Taking its cue from the famous articles in which the Jesuit Marcel Chossat, in the early decades of the last century, was the first to suggest that the doctrine of the real distinction between being and essence should be attributed to Giles of Rome, and not to Thomas Aquinas, the article proposes to consider the Neoplatonic matrix of Giles’ distinction, and to re-examine in more detail the doctrine of participation, which is the real trigger of the controversy between Giles and (...) Henry of Ghent. It suggests that Thomas Aquinas, Henry and Giles all three draw on the Proclean tradition, but each choosing different elements, as attested especially by the different readings of the fourth and ninth proposition of the De causis. Finally, it points out that the purpose of the distinction between being and essence is not at all, in Aquinas, to account for the contingency of creation, but to highlight the superiority of God not only with respect to all that possesses matter, but also to all that possesses only a form, even if intrinsically necessary. The distance between Giles and Aquinas could not be greater in this respect: the Dominican Master is not at all interested in showing the radical contingency of all creatures, including separate substances. On the contrary, insofar as he defends the idea that separate substances, as pure forms, are inseparable from their being, it remains true that one could legitimately speak, with regard to this aspect, of “St Thomas’ Averroism”, as Chossat wanted. (shrink)

Taking its cue from the famous articles in which the Jesuit Marcel Chossat, in the early decades of the last century, was the first to suggest that the doctrine of the real distinction between being and essence should be attributed to Giles of Rome, and not to Thomas Aquinas, the article proposes to consider the Neoplatonic matrix of Giles’ distinction, and to re-examine in more detail the doctrine of participation, which is the real trigger of the controversy between Giles and (...) Henry of Ghent. It suggests that Thomas Aquinas, Henry and Giles all three draw on the Proclean tradition, but each choosing different elements, as attested especially by the different readings of the fourth and ninth proposition of the De causis. Finally, it points out that the purpose of the distinction between being and essence is not at all, in Aquinas, to account for the contingency of creation, but to highlight the superiority of God not only with respect to all that possesses matter, but also to all that possesses only a form, even if intrinsically necessary. The distance between Giles and Aquinas could not be greater in this respect: the Dominican Master is not at all interested in showing the radical contingency of all creatures, including separate substances. On the contrary, insofar as he defends the idea that separate substances, as pure forms, are inseparable from their being, it remains true that one could legitimately speak, with regard to this aspect, of “St Thomas’ Averroism”, as Chossat wanted. (shrink)

This volume provides a comprehensive historico-doctrinal analysis of the transformation of the concept of time in the transition from the medieval debate to ...

Among the various questions on different subjects attributed to Albert the Great, and presumably disputed in Paris around the middle of the 13th century, we find one – handed down mainly under the title De quiditate et esse – dedicated to the presentation of some fundamental notions of metaphysics. This particular question deserves attention insofar as it represents a significant moment in the geneaology of the distinction between the notions of res a ratitudine and res a reor reris. A final (...) remark concerns the possible connection between Albert the Great and Henry of Ghent with respect to the transcendental primacy of res and the attempt not to reduce the consideration of metaphysics to actual being alone. (shrink)

Lex necessitatis vel contingentiae Cet article se propose de reconsidérer de manière critique deux présupposés spécifiques à l’interprétation gilsonienne de Thomas d’Aquin : (i) le fait que, dans l’univers thomasien, tous les étants différents de Dieu soient marqués par une « contingence radicale » ; (ii) l’idée qu’en dernière analyse cette contingence est fondée sur la distinction entre être et essence – et, plus généralement, (iii) la conviction que la conception thomiste de la providence se présente comme une alternative radicale (...) au déterminisme et au nécessitarisme de la tradition gréco-arabe. À cette fin, nous examinerons successivement les points suivants : les significations les plus communes que Thomas confère aux notions de nécessité et de contingence ; le rapport entre fortune, sort et providence ; la réfutation conditionnée du déterminisme astral ; le mode sur lequel la providence dispose les événements nécessaires aussi bien que les événements contingents ; les réactions opposées de Siger de Brabant et de Jean Duns Scot au modèle par lequel Thomas tente de sauver la contingence au sein de l’ordre providentiel ; l’affirmation par Thomas de l’existence de créatures formellement nécessaires. En conclusion, on suggère que Thomas affaiblit certains présupposés fondamentaux de la stratégie anti-déterministe mise en œuvre par Aristote dans le livre VI de la Métaphysique, que l’alternative entre nécessité et contingence ne représente pas chez Thomas le véritable départ entre le créateur et la créature, et que, pour cette raison, la distinction entre être et essence n’a pas pour premier et principal objectif de rendre compte de la contingence de tous les étants créés. (shrink)

The development of ideas in Thomas Aquinas's philosophical thinking has been the subject of numerous smaller studies, but no contemporary work in the English-speaking world covers his every single work in chronological order in terms of philosophical development, influences, manuscript evidence, and historical setting. In Thomas Aquinas: A Historical and Philosophical Profile, Pasquale Porro has provided a complete landscape of Thomas's corpus that will give Thomistic scholars and students an invaluable reference point for research, discussion, and debate.

The official documents of the Parisian Faculty of Arts show a close identification between the philosophical sciences and the corresponding textbooks: to learn a particular science means essentially to read certain, prescribed books. The case of theology seems to be different, however. In spite of the fact that the Bible served as a paradigm for the ‘textualization’ of all kinds of knowledge, and even of the whole world, it did not fit perfectly the epistemological criteria which Aristotle’s Posterior analytics established (...) as necessary for every science. Already in the second half of the 13thcentury, both Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent tried to construct theology as a science, in the Aristotelean sense, by appealing respectively to the theory of the subalternation of the sciences and to the doctrine of the lumen medium. The different reactions to these two models by Godfrey of Fontaines, Durandus of Saint-Pourçain and Peter Auriol seem to indicate a process in which theology can constitute itself as a true science only through a broadening of its textual basis, outside the scope of Sacred Scripture. (shrink)

J. Dudley, Aristotle’s Concept of Chance. Accidents, Cause, Necessity, and Determinism, State University of New York Press, Albany 2012.

Rather unusually, Henry of Ghent includes ‘totality’ in the list of divine attributes discussed in his Summa quaestionum ordinariarum. Availing himself of the different philosophical definitions of totality given by Boethius and Avicenna, Henry concludes that God cannot be considered a totum universale, a totum numerale and a totum virtuale or potestativum, but concedes that He may be considered a totality insofar as His being comprehends the exemplary perfections of all created beings.