s natural movement or tendency. The falling rock is a natural
motion but its propulsion skyward by a rock-thrower is a violent motion. Nat-
ural movement is to violent movement in nature what voluntary action is to
coerced action in human affairs.

As for animal appetites, some, like hunger and thirst, fall under the genus of

natural appetites while others fall under the category of elicited appetites. The
former roughly correspond to what some call basic or natural needs. The latter
occur only in animals that have either sense or intellectual knowledge since
they are defined as appetites that follow on the knowledge of something. They
are called, respectively, the sense appetite and the intellectual appetite. The
sense appetite divides into the concupiscible and the irascible appetites. The
former is the appetite through which animals seek what is overall suitable to
them and shun what is hurtful to them. The latter is the appetite through which
animals resist anything that hinders what is overall suitable to them.

The iras-

cible appetite is thus the champion and defender of the concupiscible.

Animals

act immediately from concupiscible and irascible appetites, says Aquinas, but
those same appetites in humans await the command of the higher appetite of the
will.

The judgment by which animals know what is overall suitable or hurtful

to them Aquinas calls the natural judgment as opposed to the free judgment of
reason which is behind choice. By natural judgment he means what we call in-
stinct. As for the intellectual appetite or will, it belongs to humans alone.

APPETITE AND FORM

The message of Question Eighty, Article One is that behind every appetite is
form. Every appetite or tendency in a thing x, be it natural or elicited, issues
from some form that is both present in x and the cause of x’s inclination.
Thus, the inclination of a fire to spread and rise is due to the form of fire
which is present in any particular fire. Or the inclination of cats to pursue
fleeing mice is due to their feline form.

Besides having natural appetites that follow automatically or necessarily

from their own natural forms, humans and brute animals have other appetites

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that follow on apprehended forms. These we normally call desires or aver-
sions. So humans and brutes are higher than non-knowing beings not just be-
cause they can take on the forms of other things while all along retaining their
own forms, but also because, due to that very fact, they have a whole new di-
mension of appetite, i.e. elicited appetite. These we normally call desires or
aversions. Thus, if it were not for knowledge, no appetite would be a special
power of the soul. For no power is to be assigned to the soul in particular for
those things that are common to animate and inanimate beings. These elicited
appetites are one with the natural appetites in that they follow on some form
which is both present in the subjects of these appetites and the cause of them.

Thus, suppose that a cat sees a mouse. The latter’s form which is received

in the cat’s sensibility elicits in the cat an inclination toward the mouse. It is
thus the end or final cause of the inclination. In this way does sensation move
the sense appetite in the cat. It moves it as to the determination of its act. For
objects detemine or specify their acts and sense presents the sense appetite
with its object. Cognitive powers (be they sensitive or intellectual) move their
corresponding appetites not as efficient causes or as regards the exercise of
their acts but as final causes, i.e. as regards presenting targets for those acts.
Or again, suppose that a sheep sees a wolf. As received in the sheep’s sense,
that form causes an inclination in the sheep to flee the wolf. By instinct or what
Aquinas calls natural judgment, the cat and the sheep perceive the mouse and
the wolf, respectively, as being a particular good or a particular evil.

TWO OBJECTIONS ANSWERED

Aquinas raises and answers two objections to distinguishing the appetitive
power from the apprehensive power. The first is that they are not different be-
cause powers are differentiated by their objects and what we desire is the
same as what we know. The second is that since each power of the soul de-
sires, by natural appetite, its own particular object (e.g. colors for sight and
sound for hearing) it is unnecessary to assign a particular power, called the
appetitive power, as something distinct from these. For the common is not di-
vided from the proper.

The first objection feeds on fusing the formal and material objects of the

two powers. True, when it is the material object that is concerned, what we
desire is the same as what we know. But what is apprehended and what is de-
sired differ in aspect or in their formal objects. Something is apprehended as
sensible or as intelligible while something is desired as suitable or good. And
it is diversity of aspect and not material diversity which demands diversity of
powers.

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The second objection blurs the difference between natural and apprehended

forms and hence between natural and animal appetites. True, each power of the
soul (such as seeing and hearing) is a form or nature. As such, it does have a
natural inclination to its own particular or proper object. But over and above
these natural appetites, a distinct animal appetite must be posited in the soul
by which something is desired as overall suitable to the animal as opposed to
being suitable to this or that power. The reason is that in knowledge the soul
contains the forms of other things besides its own natural form or powers.
Given the general principle that appetite follows form, then, it follows that we
should posit an appetitive power of the soul as distinct from these others.

NATURAL VERSUS ELICITED APPETITE

Two differences in the relation of form and appetite set off these elicited ap-
petites from the natural ones. The first was just mentioned. Instead of being
the natural form of the subject in question, the form is this time the form of
another which is cognitively present in that subject. For something is desired
only if it is known. Second, while natural forms automatically or necessarily
give rise to natural appetites, apprehended forms do not automatically or nec-
essarily give rise to elicited appetites. Humans and animals evidently do not
either want or shun everything they know.

The first difference gives rise to a third. The apprehended forms that induce

elicited appetites are not received in matter as are the forms that are behind
natural appetites. Otherwise cognitive beings physically become the forms
they apprehend in either sense or intellect. But just because these same forms
are not received in matter, the inclinations that follow them surpass those that
follow natural forms. They are immaterial and not material appetites just be-
cause the forms in the soul from which they spring are not in matter. Yet, the
sense and intellectual appetites differ in their degree of immateriality. The lat-
ter but not the former is a spiritual appetite. Since the sense power is the form
of a bodily organ while the intellectual power is not, the former depends on
matter for its operation while the latter does not. But as operation is conse-
quent upon being, the sense and intellectual appetitive powers that follow
these respective knowing powers reflect that difference.

FORM AS BEHIND APPETITE

If appetite is behind will and if form is behind appetite then form is behind
will. This comes out when we focus on the difference instead of the genus in

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the definition of the will. To do this is to see what is behind the definition of
the will as the intellectual appetite.

As to that differentia, human beings understand as well as sense. These two

powers are different because their objects are different. We understand uni-
versals and sense particulars, even though the universals we understand exist
only in particulars. It follows both that the intellectual power is different from
the sense power and that the intellectual appetite is different from the sense
appetite.

For powers vary with objects and appetites with powers.

But to understand particulars is to receive their intelligible forms in intel-

lect just as to sense particulars is to receive their sensible forms in sense.
What I understand (as opposed to sense) is dog, cat, and human and not Fido,
Felix and Frank. Moreover, any inclination is by definition the inclination to-
ward something as end and the end of anything is its good. Something is de-
sired to the extent that it is good or perceived to be good. Therefore, the in-
clination or appetite in us which follows understanding (as opposed to
sensing) particulars is an inclination toward those particulars just so far as
they exemplify universal good, i.e. the good as common to all particulars.

Aquinas’s point might be put this way. The object sensed moves the sense

appetite toward it as particular good just because that object is the form that
is a particular or sensible form. By the same token, the object understood
moves the will toward it as universal good just because that object is a uni-
versal or intelligible form. Since the form that is grasped by the intellect is
universal, then what the will desires in the thing known is something uni-
versal i.e. universal good. Alternatively, since the intellect knows a particu-
lar thing universally and the will tends toward that thing only as it is grasped
by intellect, then the will desires that thing universally, i.e. qua good and not
qua this good.

The principle behind this is that the moved must follow or be proportion-

ate to the mover.

This refers to final causation. Phidias has the potentiality

to make a statue. How it is actualized or what shape the marble takes is de-
termined by and proportionate to its mover, i.e. the form or model of it in
Phidias’s mind. Similarly, cognitive beings have the potentiality to want
something, say, x. What sort of want this is and whether x is desired as par-
ticular or as universal good is once again determined by and proportionate to
its mover. And once again that mover is some apprehended form or represen-
tation in the soul of the agent. If that form exists there particularly as it does
in sense, then the agent desires x as this good. Thus the dog desires this bone
not as bone but as this bone. But if the form exists there universally as it does
in the human intellect, then the agent desires x only so far as it exemplifies
good itself or universal good.

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The matter might be put this way: since inclination follows form and the

apprehended form in the intellect is necessarily universal, then two things fol-
low. First, the appetite in question must be different from that which follows
acquaintance with a particular form; and second, the appetite that is elicited
by that form must tend to the object just as good and not as this good. But
anything that is inclined to is inclined to as end and good has the nature of an
end. It follows that the object of the intellectual appetite or will is the good as
such or universal good. Succinctly, the object of the will must be universal
good because the object of the intellect is universal being and the intellect
moves the will through the form apprehended.

This is confirmed by experience. What a physician desires in his patient

Jones is health as such or health taken universally. Though that desire is sat-
isfied when health is instantiated in Jones, it is not this health rather than that
that the physician desires.

He cannot be disappointed that this health comes

to be in Jones instead of that one. For what he desires for Jones, Smith, and
each one of his other patients is health as such, health period. True, he might
desire different means to that end for Jones and for, say, Smith. But they are
evidently different means to the same end, i.e. health itself. Or suppose that a
thirsty sick person sees several equal glasses of water. Though any particular
glass will slake her thirst, what she desires is water and not the particular wa-
ter in any one glass. It is because she desires water as such and not this water
as opposed to another just like it that she is not dissatisfied when her nurse
brings her one glass and not another.

That does not mean that we will a separated goodness any more than say-

ing that we understand universals means that we understand separated uni-
versals. Aquinas is an Aristotelian and not a Platonist. Though the objects of
understanding are universals, they are not separated, Platonic universals. Just
so, though the object of the will is universal good, it is not the separated Pla-
tonic Form of Goodness.

THE RELATION OF INTELLECT AND WILL

Of the two powers, intellect and will, the former is on balance prior to the latter
in an absolute sense according to Aquinas. One reason for this is that the intel-
lect moves the will as final cause while will moves intellect as efficient cause,
and Aquinas follows Aristotle in according priority to final causes.

In all cases

is the final cause the cause of the causality of the efficient cause and not
vice versa. Besides, while no function of the will is independent of the intellect,
some functions of the intellect are independent of the will.

Willing ends is

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presupposed in choosing means in practical affairs just as understanding princi-
ples is presupposed in reasoning to conclusions in speculative matters. As we as-
sent to conclusions only because we understand principles, so do we want means
only because we want ends.

Strictly speaking, we do not understand conclu-

sions. We reason to them. We are said to understand conclusions only because
we understand the principles they include. Similarly, we do not strictly speaking
will means to ends. We choose them. We are said to will means only because we
will the ends they include. These ends, in turn, we might move ourselves to
choose and hence freely choose. But if we do, we must do so under a further or
more ultimate end. We might again move ourselves to choose the latter under a
still further end. But since this cannot proceed to infinity, says Aquinas, then in
its first movement the will is not free but moved by something external.

In the light of the relation of intellect and will, I turn to the question of free-

dom. Freedom in Aquinas makes no sense outside a framework of natural ne-
cessity. Persons are naturally and necessarily inclined to a final end or good.

That is true whether they will it just as persons or as persons in some inci-
dental capacity. Moreover, in choosing means to ends, again whether as per-
sons or as physicians, teachers, farmers, etc., persons necessarily choose
those means which, following deliberation, they judge to be the best means to
those ends. No one who seeks end E and who after deliberation judges that M
is the best means to E fails to choose M.

Says Aquinas,

Judgment, as it were, concludes and terminates counsel. Now counsel is termi-
nated, first, by the judgment of reason; secondly, by the acceptation of the ap-
petite. Hence the Philosopher says that, having formed a judgment by counsel,
we desire in accordance with that counsel.

Yet despite this necessity persons are none the less free in his view. They

are free in the sense that their actions can be and sometimes are voluntary and
not violent, the latter being actions that are pushed from behind by external
efficient causes.

100

Voluntary acts are ones that originate in the subjects of

those actions and not in another. They are actions of which those subjects
themselves and not other things are the efficient causes. This freedom of ac-
tion, Aquinas thinks, humans share with animals. When sheep flee wolves,
their actions spring from instinct which is no external efficient cause but
which originates in the sheep themselves.

101

Yet unlike animals, persons are

free in the sense of having freedom of judgment. And it is due to this that, un-
like animals, persons have free choice.

102

How this freedom of choice is rec-

onciled with the necessity of choosing what, after deliberating, we judge to
be the best means to an end turns on distinguishing conditional and absolute
necessity in human action. And this in turn hangs on the difference between
final and intermediate ends and the capacities in which persons act. All this is

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addressed in more detail in the following section. For the moment, though, I
focus on the relation of intellect and will and begin with an assay of choice.

Choice follows the judgment that one thing is preferred to another. This in

turn follows the comparison and deliberation of reason. So choice presup-
poses prior comparison and deliberation of alternatives by reason.

103

Thus do

we move from reason to choice. We do not, however, move from reason to
ends. That is because ends are first in things practical just as principles are
first in things theoretical.

104

As we advance from principles to conclusions in

things intelligible, so do we advance from ends to means in things appetible.
Thus, so far from reasoning to ends, we first incline to ends by natural ne-
cessity and then reason from ends to means. As we understand first principles
by natural necessity, so do we incline to final ends by natural necessity. It fol-
lows that all that are chosen are means and not ends.

105

Thus,

1. We advance to objects of choice from reason.
2. We do not advance to ends from reason.
3. The objects of choice are evidently either ends or means.
4. Therefore, anything chosen is a means.

Take Smith, who acts just as physician and not as wife, mother, or as in any

other capacity. With respect to her patient Jones and qua physician, Smith
does not advance from reason to the end, i.e. health. She does not deliberate
as to whether or not to aim at Jones’ health. As physician, she aims at that end
immediately and necessarily. Otherwise ends are not first in practical knowl-
edge. To the extent that she does not aim at Jones’ health immediately and
necessarily—aiming instead at Jones’ continued or even aggravated illness—
Smith acts not as physician but as a vicious person. Yet, Smith evidently does
move from reason to choice of means, showing that means are second and not
first in things practical. She deliberates, for example, about the type and
amount of food, exercise, or medicine to be prescribed. Or consider Smith not
as physician but just as a human being. She does not in that capacity compare
various ends and deliberate about them, finally choosing happiness. She does
not, in other words, move from reason to the end of happiness. Instead, ends
being first and not last, she immediately and necessarily aims at happiness,
just as we all do as human beings. But again like all of us, she does deliber-
ate as to the best means to happiness, moving from reason to the choice of
those means.

Since all that are chosen are means and means fall under an end as conclu-

sions fall under principles, it follows that ends are objects of an act of the will
that is distinct from choosing, just as principles are objects of an act of the in-
tellect that is distinct from reasoning, i.e. understanding.

106

This act of the will

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177

which has ends as its objects is willing as opposed to choosing. Willing ends
no more follows reasoning than understanding principles follows reasoning.
Otherwise ends are confused with means and willing is falsely assimilated to
choosing, just as, in the case of the latter, principles are confused with con-
clusions and understanding is falsely assimilated to reasoning. So in practical
knowledge there is always this dualism of willing ends on the one hand and
choosing means on the other, the former being prior to the latter. These can
no more exchange functions or be reduced to each other than understanding
first principles and reasoning to conclusions can exchange functions or be as-
similated to each other in theoretical knowledge.

Nonetheless, though willing does not depend on reasoning as does choos-

ing, willing does depend on another act of intellect, i.e. simple apprehension.
One wills only what one knows or apprehends. It is the apprehended end that
is willed, just as it is the reasoned-to means that is chosen. Intellect moves
will in the sense of providing or presenting the will with its object.

107

Put dif-

ferently, the will’s object is being considered as end or good whereas the in-
tellect’s object is simply being, and it is evident that the latter is logically
prior to the former. Therefore, since powers are measured by their objects, it
follows that intellect is logically prior to will. It moves will as to its object.

However, in another sense of ‘moves,’ will moves and so is prior to intel-

lect. It moves intellect not as to the determination of its object but as to the
exercise of its acts.

108

Here, will moves intellect as efficient cause. Specifi-

cally, will moves intellect in the latter’s reasoning to conclusions and weigh-
ing and measuring means to an end. The reason for this is that even though
intellect is prior to will as to their respective objects, will is prior to intellect
as regards their respective ends. The end of will, i.e. good itself is logically
prior to the end of intellect, i.e. truth. As specific good, the good of intellect,
truth, includes good in its definition and not vice versa.

109

For example, be-

cause the end of a general is wider than the end of a captain, the former moves
the latter as efficient cause to the exercise of his acts. Even so, since in its
functions of apprehending essences and understanding first principles intel-
lect in no sense depends on will—whereas for its part, no function of will is
independent of the intellect—it follows that in an absolute sense intellect is
prior to will.

110

Since choice consists in preferring one means to another under an end,

things are chosen under the aspect of what is good in itself. For an end is what
is desirable for its own sake and not for another’s and what is desirable for its
own sake is good in itself. In a different sense, all specific ends too are willed
under the aspect of good. They are willed only because they exemplify good
in itself. For example, it is a condition of Smith’s willing health as end that
she knows what health is. But the aspect under which it is known is evidently

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different from that under which it is willed. It is known insofar as it is intel-
ligible while it is willed insofar as it is appetible. But being appetible or
wanted for its own sake is just what it is meant by calling health good in it-
self. So specific ends like health as well as the means to those ends are de-
sired under the aspect of good itself.

To bring this out, when Smith prescribes penicillin for Jones it is because

she judges that it is the best way in this case to achieve her end as physician,
i.e. health. In order to make that judgment, Smith must understand the more
general concept of utility or instrumental good. But since the latter is itself in-
telligible only through the idea of good itself, it follows that choosing one
particular means or instrumental good over another is always made in the
light of the idea of good itself. Cognitively speaking, therefore, universal
good or good itself is behind every particular choice we make. If choice is of
means, if end is behind means, and if good has the nature of an end, then
every choice is made in and through knowledge of good itself.

But it is not just the idea of good itself that is behind all our choices. It is

the want of it as well. In terms of the example, since means are chosen only
because the end is willed, what moves Smith to choose penicillin is her de-
sire for health. Otherwise she would have no interest in penicillin. We want
the means only because we want the end. Nor can the latter be anything but
a final end. If S wants A for the sake of B, B for the sake of C, C for the sake
of D, and so on, there must be in this chain a final end that S wants for itself
alone.

111

Otherwise S does not want A, B, C, D, etc. For S wants these only

because S wants something else. Now what is final end or end itself is equiv-
alent to what is good itself. Further, qua acting in any capacity at all, we all
of us want what is end itself. Thus, physicians as physicians want health, gen-
erals as generals want victory, teachers as teachers want learning, and so on.
Though they are very different things, these objects have something in com-
mon. From the perspective in which they are sought, they are one and all of
them wanted for themselves alone. Thus do they all share the character of be-
ing end or good itself. It is this character on account of which they are sought
and on account of which the means by which they are realized are sought.
From this it follows that what moves a person R to act in any specific capac-
ity C is the character that some object O has, when viewed from the perspec-
tive of C, of being end or good itself.

Granted that good itself is behind all our choices when we act as physi-

cians, generals, teachers, etc., is good itself behind all our choices when we
act just as human beings? If so and that good is evidently not identified with
health, victory, or learning, with what is it identified?

The first question is answered by underscoring what has been said. Since (i)

action follows choice, (ii) choice is of means, (iii) choosing a means occurs

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only under the aegis of willing an end that is not means to a further end but fi-
nal end, (iv) final end or end itself is just another name for good itself, it fol-
lows (v) that good itself is just as much behind our choices and actions as hu-
man beings as it is behind our actions and choices as physicians, generals,
teachers, and so on. Whether one chooses and acts in some capacity that is in-
cidental to being human (i.e. as physician, general, etc.) or whether one acts
and chooses just as human makes no difference so far as what ultimately
moves our choices is concerned. And that is what in that capacity is end or
good itself.

As to the second question, when we choose and act just as persons as op-

posed to choosing and acting in some incidental capacity, what we ultimately
want is happiness.

112

One might possibly want health, money, power, fame,

friendship, security, peace, knowledge, etc. for the sake of happiness but one
cannot possibly want happiness for the sake of any one of these things or for
that matter for the sake of anything else. Happiness alone cannot possibly be
means but can only be end.

So it is that whenever we make choices—whether just as persons or as per-

sons in some capacity that is accidental to a person—we do so only because
we naturally and necessarily will what in that capacity is good in itself. As
physician, Smith naturally and necessarily wills health and as teacher, Jones
naturally and necessarily wills learning. Taken qua physician and qua teacher
respectively, it is not in their power to will otherwise. That is only possible if
they will in some capacity other than as physician or teacher. And as human
beings, all three of them join all of us in naturally and necessarily willing hap-
piness. Here there is no freedom but only necessity.

FREEDOM AND NECESSITY IN THE WILL

Suppose, then, that we necessarily will final ends whether we will just as per-
sons or as persons in some incidental capacity. Is it also true that we neces-
sarily choose the means to those ends in the sense that we are unable to
choose otherwise than we do? Or are we free in choosing means even though
we are unfree in willing final ends?

It might seem that it is the same with means as it is with ends. Believing

that penicillin and using audio-visual aids are the best means to the ends of
health and learning respectively in any particular case, is it in the power of ei-
ther Smith or Jones taken respectively as physician and as teacher not to
choose those means to the ends in question? Quite generally, choosing and
acting in some specialized capacity, can a person both believe that M is over-
all the best means to achieve her end E in that capacity and yet choose some

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means other than M? Following Aristotle, Aquinas answers that she cannot.
Otherwise he should not have quoted with approval Aristotle’s affirmation
that “having formed a judgment by counsel, we desire in accordance with that
counsel.”

113

Convinced upon deliberation that dropping the atomic bomb on

Hiroshima was the best means to military victory, and wanting that end as
Commander-in-Chief, President Truman must in that same capacity decide to
drop the bomb.

Yet, that does not mean that President Truman was absolutely compelled to

come to that decision in Aquinas’s view. Nor, in the case of our previous ex-
amples, does it mean that Smith was absolutely compelled to prescribe peni-
cillin or that Jones was absolutely compelled to use audio-visual aids. The ne-
cessity in these cases is conditional and not absolute. For recall that Aquinas
held that happiness is the absolute last end of persons as persons, i.e. that all
persons naturally and necessarily seek happiness. It is always possible, there-
fore, that Truman disbelieves that immediate victory is compatible with that
end. For example, he might have thought that the heavy cost of immediate
victory would cause more general unhappiness than happiness and hence di-
minish his own happiness. Or he might have thought that public outrage over
the carnage of an immediate victory would preclude his re-election. If so,
then his immediate end might have been a negotiated, conditional surrender
instead of military victory. In other words, he might have acted not as Com-
mander-in-Chief of United States forces but in some other capacity, say, as
diplomatic leader of the free world or as politician.

The point is that Truman’s acting for victory is only conditionally neces-

sary. He is determined to act for immediate victory only if he sees the latter
as the best means to the final end of happiness. Therefore, because he is con-
ditionally and not absolutely determined to will immediate victory as end,
Truman is likewise only conditionally and not absolutely necessitated to give
the order to drop the bomb even if he deliberatively judges this to be the best
means to that end. So Aquinas’s view here is that while Truman is like all of
us absolutely necessitated as regards his last end, he is never absolutely ne-
cessitated as regards mixed or intermediary ends, i.e. ends (like military vic-
tory or a negotiated conditional surrender) that can serve as means to the fi-
nal end of happiness. With respect to these he can only be conditionally
necessitated. The reason for this is that, the will being in his view the intel-
lectual appetite, its object is what is end or good in itself or universal good
and not mixed good or good or end that can also be means to a further end.
And since only the former determines the will, the will is open or free with
respect to the latter. In any case, if the will can be only conditionally and
never absolutely necessitated as regards these mixed or intermediate ends or
goods, then it can only be conditionally and never absolutely necessitated as

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regards the means to these ends, even what are judged to be the best means
to those ends.

The same goes for Smith or Jones. To take the former, necessarily willing

happiness as her last end, Smith might have believed that Jones’s health was
incompatible with that end. For example, Jones might have believed that her
happiness consisted in accumulating as much wealth as possible and that this
last end was incompatible in this case with her end as physician, i.e. Jones’s
health. For suppose that Smith happens to be heiress to Jones’s fortune. If so,
then her immediate end might have been the latter’s demise and not her
health. And then with respect to Jones, Smith would not have acted as physi-
cian but as immoral person. In other words, since, unlike happiness, the end
of health is not end or good in itself, it does not compel the will. So instead
of being absolutely necessary, Smith’s acting for Jones’s health is contin-
gently necessary, i.e. necessary only if she acts as physician. Therefore, be-
cause she is in the first instance conditionally and not absolutely necessitated
to will Jones’s health, Smith is likewise only conditionally and not absolutely
necessitated to prescribe penicillin for Jones even if she deliberatively judges
this to be the best means to the end of Jones’s health. In sum, we must choose
what we take to be the best means to our ends provided that we will those
ends. But with the exception of happiness, we need not in the first instance
will those ends and hence the best means to those ends. In sum, when it con-
cerns mixed ends, then, rejecting any absolute necessity of choice under those
ends, Aquinas would reject the stronger statement 1 below and accept the
weaker statements 2 and 3. Under 1, Truman is absolutely necessitated to
choose to drop the atomic bomb when he judges that that action is the best
means to his immediate end of military victory. Aquinas would reply that
since the end here is not end or good in itself but rather a mix of good and
non-good, then Truman need not will it in the first place and so is not ab-
solutely necessitated to take any means to that end, including dropping the
bomb. If choice is always of means and if means includes but is not identi-
fied with the idea of end, then any means is a mix of end and non-end, of good
and non-good. But as only what is pure good or end compels the will, we are
always free as regards means. Besides, choice includes both desire and delib-
eration, says Aquinas

114

and so is correctly characterized either as intellect in-

fluenced by appetite or as appetite influenced by intellect. But since deliber-
ating implies that what we deliberate about is up to us, it follows that choice
implies freedom. In any case, 1 on the one side and 2, 3 and 4 on the other
express the difference between the necessity of the consequent and the ne-
cessity of consequence, respectively. And it is only 1 that excludes freedom
of choice. Thus,

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1. If a person S wills an end E, then it is necessary that S chooses some

means M to E.

2. Necessarily, if a person S wills an end E, then S chooses some means M

to E.

3. Necessarily, if a person S wills an end E and S is cognizant of several

means to E, then S chooses what S believes is the best means to E.

4. Necessarily, if a person S wills an end E and S believes that M is the only

means to E, then S chooses M.

For Aquinas, therefore, persons have free choice. But this freedom is con-

ditional in that it is always in a context of natural necessity. For all of us nat-
urally and necessarily want happiness as our end. Not just that but, acting in
some incidental capacity, say, as physician, we must act for what in that same
capacity is the end, in this case, health. Yet, since the various ends in these in-
cidental capacities are always mixed ends or goods, they none of them nec-
essarily compel our wills. So while he thinks that we are free in our choices,
Aquinas would shun that radical freedom of choice, cut off from all necessity,
which some existentialists propound. This would he regard as a prodigy, a
false abstraction. To get at the truth about freedom we must avoid cutting it
off from necessity, thereby installing a stark, irresolvable dualism. We need
instead to strive for a unity-in-difference in which both necessity and freedom
play a role in the appetitive life of persons.

To show this, Aquinas adverts to that parallelism between theoretical and

practical reason to which reference was previously made. In theoretical rea-
son we start with self-evident general principles which we do not reason to
but to which we naturally and necessarily adhere. In knowing these widest
principles, the understanding is moved by them as by something external.
Yet the irony is that it is only through first being moved by these general
principles that the intellect can then move itself to know less general truths
in the light of them. Thus is determined intellect the condition of free intel-
lect.

To spell it out, intellect moves itself from knowing the less general propo-

sitions inchoately or potentially in the principle to knowing them expressly or
actually in drawn conclusions. This it does through reasoning. Reasoning is
thus the intellectual mediator between understanding a principle and affirm-
ing a conclusion. Unlike the understanding intellect, this reasoning intellect is
free in the sense of being self-moved. From being passively moved by first
principles, intellect actively draws conclusions. It is discursive as well as in-
tuitive. It is both mover and moved in different respects. It is moved in its un-
derstanding of a principle while it moves itself qua in that state by its act of

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reasoning. And just to the extent that it moves itself by its very own internal
act of reasoning, intellect is free. Here, ‘free’ means not “possibly acting oth-
erwise” but “self-moved” as opposed to “moved by another,” or, in the words
of Aquinas, “naturally moved” as opposed to “violently moved.”

115

Now as it is in the theoretical sphere with intellect, so is it in the practical

sphere with will. Here we start with ends which play the role in practical
thought that principles play in theoretical thought. We no more choose the fi-
nal end than we reason to first principles. The will is as passive as regards the
former as understanding is with respect to the latter. Yet it is only through that
passivity as to the final end that the will moves itself as to means. Thus is de-
termined will the condition of free will. Just as intellect springs to action in
reasoning to conclusions from being moved by principles, so too does will
spring to action in commanding consideration of means from being moved by
the end. Through that command, the will is the efficient cause of moving it-
self, qua moved by the end, from a state of potentially choosing a means to
one of actually choosing it. As reasoning mediates understanding principles
and forming conclusions in things intelligible, so does this commanding me-
diate willing an end and choosing a means in things appetible. To that extent
is there a complete parallel between intellect and will. In each one two func-
tions are linked by a third. In one, understanding and concluding are linked
by reasoning; in the other willing and choosing are linked by commanding.

Nevertheless, to the extent that the issuing of that command has no exter-

nal efficient cause but springs from the will itself, the will is free. Will in
commanding consideration of means under an end, and intellect in drawing a
particular instance under a first principle are thus both of them free in the
sense of being self-initiated. Though they are evidently caused, in neither
case is the commanding or the reasoning caused in the sense of being pushed
from behind by some efficient cause that lies outside the commanding or rea-
soning agent. The movement is in each case natural and not violent, volun-
tary and not forced.

As it is with commanding so is it with choosing. In choosing a means un-

der an end the will is once again free in the sense of being the efficient cause
of its own act. True, intellect moves will as to its object. Qua willing an end,
one cannot help choosing that means which the intellect judges to be the best.
Yet this conditional necessity of the will in choice is all on the side of the
will’s object. It does not determine the will as regards the exercise of its act.
In its passive state of being moved by what its object is qua willing, i.e. an
end, the will actively commands consideration of means. Then, once again in
a second passive state of being moved by intellect by what its object is qua
choosing, i.e. a means, the will actively chooses a specific means. In each
case does the will move in commanding and in choosing only because it is

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moved by an object, namely, by an end and by a means, respectively. All its
freedom it thus owes to necessity. And its freedom, both in commanding and
in choosing, consists in the lack of any external efficient cause. My choices
are no more pushed from behind by another than are my reasonings or my
commands. Otherwise the choosing is that other’s and not mine and it is
senseless to say that I choose, just as under the same assumption it is sense-
less to say that I reason or that I command.

Yet freedom in Aquinas is more than this. I am not only free in that I, and

not another, am the efficient cause of my own choices. I am also free in be-
ing able to “take one thing while refusing another.”

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True, I am condition-

ally determined once I judge that the one thing is preferable to the other to
achieve some mixed or intermediate end. In a word, in this case I am condi-
tionally determined in my consequent will. Here, as was said, intellect deter-
mines will. But that does not imply nor is it the case that I am conditionally
determined in my antecedent will. That is to say, before I judge that one
means is preferred to another in order to attain some mixed end, I retain the
power of being inclined to either one, says Aquinas.

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And just to that extent

do I have free choice.

To recur to the foregoing example, Smith as physician is conditionally de-

termined to prescribe penicillin for Jones once she judges that that drug is the
best means to Jones’s health. Yet there is no necessity, Aquinas would say,
that Smith act as physician any more than there is necessity, in our other ex-
ample, that President Truman act as Commander-in-Chief. Besides, before
she makes that judgment and in the process of deliberating about what means
to take to the end, Smith’s will is free in the sense of being capable of being
inclined to various means to that end. In fact, it is because it follows this free-
dom of the antecedent will that the judgment in question is suitably called
free judgment even though it is that same free judgment that determines the
consequent will. This as contrasted with the judgments of animals which, be-
cause they spring from instinct and not from deliberating reason are unable to
incline to various things. For that reason, says Aquinas, are they natural and
not free judgments.

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So the paradox is that it is only by free judgment in

choice that the will is determined in choice. It is only through antecedent free-
dom of choice that there is consequent, necessity of choice. Even so and for
the reasons given, this necessity of choosing what appears to be the best
means to our various mixed ends is in Aquinas’s view conditional and never
absolute.

Stated differently, free judgment is so called because it follows delibera-

tion. For deliberating implies the ability to be inclined to various things.
Moreover, since deliberation is a function of the practical reason, freedom in
Aquinas has its root in reason. When a sheep judges that wolves are to be

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shunned, that judgment springs from instinct and not from deliberative rea-
son. As a result, it does not presuppose the ability to be inclined to various
things. Instead, it implies being inclined to one thing only, i.e. fleeing.
Aquinas therefore calls the sheep’s judgment natural as opposed to free. But
when Smith judges that prescribing penicillin is the best way to cure Jones,
Smith’s judgment does follow deliberative reason and so does presuppose the
antecedent ability of being inclined to various things. That is why it is called
free and not natural judgment.

In sum, the difference between pure and mixed good lay behind the idea of

freedom of choice in the thought of Aquinas. Our choices are always of means
or of what is a mixed good. But not being a final end, these means are not just
good but a mix of good and non-good. They are good to the extent that they
include good in their notions, since the concept of means includes the concept
of end in its definition. But they are not good to the extent that they are not end
but only means. Since, then, it is a mix of good and non-good, any means m
can be considered by reason either as being something good or as being some-
thing non-good. And since choice follows reason, m can therefore either be
chosen or avoided depending on the point of view from which it is considered.
When considered from the viewpoint of economy, taking a bus to New York
might be attractive. But it might be something to be avoided from the stand-
point of comfort. Not being just good, then, taking the bus to New York might
be either preferred or not preferred. Besides, even if there is a way to New
York that is from every aspect desirable, it is still only a means and not an end.
Hence, unlike happiness or what is end only, that way to New York would be
avoidable since it is a mix of good and not good. Not being just good but a mix
of good and non-good, no means m absolutely compels the will.

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In any case, though the will depends on the intellect both in choosing

means and in willing ends, the intellect is independent of both willing and
choosing. At least it is so in apprehending essences and grasping first princi-
ples. It can be said, then, that will always depends on intellect as to the de-
termination of its objects. Further, it can also be said that both in reasoning to
conclusions and in weighing various means to an end, intellect depends on
will as to the exercise of these acts. Even so, since in its functions of appre-
hending essences and understanding first principles intellect is independent of
will—whereas for its part, no function of will is independent of the intellect—
it follows that in an absolute sense intellect is prior to will.

SEVEN BASIC QUESTIONS

All this can be spelled out in more detail. To do so albeit at the risk of some
repetition, I consider seven closely related questions which Aquinas raises

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about the will. His answers are subtle and penetrating, showing the causal
reciprocity of intellect and will as well as the relation of the will to God. The
questions run as follows. 1) whether the will moves the intellect?

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(2)

whether the will is moved by the intellect?

121

3) whether the will desires any-

thing of necessity?

122

4) whether the will desires everything of necessity?

123

5) whether the will moves itself?

124

6) whether the will is moved by an exte-

rior principle?

125

and finally, 7), whether the will is moved by God alone as

exterior principle?

126

His answers to these questions overlap. So I summarize

them to avoid redundancy in spelling out all the details of each one.

QUESTIONS ONE AND TWO:

RECIPROCITY OF INTELLECT AND WILL

The answers to the first two questions are affirmative. That means that Aquinas
distinguishes different respects in which the will and the intellect move each
other. What are these respects? The will moves the intellect as well as every
other power of the soul as agent or efficient cause. Aquinas sometimes ex-
presses this by saying that the will moves the intellect as regards the exercise of
its act.

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The reason is that in any order among active powers, the power with

the universal end moves the power with the particular end. Suppose I want
money not as a final end but as a proximate end. I want it to buy a house. That
higher end evidently moves the proximate end. I want the means only because
I want the end. What is desired in the means is the end. Therefore, since the
good that is the means subserves the good that is the end, the former comes un-
der the latter. But just because of that, the power of willing, which concerns the
end, moves the power of choosing, which concerns the means. But the will’s
end is more universal than the intellect’s. It is universal good while the intel-
lect’s end is the particular good, truth. In fact, the specific ends of all the pow-
ers fall under the object of the will as particular goods. And so, since the par-
ticular is explained by the universal and not vice versa (as horse is explained by
animal), it follows that, when things are considered as desirable, the will moves
as an efficient cause all the other powers of the soul, including the intellect. In
sum, the will moves other powers as the more general end moves the less gen-
eral ends. Hence, since good has the nature of an end, the will moves the other
powers as the more general good moves the more particular goods. But the end
of the intellect, truth, is a particular end or good while the end of will is general
good or goodness as such. Therefore, the will moves the intellect as the good
or the end as such moves a particular good or end that falls under it.

Aquinas offers these examples. A king, whose end is the common good,

moves the governors of cities whose ends are the more restrictive goods of
their respective cities. Or a general, who acts for the good of the entire army,

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moves a captain, who acts for the more restricted good of his own regiment.
And he moves them as agent or efficient cause.

But though the will moves the intellect as regards the exercise of its act, the

intellect moves the will as regards “the determination of its act.” That just
means that the intellect moves the will as something aimed at moves an agent.
For the object of the will is the good as known. Moreover, the object of a
power is its end. So to the extent that the intellect, through the object, moves
the will as something aimed at, it is prior and superior to the will.

Thus does the intellect move the will as final and not as efficient cause. It

presents the will with its object or target. For the end of will, good, evidently
moves the will only by being first apprehended by the intellect. One wills
only what one knows. What the physician desires as end, i.e. health, must be
in his intellect in order to be desired. The intellect moves the will, then, as
known end moves the agent.

Further, to the extent that anything is apprehended by the intellect it falls

under being or the true. For being or the true is the object of the intellect.
Hence, to the extent that any end or good is apprehended by the intellect, it is
a particular being that falls under universal being or the true. But particular
being is explained by universal being and not vice versa. But universal being
or the true is the object of the intellect and not the will. Therefore, when the
end is in intellect as something intelligible as opposed to something desirable,
then the intellect has the more universal object than the will. And just to that
extent is the intellect prior to the will.

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AN OBJECTION ANSWERED

Aquinas uses the occasion of an objection to bring out this paradox of the inter-
dependence of the intellect and the will. The objection is that the will cannot
move the intellect because what moves is not moved by what it moves and the
intellect evidently moves the will since the apprehended good moves the will.

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The objection is disarmed by drawing the distinctions that were just made.

If the intellect and the will are compared according to the universality of their
respective objects, then the intellect is higher than the will. For the object of
the former is being and the object of the latter is good. But being is more uni-
versal than good in the sense of being the more universal cause. For being is
included in good as the simple is included in the composite. But the simpler
a thing is, the higher it is. So, since the object of the intellect, being, is wider
and hence simpler than the object of the will, good, it follows that the intel-
lect is simpler and hence prior to the will. For powers vary with their objects.

Further, suppose that the intellect is taken in relation to the universality of its

object, being, and the will is taken as some specific thing, i.e. as a determinate

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power. Suppose, in other words, that the will, its act, and its object are taken as
just some among the many things (animals, stones, wood, etc.,) that are under-
stood by the intellect. Then once again, the intellect is higher than will since will,
its act, and its object all fall under the wider notion of being. For as cause of the
particular, the universal is higher than the particular. Succinctly, x moves y as to
the determination of its act (i.e. as final cause) when x’s object contains under it
the object of y. But the object of the intellect, being, contains under it the object
of the will, good. As particular being, good falls under the general notion of be-
ing. It follows that the intellect moves the will as to the determination of its act.

On the other hand, suppose that the will is considered in relation to the

common nature of its object, universal good, and the intellect is taken as some
specific good. Then the intellect, its act, and its object (i.e. truth) are ends or
things desired. They are then so many species of good. Because the intellect,
its act, and its object then all fall under the common notion of good, they are
to that extent caused by good. From that perspective, therefore, the will is
higher than the intellect and can move it. To sum it up, x moves y as to the
exercise of its act (i.e. as efficient cause) when the end of x is more universal
than the end of y. But the end of the will, i.e. goodness, is more universal than
the end of the intellect, i.e. truth. As a particular good, truth falls under good-
ness. Therefore, the will moves the intellect as to the exercise of its act.

From all this Aquinas concludes that it is easy to understand how the pow-

ers of intellect and will come under each other in their acts. For the intellect
“understands that the will wills and the will wills the intellect to under-
stand.”

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So it is that in different respects the good is contained under the true

and the true under the good. To the extent that the former is true, the intellect
is higher than the will; but to the extent that the latter is true, the will is higher
than the intellect. It all depends on the point of view that is taken.

Finally, when viewed not in itself but in relation to something else, the will

can be higher than the intellect in a kind of incidental sense. This occurs just
in case the object of the will really exists in a higher way than it exists in
mente. The reason is that the object of the will, good, is in things while the
object of the intellect, truth, is in mind. Thus, love of God is better than
knowledge of God in this life. For the real existence of God is higher than the
way God is here present to us in our intellects. By contrast, knowledge of
physical things is better than love of them. For that in which knowledge of
such things exists, the mind, is higher than physical things.

131

QUESTIONS THREE AND FOUR

Next come questions 3) and 4) above. Aquinas answers 3) affirmatively and
4) negatively. The will desires the good itself necessarily but it desires good

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things contingently. The will is therefore free as regards good things (partic-
ipative goods) but determined as regards goodness itself (non-participative
good). It is free as regards means or mixed ends but determined as regards
pure ends or ends in themselves. All this needs to be spelled out.

As to 3), Aquinas again compares the will to the intellect. Just as the intel-

lect necessarily adheres to first principles, so the will necessarily adheres to
the final end. Moreover, just as we proceed discursively from principles to
conclusions in speculative matters, so do we proceed from end to choice of
means in practical matters. The end is to choice of means in the practical rea-
son what first principles are to conclusions in the speculative reason. Says
Aquinas.

. . . Now in appetitive matters, the end is related to the means, which is desired
for the end, in the same way as, in knowledge, principles are related to the con-
clusion to which we assent because of the principles.

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Thus, a physician as physician of necessity desires health as her end. This

end is the practical principle from which her actions as physician issue. Op-
erating under that end, her will moves her intellect to the truth about the
means. Once the latter delivers that knowledge, the physician then chooses
that means. That choice is equivalent to the conclusion of a practical syllo-
gism. The physician’s first premise is the practical principle that health is the
end. The second is her judgment that a certain action is the right means to the
end. And her conclusion is that she ought to choose that means. That is equiv-
alent to her choice of that means. That is why choice is described either as ap-
petitive intellect or as intellectual appetite.

133

. . . Now as we have stated above, the end is in the order of appetibles what a
principle is in the order of intelligibles. But it is evident that the intellect,
through its knowledge of a principle, reduces itself from potentiality to act as to
knowledge of its conclusions; and thus it moves itself. And, in like manner, will,
through its volition of the end, moves itself to will the means.

134

Here, Aquinas again compares willing with knowing. In knowledge, the

intellect is externally moved by a principle about which it makes a judg-
ment. This grasping of principles on the part of intellect Aquinas calls un-
derstanding. Through knowing the principle, the intellect then moves itself
to knowledge of the conclusion. That does not compromise the dictum that
whatever is moved is moved by another and not by itself. For the respect
in which the intellect moves here is different from the respect in which it
is moved. The intellect moves insofar as it actually knows something, i.e.
a principle. But it is moved insofar as it does not actually but only poten-

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tially knows something, i.e. the conclusion. Since it moves qua knowing
one thing and is moved qua not knowing another, the intellect is mover and
moved in different respects.

The intellect moves itself to know a conclusion by a) placing a case under

the known principle or rule and b) drawing the conclusion from the rule and
the case. This follow-up function of intellect is reason. Thus, reason presup-
poses understanding but not vice versa. The starting point of reasoning is not
reasoning or else an infinite regress breaks out. The starting point of reason-
ing is the more basic function of understanding.

As it is with the intellect, so is it with the will. Thus does Aquinas answer

question 4) negatively. Will does not desire everything of necessity as from
an external principle. For will moves itself to a means as intellect moves it-
self to a conclusion. Willing is to choosing in things appetible what under-
standing is to reason in things intelligible. As understanding a principle is pre-
supposed in reasoning to a conclusion, so willing an end is presupposed in
choosing a means. Just as we accept a conclusion because we assent to a prin-
ciple, so do we choose a means because we will an end. As reasoning is un-
der the aegis of understanding so choosing is under the aegis of willing.

Aquinas presses this comparison of will to intellect further. In things in-

telligible, we are first moved of necessity by a principle as from something
extrinsic. From there we proceed to move ourselves to the conclusion
through theoretical reasoning. Just so, in things appetible, we are first moved
of necessity by an end as from something external. From there we proceed
to move ourselves to a conclusion about the means through practical rea-
soning. Since that conclusion is equivalent to the choice of that means and
since we have moved ourselves with respect to it, it is necessarily free
choice. Thus does he answer 5) above affirmatively. The will moves itself in
choosing means to an end.

Another example of such a practical syllogism is the following: I am nec-

essarily moved to the end of happiness. But I judge that doing x is more con-
ducive to happiness than not doing x or than doing y instead of x. I therefore
conclude that I ought to do x to attain happiness. In any case, Aquinas’s ar-
gument that choice concerns means might be summarized as follows:

1. Means are chosen because of an end.
2. So in things appetible the end is in the position of a principle and the

means in the position of a conclusion.

3. But in things intelligible, conclusions are reasoned to because principles

are understood.

4. So in things appetible means are chosen because ends are willed.
5. Hence, what is willed is the end and what is chosen is the means.

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Alternatively,

1. All choice follows comparison of two or more alternatives.
2. Hence, all choice has a reason.
3. But the reason for choosing is to gain some end through what is chosen.
4. Moreover, that by the choice of which some end is gained is a means.
5. Therefore, all choice is of means.

Aquinas’s argument that this choice of means is free choice might be sum-
marized as follows:

1. Means are chosen only because some end is willed.
2. So the willed end is to the chosen means as a principle is to a conclusion.
3. But principles are adhered to of necessity.
4. So we will the end of necessity.
5. But in things intelligible, we move ourselves to a conclusion through

knowing a principle.

6. So in things appetible we move ourselves to choose a means through will-

ing an end.

7. But what moves itself moves from no external cause but from within.
8. But what moves from within moves freely.
9. Therefore, we are free as regards choosing the means to an end.

Alternatively,

1. All choice is choice of means.
2. But all choice of means to an end issues from deliberation.
3. Hence, all choice issues from deliberation.
4. But what issues from deliberation is up to the deliberator and hence free.
5. Therefore, all choice is up to us or free choice.

The will moves itself to choose the means in the same way in which it

moves all the other powers to the exercise of their acts. Just as we saw that
the will moves the other powers to their particular ends due to the universal-
ity of its own end (i.e. the good as such) so too does it move itself in its act
of choosing due to that same universality of its end. For since choosing con-
cerns means which are particular, participative goods and willing concerns
the good as such under which those particular goods fall, it follows that will-
ing moves choosing and not the other way around. One act of the will moves
another to the exercise of its act due to the universality of the end in the one,
i.e. willing, and the particularity of the end in the other, i.e. choosing. Under

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the aegis of an end, then, the will moves itself to the means. This it does by
deliberating about various means to the end. This involves comparing, weigh-
ing, and measuring those means so far as it concerns their suitability to the
end. The result of this deliberation and comparison is what Aquinas calls free
(as opposed to natural) judgment. In fact, free choice is nothing but this free
judgment of reason.

135

It is the judgment that a means to the end ought or

ought not to be taken and if so, that this and not that means ought to be taken.

Here in this practical syllogism, end is in the position of rule or principle, true

judgment about the means is in the position of case, and the free judgment of
reason that that means ought to be taken is in the position of conclusion. Choice
is just this same conclusion viewed on the side of appetite. Thus, through being
moved by the end of being healed, the will of a sick person moves itself under
that end to choose the means to that end. This it does by deliberating about the
various means. This involves comparing those means. The result of this issues
in the free judgment or choice that consulting a physician is what is to be done.
So in the practical syllogism, the will in different respects both moves itself and
is moved by another, just as in the theoretical syllogism the intellect in differ-
ent respects both moves itself and is moved by another.

136

Qua willing the end,

the will moves itself to choose the means. But qua determinable as regards the
end, the will is specified or moved to its end by an exterior cause. Thus, since
it moves itself in a different respect from that in which it is moved, the will is
consistently said to both move itself and be moved by another. The dictum that
whatever is moved is moved by another is therefore not flouted.

Another alternative is this:

1. All choice follows deliberation.
2. What follows deliberation has a reason. Otherwise it is not the result of de-

liberation but is automatic.

3. Therefore, all choice has a reason.
4. Moreover, what follows deliberation is up to the deliberator and hence free.
5. But the end is a principle in things appetible.
6. Principles, though, do not have a reason.
7. Hence, the end does not have a reason.
8. But since all choice has a reason, the end is not chosen.
9. Therefore all that is chosen is both a means and up to us or free.

As regards determinism in willing ends, one might state Aquinas’s argument
this way:

1. What in any order is end is in the position of a principle.
2. We adhere to principles of necessity.

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193

3. Hence, what in any order is end is something to which we adhere of ne-

cessity.

4. We are not free in anything to which we adhere of necessity.
5. Hence, what in any order is end is not something to which we freely ad-

here.

6. But we adhere to what is end in any order by willing it.
7. Therefore, what in any order is end is not something which we will freely.

Depending on whether it moves itself as regards means or is moved by

something exterior as regards pure ends, then, the will is free or unfree. We
are free as regards the means but not as regards the end. This is true both of
persons in some specialized capacity and of persons just as persons. The
physician as physician does not choose health as her end but necessarily wills
health as her end. Though the verb ‘wills’ suggests action, this is misleading.
Here, all is passivity. The will is specified and determined by an external end
just as the intellect is specified and determined by an external principle. And
in each case the latter determines the former as object, end, or final cause.
Even so, the intellect and the will are free to the extent that they are active.
And they are active in reasoning from principles to conclusions and in choos-
ing means. The former is the exercise of free reason toward a conclusion
while the latter is the exercise of free judgment about the means. Thus, in the
same capacity as physician, our physician chooses the means to the end of
health. Here, the verb ‘chooses’ does presuppose action on the part of the
physician. Through passively willing the end of health, the will of the physi-
cian moves her intellect to conclude that this particular means ought to be
taken to that end. Equivalent to that conclusion is the choice of that means.

In the same way, taken as a person and not as a physician, our physician

does not choose happiness as her end but necessarily wills it as her end. She
is completely determined with respect to it. A person cannot but will to be
happy. Through being specified by that end, she then moves her intellect to
its particular end of truth as regards the means to that end. Having as its end
universal good, the will here moves the intellect to its specific good, truth. So,
while willing concerns only the end and is necessary, choosing concerns only
the means and is not necessary but free. It is free because it presupposes the
action on the part of the will of moving the intellect to compare means to the
end. It is free also because choice at this point is open to various means. And
here once again, choice follows the judgment of the intellect’s comparison. It
is free choice both because it presupposes that the will, under the end of hap-
piness, moves the intellect to the means to that end and because at that point
will is open to choosing various means. As regards the latter and incidentally,
Aquinas uses this same idea of variety to show that God creates all things

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freely and not by the necessity of His nature. He says that if God created
things by a necessity of His nature (as for example, does Spinoza’s God) then
there would be no diversity in the kinds of thing that are created.

137

In any

case, persons must have free choice, he says, or else “counsels, deliberations,
commands, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be in vain.”

138

Yet freedom of choice requires determinism. Externalism or determinism

as regards the end is the condition of internalism or active freedom as regards
the means. St. Thomas is thus no extreme libertarian or existentialist in his
treatment of choice. True, to mark off choosing from willing, Aquinas often
stresses the freedom of choice. But when it comes to the proper object of will,
all is necessitated and nothing is free. That is because willing concerns end
and not means and ends are willed of necessity. So to balance things off,
Aquinas sometimes emphasizes freedom of choice as regards the means. Yet
within this free choice of means there is determinism. Since in choice the in-
tellect moves the will as known means, the will is moved as well as mover in
choosing the means.

Yet choice is always free choice. Through willing health of necessity, a

physician as physician deliberates concerning the means to that end. In this
rational process of comparison in which the pros and cons of various means
to the end are weighed, all is freedom and nothing is necessitated. Here, the
will retains the power of being inclined to various means. That is so because
none of those means is goodness itself. Instead, each one of them is a finite
or limited good. That is because each one of them is only a limited or proxi-
mate end. To the extent that it is wanted, a means is an end. But to the extent
that it is wanted for another and not for itself, a means is a mixed and not a
pure end.

139

And since good has the nature of an end, any and every means is

only a mixed good.

140

But since the will’s object is goodness or endness it-

self, the fact that these means are only mixed goods or ends means that no one
of them completely fulfills the will’s appetite for good.

141

That is why the will

is free to refuse any one of them in favor of another. Because each one of
them is good only by participation, it does not completely satisfy the will’s
orientation to goodness. The will is for that reason not captivated, as it were,
by any one of them. It retains the power of being attracted to another means
or instrumental good. That is why, too, the will can deliberate over those
means, directing intellect to compare them.

Thus, the very act of weighing and comparing various means to an end im-

plies both that these means are finite goods and that the will at that point re-
mains undetermined by any one of those goods. And just to that extent is the
will free. Deliberation implies that the will is not confined to or determined
by any one particular good as over against another. And that in turn is because
the object of the will is the good itself instead of some particular good. And

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195

that in turn is because the object of the will is good as apprehended by the in-
tellect and what is apprehended by intellect is universal and not particular.

So freedom is ultimately rooted in rationality. As contrasted with a physi-

cian who weighs and compares means to restoring health, a sheep (to use
Aquinas’s example) flees the wolf not by judging or comparing things but by
instinct. This instinct Aquinas calls natural judgment as contrasted with the
free judgment of the physician. The sheep does not deliberate or retain the
power of being inclined to various things. By natural judgment or instinct, it
necessarily flees. Its action is confined to one thing because, its appetite be-
ing sensitive and not rational, the sheep does not have universal good as the
object of its appetite. It is not like the case of the physician, who, having a ra-
tional appetite for universal good, retains the power of being inclined to var-
ious means to his end and hence retains the power of deliberation.

Aquinas makes this connection between the will and the intellect on the

point of freedom.

142

Human beings are free because they are rational. They

are free because the object of the will is good as apprehended by intellect and
the latter is always universal and not particular. By contrast, brute animals are
unfree just because, lacking reason, the object of their sense cognition, and
hence of their appetite, is always confined to some one particular good. Thus,

. . . It must be born in mind that the appetitive power is in all things proportional
to the apprehensive power, whereby it is moved as the movable by its mover.
For the sensitive appetite seeks a particular good, while the will seeks the uni-
versal good, as was said above; just as the sense apprehends particulars while
the intellect apprehends universals.

143

This necessity of reason for freedom is brought out by the following sum-

mary of Aquinas’s argument:

1. The object of the will is good as apprehended by the intellect.
2. But good as apprehended by intellect is universal good. For in all things,

what intellect apprehends is universal and not particular.

3. Therefore, the object of the will is universal good and not good as con-

fined to this or that particular good.

4. So the will of a rational being is not determined by nature to anything ex-

cept good as common to all things.

5. That being the case, it is possible that the will is inclined to any particular

thing that is presented to it under the aspect of being good. No one partic-
ular good, as it were, attracts it to the exclusion of others and that explains
the possibility of deliberation.

6. Therefore, all rational beings, just to the extent that they are rational, have

free will resulting from the judgment of intellect.

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Chapter Five

To return to the example of the physician, it might seem that the tables are

turned once she judges that a certain action is the best means to the end. At
that point, when rational deliberation or comparison ceases, some might
claim that the choice of that means is no longer free. She must choose what
now seems to her to be the best means to the end. Thus, through willing the
end, health, our physician in different respects both has and does not have the
power of free choice. She has that power just because she deliberates about
and compares various means. This implies that those means are limited, par-
ticular goods and hence that her will is not determined by any one of them.
But she lacks that power, it will be urged, just so soon as, following deliber-
ation and comparison, she judges that one of those means is the best means
to the end in question.

But even here, after the intellect presents the will with what it judges to be

the best means to the end, Aquinas holds that the will can refrain from choos-
ing that means. This might seem to be counterintuitive. But Aquinas’s point
is that though the will at that point cannot choose another means, it can re-
frain from choosing any means at all. For recall that his view is that if some-
thing is means and not end, then it is a mix of good and non-good. It is only
participatively good because it is only participatively end. Only what is end
but in no sense means is non-participatively good or good per se. But so long
as something is a mix of good and non-good, end and non-end, the intellect
can consider it under the aspect of non-good or non-end. And then the will is
not compelled to choose it.

In any case, choice always follows upon deliberation through willing an

end. That is why choice stands in the position of conclusion and end in the
position of principle. But as conclusion in a practical syllogism, choice does
not follow directly from the end. In between, connecting the two, is rational
deliberation, functioning in the position of mediator. In terms of the example
of the physician, the rule or principle is the statement of his end, i.e. “Physi-
cians as physicians aim at health as their end.” The case or minor premise is,
“This physician, following deliberation, judges that doing x is the best means
to health in his patient.” And the result or conclusion is, “This physician
ought to choose to do x.”

Still, the paradox is that since x is a means to an end and not the end, the

physician need not choose it. Going by the judgement of her intellect that x
is the best means to the end, she can choose to do x. But since x is means and
not end, x is not good alone but a mix of good and non-good. But if so, then
it is always possible that the intellect focuses on what in x is non-good. And
if it does, inclination of the will toward x need not follow.

The paradox, then, is that the will is made both free and unfree by reason,

though in different ways. Reason signifies in different respects both freedom

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197

and determinism. The will is free in the process of deliberating and this (as
opposed to the instinctive behavior of sheep) is a rational act. This is free as
opposed to natural judgement. The will is also free with respect to the result
of that process. For the result of deliberating is the judgment of reason that
something is the best means to the end. But what the intellect sees as being
the best means is still means and not end. Just because of that is it non-good
as well as being good. That is why it fails to compel the will. But the will is
unfree with respect to something when reason sees it only as end and not pos-
sibly as means. And this Aquinas identifies with the final good or happiness.

But the parallel between knowing and willing goes even further. Strictly

speaking it is not conclusions that are understood by the intellect. Instead, it
is principles that are understood and conclusions that are reasoned to. In the
same way, strictly speaking, it is not means that are willed by the will. In-
stead, it is the end that is willed and the means that are chosen. Means are
chosen and not willed just as conclusions are reasoned to and not understood.
Thus, understanding is to reasoning what willing is to choosing.

144

Moreover,

the end of understanding, a principle, is to the end of reasoning, a true con-
clusion, as the end of willing, itself some end, is to the end of choosing, some
means. And since the end of a thing is its good, this same analogy can be put
this way: as a principle is the good of understanding and a true conclusion the
good of reasoning on the side of intellect, so too some end is the good of will-
ing and some means the good of choosing on the side of will.

145

Finally, just as conclusions are said to be understood only because the princi-

ples in them are understood, so too, means are said to be willed only because the
end to which they are directed is willed. We assent to a conclusion only because
we assent to a principle. Similarly, we desire the means only because we desire
the end.

146

And since good has the nature of an end, it follows further that means

are said to be good only because the end to which they are directed is good.

147

In any case, the end is first in practical matters just as principles are first in

speculative matters. A person’s intellect necessarily has being as its object and
hence necessarily clings to those speculative principles that follow on being
just as being. The latter include the principles of contradiction and identity.
Similarly, the will of a person as person necessarily has the final end or good
as its object and therefore clings of necessity to those practical principles that
follow on the notion of good just as good. In neither case can intellect or will
do otherwise. Finally, as between understanding and reasoning on the side of
cognition and willing and choosing on the side of volition there is a further
parallelism. The first member of each pair is superior to the second. As one
reasons only because one understands first principles from which all reason-
ing proceeds, so too one chooses only because one wills an end to which all
choice is directed as means.

148

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Chapter Five

With Aristotle, Aquinas identifies the final end of persons as persons with

happiness. Happiness alone is both desired for its own sake and not possibly
for the sake of something else. Since that is so and since good has the nature
of an end, it follows that happiness is the highest good. All other things are
wanted either for the sake of something else only or else both for their own
sake and for the sake of something else. The former are pure instrumental
goods and the latter are mixed instrumental goods. Since we want hammers
only for the sake of pounding something, they are purely instrumental goods.
But health we want as an end in itself. Yet it is something that we can also
want for the sake of happiness. So health is a mixed instrumental good.

That there must be things that are desired for themselves is shown by the

logic of ends. If S desires A for the sake of B and desires B for the sake of C
and desires C for the sake of D and so on without end, then at no point does
S’s desire have an object. For the only reason that things that are desired for
the sake of something else are desired in the first place is that they are means
to something that is desired for itself. So if nothing is desired for itself noth-
ing is desired at all and desire has no object. But since all desire has an ob-
ject, desire is then impossible if nothing is desired for itself. But desire evi-
dently exists and has an object. Therefore, in any chain of desire, there is
something that is desired for its own sake and not for the sake of another.

Thus, S diets for the sake of losing weight and looses weight for the sake

of lowering blood pressure and lowers blood pressure for the sake of avoid-
ing cardio-vascular problems and avoids cardio-vascular problems for the
sake of extending life. If extending life is not the final end in this chain and
if there is no other final end in the chain, then S desires nothing. For the ob-
ject of S’s desire at any level in the chain is supplied and explained only by
S’s desiring a final end, such as, in this case, the extension of life. If S does
not desire to extend his life and does not desire this for its own sake, then S
does not desire to diet or lose weight or lower blood pressure or avoid cardio-
vascular problems.

This argument at best shows that pure instrumental goods imply a mixed in-

strumental good. It does not show that pure instrumental goods imply an ab-
solute or highest good. Thus, in the example given, extension of life is final
end in the chain in question but it is not an absolute final end. For it is always
possible that extension of life is desired for the sake of something else. Nev-
ertheless, that there is in fact a highest good and that the latter is identified with
happiness is shown by the fact that human beings want other things for happi-
ness but do not and cannot want happiness for the sake of other things. But
nothing else satisfies this description. We can want health, wealth, security,
friendship, fame, honor, power, justice, knowledge, etc., for the sake of happi-
ness but not vice versa. Therefore, happiness alone is the highest or final good.

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199

But though happiness is necessarily willed by all of us, we do not want

everything of necessity. And here again Aquinas compares willing with know-
ing. In intelligible matters some contingent propositions have no necessary
connection with first principles. This is shown by the fact that the denial of
them does not imply the denial of the first principles. To these contingent
propositions, therefore, the intellect does not assent of necessity. But other
propositions do have a necessary connection with first principles. They cannot
be denied without denying those principles. And to these necessary proposi-
tions, the intellect necessarily adheres only when it sees that they strictly fol-
low from first principles.

As it is with intellect so again is it with will. Certain goods have no neces-

sary connection with happiness. For happiness is achieved without them.
Since shunning them and willing happiness is not contradictory, they are con-
tingent and not necessary goods. But other things are necessarily connected
with happiness. These are the things by means of which a person attains the
final end of seeing God. (Here Aquinas evidently has virtuous action in
mind). For it is in this Beatific Vision, says Aquinas, that true happiness con-
sists. And it goes without saying that these are necessary and not contingent
goods. Even so, until the intellect sees the necessary connection between
these goods and seeing God, the will does not adhere of necessity to these
goods. And so far as Aquinas is concerned, this necessary connection is not
seen until one actually sees God in the Beatific Vision. It follows that the will
does not in this life adhere of necessity either to God or to the things that are
of God. And this is quite compatible with saying that the will always and nec-
essarily adheres to happiness. A person might adhere of necessity to a first
principle and fail to adhere to what follows from that principle because she
fails to see the strict connection between the principle and the conclusion. Just
so, a person might adhere of necessity to happiness and fail to choose the nec-
essary means to that end because she fails to see the strict connection between
the end and the means. The crucial difference is that in the second case that
connection is never seen by us in this life since God is never seen in this life.
Therefore, though in this life the will is necessitated to will happiness as fi-
nal end, it is not here necessitated to will God as final end. For intellect might
miss seeing that happiness consists in attaining the vision of God. Not just
that, but even if the intellect does make that identification, the will need not
choose the necessary means to achieving that end. For it is compelled to
choose those means only if intellect sees the necessary connection of means
and end. And this it does not see until the end in question is actually achieved
and the Beatific Vision is realized.

149

By contrast, beatified angels and saints,

says Aquinas, who see God in heaven, cannot turn away from God and the
things that are of God.

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Chapter Five

From this it might be thought that our freedom on earth is more perfect than

that of the angels in heaven. For in this life we can choose either good or evil
while angels, who see God directly, can only choose good. For, seeing God
directly, they are unable to make choices that are inconsistent with that vision.
Aquinas answers by once again comparing reasoning and choosing.

150

Draw-

ing conclusions from or according to principles is due to the perfection of the
intellect. But drawing a conclusion in violation of the order of principles
comes from a defect in the intellect. By the same token, being able to choose
various means under the end is due to the perfection of the will’s liberty. But
electing anything that conflicts with the end comes from a defect of the lib-
erty of choice. For example, it belongs to the perfection of the liberty of his
free choice that a physician is able to choose various means to the end of the
health of his patient. But the physician’s electing to do what is inconsistent
with that end comes from a defect in that liberty. Therefore, that we can in
this life choose either good or evil while beatified angels can only choose
good does not imply that our liberty is greater than the liberty of angels. What
follows is just the converse. The liberty of angels is greater than ours.

151

QUESTIONS SIX AND SEVEN

We come finally to questions 6) and 7) above. As for 6), even though the will
is free in its choices, it is determined in its volition of its first end by an ex-
terior principle. For this Aquinas argues in Summa theologica I-II, q9 a4. It
might be summarized as follows. Suppose a physician S wills as an end E the
health of a patient R and then deliberates about the means to E. Since S does
not always will E but begins to do so, there must be some exterior efficient
cause of the exercise of S’s act of willing.

Now it cannot be argued that S moves herself to will the health of R

through willing some further end, E-1. For for one thing, S wills E here as
physician and E (health) is the final end of a physician acting as physician.
But if S wills E here only through willing some further end E-1, then E would
not be S’s final end as physician after all. Instead, E would be but a means to
another end, i.e. E-1. For another, even supposing that S moves herself to will
E as means through willing some more remote end E-1, it is clear that S does
not always will E-1. Some further efficient cause is then required to move S
from potentially willing E-1 to actually willing E-1. And if S moves herself
to will E-1 as means through willing some still more remote end, E-2, then
there must be a further exterior cause of her willing E-2, and so on, ad infini-
tum. The only way to skirt the regress is to affirm that S’s will does not al-
ways move itself but that it advances to its first movement by dint of being

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201

moved by some exterior mover or efficient cause. In sum, there must be
something that is willed as an end and not as a means since anything that is
willed as a means is willed under an end. The latter is the will’s first move-
ment in the means-end chain. But since what is willed in this movement is not
always willed, it follows that the will adheres to this first movement through
the agency of an exterior cause. And just to that extent is the will determined
and not free in that first movement.

Finally, as for 7), in Summa theologica I-II q9 a6 Aquinas identifies the ex-

terior efficient cause of this first movement of the will with God. The argu-
ment divides into two parts. The first shows that only the cause of the will is
the cause of the will’s voluntary movement. And the second shows that only
God is the cause of the will. I summarize the arguments in reverse order.

The will is by definition the inclination to universal good. Nothing, though,

that is only participatively good can cause an inclination to universal good. (By
analogy, since primary matter is the potentiality to all forms, no mere participa-
tive form can cause primary matter). It follows that nothing that is only partici-
patively good can cause the will. Therefore, the will is caused as to its efficient
cause by universal good or by goodness itself. But since the latter is identified
with God, it follows that the will is only caused by God as exterior principle.

Now all movement of a power is movement from within. Thus, seeing,

which is the movement of the power of sight, is from within and not from
without the agent. But all movement from within a thing is caused by the
cause of that thing. Thus, while I might be the cause of the upward, violent
movement of a stone, the movement of the stone that comes from within i.e.
its downward, natural (as opposed to violent) movement is not caused by me
but by the cause of the stone. Therefore, the movement of a power is caused
by the cause of that power. But voluntary movement is the movement of a
power, i.e. the will. Therefore, voluntary movement is caused by the cause of
the will. But it was just shown that God is the cause of the will. Therefore,
God is the cause of the voluntary movement of the will.

NOTES

1. Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles Book Two:Creation, trans. J.F. Anderson, (Gar-

den City, NY: Doubleday, 1956) 65 [2], 199–200.

2. ———, Summa theologica, in A. Pegis, ed. Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas

(New York: The Modern Library, 1948), I q75 a1, 281–2.

3. ———, Summa theologica I q75 a1, 281–2.
4. ———, Summa theologica I q78 a1–2, 321–27.
5. ———, Summa theologica I q76 a3, 302–06.
6. ———, Summa theologica I q76 a3, 302–06; ———, Summa contra gentiles

Book Two: Creation 58 [3], 173.

202

Chapter Five

7. ———, Summa contra gentiles Book Two:Creation 58 [4],173–74.; ———,

Summa theologica I q76 a3, 302–06.

8. ———, Summa contra gentiles Book Two: Creation 58[6], 174–75.
9. ———, Summa contra gentiles Book Two: Creation 58[8], 175–76.

10. ———, Summa contra gentiles Book Two, 58[3], 173.
11. ———, Summa theologica I q76 a1, 293–96.
12. ———, Summa theologica I q76 a3, 303–06.
13. ———, Summa theologica I q84 a2, 381—82.
14. ———, Summa theologica I q78 a3, 328–29.
15. ———, Summa contra gentiles Book Two:Creation 50[3], 149–50.
16. ———, Summa contra gentiles Book Two:Creation 59[13], 180.
17. ———, Summa contra gentiles Book Two:Creation 59[5], 178.
18. ———, Summa theologica I q77 a5, 319–20.
19. ———, Summa contra gentiles Book Two:Creation 82 [12]-[13], 270. ———,

Summa Theologica I q75 a2, 284.

20. ———, Summa theologica I q77 a5, 320.
21. ———, Summa contra gentiles Book Two: Creation 82[12], 270.
22. ———, Summa contra gentiles Book Two: Creation 57[3], 169.
23. ———, Summa contra gentiles Book Two: Creation 57, 168–72.
24. ———, Summa theologica in A. Pegis, ed. Basic Writings of Saint Thomas

Aquinas (New York: Random House, 1945), vol.1. I q50 a2, 482–83.

25. ———, Summa theologica in A. Pegis, ed. Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas

I q85 a1, 401–02. (italics mine)

26. ———, Summa theologica I q77 a1, 312–13.
27. ———, Summa theologica I q77, a1, 312–13.
28. ———, Summa contra gentiles Book Two 69[5], 208.
29. ———, Summa Theologica in A. Pegis, ed. Basic Writings vol.1, I q50 a5,

488–90; ———, On Being and Essence, trans by A. Maurer (Toronto: The Pontifical
Institute of Medieval Studies,1949), 4, 44.

30. ———,On Being and Essence, 4, 44.
31. ———, Summa theologica in A. Pegis, ed. Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas,

I q77 a3, 317–18.

32. ———, Summa theologica I q78 a1, 322–23.
33. ———, Summa theologica I q78, a2, 325–26.
34. ———, Summa theologica in A. Pegis, ed. Basic Writings vol.1, I q77 a7,

729–30.

35. ———, Summa theologica I, Q. 77, art.7, 729–30.
36. ———, Summa theologica in A. Pegis, ed. Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas

I q78 a1, 322–23.

37. ———, Summa theologica I q78 a1, 322–23.
38. ———, Summa theologica I q84 a1, 377–79.
39. ———, Summa theologica I q79 a4: reply obj. 4, 335.
40. ———, Summa theologica I q79 a3: reply obj.2, 342.
41. ———, Commentary on the Trinity of Boethius, in J. Maritain, Philosophy of

Nature (New York: Philosophical Library, 1951) q5 a1; q5 a3, 191–92.

42. ———, Commentary on the Trinity of Boethius, q5 a3.

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203

43. ———, Summa theologica I q79, a4, 344–45.
44. ———, Summa theologica I q85 a5, 415–16.
45. ———, Summa theologica I q79 a4, 344–45.
46. ———, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle translated by J.P. Rowan

(Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1961), IV. L.6: C605, 243.

47. ———, Summa theologica I q82, a4, 365–66.
48. ———, Summa theologica I q16 a4, 174–5.
49. ———, Disputed Questions on Truth q21 a1 in J.F. Anderson, trans. Introduc-

tion to the Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1953), 77.

50. ———, Summa theologica I q16, a5, 175–76.
51. ———, Summa theologica I q17 a1, 183–85.
52. ———, Disputed Questions on Truth in J.F. Anderson, trans. Introduction to the

Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas q21 a2, 83.

53. ———, Summa theologica I q82, a4, 365–66; ———, Summa theologica I q16

a4.1, 175.

54. ———, Summa theologica I q16 a4.1, 175.
55. ———, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, trans. C. I. Litzinger (Chicago:

Henry Regnery, 1964) VI.L.III: C 1143, 553.

56. ———, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, VII. L4: C1234, 482.
57. ———, Summa theologica I q16a 2, 171–72.
58. ———, Summa theologica I q16 a4.1, 175.
59. ———, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, IV. L6: C605, 243.
60. ———, Summa theologica I q82 a4, 365–66.
61. ———, Summa theologica I q85 a1, 401–02.
62. ———, Summa theologica in A. Pegis, ed. Basic Writingss vol.2 I-II q13 a6,

284–85.

63. ———, Disputed Questions on Truth in J.F. Anderson, trans. An Introduction to

the Metaphysics of St.Thomas Aquinas qI a2, 67.

64. ———, Summa theologica I q16 a1, 169–70.
65. ———, Summa theologica I q16 a2, 171–72.
66. ———, Summa theologica I q16, a2, 171–72; I q82 a4, 174–75.
67. ———, Summa theologica I q16, a4 reply 2, 175.
68. ———, Summa theologica I q16 a2, 171–72.
69. ———, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, VI. L.4: C1236, 482.
70. ———, Summa theologica I q16 a2, 171–72.
71. ———, Summa theologica I q17 a3, 187–88.
72. ———, Summa theologica I-II q57 a2, 569.
73. ———Summa theologica I q2, a1, 21–2; I-II q57 a2, 569; ———, Commentary

on the Nicomachean Ethics, I.L.IV:C 52, 24; see also.Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics,
1095b 1–4.

74. P.F. Strawson, “On Referring” in Essays in Conceptual Analysis, ed. A. Flew

(London: Macmillan, 1963), 27–8.

75. B. Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1970), 125.
76. In this and succeeding paragraphs, I borrow material and arguments that orig-

inally appeared in my paper, “Subjectivity and Objectivity in Truth.” See Acta Philo-
sophica II, 14, 2005, 299–312.

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77. B. Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1970),

124.

78. The following paragraphs use arguments which appear in my “Subjectivity

and Objectivity in Truth”in Acta Philosphica II 14, 2005, 304–05.

79. W.V. Quine, Philosophy of Logic, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall,

1970), 14.

80. ———, Philosophy of Logic, 14.
81. ———, Philosophy of Logic, 14.
82. ———, Philosophy of Logic, 11.
83. Aquinas, Summa theologica I q83 a3, 373.
84. ———, Summa theologica I q82 a4.1, 366.
85. ———, Summa theologica I q82 a1, 361–62.
86. ———, Summa theologica I q81 a2, 356–57.
87. ———, Summa theologica I q81 a2, 356–57.
88. ———, Summa theologica I q81 a3, 358–59.
89. ———, Summa theologica I-II q9 a5, 505–06.
90. ———, Summa theologica I q80, a2, 352–53.
91. ———, Summa contra gentiles, Book Two 48[6], 146.
92. See Anthony Kenny, Aquinas On Mind (London: Routledge, 1993), 62.
93. Aquinas, Summa theologica I, q5 a2 reply obj.1, 37; I q5 a4, 40.
94. The intellect is not moved by the will, for example, in its simple apprehen-

sion of essences.

95. ———, Summa theologica I q83 a4, 375; I-II q8 a2, 496.
96. ———, Summa theologica I-II q9 a4, 503–04.
97. ———, Summa theologica I q82 a1–2, 363–64.
98. See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, book III, ch.3, 1113a 10–13.
99. ———, Summa theologica I q83 a3 reply to obj. 2.

100. ———, Summa theologica I-II q9 a4; I q82 a1, 361–63; I-II q6 a4, 485–86.
101. ———, Summa theologica I q83 a1, 368–70; ———, Summa contra gentiles

Book Two: Creation 48 [2] and [6], 144, 146.

102. ———, Summa theologica I q83 a3, reply obj.3, 374; ———, Summa contra

gentiles Book Two:Creation 48 [2], 144.

103. ———, Summa theologica I q83 a1and a3, 368–70; 372–73.
104. ———, Summa theologica I-II q9 a.3, 502–03; I-II q13 a3, 515; I q83 a4,

374–75.

105. See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1112b 13—1113a 5.
106. ———, Summa theologica I-II q8 a2, 496–97; I q83 a4, 375.
107. ———, Summa theologica I-II q9 a1, 498–99.
108. ———, Summa theologica I-II q9 a.1, 498–99.
109. ———, Summa theologica I-II q9 a1 reply obj.3, 500; I q16 a4 reply obj 1, 175.
110. ———, Summa theologica I q16 a4, 174–75.
111. From the impossibility of an infinite regress here Aquinas concludes that the

will’s first movement is from an exterior mover. See ———, Summa theologica I-II q9
a4, 503–04.

112. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1095a 13–20.
113. Aquinas, Summa theologica I q 83 a3 reply obj. 2, 374.

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205

114. ———, Summa theologica I-II q13 a1, 514.
115. ———, Summa theologica I q82 a1, 361–63.
116. ———, Summa theologica I q83 a3, 373–74.
117. ———, Summa theologica I q83 a1, 369–70.
118. ———, Summa theologica I q83 a1; Summa contra gentiles Book II, ch.48, # 3.
119. ———, Summa theologica in A. Pegis, ed. Basic Writings vol.2 I-II q13 a6, 285.
120. ———, Summa theologica in A. Pegis, ed. Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas

I q82 a4, 365–66.

121. ———, Summa theologica I-II q9 a1, 498–99.
122. ———, Summa theologica I q82 a4, 365–66.
123. ———, Summa theologica I q82 a2, 363–64.
124. ———, Summa theologica I-II q9 a3, 502–03.
125. ———, Summa theologica I-II q9 a4, 503–04.
126. ———, Summa theologica I-II q9 a6, 507–08.
127. ———, Summa theologica I-II q9 a1 reply 3, 500; I q82 a4, 365–67.
128. ———, Summa theologica I q82 a4 reply 1, 366.
129. ———, Summa theologica I q82 a4, reply 2, 367.
130. ———, Summa theologica I q82 a4, reply 1, 366.
131. ———, Summa theologica in A. Pegis, ed. Basic Writings vol.1 I q82 a3,

780–81.

132. ———, Summa theologica I q83 a4, 374–75.
133. ———, Summa theologica I q83 a3, 373–74.
134. ———, Summa theologica I-II q9 a3, 502–03.
135. ———, Summa contra gentiles, Book Two: Creation 48 [6], 146.
136. ———, Summa theologica I-II q9 a3 and 4, 502–04.
137. ———, Summa contra gentiles Book Two: Creation 23 [2], 68.
138. ———, Summa theologica I q83 a1, 368–69.
139. ———, Summa theologica in Pegis, ed. Basic Writings, vol. 2 I-II q13 a6,

284–85.

140. ———, Summa theologica I-II q13 a6, 284–85.
141. ———, Summa theologica I-II q13 a6, 284–85
142. ———, Summa contra gentiles Book Two: Creation 48 [6], 146.
143. ———, Summa theologica in Pegis, ed. Basic Writings vol.1 I q64 a2, 604.
144. ———, Summa theologica in Pegis, ed. Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas, I

q83 a4, 374–75.

145. ———, Summa theologica I-II q8 a2, 496–97; I q83 a4, 374–75.
146. ———, Summa theologica I q83 a4, 374–75.
147. ———, Summa theologica I-II q8 a2, 496–97.
148. ———, Summa theologica I q83 a4, 374–75.
149. ———, Summa theologica I q82 a2, 363–64.
150. ———, Summa theologica in Pegis, ed, Basic Writings vol. 1 I q62, a8, reply

3, 582.

151. ———, Summa theologica I q62 a 8, reply 3, 582.

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IN DEFENSE OF ETHICS

Since value and moral relativism and subjectivism are prevalent views about
concepts like value, right, wrong, good, bad, evil, etc., any discussion of
Aquinas’s ethics must be prefaced by a defense of value and moral absolutism
and value and moral objectivism. Like Plato and Aristotle, Aquinas holds that
there is objective good and evil in the world independently of what persons
think is good and evil and that some actions of persons are objectively speak-
ing right and wrong independently of whether persons think they are right or
wrong. Following Aristotle, Aquinas distinguishes the theoretical from the
practical sciences. The object of the former is knowledge for its own sake
while the object of the latter is knowledge for the sake of doing or making. In
the light of this distinction, almost the first question in ethics is whether it is
a theoretical or a practical science. But it is not the very first question. The
latter is whether ethics is a science at all. ‘Science’ comes form the Latin
word ‘scio’ which means to know. In its root and basic meaning, therefore, a
science is a body of knowledge using first principles. But since knowledge
entails truth, it follows that if ethics is the science of values, then ethics con-
tains a number of objectively true value statements to the effect that such and
such things are good or bad and that such and such actions are right or wrong.

However, ethical relativists deny that such statements are objectively true

of false. If they are right about this then ethics is not a science. And then the
question of whether ethics is a theoretical or a practical science is moot. Un-
less there is such a thing as right action apart from what persons believe is
right action, the question of what constitutes objectively right action is point-
less. And unless there is such a thing as good apart from what persons believe

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is good, the question as to what constitutes objective good is also pointless.
And it is the view of moral relativism that saying that an action is right is the
same as saying that some person or persons believe that the action is right and
it is the view of value relativism that saying that something or other is good
is the same as saying that some person or persons believe that it is good.

Several stock objections to moral and value relativism defeat those views.

First, there is Moore’s objection that both views deprive belief of an object.

If “A is right” means “S believes that A is right,” then, since “A is right” ap-
pears in the definiens, it follows that the definiens reads, “S believes S be-
lieves that A is right.” But since “A is right” once again appears in the latter,
then the latter is rendered, “S believes that S believes that S believes that A is
right.” Still again, since “A is right” appears in this third phrase, then this
third phrase becomes in turn, “S believes that S believes that S believes that
S believes that A is right,” and so on ad infinitum. Since the result of this is
that the object of belief is forever postponed and belief must have an object,
it follows that A is right” is not defined as “S believes that A is right” and
moral relativism is wrong. And since it is evident that the same criticism ap-
plies, mutatis mutandis, to defining “X is good” as “S believes that X is
good,” it follows that value relativism is also wrong.

A second objection to moral and value relativism invokes the celebrated

“open-question” test. If “A is right” means “S believes that A is right” then it
is not an open question to ask if an action is right when some person or per-
sons believe it is right. But that is an open question. Therefore “A is right” is
not defined as “S believes that A is right.” And the same objection applies,
mutatis mutandis to defining “X is good” as “S believes that X is good.”

A third objection is that moral and value relativism imply that, just so long

as it is believed to be right or good, respectively, any action or thing is just as
right or good as is any other action or thing. If “A is right” means “S believes
that A is right” then just in case someone believes that murdering the sick is
right and someone else believes that helping the sick live is right, it cannot be
said that, morally speaking, there is anything to choose between murdering
the sick and helping them live. And if “X is good” means “S believes that X
is good,” then just in case someone believes equality under the law is good
and someone else believes inequality under the law is good, it cannot be said
that, value-wise, there is anything to choose between equality under the law
and inequality under the law. But since neither one of these consequences can
be countenanced, it follows that both moral and value relativism are false.

As for value and moral subjectivism, it seems that these positions stand or

fall with value and moral relativism. If it is shown that value and moral sub-
jectivism imply value and moral relativism, respectively, then since the for-
mer are false so are the latter. It also works the other way around. If it is in-

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dependently shown that both value and moral subjectivism are false and these
views imply value and moral relativism, respectively, then value and moral
relativism are also false.

To show that it does work both ways, consider the definitions of value and

moral subjectivism. A person S is a value subjectivist just when S believes
that saying “X is good” is true means nothing but X is desired by some per-
son or persons. And a person S is a moral subjectivist just when S believes
that saying “A is right” is true means nothing but A is approved of by some
person or persons. So value subjectivism (hereafter, VS), is the view that “X
is good” means “X is desired by some person or persons” and moral subjec-
tivism (hereafter, MS) is the view that “A is right” is true means “A is ap-
proved of by some person or persons.”

It can now be argued that, as defined, value and moral subjectivism both

imply and are implied by value and moral relativism (hereafter, VR and MR),
respectively. For suppose that it is true that X is desired by some person or
persons if and only if that person or persons believe “X is good.” Call this G.
G and VS imply that “X is good” is true if and only if some person or persons
believes “X is good” is true (VR). In other words, VS and G imply VR. But
if it is admitted that VR is unacceptable, then, if G is true, it follows that VS
is also unacceptable. A false conclusion in any valid argument means that at
least one of its premises is false. Moreover, assuming MS and assuming, (A),
A is approved of by some person or persons if and only if that person or per-
sons believe “A is right” is true, it follows that “A is right” is true if and only
if some person or persons believe “A is right” is true (MR). In other words,
MS and (A) imply MR. But if it is once admitted that MR is unacceptable,
then, if (A) is true, it follows that MS is also unacceptable.

And as was said, it also works the other way around. VR and G imply VS

and MR and (A) imply MS. But it is important to note here that it does not
follow that VS is false just because VR is, assuming G is true. For in any valid
argument a false premise does not imply a false conclusion. And by this same
rule, it does not follow that MS is false just because MR is, assuming (A) is
true. None the less, as before, if independently of the truth-value of either VR
or MR it is shown that that VS and MS are false, then it is also shown that
VR and MR, respectively, are also false. In any case, given the validity of the
foregoing four arguments, if either VR or MR are true (false) while G and (A)
are true, then VS and RS, respectively, are also true (false). And if either VS
or MS are true (false) while G and (A) are true, then VR and MR, respec-
tively, are also true (false).

Thus, relativism and subjectivism in ethics are equivalent if not identical

views. If the one is true the other is true and vice versa and if the one is false
the other is false and vice versa. But since, previously, it was shown that both

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value and moral relativism are false, it follows that both value and moral sub-
jectivism are also false.

Moreover, both value and moral subjectivism can be shown to be false in-

dependently of the fact that they are implied by what is false, namely, value
and moral relativism, respectively. The arguments against them parallel the
arguments that we previously saw defeat value and moral relativism. First, if
“X is good” means some person or persons desire X, then just in case some
person or persons desire lawlessness and disorder while some other person or
persons desire law and order it cannot be said that, value-wise, there is any-
thing to choose between these two states. And on the side of moral subjec-
tivism, if “A is right” means some person or persons approve of A, then just
in case some person or persons approve of murdering the homeless and an-
other person or persons approve of helping them, it cannot be said that,
morally speaking, there is anything to choose between the two actions. But as
this is intolerable, it follows that value and moral subjectivism are wrong.

Second, if “X is good” means some person or persons desire X, then it is

never an open question to ask if lawlessness and disorder are good after it is
shown that some person or persons desire them. But this is an open question.
And on the side of moral subjectivism, if “A is right” means some person or
persons approve of A, then it is never an open question to ask if murdering
the homeless is right after it is discovered that some person or persons ap-
prove of it. But once again, this is an open question. Therefore, both value and
moral subjectivism are untenable.

Third, if “A is right” means “some person or persons approve of A” then,

counterintuitively, when a person S says A is right and another person R says
A is wrong, S and R are not having a moral disagreement.

For all S means is

that some person or persons approve of A and all R means is that some per-
son or persons disapprove of A. But these latter two statements either refer to
the very same person or persons or they do not. If they do, then S and R are
having a factual and not a moral disagreement. They disagree only about
whether the same person or persons approve of A or not. But if they do not
refer to the same person or persons, then S and R are having neither a factual
nor a moral disagreement. Since in either case the possibility of moral dis-
agreement is eliminated and persons do at times have moral disagreements, it
follows that “A is right” does not mean “some person or persons approve of
A” and moral subjectivism is wrong.

A celebrated second type of moral subjectivism is emotivism. It is the child

of logical positivism. According to logical positivists, since ethical questions
like “Is x right?” cannot be answered by empirical means they are not even
genuine questions to begin with. They are pseudo-questions masquerading as
real questions. In the view of the positivist, even the question, “Is moral rel-

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ativism true or is moral absolutism true?” is a question which is in principle
unanswerable since it is not a question that can be settled by direct or indirect
appeal to sense perception. But a question that is in principle unanswerable is
a senseless question and hence is one which ought not to be raised in the first
place. But if a question is nonsensical then any attempted answer to that ques-
tion in the form of a statement is also nonsensical. So if a person states that x
is right or that there are objective moral values or that there are objective
moral obligations, that person, the positivist would say, makes statements
which, because they are empirically unverifiable, are neither true nor false.
Instead they are cognitively meaningless. If the positivists are right about this
then there is no such thing as a science of ethics. For as was said, it is a con-
dition of any body of knowledge whatever that the statements that belong to
that body of knowledge are or can be objectively true.

But are positivists right in saying that, outside of tautological statements, the

only cognitively meaningful statements are those which are empirically veri-
fiable or falsifiable? A hint that this criterion of meaningfulness is too narrow
should have occurred to positivists when they saw the consequences of their
criterion both for philosophy as a whole and for ethics in particular. As regards
the former, if non-tautological statements are meaningful only if they are em-
pirically verifiable, then every philosophical question turns out to be mean-
ingless. The result is that philosophy is eliminated. Age-old philosophical
questions like, “Does God exist?”, “Does man have free will?” “Are minds
distinct from bodies?”, etc. are no longer legitimately asked just because the
way we go about answering these questions is by what philosophers call rea-
son as opposed to experience and experimentation. As regards the latter, state-
ments containing moral predicates such as “Genocide is wrong” become non-
sensical just because the wrongness of genocide is empirically unverifiable. If
the strangeness of these consequences is not enough to trigger in the posi-
tivist’s mind some suspicion that his definition of meaningfulness is too nar-
row, his own identification of moral judgments like “Genocide is wrong” with
an emotive outburst of the order, “Down with genocide”! should have been
enough to arouse that suspicion. For the obvious effect of this reduction of eth-
ical discourse to the mere venting of emotion is that it deprives the expressed
emotion of any point. If the grammatical predicates “right” and “wrong” never
signify any objective property which is being predicated of a subject it follows
that there is nothing objectively wrong with, say, the Nazi holocaust. Wrong-
ness comes in (to the extent that it comes in at all) only when someone
expresses a negative emotion toward the holocaust. But then, how can the ex-
pression of that emotion have any point? Why, instead of expressing a nega-
tive emotion toward the holocaust, would it not be equally fitting and proper
to express a positive emotion toward it? The answer of common sense here is

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that the negative emotion is fitting and the positive emotion is unfitting be-
cause the holocaust was wrong. But as the positivist holds that it can never be
true and in fact is always senseless to say this, he cannot avail himself of that
answer. But in that case is he not forced to say that the expression of any one
emotion is as fitting and appropriate as the expression of any other emotion in
the face of the holocaust or for that matter any action at all? But in that case
the notion of the fittingness of an emotion loses all point.

So unless we care

to abandon our belief that the expression of some emotions in some situations
is fitting while the expression of other emotions in those same situations is un-
fitting, the positivist’s criterion of cognitive meaningfulness is too narrow. But
then, the positivist’s particular threat to ethics as a science or body of knowl-
edge is eliminated.

But trouble for positivists runs deeper. For not only does it appear that their

criterion of meaning is too narrow but it seems to be self-refuting as well.
Critics of logical positivism have been quick to point out to the positivist that
if it is true that all meaningful non-tautological statements are empirically
verifiable then that very statement, “All meaningful non-tautological state-
ments are empirically verifiable” is meaningless because it is unverifiable.
Thus, the positivist’s very own criterion of meaningfulness cannot itself be
meaningfully stated. To escape this, positivists sometimes fall back on Rus-
sell’s celebrated theory of types. According to that theory, a predicate on any
level L can be meaningfully applied only to a subject on level L-1. For ex-
ample, it makes sense on this theory to say “Smith is a man” or “Man is an
animal” or “An animal is an organism,” but it is neither true nor false but
rather nonsensical to say, “Smith is an animal” or “Man is an organism.” Fur-
ther, the theory holds that not only predicates but also whole statements are
meaningful only if they refer to things on the level just below them. In that
case, no statement refers to itself. But if so, then it is meaningless to ask the
question, “Is the statement ‘All meaningful non-tautological statements are
empirically verifiable’ itself empirically verifiable?” For to ask this question
is to assume, falsely, that the statement in question can sensibly refer to itself
and not just to statements on the level below it. And so, positivists would re-
ply, if Russell’s theory of types is correct, then it is a mistake of a logical kind,
a kind of category mistake, even to ask whether their stated criterion of mean-
ingfulness applies to itself or not. For no statement at all applies to itself.

But quite apart from whether the kinds of problems and paradoxes which

Russell used his theory of types to solve can be solved in some other way in-
stead, can positivists consistently invoke the theory of types to escape the
charge that, by their own criterion of meaningful statements, their statement
of that criterion is meaningless? For to fall back on the theory of types in or-
der to answer this objection positivists must accept the consequence of that

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theory, namely, that no statement refers to itself. Otherwise they cannot use
the theory to escape the charge that their principle that only empirically veri-
fiable non-analytic statements are meaningful is itself meaningless since it is
neither analytic nor empirically verifiable. But if the statement, “No state-
ment refers to itself” is true, then that very statement, i.e. “No statement refers
to itself” is one that does not refer to itself. But then that statement is an ex-
ception to the rule that no statement refers to itself and so is a statement that
does refer to itself. Therefore, positivists cannot consistently fall back on the
theory of types to escape the objection that their own criterion of a meaning-
ful statement is by that same criterion made meaningless. For to do so they
must adopt the rule that no statement refers to itself and if this is true then it
is false. In other words, recourse to the theory of types to answer the objec-
tion in question only serves to resurrect the very same problem that that the-
ory was designed to solve in the first place.

But to return to moral relativism, the main argument that has always been

offered in its behalf is the widespread disagreement among whole societies
and individuals of the same society on any given moral issue. Americans are
generally outraged by bribery among public officials but many non-Ameri-
cans are almost indifferent to it. Polygamy is considered a vice in some soci-
eties but a virtue in others. Capital punishment is considered right by many
Americans but wrong by many other Americans. If, therefore, both individu-
als and whole societies differ on what they judge to be right or wrong, good
or bad, valuable or valueless, does it not follow that there is nothing really
right or wrong, good or bad, valuable or valueless in and of itself or objec-
tively speaking? In other words, is it not the case that sociological relativism
or the datum that different societies as a matter of fact disagree in their moral
beliefs, implies ethical relativism or the view that no moral judgments are ob-
jectively true? Succinctly,

No ethical judgments are universally agreed on.
Therefore, no ethical judgments are objectively true.

Before answering this question, caution must be exercised from the start as

regards this issue between ethical relativism and ethical absolutism. For what
sometimes appears to be ethical disagreement among either whole societies or
individuals in the same society is on closer look not disagreement on funda-
mental ethical principles at all It is only disagreement about how those princi-
ples are best realized. For example, two societies, A and B, may disagree on
the question of whether abortion is right or wrong but agree that only those
acts are right which tend to promote the most amount of good for the society
as a whole. It is just that in society A it is believed that abortion on demand

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does promote the most good for the society whereas in society B it is believed
that abortion does not. To the extent that the members of these societies be-
lieve that there is even one over-all objectively true ethical principle, they are
not ethical relativists at all but ethical absolutists. In other words, an ethical
relativist is defined as one who denies that there are any objectively true moral
judgments or values, either judgments as to the rightness or wrongness of spe-
cific actions such as abortion, capital punishment, mercy-killing, etc., or judg-
ments which express general moral principles such as “All and only those acts
are right which promote the general happiness.”

But to return to the question, does the fact of universal disagreement on ei-

ther the level of specific moral issues or on the level of general moral princi-
ples imply that there are no objectively true moral judgments on either one of
these two levels? Does it follow from the fact that no ethical judgments are
universally agreed on that no ethical judgments are objectively true? The an-
swer is that it follows only if it is assumed that only what everyone agrees to
is objectively true. But this assumption no one can believe. Otherwise, just in
case it was universally agreed in 500 B.C. that the Earth was flat then it was
objectively true in 500 B.C. that the Earth was flat. Besides, resting the case
for ethical relativism on the fact of moral disagreement forces the ethical rel-
ativist to abandon the very moral relativism which he espouses. For if the suc-
cess of the argument from disagreement trades on the premise that only what
everyone agrees to is objectively true, then the relativist is forced to deny that
even ethical relativism is objectively true. For it is evident that ethical rela-
tivism is not universally agreed on. The argument from disagreement thus
cuts both ways. Just to the extent that he invokes that argument to show that
ethical judgments are not objectively true, the moral relativist also shows that
his own position of moral relativism is not objectively true.

Moreover, so far from showing that ethical relativism is true, the fact of

moral dispute among individuals and whole societies, even on the level of ba-
sic moral principles, presupposes the truth of the very opposite position from
moral relativism, namely, moral absolutism. This is a point which is not often
appreciated but which, on reflection, becomes clear. If in morals there is no
such thing as right or wrong objectively speaking but only right to me or
wrong to me or right to us or wrong to us ( just as in the matter of taste there
is indisputably no such thing as something which tastes good period but only
something which tastes good to me)—then the very concept of a moral dispute
is as pointless as a dispute as to whether, say, coffee tastes better than tea. All
dispute or debate on any issue whatever in which one side affirms some propo-
sition P and the other side denies P presupposes both that either P or not-P is
objectively true and that the parties to the debate believe that one of these two
propositions is objectively true. Otherwise, every dispute ends up like the “dis-

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pute” as to whether coffee really tastes better than tea. Therefore, some reason
other than that of widespread disagreement on ethical issues must be used by
the relativist to make his case. But what could this other reason possibly be?

To answer this question, some unreflective relativists shift the ground of

their argument from the fact of disagreement on moral issues to the truth of
democracy. No person, they say, has the right to impose his moral opinions
on others. Typically, their argument takes the form of the question, “Who is
to say what is right or wrong?”, the implication being that no person has the
right to dictate to others what they ought to do in moral situations. The very
idea of an absolute dictator prescribing how his subjects should act boils the
blood of every democrat.

The irrelevance of this argument, though, hardly needs to be pointed out.

Those who support moral relativism on the basis of it assume that moral ab-
solutism implies political absolutism. They assume that the fact that moral
values and judgments are objectively true implies that some person or group
of persons has the right to impose those objective values and judgments on
others. But nothing of the sort follows and no enlightened moral absolutist be-
lieves that it follows.

The question, then, may be reasserted. If the fact of moral disagreement can-

not be used to establish moral relativism then why should anyone hold that
such a relativism is true? True, there may be non-rational reasons why it is held
to be true. A person may convince himself of the truth of relativism in ethics
only in order to justify his own wrongful acts or in order to please or curry the
favor of some other person or group of persons. But these are not rational or
logical reasons for becoming a relativist in the sense that they can be offered
as evidence for a defense of relativism in ethics. How, then, does the relativist
rationally support the claim that there is no objective truth in ethics?

The answer to this question seems to be that there just is no rational or log-

ical defense of ethical relativism. And this despite the fact that many individ-
uals believe that this relativism is true. There is no more general truth from
which ethical relativism follows and it is not an empirical generalization.
Some relativists in ethics say that they refuse to be “hemmed in” by the rules
of society and that they want to be free of all fetters in order to express them-
selves fully and creatively. And somehow or other this is supposed to imply
that there is no objective moral order. But this is not only a startling non-se-
quitur but it is also a remarkable concession to the view which relativists os-
tensibly oppose. For the possibility of full and creative expression of self is
here elevated by the relativist to the status of objective value.

But even if subjectivism and relativism in ethics are refuted, it does not fol-

low that ethics is established as a science. For with the moral skeptic, it is pos-
sible to affirm the objective truth of moral statements but deny that these

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215

truths are known. And since a science is a body of knowledge, there is no sci-
ence of ethics if there is no knowledge of ethical truths. As much as meeting
the challenge of relativism and subjectivism, therefore, answering the moral
skeptic is also a condition of showing that ethics is a science.

Because moral skeptics are limited as opposed to absolute skeptics, their

view is not susceptible of the difficulties of the latter. Absolute skeptics who
hold that no true statement is known must hold that this statement is ether
known or believed by them. If the former, their view is evidently self-contra-
dictory. If the latter, their view is either self-contradictory or implies an infi-
nite regress. If they claim that their view that no true statement is known is be-
lieved but not known by them, then they assume that they either believe or
know they are believing and not knowing the statement in question. If the lat-
ter, they admit to knowledge after all. But if their assumption is that they are
believing and not knowing that they are believing and not knowing that they
are believing and not knowing the statement in question, then once again they
assume that either they believe that they are believing and not knowing that
they are believing and not knowing the statement in question or that they know
this. And to avoid knowledge once again, they must choose the former as-
sumption. But if their assumption is that they are believing and not knowing
that they are believing and not knowing that they are believing and not know-
ing that they are believing and not knowing the statement in question, then
once again they assume that either they believe this or know this. And so it is
clear that somewhere along the line they either admit knowledge and hence
contradict themselves or else invite an infinite regress of acts of believing.

But for their part, moral skeptics hold not that no truth is known but that

no ethical truth is known. And this limited skepticism saves them from the
forgoing dilemma. But this only exchanges one dilemma for another. To be
consistent with their own view, moral skeptics must hold that even general
ethical principles such as “One ought to do good and avoid evil” are un-
known. But it is difficult to see how it is practically consistent to hold that this
is not known but that non-ethical principles such as “All events are caused”
are known. To avoid being arbitrary, it seems that moral skeptics must dis-
claim knowledge of the latter if they disclaim knowledge of the former. But
if they do, then moral skeptics are more than just moral skeptics. They are
skeptics about natural principles as well. Their moral skepticism is thus a slip-
pery slope. Succinctly, moral skeptics are caught in this dilemma: either they
hold that ethical principles are known and other ethical truths are unknown or
else they hold that no ethical statements at all are known. If the former, then
moral skeptics are arbitrary in their treatment of ethical truths. For why say
that some ethical truths are known while others are not? But if the latter, then
they exchange arbitrariness in their treatment of ethical statements for arbi-

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trariness in their treatment of ethical principles vis-à-vis natural principles.
With the acceptance of moral skepticism they are practically forced to accept
skepticism about natural principles too. And then they abandon the possibil-
ity of knowing anything for sure about the world.

This consequence, of course, moral skeptics might countenance. But to the

extent that they do, they at least claim to know that neither ethical nor natu-
ral principles are known by us. But then it becomes difficult to see how, once
again, they avoid arbitrariness in affirming the truth of this general, episte-
mological proposition while espousing skepticism about general ethical and
natural principles. To put to rest all such objections of arbitrariness, moral
skeptics might end with denying that any principles at all are known for sure
by us, be they ethical, natural, epistemological or otherwise. But even that
will not save them from the objection of arbitrariness. For then our skeptic at
least claims to know that that statement is true. But then it is arbitrary, if not
outright contradictory, to accept that statement while all the while denying
that any principles at all are known for sure by us.

Granted, therefore, that there is such a thing as objective good and bad and

objectively speaking right and wrong actions, the crucial question is, in what
do they consist? To this very many answers have been proffered in the long
history of philosophy, but here in this final chapter I consider only the answer
of Aquinas. To do so I recur to the idea of natural purpose, contrasting it with
the mere pragmatic purpose of recent philosophy.

PRAGMATIC VERSUS NATURAL PURPOSE

William James characterized pragmatism as a method and not as a doctrine.
It is compatible with any and all metaphysics and so is not itself a meta-
physics. It lies amidst our theories “like a corridor in a hotel.”

It thus feeds

many rooms. In one room is a metaphysical idealist, in another is an atheist,
in a third a theist, in a fourth a realist, in a fifth a nominalist, and so on. Yet
all the guests in all these rooms may be pragmatists. It all depends on how
they determine the truth of their beliefs. James’s view is shared even today.
Otherwise we would not classify both Peirce and James as pragmatists. If
there is a distinctly pragmatic answer to the problem of universals (as over
against a realist and nominalist answer) it could not be said that both Peirce
and James are pragmatists. For Peirce is a realist and James a nominalist.

With James as with Dewey this method of fixating the truth of beliefs is in-

strumentalism. Instrumentalism in truth is the idea that to say that a proposi-
tion is true is to say that belief in it helps us accomplish our goals, thereby
satisfying us practically. The true is thus equated with the instrumentally

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good.

Thus, to the extent alone that one justifies one’s belief in either athe-

ism or theism in terms of the practical utility of either belief, one is a prag-
matist. Similarly, pragmatists may be idealists or materialists, nominalists or
realists, monists or pluralists, and so on. If pragmatism is only a method, the
instrumental method of deciding truth, then any stance on any issue in phi-
losophy is pragmatic just so long as it measures the truth of its propositions
instrumentally. And those who know James and Dewey know that this is op-
posed by them to establishing the truth intellectually, i.e. by appeal to a pri-
ori absolutes or fixed first principles.

From this instrumentalism in truth C.S. Peirce dissents. That is one reason

why he renames his own version of pragmatism “pragmaticism.” Peirce is not
a pragmatist about truth but a pragmatist about meaning. But he does not
abandon the idea that pragmatism is a method only or that the method of prag-
matism is instrumentalism. It is just that with him instrumentalism applies to
meaning. The meaning of a predicate, he says, is the way you go about test-
ing whether or not a subject bears that predicate. His celebrated example is
that you know the meaning of ‘hard’ when you know what sensible effects
would be produced if you were to rub a hard thing against other things.

Thus,

meaning is identified with a rule of verification expressed as a contrary-to-
fact conditional. This is instrumentalism in meaning because it consists in
taking means to an end. And as far back as Aristotle, means taken to an end
is identified with the useful or instrumental. Meaning is fundamentally a test
and the test is a means to the end of making our ideas clear. Just as in James
the truth of a belief consists in its being a means to our ends, so in Peirce the
meaning of a predicate consists in the means by which we show that predi-
cate’s sensible effects.

Any means that satisfies us, i.e. that seems to realize our practical goals,

says James, is true And the means we use to verify whether something has a
property, says Peirce, is what is meant by that property. As we know that a
statement is true when we know that it is useful to our ends to believe it, so
we know the meaning of an abstract predicate when we find a rule of verifi-
cation that is useful to tracing that predicate’s sensible effects. Instrumental-
ism, whether in truth or in meaning, confines purpose to human doings and
makings. Any end is necessarily our end and the means is something devised
and chosen by us.

Contemporary pragmatists have different agendas and techniques than

their predecessors. Yet they share James’ view that pragmatism is a method
and not a doctrine. They still believe that pragmatism is more a way of doing
philosophy than a philosophy, more an approach to issues than a stance taken
on issues. It is crossing categories to say that answers to the body-mind issue
include epiphenomenalism, identity materialism and pragmatism. And the

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same goes for other issues. Pragmatism is still considered an approach to or
attitude in philosophy rather than a type of philosophy.

This instrumentalism opposes the idea of natural purpose in philosophers

like Aristotle and Aquinas. The latter hold that purpose characterizes reality
itself and not just how we deal or cope with either reality or appearance. So
if Aristotle and Aquinas are right, then James and his followers are wrong in
thinking that purpose is confined to method. This issue about the ontological
status of purpose occasions two questions. First (1), why did pragmatic pur-
pose replace natural purpose? And second (2), which one is true?

As for (1), the remote cause of the change from the old to the new teleol-

ogy is traced to Kant’s “Copernican revolution.” With that came skepticism
about God and divine purpose. With that too came skepticism about the world
and natural purpose. Whether or not reality in itself is characterized by pur-
pose no one can say. The only kind of purpose we know about is human pur-
pose, not divine or natural purpose.

More proximately, the cause of the change is traced to two things. The first

is the idea of natural selection. Under this idea, changes and features in liv-
ing things which were hitherto ascribed to purpose are instead ascribed mech-
anistically in terms of chance mutations. This is too familiar as to require
comment. The second is the inclusion of human purpose in the hitherto meta-
physical ideas of meaning and truth. So far from being in and issuing from
Absolute Mind, meaning and truth are made by our minds. This anti-
Hegelianism on the matter of meaning and truth is the pragmatic revolution
of Peirce, James, and Dewey. Behind it is the application of the scientific
method into the formerly metaphysical arena of meaning and truth. With
Peirce meaning comes down to a rule of verification. If you want to know the
meaning of an abstract predicate you do such and such in order to see if you
get such and such sensible results. Since this requires testability and testabil-
ity involves human purpose, it follows that meaning involves human purpose.
With James and Dewey it is truth that comes down to verification. When lost
in a wood you try what looks like an old cow path in order to see if it leads
anywhere. If it seems to do so then the hypothesis that it is the way out for
the first time becomes true.

It is made to be true or to have “warranted as-

sertibility” by the very testing of it. To the extent that it here consists in ver-
ifying, truth is instrumentally or humanistically purposive.

It is no surprise, then, that nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy

buried with a vengeance the old teleology and took up the new. If truth and
meaning both require human purpose because they include testability and if,
since Kant, human purpose is the only purpose we know about, then how is
the old teleology of Aristotle and Aquinas either relevant or possible? In other
words, the temptation is to answer (2) above in favor of ideal teleology. Real

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teleology, following this line of thought, is just that kind of naive teleology
one might expect to find before Galileo and the rise of modern science. By
analogy, it is to the new teleology what Kant said his own philosophy was to
pre-critical dogmatism.

History aside, let us turn to (2). In this connection, imagine a philosophy in

which purpose characterizes reality itself as opposed to how we construe,
manage, or organize reality. In it, purpose is fundamental, just as it is in prag-
matism. But to the extent that purpose here characterizes reality itself, this
philosophy is far from being pragmatism, be it James,’ Dewey’s, Lewis,’
Quine’s, or Rorty’s. But neither is it pre-Kantian rationalism or empiricism.
Descartes followed Galileo in banishing purpose from nature. Skeptical of
knowledge-claims about the external world, empiricists acquiesced in its de-
parture. And to this day it, especially in the wake of the theory of natural se-
lection, it remains ostracized. So the philosophy of which I speak swims
against not just American pragmatism but the whole current of modern phi-
losophy.

Be that as it may, I shall not here repeat the argument for natural ends

which was developed in chapter one. There, it will be recalled, the phenome-
non of binary fission in paramecia was cited as requiring natural purpose.

In-

stead, I here proffer arguments for final causes based on i) the comparison of
ethics with other practical sciences and ii) the nature of virtue.

THE NATURAL HUMAN END

In chapter one, final causes were construed as forms or patterns to which
events or actions are oriented as means. The model of a skiff in my mind is
that for the sake of which I make cuts in wood. Likewise, the mature form of
paramecium in m elicits binary fission the end of which is the replication of
that same form in the new paramecium, p. In each case, some form in an
agent is aimed at via some operation or activity in that same agent. Thus the
form of the skiff in my mind has itself as end through and by means of my
building. Similarly, the form of paramecium in m has itself as end through and
by means of its reproductive changes. In each case the end pre-exists in the
agent and in each case events or changes which take place in that agent are
means to that ends. I build for the sake of the skiff and the reproductive
changes in m occur for the sake of m’s form.

However, operations are not always means to some pre-existing form as

end. They are themselves sometimes ends. This happens when agents are con-
sidered not as active but as having the capacity for activity. That is because
activity completes or fulfills a thing’s basic capacity and that is what is meant

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by a final cause. Thus, the end of a carpenter as having the capacity of build-
ing is building and the end of a physician as having the capacity of healing is
healing. By contrast, when an agent is taken not as having the capacity for but
as being engaged in some activity, then the agent’s end is a form to which that
activity is oriented. Thus, the end of a carpenter as building is a house and the
end of a paramecium as reproducing is the form of paramecium as reproduced
in another individual.

Given that ends can be activities that fulfill potentialities in addition to be-

ing forms to which activities are inclined, one can ask what the end of per-
sons is as persons as opposed to carpenters, physicians, etc.

The answer is

that it is that very activity which is the distinctive activity of persons, just as
building and healing are the distinctive activities of carpenters and physi-
cians, respectively. Yet the question presupposes that persons do have an end
as persons. However, this perhaps is not evident and must be shown. More-
over, a well-known Aristotelian defense of this thesis is suspect. It is that a
person has an end because each and every part of a person has an end.

Since

eyes, ears, nose, heart, etc. each one has its own end, it cannot be denied, says
he, that a person as a whole has an end. Otherwise nature has given the parts
an end but not the whole. But that would be unjust and unfitting since the
parts exist only for the sake of the whole.

But since nature does not do what

is unjust and unfitting, it follows that persons have an end just as persons.

Opponents of this deny Aristotle’s premise that each and every part of a

person has an end. Though eyes, ears, heart, etc. might conceivably be con-
strued as having ends, how is it plausible to say that the appendix, beard, or
eyebrows have an end? And if they do not, then the argument is like saying
that a cake is excellent because some but not all of its ingredients are excel-
lent. Moreover, even if it is true that each and every part of a person has an
end, it does not follow that the person as a whole has an end. Otherwise, be-
cause each and every element in a cake is excellent it follows that the cake it-
self is excellent. Therefore, even if it is true that each and every part of a per-
son has an end, how does this argument avoid committing the error of
composition in concluding from this true premise that persons themselves
have ends?

Aristotle might have replied that the objection thrives on a false analogy.

True, from the fact that some of its parts are excellent, it cannot be inferred
that the cake itself is excellent. But that is only because the ingredients of the
cake exist independently of the cake. Flour, salt, etc. exist and are what they
are independently of the cake of which they are part. By contrast, no part of
a person exists or is what it is without the person whose part it is. Persons, un-
like cakes or loaves of bread, are organic and not aggregate wholes. Such
wholes explain and are not explained by their parts. You cannot define what

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a human eye, ear, heart, etc. is without including in the definition the idea of
a person. Moreover, these parts cannot exist as parts without a person any
more than a branch of a tree exists or is what it is apart from the tree. But
these parts are not necessarily included in the concept of a person. On the
other hand, no mere aggregate part includes the aggregate in its concept. It is
and is what it is independently of that aggregate. No pebble in a pile includes
in its definition the pile of which it is a member.

Relying on this difference, Aristotle might answer that any part of a whole

has an end only because the whole itself has an end. For any part of a whole
takes on and follows the life and character of the whole. A branch takes on
and reflects the life and character of the tree. This in contrast with an aggre-
gate which is nothing over and above the sum of its parts. But that means that
in the case of wholes, the nature of the whole can be gleaned from the nature
of the part. From a diseased branch one infers a diseased tree. Because in the
order of being wholes determine their parts, the character of wholes can in the
order of knowing be inferred from the character of their parts. As you know
a tree by its fruit, so do you know a whole by its parts.

Still, even granting the difference between organic wholes on the one hand

and piles or heaps on the other, and even interpreting the whole-to-part rela-
tion in Aristotle’s argument as a relation of an organic whole to its parts, his
argument still fails. Even in the case of organic wholes, one wrongly infers that
what is true of each part of the whole is true of the whole. Otherwise it follows
that I weigh under forty pounds because each one of my bodily parts does.

Apart from all of this, though, a more convincing Augustinian argument for

natural purpose turns on our judgments about defections or privations. St. Au-
gustine observes that to say that blindness is a defect of the eye and that deaf-
ness is a defect of the ear implies that it is the very nature of the eye to see
and of the ear to hear.

Otherwise, when we say that eyes see and ears hear,

what we say about them is accidental or incidental to their natures, like being
brown or being large. And then, instead of it being the case that blindness is
a flaw or privation in eyes as eyes and that deafness is a flaw or lack in ears
as ears, blindness and deafness are flaws in eyes and ears taken in some inci-
dental or accidental sense. And that is patently false. Blindness is a flaw or
privation in eyes as eyes and not in eyes as brown, large, etc., and deafness is
a flaw or privation in ears as ears and not in ears as large, pointed, etc. That
being the case, since defective eyes and ears are opposed to good ones and
good has the nature of an end, it follows that if eyes and ears are defective be-
cause they lack sight and hearing, then having sight and hearing is the natu-
ral good and hence the natural end of eyes and ears taken just as eyes and ears.
Thus do judgments about defects or privations in natural parts imply that
those parts have their very own natural ends or functions.

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But besides judging that parts of persons are defective, we also say that

persons themselves are defective. We say that something was gravely miss-
ing in Hitler and Attila the Hun. By the previous logic, then, to say that act-
ing irrationally is a privation in persons implies that it belongs to persons to
act rationally. Otherwise when we say that persons act rationally what we say
about them is accidental to their natures, like being white or tall. And then,
acting against reason is a flaw not in persons as such but in persons taken in
some incidental capacity. And that is false. So if defective persons are op-
posed to good ones and once again good has the nature of an end, it follows
that if persons are defective because they act irrationally, then acting ration-
ally is the good and hence the end of persons as persons. It follows that just
as judgments about defective parts of persons imply that those parts have
ends, so too do judgments about defective persons imply that persons as per-
sons have an end. But the end of an agent as having a distinctive capacity is
that activity that fulfills that capacity, as the end of carpenters is building. Fur-
ther, the special activity of a thing comes from its difference and a person’s
difference is being rational. It follows that the end of a person as person is ra-
tional activity.

Finally, despite appearing to be a non-sequitur, the inference in question

from “persons in incidental capacities have ends” to “persons as persons have
an end” is sound. For the conclusion follows by the rule of genus. Under this
rule, what belongs to a genus belongs to its species. Ethics is a practical sci-
ence as is medicine, carpentry, shipbuilding, and so on. So by the rule of
genus, what belongs to the latter just as practical sciences also belongs to
ethics. Now agents in medicine, carpentry, shipbuilding, etc. all have a spe-
cial activity in those sciences, just insofar as they are practical sciences. Car-
penters have a special activity as practitioners in carpentry, namely building.
And so is it with all productive practical science. That is because the end of
practical science is action and not knowledge. Under the rule of genus, there-
fore, agents in ethics, just insofar as they are practitioners in ethics, have a
specialized activity.

As was stated, however, the activity of an agent in any practical science is

the end of that agent in that science. That is because these activities fulfill the
ability in those agents to build, to heal, etc. and the fulfillment of an ability by
its corresponding act is the end and good of that ability or capacity.

It follows

that the special activity of ethical agents is identified with the end of those
same agents. But it is acting well as persons and not as physicians, carpenters,
etc. that ethical agents have as their special activity. That is why ethics might
be called the first practical science. For the ideas of physician, carpenter, etc.
include the idea of a person but not vice versa. That means that the science that
deals with activities of persons as persons precedes any science that deals with

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the activities of persons in incidental capacities. As ethical as opposed to med-
ical, legal, or governmental agents, etc., they do not have as their special op-
eration acting well in healing, law, public service, etc. Therefore, ethical agents
have as their end acting well as persons. Hence, persons have an end as per-
sons which is the same as the end of a person as practitioner in ethics. But the
distinct or special activity of a thing comes from its difference and it is evident
that rationality is the difference in persons. Consequently, the end of persons
taken as persons is rational activity. Thus,

1. Ethics is a practical science.
2. Agents in any practical science have a special activity in those sciences.
3. That activity is their end.
4. Agents in ethics have acting well as persons as their special activity.
5. So agents in ethics, i.e. persons as persons, have acting well as person as

their end.

6. Therefore, persons as persons have a natural end.
7. The distinctive activity of a thing comes from its difference.
8. But rationality is the difference in persons.
9. Therefore, persons as persons have an end and that end is rational activity.

THE CASE OF VIRTUE

Finally, natural purpose is implied not just by the relation between ethics and
other practical sciences. It is also implied by virtue. To see this, take a child
who sees a saw for the first time and asks what the saw is for. Suppose she
also sees a pile of planks in a boatyard and asks what the planks are for. These
questions are answered in terms of two different kinds of means. The saw is
a purely instrumental means but the planks are not. The saw is not part of the
end for which it is used. It remains external to the wood it is used to cut. But
the planks are part of the end for which they exist. They do not remain ex-
ternal to the skiff after they are used to make it but become part of it. The saw
and the planks are evidently means to some end. Both are for something be-
yond themselves. It is just that in the second case but not in the first the means
become part of the end. Mill, to answer the objection that utilitarianism re-
duces virtue to an expediency, to a mere means, invokes this same distinction.
Virtue is no external device by which happiness is reached, says he. It is a
means to the end of happiness that is also an integral part of happiness.

Yet real as opposed to pragmatic purpose is more than this. It is purpose in

which things are means apart from our making them so. And right here the
analogy of the planks ceases. To see this, look again at Mill’s account of

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virtue. It owes much to Aristotle. True, virtue is part of happiness and not just
an external tool by which happiness is reached. It is both constitutive of and
a means to the end of happiness just as planks are both constitutive of and a
means to a skiff. And yet, virtue is not internal to happiness the way planks
are internal to the skiff. Having no inner tendency to become parts of a skiff,
the planks might just as well have become parts of a shed. Something exter-
nal to the planks is therefore required to push them toward a skiff. That some-
thing is us. But no outside force is needed to push the virtues toward happi-
ness. They deliver up the end automatically. They have, as it were, a nose for
happiness. That is because, says Aristotle, virtues are habits and habits by def-
inition are oriented to their respective acts.

But it is just in these virtuous

acts or in virtuous living that happiness consists.

The point is that because virtue naturally and not forcibly becomes part of

the end, it follows that virtue is, in the view of Aristotle, no mere instrumen-
tal means. Virtue’s being a means to and part of the end is not something that
is conferred on it by us. It is something it has in its own right. It is real and
not mind-dependent means. While virtue is for happiness as the planks are for
the skiff, virtue is by definition for happiness while the planks are not by def-
inition for the skiff. It is we who decide that the planks are for the skiff. But
virtue is for happiness whether we say so or not. That is why virtue is real and
the planks instrumental means to their respective ends. Sharing with pragma-
tism the idea of the centrality of purpose, this assay of virtue breaks with
pragmatism in denying that all means and ends are made by us.

To spell it out further, consider the virtue of courage. If the habit of courage

has acting courageously as its natural end then it is arbitrary to deny that all
the other virtues have their own corresponding acts as their natural ends. And
from this it follows that real as over against pragmatic teleology looms large
in ethics or at least in what is nowadays called virtue ethics. All depends,
then, on whether it can be said that acts of courage are in fact real ends.

Suppose, though, that they are not real ends. Then acts of courage are ei-

ther not ends at all, or else, like the skiff with respect to the planks, they are
human-made ends. This is to say that acts of courage are ends because we say
they are and not vice versa. But neither alternative is possible. If on the one
hand acts of courage are not ends at all then they are evidently not the real or
human-made ends of courage. But then either something else is the end of
courage or courage is not to begin with a habit or natural bent. But in this sub-
ordinate dilemma neither alternative is possible. Nothing else is the end of the
habit of courage but courageous action. Habits by definition are directed to
actions that exemplify the habit. Nothing else is the end of the habit of gram-
mar but grammatical speaking and nothing else is the end of the habit of cour-
tesy but courteous acts. And if courage is not to begin with a habit or bent,

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then no account is given of the fact that persons with courage are naturally
prone to act courageously. But if on the other hand acts of courage are human-
made ends only then so too is courage or that of which they are the ends. Hu-
man ends have human means. Courage, then, would on this option be to
courageous acts what planks are to a skiff. It would be instrumental means
only. But then courage would no more be a natural bent to acting coura-
geously than planks would have a natural bent to become a skiff. And then
once again it follows, counter-intuitively, that no person with courage is nat-
urally inclined to act courageously any more than planks are naturally in-
clined to make a skiff. So it follows that acts of courage are the real ends of
courage. By extension, therefore, real acts of any and all the virtues, be they
intellectual or moral, are the real ends of those virtues. But then, a fortiori,
there are real means and real ends in the world independently of human in-
vention.

REASON IN ETHICS

On the strength of these arguments, then, let it be granted that persons have a
natural end which is identified with rational activity. Suppose too that since
happiness is our final end, it can be said that happiness consists in rational ac-
tivity. Then the question is, is it in any kind of rational activity that happiness
consists?

When ‘rational activity’ is taken in the broad sense to mean any kind of

thinking, then Aristotle and Aquinas answer negatively. Otherwise, since
even bad reasoning is a kind of rational activity in this sense, happiness or the
highest good includes reasoning badly. But end is the same as good since the
end of anything perfects it. So this rational activity or happiness consists not
just in any rational activity but in good or excellent rational activity. But vir-
tuous activity consists just in this. If the rational activity in question is rational
in itself, then its excellent or virtuous functioning is thinking well. But if it
concerns activity that is rational by participation, then its excellent or virtu-
ous functioning is acting well. The virtues in speculative thinking are under-
standing, science, and wisdom.

These aid and perfect the intellect’s search

for truth. By the first, ultimate principles are grasped in judgments. By the
second, true conclusions are deduced from these principles in reasoning. By
the third, ultimate causes in the sciences are apprehended especially in the
first science of metaphysics. However, ethics concerns only how we ought to
act and not how we ought to think. So it is the moral virtues with which ethics
is concerned. The latter include the regulation of appetite by reason. They ex-
emplify excellent functioning in action and not thought and include temper-

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ance, courage, and justice.

These perfect the will and not the intellect. Here

virtue is making right choices or choices that accord with reason. What is
meant by this is evident from examining excellent choices in the specialized
practical sciences. What are these choices and why are they excellent or “vir-
tuous?”

MORAL VIRTUE: RIGHT REASON AS MEAN

To answer, the choices and actions of physicians, shipbuilders, carpenters,
etc. are made right choices and actions when they skirt both excess and de-
fect. It is because they strike this mean that these actions accord with reason.
Successful physicians gear the kind and dosage of medication to the age and
condition of patients. It must be neither too much nor too little, too strong nor
too weak. Skilled shipbuilders choose just the right kind and condition of
wood. And they trim or bend boards to the right angle, neither too obtuse nor
too acute. Good dentists drill teeth neither too much nor too little and at cor-
rect angles. Successful carpenters fit doors into frames neither too tightly nor
too loosely. Experienced lawyers question witnesses with enough boldness to
bring out the facts but not with so much boldness as to badger them. So it is
in all other specialized sciences. This know-how in striking the mean or mid-
dle is just what is meant by action that follows reason.

So too is it the case in ethics. For all secondary practical sciences include the

principle of the first practical science which is ethics. And that principle is act-
ing in accord with reason. As mathematics and the philosophy of nature include
the principles of metaphysics but not vice versa, so do the specialized practical
sciences include this central idea of ethics but again not vice versa. That is why
ethics is the first practical science just as and for the same reason that meta-
physics is first speculative science. To the extent that persons act rationally as
persons they are virtuous persons. To the extent that they act according to rea-
son in medicine, carpentry, etc., they are “virtuous” physicians, carpenters, etc.
For the idea of acting according to reason in medicine, carpentry, etc. includes
the idea of acting according to reason but not vice versa. Moreover, the idea of
a physician, carpenter, etc. includes the idea of a person but again not vice
versa. Therefore, all the specialized practical sciences logically depend on
ethics as the composite depends on the simple. Hence, though in the order of
knowing the principle of the golden mean in the specialized practical sciences
cues us that the same principle holds in ethics, still, in the order of logic, that
same principle holds in those specialized science because it holds in ethics. For
physicians, carpenters, etc. are persons; but persons are not necessarily physi-
cians or carpenters, etc. To the extent that persons as persons habitually aim at

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and hit the mean in their choices and actions in everyday life they are virtuous
persons. The difference is that in ethics the action that is a mean between ex-
cess and defect is not a means to some product or state that is external to the
agent. It is an end in itself and not merely a means to a further end. For ethics
aims just at acting well as persons and not at health, ships, houses, good teeth,
winning cases, or any other extrinsic product.

Consider temperance, courage and justice. In each case the virtue in ques-

tion consists in being prone to choose a rational mean between irrational ex-
tremes. Temperate persons steer the passions between profligacy and insensi-
tivity. Courageous persons guide the irascible appetite between rashness and
cowardice. And just persons follow reason in shunning either excess or defect
in dealing with others. Distributive justice gets between extravagance and in-
sufficiency in bestowing rewards and between harshness and softness in pun-
ishment. It gives persons their due, neither more nor less. And commutative
justice strikes the mean of fairness.

As was implied, virtue is not only the perfection of a power. It is also the

habit of functioning well in a rational power. And the habit perfects that
power. By contrast, all non-rational, physical powers are directly determined
by nature to act only in one way. They therefore need no mediating habit to
bend their functions in the right direction.

The power of sight is automati-

cally oriented to seeing. It does not require a habit to make it see well instead
of poorly. It is not made to function well or virtuously only by a habit that
stands between it and its activity. It just naturally operates well. The same
goes for all other bodily powers. If the genus of virtue is habit and there are
no habits in powers that are exercised only in one way, then there are no
virtues in these powers. But the rational powers can be exercised in more than
one way.

The intellect can reason either correctly or incorrectly, and the will

can choose rightly or wrongly. They therefore need a habit which, acting as
mediator, bends them in the right direction. As the function of reasoning is
linked to conclusions via first principles, so too are rational powers linked to
their characteristic activities via habits. The habit which inclines a rational
power to act correctly is virtue, while the habit which bends the same power
to act incorrectly is vice. Thus, virtues are good habits and vices are bad
habits. If, then, (i) virtue is a habit, (ii) habits are only in those powers that
can be exercised in more than one way, and (iii) the latter are only the rational
powers, then it follows that virtue strictly speaking is only in persons.

VIRTUE AND WILL

The subject of virtue can be further specified. The rational power to which
habits and hence virtues primarily belong is the will. Habits might give us a

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mere aptness for a good work. And then they are virtues in a relative sense.
In this sense of ‘habit’ artisans who have the ability to produce a good work
have the good habit or “virtue” of art. In this same sense of having the abil-
ity to produce a good work, those who know how to reason well have the
virtue of science. But habits may give us not only the ability to make a good
work but also the tendency to actuate that ability. Craftspersons who have the
ability to produce a good work might spitefully make a bad work. They then
have a virtue in the first, loose sense of the term but not in the second, strict
sense. Physicians who can produce health might deliberately undermine
health. Once again, they can be said to be virtuous in the loose sense but not
in the strict sense. Even though such persons have virtue in an extended
sense, they lack virtue in the primary sense. For they lack the good use of
their ability.

They are good craftspersons or physicians, etc. but not good

persons. To make a good work actually and not just have the ability to do so
requires rectitude in the will.

Moral virtues like justice, temperance and courage that actually make a

person prone to act justly, temperately and courageously in addition to con-
ferring the ability to act in these ways.

That is why they are virtues in the

absolute sense. One reason for this is that a thing is not said to be good un-
less it is actual as over against potential. For good by definition is end and end
is the full actuation of potentiality. Therefore, it is by having a habit in this
second sense—in the sense of the good use of ability—that persons are said
absolutely to do good and to be good.

Such habits are therefore virtues in

the absolute sense. But it is the will that moves the other powers to act. There-
fore, since having a habit of doing or being good in this second sense depends
on the will’s command, habits and hence virtues in this same sense reside
only in the will.

Alternatively, the idea of a habit (and hence of virtue) im-

plies a relation to our nature. For habits are either suitable or unsuitable to our
nature. But a thing’s nature, which is its end, is further ordained to another
end. This is an operation of some kind. Therefore, it is essential to habit, and
hence to virtue, to have a relation to an operation or act.

But all the rational

powers are moved to their operations or acts by a command of the will. It fol-
lows that virtue is primarily in the will.

Finally, since habits that confer a mere aptness for a good work (such as

the “virtues” of art and science) concern the potential while those that confer
the good use of that ability concern the actual, the latter are better than the
former. For as always in Aquinas good is actuality as over against potential-
ity. It follows that it is in having a habit in the latter sense that a person is
properly said to do and to be good. Therefore, virtues that are habits in this
same sense are virtues strictly so called. For virtue is what makes us and our
work to be actually good.

It is that which one uses if one wills.

But the

good use of an ability depends on the will. For it is the will that moves all the

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229

other rational powers to their acts.

It follows once again that virtues strictly

speaking reside either in the will or in the intellect as in some way moved by
the will.

Aquinas joins Aristotle in denying that virtue is either a power or a pas-

sion.

Persons act out of anger, fear or pity and these are passive emotions.

So passion is a source of action. But we are called good according to virtues
and not according as we are angry, fearful, or have pity. So virtue is not a pas-
sion. Alternatively, persons are not called bad because they are angry or fear-
ful; they are so called because these emotions are uncalled for or had to a de-
gree that is inappropriate. Also, we are praised for virtue and blamed for vice.
But we are neither praised nor blamed for anger, fear or pity, etc. We are
blamed not because we are angry or fearful but because our anger or fear, or
the degree of them, is unfitting given the circumstances. Therefore, it is the
presence or absence of reason that makes these passions praiseworthy or
blameworthy.

Moreover virtue is preceded by deliberation and hence by choice. Prior to

acting virtuously we deliberate as to the course of action that will strike the
mean at which virtuous action aims. Our actions are thus means to an end. But
this implies choice since all choice is of means. Moreover, all choice for
Aquinas is free since it involves deliberative reason which implies the ability
to prefer either this or that. Therefore acting virtuously is the good use of free
choice.

Since choice is of the means and not of the end, virtue concerns

choosing the right means to the end. So for Aquinas prudence is involved in
all the virtues since it is defined as the habit of taking the right means to a
good end. This is what is meant by the unity of the moral virtues.

Besides passions, powers too are sources of action. By our power of delib-

erative reason we take means to ends. However, virtues are not powers. We are
called good and we are praised because of our virtues. But we are not called
good or praised because we have the power of taking means to ends or even
because we have the power of being virtuous. Besides, powers are in us by na-
ture but not so virtues and vices. Therefore it can be said that virtue is no more
a power than it is a passion. By process of elimination, then, it follows that
virtue is a habit. And a habit is defined as as a disposition whereby that which
is disposed is disposed either well or ill to its nature or operation.

As was said, Aquinas holds that the idea of a habit implies a relation to the

nature of the subject of the habit. Any habit is either suitable or unsuitable to
that nature, i.e. either a good or a bad habit. A good habit is one that disposes
us to act suitably to our nature while a bad habit is one that disposes us to act
unsuitably to our nature.

And since we have a rational nature, good habits

dispose us to act in conformity to reason while bad habits do not. But since a
thing’s nature is ordained to some distinctive operation, habit implies a rela-

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tion to a subject’s operation as well as to its nature. For operation is the end
of some nature as, for instance, thinking is the end of a rational nature.

Thus

Aquinas shares Aristotle’s view that every nature has its own distinct opera-
tion which is its end or good. Moreover, a good habit perfects the power of
which it is the habit as act perfects potentiality. But a good habit or virtue, is
itself perfected by the operation or action to which it is prone. That is because
habits are for the sake of actions and the end of anything is its good, fulfill-
ment or perfection.

Action perfects habit as habit perfects power. Thus does

habit stand between power and act, specifying the former but being specified
by the latter.

The ability of rational powers and only these to be determined in more than

one way implies freedom. Thus persons are free just because they are rational
according to Aquinas. The price of reason and the freedom that is consequent
upon it is that the free power requires a habit if it is to be exercised in the right
way, i.e. in a way that is suitable to the nature from which the power issues.
As was said, neither non-living things nor brutes need habits to steer their
powers in the right direction. The powers of inanimate things and brutes au-
tomatically exercise themselves correctly or in ways that accord with their na-
tures. Freedom or indifference to several options is therefore a condition of a
power’s having a habit (and hence a virtue) and the power of reason is a nec-
essary and sufficient condition of freedom. Having the power of reason is
thus a necessary and sufficient condition of having a habit. ‘Habit,’ ‘reason’
and ‘freedom’ thus seem to be equivalent notions in the ethics of Aquinas.
Habits imply powers that can be exercised in more than one way and vice
versa. For a habit is just that by which we are well or ill disposed to our op-
eration or end. Powers that can be exercised in more than one way imply free-
dom and vice versa. Finally, being rational implies having a power that can
be exercised in more than one way and vice versa.

As habits, intellectual virtues and moral virtues are sources of intellectual

and moral activities, respectively. Like any habit, virtue is made and strength-
ened by the very actions it causes. We are trained to say “please” and “thank
you,” to hold doors for others, to greet and treat guests hospitably, and so on.
After repetition, the habit of doing them is formed.

Then the same actions

that caused the habits are the effects of them. Actions are in the strict sense
virtuous for Aquinas only when they come from virtuous habits. In that case
they are not only actions that accord with virtue but they are also actions that
are done out of virtue i.e. actions that issue from a virtuous disposition. Ac-
tions that accord with virtue but which are done out of imitation (as for ex-
ample, with children) and not out of a habit of virtue are hardly called virtu-
ous. Yet performing actions that accord with virtue even though they are not
done out of virtue is important. Without actions that imitate virtuous action

Ethics

231

even though there is no habit of virtue behind them, there would be no true
virtuous action. For then the habit of virtue would not have been established.

Aquinas specifies three conditions of virtuous action. Persons who act vir-

tuously must not act in ignorance or by chance but should know what they are
about. Further, the virtuous action must not be done out of passion as when
someone acts virtuously out of fear. Nor can the virtuous act be done for the
sake of something else, i.e. for the sake of money or praise. It must instead be
done for itself. Finally, the virtuous act must issue from a fixed proneness to
choose virtuously so that the person is not moved by something external.

To sum it up, virtue, end, happiness and reason come together in the ethics

of Aquinas in the following way. A thing is naturally prone to activity that ac-
cords with its form. Since activity follows form, it might be called a thing’s
“second form” whereas the form itself might be called a thing’s “first form.”
In any case, the form of a person being rational, each person is inclined by
nature to act rationally or according to reason, be it rational activity in itself
or rational activity by participation. This is virtuous activity, either intellec-
tual or moral. But since the natural end or good of a thing is exactly that to
which it is naturally inclined, it follows that the end or good of persons con-
sists in rational activity. But to act according to reason is to act virtuously. For
virtue is nothing else but a habit in the rational powers which inclines those
powers, intellect and will, to activities that conform to our nature as rational
agents. Each person, then, is naturally inclined to act virtuously. That is our
calling. But to the natural law belongs those things to which a person is by
nature inclined. Therefore, virtuous acts are prescribed by what Aquinas calls
the natural law. To the extent, then, that one acts contrary to right reason ei-
ther by excess or by defect, one fails to act virtuously. Instead, one acts
against one’s own happiness and contrary to one’s nature or essence as a ra-
tional being.

Accordingly, in Aquinas’s natural law ethics the idea of good is funda-

mental since end has the nature of good in his view. It is even behind the no-
tions of “ought” and “right.” This is shown by analogies. Suppose that A is
using a saw and says that it is not doing what it ought to do. When B asks
why, A responds that it is not accomplishing its purpose as a saw. Here,
‘ought’ is defined in terms of end. Again, we say of physicians whose treat-
ment of a patient makes her worse off that they are not doing what they ought
to do. When asked why, we reply that their actions flout their end as physi-
cians which is to heal. Now as it is with the operations of saws and physi-
cians, so is it with the actions of persons. For suppose that persons are not do-
ing what they ought to do or not acting how they ought to act. If asked why,
Aquinas would answer that their actions fly in the face of their very own nat-
ural end as persons.

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A DILEMMA AND AQUINAS’S SOLUTION

The foregoing summary of Aquinas’s ethics shows his indebtedness to Aris-
totle. But Aristotelian and hence Thomistic ethics seems to be susceptible of
the charge of intellectualism. This error falsely identifies the best persons
with the best thinkers. If (i) the ethical end is happiness, (ii) the latter is ex-
cellent rational activity, and (iii) acting includes thinking but not vice versa,
then excellent rational activity consists primarily in excellent thinking and not
in excellent acting. It is identified with what rational in itself and not with
what is participatively rational. But then the ethical end of happiness is iden-
tified with intellectual virtue. And then the problem is that Aristotle succumbs
to intellectualism, which is identifying good persons with those who think
well instead of with those who act well.

To answer this, Aristotle might identify happiness with excellent rational

action instead of with excellent rational activity. Then the summum bonum
becomes moral virtue and not intellectual virtue. And with this the objection
is disarmed.

Yet this reply only substitutes practicalism for intellectualism. If happiness

is a kind of acting and not in a kind of thinking and is also the natural end of
persons, then acting and not thinking is the end and good of persons. In this
way, therefore, thought, which figures in action, subserves the final end of ac-
tion. However, this instrumentalism opposes Aristotle’s own elevation of
thought over action, of what is rational in itself to what is only participatively
rational. Since rational action includes rationality, the latter is simpler than
the former. And the simple, for Aristotle, logically precedes the composite
which is explained in terms of it. Moreover, thought directs action and what
directs is prior and superior to what it directs, at least in the view of Aristo-
tle. So to answer the charge of intellectualism, Aristotle could not fall back on
this practicalist alternative.

Even so, it seems that Aristotle bypasses this fork of either intellectualism

or practicalism when he seemingly identifies the human end with both think-
ing well and acting well and not just with one of them. Thus,

Now this [part has two parts, which have reason in different ways], one as obey-
ing reason [in the other part], the other as itself having reason and thinking [We
intend both.]

And further,

We have found, then, that the human function is the soul’s activity that expresses
reason [as itself having reason] or requires reason [as obeying reason].

Ethics

233

Assuming, then that the human end is both reason and action in accord with

reason, it follows that the extremes of intellectualism and practicalism are by-
passed. Good persons are those who both think rationally and act rationally
and not ones who do the one but not the other.

With this Aquinas largely, but not entirely, agrees. For Aquinas identifies

the final end of persons with the Beatific Vision. And in this he evidently de-
parts from and goes beyond Aristotle. But it would be a mistake to think ei-
ther that Aquinas simply adds a totally new and different end onto the natural
end of Aristotle, i.e. thinking and acting well in this life, or that he abandons
the latter as end. The first views Aquinas as simply tacking on something to
Aristotle just to satisfy Christian beliefs. The second sees Aquinas as denying
outright Aristotle’s identification of the human end with thinking and acting
well in this life.

The fact of the matter is that Aquinas gets between these two extremes and

strikes a synthesis. This mix of Aristotle and Christianity is neither Aris-
totelian nor Augustinian ethics. It is uniquely Thomistic. It consists in mak-
ing one element in the natural end, namely, acting well in this life, a neces-
sary means to the last end, the Vision, and in identifying the Vision itself with
the apex of the other element in the natural end, i.e. thinking well. By this
Aquinas skirts the dilemma of either intellectualism or practicalism in a dif-
ferent way than does Aristotle. Neither philosopher could countenance either
reducing good persons to good thinkers or subordinating thought to action.
For in the view of both philosophers the former precedes, because it is in-
cluded in, the latter.

Aquinas concurs that the natural human end is intellectual and moral

virtue. But though it is end, this natural human end is not the last end as it is
in Aristotle. This Aquinas reserves for a type of intellectual virtue alone. But
this fails to imply that the best thinkers in the world are the best persons in
the world just because the intellectual virtue with which Aquinas identifies
the final end is not to begin with in the world. For it consists in the Beatific
Vision in the next world.

Therefore, Aristotle and Aquinas both agree and differ. Both say that it is

moral virtue that is the end of ethics. But they differ as to the final end of per-
sons. For Aristotle the final human end is thinking and acting well in this life.
But for Aquinas it consists in what he considers to be the apex of human
thought. And this occurs only in the next life. This is the Beatific Vision.
Since intellectual virtue figures in both, these ends overlap though not
straightforwardly so. For there is in his view no comparison between the Be-
atific Vision and the earthly intellectual virtues of understanding, science,
wisdom and prudence.

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Chapter Six

Aquinas would hold that the Beatific Vision can be shown to be our last

end by the following. The activity proper to a thing is that thing’s perfection.
For any activity is to the form from which it issues as the actual is to the po-
tential. In addition, actuality is the good or perfection of potentiality. So
things which engage in their respective proper activities are to that extent fit
and good. But the proper activity of anything is its end. Hence, when things
perform their distinctive activities most excellently, they are most perfect and
have reached their last end. But understanding is our distinctive or special ac-
tivity since our differentia is being rational. Therefore, understanding most
excellently is our last end and perfection. But one understands best and in the
highest way when one grasps or is acquainted with the most intelligible ob-
ject. That is because immanent operations such as understanding and willing
take their perfection from their objects. But God who is the ultimate cause of
all being is the highest intelligible object. It follows that our last end or per-
fection is acquaintance with God. But our last end or perfection is evidently
happiness. It follows that knowing God in the Vision is that in which our ul-
timate happiness consists.

So it is that by making the Beatific Vision our last end as opposed to some

earthly intellectual act or accomplishment, Aquinas avoids intellectualism
without either succumbing to practicalism or abandoning the priority of
thought to action. When it concerns intellectual virtue, therefore, Aquinas
forges a synthesis of Aristotle and Christianity. He also does this as regards
moral virtue. The latter is a mean between excessive and defective feeling and
action. But to this Aristotelian idea of the “golden mean” he once again gives
a Christian twist. Aquinas denies that moral virtue is an end without being a
means to a further end. Though it is end in itself and not solely a means or
purely instrumental, moral virtue is nonetheless means to the Beatific Vision
which is our final and complete end.

Accordingly and ironically, when it concerns our summum bonum Aquinas

espouses ethical intellectualism after all. But it is ethical intellectualism of a
different color. It does not consist in subordinating moral virtue to intellectual
virtue on earth but in subordinating the former to intellectual virtue in heaven.
For since the Beatific Vision is knowing and not acting, it is intellectual and
not moral virtue. It is also perfect intellectual virtue since the object known
in the Vision is not just cause but the highest cause, not just act but the high-
est act. Just because this same Vision is the final end of moral virtue, it is
higher than the latter. So, while the Vision, the highest of all intellectual ex-
periences, depends on moral virtue for its cause, moral virtue in turn depends
on the Vision for its concept. For any means includes the idea of the end in
its concept.

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NOTES

1. G. E. Moore, Ethics (London: Williams and Norgate,1912), 122–124.
2. ———, Ethics, 63.
3. Brand Blanchard, “The New Subjectivism in Ethics.” Philosophy and Phe-

nomenological Research 9 (1949): 507–08.

4. William James, “What Pragmatism Means” in Essays in Pragmatism, ed. A.

Castell (New York: Hafner, 1964), 146.

5. ———, “What Pragmatism Means,” 146, 155. See also ———, “Pragmatism’s

Conception of Truth” in Essays in Pragmatism, 162.

6. ———, “What Pragmatism Means” in Essays in Pragmatism,146.
7. C.S.Peirce, “How To Make Our Ideas Clear,” in Pragmatic Philosophy, ed. A.

Rorty (Garden City: NY, Doubleday, 1966), 15–16.

8. William James, “Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth” in Essays in Pragma-

tism,161–162.

9. See Chapter One, 16ff.

10. The following paragraphs use arguments which also appear in my “Is There

Natural Purpose?” See International Philosophical Quarterly, June, 2008.

11. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics in R. McKeon, ed. The Basic Works of Aristo-

tle (New York: Random House, 1941), (1097b, l. 23ff), 941–2.

12. Aquinas, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, trans. C.I. Litzinger (Chicago:

Henry Regnery, 1964) I. L.X: C121, 53.

13. St. Augustine, The City of God in Baird and Kaufmann, ed. Medieval Philoso-

phy (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003), 126.

14. Aquinas, Summa Theologica in A. Pegis, ed. Introduction to St. Thomas

Aquinas (New York: The Modern Library, 1948), I q5 a1, reply obj.1, 35.

15. J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism ed. George Sher (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001) ch. IV,

37–8.

16. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1022b 10–12; see also, Aquinas, Summa contra gen-

tiles, in Pegis, ed. Introduction to Saint Thomas Aquinas Book III ch. XLVIII, 465.

17. Aquinas, Summa theologica I-II q57 a2, 568–69.
18. ———, Summa theologica I-II q61 a1–2, 587–89.
19. ———, Summa theologica I-II q49 a4, 545–46. See also I-II q55 a1, 561–62.
20. ———, Summa theologica I-II q55 a1, 561
21. ———, Summa theologica I-II q57 a3 and 4, 571–74. See also ———, Summa

theologica in A. Pegis, trans. Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas (New York:
Random House, 1945), vol. 2 I-II q56, a3, 421–23.

22. ———, Summa theologica in Pegis, trans. Basic Writings vol.2 I-II q56

a3,421–23.

23. ———, Summa theologica I-II q56 a3, 421–23.
24. ———, Summa theologica I-II q56, a3, 421–23.
25. ———, Summa theologica I-II q49 a3, 371–72.
26. ———, Summa theologica I-II q56, a3, 421–23.
27. ———, Summa theologica I-II q50, a5, 382–83. See also I-II q49 a3, 371–72.
28. ———, Summa theologica I-II q56, a3, 421–23.

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29. ———, Summa theologica I-II q56 a3, 421–23.
30. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1105b 19—1106a 12.
31. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, in Pegis, trans., Basic Writings vol.2 I-II q55 a1

reply obj. 2, 413.

32. ———, Summa theologica, I-II q49 a1, 366–67.
33. ———, Summa theologica, I-II q54 a3, 409–10.
34. ———, Summa theologica, I-II q49 a3, 371–72; I-II q50 a2, 377–78.
35. ———, Summa contra gentiles, in Pegis, trans., Basic Writings vol.2. Book III,

ch. XLVIII, 84–5.

36. ———, Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. II. L.IV:C 285, 131.
37. ———, Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. II. L.IV:C 283, 130.
38. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. T. Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1985),

1098a 3–8, 16.

39. ———, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. T. Irwin 1098a 5–10, 17.

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Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Norman Kemp Smith. London:

MacMillan, 1958.

Kenny, Anthony, Aquinas on Mind. London: Routledge, 1993.
Lynch, Michael P., ed. The Nature of Truth: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives.

Cambridge: MIT Press [Bradford], 2001.

Select Bibliography

Maritain, Jacques, Philosophy of Nature. New York: Philosophical Library, 1951.
McInerny, Ralph, Aquinas. Malden: Polity Press, 2004.
Mill, J.S., Utilitarianism. Ed.George Sher. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000.
Miller, Barry, The Fullness of Being. Notre Dame, IN: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 2002.
Moore, G.E., Ethics. London: Williams and Norgate, 1912.
Pasnau, Robert and Christopher Shields, The Philosophy of Aquinas. Boulder: West-

view Press, 2004.

Pegis, Anton, ed. and trans., Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas. New York: Ran-

dom House, 1945.

———, ed. and trans., Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas. New York: The Modern Li-

brary, 1948.

Pozzo, Riccardo, ed. The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern Philosophy. Washing-

ton, D.C. The Catholic Univ. of America Press, 2004.

Quine, W.V., Philosophy of Logic. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall, 1970.
Rorty, A., ed., Pragmatic Philosophy. Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1966.
Royce, J. The Religious Aspect of Philosophy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1885.
Russell, Bertrand, The Problems of Philosophy. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1970.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. Trans. Blackwell, Spath,

and Thirlkel. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963.

———. Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle. Trans. John P. Rowan. Chicago:

Henry Regnery, 1961.

———. Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. C.I. Litzinger. Chicago: Henry

Regnery, 1964.

———. On Being and Essence. Trans. A. Maurer. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Me-

dieval Studies, 1949.

Toulmin, Stephen. Return to Reason. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2001.
Veatch, Henry B., Intentional Logic. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1952.
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don: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961.

240

Selected Bibliography

241

abstraction, 151–52
appetite, 170–75; and form, 171–72,

173–75; natural vs. elicited, 173

Aristotle: and arguments for a human

end, 221–22; on cause, 10–15; on
change, 4–5; on final cause, 13–14;
objections to Platonic forms, 73–80;
on substance, 5–10

beatific vision, 234–35
being: actual and potential, 4–5, 37;

caused by God, 60–63; degrees of,
58–60; divisions of, 37–43; negative
and privative, 38–39; propositional,
38; science of, 31–34; senses of,
58–60

belief, 163–65
Bergson, H., 2
Boethius, 83, 86n2

causal reciprocity, 15–19, 21
change, 1–5; causes of, 10–16; and

creation, 2–3; dilemma of, 3–5;
substrate of, 5–8

choice, 178; freedom of, 176–80,

180–86, 191–93, 231; object of,
189–93

concepts, 157, 161; closed and open,

101–5

demiurge, 69
determinism, 194–95
Descartes, xi, 3, 132
Dewey, John, 15, 217–18
divine Ideas, 63–73; 128–29

essence, 34–35, 44–45; distinct from

existence, 48–49

ethical intellectualism, 233–34; vs.

practicalism, 233–34

ethical mean, 227–28
evil, 38, 155
exemplarism, 70–71
existence, 34–35, 43, 45, 47–48, 57; as

end, 85

existential import, 46
existentialism, xvi, 195

final cause, 13–29; Aristotle’s

arguments for, 13–15; as cause of
causes, 21; as mind-dependent,
15–16, 25–29; in nature, 16–19;
reciprocity with efficient cause, 19,
21; as self-contradictory, 19–20

flux: opposed to change, 1–2;

philosophy of, 1–2

form, 55–58; in change, 10–19; as

end, 13–19; Platonic concept of,
73–80

Index

genus, 7–8; rule of, 223
good, x, 82–86, 195–201, 217–24;

contrasted with truth, 83;
fundamental to Aquinas’s ethics,
232; and mathematics, 83–84;
similarity to truth, 82–83

Hegel, 54,121; criticisms of, xii–xiv,

123–24

immanent activity, 148; vs. transient

activity, 48–50

intellect, 137, 141, 144, 147, 150, 153;

and abstraction, 151–52; active and
passive power of, 150–51; as holding
a middle place, 144; as limited,
152–53; neither substance nor act of
the brain, 141–42; and the order of
knowledge; relation to will, 175–80,
187–201

intentionality, 135–36; of truth

predicate, 169–70

James, William, 15, 217–18
judgment, 157, 99–101; as bearer of

truth, 163–65; and existence, 100; as
terminating counsel, 176; and truth,
157–59

Kant, xii, 47–48, 51–53, 62, 121–22

law, 27–29; natural, x, 232
Leibniz, xv
Locke, John, 9
logical positivism, 210–13

matter, 9, 55; and genus, 67–68; and

infinite regress, 5–6; as ingenerable
and incorruptible, 10; primary, 6–8

metaphysics, 31–32; as behind ethics,

x–xi; as first science, ix–x;
objections to, 31, 211–12; and
speculative sciences, 32–34

Moore, G. E., xiii, 208
moral relativism, 207–8

moral skepticism, 216–17
moral subjectivism, 208–10

objective falsehoods, 166–67

Parmenides, 3–4
participation, 64–65, 69–71, 129–30;

two kinds of, 43

Peirce, C.S., 218
Plato, 34, 43, 64–66, 69, 73–80, 117,

134, 141, 207

Plotinus, 90
practical reason, 190
practical syllogism, 190
psychologism, 46–47, 162–63

Quine, W.V., 169

reason, 98–99, 190, 191; in ethics, 226
right reason, 227–28
Royce, J., 94
Russell, B., 54, 93; and coherence

theory, 130n13

Sartre, J. P., 163
simple apprehension, 99
soul, 132–33; Aquinas’s difference with

Aristotle, 145–46; consistency of
Aquinas’s view of, 131;
immateriality of, 135–43; Platonic
view of, 134–35; power vs. essence
of, 143–45; powers of, 146–48

St. Augustine, xii, xiv, 90,128, 152, 234;

and the human end, 222–23

substrate, 5–6

teleology. See final cause
transcendental turn, 52
truth: bearer of, 97–99; categories of,

107-11; coherence theory of, 122–24;
correspondence theory of, 122–24; as
the good of mind, 95–97, 105–6;
knowledge of, 95–97; ontological
and practical, 106–7; and
predication, 101–5; prior to

242

Index

goodness, 84; senses of, 109–10; and
simple apprehension, 92–93; strictly
in judgment, 94–95

universals: Aquinas’s view of, 124–30;

and conceptualism, 120–24;
definitions of views on, 115–16; and
nominalism, 118–20; and Platonic
realism, 117–18

virtue, 224–226, 227–32

will: and choice, 177–80, 180–86; as

intellectual appetite, 170–75;
necessity in, 180–86, 189–202;
reciprocity with intellect,
187–88; relation to intellect,
175–80

Wittgenstein, L, 68

Index

243

Document Outline

Title
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Contents
1. Change and Its Causes
2. Being
3. Truth
4. Universals
5. Persons
6. Ethics
Select Bibliography
Index

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