The philosophy of language pioneered by Ludwig Wittgenstein, far from being inimical to the metaphysical concerns of philosophy, can be understood as complementing and perhaps even deepening the approach to metaphysics first employed by the Belgian Jesuit philosopher Joseph Marèchal: a ‘metaphysics of knowledge’ illuminating the deeper‐than‐conceptualist movement in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. The relationship of words and reality was radically reconfigured in the linguistic turn inaugurated in the work of Wittgenstein, but that work itself still presupposes what might (...) be called the existential act of judgement, which was the foundation of Marèchal's Thomistic retrieval. (shrink)

Many contemporary proponents of hylomorphism endorse a version of hylomorphism according to which the form of a material object is a certain kind of complex relation or structure. Structural approaches to form, however, seem not to capture form’s traditional role as the guarantor of diachronic identity, since more “dynamically complex” material objects, such as living organisms, seem to undergo, and survive, various structural changes over the course of their existence. As a result, some contemporary hylomorphists have looked to alternative, non-structural (...) approaches to form. One of the leading non-structural approaches is the powers approach, according to which the form of a material object is a certain kind of power continuously activated in the object or in its material parts. In this paper, I begin by offering an overview and assessment of this powers approach to form. I argue that while the powers approach captures some crucial elements for understanding the nature of more dynamically complex material objects, when we press on the details of the view we find that it actually points to a related, but importantly distinct, third approach to understanding form, according to which the form of a material object is a certain kind of activity or process in which the material object or its parts are continuously engaged. I call this third approach “Hyloenergeism”. In the second half of the paper, I consider what such a view of material objects might look like and what its principal virtues might be. (shrink)

Thomistic hylomorphism holds that human persons are composed of matter and a form that is also a subsistent entity. Some object that nothing can be both a form and a subsistent entity, and some proponents of Thomistic hylomorphism respond that our experience, as described by phenomenology, provides us with evidence that this theory is true. Some might object that that would be more easily seen to be a good way to defend Thomistic hylomorphism if the scholastics themselves had provided such (...) evidence. I show how some scholastics do give evidence for Thomistic hylomorphism from their descriptions of our experience of forming and using habits. I consider their account of experiences of different acts of habit formation and exercise, and of experiences founded upon different kinds of potencies and obedience to reason that underlie their habits. Then I show that these experiences, when reasoned about in an effect to cause manner, provide evidence for Thomistic hylomorphism, and that the objection fails. (shrink)

Resumen: En el presente artículo se analizan y vinculan las nociones de naturaleza, cuerpo y potencia a partir de Spinoza y Marx, en virtud de los cuales se plantea que la exteriorización del hombre y su esencia es no solo social, sino productiva en el sentido de praxis y actividad de sí mismo y lo social. En este sentido, este acto de producción en el mundo contemporáneo está enmarcado en la experiencia cotidiana de habitar la ciudad, la cual, bajo el (...) alero del capitalismo, ha sido reducida a una estética del hábitat a partir de procesos de dominación material y subjetiva, que ostentan la estandarización de las prácticas sociales, escindiendo la potencia del hombre, invirtiendo el orden afectivo y por tanto escindiendo la corporalidad y el ámbito cognitivo de los hombres.: In the present article it will be analysed and associated the concepts of nature, body and potency based on Spinoza and Marx, from this point it will be suggest that the act of man’ exteriorization it’s not only social, but also productive in the sense of praxis and activity of itself and of social. In this sense, this creative act is based in the contemporary world in the daily experience of inhabit the city, the one, under capitalism, is been reduced to an habitat’aesthetic, by process of material and subjective domination which pretend the social practices’ standardization, separating man’s potency, inverting the affective order and, by conclusion, separating corporality and the cognitive sphere of men. (shrink)

This article unfolds Schelling’s idea that artwork allows for infinite interpretations and condenses into an infinite meaning. This claim has been investigated by the double act of potentiation that occurs, in parallel ways, both in the artwork and in Nature writ large, as well as in the artist’s body. The questions of form, formation, and individuation in Nature are addressed along with the role of the expansive productive intuition in the body of the artist. Nature in Schelling’s thought consists in (...) a self-generative artistic creativity and the primordial spring for the dynamics of the cosmic and the human poiesis. In this context, the act of Potenzierung provides a powerful insight into the “leap of art-making.”. (shrink)

The present paper aims at presenting Averroes’ doctrine of act and potency in the framework of his general conception of metaphysics as a science. By tracing the origins of his doctrine back to Alexander of Aphrodisias, it shows that Averroes conceives act and potency as concomitant attributes of being qua being and as terms πρὸς ἕν and ἀφ’ ἑνός. According to this reading, the study of these two notions, considered as such, constitutes an essential step in Averroes’ metaphysical (...) project, whose ultimate goal is to account for the essence of the first of all forms: God. (shrink)

Reporting peers’ counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) is important for maintaining an ethical organization, but is a significant and potentially risky action. In Bandura’s Theory of Moral Thought and Action (Bandura, 1991) he states that such acts require significant moral agency, which is generated when an individual possesses adequate moral self-regulatory capacities to address the issue and is in a context that activates and reinforces those capacities. Guided by this theory, we assess moral potency (i.e., moral courage, moral efficacy, and (...) moral ownership) as key capacities predicting peer reporting intentions and assess three contextual factors influencing the generation and effects of moral potency: whether a potential informant (1) works for an ethical leader, (2) is embedded in a psychologically safe climate promoting interpersonal risk-taking, and (3) operates in a more normal or extreme context. We assess the proposed model across three field studies entailing both normal and extreme (i.e., firefighting units) contexts. Results show that ethical leaders raise employees’ moral potency, promoting greater willingness to report their peers’ CWBs. In normal work contexts, psychological safety positively moderated both the relationship between ethical leadership and moral potency and between moral potency and peer reporting intentions. However, psychological safety had the opposite effects in more extreme work contexts. Whereas psychological safety strengthens the positive association between moral potency and peer reporting intentions in normal work contexts, in contexts where individuals are more frequently exposed to extreme events, psychological safety weakens this relationship, thus highlighting the unforeseen downsides of psychological safety in extreme contexts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Divine Action and Emergence: An Alternative to Panentheism by Mariuscz Tabaczek, O.P.Edmund LazzariDivine Action and Emergence: An Alternative to Panentheism by Mariuscz Tabaczek O.P., (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2021), xviii + 346 pp.One of the most challenging scientific phenomena for metaphysical explanation is the emergence of higher-order properties out of lower-level constituents of a system. This relatively recent scientific observation raises serious questions for (...) metaphysically reductionist materialism and has inspired a great deal of recent philosophical and theological activity, [End Page 1430] varying greatly in their level of understanding of the scientific phenomenon itself.At the same time, contemporary theological discourse about divine action and the sciences has turned more and more toward panentheism as a way to involve God in the scientific workings of the world without disrupting its operations.Fr. Tabaczek addresses both of these major developments in this volume. For those who do not have the stamina or the interest to dive into his exhaustive analytic treatment of emergence in his previous 2019 volume, Emergence: Towards a New Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science, Fr. Tabaczek provides a detailed summary of his findings in the first two chapters of this volume. Rather than repeat the first volume's detailed consideration of different emergent phenomena, Fr. Tabaczek simply identifies different levels of emergent phenomena in inorganic chemistry, molecular biology, fluid systems, macro-organisms, and evolutionary systems before providing a substantial overview of contemporary philosophical perspectives on emergence.Even in this short overview, however, the reader will find mention and references to the fundamental historical figures in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Anglophone thought on emergence, often omitted by contemporary literature, such as George Henry Lewis, Samuel Alexander, and C. D. Broad. The rest of the chapter consists in a concise classification and description of contemporary views of emergence, explaining and illuminating issues with downward causation-based accounts, whole-part constraints-based accounts, and supervenience-based accounts before moving on to spend a significant amount of time on Terrence Deacon's dynamical depth account of emergence. While full-length treatments of each account are provided in Emergence, the reader will find herself with more than enough philosophical engagement to understand the different models of emergence and Fr. Tabaczek's explanations of their shortcomings. While also much shorter than in Emergence, Fr. Tabaczek's overview of Deacon's account provides the necessary foundations for his Aristotelian synthesis of hylomorphism and emergence in the second chapter.The second chapter once more provides a review of Emergence, providing a comparison between classical Aristotelian metaphysics and "neo-Aristotelian" metaphysics of disposition. In both the classical- and neo-Aristotelian sections, Fr. Tabaczek shows his competence in chemistry by consistently applying Aristotelian notions of hylomorphic constitution, efficient causality, and final causality to chemical and cellular phenomena. While he criticizes neo-Aristotelianism for its lack of commitment to substantial form, he finds that its dispositionalism grounding act and potency [End Page 1431] provides it with a significant advantage over other models when accounting for emergent phenomena. While not fully endorsing it, Fr. Tabaczek's Aristotelian synthesis answers many of the philosophical questions Deacon addresses in his model.The third and fourth chapters of Divine Action and Emergence introduce a much-needed account of the panentheistic turn in recent theology and science literature. Fr. Tabaczek is especially astute to introduce the history of these accounts after the rigorous and sustained questions of the analytic-philosophical analysis of emergent phenomena. After giving a historical overview of the major figures in panentheism—from German idealism through Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne to contemporary theology–science dialogue, Fr. Tabaczek turns his analytic rigor towards dispelling ambiguities in panentheistic claims about God–world relations. Building on the work of Michael Brierley, Fr. Tabaczek argues that the meaning of "en" in panentheism is not a univocal term in the different writings of panentheistic writers, but rather share a Wittgensteinian family resemblance. This disambiguation of the claims of different panentheistic writers throughout history and in theology–science dialogue precedes an overview of the main avenues taken by those writers using emergence in theology–science dialogue before the critical evaluation... (shrink)

Problems connected with the questions of: being-nonbeing, existence, modes of existence and alike, belong to the basic and most important in metaphysics. The article discusses some answers to the aforementioned issues, as proposed by the ancient philosophers, St Thomas Aquinas, R. Ingarden and A.N. Whitehead. In the Appendix some remarks are made on Aristotle’s and S. Thomas’ theory of act and potency.

The article analyses the relation between globalization and the responsibility of the intellectual. Inthe context of globalization the question of the responsibility of the intellectual is problematic. Thatis why we have to ponder on intellectual modesty and human measure of Socrates trying to analysethe phenomenon of globalization. The author discusses the dualism of the act and potency by Aristotle, that of mind and body by Descartes, the concept of the thing-in-itself by Kant and the radicalprinciple by Hegel, and the (...) utopias of Marxism and Capitalism at the end. The discussion is focused onthe following question: does the logic of globalization has metaphysical roots, or it is just untenableclaim to reduce all the cultures to the worldwide one without the possibility of the responsibility ofthe intellectual?Key words: homogeneity, metaphysical foundations of globalization, ontological debate, reflection, identity, universality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Summa Contra Gentiles and Aquinas's Way to GodGaven KerrThere is to be found in Aquinas's writings a way to God which is his own and most personal. This way to God is the way from existence (esse) and arrives at God as pure existence itself, the fount of all being, without which nothing would be. It is deployed in several contexts ranging from the De ente et essentia (...) to the Summa theologiae [ST]. Yet, in the Summa contra gentiles [SCG], it is peculiarly absent. The proofs of God's existence which Aquinas offers in the latter are almost exclusively drawn from Aristotle, and they do not exhibit any of the refined metaphysical thinking about esse that characterizes Thomas's thinking about God in other works.1 For a work that is intended to be both apologetical in nature and explicitly philosophical from the outset, this is strange. Thomas is always at home in his own metaphysics of esse, and he deploys it with ease and finesse especially when demonstrating God's existence and discussing the divine nature. But in the SCG his proofs of God's existence and the subsequent reasoning about the divine nature are awkward and, one could even say, clumsy. Why did he not just dispense with the Aristotelian thinking on motion and movers and all the clarifications that involves? Why not simply stick with his own favored account of act and potency interpreted in terms of the metaphysics of esse?In the current paper I wish to address these issues. I shall begin with an account of what I take to be Aquinas's way to God and why I think it is [End Page 1273] his way to God. Having done that, I will then address the issue as to why this way to God does not appear in the SCG reasoning, but slowly emerges only after God's existence has been demonstrated. I shall conclude that the apologetical and consciously philosophical nature of the SCG offer us an insight into why Thomas did not lean on his metaphysics of esse in his (initial) discussions of God there.Aquinas's Way to GodAquinas famously argues that there is a distinction between essence and esse in things. The context of this distinction is that of universal hylemorphism, which holds that in all composite things there are two principles: a principle of potency and a principle of actuality. In traditional Aristotelian fashion, defenders of universal hylemorphism held that the principle of actuality in a thing is its form, whereas the principle of potency is its matter.2 All things other than God are composed of matter and form, since all things other than God have some element of potency. But to locate the potentiality of anything other than God in the matter of the thing creates a problem when it comes to separated substances (angels) and the immaterial rational soul. Such substances (or components of substances in the case of the rational soul) are taken to be separated from matter and all material conditions. Nonetheless they are created and thereby dependent on God, so they must have some potentiality.So how do we attribute matter—that is, potency—to separate substances?According to defenders of universal hylemorphism, the answer is to distinguish between corporeal matter and incorporeal matter. The former is the kind of physical matter that we typically take to be the matter of things, whereas the latter is a kind of non-physical matter which the separate substances possess. Thus, it is not proper to say that such substances are [End Page 1274] immaterial, but rather that whilst material they are incorporeal. Universal hylemorphism has the advantage that it neatly distinguishes all things from God by isolating a principle of potency (matter) which all things other than God have. Nevertheless, universal hylemorphism presents problems of its own, not least the thorny one of making intelligible just what exactly a real (as opposed to conceptual) kind of matter is that is incorporeal.Aquinas for his part rejected universal hylemorphism from his earliest writings.3 He holds that it is precisely because separated substances are separated from all material conditions that... (shrink)

ABSTRACT Born in periods of crises, utopias adopt a threefold structure: a critique of society, a spatial arrangement, and a new society sustained by this spatial arrangement. Accordingly, space and architecture are recognized as spatial levers to address crises and change societies. However, three problematic characteristics emerge from an analysis of past and contemporary utopias. First, utopias do not always advocate for new societal orders, as some tend to consolidate the existing ones. Second, they have evolved to be increasingly tangible. (...) Third, while appearing as collective narratives, they are written by a single hand, allowing little variations. To address these issues and revitalize their critical potency, utopias could act as beacons rather than concrete projects, work on processes rather than goals, and build collective narratives rather than monologues. Eventually, the article illustrates architecture’s twofold rationale: a means to physically build space and a critical tool to reflect on society. (shrink)

Aristotelian, classical, and quantum physics are compared and contrasted in light of Jacob Klein’s account of the algebraicization of thought and the resultingdetachment of mind from world, even as human problem-solving power is greatly increased. Two fundamental features of classical physics are brought out: species-neutrality, which concerns the relation between the intelligible and the sensible, and physico-mathematical secularism, which concerns the question of the difference between mathematical objects and physical objects, and whether any differences matter. In contrast to Aristotelian physics, (...) which is species-specific, classical physics is species-neutral. In contrast to both Aristotelian and quantum physics, classical physics assumes that any differences between mathematical objects and physical objects make no difference for the conduct of physics. Aristotle’s act and potency, and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle are discussed as counterexamples to the physico-mathematical secularism of classical physics. The algebraicization of thought in conjunction with the disposition and program for the mastery of nature leads to the homogenization of heterogeneities in both mathematics and physics, and, therewith, to confusion concerning the meaning of human being and our place in the whole. (shrink)

Aristotelian, classical, and quantum physics are compared and contrasted in light of Jacob Klein’s account of the algebraicization of thought and the resultingdetachment of mind from world, even as human problem-solving power is greatly increased. Two fundamental features of classical physics are brought out: species-neutrality, which concerns the relation between the intelligible and the sensible, and physico-mathematical secularism, which concerns the question of the difference between mathematical objects and physical objects, and whether any differences matter. In contrast to Aristotelian physics, (...) which is species-specific, classical physics is species-neutral. In contrast to both Aristotelian and quantum physics, classical physics assumes that any differences between mathematical objects and physical objects make no difference for the conduct of physics. Aristotle’s act and potency, and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle are discussed as counterexamples to the physico-mathematical secularism of classical physics. The algebraicization of thought in conjunction with the disposition and program for the mastery of nature leads to the homogenization of heterogeneities in both mathematics and physics, and, therewith, to confusion concerning the meaning of human being and our place in the whole. (shrink)

This paper discusses a recent book of Maximiliane Kriechbaum, ‘Actio, ius, und dominium in den Rechtslehre des 13-14 Jahrhunderts.’ Kriechbaum maintains, contrary to the generally accepted opinion, that William of Ockham did not present any doctrine of individual subjective rights when he defined the word ius as potestas .She maintains that Ockham was rather arguing in terms of Aristotelian act and potency. The review-article criticizes this view and argues that Ockham often did use the word ius to mean a (...) rightful power, as the term is commonly used in discourse on rights. (shrink)

On one classical conception of God, God has no parts, not even metaphysical parts. God is not composed of form and matter, act and potency, and he is not composed of existence and essence. God is absolutely simple. This is the doctrine of Absolute Divine Simplicity. It is claimed that ADS implies a modal collapse, i.e. that God’s creation is absolutely necessary. I argue that a proper way of understanding the modal collapse argument naturally leads the proponent of ADS (...) to reject a particular premise of the argument: namely, “the same identical cause brings about the same effect.” However, I argue that the rejection of that premise leads to a deeper problem for ADS. It leads to an explanatory gap: how can we explain the relevant type of indeterminism in an absolutely simple God? (shrink)

En este trabajo se ofrece un acercamiento explicativo al surgimiento del nominalismo medieval desde la perspectiva planteada por el historiador argentino José Luis Romero. Romero sugiere que existe una doble fuente, a saber, una histórica y otra filosófica. La primera de esas sería de orden empírico y correspondería a la burguesía y a su mentalidad. La segunda fuente, la académica, sería la que surge de la conocida querella de los universales durante los siglos XI y XII. Estas dos fuentes habrían (...) sido la condición de posibilidad de posteriores desarrollos teóricos del nominalismo, los cuales suprimirán la idea de universal como algo real y sostendrán que lo único real son las cosas concretas, sensibles, mientras que los conceptos constituyen palabras vacías. (shrink)

Many on the left lament an apathy or amnesia toward recent acts of war. Particularly during the George W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, opposition to war seemed to lack the heat and potency of the 1960s and 1970s, giving the impression that passionate dissent was all but dead. Through an analysis of three politically engaged works of art, Rosalyn Deutsche argues against this melancholic attitude, confirming the power of contemporary art to criticize subjectivity as well as war. Deutsche (...) selects three videos centered on the deployment of the atomic bomb: Krzysztof Wodiczko's _Hiroshima Projection_, made after the first Gulf War; Silvia Kolbowski's _After Hiroshima mon amour_ ; and Leslie Thornton's _Let Me Count the Ways_, which followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Each of these works confronts the ethical task of addressing historical disaster, and each explores the intersection of past and present wars. These artworks profoundly contribute to the discourse of war resistance, illuminating the complex dynamics of viewing and interpretation. Deutsche employs feminist and psychoanalytic approaches in her study, questioning both the role of totalizing images in the production of warlike subjects and the fantasies that perpetuate, especially among the left, traditional notions of political dissent. She ultimately reveals the passive collusion between leftist critique and dominant discourse in which personal dimensions of war are denied. (shrink)

La división de las causas en el De principiis naturae 5 de Tomás de Aquino establece de cuántas maneras pueden distinguirse las cuatro clásicas causas aristotélicas. El texto presenta varias dificultades y las principales son la determinación del número de las divisiones y la no necesaria contemporaneidad del ser en potencia de una causa y de su causado. Nuestro objetivo es resolverlas a través de un análisis pormenorizado del texto latino, que resulta en un comentario completo al capítulo, lo cual (...) es un aporte secundario. A través de este análisis resolvemos las dificultades principales. Primero, al descubrir una distinción tácita entre divisiones de causas en cuanto consideradas en sí mismas y en cuanto conocidas y verbalizadas por los seres humanos, el número de las divisiones es finalmente siete (cuatro fundadas en el ser y tres en el modo de conocer). Esta distinción tiene un signo lingüístico en las expresiones ‘item’ y ‘sciendum est quod’. Segundo, la eventual no contemporaneidad entre los estados potenciales de una causa y su causado se puede justificar respetando la predicación singular, al considerar que un arquitecto, una vez construida una casa, está en potencia de reconstruirla, si ésta perdiera las causas internas de su integridad. (shrink)

This is a text book for an introductory course combining metaphysics and natural theology. It deals with the nature of metaphysical knowledge, act and potency, pure existence, becoming and causality, as well as the problems of natural theology like the demonstration of the existence of God, His attributes, and activity. The problems are so placed that God appears at every step of metaphysics as the first and Supreme Being, the pure act and first cause of all things.—J. K.

Problems connected with the questions of: being-nonbeing, existence, modes of existence and alike, belong to the basic and most important in metaphysics. The article discusses some answers to the aforementioned issues, as proposed by the ancient philosophers, St Thomas Aquinas, R. Ingarden and A.N. Whitehead. In the Appendix some remarks are made on Aristotle’s and S. Thomas’ theory of act and potency.

Many on the left lament an apathy or amnesia toward recent acts of war. Particularly during the George W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, opposition to war seemed to lack the heat and potency of the 1960s and 1970s, giving the impression that passionate dissent was all but dead. Through an analysis of three politically engaged works of art, Rosalyn Deutsche argues against this melancholic attitude, confirming the power of contemporary art to criticize subjectivity as well as war. Deutsche (...) selects three videos centered on the deployment of the atomic bomb: Krzysztof Wodiczko's _Hiroshima Projection_ (1999), made after the first Gulf War; Silvia Kolbowski's _After Hiroshima mon amour_ (2005-2008); and Leslie Thornton's _Let Me Count the Ways_ (2004-2008), which followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Each of these works confronts the ethical task of addressing historical disaster, and each explores the intersection of past and present wars. These artworks profoundly contribute to the discourse of war resistance, illuminating the complex dynamics of viewing and interpretation. Deutsche employs feminist and psychoanalytic approaches in her study, questioning both the role of totalizing images in the production of warlike subjects and the fantasies that perpetuate, especially among the left, traditional notions of political dissent. She ultimately reveals the passive collusion between leftist critique and dominant discourse in which personal dimensions of war are denied. (shrink)

Problems connected with the questions of: being-nonbeing, existence, modes of existence and alike, belong to the basic and most important in metaphysics. The article discusses some answers to the aforementioned issues, as proposed by the ancient philosophers, St Thomas Aquinas, R. Ingarden and A.N. Whitehead. In the Appendix some remarks are made on Aristotle’s and S. Thomas’ theory of act and potency.

As part of a more general project which consists in identifying the process by which the modern ontology of power and action came to replace the Aristotelian ontology of in-potency and act, this article questions some fundamental features of Aquinas’ use and reworking of the Aristotelian concepts of dunamis and energeia. First, I ask, how Aquinas can characterise God as being pure act and omnipotent at the same time given that for Aristotle pure act radically excludes all potency. (...) It appears that the Thomistic act not only admits potency-as-power, but also signifies the full power of being so that we can detect in Aquinas the conjunction in the first being - of power with being itself Second, I show how the symmetrical reinterpretation of the Aristotelian concept of in-potency comes to be modified by means of the concept - inherited from Neo-Platonism - of epitedeiotes. Thus understood as receptive capacity, in-potency no longer signifies the principle within each substance of its own proper and immanent act but rather its dependence on the first act, the primary being. In the end, the concept of potency is redistributed by Aquinas between the Creator’s full power of being, and the creature’s mere capacity for being. (shrink)

The article analyzes Aquinas?s arguments for real distinction between essence and being as presented in the chapters 52-54 of the second book of the Summa contra gentiles, in the wider context of his metapyhsics. First, the paper analyzes the determinations of God on the basis of real distinction, and after that it analyzes the role of the act and potency, priority of act, separation of the act from the form in Aquinas?s understanding of esse, as well as the concept (...) of existential participation; in doing so, the difference among those concepts in Plato and Aristotle and in Aquinas is accentuated. At the end, the paper analyzes the role of two kinds of causality, efficient and formal in real distinction. (shrink)

In Polo’s anthropology, the personal transcendentals constitute the first act of the human being. To achieve an understanding of the contribution to the natural growth of the person of human actions performed in space and time, it is required to investigate how the intensity of this act can increase naturally in the context of the doctrine of act and potency. Review of the constitution of human beings in Aristotle, Aquinas and Polo and the real distinction between their ontological components, (...) together with the concept of instrumental causality served to propose an explanation of the natural growth of the person. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Difference Divine Mercy Makes in Aquinas’s ExegesisMichael DauphinaisIN THEIR ESSAY, “Mercy in Aquinas: Help from the Commentatorial Tradition,”1 Romanus Cessario and Cajetan Cuddy have masterfully performed the task of presenting the rich and voluminous commentatorial tradition on Aquinas, distilled into central philosophical and theological themes. In particular they identify the “real distinction between act and potency (form and matter)” as “the key philosophical principle” that created the (...) “essential unity of their theological project.” This principle expresses the fundamental distinction between God and creation. Yet the prominence of this philosophical principle in Aquinas and his commentators raises a question: To what extent can a philosophical principle be prior to a theological project?2 Would not it be more faithful to the witness of Scripture and the creeds to begin with revealed theological principles and then adopt philosophical principles that fit within that theological worldview? [End Page 341]This way of approaching the problem reveals both a profound misunderstanding and a profound concern. First, nervousness over philosophical principles reveals a profound misunderstanding since human beings always remain within language and the world and thus the meaning of that language and its references to the world around us must necessarily be part of the reception and transmission of divine revelation. To avoid philosophical principles would be tantamount to adopting a philosophical principle of pluralism or eclecticism.3 Second, there is a legitimate concern that some philosophical principles or understandings of God and human beings could constrain the newness of divine revelation along the lines of a rationalistic deism as was attempted by Locke and others. This concern also takes the form of the desire to bring theology back to its central relationship with sacred Scripture, with the concern that a philosophically determined theological hermeneutics would distance theology from the world of biblical revelation.Aquinas’s presentation of theology, or sacra doctrina, as a scientia helps here by distinguishing between philosophical truths about God and human beings and philosophical principles by which human beings receive theological truths about God and human beings.4 Aquinas shows that the principles of the scientia of sacra doctrina are taken properly from divine revelation received by the faith.5 Thus, the principled understandings of God and the human creature come from revelation, not from natural reason or philosophy, by which only a few could come to know some truths, after a long time, with an admixture of error.6 Nonetheless, the human creature cannot but receive this revelation as true. As Aquinas says, the virtue of faith attains to God as the prima veritas. The judgment that something is true and not false presupposes the application [End Page 342] of philosophical principles about the nature of the human intellect and the nature of the intelligibility of that which the intellect apprehends. The key philosophical principles here would be, first, the principle of non-contradiction and, second, the real distinction between act and potency. The first is necessary for the human intellect to reach a true judgment; the second is necessary for that judgment to be a trustworthy judgment about a constantly changing world.7 By making this distinction between philosophical truths about God and human beings and philosophical principles by which human beings receive theological truths about God and human beings, the Thomistic tradition avoids the deistic rationalism that occludes the biblical revelation.Even if philosophical principles are necessary for the human reception of revelation, there remains the concern that emphasizing the philosophically laden superstructure of the theological project obscures or weakens the ability of the theological project to attend to the biblical witness and the existential situation of human beings. To address this concern, I want to examine Aquinas’s own practice of biblical interpretation as it applies to questions of God’s mercy. This examination will also consider how the philosophical principle of the distinction between God and his creation, highlighted by Cessario and Cuddy, illumines the biblical revelation. I will examine three occasions on which Aquinas speaks about mercy in its biblical context: first, his commentary on Ephesians 2:4, which describes God as “rich in mercy”; second, his commentary on Matthew 5:7, which speaks of “Blessed are the... (shrink)

Berkeley occasionally says that we use analogy in thinking and speaking of God. However, the scholarly consensus is that Berkeley rejects the traditional doctrine of divine analogy and holds instead that words like ‘wise’ apply to God in precisely the same way as they apply to Socrates. The difference is only a matter of degree. Univocal theories of the divine attributes have historically been charged with anthropomorphism—that is, with imagining God to be too similar to human beings. Can Berkeley fairly (...) be charged with anthropomorphizing God? In one sense, the answer is clearly yes: for Berkeley, God is one spirit among many. God is, uniquely, an infinite spirit, but this is an infinity in God’s degree of knowledge, power, etc. God is a spirit in precisely the same way as you, me, and Socrates. On the other hand, Berkeley’s view differs dramatically from the kinds of anthropomorphism that were criticized by classical philosophical theologians. In the first place, the classical tradition was concerned to deny that God is a body with proper parts. Berkeley, of course, also denies this. Second, the classical tradition was concerned to deny that God was composed of form and matter. Insofar as Berkeley takes the Aristotelian concepts of form and matter to be incoherent, Berkeley clearly does not hold that God is composed of form and matter. Third, the classical tradition denied that God had a real plurality of attributes. Fourth and relatedly, the tradition denied that the distinction of substance and attribute applied to God at all. There was no consensus, in the tradition, on precisely how to analyse statements like ‘God is wise’ without admitting that there was such a thing as God’s wisdom distinct from God and God’s power. However, Aquinas held that, in this context, ‘wise’, ‘powerful’, etc. express different partial conceptions of God. Similarly, Berkeley holds that ‘will’ and ‘understanding’ are two names for “one simple, undivided, active being,” the spirit itself. Finally, the tradition held that God was ‘pure act’, denying any distinction of act and potency in God. In the notebooks, Berkeley twice affirms that spirit is ‘actus 1 Does Berkeley Anthropomorphize God? 2 purus’ before resolving not to use this ‘Scholastique’ term in print. Although there is considerable difficulty in understanding precisely what Berkeley meant by this claim and how it relates to his published views about created spirits, Berkeley is consistent in insisting that there is no passivity in God. Berkeley’s God, like the classical God, is not a body, is not composed of form and matter, does not possess a real plurality of attributes, and is purely active. However, in all of these ways, God is exactly like us. I conclude that, as compared with the classical tradition of philosophical theology, Berkeley does not anthropomorphize God—he deifies the human being. Recognizing the roots of Berkeley’s account of spirit in classical conceptions of God can help to illuminate Berkeley’s remarks about how we can, and cannot, speak and know about spirits. (shrink)

This book explores the role of Aristotelian concepts, principles, and themes in Thomas Aquinas's theology. Each of the ten essays investigates the significance of Aquinas's theological reception of Aristotle in a central theological domain: the Trinity, the angels, soul and body, the Mosaic law, grace, charity, justice, contemplation and action, Christ, and the sacraments. In general, the essays focus on the Summa theologiae, but some range more widely in Aquinas's corpus. Readers will become acquainted with Aquinas's theological uses of the (...) great Aristotelian themes, such as act and potency, God as pure act, substance and accidents, power and generation, change and motion, fourfold causality, form and matter, hylomorphic anthropology, the structure of intellection, the relationship between knowledge and will, happiness and friendship, habits and virtues, contemplation and action, politics and justice, the best form of government, and private property and the common good. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:152 BOOK REVIEWS with Weinrih's theory of formalism which Joseph Raz points out in his essay. One of the most serious of these deficiencies in my opinion is the role that is accorded to the judiciary. Weinrih's theory, as Raz shows, requires that when positive law is in conflict with the " form of law," positive law should he disregarded by the courts, and the courts in these cases (...) not only have the legal right to disregard the statutes of law hut even the moral duty to do so. To give such total discretionary power to the courts is certainly to offer an invitation impossible to re· sist, as the recent judicial history of the United States Supreme Court clearly shows, to autocratic and politically motivated judicial activism. The above remarks, inadequate as they are because of the constraints of space, may offer some indication of the rich diversity of natural law theories currently offering themselves for our consideration. Those interested in natural law theory either within the framework of moral theory, or legal theory, or both, will surely find that a careful reading of this volume will amply reward their efforts. St. John's University Jamaica, New York THOMAS A. FAY Metaphysics: An Outline of the History of Being. By MIECZYSLAW ALBERT KRAPIEC, O.P., translated by Theresa Sandok. New York: Peter Lang, 1991. Pp. 539. $69.95 (cloth). This volume is the second in Lang's Catholic Thought from Lublin series edited by Andrew Woznicki. Krapiec's work is a tour de force of Gilsonian Thomism as it founds metaphyscis upon a judgmental grasp of the act of existence in sensible things. The hook is unrelentingly Krapiec. Though there are abundant historical descriptions, there is a minimum of textual citation. Also, the reader can plainly see that Krapiec is intent upon presenting his understanding of metaphysics ad mentem Thomae. Three main parts comprise the hook. Part One is on the object of metaphysics-being as being (as existing). Part One contains the most crucial pages of the hook, viz., pp. 86-100. There Krapiec explains the attainment of this object. This portion is obviously the heart of the hook, and I will treat it in detail later. Part One also includes a lengthy exposition of the transcendentals. Part Two focuses on the structure of being and elaborates the following : act and potency, substance and accidents, matter and form, essence and existence, and the causes of being. There are two noteworthy points here. First, Krapiec's lengthy inclusion (pp. 313-374) of BOOK REVIEWS 153 matter and form within his metaphysics seems to have metaphysics swallowing up natural philosophy. One's misgivings are not assuaged by Krapiec's presentation of the division of the speculative sciences hack in his General Introduction. There the first degree of abstraction is no longer the home of natural philosophy hut the home of the modern humanistic and natural sciences (p. 28). The second degree harbors mathematics, while the third degree is home not only to metaphysics hut "philosophy" (pp. 28-9). The reader is left wondering what has happened to natural philosophy. I see no exigency' for Krapiec's metaphysics to eclipse natural philosophy. Moreover, for some Thomists, the move will create an unfortunate distraction from the good points of Krapiec's metaphysics. Second, by this reader's count, Krapiec presents no less than nine arguments for the real distinction between essence and existence. These arguments include the following: Aquinas's De Ente et Essentia argument that one can know what a phoenix is without knowing that one exists; the necessary character of existence as an essence vs. contingent realities; the monism of existence as an essence vs. the plurality of beings ; the infinity of existence as an essence vs. finite realities; and the reality of the potency/act distinction applied to essence-as·potency and existence-as-act. I cannot engage this involved topic in the short space of a review. I will say, however, that with Joseph Owens, I fail to see why a conceptual distinction between essence and existence is insufficient to deal with the above facts and problems. Underwriting my skepticism is the understanding that meanings can remain... (shrink)

The concept of personhood in the Abrahamic tradition opens up new dimensions in contrast with the ancient world, especially the relationality and incommunicability of the person as a source of his or her dignity. However, these notions also originate their own set of contemporary challenges and problems. A proposal will be made as to how to overcome these problems by way of an integration of older insights on substance, act, and potency.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Disputing the Unity of the World: The Importance of Res and the Influence of Averroes in Giles of Rome’s Critique of Thomas Aquinas concerning the Unity of the WorldG. J. Mcaleer1. introductiongiles of rome (1243–1316) earned, after a decidedly difficult start, the most complete honors open to an academic religious in the Middle Ages. Joining the Hermits of St. Augustine at age 14, he became the first regent master (...) of his order at the University of Paris (1285–1291); his works were made compulsory in the education of students entering the Hermits in 1287; finally, in 1292 he became the general of the order itself.1 Giles is significant, as Mandonnet puts it, because he “est incontestablement au premier rang des théologiens de la fin du XIIIe siècle.”2 But this is not all. Giles is also important to the period because his writings were censured by the same commission that composed the famous Parisian condemnation of 1277. As a result of this [End Page 29] censure, Giles had to leave Paris, returning only in 1285.3 Perhaps of even greater significance is the fact that his teacher was Thomas Aquinas: Giles studied with Thomas at Paris during the years 1269–1272.4 It has been acknowledged for a long time now that Giles did not slavishly follow his teacher but wrought his own subtle and wide-ranging philosophical synthesis out of the various grand traditions of medieval thought.5 As the critical editions of Giles’s works appear (an enormous task currently moving forward under the guidance of F. Del Punta and G. Fioravanti) it will become clearer on how many issues Giles saw fit to criticize the positions of Thomas. It is one of these issues, Giles’s dispute with Thomas over the unity of the matter of the universe, that I wish to elaborate and analyze in this essay.6The thirteenth century is surely one of the greatest for philosophical innovation. Thinkers of the stature of Albert the Great, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, and Giles of Rome engaged great metaphysical themes ranging from the unity of being and creation to the composition of material substances. These speculations were prompted by their efforts to systematize the vast theological heritage of Christian thought and their encounter with the rich and varied traditions of Greek, Islamic, and Jewish thought newly entering the Latin West in translation. Questions involving matter were especially common amongst these speculations, carrying special significance in that they redounded upon conceptions of human nature and thus upon the Incarnation and Resurrection. Moreover, disputes about matter demanded arduous thought on the interrelations of the fundamental metaphysical notions of the period: act and potency; substance and accident; generation and corruption; essence and existence; principle and thing; and so on. The productivity of these thinkers, and the range and complexity of the [End Page 30] questions they treated, was stunning, and ultimately led to a massive condemnation of 219 philosophical and theological propositions at the University of Paris in 1277. The Bishop of Paris, Stephen Tempier, with the aid of a theological commission that included Henry of Ghent, hoped to efface certain errors contained in these speculations. A large number of the condemned propositions were associated with Siger of Brabant and other so-called “Radical Aristotelians.” However, theses found in the works of Aquinas were included, and, as already mentioned, Tempier soon turned his attention to Giles of Rome.7A dominant issue throughout the condemnations and the works of the period, especially in questions concerning matter, is that of unicity and plurality. This is true of perhaps the two most famous debates: whether human nature is a composition of one or many forms and whether the intellect is one for all human persons. The latter is probably the most studied of all the disputes of that time and the controversy most often associated with Averroes. The question of whether there is one matter in the universe or two is very much connected with the plurality of forms debate. Regarding this debate, thinkers wanted to know not only the number of forms in material composites but also what material... (shrink)

The final twenty-five years of the thirteenth century have received relatively little treatment by historians of medieval philosophy. Yet this period, which spans roughly from the death of Thomas Aquinas to the arrival of Duns Scotus at Oxford, is characterized by a remarkable philosophical vitality. One of the more neglected figures of this period is James of Viterbo. A member of the Augustinian Order, James was a Master in the Theology faculty at Paris from 1293-1300. Making use of his recently (...) edited Quodlibetal Questions and De divinis praedicamentis, the dissertation presents a historical reconstruction of James' metaphysics of finite being. Like most medieval thinkers, James is very concerned to distinguish between finite being and infinite being. While the divine being is absolutely simple, pure act, every finite being has within itself a composition of act and potency. This means that finite being has a structure that can be explicated by metaphysical analysis. There are three kinds of metaphysical composition found among finite beings: essence and existence; substance and accident; and matter and form. The dissertation analyzes James' understanding of these three compositions. Chapters I-III examine his position on issues involving essence and existence. Chapters IV and V deal with substance and accident. Chapters VI and VII are concerned with problems arising from the composition of matter and form. In presenting James' thought the dissertation gives some attention to determining his place in the doctrinal milieu of the late thirteenth century. James develops his own metaphysical positions only after deep reflection on the views of his contemporaries. He knows quite well the texts of Giles of Rome, Henry of Ghent, and Godfrey of Fontaines, and he is familiar with the work of Thomas Aquinas. Although he strives often to harmonize opposed positions, James possesses a highly personal metaphysics that cannot be reduced to that of other thinkers. The dissertation finds evidence for including James within the Neo-Augustinian movement of his day. (shrink)