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On being and essence Thomas Aquinas
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In St. Thomas Aquinas’ On Being and Essence, he devotes an entire chapter of his book discussing how essence is found in composite substances. “Form and matter are found in composite substances, as for example soul and body in man. But it cannot be said that either one of these alone is called the essence.’ Aquinas argues that in a composite substance, not only is the form but also matter in the essence of a thing. However, in Metaphysics, Aristotle says that essence is in the form, which acts upon matter. He writes, “The form or the thing as having form should be said to be thing, but matter by itself must never be said to be so.” Yet, Aristotle’s thesis poses a philosophical problem. If one supposes that Aristotle is correct, then how can one think of something without it necessitating its physical existence? This essay will first be an exposition of the passage found in Aquinas’ On Being and Essence. The second part of this essay will be an analysis of Aquinas’ thesis in relation to Aristotle’s. It will also address Aquinas’ solution to necessitating existence.
In Aristotle’s Metaphysics, he says the form is in essence, which then “informs” the matter. However, Aquinas argues that both form and matter are found in essence. Neither matter-alone nor form- alone can be called the essence, according to Aquinas. Since, essence is indicated by the definition of a thing, Aquinas asserts that the definition of “natural substances includes not only form but also matter.” Using a syllogism can properly articulate Aquinas’ argument:
Major Premise: Essence is signified by a thing’s definition
Minor Premise: Definitions of natural substances include form and matter.
Conclusion: Therefore, form and matter are in essence.
He us...
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Kirby, Jeremy. Aristotle’s Metaphysics: Form, Matter, and Identity. (New York: Continuum Publishing Group, 2008.) Print.
Wippel, John. The Metaphyiscal Thought of Thomas Aquinas. (Washington, District of Columbia: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000). Print.
Yu, Juyuan. “The Identify of Form and Essence in Aristotle,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy vol.XXXIX, (State University of New York at Buffalo, 2001).
In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of Aristotle’s argument from Physics Book 2, chapter 8, 199a9. Aristotle in this chapter tries to make an analogy between nature and action to establish that both, nature and action, have an end.
Plato (in Phaedo) and Aristotle (in De Anima) present two fundamentally different conceptions of the soul. Through an analysis of their frameworks and genre, and whether their methods are plausible, it can be concluded that Aristotle's formulation of the soul is more compelling than that of Plato.
This paper is an initial attempt to develop a dynamic conception of being which is not anarchic. It does this by returning to Aristotle in order to begin the process of reinterpreting the meaning of ousia, the concept according to which western ontology has been determined. Such a reinterpretation opens up the possibility of understanding the dynamic nature of ontological identity and the principles according to which this identity is established. The development of the notions of energeia, dynamis and entelecheia in the middle books of Aristotle’s Metaphysics will be discussed in order to suggest that there is a dynamic ontological framework at work in Aristotle’s later writing. This framework lends insight into the dynamic structure of being itself, a structure which does justice as much to the concern for continuity through change as it does to the moment of difference. The name for this conception of identity which affirms both continuity and novelty is "legacy." This paper attempts to apprehend the meaning of being as legacy.
Baird, Forrest E., and Walter Kaufman. "Aristotle." Ancient Philosophy. 3rd ed. Philosophic Classics, vols. 1. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2000. 304 - 444.
The. The "Aristotle". Home Page English 112 VCCS Litonline. Web. The Web.
Since airs are variable, we must settle on specific choices in given circumstances that we might not make in different circumstances. Alternate segments of the spirit are not variable in the same way. This is vital to Aristotle's postulation in light of the fact that these decisions are conne...
Korsgaadar, C.M., (1986). Aristotle on Function and Virtue. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 3 (3), p. 259-279.
Lucretius. On the Nature of Things. Trans. Walter Englert. Newburyport, MA: Focus Philosophical Library, 2003.
Many have scrutinized and compared the dissimilarities and similarities of Aristotle's doctrine of categories and Plato's theory of forms. The observations found are of an interesting nature.
Moore E., J. Aristotle’s contribution to science, education and physics. JCMoore E.Online. 2010. Web. 25 May, 2014.
He uses his concepts of actuality and potentiality to explain the connection between the soul and body, as well as argues that each soul and body combination is unique and therefore the two must be one. A major aspect of Aristotle’s philosophy is the concept of potentiality and actuality. Matter, a thing that is not itself without form, is potentiality. Form, the essence that makes a thing (or matter) itself, is actuality. In order for a thing to fulfill its purpose, it must move from potentiality to actuality. (On the soul Bk.II) He states that the soul is the actuality of the body. (On the soul bk.II) He defines the body as having the potentiality of life and therefore it must be matter. Because form and matter are compliments and one cannot exist without the other, the soul must be the form because it fills the body, that had potentiality of life, with actual life. Through this reasoning the conclusion is made that the body and soul are connected and compliment each other. Contrasting to Plato, they seem to need to be together and they are not striving to be separate. Aristotle creates a concept that deals with classifying souls into categories. He defines the soul as “substance in the sense which corresponds to the definitive formula of a thing’s essence” and that it is the “essential whatness of a body of the character just assigned”. (On the soul book II) He has three
In the above essay, I analyzed Aquinas’s efficient cause argument and presented Russell’s objections to some of the claims that Aquinas made. I then showed how Russell’s objection failed based mainly on the fact that the first cause is something that is unchanging. This, in turn, supported Aquinas’s argument for the existence of God.
Aquinas disagrees with Avicenna in Absolute Essence. Aquinas believes that essence can be considered without considering essence as existing as a concrete reality or the mind. Although you can consider absolute essence you cannot cut out the “being” of essence. Essence cannot prescinded from some order of existence, it has to cut away from being”.
Aristotle refuted Plato’s idea of the forms. He felt that the forms caused neither movement nor change, nor helped to understand what is real and what is knowable. Aristotle presents the concept of substance in his work “The Categories”. He states that substance is the fusion of matter and form. Matter is that out of which the substance arises and form is that into which the matter develops. In building a table, the wood, nails, etc., are the matter. The idea of a table is the form, and the construction is the fusion, and the end result is the substance.
Aristotle argued and disagreed with Plato’s views of the self and soul being a separate from the body. Aristotle’s view is that all humans have a soul, yet they cannot be separate from the body in which they reside. To him, there are four sections of the soul; the desiderative and vegetative parts on the irrational side are used to help one find what they are needing and the calculative and scientific parts on the rational side are