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 CONTENTS

EXISTENCE
Edward Feser
Existential Inertia 143 I PREFACE
Gyula Klima
Aquinas vs. Buridan on Essence and Existence,
and the Commensurability of Paradigms 169 Just like any other philosophical discipline, metaphysics has a history and a
present. It flourished in the classical and mediaeval period, gradually declined in
the modern period and almost ceased to exist in the first half of the 20'h century.
MODALITIES Its present is characterised by a revival of some traditional speculative topics,
Edmund Runggaldier SJ which has been taking place within analytical philosophy since the 1960s.
The fact that the current renewal of interest in metaphysics occurs in the
Potentiality in Scholasticism (potentiae)
and the Contemporary Debate on "Powers" 185 context of analytical philosophy is somewhat surprising. Analytical philosophy
has been deeply influenced by logical positivism with its strong anti-meta-
David Peroutka OCD physical orientation. Its proponents saw the task and future of philosophy in
Dispositional Necessity and Ontological Possibility 195 the ontologically neutral analysis of scientific or natural language - not in
Mark Faller metaphysical speculations. Many were convinced that the progress of mankind,
The Optimal and the Necessary in Leibniz' Mathematical Framing which they wished to assist, requires various obstacles to be cleared out of the
209 way. Metaphysics was considered to be one such intellectual obstacle.
of the Compossible How are we to understand, then, that the philosophical discipline, which the
older analytical philosophers stood so radically against, has reappeared within
PREDICATION the intellectual context of this very anti-metaphysical current? This question
Uwe Meixner does not seem to be satisfactorily answered yet, neither in socio-psychological
229 terms nor in purely philosophical ones: answering it may require a time interval
The Interpretation(s) of Predication
which has not elapsed yet. One of the causes is most probably to be sought in the
Stanislav Sousedlk analytical philosophy itself. With time, its development came to cast doubt on
Towards a Thomistic Theory of Predication 247 some of the anti-metaphysical points of departure. In this respect, for instance,
Wittgenstein's criticism of private languages, which problematised Cartesian
subjectivism, or Kripke's systematisation of modal logic, which facilitated a re-
Authors 257
turn to the previously rejected topic of modalities, ought to be mentioned.' The
General Index 263 renewed interest in these and similar topics advanced the revival of metaphysical
investigations.
Index of Persons 281
Of course, there are as yet many authors who reject metaphysics, as well
as some of its presuppositions, such as modal logic.' They consider analytical
metaphysics to be one of the many delusions of our time. Perhaps they think of
contemporary metaphysicians as of the prodigal son who has left his home and
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Philosophical Investigations, trans!. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1963); SAUL KRIPKE, "Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic", Acta Philo-
sophica Fennica 16 (1963): 83-99.
In the 20th century modal concepts were subjected to criticism especially by WILLARD VAN
ORMAN QUINE, see his "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", in From a Logical Point of View (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1954); or his Word and Object (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960).

4 5
 PREFACE
wilfully violates the morality impressed on him by his parents. The prodigal son
should return home in order not to perish in a world full of delusion and hazard.
The editors of this publication are teachers of philosophy at Czech theological
faculties. In the controversy between contemporary analytical metaphysics
and its opponents they side with the renewal of speculative thinking. We are
interested not only in the current debate but also in earlier discussions taking
place within the tradition of Christian Aristotelism (the so-called First and Second
Scholasticism). Historical research has often led us to the remarkable observation
that older scholastic discussions are in many respects similar to current debates.
This naturally induced in us the effort to enhance contemporary metaphysical
thinking by the treasures of the Aristotelian-scholastic past. Contemporary meta-
physical speculation could thereby gain not only new stimuli and inspiration
for solving challenging philosophical problems but also firm grounding in the
intellectual history of the Western world. In this we are not entirely original
but can follow up on the already existing tradition of Analytical Thomism. How-
ever, unlike the proponents of Analytical Thomism we are inspired not only by
the legacy of Thomas Aquinas but also seek advice from the technically more
elaborate Thomistic, Scotistic, and other traditions of Second Scholasticism,
which have not been thoroughly researched yet. The endeavour of Renaissance
and Baroque scholastic authors at technical refinement makes them intrinsically
related to the analytical tradition.
We are honoured that several outstanding proponents of contemporary ana-
lytical metaphysics as well as prominent specialists in the history of scholastic
philosophy have appreciated our idea of relating the traditional and the new
metaphysics and accepted the invitation to the conference Metaphysics: Aristo-
telian, Scholastic, Analytic (Prague, the Czech Republic, June 30 - July 3, 2010). This
publication is the fruit of this conference. It contains both historical and syste-
matic contributions. We have grouped them according to their topic to form six
sections titled Categories and Beyond, Metaphysical Structure, Substance and Accident,
Existence, Modalities, and Predication.
The first section, dealing with categories (and what is beyond), is devoted to
the problem of ontological classification in general. It opens with the article by
Peter van Inwagen who explores the notion of ontological category such that it
may be utilised in defining ontology. Inwagen proposes that "ontology proper" (as
opposed to meta-ontology) is an attempt to set out a satisfactory list of ontological
categories. In the second article, Daniel D. Novotny broadens the scope of enquiry
by focusing on the problem of the ontological status of the so-called "beings of
reason": entities or pseudo-entities beyond the confines of reality proper. In his
approach he fruitfully combines the contributions of scholastic and analytical
thinkers, thus implicitly providing a positive answer to his concluding question
whether contemporary analytical metaphysics can draw some inspiration from
scholastic debates.
6 7
PREFACE
The section on metaphysical structure is closely connected to the previous one
in dealing with the most general ontological problems. In the first article, Michael
Loux contrasts two fundamentally distinct approaches to explaining the mould
of "familiar particulars": the "Aristotelian" or "constituent" strategy, and the
"Platonic" or "relational" strategy. Loux seeks first to clarify the dichotomy by
distinguishing it from the dispute over the nature of universals, and then proceeds
to analyse the "constituent" approach and point out its various problems. In the
following contribution Anne Siebels Peterson explores the Aristotelian notion of
"prime matter" as the substratum of elemental transformation with no essence
of its own; she exposes certain conflicts between the theory of prime matter and
other doctrines commonly ascribed to Aristotle. The concluding contribution of
this section is by Ross Inman. It focuses on the notion of "essential dependence"
and tries to show how scholastic analyses of this notion (especially those under-
taken by Duns Scotus) can help to remedy a certain void in contemporary ana-
lytical discussions regarding the topic of truthmaking.
The third section comprises three contributions related in some way or other
to the problems of substance and accident. E. J. Lowe opens the section with the
article "Essence and ontology", in which he tries to show how by combining a neo-
Aristotelian account of essence with a neo-Aristotelian "four-category ontology"
of individual substances, modes, substantial universals, and property universals,
a thoroughgoing metaphysical foundation for modal truths can be provided.
Lukag Novak continues in a similar vein by presenting an "Aristotelian" argument
against the theory of the so-called "bare particulars", thus providing a defence of
an essentialist account of substances and accidents. Prokop Sousedik and David
Svoboda, who jointly authored the concluding contribution of this section, pose
the question whether number is an accident. By way of an answer they develop a
neo-Aristotelian theory of number which attempts to steer a middle way between
"the Scylla of Aristotelian naturalism" and "the Charybdis of Platonic idealism".
The fourth section is devoted to existence. In his article Edward Feser criticises,
from a broadly Aristotelian-Thomistic standpoint, the doctrine of existential
inertia, contrasting it with the doctrine of divine conservation. In the other
article of this section, Gyula Klima takes the comparison of two different accounts
of the relation between essence and existence, namely those of Aquinas and
Buridan, as a point of departure for some more general thoughts concerning the
possibility of cross-paradigm argumentation.
The subject of the penultimate section is the modality and its metaphysi-
cal grounding. In the first contribution, Edmund Runggaldier reconstructs the
scholastic theory of potentiality which draws an important distinction between
subjective and objective potencies. He shows how these two kinds of potencies
allow for two complementary accounts of modalities, of which the first corre-
sponds more to the "common sense" perception of modalities while the other
approximates to modern possible-world semantics. In a further development of
 PREFACE

the topic, David Peroutka combines the contemporary and Aristotelian analysis
of "powers" or "potencies" to explain the necessity of causal nexus and the
grounding of possibility in active and passive causal capabilities. The concluding
contribution by Mark Faller focuses on Leibniz's understanding of necessity and
possibility. Working in quite a broad context, Faller tries to develop a unified
reading of Leibniz and praises him for his realist view of the nature of truth and
SECTION I
its corresponding reality.
The topic of the final section is predication in a metaphysical perspective. Uwe
Meixner provides an historical survey of various interpretations of predication
and its metaphysical basis. He defends the view that Frege, despite some deficits
in his conception, was the first to bring the philosophy of predication on the
CATEGORIES
right track, and proposes his own Frege-inspired theory. On the contrary, Sta-
nislav Sousedik in the closing contribution defends a pre-Fregean notion of pre-
dication and presents a theory of his own, conceived as a modern recasting of the
AND BEYOND
Thom istic, metaphysically grounded identity theory of predication.
We would like to thank all the participants of the Prague conference for their
contributions, especially to the authors of the papers published in this book.
It was an honour and pleasure to work with them. Special thanks belongs to
our language editor and proofreader Svetla Jarogova, who has spared us many
errors and substantially contributed to the quality of the text. For any remaining
mistakes and shortcomings we take, of course, full responsibility. We are also
grateful to Rafael Huntelmann of Ontos Verlag for his interest in this volume
and his patience with our work on it. We are also obliged to express our gratitude
to His Grace, Right Reverend Michael Josef Pojezdnyr, O.Praem., the Abbot of the
Strahov Monastery, for generously providing the historical premises of the mo-
nastery for the conference. We are further indebted to the Dean of the Catholic
Theological Faculty of the Charles University Prague, Spectabilis ThDr. Prokop
Bra and to the Director of the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences
of the Czech Republic, PhDr. Pavel Baran, CSc., for the sympathy with which they
accepted patronage of the conference. The conference was organised by the
Catholic Theological Faculty of the Charles University together with the Institute
of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
The conference proceedings are being published with the financial support
of the Grant Agency of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Grant
No. IAA908280801 "Metaphysics in contemporary analytical philosophy and its
relations to the metaphysics of modern Aristotelianism".
Stanislav Sousedik
David Svoboda, Prokop Sousedik
Daniel D. Novotny, Lukcig Novak

8
WHAT IS AN ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY?
Peter van Inwagen

ABSTRACT heCT
ITn RtA pa
In the author examines the concept of a natural class, and proposes a definition
of "ontological category" in terms of that concept. Say that a class is "large" if its membership
comprises a significant proportion of the things that there are. Say that a class is "high" if it is
a proper subclass of no natural class. Then a natural class is a primary ontological category if and
only if (a) there are large natural classes, and (b) it is a high class. (Secondary, tertiary, etc.,
ontological categories are defined by an extension of this definition.) The author defends the
definition, considers various ways in which it might be modified, and applies it to the problem
of constructing a taxonomy of ontologies.

As names of divisions of philosophy go, "ontology" is a rather new word. Al-

though it is older than that terminological parvenu "epistemology", it is much
newer than "metaphysics" or "ethics" or "logic" - and, of course, it is much newer
than "philosophy". But the word is as hard to define as any of her elder sisters.
within analytical philosophy,' one finds three understandings of the word "onto-
logy" - or, if you like, three conceptions of ontology.'
One of them, the use of the word by Bergmann and his school, is that ontology
is the study of the ontological structure of objects. I reject this conception of
ontology. I reject it as provincial, as the identification of a kingdom with one of
its provinces. (In my view - I defend this view in an unpublished companion piece
to this paper entitled "Relational vs. Constituent Ontologies" - that province is
uninhabited. But I do not reject the Bergmanian conception of ontology on that
ground alone: I contend that it is a provincial conception even if objects do have
ontological structures.)
There is, secondly, what I will call the "bare Quinean" conception of ontology.
Quine has famously called the question "What is there?" "the ontological

' For a discussion of the existential-phenomenological conception of ontology, see my

essay, "Being, Existence, and Ontological Commitment", in Metametaphysics: New Essays on the
Foundations of Ontology, ed. David J. Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009), 472-506.
2 This count - three conceptions of ontology - is problematical, owing to the fact that many

analytical philosophers who have made important contributions to ontology (on anyone's
conception of ontology) have not given an explicit statement of what they take ontology to
be. Perhaps I should say: Within analytical philosophy, one finds three potential or implicit or
tacit understandings of ontology (see note 3).

CATEGORIES AND BEYOND • 11

 Peter van Inwagen
WHAT IS AN ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY?
question", and one might incautiously infer from this label that he conceives of
ontology as the attempt to answer the ontological question. But neither Quine
nor anyone else would regard just any answer to the ontological question as
the kind of answer a discipline called ontology might be expected to provide.
Quine himself has observed that one correct answer to the ontological question
is "Everything" - and we certainly do not need to turn to any science or discipline
to satisfy ourselves that that answer is correct. Another sort of correct answer
might well be of the following form: a very long - no doubt infinite - conjunction
of existential quantifications on "low-level" predicates, a conjunction that would
perhaps read in part "... and there are bananas and there are electron neutrinos
and there are protein molecules and there are locomotives ... and there are colours
and there are political parties and there are nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta
function...". (Perhaps its final conjunct - if a sentence comprising infinitely many
conjuncts can have a final conjunct - would be: "and there is nothing else".) If the
only answers (other than answers that involve the "everything trick", answers
like "Everything" and "Locomotives and everything else") that can be given
to the ontological question are those provided by the investigative techniques
native to everyday life and the special sciences, then all answers to the ontological
question may well be of that sort. But if there is a philosophical discipline called
ontology, it will attempt to give an answer to the ontological question that is in
some sense more general, more abstract, more systematic than a long conjunction
of existential quantifications on low-level predicates. And the "bare Quinean"
will agree with this statement: on the bare Quinean conception of ontology,
ontology is the discipline whose business it is to provide an abstract or general
or systematic answer to the ontological question - answers that are less abstract
and more informative than "Everything" and less informative and more abstract
than "long list" answers.
The bare Quinean will, however, be happy to regard the ideas expressed by
the words "general", "abstract", and "systematic" as entirely subjective. On the
bare Quinean conception of ontology, it is the business of the practitioners of
ontology to produce and defend answers to the ontological question that - as
one might say - strike them and their peers as "general" and "abstract" and
"systematic", answers that it seems appropriate to them to apply those terms to.
If, for example, I say that there are abstract objects or sets or temporal parts
of persisting objects, the bare Quineans will almost certainly recognise this as
an assertion of the kind that characterises ontology. But if I say that there are
bananas or protein molecules or solutions to Einstein's field equations that are
without physical interest, these assertions will almost certainly seen by the bare
Quineans as having a place in ontology only as examples that illustrate some
much more general existential thesis or as premises of some argument for some
much more general existential thesis. And they will offer no account of what it
is for an existential thesis to be "much more general" than these theses. They
12 • CATEGORIES AND BEYOND
Peter van Inwagen
WHAT IS AN ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY?
will indeed insist that it would be a mistake to try to provide such an account
owing to the fact that those words are no more than expressions of the subjective
reactions of various philosophers to the degree of generality exhibited by various
existential theses.'
The third conception of ontology - it is the conception I favour - rests on the
conviction that the notion of a "general" or "abstract" or "systematic" answer to
the ontological question can be given an objective sense. The third conception
rests on the conviction that there are ontological categories and that it is the
business of ontology to provide answers to the ontological question in terms of a
specification of the ontological categories. I will attempt to give an account of the
concept on which this conception of ontology rests, the concept of an ontological
category.
* * *
I begin with the idea of a natural class. One of the assumptions on which
the third conception of ontology rests is that natural classes are real. By this
I do not necessarily mean that there are objects called "natural classes", for an
ontologian (why is there no such word?) may well deny that there are classes of
any description." Indeed, anyone who did deny the existence of classes would ipso
facto be engaged in ontology. What I mean by saying that there are natural classes
is a consequence of the thesis that there are natural - non-conventional - lines
of division among things. This assumption was famously rejected by Hobbes,
and, following him, by Locke and the other empiricists. As Locke says (in the
concluding passage of Chapter 3 of Book III of the Essay),
Recapitulation. - To conclude: This is that which in short I would say, viz., that all
the great business of genera and species, and their essences, amounts to no more
but this, that men making abstract ideas, and settling them in their minds, with
names annexed to them, do thereby enable themselves to consider things, and
discourse of them, as it were in bundles, for the easier and readier improvement
3 I have not said that Quine or anyone else is a bare Quinean. I suspect, however, that
Quine would at the very least find bare Quineanism an attractive formulation of the nature
of ontology (see note 2).
' The "classes" that figure in this essay are - or are if they really exist - much more
like biological taxa than they are like sets. Like taxa, and unlike sets, they can change their
membership with the passage of time and the membership of a class in one possible world
may not even overlap its membership in another. Like taxa, and unlike sets, moreover, they
may have "borderline members" (if there is something that is neither determinately a cat
nor determinately a non-cat, that does not prevent "cat" from being a natural class). But
I am not seriously asserting that there really are things that have the properties I have
ascribed to classes. I issue this promissory note: I could - the result would be rather awkward,
I concede - eliminate the apparent reference to and quantification over classes in the sequel by
paraphrase. In my view, the only substantive philosophical issue raised by my talk of "natural
classes" is whether there are real lines of division among things.
CATEGORIES AND BEYOND • 13
 Peter van Inwagen
WHAT IS AN ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY?
and communication of their knowledge, which would advance but slowly, were their
words and thoughts confined only to particulars.
I am not wholly convinced that what Locke says in this "recapitulation" is
consistent with everything he says in the Essay (or even with everything he says
in Chapter 3 of Book III), but, whether it will do as an unqualified statement of
Locke's views or not, it is a good statement of the point of view whose rejection
is one of the assumptions on which the third conception of ontology rests. (From
this point on, when I ascribe features to "ontology", I shall be speaking from the
point of view of the third conception - my own conception.) According to this
anti-Lockean philosophy of classification, some classes of things - a minuscule
proportion of them, if classes are anything like as numerous as sets - correspond
to real divisions among things: in each case, the real division between the things
that are members of that set and those that are not.' To say that there are
real divisions among things implies the existence of natural classes,' but this
statement does not say enough to settle the question of what natural classes
there are - not even to settle it in the rather abstract and uninformative way
I want to settle it in this initial discussion of the natural classes. To show you what
I mean by this statement, I'm going to ask you to consider two questions about
the relation between the concepts "real division among things" and the concept
"natural class".
I shall introduce the first of these two questions by the following example.
Suppose that the line that marks the division between horses and non-horses
is one of those real lines of division among things. Does it follow that "horse"
is a natural class? Before you answer, consider this question: Does it follow that
"non-horse" is a natural class? That "non-horse" is a natural class certainly does
not seem to be a thesis that should be true by definition. But the boundary of that
class marks a real division among things. At any rate, it does if the boundary of
"horse" marks a real division among things, since the two classes have the same
boundary. We therefore do not want to say that a class is a natural class given
only that its boundary marks a real division among things.
I think that the following statement is a more plausible candidate for what we
want to say about the relation between "real division" and "natural class":
5 Real divisions need not be sharp divisions. If one divides the world into things that
are determinately cats, things that are determinately not cats and things that are neither
determinately cats nor determinately non-cats, one may have thereby have marked a real
division among things.
6 Or, to speak more carefully (see note 4), it implies that those who have no objection to
affirming the existence of classes should regard some of those classes as natural classes. And
even nominalists who believe in real divisions among things may find it useful to speak as if
those divisions marked the boundaries of natural classes. (Such nominalists will presumably
be able to eliminate, at least in principle, apparent reference to and apparent quantification
over natural classes from their discourse.)
14 • CATEGORIES AND BEYOND
Peter van Inwagen
WHAT IS AN ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY?
For any class, if its boundary marks a real division among things, then either that
class or its complement is a natural class - but not necessarily both.
If you ask me, "In such a case, how do we determine which of two given
complementary classes are natural classes?", I'm afraid I do not have any very
informative answer. I could try this: The ones with "sufficient internal unity". It
does seem obvious to me that if the boundary between a class and its complement
marks a real division among things, at least one of the two must exhibit sufficient
internal unity for it to be called a natural class. If this thesis is granted, the
existence of natural classes follows from the existence of real divisions among
things. Nevertheless, the concept of "natural class" cannot be defined solely in
terms the concept "real division." We must also appeal to the concept of "sufficient
internal unity" if we are to provide a full explanation of "natural class". (Or, at any
rate, we must appeal to some concept other than "real division") One might in fact
contend that, if we really have the concept "sufficient internal unity", we could
use it to define the concept "real division among things". (Suppose a class exhibits
"sufficient internal unity"; suppose its union with no unit class other than its unit
subclasses has this feature; then it is plausible to suppose that its boundary marks
a real division among things.) Why, then, have I assigned such a fundamental
role to "real division" in my exposition of the concept "natural class"? Because,
first, it seems to me that "real division" is a far easier idea to grasp than the idea
"exhibits sufficient internal unity". And because, secondly, in most interesting
cases in which the boundary between two complementary classes marks a real
division among things, it will be simply evident that - whatever internal unity
may be - either one of them exhibits vastly more internal unity than the other or
they both exhibit an approximately equal (and very high) degree of internal unity.
Now the second question about the relation between "real division" and
"natural class". Consider the universal class, the class of all things.' Is it a natural
class? I propose to leave this an open question - to provide an account of "natural
class" that leaves it an open question.8 Does what I have said have any implications
for this question? The only relevant implication of what we have said is this: if the
boundary of the universal class marks a real division among things, then either
the universal class or the empty class is a natural class. Well, what is the boundary
of the universal class? In one sense, it has no boundary - not if boundaries divide
' Even those who are realists about classes will be well advised to treat the universal class
as a virtual class - that is to treat apparent reference to it as a mere - and dispensable - matter
of speaking.
8 Suppose that Meinong was wrong and that one name for the universal class is "being".
Aristotle held that "being" was not a category. On the account of "ontological category" I shall
propose - and given that Meinong was wrong -, "being" will be a category if it is a natural
class. I do not want to give an account of "natural class" that will imply either the truth or
the falsity of Aristotle's thesis.
CATEGORIES AND BEYOND • 15
 Peter van Inwagen
WHAT IS AN ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY?
things from other things. But we might not insist that a boundary must divide
things. (Suppose the universe is finite in extent; adopt a relational theory of space.
Isn't it reasonable to say that in that case the universe has a boundary, a boundary
that nothing is outside?)
The simplest way to leave it an open question whether the universal class is a
natural class is to stipulate that it has no boundary (in which case our principle
says nothing about whether it is a natural class). We say, that is, that a class has a
boundary if (and only if) both that class and its complement are non-empty. Those
who want to say that the universal class is a natural class - or that it is not - must
defend their thesis on some ground that does not involve the properties of its
boundary (perhaps on the ground of its "internal unity" or lack thereof). It will
be observed that, in virtue of this stipulation, we have left it an open question
whether the empty class is a natural class. I hereby stipulate that the empty
class is not a natural class - but for no profound reason; whether the empty class
is a natural class seems to be one of those "don't care" questions, one of those
questions that can properly be settled by stipulation, and stipulating that it is not
a natural class will simplify some of my definitions and the statements of some
of my theses.
Are there any natural classes? Well, it seems plausible to suppose so. The class
of electrons is a plausible candidate for the office "natural class" - as plausible
a candidate as there could be, in my view. (The boundary between electrons
and non-electrons is certainly a plausible candidate for the office "boundary
that marks a real division among things", and it seems evident that the class of
electrons exhibits vastly more internal unity than the class of non-electrons.) The
class of horses (members of the species Equus caballus) would be a rather more
controversial but still reasonably plausible example.
Whether there are natural classes or not, it is one of the assumptions of
ontology that there are. (If there are no natural classes, ontology is like astrology:
a science that rests on a false assumption.) It is, moreover, one of the assumptions
of ontology that, although some pairs of natural classes may have non-empty
intersections otherwise than by one's being a subclass of the other, there are
nested sequences of natural classes - sequences ordered by the subclass relation.
The class of electrons, the class of leptons, and the class of fermions provide a
plausible example of such a sequence. The class of horses, the class of mammals,
and the class of chordates would (again) be a rather more controversial but still
reasonably plausible example.
One could, however, affirm the existence of natural classes and of nested
sequences of natural classes without involving oneself in ontology - or in any
other part of philosophy. Suppose, for example, that Alice maintains that the
largest natural classes are the class of bosons and the class of fermions and that
every natural class is a subclass of one of these two non-overlapping classes.
And suppose that she also maintains that (in some sense) only a very small
16 • CATEGORIES AND BEYOND
Peter van Inwagen
WHAT IS AN ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY?
proportion of the things that there are are bosons or fermions. We might, for
example, imagine that she supposes that, for any xs, the mereological sum of
the xs exists, and that among these sums are to be found atoms and molecules
and cats and locomotives and galaxies and most of the tangible or visible things
that we unreflectively believe in. (And, of course, Alice believes that there are
a vast number of convoluted gerrymanders most of which are not - considered
individually - possible objects of human thought.) The class of cats, Alice con-
tends, is not a natural class: the vague and imperfect boundary we have drawn
around the cats is a mere product of convention and fails to reflect a real division
among things, unlike the boundary we have drawn around the bosons. And the
same goes for the locomotives and the galaxies. (Of course most classes of sums
are cognitively inaccessible to us, but, says Alice, if, per impossibile, we were to
draw boundaries around any of these classes, those boundaries would be merely
conventional - and with a vengeance.) And, of course, she maintains that the
class of things that are neither bosons nor fermions is, as one might say, radically
deficient in internal unity and is not a natural class.
If Alice is right, ontology is, again, like astrology: a science that rests on a
false assumption. For one of the assumptions on which ontology rests is this:
that membership in the natural classes is not restricted to any such minuscule
proportion of the things that there are as Alice supposes it to be.
It is an assumption of ontology that there indeed are natural classes whose
membership comprises a really significant proportion of the things that there
are. I am acutely aware that the idea of a class whose membership comprises
a really significant proportion of the things that there are is an idea that it is
hard to give any precise sense to. But it does not seem to me to be an obviously
meaningless or entirely vacuous idea. Take our friend Alice. In her view there
are certainly a lot more things - even a lot more concrete things - than there
are things that are members of some natural class. If, for example, there are
10 exp 80 bosons and fermions, then there are 2 exp (10 exp 80) - 1 things
(abstractions aside): there are 10 exp 80 things that belong to some natural class
and ((2 exp (10 exp 80) - 1) - 10 exp 80 things that belong to no natural class, and
the latter number is inconceivably larger than the former. (The ratio of the latter
to the former can be described this way. Think of the number that is expressed
by a "1" followed by eighty zeros. The ratio of the number of things that belong
to no natural class to the number of things that belong to some natural class
is a number that can be expressed by a "1" followed by - approximately - one-
third that many zeros.) Or if the number of bosons and fermions is denumerably
infinite, then the number of (concrete) things that belong to no natural class is
indenumerably infinite.
There are various ways in which there might be natural classes whose mem-
bership comprised "a really significant proportion of the things that there are".
CATEGORIES AND BEYOND • 17
 Peter van Inwagen
! Peter van Inwagen
WHAT IS AN ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY?
(Let us call such a class "large".) One of them is this: the universal class is a natural
class - for the membership of a class is certainly a "significant proportion" of itself.
Here is another way. It may be that, although the class of all things, the uni-
versal class, is not a natural class, it is the union of a small number of natural
classes. (A "small" number would be a number like 2 or 6 or 19. And what do
I mean by "a number like"? You may well ask. But if you want a definition of "small
number", I offer the following. A number n is small in just this case: if a class is
the union of n subclasses, the membership at least one of them must comprise a
really significant proportion of the membership of that class.)
And here is a third. Say that a natural class is "high" if is not a proper subclass
of any natural class. At least one high natural class is large - although some things
belong to no natural class. (Suppose, for example, that God exists and that a vast
number of creatures exist and that everything is either God or a creature. Suppose
that God belongs to no natural class - and hence that the universal class is not a
natural class - and that the class of creatures is a natural class.)
Note that the assumption we are considering, that there are large natural
classes, leaves open the possibility that that there are high natural classes that are
not large. Our assumption is, for example, consistent with the following threefold
thesis: everything is either a substance or (exclusive) an attribute; "substance"
and "attribute" are both natural classes and every natural class is a subclass of
one or the other; there are finitely many substances and too many attributes to
be numbered even by a transfinite number. In this case, "substance" is a high
class, despite the fact that only an insignificant proportion of the things that
there are are substances.
We may now define "ontological category". Let us say, first, that a natural class
x is a primary ontological category just in the case that
- there are large natural classes
- x is a high natural class.
Consider for example the case presented in the previous paragraph. In this
case "substance" and "attribute" are high natural classes and are in fact the high
natural classes. And there are large natural classes - the class of attributes if no
other. "Substance" and "attribute are therefore primary ontological categories -
and are the primary ontological categories.'
The primary ontological categories are the highest links in the great chains
of classification - the great chains of non-arbitrary classification, of not-merely-
9 Note that the definition does not rule out overlapping primary ontological categories.
Suppose, for example, that Phoebe maintains that "abstract" and "concrete" are the primary
ontological categories. She may consistently go on to maintain that the proposition that
Socrates was a philosopher is abstract (in virtue of being a proposition) and concrete (in virtue
of having a certain concrete object, Socrates, as an ontological constituent).
18 • CATEGORIES AND BEYOND
WHAT IS AN ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY?
a -matter-of-convention classification. But remember that the highest links in the
great chains of classification are primary ontological categories only if primary
ontological categories exist - just as the highest buildings are skyscrapers only if
skyscrapers exist. If our friend Alice is right about what natural classes there are,
the highest natural classes are not primary ontological categories. (If she is right,
the highest natural class, the class of elementary particles, is not an ontological
category, since there are no large natural classes.) Her world corresponds, in the
analogy, to a world in which the highest buildings are three stories high: highest
buildings but no skyscrapers.
Having defined "primary ontological category", we may proceed to define
"secondary ontological category", "tertiary ontological category", and so on, by
repeated applications of essentially the same device. We say that x is a natural
subclass ofy if x is a subclass of y and x is a natural class. We say that x is a large
subclass ofy if x is a subclass ofy and x comprises a significant proportion of the
members ofy. We say that x is a high subclass ofy if x is a natural proper subclass
of y and is a proper subclass of no natural proper subclass of y. Then, a natural
class x is a secondary ontological category if
There is a primary ontological category y such that
- y has large natural proper subclasses
- x is a high subclass ofy.
And so for tertiary ontological category, quaternary ontological category, ....
And, finally, an ontological category (simpliciter)10 is a class that, for some /7, is
an n-ary ontological category."
'° In formulating this definition of "ontological category", I have assumed that every
sequence of natural classes ordered by the proper-subclass relation has a first member. (If
this were not so, there might be large natural classes but no high natural classes - and hence
no primary ontological categories and hence no ontological categories of any order. But it is
at least plausible to suppose that any large natural class is an ontological category, and even
more plausible to suppose that if there are large natural classes, some of them are ontological
categories.) This is a consequence of the stronger statement that every such sequence is finite.
I see no reason to question either of these theses.
" Note that this definition allows ontological categories to overlap. Suppose that every-
thing is either an A or a B, that A and B are natural classes, and that neither is a proper subclass
of any natural class. Then A and B are primary ontological categories. But nothing we have
said implies that A and B do not overlap. (Cf. n. 9). Suppose further that they do overlap and
that their intersection is a natural class that is not a proper subclass of any natural class.
Then their intersection is also a primary ontological category. Or suppose that A and B do not
overlap, and that A can be partitioned into two subclasses C and D, each of which is a natural
class and that B can be partitioned into two subclasses E and F, each of which is a natural class.
Suppose that the union of C and E is a natural class that is a proper subclass of no natural class.
Then the union of C and E is a primary ontological category that overlaps both the primary
categories A and B and the secondary categories C and E.
CATEGORIES AND BEYOND • 19

Peter van Inwagen
WHAT IS AN ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY?
One might wonder whether this account of "ontological category" has the
consequence that this concept is "entirely subjective" - and thus wonder whether
the account of ontology that I am proposing in the end reduces to the "bare
Quinean" conception of ontology. It is certainly true that the account depends
essentially on certain vague terms. (For example, "the membership of x comprises
a significant proportion of the membership ofy".) I would contend, however, that
the vague is not the same as the subjective. For example, "delicious" is a subjective
term, in contrast to "edible" and "nutritious", which are merely vague. I would
also point out that there can be perfectly clear cases of objects that fall under
vague terms, and that this account, when applied to a particular metaphysic may
yield determinate answers to the question, "What, according to that metaphysic,
are the ontological categories?" It may be obvious, for example, that according to
Albert's metaphysic, there are no secondary ontological categories, since all his
primary categories have infinitely many members and all other natural classes
have only finitely many members - which entails that none of Albert's primary
categories have large natural subsets.
Assuming that the "subjectivity" worry has been adequately answered, is the
above account of "ontological category" satisfactory? I am inclined to think that
this account is incomplete. I am inclined to think that there should be a further
condition on what an "ontological category" is, a modal condition. I think this
because what I have so far said allows ontological categories to be rather fragile,
modally speaking, much more fragile than I'm comfortable with their being. One
kind of example that makes me uneasy is this: it is consistent with this account
that the natural class "dog" (let's assume that this is a natural class) turn out to
be, oh, let's say, a 23-ary ontological category. And this result seems wrong to
me - and not because I have anything against either dogs or allowing the science
of biology to have implications for ontology. It seems wrong to me because the
fact that there is such a natural class as "dog" is - no doubt - radically contingent.
Very small changes in the world of a hundred million years ago - changes local
to the surface of the earth - would have resulted in there never having been any
such class. And it seems evident to me that a satisfactory account of "ontological
category" should not allow the list of ontological categories to be dependent on
the contingencies of history to that extent. But to what extent might the list be a
matter of contingency? I do not want to say that an ontological category must be,
by definition, necessarily existent (that is, represented in every possible world).
If some school of metaphysicians proposes "contingent thing" as an ontological
category, I do not think that that proposal should commit them to the proposition
that there are, of necessity, contingent things - although it should commit them
to the proposition that, of necessity, if there are contingent things they form or
constitute an ontological category.
The example I have said makes me uneasy might be "handled" by some sort
of restriction on the "n" in "n-ary ontological category" - say, by insisting that
20 • CATEGORIES AND BEYOND
7
Peter van Inwagen
WHAT IS AN ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY?
the lowest ontological categories are the quaternary categories. (Someone might
be happy to suppose that "you'd have to get down into the twenties" before
things you were calling ontological categories became objectionably dependent
on the contingencies of history.) This idea is, obviously, attended by all manner
of difficulties, but there is no point in trying to solve them, because there are
imaginable cases of "modally fragile" primary and secondary categories. Con-
sider, for example, Bertram, who, like Alice, believes that the highest natural
classes are "boson" and "fermion". But - unlike Alice - Bertram is a mereological
nihilist (and a nominalist to boot): he believes that everything is either a boson
or a fermion. By the above definition, then it follows from these beliefs of his
that "boson" and "fermion" are primary ontological categories. So far forth, this
might not be objectionable. But suppose Bertram also believes that the physical
economy of most possible worlds is radically different from the physical economy
of the actual world. Suppose he believes that there are non-arbitrary measures
of the sizes many sets of possible worlds (the measure of the whole of logical
space being 1), and that the measure of the set of worlds that contains bosons
and fermions is [insert here a decimal point and a string of sixty zeros]13 - or
believes that the measure is infinitesimal or even O. In that case, I think it would
be just wrong to say that it follows from his beliefs that "boson" and "fermion"
are ontological categories. It seems to me to be wrong to call a natural class an
ontological category if it exists in "hardly any" possible worlds.
I am inclined to think, therefore, that the account of "ontological category"
that I have given needs to be supplemented by a clause to the effect that an onto-
logical category must in some sense be "modally robust" - but almost certainly
not so robust that an ontological category must, by definition, exist in all possible
worlds. I leave for another occasion the problem of spelling out what this means
- and the question whether my modal scruples as regards ontological categories
are justified.
Let us now return to the concept of ontology. Ontology, as I see ontology,
rests on the following assumption: there are ontological categories. We may, in
fact, define ontology as the discipline whose business is to specify the ontological
categories. Remember that the empty set or class is not to count as a natural class,
and it is therefore true by definition that all ontological categories are non-empty.
To specify the ontological categories is therefore to make an existential statement
- even if one regards the categories themselves as virtual classes and thus as
not really "there". If for example, one says that "substance" is an ontological
category, this statement implies that there are substances. The goal of ontology
is to provide an answer to the ontological question in the form of a specification
I of the ontological categories.
It is a commonplace that the word "ontology" is used both as a mass term
and a count-noun. When it is used as a mass term, it denotes a certain discipline,
a certain sub-field of philosophy or of metaphysics - just that discipline that
CATEGORIES AND BEYOND • 21
 Peter van Inwagen
WHAT IS AN ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY?
I have been attempting to give an account of. When it is used as a count-noun, it
is used to refer to certain philosophically interesting answers to the ontological
question. If my account of ontology is right, an ontology is a specification of the
ontological categories.
I briefly show how this account of "ontology" fares when it is applied to
two very different ontologies. My first example is the ontology I myself favour.
According to this ontology, there are two primary categories, substance and re-
lation. (Unless the universal class is a natural class, in which case it is the primary
category, and substance and relation are the two secondary categories. I have no
firm opinion about whether the universal class - I suppose the best name for it
would be "being" if it is thought of as a category - is a natural class and therefore
a category.
The category "relation" subsumes propositions (0-adic relations) and attributes
(monadic relations).
The category "substance" goes by two other names, "concrete thing" and
"individual (thing)"." Similarly, the category "relation" is also called "abstract
thing" and "universal". It is not my position that that, e.g., "substance" and
"individual" are synonymous. Although I say that all substances are individual
things and all individual things are substances, I regard this as a substantive
thesis, one of the component propositions of my ontology that requires a philo-
sophical defence. And the same goes for the pairs "substance" and "concrete
thing", "concrete thing" and "particular", "relation" and "abstract thing",
"abstract thing" and "universal", and "universal" and "relation". I contend only
that the extensions of each pair are the same."
My second example is the Meinongian ontology.'" The universal class, the
class of "objects" or the realm of Sosein divides into the two ontological categories
the concrete and the abstract (I do not mean to imply that those two terms are
actually used by Meinongians). The category "the concrete" divides into the
12 Or "particular (thing)". As I use the words, "individual" and "particular" are synonyms.
(Some writers give different senses to these two words.) I use "thing" as the most general
count-noun: everything is a thing; "every thing" and "everything" are synonyms; a "thing"
is anything that can be the referent of a pronoun. I use such words as "object", "entity" and
"item" in the same sense.
13 One possible "version" of the ontology called "austere nominalism" raises a problem for
my account of ontology. This is the version I have in mind: there are only concrete particulars;
there are no high natural classes: neither "concrete particular" nor any other large class is
a natural class. This version of austere nominalism seems clearly to be "an ontology" but it
implies that there are no ontological categories.
" Meinongians will no doubt object to my use of the terms "the Meinongian ontology"
and "ontological category" in my description of their position - since, of course "to on" means
"being". They will insist that providing an answer to the question, "What is there?" is only one
small part of their project. Well, let them find their own terminology. This is mine.
22 • CATEGORIES AND BEYOND
Peter van Inwagen
WHAT IS AN ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY?
two categories "the existent" and "the (concrete but) non-existent", and the
category "the abstract" divides into the two categories "the subsistent" and "the
(abstract but) non-subsistent". The union of the existent and the subsistent is
itself an ontological category, the category of Sein, and the complement of that
category is a category, the category Nichtsein.15 If Sosein is not a natural class, then
the abstract, the concrete, Sein, and Nichtsein are primary categories and the
categories that pertain to existence and subsistence are secondary categories.
Let me now say something to connect the definition of ontology I have given
with an ancient and important definition of ontology.
The definition I am thinking of derives from one of Aristotle's definitions of
"first philosophy" in Metaphysics: Ontology is the science of being as such or being
qua being. In my view, this Aristotelian definition of ontology is, if not entirely
satisfactory, not wholly wrong either. I would defend this position as follows.
The universal class, the class of all things, is either the class of all beings - the
class whose membership is just exactly the things that there are -, or else it is
the class that comprises both all beings and all non-beings. (Or, as a Meinon-
gian might prefer to say, the universal class, the "realm" of Sosein, comprises
two non-overlapping realms, the realm of being and the realm of non-being.)
In the former case, being is what is common to the members of all ontological
categories, and, if there is something common to all the ontological categories,
it seems plausible to say that a science or discipline whose business is to specify
the ontological categories should have as one of its first orders of business to say
what this "something" is. In the latter case, being and non-being are the two of
the highest ontological categories (perhaps Sosein is the highest category) and,
if there is such a category as non-being, the task of explaining what being is and
the task of explaining what non-being is can be divorced from each other only
by an act of severe abstraction: if those tasks are in any sense "two", they must
nevertheless be seen as two sub-tasks of one task. If I reject the Aristotelian
definition of ontology, it is not because I deny that the question "What is being?"
is one of the questions that ontology must answer. I reject it because I deny that
it is the primary ontological question, the question that defines the business of
ontology.
A word on terminology. In other discussions of ontology, I've said that onto-
logy divides into meta-ontology and ontology proper. Ontology proper, I said, is
the investigation of what there is, and meta-ontology addresses the two questions,
What does "there is" mean? and What methods should be employed in the in-
vestigation of what there is? But here I have defined ontology as the discipline that
attempts to specify the ontological categories. Does this definition not identify
ontology (ontology simpliciter) with "ontology proper"? My earlier characteri-
's Assuming that "the concrete", "the abstract", "the existent", "the subsistent", "the
non-existent", "the non-subsistent", Sein, and Nichtsein are all natural classes.
CATEGORIES AND BEYOND • 23
 Peter van Inwagen
WHAT IS AN ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY?
sation of ontology and the present characterisation can be reconciled if we adopt
I
a sufficiently liberal understanding of "specify the ontological categories": to
specify the ontological categories is not merely to set out a list of categories;
specifying the ontological categories also involves explaining the concept of an
ontological category and describing the relations between the categories and
attempting to answer any philosophical questions that may arise in the course of
doing this. One of these philosophical questions will be the question of the nature
of being - which is essentially the question, What is it for a category to be non-
empty? (So, at any rate, we anti-Meinongians say. I leave it to the Meinongians to
explain in terms they find satisfactory what it is for a category to be non-empty.)
We may say then that "ontology proper" is the attempt to set out a satisfactory list
of ontological categories; everything else in ontology belongs to meta-ontology.
24 • CATEGORIES AND BEYOND
SCHOLASTIC DEBATES ABOUT BEINGS OF REASON
AND CONTEMPORARY ANALYTICAL METAPHYSICS
Daniel D. Novotny
ABSTRACT
Prima facie it would seem that the traditional scholastic debates about entia rationis ("beings
of reason") may be easily brought into dialogue with debates about nonexistent objects in
contemporary analytical metaphysics. It turns out, however, that the scholastic debates about
beings of reason are placed within a very different ontological framework or paradigm, so
that bringing scholastic and analytical authors into common discussion about this topic is not
trivial. In this paper I make the first step toward establishing such discussion by describing
the ontological framework presupposed by the scholastic debates about beings of reason, and
by identifying the roles that beings of reason were supposed to play in it.
1. INTRODUCTION
One of the main tasks of metaphysics - as it was conceived by Aristotle -
is to provide a list of categories of what exists.' Late scholastic authors of the
Renaissance and Baroque periods, however, were increasingly preoccupied not
just with what exists but also with what does not exist.' The most important and
well-known label with which these late scholastic discussions are associated is 'ens
rationis', literally "being of reason".3 Prima facie it would seem that the traditional
' This is, of course, an oversimplification and a bold claim, see e.g. JORGE J. E. GRACIA,
Metaphysics and Its Task: The Search for the Categorial Foundation of Knowledge (Albany, NY: SUNY
Press, 1999); ROBERT A. DELFINO, ed., What are We to Understand Gracia to Mean: Realist Challenges
to Metaphysical Neutralism (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2006); and VAN INWAGEN's contri-
bution in this volume.
2 For an introduction into these scholastic discussions see, e.g., JOHN P. DOYLE, "Suarez on
Beings of Reason and Truth (First part)", Vivarium 25 (1987): 47-75; "Suarez on Beings of Reason
and Truth (Second part)", Vivarium 26 (1988): 51-72; DANIEL D. NOVOTNt "Prolegomena to a
Study of Beings of Reason in Post-Suarezian Scholasticism, 1600 -1650", Studia Neoaristotelica
3, no. 2 (2006): 117-141.
' Henceforth in this paper, for the sake of simplicity, whenever I shall speak about scho-
lasticism I shall mean "scholasticism of the Renaissance and especially Baroque period", to wit,
scholasticism of the seventeenth century. Baroque scholastic culture and discussions differed
in many ways from the scholasticism of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. See DANIEL D.
NOVOTNt "In Defense of Baroque Scholasticism", Studia Neoaristotelica 6, no. 2 (2009): 209-233.
CATEGORIES AND BEYOND • 25
 Daniel D. Novotny Daniel D. Novotny
SCHOLASTIC DEBATES ABOUT BEINGS OF REASON SCHOLASTIC DEBATES ABOUT BEINGS OF REASON

scholastic debates about beings of reason may be easily brought into dialogue
with the current work on nonexistent objects in analytical metaphysics.4 It turns
out, however, that the scholastic debates about beings of reason are placed within Actual 4 Things in the
strict sense
a very different ontological framework or paradigm, so that bringing scholastic
and analytical authors into common discussion on this topic is not trivial. In this Possible
paper I make the first step toward establishing such discussion by (1) providing a Merely- Possible
description of the framework presupposed by the scholastic debates about beings Possible things
of reason, and (2) identifying the roles that beings of reason were supposed to
Being
play in it.
Second inten-
Positive 4 tions and other
2. THE ONTOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK OF SCHOLASTIC DEBATES relations of
reason
Let me start with a scheme (see the opposite page) attempting to classify Impossible
into "super-categories" whatever non-existing items one might encounter in Integral* Negations, pri-
scholastic works. Negative 4 vations, self-
incompatibles
At the very left of our scheme we see the term 'item'. By this term I mean
anything to which one can refer and of which one can say that "it is (in some
sense) there" (datur) - regardless of such issues as to whether it exists or whether Non-Being
Object*
it is real. (The asterisk next to this and some other super-categories indicates Para-
that it is a term that scholastic authors themselves did not use but that is useful Being
to have for our talk about their views). For comparison, in analytical philosophy Extrinsic
Bertrand Russell tried to capture this broad meaning of 'item' by the term term':5 Being
Item Accidental
Whatever may be an object of thought, or may occur in any true or false pro-
position, or can be counted as one, I call a term. This, then, is the widest word in
the philosophical vocabulary. I shall use as synonymous with it the words unit,
individual, and entity. The first two emphasise the fact that every term has being,
i.e. is in some sense. A man, a moment, a number, a class, a relation, a chimaera, or
anything else that can be mentioned, is sure to be a term...
Objective*
And Peter Strawson, to take another example, also acknowledged the possibi-
lity to have such a "widest word in philosophical vocabulary":'
Anything whatever can be introduced into discussion by means of a singular,
definitely identifying substantival expression... Since anything whatever can be
identifyingly referred to, being a possible object of identifying reference does not Items are divided into objects and objectives by which I mean things and
distinguish any class or type of items or entities from any other. propositions/states-of-affairs, respectively.' Let me expand a bit. Etymologically,
the word 'object' means "thrown in the way"; a stone, for instance, could be an
' For an overview of these debates see, e.g., MARIA REICHER, "Nonexistent Objects", The object. The stone is something that catches our attention and hence it becomes
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, (http://plato.stanford.
edu/archives/fal12010/entries/nonexistent-objects/). 7 The division and the terminology is inspired by Alexius Meinong. What I call 'item'
5 BERTRAND RUSSELL, The Principles of Mathematics, (http://fair-use.org/bertrand-russell/ Meinong calls 'Gegenstand'. He then divides it into Objekt and Objektiv. See ALEXIUS MEINONG,
the-principles-of-mathematics/) (1" ed. Cambridge: At the University Press, 1903; rd ed. 1938), Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie and Psychologie (Leipzig: J. A. Barth, 1904), 6; translated
§47. in RODERICK M. CHISHOLM, Realism and the Background of Phenomenology (New York: The Free
6 PETER F. STRAWSON, Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (New York: Routledge, Press, 1960), 80. See also JOHN N. FINDLAY, Meinong's theory of objects and values, 2"d ed. (Aldershot:
1959, repr. 2005), 137. Ashgate Publishing (Gregg revivals), 1995), 60-69 (1" ed. 1933).

26 • CATEGORIES AND BEYOND CATEGORIES AND BEYOND • 27

 Daniel D. Novotny
SCHOLASTIC DEBATES ABOUT BEINGS OF REASON
an object of perception and thought. But the expression 'object of thought', as
A. N. Prior points out, is ambiguous:8
The phrase 'object of thought' may be used in two very different ways. An object of
thought may be (1) what we think, or (2) what we think about; e.g. if we think that
grass is green, (1) what we think is that grass is green, and (2) what we think about is
grass. 'Objects of thought' ... are sometimes called 'propositions, not in the sense of
sentences, but in the sense of what sentences mean.... What we think, may be false; and
what we think about may be non-existent. These are quite different defects, though
philosophers have sometimes slipped into treating them as if they were the same.
Some analytical philosophers consider Prior's propositions to be primary
truthmakers, corresponding or failing to correspond to facts or obtaining states-
of-affairs as truthmakers. These distinctions within the "genus" of objectives,
however, need not concern us at this point, because Baroque scholastics paid
virtually no attention to them - at least in the context of beings of reason.° For
them, the world is the totality of things and not of facts (pace Wittgenstein)."
Next comes the division into accidental objects (per accidens, loosely united
objects, aggregates) and integral objects (per se, "innerly integrated", tightly/
naturally united objects). Accidental objects include artefacts, heaps, or any kind
of arbitrary wholes.
The following division, the division of integral objects, is of crucial importance,
because many scholastic authors simply identify integral (per se) objects with
beings (entia). There are, however, texts in which, for instance, Francisco Suarez
acknowledges the categories of non-beings and extrinsic beings. These, for the
lack of a better term, I call "para-beings", a term I have made up but which cap-
tures the idea of a category of objects parasitic on beings in the strict sense."
8 ARTHUR N. PRIOR, Objects of Thought, ed. Peter Geach and Anthony Kenny (Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 1971), 3-4.
9 There were some exceptions, see DANIEL D. NOVOTNY, "The Historical Non-Significance
of Suarez's Theory of Beings of Reason: A Lesson From Hurtado", in Metaphysics of Francisco
Sucirez (1548-1617): Disputationes metaphysicae in their systematic and historical context, ed. Daniel
Heider, Lukag Novak, and David Svoboda (Prague, forthcoming), ch. 9. There is an evidence
that propositions and states-of-affairs (under the heading 'complexe significabile' - 'something
signifiable in a complex way') were discussed in different contexts by Renaissance scholastics, see
GABRIEL Nuc HELMANS, Late-Scholastic and Humanist Theories of the Proposition (Oxford, New York:
North Holland Publishing Company, 1980). I prefer Meinong's term 'objective' to the medieval
term 'complexe significabile' for two reasons. First, Meinong's term highlights the correlation
between objectives and objects, and second, it is neutral with respect to the question whether
objectives are mental constructs or not. The term 'complexe significabile' or 'complexly signifiable'
may seem to imply that it is something mental.
'' Cf. LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (New York: Cosimo, Inc., 1922,
repr. 2009), 29, prop. 1.1.
" The term is mine but it is inspired by Caramuel's 'Ttaqovta', see IOANNES CARAMUEL,
28 • CATEGORIES AND BEYOND
I Daniel D. Novotny
SCHOLASTIC DEBATES ABOUT BEINGS OF REASON
Then we get to the division of beings into possible in the broad sense and
impossible (impossibilia). Broadly possible beings are divided into actual (entia
actu, vera entia) and merely possible (possibilia). Actual beings, i.e. beings in the
narrowest sense of the word, make up the world/reality of the scholastics." They
are ontologically prior to everything else. Beings divide into substances, such as
people, animals, plants, or stones, and their various accidents, and are typically
classified into nine structured groups, called 'categories'. Merely possible beings
were enormously controversial among the scholastics."
Finally, we get to the impossible beings, i.e. beings that cannot exist in actual
reality. These, according to the common default scholastic assumption, are mind-
dependent and hence they are called `entia rationis'. As I have already said, this
expression means literally "beings of reason" although there are at least three
other translations of this term in use: 'mental being' (Gracia), `rationate being'
(Schmidt), and 'intentional being' (Sousedik). I use 'being of reason' not only
because it is the most common (Doyle, Cantetis), but also because its oddity high-
lights the fact that we speak about a kind of item taken from within a specifically
scholastic context."
Leptotatos (Vigevani: Typis Episcopalibus, apud Camillum Conradam, 1681), diss. 2, pars 2,
a. 1, concl. 5, 96a; cf. Daniel D. Novotny, "Ens rationis in Caramuel's Leptotatos (1681)", in Juan
caramuel Lobkowitz, the Last Scholastic Polymath, ed. Petr Dvoi-ak and Jacob Schmutz (Praha:
Filosofia, 2008), 71-84.
'2 This world/reality has material and non-material "regions". Angels, for instance, belong
to the non-material region and human beings are peculiar hybrids of the two worlds (they
have a non-material "part"). God has a sui generis ontological status: Everything, whether
material or non-material, depends on God both for the beginning and for the continuation of
its existence (cf. E. FESER'S contribution to this volume).
"3 There are several studies of the late scholastic views on merely possibles, e.g.: JEFFREY
CoomBs, "The Possibility of Created Entities in Seventeenth-Century Scotism", The Philosophical
Quarterly 43 (1993): 447-459; STANISLAV SOUSEDIK, "Der Streit um den wahren Sinn der Sco-
tischen Possibilienlehre", in John Duns Scotus: Metaphysics and Ethics, ed. Ludger Honnefelder,
Rega Wood, Mechtild Dreyer (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 191-204; TOBIAS HOFFMANN, Creatura intellecta:
Die Ideen und Possibilien bei Duns Scotus mit Ausblick auf Franz von Mayronis, Poncius und Mastrius
(Munster: Aschendorff, 2002).
" JORGE J. E. GRACIA, "Suarez's Conception of Metaphysics: A Step in the Direction of
Mentalism?", American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 65 (1991): 287-309; ROBERT W. SCHMIDT,
"The translation of terms like Ens rationis", The Modern Schoolman 41 (1963): 73-75; STANISLAV
SOUSED1K, "P0MySlna jsoucna (entia rationis) v aristotelske tradici 17. stoletr, Filozofick); easo-
pis 52 (2004): 533-544; JOHN P. DOYLE, "Suarez on Beings of Reason and Truth (First part)";
BERNARDO CANTEFIS , "Suarez on Beings of Reason: What Kind of Being (entia) are Beings of
Reason, and What Kind of Being (esse) Do they Have?", American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly
77 (2003): 171-187.
CATEGORIES AND BEYOND • 29
 Daniel D. Novotny
SCHOLASTIC DEBATES ABOUT BEINGS OF REASON
Now the surprising fact: Suarez and most other Baroque scholastics considered
merely possible beings to be real and hence they were not classified as beings of
reason. This fact is often overlooked. Nicholas Rescher, for instance, writes:"
With regard to non-existents, the medieval mainstream thus sought to effect a com-
promise. On the one hand, their lack of reality, of actual existence, deprived non-
entities of a self-sustaining ontological footing and made them into mind-artifacts,
entia rationis. On the other hand, their footing in the mind of God endowed them with
a certain objectivity and quasi-reality that precluded them from being mere flatus
vocis fictions, mere verbalisms that represent creatures of human fancy'6
Hence, using non-scholastic terminology, beings of reason might be best
described as intentional or mind-dependent impossible objects. This mind-de-
pendency of beings of reason, however, is more precisely characterised by the
scholastics as merely objective mind-dependency. This sort of mind-dependency
is contrasted by them with subjective mind-dependency, which is a real relation
of dependency of the mental accidents, such as sensations, emotions, thoughts,
and volitions, on the mind. There are two sorts of objective mind-dependency.
(1) Suppose there is a person p who apprehends a real being x. In this case x is
not merely objectively in the intellect of p, for x also has its own real being in
itself. (2) Suppose there is a person p who apprehends x and x has no other being
besides the being it has in the intellect of p. In this case x is merely objectively in
the intellect of p. It is only in this last sense of 'mind-dependency' that the word
`ens rationis' is appropriately used.'7
Impossible beings (beings of reason, necessarily mind-dependent beings)
divide into negative beings (entia negativa) and positive beings (entia positiva). The
former are further divided into negations (negationes) and privations (privationes),
and the latter are identified with relations of reason (relationes rationis). Impossible
beings should be understood as objects for which it is impossible to exist in
actual reality and hence they need to be distinguished from what I call "self-
contradictory beings", which are objects, such as square-circles or goat-stags, that
RESCHER, Imagining Irreality, 362.
16 ANTONIO MILLAN-PUELLES (see The Theory of the Pure Object, trans. and ed. by Jorge
Garcia-Gomez, Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag C. Winter, 1996) does not make the same his-
torical mistake, although for systematic reasons he agrees with Rescher's view that mere
possibles are non-real. Even some contemporary Thomists argue that for systematic reasons
the traditional thesis about the reality of the possibles is inconsistent with other tenets of
scholastic ontology, see, e.g., NORRIS W. CLARKE: "What is Really Real?", in Progress in Philosophy.
Philosophical Studies in Honor of Rev. Doctor Charles A. Hart, ed. by J. A. McWilliams (Milwaukee,
1955).
17 Note that in contemporary usage the words objective/subjective are used in exactly the
reversed sense. The term 'objective' means real and mind-independent, whereas 'subjective'
means apparent and mind-dependent. How this reversal of meaning happened is still an
untold story of the history of philosophy.
30 • CATEGORIES AND BEYOND
Daniel D. Novotny
SCHOLASTIC DEBATES ABOUT BEINGS OF REASON
contain explicit contradictions." Although many later Baroque authors reduced
impossible beings to self-contradictory objects, this is not a trivial move. For
Suarez and other scholastics there seem to be objects that cannot exist in actual
reality but still, they are not self-contradictory (for instance, the universal human
being or blindness).
So far for the explanation of the above given schematic classification of scho-
lastic super-categories. Before we go on to the second part of my paper, let me
make three clarificatory notes about this classification.
Note 1: Classifications and natural classes
The classification of super-categories (if I am right) provides an overview of
various strange ontological items one can encounter in scholastic texts. But why
did the scholastics themselves not formulate such a classification? I can only
speculate. First of all, many elements of the classification I give were controversial
among them. Not all scholastics agreed, for instance, that extrinsic beings or
non-beings were in some sense real and hence a special "genus" of items. Hence,
since there was no agreement on these issues, they did not feel the need to provide
an explicit classification of the items they talked about. Secondly, the hesitancy
to formulate such a classification might be due to their assumption that "good"
concepts must delimit natural classes (members of which are at least analogically
related). And since there is no natural class, for instance, of existing and non-
existing beings, the two should not be lumped under one label. Today, however,
we feel free to draw such classifications, provided that we keep in mind that some
of the "fields" of our classification may represent just arbitrarily united classes.
The fact that x and y belong to a class C does not imply that x and y share some
common (intrinsic) feature. Later Baroque scholastics seem to go in this direction
in that they started to acknowledge "extrinsic thinkability", i.e. the possibility of
subsuming x and y under a common concept, without implying that they share
anything intrinsically in common - except for the extrinsic feature of belonging
to the same class. The notion of extrinsic thinkability gave rise to the idea that
there are supertranscendental terms, such as 'thinkable' or 'something', which
are applicable both to real and non-real objects.'9
Milian-Puelles calls these "paradoxical quiddities" or "openly paradoxical beings"
(MILLAN-PUELLES, The Theory of the Pure Object).
19 It is also noteworthy that Baroque scholastic authors in Catholic lands, with some
exceptions, did not use graphs in their philosophical and theological works. One of the reasons
might be that they wished to avoid associations with the infamous ex-Catholic Petrus Ramus
(1515-1572) and his movement (Ramism) that was using them extensively.
I CATEGORIES AND BEYOND • 31
 Daniel D. Novotny
SCHOLASTIC DEBATES ABOUT BEINGS OF REASON
I Daniel D. Novotny
Note 2: Existence and being
One of the presuppositions of any classification of non-existing items is the
distinction between the meanings of 'there is' and 'exists'. Many analytical philo-
sophers, notably those in the Frege-Quine tradition, like to treat the expres-
sion 'there is' with metaphysical seriousness. In their view 'there is' and 'exists'
are synonymous - they both have "ontological import". The scholastics would
disagree."' According to them one needs to make a distinction between 'there
is' (datur, "is given"), which is meant to be as neutral and broad as possible, and
narrower predicates, such as 'exists', which express a first-order non-trivial
feature of individuals."
Note 3: Categories and transcendentals
There is another group of terms one may encounter in scholastic texts, the
so-called transcendentals (one, true, good, etc.) that apply to every being. Beside
these there are also other terms, such as actual/potential, real/nonreal, perhaps
whole/part, one/many, etc. that apply to beings from various categories but
not to everything. Although one could perhaps subsume these trans-categorial
terms (and whatever they express) under item, it is more convenient and closer
to scholastic usage of the words to keep the super-categories and the super-
transcendentals separately, not to include them in the same classification. To
put the difference between the two in a rather simplistic way one could say that
the aim of the categories and super-categories is a general division of what there
is and is not, whereas the aim of the transcendentals and super-transcendentals
is a general characterisation of what there is and is not."
2° Cf. Klima's distinction between soft and hard ontological commitments in pre-Ock-
hamist philosophy. For Aquinas beings of reason are "objects of thought and signification that
are required by a certain kind of semantics but undesirable as objects simpliciter in ontology".
GYULA KLIMA "The Changing Role of Entia rationis in Mediaeval Semantics and Ontology:
A Comparative Study with a Reconstruction", Synthese 96 (1993): 25.
2 ' In the latter part of the twentieth century some analytical philosophers came to defend
the distinction as well. For instance, TERENCE PARSONS (Nonexistent Objects, New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1980) constructed a logic distinguishing the existence predicate (`El') from
the quantifier ('3'). Another way of dealing with the distinction was developed by GRAHAM
PRIEST (Towards Non-Being: The Logic and Metaphysics of Intentionality, Oxford University Press,
2005), who treats 'there is' and 'exists' synonymously but interprets them as ontologically
neutral. Still, to acknowledge that existence is a property of individuals as such does not
imply that it is a non-trivial property. For instance, PETER VAN INWAGEN in Metaphysics, Third
Edition (Philadelphia, PA: Westview, 2009, 277-292) argues that existence is a trivial property
of individuals (amounting to self-identity). For more on existence "as one of the deep topics
in philosophy, if not the deepest", see WILLIAM F. VALLICELLA, A Paradigm Theory of Existence
(Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002).
" The traditional idea of transcendentals is one that does not seem to have emerged so
far as a topic in analytical metaphysics. With some exceptions: cf. UWE MEIXNER, Einfiihrung
32 • CATEGORIES AND BEYOND
SCHOLASTIC DEBATES ABOUT BEINGS OF REASON
3. THE ROLES OF BEINGS OF REASON IN SCHOLASTIC DEBATES
Having classified non-existing items discussed by the scholastics into super-
categories and identified the position of beings of reason within the classification,
let us take a look now at the roles they were supposed to play in scholastic ontology.
Why did the scholastic authors feel the need to talk about them? They used them
to address various philosophical puzzles, most conspicuously the problem of non-
being/intentionality. Hence we start with the latter issue (3.1) and then discuss
several other problems related to beings of reason (3.2).
3.1 The problem of non-being/intentionality
Thought and language direct our attention to various sorts of objects that
either clearly do not exist or whose existence is questionable. This fact is the main
source of the problem (or the family of problems) addressed first by Parmenides
and discussed by philosophers ever since. From one point of view, the problem
concerns non-being including questions such as, What is the status of non-being?
Is it in some sense real and mind-independent? What belongs to its domain: past,
future, potential, merely possible, impossible, fictitious, and so on? From another
point of view, the problem concerns intentionality and intentional being. The
pertinent questions in this case include: What is an intentional object, if any?
Does a category of intentional objects help to explain our thinking of and about
non-being?
Several basic strategies have been used to deal with the problem of non-being.
First, however, we need to note that the problem of non-being divides into the
problem of non-existing objects and the problem of negative facts (also referred
to as negative truths). The question whether there are negative facts is more
fundamental than the question whether there are non-existing objects. Indeed,
negative facts are sometimes taken as evidence that there are non-existing
objects but not vice versa. And it is possible to hold that there are negative facts
and no non-existing objects, but not vice versa."
in die Ontologie (Darmstadt: WBG, 2004), 22-29. For an introduction into transcendentals in
Baroque scholasticism, see, e.g., JORGE J. E. GRACIA and DANIEL D. NOVOTNt "Fundamentals
in Suarez's Metaphysics: Transcendenta Is and Categories", in Interpreting Sucirez: A Collection of
Critical Essays, ed. Daniel Schwartz (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 19-38.
" At this point one might wonder whether there is a distinction between negative objects
and non-existent objects. This question is posed by MEINONG, Ober Annahmen (Leipzig: J. A.
Barth, 1902), 7ff. Examples of putative negative objects that Meinong gives include nothing,
immortal, infinite, A without B, not-A. In the end Meinong rejects negative objects as distinct
from non-existing objects which I agree with because I do not see any difference between
the two: non-redness of an apple is just non-existent redness of it, immortality of the soul is
just the non-existent capacity-to-die of the soul, etc. For Meinong's arguments, see FINDLAY,
Meinong's theory of objects and values, 81-89.
CATEGORIES AND BEYOND • 33
 Daniel D. Novotny
SCHOLASTIC DEBATES ABOUT BEINGS OF REASON
With respect to non-being one may adopt views of various sorts. The most
radical one holds that there are no negative facts, and consequently no non-
existing objects. A less radical view acknowledges negative facts, but rejects
non-existing objects. The least radical position acknowledges both. These views
might be further subdivided according to the account they give of negative facts
and of non-existing objects.
With respect to non-existing objects, drawing on Meinong and Findlay, I would
distinguish three accounts: Intentional, Quasi-Being, and Ausser-Being Views.24
The Intentional View explains non-existing objects in terms of mind-made,
intentional being. Quine ascribes a version of the Intentional View to (the fictional
philosopher) McX and dismisses it as a deception "by the crudest and most
flagrant counterfeit". Quine asks, what can be more dissimilar and unlike than,
for instance, Pegasus, an alleged non-existing object, and the Pegasus-idea, the
intentional object? If it comes to real objects, Quine contends, such as Parthenon
and the Parthenon-idea, we would never be deceived, but when it comes to
Pegasus, somehow, confusion sets in." Meinong also rejects the Intentional View
for "with regard to an innumerable multitude of non-existent objects it may be
the case that no one thinks of them or needs to think of them".26
The Quasi-Being View explains non-existing objects in terms of some peculiar
sort of being that pertains to everything. Every object, whether existing or not,
whether non-existing contingently or necessarily, has it. As early Russell puts it
"being is a general attribute of everything, and to mention anything is to show
that it is".27 Meinong suggests calling this sort of being 'quasi-being' for it has no
contrary and thus it is a very unusual sort of being. Quine ascribes a version of the
Quasi-Being View to Wyman and dismisses it for it offends his "aesthetic ... taste
for desert landscapes", and is to him "a breeding ground of disorderly elements"
in the case of unactualised possibles and even of contradictions in the case of
unactualisable impossibles.28 In the end, Meinong also rejects the Quasi-Being
View, although for some time he was, as he says, tempted by it.29
The Ausser-Being View is Meinong's own child, although in a different context
an analogy to it might be seen in Aquinas's notion of natura absoluta (something
which is neither one nor many, neither individual nor universal). Findlay sum-
marises the Ausser-Being View as follows:
24 See FINDLAY, Meinong's theory of objects and values, 42-58.
25 WILLARD VAN ORMAN QUINE, "On what there is", Review of Metaphysics 2, no. 5 (1948);
reprinted in From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-Philosophical Essays, (Cambridge, MA; London,
England: Harvard University Press, 1980), 2.
26 FINDLAY, Meinong's theory of objects and values, 45.
27 RUSSELL, The Principles of Mathematics, 449.
" QUINE, "On what there is", 2-5.
29 FINDLAY, Meinong's theory of objects and values, 48.
34 • CATEGORIES AND BEYOND
Daniel D. Novotny,
SCHOLASTIC DEBATES ABOUT BEINGS OF REASON
[T]he pure object stands beyond being and non-being; both alike are external to
it. Whether an object is or not, makes no difference to what the object is. The pure
object is said to be aulgerseiend or to have Aufgersein: it lies 'outside'. What the object
is ... consists in a number of determinations of so-being.... [S]uch determinations are
genuinely possessed by an object whether it exists or not ... [T]his does not mean that
any objects are exempt from being or non-being; the law of excluded middle lays it
down that every object necessarily stands in a fact of being or a fact of non-being....
[but] being and non-being have nothing to do with the object as object."
This view and its distinctive thesis was dubbed by Ernst Mally 'The Principle
of the Independence of So-being from Being'. It has been the main source of the
attraction to Meinong in contemporary philosophy."
The scholastics usually accepted the Intentional View: non-existent objects
are immanent to (=staying within) our mental/intentional activity and they
"exist" only as long as somebody actually thinks about them." For the most part,
however, this was the view that was simply assumed and not argued for because
no alternative was seriously entertained by them."
3.2 Other problems
Although beings of reason have to do primarily with non-being and intentional
being, the scholastics used the theory of beings of reason for various other
purposes, two of which stand out. First, to account for higher-order predicates
("second intentions").34 Second, to account for self-contradictory objects, such as
square-circles or chimeras." (The standard view was that the latter are reducible
to negative beings of reason.)
" FINDLAY, Meinong's theory of objects and values, 49.
" RICHARD RouTLEY (Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond, Canberra: Australian National
University, 1980), for instance, takes up Meinong's ideas to develop so-called noneism that
posits (1) there are non-existent objects, (2) these objects have no existence, being, or what-
have-you. The main principle of noneism, which amounts to Mally's Independence Principle,
is the so-called Characterisation Principle: An object has (only those?) properties that it is
characterised as having.
" We can think of it this way: Let us take, for instance, the proposition "The apple is not
red". This proposition is true in virtue of the real/mind-independent fact that the apple is
not red. This fact involves a non-existent object, namely the apple's non-redness, which is,
however, not real but purely intentional: the apple's non-existent redness "exists" only as long
as somebody actually thinks about it.
" There were exceptions: some scholastics seem to come close to a version of Quasi-Being
View according to which beings of reason have a peculiar type of (essential) being, which is
in some sense mind-independent.
" For an excellent study of second intentions in late scholasticism, see LARRY HICKMAN,
Modern Theories of Higher Level Predicates: Second Intentions in the Neuzeit (Munchen: Phi losophia
Verlag, 1980).
" Jennifer Ashworth distinguishes between literary and logical definition of 'chimera' in
the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century scholastics: "References fin the literary definition]
CATEGORIES AND BEYOND • 35
 Daniel D. Novotny
SCHOLASTIC DEBATES ABOUT BEINGS OF REASON
Several kinds of questions were addressed with respect to beings of reason in
standard philosophical works in seventeenth-century scholasticism. The issues
can be divided into three areas:
Nature: What is a being of reason? Do beings of reason exist? Are they to be
identified with extrinsic denominations? Why do we construct beings of
reason? In what sense do beings of reason exist? Is there a sense of 'being'
which is common to real beings and beings of reason? Is there a science that
studies beings of reason?
Causes: What mental powers are involved in conceiving beings of reason? Intellect,
will, sense, imagination?
Division: What is the division of beings of reason? (negation, privation, relation, ...)
What is a negation? What is a privation? What is a relation of reason?
various "additional" issues, which perhaps could be subsumed under the
heading 'nature', were also treated. For instance: motivation (Why do we need
beings of reason?) and methodology (Does the study of beings of reason belong
to the domain of logic or metaphysics?). Scholastic authors of the seventeenth
century did not care much for semantic problems (the meaning of being-of-reason
terms, the truth-value of sentences with such terms, etc.).
For a comparison, contemporary philosophers seem to discuss the following
issues related to beings of reason:
(1) Non-being (in thought): non-existent objects, negative facts
(2) Non-being (in perception): vacuum, holes
(3) Intentionality: mental objects, objects of thoughts, semantic content
(4) Modality I: possible (i.e. contingently non-existing) objects
(5) Modality II: impossible (i.e. necessarily non-existing) objects
(6) Temporality: past or future (i.e. now non-existing) objects
(7) Fictitiousness: texts, objects of literary fictions
(8) Fallibility: objects of errors, mis-representations, illusions
were made to such diverse sources as Ovid, Virgil, Lucian, and the Koran, and the consensus of opinion
was that a chimera is a monster formed out of parts of other animals having, on one account, the head
of a lion, the torso of a girl, and the tail of a dragon. This was said to be impossible. ... [For] chimera was
thought of not as a mere hybrid, but as something which had the essences of all the creatures which
entered into it, and it was for that reason that it was thought to be an impossible object. ... One of the
important features of this definition of "chimera" is ... [that it] is not thought of as a mere aggregate,
a random assemblage of different parts. If the term "chimera" is to refer, it must refer to some one thing.
... The logician's definition of "chimera", which stems from Buridan, was considerably less picturesque ...
for it said merely that a chimera is a being composed of parts which cannot be put together, or which it is
impossible to put together" -JENNIFER E. ASHWORTH, "Chimeras and Imaginary Objects: A Study
in the Post-Medieval Theory of Signification", Vivarium 15 (1977): 63.
36 • CATEGORIES AND BEYOND
Daniel D. Novotny
SCHOLASTIC DEBATES ABOUT BEINGS OF REASON
(9) Ontologically Suspicious Items I: abstract entities (universals, sets, num-
bers, etc.)
(10) Ontologically Suspicious Items II: extrinsic properties, logical, semantic, social
relations, etc.
(11) Methodology: fictionalism, ontological commitments, paraphrases
The scholastics have much to say about all of these matters, with the exception
of (7), which is astonishing, given the extent and detail of Baroque scholastic
works." In the treatises on beings of reason the scholastics were concerned
ma inly with (1), (3), (5), (10), and (11), although some authors discussed (8). The
remaining issues, i.e. (2), (4), (6), and (9) were extensively treated elsewhere, but
not under the heading 'beings of reason'.37
4. CONCLUSION
Thus I have finished a brief description of the ontological framework pre-
supposed by the scholastic debates about beings of reason. First I provided a list of
super-categories of various non-existing items one might encounter in scholastics
works of the Baroque era. Then I identified the roles that the most important of
these items, namely beings of reason, were supposed to play in scholastic onto-
logy. In this paper I have not tried to say whether the scholastic approach to
perennial issues of non-being, intentionality and other related issues makes sense
for us today or not. My aim was more modest: to take the first step toward making
scholastic discussions and concerns somewhat more intelligible to contemporary
analytical metaphysicians. Whether contemporary analytical metaphysics can be
inspired or challenged by these scholastic debates or whether these debates have
merely historical value remains at this point an open question."
36 An explanation for this strange neglect might be the assumption that literary fiction
describes possible entities and possible worlds and hence there are no special questions about
literary fiction that would not be dealt with in the discussion of possibility.
3' Some of these topics in scholasticism have already been treated in secondary literature;
for possibility, see note 13; for vacuum, see EDWARD GRANT, Much Ado About Nothing: Theories
of space and vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1981); for temporality, see JACOB ScHmwTZ, "Juan Caramuel on the Year
2000: Time and Possible Worlds in Early-Modern Scholasticism", in The Medieval Concept of Time.
Studies on the Scholastic Debate and Its Reception in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Pasquale Porro
(Leiden, New York, Köln: Brill 2001), 399-434.
38 The work on this paper received support from the Czech Science Foundation (grant
no.13401/n/P°20).
CATEGORIES AND BEYOND • 37
 Daniel D. Novotny
SCHOLASTIC DEBATES ABOUT BEINGS OF REASON
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SCHMIDT, ROBERT W. "The translation of terms like Ens rationis". The Modern Schoolman 41
(1963): 73-75.
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SCHMUTZ, JACOB. "Juan Caramuel on the Year 2000: Time and Possible Worlds in Early-
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STRUCTURE
2009).

40 • CATEGORIES AND BEYOND

WHAT IS CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY?
Michael J. Loux

ABSTRACT
This article focuses on one style of ontological explanation - what the author calls the
constituent strategy. Very roughly, a proponent of the constituent approach attempts to
explain the character of a familiar particular by way of underived sources of character that
function as something like parts, components or constituents of the particular. Then, the
author examines some contemporary versions of the constituent approach and considers
objections frequently raised against them. The claim is that these accounts are unable to
accommodate certain facts: (1) that familiar particulars persist through change; (2) that
familiar particulars have some of their properties essentially and others merely contingently;
(3) that familiar particulars are concrete individuals; and (4) that numerically diverse parti-
culars can have all and only the same properties.

A Icentral focus of metaphysical concern is what Russell calls the character

PART
of familiar particulars,' that is, the fact that individual material objects, plants,
animals, and human beings possess properties, fall under kinds, and enter into
relations. This talk of possessing properties, falling under kinds, and entering
into relations is supposed to be prephilosophical discourse; it is supposed to be
the sort of talk we engage in outside the philosophy seminar room. But there is
a metaphysical project to which this sort of talk is supposed to give rise - that of
providing a theoretical account of the individual facts making up what Russell
calls the character of ordinary objects.
The project is, of course, a very old one. By the time of Plato and Aristotle,
the general structure of the project is pretty well worked out. Its underlying
assumption is that familiar particulars have this or that form of character deri-
vatively. As Aristotle puts it, an ordinary object has a given form of character
kae allo (in virtue of something else).2 So ordinary objects derive their character
from other things, and the objects from which they derive their character are or
include things that have their own distinctive forms of character nonderivatively

1 B. RUSSELL, Problems of philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1912), 92.

2 ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics VII, 6, 1031 b 13.

METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE • 43
 Michael J. Loux
WHAT IS CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY?
or, as Aristotle again puts it, kath' hauto (in their own right).' The metaphysical
project is just that of telling the proper story about how this character derivation
works itself out.
Aristotle tells us that there two different and opposed stories we can tell ,
here." According to the first, the underived sources of character are things that
exist, as he puts it, "apart from" or "in separation from" the sensible particulars
whose character they underwrite; and a sensible particular has a given form of
character by entering into some sort of tie or connexion to the appropriate bearer
of underived character. On the second story, the privileged bearers of character
are immanent in familiar sensible particulars, immanent in the sense of being
something like parts, components, or ingredients of familiar particulars, and a
familiar particular has the various forms of character it does because it has the
appropriate underived bearers of character as parts, components, or ingredients.
So there are supposed to be two different strategies for explaining the facts
making up the phenomenon of character. Those strategies differ in their accounts
of familiar particulars. Defenders of Aristotle's second strategy attribute to
ordinary objects something like a mereological structure, a mereological struc-
ture over and above their commonsense mereological structure. As they see it,
ordinary objects are composites or wholes made up of parts or components other
than their familiar parts or components, and the claim is that it is in virtue of
what we can call its metaphysical parts that a familiar object has the character
it does. Defenders of Aristotle's first strategy, by contrast, deny that familiar
particulars have this sort of metaphysical structure. They restrict the parts of
ordinary object to their commonsense parts. Nonetheless, they insist that ordi-
nary objects stand in a variety of significant nonmereological connexions or ties
to things that have character kath hauto or nonderivatively; and they tell us that
in virtue of doing so those objects have whatever character they do.
In discussing the metaphysical project of character explanation, Nicholas
Wolterstorff identifies the two strategies we meet in Aristotle. He dubs them the
`relational' and `constituent' approaches.' I will stick with Wolterstorff's labels,
but a couple of cautionary notes are in order. First, proponents of Aristotle's first
strategy are, by and large, uncomfortable talking of relations here. As they see
it, talk of the relations into which an object enters is talk about its character;
but, then, they worry that the appeal to relations in the account of character will
be regressive. Accordingly, they speak of the nonrelational ties, connexions, or
nexus between ordinary objects and the transcendent sources of character. The
suggestion that there is a metaphysically significant contrast between relational
3 Ibid.
See Met. III, 1,996 a 15; ibid. 3,998 a 21-23; ibid. XII, 6,1080 a 37-13'.
See N. WOLTERSTORFF, "Bergmann's Constituent Ontology", Nous 4 (1970): 109-134; and STRONG, A World of States of Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); L. PAUL,
"Divine Simplicity", Philosophical Perspectives 5 (1991): 531-552.
44 • METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE
Michael J. Loux
WHAT IS CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY?
and nonrelational hookups is likely to arouse suspicions. At least, it arouses
Wolterstorff's suspicions; and while himself a defender of the nonimmanentist
strategy, he insists that any regress to which the strategy might give rise is
no nvicious.6Second, it is not as though what Wolterstorff calls the constituent
strategy does without relations in its account of familiar particulars. On that
strategy, the various items that count as constituents of a familiar particular
are related (or, if one prefers, tied) to one another in ways that help explain the
structure and nature of the whole they make up; and obviously defenders of
that strategy must concede that a whole or composite stands in something like
mereological relations to the underived sources of character that count as its
constituents. Neither sort of relation or tie is the kind of relation or tie at work
in what Wolterstorff calls his relational strategy, but they are relations or ties
nonetheless.
It is easy to give examples of the two strategies to which Aristotle and Wolters-
torff call our attention. Although the later Russell (the Russell of Inquiry into Mea-
ning and Truth and Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits) endorses an immanentist
or constituent approach, the Russell of The Problems of Philosophy seems inclined to
a relational account of character. He tells us that where familiar particulars agree
in character, "they all participate in a common nature or essence", and he insists
that the nature in question "cannot itself exist in the world of sense". Indeed,
it exists "nowhere and nowhen".' Russell, of course, is not alone. Among recent
ontologists, P. F. Strawson, Roderick Chisholm, and Alvin Plantinga all seem to
favour a relational account;$ and, as I have already mentioned, Wolterstorff himself
does as well. On the other hand, it is difficult to understand the metaphysical
discussions of Locke, Berkeley, or Hume without construing them as exercises in
constituent ontology; and more recent proponents of the constituent approach
include, besides the later Russell, Gustav Bergmann, David Armstrong, Hector
Castarieda, and, most recently, Laurie Pau1.9 But, of course, these examples of
relational and constituents ontologists aren't the ones that initially come to mind.
6 N. WOLTERSTORFF, On Universals (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 101-104.
7 RUSSELL, Problems of Philosophy, 92.
s See P. F. STRAwsoN, Individuals (London: Methuen, 1959), chapters 5 and 6; R. CHISHOLM,
"Properties and States of Affairs Intentionally Considered", in Person and Object (La Salle, IL:
Open Court, 1976); and A. PLANTINGA, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1974).
9 See B. RUSSELL, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (London: Allen and Unwin, 1940);
B. RUSSELL, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (London: Allen and Unwin, 1948); G. BERGMANN,
Realism. A critique of Brentano and Meinong (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967);
H. CAsTA&EDA, "Thinking and the Structure of the World", Philosophia 4 (1974): 3-40; D. ARM-
"Logical Parts", Nous 36 (2002): 578-596; and L. PAUL, "Logical Parts", Nous 36 (2002): 578-596.
METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE • 45
 Michael J. Loux
WHAT IS CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY?
The paradigms of the two approaches are found in the work of their two great
sources - Plato and Aristotle.
While appropriate, the mention, in this context, of Aristotle and Plato can
lead us to misunderstand the opposition between our two strategies. We tend to
associate the labels 'Platonism' and 'Aristotelianism' with two opposed views in
the debate over universals, the contrast being that between metaphysical theories
that reject and those that endorse what is called the Principle of Instantiation,
the claim that necessarily every universal is instantiated. But our opposition is
not restricted to views about universals. One can deny the existence of universals
altogether and still count as a relational or constituent ontologist. Certainly,
contemporary trope theorists want to construe themselves as constituent theo-
rists, but they typically deny that there are such things as universals; at least,
they typically deny that among the ontologically fundamental items there are
such things as universals. If we understand tropes in the standard way, then we
will agree that trope theorists endorse the reality of properties or attributes; but
note: one can endorse either of our two ontological strategies while denying that
there are properties or attributes, even when understood trope-theoretically as
particulars. Aristotle gives examples here. He characterises Plato's successor,
Speusippus, as a relationist who construes numbers as separated substances
responsible for the character of familiar sensibles,i° and Aristotle takes the
theories of his materialist predecessors, both those who endorse a gunk ontology
and those who believe in physical simples, as exercises in constituent ontology."
Presumably, we are to understand these early materialists as construing the
relevant material constituents as prior to any properties they might induce.
But even when we restrict ourselves to philosophers who accept the existence
of universals, it is not as though the Principle of Instantiation is what divides
relational and constituent theorists. It is true that constituent ontologists re-
gularly deny the possibility of uninstantiated universals. Think of Aristotle,
Bergmann, and Armstrong." It is likewise true that relational ontologists typically
insist on the existence of uninstantiated or possibly uninstantiated universals.
But neither pairing is mandatory. If one thinks that constituent ontologists must
accept the Principle of Instantiation, then one is likely confusing the existence
and instantiation of a universal. Constituent ontologists are committed to holding
that for a first order universal to be instantiated is for it to be a constituent in
some familiar particular; but that commitment does not preclude uninstantiated
I° See Met. XIII, 6, loso b 15-16, for what is almost certainly a reference to Speusippus.
" See, for example, Met. III, 3, 998 a 30-31, where Empedocles functions as a stand-in for
all the materialists.
12 See ARISTOTLE, Categoriae, 11, 14 b 7-14; G. Bergmann, Realism. A critique of Brentano and
Meinong (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967), 43 and 88; D. Armstrong, Universals
(Boulder, CO: Westview, 1989) 75-82.
46 • METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE
Michael j. Loux
WHAT IS CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY?
u niversals. Nor is it the case that accepting the existence of uninstantiated
u niversals makes one a relationist. It is rather supposing that for a thing to
instantiate a universal is for it to enter into some sui generis nonmerelogical tie
or connexion (participation, say, or exemplification) to an underived source of
character. One can concede the existence of uninstantiated universals without
entertaining that supposition. But not only can a constituent ontologist reject
the Principle of Instantiation; it is also possible for a relational metaphysician to
endorse the Principle of Instantiation and deny the possibility of uninstantiated
universals. Consider a metaphysician who couples a relational account where
universals are transcendent sources of character with a general doctrine of self-
predication for universals. We are often told that the middle Plato, at least, was a
philosopher who held precisely that combination of views.
In any case, it is a mistake to identify our opposition with an opposition over
the nature of universals. Another mistake here is to suppose that the two strate-
gies Aristotle and Wolterstorff point to are mutually exclusive and collectively
exhaustive. In fact, they are neither. There are treatments of character that are
neither relational nor constituent. I am thinking of the views of what I have
elsewhere called austere nominalists. They reject the assumption underlying our
target project, insisting that we take the facts expressed by our prephilosophical
character ascriptions to be metaphysically primitive. The Quine of "On What
There Is" is one obvious example." Furthermore, a genuinely substantive account
of those same facts can instantiate both of our strategies. Consider a theory
that construes tropes as constituents of familiar objects responsible for their
character, but takes those tropes themselves to be instantiations of what we
might call trope types, where those types are, as Aristotle puts it, "separate from"
familiar sensible particulars. But notice: such a theory manages to exemplify both
strategies only because it is a two step theory. At each stage of explanation, the
ontologist must choose between the two explanatory strategies.
PART II
So there is a genuine opposition here. The philosopher seeking a substantive
explanation of the character of familiar particulars seems forced to choose be-
tween some version of the immanentist or constituent strategy and some version
of the relational strategy. When he points to the two strategies, Wolterstorff tells
us that the latter is currently the dominant approach. He is, I think, correct in
this. Over the whole history of metaphysics, the constituent approach is arguably
the more popular; but in recent years, the relational approach has occupied
centre stage. Its influence is felt in virtually every compartment of contemporary
philosophy, where talk of exemplifying properties contingently or necessarily,
" See W. V. 0. Quine, "On What There Is", in From a Logical Point of View (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1954), 10ff.
METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE • 47
 Michael 3. Loux
WHAT IS CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY?
possibly or actually provides the accepted framework for the formulation of just
about any philosophical issue.
As we have seen, there are constituent theorists actively at work on the
current metaphysical scene, but not only are they in the minority; their efforts
are typically viewed with puzzlement or suspicion, if not downright distain. One
seldom meets with an explicit statement of the grounds of the prejudice here,
But if probed, contemporary metaphysicians will suggest that the constituent
approach is, at bottom, incoherent. Its central claim, they will say, embodies
something like a category mistake. The claim is that the items that have character
nonderivatively are components or parts of familiar particulars. Those items,
however, are abstract entities. Familiar particulars, by contract, are concrete
objects; and, we are told, no concrete object can be composed of or made out of
abstract entities.
More than anything else, I think, this line of thinking explains why contem-
porary metaphysicians have been so ready to endorse the relational approach.
To endorse the opposing immanentist or constituent approach, the thinking
goes, is to make the category mistake just set out: it is to endorse the incoherent
idea that abstract entities can be parts, ingredients, or components of concrete
particulars. But as influential as this line of argument may be, it is not altogether
convincing. It is just not clear that the distinction between abstract and concrete
will bear the weight the line of argument assigns it. For the objection at work
here to succeed, we need some principled way of drawing the distinction so that
the things philosophers want to call abstract turn out abstract and those they
want to call concrete turn out concrete. We need, that is, criteria that give the
right results; but, further, those criteria must be such that by reflecting on them
we can see why a concrete entity cannot have abstract entities as components
or constituents.
But what are the criteria here? We might suppose that an entity is concrete iff
it has a spatial location and that it is abstract iff it is not concrete." One difficulty
is that this way of drawing the distinction either gives the wrong results or
presupposes controversial philosophical claims that are independent of the issues
at hand. Traditional dualists tell us that minds are nonspatial beings; but, then,
our criteria force us to hold either that individual minds are abstract entities or
that materialism is true. One might try to repair things by saying that an object
is concrete iff it either has a spatial location or is made up of temporal parts and
abstract iff not concrete.15 Minds have temporal parts, don't they? But do they all?
Orthodox theists will certainly deny this; but, then, the revised criterion either
14 See P. SIMONS, "Particulars in Particular Clothing", Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research 54 (1994): 553-575 for this sort of criterion.
's See E. J. LOWE, "The Metaphysics of Abstract Objects", Journal of Philosophy 92 (1995):
509-524; and chapter 10 of E. J. LOWE, The Possibility of Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1998) for an account along these lines.
48 • METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE
Michael 3. Loux
WHAT IS CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY?
gives the wrong result by holding that at least one person is an abstract entity, or
it forces us to hold an independently controversial claim - atheism. And atheism
isn't the only controversial claim associated with the revised criterion. The
account works for finite mental substances only if they really do have temporal
P'arts. but presentists, philosophers who insist that only what exists now or in
the present is real, will deny that there are such things as temporal parts. So the
account works only if some form of four dimensionalism is true.
But there is a further difficulty, one that arises for both ways of drawing the
distinction. Properties, we may assume, are abstract entities. Unfortunately,
many constituent ontologists will insist that the properties constitutive of a
familiar particular have a spatial location: they are where the particular is."
And these same constituent ontologists will typically go on and say that a single
property can wholly and completely occupy more than one spatial location at a
time - indeed, as many locations as the familiar particulars it goes to constitute.
Of course, the relationists who want to accuse constituent theorists of a category
mistake will deny that properties have spatial location; but if the issue of spatial
location is one that, in general, divides constituent and relational ontologists, the
assumption that properties have no spatial location can hardly play a role in an
argument designed to adjudicate between the two approaches.
In any case, the contrast between abstract and concrete is problematic. Some
philosophers respond to the problems by resorting to lists or inventories. As
Peter van Inwagen suggests, the motivating theme is much like that Strawson
and Grice expressed with regard to the analytic/synthetic distinction." Even if
we cannot identify criteria for drawing it, the distinction gets vindicated by the
fact that we tend to agree about which items fall under the respective headings.
Properties, propositions, and relations are all abstract; whereas, persons, plants,
animals, and atoms are all concrete. I have sympathy with this move. Nonetheless,
I cannot resist pointing out that there is less agreement about the classification
than sanguine philosophers might have us believe. Trope theorists, for example,
disagree about whether tropes are abstract or concrete; but most trope theorists
want to deny that, in the final analysis, there is anything besides tropes." Likewise,
metaphysicians disagree about the status of events: some think they are concrete;
others, abstract.'9 Still, there are ontologists who insist that events exhaust the
16 See, for example, A. DONAGON, "Universals and Metaphysical Realism", Monist 47 (1963):
211-247.
'7 See P. VAN INWAGEN, "A Theory of Properties", Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 1 (2005):
107-138.
18 D. C. WILLIAMS, "Elements of Being". Part One. Review of Metaphysics 7 (1953): 3-18; and P.
SIMONS, "Particulars in Particular Clothing", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (1994):
553-575 take opposing sides on the status of tropes.
19 See, for example, D. DAVIDSON, "Events as Particulars". Nous 4 (1970): 25-31; and R. M.
CHISHOLM, Person and Object (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1976) for this opposition.
METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE • 49
 Michael J. Loux
WHAT IS CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY?
inventory of what there is. Again, we are all familiar with the claim that states of
affairs or facts are the ultimate realities; nonetheless, there is disagreement about
whether such things are abstract or concrete.2° Let us assume, however, that such
disagreements can be resolved and that there is a genuine distinction here, one
given by the traditional inventories. A difficulty remains. Once we acquiesce in
the Strawson/Grice strategy, we are left without any account of just what makes
a thing abstract or concrete; and in the absence of that sort of account, we lack
the resources for showing why it should be problematic to think that concrete
entities are composed of or constituted by abstract entities.
At this point, the objector will likely retrench and make one kind of concrete
entity - material particulars - the focus of the objection. The parts of a material
particular, the revised objection will go, are one and all material; but only at the
risk of a category mistake can we suppose that things like properties are material
objects. Constituent ontologists, however, want to claim that the properties of a
material particular count as its components or constituents, so we once again get
the conclusion that constituent ontologists are guilty of some sort of category
mistake.
As we have noted, it is not quite accurate to say that all constituent onto-
logists want to make the properties of a material particular its constituents;"
nonetheless, many do. But none of those who do will find the revised objection
any better than the original. The difficulty, they will claim, is that the revised
objection mistakenly identifies the constituents of a material particular with its
commonsense parts. Constituent ontologists, however, are anxious to distinguish
the two; and while conceding that the latter must be material, they will deny that
this is true of the former. As early as Aristotle, we meet with this distinction. He
distinguishes between "the parts that measure a thing according to quantity"
and "the parts of which its substance is composed" (1034 b 33-35). The former are
the commonsense parts of a thing; the latter, its constituents or what we might
call its metaphysical parts. Now, parts of both sorts are less than, fall short of the
wholes they compose; but Aristotle is telling us that the two sorts of parts fall
short in different ways. Each of the commonsense parts of a thing is spatially less
than the thing: the primary place each occupies is a proper part of the primary
place occupied by the whole. Accordingly, the part can be used to provide a spatial
measure of the whole, so that we can speak of the whole as being so many feet long,
so many cubits wide, or so many hands high. Aristotle's talk about the substance
of a thing, by contrast, is talk about its being what it is, its being the kind of thing
2° CHISHOLM, Person and Object, and ARMSTRONG, A World of States of Affairs, hold opposed
views on the status of states of affairs.
21 Another exception is Aristotle who denies that the accidents predicated of a substance
are among its constituents. They are constituents of the associated coincidentals, but they are
not predicated of them. See M. J. Loux, Metaphysics, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge, 2006).
50 • METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE
Michael J. Loux
WHAT IS CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY?
it is. Hence, the idea at work in talk about the substantial or metaphysical parts of
a thing is that each such part involves or induces a form of being that is less than
or a component of the overall form of being displayed by the whole thing. While
Aristotle would concede that the commonsense parts of a thing are one and all
material, he would insist that its substantial or metaphysical parts can include
an item that is not properly material at all.
Unlike Aristotle (who is a presentist), David Lewis uses a temporal parts
framework as the backdrop for his characterisation of what I am calling the con-
stituent approach and speaks of nonspatiotemporal parts; and while he thinks
that the spatiotemporal parts of a material object are every bit as material as
the object itself, he takes it to be a defining feature of the constituent approach
that nonmaterial things like properties can count as the nonspatiotemporal
or metaphysical parts of a material object." Lewis, of course, does not himself
favour a constituent approach to character. Indeed, he denies that we need to
give a substantive account (whether of the relational or constituent variety) of
the phenomenon; but he recognises that constituent ontology does not, from the
very start of the project, harbor a category mistake.
And the idea that there is a contrast between the commonsense material
parts of a thing and its metaphysical parts or constituents is shared by every
practitioner of the constituent strategy;" nor is it any accident that this is so.
Recall that the proponent of this strategy makes the constituents of a thing
responsible for its overall character; but its commonsense mereological structure
is just one aspect of that character. And not just the arrangement of a thing's
commonsense parts is due to a thing's constituents. Constituent ontologists will
say that the intrinsic nature of the parts themselves is due to the constituents of
the whole, or they will say that those parts have constituents of their own that
account for their nature. In either case, we have the result that, in the story the
constituent ontologist tells, constituents or metaphysical parts turn out to be
prior to commonsense material parts.
We may concede that the distinction serves to answer the revised objection,
but if we are to take the constituent approach seriously, we will want to know
more about constitution. As a start, we can identify its formal properties. If we
restrict ourselves to what might be called the proper constituents of a thing, we
can agree that the relation of constituent to whole is irreflexive, asymmetrical,
and transitive. Functionally, it is a relation of composition, so it might be tempting
to identify it with other more familiar composition relations, but the temptation
should be resisted. It is not the relation tying the members of a set to the set:
22 See D. LEWIS, "New Work for a Theory of Universals", Australasian Journal of Philosophy
61 (1983): 343-377.
23 See, for example, L. A. PAUL, "Logical Parts", Nous 36 (2002): 578-596, where we find talk
of "qualitative" or "logical parts".
METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE • 51
 y--
Michael J. Loux
WHAT IS CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY?
familiar particulars aren't sets. Nor is it the relation tying properties to the
conjunctive property whose conjuncts they are. Many constituent ontologists
refuse to restrict the constituents of familiar particulars to their properties;
and even those that do accept the restriction will typically deny that familiar
particulars are themselves properties, whether molecular or atomic. More plau-
sible is the suggestion that the constituent/whole relation is a case of the relation
of composition at work in what is properly called mereology, the logic of parts
and wholes; but even this suggestion has its problems. The relation in question
(called summing or fusion) is just too generous; and in this respect it agrees
with both set-theoretical composition and the composition involved in property
conjunction. In all three cases, if it is possible for a given plurality of objects to
compose the relevant whole, then the plurality does compose it. Not so in the case
of the objects constituting a familiar particular. It is possible for those objects to
exist without constituting the particular: they play their constitutional role only
contingently, and constituent ontologists routinely take this fact to underlie the
contingency of the constituted particular.
Now, some constituent ontologists will claim that we can supplement the
concept of fusion with restrictions which ensure that the only composites are
those we meet in the case of actually existing ordinary objects.24 But whether
they endorse a thoroughly mereological interpretation of the constituent/whole
relation, constituent ontologists will agree that if a plurality of objects, a ... n,
constitutes a particular, x, then it does so only contingently. Nonetheless, they will
also agree that the resulting whole, x, has necessarily the property of having all
and only a ... n as constituents. Call this claim Constituent Essentialism. It needs
to be distinguished from what is called Mereological Essentialism, the claim that
a thing has each of its commonsense parts necessarily. It is plausible to think
that constituent ontologists are free to disagree about the latter claim; but what
I have called Constituent Essentialism is something like a framework principle
for constituent ontologists. They hold that familiar particulars are nothing but
composites of their constituents; but, then, it is difficult to understand how
a constituent ontologist could hold that it is possible for a particular to have
constituents other than those it does. Given a different group of constituents,
we would have the existence of a different composite and, therefore, a different
familiar particular.
So it is a structural fact about constituent ontologies, first, that the items
constituting a given particular do so only contingently and, second, that the
particular has the constituents it does necessarily. Constituents ontologists will
typically add that it has those constituents uniquely; or, at least, they will add
that it has uniquely the property of having just those constituents in just the
order in which they are found there; and they will claim that this, like the claim
24 See again PAUL, "Logical parts".
52 • METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE
Michael J. Loux
WHAT IS CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY?
I have dubbed Constituent Essentialism, is a framework principle for this style
of metaphysical explanation. On this view, all there is to a familiar particular
is its constituents; but, then, it should be impossible for numerically diverse
objects to be made up of identical constituents identically arranged. I will call
this claim the Principle of Constituent Identity and will formulate it as the claim
that necessarily, for any objects, x and y, if x and y have all and only the same
constituents in precisely the same order, x and y are identical.
PART III
Towards characterising the concept of constitution at work in immanentist
theories, I have said that the relation of constituent to whole is a compositional
relation that is irreflexive, asymmetrical, and transitive. Furthermore, I have said
that while the constituents of a thing only contingently constitute it, the thing
has its constituents in the appropriate order both necessarily and uniquely. This
characterisation is very general. The concept of constitution I have delineated
is one ontologists of quite different stripes will be comfortable making the
centrepiece of their disparate theoretical frameworks. But that is how it should be.
Theories as different as Berkeley's phenomenalism and Aristotle's hylomorphism
count as constituent ontologies. In our own day, the constituent strategy has
taken three main forms. There are (1) theories that construe a familiar parti-
cular as a bundle of compresent, but repeatable properties, the properties we
prephilosophically associate with the particular;" (2) theories that posit, in addi-
tion to the repeatable properties making up a thing, a categorically different kind
of constituent, a constituent that serves as subject, possessor, or bearer of those
properties;" and (3) theories that restrict the constituents of a familiar object to
nonrepeatable properties or what have become known as tropes!'
Now, I have argued that attempts by relationists to show the enterprise of
constituent ontology incoherent fail. But even those who would deny that the
enterprise is fatally flawed from the start find problems in the various theories
that make up the recent history of constituent ontology. To set the stage for
the discussions that will follow, let me close by reminding you of some of these
problems.
Persistence through change has been thought to present problems for con-
stituent theorists. Where a thing changes, the argument goes, there is a variation
in the properties associated with the thing. Constituent theorists, however,
construe the properties associated with a thing as its constituents; but, then
25 See CASTAREDA, "Thinking and the Structure of the World"; L. A. PAUL, "The Context of
Essence", Australasian Journal of Philosophy 82 (2004): 170-184; and PAUL, "Logical Parts".
26 See BERGMANN, Realism, and ARMSTRONG, A World of States of Affairs.
27 See WILLLIAMS, "Elements of Being", SIMONS, "Particulars in Particular Clothing", and
K. CAMPBELL, Abstract Particulars (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990).
METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE • 53
 Michael.). Loux
WHAT IS CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY?
they are committed to denying that the composite emerging from a change is
numerically identical with the composite that entered the change. Persistence,
however, requires identity, so we get the conclusion that constituent ontologists
cannot accommodate our prephilosophical belief that ordinary objects persist
through change.
What underlies the problem here is, of course, constituent ontologists' corn.
mitment to what I have called Constituent Essentialism. It is because they take
a composite to have its constituents necessarily that they must deny identity
through change. But not only does that doctrine preclude identity through
change; it seems as well to make it impossible for constituent ontologists to do
justice to the distinction between the properties essential to a familiar particular
and those that are merely contingent. All the properties of a thing appear to turn
out essential on the constituent approach.
Two comments here. First, although closely related, the two problems are
different. The first bears on variation and persistence through time; the second,
on variation and persistence through what we might call the modal dimension.
The second problem concerns the various ways a particular could have been other-
wise; for the formulation of that problem it is not required that the particular
realise the relevant possibilities by actually undergoing a change. In any case,
the actual practice of constituent ontologists implies that the two problems are
different. Where they deal with both, constituent ontologists deal with them in
different ways.28
Second, while conceding that our second problem may arise for both bundle
theorists and trope theorists, one might deny that the same holds for substratum
theorists. After all, do they not tell us that the ultimate bearers of properties are
particulars that are bare or thin? Yes, but our second problem bears not on the
relationship between a substratum and the properties compresent with it, but
on the relationship between the whole familiar particular and the properties
that constitute it. For the substratum theorist, no less than the bundle or trope
theorist, that relationship is governed by Constituent Essentialism.
So our first two problems would seem to create difficulties for all three forms
of constituent ontology. But each of the different patterns faces problems of its
own. Trope theorists, for example, face problems about the individuation of items
from their favoured category." Although they speak freely and almost casually
about this or that trope, the fact is that it is not altogether clear just what a trope
is. Take the colour of the desk top on which I am now writing. Presumably, it is
a single discrete trope. But what happens when I cut the desk top in two? Do I
thereby bring two colour tropes into existence? If I do, then what was beforehand
not a trope now is one; but how can what was not a trope become one? Well,
28 See, for example, PAUL, "Logical Parts", and "The context of Essence".
29 These problems are clearly presented in CAMPBELL, Abstract Particulars, chapter 6.
54 • METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE
Michael 3. Loux
WHAT IS CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY?
perhaps, we should say that the two colour tropes were there beforehand. The
difficulty, of course, is that I could go on and cut each of the two new sections of
the original desk top in two. So were there really four rather than just two colour
tropes there before the first division? It is not clear that any answer we might
give here is satisfactory.
Defenders of theories of the first sort I mentioned tell us that familiar parti-
culars are bundles of repeatable properties. On their theory, the "materials" out
of which a familiar particular is composed are one and all properties, but what
they compose is an individual that has those properties, what we might call a
propertied individual. But they owe us an explanation of just how we are supposed
to get the propertied individual from "materials" that are restricted to properties.
How is it that we get a cp-er, a thing that is cp, from the property cp-ness? The
response, doubtless, will be that individuals arise out of the agglomeration of
properties. We begin, so to speak, with one property, add another, add still an-
other, and what ultimately emerges is an individual having all those properties.
But why should we suppose that agglomeration yields the multi-propertied indi-
vidual? Why not suppose instead that what results from the agglomeration is, say,
just the conjunctive property whose conjuncts are all the various properties that
have been agglomerated?"
And there is a more familiar problem that dogs traditional bundle theorists.
They tell us that a thing's character hinges on its repeatable properties. Those
properties are its constituents. They further tell us that different familiar parti-
culars can share a given form of character and that where this happens a single
property is a constituent of the numerically different particulars. As constituent
ontologists, however, they are committed to what I have called the Principle of
Constituent Identity. But, then, they are committed to some strong version of the
Identity of Indiscernibles, the principle that necessarily if an object, a, and an
object, b, have all and only the same properties, a is numerically identical with
b. The difficulty, of course, is that there appear to be counterexamples to the
appropriate version of that principle."
Substratum theorists appeal to the apparent counterexamples in defence
of their own version of the constituent approach." They argue that what the
possibility of diverse, but qualitatively indiscernible objects shows is that each
ordinary object has a constituent that is idiosyncratic to a single composite
and that functions as the literal possessor of the properties that enter into
the composite. But, they insist that only constituents that have no properties
essentially are suited to play the diversifying role here. So we get the doctrine of
30 To my knowledge, the only bundle theorist who explicitly responds to this problem is
CASTAREDA, "Thinking and the Structure of the World".
'' See, for example, M. BLACK, "The Identity of Indiscernibles", Mind 61 (1952): 153-164.
32 See, for example, E. B. ALLAIRE, "Bare Particulars", Philosophical Studies 14 (1963): 1-8.
METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE • 55
 Michael J. Loux Michael J. Loux
WHAT IS CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY? WHAT IS CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY?

the bare or thin particular; and most philosophers think that there are serious
problems attaching to that doctrine."
So even if there is no single a priori objection that shows the constituent pro-
ject to be doomed from the start, there are problems aplenty for constituent
ontologists. If they are to convince us of the viability of their project, they need
to address there problems. Let's see how they fare.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALLAIRE, EDWIN B. "Bare Particulars". Philosophical Studies 14 (1963): 1-8.
pLANTINGA, ALVIN. The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974.
VINE, WILLARD VAN ORMAN. From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1954.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. London: Allen and Unwin, 1940.
Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. London: Allen and Unwin, 1948.
problems of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1912.
SIDER, THEODORE. "Bare Particulars". Philosophical Perspectives 20 (2006): 387-397.
SIMONS, PETER. "Particulars in Particular Clothing". Philosophy and Phenomenological Re-
search 54 (1994): 553-575.
STRAWSON, PETER FREDERICK. Individuals. London: Methuen, 1959.

ARISTOTLE. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Edited by J. Barnes, WILLIAMS, DONALD C. "Elements of Being". Part One. Review of Metaphysics 7 (1953): 3-18.
2 vols. Bollingen Series. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984. WOLTERSTORFF, NICHOLAS. "Bergmann's Constituent Ontology". Nous 4 (1970): 109-134.
ARMSTRONG, DAVID. A World of States of Affairs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, -On Universals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.
1997. -"Divine Simplicity". Philosophical Perspectives 5 (1991): 531-552.
- Universals. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1989.
BERGMANN, GUSTAV. Realism. A critique of Brentano and Meinong. Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1967.
BLACK, MAx. "The Identity of Indiscernibles". Mind 61 (1952): 153-164.
CAMPBELL, KEITH. Abstract Particulars. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990.
CASTAREDA, HECTOR-NERI. "Thinking and the Structure of the World". Philosophia 4 (1974):
3-40.
CHISHOLM, RODERICK M. Person and Object. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1976.
- On Metaphysics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989.
DAVIDSON, DONALD. "Events as Particulars". Nous 4 (1970): 25-31.
DONAGON, ALAN. "Universals and Metaphysical Realism". Monist 47 (1963): 211-247.
INWAGEN, PETER VAN. "A Theory of Properties". Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 1 (2005):
107-138.
LEWIS, DAVID. "New Work for a Theory of Universals". Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61
(1983): 343-377.
Loux, MICHAEL J. Metaphysics. Third edition. London: Routledge, 2006.
- "Aristotle's Constituent Ontology". Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 2 (2007): 207-250.
LOWE, E. J. "The Metaphysics of Abstract Objects".Journal of Philosophy 92 (1995): 509-524.
- The Possibility of Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
PAUL, LAURIE A. "Logical Parts". Nous 36 (2002): 578-596.
- "The Context of Essence". Australasian Journal of Philosophy 82 (2004): 170-184.

" I discuss this issue in my Metaphysics, chapter 3. For a reply, see T. SIDER, "Bare Parti-
culars", Philosophical Perspectives 20 (2006): 387-397.

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1
ELEMENTAL TRANSFORMATION IN ARISTOTLE:
THREE DILEMMAS FOR THE TRADITIONAL ACCOUNT
Anne Siebels Peterson

ABSTRACT
According to the traditionally held interpretation of many texts in Aristotle, that which
plays the role of substratum for elemental transformation is a matter with no essence of its
own, prime matter. I argue that the traditional account of elemental transformation, in its
appeal to prime matter, conflicts with three doctrines which many commentators would take
Aristotle himself to endorse. First, it conflicts with that variety of essentialism according
to which everything that exists has an essence which marks it out as what it is. Second, it
conflicts with actualism. And third, it conflicts with the view that Aristotle's four elements
are to be understood in accordance with that version of the constituent ontological strategy
according to which one constituent of a whole serves as subject and the other as predicate.
I argue that these three conflicts are such that satisfactory resolutions of them would involve
controversial metaphysical commitments not usually associated with the traditional account.
My aim is not to undermine the traditional account, but rather to show that it should not
be regarded as a general framework that can be shared by many widely variant accounts
of elemental transformation and of the place of prime matter in Aristotle's ontology. The
traditional account is far more theory-laden than it is often taken to be.

1. INTRODUCTION
According to the traditional account of elemental transformation in Aristotle,
prime matter is that substratum common to the four elements (fire, air, earth, and
water) and paired, in each case, with a different pair of the elemental contraries.
Furthermore, in any case of transformation between two elements, prime matter
serves as a pre-existent and persistent substratum. As C. J. F. Williams puts it:
It is not heat or cold - the abstract qualities - which change into each other, but
the single underlying nature which takes on now one, now the other, of the pair of
contraries. Again we have something which remains when one element changes into
another, i.e. prime matter.'
Thus, in the transformation of water into fire, the contraries that characterise
water (the cold and the wet) are replaced by the contraries that characterise

' C. J. F. WILLIAMS, Aristotle's De Generatione et Corruptione (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1982), 213.

METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE • 59
 Anne Siebels Peterson
ELEMENTAL TRANSFORMATION IN ARISTOTLE
fire (the hot and the dry); but the same prime matter persists throughout as
the substratum of both the pre-existent and the generated element in turn. The
traditional account's insistence on a persistent substratum in any case of trans..
formation derives from its adherence to the claim that a persistent substratum
is necessary in order to free any case of coming to be from the Parmenidea n
argument, given at Physics I, 8, 191 a 25-34,2 for the incoherence of coming to be?
The argument I want to make is that the traditional account's notion of prime
matter as a persistent substratum for elemental transformation conflicts with
the following three metaphysical doctrines also often associated with Aristotle:
a certain variety of essentialism, actualism, and the view that the four elements
are to be understood according to a certain variety of the constituent ontological
strategy.
2. PRIME MATTER: A PROBLEMATIC DOCTRINE
Since the same aspect of the traditional account's notion of prime matter
is the source of its conflict with each of these doctrines, it will be important to
have a grasp on what this problematic aspect is. Prime matter is posited by the
traditional account as the substratum for the elements, which are endowed with
the lowest-level essences there are (after all, if there were any lower-level essences,
the things endowed with those essences would be the true elements). As Friedrich
Solmsen puts it, "There are no bodies or substances in Aristotle's physical system
that could be regarded as more primitive and simple than the elements; if there
is anything at all of this description, it can only have 'potential' reality."4 Prime
matter, on the traditional account, is, in virtue of itself, pure potentiality. We
can say what prime matter happens to be (hot and wet, cold and dry, etc.), as the
man happens to be musical; or we can say what prime matter is potentially (fire,
earth, air, or water), as flesh is potentially some kind of animal; but, since it is the
substratum for the things with the lowest-level essences there are, we cannot say
All references to Aristotle's work are taken from the Complete Works of Aristotle, ed.
J. Barnes. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984).
' The point, according to proponents of the traditional account, is that if nothing of the
terminus a quo (that which pre-exists the case of coming-to-be), a, persists in the terminus ad
quem (the thing that comes to be), b, then we have a case of a's being annihilated and replaced by
b rather than a case of a's genuinely coming-to-be (or in the case of elemental transformation,
being transformed into) b. Just as, in the case of the man's coming to be musical, described
at Physics 1, 7, 189b34-190a21, we must have the very man who was unmusical persisting as
the subject for the predication of the accident musicality, so in the case of substantial change
we must have something of the terminus a quo persisting as the substratum of the terminus ad
quem. See, e.g., MICHAEL Loux, "Aristotle and Parmenides: An Interpretation of Physics A.8",
Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 8 (1992): 302-308.
FRIEDRICH SOLMSEN, "Aristotle and Prime Matter: A Reply to Hugh R. King", Journal of
the History of Ideas 19 (1958): 245.
60 • METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE
Anne Siebels Peterson
ELEMENTAL TRANSFORMATION IN ARISTOTLE
what prime matter is in virtue of itself.' Prime matter is essenceless.6 As David
Bostock writes, prime matter is for Aristotle "all things potentially, which is just
another way of saying that there is nothing which it has to be."7 H. M. Robinson
describes prime matter as:
... a bare 'stuff, lacking all positive determinations, which is the matter of the ele-
ments and which makes elemental change possible. This prime matter is nothing but
a potentiality which can exist only as actualised in some determinate matter - i.e.
in one of the elements - and which is what persists when one contrariety is replaced
by another and the identity of an element changes.8
It is this thesis that the persistent substratum for elemental transformation
is, in virtue of itself, pure potentiality - that it is essenceless - that spells trouble
for the traditional account with respect to the three doctrines just mentioned.9
5 On the other hand, we can say what it is to be for each of the four elements. To be fire
is to be prime matter that is hot and dry; to be air is to be prime matter that is hot and wet;
etc., employing the model of Metaphysics VIII, 2, 1043a1-28. Here I am sensitive to the fact
that the elements are probably not supposed to be full-fledged substances, as Metaphysics
VII, 16, 1040b8-9 affirms: "for none of them is one, but they are like a heap before it is fused by heat
and some one thing is made out of the bits." Still, we can say what something is, according to the
model of VIII, 2, even if that thing is not a full-fledged substance; Aristotle tells us this at
Metaphysics VIII, 2, 1043 a3-7. We do this by giving a form-matter predication: "E.g. if we had
to define a threshold, we should say 'wood or stone in such and such a position, and a house we should
define as 'bricks and timbers in such and such a position'."
6 Indeed, it seems that Aristotle would not accept a view according to which the substratum
for the elements is some kind of stuff that does have an essence, rather than essenceless prime
matter - for then there would no longer be four elements, but only one. The four elements
would not be genuine elements, because they would not be at the lowest level of the hierarchy
of being - they would be composites made up of the one true element, their substratum. And
Aristotle finds strict monism of this variety utterly objectionable, though he also finds strict
pluralism objectionable - his view is supposed to balance somehow between these extremes
(see On Generation and Corruption II, 7, 334a22-334b8); but the argument to this effect lies beyond
the scope of this paper. For Aristotle's arguments against strict monism, see, for example, On
Generation and Corruption 1, 1, 314b1-5 and II, 7, 334b2-8.
' DAVID BosTocx, Space, Time, Matter, and Form: Essays on Aristotle's Physics (Oxford University
Press, 2006), 34.
8
H. M. RoB1NsoN, "Prime Matter in Aristotle", Phronesis 19 (1974): 168.
9 There have been many proposed emendations to the traditional account, which may or
may not harbor a satisfactory response to the difficulties I will lay out. I will consider a few
of these views throughout the paper, although to focus on them would take me too far afield
from my main aim here, which is to explore some difficulties that arise for the traditional
account as it stands.
METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE • 61
 Anne Siebels Peterson
ELEMENTAL TRANSFORMATION IN ARISTOTLE
3. PRIME MATTER AND ARISTOTELIAN ESSENTIALISM
Consider first that variety of essentialism according to which every genuine
being is such that, among those properties which belong to it necessarily, one
property marks it out as what it is, endowing it with an essence." In other words,
for any x, if x lacks an essence, then x is not a genuine being. I will refer to this view
as Aristotelian essentialism." At first glance, it might seem that there is no trouble
here for the proponent of the traditional account of elemental transformation
who wants to retain Aristotelian essentialism, as long as the proponent of that
account does not hold that prime matter is a genuine being. But it is not clear that
the proponent of the traditional account can make this move. The trouble arises
from the traditional account's thesis that in any case of elemental transformation,
the prime matter of the pre-existent element must persist as the substratum of
the newly generated element. In order for the prime matter of the pre-existent air
to count as genuinely persistent, it would seem, it must be identical to the prime
matter of the generated fire in the strictest sense, that of numerical identity
(sameness in any more generic sense, i:e. in species or genus, would not guarantee
that anything has persisted)." However - and here is where the conflict with
Aristotelian essentialism arises - only genuine beings are subject to claims about
'° See Categories 5, 2b31-35: "For if one is to say of the individual man what he is, it will be in place
to give the species or the genus (though more informative to give man than animal); but to give any of the
other things would be out of place - for example, to say white or runs or anything like that."
" This variety of essentialism contrasts, for example, with that defended in ALVIN PLAN-
TINGA, "Actual ism and Possible Worlds", in Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality, ed. M. Davidson
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 111-114.
I2 See FRANK LEWIS, "What's the Matter with Prime Matter?" in Oxford Studies in Ancient
Philosophy 34, ed. Sedley (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 137: He argues that the
substrata of a pre-existent element and of a generated element count as the same persistent
matter because they share the property of "being prime matter". I find this view unsatisfactory,
because the persistence of a property does not guarantee the persistence of what has that
property; we have no guarantee, on this view, that the same prime matter has persisted. The
prime matter of the pre-existent element might share the property of being prime matter
with the prime matter of the generated element even if the prime matter of the pre-existent
element is destroyed in the course of the transformation. For an argument that the persistence
of generic physical properties of prime matter is sufficient to guarantee its persistence, see
THEODORE SCALTSAS, Substances and Universals in Aristotle's Metaphysics (New York: Cornell
University Press, 1994), 25: "If there is no kind of matter that survives radical transformation, how
can one claim that it is matter that is surviving at all? The answer to this question is that, although the
particular physical properties do not remain the same, there are generic physical properties that do."
On this view, because the pre-existent matter in a case of elemental transformation is (say)
hot, while the matter of the generated element is cold, we do not have the same kind of matter
(since these do not share the same specific properties); but we do have the same matter, because
both will always have the same generic properties of being thermal, hydral, spatial, and causal
(26-27). But this view faces the same problem that undermines Lewis's view: the persistence
of a property does not guarantee the persistence of what has that property.
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numerical identity. Hence, to say that prime matter, which lacks any essence, is
subject to claims about numerical identity is to say that there is a genuine being
with no essence at all. But that contradicts Aristotelian essentialism.
I am sympathetic with the hope that a proponent of the traditional account
might circumvent this conflict with Aristotelian essentialism by focusing on the
fact that prime matter is not supposed to be a full-fledged being, and maintaining
that it is therefore not subject to being parcelled out into numerically identical or
distinct parcels, and therefore is not subject to claims about numerical identity
or distinctness. But this move alone would not free the traditional account
from difficulty. For the question would become, what is the criterion for the
persistence of prime matter throughout a case of elemental transformation, if
not that of numerical identity throughout the transformation? If we give up
on the idea that prime matter is subject to claims about numerical identity, do
we not thereby give up on the idea that it can genuinely persist? Alternatively,
we might see the problem in terms of numerical distinctness, since giving up
numerical identity as a concept that applies to prime matter requires giving up
numerical distinctness as a concept that applies to it as well. And without the
idea that the prime matter of numerically distinct elements is itself numerically
distinct, it would come out trivially true that the prime matter involved in
any given transformation persists; for that prime matter would not be distinct
from any other prime matter, and so it could only fail to persist if all the prime
matter there is failed to persist. But surely the traditional account's thesis that
there must be a persistent substratum for any case of elemental transformation
is not supposed to be a triviality. So we have a dilemma: given the usual way
of understanding persistence, in terms of numerical identity, the traditional
account conflicts with Aristotelian essentialism. Perhaps a view could be devised
which provides a criterion for persistence of prime matter without appealing
to numerical identity and of distinctness of prime matter without appealing to
numerical distinctness. Such a view would obviate this dilemma. Or perhaps we
might, as Bostock argues, be able to do without a universally applicable criterion
for the persistence of matter." However, if I am right that the traditional account
13 See BOSTOCK, Space, Time, Matter, and Form: Essays in Aristotle's Physics, 44: According to
Aristotle's theory, Bostock argues, "the appropriate criterion of identity for matter is left open. It is
constrained...but not in a way which tells us how to apply it in all cases." It is constrained, he thinks, by
Aristotle's thesis that "The same matter is always conserved, which is to say: If we take any boundary
which is not crossed by matter over a certain period, then the matter inside that boundary will be the
same matter all through the period. Thus, within such a boundary, new matter is never created, or old
matter destroyed, either 'out of or into nothing' or by 'increasing or decreasing' the quantity of matter
already there." But this constraint could not allow us to determine whether we have the same
matter; to say that it could would be circular, as Bostock points out on the same page. For we
could only establish that a certain boundary is not crossed by matter over a period of time if we
already know that the matter inside the boundary is the same matter throughout the period.
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must adhere to some such view in order to cohere with Aristotelian essentialism,
then it is far more theory-laden than many appeals to it would like to recognise,
and because of this it will not be able to serve in the way in which it is often
used: as a general framework employed by many widely variant accounts of the
specifics of elemental transformation with different understandings of precisely
where prime matter fits into Aristotle's ontology. Rather, to accept the traditional
account of elemental transformation will require one either to reject Aristotelian
essentialism or to accept an understanding of elemental transformation with
significant theoretical commitments - one that can explain the persistence of
prime matter without appealing to its numerical identity.
4. PRIME MATTER AND ACTUALISM
A second doctrine with which the traditional account conflicts is actualism,
the view that something must actually be to be at all.'" Although, according to
the traditional account, prime matter will always have some actuality - it will
always be either actually hot and dry, actually hot and wet, actually cold and dry;
or actually cold and wet - it can only have these properties accidentally. Taken
by itself, apart from any merely accidental properties, prime matter will lack
any actuality whatsoever - it will be pure potentiality. But then given actualism,
prime matter, taken by itself, does not exist. But prime matter, taken by itself,
is just what the traditional account appeals to as the substratum of each of the
elements. If, taken by itself, it does not exist, then neither the pre-existent nor the
generated element in a case of elemental transformation even has a substratum.
And if these do not even have a substratum, then it follows, trivially, that they do
not share a substratum - that is, it follows, contrary to the traditional account,
that there is no persistent substratum for elemental transformation.3 Thus, in its
With regard to the aim of this paper, the point to note here is this: If a view like Bostock's,
according to which there is no determinate criterion of persistence for prime matter, is the
best that can be done as far as understanding prime matter's persistence goes, then this would
be a significant theoretical commitment; but given my argument, the traditional account
could not maintain Aristotelian essentialism without making it.
14 There is support for thinking that this too is a doctrine endorsed by Aristotle. For
example, Aristotle writes at Metaphysics IX, 3, 1047b 1-2: "For of non-existent things some exist
potentially; but they do not exist, because they do not exist in fulfilment". See also Metaphysics XIV, 2,
1089 a 28-29: "the false is said not to be and so is the potential".
'5 Aristotle himself brings up what looks to be precisely this difficulty in a passage which,
like the two passages just given, takes actualism as a premise, in On Generation and Corruption
I, 3, 317b 23-29: "For if a substantial thing comes-to-be, it is clear that there will be (not actually, but
potentially) a substance, out of which its coming-to-be will proceed and into which the thing that is
passing-away will necessarily change. Then will any predicate belonging to the remaining categories
attach actually to this? In other words, will that which is only potentially a 'this' (which only potentially
is), while without qualification it is not a 'this' (i.e. is not), possess, e.g., any determinate size or quality
or position? For if it possesses none, but all of them potentially, the result is that a being, which is not
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affirmation that prime matter serves as the substratum of each of the elements
and persists throughout each case of elemental transformation, despite the
fact that it is, in itself, pure potentiality, the traditional account conflicts with
actualism.
It is not clear to me that there is any way for the traditional account to avoid
this conflict without significant modification. To summarise my argument: If the
traditional account holds that prime matter, taken by itself, is pure potentiality,
and that prime matter, taken by itself, is the substratum for the elements, it
follows that pure potentiality is the substratum for the elements. But then given
actualism, it follows that the substratum for the elements does not exist. In order
to avoid this conflict, the proponent of the traditional account would have to
argue that prime matter can be an existent substratum for an element despite the
fact that, taken by itself (that is, taken in abstraction from the element for which
it serves as substratum), it does not exist. It is not, on the face of it, clear how such
an argument would go - if the traditional account is committed to such a view,
it would be at the very least a controversial addition to that account, rendering
it more theory-laden than it is often taken to be and not nearly as susceptible for
use as a general framework as it is often taken to be. But without such an addition,
the traditional account is at odds with actualism.
There is a second way in which we can show that the traditional account
conflicts with actualism. According to the traditional account, prime matter
derives its only actual features from the very predication of a pair of contraries
for which it is supposed to serve as subject: hot and dry, hot and wet, cold and dry,
or cold and wet. But then given actualism, which implies that existence comes
only with actuality, it follows that prime matter derives its very existence from
the predication for which it serves as subject. In other words, it follows that the
subject for this predication is an entity yielded by this predication; the subject of
the predication is ontologically dependent upon the predication, not vice versa.
There are, of course, predications for which this result would not be objection-
able - specifically, predications which are such that if they were to cease to hold,
their subjects would thereby cease to exist. Consider, for instance, the predication
holding between a substance-kind and one of its members: if a certain horse
were to cease to have the corresponding substance-kind predicated of it, that
horse would cease to exist. In this case it seems correct to say that the horse is
ontologically dependent upon the predication of its substance-kind for which it
serves as subject. In the case of prime matter, however, we have something that
is supposed to persist when the predication for which it serves as subject ceases
to obtain and a new pair of contraries comes to be predicated of it. (Otherwise it
a determinate being, is capable of separate existence; and in addition that coming-to-be proceeds out of
nothing pre-existing." Without actualism as a premise, Aristotle could not make this inference
that if the pre-existent entity possesses no actual characteristics but only potentialities, then
coming to be proceeds ex nihilo.
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could not serve as the persistent substratum for elemental transformation.) This
implies that prime matter must, in every case, be able to exist independently of
the predication for which it serves as subject. And this result conflicts with the
previous result that prime matter is ontologically dependent upon the predication
of contraries for which it serves as subject. So although the counterintuitive
result that the subject for a predication is ontologically dependent upon that
predication may not be a difficulty for the predication that holds between a sub-
stance-kind and one of its members, it does seem to be a difficulty for the pre-
dication that holds between prime matter and a pair of contraries, since prime
matter is supposed to be able to exist independently of those contraries. Since
it is the premise of actualism that leads the proponent of the traditional ac-
count to this result, we have another manifestation of the conflict between the
traditional account and actualism. Given actualism, prime matter is ontologically
dependent upon the contraries for which it serves as subject, but given certain
modal properties ascribed to it by the traditional account (e.g., being able to
survive apart from those contraries), it does not seem that it can be ontologically
dependent upon them.
One might respond that this conflict can be solved by adopting a weaker
notion of ontological dependency as the sense in which prime matter depends
on those contraries for which it serves as subject - a notion of ontological depen-
dency as a contingent relation." Then we could hold that prime matter only
happens to be ontologically dependent on that pair of contraries for which it
serves as subject - it could become ontologically dependent on a different pair
of contraries, which is precisely what happens when elemental transformation
occurs. With a notion of ontological dependency as a contingent relation, we could
then say, without conflict, that prime matter is ontologically dependent upon
whatever pair of contraries for which it serves as subject; nonetheless, it could
exist independently of that pair of contraries (as long as it is the subject for some
other pair of contraries). Of course, if such a move were made, it would face the
same difficulties we have already seen: it would render the traditional account
far more theory-laden and not susceptible for use as a general framework. And
there is another factor to consider. Adopting this weaker sense of ontological
dependency in this case would blur the line between subject and predicate in
Aristotle in a way that may be undesirable. It is a special feature of Aristotelian
universals, which occupy the predicate position, that they obey the principle of
instantiation - they cannot exist unless some particular thing instantiates them,
but they could have been instantiated by different things than they in fact are
instantiated by. Here we have ontological dependency understood as a contingent
relation running from predicate to subject. If we allow it to run in the other
16 If we want to save the term "ontological dependency" for relations that hold necessarily,
we can substitute some other name for the relation I am about to describe.
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direction as well, by holding that prime matter is contingently ontologically
dependent on a certain pair of contraries, we lose this as a feature distinctive of
u niversals in Aristotle.
5. PRIME MATTER AND ARISTOTELIAN CONSTITUENT ONTOLOGY
Thirdly, the traditional account conflicts with that variety of the constituent
ntological strategy according to which a whole that comes to be and passes
o
away is a predicative entity, of which one constituent serves as subject and the
other as predicate.P I will refer to this view as Aristotelian constituent ontology."
This conflict is perhaps the most troubling of the three; for the thesis that the
elements, which come to be and pass away by being transformed into each other,
are predicative entities in which prime matter serves as the subject for the
predication of a pair of contraries is often included as a part of the traditional
c To t.
account.
The conflict between the traditional account and Aristotelian constituent
arises with respect to the question of how a new pair of contraries
ontology
could come to be predicated of some prime matter which is already the subject
for a different pair of contraries, as in elemental transformation. We can bring
this conflict into focus by considering the following reductio which a sceptic might
bring against the thesis that a form or accident F could come to be predicated of
a substratum s: Assume that F did genuinely come to be predicated of s. Then before
this predication came to hold, s must have been non-F. But then we are committed
to the conclusion that the non-F served as the subject for the predication of F, and
this is absurd. For F could never come to be predicated of the non-F.19
In certain cases - for example, the coming to be of the musical man as described
in Physics I, 7 - Aristotle has a ready way out of this argument. Although the
subject for the coming to be of the musical man, s, was indeed unmusical before
it came to be musical, s was also a man. And indeed, according to Aristotelian
essentialism, "man" provides the most proper characterisation of what s is,
since it is the substance-kind under which s falls.20 "Unmusical," since it picks
" This relationship between subject and predicate is supposed to be metaphysical, not
merely linguistic.
18 in contrast, contemporary bundle theories, though versions of constituent ontology,
do not involve the claim that a predicative tie holds between the constituents of a whole.
According to these theories (at least for the most part), the constituents of a whole are all of
the same categorical form, all universals, so they are united not by way of predication but in
some other way.
'9 As Aristotle tells us at Physics I, 7, 190b32-33: "it is impossible for the contraries to be acted
on by each other."
" Aristotle continues at Physics I, 7, 190b33-38: "But this difficulty also is solved by the fact that
what underlies is different from the contraries; for it is itself not a contrary. The principles therefore are,
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out a merely accidental property of s, is a characterisation subordinate to and
entirely trumped by "man." We are thus wholly justified in holding that the proper
description of this predication's coming to hold refers not to musicality coming
to be predicated of "the unmusical" or "the unmusical man," but to musicality
coming to be predicated of "the man."2' And this predication can coherently
come to hold. So in describing this case of coming to be, we have justification for
excising the problematic reference to unmusicality altogether.
The analogous way out of the sceptic's reductio is unavailable, however, for
the case of elemental transformation as understood by the traditional account.
Consider as an example the coming to be of fire, the element characterised by the
hot and dry. If fire comes to be from air (the element characterised by the hot and
wet), then the prime matter which serves as the subject for this transformation
will start out as the substratum of air, and hence as hot and wet. Here the sceptic's
reductio will conclude that hot and wet prime matter cannot coherently come to
serve as the subject for the predication of the hot and dry; for the wet and the dry
are opposed contraries, as are musical and unmusical. Hot and wet prime matter,
on account of its being wet, could never come to have the dry predicated of it,
just as the unmusical man, on account of his being unmusical, could never come
to have musicality predicated of him.
In this case, Aristotle cannot respond, as he could for the case of the musical
man, that there is an unproblematic characterisation of the prime matter of
air that trumps the problematic characterisation of it as hot and wet. There is
no justification for simply excising "wet" from the characterisation of the air's
prime matter and characterising this transformation as a case in which hot prime
matter comes to have the hot and dry predicated of it, because "hot" is no more
privileged in the characterisation of the prime matter than "wet" is (while "man"
was a more privileged characterisation of the man than "unmusical"). Both "hot"
and "wet" are accidental features of the substratum for this change, and hence
equally privileged in its characterisation. And of course, since prime matter is
essenceless, there is no feature of it which trumps both "hot" and "wet" - we
cannot excise the reference to both. Another way of putting the problem is as
follows: how can essenceless prime matter play the role assigned to the subject
in Physics I, 7, given that in any case it will always have some contrary predicated
of it that opposes one it is supposed to take on?
Analogous reasoning will hold for fire's coming to be from earth, since the
prime matter of earth is cold and dry, the former of which conflicts with the
hotness of fire. And things are even simpler in the case of fire's coming to be
in a way, not more in number than the contraries, but as it were two; nor yet precisely two, since there
is a difference of being, but three. For to be man is different from to be unmusical, and to be unformed
from to be bronze."
2 ' For further discussion of the proper characterisation of the coming to be of Aristotle's
musical man, see Loux, "Aristotle and Parmenides", 303-306.
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from water, since both features of water (cold and wet) conflict with those of fire.
In none of the three possible scenarios for the coming to be of fire, then, can we
find a feature of the pre-existent prime matter which provides us with a reply to
the sceptic's reductio by trumping any problematic features of that prime matter,
in the way that "man" trumps "musical" in the description of the subject for the
predication that yields the musical man." The best description of prime matter
(whether as the substratum of air, earth, or water) that we can give is one which
includes a feature (cold, wet, or both) that disallows that prime matter from
, eanndli kd reyt.
hot
okgsh
becoltmloin
the case of prime matter's coming to have the hot and dry
predicated of it must, in the end, be characterised as a case in which the non-F
comes to be F, where F is one of the contraries and non-F the opposed contrary.
For prime matter has no features which can trump those features that belong to it
accidentally; the best characterisation of it must retain both accidental features."
But this is incoherent. And analogous reasoning will hold for the coming to be of
any of the three elements other than fire. We thus have a conflict between the
traditional account and the thesis that prime matter can come to serve as the
subject for the predication of a pair of contraries that yields an element, since the
best characterisation of prime matter will always involve at least one contrary
opposed to one of the contraries it is supposed to take on in any given case of
coming to be. This conflict threatens the traditional account's ability to hold that
we can give an Aristotelian constituent analysis of the elements, according to
which they have a predicative structure.
How could one who wishes to adhere to both the traditional account and to an
Aristotelian constituent analysis of the elements respond to this dilemma? One
could not, it seems, respond by arguing that the whole problematic does not apply
in the case of elemental transformation; for Aristotle himself seems to consider
it at On Generation and Corruption I, 6, 322 b 15-22:
The hot thing, e.g., would not be cooled and the cold thing in turn be warmed; for
heat and cold do not change reciprocally into one another, but what changes (it is
clear) is the substratum. Hence, whenever there is action and passion between things,
that which underlies them must be a single something.
Indeed, he seems to think that he has it resolved for the case of elemental
transformation. But if this substratum is prime matter as traditionally under-
stood, it is far from clear how it is supposed to solve the dilemma at hand, given
22 Indeed, things do not look hopeful; for what we need to find is a characterisation of
this prime matter that trumps any accidental features, given that its problematic features
in every case belong to it accidentally. But prime matter has no essence, according to the
traditional account.
23 In the case of the man becoming musical, on the other hand, one of the substratum's
actual features (namely, being a man) was both unproblematic with respect to his becoming
musical and was privileged over his problematic features.
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that it is best characterised only by the very contraries which are the source of
the problem.24 In order to reply one who wants to retain the traditional account's
thesis that prime matter is indeed essenceless would have to lay out some view
according to which prime matter can serve as a subject despite the fact that it
is best characterised only by the very contraries which are the source of the
problem. Once again, this shows the traditional account to require more theo-
retical commitments than it is usually taken to require. Until any such com-
mitments have been laid out and shown to yield a coherent view, it is not clear
that the traditional account can maintain Aristotelian constituent ontology.
6. CONCLUSION
In summary, I have argued that the traditional account of elemental trans-
formation in Aristotle conflicts with three doctrines. First, it conflicts with that
variety of essentialism according to which everything that exists has an essence
which marks it out as what it is. This conflict arises from the traditional account's
thesis that the same essenceless prime matter must persist throughout any case
of elemental transformation. Second, it conflicts with actualism. This conflict can
be brought out in two ways. According to one way of bringing out the conflict,
if actualism is true then prime matter, taken in abstraction from the element
for which it serves as substratum, does not exist; but then it seems that none
24 For a view which departs from the traditional account in that it sees the matter shared
by the four elements as having certain essential properties, see SHELDON COHEN, "Aristotle's
Doctrine of the Material Substrate", The Philosophical Review 93 (1984): 172-178. Cohen argues
that "Aristotle does posit a common matter for the four elements, but this does not commit him to prime
matter. The common matter of the four elements is not prime - that is, it is not bare or characterless...
It is per se neither hot nor cold, fluid nor solid, light nor heavy.... But if it does not possess any of these
characteristics per se, it does not follow that it possesses no characteristics per se. In fact, that it is
potentially light and heavy, and that at any given time it will be either light or heavy, can themselves
be taken to specify a per se characteristic." Cohen's view is an interesting modification of the
traditional account. His view may avoid the third difficulty I have articulated - however,
it would have to be shown that one of the essential properties that he attributes to prime
matter counts as privileged above all the others in the requisite way. Perhaps his view could,
in addition, be argued to avoid the difficulties regarding essentialism and actualism. (I am,
however, sceptical of whether it could. For not just any predicate we can truly ascribe to
something corresponds to a metaphysical essence or accident on Aristotle's view; moreover,
if Cohen's view does succeed in endowing prime matter with an essence and an actuality, then
it entails that the notions of essence and actuality for something in the sublunary realm can
be cut asunder from the notion of form - for prime matter is, in virtue of itself, formless.) I
do not here have the space for an adequate consideration of whether his view could avoid
these difficulties. Still, if it could do so that would not undercut the aim of this paper, which
is to show that the traditional account of prime matter faces these three difficulties, and that
the available pathways away from them which do not involve modification of the traditional
account (as Cohen's does) involve significant theoretical commitments not usually associated
with the traditional account.
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of the elements even has a substratum, and so a fortiori that substratum cannot
ersist throughout a case of elemental transformation as the traditional account
requires.
P According to another way of bringing out the conflict, if actualism
is true then prime matter is ontologically dependent upon the predication of
contraries for which it serves as subject; but this seems problematic, given that,
according to the traditional account, it is supposed to be able to persist through
the loss of one or both of those contraries. And third, it conflicts with the view
that Aristotle's four elements are to be understood according to that version
of the constituent ontological strategy according to which one constituent of
a whole serves as subject and the other as predicate. It is not clear how prime
matter is supposed to be able to come to have a new pair of contraries predicated
of it, when, according to the traditional account, the best characterisation of it
will always involve some contrary opposed to at least one of the contraries it is
supposed to take on.
Some might conclude that we should give up on one or more of Aristotelian
essentialism, actualism, and Aristotelian constituent ontology rather than go
down the pathways required to find a solution to these dilemmas. But perhaps
responses can be found which are less problematic than the rejection of any of
these three doctrines would be. In some cases more than others, one can see,
however vaguely, what direction a response on the part of the traditional account
might take. For example, one might respond to the conflict with Aristotelian es-
sentialism by relaxing the constraint on what it would be for prime matter to per-
sist. In the case of the dilemma that given actualism, it seems that the elements do
not even have a substratum, or the dilemma that given Aristotelian constituent
ontology, prime matter must in any case of elemental transformation come to
have predicated of it at least one contrary at odds with one of the contraries that
serves in the best characterisation of it, it is not so clear what direction a response
might take. But suppose that the traditional account can be made to cohere with
these three doctrines - suppose satisfactory responses to be devisable. Since
they will no doubt involve controversial metaphysical theses, we are still left
with the result that the traditional account is far more theory-laden than it is
often taken to be. Hence, it cannot be so easily employed as a general framework
that can be shared by variant accounts of elemental transformation and of the
place of prime matter in Aristotle's sublunary realm. Moreover, we are left with
the result that more work needs to be done before the traditional account can be
appealed to as a coherent and justified framework for understanding elemental
transformation - at least if Aristotelian essentialism, actualism, and Aristotelian
constituent ontology are to be maintained. Thus, even if it can somehow be made
to cohere with these three doctrines, the traditional account commits one to far
more than one might think from the way in which it is often laid out.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
ARISTOTLE. Complete Works of Aristotle. Ed. J. Barnes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1984.
BOSTOCK, DAVID. "Aristotle's Theory of Matter". In Space, Time, Matter, and Form: Essays in
Aristotle's Physics, 30-46. Oxford University Press, 2006.
COHEN, SHELDON. "Aristotle's Doctrine of the Material Substrate". The Philosophical Review
93 (1984): 171-194.
Lewis, FRANK. "What's the Matter with Prime Matter?" In Oxford Studies in Ancient Philo-
sophy 34, ed. Sedley, 123-146. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Loux, MICHAEL J. "Aristotle and Parmenides: An Interpretation of Physics A.8". Proceedings
of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 8 (1992): 302-308.
PLANTINGA, ALVIN. "Actualism and Possible Worlds". In Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality,
ed. M. Davidson, 102-121. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
ROBINSON, H. M. "Prime Matter in Aristotle". Phronesis 19 (1974): 168-188.
SCALTSAS, THEODORE. Substances and Universals in Aristotle's Metaphysics. New York: Cornell
University Press, 1994.
SOLMSEN, FRIEDRICH. "Aristotle and Prime Matter: A Reply to Hugh R. King".Journal of the
History of Ideas 19 (1958): 243-252.
WILLIAMS, C. J. F. Aristotle's De Generatione et Corruptione. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1982.
72 • METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE
ESSENTIAL DEPENDENCE,
TRUTHMAKING, AND MEREOLOGY:
THEN AND NOW
Ross Inman
ABSTRACT
One notable area in analytic metaphysics that has seen a revival of Aristotelian and scho-
lastic inspired metaphysics is the return to a more robust construal of the notion of essence,
what some have labelled "real" or "serious" essentialism. It is only recently, however, that this
more robust notion of essence has been implemented into the debate on truthmaking, mainly
by the work of E. J. Lowe. The first part of the paper sets out to explore the scholastic roots
of essential dependence as well as an account of truthmaking for accidental predications in
terms of accidents. Along the way, the author examines the dialectical role the possibility of
separated accidents in the Eucharist play with respect to developing a scholastic account of
truthmaking as essential dependence. In conclusion the author utilises Aquinas's hylomorphic
ontology to suggest a new way forward for an essentialist account of truthmaking.
1. INTRODUCTION
One notable area in analytic metaphysics that has seen a revival of Aristotelian
and scholastic inspired metaphysics is the return to a more robust construal of
the notion essence, what some have labelled "real" or "serious" essentialism.'
However, it is only recently that this more robust notion of essence has been
implemented into the debate on truthmaking, mainly by the work of E. J. Lowe.
The first part of the paper sets out to explore the scholastic roots of essential
dependence as well as an account of truthmaking for accidental predications in
terms of accidents. Along the way, I examine the dialectical role the possibility of
separated accidents in the Eucharist play with respect to developing a scholastic
account of truthmaking as essential dependence. I conclude by utilising Aquinas's
hylomorphic ontology to suggest a new way forward for an essentialist account
of truthmaking.
I See D. ODERBERG, Real Essentialism (London: Routledge, 2007) and E. J. LOWE, "Two Notions
of Being: Entity and Essence", in Royal institute of Philosophy Supplement, 62 (2008): 23-24.
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ESSENTIAL DEPENDENCE, TRUTHMAKING, AND MEREOLOGY: THEN AND NOW
2. CONTEMPORARY TRUTHMAKING AND ESSENTIAL DEPENDENCE
Let us, then, begin by explicating the current discussion surrounding the
notion of truthmaking, with an emphasis on the notion of essential dependence?
The fundamental insight driving the commitment to truthmakers is that truth
is determined by reality. To say that something determines some particular truth
is to say that it is the ontological ground of that truth; its existence explains why
that truth is true. Consider the singular existential proposition that e exists,
(e exists), and suppose that (e exists) is true. Now, intuitively, it is e itself that is
the truthmaker for (e exists) that is, e determines the truth of (e exists). We can
call this relationship between e and (e exists) the relation of truthmaking, TM
henceforth, and represent "e is the truthmaker for (e exists)" as TM(e, (e exists))?
With this in mind, let us formulate what I will call the truthmaker principle
(TMP) as follows:4
(TMP) Truthmaker Principle: (p)T = E!x A TM(x, (p))5
That is, (p) is true ((p), henceforth) if and only if there exists something, x,
that stands in the truthmaking relation to (p). While there are many important
questions regarding the notion of truthmaking operative in TMP (like the status
of truthmaker maximalism, i.e. whether every truth has a truthmaker), I limit
my discussion here to the status of truthmaker necessitarianism; whether the re-
lation of truthmaking (TM) carries modal import such that the existence of the
truthmaker necessitates (p)T.
The proponent of truthmaker necessitarianism claims that if x is the truth-
maker for (p) in some world W, then x is the truthmaker for (p) not only in W but
in every possible world in which x exists. Most truthmaker theorists agree that
truthmakers necessitate the propositions they make true.6 We can formulate
truthmaker necessitarianism as follows:
(TNec) Truthmaker Necessitarianism: TM(x, (p)) —> ❑(E!x —> (p)T)
For an excellent introduction to the contemporary debate on truthmaking see GONZALO
RODRIGUEZ-PEREYRA, "Truthmakers", Philosophy Compass 1, no. 2 (2006): 186 -200.
' I take it for granted that TM is a relation. For a denial of this assumption, see JOSEPH
MELIA, ."Truthmaking without Truthmakers" in Truthmakers: The Contemporary Debate, ed. H.
Beebee and Julian Dodd, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 67-84. What's more, for our
purposes in this paper I will generally assume that truthmaking is a cross-categorial relation
that obtains between propositions (truthbearers) and entities in the world.
' I use the existence predicate 'E!x' ex exists) as shorthand for `3y(x = y)'.
My quantifiers are to be taken as universal unless otherwise noted.
Though JosH PARSONS is a notable exception, see his "There is No `Truthmaker' Argument
Against Nominalism", Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77, no. 3: 325-334.
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ESSENTIAL DEPENDENCE, TRUTHMAKING, AND MEREOLOGY: THEN AND Now
That is, if x is the truthmaker for (p), then, necessarily, if x exists then (p)T. In
this way, the existence of x is said to necessitate (A. For our purposes here, let us
assume the truth of TNec, together with the rather contentious thesis that TNec,
in some form or other, is both necessary and sufficient for truthmaking.' If so,
we then get the following explication of the notion of the truthmaking relation:
(TM) Truthmaker: TM(x, (p)) = E!x A ❑(E!x -->(p)T)
In words: x is a truthmaker for (p) if and only if x exists and it is necessary that
if x exists, then (p) is true.
Many truthmaker advocates are of the opinion that the modality operative
in the above formulation of TM is to be construed as metaphysical necessity (as
opposed to logical or physical necessity) such that, at the very least, (p)T meta-
physically depends on the existence of x. Several truthmaker theorists, however,
have expressed doubts as to whether or not standard conceptions of metaphysical
necessitation - where the existence of the truthmaking entity is necessary for
the truth in question - is fine-grained enough to capture the sort of dependence
that obtains between a true proposition and its truthmaker(s).8
One such contemporary truthmaker theorist is E. J. Lowe.9 Following closely
the influential work of Kit Fine regarding the shortcomings of modal construals
of essence, Lowe questions the adequacy of standard accounts of metaphysical
necessitation in its ability to capture the dependence operative in TM.'9 Lowe
critiques modal construals of TM that rely on what he calls "rigid-existential
dependence", which can be formulated as follows:
(RD) x depends rigidly ony 'clef D(E!X E!y)"
As a construal of metaphysical dependence in terms of modality and existence,
RD states that x depends ony just in case it is necessary thaty exists if x exists. As
an example of RD, Lowe cites the dependence of a boundary or a hole on its host or
that of a heap of stones upon the individual stones that it contains. A boundary,
thus, rigidly necessitates the existence of its host in that it exists only if its host
' Thanks to Jeffrey Brower for conversation on this point.
The plural here denotes the fact that TM can be a many-one relation.
9 See E. J. LOWE, "An Essentialist Approach to Truthmaking", in Truth and Truthmaking
(Acumen Press, 2008), 201-217; and The Four Category Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2006), 192-210.
1° KIT FINE, "Essence and Modality", in Philosophical Perspectives 8: Logic and Language, ed.
James E. Tomberlin (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview, 1994), 1-16.
" Alternatively, -‘0(EN A -.Ely), i.e. x cannot exist unlessy exists. RD also goes by the name
'weak foundation' in PETER SIMONS, Parts: A Study in Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1987), 295.
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exists. According to an understanding of TM along the lines of RD, (p)T rigidly
depends on the existence of x such that it is necessarily the case that (A. only if
x exists. It is in this sense that x is said to rigidly necessitate (p)T.
Lowe contends that a modal construal of TM in terms of RD leads to some rather
untoward consequences, what we might generally dub the objection from irrele-
vance. Fundamentally, an RD reading of TM suggests that every true proposition
rigidly depends on necessary beings. Again, recall that x is a truthmaker for some
proposition (p), say (Socrates is pale), if and only if x exists and it is necessarily
the case that if x exists, then (Socrates is pale) is true. But suppose that x is a
necessary being, say the number 7, and thus exists in every possible world. If the
number 7 exists in every possible world, then it, ipso facto, exists in the world in
which (Socrates is pale) is true. It follows from this that (Socrates is pale) rigidly
depends for its truth on the number 7 and, consequently, the latter is what makes
the former true." But this seems implausible as the existence of the number 7
is wholly irrelevant regarding whether or not (Socrates is pale) is true. Though
(Socrates is pale) may well necessarily imply the existence of the number 7, one is
hesitant to make the further claim that therefore the number 7 is the truthmaker
for (Socrates is pale).
In light of this, Lowe contends that to say that x metaphysically necessitates
(A- is not merely to espouse the view that x exists in every world in which (p),, i.e.
that x is necessary for (p)T. Rather, metaphysical necessitation is better expressed
by the fact that the non-existence of x is necessary for the falsehood of p.13 Alternatively,
for x to be the ontological ground for (p)T is for x's non-existence to be necessary
for the falsehood of (p). Consequently, Lowe claims that RD fails to adequately
construe the modal dependence operative in TM.
Lowe maintains that the failure of RD to capture the relevant notion of
metaphysical necessitation in TM does not entail that all species of metaphysical
dependence are therefore inadequate to do so. In the place of RD, Lowe puts
forward a relation - essential dependence - that he takes to entail rigid existential
dependence, but is not entailed by it. That is, every case of essential dependence
is a case of rigid-existential dependence, but not the converse.'" As such, essential
dependence is more fine-grained than rigid-existential dependence and thus is
better suited to capture the notion that (p)T metaphysically depends on x. Lowe
states the notion of essential dependence as follows:
'2 For an early statement of this sort of worry, see SIMONS, Parts, 295.
13 LOWE, The Four-Category Ontology, 202.
" It should be noted that Lowe in "Two Notions of Being" takes the notion of essence to
be primitive and does not reify essences. Rather, Lowe takes the locution "the essence of x"
to denote "what x is, or what it is to be x". Further, Lowe states the fact that essential (identity)
dependence entails rigid existential dependence as follows: "that if one entity depends for its
identity upon another, then the former could not have existed without the latter" - LOWE, The Four-
Category Ontology, 35.
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ESSENTIAL DEPENDENCE, TRUTHMAKING, AND MEREOLOGY: THEN AND Now
(ED) x essentially depends on y =de f There is a function f such that it is
part of the essence of x that x is f(y)."
One particular example of ED would be the relationship between Socrates and
his singleton {Socrates}, the set whose sole member is Socrates. Now, according
to ED, {Socrates} essentially depends on Socrates precisely because it is of the
essence - the very identity - of {Socrates} that it be the singleton set of Socrates,
that is, to be the value of the singleton-set-of function, where Socrates serves as
rtdn
esmcceeon
Leargument.
epen
dthe u not.
Let consider how ED might serve to elucidate the species of metaphysical
operative in TM. It is precisely in virtue of the fact that ED is more
fine-grained than RD that the former is able to sidestep the objection from
irrelevance. Recall that an RD reading of TM stated that x is the truthmaker
for (Socrates is pale) if and only if x exists and rigidly necessitates the truth of
(Socrates is pale), thereby allowing the unintuitive notion that every true pro-
position is rigidly necessitated, and thus made true, by some necessary being (the
number 7). On a more fine-grained ED reading of TM, however, such an inference is
unwarranted on the grounds that it is not part of the essence of (Socrates is pale)
that it be true only if the number 7 exists. While (Socrates is pale) might be rigidly
necessitated by the number 7, it is not essentially necessitated by it in the sense
that (Socrates is pale) does not depend for what it is - its very identity - on the
existence of the number 7." Consequently, as one cannot infer from the existence
of a necessary being (number 7) that everything is essentially dependent upon it,
the objection from irrelevance is avoided, thereby making essential dependence
a welcome candidate for the species of metaphysical necessity operative in TM.
In the case of accidental predications, an ED reading of TM proves to be fruitful.
Take, for instance, an accidental predication of the form (x is F), where the mode
F-ness is predicated of a substance x. On Lowe's four-category ontology, F-ness
essentially depends on x as well as the universal F (F-ness being a particularised
instance of F). That is, it is part of the essence of F-ness that it (i) characterise
or inhere in x and (ii) be an instance of F. Since F-ness is essentially dependent
on these two entities, it follows, according to Lowe, that the existence of F-ness
essentially necessitates x's being F and thus the truth of the proposition (x is F).
In other words, the existence of F-ness suffices to secure the existence of x, F, x's
15 More generally, 3R(1=1„Rxy): for some relation R, x is essentially related by that relation to
y. I should note that Lowe takes identity dependence to be a species of essential dependence,
though I do not think this affects what I say here. For an extensive treatment of different
ti of ontological dependence see FABRICE CORREIA, Existential Dependence and Cognate
Notions (Philosophia
(Philosophia Verlag, 2005).
16 Although, as David Oderberg suggests in Real Essentialism, the number 7 is a virtual part
of the essence of (Socrates is pale) in so far as the latter, an existing entity, is essentially self-
identical and thus has as a (virtual) part of its essence being distinct from the number 7.
METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE • 77
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ESSENTIAL DEPENDENCE, TRUTHMAKING, AND MEREOLOGY: THEN AND NOW
being F, and therefore the truth of the proposition (x is F). As a result, F-ness is said
to metaphysically necessitate the truth of (x is F) in the right sort of way, thereby
satisfying TM.
3. SCHOLASTIC ESSENTIAL DEPENDENCE
In spite of this recent turn to essence in the contemporary literature on
truthmaking, there has been little exploration of the historical roots of the formal
concept of essential dependence as it pertains to the notion of truthmaking
broadly conceived. My aim in this section is to explore the scholastic roots of
the notion of essential dependence as developed in the work of Duns Scotus. In
section 4, I proceed to examine the relationship between Scotus's understanding
of essential order with his account of truthmaking for accidental predications
in terms of accidents. I then show how his account fails to satisfy the modal
constraints on TM in light of his commitment to the possibility of separated
accidents in the Eucharist as well as the objection from irrelevance outlined
above. I conclude with a brief examination of a scholastic account of truthmaking
for accidental predications that does satisfy the modal constraints of TM and thus
presents itself as a viable option for contemporary truthmaker theorists.
3.1. Scotus on essential order
The notion of one entity depending on another for its existence and/or essence
has a formidable history in the Aristotelian tradition. Let us begin, then, with
an examination of Scotus's understanding of dependence, as displayed in his
philosophical theology and substance-accident ontology.
In the context of the metaphysics of the Incarnation, Scotus contends that the
union that takes place between the Word, the second person of the Trinity, and
the human nature of Christ (i.e. the hypostatic union) is a "union of order."" After
considering and rejecting two other kinds of unity that might obtain between the
Word and the human nature of Christ, Scotus states,
All that remains therefore is the third type, namely, a union of order. The order,
however, is that of the posterior to the prior. The Word obviously is not posterior
to [human] nature; hence it is the other way around. The nature is posterior with
respect to the Word and thus dependent on him.'s
For Scotus, then, the Word is ordered with respect to the human nature of
Christ in such a way that the latter is posterior to, and thus dependent on, the
former.
Scotus's most developed treatment of the notion of dependence is found in
his De Primo Principio. There, he elucidates the notion of posteriority and priority,
17 JOHN DUNS SCOTUS, Quaestiones Quodlibetales [Quodl.], q. 19, n. 2.
'8 Ibid., n. 5.
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labelling it "essential order" and proceeds to explicate two distinct varieties
of essential order: the order of eminence and the order of dependence.19 The order
of eminence pertains to the notion of perfection; x is eminently ordered with
respect toy if x's perfection (of essence) exceeds the perfection ofy, and is thereby
said to be prior to y in the order of eminence. The order of dependence, on the
other hand, involves the notion of priority and posteriority with respect to the
essence or nature of the two relata involved; "the dependent is said to be posterior
whereas that on which it depends is prior".20
Here it is crucial to note that Scotus maintains that the relata of essential
ordering relations are essences (i.e. forms). Again, in the context of the hypostatic
union, Scotus explicitly endorses the notion that the relata of essential ordering
relations are essences, "As for the case at hand, the personal or hypostatic entity
has no essential priority in respect to creatures, for an essential order obtains per
se only between essences (in contrast to hypostatic entities), since it is forms (i.e.
essences) that are like numbers"." In short, the order is one of essential dependence
in so far as the priority or posteriority stems from the nature or essence of the
s
entity squestion.
further suggests that essential ordering relations imply a sort of exis-
tential dependence of the posterior on that which is prior, "the prior according to
nature and essence can exist without the posterior but the reverse is not true"."
He continues,
And this I understand as follows. Even though the prior should produce the posterior
necessarily and consequently could not exist without it, it would not be because the
prior requires the posterior for its own existence, but it is rather the other way about.
For even assuming that posterior did not exist, the existence of the prior would
not entail a contradiction. But the converse is not true, for the posterior needs the
prior. This need we can call dependence, so that we can say that anything which is
essentially posterior [in this way] depends necessarily upon what is prior but not vice
versa, even should the posterior at times proceed from it necessarily."
Following Aristotle, Scotus maintains that if x is essentially posterior to y,
then x depends on y for its existence. He states that if x is essentially ordered to
y, then x's existence "needs" or "requires" y's existence, i.e. it is impossible that x
exist without y's existing.
19 JOHN DUNS SCOTUS, De Primo Principio [DPP] 1.6.
20 DPP 1.8.
21 Quodl. q. 19, n. 19. However, it should be noted that Scotus does, at times, allow for a wider
variety of relata in essential ordering relations. See Quodl. 19., a. 2, n. 30 where he distinguishes
different conceptions of essential dependence by their different relata.
al DPP 1.8.
21 DPP 1.8.
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ESSENTIAL DEPENDENCE, TRUTHMAKING, AND MEREOLOGY: THEN AND NOW
Here, however, we must proceed with caution. The claim that x is existentially
dependent on y admits of two readings, each differing in its respective scope.
We have already encountered the strong variety of existential dependence in
Lowe's explication of rigid-existential dependence (RD) above. Recall that this
stronger notion stated that necessarily, x exists only if y exists, E(E!x —• E!y),
where 'y' denotes some particular entity such that necessarily, x exists only if
that particular y exists. While rigid-existential dependence captures the notion
of an entity's existence requiring the existence of a particular entity, the weaker
reading captures the notion of an entity's existence requiring the existence of
an object of a particular sort. As such, the weaker reading states that necessarily,
x exists only if F exists, where 'F' is a general term denoting some instance of the
class of Fs. Thus, on this weak reading, x cannot exist unless something is an F, i.e.
Ei(E!x —• E!y A Fy). Let us follow Lowe once more and label this weak variety of
existential dependence "non-rigid existential dependence".
In the passage above it is not clear as to which notion of existential depen-
dence Scotus takes essential order to entail. For now, let us just say that if an
entity is essentially ordered to another entity, then the former is existentially
dependent on the latter in some sense or other (understood in a wide enough sense
to capture both rigid and non-rigid existential dependence).
Let us, then, formulate Scotus's conception of essential order using our sen-
tential operator 'Clx' to stand for 'it is part of the essence of x':
(E0): x is essentially ordered toy = El x (E!x ---• E!y)24
That is, x is essentially ordered toy if and only if x is essentially such that it
exists only if y exists. Michael Gorman has pointed out that Scotus puts forward
several formal features that govern E0 in De Primo Principio 2: irreflexivity, asym-
metry, and transitivity." Using "Elo" to stand for "essentially ordered", Scotus
maintains that E0 is governed by the following axioms:
Irreflexivity: "Nothing whatever is essentially ordered to itself."26
-(00(x,x))
24 Scotus defines "of the essence of x" (what I am referring to in EO above as "part of the
essence of x such that") as "that which is included per se in the quidditative concept of x and
therefore, is posited in the essential notion of its quiddity, and not as something added." See
JOHN DUNS SCOTUS, Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis [In Met.] VII, q. 1.
25 MICHAEL GORMAN, "Ontological Priority and John Duns Scotus", in The Philosophical
Quarterly 43 (173) (1993): 460-471.
26 DPP 2.2.
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ESSENTIAL DEPENDENCE, TRUTHMAKING, AND MEREOLOGY: THEN AND NOW
Asymmetry: "In any essential order a circle is impossible.""
0 0(x,y) —• -00(y,x)
Transitivity: "What is not subsequent to the prior
is not subsequent to the posterior"28
(00(x,y) A pay,z)) ---, (00(x,z))
Consequently, what emerges from our above discussion of Scotus's conception
of dependence is a partial ordering relation that obtains between essences that
is governed by the axioms of irreflexivity, asymmetry, and transitivity. Though
essential order is commonly understood within the context of distinguishing
per se and per accidens causal series, Scotus takes essential ordering relations to
be commonplace, especially as it pertains to his substance-accident ontology." In
attempting to distinguish essential order from any sort of causal dependence, he
suggests that essential order "can be shown somehow in [the relation of] subject
and accident."" What's more, referring again to the essential order that obtains in
the hypostatic union, Scotus notes that the human nature of Christ is dependent
on the Word such that the latter sustains the former in existence and, further,
that this sustenance is "maximally similar to that of an accident by its subject"."
But how exactly does Scotus conceive of the relation between a substance
and its accidents? The issue, as we will see shortly, is complicated given his com-
mitment to the Eucharistic doctrine that upon consecration the accidents of the
bread and the wine remain in existence, even though their underlying substance
ceases to exist." Let us turn, then, to examine Scotus's notion of E0 as applied to
his understanding of the relation between a substance and its accidents with an
eye on the prospects of its application to the notion of truthmaking below.
Scotus operates out of an Aristotelian ontology where substances are the
fundamental units of being and accidents are taken to inhere in substances. By an
accident "inhering" in a substance, Scotus means to convey either: (i) the actual
union of an existing accident with its existing subject as a kind of act with the
potential or (ii) the dependence of the accident upon the substance, where the
27 DPP 2.4.
28 DPP 2.6.
29 DPP 1.
" Ord. III, dist. 1, q. 1, n. 3, as cited in RICHARD CROSS, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation:
Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 123.
" Ord. III, dist. 1, q. 4, n. 2, as cited in CROSS, ibid.
" For an excellent treatment of the Eucharist and its role in scholastic metaphysics, see
MARILYN MCCORD ADAMS "Aristotle and the Sacrament of the Altar: A Crisis in Medieval
Theology", Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 17 (1991): 195-249.
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ESSENTIAL DEPENDENCE, TRUTHMAKING, AND MEREOLOGY: THEN AND Now
substance is essentially prior and the accident is naturally posterior." Regarding
(0, we can say that if x inheres in y then x actualises some potency in y, call this
`inherence,' as it underscores the fact that x informs y in such a way that y's
passive potency (to be x) is actualised by x. Concerning (ii), if x inheres iny, then
x is dependent on y for its continued existence, call this 'inherence,' (to be read
in the broadest terms to include rigid and non-rigid existential dependence). By
claiming that accidents are "naturally posterior" to substances, Scotus means
that "the natural entity of these [accidents] is through substance"." That is, it
is the natural order of things that accidents depend on substances as external,
efficient causes of their continued existence.
Furthermore, Scotus is clear that inherence,, is more fundamental than in.
herenceA in so far as an accident's (natural) dependence on substance serves
as the ground for its capacity to actualise some potency in its substance. If an
accident, F-ness, is to actualise some potency in Socrates (inherence„), to be pale
for instance, then there must be a sense in which F-ness depends on Socrates (i.e.
inherence,) as opposed to Crito, say.
Scotus further distinguishes two ways an accident may inhere simpliciter
(i.e. inhere, or inhered in a substance: actual inherence and aptitudinal inherence 35
Heavily influenced by the Eucharistic doctrine concerning separated accidents
(i.e. accidents that no longer depend on their host substance for their sustained
existence), Scotus argues that while it is not of the essence of an accident to
actually inhere simpliciter in a substance (as is the case with separated accidents
present in the Eucharist), it is of the essence of an accident that it aptitutidinally
inhere simpliciter in a substance (the separated accidents are such that they
naturally tend to inhere in a substance, though it is not part of their essence that
they actually do so)." Hence, the aptitude or disposition to inhere, and inhere, in
a substance is part of the essence (what Scotus calls the "quidditative concept")
of an accident, irrespective of whether or not it actually does so. Consequently,
we have the following classification of accidental inherence:
INHERENCE
ACTUAL APTITUDINAL
INHERENCEA INHERENCE(' INHERENCE,, INHERENCE('
Quodl. q. 19, n. 13; In Met. VII, q. 1, n. 9. However Scotus intends the modal import of
'natural' here, I understand it to be (at the very least) weaker than metaphysical necessity
(broad logical necessity) as construed by contemporary philosophers. See CROSS, The Meta-
physics of the Incarnation, 104 for more on Scotus's view of accidents being naturally posterior
to substances.
31 In Met. VII, q. 4, n. 2.
" See In Met. VII, q. 1, n. 10; and Quodl. q. 19, n. 24.
'6 In Met. VII, q. 1, n. 12.
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One apparent implication of Scotus's metaphysics of the Eucharist for his
su bstance-accident ontology (and for his view of truthmaking as we will see
s hortly)
is that while an accident may be naturally ordered to substance, it is not
essen tially ordered (posterior) to it." The reasoning here is straightforward. In
so far as it is metaphysically possible for an accident to exist without actually
inheringp in a substance" it follows that it is not part of its essence to actually
inhere, in a substance and, ipso facto, is not essentially ordered to it. This reasoning
relies on Scotus's earlier contention that that which is essentially ordered is
existentially dependent (in either the rigid or non-rigid sense) on that which is
prior." Here I interpret Scotus as espousing the view that that which is essentially
ordered to another must actually depend for its existence on that which is prior,
i.e. it must actually inhere, in either its particular host substance or some substance
or other.4° Consequently, Scotus's adherence to the metaphysical possibility of an
accident existing without actually inhering, in either the strong or weak sense
implies that accidents are not, strictly speaking, essentially ordered to substance.
At the same time, however, Scotus does speak as though accidents, in the
normal order of things, actually inhered„ in a substance. In fact, he is of the opi-
nion that accidents are (naturally) sustained in existence by their host substances
in such a way that the latter is "the end term of the dependence of the actual
existence of an assumed nature".4' Elsewhere, he refers to this dependence rela-
tion as the substance communicating its existence to the accident 42
In adhering to the possibility of separated accidents together with the fact that
accidents do at times actually inhere, in their host substances, Scotus appears to
be affirming the seemingly implausible thesis that being existentially dependent is
a contingent affair. In fact, Scotus says just this when he states:
37 See Quodl. q. 19, n. 13. Also, as Richard Cross has shown, Scotus does provide independent
philosophical argumentation in support of the thesis that accidents are not essentially ordered
to their host substances. See his The Physics of Duns Scotus (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1998), 100.
" Something Scotus explicitly affirms, "the natural entity of these [accidents] is through sub-
stance; they can [however] exist without substance with an aptitude for a subject" — In Met. VII, q. 4,
n. 2). The implication here is that an accident may exist without actually inhering (simpliciter)
in a substance, though it cannot exist without having the aptitude to inhere in a substance.
39 DPP 1.8.
I° Further evidence for this reading is found in his using the notions of actual inherence()
and essential order interchangeably (In Met. VII, q. 1, n. 9) and then, shortly after, stating
explicitly that it is not of the essence of an accident that it actually inhere() (ibid., n. 12) in
a substance.
41 Ord. III, dist. 1, q. 5, n. 8, as cited in CROSS, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation.
42 Ord. III, dist. 1, q. 5, n. 8, as cited in CRoSS, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation; Quodl. q. 19,
n. 23.
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We show this thirdly as follows: An accident can have the mode of substance [i.e. it
can exist without inhering in a substance], although not perfectly in the sense that
it would be repugnant for it to depend on a subject, but in some analogous way
viz., insofar as it does not actually depend; this is seen in the case of a separated
accident."
The way in which an accident has the mode of substance in the Eucharist is
that it enjoys independent existence. Be that as it may, separated accidents remain
as accidents in so far as they retain their aptitude to actually inhered in a substance
(substances do not have this feature). Nonetheless, it remains that the view has
the rather untoward consequence that being existentially dependent is a contingent
matter." I must, at this point, leave these interpretive niceties to those with a
more detailed knowledge of the issues surrounding Scotus's ontology of accidents.
As a result, we have seen that Scotus relies on a conception of essential
dependence (i.e. essential order) that is governed by (i) the notion of priority and
posteriority between essences (ii) the existential dependence of the posterior on
the prior (in some sense or other) and (iii) the axioms of irreflexivity, asymmetry,
and transitivity. Let us turn, then, to discuss several scholastic conceptions of
truthmaking for accidental predications and their relation to the notion of essen-
tial dependence (order).
4. SCHOLASTIC TRUTHMAKING AND ESSENTIAL DEPENDENCE
Though the scholastics did not express the notion of truthmaking in precisely
the same terms as we do today, the idea is not without witness in the Aristotelian
tradition 45 In fact, both Scotus and Aquinas, with Aristotle, adopt the fundamental
intuition behind the notion of truthmaking: the dependence of truth on being."
As John Fox has noted,
43 Quodl. q. 19, n. 84.
" One rather contentious way out of this would be to suggest that while it appears that
being rigidly existentially dependent is non-contingent, being non-rigidly existentially dependent
might be a contingent feature of an entity (as it is a weaker dependence relation). That is,
a non-rigidly dependent entity can fail to be dependent as such and yet exist nonetheless. For
an excellent historical treatment of the scholastic debate concerning the view that accidents
have various modes of existence (modus essendi), see ROBERT PASNAU, Metaphysical Themes
1274-1689 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
" For ARISTOTLE, see especially Categories 14 b 16-23. For a defence of the thesis that
the scholastics utilised a truthmaking theory of predication see JOHN Fox, "Truthmaker",
Australasian Journal of Philosophy 65 (1987): 188-207; JEFFERY BROWER, "Simplicity and Aseity",
The Oxford Handbook to Philosophical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); TIM PAWL,
A Thomistic Account of Truthmakers for Modal Truths (doctoral dissertation, St. Louis University,
2008); and CROSS, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation.
46 For AQUINAS see his Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate [QDV], q. 1, a. 2, ad 3; ibid. ad 1. For
SCOTUS see Ord III, dist. 6., q. 1, n. 6; Reportata Parisiensia III, dist. 1, q. 2, n. 5, as cited in CROSS,
The Metaphysics of the Incarnation.
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Medieval philosophers customarily defined something's whiteness, heaviness, exis-
tence, manhood, or colour, as that by which it was white, was heavy, existed, was a
man, or was coloured... this 'by which' is to be elucidated in terms of truthmaking."
For both Scotus and Aquinas, substances are "made to be" by their accidents in
a qualified sense; accidents are said to actualise some potency in their substances,
thereby causing substances to be in some particular manner.
In particular, Aquinas speaks of an accident being related to a substance as act
to potency and that "a subject, in virtue of an accident, is in certain ways" and that
"whiteness makes a potentially white human being actually white ... non-essential
forms make it [substance] actually exist in various non-essential modes"." What's
more, he states that, "Snow is 'white' by reason of its whiteness"." Consequently,
Aquinas emphasises the role of accidents in a substance's coming to be modified
in a particular manner (although we will see shortly that his account does not
appeal to accidents alone).
As for Scotus, the actualisation of passive potency in a substance by an acci-
dent is, as we have already seen, embodied in his notion of inherenceA. Scotus,
like Aquinas before him, argued that Socrates is white "by the existence of a
white thing".5° Following Richard Cross (2002), I take this feature of accidents to
be what Scotus elsewhere calls their ability to confer existence denominatively on
their respective substances." Consequently, both Scotus and Aquinas were of the
opinion that Socrates' potency for being white is actualised by the inhering of
the accident whiteness.
However, both of these thinkers differed as to the details concerning the
truthmaking role for accidents. To get clear on this, let us represent their views
regarding the multifaceted relationship between an accident and its substance
as follows:
(A) For any accident F-ness and any substance x in which F-ness inheres,
(1) F-ness existentially depends on x, either actually or aptitudinally.
(2) F-ness actualises x's potency to be F.52
(3) F-ness is a truthmaker, such that (x is F) is true."
" Fox, "Truthmaker", 190.
" Summa theologiae [STh] I, q. 3. a. 6 and De principiis naturae 1, respectively.
" STh III, q. 77, a. 1, ad 4.
50 Ord III, dist. 6, q. 1, n. 6, as cited by CROSS ibid.
5' CROSS, ibid., 125, n. 21. See also Ord. III, q. 6, a. 1, n. 6, as cited by CROSS ibid., and In Met.
VII, q. 1, n. 10.
52 As with (1), F-ness may either actually or aptitudinally actualise x's potency to be F. Since
both Scotus and Aquinas appear to ignore an accident's having the aptitude to actualise x's
potency to be F, I focus here on an accidents actually doing so.
" Ord. I, dist. 8, pars 1, q. 4, n. 213-214, adapted from CROSS, ibid., 34.
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ESSENTIAL DEPENDENCE, TRUTHMAKING, AND MEREOLOGY: THEN AND Now
Both Scotus and Aquinas were committed to (1) and (2) regarding the rela-
tionship between an accident and its host substance.54 However, they differ as
to how (1) and (2) bear on (3), that is, the truthmaking role of accidents. Here,
I consider Scotus's account of truthmaking for accidental predications and pro,
ceed to Aquinas's more detailed account in the final section.
4.1 Scotus's account of truthmaking
In general, Scotus construes (3) in terms of (1). In fact, Scotus is quite adamant
that (3) can be understood without reference to (2). He states:
You will object: how is something formally wise by wisdom unless [wisdom] is
its form? I reply: a body is animate denominatively (as it were), because the soul
is its form. A human being is said to be animate essentially, and not (as it were)
denominatively, because the soul belongs to him or her as a part. So being of a cer-
tain sort because of something does not require that the thing [paleness] is a form
informing something [Socrates], because a form [paleness] is not a form informing
the whole, even though [the whole] is said to be of a certain sort because of it."
Thus, paleness need not actualise some passive potency in Socrates in or-
der to serve as the truthmaker for (Socrates is pale). Rather, Scotus was of the
opinion that the truthmaking role for accidents is best construed in terms of
(1); it is in virtue of a substance x's possessing an accidental form F-ness via
actual inherencep that it is true that (x is F), i.e. F-ness is the truthmaker for the
accidental predication (x is F). As Marilyn McCord Adams notes,
Scotus declares that ontological dependence of a broad sense property thing on
a subject is sufficient for characterization. Even if whiteness did not actualise a po-
tency in Socrates, Socrates would be the subject on which the whiteness ontologically
depended and that would be enough to make it true that Socrates is white."
Scotus's explication of truthmaking in terms of (1) instead of (2) is ultimately
tied to his view that inherencei, is more fundamental than inherence„ in so far as
an accident's actualising some passive potency in a substance requires that the
accident depend on that very substance for its existence.
Given the earlier line of reasoning in section 2 above, however, it appears that
this proposal is inadequate to secure the requisite modal strength contemporary
philosophers commonly ascribe to the relation of truthmaking. Recall our ear-
lier attempt to construe existential dependence (and hence inherence,,) in the
broadest possible terms in order to allow for either a strong or weak reading
(i.e. rigid or non-rigid respectively) in light of the ambiguity latent in Scotus's
" For AQUINAS, see 5Th III, q. 77, a. 1, ad. 2.
" Ord. I, dist. 8, pars 1, q. 4, n. 213-214, adapted from CROSS, ibid.
56 MARYLYN MCCORD ADAMS, Christ and Horrors (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2006), 126.
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ESSENTIAL DEPENDENCE, TRUTHMAKING, AND MEREOLOGY: THEN AND Now
cla im that essential order entails existential dependence in some sense or other.
Un fortunately, we can no longer remain neutral on this matter as the tenability
of Scotus's proposal of truthmaking in terms of (1) heavily depends on whether or
not he understands an accident to be rigidly or non-rigidly existentially depen-
seae substance.
denTtoon
we construe (1) in terms of non-rigid existential depen-
dence and thus explicate (3) as F-ness non-rigidly depending on x. On this account,
the existence of F-ness does not, strictly speaking, necessitate the truth of (x is F),
say, Socrates' being F. Rather, at most, the existence of F-ness necessitates that
some x is F, not that this particular, viz. Socrates, is F. On this reading, the existence
of F-ness could just as easily necessitate the truth of (Glaucon is F). Consequently,
interpreting (1) in terms of non-rigid existential dependence is not strong enough
to capture the modal force operative in TM.
The same fate awaits an interpretation of (1) in terms of rigid-existential
dependence. As was previously demonstrated, this species of metaphysical de-
pendence does not appear to be fine-grained enough to capture the notion of
truthmaking, hence the objection from irrelevance we met in section II. As Lowe
(2006) has pointed out, "a truthmaker is not, or not merely, something whose
existence is necessary for the truth of a proposition but something whose non-
existence is necessary for its falsehood.""
Lastly, we might underscore here the implications of Scotus's metaphysics of
the Eucharist for his account of truthmaking in terms of (1). If separated accidents
are metaphysically possible, then there could be instances where the F-ness (the
whiteness of the bread) of x exists and yet the accidental predication (x is F) ((the
bread is white)) is false given that x ceases to exist altogether. Yet this undermines
the fact that truthmakers are said to metaphysically necessitate their truths.
Consequently, in so far as we place any stock in the objection from irrelevance
and thereby require the modal force of truthmaking to be stronger than that of
rigid-existential dependence, it appears that we must bid farewell to a scholastic
account of truthmaking for accidental predications in terms of accidents alone.
4.2 Hylomorphic truthmakers
I want to conclude by briefly unpacking an alternative essential dependence
account of truthmaking for accidental predications, one that finds its roots in
the hylomorphic ontology of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas's hylomorphic account,
I believe, has much to offer the contemporary truthmaker theorist as it provides
a novel alternative to tropes and states of affairs as truthmakers for accidental
predications.
Though at times Aquinas speaks as though accidents alone serve as truth-
makers for accidental predications in virtue of satisfying (2) above, he clearly
57 LowE, The Four-Category Ontology, 202.
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ESSENTIAL DEPENDENCE, TRUTHMAKING, AND MEREOLOGY: THEN AND NOW
states that it is the combining of an accident and its host substance that serves as
the truthmaker for accidental predications. Aquinas is clear that, "when I say
"Man is white," the cause of the truth of this enunciation is the combining of
whiteness with the subject".58 Elsewhere, he makes the same point, albeit more
subtly, "But the reasoning by which the affirmative enunciation, 'Man is worthy,'
is true, i.e., by some worthy man existing, is the same as the reasoning by which
`Man is shameful' is true, i.e., by a shameful man existing".59
For Aquinas, the result of the combining of seatedness and Socrates is a nu_
merically distinct hylomorphic compound, seated-Socrates (what he calls an
"accidental being" generally), whose matter is Socrates and accidental form is
seatedness. And, it is the existence of this numerically distinct accidental being,
seated-Socrates, which is said to ground the truth of the accidental predication
(Socrates is seated). As a result, Aquinas is of the opinion that what enters into
the truthmaking relation for accidental predications are not accidents alone (pace
Scotus), but rather a distinct mereologically complex entity that is composed of
an accident and a substance.
How does Aquinas's hylomorphic proposal fair as an explication of the truth-
makers for accidental predications? For one, accidental beings have the requi-
site modal features such that their existence essentially (as opposed to rigidly)
necessitates the existence of each of their proper parts (in our example of seated-
Socrates, the substance Socrates and the accidental form seatedness), thereby
avoiding the objection from irrelevance.
To help bring out the modal features of accidental beings qua hylomorphic
compounds, we can represent the essential and ontological priority of the parts
of these compounds as being governed by the following mereological principle:
necessarily, if any object x is part of an accidental being, y, then, it is part of the
essence of y that if y exists then x is a part of y. As an accidental being, seated-
Socrates exists and is what it is in virtue of the existence and essence of its proper
parts, Socrates and seatedness.
It is precisely because accidental beings exhibit these modal features that
the existence of seated-Socrates is said to essentially necessitate Socrates' being
seated and not merely the co-existence of two, unrelated entities: Socrates and
seatedness. In so far as the essence of seated-Socrates - its very identity - involves
reference to Socrates as modified by his inhering mode of seatedness, it follows that
the existence of seated-Socrates essentially necessitates Socrates' being seated
and, ipso facto, the accidental truth of (Socrates is seated).
Aquinas's hylomorphic account of truthmaking for accidental predications
will most likely find favour with those who are already favourably disposed
58 THOMAS AQUINAS, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle IX, lect. 11, n. 1898. I owe
this and the following reference to PAWL, Thomistic Account of Truthmakers.
59 THOMAS AQUINAS, Sententia super Peri hermenias I, lect. 11, n. 10.
88 • METAPHYSICAL STRUCTURE
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ESSENTIAL DEPENDENCE, TRUTHMAKING, AND MEREOLOGY: THEN AND Now
toward a hylomorphic ontology and whose aesthetic sensibilities are not offended
by including what Gareth Matthews has famously dubbed 'kooky objects' in their
6° Nevertheless, I take Aquinas's hylomorphic account of truthmaking
t:
° :t el°ygeYt.another example of how a hylomorphic ontology is remarkably fecund
in its application to contemporary issues in metaphysics and thus deserves to be
taken seriously as a viable metaphysic of material objects.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ADAMS, MARILYN McCofto. "Aristotle and the Sacrament of the Altar: A Crisis in Medieval
Theology". Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume (1991): 195-249.
— Christ and Horrors. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
AQUINAS, THOMAS. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. London:
Burns, Oates, and Washbourne 1912-36. Reprint, New York: Benziger Brothers 1947-48.
Reprint, New York: Christian Classics, 1981.
— Questiones Disputatae de Veritate: The Disputed Questions on Truth. Translated by Robert
W. Mulligan, SJ. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1952.
— Sententia super Metaphysicam: Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle. Translated by
J. P. Rowan. Chicago: Regnery, 1964.
— Sententia super Peri hermenias: Aristotle on Interpretation: Commentary by St. Thomas and
Cajetan. Translated by J. T. Oesterle. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1962.
—De Principiis Naturae: On the Principles of Nature. Translated by Timothy McDermott. In
Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Writings. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
ARISTOTLE. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Edited by J. Barnes.
2 vols. Bollingen Series. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.
BROWER, JEFFREY. "Simplicity and Aseity". The Oxford Handbook to Philosophical Theology.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
CORREIA, FABRICS. Existential Dependence and Cognate Notions. Philosophia Verlag, 2005.
CROSS, RICHARD. The Metaphysics of the Incarnation: Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2002.
— The Physics of Duns Scotus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
FINE, KIT. "Essence and Modality". In Philosophical Perspectives 8: Logic and Language, edited
by James E. Tomberlin, 1-16. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview, 1994.
Fox, JOHN. "Truthmaker". Australasian Journal of Philosophy 65 (1987): 188-207.
GORMAN, MICHAEL. "Ontological Priority and John Duns Scotus". The Philosophical Quarterly
43 [173] (1993): 460-471.
60 GARETH MATHEWS, "Accidental Unities", in Language and Logos, ed. M. Schofield and
M. Nussbaum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
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LOWE, E. J. The Four-Category Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

— "Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence". Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 62
(2008): 23-48. D01:10.1017/51358246108000568.
LOWE, E. J. and RAM!, A. Truth and Truthmaking. Acumen Press, 2008.
MATTHEWS, GARETH. "Accidental Unities". In Language and Logos, edited by M. Schofield
SECTION III
and M. Nussbaum, 223-240. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
MELIA, JOSEPH. "Truthmaking Without Truthmakers". In Truthmakers: The Contemporary
Debate, edited by H. Beebee & J. Dodd, 67-84. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
ODERBERG, DAVID. Real Essentialism. London: Routledge, 2007.
PARSONS, JOSH. "There is No "Truthmaker" Argument Against Nominalism". Australasian
SUBSTANCE
Journal of Philosophy 77, no. 3 (1999): 325-334.
PASNAU, ROBERT. Metaphysical Themes 1274-1689. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
PAWL, TIM. A Thomistic Account of Truthmakers for Modal Truths. Doctoral dissertation, St
&
Louis University, 2008.
ScoTus, JOHN DUNS. Quaestiones Quodlibetales: God and Creatures: The Quodlibetal Questions,
Translated with an introduction, notes and glossary by Felix Alluntis and Allan B,
ACCIDENT
Wolter. Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1975.
— Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum A ristotelis: Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle
by John Duns Scotus. Edited by Girard J. Etzkorn and Allan B. Wolter OFM. St. Bona-
venture, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1997-1998.
— De Primo Principio: John Duns Scotus, A Treatise on God as First Principle. Edited by Allan
B. Wolter. 2nd edition, revised with a commentary. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press,
1983.
SIMONS, PETER. Parts: A Study in Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.

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ESSENCE AND ONTOLOGY
E, J. Lowe

ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to show how, by combining a neo-Aristotelian account of essence
with a neo-Aristotelian four-category ontology (of individual substances, modes, substantial
universals, and property universals), a thoroughgoing metaphysical foundation for modal
truths can be provided - one which avoids any appeal to 'possible worlds' and which renders
modal truths objective, mind-independent, and yet also knowable.

1. ONTOLOGY
In Aristotle's mature ontological system, as presented in the Metaphysics, indi-
vidual substances are taken to be combinations of matter and form, with each
such substance being constituted by a particular parcel of matter embodying,
or organised by, a certain form. For example, an individual house has as its im-
mediate matter some bricks, mortar and timber, which are organised in a certain
distinctive way fit to serve the functions of a human dwelling. Similarly, an indi-
vidual horse has as its immediate matter some flesh, blood and bones, which are
organised in a certain distinctive way fit to sustain a certain kind of life, that
of a herbivorous quadruped. In each case, the 'matter' in question is not, or not
purely, 'prime' matter, but is already 'informed' in certain distinctive ways which
makes it suitable to receive the form of a house or a horse. Thus, bricks, mortar
and timber would not be matter suitable to receive the form of a horse, but at best
that of something like a statue of a horse. According to this view, the matter and
form of an individual substance are each 'incomplete' entities, completed by each
other in their union in that substance. But its form is essential to the substance,
unlike its matter, in the following sense: an individual house, say, cannot lose the
form of house without thereby ceasing to be, whereas - while it must always have
matter of an appropriate kind so long as it continues to be - it need not always
have the same matter of that kind. Individual bricks and timbers in a house may
be replaced without destroying the house - indeed, this may be the only way to
preserve a certain house - but once its bricks and timbers cease to be organised
in the form of a house, the house necessarily ceases to be.
Clearly, according to this hylomorphic Aristotelian picture, an individual
substance is a 'combination' of matter and form in a sense which rules out our

SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT • 93

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ESSENCE AND ONTOLOGY
thinking of its matter and form as being parts of the substance, at least in the
normal sense of 'part'. Here it might be objected that, for example, a brick in a
house is a part of it in this familiar sense, and yet belongs to the 'matter' of the
house: so can't we at least say that the matter of a house is a 'part' of it in this
sense? Not easily: for even if we were to concede that a brick is literally a part of
the house, all the matter of the house, considered collectively, can hardly be so
regarded. For the house coincides with its matter as a whole and hence, it appears,
that matter could not qualify as a proper part of house, as the brick might. Nor,
however, can the matter qualify as an improper part of the house, in the standard
sense, since that would make it identical with the house: and yet the house is
clearly not identical with its matter, not least because its matter can change
while it persists. Equally, on the hylomorphist view, the house's form cannot be
regarded as a part, either proper or improper, of the house, in the standard sense
of 'part'. Nothing forbids the hylomorphist from saying that, in some other sense
of the term, the matter and form of an individual substance are 'parts' of it, but
saying this would at least not be very helpful, since it would invite confusion. It
is better just to say that the matter and form are constituents, but not parts, of
the substance. The key point is that, on this view, individual substances exhibit
`internal' ontological complexity, being combinations of 'incomplete' entities that
are completed by each other in the substance.
So far, I have spoken a lot about forms, but not much about features, and how they
might be accommodated by the approach now under discussion. Very roughly, I
think that the answer should run somewhat as follows. The form of a substance
constitutes its essence - what it is, its 'quiddity' - whereas its features, or 'qualities',
are how it is. A horse is what Dobbin is, for example. If Dobbin is white, however,
that is partly how he is - a way that he is. I say 'partly' only to acknowledge that
there are many other ways Dobbin is besides being white - such as being heavy
- and by no means intend to imply that Dobbin's whiteness is a part of Dobbin.
However, Dobbin's whiteness might nonetheless be thought to be a constituent of
Dobbin, on this view, distinct from his form, which is equinity. And this might
be maintained whether one thought of Dobbin's whiteness as being a particular
whiteness peculiar to him, or just the universal whiteness that he shares with
other white substances. But how, then, are a substance's features related to its
form? Some of its features, it seems, are necessitated by its form - such as warm-
bloodedness in the case of Dobbin - and these may be called, in the strictest
sense of the term, the substance's properties. Other of its features, however, are
`accidental', such as Dobbin's whiteness, which may therefore be denominated one
of his accidents. Even so, although Dobbin's whiteness is accidental, that Dobbin
has some colour is necessitated by his form and is thus essential to him. So we
arrive at the following picture: an individual substance possesses a certain form,
which constitutes its essence, from which 'flow' by necessity certain features of
the substance, which are its properties in the strictest sense of the term. Some of
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E. J. Lowe
ESSENCE AND ONTOLOGY
these properties are 'cleterminables' rather than 'determinates', such as colour in
the case of Dobbin, and then it is necessary that the substance should possess
some determinate feature falling under the relevant determinable, but contingent
which feature this is. Such contingent determinate features are the substance's
accidents, which can obviously change over time compatibly with the continued
existence of the substance. The overall picture, even in this relatively simplified
version of it, is quite complex, with an individual substance portrayed as having
a rich and in some respects temporally inconstant constituent structure of form,
matter, properties, and accidents, with form and properties remaining constant
while matter and accidents are subject to change.
Hylomorphism certainly has many attractive aspects. But its core difficulty
lies in its central doctrine - that every concrete object, or more precisely every
concrete individual substance, is a 'combination' of matter and form. For what,
really, are we to understand by 'combination' in this sense? Clearly, we are not
supposed to think that combination in this sense just is, or is the result of,
a 'putting together' of two mutually independent things, since matter and form
are supposed to be 'incomplete' items which complete each other in the substance
that combines them. Now, certainly, when some concrete things - such as some
bricks, timbers and quantities of mortar - are put together to make a new concrete
object, such as a house, those things have to put together in the right sort of way,
not just haphazardly. But does this entitle us to suppose that the completed house
is some sort of 'combination' of the things that have been put together and the way in
which they have been put together? The challenge that the hylomorphist presents
us with is to explain why, if we do not say something like this, we are entitled to
suppose that a new individual substance is brought into being. One presumption
behind that challenge would seem to be that a substance can't simply be a so-
called mereological sum of other substances - and with this I can agree, at least if
by a `mereological sum' we mean an entity whose identity is determined solely
by the identities of its 'summands', rather as the identity of a set is determined
solely by the identities of its members. I agree that only when other substances
have been put together in the right sort of way does a new substance of a certain
kind come into being, the way in question depending on the kind in question.
Moreover, I have no objection to the 'reification' of 'ways', understood as features
or forms, provided that we do not treat ways as substances - so here too I am in
agreement with the hylomorphist. Reification is not the same as hypostatisation,
but is merely the acknowledgement of some putative entity's real existence. What
I do not understand is what it means to say that the completed house's form - the
way in which its 'matter' is organised - is an 'incomplete' constituent of the house
which 'combines' together with that equally 'incomplete' matter to constitute
the house, a complete substance. The words that particularly mystify me in
this sort of account are 'incomplete', 'combine' and 'constitute'. It's not that I do
not understand these words perfectly well as they are commonly used in other
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contexts, just that I do not understand their technical use in the hylomorphic
theory and, equally importantly, why a need should be felt for this use of such
terms.
If I could understand the supposed need to say something like this, then I would
make every possible effort to grasp the technical terminology. So let us remind
ourselves why, allegedly, there is indeed such a need. As was just mentioned, the
need supposedly arises in order to meet the challenge of explaining how a new
substance is brought into existence. The suggestion seems to be that, unless we
can see the new substance as being a combination of items neither of which can
exist independently of the other in just such a combination, rather than as merely
being composed of other independently existing things each possessing their
own features, we shall be unable to justify the judgement that a new concrete
object - an 'addition of being' - really has been brought into existence, rather than
some previously existing things merely being rearranged. Put in this way, the
supposed problem is one that is familiar from recent debates in metaphysics. Here,
though, I would urge that some types of 'rearrangement' are ontologically more
weighty than others. When a free proton and a free electron are 'rearranged'
by increasing the distance between them from one mile to two miles, there is
no reason at all to suppose that a new concrete object is brought into existence.
But when they are 'rearranged' so that the electron is captured by the proton
and occupies an orbital around it, then indeed we have a new concrete object of
a very different kind: a hydrogen atom. This object has certain features, notably
certain powers, which are quite different from those of protons and electrons and
quite different, too, from those of a mereological sum of a free proton and a free
electron. In the newly created hydrogen atom, the proton remains exactly what
it was before, just a proton, and the electron remains just an electron. A new form
is instantiated - one that is possessed neither by the proton nor by the electron
- namely, the form of a hydrogen atom. This form is the form of the newly created
object, the atom, not that of the proton or the electron, nor even of the pair of
them. The form does not, in any sense that I can understand, 'combine' with the
proton and the electron so as to constitute, together with them, the atom. The
only things that do any 'combining' are the proton and the electron, when the former
captures the latter and the latter occupies an orbital around the former. And
the only things that constitute the atom are, again, the proton and the electron,
which are its parts, in the perfectly familiar sense of 'part'. So, as can be seen, I am
perfectly happy to describe the case of the newly created hydrogen atom in terms
of 'combination' and 'constitution', and indeed in terms of 'form'. It's just that I do
not need, and do not understand, the 'logical grammar' of the hylomorphist who
uses these terms in his own distinctively technical fashion. Furthermore, I have
no serious need for the hylomorphist's category of matter. I might be prepared to
say that the 'matter' of the hydrogen atom is or consists of its proton and electron,
but just in the sense that these are its parts and serve to compose it. But the atom's
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'matter' in this sense is not, as the hylomorphist takes it to be, some 'incomplete'
constituent of the atom that is completed by the atom's 'form'. In fact, I would
prefer to abandon the term 'matter' altogether, as modern physics has done, at
least as a fundamental theoretical term. Thus, although modern scientists talk,
for instance, of 'condensed matter physics', fundamental particle physicists do
not nowadays speak of protons and electrons as having, or being composed of,
matter - although they might happily speak of them as being 'packets of energy'
and certainly as possessing mass.
The hylomorphist ontology described above is inspired by Aristotle, as modi-
fied perhaps by later thinkers such as Aquinas. But the basis of another kind of
ontology can also be traced to Aristotle, this time to the Aristotle of his presumed
early work, the Categories.' The kind of ontology that I now have in mind is one
whose key notions are briefly sketched in the opening passages of that work, be-
fore the classificatory divisions commonly known as the Aristotelian 'categories'
are set out later in the treatise. In those opening passages, Aristotle articulates
a fourfold ontological scheme in terms of the two technical notions of 'being said
of a subject' and 'being in a subject'. Primary substances - what we have hitherto
been calling 'individual' substances - are described as being neither said of a sub-
ject nor in a subject. Secondary substances - the species and genera to which primary
substances belong - are described as being said of a subject but not in a subject.
That leaves two other classes of items: those that are both said of a subject and in
a subject, and those that are not said of a subject but are in a subject. Since these
two classes receive no official names and have been variously denominated over
the centuries, I propose to call them, respectively, attributes and modes. It seems
that secondary substances and attributes are conceived to be different types of
universal, while primary substances and modes are conceived to be different types
of particular. Since the Aristotelian terminology of 'being said of and 'being in'
is perhaps less than fully perspicuous, with the former suggesting a linguistic
relation and the latter seemingly having only a metaphorical sense, I prefer to use
a different terminology: that of instantiation and characterisation. Thus, I say that
attributes and modes are characterising entities, whereas primary and secondary
substances are characterisable entities. And I say that secondary substances and
attributes are instantiable entities, whereas primary substances and modes are
instantiating entities. These terminological niceties, which though necessary are
apt to prove confusing, are most conveniently laid out in diagrammatic form,
using the familiar device known as the Ontological Square. I present it below.'
' See ARISTOTLE, Categories and De Interpretatione, trans. J. L. Ackrill (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1963).
For a much fuller account, see my The Four-Category Ontology: A Metaphysical Foundation for
Natural Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
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In my own version of the Ontological Square, I prefer to use the terms 'object'
and 'kind' in place of the more cumbersome 'primary substance' and 'secondary
substance'. I also include a 'diagonal' relationship between objects and attributes,
which is distinct from both instantiation and characterisation, calling this, as
seems appropriate, exemplification. Here is my version:
characterised by
instantiated by exemplified by instantiated by
characterised by
I call the four classes of entities depicted here ontological categories, albeit with
a cautionary note that these are not to be confused with, even though they are not
unrelated to, Aristotle's own list of 'categories' later in his treatise. More precisely,
I regard these four as the fundamental ontological categories, allowing that within
each there may be various sub-categories, sub-sub-categories, and so on.
How exactly are the two 'Aristotelian' systems of ontology related to one
another? Unsurprisingly, they overlap in many respects, but one key respect in
which they obviously differ is that the four-category ontology, as I call it, unlike the
hylomorphic ontology, does not include the category of matter. It might be thought
that it also lacks the category of form, but that is not in fact so. For I believe that
form, conceived as a type of universal, and more perspicuously termed substantial
form, is really nothing other than secondary substance or substantial kind. We
may refer to such universal forms either by using certain abstract nouns, such as
'humanity' and 'equinity', or else by using certain substantival nouns - what Locke
called `sortal' terms - such as 'man' and 'horse'. I believe that this is a grammatical
distinction which fails to reflect any real ontological difference. However, if that
is so, then there is a very important ontological consequence. This is that primary
substances, or individual concrete objects, 'have' forms only and precisely in
the sense that they are particular instances of forms. Thus Dobbin is a particular
instance of the substantial kind or form horse, whereas Dobbin's whiteness is a par-
ticular instance of the colour universal or attribute whiteness. By this account, it
makes no sense at all to say that Dobbin is a 'combination' of the form horse and
some 'matter'. He is, to repeat, just a particular instance of that form, other such
instances being the various other particular horses that exist or have existed.
Being an instance of this form, Dobbin must certainly have material parts, such
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as a head and limbs, but in no sense is he a 'combination' of anything material
a nd the universal form in question. What I am saying, then, is that individual
objects or primary substances are nothing other than particular forms, or form-
particulars - particular instances of universal forms, in precisely the same sense
in which modes (or 'tropes', as they are now often called) are particular instances
of a ttributes. A crucial question that now arises is whether the four-category
ontology is, like the hylomorphic ontology, a constituent ontology or whether,
rather, it is a relational ontology.' The answer that I want to defend is that it is neither
- and that this is very much to its credit. At first sight, it might seem that the four-
category ontology must be a relational ontology, since the Ontological Square
apparently depicts three relations supposedly holding between entities in different
categories of the system: the instantiation relation between objects and kinds and
between modes and attributes, the characterisation relation between attributes and
kinds and between modes and objects, and the exemplification relation between
objects and attributes. However, if the system includes such relations amongst
the entities whose existence it acknowledges, those entities must find a place in
one or other of the system's four fundamental categories. There seem to be only
two that could possibly house them: the category of attributes and the category
of modes. That is to say, the relations in question would have to be categorised as
being either relational attributes or relational modes. In fact, they would have to be
classified in both of these ways, in the following sense: since the theory maintains
that every attribute is instantiated by modes and that every mode instantiates
an attribute - because to this extent, at least, the theory is 'immanentist' where
universals are concerned - it would have to maintain that there are relational
instantiation, characterisation and exemplification modes which instantiate cor-
responding relational attributes. But this really makes no sense on the system's
own terms. Consider, for instance, the case of the characterisation of an object
by a mode: for example, Dobbin's particular whiteness's being a characteristic
of Dobbin. As this example illustrates, characterisation is supposed to 'obtain'
between entities in the category of modes and entities in the category of objects.
This is so even if there are relational modes, such as, perhaps, a loving mode that
characterises John and Mary. What there cannot be is a relational mode that
characterises an object and a mode. Moreover, if we supposed that there could
be, we would immediately be faced with the threat of an infinite regress, of the
sort that F. H. Bradley famously described. For if it were the case that, in order for
mode M to characterise object 0, a relational characterisation mode, Mc had to
characterise M and 0, then by the same token another relational characterisation
mode, M", would have to characterise M', M and 0 - and so on ad infinitum. Here
it may be responded that this is just so much the worse for the four-category
' For more on this distinction between 'constituent' and 'relational' ontologies, see
NICHOLAS WOLTERSTORFF, "Bergmann's Constituent Ontology", Nous 4, no. 2 (1970): 109-134.
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ontology and simply demonstrates its inadequacy or even its incoherence. But
that would be far too rash a conclusion, for the system certainly has the resources
with which to dissolve the apparent difficulty, as we shall now see.
An important distinction is commonly made between internal and external
relations, the idea being that an internal relation holds of necessity between
its terms or relata, in virtue of their intrinsic features or natures, whereas an
external relation may hold or fail to hold between its relata irrespective of their
intrinsic features or natures. For instance, spatial relations between objects are
commonly supposed to be external, because it seems that the distance between
two objects could be altered without affecting in any way the intrinsic features
or natures of those objects. By contrast, resemblance seems intelligible only when
conceived as being an internal relation. For example, that red resembles orange,
and indeed that it resembles orange more closely than it resembles yellow, seem
to be necessary truths that depend solely on the intrinsic natures of the colours
in question. But to talk of there being - that is, of there existing - internal relations
in cases like these is to indulge in unnecessary reification. We can put the point
in this way: while there may be relational truths to be recognised in such cases
(truths whose logical form is relational) - such as the truth that red resembles
orange - there need not be relational truthmakers of those truths. Understanding
a truthmaker of a given proposition to be, at the very least, an entity (or plurality
of entities) whose existence necessitates the truth of that proposition, we can see
that the truthmaker of the proposition that red resembles orange is quite simply
the colours red and orange themselves. For, in the language of possible worlds, in every
world in which those colours exist, the proposition that red resembles orange is true. We do
not need to invoke, as a putative truthmaker of this proposition, or even as part of
any such truthmaker, a relation of partial or imperfect resemblance between red
and orange, conceived as an entity additional to red and orange themselves' The
lesson is that, while it might be convenient to talk of 'internal relations', we should
not suppose that in so talking we are talking of really existing entities of a relational
nature, such as relational attributes or modes. Consequently, if the four-category
ontology can fairly represent instantiation, characterisation and exemplification being
internal relations, it can avoid serious ontological commitment to them as entities
to be included in one or other of its ontological categories and thereby avoid the
threatened Bradleian regress, while at the same time escaping classification as
a relational ontology.
Now, the three 'relations' in question most plausibly are internal, or at least
explicable in internalist terms. I make this latter qualification to accommodate
the 'relation' of exemplification. That instantiation and characterisation are
internal relations is relatively easy to argue for. In the case of instantiation, all
' For more on truthmaking, see E. J. LOWE and ADOLF RAMC, eds., Truth and Truth-Making
(Stocksfield: Acumen, 2009).
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that we need to maintain is that an object necessarily instantiates its kind and that
a mode necessarily instantiates its attribute, both of which claims are prima facie
highly plausible. It is surely part of the essence of a whiteness mode, for instance,
that it is an instance of the universal whiteness. Similarly, it is very plausibly part
of the essence of a particular horse, Dobbin, that he is an instance of the kind horse.
Ana logous points can be made regarding characterisation. It is surely part of the
essence of Dobbin's whiteness mode that it characterises Dobbin: for that mode
depends for its very identity on its being Dobbin's, and could not possibly 'migrate' to
another object, much less continue to exist in Dobbin's absence (any more than
the Cheshire Cat's grin could continue to exist without the cat). This leaves us
only with characterisation as a 'relation' between attributes and kinds. But what
i have in mind in speaking in these terms are precisely certain essential connexions
between attributes and kinds, which are normally expressed in the language of
natural law. We say, for instance, that electrons are negatively charged particles, thus
expressing an essential connexion between the kind electron and the attribute
negative charge. Electrons, as a natural kind, have certain essential characteristics,
of which negative charge - or, more exactly, unit negative charge - is one. To put it
another way, in no possible world are there electrons which lack negative charge.
A world which contained particles exactly similar to electrons in every respect
save that they were neutral, say, would not be a world containing neutral electrons.
Kinds depend for their very identity on their essential characteristics, just as modes
depend for their very identity on their objects or 'bearers'. Consequently, the
characterisation 'relation' between attributes and kinds is an internal one and
so 'no addition of being'. I concede that in saying all this I am glossing over
certain complications which would need to be accommodated by a more detailed
account, but I think that these complications raise no real difficulties for the sort
of approach that I am now recommending. For instance, one difficulty might
be thought to be that the exact numerical value of the negative charge on the
electron is arguably not a necessary feature of the electron, even if it necessarily
possesses unit negative charge: for the 'size' of this unit might conceivably differ
in different possible worlds. But then the proper response to this might just be
to say that that value is not an essential characteristic of electrons and universally
characterises all particular electrons in the actual world for some reason that
is extrinsic to their nature as electrons - a reason to do, say, with some global
property of space in this world.
I now pass on to the slightly more complicated case of exemplification. It
seems clear that we can't simply say that exemplification, like instantiation and
characterisation, is an 'internal' relation, because which attributes an object
exemplifies can be a contingent matter. Dobbin, for example, is white, but could
perhaps instead have been brown. This is unlike the truth that Dobbin is warm-
blooded, which is plausibly necessary, at least in a qualified sense that will be ex-
plained below. However, what we can say is the following. Dobbin is white in
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virtue of being characterised by a certain whiteness mode, call it W. Now, it is part
of the essence of W that it characterises Dobbin, since W depends for its identity
on Dobbin. Equally, it is part of the essence of w that it instantiates the attribute
whiteness. Hence, in any possible world in which W exists, W instantiates whiteness
and characterises Dobbin, whence it follows that in any such world it is true that
Dobbin is white, since he is characterised by a whiteness mode in that world. Thus
W is a truthmaker of the proposition that Dobbin is white, as indeed would be any
whiteness mode of Dobbin. But the proposition that Dobbin is white simply affirms
that Dobbin exemplifies whiteness. Hence, we can explain truths of exemplification
like this without invoking the existence of an exemplification relation. As for the
contingency of the truth that Dobbin is white, this simply arises from two facts:
first, that any whiteness mode of Dobbin's, such as W, is itself a contingent being,
and second that the ontological dependence between any such mode and Dobbin
is asymmetrical. Such a mode does not exist in every possible world, and there
are possible worlds in which Dobbin exists but no such mode exists. By contrast,
the reason why Dobbin is necessarily warm-blooded is that Dobbin instantiates the
kind horse, and warm-bloodedness is an essential characteristic of that kind.
Here the truthmaker for the truth that Dobbin is warm-blooded is just Dobbin
himself: for in any possible world in which Dobbin exists, he instantiates the
kind horse and that kind is characterised by the attribute warm-bloodedness. This
truth of exemplification is, then, a necessary truth: not in the unqualified sense
that it obtains in every possible world whatsoever, but in the qualified sense
that it obtains in every possible world in which Dobbin exists. It is an essential
truth about Dobbin, whereas the truth that Dobbin is white is not. In short, we
can explain all truths of exemplification, and explain too their modal status,
whether they be contingent or necessary, without invoking the existence of any
relation of exemplification, but simply by appealing to the `internal' relations of
instantiation and characterisation, together with the truthmaking roles of objects
and modes. For this reason, I maintain that the four-category ontology cannot
fairly be classified as being a relational ontology.
I turn now, more briefly, to the question of whether the four-category on-
tology can instead fairly be classified as a constituent ontology. I take it to be a
necessary feature of any such ontology that objects are regarded by it as pos-
sessing significant ontological structure, where this does not involve their mere
composition by other objects in at least some cases. That is to say, the mere fact that
an ontology takes at least some objects not to be simple, in the sense of allowing
that they possess other objects as parts, is not sufficient for it to be classified as being
a constituent ontology - not even if the ontology allows that one object may be
constituted by another, distinct object (for instance, a bronze statue by a lump of
bronze), both of which are composed of the same parts at the time of constitution.
Rather, what is crucial for an ontology to qualify as `constituent' is that it should
maintain that objects have an ontological structure involving `constituents
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which belong to ontological categories other than the category of object itself.
The bylomorphic ontology is clearly a constituent ontology in this sense, since it
ma intains that objects, or individual substances, are `combinations' of matter and
for m, where neither matter nor form is conceived to be an entity belonging to the
category of individual substance. Now, if the four-category ontology were fairly to
be classified as a constituent ontology, what could it be taken to regard as being
the `constituents' of objects, in the sense now relevant? Clearly, there are only
three candidates, since there are only three other ontological categories for these
putative constituents to be drawn from - kinds, attributes, and modes. However,
even without examining the case of each in detail, it seems clear from what has
already been said about instantiation, exemplification, and characterisation -
the three key `relations' that `relate' objects to entities of each of these other
categories respectively - that they are not `constitutive' or `combinative' in
nature. If any of them were, the consequence would be that the four-category
ontology is committed to some version of the bundle theory of objects - and yet
it is most emphatically not.
Take the case of modes, for instance. The proper thing for a four-category
ontologist to say about modes, I believe, is that they are `abstractions' from objects,
not constituents of them, for this explains their identity-dependence on their
objects. Identity-dependence is not only an asymmetric relation of ontological
dependence: it also implies ontological priority on the part of the entity depended
upon, with respect to the dependent entity. And this is precisely in accordance
with the Aristotelian spirit of the four-category ontology, according to which
individual substances - objects, as we are calling them - have ultimate ontological
priority over entities in any of the other three categories. I suggest, then, that
within the four-category ontology we need to regard modes as being `aspects' of
objects, to which we can attend selectively in thought or perception, by means of
what Locke called a `partial consideration'. These aspects explain the differential
behaviour of different objects: for instance, why some objects roll down an inclined
plane while others do not - the former being spherical or cylindrical, the latter not.
But it is, after all, the whole object that rolls, not its sphericity or cylindricality. Nor
does it make much sense to suppose that its sphericity or cylindricality `drags
along' the object's other modes with it, and thereby makes the object as whole
move. To think in such terms is illicitly to hypostatise modes, treating them as
simple substances within an object, rather than just as particular `ways' an object
is. I conclude that the four-category ontology, properly understood, has to be
excluded both from the class of relational ontologies and from that of constituent
ontologies. Attempts to force it into either of these camps simply turn it into some
other kind of ontology altogether.
It cannot have escaped notice that, in setting out and defending the four-
category ontology, I have frequently used modal notions, such as those of necessity
and possibility, and also the notion of essence. In the remainder of this paper,
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therefore, I shall try to explain and defend my usage, which is once more inspired
by the work of Aristotle.
2. ESSENCE
Currently dominant accounts of the traditional metaphysical distinction
between essence and accident attempt to explain it in modal terms, and more
specifically in terms of the notions of metaphysical necessity and possibility.
These in turn are commonly explicated in terms of the language of 'possible
worlds'. Thus, a property F is said to be an essential property of an object a just in
case, in every possible world in which a exists, a is F. And a's essence is then said to
consist in the set or sum of a's essential properties. One difficulty of this approach,
brought to our notice by the work of Kit Fine, is that it seems grossly to over-
generate essential properties.' For instance, by this account, one of Socrates's
essential properties is his property of being either a man or a mouse and another
is his property of being such that 2 + 2 = 4. It might be objected that these are not
genuine properties anyway and so a fortiori not essential properties of Socrates.
But there are other examples which cannot be objected to on these grounds,
such as Socrates's property of being the sole member of the set singleton Socrates,
that is, the set {Socrates} whose sole member is Socrates. Fine urges, plausibly,
that it is not part of Socrates's essence that he belongs to this set, although it is
plausibly the case that it is part of the essence of singleton Socrates that Socrates
is its sole member. The modal account of essence cannot, it seems, accommodate
this asymmetry. These points are too well-known for it to be necessary for me to
dwell on them further. Suffice it to say that I am persuaded by Fine's objections
to the modal account of essence and accept the lesson that he draws: that it is
preferable to try to explicate the notions of metaphysical necessity and possibility
in terms of the notion of essence, rather than vice versa. This may also enable
us to dispense with the language of possible worlds as a means of explicating
modal statements. That would be a good thing, in my view, since I regard this
language as being fraught with ontological difficulties, even if it can sometimes
have a heuristic value.
However, if we are to take this alternative line of approach, we need, of
course, to provide a perspicuous account of the notion of essence which does
not seek to explicate it in modal terms. Fortunately, we do have at our disposal
some resources wherewith to accomplish this, drawing on the Aristotelian and
Scholastic traditions in metaphysics. A key notion here, pointed out and exploited
by Fine himself, is that of a real definition, understood as being a definition of
a thing (a res, or entity), in contradistinction to a verbal definition, which is a
definition of a word or phrase. A real definition of an entity, E, is to be understood
5 See KIT FINE, "Essence and Modality", in Philosophical Perspectives 8: Logic and Language,
ed. James E. Tomberlin (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview, 1994).
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as a proposition which tells us, in the most perspicuous fashion, what E is — or,
more broadly, since we do not want to restrict ourselves solely to the essences
of actually existing things, what E is or would be. This is perfectly in line with the
original Aristotelian understanding of the notion of essence, for the Latin-based
word 'essence' is just the standard translation of a phrase of Aristotle's which is
more literally translated into English as 'the what it is to be' or 'the what it would
be to be'. We find a similar turn of phrase in Locke's Essay, where he tells us that
the word 'essence', in what he calls its 'proper original signification' just means
the very being of any thing, whereby it is, what it is'.6
It will be helpful at this point to proceed by way of examples, the first of
which I borrow from Spinoza' Consider a familiar geometrical figure, such as a
circle. And suppose that someone asks us what a circle is. This can be understood
as a request for a real definition of this kind of geometrical figure - not a request
for the meaning of the English word 'circle', for which we would do well to resort
simply to a good English dictionary. And here, plausibly, is the real definition
that is required - one that will typically be found in textbooks of elementary
geometry:
(C') A circle is the locus of a point moving continuously in a plane at a fixed
distance from a given point.
The 'given point' here is, of course, the circle's centre. This formula or recipe
tells us what a circle is, and it does so by revealing its generating principle - what it
takes for there to be or, more exactly, for there to come into being, a circle.
Here is another geometrical example:
(E') An ellipse is the locus of a point moving continuously in a plane in
such a fashion that the sum of the distances between it and two other
fixed points remains constant.
These 'fixed points' are the ellipse's foci. By contrast, consider this alternative
description of an ellipse (as a type of conic section), which is equally true of all
ellipses:
(E2) An ellipse is the closed curve of intersection between a cone and
a plane cutting it at an oblique angle to its axis greater than that of
the cone's side.
6 See John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. P. H. Nidditch (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1975), III, III, 15.
' See Benedict de Spinoza, On the Improvement of the Understanding, Ethics, Correspondence,
trans. R. H. M. Elwes (New York: Dover, 1955), 35.
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This, I suggest, tells us a necessary property of all ellipses, but not the essence
of an ellipse - what an ellipse is. For it does not capture an ellipse's generating
principle. It characterises an ellipse in terms that are extrinsic to its nature as
the particular kind of geometrical figure that it is. Certainly, one can make an
elliptically shaped surface by cutting a cone in the prescribed fashion, but this
procedure does not really explain why it is that what is so produced is an ellipse.
On the other hand, once we understand what an ellipse is, by learning its real
definition, we can go on to understand why it is that the cutting procedure in
question generates an ellipse, as opposed to any other kind of geometrical figure.
The reverse does not seem to hold: taking an ellipse to be the shape we get when
we cut a cone in the prescribed fashion does not help us to understand why an
ellipse is the locus of a point moving continuously in a plane in such a fashion
that the sum of the distances between it and two other fixed points remains
constant.
So, at least, I suggest. The necessary property of all ellipses that I have just
identified - that of being a closed curve of intersection between a cone and a plane
cutting it at an oblique angle to its axis greater than that of the cone's side - holds
of all ellipses not purely in virtue of their essence, but at least partly in virtue of
the essence of a quite different kind of geometrical object, a cone. That is what
I mean by saying that to characterise an ellipse in terms of this property is to
characterise it in terms that are extrinsic to its nature as the particular kind of
geometrical figure that it is. Here is another way of making this point: an ellipse
can exist even in a purely two-dimensional space, but a cone can exist only in a
space of at least three dimensions - hence it can't be right to define an ellipse in
terms of its relationship to a cone, since ellipses can exist perfectly well without
cones. Yet another way of making the same point is the following: an ellipse
evidently does not depend for its identity on any cone of which it may happen to
be a section, but it does depend for its identity on the distances between its foci
and the sum of the distances between them and any point on the ellipse.
As I intimated earlier, the view of essence and real definition that I have
just been articulating is one with a lengthy philosophical pedigree. We find it,
for instance, in Spinoza's On the Improvement of the Understanding, where indeed
he uses the example of a circle with which I began. Now, any essential truth is
ipso facto a metaphysically necessary truth, although not vice versa: there can be
metaphysically necessary truths that aren't essential truths - understanding an
essential truth to be a truth concerning the essence of some entity. If we can truly
affirm that it is part of the essence of some entity, E, that p is the case, then p is
an essential truth and so a metaphysically necessary truth. Thus, for example,
it is part of the essence of a certain ellipse, E, that its foci are a certain distance
apart, whence it follows that it is metaphysically necessary that E's foci are that
distance apart. By something's being a 'part of the essence' of a certain entity,
I just mean that it either is the whole essence of that entity or else is properly
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ESSENCE AND ONTOLOGY
included in its essence. Thus, for instance, since the essence of an ellipse is that
it is the locus of a point moving continuously in a plane in such a fashion that the sum of
the distances between it and two other fixed points remains constant, and having foci a
certain distance apart is properly included in this essence, it is part of the essence
of an ellipse that it has foci a certain distance apart - but this is obviously not the
whole essence of an ellipse, since it is also a part of the essence of an ellipse that
the sum of the distances between its foci and any point on the ellipse is constant.
consider now a metaphysically necessary truth such as the fact that an ellipse is
the closed curve of intersection between a cone and a plane cutting it at an oblique angle
to its axis greater than that of the cone's side. It is not part of the essence of any ellipse
that this condition holds, nor is part of the essence of any cone that it does. What
it is very plausible to contend, however, is that this metaphysically necessary
truth holds in virtue of the essences of an ellipse and a cone, respectively. It is
because of what an ellipse is, and what a cone is, that this relationship necessarily
holds between ellipses and cones. But it is not part of anything's essence that it holds.
For ellipses and cones, which are the only things whose essences have a role to
play in explaining why this necessary truth holds, are quite different things. Nor
is there any such thing as a 'cone-ellipse', part of whose essence it could be that
this truth obtains. Our proposal concerning metaphysically necessary truths is,
then, this: a metaphysically necessary truth is a truth which is either an essential
truth or else a truth that obtains in virtue of the essences of two or more distinct
things. On this account, all metaphysical necessity (and by the same token all
metaphysical possibility) is grounded in essence.
A concern that might be raised here is that our example of ellipses and
cones concerns geometrical objects, rather than material ones - for it might be
suspected that our account cannot easily be extended to cover the latter. I think
this concern is unfounded. Consider instead, for instance, material objects of
the following two kinds: a bronze statue and a lump of bronze. I would urge that it
is a metaphysically necessary truth, obtaining in virtue of the essences of such
objects - obtaining, that is to say, in virtue of what a bronze statue is and what
a lump of bronze is - that at any time at which it exists a bronze statue coincides
with a lump of bronze, which is numerically distinct from that statue. Likewise, it
is a metaphysical possibility, again obtaining in virtue of the essences of such
objects, that the same bronze statue should coincide with different lumps of bronze
at different times. And I say this despite the protestations of some metaphysicians
that they do not understand how such things can be the case - how, for instance,
two numerically distinct things, one of them a bronze statue and the other a lump
of bronze, can be composed of exactly the same bronze particles at one and the
same time. If they genuinely do not understand this, then I say that they have not
properly grasped what a bronze statue is or what a lump of bronze is. For in grasping
those essences they would grasp what the identity and persistence conditions of
such objects are, and thereby know that these are different and that in virtue of
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ESSENCE AND ONTOLOGY
these different identity and persistence conditions the truths that they purport
not to understand are indeed truths.
It will be recalled that, according to the currently prevailing modal account of
essence, an entity's essence consists in the set or sum of its essential properties,
these being the properties that it possesses in every possible world in which it
exists. Hence, according to this view, an entity's essence is a further entity, namely,
a set or sum of certain properties. According to my version of the neo-Aristotelian
account of essence, however, an entity's essence is not some further entity.8 Rather,
an entity's essence is just what that entity is, as revealed by its real definition. But
what E is is not some entity distinct from E. It is either identical with E (and some
scholars think that this was Aristotle's view) or else it is no entity at all: and the
latter is my own view. On my view, we can quite properly say that it is part of the
essence of a certain entity, E, that it possesses a certain property, P. But this does
not entitle us to say that P is a part of the essence of E. The latter would imply that
E's essence is a further entity, with P as a part, which accords with the orthodox
view that E's essence is a set or sum of certain properties. But I have rejected
that view. We should not, in my opinion, reify essences. And although I speak
of essences as having 'parts', I have already explained what I mean by this, in a
way that does not require us to reify essences. Note that there is a particularly
objectionable feature of the view that an entity's essence is some further entity.
This is that, since it seems proper to say that every entity has an essence, the
view generates an infinite regress of essences. Neither the view that an entity is
identical with its own essence, nor my preferred view that an entity's essence is
not an entity at all, has this defect. And my view, as we shall shortly see, has an
additional advantage when we come to consider the epistemology of essence, that
is, the proper account of our knowledge of essence.
Given that all metaphysical modality is grounded in essence, we can have
knowledge of metaphysical modality if we can have knowledge of essence. Can
we? Most assuredly we can. We have already seen this in the case of geometrical
figures, such as an ellipse. Knowing an entity's essence is simply knowing what that
entity is. And at least in the case of some entities, we must be able to know what they
are, because otherwise it would be hard to see how we could know anything at all
about them. How, for example, could I know that a certain ellipse had a certain
eccentricity, if I did not know what an ellipse is? In order to think comprehendingly
about something, I surely need to know what it is that I am thinking about. And
sometimes, at least, we surely succeed in thinking comprehendingly about some-
thing - for if we do not, then we surely never succeed in thinking at all, which
is absurd. Here it may be objected that currently prevailing causal or 'direct'
theories of reference precisely deny that a thinker must know what it is that s/
See further my "Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence", in Being: Developments in
Contemporary Metaphysics, ed. Robin Le Poidevin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
108 • SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT
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ESSENCE AND ONTOLOGY
he is thinking about in order to be able to think about it. For, on this account,
a thinker need not grasp the 'sense' of some referring expression in order to be
able to refer successfully by means of such an expression to its referent: rather,
reference is supposedly secured by a causal connexion between the expression
and the thing referred to. This is not the place for me to enter into a full-scale
debate about theories of reference. I would only urge that, even if the causal
approach accommodates some of our referential practices, it does not make sense
to suppose that, for successful reference to occur, no one need ever know what it
is that they are thinking about. It suffices for my purposes that at least sometimes
a thinker must be able to know this.
Here another objection may be raised, as follows. Sometimes, it may be con-
ceded, we have a concept of what it is that we are thinking about: but that is
all, and we cannot be entitled ever to suppose that anything actually falls under
that concept. For instance, we might have the concept of a table, and believe
that we are thinking about such a thing: but for all that, it might well be that in
reality there are no tables, and hence no table for us to be thinking about. But let us
reflect for a moment on what concepts are. And note that in thus reflecting we are
considering the essence of a concept: what a concept is. I propose that a concept is
away of thinking of some thing or kind of things. But ways of thinking of things can be
more or less adequate to the nature of the things in question - that is, more or less
adequate reflections of their essence. A child's way of thinking of a triangle is less
adequate than that of an experienced geometer. A concept of an entity E is fully
adequate only if it captures the whole essence of E. Now, I concede that a thinker
may be able to think of some entity without fully grasping its whole essence, and
this is no doubt the case with the child's thought about triangles. But I see no
reason to suppose that we may never fully grasp the whole essence of a certain
kind of entity. Bear in mind, too, that we want to allow that we can grasp the
essences not only of actually existing things, but also, at least sometimes, of non-
existent things - things such as unicorns and mermaids, perhaps. So I can happily
allow that sometimes, in thinking about something, we succeed in grasping its
essence and hence in thinking about it, even though no such thing actually exists.
I know, for instance, what a table is or would be, and hence grasp the essence of
such a thing and can thereby think about tables: but this does not commit me to
acknowledging the actual existence of tables. I might be open to persuasion, by
a suitably ingenious philosopher, that tables do not really exist. But if I am even to
be able to understand what such a philosopher is contending, I must know what
a table is or would be — what its essence is. Otherwise, I do not really know what it is
whose actual existence the philosopher is denying, when s/he denies that tables
actually exist. However, only a global sceptic is going to affirm that nothing that
we can think about actually exists, including even ourselves and our thoughts. And
such an all-embracing scepticism is self-undermining and incoherent. So I find
nothing in the present line of attack to suggest that I am wrong in supposing that
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ESSENCE AND ONTOLOGY ESSENCE AND ONTOLOGY

we can, at least sometimes, grasp the essences of at least some things - including BIBLIOGRAPHY
some actually existing things - and thereby come to know some modal truths.
ARISTOTLE. Categories and De Interpretatione, trans. J. L. Ackrill. Oxford: Oxford University
I mentioned earlier that, according to my account of essence, essences are
not entities. This means that grasping an essence - knowing what something is press, E nce and Modality". In Philosophical Perspectives 8: Logic and Language, edited
6s3e:
:E KIT, "Essence
- is not, by my account, a kind of knowledge by acquaintance of a special kind of Tomberlin, 1-16. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview, 1994.
entity, the thing in question's essence. All that grasping an essence amounts to,
L1:19
F10 HN.
JOHN. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited by P. H. Nidditch. Oxford:
on my view, is understanding a real definition, that is, understanding a special kind
Oxford University Press, 1975.
of proposition. To know what a circle is, for instance, I need to understand that
a circle is the locus of a point moving in a plane at a fixed distance from a given point. LOWE, E.J. The Four-Category Ontology: A Metaphysical Foundation for Natural Science. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006.
Provided that I understand what a point and a plane are, and what motion and
"Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence". In Being: Developments in Contemporary
distance are, I can understand what a circle is, by grasping this real definition,
Metaphysics, edited by Robin Le Poidevin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
And bear in mind that I do not insist that we need fully grasp the whole essence
of a thing in order to be able to think about it to some degree adequately, so
that even if I do not fully grasp what motion, say, is, I can still achieve at least a Low2E0,0E8..J. and RAM I, ADOLF, eds. Truth and Truth-Making. Stocksfield: Acumen, 2009.
partial grasp of what a circle is by means of the foregoing real definition. If, by SPINOZA, BENEDICT DE. On the Improvement of the Understanding, Ethics, Correspondence,
contrast, knowledge of essence were knowledge by acquaintance of a special kind translated by R. H. M. Elwes. New York: Dover, 1955.
of entity, then indeed we would have cause to be doubtful about our ability ever WOLTERSTORFF, NICHOLAS. "Bergmann's Constituent Ontology". Noels 4 (1970): 109-134.
to grasp the essences of things. For what mental faculty of ours could possibly
be involved in this special kind of acquaintance? Surely not our faculty of sense
perception. Sense perception may provide us with knowledge by acquaintance of
concrete, physical things, existing in space and time, but hardly with knowledge
of their essences, conceived as further entities somehow grounding modal truths
about those concrete things. If appeal is instead made to some special intellectual
faculty of 'insight' or 'intuition', with essences as its special objects, then one is
open to the charge of anti-naturalistic obscurantism. My own account of what it
is to grasp an essence appeals only to an intellectual ability that, by any account,
we must already be acknowledged to possess: the ability to understand at least
some propositions, including those that express real definitions.
We now have in place the basic ingredients for a thoroughgoing epistemology
of metaphysical modality. Put simply, the theory is this. Metaphysical modalities
are grounded in essence. That is, all truths about what is metaphysically necessary
or possible are either straightforwardly essential truths or else obtain in virtue of
the essences of things. An essence is what is expressed by a real definition. And it
is part of our essence as rational, thinking beings that we can at least sometimes
understand a real definition - which is just a special kind of proposition - and
thereby grasp the essences of at least some things. Hence, we can know at least
sometimes that something is metaphysically necessary or possible: we can have
some knowledge of metaphysical modality. This itself is a modal truth, of course, and
one that obtains in virtue of our essence as rational, thinking beings. And since
we can, it seems clear, grasp our own essence - at least sufficiently well to know
the foregoing modal truth about ourselves - we know that we can have some know-
ledge of metaphysical modality.

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AN ARISTOTELIAN ARGUMENT
AGAINST BARE PARTICULARS
Lukas Novak

ABSTRACT
The aim of the article is to provide an Aristotelian-inspired argument against the thesis
t hat particulars do not have any (non-trivial) de re necessary properties. This anti-essentialist
c la im is addressed in the form it takes within the implicit ontology of the Transparent Inten-
sional Logic (TIL) of Pavel Tichjr, the most developed logical formalism based on Fregean
fu ndaments up to date. The author sets out to show that given the reality of "accidental
change" (or any contingent variation across time or possible worlds), there must be tropes
or particular accidental forms - quite irrespectively of any assumptions concerning the
nature of universals. Since the tropes must ultimately differ essentially, it follows that there
are many essentially distinct natural kinds of particulars, so that insistence on essential
sameness of substances turns out as unwarranted. The article concludes with some general
thoughts concerning the relationship between ontology and logic. The author defends the
view that our ontology should not be tailored to fit the expressive and demonstrative powers
of a pragmatically chosen logical formalism, but precisely the other way around.

1. PRELIMINARIES
The distinction between de dicto and de re application of modal operators is
one well established in philosophy and logic since mediaeval times. Nevertheless,
whereas de dicto modality is usually regarded as quite unproblematic (I am leaving
Quine and his likes aside now) and the existence of de dicto necessary truths is
seldom taken into question, de re modality and especially de re necessity involves
a whole bunch of puzzles, of which the most fundamental one consists simply in
the question, whether there is anything as de re necessity at all. De re necessity
is the necessity of a property's belonging to a subject. If we define the essence
of an individual as the sum of its necessary properties, we can say that belief in
de re necessity amounts to essentialism, whereas denial of de re necessity entails
anti-essentialism. Nevertheless, the stipulative definition of essence that just
has been given, however common it is among the analytics, will probably be
regarded as quite imperfect by an Aristotelian. The elementary difference (among
other, more subtle ones) between the "Aristotelian" and the "analytical" essence
consists in the fact that the Aristotelian essence does not comprise all of the de
re necessary properties of a subject, but merely those that are constitutive for it.

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 Lukcig Novak
AN ARISTOTELIAN ARGUMENT AGAINST BARE PARTICULARS
This is the classical difference between properties predicable per se primo modo, or
the true essential properties, and the properties predicable per se but only secundo
modo, a bit improperly called propria or properties in the strict sense, which do not
constitute that which the thing is, but merely flow, of necessity, from its essence.
contingent
properties
essence
(----
non-essential
necessary
properties
Analytic essentialism Aristotelian essentialism
Taking into account this difference, we may be tempted to distinguish be-
tween weak essentialism and strong essentialism: Weak essentialism would amount
to the claim that there are de re necessary properties, strong essentialism would
in addition posit properties that are not only necessary, but also constitutive for
their subject. On the other hand, it seems that weak essentialism entails the
strong one: if there are properties that are necessary for a subject, they either are
constitutive for that subject (and thus we have strong essentialism), or there must
be something in the subject that makes it require precisely these properties - and
this "something" will then ultimately be some constitutive, i.e. strictly essential
property.
If this argument is correct, it follows that the strong, or classical Aristotelian
essentialism is implied in the very acceptance of de re necessity; and since the
fact that the implication holds the other way around is evident, we can say that
Aristotelian essentialism is equivalent to the belief in de re necessity.
One of the greatest challenges both to Aristotelian essentialism and to the
belief in de re necessity is the ontological conception of "bare particulars", which
amounts to saying that all properties (except trivial ones like self-identity, and
some others') belong contingently to their subjects, or in other words, that indi-
viduals have no (non-trivial) essences. I will tackle this view more or less in the
form it takes in the implicit ontology of the so-called Transparent Intensional
Logic (or TIL) of Pavel Tich3'7, arguably the most comprehensive and elaborate
formal hyper-intensional language existing (or, as its proponents like to put it,
a system for the logical analysis of natural language).2 The choice of TIL is not
' Like "having the same size as x" for x etc.
Tichj, simply identifies individuals with bare particulars in his "On Describing", Organon
F 14, no. 9 (2007): 424-425 (draft online, (http://til.phil. muni.cz/text/Tichy-OnDescribing.pdf):
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AN ARISTOTELIAN ARGUMENT AGAINST BARE PARTICULARS
systematically unmotivated: its philosophical background is in general quite
"metaphysics -friendly" - it eschews nominalism, reductionism of all sorts, and
above all, it is radically objectivist. Besides, the highly-developed devices of TIL
devised to capture the logical semantics of natural language constitute a very
s
traightforward development (and correction) of the Fregean semantic insights;
therefore, we can regard TIL as one of the best developed incarnations of the
contemporary Fregean conception of the nature of logic.3 On the other hand, in
the proposed argumentation I need not invoke anything of the special technical
apparatus of TIL and I believe that my reasoning applies equally to any version
of the theory of bare particulars.
I will not review here the various arguments for the conception of bare parti-
culars." I would just like to point to the fact that the intuitions behind the theory
seem to be rooted, in some way or other, in the Fregean approach to semantics
- especially, in the strict distinction between "object" and "concept" ("individual"
and "office" or "role" in TIL). Once this distinction has been made, it is very hard
to see how there might be a genuine case of logical de re necessity.5 For logical
necessity is the necessity that is distinguished against contradiction - but how
can there ever be any contradiction between a particular and a negation of a pro-
perty? It seems that contradiction requires by definition two properties. It is
never the case that a property (whether a positive or a negative one) contradicts
a subject. When we say, for example, that being an octopus contradicts Socrates,
"Consider a specific type of thing: individuals. I would like the planet Venus to be a paradigm individual.
But what I mean is the massive body of rock rushing through space utterly indifferent to whether we
take an interest in it, refer to it, describe it, or even affix the name 'Venus' to it. The Venus I have in mind
is, I think, roughly what Gustav Bergmann aptly calls a 'pure individuator' and what Miss Anscombe
scornfully refers to as a 'bare individual' (implying there are no such things). Venus is, of course, bare
not in the sense of lacking properties: indeed, for any relevant property X, Venus instantiates either X or
non-X. The planet is bare underneath this attire; it is the entity which enters the relation of instantiation
with the properties it happens to have while remaining itself; distinct from each property and from any
collection of them. Venus is bare because for any non-trivial property X it happens to instantiate, Venus
might conceivably have lacked X without thereby ceasing to be the same thing. There are, of course,
sundry trivial properties (e.g. the property of being X or non-X) which are necessarily instantiated by
Venus - and by everything else. Exactly one (trivial) property is both necessarily instantiated by Venus
and necessarily not instantiated by any other individual: the property of being identical with Venus."
' For a comprehensive list of resources concerning the TIL see the TIL website: (http://
til.phil.muni.cz/).
' For an argumentation by Tichy see his "Einzeldinge als Amtsinhaber", Zeitschrift fur
Semiotik 9, Heft 1-2 (1987): 13-50, translated as: "Individuals and their Roles", in Pavel Tichls
Collected Papers in Logic and Philosophy, edited by Vladimir Svoboda, Bjorn Jespersen, and Colin
Cheyne (Otago: Otago UP, Praha: Filosofia, 2005), 711-748; but especially his "On Describing".
An attempt to maintain essentialism in terms of any weaker kind of necessity (say,
"metaphysical necessity") would of course amount to implicit surrender to the anti-essen-
tialist's case.
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 Lukci§ Novak
AN ARISTOTELIAN ARGUMENT AGAINST BARE PARTICULARS
what we actually mean is that being an octopus contradicts being a man, and
since Socrates is a man, he cannot be, as such, an octopus. But this is merely a de
dicto impossibility, and we cannot derive any de re conclusion from that, unless
we first assume that being a man is de re necessary for Socrates. And again: where
is our justification for such a claim?'
Notice that this failure to justify essentialism is not merely accidental, but it
appears to be systematic: it seems to be impossible in principle to transcend the
sphere of properties in our modal reasoning, all necessities and impossibilities
seem to be inherent in properties, not their subjects. From this point of view
the thesis that all particulars are "bare", that is, have no logically necessary
properties (except the trivial ones) seems almost analytic; or at the very best,
essentialism must remain a for ever unsubstantiated object of faith alone.
In what follows, I would like to propose a very simple argument in Aristotelian
vein to the effect that anti-essentialism is, despite appearances, unsustainable.
I will also try to hint at the direction where one should, in my opinion, look for
the solution to the anti-essentialist argument just sketched. I say "hint", for I feel
that a thorough refutation of the anti-essentialist line of reasoning would require
much more labour and much better understanding of the nature of the problem
than I have at the moment.
2. THE ARGUMENT
Let us take for granted that in the world of particulars there exists what
Aristotle would call "accidental change" - that is, a change in which the subject
that undergoes it retains its identity and merely loses or gains a certain property.
This is an assumption the anti-essentialist has no reason to deny: to claim the
opposite, namely that all change is essential, amounts to the position directly
opposite to anti-essentialism, namely to hyper-essentialism. For example, let
us assume that Peter's acquiring the knowledge of Pythagoras' theorem is an
instance of such a change.
6 I am a bit overstating the case of the anti-essentialist here. As I have already mentioned,
even the anti-essentialist has to concede that there are some "trivial" properties which
are essential even to bare particulars. As it turns out, the class of this properties is not as
negligible as e.g. the proponents of TIL originally wished to think - specifically, it turns out
that properties can be construed that are "trivial" for one individual and "non-trivial" for
another. (This was shown by Pavel Cmorej in several articles in Slovak language; an English
translation of the most important one is available online: P. CMOREJ, "Empirical Essential
Properties and Their Constructions", Masaryk University Brno, the homepage of Transparent
Intensional Logic, (http://til.phil.muni.cz/text/cmorej_empirical_essential_properties.pdf).
Nevertheless, it seems that the existence of this kind of de re necessity is not regarded by
the proponents of the theory of bare particulars as a true counterexample. At any rate, my
argument does not depend at all on assumptions of any kind concerning the status of the
"trivial" essential properties.
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Now let us analyse the situation. We have two states here: the terminus a quo,
characterised by Peter's still being ignorant of Pythagoras' theorem, and the
ter minus ad quem, the state of Peter's having already acquired the relevant know-
ledge. Let us call these states "5-17 and "S-2" respectively. We also have two (appa-
rently complex) items here: Peter-as-ignorant-of-PT in S-1 - let us call that item
“p..i" -, and Peter-as-knowing-the-PT in S-2 - let us call this entity "P-2".
What can we say about P-1 and P-2? In the first place, they clearly are not
entirely and in all respects identical: for we are assuming that a change has taken
lace On the other hand, we assume that Peter taken as such, the subject, remains
P'and the same individual during the change. From that it clearly follows that
one
at least one of the items P-1 and P-2 contains something that (i) is not identical
to Peter, and that (ii) accounts for the absence of perfect identity of P-1 and P-2.
Now what is the nature of this "something", the distinguishing item? Clearly, what
distinguishes P-2 from P-1 is the item of knowledge that Peter acquired - let us
call that item K. But what is K?
What I am going to claim is that the item must be particular, i.e. not universal.
For we have assumed that a change has taken place in the world of particulars: both
p-i and P-2 are thoroughly particular items. In our example, the distinguishing
item can be identified as the knowledge that Peter has acquired; but this know-
ledge is something particular, it is an entity that exists in a certain time and place
(namely the place where Peter finds himself) and can easily cease to exist again.
In no way can this entity be regarded as a universal, then.
I would like to be perfectly clear that I am not making here any anti-Platonist
argument against the independent existence of universals. For the sake of the
argument I readily concede that there well may be some universal Knowledge,
which, due to the change having taken place, Peter exemplifies now but did not
exemplify before.' What I want to argue is that positing such a universal can
never be a sufficient explanation of what has happened. It is not enough to say
that first Peter exemplified ignorance and subsequently knowledge of the PT. It
may well be so, but unless the exemplification made some real difference in the
world of particulars, there would not be any real change in the world of particulars,
the world we all live in. So in addition to a (putative) universal, there must be
something particular that had not been there before, some particular item distinct
from Peter that starts its presence in Peter as a result of the change.
Let me make the argument a bit more clear. Suppose that what happens
during the change P-1 —• P-2 is that Peter starts to exemplify Knowledge-of-PT.
So, presumably, what we have there at S-1 is Peter and Knowledge, but no relation
of exemplification between them, whereas at S-2 there is Peter, Knowledge-of-PT,
and the relation of exemplification of Knowledge-of-PT by Peter - let us call it
' I will avail myself of the terminological distinction between instantiation and exempli-
fication as maintained e.g. by E. J. Lowe in his contribution to this volume (see p. 98).
SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT • 117
 LUICCIg Novak
AN ARISTOTELIAN ARGUMENT AGAINST BARE PARTICULARS
"EPK". Now what kind of entity is EPK, ontologically? It is clear in the first place
that it cannot be ontologically reduced to the (ordered) pair of Peter and Know.
ledge-of-PT alone - for all that belongs to the make-up of that pair had been
there already at S-1, and we suppose that some change took place between S-1
and S-2. Likewise, Epi, cannot be explained away as a mere linguistic or conceptual
product of indirect talk about Peter and Knowledge-of-PT - for there must at any
rate be some grounding in reality that makes the talk about Peter exemplifying
Knowledge-of-PT false in S-1 and true in S-2. And this grounding, whatever it
might be, is what we have called "EPK". So EPK must be some real entity in its own
right; the entity that distinguishes the "ontological furniture" of S-2 from that
of S-1.
But now we may ask again: is this relation of exemplification a universal or a
particular? If it is a particular, then we have shown that (irrespectively of whether
some universal Knowledge-of-PT exists) in order that there be a real change of
P-1 into P-2, there must be some individual entity in reality that distinguishes
P-2 from P-18 - no matter whether we call it an individual instance of knowledge,
or an individual relation of exemplification that "formally" (in the scholastic
jargon) makes Peter exemplify knowledge-of-PT. But can Er,,, be a universal at
all? It seems that it cannot, for several reasons. For example, universals are not
generated and corrupted, but we have assumed that Ep,, has been generated in
Peter at S-2, because it could not have been there at S-1.9 Besides, universals
seem not to be located in space and time; but EPK seems to be located in time
(the time from S-2 onwards), and probably, at least in a certain sense, also in
space (for it is something that ontologically modifies Peter, and Peter is a spatial
entityw). So it seems that EPK cannot be regarded as a universal. Even if we
assumed that there is some universal relation of exemplification Eu (let us leave
aside the question whether it be the relation of Exemplification, the relation of
Exemplification-of-(Knowledge-of-PT)-by-Peter, or something else), that universal
would not be the item that distinguishes P-2 from P4, because, as long as it were
a universal, we could always construe the situation so that it is "already there" at
8 We are assuming that knowledge is something positive; if it were something negative, a
mere privation, then, analogically, there would have to be some particular entity within P-1
in addition to what P-1 has in common with P-2 that Peter would lose in the change.
9 Even if universals are conceived in a non-Platonic way, so that the Principle of Instan-
tiation holds ("every universal is instantiated"), and therefore it is assumed as generally
possible that universals be occasionally generated or corrupted, the example can be construed
in such a way that in this case KNOWLEDGE-OF-PT is neither generated nor corrupted (by assum-
ing that there is another instance of it enduring throughout the respective interval of time).
10 It is quite common to speak of some particular item of knowledge as located somewhere
- in ancient times people used to travel far abroad in order to get into contact with the know-
ledge of famous teachers or university masters. Of course this fact can be explained away - but
what cannot?
118 • SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT
Lukci§ Novak
AN ARISTOTELIAN ARGUMENT AGAINST BARE PARTICULARS
$-1,
even if we conceived of universals as necessarily instantiated or exemplified
in order to exist. Furthermore, we would have to posit another relation of exem-
plification that would obtain between Peter and lu at S-2 but not at Si. No matter
how far we would be willing to allow the regress to go, there would ultimately
have to be some particular instance of exemplification to stop it.
To sum up this line of reasoning: it seems that instantiation must have a
certain particular "formal effect", to speak scholastically, otherwise it would be
a merely extrinsic relation that could not be used to explain real and particular
change at all. And in order that this effect may "come and go", that the subject
m ay acquire and lose it, it must be really distinct from the changing subject. It
must be a particular entity in its own right, then.
In short, what I am trying to show is that any non-essential change presup-
poses the existence of particular "accidental forms", or "tropes", or "modes",
irrespectively of whether we do or do not posit really existing universals as well.
My argument appealed to temporal variation or change in time. But it could
as well have appealed to modal variation, that is to say, to mere synchronous
possibility for a subject to have different properties than it in fact has. If there
exist real possibilities "to be otherwise" in the world of particulars (for example,
I could have decided not to type this parenthesised sentence at all), then the real
difference of these alternatives requires really distinct particular accidental
forms or tropes that constitute the differing particular patterns of situations.
if this line of argumentation is correct, it means that we have to concede that
there exist at least two sorts of particulars: ontological subjects or substances,
and tropes or Aristotelian accidents. Now: can the distinction between a sub-
stance and an accident be a merely accidental one? Clearly not: for if it were, it
would require another really distinct accidental form that would contingently
make this particular item an accident and that particular item a substance.
Since this new entity would clearly be an accident as well, and since we have
assumed that accidentality is itself accidental, it would require another entity to
explain its accidentality, and so on, in infinitum. In other words: once we concede
that accidental differences are based on really distinct particular entities that
"inform" the given subjects, we must also concede that ultimately, some entities
must differ by themselves, that is, essentially.
Notice furthermore that what is being proved here is not merely the existence
of two essentially distinct natural kinds, namely, substances and accidents. The
same argument can be used to show that all differences between accidents
must ultimately be essential - for if they were but accidental on a certain level,
they could only be so due to different higher-level accidents, so if there were
to be any differences at all, there ultimately would have to be some accidents
whose essential difference could account for the accidental difference of their
bearers. Or put even more generally: all differences in reality are ultimately
essential differences, either of substances, or at least of accidents. If there were
SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT • 119
 Lukcig Novak
AN ARISTOTELIAN ARGUMENT AGAINST BARE PARTICULARS
r Luke& Novak
no essentially different particulars, there would be no differences in the realm
of particulars at all.
Someone might object, though, that I have only proved the existence of essen_
tially different tropes, but it still remains to show that substances are anything
more than almost-bare substantial particulars. But this objection does not take
into account the fact that as long as there is proof that there are at least some
essential differences among particulars, it is not the essentialist but the anti.
essentialist who bears the burden of proof. It has been shown that - broadly
speaking - essentialism is true. It is the anti-essentialist's task to show why sub-
stances should be such an exception among all the particulars as to lack all the
lower-generic and specific essential determination; or, in other words, why there
is just one natural kind of substances, despite the vast variety of accidental kinds,
3. SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS
By way of conclusion, let me say a few words concerning the anti-essentialist
argument sketched above and the light which the present refutation can shed on
it. The Aristotelian analysis of reality distinguishes between two very different
kinds of distinctions: the distinction between a substance/subject and an acci-
dent, and the distinction between a universal and a particular. The presented
refutation of bare particulars was nothing but a defence of the view that in the
realm of particulars there must be both substances and accidents (and therefore
the two distinctions do not coincide).
Fregean semantics, on the other hand, identifies these two distinctions, to
the effect that for Frege a subject is always a particular, whereas its "properties"
are always universals." It seems to me that it is this unhappy confusion that
prevents those confined to the Fregean optics to see the justification for de re
modalities. In Fregean semantics, essential properties have been isolated from
their subjects as it were a priori, as an outcome of the Fregean strict semantic
distinction between object and concept. For an Aristotelian, universals do not
form a distinct ontological category - they are just abstractions from particulars.
All predicable properties are therefore originally located in the things themselves,
they form the essences of particular substances and particular accidents. In terms
of Wolterstorff and Loux, Aristotelian ontology is "constituent", not "relational"."
The particulars are, so to speak, self-sufficient, as regards the explanation of their
variety. It appears therefore not only as unmotivated, but as ultimately absurd,
to deny them essential determination.
What remains is the question, how and whether at all Fregean logic and se-
mantics might possibly be amended in order to be able to capture formally the de
re necessity. I will not go into that question here. But one thing seems to be clear
11 Speaking about first-order predication only, of course.
'2 Cf. M. Loux's contribution to this volume (p. 43).
120 • SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT
AN ARISTOTELIAN ARGUMENT AGAINST BARE PARTICULARS
at least: the problem whether there are de re necessities seems to be a genuine,
non-trivial metaphysical question which deserves to be solved by means of an
enquiry into the nature of reality itself. If it seems that it is trivially solved as it
were a priori, merely by way of an implication of the formal make-up of our formal
system of logic, then we should not assume that what looks like a genuine problem
is in fact a pseudo-problem, but rather that our formal system of logic has some
metaphysical presumptions, whose validity cannot be properly evaluated within
or by means of that system. In other words: just like a physicist cannot disprove
the existence of immaterial entities, because due to the limits of his methodology
he simply is not capable, as a physicist, to "see" anything immaterial, so a Fregean
cannot disprove the existence of de re necessity, because his system of logic simply
would not allow him to see it, even if it existed. The argumentation of those who
would like to discard de re necessity on the basis of the fact that it cannot be
captured by means of Fregean logical systems make the error of equating logic
as such with a particular and limited notational system. But whereas there are
many different logical systems of different expressivity, capable of capturing
different aspects of "logical forms" of statements, logic, or the logic, is just one.
The correct step in case some system proves ill-fit to capture those features of
reality (or of our statements about reality) which we have chosen to enquire about
seems to be to try to amend the system, or devise a better one, - and not give up
the envisaged enquiry instead."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CMOREJ, PAVEL. "Empirical Essential Properties and Their Constructions", Masaryk Uni-
versity Brno, the homepage of Transparent Intensional Logic, (http://til.phil.muni.
cz/text/cmorej_empirical_essential_properties.pdf).
Loux, MICHAEL J. "What is constituent ontology". In Metaphysics: Aristotelian, Scholastic,
Analytic, edited by L. Novak, D. D. Novotny, P. Sousedik, D. Svoboda, 43-57. Ontos Verlag,
2012.
LOWE, E. J. "Essence and ontology". In Metaphysics: Aristotelian, Scholastic, Analytic, edited
by L. Novak, D. D. Novotny, P. Sousedik, D. Svoboda, 93-111. Ontos Verlag, 2012.
TIcui, PAVEL. "Einzeldinge als Amtsinhaber". Zeitschrift fur Semiotik 9: 12-50. Translated
as: "Individuals and their Roles". In Pavel TichY's Collected Papers in Logic and Philosophy,
edited by Vladimir Svoboda, Bjorn Jespersen and Colin Cheyne, 711-748. Otago: Otago
UP and Praha: Filosofia, 2005.
— "On Describing". Organon F 14, no. 4 (2007): 423-469. Draft online, (http://til.phil.muni.
cz/text/Tichy-OnDescribing.pdf ).
13 The work on this paper has been supported by the grant no. P401/11/0906 "Moinosti
realisticki epistemologie tvcifi v tvcif novoveice kritice" of the Czech Science Foundation (GAN).
SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT • 121
y

THE ONTOLOGY OF NUMBER: IS NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?

prokop SousedIk, David Svoboda

ABSTRACT
The paper deals with the ontological status of number. The authors of the paper are
convinced that it is useful to discuss the concept of number within the framework of the
Aristotelian basic division of being into substance (ens in se) and accident (ens in alio). Number
can thus be taken as ens in se or ens in alio. Aristotle and his followers believed that number is
an accident and this concept is explained in the first part of the paper. In the second part it
is shown that the Aristotelian concept is not correct. However, if number is not an accident
then it seems that it must be identified with a Platonic entity (ens in se). In the third part the
authors reject this Platonic conclusion that G. Frege seems to have defended. In the fourth and
fifth part the authors show that from the logical point of view number is an object but from
the ontological point of view it is an entity that depends on linguistic structure (ens in alio).

1. INTRODUCTION
The issue of number has attracted attention since the origin of philosophy.
Many conceptions have arisen since then. An appropriate instrument by which
these conceptions can be classified is the fundamental idea of the Aristotelian-
scholastic ontology according to which being (ens) can be divided into two
different groups. In the first group there are substances, i.e. entities that exist
independently (entia in se); in the other group there are accidents (entia in alio), i.e.
entities that are dependent upon substances.
As the entities are divided into two groups, the various conceptions of number
can be similarly divided into two groups. In the first group there are conceptions
whose supporters (e.g. Pythagoras and Plato) held number to be an entity existing
independently outside of time and space (i.e. ens in se). In the other, there are
conceptions whose followers (Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas) considered number to
be an entity dependent on other beings (i.e. ens in alio).
It is obvious at first sight that the well known dispute between Plato and
Aristotle (even in this sort of modification) penetrates into this discussion on the
nature of number. If we take Plato's side, we assume the existence of independently
existing entities including numbers that are separated from our empirical world;
if we hold Aristotle's view we must deal with the empirical world and numbers
should be entities that are somehow in our empirical world and depend on it.

SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT • 123

 Prokop Soused&, David Svoboda
IS NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
In this dilemma, we prefer Aristotle's view. Plato's conception seems to be
problematic for various ontological and epistemological reasons. We not only
reject the Platonist metaphysics of number but we also disagree with the seeming_
ly more sober contemporary conceptions. We reject Frege's solution - however
inspiring it may be in many respects - which in our opinion also leads to the
conclusion that numbers are independently existing objects which bear the
nature of classes.
On the other hand, Aristotle's approach seems metaphysically more accept-
able to us. This approach leads to the conclusion that number is ontologically
dependent on its bearer: hence it is not ens in se but ens in alio, in concrete terms
an accident of quantity.' The Peripatetic solution to the problem leads us to the
question to what extent this conception is acceptable. Is number an accident in
the same way as e.g. wisdom?
These questions determine the first two parts of our contribution. In the first
part we put forth Aquinas's conception of number according to which number is
an accident of quantity. In the second part this conception is critically considered
and rejected. However, this makes our position questionable, for if number is not
an accident of quantity (i.e. ens in alio), then it seems that it is a substance (ens in se),
This conclusion, however, implies (as mentioned above) the Platonic conception
of number, which we do not accept. That is why in the rest of the paper we try to
set out a reinterpretation of the Peripatetic concept of ens in alio so that number
can be conceived as a special kind of "accident".
2. NUMBER AS A SPECIES OF QUANTITY
As mentioned above, Aristotle and Thomas considered quantity to be an
accident. The characteristic feature of this accident is that it belongs only to
material and not to spiritual substance,2 since only a material substance can be
more or less extended, i.e. quantitative. On the contrary, it can't be said that any
spiritual substance is extended.
However, what does quantity as a real accident cause in a material substance?
This question can be answered if we realise what is the difference and similarity
between material and spiritual substance. Both kinds of substance are similar
as far as they represent a certain whole, i.e. a spiritual whole and a material
whole. What is the difference? The material whole consists of parts which are
ordered in such a way that one part has its being next to the other part; on the
contrary, the spiritual whole has no parts ordered in such a way (since it is simple).
Thus quantity adds to the material whole a certain order of (integral) parts.
' Cf. Aristotle, Categoriae, c. 6.
2 Quantity is the first accident of a material substance, every other accident inheres in
the composite substance through quantity. Cf. THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa theologiae [STh] I,
q. 77, a. 7, ad 2.
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IS NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
Therefore quantity is traditionally defined as "the order of parts in the whole"
(ordo partium in toto).3
There are various species of quantity, since there are different kinds of order-
ing parts in the whole. The way of ordering the parts in the whole is determined
by the kind of relationship which is among the parts. This relationship can be
twofold: either the parts of the whole are connected to each other or there is
no such connexion between them. If the parts are connected to each other we
ca ll quantity continuous; if the parts are not connected to each other quantity is
na med discrete. Discrete quantity is also called categorical multitude.
The specific difference between continuous and discrete quantity is thus the
existence or non-existence of the connexion between the appropriate parts. By
connexion we mean this: the parts of a quantitative whole are connected to each
other if the end of one part is identical to the beginning of the other; the parts are
not connected to each other if the end of one part is not identical to the beginning
of the other. If the endpoint of one part is not identical to that of the other, these
parts are materially divided. Since this kind of division concerns only continuous
quantity which determines only material substances, we call it a material division'
Hence, it is obvious that parts of continuous quantity are connected to each
other while parts of discrete quantity are not connected to each other. Discrete
quantity originates by a material division of continuous quantity, thus materially
divided units are given.' On the contrary, the negation of a material division
defines the quantitative one or the one as the principle of number.'
It does not follow explicitly from St. Thomas's texts whether he holds the
discrete quantity for a genus of particular numbers (two, three, four etc.) or
not; i.e. whether or not he identifies discrete quantity with number as such. On
the one hand there are statements in his works that make us hold that discrete
quantity is an intermediate genus of particular numbers, i.e. statements that
identify discrete quantity with number as such; on the other hand, when Thomas
explicitly defines number, it seems that number as such cannot be identified with
discrete quantity and that number is subordinated to discrete quantity.'
STh I, q.14, a. 12, ad 1: "De ratione quantitatis est ordo partium."; Summa contra gentiles [SCG]
4, c. 65: "... positio, quae est ordo partium in toto, in eius [quantitatis] ratione includitur: est enim
quantitas positionem habens."
' STh I, q. 30, a. 3, co.: "Est autem duplex divisio. Una materialis, quae fit secundum divisionem
continui, et hanc consequitur numerus qui est species quantitatis."
STh I, q. 30, a. 3, co.: "... divisionem continui consequitur numerus qui est species quantitatis."
6 THOMAS AQUINAS, In II Sent., dist. 3, q. 1, a. 3, ad 1: "... unum quod est principium numeri, qui
est discreta quantitas, causatus ex divisione materiae vel continui..."
' The problem presented dealing with the mutual relation between number and quan-
titative multitude (discrete quantity) is of minor importance for our further observations. We
will thus further incline toward the opinion that the number itself is — according to Thomas
- a species of discrete quantity.
SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT • 125
 Prokop Sousedfic, David Svoboda
Is NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
Let us consider the two definitions of number which can be encountered in
Thomas's texts. According to the first, number is "an aggregate of (materially
divided) units"' while according to the other, number is "[categorical] multitude
measured by the one" (numerus est multitudo mensurata per unum).9 It is clear that in
both of these definitions the genus is multitude (respectively materially divided
units), whereas in the first definition the specific difference is to be aggregated; in
the other to be measured by the one.
Number as such is divided into particular numbers (two, three, four etc.) and
is thus a genus and particular numbers are species. Particular numbers differ by
specific differences. This is - in accordance with Thomas - the last unit of number,
which defines its species. It is the last unit which makes number three different
from number two, number four different from number three etc. From the above
presented definition of number, it follows that the quantitative one is not number
but it is the principle of number.'9
Since the numbers two, three, etc. are gained by the abstractive act of our
intellect from concrete numbers of things, the former numbers exist only as
an object of our intellect. Numbers which originated by the abstractive act of
our intellect are called absolute numbers and under these numbers the so-called
concrete numbers of things are situated, e.g. two particular people, two particular
rams etc." A concrete number exists, unlike an absolute number, in the real world.
What we have done so far in accordance with Thomas and Aristotle is the
reconstruction of Porphyrian Tree for the category of quantity. It can be seen,
hence, that number as a species of quantity does not differ essentially from other
accidents. A number exists either as an absolute number (number 2, 3, 4 etc.) or
as a concrete number of some particulars (two people, three rams, four dogs etc).
It follows that (from the logical point of view) the statement in which an ab-
solute number is predicated (let us call it in accordance with Frege a number
statement) has the same subject-predicate structure as any common singular
statement. In any number statement there must be a singular term in place of
the subject which refers to the logical particular of a certain kind (in this case to
an aggregate) and a common term in place of the predicate to which the given
particular is subordinated. The only difference between "common" accidents
and numbers lies in the fact that the subject of a number statement is not one
8 THOMAS AQUINAS, In VII Physic, lect. 8: "numerus... est... aggregatio unitatum".
9 In I Sent, dist. 24, a. 2, obiec. 4: "numerus est multitudo mensurata per unum"; In I Sent, dist.
24, a. 3, ad 3; STh I, q. 7, a. 4.
'° THOMAS AQUINAS, De instantibus, c. 3: "... unitatem numeri, quam constat non esse numerum.?;
this statement is, however, specified in De potentia, q. 7, a. 3, ad 7:"... per reductionem [est] ... unitas
in genere numeri..."
" STh I, q. 30, a. 1, ad 4: "... numerus est duplex, scilicet numerus simplex vel absolutus, ut duo et
tria et quatuor; et numerus qui est in rebus numeratis, ut duo homines et duo equi. Si accipiatur numerus
absolute sive abstracte... sic non."
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IS NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
substance but an aggregate of more substances.12 The subject of the statement
the Evangelists are four is not only one concrete substance (let us say John), but the
whole set of Evangelists - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Thus the logical subject
of number statements is a singular term referring to an aggregate and not to
a first substance."
The epistemological scheme of this Aristotelian account corresponds to the
o ntological scheme, for our knowledge starts from sensual perception. In our
case, we begin with the observation of some aggregates (concrete numbers). In
a bstraction, which was later on called "psychological", we will leave aside the
fact that these are aggregates of apples, sheep or people. Thus an aggregate of
further unspecified units is gained, i.e. the concept of particular number. This
aptly corresponds to the definition according to which number is an aggregate of
materially divided units. However, the definition according to which number is a
multitude measured by one seems to be less plausible from this perspective, since
it is unclear how some multitude measured by one could result from a psycho-
logical abstraction. Hence in the following observations we will use the first
mentioned definition (number is an aggregate of materially divided units)."
3. PROBLEMS WITH THE CATEGORY OF QUANTITY
The Peripatetic approach seems, at first sight, to be ontologically and epi-
stemologically very sober and well in accordance with the "healthy spirit" of
Aristotle's philosophy. In spite of this there are many problems connected with
this conception which can hardly be overcome. There are many arguments
against this conception. Although these arguments seem to be somewhat hetero-
geneous, they can be arranged. If number is subsumed under the category of
quantity, then number statements must have a subject - predicate structure. In
place of the subject there is a singular term which refers to a concrete aggregate;
in place of the predicate there is a universal term which is in our case a number.
Hence the arguments against the subsumption of number under the category of
quantity can be divided into two groups. In the first group there are arguments
that question the claim that the subject of a number statement is a singular term
" THOMAS AQUINAS, Quaestiones de quolibet XI, q. 1, ad 1: "... numerus non est in rebus numeratis
sicut in loco, sed sicut accidens in subiecto."
13 Ibid.: "Praeterea, unus numerus, licet sit in omnibus numeratis sicut unica essentia, non tamen
est in qualibet parte; quia non quaelibet pars numeratur eodem numero."
" It should be said that a very similar conception was later on defended by J. S. MILL, A
System of Logic (London: Parker, 1843), book III, chap. 24, §5. A resembling approach is defended
nowadays e.g. by E. J. Lowe, who claims that a number is a universal and its instances are
particular groups or aggregates. This corresponds almost literally to Aquinas's conception
according to which it is necessary to distinguish between an absolute number and a concrete
number. Cf. E. J. LOWE, The Possibility of Metaphysics - Substance, Identity, and Time (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1998), 210-227.
SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT • 127
 Prokop Sousedik, David Svoboda
IS NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
which refers to a concrete aggregate. In the second group there are arguments
that question the claim that the predicate of a number statement is a number.
For historical reasons we start with the second group of arguments. The scho-
lasticists themselves noticed that there is a very disagreeable consequence of the
subsumption of number under the category of quantity. For if we say that some
aggregate is n-numbered, we predicate of it the whole content of the predicate.
Now it is clear that the content of a predicate includes every concept which is
superior to it. So if a number is predicated, the predicate includes the concept of
discrete quantity. However, discrete quantity, as we know, can be predicated only
of a set of materially divided units. In the number statement the Evangelists are four
it is therefore claimed that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are materially divided
units. Numbers, however, can be predicated not only of aggregates, whose parts
are materially divided, but also of aggregates whose parts are not materially
divided. We commonly speak about the number of prime numbers, the number
of Aristotelian categories, the number of ideas etc. However, categories or ideas
are certainly not materially divided.'s
Aquinas was well aware of this problem. A property abstracted from external
things surely cannot be predicated of non-material entities without a change
in the sense. So far there is agreement between Aquinas and Frege. Further on,
however, the views of the two philosophers differ. While Thomas holds that num-
ber statements predicated of non-materially divided entities have a different
sense than number statements concerning materially divided entities (they
are analogical or metaphoric), Frege regards it as a reductio ad absurdum of the
categorical conception of number. It seems absurd to claim that number ten is
predicated of the Aristotelian categories in a different sense than of the fingers
of my hands.16
Another problem is linked with the manner in which a number is formed,
i.e. with the process of abstraction. If the definition according to which number
is an aggregate of units is accepted, it must also be admitted that number, in
the absolute sense, originates through an abstraction from concrete numbers
(concrete n-tuples). In this abstraction we leave aside all dissimilarities due to
which the concrete units differ from each other. Hence, the result of this abstrac-
tion is an absolute number, i.e. a set of units which do not mutually differ. How-
ever, the problematic consequence of this abstraction is the fact that the set of
units abstracted in such a way becomes an undistinguishable unity. While among
15 Frege says to this problem: "It would be really remarkable if we could transfer the property
abstracted from external things to events, ideas, concepts without any change of the sense. The result
would be the same as if we wanted to speak about fusible event, blue idea, salty concept or solid judge-
ment." - G. FREGE, Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik: eine logisch-mathematische Untersuchung ither den
Begriff der Zahl (Breslau: Koebner, 1884) [GA], 31.
16 Cf. GA, 31.
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IS NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
concrete units there are many dissimilarities, among abstract units there cannot
be any differences and thus one can hardly speak about their aggregation."
Let us proceed to the second group of arguments now. As stated above, these
argum ents are concerned with the subject of a number statement. What is then
the subject of the statement The Evangelists are four? At first sight it is obvious that
the subject Evangelists cannot be applied distributively. (It cannot refer in the same
way as it refers in the statement The Evangelists are saints, in which saintliness is
predicated of each of the Evangelists separately.) Evangelists are surely not four
separately but only collectively. Hence, the subject of the number statement must
be (according to Aquinas) a group of individuals who participated in the origin of
the New Testament and thus they create a unity of a special kind. This unity, to
which we refer through a singular term in the place of the subject, has been called
an aggregate and it is characterised by the number four. So it is clear that there is
the same subject in the following two statements: The Evangelists are four and The
Evangelists are the authors of the first part of the New Testament. However, if we admit
that in number statements there is in place of the subject a singular term which
refers to the appropriate aggregate, serious difficulties arise.
The first problem is closely connected with the ontological character of num-
ber. It should be recalled that a concrete number is a special kind of accident,
since its subject is not one singular substance but an aggregate of substances.
So if a number is predicated it is clear that the subject of the number statement
is not a concrete individual substance but it is an aggregate of individuals and
the number is thus predicated not of a concrete substance but of a group of
substances. The scholasticists were well aware of this problem and it aroused
many discussions. Let us leave these discussions aside and assume that a good
solution to this problem was found.
However, even under this presupposition (which is of ontological character)
other problems arise which can hardly be overcome. If a number is predicated of
an aggregate, then the aggregate must have a certain kind of unity. This unity
can be either a fusion of individuals, or a set of individuals. If the aggregate does
really have a certain kind of unity, then in place of the subject there must be a
singular term and in place of the predicate there has to be a universal term. The
predicate (number) must determine the unity of the aggregate as a whole and not
distributively parts of this whole, since e.g. the Evangelists are four altogether and
not separately. From the logical point of view it should be a singular statement.
However, from the ontological point of view the particular which the subject
term refers to must be an instantiation of the universal to which it is referred by
the predicate. Just as a group is characterised by non-distributive predicates, e.g.
a class can be called disciplined, so a group is determined by number predicates.
I.7 Cf. GA, 40 -41.
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IS NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
However, if a statement with a number predicate is a singular statement, then
the rules of logic must be applicable to it. One logical rule says that in extensional
contexts expressions with the same reference can be replaced salva veritate. Let us
apply this rule to a singular term which stands in place of the subject and which
refers to a concrete aggregate. For the sake of our argument it will be useful to
examine primarily the statements which have in place of the predicate a common
(not quantitative) property. E.g. a teacher says: The pupils of the class in which I taught
maths today were undisciplined. The subject (in our case a definite description)
refers to a definite unity (aggregate) and the predicate to the property which the
unity instantiates. "To be undisciplined" is naturally the property of the class
as a whole and not of its parts taken separately. The teacher does not naturally
want to say that each and every student was undisciplined and thus that some of
his favourite pupils were undisciplined as well. Now, it is clear that in statements
like these the subject term can be replaced by another term which has the same
reference. In our case the term the pupils of the class in which I taught maths today can
be replaced by the proper name of this class. We can thus say VIII. C was undisci-
plined. A similar conclusion should be reached in the case of a number statement,
It can be said The pupils of the classroom in which I taught maths today were thirty,
However, if the subject term of this statement is replaced by the proper name of
the class, then we come to the senseless statement VIII.0 were thirty. It is clear that
the logic of our speech does agree with the solution according to which number is
a predicate which is predicated of a singular subject. However, it does not follow
that the Peripatetic conception of number is necessarily unacceptable.
Our considerations so far stayed only at the linguistic or logical level. An
ontologist or metaphysician could object that language only disguises our ideas
and that is why the inadequacy of the metaphysical conception cannot be proved
in the merely linguistic domain. Although our approach to metaphysics is de-
scriptive and the argument presented above could thus be sufficient, the same
argument can be introduced at the ontological level as well. In other words: as
the identification of number with a predicate can be shown as unacceptable, so
the identification of number with a universal can be shown to be unacceptable too,
It should be recalled that if a singular term is used in place of a subject it is
presupposed that there is a certain unity to which the subject term refers. This
unity is represented not only by a concrete individual substance (St. John the
Evangelist), but also by an aggregate (the Four Evangelists). In any case, the unity
is always an instance of various universals. St. John the Evangelist is an instance
of saintliness, a concrete pupil is an instance of naughtiness, the Four Evangelists
are the instance of authors of the first part of the New Testament, the class of students
is an instance of undiscipline.
The relation between an individual and a universal should be applicable to
number as well. A concrete aggregate (or concrete number) should be a parti-
cular which is an instance of a universal number (absolute number). Thus, the
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IS NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
Evangelists should be an instance of the universal number four. However, it seems
to us very problematic. If some particular is an instance of a universal number,
then this particular should possess everything subsumed under the concept of
number. Since number is a species of discrete quantity, it must include multitude.
However, multitude negates unity. So if number includes multitude, it seems that
its instances cannot be real unities. Frege says in a similar way: "... number is
only another name for dissimilarity. Exact identity is unity, multitude originates with
dissFimuirlathrieties."
as
isimilar argument can be encountered in the The Foundations of
Arithmetic where Frege criticises the conception according to which number is
a property of external things. In fact, Frege refuses the view that the subject
of a number statement is a singular term which refers to a concrete aggregate.
Frege's argument can be reconstructed as a reductio ad absurdum. Let's presuppose
that number is a property of external things and this fact is expressed through
a singular statement in which we refer to the appropriate aggregate by a singular
term. From the logical point of view it is thus clear that a number statement does
not differ from a statement, e.g. This stone weighs 2 kg.19 However, the identification
of number statements with usual singular statements leads, according to Frege,
to contradictory consequences. Frege says:
If I put a stone in someone's hand asking how much it weighs, I gave him the whole
object for his consideration. If I give him a pack of cards and ask him about number,
the person does not know if I want to know the number of cards, the number of the
complete pack or the number of trumps in skat.2°
Hence, it is clear that various numbers can be ascribed to the pack of cards. It is
obvious that one thing cannot be in the same way a bearer of contrary predicates
(various numbers). The assumption that in a number statement we characterise
external things (aggregate) leads to a contradictory conclusion and thus it must
be rejected.
Our two kinds of arguments against the identification of numbers with the
accident of quantity have something in common. Both hint at the fact that direct
reference to an aggregate whose elements are counted, leads to an absurd or
contradictory conclusion. In other words, they hint at the fact that, in the case
of number statements, the traditional division of statements into the subject
(aggregate) and the predicate (number) fails.
is GA, 42.
19 There is a certain difference only at the ontological level. While in the statement This
stone weighs 2 kg the subject term refers to a concrete individual, in a number statement the
singular term refers to a group or an aggregate of individuals.
20 GA, 29.
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IS NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
4. FROM THINGS TO CONCEPTS - FROM BEING TO LANGUAGE
We have shown in the previous paragraph that the identification of number
statements with singular subject-predicate statements has absurd or even con,
tradictory consequences. This implies that the whole Peripatetic conception
according to which number is subsumed under the category of quantity is unac-
ceptable. If number is not a species of quantity, it does not exist in external things.
However, where else could number exist if not in external things?
In solving this question we are inspired by Frege's example of the pack of cards.
The main problem lies in the fact that contrary predicates (different numbers)
are ascribed to one and the same pack of cards. According to Frege we come to
this unacceptable conclusion because we incorrectly conjoin number with an
object (aggregate). However, what else besides an aggregate should number be
conjoined with?
Trying to answer to this question we shall notice that the same pack of cards
can be referred to in many different ways, e.g. the cards in my hand, piles of cards in
my hand, suits in my hand etc. If we refer to the pack in these various ways, what is
changed is not the object of reference but the concept determining "the way of
givenness" (Art des Gegebenseins) of the appropriate object (aggregate). Herewith
the answer to our question can already be given. Number cannot be conjoined
with the constant object, i.e. with the same pack of cards, but rather with the
concept through which we refer to the object (pack of cards). One and the same
pack of cards can be referred to by various concepts and different numbers can
be further conjoined with these concepts.
What kind of concepts, however, are we dealing with? These concepts must
provide the criterion of identity through which we are able to identify an appro-
priate aggregate. In other words, these concepts have to be descriptions. Never-
theless, this is only a necessary but not a sufficient condition. Besides, these
concepts must also have so-called unifying power. This power causes that mutually
divided entities (i.e. some multitude) form a certain type of unity to which it is
further referred. E.g., it is the concept a card in my hand through which the real
cards in my hand have a special type of unity. This unity is possible only if the
concept expresses a property shared by the units of some multitude and thanks
to this property we are able to determine the united objects as opposed to other
objects. These concepts are nowadays called sortal concepts." It should be said
that sortal concepts not only help us to define the united objects but they are
also used as a unit of counting." So it is clear that the united objects include
21 Cf. GA, 55; P. F. STRAWSON, Individuals, An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (London: Rout-
ledge, 1964), 168; D. HEIDER, "Sortalni terminy a problem identity. Neoaristotelismus v sou-
L'asne analyticke metafyzice", Filosoficky 6asopis 53, no. 2 (2005): 167-194.
22 Since if we count individuals that form a certain kind of unity thanks to this concept,
a unit of the counted multitude must be available beforehand. Thanks to this unit we can
132 • SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT
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IS NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
on ly those individuals of which the given sortal concept can be truly predicated.
Hence, number is not conjoined with an aggregate of external things but rather
with a sortal concept.
If we agree with Frege on this point together with him we have turned from
objects to concepts or (in other words) we have made a shift from being to
la nguage. Following this linguistic turn other problems mentioned above can easily
be solved. E.g. let us reconsider the argument according to which the replacement
of a singular term (in the place of the subject of a number statement) with another
singular term with the same reference leads to a meaningless statement. In our
case the description the pupils of the class where I taught maths today was replaced by
the proper name VIII. C. It can easily be explained why we came to the meaningless
statement if Frege's conception is accepted. The replacement of the description
by the proper name leads to nonsense because there is no concept conjoined with
the proper name VIII. C.23 However, we come to a nonsensical statement even if
the description is replaced by another description. This happens if the concept
cannot be held as a unit of multitude, i.e., as a sortal concept. An example of the
concept which is chosen inappropriately (i.e. of a non-sortal concept) could be the
class where I taught maths today. It is clear that in the number statement Pupils of the
class where I taught maths today were thirty it is inadequate to replace the subject
of this statement with the expression the class where I taught maths today. It would
also lead to a nonsensical statement.
it should not be overlooked that thanks to "the turn to concepts" we can
also solve the above mentioned problem with the application of number to a
non-material multitude, since sortal concepts make up the unity of both mate-
rially divided unities and materially not divided entities. The concepts under
which materially undivided unities are subsumed do not ontologically differ
from the concepts through which materially divided units are united. Number
can be conjoined with these concepts every time and in the same sense. There-
fore the absurd idea - according to which we predicate number of material
objects in another sense than of non-material objects - can be rejected. There
is no ontological difference between the concepts the fingers of my hand and the
Aristotelian categories, the ontological difference is rather between my material
fingers and non-material categories.
Frege's concept of number differs from that of Aristotle's or Aquinas's primarily
in the fact that Frege conjoins number to concept and not to object. It is, however,
interesting to point out that the essential difference cannot be found in the
definitions themselves. Frege would probably not object to Aquinas's definition
identify the counted elements. Something is thus held as a part of the counted amount, some-
thing is not. The only sensible candidate in this respect is a sortal concept. The unit of counting
can be e.g. a card in my hand or a suit of cards.
23 This can be seen as another argument in favour of Mill-Kripke theory of proper names.
SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT • 133
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IS NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
according to which number is a multitude measured by the one." Nevertheless he
would certainly add that the one is an arbitrarily chosen unit, i.e. a sortal concept.
Frege would not probably object to the other definition according to which number
in an aggregate of units, but he might also add that this aggregation or unification
is achieved again by the sortal concept." However, these additions are very im.
portant from our point of view. They show that number must be conjoined to
a concept and not to an aggregate.
These thoughts could lead us to the incorrect conclusion that in place of the
subject of number statements there stands not an aggregate but rather a concept
and in place of the predicate there is a number. It would follow that from the
logical point of view a number statement is a subject-predicate statement. How-
ever, according to Frege number cannot be conjoined to a concept in such a way!
Number is not attributed to a concept in the same manner as properties are
ascribed to individuals, e.g. as the discoverer of America is ascribed to Columbus.
According to Frege it is precisely on the contrary: number is conjoined to a concept
in the same manner as a concrete object is conjoined to its description. Similarly,
as the descriptive concept the discoverer of America is conjoined with the concrete
object, Columbus, so the abstract object - number four - is conjoined with the
concept Jupiter's moons." The expressions discoverer of America and Jupiter's moons
play the same logical role - they refer to the appropriate object that is said to be
conjoined with the appropriate concept. This logical function of expression is
also often expressed at the level of natural language: we put the definite article
in front of descriptions in some languages; we often put the expression the number
of in front of a concept referring to an abstract number.
The expression (the number of) Jupiter's moons thus does not refer to some
aggregate of astronomic objects but rather to the abstract object which is number
four. Now it is clear that our perspective so far must be changed. The number
statement (the number of) Jupiter's moons is four is (from the logical point of view) of
the same kind as the statement the discoverer of America is Columbus. Both sentences
express identity, i.e. the expressions on both sides of the copula are singular terms
referring to the same object. Frege puts it in this way: Hence, we have an equation
that claims that the expression "the number of Jupiter's moons" denotes the same object
as the expression "four".27 However, this object is not a concrete (as it holds for the
discoverer of America) but rather an abstract object.
24 THOMAS AQUINAS, In I Sent. dist. 24, a. 2, obiec. 4: "numerus est multitudo mensurata per
unum".
" THOMAS AQUINAS, In Phys., lect. 8: "numerus... est... aggregatio unitatum"
26 Cf. GA, 57.
2' Cf. GA, 57.
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IS NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
5. BALK TO PLATONISM?
if a number statement really expresses identity and is not a subject-predicate
statement, then we have definitively left Aquinas's concept of number. Number
is not an aggregate or the property of materially divided units.
Now, what conception of number should further be considered? Above we
have come to the conclusion that the statement The number of Jupiter's moons is
four has the same logical structure as the statement The discoverer of America is
Columbus (both statements express identity). The number (four) is related to
the concept (Jupiter's moons) in the same way as the empirical object (Columbus)
to the concept (discoverer of America). However, it leads us to a very problematic
conclusion. Columbus is apparently a self-standing entity (ens in se) and it seems
that numbers should have the same ontological status as well. The expression
Columbus should thus denote an entity of the same ontological category as the
numeral four. Both Columbus and number four should thus be a self-standing
entity, i.e. ens in se. Intuitively, however, it is obvious that there is an essential
difference between Columbus and number four. Columbus is a self-standing and
empirical object while number four is certainly not an empirical object. However,
if number four is not an empirical object, it seems that it should exist outside of
our time and space. It seems that non-empirical objects have a similar ontological
status as Plato's ideas. Hence one should not be surprised that Frege admits the
existence of ideal objects which exist in the so-called Third Realm."
As it is known, Frege's Platonism is closely connected with a very important
logical-technical issue. Frege is convinced that the conditions of the identity of
any abstract object make up the constitutive features of this object. If numbers
are conjoined with concepts, then a criterion must be put forth through which
it can be determined whether any two concepts are identical. Frege sets out that
the two concepts are identical if there is a one-to-one relationship among the
elements which are subsumed under these concepts (so-called Hume's principle).
consequently, number is a class of such concepts among which there is such
a relation. Thus, numbers are reduced to set-theoretical objects (classes of equi-
valent classes). This reduction causes serious technical problems.
The first problem is of a logical-mathematical nature and is the well known
paradox articulated by Bertrand Russell at the beginning of the 20th century.
28 Cf. G. FREGE, "Der Gedanke. Eine logische Untersuchung", Beitrage zur Philosophie des
deutschen Idealismus 1, Heft 2 (1918-1919): 58-77: "So scheint das Ergebnis zu sein: Die Gedanken sind
weder Dinge der Aufgenwelt noch Vorstellungen. Ein drittes Reich mufg anerkannt werden. Was zu diesem
gehort, stimmt mit den Vorstellungen darin iiberein, daf3 es nicht mit den Sinnen wahrgenommen werden
kann, mit den Dingen aber darin, dal3 es keines Tragers bedarf, zu dessen Bewu$tseinsinhalte es gehort.
So ist z. B. der Gedanke, den wir im pythagoreischen Lehrsatz aussprachen, zeitlos wahr, unabhangig
davon wahr, ob irgendjemand ihn fur wahr halt. Er bedarf keines Tragers. Er ist wahr nicht erst, seitdem
er entdeckt worden ist, wie ein Planet, schon bevor jemand ihn gesehen hat, mit andern Planeten in
Wechselwirkung gewesen ist."
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 Prokop SousedIk, David Svoboda
IS NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
Russell shows in a short letter to Frege that classes or extensions cannot be
held ipso facto for objects. Frege's definition, according to which number is an
extension of extensions (a class of equivalent classes), is thus unacceptable. This
fact, however, did not lead Russell to the complete rejection of Frege's conception
but rather to a modification of it.29
From our perspective, the critique of Paul Benacerraf seems to be more in.
teresting." It is useful to recall that Frege aimed at the solid foundation of arith-
metic. In his project he followed - to a certain extent - Descartes's idea according
to which it is necessary to search for an indubitable foundation of our knowledge.
Frege thought that the indubitable foundation of arithmetic is a set or a class.
Benacerraf, however, pointed out that within a set theory there can be different
definitions of number. E.g., number two can be identified, according to von Neu-
mann, as a set-theoretical object {0,{0}} or, according to Zermelo arithmetic,
{IOW" If Benacerraf's observation is accepted, it follows that sets or classes can
hardly be held as the foundation on which the whole of arithmetic can be founded.
Neither Russell's, nor Benacerraf's arguments are decisive from our point of
view. What seems questionable to us is the fact that Frege's reflections reintroduce
the possibility of identifying numbers with independently existing entities and
herewith the Platonic concept of numbers. The Platonic conception of number,
however, is unacceptable for us.
6. NUMBER AS ENS IN ALIO
The situation in which we find ourselves is anything but enviable. The more
ontologically sober solution according to which number is an accident (and it
is subsumed under the category of quantity) leads to unacceptable, sometimes
even contradictory consequences. If we, together with Frege, reject this solution,
there seems to be only one way out - it should be admitted that number is an
object. However, this conception leads to Platonism which is unacceptable for
us. We are facing two mutually incompatible conceptions ("Aristotelian naturalism
versus Platonic idealism"). Now, the question is whether there is a middle way out
which could avoid the Scylla of "Aristotelian naturalism" and the Charybdis of
"Platonic idealism".
Let us return first to Frege's solution and accept the conclusion according
to which number is an object which is conjoined with a concept. Number four
is thus conjoined with Jupiter's moons in the same way as Columbus is conjoined
with the concept discoverer of America. There is an agreement between Columbus
29 V. KOLMAN, Logika G. Frega (Praha: Filosofia, 2002).
30 P. BENACERRAF, "What Numbers Could Not Be", Philosophical Review 74 (1965): 47-73.
" J. VON NEUMANN, "Eine Axiomatisierung der Mengenlehre", Journal fur die reine and
angewandte Mathematik 154 (1925): 219-240; E. ZERMELO, "Untersuchen uber die Grundlagen
der Mengenlehre I", Mathematische Annalen 65 (1908): 261-281.
136 • SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT
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Is NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
a nd number four, since both are objects. However, while Columbus is an empirical
object, number four is an abstract object. The distinction between a concrete
and an abstract object is apparently well in agreement with Platonism: empirical
objects are perceived by our senses while abstract objects by our reason.
Nevertheless, it seems to us that the expression "abstract" conceals an impor-
tant clue, thanks to which this Platonist conclusion can be reasonably modified.
The verb "to abstract" means literally to tow away. An abstract concept of wisdom
can be gained if we "tow away" the form of wisdom from its subject, e.g. from a
concrete man. It seems that in the case of wisdom the abstraction is clear. However,
there are some problems as far as the abstraction of numbers is concerned. In our
previous observation we have shown that the foundation of abstraction cannot
be a concrete aggregate; we do not acquire number four from Jupiter's moons;
number four thus cannot inhere in Jupiter's moons in the same manner as wisdom
inheres in Socrates. What else then should be taken into account? The answer is
ready at hand. Since we know that numbers must be conjoined with concepts let
us try to focus on the concepts instead of objects!
At first sight it seems that this will not be of much help. It is clear that a
concept can be analysed into its elements, e.g. in the concept of moon opupiter
there are concepts like an astronomic object, a satellite etc. Nevertheless, it is obvious
that if we analyse this concept as far as we can, no concept of number can be
found. No concept as such is therefore conjoined with any number, hence no
abstraction from any concept taken on its own could lead us to number.
To find the way out of this problem it is useful to compare the consideration
of a concept taken on its own with the examination of a concrete man." A con-
crete man can be considered in two ways. Firstly, he can be examined as an
independently existing object, i.e. his absolute properties (weight, height, health
condition etc.) can be taken into account; secondly, his relationships to other
objects can be investigated, i.e. his relational properties (to be subordinate to some-
one or to be superior to someone else, etc.) can be explored.
Let us focus on the relational properties of a concrete individual, e.g. someone
who is the dean of the Catholic Theological Faculty in Prague. It means that
there are strictly defined relationships between him and the other employees of
the university. Nobody is a dean taken on its own, but only in relation to other
people. The function of a dean is defined purely by different industrial relations.
In other words: if we want to understand who is a dean, then the functions of
other representatives of the faculty must be comprehended as well.
So if we say that someone is a dean, we connect with him a "position" in a
relational system. Dean is thus an object, which is produced by the industrial
relations of a given university. From the logical point of view this object can be
32 We are inspired here by S. SHAPIRO, Philosophy of Mathematics - Structure and Ontology
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
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 Prokop Soused&, David Svoboda
Is NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
characterised in the same way as any common empirical object. As we say Socrates
is wise, it can be said The dean is an employee of the university. Both Socrates and dean
refers to an object which is subsequently determined by a predicate. From the
logical point of view there is no difference between these two sentences.
However, from the ontological point of view one should be cautious. While
Socrates refers to an object, which has an independent existence on its own,
dean refers, as follows from our observations, to an object that has a completely
different ontological status. The dean does not exist independently on his own,
but the existence of this object depends on the industrial relations of a given
university, it depends on the system of a university. Hence, it can be put forth that
a dean, unlike Socrates, is not an object which has an independent existence on
its own, but rather it is an object, like Scicrates's wisdom, whose existence depends
on another subject. This subject is not a concrete individual but the system of
a university: as Socrates's wisdom cannot exist without Socrates, so the dean
cannot exist without the system of a university; as Socrates's wisdom depends on
its subject, so the function of a dean depends on its subject. In this sense it can be
said that a dean is, like Socrates's wisdom, ens in alio and the system of a university
is, like Socrates, ens in se. However, it is clear that in comparison with the original
Peripatetic tradition the terms ens in alio, ens in se are used (to a certain degree)
in a different sense. Of course it is questionable to maintain that the system of a
university has an independent existence on its own.
Even if there is a difference between a system and a concrete individual it is
clear that both can be considered in the same way. Firstly, both can be considered
in their "concreteness". If we consider the system of a faculty in this way, it can
be taken into account who is employed at this faculty, how old this faculty is etc.
Secondly, both can be considered in their "abstractness". Socrates instantiates
the abstract property "human being" and the concrete system of the Catholic
Theological Faculty in Prague instantiates some properties as well. If we consider
the faculty in this way, we have in mind those relationships which produce cer-
tain positions (dean, vice dean etc.) and take into account only its structure. This
structure can certainly be carried out by various systems of different faculties
that differ as far as their staff constitution is concerned. The faculties of one
university can be considered as various concrete systems that share the same
abstract structure or (to put it in a slightly different way) they can be seen as
instantiations of the same abstract structure.
The faculty which has been just under consideration is one of many kinds of
systems in which concrete individuals are ordered. Besides such systems there
are also systems in which concepts or classes are ordered. If we accept the fact
that concepts can be truly predicated of certain multitudes of individuals, then
it is possible to order these concepts according to relations of more or fewer. It can
thus be said that the individuals subsumed under the concept people in the square
are more numerous than the individuals subsumed under the concept people in
138 • SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT
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IS NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?
this room. Such information, however, usually needs specification, i.e., we want to
know the number of the people in the square or, respectively, the number of the
people in this room. If we want to know the number, we thereby want to know
which object is conjoined with the appropriate concept. This object is naturally
the appropriate number. Through assigning a number we have defined the "place"
which a concept has in a relational system.
A system whose relations produce numbers is, in many respects, similar to
other systems. As the industrial relations of a faculty order concrete people, so the
relations of more or fewer order concepts or classes. As a concrete man is conjoined
with an abstract object produced by industrial relations (e.g. dean), so the concept
is conjoined with an appropriate object which is not a working position but rather
a certain number. It is clear that in the systems of concepts which are ordered by
the relation more or fewer we can abstract from the given concepts and thereby to
acquire an abstract structure. This abstract structure can be called arithmetic. We
can surely consider arithmetic in a similar manner as we consider the abstract
structure of faculty. We do it when we leave aside the concept which we order
through counting and it happens when we are not counting things (e.g. people in
the square) but rather when we are just counting (e.g. 7 + 5 = 12). It is perhaps not
necessary to add here that mathematicians want to describe general properties
of the structure which they examine."
An examination of this structure is not, however, the goal of our paper
for it belongs rather to mathematics than to philosophy. The important thing
for us is the fact that if we turn our attention to the system or structure, the
aforementioned problems with number can be solved. This shift will enable us
to speak about the position in a system or a structure - from the logical point
of view -in the same way as we speak about ordinary empirical objects. This
shift also makes clear that the ontological status of these objects is somewhat
different than the ontological status of some empirical objects (substances). While
common empirical objects exist on their own, i.e., they are entia in se, numbers
are produced by the relations of the system. From the ontological point of view
it must be said that numbers depend on the appropriate system. This leads us to
the conclusion: If we modify the meaning of the Peripatetic concept substance
(ens in se) and accident (ens in alio), we could say that a system that is ordered by
the relation of more and fewer is a "substance", and objects which are produced by
these relations are its "accidents".
'3 Mathematicians tend to describe the properties of a structure with the help of axioms.
From the axioms of arithmetic it follows that it is a structure with the successor relation, the
initial object 0 and a second order induction principle.
SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT • 139
 Prokop SousedIk, David Svoboda
IS NUMBER AN ACCIDENT?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AQUINAS, THOMAS. Summa theologiae. Vol. 4-12 of Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII P. M. edita,
Romae, 1888-1906.
— Summa contra Gentiles. Vol. 13-15 of Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII P. M. edita. Rornae,
1918-1930.
SECTION IV
— Quaestiones de quolibet I-XII. Edited by R. M. Spiazzi. Turin, 1956.
— De instantibus. Edited by P. Mandonet. Vol. 4 of Opuscula omnia. Paris: Lethielleux, 1927,
— Scriptum super libros Sententiarum . Edited by P. Mandonnet and M. F. Moos. Paris,
1929-1947.
— De potentia. Vol. 2 of Quaestiones disputatae. Cura et studio R. P. Pauli M. Passion. Taurini:
EXISTENCE
Marietti 1965.
— Sententia super Physicam. Vol. 2 of Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII P. M. edita. Romae,8
ARISTOTLE. Categoriae et liber De interpretatione, Ed. L. Minio-Paluello. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1894.
BENACERRAF, PAUL. "What Numbers Could Not Be". Philosophical Review 74 (1965): 47-73, ie
FREGE, GOTTLOB. "Der Gedanke. Eine logische Untersuchung." In Beitriige zurPhilosophy h
des deutschen Idealismus 1, Heft 2 (1918-1919): 58-77.
— Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik: eine logisch-mathematische Untersuchung iiber den Begriffder
Zahl. Breslau: Koebner, 1884.
HEIDER, DANIEL. "Sortalni terminy a problem identity. Neoaristotelismus v soaasne
analyticke metafyzice". Filosoficlq easopis 2 (2005): 167-194.
KOLMAN, VOJTICH. Logika G. Frega. Praha: Filosofia, 2002.
Lowe, E. J. The Posibility of Metaphysics - Substance, Identity, and Time. Oxford: Oxford Claren-
don Press, 1998.
MILL, JOHN STUART. A System of Logic. London: Parker, 1843.
NEUMANN, JOHN VON, "Eine Axiomatisierung der Mengenlehre". Journal fur die reine and
angewandte Mathematik 154, (1925): 219-240.
SHAPIRO, STEWART. Philosophy of Mathematics - Structure and Ontology. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1997.
STRAWSON, PETER FREDERICK. Individuals. An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. London:
Routledge, 1964.
ZERMELO, ERNST. "Untersuchen fiber die Grundlagen der Mengenlehre". Mathematische
Annalen 65 (1908): 261-281.

140 • SUBSTANCE & ACCIDENT

EXISTENTIAL INERTIA
Edward Feser

ABSTRACT
The "existential inertia" thesis holds that, once in existence, the natural world tends
to remain in existence without need of a divine conserving cause. Critics of the doctrine of
divine conservation often allege that its defenders have not provided arguments in favour of
it and against the rival doctrine of existential inertia. But in fact, when properly understood,
the traditional theistic arguments summed up in Aquinas's Five Ways can themselves be
seen to be (or at least to imply) arguments against existential inertia and in favour of divine
conservation. Moreover, they are challenging arguments, to which defenders of the existential
inertia thesis have yet seriously to respond. The paper presents these arguments and reaffirms
the traditional Thomistic doctrine of divine conservation.

1. INTRODUCTION
The Doctrine of Divine Conservation (DDC) holds that the things that God
has created could not continue in existence for an instant if He were not actively
preserving them in being. DDC is a standard component of classical philosophical
theology. It is implied in scripture,' affirmed by St. Augustine' and St. Thomas
Aquinas,' and taught by the Catholic Church' That suffices to establish the
theological importance of DDC, and thus the significance of any challenge to
the doctrine, such as that posed by what Mortimer Adler called the "principle of
inertia in being"5 and what, following John Beaudoin's more elegant formulation,
we will call the Doctrine of Existential Inertia (DEO.' According to DEI, the world

' Wisdom 11, 25; Hebrews 1, 3; Colossians 1, 17.

2 De Genesi ad litteram IV, 12 and V, 20.
' Summa contra gentiles III, c. 65 and Summa theologiae [STh] I, q. 104, a. 1.
' It is taught explicitly in the Catechism of the Council of Trent (or Roman Catechism), Part
I, Article I. Theologians regard it as implicit in the teaching of the first Vatican Council that
"God protects and governs by His providence all things which He created" (H. DENZINGER, Sources of
Catholic Dogma (St. Louis: Herder, 1957), § 1784 [DS 3001]). It is classified as de fide in LUDWIG
OTT'S Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Cork: Mercier Press, 1955), 87.
5 MORTIMER ADLER, How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th-Century Pagan (New York:

Collier/Macmillan, 1980), 125, 132.

6 JOHN BEAUDOIN, "The world's continuance: divine conservation or existential inertia?",
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 61 (2007): 83-98. The expression "existential inertia"

EXISTENCE • 143
 Edward Feser
EXISTENTIAL INERTIA
of contingent things, once it exists, will tend to continue in existence on its own
at least until something positively acts to destroy it. It thus has no need to be
conserved in being by God.
Beaudoin asserts that "despite its centrality to the orthodox view about
God's relationship to his creation ... attempts to prove that the world could not
endure but for God's conserving activity are scarce."' Similarly, Robert Pasnau
and Christopher Shields claim that Aquinas, when defending DDC, "does not offer
anything like a decisive refutation" of DEL' If accurate, such claims would be
surprising given the centrality of DDC to the tradition. But such claims are not
accurate. For the main arguments for God's existence within classical philo-
sophical theology are, when properly understood, themselves arguments for DDC
and against DEI. In particular, this is precisely how Aquinas's famous Five Ways
(which are really just summaries of traditional arguments Aquinas did not claim
to have invented himself) should be understood, or so I will argue. DDC is not
regarded by Aquinas and other defenders of the arguments in question as some
additional thesis that must be established separately, after God's existence has
first been demonstrated via the theistic proofs. Rather, the proofs are intended
to establish God's existence precisely by showing that the world could not exist
even for an instant, or at least could not exist in the specific ways it actually does
exist, were it riot for the continual conserving action of God. And if the proofs
succeed, then DEI would by implication be thereby "decisively refuted" (as Pasnau
and Shields put it).
In the next section, I will develop and defend the suggestion that the tradi-
tional proofs represented by the Five Ways are best read as defences of DDC and,
consequently, as implicit critiques of DEI. That they are challenging critiques,
deserving the attention of contemporary philosophers, is something I hope will be
evident from the discussion, as well as from the third section, where I will explore
how the traditional proofs so interpreted might form the basis of a response to
recent defences of DEI. While the paper does not pretend to resolve the dispute
between DDC and DEL I hope it will contribute to a proper understanding of that
dispute.
is used by other writers too. See e.g. NORMAN KRETZMANN, The Metaphysics of Theism (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1997), 98. Cf. ROBERT PASNAU and CHRISTOPHER SHIELDS, The Philosophy of
Aquinas (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004), 144-145, which speaks of "the principle of inertia
for existence". JONATHAN KVANVIG and HUGH MCCANN characterise the rival to DDC as the
doctrine of the world's "self-sustenance", and regard talk of existential inertia as one possible
construal of self-sustenance. See their article "Divine Conservation and the Persistence of
the World", in Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of Theism, ed. Thomas V. Morris
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), 13-49.
7 BEAuDoIN, "The world's continuance: divine conservation or existential inertia?", 84.
$ PASNAU and SHIELDS, Philosophy of Aquinas, 144.
144 • EXISTENCE
Edward Feser
EXISTENTIAL INERTIA
2. DDC, DEI, AND THE FIVE WAYS
How to interpret the Five Ways, and whether and how they might be defended
against the standard objections, are, of course, large questions that I cannot
address in any detail here. I have done so elsewhere Here I will ignore exegetical
questions, borrowing freely from the history of Thomistic interpretation of the
proofs rather than sticking closely to Aquinas's texts.m I will focus on what I take
to be the nerve of each of the arguments, treating them (somewhat anachronis-
tically) as representative of the five main traditional Thomistic approaches to
arguing from the world to the existence of a divine conserver of the world (some of
the details of which are not explicit in Aquinas but suggested in the work of later
Thomists). These approaches can be summarised as follows: The first argues that
the existence, even for an instant, of composites of act and potency presupposes
the simultaneous existence of that which is pure act; the second argues that the
existence, even for an instant, of composites of essence and existence presupposes
the simultaneous existence of that which is being or existence itself; the third
argues that the existence, even for an instant, of composites of form and matter
presupposes the simultaneous existence of an absolutely necessary being; the
fourth argues that the existence, even for an instant, of things which are many
and come in degrees of perfection presupposes the simultaneous existence of
something one and absolutely perfect; and the fifth argues that the existence,
even for an instant, of finality or directedness toward an end presupposes the
simultaneous existence of a supreme ordering intellect. Let us examine each of
these in turn.
2.1 The First Way
The First Way is otherwise known as the argument from motion to an Un-
moved Mover, where by "motion" Aquinas means change of any sort and where by
"change" he means the reduction of potency to act (or potentiality to actuality).
Given the details of Aquinas's presentation of the argument in the Summa theolo-
giae and elsewhere, contemporary discussions of it tend, understandably, to focus
on a myriad of questions about whether its treatment of local motion is vitiated
by Newton's law of inertia, whether the cause of something's actually having
some feature F must itself actually be F, and so forth. But I would suggest that
the heart of the argument is actually much more straightforward than it might
at first appear, or at least that the argument suggests a more straightforward
argument that can be expressed exclusively in the language of act and potency,
leaving to one side questions about local motion and the like. Moreover, while it
9 See EDWARD FESER, Aquinas (Oxford: Oneworld, 2009), especially chapter 3.
10 Aquinas's own presentation of the Five Ways is to be found in STh I, q. 2, a. 3. All quotes
from the Summa theologiae are taken from ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa Theologica, trans.
Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1948).
EXISTENCE • 145
 Edward Feser
EXISTENTIAL INERTIA
is natural and useful to introduce the notion of the reduction of potency to act
using events as examples - like Aquinas's example of wood being heated by fire -I
would suggest also that the thrust of the argument is best understood in terms
of substances rather than events. For the occurrence of an event ultimately pre-
supposes (for an Aristotelian like Aquinas, certainly) the existence of a substance
or substances;" and the existence of a natural substance involves, no less than the
events it enters into do, the reduction of potency to act. Accordingly, we might
present a "streamlined" reconstruction of the argument as follows:
1. That the actualisation of potency is a real feature of the world follows from
the occurrence of the events we know of via sensory experience.
2. The occurrence of any event E presupposes the operation of a substance.
3. The existence of any natural substance S at any given moment presupposes
the concurrent actualisation of a potency.
4. No mere potency can actualise a potency; only something actual can do so,
5. So any actualiser A of S's current existence must itself be actual.
6. A's own existence at the moment it actualises S itself presupposes either
(a) the concurrent actualisation of a further potency or (b) A's being purely
actual.
7. If A's existence at the moment it actualises S presupposes the concurrent
actualisation of a further potency, then there exists a regress of concurrent
actualisers that is either infinite or terminates in a purely actual actualiser.
8. But such a regress of concurrent actualisers would constitute a causal
series ordered per se, and such a series cannot regress infinitely.
9. So either A itself is purely actual or there is a purely actual actualiser
which terminates the regress of concurrent actualisers.
10. So the occurrence of E and thus the existence of S at any given moment
presupposes the existence of a purely actual actualiser.
The argument is, admittedly, highly abstract compared to Aquinas's own pre-
sentation. Again, I am not putting forward textual exegesis here, but something
more like "rational reconstruction" (if such positivist jargon can be forgiven in
this context) in light of the history of Thomistic interpretation of the argument.
But the reduction of potency to act - the explanation of which, as I have indicated,
" "It is evident that anything whatever operates so far as it is a being" (Quaestiones
disputatae de anima, a. 19, co., as translated by John Patrick Rowan in ST. THOMAS AQUINAS,
The Soul (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1949)). See FESER, Aquinas, 74-76 for discussion and defence of the
suggestion that the argument from motion is ultimately concerned to explain the existence
of the things which move no less than the fact of their motion.
146 • EXISTENCE
Edward Feser
EXISTENTIAL INERTIA
is Aquinas's ultimate concern in the argument - is itself a highly abstract notion
in any event. And the point of focusing on it is to make as evident as possible the
relevance of the argument from motion to the dispute between DDC and DEI.
All the same, the reader might reasonably ask what sort of potency it is the
actualisation of which premise (3) tells us is presupposed by the existence at any
moment of a natural substance S. The answer is that there are several possible
a nswers. In an Aristotelian vein, one might hold that any natural substance S
must be a composite of prime matter and substantial form, and that since prime
matter is of itself purely potential, S cannot exist unless some actualiser A conjoins
(and keeps conjoined) to its prime matter the substantial form of S. Or, in a more
distinctively Thomistic vein, one might hold that any natural substance S must
be a composite of an essence and an act of existence, and that since an essence
is of itself purely potential, S cannot exist unless some actualiser A conjoins (and
keeps conjoined) to its essence S's act of existence. Or, in a more Neo-Platonic
vein, one might hold that any natural substance S will be in some respect or other
composite so that its parts only potentially constitute the whole unless conjoined
(and kept conjoined) by some actualiser A which is incomposite or One. Indeed,
a mong the rest of the Five Ways are arguments which deploy precisely these sorts
of analyses of natural substances. The argument from motion to an Unmoved
Mover - or what we might more fittingly (if less elegantly) call the argument from
the actualisation of potency to that which is Actus Purus - can be understood,
then, as holding that whatever the metaphysical details turn out to be vis-a-vis the
structure of events and substances, they will involve the actualisation of potency,
and that this presupposes the operation of that which is pure act.
The rest of the argument will be familiar to those acquainted with the lite-
rature on the Five Ways. For example, the notion of a causal series ordered per se,
to which (8) appeals, is the notion of a series all but one of whose members have
no independent causal power, but derive their efficacy from an uncaused cause
to whom they are related as instruments. (Recall Aquinas's example of the stick
which can move the stone only insofar as it is being used by the hand to move
it.) That Aquinas has this sort of series in mind (rather than a series ordered per
accidens, of the sort which might trace back infinitely into the past) is well known
to serious students of the argument, even if not to some of its popular critics
and defenders. And the idea (at least as some commentators would interpret or
extend Aquinas's argument) is that if A's existence depends on the concurrent
existence and actualising activity of some further actualiser B, and B's existence
depends on the concurrent existence and actualising activity of some further
actualiser C, then we clearly have a series ordered per se which can terminate only
in that which can actualise without itself requiring actualisation - something
that just is, already, purely actual. As I have said, a more detailed discussion and
defence of the argument is not something I can get into here, and I have in any
event done so elsewhere. The point for now is to note that the argument clearly
EXISTENCE • 147
 Edward Feser
EXISTENTIAL INERTIA
constitutes a defence of DDC and a critique of DEI. For if successful, it would show I
that no natural substance could exist at any given moment without a purely
actual actualiser either directly or indirectly maintaining it in existence. And 7
the notion of Actus Purus or pure act is the philosophical core of at least the
Aristotelian-Thomistic conception of God.
2.2 The Second Way
The Second Way is also known as the argument from efficient causality to
an Uncaused Cause. As is often noted, the argument can seem at first glance to
differ from the First Way only verbally. But several commentators have suggested
(correctly, in my view) that there is a substantive difference between them insofar
as the Second Way takes as its explanandum the existence or being of things,
whereas the First Way seeks to explain their motion or change (even if it, too, as
I have suggested, must account for their existence in the course of explaining
their motion). In this respect, the Second Way is reminiscent of what is sometimes
called the "existential proof" of Aquinas's De ente et essentia, and since the point of
the Five Ways is to survey what Aquinas takes to be the main arguments for God's
existence, it is natural to wonder whether the former argument was intended as
a summary of the latter. The suggestion is controversial but, I think, correct, and
I will take it for granted in my discussion here.12
Now, the existential proof presupposes Aquinas's famous doctrine (alluded to
above) of the real distinction between essence and existence in everything other
than God. The proof seeks to show that nothing in which essence and existence
are distinct could exist even for an instant unless there is something in which
essence and existence are identical - something which just is ipsum esse subsistens,
Subsistent Being Itself - conjoining its essence to an act of existence and thereby
maintaining it in being. Reading the Second Way in light of this approach suggests
the following reconstruction:
1. That efficient causation is a real feature of the world is evident from
sensory experience.
2. Nothing can be the efficient cause of itself.
3. The existence of any natural substance S at any given moment presupposes
that its essence is concurrently being conjoined to an act of existence.
4. If S itself were somehow conjoining its own essence to an act of existence,
it would be the efficient cause of itself.
12 WILLIAM LANE CRAIG, who agrees that the Second Way is concerned to explain the
existence or being of things, nevertheless resists any assimilation of it to the argument of De
ente et essentia. See his The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz (New York: Harper and Row,
1980), 177.1 defend the assimilation and reply to Craig in my Aquinas, 84-87.
148 • EXISTENCE
Edward Feser
EXISTENTIAL INERTIA
5. So there must be some concurrent efficient cause C distinct from S which
is conjoining S's essence to an act of existence.
6. C's own existence at the moment it conjoins S's essence to an act of exis-
tence presupposes either (a) that C's essence is concurrently being con-
joined to an act of existence, or (b) that in C essence and existence are
7. df ecns
t existence at the moment it conjoins S's essence to an act of existence
presupposes that C's own essence is concurrently being conjoined to an
act of existence, then there exists a regress of concurrent conjoiners of
essences and acts of existence that is either infinite or terminates in
something whose essence and existence are identical.
8. But such a regress of concurrent conjoiners of essence and existence would
constitute a causal series ordered per se, and such a series cannot regress
infinitely.
9. So either C's own essence and existence are identical, or there is something
else whose essence and existence are identical which terminates the
regress of concurrent conjoiners of essences with acts of existence.
10.So the existence of S at any given moment presupposes the existence of
something in which essence and existence are identical.
There are obvious parallels between this argument and the argument for
a purely actual actualiser. The notion of a causal series ordered per se plays
a similar role in both, and that which initiates the potential regress is similar too.
In the first argument, the idea was that the existence of any natural substance S
at any given moment presupposes the actualisation at that moment of a potency,
and that whatever does the actualising must itself already be actual. We saw
that this actualising might be conceived of more concretely in terms of S's prime
matter having conjoined to it the substantial form of S, or in terms of S's essence
being conjoined to an act of existence. The argument for an Uncaused Cause, as
I have interpreted it, essentially makes a separate argument of this second more
concrete conceptualisation of the actualising of S. It holds that S's essence, and
thus S itself, is merely potential until that essence is conjoined with an act of
existence. But if S or S's essence did this conjoining, then S would be the cause of
itself, which is impossible. Hence the conjoining must be done by some cause C
distinct from S. But the distinction between S's essence and existence that this
presupposes is as real after S first comes into existence as it was before; and for S
or S's essence to conjoin S's essence to an act of existence even after S first comes
into existence would be for S to cause itself, which is no less impossible after S
already exists than before. Hence the conjoining of S's essence and existence by
a cause distinct from S must be maintained at any moment S exists.
EXISTENCE • 149
 Edward Feser
EXISTENTIAL INERTIA
As with the argument for a purely actual actualiser, there is much more to
be said about the argument, and as with the former argument, a completely
general treatment is beyond the scope of this paper. The point to emphasise for
our purposes is that here too we have an argument for DDC and against DEI. For
if S cannot cause its own continuance in existence any more than its coming i nto
being, then DEI is false. And if what does cause its continuance in existence must
ultimately be something in which essence and existence are identical, then since
this just is the core of the Thomistic conception of God, DDC is true.
3.3 The Third Way
The Third Way is otherwise known as the argument from the contingency of
the world to the existence of an absolutely necessary being. It would be a serious
mistake to read into the argument themes of the sort familiar from contemporary
discussions of contingency and necessity, such as appeals to the "conceivability"
of this or that, or to possible worlds, or the assimilation of metaphysical necessity
to logical necessity. For Aquinas, as for Aristotelians generally, possibility and
necessity are grounded in what is actual. We do not determine the essence of a
thing by first considering what it would be like in various possible worlds; rather,
we determine what it would be like in various possible worlds only after first
determining its essence, which means determining what it is like in the actual
world. Hence, when in the Third Way Aquinas says that the things our senses
reveal to us are "possible not to be", he does not mean that we can "conceive" of
them going out of existence or that there is at least one possible world in which
they do so. He means that there is something in their nature that makes them
inherently incapable of persisting indefinitely. And when he goes on to say that
"that which is possible not to be at some time is not", he is not fallaciously arguing
that if some event is possible in some completely abstract way - in the sense that
we can conceive of it without contradiction, say, or that there is a possible world
where it occurs - then it will happen in the actual world. He is saying rather that
if a thing has an inherent tendency to go out of existence, then eventually that
tendency will be manifested in its actually going out of existence.
The basis of this tendency in the things of our experience is their form/matter
composition, for "a possibility of non-being is in the nature of those things...
whose matter is subject to contrariety of forms"." But even if one concedes that
material things have and will realise such a tendency, and even if one concedes
too Aquinas's further claim that if everything is "possible not to be" then at one
time there would have been nothing, might one not argue that the underlying
matter out of which the things of our experience are made is itself not "possible
not to be", that it is a kind of necessary being? Indeed, some critics of the Third
' 3 De potentia q. 5, a. 3, co., as translated by Lawrence Shapcote in THOMAS AQUINAS, On the
Power of God (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1932).
150 • EXISTENCE
Edward Feser
EXISTENTIAL INERTIA
way make precisely this suggestion.'" Where they go wrong is in assuming that
Aq uinas would disagree with them. For in fact, Aquinas himself holds that while
individual material things are generated and corrupted, matter and form them-
selves are (apart from special divine creation, to which he would not appeal for
the purposes of the argument at hand lest he argue in a circle) not susceptible
of generation and corruption." So, Aquinas is happy to concede, at least for the
sake of argument, that matter might be a kind of necessary being. Moreover, he
recognises the existence of other non-divine necessary beings as well, such as
a ngels and even heavenly bodies (which, given the astronomical knowledge then
available, the mediaevals mistakenly regarded as not undergoing corruption).
This should not be surprising when we keep in mind that getting to the existence
of a necessary being is only the first half of the Third Way. The second half is
devoted to showing that any necessary being that does not have its necessity
of itself must ultimately derive it from a necessary being which does have its
necessity of itself. In particular, it is Aquinas's view that even if matter and form,
angels and heavenly bodies count as necessary beings of a sort, they do not have
their necessity of themselves but must derive it from an absolutely necessary
being, namely God.'"
That the matter which persists throughout the generations and corruptions
of particular material objects cannot have its necessity of itself should be obvious
when we consider that for Aquinas such matter is just prime matter or pure
potentiality, which by itself and apart from the forms it takes on has no actuality
nor indeed any reality at all, necessary or otherwise. And for Aquinas the forms
in question have (apart from the postmortem souls of human beings) no existence
apart from matter, so that they cannot be said to have their necessity of them-
selves either. Nor will it do to suggest that any particular form/matter composite
might have its necessity of itself, even apart from the fact that such composites
have an inherent tendency to go out of existence. For since in purely material
substances matter depends on form and form depends on matter, we would have
a vicious explanatory circle unless there was something outside the form/matter
composite which accounts for its existence." Then there is the fact that material
objects are composites of essence and existence as well, as are disembodied
4 See e.g. J. L. MACKIE, The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), 91; and BEDE
RUNDLE, Why there is Something rather than Nothing (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), 96 -97.
15 De principiis naturae, c. 2.
16 That angels and the like are "necessary" in this derivative sense does not entail for
Aquinas that they cannot go out of existence, only that they cannot do so in the way material
things do, i.e. via corruption. Such a derivatively necessary being could go out of existence via
annihilation, if God ceased conjoining its essence to an act of existence.
" Cf. CHRISTOPHER F. J. MARTIN, Thomas Aquinas: God and Explanations (Edinburgh: Edin-
burgh University Press, 1997), 166-67.
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human souls and angels; and for reasons already stated, such composites must
be sustained in being by something in which essence and existence are identical.
In this way, then, necessary beings other than God must derive their necessity
from God."
With this interpretive background in place, we can propose the following
reconstruction of the basic thrust of the argument from contingency:
1. That the particular substances revealed to us in sensory experience are
contingent is evident from the fact that they are generated and corrupted.
2. Their generation and corruption presuppose matter and form, which are
neither generated nor corrupted and are thus necessary.
3. But matter of itself is pure potency and material forms of themselves are
mere abstractions, so that neither can exist apart from the other; and even
when existing together they cannot depend on each other alone on pain
of vicious circularity.
4. So matter and form do not have their necessity of themselves but must
derive it from something else.
5. Material substances are also composites of essence and existence, as are
non-divine necessary beings like angels, and any such composite must
have its essence and existence conjoined by something distinct from it.
6. So these other necessary beings too must derive their necessity from
something else.
7. But a regress of necessary beings deriving their necessity from another
would constitute a causal series ordered per se, which of its nature cannot
regress infinitely.
8. So there must be something which is necessary in an absolute way, not
deriving its necessity from another and (therefore) not a composite of form
and matter or essence and existence.
Note that prime matter cannot at any moment exist without form and a ma-
terial form cannot at any moment exist without prime matter; they depend on
each other at every moment in which they are conjoined together in a material
substance. Hence the circularity inherent in explaining the existence of a material
substance's form in terms of its matter and the existence of its matter in terms of
its form holds at any moment at which the substance exists, so that they require
an external cause of their conjunction at any moment it exists. Something similar
holds of any composite of essence and existence, for reasons already explained.
So, we have in the present argument too an argument against DEI and, since the
18 For a detailed defence of this reading of the Third Way, see FESER, Aquinas, 90-99.
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ultima te explanation arrived at is an absolutely necessary being which is not
a compound of essence and existence but that in which essence and existence are
identical, an argument for DDC as well.
2.4 The Fourth Way
The Fourth Way is sometimes described as an argument from grades of per-
fection to a divine Exemplar, and sometimes as a henological argument from the
multiplicity of things to a divine Unity. Like the Five Ways in general, it is very
widely misunderstood, perhaps even more so than the other arguments. For
exam ple, it is often assumed that Aquinas is arguing that every attribute that
comes in degrees must have its fullest exemplar in God; and it is then objected
that this entails such absurdities as that God must be the supreme exemplar
of smelliness. But in fact Aquinas is concerned only with what the Scholastics
called the transcendentals - being, one, good, true, and the like - which, unlike
smelliness, sweetness, heat, cold, red, green, etc., are predicable of everything
without exception. And it is because the transcendentals are (as the Scholastics
held) "convertible" with one another that Aquinas takes what is most true, most
good, and so forth to be one and the same thing, and to be identical in turn with
what is "uttermost being".
The argument is also often read in Platonic terms, and while this is not an
egregious misunderstanding, it is also not quite right. Aquinas is indeed commit-
ted to a doctrine of "participation", but he does not understand participation in
terms of purely formal causation, and he does not regard the being, goodness,
unity, and truth in which things participate as abstract objects a la Plato's Forms.
Rather, he takes the transcendentals participated in to be also the efficient causes
of things' being good, true, one, etc. to the extent that they are, where what this
ultimately entails is that the Subsistent Being Itself with which all the trans-
cendentals are identical is the one efficient cause of their being, goodness, truth,
unity, etc. at any given moment.
In short, we can think of the Fourth Way as a kind of extension, via the doc-
trine of the transcendentals, of the basic thrust of the earlier argument for an
Uncaused Cause whose essence and existence are identical. That in which essence
and existence are distinct, and which is thus limited in being, depends upon that
which just is pure existence or being. But being is convertible with goodness,
unity, truth, etc. Hence that which is good only in some limited way must depend
on that which is pure goodness, that which has unity only in some limited way
must depend on that which is absolutely one, and so forth.'9 This suggests the
following reconstruction of the argument from grades of perfection:
19 Once again, see my Aquinas for a detailed defence of my proposed reading of the Fourth
Way, especially 99-109.
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1. The things of our experience exhibit goodness, unity, and the other trans•
cendentals only to some limited degree.
2. But they can do so only insofar as they participate in that which is good,
one, etc. without limitation.
3. Moreover, the transcendentals are convertible with one another, and ulti-
mately with Being Itself.
4. So there is some one thing which is being itself, goodness itself, unity
itself, and so forth, in which the things of our experience participate to
the degrees they do.
5. But that in which things participate is their efficient cause.
6. So the one thing which is being itself, goodness itself, unity itself, etc. is
the efficient cause of the things of our experience.
Keep in mind that for Platonism, things participate in the Forms at every
moment in which they exist at all, and otherwise would not exist at all. For in-
stance, a dog is a dog only insofar as it participates in the Form of Dog, and if it
were to cease participating in that Form even for an instant, it would cease to
exist qua dog. And though Aquinas's notion of participation is not identical to
Plato's, it has that much in common with it. Just as that in which essence and
existence are distinct - that is to say, that which has being only in a limited way
- could not in Aquinas's view exist for an instant if it were not sustained in being
by that which just is Being Itself, so too he thinks that that which has goodness,
unity, etc. only in a limited way could not exist (or at least not exist qua good,
one, and so forth) even for an instant if it were not sustained by that which just is
supreme goodness, unity, etc. So, once again we have an implicit argument against
DEI and (given that that which is being itself, goodness itself, unity itself, etc. is
God) an implicit argument for DDC.
2.5 The Fifth Way
The Fifth Way is also known as the argument from finality to a supreme order-
ing intelligence. It might also be described as a teleological argument, but it has
nothing to do with the "design argument" of William Paley. Paley and other de-
fenders of the latter sort of argument take for granted a mechanistic conception
of the natural order on which it is devoid of anything like Aristotelian substantial
forms or final causes. While they argue that certain natural phenomena are
teleological, the teleology in question is understood to be extrinsic or imposed
from outside rather than immanent or "built in", as Aristotelian natures and final
causes are. The basis for a Paleyan inference to design is a judgement to the effect
that certain natural phenomena are too complex plausibly to have arisen through
natural processes and are thus probably the artefacts of a superior intelligence.
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Aq uinas's argument is nothing like this. He regards teleology as immanent to
the natural order, as manifest in even the simplest causal processes rather than
on ly in complex phenomena, and as something that leads us conclusively to the
existence of a supreme intellect rather than merely as a matter of probability.
Take a simple causal regularity, such as a match's tendency to generate flame
and heat when struck, or ice's tendency to cool the air or liquid surrounding it,
or some even more basic causal regularity at the micro leve1.20 Why is it that it is
flame and heat specifically that a match will tend to generate when struck? It will
not always actually generate it, of course, for it might be impeded in some way
from doing so - oxygen might be absent, or it might have been water damaged, or
it might have simply gotten so old that the chemicals in the match head have lost
their potency. But unless impeded in such ways, it will produce its characteristic
effects, and only those effects, rather than generating frost and cold, say, or the
smell of lilacs, or a thunderclap. Again, why? Aquinas's answer is that "every
agent acts for an end: otherwise one thing would not follow more than another
from the action of the agent, unless it were by chance."" By "agent" he means
an efficient cause, and by "acting for an end" he means that such a cause is as it
were "directed toward" the production of its characteristic effect or effects as to
an end or goal. In this way, efficient causality presupposes final causality: If we
do not suppose that some cause A of its nature "points to" or is "directed at" the
generation of some effect or range of effects B, specifically - rather than to C, D,
or no effect at all - then we have no way of making intelligible why it does in fact
regularly generate B rather than these other effects. Notice that this does not
involve attributing anything like a biological function to such causes - biological
functions are, contrary to a common misconception, only one, relatively rare kind
of finality in nature, and do not exhaust final causality - and that it has nothing
to do with complexity. Furthermore, the end-directedness in question is inherent
to causes, something they have by virtue of their natures or essences. At least in
the case of natural causes (such as ice's tendency to cool surrounding water or air)
we can determine from the regularity of their behaviour alone what their causal
tendencies and thus "final causes" are, and do not need to advert to the intentions
of a designer. (Indeed, Aristotle, who believed both in final causes and in God, did
not think that the former needed to be explained in terms of the latter.)
This essentially Aristotelian, anti-mechanistic conception of the world as
immanently teleological is what Aquinas means to affirm in the first half of the
Fifth Way, when he writes:
20 Nothing hinges on the specific examples. If a reductionist insists that the causal
properties of matches, or ice, or any macro level object can be reduced without remainder to
the causal properties of some micro level entities, the defender of the Fifth Way can simply
re-state the point in terms of those more basic regularities.
21 STh I, q. 99, a. 99, co.
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We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end,
and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, R;
as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly,
do they achieve their end."
By "designedly" (ex intentione), he does not mean "because of a designer", a la
Paley. Rather, he means, as Aristotle would, "because of the teleology or end_
directedness inherent in things, rather than by chance"." Whether this teleology
must itself be explained in terms of intelligence is a further question, one Aquinas
gets to only in the next sentence, when he writes that "whatever lacks intelligence
cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with
knowledge and intelligence." The claim is peremptory; there is no question here
of "weighing probabilities" or the like. Why?
The basic idea is this. A cause cannot be efficacious unless it exists in some way.
But in the case of the final cause of some unintelligent causal process, the cause
in question does not exist in the natural order. For instance, the oak is the end or
final cause of the acorn, and yet until the acorn develops into the oak, the oak does
not actually exist in the natural world. Now with artefacts, the final cause can be
efficacious because it exists (or rather its form exists) in the mind of the artificer,
For example, a building is the final cause of the actions of a builder, and it serves as
a genuine cause despite its not yet existing in the natural order by existing at least
as an idea in the builder's intellect. Now unless there is some third alternative,
this is how the final causes operative in the order of unintelligent natural things
must exist, for they have to exist somehow in order to be efficacious. But there is
no third alternative, given Aquinas's rejection of Platonism. If the oak does not
exist in a Platonic third realm and it does not yet exist either in the natural world,
the only place left for it to exist, as it must if it is to have any efficacy vis-à-vis
the acorn, is as a form or idea in an intellect. And the same thing is true of all
22 STh I, q. 2, a. 3, co.
23 CHRISTOPHER F. J. MARTIN translates ex intentione as "in virtue of some tendency"
(Thomas Aquinas: God and Explanations, 179), which is, I think, to be preferred both to the
widely used Fathers of the English Dominican Province translation quoted above and to the
common alternative translation "by intention". "Designedly" and "by intention", while not
incorrect, can be misleading given the way "design" and "intention" are typically used in
contemporary philosophical discussion of these issues, which differs from the way they are
used in Scholastic philosophy. As BERNARD WUELLNER explains in his Dictionary of Scholastic
Philosophy (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1956), 63, in Scholastic metaphysics "in-
tention" can mean "the direction or application of causal power to an effect; the influence of the
primary cause on the instrument". (For the first "of", Wuellner's text actually reads "or", but
this is evidently a typo.) Wuellner adds: "This may be the primary meaning of intention as it best
shows the notion of directing or tending on the part of a being or power." Again, what is in view is the
Aristotelian notion of immanent teleology, rather than the extrinsic teleology in terms of which
Paley and his contemporary successors frame their "design argument".
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the other final causes operative in the order of unintelligent natural processes,
which means it is true of the entire order of efficient causes making up the natural
world, since all efficient causality presupposes final causality.
so, there must be an intellect outside the natural order directing things to
their ends, where these ends pre-exist as ideas in said intellect. And notice that
this must be the case at any moment at which natural substances exist at all, for
they retain their inherent causal powers and thus their immanent finality or
end-directedness at every moment at which they exist. Notice too that precisely
since this finality or end-directedness is immanent, "built into" things given
their natures or essences, that which directs natural things to their ends must be
what gives them their natures or essences, and thus what conjoins their essences
to an act of existence. Since for reasons already stated this must ultimately be
something in which essence and existence are identical, we are led by yet another
route to the existence of God, and not merely to a finite designer (which Paley-
style arguments cannot rule out).24
We are led, then, to the following reconstruction of the overall thrust of the
argument from finality:
1. That unintelligent natural causes regularly generate certain specific ef-
fects or ranges of effects is evident from sensory experience.
2. Such regularities are intelligible only on the assumption that these effi-
cient causes inherently "point to" or are "directed at" their effects as to
an end or final cause.
3. So there are final causes or ends immanent to the natural order.
4. But unintelligent natural causes can "point to" or be "directed at" such
ends only if guided by an intelligence.
5. So there is such an intelligence.
6. But since the ends or final causes in question are inherent in things by
virtue of their natures or essence, the intelligence in question must be
the cause also of natural things having the natures or essences they do.
7. This entails its being that which conjoins their essences to an act of
existence, and only that in which essence and existence are identical can
ultimately accomplish this.
8. So the intelligence in question is something in which essence and existence
are identical.
24 For a more detailed defence of the reading of the Fifth Way proposed in the text, see
FESER, Aquinas, 110-20. For further discussion of the differences between a Paleyan conception
of teleology and an Aristotelian one, see EDWARD FESER, "Teleology: A Shopper's Guide",
Philosophia Christi 12, no. 1 (2010): 142-159.
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Once again we have an implicit argument against DEI, since the claim is
that a natural substance could not have the final cause or end it has even for an
instant without some intelligence distinct from it ordering it to that end, which
(it is argued) entails in turn that this intelligence must be keeping its essence
conjoined to an act of existence at every such instant. And since that intelligence
would have to be something in which essence and existence are identical, we also
have an implicit argument for DDC.
The reference, yet again, to the essence/existence distinction is likely to raise
in many readers' minds a thought that has no doubt occurred to them already, viz,
that the Five Ways as I (and other Thomists historically) have interpreted them
overlap significantly. That impression is not entirely misleading. The Aristotelian.
Thomistic metaphysical framework upon which the arguments rest - comprising
the act/potency, form/matter, and essence/existence distinctions, the notions of
the transcendentals, of causal powers, finality, causal series ordered per se, and so
on and so forth - constitutes a tightly integrated structure which offers several
avenues of approach to what is ultimately one and the same summit. Still, the
avenues are different, at least at their beginning points. And even where they
overlap, there is value in considering the proofs individually. If we might borrow
Wittgenstein's description of his own (admittedly very different!) method, in
order fully to grasp the theological implications of the Aristotelian-Thomistic
system, "the very nature of the investigation ... compels us to travel over a wide
field of thought criss-cross in every direction", making "a number of sketches of
landscapes ... in the course of these long and involved journeyings", and with "the
same or almost the same points ... always being approached afresh from different
directions, and new sketches made."25
3. RECENT DEBATE OVER DDC AND DEI
If I am right, then, each of the traditional theistic arguments represented by
the Five Ways embodies, or at least suggests, an argument for DDC and against DEI.
Let us turn now to some recent defences of DEI and critiques of DDC and consider
how a defender of the Five Ways as I have interpreted them might respond.
3.1 Radical versus superficial contingency
One of the more noteworthy defences of DEI comes, somewhat surprisingly,
from Mortimer Adler, who was himself something of a Thomist.26 Adler presents
two arguments, a negative argument intended to undermine what he takes to
be the main grounds for rejecting DEI, and a positive argument from Ockham's
razor for preferring DEI to its rejection. I will address the positive argument in
23 As translated by G. E. M. Anscombe in LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Philosophical Investigations,
3'd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1968), v.
26 ADLER, How to Think About God, especially chapter 13.
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a later subsection. Let's consider for the moment the negative argument, which
a ppeals to a distinction between radical and superficial contingency. The reason
the opponent of DEI maintains that a natural substance will go out of existence
without a divine sustaining cause, Adler says, is because such substances are
contingent in the sense of being generated and corrupted, and thus have no
tendency of their own to continue in existence. But the contingency in question,
objects Adler, is only superficial. When natural substances go out of existence,
they are merely broken down into their material components, which persist
in another form. They are not radically contingent in the sense of being utterly
annihilated. If they were, we would have grounds for saying that they have no
inherent tendency to remain in existence, but since their contingency is only
superficial - they do not really go out of existence, but merely change form - such
an inference is blocked. And with the inference to the falsity of DEI blocked, so
too is the inference to DDC.
Adler attributes to Etienne Gilson an acknowledgement that generation
and corruption are not the same thing as exnihilation (coming into being out
of nothing) and annihilation, but says that he cannot find an explicit acknow-
ledgement of this distinction in Aquinas." This is odd, given that (as I noted above
when discussing the Third Way) Aquinas explicitly affirms in De principiis naturae
that it is only particular individual material substances that are generated and
corrupted, while matter and form themselves are not. It is also odd that Adler does
not take account of the fact that Aquinas explicitly acknowledges in the Third Way
that there can be non-divine beings which are necessary - that is to say, beings
which have no inherent tendency to go out of existence - while maintaining that
such beings nevertheless require a divine sustaining cause insofar as they do not
have their necessity of themselves. Had he taken account of it, he might have seen
that the fact that something has no tendency to go out of existence by itself does
nothing to show that it possesses existential inertia. For everything depends on
why it lacks such a tendency. If there is something in a thing's own nature that
explains why it lacks that tendency, then DEI would indeed be vindicated. But if
there is nothing in its nature that could account for the lack of such a tendency,
then DEI is false and we have to appeal to something external to the thing to
account for it.
Unfortunately, Adler never addresses the question of what there might be in a
thing's nature that could either give it, or prevent it from possessing, existential
inertia. But that question is at the heart of the dispute between Aquinas and
the defender of DEI. Adler mistakenly assumes that Aquinas's position has to do
fundamentally with contingency as such, that Aquinas is saying something like:
If S is contingent, then S lacks existential inertia.
27 Ibid., 127.
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and Adler's objection is that at least in the case where the contingency in question
is superficial rather than radical, the conditional is false. But Aquinas is not saying
that, or rather not merely saying that. He is saying instead something like:
If S has feature F, then S lacks existential inertia whether S is contingent or
necessary.
And what F is, specifically, is being metaphysically composite - being, that is to say,
a compound of form and matter, or of essence and existence, or, more generally,
of act and potency. This is explicitly what is at issue in the first three Ways as i
have proposed interpreting them, and it is implicit in the Fourth and Fifth Ways
as well insofar as they too ultimately infer to something which maintains its effect
in existence by conjoining an essence to an act of existence."
Adler's failure to see that it is compositeness rather than contingency that lies
at the heart of Aquinas's objection to DEI is related to a muddle in his distinction
between radical and superficial contingency. Adler holds that a cat, say, is only
superficially rather than radically contingent because its parts remain after the
cat dies; and this is meant to support the claim that the cat possesses existential
inertia. This at least gives the impression that the cat is no more than the sum
of its parts - that something of the cat in fact remains after its death insofar
as its parts persist, which is at least a natural way to read the claim that its
contingency is only "superficial". Alternatively, D. Q. Mclnerny suggests that
Adler thinks of a radically contingent being as one which depends on something
else for its very existence, but of a superficially contingent being as one which
depends on something else only for a "mode of being"." And if so, then (now to
go beyond what Mclnerny himself says) it would seem to follow that for Adler,
being a cat - or being a tree, or a stone, or a car, or any other of the ordinary
objects of our experience - is really only a mode of the material world itself,
which persists as a substance throughout the acquisition and loss of these modes.
Whichever of these readings we adopt, from the point of view of the Aristotelian
hylomorphism informing Aquinas's position, Adler simply misunderstands the
nature of material substances, or at least begs the question against Aquinas,
For the hylomorphist, a cat is neither an aggregate of material parts nor a mode
28 That it is being composite that ultimately makes a thing dependent for its continued
existence upon a sustaining cause is emphasised in DAVID BRAINE, The Reality of Time and
the Existence of God: The Project of Proving God's Existence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988). See
especially pp. 177-196 and 342-345. That whatever is composite must ultimately be explained
in terms of that which just is existence itself is also more or less the thrust of the arguments
of BARRY MILLER, From Existence to God (London: Routledge, 1992) and WILLIAM F. VALLICELLA,
A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers,
2002).
29 D. Q. McINERNy, Natural Theology (Elmhurst, PA: Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, 2005), 137.
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of some material substance, but rather is itself a substance composed of prime
matter and substantial form. Its going out of existence consists in its prime matter
losing the substantial form of a cat and taking on some other substantial form or
forms, such as the forms of the chemical elements that existed in the cat virtually
while it was still alive. And because the substantial form of the cat is lost, there
is absolutely nothing of the cat left after its death. The "parts" which carry on
are not really cat parts in the strict sense - they cannot be, since there is no
substantial form of a cat left to inform them - but rather new substances which
ca me into being when the prime matter acquired new substantial forms. (A dead
cat is not a kind of cat, but rather, as Monty Python might put it, an "ex-cat".)"
Even if Adler insisted that a cat or any other natural object was really just an
aggregate of material parts or a mode of a substance constituted by the material
world as a whole, the hylomorphist could respond that the fundamental material
parts themselves - basic particles, or whatever - or the world considered as one
gigantic substance, would still be composed of prime matter and substantial form.
And if the material world is susceptible of a hylomorphic analysis at some level of
description, we have an argument from the nature of material substances against
DEI. That argument is already implicit in what was said in the previous section
about the Third Way, but it will be worthwhile to make it explicit at this point,
adding as a first premise a familiar principle of Scholastic metaphysics:
1. A cause cannot give what it does not have to give.
2. A material substance is a composite of prime matter and substantial form.
3. Something has existential inertia if and only if it has of itself a tendency
to persist in existence once it exists.
4. But prime matter by itself and apart from substantial form is pure potency,
and thus has of itself no tendency to persist in existence.
5. And substantial form by itself and apart from prime matter is a mere
abstraction, and thus of itself also has no tendency to persist in existence."
6. So neither prime matter as the material cause of a material substance, nor
substantial form as its formal cause, can impart to the material substance
they compose a tendency to persist in existence.
" Accordingly, Mclnerny says that in the relevant sense, and contrary to what Adler
claims, a material substance qua substance is "annihilated" when it goes out of existence;
for the substance really is completely gone even if its prime matter persists under another
substantial form. (Ibid., 138) But it seems to me less misleading to reserve the description
"annihilation" for the case where neither the substance nor its prime matter persist in any
way.
" I ignore for present purposes the special case of the rational soul.
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7. But there are no other internal principles from which such a substance
might derive such a tendency.32
8. So no material substance has a tendency of itself to persist in existence
once it exists.
9. So no material substance has existential inertia.
3.2 Nothing to explain?
This argument, as well as the readings of the Five Ways I've proposed, also
constitute an obvious response to an objection sometimes raised against DDC to
the effect that it is an answer to a question that we shouldn't bother asking in the
first place. For instance, Bede Rundle holds that "no form of causation, divine or
otherwise, is in general required to ensure persistence in being ... Many things in
the universe, as indeed the universe itself, do not have to fight for their survival,
but, in the absence of forces which would bring them to an end, their continuation
from moment to moment is in no need of explanation."33 But if the composite act/
potency or form/matter or essence/existence structure of natural substances
entails that they cannot persist in existence on their own, then the fact of their
persistence does require explanation, and the arguments in question purport to
show that DDC is that explanation.
Other critics of DDC do not deny that the persistence of natural substances
requires explanation, but claim that DEI suffices to explain it. Adler takes this
approach himself, as does Beaudoin. The trouble is that for this strategy to work,
the defender of DEI has to provide some account of natural substances that is both
consistent with what we know about them and does not entail rejecting DEI, and no
such account has been offered. For instance, as Beaudoin acknowledges, a plausible
version of DEI will have to acknowledge that natural substances are contingent.
But why are they contingent? As we saw when discussing Adler, Aquinas's answer
is that they are composite in various ways, and it is this compositeness that entails
that they cannot enjoy existential inertia. Only something non-composite, and
thus something necessary (indeed something divine) can in his view have that.
So, to defend his proposal Beaudoin would have to provide some account of
natural substances on which their contingency does not derive from their being
" This premise reflects the Aristotelian thesis that among the four causes of a thing, its
formal and material causes are intrinsic to it while its final and efficient causes are extrinsic.
See AQUINAS, De principiis naturae, c. 3. To be sure, that a natural substance has such-and-such
a final cause is something intrinsic to it, but that is true by virtue of its formal cause. To
take an example from earlier, the tendency of ice to cool what surrounds it is intrinsic to it,
something determined by the substantial form of the water that it is composed of. It is part of
its nature to have the generation of this outcome as an "end". But the end itself - coolness in
the surrounding environment - is obviously something extrinsic to the ice.
" RUNDLE, Why there is Something rather than Nothing, 93.
162 • EXISTENCE
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composite, or on which it does but where this compositeness somehow does not
entail a rejection of DEI. Yet he gives no such account.
What he does tell us is merely that DEI is committed to the minimal claim
t hat there exist some fundamental constituents of the natural world - whether
they are conceived of as particles, or superstrings, or some continuous ever-
morphing kind of stuff is irrelevant, he says - which are contingent but which
nevertheless given their nature have no inherent tendency to go out of existence."
He acknowledges that it will not do to suggest that it is simply a "brute fact" that
things have existential inertia, and that it would be a "metaphysical muddle" to
think of existential inertia as an active power a thing exerts on itself." At the
same time, he never explains how it is that the basic constituents he speaks of
would have existential inertia despite being contingent. He merely puts forward
the suggestion that they could have it as a claim that is not obviously incoherent,
and suggests also that "it is far from clear that the proponent of DDC will fare
better" in explaining why God's existence is not a brute fact."
But it is obvious from the foregoing that the DDC proponent does fare better,
for he can say that the reason God's existence is necessary is that He is Pure Act,
Subsistent Being Itself, something absolutely One. The DDC proponent has - in
the Aristotelian-Thomistic theories of act and potency, form and matter, essence
and existence, final causality, the transcendentals, and so forth - a worked-out
general metaphysics that both explains why natural substances lack existential
inertia and provides an account of the divine nature. This general metaphysics is
independently motivated, put forward as a way of accounting for basic features
of the natural world and of our scientific knowledge of it that are acknowledged
by the theist and the atheist alike. By contrast, Beaudoin offers little more than
the bare assertion that at least at some, fundamental level, the natural world of
contingent things enjoys existential inertia, where the assertion seems to have
no theoretical motivation other than as a means of blocking an inference to DDC.
It would be tempting to accuse Beaudoin of putting forward a "dormitive power"
explanation of why things have existential inertia, except that this would be
unfair to "dormitive power" explanations. For to say that opium puts people to
sleep because of its dormitive power is (contrary to the stock dismissal of such
" BEAUDOIN, "The world's continuance: divine conservation or existential inertia?", 86-87.
Beaudoin says that a stronger version of DEI would assert that the everyday objects comprised
of arrangements of these fundamental constituents also enjoy existential inertia, but that this
is not essential to countering DDC and that such a stronger thesis is in any event implausible
in light of "radioactive decay and some other quantum-level events".
" Ibid., 88 and 93. Beaudoin agrees with Kvanvig and McCann that it would be incoherent
to suggest that the continued existence of a thing can be explained in terms of an "active
power" of self-sustenance, since the operation of such a power would itself presuppose the
thing's continued existence.
36 Ibid., 89.
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 Edward Feser
EXISTENTIAL INERTIA
explanations as tautologous) at least minimally informative: It tells us that the
fact that opium puts people to sleep is no accident, but is rooted in some active
power opium has by nature. But Beaudoin explicitly eschews the suggestion that
existential inertia involves the operation of an active power, and offers no other
explanation of why a thing might have it.
For this reason, it will not do to suggest, as both Adler and Beaudoin appear to
that an appeal to Ockham's razor or the principle of parsimony favours DEI over
DDC. For this would be so only if both views offered equally good explanations
of the relevant facts - such as the contingency of the natural world - where DEI
did so without postulating as many entities as DDC. But DEI does not offer any
explanation at all. It simply amounts to the denial of the DDC explanation. DEl
proponents do not say: "Yes, given an Aristotelian-Thomistic analysis of natural
substances in terms of act and potency, form and matter, essence and existence,
and so forth, no such substances can have existential inertia; but here is an alter-
native analysis of the nature of such substances on which they do have it." Rather,
they offer no analysis at all. True, they do not affirm the Aristotelian-Thomistic
conceptual apparatus, but neither do they put anything in its place. And merely
to refrain from describing a phenomenon in some particular way is not to provide
an alternative description of it.
3.3 The mythology of inertia
To reason from the premise that material substances are governed by Newton's
law of inertia with respect to motion to the conclusion that they therefore enjoy
existential inertia as well would be a gross non sequitur, and Beaudoin explicitly
rejects any such argument." He also follows Jonathan Kvanvig and Hugh McCann
in rejecting the suggestion that the principle of the conservation of mass-energy
entails DEI.38 Still, both principles hover like specters over the debate about DE
and DDC, and defenders of DEI clearly believe that these findings of modern science
at least lend plausibility to DEI and to that extent pose a difficulty for DDC. The
idea seems to be that since the principles in question "explain" the phenomena
of motion, mass, and energy, so too might a further inertial principle plausibly
"explain" the continuance of the world. David Braine characterises this sort of
thinking as beholden to what he aptly labels "the mythology of inertia", and he
quotes the following lines from Wittgenstein to indicate what is wrong with it:
The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-
called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena.
Thus people today stop at the laws of nature, treating them as something inviolable,
just as God and Fate were treated in past ages.
" Ibid.
38 Ibid., 90-91; and KVANVIG and MCCANN, "Divine Conservation and the Persistence of
the World", 31-34.
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EXISTENTIAL INERTIA
And in fact both are right and both wrong: though the view of the ancients is clearer
in so far as they have a clear and acknowledged terminus, while the modern system
tries to make it look as if everything were explained."
Of course, Wittgenstein was not endorsing the Thomistic arguments for God's
existence, or any other such arguments. But those arguments are indeed "clearer"
than is the scientism Wittgenstein is criticising, not only about what their pro-
posed terminus is but also (and contrary to what Wittgenstein implies) about
how that proposed terminus really does "explain everything". For if there really
is something that just is Pure Act, Subsistent Being Itself, absolute simplicity,
and so forth, then there is no mystery about why this something requires no
further explanation. But the same cannot be said for "laws of nature", inertial or
otherwise. As Kvanvig and McCann emphasise, "laws, after all, are descriptive in
import. They do not operate at all, despite our figures of speech, and they do not
do anything in or to the world. If they are true, it is because things themselves
have features the laws describe."" But neither will it do to appeal to these "things
themselves", to some basic material entities which by their nature operate in
accordance with the laws, as if they constituted a plausible explanatory terminus.
For we need to know why these entities exist - not merely how they got here in the
first place, but why they persist in existence. And as Braine emphasises, it would
be incoherent to suggest that their natures explain their persistence in being,
since their having natures in the first place presupposes that they persist in being.4'
It is worth reemphasising that the DEI proponent has no to quoque escape
available here, no way of stalemating the defender of DDC by accusing him of a
similar failure of explanation. For, to repeat, the difficulty arises from the com-
posite nature of any explanans posited by DEI, and the whole point of DDC, at
least as understood by thinkers like Aquinas, is to end the explanatory regress
by concluding to something non-composite."
" BRAINE, The Reality of Time and the Existence of God, 14-15. The WITTGENSTEIN passage is
from the D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness translation of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961), at 6.371 and 6.372.
" KVANVIG and MCCANN, "Divine Conservation and the Persistence of the World", 34.
4 ' BRAINE, The Reality of Time and the Existence of God, 10.
" Though Beaudoin eschews an active power construal of DEI, he does regard existential
inertia as part of the essence or nature of whatever fundamental material elements turn out
to have it (p. 94). But here as elsewhere, he never considers, much less answers, the question
dhow something composed of act and potency, or form and matter, or essence and existence
could possibly have existential inertia, despite the Thomist's claim to have shown that it
cannot have it.
EXISTENCE • 165
 Edward Feser
EXISTENTIAL INERTIA
4. CONCLUSION
Obviously, whether the Aristotelian-Thomistic critique of DEI and defence
of DDC that I have been developing here succeeds is a question that cannot be
settled apart from a more detailed evaluation of the family of theistic arguments
represented by the Five Ways. (As I have said, I have presented such an evaluation
elsewhere, in my Aquinas.) Equally obviously, there are more fundamental meta.
physical considerations to be evaluated as well. In particular, as my discussion has
made clear, the dispute between the proponent of DEI on the one hand and at least
Thomistic defenders of DDC on the other crucially hinges on whether something
like a general Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics and philosophy of nature
are correct. These issues too are beyond the scope of this paper (though I have
also defended the relevant metaphysics and philosophy of nature elsewhere),
Enough has been said here, though, to show that the Thomistic critique of DEI
and associated defence of DDC constitute serious arguments, and have yet to be
seriously answered by defenders of the existential inertia thesis."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ADLER, MORTIMER. How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th-Century Pagan. New York:
Collier/Macmillan, 1980.
AUGUSTINUS, AURELIUS. De Genesi ad litteram. Patrologia Latina 43: 391-446.
AQUINAS, THOMAS. Summa contra gentiles. Vol. 13-15 of Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII P.M.
edita. Romae, 1918-1930.
-On the Power of God. Translated by Lawrence Shapcote. Westminster, MD: The Newman
Press, 1932.
-Summa theologiae. Vol. 4-12 of Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII P. M. edita. Romae,
1888-1906.
-Summa Theologica. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. London:
Burns, Oates, and Washbourne 1912-36. Reprint, New York: Benziger Brothers 1947-98.
Reprint, New York: Christian Classics, 1981.
-The Soul. A translation of St. Thomas Aquinas' De anima. Translated by John Patrick Rowan.
St. Louis: B. Herder, 1949.
43 See FESER, Aquinas, and, for a semi-popular and more polemical treatment, EDWARD
FESER, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press,
2008). Cf. DAVID S. ODERBERG, Real Essentialism (London: Routledge, 2007), and JAMES ROSS,
Thought and World: The Hidden Necessities (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008).
" A longer version of this paper was published under the title "Existential Inertia and the
Five Ways", in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 85, no. 2 (2011): 237-267. For comments
on earlier versions of the paper, I thank Mark Anderson, David Clemenson, David Oderberg,
Bill Vallicella, an anonymous referee, and audience members at a conference on Metaphysics
Aristotelian, Scholastic, Analytic in Prague in July 2010.
166 • EXISTENCE
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EXISTENTIAL INERTIA
BEAUDOIN, JOHN. "The world's continuance: divine conservation or existential inertia?".
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 61 (2007): 83-98.
BRAINE, DAVID. The Reality of Time and the Existence of God: The Project of Proving God's Existence.
oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.
catechism of the Council of Trent. For Parish Priests Issued by Order of Pope Pius V. Translated
by John A. McHugh OP and Chas J. Callan, OP. Tan Books & Pub, 2008.
CRAIG, WILLIAM LANE. The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz. New York: Harper
and Row,
,H1980
EINRICH. Sources of Catholic Dogma. St. Louis: Herder, 1957.
FESER, EDWARD. Aquinas. Oxford: Oneworld, 2009.
"Existential Inertia and the Five Ways" in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 85,
no. 2 (Spring 2011): 237-267.
"Teleology: A Shopper's Guide". Philosophia Christi 12, no. 1 (2010): 142-159.
The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's
Press, 2008.
N2N, NORMAN. The Metaphysics of Theism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
JONATHAN and MCCANN, HUGH. "Divine Conservation and the Persistence of
tTNrzvemisG'World".
REthe
KKvA orld". In Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of Theism, edited by
Thomas V. Morris, 13-49. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
MACKIE, J. L., The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.
MARTIN, CHRISTOPHER F. J. Thomas Aquinas: God and Explanations. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1997.
MCINERNY, D. Q. Natural Theology. Elmhurst, PA: Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, 2005.
MILLER, BARRY. From Existence to God. London: Routledge, 1992.
ODERBERG, DAVID S. Real Essentialism. London: Routledge, 2007.
OTT, LUDWIG. Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Cork: Mercier Press, 1955.
PASNAU, ROBERT and SHIELDS, CHRISTOPHER, The Philosophy of Aquinas. Boulder, CO: West-
view Press, 2004.
Ross, JAMES. Thought and World: The Hidden Necessities. Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 2008.
RUNDLE, BEDE, Why there is Something rather than Nothing. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004.
VALLICELLA, WILLIAM F. A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated. Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002.
WITTGENSTEIN, LUDWIG. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe.
3rd edition. New York: Macmillan, 1968.
-Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness. London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961.
WUELLNER, BERNARD. Dictionary of Scholastic Philosophy. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing
Company, 1956.
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AQUINAS VS. BURIDAN ON ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE,
AND THE COMMENSURABILITY OF PARADIGMS
Gyula Klima

ABSTRACT
This paper argues that although Anthony Kenny's objections to Aquinas's "intellectus
essentiae" argument for the real distinction of essence and existence in creatures are quite
easily answerable in terms of a proper reconstruction of the argument, the argument thus
reconstructed is still open to an objection offered by John Buridan in his Questions on Aristotle's
Metaphysics. The discussion of how Aquinas could handle Buridan's objection will show that
the conflict between their judgements concerning the validity of the argument rests on a
fundamental difference between Aquinas's and Buridan's conceptions of how our concepts
latch onto things in the world. These considerations lead at the end of the paper to some
general reflections on the possibility of arguing "across" paradigmatically different conceptual
frameworks.

1.INTRODUCTION
In this paper I will argue that although Anthony Kenny's objections to Aquinas's
"intellectus essentiae" argument for the real distinction of essence and existence in
creatures are quite easily answerable in terms of a proper reconstruction of the
argument, the argument thus reconstructed is still open to an objection offered
by John Buridan in his Questions on Aristotle's Metaphysics. The discussion of how
Aquinas could handle Buridan's objection will show that the conflict between
their judgements concerning the validity of the argument rests on a fundamental
difference between Aquinas's and Buridan's conceptions of how our concepts latch
onto things in the world. These considerations will lead at the end of the paper to
some general and rather sketchy reflections on the possibility of arguing "across"
paradigmatically different conceptual frameworks.

2.KENNY ON THE "INTELLECTUS ESSENTIAE" ARGUMENT

Aquinas's famous intellectus essentiae argument in his De Ente et Essentia is
taken by many commentators to be one of his most serious attempts to prove his
metaphysical thesis of the real distinction of essence and existence in creatures.
Others would claim that this argument is only a part of a larger argument,
which as a whole intends to prove the real distinction of essence and existence

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 Gyula Klima
AQUINAS VS. BURIDAN ON ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE
in creatures and the identity thereof in God. In any case, that interpretational
issue aside, the intellectus essentiae argument in itself can quite justifiably be taken
to be an intriguing attempt to prove the real distinction between essence and
existence at least in some cases, which then can be regarded as the starting point
of the larger argument for the entire thesis. The larger argument would then seek
to establish that if essence and existence are identical in some case, then they
can be identical only in a unique case, namely, in the case of God, from which it
follows that essence and existence must be distinct in all other cases, namely, i n
all creatures.
In this paper, however, leaving the rest of the argument aside, I will confine my
discussion to the piece of reasoning embodied in the following lines in Aquinas's
text:
Whatever is not included in the understanding of an essence or quiddity is coming
to it from outside, entering into composition with the essence; for no essence can be
understood without its parts. But every essence can be understood without knowing
about its existence, for I can understand what a man or a phoenix is, and not know
whether it actually exists in the nature of things. Therefore, it is clear that existence
is distinct from essence, unless, perhaps, there is a thing whose quiddity is its own
existence.'
In his controversial book, Aquinas on Being,' Anthony Kenny launched a two-
pronged attack against Aquinas's argument.
On the first prong, he tried to establish that if Aquinas in this argument was
talking about existence in the sense of "specific existence", expressed by the
Fregean existential quantifier, then he was either talking nonsense or essence and
existence are distinct both in God and in creatures. Kenny's reasoning is based on
the idea that Aquinas's argument can plausibly be understood as claiming in its
premises that while we know, for instance, what is meant by the word 'phoenix',
namely, a mythical bird that sometimes bursts out in flames and is later reborn
from its ashes, we just do not know if there is such a thing, i.e., we do not know if
the word is true of something. Indeed, we actually know that the word 'phoenix'
is not true of anything, for nothing is a phoenix, which is precisely the Fregean
quantificational interpretation of the notion of existence. However, as Kenny
correctly concludes, on this interpretation Aquinas's argument would either
amount to nonsense or it would prove too much. For on this understanding of the
notion of existence, the thesis of the real identity of God's essence and existence
would amount to something like the ungrammatical gibberish: "God's essence
is 3". On the other hand, if we assume that the argument is not nonsensical and
works, then it must work in the same way for the term 'God' as it does for the
1 THOMAS AQUINAS, "On Being and Essence", c. 5, in Medieval Philosophy: Essential Readings
with Commentary, ed. G. Klima (Blackwell Publishers, 2007), 240.
2 ANTHONY KENNY, Aquinas on Being (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
170 • EXISTENCE
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AQUINAS VS. BURIDAN ON ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE
ter m 'phoenix'. But then the argument proves too much, for then, in the same
way, we know what the term 'God' means, but we do not know whether it is true
of a nything, for we do not know whether there is a God. Thus, if this is what the
distinction of essence and existence means, then they are distinct in God just as
well as they are in creatures.
On the other prong of his attack Kenny argues that if Aquinas was talking about
existence in the sense of "individual being", meaning actuality, corresponding to
the Fregean notion of Wirklichkeit, then essence and existence are identical both
in God and in creatures. For then we have to say that just as for God to be actual
is for Him to be God, so for a dog, say, Fido, to be actual is for Fido to be a dog.
Therefore, if this is what the identity of essence and existence means, then Fido's
essence is just as identical with his existence as God's essence is with His existence.
Thus, Kenny concludes, either way, the intellectus essentiae argument fails
to establish Aquinas's desired conclusion. However, as I have argued in detail
elsewhere,' Kenny's argument fails on several counts.
In the first place, Aquinas simply does not have a notion equivalent to the
Fregean notion of an existential quantifier. In fact, a notion that would come
closest to this notion in Aquinas's conceptual arsenal would be regarded by
him not as a concept of existence, but as a signum quantitatis, namely, a signum
particulare, the syncategorematic concept expressed by the Latin terms `quidam',
'aliquid' or their equivalents, which render a proposition to which they are
prefixed a particular, as opposed to a universal, singular or indefinite proposition
(as in, 'Quidam homo est animal' = 'Some man is an animal', as opposed to 'Every
man is an animal', 'Socrates is an animal' or 'A man is an animal', respectively).
In any case, Kenny's reason for holding that Aquinas would have to use in his
argument the notion of specific existence, and, correspondingly, the notion of
nominal as opposed to real essence," is his unjustified assumption that Aquinas
would take a phoenix by definition to be a fictitious bird as we do. However, from
his argument, as well as from the parallel text of his Commentary on the Sentences
(In II. Sent., d. 3, q. 1, a. 1, co.), it is quite clear that Aquinas uses this example as
' G. KLIMA, "On Kenny on Aquinas on Being: A critical review of Aquinas on Being by Anthony
Kenny", feature review in International Philosophical Quarterly 44 (2004): 567-580.
' A nominal essence is what is described by a nominal definition, which merely provides
the meaning of a name, regardless of whether there is or even just can be anything that fits
that description, while a real essence is what is signified by a real or quidditative definition,
which identifies the essential features of the thing that is referred to by name according
to the meaning specified by the corresponding nominal definition. Therefore, we can have
nominal essences expressed/described by nominal definitions even of non-entities or mere
impossibilia, whereas real essences can only be had by really existing genuine entities. For
a good description of the contrast between nominal and quidditative definitions in the
Thomistic tradition, see THOMAS DE VIO CARDINAL'S CAJETANUS, "Super Librum De Ente et
Essentia Sancti Thomae", in IDEM, Opuscula Omnia (Bergomi: Typis Comini Venturae, 1590), 299.
EXISTENCE • 171
 Gyula Klima
AQUINAS VS. BURIDAN ON ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE
the illustration of a real, but ephemeral natural phenomenon, like a lunar eclipse
or a rainbow, the essence of which we could know perfectly well in terms of a
scientific definition without knowing whether this kind of thing actually exists
at the present time. So, Kenny's objection definitely fails on the first prong, on
account of simply missing Aquinas's point in the argument, taking it to deal with
nominal, rather than real essences, and operating with a notion of existence that
is alien to Aquinas's thought.
But Kenny's objection fails on its second prong as well, even if the interpreta-
tion it involves is somewhat closer to Aquinas's original intention. For Kenny
bases his objection on the false assumption that the distinctness of essence and
existence would have to mean that it is possible to have one without the other. And
so, he argues, since it is impossible to have a dog's existence without its essence
for a dog cannot be without being a dog - essence and existence would have to be
the same also in the case of this creature. However, this assumption is obviously
false: for it is clearly possible to have distinct, yet necessarily co-occurring items
in reality. For example, it is clear that the triangularity of any particular triangle
(its having three angles) is not the same as its trilaterality (its having three sides),
unless sides and angles are the same items. But it is also clear that one cannot
have a particular triangularity without a particular trilaterality. So, we have
two really distinct items here, which are nevertheless inseparable in reality,
Again, this particular material form, say, the substantial form of this particular
block of wood, cannot exist without the matter it informs, and the matter it
informs cannot exist (at least on Aquinas's conception), without this form actually
informing it (since for both of them to be is nothing but for this particular block
of wood to be). Still, Aquinas would take this form and this matter to be really
distinct items in reality, since they are precisely those mutually exclusive, non-
overlapping, essential parts of the substance of this block of wood into which it
has to be analysed in Aristotle's hylomorphist metaphysics. Therefore, pace Kenny,
real distinction does not have to mean real separability, which finishes off the
other prong of his attack.
3. RECONSTRUCTING THE ARGUMENT
Accordingly, to avoid the misunderstandings involved in Kenny's criticism, we
have to understand the argument as dealing with real, individualised essences,
and arguing for their real, mind-independent distinction from real, individual
acts of existence at least in those cases in which we have knowledge of the essence
without knowing whether it is actually present in any actually existing indivi-
dual. Therefore, taking c to be any arbitrarily chosen thing whose nature is known
but whose existence is not known, the gist of the argument may be reconstructed
as follows:
172 • EXISTENCE
Gyula Klima
AQUINAS VS. BURIDAN ON ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE
1. The nature of c is known.
2. The existence of c is not known.
3. Therefore, the nature of c is not the existence of c.
In fact, if we name the individualised nature of c by the proper name 'n', and its
individualised act of existence by the proper name 'e', then this argument may be
regarded as an instance of the following valid argument form of predicate logic:
1. Kn
2. -Ke
3. e n
Accordingly, in this reconstruction, the argument is certainly immune to
Kenny's criticism; indeed, it may appear to be absolutely uncontroversial. How-
ever, John Buridan attacked the argument precisely in this reconstruction, on
account of the logical peculiarities of the intentional verb it involves.
4. BURIDAN'S CRITICISM
Buridan takes on Aquinas's argument in his Questions on Aristotle's Metaphysics.
In the first place, in the following passage he reconstructs the argument precisely
in the way I presented it above, as an objection to his own position, which he is
going to answer after his own determination of the issue:
... I can have scientific knowledge of roses or thunder, and yet I may not know whether
there is a rose or whether there is thunder. Therefore, if one of these is known and
the other is unknown to me, then it follows that the one is not the same as the other.'
It is noteworthy in this reconstruction that Buridan is absolutely clear on the
point of the argument Kenny missed, namely, that it is to prove the thesis of real
distinction concerning the real essences of scientifically known but ephemeral
natural phenomena, whose actual existence may not be known at any given time
despite our scientific knowledge of their nature.
Buridan's criticism is based on the well-known phenomenon of the breakdown of the
principle of the substitutivity of identicals in intentional contexts. It is easy to see
this point, if we consider that the validity of Aquinas's argument as reconstructed
above requires that its premises together with the negation of the conclusion should
form an inconsistent set of propositions. Indeed, if the principle of the substitutivity
of identicals is valid, then from the negation of the conclusion, which would claim
the identity of existence and essence, we could promptly derive a contradiction,
proving the requisite inconsistency. However, if this principle is not valid, then the
JOHANNIS BURIDANI Quaestiones in Aristotelis Metaphysicam: Kommentar zur Aristotelischen
Metaphysik (Paris, 1518; reprint, Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1964), selections from lb. 8, q.
4, emended ad sensum and translated by G. Klima, in Medieval Philosophy: Essential Readings with
Commentary, ed. G. Klima (Blackwell Publishers, 2007), 250.
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 Gyula Klima
AQUINAS VS. BURIDAN ON ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE
contradiction is not derivable, which invalidates the original argument. Accordingly
Buridan starts his response to Aquinas's argument as he reconstructed it by making
two important claims: first, that essence and existence differ in their concepts.
second, that for this reason the argument as stated is a non sequitur:... for the sal(
of answering the objections it seems that we should say in this question that es•
sence and existence differ in their concepts. For the name "rose" and this name or
expression "that a rose exists" are imposed from different concepts. Therefore, when
it is said that I think of a rose, while I do not think that it exists, this I concede. But
from this it does not follow that, therefore, the existence of a rose6 differs from the
rose; what follows is only that it is according to different concepts or on different
accounts that the rose is thought of in terms of the name "rose" and the expression
"that a rose exists."'
However, besides simply claiming the invalidity of the argument, Buridan
also provides an explanation why it has to be invalid with an intentional verb:
Here you need to know that we recognise, know, or understand things according
to determinate and distinct concepts, and we can understand a thing according to
one concept and ignore it according to another; therefore, the terms following such
verbs as "understand" or "know" appellate [i.e., obliquely refer to] the concepts
according to which they were imposed [to signify], but they do not so appellate
their concepts when they precede these verbs. It is for this reason that you have it
from Aristotle that this consequence is not valid: "I know Coriscus, and Coriscus is
the one approaching; therefore, I know the one approaching." And this is because to
know the one approaching is to know the thing according to the concept according
to which it is called the one approaching. Now, although I know Coriscus, it does not
follow, even if he is the one approaching, that I recognise him under the concept
according to which I know him to be approaching. But this would be a valid exposi-
tory syllogism: "Coriscus I know; and Coriscus is the one approaching; therefore,
the one approaching I know." Therefore, the situation is similar in the case under
consideration: I understand a rose, but I do not understand a rose to exist, although
a rose to exist I understand. The same applies to the other case: I concede that I have
scientific knowledge about roses and thunder in terms of several conclusions, yet I
do not have scientific knowledge about roses or thunder in terms of the conclusion
that a rose or thunder exists.'
Buridan's criticism, as can be seen, is based on his celebrated theory of appel-
latio rationis, the theory according to which intentional verbs and their participles
make their grammatical direct objects following them appellate, that is, obliquely
refer to, their concepts. Indeed, if we make this oblique reference explicit, then
the proposed argument will obviously be invalid. For then, using Buridan's ex-
6 Buridan uses these sentential nominalisations equivalently with the abstract nouns
formed from their verbs. This issue need not detain us here.
' Ibid.
' Ibid.
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ample, the premises and the conclusion would have to be reformulated in the
following way:
1'.1 know the essence of a rose qua the essence of that rose.
2'. I do not know the existence of that rose qua the existence of that rose.
3'. Therefore, the existence of that rose is not the same as the essence of
that rose.
That this argument is not valid is clear from the fact that from its premises
a nd the negation of its conclusion we cannot derive a contradiction. For if we
assume that the existence of that rose is the same as the essence of that rose, then
from the two premises we can only conclude either that I know the existence of
that rose qua the essence of that rose, or that I do not know the essence of that
rose qua the existence of that rose, but either of these is clearly compatible with
the other premise, namely, that I do not know the existence of that rose qua the
existence of that rose or that I know the essence of that rose qua the essence of
that rose. After all, I can clearly know something qua F and not know it qua G, even
if it is both F and G, for I simply do not know that this F is also a G.
To see that it is quite possible that I know the existence of that rose (which is
the same as the essence of that rose) qua the essence of that rose while I do not
know the existence of that rose qua the existence of that rose, we should just
consider the perfectly analogous example from Aristotle, according to which it
is quite possible that I know the one approaching (who is Coriscus) qua Coriscus,
but I do not know the one approaching qua the one approaching (for I see him
from afar and I do not recognise that he is Coriscus, which is the relevant sense
of 'knowing' in this context).
Thus, it seems that as long as we can know the same item qua some essence,
but not qua some act of existence, it is quite possible for us to know the essence
of a certain thing without knowing whether it exists or not, despite the fact that
its essence and existence are the same. Therefore, Aquinas's argument fails to
establish its desired conclusion, the real distinction of the essence and existence
of a thing on the basis of the fact that we may know its essence without knowing
its existence.
5. A THOMISTIC RESPONSE TO BURIDAN'S CRITICISM, AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
But this does not have to be the end of the story for Aquinas. In fact, if we take
a closer look at Aquinas's actual formulation of the argument, we have to notice
something that is entirely neglected in the version of it criticised by Buridan;
namely, Aquinas's talking about "parts of the essence" without which it cannot
be understood. What can he possibly mean by this? And what is the relevance of
this to the validity of his argument?
EXISTENCE • 175
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AQUINAS VS. BURIDAN ON ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE
Since according to Aquinas the essence or quiddity of a thing is what is signi,
fled in it by its quidditative definition9 and the essence of a thing in and of itself
is not a conglomerate of several distinct items, by "the parts of its essence", he
means whatever is signified precisely by the parts of the quidditative definition
of the thing.'° In fact, since on his interpretation the definition is not primarily
a linguistic expression, but an intention, that is, a concept of the mind expressed
by the corresponding linguistic expression rendering this expression meaningful,
we can say that on Aquinas's conception having scientific, quidditative knowledge
about a thing is having in mind its quidditative concept, expressible by a scientific,
quidditative definition. In this context, therefore, we need to distinguish be-
tween merely having some (no matter how vague and confused) concept of
a thing, resulting from the mind's first, spontaneous abstractive act, and having
its quidditative concept, which is a clear and distinct, articulate concept, re-
sulting from scientific enquiry into the nature of the thing." Having this sort
of quidditative concept, therefore, means clearly knowing its implications: for
instance, if I have the clear and distinct quidditative knowledge of diamonds as
being tetrahedrally crystallised pieces of carbon, then on account of having that
concept, as well as the concept of electric conductivity, I know just as well that
diamonds are poor conductors (as opposed, say, to graphite).
Now what does all this mean concerning the validity of Aquinas's argument
and its Buridanian criticism? Concerning Buridan's criticism we should note that
the breakdown of the substitutivity of identicals on account of the appellation
of concepts in intentional contexts is conditioned on the logical independence of
the appellated concepts in terms of which one and the same thing is conceived,
known or understood. This is why it is possible for me to know, e.g., my father,
and not to know the man approaching, even if the man approaching is actually
my father. For I may certainly have the recognition of him in terms of the concept
whereby I conceive of him as my father, while lacking the recognition of him
insofar as I merely cognise him as the man approaching (insofar as 'having the
recognition' of this person would mean being able to give an adequate answer
to a question asking about the identity of this person). But this is so because the
two acts of cognition in question are logically independent, whence I may perfectly
well have the one without the other.
However, if the appellated concepts or acts of cognition are not logically inde-
pendent, whence I cannot have the one without the other, then the situation is
9 See the end of c. 1 of De Ente et Essentia. The quidditative definition of the thing Aquinas
has there in mind is the definition of its most specific species consisting of its proximate genus
and its specific difference.
'° For this point see for instance the entire discussion of c. 4 of his De Ente et Essentia.
" For a painstaking and extremely illuminating discussion of distinct versus confused
concepts or acts of cognition, see q. 1 of Cajetan's commentary on Aquinas's De Ente et Essentia.
176 • EXISTENCE
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radically different. For instance, suppose I have perfect quidditative knowledge of
all things moving toward me as such. Therefore, anything that moves toward me I
know precisely insofar as it moves toward me. But I also know that anything that
moves toward me approaches and anything that approaches moves toward me.
Thus, it cannot be the case that I know the thing moving toward me insofar as it is
moving toward me and I do not know the same thing insofar as it is approaching.
And this is because the concepts appellated by the phrases 'the thing moving
toward me' and 'the thing approaching' are logically equivalent; indeed, they
are the same.
Or consider another, perhaps more intuitive example. If I have the scientific
concept of a rainbow, say, as being the refraction of light on water suspended in
air, then I cannot know a rainbow qua rainbow, without knowing it at the same
time qua the refraction of light on water suspended in air. To be sure, before
forming the scientific concept, I can certainly have some vague and confused
knowledge of it as some colourful arch in the sky, without knowing it qua the
refraction of light on water suspended in air. However, once I have formed its
quidditative concept, I cannot have knowledge of the same thing without knowing
the implications of its quidditative concept.
But then the situation would have to be similar with the notions of essence
and existence, provided we are talking about the clear and distinct scientific
understanding of a thing's essence, which involves having the articulate, quid-
ditative concept of the thing, and knowing its logical implications. For in this
situation, if the existence of the thing were the same as the essence of the thing,
or, using Aquinas's phrase, it were "a part of" the essence of the thing, then this
would mean that having the quidditative cognition of the thing would entail also
having its cognition in terms of its existence: that is to say, we could not have its
quidditative knowledge without knowing that it exists. Indeed, this is precisely
what Aquinas hypothetically concedes in the conclusion of his argument:
Therefore, it is clear that existence is distinct from essence, unless, perhaps, there
is a thing whose quiddity is its own existence.
That is to say, if there is a thing whose essence and existence are the same, then
having a clear and distinct cognition of the thing's essence would immediately
give us the knowledge that the thing exists, which is the exact reason why Aquinas
would say that although God's existence is self-evident in itself, that is, it would be
knowable a priori by anyone with a clear and distinct cognition of divine essence,
still, it is not self-evident to us, namely, human beings in our natural state, for in
this state we just cannot have the clear and distinct cognition of divine essence
that would allow us to realise the self-evident character of His existence.'2
12 THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa theologiae 1, q. 2, a. 2.
EXISTENCE • 177
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AQUINAS VS. BURIDAN ON ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE
But then, how come Buridan didn't realise this point when he formulated
his objection? Didn't he notice the possibility of the logical dependency of the
appellated concepts that would again render Aquinas's argument valid?
Without going into much detail, I would suggest that the answer to th e
questions is that on Buridan's conception of how our essential concepts latch
onto things in the world, our concept of the quiddity of a contingently existing
thing always has to be distinct and logically independent from our concept of the
existence of that thing even if the thing in reality is both its own essence and
its own existence. For on Buridan's conception the quidditative definition of a
certain specific kind of things signifies these things absolutely, whether they are
past, present, future or merely possible, while in the context of a present tense
proposition it supposits only for the presently existing ones, if there are any.
The term 'exists' on the other hand, supposits only for presently existing things.
Therefore, if the kind of thing in question merely contingently exists, then there
is no way for us to know on the basis of simply comprehending the definition of
this kind of thing whether even a single thing of this kind falls under term 'exist'
right now, i.e., whether it actually exists.
The picture, however, is radically different with Aquinas's conception. For
Aquinas, our specific quidditative concept of a thing grasps precisely that formal
content in the thing that essentially "shapes" the thing into the kind of thing it
is. (A good illustration of what this formal content is would be the genetic code of
a biological species determining the essential features of the kind of organism
pertaining to that species, or the configuration of the nuclei of elemental atoms
describable in terms of their atomic number, determining their electron-con-
figuration and thereby their essential chemical features.) Therefore, if this formal
content involves the existence of the thing, then it is impossible to form this
quidditative concept of any single thing of this kind without at the same time
forming the concept of its existence and conceiving of it as existent and thereby
knowing that it exists.
For Buridan, on the other hand, concept formation does not consist in this sort
of mental grasping of a formal content. It is merely the formation of an indifferent
mental representation of a certain kind of things, the content of which is nothing
but those things themselves, regardless of whether they actually exist or not.
But it is quite obvious that one could form a concept of this sort without forming
the concept of the existence of any single thing of this kind. Thus, it appears
that in view of Buridan's objection formulated on the basis of his conception
of the mental representation of essence and existence, the issue of the validity
of Aquinas's argument in the last analysis turns on Aquinas's own conception of
mental representation. For the ultimate question is, whether Aquinas's conception
can support the claim that if essence and existence were in general the same, then
their concepts could not be logically independently formed in our minds, and
thus we could not have the scientific knowledge of essences of things without
178 • EXISTENCE
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AQUINAS VS. BURIDAN ON ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE
know ing, on that account, the existence of these things, that is to say, knowing
their essence, we would have to know that they exist.
6. A FINAL OBJECTION AND REPLY
Perhaps, the best way to explicate this last claim is to answer on Aquinas's be-
ha lf one final objection." For on this understanding of Aquinas's position, one may
still raise the following objection: can I plausibly assume that I can have scientific
knowledge of a certain kind of thing without knowing whether any singular
thing of that kind exists at the moment, without also assuming that the essence and
existence of any singular thing of that kind are really distinct items in reality? If not, then
the argument, implicitly assuming its own conclusion is clearly question-begging.
In response, it would seem we might just ask back: do we acquire scientific
knowledge of the essence of ununoctium by learning that it is an element of atomic
number 118? One can certainly raise this question and answer it affirmatively
without even thinking about the issue of whether there are any presently exist-
ing samples of this very unstable element in any lab on earth (let alone in any
uncharted parts of the physical universe). However, based on this affirmation,
and then reflecting on the issue that we have no idea whether any atoms of this
element are in existence right now, one can, without further ado, accept the
generalised premise that one can know the essence of a certain kind of thing
without knowing its existence.
However, relying on Buridan's objection, one might retort at once that I
could claim to have scientific knowledge of the essence of ununoctium only if
I knew its actual existence, provided its essence and existence were in fact the
same. I may simply (mistakenly) think that I know its essence on the basis of this
definition, but in fact this is a very imperfect form of knowledge of that essence,
not explicating everything it involves, whence I claim to have knowledge of essence
without knowing existence simply on the basis of having a rather lax criterion for
scientific knowledge, which, however, by stricter criteria, would have to contain
the knowledge of the existence of the thing, if the essence and existence of the
thing are in fact the same. So, I can assume that I know the essence of the thing
without its existence only by presuming the conclusion, which still leaves the
argument begging the question.
In answering this retort, we must not forget that the charge of question-
begging (petitio principii) is the charge of an informal, epistemic fallacy (i.e., the
argument is not claimed to be invalid or unsound): according to this charge, one
cannot plausibly assume the premises without assuming the conclusion, i.e., the
knowledge of the premises cannot be obtained without a previous knowledge
of the conclusion (or something equivalent to it). So, a defender of an argument
" I owe the original objection and the retort to my initial response to it to my student
Timothy Kieras S.I.
EXISTENCE • 179
 Gyula Klima
AQUINAS VS. BURIDAN ON ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE
so accused should be able to point out independent, plausible grounds for the
acceptability of the premises.
That is precisely what I attempted in the first paragraph of this section
with reference to ununoctium. But the retort, as I summarised it in the second
paragraph of this section above, seems to undermine this attempt by claiming
that as long as I do not know whether essence and existence are not the same I
cannot claim to have scientific knowledge of the essence of something without
knowing its existence, which may just not be explicated in the rather incomplete
knowledge of the essence I have in terms of the formulaic quidditative definition
of the thing in question.
However, this objection is based on a very, indeed, as I will argue, unreason.
ably strong interpretation of what is required for the scientific knowledge of
the essence of something. For let us not forget that for Aquinas the essence of
something is whatever it is that its specific quidditative definition signifies in it.
So, if I have the specific quidditative definition of the thing, I do have scientific
knowledge of this essence (as opposed to the confused, pre-scientific knowledge
I may have on the basis of knowing some generic and typical accidental attributes
of that kind of thing), and this may still not involve the existence of the thing.
Nevertheless, the objector might still claim that I do not have a sufficiently
clear and distinct knowledge of this essence until I know everything its essence
involves, i.e., all the essential attributes the thing has by virtue of having this
essence, whereas a quidditative definition merely provides us explicitly with
two specifying attributes (genus and specific difference, plus the more generic
attributes implied by these higher up on the Porphyrian Tree); and so, it may
well be possible that existence is also among these essential attributes, just like
any other essential attribute not explicated by the simple, formulaic definition,
Do we really understand, for instance, everything that is essentially involved in
having a rational nature? If not, then it may well be the case that existence is one
of those things, but we claim to ignore it, simply because it is not explicated by
the definition.
But it is at this point that the unreasonably strong requirement for the scien-
tific knowledge of essence becomes explicit. The retort in this form assumes that
we can have scientific knowledge of essence only if we are able to explicate a priori
all the essential attributes a thing has by virtue of having that essence. But this is
an unreasonably strong requirement, for scientific knowledge of specific essences
certainly does not require a priori, logical omniscience (i.e., the claim that if x's
having F implies its having G, then if I know that x is an F, then I know that x is
a G; for then by knowing the axioms I would have to know all conclusions of any
axiomatic deductive science, which is simply not the case). Thus, I certainly can
have scientific knowledge of some essence without knowing all attributes a thing
must have by virtue of having that essence. Furthermore, and more importantly,
I do not have to know all essential attributes of a thing (i.e., attributes the thing
180 • EXISTENCE
Gyula Klima
AQUINAS VS. BURIDAN ON ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE
has by virtue of having its essence) in order to know of some attribute that it is
not
one of its essential attributes in this strict sense (just like I do not have to
know every place on earth in order to know that something is nowhere on this
ea rth, simply because I know that it is, say, on the moon). But then, I can certainly
know the essence of the thing in terms of its scientific, quidditative definition, by
virtue of which I know a priori that every singular thing that had, has, will have,
or can have that essence had, has, will have, or can have the attributes explicitly
or implicitly involved in that definition (even if I may not explicitly know all the
a ttributes involved in that definition in this way). However, at the same time, I
know that by virtue of knowing the essence of all these singulars in terms of
their quidditative definition I do not know of any of them a priori whether they
actually exist; I can only learn about their actual existence a posteriori. Therefore,
even if I may not explicitly know all essential attributes of the thing a priori (while
I do know some, namely, at least those explicated in the definition and those
implications of this definition that I am aware of), I know that their existence is
not one of them; that is to say, I do have scientific knowledge of the essence of
this kind of thing, but I do not have this knowledge of the existence of any single
thing of that kind by virtue of having this knowledge.
However, on the basis of this understanding of what is and what is not involved
in the scientific understanding of the essence of a thing one can plausibly concede
to know scientifically what a certain kind of thing is and not to know whether any
instance of that kind of thing actually exists without presuming, or even thinking
about, the issue of the real distinction of essence and existence. Therefore, Aqui-
nas's argument proves this claim, without begging the question.
But even if this defence answers the charge of its begging the question, one
really big question still remains concerning the demonstrative force of Aquinas's
argument. If it can be "saved" from Buridan's criticism only with appealing to
Aquinas's own interpretation of the notion of essence as it is described in his
own conceptual framework, whereas Buridan's criticism seems to be justified
in his conceptual framework, does this mean that there is no absolute answer to
the question whether the essence and existence of at least some creatures are
really distinct? In other words, do we have to make our answer relative to the
conceptual framework of each author, thereby somehow trivialising both their
disagreement and the metaphysical point of the thesis itself?
I would briefly reply that we do have to make our answer concerning the
validity of Aquinas's argument relative to the conceptual framework in which it is
evaluated, but this still will not trivialise the issue. For even if we have to say that
Aquinas's argument is demonstrative in his own conceptual framework, but not
in Buridan's, this does not mean that their disagreement is something as trivial
as a mere verbal disagreement. For in the case of mere verbal disagreement, the
parties can easily resolve their apparent disagreement by simply "re-labelling"
the concepts they both share, but simply express by different terms. However, with
EXISTENCE • 181
 Gyula Klima
AQUINAS VS. BURIDAN ON ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE

the disagreement between Aquinas and Buridan the case is just the reverse: they
share the same words in the same language to express their own, rather different
concepts of essence and existence, fitting into radically different conceptual
frameworks, based on their very different conceptions of how our concepts latch
onto things in reality. SECTION V
Therefore, if we want to deliver judgement on the demonstrative force of
the argument without talking past Aquinas, but also taking into account the
historically accumulated different conceptual frameworks in which it can still
be competently evaluated, then we should evaluate not only the argument it-
self, and not only relative to this or that conceptual framework, but we should
also evaluate those frameworks themselves. However, that is a whole new ball
MODALITIES
game, requiring the consideration of overall consistency, explanatory force and
comprehensiveness of entire systems of thought in a conceptual framework that
accommodates them all, in the sense of making all their claims and arguments
at least logically commensurable with each other. This is certainly a difficult task;
nevertheless, once we are aware of what it involves, it should not be impossible.
After all, the very existence of this paper should demonstrate that such a con-
ceptual framework is at least possible; we just need to work it out to make it
actual.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AQUINAS, THOMAS. "On Being and Essence". In Medieval Philosophy: Essential Readings with
Commentary, edited by G. Klima, 227-249. Blackwell Publishers, 2007.
— Summa theologiae. Corpus Thomisticum. Textum Leoninum Romae 1888 editum ac
automato translatum a Roberto Busa SJ in taenias magneticas denuo recognovit En-
rique Alarcon atque instruxit. (http://www.corpusthomisticum.oresth°000.html)
BURIDAN, JOHANNES. Quaestiones in Aristotelis Metaphysicam: Kommentar zur Aristotelischen
Metaphysik. Paris, 1518. Reprint, Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1964.
— Quaestiones in Aristotelis Metaphysicam. Selections from lb. 8, q. 4. Emended ad sensum and
translated by Gyula Klima. In Medieval Philosophy: Essential Readings with Commentary,
edited by Gyula Klima, 250-253. Blackwell Publishers, 2007.
CAJETANUS, THOMAS DE VIO, CARDINALIS. "Super Librum De Ente et Essentia Sancti Tho-
mae". In Opuscula Omnia, 299. Bergomi: Typis Comini Venturae, 1590.
KENNY, ANTHONY. Aquinas on Being. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
KLIMA, GYULA. "On Kenny on Aquinas on Being: A critical review of Aquinas on Being
by Anthony Kenny". Feature review in International Philosophical Quarterly 44 (2004):
567-580.

182 • EXISTENCE
POTENTIALITY IN SCHOLASTICISM (POTENTIAE)
AND THE CONTEMPORARY DEBATE ON "POWERS"
Edmund Runggaldier

ABSTRACT
Scholastic philosophers distinguished between potentiae in a logical sense (potentiae ob-
iectivae) on the one hand and potentiae in the sense of capacities or active dispositions of living
beings or real things (potentiae subiectivae) on the other. They were familiar with two different
accounts of modality. One corresponds in a certain sense to the modern possible-worlds-
approach; the other has its basis in everyday life, i.e., in our experience of having certain
capacities and acting accordingly: We bring about certain states of affairs. Nowadays we have
a similar duality of approaches to the problem of powers and active dispositions, and a new
debate on agent causation.

1. INTRODUCTION
Empiricist and conventionalist philosophers reduced disposition-ascriptions
to conditional statements: an object or individual has a disposition D towards
some manifestation M in certain conditions C iff that object would display M if
exposed to C. On this reductive account, there is no explanatory work left for
dispositions to do. Disposition-ascriptions do not explain why an event happens;
they do only state, in an abbreviated manner, that one event follows another in
certain circumstances.
The reductionist approach has been subject to criticism in recent years.
Stephen Mumford,' George Molnar,' Brian Ellis,' Alexander Bird4 - to name just a
few - have argued against a mere conditional analysis of dispositions, and pleaded
for a realist understanding instead: dispositions are irreducible properties whose
reality is not exhausted by their manifestations. They thus figure among the basic
furniture of the world, existing independently of whether they are manifested.
Being disposed to shatter or to dissolve are real properties that distinguish

1 S. MUMFORD, Dispositions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Laws in Nature, (London:
Routledge, 2004).
2 G. MOLNAR, Powers: A Study in Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

' B. ELLIS, Scientific Essentialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); The Philo-
sophy of Nature (Chesham: Acumen, 2002).
' A. BIRD, Nature's Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

MODALITIES • 185
 Edmund Runggaldier
POTENTIALITY IN SCHOLASTICISM
their bearers from objects that lack them, even if these bearers never shatter or
dissolve. Thoroughgoing argumentation for claims such as these has rehabilitated
dispositions and powers in metaphysical debates.
The reasons for the claim that dispositions and powers are real, irreducible
properties, stem mainly from two fields: recent realist accounts in the philosophy
of science, especially the philosophy of chemistry and biology on the one hand
and the presuppositions we harbour when interacting with macroscopic objects
in our everyday life, including living beings on the other.
According to some philosophers of science (see, e.g., Cartwright% dispositions
play an essential part in the scientific picture of reality. Therefore, if we want to
stick to this picture, they cannot be eliminated. Chemical substances and ele-
ments, for instance, are typically characterised in terms of the dispositions they
have. Their identity does not depend on subjective factors such as conventions,
decisions, or opinions, but on their objective valences. In fact, chemists do not
explain chemical reactions mechanistically, using exclusively categorical terms,
but by reference both to external triggering causes and to internal dispositions.
A look at scientific practice thus suggests that we must not let go of dispositions
and powers if we want to account for the various processes that take place in
nature.
The assumption that dispositions are real properties is central to our everyday
life as well. We quite naturally ascribe dispositions to other persons and to
animals, as well as to materials, and even to machines. In order to understand
the behaviour of other persons, we want to know their convictions, character
traits and habits, all of which are dispositional in nature. Dispositional realism is
thus deeply rooted in our conception of the world: the assumption that the macro-
scopic objects we interact with - be they persons, animals, plants, etc. - have
various tendencies, capacities, powers, etc., is fundamental for our orientation
in everyday life. Hence, not only do the microscopic worlds of chemistry and the
biological sciences support the dispositionalist view, so does our daily acquaint-
ance with the macroscopic world of everyday life.
The scholastic approach in the Aristotelian tradition to the problem of dispo-
sitions and powers is centred on everyday life, i.e., our Lebenswelt, in particular on
our personal experience of being agents. This experience of being able to act and
react is the key notion for understanding what power ascriptions consist in. We
experience ourselves as having the power to change our environment and thus to
change ourselves too. The scholastic assumption that dispositions and powers are
real properties is grounded in the firm belief that we are able to do certain things
and that it is the disposition which makes all the difference between being able
and not being able to do these things. This does not exclude that there are other
5 N. CARTWRIGHT, Nature's Capacities and their Measurement (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1989).
186 • MODALITIES
Edmund Runggaldier
POTENTIALITY IN SCHOLASTICISM
senses or accounts of dispositions and powers, but on this Aristotelian approach
they are ontologically primary.
There are similarities between the contemporary and the scholastic reasons
of r maintaining dispositions and powers in one's ontology. The greater ontologi-
ca l contexts of agency and causality which provide a backdrop for these reasons
are, however, different between the contemporary and scholastic accounts. To
appreciate the scholastic account as an alternative worthy of consideration, it is
helpful to see in more detail the diverging ontological frameworks.
The scholastic ontology of dispositions is, first of all, grounded in the ontology
of their bearers. The reality of dispositions depends on the reality of agents ha-
ving them. This presupposes a multi-categorical ontology with substances and
properties. The account of their causal role, then, is different too. For explanatory
purposes contemporary realists assume that dispositions and powers have causal
roles, but in the Aristotelian scholastic ontology their causal role is derivative. It
is their bearers that are causally efficacious. Dispositional explanations of events
thus ultimately refer to things being - in a wide sense - agents. This presupposes
that it is not only conscious beings endowed with intentionality which are agents,
but so are other living beings and even inorganic macroscopic objects. To talk of
things acting and reacting does not imply that one attributes intentional atti-
tudes to inanimate things, but it does imply a more complex theory of causality.
The Aristotelian conception of causality is, as we will see, wider than mere event
causality or causality in the Humean sense.
2. MAIN SCHOLASTIC DISTINCTIONS
Scholastics distinguished between potentiae subjectivae and potentiae objectivae:
"subjective potencies" are dispositions and powers inherent to a subject or bearer.
"Subjective" in this context means predicable of a real subject or individual.
Typical examples of subjective potencies are our own capacities and powers: We
are, due to certain dispositions and powers, capable of acting and doing certain
things.
Potentiae subjectivae are not only instantiated in persons, but in other living
beings as well and, as mentioned, even in everyday things. They are real pro-
perties, belonging to real things, and are thus called "potentiae reales" as well:
they are not conceived of as mere possibilities existing in another possible world
accessible from our own world. Potentiae subjectivae are integral parts of the world
we inhabit. That they are real properties means that objects having them in this
world are able to do or to receive certain things (potentia rei existentis ad aliquid
faciendum vel recipiendum).6
6 J. DONAT, Ontologia (Oeniponte: Felicianus Rauch, 1953), 32.
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 Edmund Runggaldier
POTENTIALITY IN SCHOLASTICISM
The scholastics contrasted the potentiae subjectivae with the potentiae objectivae
"objective potencies" are potentialities as mere possibilities. Potentia in this sens
of objectiva simply means that something can exist or be real (aptitudo ad exis.
tendum..., ad modum rei recipientis existentiam). As a merely possible entity it does
not exist in the actual world (reapse non existit..., non est quidquam reale existens), it is
thus called "potentia logica" as well, something conceived in the mind or captured
as mental content (non existit nisi tamquam objectum in mentis repraesentatione).7
Potentia objectiva and logica, not being a real property, does not need a bearer.
Potentia in both its senses is always seen in relation to its manifestation or
realisation, called its "actus". It is the actus which is primary or fundamental,
both on the epistemic and ontological levels. It would not be possible to acquire
knowledge of potencies without knowledge of their manifestations or actuali-
sations and there would not be any potency without the actus.
The actus, on the other hand, is twofold. In the most general sense the actus is
simply the realisation of something possible, i.e., of a potentia objectiva, whereas
in the strict or fundamental sense it is the realisation or manifestation of a
real capacity or a power, i.e., of a potentia subjectiva. Scholastics distinguished
accordingly between first act (actus primus) and second act (actus secundus). In
the case of a realisation in the first sense some object or living being begins to
exist, whereas in the second case some existing object begins to act or some living
being starts to operate.
In the Aristotelian tradition events are changes understood as realisations
of potencies. They are shifts from potentiae to actus. According to the above-
mentioned distinction, these changes are twofold: they can be realisations of
potentiae objectivae, possibilities in a wide sense or possible entities, i.e., actus primi,
or realisations of potentiae subjectivae, dispositions or powers, i.e., actus secundi.
The key for understanding actus as the realisation or actualisation of a potentia
is our experience as acting agents: we act and operate in virtue of our capacities as
potentiae subjectivae. Aquinas summarises the point at the beginning of his quaestio
de potentia: "...we must observe that we speak of power in relation to act. [...] the
word 'act' was first universally employed in the sense of operation..." 8
Scholastics distinguished further between potentia activa as the capacity to act
actively, for example deciding, speaking or doing something, and potentia passiva
as the capacity.to be affected or to receive something, i.e., between the power
of acting and that of being acted upon. If something has the capacity to change
another thing, this other thing has the capacity to be changed. If it is impossible
to alter it, it lacks the necessary potentia passiva.
The scholastic account of the modalities of "possible" and "impossible" is
grounded in the distinction between active and passive potencies and their con-
Ibid.
8 THOMAS AQUINAS, De potentia, q. 1, a. 1, co.
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Edmund Runggaldier
POTENTIALITY IN SCHOLASTICISM
tra des, i.e., active and passive incapacities. Potency, capacity, power, and their
contraries are the basic notions for the account of possibilities and impossibilities.'
incapacity or impossibility is the privation (privatio) of potency. For something
to be a privation, however, two conditions are required: (1) the absence of the
Opposite state; (2) the privation must belong to a bearer or definite subject at a
definite time. To be blind, i.e., to be incapable of seeing, is a typical privatio. But
only that is said to be blind which is naturally fitted to have sight and at the time
when it is naturally fitted to have it.'"
On the other hand, some modalities are accounted for in an objective or logical
sense, i.e. in the sense of the modern possible-worlds approach. For example, it
is impossible that the diagonal of a square should be commensurable with a side.
"Impossible" in this context means that the statement that it is commensurable
is necessarily false."
The most basic of the various senses of the modalities "possibility" and "im-
possibility", however, is that of being capable or incapable: an event or action is
possible when its bearer or subject can change, otherwise it is impossible. All the
other senses of "capable" or "potent" refer to this kind of potency."
To sum up: For Aquinas and the scholastics the proper notion of possibility, in
the primary sense of potency, refers to the capacity to change."
3. THE ARISTOTELIAN BACKGROUND
Aristotelian ontologies are multi-categorical: beside the fundamental dis-
tinction between the first category of individual things and living beings, i.e.
substances on the one hand and the categories of properties and other accidental
determinations on the other, there is the distinction between that which is real
or actualised (v-rEXExEia, in actu) and that which is merely possible (SuvcipEt, in
potentia). We read in Aristotle:
And since 'being' is in one way divided into individual thing, quality, and quantity,
and is in another way distinguished in respect of potency (xath Stivaptv) and
complete reality (v-reAgxEtav), and of function (Kat& TO gqyov), let us now add
a discussion of potency and complete reality."
Change or movement is accordingly the passage from a potential or possible
state to a real one and vice versa. Aristotelian ontologies are thus characterised
by a kind of tension between potency (potentia) and actuality (actus).
9THOMAS AQUINAS, In Duodecim Libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis [In Met.] V, lect. 14.
" Ibid., n. 967.
" Ibid., n. 971.
" Ibid., n. 975.
" Ibid., n. 976.
" ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics IX, 1, 1045 b 33 ff (ed. and transl. W. D. Ross).
MODALITIES • 189
 Edmund Runggaldier
POTENTIALITY IN SCHOLASTICISM
The topic of book IX is potency (5Uvaptc) and actuality (bagya.a, vrEXexetc)
i.e., the tension between that which is possible and that which is real or actual'
The background of the Aristotelian approach to this division is, however, not the
distinction between merely possible worlds and our actual world, but rather the
experience of planning for the future, deliberating, and deciding: we take into
consideration the real possibilities we have in our everyday-life world, which We
live in.
Aristotle distinguishes in book IX in detail between the different kinds or
modes of potency hinted at in book V and relates them to a primary kind, easily
accessible or experienceable in everyday life, which is, ultimately, the capacity
to change. When things change, living beings included, they actualise certain
possibilities and thereby lose others. Change is - as we have seen - passing from
a possible state to an actual one.
In book V Aristotle defines "potency" (Soyaptc) in the most general sense as
the "principle of change" in things, and in the narrower sense as the power of
producing change or of being changed. He thus refers explicitly to that which
has potency (-th Suva-thv)." In book IX Aristotle also characterises potency as the
power to produce change or motion, in both an active and a passive sense. Potency
presupposes the reality of a bearer's having this power.
The causal efficacy of powers is due to some more basic kind of reality, i.e., to
the reality of individual substances or things. These do the acting, as we shall see.
Aristotle, in fact, explicitly refers to his treatment of primary or basic reality, to
substance, the category to which all other categories imply a reference."
Aquinas comments that Aristotle accordingly points out, first, that he has al-
ready discussed the primary, most basic kind of reality (de ente primo) to which all
the other categories are referred, namely, substance. All other entities - quantity,
quality, and the like - involve and presuppose substance. One can speak about
them only by speaking about the individuals which have them (dicuntur secundum
rationem substantiae). Predicating quantity, for example, is predicating the mea-
sure of substance, and predicating quality is predicating a certain disposition of
substance. Qualities are real as some or other disposition of a substance (quaedam
dispositiones substantiae). The definition too of any property includes a proper
bearer or subject; in order to define, for example, "snub" it is necessary to refer
to the nose which has a certain form.i7As we can see, this Aristotelian multi-
categorical substance ontology clearly differs from the modern mono-categorical
ontologies.
15 Met. V, 12, 1019 a 32 ff.
16 Met. IX, 1, 1045 b 27.
"7 THOMAS AQUINAS, In Met. IX, lect. 1, n. 1768.
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POTENTIALITY IN SCHOLASTICISM
Besides, Aristotle and the scholastics were not sensitive to the modern notion
of consciousness. Nonetheless, they distinguished between rational or mental
capacities and natural ones. Rational capacities are those potentiae subjectivae
which are not directed toward one single type of manifestation, but towards
contraries. For example, men who have learnt an art possess capacities to do
contrary things. A doctor who possesses the art of healing is capable of healing as
well as making sick. Natural or physical potencies on the other hand are directed
toward only one manifestation.
We read in Aristotle:
And all those potencies which are rational are open to contrary determinations, and
those which are irrational are each determined to one thing; for example, what is
hot is capable of heating, whereas the medical art is concerned with both sickness
and health."
Since potencies are real only if instantiated in a bearer or substance, one has
to analyse them in relation to the things in which they are found. Potencies differ
from each other on the basis of a difference in their subjects.
4. EFFICIENT CAUSATION
In scholastic philosophy potencies and powers, potentiae subjectivae, have
a causal role, but this role is derivative. The proper causae are their bearers. The
presupposition for this understanding is a plurality of senses of 'cause', one of
them being the so-called efficient cause. Efficient causes are not to be confused
with necessary and sufficient conditions as explanans of an explanandum in the
modern sense.
The scholastic notion of efficient cause corresponds in a broad way to what we
nowadays call "agent causation". The natural way of characterising this type of
causation is to refer to our experience of making something or bringing it about
that something be the case: I am the source of my own activity.
Of course, the defence of agent causation by reference to this experience
is controversial. Those defending agent causation contend, however, that the
commonsense view of ourselves as fundamental causal agents is theoretically
understandable, internally consistent, and consistent with what we have come
to know about the nature and workings of the natural world. They understand
agent causation as a species of the more primitive "causal production", underlying
realist or non-Humean conceptions of causation.
The idea of causal production corresponds to the wider notion of efficient
causation in the Aristotelian tradition as is apparent from the Aristotelian defi-
nition: Aristotle defines efficient cause as "that from which the first beginning
of change or of rest comes [...]; for example, an adviser is a cause, and a father is
IS Met. IX, 2, 1046 b 4-7.
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 Edmund Runggaldier Edmund Runggaldier
POTENTIALITY IN SCHOLASTICISM POTENTIALITY IN SCHOLASTICISM

the cause of a child, and in general a maker is a cause of the thing made, and a but not in the same way. For it is impossible that there should be many proper
changer a cause of the thing changed."'9 causes of the same thing within the same genus and in the same order.23
Agent causation in the Aristotelian tradition is not limited to conscious inter'.
tional beings: it is predicable of inanimate things as well. Actio is synonymous 5. CONCLUSION
with doing, making, or producing, and is thus intimately linked to the notion of We have seen that scholastic philosophers distinguished between potentiae
power or potentia subjectiva. ubjectivae, as capacities or active dispositions of living beings and real things
s
In order to avoid misunderstandings it should be said that the relation of
on the one hand and potentiae objectivae in a logical sense, as mere possibilities
causing in the sense of efficient causation holds not between the agent and her on the other. They were correspondingly familiar with two different accounts of
action or her doing, but between the agent and the effect of the doing: The actio
modalities, one rooted in everyday life, i.e. in our experience of having certain
is not the efficient cause's effect; instead, it is the very nature of the causing:
capacities and acting accordingly, the other corresponding in a certain sense to
"... actionem autem non esse effectum causae efficientis, sed rationem causandi..."20 the modern possible-worlds approach. The more basic account is for them the
At the beginning of modernity the Aristotelian causes came under attack, and first one. It presupposes agent causation in a wide sense, however, understood
so scholastics like Suarez tried to clarify them. Suarez even concedes a certain as the causa efficiens. Scholastic philosophers defended the reality and the causal
obscurity of the notion of efficient causation but defends it by referring to its role role of powers by appeal to their bearers: The reality of dispositions depends on
in everyday life. We know by experience, by the experience of acting and bringing the reality of agents having them. This presupposes a multi-categorical ontology
it about that something is the case, that we are agents and thus efficient causes. with substances and properties. For explanatory purposes contemporary realists
Suarez refers to the first example of an advisor given by Aristotle: it is a personal assume that dispositions and powers have causal roles, but in the Aristotelian
cause, a human person acting on another person. "An advising cause of an effect scholastic ontology their causal role is derivative. What is causally efficacious are
E is, roughly, a rational agent who, by means of counsel, inducement, provocation, the living beings and the things having causal powers.
request, persuasion, threat, command, prohibition, etc., influences another agent
to contribute freely to E.""
To characterise agency and agent causality by the activity of acting or pro-
ducing seems circular. Suarez sees the danger of a certain circularity of the
Aristotelian account of agent causation. He is not bothered, however, since many
philosophical notions have circular explications. Nowadays we would say that
some philosophical notions are primitive or basic.
Efficient causality does not exclude event causality. The two corresponding
kinds of explanation can complement each other. Suarez himself declares that
in the realm of nature an efficient cause always acts via changes or events and
points out that according to Aristotle a natural cause always acts through motion
or change: "... si Aristotelis mentem inspiciamus, videtur quidem solum definivisse causam
efficientem naturalem, quae semper agit per motum vel mutationem." 22
Since the term "cause" is used in many senses, it is possible that one and the
same state of affairs or phenomenon has several causes. The maker of a statue is a
proper cause and not an accidental cause of the statue, and so also is the bronze,

19 Met. V, 2,1013 a 29-32.

20 F. SUAREZ, Disputationes Metaphysicae, d. 17, s. 1, n. 5.
21 A. F. FREDDOSO, Note 4 in F. Suarez, On Efficient Causality. Metaphysical Disputations, trans!.

by A. J. Freddoso (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 8.

22 SUAREZ Disputationes Metaphysicae, d. 17, s. 1, n. 4. 23 THOMAS AQUINAS, In Met. V, left. 2, n. 773.

192 • MODALITIES MODALITIES • 193


POTENTIALITY IN SCHOLASTICISM
BIBLIOGRAPHY
AQUINAS, THOMAS. In Duodecim Libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis. Cura et studio P. Fr. m...R,
Cathala et P. Fr. R. M. Spiazzi. Taurini: Marietti, 1964.
— De potentia. Vol. 2 of Quaestiones disputatae. Cura et studio R. P. Pauli M. Passion. Taurini:
Marietti, 1965.
ARISTOTLE, Aristotle's Metaphysic. A Revised Text with Introduction and Commentary
by W. D. Ross. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924. Reprint, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1997.
BIRD, ALEXANDER., Nature's Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
CARTWRIGHT, NANCY. Nature's Capacities and their Measurement. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1989.
DONAT, JOSEPH. Ontologia. Oeniponte: Felicianus Rauch, 1953.
ELLIS, BRIAN. Scientific Essentialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
— The Philosophy of Nature. Chesham: Acumen, 2002.
MOLNAR, GEORGE. Powers: A Study in Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
MUMFORD, STEPHEN. Dispositions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
— Laws in Nature. London: Routledge, 2004).
SUAREZ, FRANCISCUS. Disputationes Metaphysicae. Vol. 25-26 of Opera Omnia. Parisiis: apud
Ludovicum Vives, 1861.
— On Efficient Causality. Metaphysical Disputations. Translated by A. J. Freddoso. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1994.
194
-.r
DISPOSITIONAL NECESSITY
AND ONTOLOGICAL POSSIBILITY
David Peroutka
ABSTRACT
Potency (disposition, power) is a property leading necessarily to an effect, whenever
its bearer is suitably tested. A power belongs to the essence of the corresponding quality, it
belongs to it as its relation to some (possible) effect. if powers belong to the essence of qualities,
a qualified thing, qua qualified, necessarily has the corresponding power. As a power ascription
can be substituted with a conditional sentence, we may formulate the following proposition:
Necessarily (in all possible worlds): a qualified thing is tested in relation to some power corresponding
to its quality —■ it manifests this power. Having defined the notion of causal potency I offer then
an account of ontological possibility, i.e. possibility founded not only on logical non-contra-
diction, but also on causal powers, dispositions or potencies. Causal accessibility of two dif-
1 ferent worlds means that the two worlds differ from one another by some causal process or
processes ("distinguishing" causal processes), and that the two worlds share each bearer of
potency, which in one of them manifests its potency by initiating some distinguishing causal
process. The ontologically possible can then be defined as something that exists in some
causally accessible world.
1. INTORDUCTION
The first aim of this paper is to show the necessity of causal connexions by
means of an ontological analysis of what is called "potency" in the Aristotelian
tradition and "power" or "disposition" in contemporary philosophy. I will argue
that the modality of necessity is needed for feasible conditional analysis or defi-
nition of potency.
The second aim is to give an account of possibility founded not only on logical
non-contradiction, but also on the notion of causal powers or potencies. In the
last section I will argue that something is ontologically possible if there are active
and passive causal capabilities enabling its production (which happens either
immediately or as a result of a causal chain).
2. CONDITIONAL ANALYSIS OF DISPOSITIONAL PREDICATES
In order to introduce the topic of dispositions, I first have to describe the
problem of the conditional analysis of dispositional predicates.
MODALITIES • 195
 David Peroutka
DISPOSITIONAL NECESSITY AND ONTOLOGICAL POSSIBILITY
The conditional analysis of dispositions tells us that a disposition ascription
such as "x has disposition to an effect (1)" can be adequately paraphrased by a cop.
ditional sentence of the following type: "if x is/were suitably tested, x manifests/
would manifest P". For example the disposition ascription "wood is combustible.
can be analysed by the conditional sentence "if wood is/were left in fire, it burns/
would burn".
This analysis is correct, if the disposition ascription and the corresponding
conditional sentence are equivalent:
(x has disposition to 0) 4-• (if x is suitably tested, x manifests (I))
It cannot be denied that if the conditional sentence is true, then the disposition
ascription must also be true:
(if x is suitably tested, x manifests 0) —• (x has disposition to (I))
But various philosophers have denied the inverse direction:
(x has disposition to (1)) —• (if x is suitably tested, x manifests 4b)
Charles B. Martin offered the following counter-example. It could be the case
that a live wire is connected to an electro-fink, which is a device that detects
when the wire is about to be touched, and instantaneously renders the wire
dead. But according to the conditional analysis "the wire is live" means "if the
wire is touched by a conductor then electric current flows from the wire to the
conductor". Therefore the conditional analysis fails...'
I do not think that this objection is fatal. Each description of a test implicitly
includes suitable conditions for the test. By "suitable test" I mean a test (1) cor-
responding to the given disposition, (2) carried out under favourable conditions
and without hindrances. Saying that a match lights up when suitably struck, we
implicitly suppose the presence of oxygen and the absence of water at the moment
of the described test. Such an implicit assumption can always be made explicit. In
the case of the live wire we may protect our conditional analysis against Martin's
objection by extending the description of the test: exclude explicitly the influence
of an electro-fink for the moment of testing.
Martin's objection would merit a more elaborate answer; however this is
not the main concern of this paper. I do not want to prove the accuracy of the
conditional analysis; my goal is to prove the causal necessity. The conditional
analysis is only one of many prerequisites. Nevertheless, since this assumption
can be called into question more than other assumptions, I will add the following
argument in favour of it.
CHARLES B. MARTIN, "Dispositions and Conditionals", Philosophical Quaterly 44 (1994): 2.
196 • MODALITIES
David Peroutka
DISPOSITIONAL NECESSITY AND ONTOLOGICAL POSSIBILITY
Let us suppose that the conditional analysis does not hold, because it is pos-
sible that the object having the disposition in question is suitably tested without
showing its disposition, i.e. without producing the effect. Let us suppose that the
following formula sometimes may be true:
-.((x has disposition to D) --• (if x is suitably tested, x manifests (b))
Let us consider two objects both having dispositions and both being suitably
tested. Given our suppositions, it is possible that one of the two objects manifests
its disposition, while the other does not. Since we suppose that both objects do
have their dispositions and both tests are suitable, there is not a sufficient reason for
such a divergence. Therefore if anyone wants to refute the conditional analysis
and (consequently) allow this kind of divergence, he also has to drop the principle
of sufficient reason. If we are determined to retain the principle of sufficient
reason, we have to retain the conditional analysis as well.
In this way my assumption of the accuracy of the conditional analysis is re-
duced to another more basic assumption, that of the validity of the principle of
sufficient reason. By this principle I mean the claim that no state of affairs can
obtain, and no statement can be true unless there is sufficient reason why it
should not be otherwise. Without trustworthy general validity of this principle,
the world would not be very intelligible. Whenever we look for an explanation, a
truthmaker, a cause, a justification of some statement, we implicitly presuppose
and confirm the validity of the principle of sufficient reason. In this paper the
recourse to the principle shall be a "refrain" of my argumentation.
Even if my reader is not convinced of the necessary validity of the principle of
sufficient reason, I hope he regards its violation (i.e. the absolute non-availability
of a required explanation) as a strange situation. I hope he agrees that every good
theory refuses to suppose such situations as long as it is not necessary to allow
them. Violation of the principle of sufficient reason might be declared possible
only if there were a case in which it would be necessary to allow it. But why should
it ever be necessary?
Now let us begin our research of the necessity involved in the application of
a disposition. Rudolf Carnap drew attention to the question of how to formalise
the conditional analysis. Certainly we cannot do it by means of a material impli-
cation (test —• manifestation). Since the falsity of such a material implication
requires (in all cases) the truth of the antecedent describing the test, then the
whole sentence is true of every untested object, and therefore it would ascribe
the disposition to every untested object.' Therefore we need to use a modally
2 RUDOLF CARNAP, "Testability and Meaning", in Readings in the Philosophy of Science,
ed. H. Feigl et M. Brodbeck (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953), 52-53. Reprinted
from Philosophy of Science 3 (1936); 4 (1937). In this paper Carnap tries to resolve the problem
by means of a "reductive sentence", but his analysis is applicable only in the case of tested
MODALITIES • 197
 David Peroutka
DISPOSITIONAL NECESSITY AND ONTOLOGICAL POSSIBILITY
reinforced implication' ❑(test manifestation). In this paper I will try to show
that the ontological reasons for the application of necessitation consist in saying
that power or disposition belongs essentially to the qualitative constitution on
which it is based. If the needed necessity is found, the Carnap problem will be
resolved, the Humean account of causality will be refuted, and the concept of
natural law will be clarified.
3. How DISPOSITION IS ESSENTIALLY IDENTIFIED WITH QUALITY
Sidney Shoemaker argued that a disposition essentially belongs to its qualita-
tive basis. His argument goes as follows. We come to know (qualitative) properties
only thanks to their causal potentialities, to dispositions or powers based in them
(for example their dispositions to influence our senses). If dispositions didn't
belong to the corresponding (qualitative) properties essentially, "a thing might
undergo radical change with respect to its properties without undergoing any
change in its causal powers..." Such a situation implies "that it is impossible for
us to know various things which we take ourselves to know", because on these
suppositions "there would be no way in which a particular property could be
picked up so as to have a name attached to it..."4
To Shoemaker's argument I will add another one. If dispositions do not belong
to qualities essentially, the following situation would be possible: two objects differ
in dispositions without differing in qualities. Since each disposition ascription can
be translated into a conditional sentence, it follows that the conditional if the object
were tested, it would manifest the effect would be false about one of our objects, but
true about the other. Where is the sufficient reason for such a divergence? There
is no truthmaker, which could justify this divergence in the truth-value of the
sentence about qualitatively equal objects. If we want to avoid these consequences
which violate the principle of sufficient reason, we have to accept the thesis that
a disposition is essential to the qualitative constitution in which it is grounded.
dispositions. We may object that we need to define the term "disposition" ascribable also to
non-tested objects. Sometimes we do ascribe disposition to non-tested objects: "...a certain
nuclear fuel may have a disposition to explode, which justifies the taking of special precautions in its
use, even if (thanks to those precautions) no fuel of that kind ever does explode." - J. L. MACKIE, Truth,
Probability and Paradox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), 127.
Willard V. 0. Quine intended to avoid the application of modality. According to Quine,
the dispositional ascription "x is soluble" should be paraphrased thus: "there is y such thatx
and y are alike in molecular structure and y dissolves" (the employed verbs are understood
as tenseless). WILLARD V. O. QUINE, Word and Object (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 1960), 224. The insufficiency of Quine's resolution is obvious: it may happen that
x and y are alike in molecular structure without sharing a disposition; for example in the
case when a given disposition of y is grounded in certain macrostructure that differs from
the macrostructure of x.
SYDNEY SHOEMAKER, "Causality and Properties", in Metaphysics. An Anthology, ed. J. Kim
et E. Sosa (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), 257-258.
198 • MODALITIES
David Peroutka
DISPOSITIONAL NECESSITY AND ONTOLOGICAL POSSIBILITY
With Stephen Mumford we may argue for the numerical identity of a disposi-
tion with its qualitative basis (with quality or qualities). We sufficiently explain
the behaviour of physical things by their qualities. The "causal role" is occupied
by q ualities. A disposition conceived as something additional, non-identical with
the corresponding qualitative constitution would be quite superfluous; it would
not serve an explanation. If there are (causally relevant) dispositions at all, they
are identical with their qualitative grounds.'
Mumford says that the difference between a quality and the corresponding
disposition is similar to the Fregean difference between the morning star and
the evening star in the case of Venus.6 This comparison is not exact since it is
not essential for the morning star to be the evening star. However, I agree with
Mumford that the difference between quality and corresponding disposition is
a conceptual one: we can conceive the same accident in two different manners -
according to its two essential aspects: (1) according to its basic qualitative aspect
and (2) according to its dispositional aspect. For example we may describe the
same accidental property of a stone as "round shape" or as "disposition to roll".
4. THE QUESTION OF "PROPERTY MONISM"
Against the thesis of identity (property monism) it may be objected that
in a micro-world there are dispositions without any basis describable in a non-
dispositional manner. The nuclear physicist and philosopher Ian J. Thompson
wrote: "For suppose that the exact shape and size of an object were known, the
shapes and sizes of all its constituents, along with a list of these facts at every
time. We would still know nothing about how or why the object would change
with time or on interactions."' S. Mumford cannot give a sufficient answer, since
he conceives the "categorical basis" of disposition only as "shape and structure"
or "shape, macrostructure and microstructure".9 George Molnar challenged
Mumford's monism at this point: "In the case of essential properties of the fun-
damental subatomic particles we have, on the very best of experimental and
theoretical evidence, no reason for supposing that they have a non-dispositional
or qualitative nature (certainly not a nature exemplified by size and shape).".°
In order to respond to such an objection we may ask: why does a certain object
on similar occasions manifest similar behaviour? Why do we expect similar
5 STEPHEN MUMFORD, Dispositions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, first published
1998), 114-117; 146-150.
6 Ibid., 147.
IAN J. THOMPSON, "Real Dispositions in the Physical World", British Journal for the Philosophy
of Science, 39 (1988): 67-79.
8 S. MUMFORD, Dispositions, 111-112.
9 Ibid., 148.
l° GEORGE MOLNAR, Powers, ed. S. Mum ford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 156-157.
MODALITIES • 199
 David Peroutka
DISPOSITIONAL NECESSITY AND ONTOLOGICAL POSSIBILITY
behaviour on future occasions of similar type? If the explanation does not re-
course to the qualitative constitution of the given object, the only reason for
expecting the usual behaviour would be the persistent numerical identity of the
object. But is that enough? David M. Armstrong rightly asks: "What is the magic
in numerical identity?""
Furthermore, let us consider that if there were "ungrounded dispositions", the
following situation would then be possible: two objects differing in dispositions
without differing in qualities. Consequently the dispositional conditional if the
object were tested, it would manifest the effect would be false for one of our objects, but
true for the other. The problem is that there is no sufficient reason for such diver-
gence in the truth-value of the same sentence when it is said about qualitatively
equal objects. Therefore there are no ungrounded dispositions.
Molnar's abovementioned objections play up the fact that sometimes a dis-
position is not grounded in a shaped microstructure. But this fact does not give
rise to any problem for property monism. With Max Kistler we may suppose
"la base categorique" without always requiring micro-reductive basis describable
in terms of shapes and spatial structures.° We may recall the scholastic philo-
sophy supposing that each quality is a form, but not necessarily a shape. Each
quality is a form, but not each quality is a geometrical (stereo-metrical) figure or
a configuration. According to Thomas Aquinas a form is (generally speaking) an
inner determination or modification of a subject." But the form is not necessarily
a geometrically describable determination. Even if some dispositions are not based on
"shaped" microstructures, they are based on qualitative forms and are essentially
identical with them.
5. DISPOSITION AS A RELATION
So far we know that a disposition belongs essentially to the corresponding
quality. This means that by a dispositional term we conceive an aspect of the
essence of the corresponding quality. The disposition is merely an essential aspect
of the quality, i.e. a special aspect of the essence of the quality. The disposition is
namely the relational aspect of the essence of the quality. Let us now try to explain
the pertinent "relationality".
" DAVID M. ARMSTRONG, A Materialist Theory of the Mind (London and New York: Routledge,
1993-2002, first published 1968), 87.
12 MAX KISTLER, "L'efficacite causale des proprietes dispositionnelles macroscopiques", in
Cause, pouvoirs, dispositions en philosophie - Le retour des vertus dormitives, ed. Bruno Gnassounou
and Max Kistler (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2005), 144.
'3 THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa theologiae q. 49, a. 2, co.
200 • MODALITIES
David Peroutka
DISPOSITIONAL NECESSITY AND ONTOLOGICAL POSSIBILITY
. A certain determination of an object can be conceived insomuch as it determines
the object itself; then we have the concept of quality. (Aristotle says: "By 'quality'
mean that in virtue of which things are said to be such and such".")
• But the same determination can by conceived according to its relation to some
possible effect, and thus we have the concept of power or disposition.
A disposition is a relation to some possible effect, "directedness" to an effect
(as Charles B. Martin called it)." But, as George Molnar observed, it is a relation in
a very special sense, because the existence of such a relation does not require the
existence of the correlative, namely of the corresponding effect (as the object can
have a disposition also at a time when the corresponding effect does not obtain)."
Scholastic philosophers knew of such a relation; they called it relatio trans-
cendentalis? Such a relation does not belong to the predicament of relation (to
the category of relation)." Thomism supposed that potency, as "transcendental"
relation (or relation secundum dici), is included in the essence of a related thing (in
the essence of a quality) without constituting a further accident or accidental
essence.° In the case of potency, there is no connexion of two accidents, quality
plus relation; there is only the accident of quality, which is related "by itself', by
its proper essence.
Apart from potencies that are identical with accidents (namely with qualities),
there are also ontologically more basic receptive potencies, which belong to the
category of substance. Substance can be conceived as a transcendental relation
'4 ARISTOTLE, Categoriae, cap. 8, 8b 25.
15 CHARLES B. MARTIN, "Final replies to Place and Armstrong", in D. M. ARMSTRONG, C. B.
MARTIN and U. T. PLACE, Dispositions - A debate, ed. Tim Crane (London and New York: Routledge,
1996), 187-188.
16 G. MOLNAR, Powers, 62.
"7 "Sed relatio transcendentalis, etiam non existente termino ad quem, intelligitur manere, quia
manet essentia subiecti, quod ad aliud elicit ordinem." - VINCENTIUS REMER, Summa praelectionum
philosophiae scholasticae, editio tertia (Prati: Universitas Gregoriana - Giachetti, filii et soc.,
1912), vol. 1: 332.
18 "...differt relatio pertinens ad praedicamentum relationis ab aliis respectibus caeterorum generum,
qui a quibusdam transcendentes vocantur..." - THOMAS DE VIO CAJETANUS, Commentarium super
Opusculum De Ente et Essentia Thomae Aquinatis (Romae ex Pontificia officina typographica,
1907), cap. 7, q. 16, p. 218.
19 "Similiter scientia, sensus et similia dicuntur relativa secundum dici, quia significant res quas
consequuntur quaedam habitudines, sive reales, sive rationis; et ideo propter relationes adductas videntur
relativa et dicuntur talia. Apellantur vero relativa transcendentalia, quia propria eorum essentia, ad quam
sequuntur tales relationes, licet sit quid absolutum, sumitur tamen in ordine ad aliquid extrinsecum, et
sic habent aliqualem modum relationis. siquidem habitus, potentiae et plures aliae qualitates sunt
relationes transcendentales, ut patet." - COLLEGIUM COMPLUTENSE S. CYRILLI OCD, Artium cursus
osive D isaputationes in Aristotelis dialecticam et philosiphiam naturalem (Compluti: apud loannem de
rdun
1624), disp. 13, q. 2, p. 560-561; disp. 15, q. 2, p. 628.
MODALITIES • 201
 David Peroutka
DISPOSITIONAL NECESSITY AND ONTOLOGICAL POSSIBILITY
to accidents. Substance is potency towards an accidental form, because sub.
stance can receive further accidental determination. Similarly, prime matter is
transcendental relation or potency towards substantial form. Nevertheless, the
receptive potentiality of a substance demonstrates itself in the physical world
always through accidental potencies, namely through qualities. Certain qualities
allow the substance to receive other qualities or accidents.
6. PROOF OF CAUSAL NECESSITY
Now finally let us return to our research of the necessitation needed in the
definition of potency. Shoemaker asserted that potencies are essential to qua-
litative properties; he meant that potencies belong to the identity of a qualitative
property.2° From this thesis he quickly and quite intuitively passed to the further
assertion of "causal necessity". He said that "the introduction into certain circum-
stances of a thing having certain properties causally necessitates the occurrence
of certain effect" and that it is "logically necessary" that such an introduction
has such an effect.2' I agree with Shoemaker's opinion, nevertheless it has to be
proved. Let us continue our considerations in the following way.
If powers belong to the essence of qualities, a qualified thing, qua qualified,
necessarily has the corresponding power. If powers belong to the essence of quali-
ties, there is no possible world in which the bearer of a quality (or qualities)
lacks the corresponding disposition. (Essential affiliation is per definitionem an
across-all-worlds connexion).
• In every possible world it is true, that the bearer of a quality also has the disposition
belonging to the essence of the given quality.
As a disposition-ascription can be adequately expressed by a conditional sen-
tence, we may simply reformulate the last sentence in this way:
• In every possible world it is true that if the bearer of a quality is properly (under suitable
conditions) tested, then the bearer of the quality manifests the effect (which is proper
to the disposition belonging to the essence of the given quality).
If we assume that the range of the variable x is not the realm of bare substan-
ces, but of things considered insomuch as they are determined by their qualities,
we may define disposition-ascription as follows:
D(x) 4— df ❑(T(x) M(x))
D means to have a disposition, T means to be (properly) tested, and M means to manifest
it by the effect.
2° S. SHOEMAKER, "Causality and Properties", 259.
21 Ibid., 261.
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DISPOSITIONAL NECESSITY AND ONTOLOGICAL POSSIBILITY
According to Aristotle, the same necessity holds also for rational potencies,22
but in this case the description of the test must also comprise a (free) decision
o f the agent. For rational potencies, the Aristotelian analysis could be expressed
t hus: x has the disposition if and only if it is necessary that if x is suitably tested and (freely)
decides to manifest the effect, then x manifests it. (In the case of God's omnipotence the
application of the Aristotelian analysis would be quite special, as the description
of the test includes only a free decision: God has the power to cause a certain effect iff
it is necessary that if He decides to cause the effect, He causes it.)
Somebody would perhaps object that there may exist a world, in which the
bearer of a given quality does not manifest the corresponding disposition, when
suitably tested, because that world differs from the actual world in laws of nature.
I answer that there is no reason to suppose the existence of laws as powerful
entities directing the behaviour of things and influencing upon causal processes.
With regard to ontological parsimony and Ockham's razor I claim that laws are
rather mere abstractions which generally describe the necessary behaviour of
things. Laws are nothing but generalised descriptions of the behaviour of things,
behaviour that is directed by causal necessity, which is based on dispositions of things.
Laws depend on dispositions and not vice versa.23 There may possibly be a world
with different laws of nature, but as Shoemaker said, "if the laws are different,
then the properties will have to be different as well."24
If my reasoning is right so far, it seems that the validity and necessity of natural
laws consists in the here-described causal necessity based on the dispositional
character of qualities. And since the said necessity (the necessity contained in
our analysis of dispositions) works in the cases of causal connexions," Hume's
account of causal necessity as a psychological necessity" is wrong. In our analysis
of dispositions the test is nothing but the application of causal potencies; and the
manifestation is the manifestation of the effect. We have found that the causal
22 ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics IX, 5, 1048 a 10-14. Cf. URSULA WOLF, Moglichkeit und Notwendigkeit
bei Aristoteles und heute (Munchen: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1979), 29.
23 STEPHEN MUMFORD, Laws in Nature (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 17; 181;
199-200; ALEXANDER BIRD, "The Dispositionalist Conception of Laws", Foundations of Science
10 (2005): 353-370.
24 S. SHOEMAKER, "Causality and Properties", 263.
25 Cf. ULLIN T. PLACE, "Structural properties: Categorical, dispositional or both?", in D. M.
ARMSTRONG, C. B. MARTIN AND U. T. PLACE, Dispositions - A debate, ed. Tim Crane (London and
New York: Routledge, 1996), 111.
26 "Either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but that determination of the thought
to pass from causes to effects and from effects to causes, according to their experienc'd union." - DAVID
flumE, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. G. Mossner (London: Penguin Books, 1969, 1984), book I,
part IV, sect. 5, p. 216.
MODALITIES • 203
 David Peroutka
1 David Peroutka
DISPOSITIONAL NECESSITY AND ONTOLOGICAL POSSIBILITY
connexion between them is necessary, as Aristotle supposed." With Thomas
Aquinas we note, that causal necessity works whenever (universaliter) a cause is
"sufficient and not prevented"," i.e. whenever a cause bears the pertinent causal
potency and is tested without hindrances (suitably tested).
7. DISPOSITIONAL FOUNDATION OF POSSIBILITY
Now, having defined the notion of causal potency or disposition, I may define
the possibility, which is grounded in potency: something is possible if and only if
there are active and passive causal capabilities enabling its production. Thomas
Aquinas knows the "absolute" possibility, given only by the non-contradictory
character of the possible, and the possibility guaranteed by an existing causal
potentiality." The second case obtains when the possible exists "in the potency of
some cause" (in potentia alicuius causae)." In this sense Petr Dvofak rightly claimed:
"The key is that the ontological status of the possible can, at least partly, be re-
duced to actual things possessing causal powers....""
I start the reasoning by marking the insufficiency of the concept of possibility
based purely on non-contradiction. Let us consider a maximal class of sentences,
i.e. class containing the negation of every sentence not contained in it. Such a
class of sentences, according to Carnap, represents or describes a possible world.32
This class of sentences must be above all non-contradictory: it contains either
21 ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics IX, 5. See also Physics VIII, 4, 255 a 34-35, where Aristotle says:
"it is always the case that when we have something capable of acting and something capable of being
correspondingly acted on, in the event of any such pair being in contact what is potential becomes at
times actual..." U. WoLF interprets this sentence as a description of causal necessity (Meiglichkeit
and Notwendigkeit, 24). Indeed, Aristotle's expression "always" (aei) means "necessarily". In
De generatione et corruptione II, 11, 337 b 35 - 338 a 4 Aristotle says: "what is of necessity (ex anankes)
coincides with what is always (aei)". Cf. MICHAEL J. WHITE, "Aristotle and Temporally Relative
Modalities", Analysis 39, no. 2 (1979): 88; JEROEN VAN RIJEN, Aspects of Aristotle's Logic of Modalities
(Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989), 5.
" Summa theologiae I'-II", q. 75, a. 1, arg. 2; ibid. ad 2: "Praeterea, causa est ad quam de necessi-
tate sequitur aliud. si illa definitio causae universaliter debeat verificari, oportet ut intelligatur de cause
sufficienti et non impedita." Scriptum super Sententiis II, d. 36, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2: "... et quod dicitur, quad
ad causam de necessitate sequitur effectus, intelligitur de causa completa non impedita."
29 Summa theologiae I, q. 25, a. 3, ad 4: „Ad quartum dicendum quod possibile absolutum non dicitur
neque secundum causas superiores, neque secundum causas inferiores sed secundum seipsum. Possibile
vero quod dicitur secundum aliquam potentiam, nominatur possibile secundum proximam causam."
De potentia, q. 3, a. 1, ad 2: "Dicitur enim V Metaph., aliquid aliquando dici possibile, non secundum
aliquam potentiam, sed quia in terminis ipsius enuntiabilis non est aliqua repugnantia... Vel potest
quod erat possibile propter potentiam activam agentis..."
3° Scriptum super Sententiis I, d. 38, q. 1, a. 4, co.
3 ' PETR DVOKAK, "The Ontological Foundation of Possibility: An Aristotelian Approach",
Organon F 14, no. 1 (2007): 75.
" RUDOLF CARNAP, Meaning and Necessity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947), 9.
204 • MODALITIES
DISPOSITIONAL NECESSITY AND ONTOLOGICAL POSSIBILITY
a sentence or its negation, but not both. The possibility of a world-description
is identified with its logical consistency. But, as it seems to us, there are some
logically consistent world-descriptions which include sentences describing some
in facto impossible things. For example, things not admitted by the laws of nature.
In addition to the non-contradiction of possible worlds some philosophers
urge also the nomological accessibility of possible worlds. In this view something
is possible, if it is part of a consistently describable world that does not differ from
the actual world in the laws of nature. But (even if we leave aside many questions
about the laws of nature) the nomological accessibility does not seem satisfactory.
For example a world in which God exists, a "theistic" world, seems not to be
accessible from any "atheistic" world, despite the supposed natural nomological
parity of a "theistic" world with some "atheistic" world. It is because nothing
in the history of an atheistic world has the real causal power to introduce the
existence of God (as God cannot be conceived otherwise than as non-creatable).
In order to define ontological possibility, first let us introduce the notion of
causal accessibility of a possible world. If we speak about possible worlds, what are
the conditions for y being causally accessible from x?
• The first condition is that x andy differ from one another just (only) by some
causal process or processes. Causal process is a chain - or ramified chain
- of causes and effects (including at least one cause and one effect). To be a
distinguishing causal process means to exist in one of the two worlds, but not
in both.
• The second condition of causal accessibility between x andy is that each entity
playing the role of the causal initiator of a distinguishing process exists in
both worlds, though it plays this singular causal role only in one of them.
Causal initiator is the bearer of causal potency that manifests its potency in
that one of the two worlds, in which it initiates a distinguishing causal process
or processes.
These conditions define causal accessibility between two different possible
worlds. Let us also stipulate that each possible world is accessible from itself.
Finally I may define the ontologically possible and also the ontologically ne-
cessary. If the range of the variable x includes individuals:
• x is possible in the world w iff there is some possible world causally accessible
from win which x exists;
• x is necessary in w iff x exists in each possible world that is causally accessible
from w.
In the end of my speculation the following question may arise. It may seem
that the causal necessity, which works in the application of potencies, implies
that every ontological possibility must necessarily be effectuated. But it would be
MODALITIES • 205
 David Peroutka
DISPOSITIONAL NECESSITY AND ONTOLOGICAL POSSIBILITY
a mistake. In reality, the causal necessity is not absolute, but only hypothetical.
Such a necessity may be described by a hypothetical or conditional sentence
("necessarily: if..., then..."). And the antecedent of the conditional may sometimes
include a description of a free (not necessary) decision, as we have seen above.
8. CONCLUSION
Let us now recapitulate the reasoning offered in this paper. I explained that
a disposition belongs to the essence of that quality in which it is based. Since
essential appurtenance is defined as an across-all-worlds connexion, we may
assert that in every possible world the bearer of a quality bears also the dis-
position belonging to the essence of the given quality. If we suppose the accuracy
of the conditional analysis, then the last sentence can be reformulated thus: In
every possible world it is true that if the qualified thing (insomuch as qualified) is properly
(under suitable conditions) tested, then the qualified thing manifests the effect. In this way
I have described potency as a property leading necessarily to an effect, when-
ever suitably tested. This means that the Aristotelian account of causality as
a necessary connexion is confirmed, and the concept of natural law is explained
by means of ontological analysis of dispositional properties.
Having defined the notion of causal potency, I based on this notion the con-
cept of ontological possibility. At first I introduced the notion of causal accessi-
bility. The reciprocal causal accessibility of two different worlds means that the
two worlds differ from one another only by some causal process or processes
(distinguishing causal processes), and that the two worlds share each bearer of
potency, which in one of them manifests its potency by initiating some distin-
guishing causal process. This notion of causal accessibility permitted me to define
the ontologically possible as something that exists in some causally accessible
world: x is possible iff there are active and passive causal capabilities enabling
the production of x, so that the bearers of such potencies are either immediate
causes of x, or causal initiators of a causal process leading to the production of x."
" The research was supported by the Grant Agency of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech
Republic, project no. IAA 908280801.
206 • MODALITIES
David Peroutka
DISPOSITIONAL NECESSITY AND ONTOLOGICAL Possiewrry
BIBLIOGRAPHY
AQUINAS, THOMAS. Corpus Thomisticum. Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia. Recogno-
vit ac instruxit Enrique Alarcon. Automato electronico Pampilonae ad Universita-
tis Studiorum Navarrensis aedes a MM A. D. (http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/
ARISTOTLE. Complete Works of Aristotle. Ed. J. Barnes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
s s, 198
Press,
VID4DAM. A Materialist Theory of the Mind. London and New York: Routledge,
A R MSTRONG,
1993-2002, first published 1968.
BIRD, ALEXANDER. "The Dispositionalist Conception of Laws". Foundations of Science 10
(2005): 353-370.
CAJETANUS, THOMAS DE VIO, CA RDI NALIS. Commentarium super Opusculum De Ente et Essentia
Thomae Aquinatis. Romae: ex Pontificia officina typographica, 1907.
CARNAP, RUDOLF. Meaning and Necessity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947.
—"Testability and Meaning". In Readings in the Philosophy of Science, edited by H. Feigl et
M. Brodbeck, 47-92. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953. Reprinted from Philo-
sophy of Science 3 (1936): 420-468; 4 (1937): 1-40.
COLLEGIUM COMPLUTENSE S. CYRILLI OCD. Artium cursus sive Disputationes in Aristotelis
dialecticam et philosiphiam naturalem. Compluti: apud loannem de Orduria, 1624.
DvokAic, PETR. "The Ontological Foundation of Possibility: An Aristotelian Approach".
Organon F 14, no. 1 (2007): 72-83.
HOME, DAVID. A Treatise of Human Nature. Edited by G. Mossner. London: Penguin Books,
1969,1984.
KISTLER, MAX. "L'efficacite causale des proprietes dispositionnelles macroscopiques",
in Cause, pouvoirs, dispositions en philosophie - Le retour des vertus dormitives, ed. Bruno
Gnassounou and Max Kistler, 115-154. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2005.
MACKIE, J. L. Truth, Probability and Paradox. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973.
MARTIN, CHARLES B. "Dispositions and Conditionals". Philosophical Quaterly 44 (1994): 1-8.
—"Final replies to Place and Armstrong". In D. M. ARMSTRONG, C. B. MARTIN and
U. T. PLACE, Dispositions - A debate, edited by Tim Crane, 163-192. London and New
York: Routledge, 1996.
MOLNAR, GEORGE. Powers. Edited by S. Mumford. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
MUMFORD, STEPHEN. Dispositions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, first published
1998.
— Laws in Nature. London and New York: Routledge, 2004.
PLACE, ULLIN T. "Structural properties: Categorical, dispositional or both?" In D. M. ARM-
STRONG, C. B. MARTIN AND U. T. PLACE, Dispositions - A debate, edited by Tim Crane.
London and New York: Routledge, 1996.
QUINE, WILLARD VAN ORMAN. Word and Object. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 1960.
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Tar
REMER, VINCENTIUS. Summa praelectionum philosophiae scholasticae. Editio tertia. p rati:
Universitas Gregoriana - Giachetti, filii et soc., 1912.
RIJEN, JEROEN VAN. Aspects of Aristotle's Logic of Modalities. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic
Publishers, 1989.
SHOEMAKER, SYDNEY. "Causality and Properties". In Metaphysics. An Anthology, ed. j. Kim
et E. Sosa, 253-268. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. Originally published in: Time
and Cause, edited by Peter van Inwagen, 109-135. Dordecht: Reidel, 1980.
THOMPSON, IAN J. "Real Dispositions in the Physical World". British Journal for the Philosophy
of Science, 39 (1988): 67-79.
WHITE, MICHAEL J. "Aristotle and Temporally Relative Modalities". Analysis 39, no. 2 (1979).
88-93.
WOLF, URSULA. MOglichkeit und Notwendigkeit bei Aristoteles und heute. Munchen: Wilhelm
Fink Verlag, 1979.
208 • MODALITIES
THE OPTIMAL AND THE NECESSARY
IN LEIBNIZ' MATHEMATICAL FRAMING
OF THE COMPOSSIBLE
Mark Faller
ABSTRACT
B SThis paper tries to show that Leibniz had a metaphysics of possibility and necessity that
R
attempted
TA to clarify and develop the usages of the two concepts. It further establishes that
this system bridged the reciprocal weaknesses of both relativism and scepticism in order to
nurture an organically realist model for the nature of truth and its corresponding reality.
working out the details of his full system is complicated by two factors. Leibniz never lays
out the full details of this system in any extended work. And he often overstates the conditions
of one or another of these categories in response to contentious debates he is involved with
at the time. My paper will show that we can develop a unified reading of his position by
comparing a number of his works on freedom, determinism and causality into a seamless and
consistent view on the nature of possibility and necessity.
More precisely, this paper will demonstrate how Leibniz' works on mathematical analysis
and mathematical optimality contribute to the framing of his radically novel concept of
"compossibility". It is this conceptual model that allows him to reconcile the dialectical poles
of telos and necessity in a rich and complex synthesis that anticipates many of the problems
that will haunt his heretical intellectual descendent, Kant.
1. INTRODUCTION
The meaning of the concepts "necessity" and "possibility" have become viti-
ated and equivocal as the dual ideologies of relativism and empirical scepticism
have undermined their metaphysical moorings.
Empirical scepticism from its foundations with Heraclitus and Gorgias up to
its heyday with Hume has cast a "duality" spell on our vision of the world. They
preach an "evening" knowledge that idealises the past and the dead as the model
for the living. Knowledge of the world is like, and therefore reducible to, the stable
and inert facts that have already passed. Anything that is not translatable to this
paradigm is dismissed as ethereal or merely of the mind.
Empirical sceptics are "twoness" thinkers where necessity can either be from
reason or from the world. Under this spell, necessity is either empty (from reason)
or a mythical narrative we tell ourselves, but not fully applicable to the world.
MODALITIES • 209
 Mark Faller
THE OPTIMAL AND THE NECESSARY IN LEIBNIZ
The only type of necessity that is relevant to reality is one based on habit and
empirical probabilities (Hume).
Relativism on the other hand, attempts to transfix our vision toward the
"morning" knowledge of an ever unformed future, where all things are equally
possible. Berkeley's "threeness" perspective rejects any robust distinctiveness
between truth and fiction and instead holds that the justified beliefs of any corn.
munity or individual are equally "true".
Within this Protagorean vision, necessity is in the eye of the beholder, with
rhetoric the only tool of negotiating whether one view is more useful than
another.
We need to return to a time before the great transfixing webs of Hume and
Berkeley to appreciate the possibility of a more balanced idea of truth. It is in the
subtle and complex metaphysical nuances of Leibniz that we may begin to purge
our souls of these dual contaminants of modernity.
I will make the case that Leibniz had a metaphysics of possibility and necessity
that attempted to clarify and develop the usages of the two concepts. I will further
show that this system attempted to bridge the reciprocal weaknesses of both
relativism and scepticism in order to nurture an organically realist model for the
nature of truth and its corresponding reality.
Working out the details of his full system is complicated by two factors. He
never lays out the full details of this system in any extended work. And he often
overstates the conditions of one or another of these categories in response to
contentious debates he is involved with at the time. I will try to show that we can
develop a unified reading of his position by comparing a number of his works on
freedom, determinism and causality into a seamless and consistent view on the
nature of possibility and necessity.
More precisely, I will try to demonstrate how Leibniz' works on mathematical
analysis and mathematical optimality contribute to the framing of his radically
novel concept of "compossibility". It is this conceptual model that allows him
to reconcile the dialectical poles of telos and necessity in a rich and complex
synthesis that anticipates many of the problems that will haunt his heretical,
intellectual descendent, Kant.
2. LEIBNIZ' DIVIDED LINE
One concrete way in which to envision Leibniz' full spectrum for the grounds
of necessity and possibility is to project his kinds of judgements onto a model of
a Divided Line (se the opposite page).
A Divided Line can help us to recognise how two distinct kinds of relationships
may be brought under a consistent relational rubric. On one side we have the
ontological relationships between the levels of being. There is a spectrum of
necessity and possibility that holds with respect to their position on this conti-
nuum. There is also the lateral relationships between the ontic levels and their
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Truths of Reason Truths of Fact
God's Reason God's Will - Compossible
Original Derived Hypothetical Moral
identities identities necessities necessities
Human
Logic Math Science affairs
epistemic counterparts. In a realist line the conditions of knowability flow from
the conditions of being and the epistemic gradations are analogical to the ontic.
A Divided Line can for Leibniz, as it did for Plato, mediate the passage be-
tween scepticism and relativism. As a continuum with objective "cuts", a Divided
Line represents a kind of "fourness" thinking that is able to reconcile the appa-
rently conflicting logics of relativism and scepticism, through a dimensional
embellishment of our ontological model.
There are some interesting differences and similarities we can immediately
mine from Leibniz' Line when compared with Plato's. For one, there are unwork-
able inconsistencies in Plato's model. The knowability of ontological kinds is laid
out on a continuum with the faculties of knowing. Yet Plato has clearly specified
that within man, it is usually the lower faculties that predominate, and that we
have little and tenuous direct access to the divine nous. The two sides of the line
should rightly be in inverse proportion, with knowledge itself some monstrous
hybrid ratio.
In the Leibniz Line there is no demand for such a tension. It is judgements
of truth, not faculties, which he lines up with the types of possible being. Since
judgements just are the identity between knowledge and being no inconsistencies
need arise. The grounds of knowing and those of being just are the same:
The nature of truth consists in the connection of the predicate with the subject, or
the predicate is in the subject either in a way that is manifest, as in identities, or
hidden. In identities this connection and the inclusion of the predicate in the subject
are explicit; in all other prepositions they re implied and must be revealed through
the analysis of the notions, which constitutes a demonstration a priori.'
But there are also strong similarities. The truths of logic and mathematics are
together as two distinct categories on one side of a major division, with those of the
phenomenal world on the other. The truths of logic and mathematics are truths
of reasoning. They are necessary truths and their opposites are contradictions.
Truths of the phenomenal realm are truths of fact; they are contingent, and their
opposites are possible:
' A quote of G. W. LEIBNIZ, in MARTIN HEIDEGGER, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic,
transl. Michael Heim (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 39.
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There are in turn two genera of derivative truths: for some can be reduced to primary
truths; others can be reduced in an infinite progression. The former are necessary,
the latter are contingent.'
We should be careful not to interpret this seemingly complete disjunction
as any kind of absolute dualism in either ontology or judgement. Leibniz' Line,
like Plato's, is in fact a line, a continuum. The truths of fact can be construed as
tautologies - implicit identities between the subject and predicate. The continuum
of relationships between the subject and predicate cannot, however, be made
explicit in a finite number of steps.
The physical facts of which these truths refer can also be classified as "contin-
gent" only in a qualified sense. They have a hypothetical necessity for which they
are grounded by a sufficient reason for their being as they are:
There is thus the tendency in his theory to assimilate as far as possible the veritates
facti to truths of reasoning - though this is not stated with complete accuracy, since
truths of fact are supposed to retain their own quality and nonetheless have the
character of Identities.'
Hypothetical necessity is conditioned by the double constraints of mechanical
determinism and economic compossibility. The compossible, Leibniz' novel con-
tribution to causal thinking, framed to reconcile the traditional polemic between
mechanism and teleology, is the set of interactions between discretely determined
events that mediates their "compatibility": "My principle, namely is that whatever
can exist and is compatible with other things, does exist, because the reason
for existing in preference to other possible cannot be limited by any other con-
siderations than that not all things are compatible."4 Leibniz' recognition that
the compossible could be tamed by his mathematics of the optimum, informs the
implicit identity between the contingent and reason.
Equally as significant as the disjunction between the truths of reason and
fact, is that distinction drawn within the truths of reason. Truths of definition are
logically transparent and immediately identical. They are original truths.
Those of mathematics are preponderantly derived. They are implicit or virtual
identities that can be fully analysed into their explicit identities in a finite number
of steps, and are deducible from them.
2 G. W. LEIBNIZ, "On Freedom", in L. A. FOUCHER DE CALEIL, ed., Nouvelles lettres et opuscules
inedits de Leibniz (Paris, 1857) [henceforward F. DE C.], 179; English translation L. E. LoEmKER,
ed. and transl., G. W. Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters, 2^d edition (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1969)
[henceforward LOEMKER], 264.
3 HEIDEGGER, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, 43.
4 G. W. LEIBNIZ, "Two Notations for Discussion with Spinoza", in C. I. GERHARDT, Hrsg.,
Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 7 vols. (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buch-
handlung, 1875-1890) [henceforward G], vol. 7: 262 (LOEMKER, 169).
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3. MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS IN LEIBNIZ
There are important implications for the development of modern philosophy
in general, and Kant in particular, in how we frame Leibniz' understanding of this
process of conceptual/mathematical analysis.
Wolff's interpretation of Leibniz, and that of most contemporary logical posi-
tivists, is that mathematical truths just are reducible to logical truths with no
residue. This simplistic reading of Leibniz would seem to ignore many of his most
penetrating works on the nature of mathematical thinking and knowledge. In
particular his work on in situ geometry and the attempt to frame a geometrical
semantics for his Universal Characteristic, indicate that Leibniz believed that
mathematical knowledge was far richer and more semantically determinate than
the syntactical relationships accessible solely from the law of identity.
There are two ways to flesh out the nuances of Leibniz' analytic framework.
The first is to demarcate the substantial differences between mathematical and
logical truths. The other is to illustrate how they remain fully reconcilable.
Logical propositions are inherently tautologies, in and of themselves com-
pletely empty of semantic content. In order for logic to have any utility beyond
playing with definitional identities, semantic content must be imported from
the more determinate segments of our divided line. It is the precise nature of
the limits and possibilities that this spectrum of ontological kinds introduces
which makes Leibniz' continuum of grounds so provocative. The Principle of
Contradiction holds throughout all the subsequent realms of necessity and possi-
bility, but it has an extremely thin realm of its own. Analysis is just the working
out of the specific spatial or phenomenal conditions within which the Principle
of Contradiction may gain footing.
For Leibniz analysis went beyond what Hume or Kant meant by the taking
apart of a concept. Leibniz explored a new kind of analysis, an analysis situs:
The true analysis of situation is therefore still to be supplied. This can be shown
from the fact that all analysts, whether they use algebra in the new manner or deal
with the given and the unknown after the ancient pattern, have to assume many
things from elementary geometry which are not derived from the consideration
of magnitude but from that of figure, and which have not yet been explained in
any determinate way. Euclid himself was forced to assume certain obscure axioms,
without proof, in order to proceed with the rest. And the demonstration of theorems
and the solution of problems in his Elements sometimes seem to be achieved through
hard labor rather than method and skill, even though he also seems sometimes to
conceal the ingenuity of his method.'
Leibniz held that this science was known to the ancients and involved the
specific interpretation of geometrical loci, or the continuum of qualitative relation-
ships. While algebraic analysis could only deal with quantity or magnitude, this
G. W. LEIBNIZ, "On Analysis Situs", in C. I. GERHARDT, Hrsg., Leibnizens mathematische
Schriften, 7 vols., Berlin and Halle, 1849-1863 [henceforward GM], vol. 5: 178 (LOEMKER, 254).
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THE OPTIMAL AND THE NECESSARY IN LEIBNIZ
other analysis could capture the inherent nature of quality itself. Key to this
distinction was identifying the essential quality of the similarity of figures: "Thus
a true geometric analysis ought not only consider equalities and proportions
which are truly reducible to equalities but also similarities and, arising from the
combination of equality and similarity, congruences."'
Similarity for Leibniz was the measure of quality and its significance reached
beyond geometry:
Besides quantity, figure in general includes also quality or form. And as those figures
are equal whose magnitude is the same, so those are similar whose form is the same.
The theory of similarities or of forms lies beyond mathematics and must be sought
in metaphysics.'
Where algebra and logic were forced to reduce all relationships to mere iden-
tity, geometry could work with the more complex and subtle nature of forms that
were both alike but different. Leibniz developed an invariant definition for the
concept of similarity which he believed would finally free the property of quality
or form from its subservience to quantity: "In undertaking an explanation of
quality or form, I have learned that the matter reduces to this: things are similar
which cannot be distinguished when observed in isolation from each other."8
He believed, like Lull and Bruno before him, that he was on the threshold of
discovering the Adamic language of the imagination, which could finally open
the soul to the free gaze of the intellect: "All other matters which the power of
imagination cannot penetrate will also follow from it. Therefore this calculus of
situation which I propose will contain a supplement to sensory imagination and
perfect it, as it were."9
While defining the Truths of Reason as those that can be analysed in a finite
number of propositions achieves precise conceptual clarity, there remain signi-
ficant problems. There are many mathematical relationships that represent
potentially infinite processes. The relationships between incommensurables or
those elaborated in the squaring of a circle can only be approximated within a finite
set of calculations. Although there are mathematical operations that can fully
comprehend infinite processes within a finite procedure, like differentiation and
integration, there remain kinds of operative definitions that defy such handling
- the calculation of pi.
But Leibniz also realises that there is in mathematics the possibility of "captu-
ring" such potentially infinite processes. This is the very nature of the calculus
6 Ibid. (GM 5: 179; LOEMKER, 255).
' Ibid. (GM 5: 178; LOEMKER, 259).
" ibid. (GM 5: 179; LOEMKER, 255).
4 Ibid. (GM 5: 181; LOEMKER, 257).
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he helped to develop and it is clear that we can have necessary knowledge of such
°contained" infinite processes in his example of an asymptote:
Ordinarily, for example, we find that two lines which approach each other continu-
ously finally meet, and many people would be quick to swear that this could never
happen otherwise. Yet geometry does furnish exceptional lines, called asymptotes
for this reason, that when extended to infinity they approach each other continuously
and yet never meet.'°
Mathematics in general, and geometry in particular, has a unique capacity to
represent the unlimited. And it is through the mining of the geometrical facility
within the soul that we can begin to grasp the deeper mysteries of the world and
mind:
new and unexpected light arose at last, however, from where I least expected it,
namely, from mathematical considerations of the nature of the infinite. For there are
two labyrinths in which the human mind is caught. One concerns the composition
of the continuum, the other concerns the nature of freedom. And both arise from
the same source, the infinite."
Once I have determined a mathematical truth, its statement and derivation
can be fully translated into a logical proof. It is less clear whether that truth could
have been reasonably derived using only logical rules, in less than an infinite
number of steps. And if the truth were derivable with logic, the question remains
whether logic would have the capacity to finally identify that truth as a significant
mathematical truth. In this sense the comparison is similar to the problem of
computer searches and their relationship to the Meno paradox: How can I find
something if I do not already know what it is I am looking for. There is a rich
mathematical content, with its own complex order of necessity and possibility
that is "lost" in a reduction to merely logical principles.
In this sense, geometrical thinking is like the strategic logic (vs. the syntactic
rules of play) for winning an infinite game (or the Slave Boy Problem). No logic
can develop an algorithm for final victory. But once an "optimum" strategy is
discovered through geometrical insight, it can subsequently be translated into
a logical proof.
4. A MISPLACED DISJUNCTION IN KANT
If my interpretation is substantially correct, we can discover two relevant
insights into its significance for Kant. First, following Leibniz, Plato and the Empi-
ricists, Kant realised that there were significant differences between the kinds of
I° G. W. LEIBNIZ, "On What is Independent of Sense and Matter" (Letter to Queen Sophia
of Prussia, 1702) (G 9: 509; LOEMKER, 551).
" F. DE C., 179; LOEMKER, 264.
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knowledge represented by experience and reason. The first was particular and
fleeting, the latter universal and invariant.
Second, with Plato and Leibniz, Kant recognised a differential hypotheticality
for mathematical judgement in his interpreting mathematical judging as a priori
synthetic. Mathematical thinking is not strictly logical. it is a liminal middle kind
of "figuring" that shares aspects of both pure reason and imaginative experience.
It is a priori in that it can be fully translatable to logical identities in a finite set of
propositions. It is synthetic in the sense that it takes a synthetical construction to
bridge the intuitional gap and discover the explicit analytical steps.
We must be very careful here in parsing our terms. It is exactly in the period
between Leibniz and Kant that the meaning of the terms analysis and synthesis
get completely inverted by the empiricists. For Leibniz, analysis is that art of
the ancient geometers that took apart problems before inverting them into
synthetic proofs. So when he refers to analysis in mathematics he is referring to
the same taking apart of figures and relationships that Kant would later refer to
as synthetic, due to its origins in the intuition. For both thinkers this was an "art"
deeply buried in the soul.
But Kant goes perhaps too far in establishing the uniqueness of mathematical
concept formation. He wants to absolutely disjoin this process from that which
frames concepts of the understanding. In this effort he comes up with the enchan-
ting, but misleading maxim: "Philosophical cognition is rational cognition from
concepts. Mathematical cognition is rational cognition from the construction of
concepts."" This neat divide produces two one sided caricatures of conceptual
formation and leaves both frameworks open to sceptical attack:
Hence philosophical cognition contemplates the particular only in the universal.
Mathematical cognition, on the other hand, contemplates the universal in the parti-
cular, and indeed even in the individual, yet does so nonetheless a priori and by
means of reason."
First we must recognise how important it is for Kant to establish the principle
of mathematical cognition on an absolutely firm and autonomous grounding.
Mathematical knowledge holds the key to defeating the Humean sceptical fork,
i.e. that synthetic a priori judgements were possible. The vicious dichotomy of
nominalism maintains that there are two absolutely incommensurable types
of knowledge, the a priori analytic and a posteriori synthetic, each deriving from
two radically distinct sources, reason and experience. This divide makes the
product of reason, logic, empty and relegates knowledge of nature as merely
particular and therefore blind. Kant's insight was to recognise that mathematical
12 IMMANUEL KANT, The Critique of Pure Reason, transl. W. Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett,
1996) [CPR], 668 (B 741 I A 713).
13 CPR 669 (B 742 I A 714).
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knowledge seems to bridge this dichotomy in a way that defeats the sceptical
claim. Mathematical thinking is both a priori in the universality and necessity
of its results and synthetic in the expansively ampliative promise of its enquiry.
To understand why he got mathematical thinking so wrong we will have to
understand how an inherent disposition interacted with this driving motivation.
Kant is not a dialectical thinker. His priority as a critical philosopher is
clarity over coherence, and he most often dismisses dialectical oppositions as
"antinomies" and "paralogisms". Even though he needs mathematics to hold as
an absolute "middle" to bridge the Humean fork, he is little able to illustrate the
essentially liminal nature of mathematical thinking.
Kant creates an absolute duality between the mathematical and the philo-
sophical uses of reason. One is "quantitative" while the other is "qualitative"; One
is constitutive of its object, the other merely regulative; One is rational cognition
from concepts while the other is rational cognition from the construction of
concepts: "Mathematical definitions can never err. For since the concept is first
given through the definition, it contains exactly just what the definition wants
us to think through the concept.""
This clean dichotomy between the mathematical and dynamical uses of
reason does allow Kant to set an autonomous ground for mathematics against the
reductive thesis of the empiricists. It also allows him to build a critical bulwark
against the claims of dogmatism that haunts the historical rationalists like Leibniz
and Plato who apparently just assume that mathematical ideas apply to the world.
But there is a serious cost to this clarity. Concepts that I construct can have
constitutive clarity, but how do I objectively compare and contrast them to the
empirical concepts I have formed through abstraction? How do I know that the
circle I have constructed in my intuition has at all the same sense as the circle I
"see" in the plate?'5
" CPR 682 (B 759 I A 731).
15 This issue has a very old pedigree. The ancient academy was divided over the issue
of whether universals were abstracted or projected. The mathematical followers of Plato
leaned toward the projection thesis, while those of the linguistic-orientated Aristotle leaned
towards an abstraction thesis. A similar debate would rage after Kant within the philosophy
of mathematics. Dedekind and Cassirer followed Kant in holding that mathematics was a
projective process, typified by the ordinal generation of the number line. Russell and Cantor, on
the other hand, seeing mathematical concepts as the cardinal abstractions from set theory. But
if mathematical thinking can truly bridge the conceptual divide of concepts and experience it
must be inherently liminal. Numbers must somehow be both ordinal and cardinal - construc-
ted and discovered. There is an implicit proof of the invariance of mathematical liminality
in the Theaetetus. The only way to uniquely understand the number six is to see it as a scaled
relationship between its cardinal and ordinal properties: six is the uniquely smallest perfect
number, where its multiplicative or formal factors add up to its material sum. This hybrid
formulation of the nature of number would match well Leibniz' idea of an invariant, universal
characteristic.
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It is at this point, when we transition from the Truths of Reason to those of
Fact, where the consequences of Kant's first mathematical error get compounded.
The rigid distinction between the construction of concepts in math and the use of
concepts in the understanding, leads Kant to develop an equally rigid distinctive
ground for their determination of phenomena. The physics of Newton, based on
the constructive patterns of geometry just are constitutive of the phenomena of
nature, while the dynamic purposiveness of biology can only be "regulative" of
our understanding of nature: "It has just been shown that since this principle of
purposiveness is only a subjective principle of the division and specification of
nature, it does not determine anything with regard to the forms of the products
of nature."
These two sets of disjunctions are merely aspects of the same error. This in-
sight can be illustrated with a look at the inherent ambiguity within the emerging
controversies surrounding the biological definition of species. Taxonomists and
cladists argue for two radically distinct ways by which to group organisms. Func-
tional or dynamical causal frameworks will determine a substantially different
kind of biological classification than one presuming a morphological or genetic
basis for the generation of species. The choice one makes is presumed by and
further determines ones causal narrative.
With Leibniz, the form of mathematical thinking cannot be so easily simplified.
In different writings Leibniz appears as both a logicist and a functionalist with
regard to the formation of mathematical concepts. We have shown earlier that he
develops the idea that there is a unique and implicit qualitative knowledge within
geometry that can never be merely captured by quantity or reduced to logic. And
mathematics has a double directionality. There is an "upward" and a "downward"
path in the differential and integral calculus. Some critics have judged this
dualist-like approach within Leibniz as a type of weakness or equivocation, but
as we move towards an examination of the "lower" half of our Divided Line, that
which deals with the compossible relationships between phenomena, we find that
this pluralism is the source of much of the enduring richness in his metaphysics.
Leibniz in his work with the calculus would be aware that it is the dynamical and
functional aspects of geometrical representations that empower mathematical
models to completely capture and determine the hypothetical necessity of the
phenomenal world. The dynamical relationships of the regulative laws of nature
are every bit as determinate of the phenomenal world as the mathematical
relationships of the mechanical causes. In fact for Leibniz they are sufficiently
more so.
For Leibniz this mutuality already infects his model of the grounding of phe-
nomenal truth. We can understand causes of the physical from both a mechanical
16 IMMANUEL KANT, The Critique of the Power of judgment, trans!. P. Guyer and E. Matthews
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 22.
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and a purposive perspective, and each is equally as "mathematical". It is precisely
the mathematically dynamic aspects of the phenomenal world that contribute
directionality to the causal interplay of the compossible.
5. THE MATHEMATICAL GROUNDING OF LEIBNIZ' OPTIMISM
The full success or failure of Leibniz' project of reconciling teleology with
necessity lies in the possibility of bringing his conceptual model of compossibility
onto a rigorous foundation of mathematical formulation, something ironically
akin to Newton's rehabilitation of his mysterious "gravity" through the equa-
tions of mass and distance. The vision and vehicle for this formulation is his
mathematically dynamic model of pulchritude and plenitude.
In the fall of 1697, Leibniz wrote "On the Radical Origination of Things", in
which he attempted to illustrate the complex orders of necessity that ruled the
compossible world of nature. His major focus in this essay was to "explain how
temporal, contingent, or physical truths arise out of truths that are eternal and
essential, or if you like, metaphysical... "
Leibniz proceeds by attempting to demonstrate how those forms which are
most likely to emerge into reality are those which have some sort of priority
of metaphysical perfection in possibility. So he states that in the undertaking
of the drawing of an unspecified triangle, that figure which will be most easily
constructed with a compass will be also the "best" one - the equilateral triangle,
"Hence it is very clearly understood that our of the infinite combinations and
series of possible things, one exists through which the greatest amount of essence
or possibility is brought into existence?"' He goes on to complete this formulation
with his statement that the actual world is the best of all possibilities in that
"a maximum effect should be achieved with a minimum outlay"
This definition of optimality or elegance by the specification of the identity of
sides is completely consonant with contemporary information theory. The accep-
ted standard of measuring the complexity of a phenomenon is by the amount of
information it takes to specify it. The recursiveness of the equilateral triangle
makes it the ultimately "simplest" triangle from this aspect of informational
describeability.
Paul Schrecker has noted that this effort by Leibniz is in fact an explanation of
how order arises out of chaos in Plato's Timaean receptacle.20 Plato implies that his
elemental triangles are the result of the interplay between likelihood (symmetry)
'' G. W. LEIBNIZ, "On the Radical Origination of Things" (G 6: 303; LOEMKER, 487).
18
ibid.
19 ibid.
20 PAUL SCHRECKER, "Leibniz and the Timaeus", Review of Metaphysics 4 (1951): 495-505.
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and necessity (dynamic stability). There is a thermodynamic rationa l for why the
triangular, mechanical vectors rule the micro-dynamics of atomism.
This reading of the consonance between the Leibnizean and Platonic cosmos
perhaps does not go far enough. According to Leibniz the order that rules the
diverse levels of the phenomenal hierarchy is determined not by God's reason,
or the laws of Newtonian mechanics (although it can be translated to them), but
rather the goodness of God's will. It is not enough, however, to merely show that the
mechanical laws are an exemplification of the most probable. For both Leibniz and
Plato mechanics represents the bare necessary conditions of causal interaction,
that set of constraints within which possibility can be framed. It cannot be Socra-
tes' "ligaments and bones" that finally keeps him in his imprisonment.
In the Timaeus it is reason, in the form of the harmonic movements of the
heavens that finally persuades necessity to do its bidding. This formulation of
persuasion is also central to Leibniz' concept of God's will determining towards
what is best. Heidegger notes that Leibniz' framing of the Principle of Sufficient
Reason, with the phrase "rather than" is a direct implication of ground as "pre-
ference": We can only have the ground as preference where freedom and ground
go mutually together as a "decision about value."" For both Plato and Leibniz
the value that is designed into the cosmos is the stochastic good of mathematical
order. In this sense there can be no conflict between God's will and His knowledge,
the Good is just the perfection of the whole and to know the good is to do it.
Since the time of Voltaire's Dr. Pangloss, defending Leibniz' dual doctrines
of pulchritude and plenitude- that God has chosen the most perfect world, "the
simplest in its hypotheses and the richest in phenomena"," - has become a double
burden. First, one must show that such a belief can be based on scientific principle,
not simply optimism or dogmatic faith. And one must further demonstrate that
such a principle is not in substantial conflict with established scientific practices.
If such a task should seem daunting, hopeful challengers can take heart in the
quality of the company. Leibniz is joined by no less that Fermat, Maupertuis, and
Euler in his belief that the universe was guided by some principle of beauty or
efficiency. And all four of these great minds thought they had found the fount of
that elegance in some form of "least action" principle. While modernity has mostly
accommodated some form of such a principle, it has unilaterally rejected the
metaphysical implications drawn by these four great mathematical philosophers.
The enduring stature of these brilliant and sober intellects demands that we
carefully re-examine such an easy dismissal.
Leibniz based his principle of an efficiently ordered universe, like Fermat
before him, largely on evidence such as Snellius' Law for the propagation of
21 HEIDEGGER, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, 116.
22 G. W. LEIBNIZ, Discourse on Metaphysics (G 4: 431; LOEMKER 306).
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light". The fact that light seemed to seek the path of shortest time, eliminated the
possibility of mechanical or efficient explanations. Only an end-driven or teleo-
logical hypothesis could explain such activity, and that end was to an efficient
order. Leibniz' own development of the methods of differential calculus aided him
in envisioning the economic elegance of such an optimisation principle.
Even though Leibniz' work predates the theoretical work on thermodynamics
by more than a generation, it is clear that his vision of nature is equally as "sto-
chastic". Compossibility is the unitary outcome of the totality of mechanical
micro-states of a system. Compossibility is Leibniz' anticipation of thermodyna-
mic theory. Both the principle of least action and his work in the Origination show a
sophisticated dynamic view about how such systems are mathematically disposed
toward self-organisation. I will therefore, try to make the case that his vision
about the way the phenomenal world is ordered to following God's will towards
what is the most perfect, is inherently a rigorous elaboration of what will be
thermodynamic theory.
The Second Law is indisputably a teleological principle. The Second Law just
does determine the final state of any closed system, regardless of any unique
initial configuration of the elements. This condition establishes that the Second
Law is "end driven" or "pulled" rather than "pushed".
The establishment of the Second Law as teleological would seem to be little
consolation to the grand optimism and romance of our Metaphysical Mathe-
maticians. Their vision was of a universe designed by God to be the best and most
beautiful, not a chaotic soup of heat death. In this sense Maxwell's finalism seems
untranslatable to Aristotle's.
What Aristotle implies by his "telos" is not disorder, but quite the opposite.
Purpose is some ordering entelechy that, except for its autonomy from initial
conditions, seems the very antithesis of the end predicted by the Second Law.
Here we must account for the fact that Aristotle affirmed that the final cause
was most closely associated with the formal cause. It is this relationship, between
the formal principles of how transitions must take place, and the teleological or
final conditions, of where the transitions are headed, that must be understood if
we are to make sense of either order or disorder.
5.1 The thermodynamic origins of harmony
It has been widely recognised since the time of Helmholtz that the overtone
series and its relationship to musical harmonics, through the occurrence of beats,
is an objective phenomenon of the physical world and not merely a cultural or
subjective preference. The motion of a plucked string successively breaks downs
into harmonic patterns, the overtone series, expressing the progressively increas-
ing ratios of small integers:
21 Ibid. (G 4: 449; LOEMKER 318).
MODALITIES • 221
 Mark Faller Mark Faller
THE OPTIMAL AND THE NECESSARY IN LEIBNIZ THE OPTIMAL AND THE NECESSARY IN LEIBNIZ

Ratio to Ratio to Relationship This overtone series is the basis of all the diverse, traditional systems of
Harmonic Note
Fundamental Preceding to Preceding scaling - diatonic, just and equal temperament - and therefore cannot in any
absolute way determine which "musical" system is "better". All the varieties of
1:1 Fundamental C scale "cutting" share certain absolute and objective characteristics. The octave
(2:1) and the higher harmonies, the fifth (3:2) and the fourth (4:3) appear to be
1:2 1:2 2nd Harmonic Octave C'
essential to both the "sweetness" and the ordering capacity of the overtone series.
1:3 2:3 3rd Harmonic Fifth G' The lesser harmonies and the sizes of the whole and half notes appear to have only
a "normative" or cultural hold on diverse tastes. Once we are given the overtone
1:4 3:4 4th Harmonic Fourth C" series, the arithmetic pattern itself determines all the relationships of harmony.
The mystery remains: Why do continuously dissipating systems conform to such
1:5 4:5 5th Harmonic Major Third E"
a pattern?
1:6 5:6 6th Harmonic Minor Third G" The Second Law of thermodynamics states that any closed system whose
initial state is out of equilibrium, will eventually work its way to a final state of
This harmonic pattern holds great physical significance for a variety of di- equilibrium. In a two chamber system with a set number of particles (eight) in one
half and a vacuum in the other, will eventually settle into the equilibral state of
verse, continuously dissipative sources that to some degree conform to these same maximum probability distribution when the chambers are opened to each other.
orderly patterns. From the indefatigable motion of the electron, to the massive The final and most probable state of the system is given by the equal distribution
symphonic stroll of the heavenly bodies, the mathematics of harmonic con- of particles in the two chambers. With all eight molecules in one chamber the
sonances order much of the world around us. Fourier found that heat dissipates maximum number of unique distributions is eight. However, with four molecules
from a solid object in such an harmonic pattern. What has been less clear is in each chamber the number of possible distribution states maximises at 70:
why this pattern of simple whole number ratios is a physical determiner of the
harmonic order. N=8
The overtone series of harmonics is the pattern of sinusoidal waves into which
a plucked string progressively declines as its energy dissipates. The pattern is • •
that of simple whole number ratios and corresponds closely to the traditional • •
•
harmonic consonances: 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1, 5:1 etc.: •
• •
• •
• • •
1:1 fundamental

) octave (1:2) 1 arrangement 8! / 4! 4! = 7o arrangements

When a constrained string is plucked, energy dissipates in a lawfully ordered

■IIIII■ ■IIIIII■
ic:=:><=>oc-c•ci 1:6 5th overtone
1:2 1st overtone
> fifth (2:3)
progression. Since the disturbance is to a continuous medium, the string, the
number of possible intermediary states approaches the indefinite. Not all inter-
1:3 2nd overtone mediary states, however, are equally probable. Those states that attain an equal
> fourth (3:4) distribution of the system's parts will attract the motion of the string as being
1:4 3th overtone the states of maximum possible distribution. Since equality can only attain where
> major third (4:5) there are an integer number of divisions: 2, 3, 4, etc., the successive intermediary
1:5 4th overtone states of the string returning to its rest state will be through the series of integer
> minor third (5:6) divisions - the harmonic series.
This theoretical hypothesis of how continuity directs the way in which gra-
dients within a system must "dissipate" has been empirically well verified within

222 • MODALITIES MODALITIES • 223

 7
Mark Faller Mark Faller
THE OPTIMAL AND THE NECESSARY IN LEIBNIZ THE OPTIMAL AND THE NECESSARY IN LEIBNIZ

many different kinds of phenomena. It has been identified variously as a "spite" BIBLIOGRAPHY
principle by Joseph Kestin or a "moderation" principle by Prigogine.24 This prin. fouCHER DE CALEIL, L. A., ed. Nouvelles lettres et opuscules inedits de Leibniz. Paris, 1857.
ciple also stands as an explanatory ground that illuminates the multiple faces of
GERHARDT, C. I., Hrsg. Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. 7 vols.
the enigmatic Least Action Principle. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1875-1890.
What can be understood from the thermodynamic origins of harmonics is the
Leibnizens mathematische Schriften. 7 vols. Berlin (vol. 1-2) and Halle (vol. 3-4), 1849-1863.
underlying ordering power of the law of disorder. The final state parameters of the
Second Law are that any system will continually move towards a minimisation HEIDEGGER, MARTIN. The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. Translated by Michael Heim.
of gradient differentials. There are, however, continuity parameters that govern Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984.
the way in which such systems transition to those final states. These transition KANT, IMMANUEL. The Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Werner Pluhar. Indianapolis:
parameters, that continuously dissipative systems will be attracted to the most Hackett 1996.
probable intermediary states, determine that the retreat of stochastic dissipative —The Critique of the Power of Judgment. Translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews.
systems from gradient extremes will necessarily be maximally ordered. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
LOEMKER, LEROY. E., ed. and transl. G. W. Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters. 2nd edition.
6. CONCLUSION Dordrecht: Reidel, 1969.
It should perhaps not surprise us that our Divided Line turns out to be a SCHNEIDER, ERIC and SAGAN, DORION. Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life.
"cutting of a cannon", a harmonic division. Our avowed purpose in transposing Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Leibniz' spectrum of norms onto a line was to make sense of the dimensions of SCHREcRER, PAUL. "Leibniz and the Timaeus". Review of Metaphysics 4 (1951): 495-505.
conditionality within his complex ontology. Harmonic theory offers us just such
a spectrum of necessities.
Science, since the enlightenment, has pushed for the absolute disjoining of
nature from value in explaining the world. Neuro-philosophers have attempted to
go even further in eliminating the place of the non-mechanical in human affairs.
An accurate study of the great Leibniz should serve as a healthy prophylactic to
these incursions.
For Leibniz there are two principles of necessity, one negative, the Principle
of Contradiction, and one positive, the Principle of Sufficient Reason. While the
negative principle is stronger, it can never be violated under any circumstances,
the Principle of Sufficient Reason is the determinant cause of all of nature and all
of reason. God's good will does not overrule his reason, so much as it frames the
continuing and progressive context within which it has authority to legislate. The
good is the final, absolute necessity within which reason manages the possibilities
of expression.
The good determines the providence and forces of historical development.
Physics marshals the movements of the particulate conditions. The interplay of
compossible, mathematical forces will determine the development of that world
which evolves towards perfection: It is the awakening of the sleeping god, in its
progressively conscious choice of its self-determination. Plato and Leibniz have
looked upon that face, and it is us.

24 ERIC SCHNEIDER and DORION SAGAN, Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 76.

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 SECTION VI

PREDICATION
THE INTERPRETATION(S) OF PREDICATION
Uwe Meixner

ABSTRACT
RtACTcourse
the of the history of Western philosophy, various philosophers have given
various answers to the question of the ontological basis of predication. This essay presents the
m ain, the crucial answers: the paradigms and theories of predication of the Sophists (and of all
later radical relativists), of Plato, of Aristotle, of the Aristotelian-minded non-nominalists, of
Leibniz, and of Frege. The essay follows (to some extent) the most influential - the Aristotelian
or quasi-mereological - paradigm of predication in its continuity and modification through the
many centuries of its reign. But this essay is not content to adopt the merely historical point
of view; it also poses the question of adequacy. Prior to Frege, a philosophically satisfactory
theory of predication was not even in the offing, and the essay points out the shortcomings
(besides aspects that can be viewed as advantages) of each pre-Fregean predication-theory
it considers. Frege, in the 19" century, brought the philosophy of predication on the right
track. But his own theory of predication has its own deficits (which it shares with still other
predication-theories). The essay ends with the presentation of a theory of predication that
the author himself considers adequate.

In the economy of science, and of knowledge in general, simple predicative

statements have a fundamental and indispensable role to play. Such statements,
simple as they are: containing no logical functors, have various forms in natural
language. Here is a far-from-complete list of such forms, each item in the list
combined with an illustrative example:

FORMS EXAMPLES
a Os [covering also: a is] Kate laughs
a is (1) Kate is beautiful
a is a (13, Kate is an actress
a Ws 13 [covering also: a is (3] Kate loves George
a is+pr [3 Kate is in Boston
a is (I:0+pr p Kate is married to George
a is a 4)+pr p William is a descendant of Albert
a is+pr 13 and y The tree is between the house and the street

[pr: some preposition]

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THE INTERPRETATION(S) OF PREDICATION
Notwithstanding these many forms, the general form of simple predicative state-
ments, which is familiar from first-order predicate logic, is just this:
..., a r,)
Here the sequence "a', ..., as" represents the occurrences of the singular terms
in a simple predicative statement, all of them without syntactical structure, in
the order in which they follow each other in the statement (noting that a singular
term may occur more than once in it); and the letter "0" represents the rest
of the statement: the predicative basis, devoid of all logical functors, in which all
of the occurrences of singular terms in the statement are embedded; finally,
the unifying function of the predicative basis is indicated by the embracing
brackets, "(" and ")". In order to make matters as simple as possible - that is: in
order to focus on the basic problem of predication - I stipulate, in addition to the
description of simple predicative statements just given, that the singular terms
in simple predicative statements are not to refer to linguistic items or abstract
entities, and that the predicates in simple predicative statements are to be chosen
accordingly.
Some simple predicative statements are true. But from the earliest times of
philosophy to this day the nature of the truth of true simple predicative state-
ments has been controversial among the philosophers. Does the truth of such
statements have ontological import? And if it has ontological import, what exactly
is that import? These questions are philosophical evergreens, and not accidentally
so: their importance can hardly be overestimated. For what is at stake in these
questions is nothing less than the basic determination on what it truly amounts
to when we claim to have knowledge of the world and to speak the truth about the
world. In this essay, I shall look at some of the milestones of a discussion that spans
almost 25 centuries: among other predication-theories, at the theories of Plato,
Aristotle, and the Aristotelian-minded non-nominalists, at the theories of Leibniz
and of Frege. At the end of the essay, I shall briefly present my own approach.
The positions on predication of the just-mentioned philosophers - different as
they are - have at least one thing in common: all of them are opposed to the view
that simple predicative statements have no ontological import at all. According
to the no-ontological-import view, if a simple predicative statement is true, then
its truth is a product merely of social convention, and hence a product merely of
the allocation of power in the relevant group of speakers, since social convention
follows social power. This view - the conviction that social convention, social
power are the basic truthmakers, that basic truth itself is a social construction
- was present at the beginning of philosophy in the teachings of the Sophists, it
unmistakably shines through the voluntarism of mediaeval nominalists, and it
reappears recognizably in the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein.'
' Significantly, Wittgenstein says the following in the Philosophical Investigations (§ 381):
"How do I know that this colour is red? - It would be an answer to say: 7 have learnt English'."
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Put formally, that is: in the most general way, the described view is this:
Social conventionalism in predication-theory:
"(1)(a', ..., as)" is true - this amounts, "ontologically", to the following: (a', ...,
is purely on the basis of social convention designated by the general term "0".
Hence, for the special case of non-relational predications:
"0(a)" is true - this amounts, "ontologically", to the following: a is purely on
the basis of social convention designated by the general term "0".
If this were true, then the following instantiation of this general schema would
have to be true, too:
"Kate is a woman" is true - this amounts, "ontologically", to the following: Kate
is purely on the basis of social convention designated by the general term "woman".
Now, this does not seem to be true; for, while it is true that Kate is a woman, it is
hard to believe that Kate is purely on the basis of social convention designated by the
general term "woman".
On the other hand, I can to some extent understand it - psychologically - if
social conventionalism in predication-theory is adopted as a weapon against
classifications that are, one feels, merely socio-conventionally based but masque-
rade as hard and objective, ontologically based truths. One may be prompted by the
- hardly rational - implicit belief that the charge "Mere convention!", if advanced
against such classifications, can only be truly effective in one's mouth if one
has managed to convince oneself of its being true for all classifications that are
generally thought to be true.
A fundamental attitude of protest against established social power - mere power,
but manifesting itself, the protester believes, in disguise: in simple predicative
statements that rather persuasively pretend to express incontrovertible objective
facts - may be something that modern feminist philosophers' have in common
with the ancient Sophists. The prime target of the Sophists, however, were not
simple predicative statements expressing what is generally regarded to be natural
facts, but simple predicative statements expressing what is generally regarded to
be axiological facts, statements like "This decision is just", or "That deed is cou-
rageous", where everyone in the community, on being informed of the relevant
circumstances, feels compelled to say, "Yes, that's true". Nevertheless, it is total,
unrestricted social conventionalism in predication-theory which, very plausibly,
underlies the famous homo-mensura-dictum of the Sophist Protagoras, according
to which "man is the measure of all things, of the things that are, that they are,
and of the things that are not, that they are not". Applying the homo-mensura-
dictum to axiological statements, one can very well declare that "This decision is
just" and "This deed is courageous" are true (in the relevant circumstances) - "as
2 For example (and paradigmatically), Judith Butler.
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THE INTERPRETATION(S) OF PREDICATION
everybody says they are"; but one will add that all that is implied by these truths
is this: the mentioned decision is purely on the basis of social convention designated
by the term "just", and the mentioned deed is purely on the basis of social convention
designated by the term "courageous"; for man - in another word: society, in other
words: the social group which is in power - is the measure of all things.
It was this utterly subversive attitude that Plato, following Socrates, was re-
acting against. His philosophically most significant move in this was to offer
a predication-theory which is not conventionalistic. Showing full awareness
of the problem of predication, Plato came up with the first explicitly formulated
predication-theory ever. Now, Plato, in the course of his career as a philosopher,
underwent substantial development in his thinking about predication, and in fact,
in later phases, became critical of earlier positions of his. But this did not hinder
that the predication-theory that is imposingly present in the dialogues from the
middle of Plato's career - in the Symposium, the Phaedo, the Republic - had a massive
effect on the history of ideas. Very soberly - quite without the poetic splendour
of philosophical mythology - that predication-theory can be formulated in the
following way (and Plato himself formulates it that way in Parm., 132 d 1-5):
Plato's (classical) predication-theory:
"(1)(a)" is true - this amounts, ontologically, to this: a is sufficiently similar to
the (1) itself
Applying this theory, we get for example:
"This deed is just" is true - this amounts, ontologically, to the following: this
deed is sufficiently similar to the just itself
"Kate is beautiful" is true - this amounts, ontologically, to the following: Kate
is sufficiently similar to the beautiful itself
"Kate is a woman" is true - this amounts, ontologically, to the following: Kate
is sufficiently similar to the woman itself
Even when divested of its poetic splendour (involving an eternal, unchangeable
transcendent realm of being itself which one is likely to imagine awash with "the
white light of truth"), Plato's predication-theory has fascinating features. One of
them is, of course, the introduction of an entirely new order of objects: the eide,
as Plato called them, the separate forms, serving as paradeigmata: the just itself, the
beautiful itself, the woman itself, and so on. And note, since the itself is certainly
sufficiently similar to the (I) itself (no matter which general term 43. we are looking
at), Plato's predication-theory has the following logical consequence:
Platonic self-predication:
4'(the (1) itself).
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Thus, the beautiful itself is beautiful, the just itself is just, the human being itself
is a human being. Indeed, since the (1) itself is not only sufficiently similar to the
itself but is the only object that is maximally similar to it, in other words: the
only object that is identical to it, the logic of Plato's predication-theory requires
that the (I) itself is the unique object that is maximally (I). Thus, the beautiful itself is
the unique object that is maximally beautiful, the just itself is the unique object
that is maximally just - and all the other beautiful or just items are beautiful or
just only by being more or less remote likenesses of those two eide. - And, note,
according to Plato's predication-theory, the woman itself is the unique object that
is maximally a woman.
Unfortunately, this last consequence, if nothing else, constitutes a reductio ad
absurdum of Plato's predication-theory. If there is such a thing as the woman itself,
it is certainly not maximally a woman, nor even a woman. Plato himself noted
(through the mouth of one of his dramatis personae: Parmenides) that it seems
ridiculous to postulate that there are such things as the hair itself or the dirt itself
(cf. Parm., 130 c 7-8). Even if the existence of such eide were not ridiculous, it would
still be incontrovertibly absurd to suppose, as Plato's predication-theory forces
one to suppose, that no other dirt is dirt in the degree that the dirt itself is dirt.
This is a much more serious problem for Plato's predication-theory than the
much canvassed so-called Third-Man-Argument, which, in essence, can already
be found in Plato's dialogue Parmenides and might also be called "the Third-Large-
object-Argument" (see Parm. 132 a 1- b 2). It can be put in the following way:
The visible large objects are large in virtue of participating in a first largeness.
But this first largeness is another large object. Hence the first-mentioned
large objects and this other large object are large in virtue of participating in
a second largeness. But, again, this second largeness is another large object.
Hence the first-mentioned large objects, the second-mentioned one and this
now apparent third large object are large because they participate in a third
largeness. But, again, this third largeness is another large object - and so on
ad infinitum.
This argument tries to settle Plato's predication-theory - not only for the
term "large", which is merely an example, but for each and every general term
that can be truthfully applied in the empirical world - with an infinite number of
different eide without a real difference to them. But the argument fails. According
to Plato's predication-theory, the visible large objects and the first largeness are
indeed large, but not in virtue of participating in a second largeness: the visible
(or empirical) large objects are large because they are sufficiently similar to the
first largeness, and the first largeness is large - for the same reason: it is sufficiently
similar to (since it is identical with) the first largeness: the large itself Thus, there
is no need whatsoever to postulate any other largeness than the first largeness.
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THE INTERPRETATION(S) OF PREDICATION THE INTERPRETATION(S) OF PREDICATION

Plato's predication-theory has, however, a very limited scope of plausible ap- the main, the origin of this paradigm must be associated with Aristotle. Mainly on
plicability. There are some cases where the theory is not obviously inadequate: the basis of the wide-spread reception of Aristotle's writings since the beginning
statements like "Kate is beautiful" and "Kate is just". But the theory is certainly of the 13th century, the quasi-mereological paradigm of predication became rather
not adequate for the statement "Kate is a woman", or even the statement "Kate influential in Western philosophy. It stayed the standard approach for just about
is a human being" - or, for that matter, for the statements "Kate is hungry" and six centuries. Aristotle's predication-theory - which means: the predication-
"Kate is pregnant", although these latter two statements have adjectives standing theory which, given the data from Aristotle's writings, is the best summative
in predicative position just as the statements "Kate is beautiful" and "Kate is reconstruction of his opinions on predication - is a particular version of the
just" have. Moreover, Plato's predication-theory is meant for non-relational pre- quasi-mereological paradigm (which, indeed, has many versions); it can be put
dications only - and, in fact, I have formulated it only for non-relational predica- in the following way:
tions. If one tries to extend it to relational predications, inadequacy looms large: Aristotle's predication-theory /
Suppose the statement "George loves Kate" is true; but does this mean - in the The quasi-mereological predication-theory with particular forms:
spirit of Plato - that the ordered pair consisting of George in the first place, and of
"o(a)" is true - this amounts, ontologically, to the following: the a-particular
Kate in the second, is sufficiently similar to love itself? Presumably not. However,
the mystical implications of this Platonising ontological interpretation of the form of being (1) is in a.
statement "George loves Kate" will surely not fail to fascinate minds that are Thus we have for example:
receptive to such implications. The same can be said of the mystical implications
"Socrates is wise" is true - this amounts, ontologically, to the following: the
of the Platonic ontological readings of simple predicative statements that are
Socrates-particular form of being wise is in Socrates.
straightforwardly true and involve the term "good" as predicate, or merely the
word "is". Given acceptance of the classical Platonic predication-theory, it is "Kate is beautiful" is true - this amounts, ontologically, to the following: the
possible to elevate oneself - as it were - in one leap from rather earthly matters Kate-particular form of being beautiful is in Kate.
right up to the transcendent Godhead Itself (though only in ontological theory), "Kate is a woman" is true - this amounts, ontologically, to the following: the
Especially in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages there were many minds Kate-particular form of being a woman is in Kate.
that very much appreciated this asset of the Platonic predication-theory. It should be noted that a special case of the situation that the a-particular form
Inadequate treatment of relational predications is a deficiency that is shared of being (1) is in a is this: the a-particular form of being (1)
is identical to a; this is the
by all predication-theories prior to Frege's. It is a deficiency not only Plato can be ( traditional Aristotelian ontological analysis of, so-called,
substantial predication (as
criticised for. Nor is the long persistence of it due to Plato's influence. As a matter in "George is a man"); whereas if the a-particular form of being I>
is in a, but is not
of fact, its persistence is due to the influence of Aristotle. identical to a, we have before us the traditional Aristotelian ontological analysis
In Plato's predication-theory, the partners of predication - the ontological of, so-called, non-substantial predication (as in "George is sitting").
subject and the ontological predicate - are external to each other, just as a like- There are two plausible equivalents for the phrase "the a-particular form
ness is external to what it is a likeness of. Moreover, in Plato's predication-theory, of being (I) is in a", each of which, if substituted for that phrase in Aristotle's
the ontological predicate is the dominant partner in predication. Aristotle, how- predication-theory, yields a predication-theory that is
plausibly equivalent to
ever, adheres to a paradigm of predication that is fundamentally different from Aristotle's predication-theory:
Plato's, a paradigm that is also rather more down to earth than Plato's. Accord-
ing to Aristotle's paradigm, the ontological subject is the dominant partner (1)Plausibly, "the a-particular form of being (1) exists" is true if, and only if, the
in predication, and the ontological predicate is, in predication, in some sense a-particular form of being (1) is in a.
encompassed by the ontological subject, comparable to the way in which a part (2) Plausibly, "the form of being (1) is in a" is true if, and only if, the a-particular
is encompassed by what it is a part of There are significant indications that Plato form of being 1:17. is in a.
himself was moving towards some form of the mereological or, better, quasi-mereo-
But in fact Aristotle denies that
logical paradigm of predication in the latter part of his philosophical career.' But, in
The quasi-mereological predication-theory with universal forms:
3 See FRANZ VON KUTSCHERA7PartS of Forms. An Essay concerning Plato's Parmenides".
"0(a)" is true - this amounts, ontologically, to the following: the form of being
Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy 1 (1998): 57-74. (I) is in a,

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THE INTERPRETATIONS) OF PREDICATION
is true. In the Categories (Cat. 1 a 20-23; see also Cat. 3 a 11-13), he declares that
Man - in other words: the form of being a human being - is, on the one hand,
(truthfully) said of a subject, namely, of a particular human being, but that it
is, on the other hand, not in any subject. This can only be taken to imply that
according to Aristotle, the statement "George is a human being" is true, although
the form of being a human being is not in George, and that therefore the quasi-
mereological predication-theory with universal forms is not true (because it is
counter-instantiated).
Indeed, the quasi-mereological predication-theory with universal forms can
seem to be rather non-equivalent to the quasi-mereological predication-theory with
particular forms, that is: to Aristotle's predication-theory. After all, the former
theory involves universal forms, the latter only particular ones. But scepticism
regarding universal forms - or briefly, universals - was certainly not Aristotle's
problem with the former theory: he accepted universal forms at least as secondary
entities, whereas he did not accept Plato's eide, that is, Plato's separate forms' His
problem was that some universal forms are said of some subjects, but are not in
any subject because they can exist apart from any subject they may tentatively be
supposed to be ins - because, as Aristotle believed at one point, they are substances:
universal - or second - substances (in contrast to particular - or first - substances).6
However, in several places of the Metaphysics, we also find Aristotle denying
that universals - any universals - are substances.' Now, if no universal were a
substance for Aristotle after all, then it would seem most plausible to assume
that, for Aristotle, any universal is said (truthfully) of a subject' after all on the
' For an explicit statement of Aristotle's acceptance of universals in contrast to Plato's
separate forms, see An. Post. 77 a 5-9; that passage also contains Aristotle's definition of
universal, which is this: one which can be truthfully said of many.
s See Cat. 1 a 24-25, where Aristotle defines - or rather: gives a partial explication of - being
in a subject: "In a subject I call that which exists in something, but not as a [literal] part, and cannot be
separate from that in which it is." [Translation U. M.] Note that the "cannot be separate from" is not
meant by Aristotle to express a symmetrical relationship: "x cannot be separate from y" does
not entail, for Aristotle, "y cannot be separate from x". For he understands "x cannot be separate
from y" in the sense of "x cannot exist apart from y", and "y cannot be separate from x" in the
sense of "y cannot exist apart from x", and of course it can be - and sometimes is - the case
that x cannot exist apart from y, while y can very well exist apart from x.
6 That this is the correct diagnosis is strongly suggested by Cat. 3 a 7-15. Regarding Aris-
totle's asserting separability - the ability to exist apart from any supposed subject - of sub-
stances, see Met. VII, 1029 a 27-28. But note that in the same short passage Aristotle also asserts
particularity of substances.
' See Met. III, 1003 a 8-10; Met. VII, 1038 b 8-12, 34-37, 1091 a 3; Met. X 1053 b 16-20; Met. XIII
1087 a 2.
Note that for Aristotle any universal is said truthfully of some subject (because it is by
definition truthfully said of many subjects; cf. note 4).
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necessary and sufficient basis of its being in that subject (though in it only in a
derivative, analogical sense) - Man and Animal being no exceptions to this rule.
In any case, vacillations in Aristotle's writings are bound to have contributed,
in the centuries after Aristotle and especially in the Middle Ages, to the waning
of his distinction between universals that are not substances and are in some
subject, and universals that are substances and are not in any subject. This
distinction - a significant residue of Platonism in Aristotle - became less and
less important. The distinction finally dissolved - in favour of all universals being
just as much in some subject as all universals are said of some subject, and in
favour of all universals being precisely in the subjects of which they are said.
A striking documentation of the endpoint of this development can be found in
the commentary of Thomas Aquinas on the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle. There,
Thomas simply connects a universal's being (truthfully) predicated of a subject,
being said of a subject, with its being in the subject of which it is predicated; no
distinction is made in his characterisation of predication between substantial and
non-substantial universals. Interpreting Aristotle, Thomas says (In Posteriorum
Analyticorum I, lect. 11, n. 6):
Primo, dicit [Philosophus: Aristotle] quod tunc est universale praedicatum, cum [cum
iterativum] non solum in quolibet est de quo praedicatur, sed et primo demonstratur
inesse ei, de quo praedicatur.
Firstly, he [the Philosopher] says that a universal is a predicate [of something: a]
whenever it is not only in everything of which it is predicated, but is first demon-
strated to be in that [i.e., the something: a] of which it is predicated.
From this quotation, it is apparent that Thomas accepted - under the presumed
authority of Aristotle - the quasi-mereological predication-theory with universal forms,
because the quotation can, without much effort, be made to support the following
reasoning that yields just that predication-theory:
1. The (universal) form of being (I) is (demonstrated to be) in a.
2. Hence according to Thomas ["tunc est universale praedicatum, cum ... demon-
stratur inesse ei, de quo praedicatur"]: the form of being (I) is (truthfully) pre-
dicated (said) of a.
3. And hence: "(I)(a)" is true.
1'. "(I)(a)" is true.
2'. Hence: the form of being (1) is (truthfully) predicated (said) of a.
3'. Hence according to Thomas ["universale... in quolibet est de quo praedicatur"]:
the form of being (I) is in a.
Now, as long as one assumes what Aristotle himself at some time - for some
cases - did not assume, namely,
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that "the form of being (I) is in a" is true if, and only if, the a-particular form of
being (1) is in a [cf. the plausible assumption (2) above],
the quasi-mereological predication-theory with universal forms will be found to
be equivalent to the quasi-mereological predication-theory with particular forms.
This equivalence and, in the first place, the assumption on which it is based seem
plausible without argument. One can also rather plausibly argue for them in the
following way:
Asserting of a universal form that it is in a subject is merely a non-literal,
analogical way of speaking. Such an assertion cannot be literally true, because
the universal form is not a particular, whereas the subject is one. Only a parti-
cular can be literally in a particular. What is literally true in those cases where
a universal form is truthfully but analogically said to be in a subject can only
be this: the particularisation relative to the subject of the universal form is -
literally - in the subject.
Thomas and his Aristotelian-minded non-nominalist contemporaries and succes-
sors - and, for that matter, Husserl, who much later in the history of ideas once
again followed Aristotelian lines in formal ontology - would have found this argu-
ment entirely convincing.9 However, the history of ideas after the Middle Ages
took a course that was not in keeping with the argument's Aristotelian spirit. After
the Middle Ages one rather tended to forget the analogical equivalence - Aristotelian
in spirit - of the quasi-mereological predication-theory with universal forms to
the quasi-mereological predication-theory with particular forms, an equivalence
based on the assumption that the phrase "the form of being (1) is in a" is merely an
analogical facon de parler (though no denial of universal forms is involved in that
assumption) and that the phrase's ultimate truth-relevant import - what it really
says - just amounts to what is expressed by the phrase "the a-particular form of
9 Regarding Husserl, the following passage from his lecture Phenomenological Psychology
[Phanomenologische Psychologie] of 1925 rather strongly suggests his being ready to uphold the
two classical quasi-mereological predication-theories simultaneously, the universalistic one
standing, as it were, on top of the particularistic one: "One must not believe that the identity of the
eidos [which for Husserl merely amounts to the universal] is just an exaggerating way of speaking.
... [It is not merely the case that] every object has its in-being moment, for example, of redness, and
[that] each of the many objects, all of which are red, has its individually own moment, but in sameness.
Rather, one must see that the sameness is only a correlate of the identity of something that is general
and in common [eines Allgemeinen], that can, in truth, be intuited as one and the same out of - and
as a 'counterpart' of - what is individual. This identical something 'particularises' itself in many ways
and can be thought, in an open infinity, arbitrarily particularised. All of these particularisations are,
in virtue of their relationship to what is identical, related to each other, and are accordingly called 'each
the same as the other. In an extended, non-literal way of speaking, the concrete objects themselves are,
in virtue of having eidetic particularisations in them, each called the same as the other 'with respect to
the red, and are themselves, in a non-literal sense, particularisations of the something that is general
and in common [des Allgemeinen]." - Phan. Psych., 80; translation and italics U. M.
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being is in a", or by the equivalent phrase "a particularisation of the form of
being 'b is in a" - these phrases being taken to express the original Aristotelian
ontological basis for predication.m After the Middle Ages, the quasi-mereological
predication theory with universal forms started a life of its own.
During the Renaissance, due to the influx of ancient Platonic texts to Italy
after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, there was a significant resurgence of
Platonism, broadly conceived. This led to a very strong reaction against the
Aristotelianism of the Schools and - combining with forces that emphasised
the importance of the individual human being, of the individual human mind
- brought about the philosophical (so-called) Enlightenment of the 17th century.
in the field of ontology, a significant consequence of these revolutions was the
following: universals turned into absolute concepts for those thinkers who, on
the one hand, did not deny universals, like the nominalists had always done,
and who on the other hand, Platonically and humanistically inspired, did not
want to continue along the old mediaeval Aristotelian lines. For those thinkers,
universals took on an absoluteness that traditional Aristotelians had not conceded
to universals; it faded into the background that universals were supposed to be
anthropogenic abstractions from particulars. At the same time, those thinkers
emphasised the conceptualness of universals more strongly than it had ever been:
the affinity of universals to mind - which, given the absoluteness newly accorded
to universals, could of course only be their affinity to a transcendent supermind.
Mind-affinity had to some extent already been a characteristic of Plato's eide. But
it was Plotinus who had, in late Antiquity, explicitly conceptualised the eide by
See R. E. ALLEN, "Substance and Predication in Aristotle's Categories", in Exegesis and
Argument. Studies in Greek Philosophy Presented to Gregory Vlastos, ed. E. N. Lee et al. (Assen,
Netherlands: van Gorcum, 1973), 367: "If Socrates is just, there is, according to the Categories,
an instance of justice in him, an instance which is individual, numerically one, and inseparable from
Socrates in the sense that it cannot exist apart from him." In other words: If Socrates is just, there is
a particularisation of the form of being just ("an individual instance ofjustice") in him - and,
clearly, that particularisation is the Socrates-particular form of being just. In general we have:
(a) If a particularisation of the form of being (1) is in a, then the a-particular form of being 4)
is in a (because every particularisation of the form of being 4) that is in a is identical with
the a-particular form of being 4)). And we also have the converse: (b) If the a-particular form of
being 4) is in a, then a particularisation of the form of being (1) is in a (because the a-particular
form of being 4) is, if in a, a particularisation of the form of being 4)). One can derive both
(a) and (b) on the basis of the following definition: the a-particular form of being 4) =Def the
particularisation of the form of being (1) that is in a - presupposing, for all cases of a and 4), that
there is no more than one particularisation of the form of being 4) that is in a and that there
is a particularisation of the form of being 4) that is in a if the particularisation of the form of being
4) that is in a is in a. One might object that there can easily be more than one particularisation
of the form of being red (for example) in a subject: if a table has a red area here and a red area
there. But one can stipulate that the phrase "[there is] a particularisation of the form of being
(1) [that] is in a" is understood to refer, if true, to the (relatively to a) entire particularisation of
the form of being 4) in a.
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making them denizens of the nous, while maintaining their absoluteness, their
ontological independence from particulars. It is not unlikely that the influence
of Plotinus (via Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola) helped bring about the
described post-mediaeval developments."
Remarkably, these developments did not necessarily endanger the acceptance
of the quasi-mereological paradigm, that is, of precisely that paradigm of predi-
cation that Aristotle, setting himself off from Plato, had inaugurated with his
particular version of a quasi-mereological predication-theory. The predication-
theory of Leibniz can serve as a striking example of a syncretistic result of the
post-mediaeval developments I just sketched. Leibniz was an Enlightened follower
of the quasi-mereological paradigm and, in fact, had more sympathies with tradi-
tional Aristotelianism than most of the new intellectuals of his time. He did
subscribe to the Scholastic slogan of praedicatum inest subjecto, but he did so in a
new manner, reflecting the revolution of ideas which had come about. In Section
8 of the Discours de Mitaphysique he very clearly formulates
Leibniz's predication-theory:
"(I)(a)" is true - this amounts, ontologically, to the following: the 0-concept is
in the a-concept.
Obviously, the predication-making relation of in-being (inesse) in Leibniz's predi-
cation-theory is neither of the two relations of in-being that are invoked in the two
previously canvassed quasi-mereological predication-theories. In fact, it is not a
relation of in-being between the predicate and the subject at all: it is a relation
between the predicate-concept and the subject-concept. This latter relation of in-
being, between concepts, was already at the time of Leibniz not a newly discovered
one; it had already been familiar for a long time, and, as a matter of fact, it had
not been clearly distinguished from the other two relations of in-being I have
already considered." The common form of the statements "homo est animal" and
"Socrates est homo" suggests that they both are simple predicative statements,
and that therefore the relation of in-being invoked under a quasi-mereological
theory of predication for analysing "Socrates est homo" must be the same as the
relation of in-being invoked for analysing "homo est animal". But in fact "homo
est animal" is not a simple predicative statement - it is a statement of essential
subsumption. It is true that "homo est animal" is true in virtue of the animal-
concept being in the homo-concept (or in other words: in virtue of the extension
" From the 17'h to the 19'h century, the idea of the mind-affinity, the conceptualness of
universals remained present, but, progressively, it took on decidedly human proportions; for
the initially co-present Platonic/Plotinic idea of the absoluteness of universals progressively
disappeared - until it triumphantly re-appeared in the work of Frege.
12 For the history of in-being between concepts and its relationship to predicative in-being,
see UWE MEIXNER, "Negative Theology, Coincidentia Oppositorum, and Boolean Algebra", Logical
Analysis and History of Philosophy 1 (1998): 75-89.
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of the homo-concept being essentially subsumed under the extension of the
animal-
concept). But it does not follow from this that the simple predicative statement
"Socrates est homo" is, analogously, true in virtue of the homo-concept being in
the Socrates-concept - because "homo est animal" cannot serve as a paradigm for
"Socrates est homo", since "homo est animal" is, contrary to appearances, not a
simple predicative statement, but a statement that is different in meaning from
"Socrates est homo" even in the very category of meaning.
Thus, Leibniz's predication-theory would seem to rest on a simple confusion:
the confusion of the in-being of a universal in a particular with the in-being
of one concept in another - if one weren't reluctant to settle the great man
with such a big blunder. And, indeed, there is a more favourable perspective on
Leibniz's predication-theory than that: Given that the quasi-mereological predi-
cation-theory with universal forms emancipated itself in post-mediaeval times
along the lines I have described (which emphasise both the absoluteness and the
conceptualness of universals) from the quasi-mereological predication-theory with
particular forms, the problem of how a universal predicate could be in a particular
subject needed a new solution. In this situation, making use of the relation of in-
being between concepts must have seemed the only way to go. It was, therefore,
not unreasonable - relatively speaking - of Leibniz to interpret "praedicatum
inest subjecto" as "the predicate-concept is in the subject-concept". What else
could it mean?
Leibniz dauntlessly accepted the strange consequences of his predication-
theory: that Alexander once defeats Darius (cf. Discours de Mitaphysique 8) - this
is so because the concept of once defeating Darius is in the concept of Alexander;
that Caesar once crosses the Rubicon - this is so because the concept of once
crossing the Rubicon is in the concept of Caesar (cf. Discours de Mitaphysique 13). But
if this is true, then these historical truths about Caesar and Alexander, which we
regard as contingent, are not contingent at all, but necessary truths in the strictest
sense. We human beings learn only a posteriori and never completely - and hence
with an almost irresistible appearance of contingency - what is, for example, the
content of the concept of Caesar (a consistent concept maximally rich in content,
a notio completa). But, according to Leibniz, that concept cannot be otherwise for
Caesar than it is (would it be otherwise, then it wouldn't be the concept of Caesar),
and God, according to Leibniz, knows it a priori and completely. Because Caesar
once crosses the Rubicon, the concept of once crossing the Rubicon is contained
in that concept of Caesar according to Leibniz's predication-theory - we just
saw -, hence contained in it with strict necessity, since the relation of in-being
between concepts is a relation that holds with strict necessity whenever it holds
at all." And hence it follows, again according to Leibniz's predication-theory, that
" For concluding that the concept of once crossing the Rubicon is necessarily contained
in the concept of Caesar, the reason given is, in fact, not in itself sufficient: "the concept
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it is necessary in the strictest sense that Caesar once crosses the Rubicon. Leibniz
might have noticed that we can learn to know the concept of Caesar a posteriori
(which is the only way for us) only by coming to believe in the truth of simple
predicative statements about Caesar - and that for our coming to believe in the
truth of these statements the concept of Caesar is, in fact, entirely irrelevant. This
might have given pause to Leibniz.
Like all predication-theories prior to Frege's, Leibniz's predication-theory is
not adequate for relational predications, although, because it deals in concepts,
it is not as inadequate as other theories under the quasi-mereological paradigm.
Notice that relational predications are implicit in the very examples Leibniz
chooses: Alexander once defeating Darius, Caesar once crossing the Rubicon. It is
possible to assimilate relational predications to non-relational ones, along the lines
of "Caesar once crosses the Rubicon" being read as "Caesar is a Rubicon-crosser".
And while it is surely absurd that an original-Aristotelian universal form of being
a Rubicon-crosser is in Caesar - because it is absurd that an original-Aristotelian
Caesar-particular form of being a Rubicon-crosser is in Caesar (Caesar carrying
that thing around with him, and with it the Rubicon, it would seem) -, it is not
absurd that the concept of being a Rubicon-crosser is in the concept of Caesar. But
we have seen that, still, there are reasons for not accepting this as the basis that
is appropriate for predicating being a Rubicon-crosser of Caesar.
A time came - by and large with the 19th century - when the anti-relationalist,
substantialist conception of the world began to loosen its grip on the human
mind, and concatenations of non-privileged, non-dominant beings (such concatenations
may be called "states of affairs") instead of privileged, dominant gravitational centres
of being (such centres may be called "substances") began to capture the ontological
imagination. But it took a philosopher-mathematician who had less respect - and
probably less knowledge - of the philosophical tradition than Leibniz for progress
to be made with regard to relational predications. Frege finally abandoned the
quasi-mereological paradigm, and came up with something entirely new. There
is no precedent or analogue in the antecedent history of ideas for
Frege's predication-theory:
"0(at, ..., ar ,)" is true - this amounts, ontologically, to the following: the func-
tional value of the 0-concept for (a', ..., aN) is the true.
of Caesar" and "the concept of once crossing the Rubicon" must also each refer to one and
the same (respective) concept in every possible world (compare the situation regarding the
necessity or contingency of true identity statements). Leibniz certainly assumed the rigidity of
the mentioned designators; but in the case of "the concept of Caesar" rigidity is, as a matter
of fact, doubtful (the reason being this: if the concept of Caesar is the sum of all concepts
that apply to Caesar, then that sum seems to be different in different possible worlds, since,
apparently, in different possible worlds different concepts apply to Caesar).
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The intuitive oddness of this predication-theory decreases considerably if one
takes into account that Frege conceived, in extension of the mathematical concept
of a function, of concepts as functions whose functional values are the true or the
false, and of functions, employing a chemical metaphor, as entities that are in
themselves unsaturated, but that are saturated by their functional arguments, thus
producing their functional values (see Frege's 1891 paper "Funktion and Begriff").
Therefore, instead of saying that
the functional value of the 0-concept for (a', ..., a,,,) is the true,
one can, following Frege, just as well say:
the saturation of the 0-concept by (a', ..., a,,,) is the true.
This is still somewhat odd, the main reason for this impression being Frege's as-
sumption of a truth-object, the true, corresponding to which he has an even odder
falsity-object, the false. But notice the flexibility and ease Frege's predication-
theory displays in the treatment of relational predications. What is the onto-
logical basis for the fact that the statement "George loves Kate" is true whereas
"Kate loves George" is not true? Why, the saturation of the concept of love by
the ordered pair that has George first and Kate second is the true, whereas the
saturation of that same concept by the inversely ordered pair is the false.
There is nothing wrong with this - except, of course, that it does not make
contact with what it actually is that we base our judgements on when we assert
that George loves Kate, and that Kate does not love George. Frege's predication-
theory is a mere logical rationalisation of predication, not an account of predication
that tries to honour the actual ontological foundation of our actual human prac-
tice of making simple predicative statements intended to be true - something
which Aristotle's predication-theory, and, indeed, Plato's, did try to do, though
not with entire success. As far as a mere logical rationalisation of predication
goes, Frege's theory is true and adequate, just as true and adequate as its nearest
equivalent not employing the notion of function is, which became a standardly used
technical tool in 20th-century model-theoretic logical semantics:
The set-theoretical theory of predication:
"0(at, ..., a,,,)" is true - this amounts, ontologically, to the following: (at, ..., a,,,)
is an element of the 0-set.'"
" Frege's concepts (Begriffe) are extensional concepts (that is: they are identical if, and only if,
they have the same extension); they are, therefore, one-to-one correlates of sets. Extensionality
is not the only feature of Fregean concepts that fits ill with the normal concept of a concept:
another is lack of mind-affinity (which is in part a consequence of their extensionality). Thus:
Frege's use of the word "concept" ("Begriff") - for the items that are really intended by him -
still bears witness to the (above-described) emphasis on the conceptualness of universals, after
the Middle Ages, but it does so only on the linguistic surface.
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But one certainly does not - not explicitly, and not implicitly - apply the set-theo-
retical theory of predication, or Frege's theory, when determining, for example,
the truth of the statement "George loves Kate", nor would it be a good idea to
apply these theories in the effort to explicate the ontological basis for the truth
of "George loves Kate". The same can be said of an account that - restricted to
non-relational predications - was in use as a purely logical tool throughout the
entire Aristotelian tradition, which I therefore call
The minimal Aristotelian theory of predication:
"0(a', ..., as)" is true - this amounts, "ontologically", to the following: the
(monadic or relational) 0-universal is said (truthfully) of (a', ..., as).
The three last-mentioned theories (beginning with Frege's), though true, have
no belief-foundational and no truth-explanatory value. Though they do introduce
onto-theoretical entities in order to account for predication - concepts, the truth-
object, sets, universals - they, in essence, just reformulate the normal expression
of predication in technical logico-ontological terms; though they have som e
ontological content, they, in essence, just logically rationalise predication." They
do so in keeping with the truth (though those who do not believe in universals or
concepts or sets would deny this). But truth is not enough - as can easily be seen
by a glance at what may be dubbed
The "redundancy theory" of predication:
"0(ai, ..., as)" is true - this amounts, "ontologically", to this: 0(al, ..., a,.,).
Or by a glance at the so-called (historically not unimportant and, like the immedi-
ately preceding theory, nominalism-compatible)
"Identity theory" of predication:
"o(a)" is true - this amounts, "ontologically", to this: "(1)" refers (as general
term) to the same object that "a" refers to (as singular term).
These theories are obviously true (true for simple predicative statements as
specified at the beginning of this essay, the "identity theory" being additionally
restricted in its range to the non-relational ones among those statements); but just
as obviously they are not helpful at all for belief-foundation or truth-explanation.
But here, finally, follows a theory of predication which, like Frege's, falls
under the functional paradigm of predication. It is recognizably a modification of
Frege's theory and preserves the great advantage of that theory: the capturing of
'5 If one leaves out Leibniz's assumption of the rigidity of the designator "the concept of
a" (for example, "the concept of Caesar"; see footnote 13), then Leibniz's predication-theory
turns out to be adequate also with respect to our normal modal expectations. But what it
then offers is merely a true logical rationalisation of non-relational predication; it has no
belief-foundational or truth-explanatory value.
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THE INTERPRETATION(S) OF PREDICATION
relational predications; but it is, in contrast to Frege's predication-theory, helpful
for belief-foundation and truth-explanation. It is the theory I myself favour,
The fact-referring functional predication-theory:
"0(a', ..., as)" is true - this amounts, ontologically, to the following: the comple-
tion of the 0-universal by (a', ..., as) is a fact, that is: an obtaining state of affairs.
Universals that need at least in some cases two entities for completion are called
"relations", universals that always need only one entity for completion are called
"properties". Thus, we have:
"Kate is a woman" is true - this amounts, ontologically, to the following: the
completion of the woman-property (i.e., the property of being a woman) by
Kate is a fact, or in other words: Kate has the property of being a woman.
"George loves Kate" is true - this amounts, ontologically, to the following: the
completion of the love-relation (i.e., the relation of love) by (George, Kate) is a
fact, or in other words: George stands in the relation of love to Kate.
Facts - the states of affairs that obtain, or are actualised - are sometimes, in their
factuality, a product purely of social conventions; but normally they are not.
In any case, facts that are merely made up of universals and particulars - in a
manner that I have here merely hinted at, using the metaphor of completion16 -
are the primary objects of human objective cognition, not particulars as such
and not universals as such. To particulars and universals we come in cognition
only via states of affairs that involve them, and foremost via facts that involve
them. Because facts that are merely made up of universals and particulars are
the primary objects of human objective cognition, the fact-referring functional
predication-theory is helpful for founding belief in the truth, and for ontologically
explaining the truth, of simple predicative statements. We apply this theory
implicitly when we judge that a simple predicative statement is true, and we do
well to apply this theory explicitly when we seek to explain, from the ontological
point of view, why - that is, on what ontological basis - a simple predicative
statement is true.
'6 The full theory is presented non-metaphorically in UwE MEIXNER, The Theory of Ontic
Modalities (Heusenstamm bei Frankfurt a. M.: Ontos, 2006).
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246 • PREDICATION
TOWARDS A THOMISTIC THEORY OF PREDICATION
Stanislav Sousedik
ABSTRACT
Thomas Aquinas formulates a theory of predication, according to which a predicative
statement expresses identity of some sort of the subject and the predicate. Such a theory can
be dubbed an "identity theory of predication". The author of the present paper aims to to
work out a modernised version of this theory, on the basis of the interpretation of Aquinas's
legacy provided by some important 17th century Thomists. In his paper he demonstrates his
approach on the case of singular essential statement. The paper is divided in two parts. In the
first part the author examines, how we actually predicate essential properties to empirical
individuals in natural language. In the other part he propounds a theory aiming to explain the
facts observed in the first part by means of the assumption of a peculiar intelligible structure
in empirical individuals.
1. INTRODUCTION
The principal idea of the Thomistic theory of predication was formulated by
Thomas Aquinas in his Summa theologiae. There he claims that a positive predi-
cative sentence is signum identitatis eorum, quae componuntur.' A simple predica-
tive sentence is compounded of a subject and a predicate. The composition of a
sentence is according to Aquinas the composition of the intellect. Composition
of the intellect differs from the composition of things; for in the latter the things
are diverse, whereas the composition of the intellect is a sign of the identity of
the components. So it seems that Thomas intended to say that what we mean by
the subject and the predicate of such a sentence refers to one and the same thing.
His theory can be thus called the identity theory of predication.
The identity theory proposed by Thomas certainly gives very incomplete
semantics of propositions, since Thomas and his followers were concerned mostly
with predicative (atomic) propositions only, leaving the problems of so called
molecular propositions aside. This fact may be one of the reasons why this identity
theory is nowadays not presented besides other contemporary predication theo-
ries. Yet the importance of the identity theory for the revival of metaphysics
seems to be principal.
' Summa theologiae I, q. 85, a. 5, ad 3.
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The aim of my paper is to clarify the meaning of the identity theory by means
of a quite simple but important example, viz. the case of a positive, singular,
predicative proposition with a proper name as the subject and a common term
as its predicate. In that type of propositions it is possible to distinguish two ways
of how a predicate can be attributed to a subject: The first may be called essential
predication (e.g. Socrates is a man), the other one accidental predication (e.g. Peter
is ill). For the sake of brevity I will consider here the essential predication only, viz.
sentences of the type Socrates is a man.'
In the first part of my paper I will give some observations on the meaning of
such kind of propositions in natural language. These observations will raise some
questions that cannot be answered by observation of natural language itself.
They can be only answered by means of a theory. In the second part I shall argue
that the identity theory of predication proposed by some later pupils of Aquinas
- representatives of the so called Second Scholasticism such as Thomas de Vio
(Cajetanus, t1534),3 loannes a Sancto Thoma (= Joao Poinsot, t1644),4 Ludovicus
Babenstuber (t1726)5 (and last but not least their late follower Josephus Gredt,
t1940)6 - provides an acceptable starting point for such a theory. My present
aim nevertheless is not to offer a historical reconstruction of the teaching of
these authors, but rather to contribute to some future version of an acceptable
Thomistic theory of predication on the basis of their doctrines.
2. OBSERVATIONS
2.1 First observation
Let us begin by considering propositions of the type Socrates is a man! It seems
to be clear that if such singular predicative proposition concerning an empirical
individual is true, there must exist something in the world that is a necessary
condition for its being true. Thus, e.g., if it is true that Peter is a man, then (1) Peter
must exist, and (2) there must be something observable in Peter's body (e.g. he
laughs, he has a certain DNA pattern etc.), that qualifies him (i.e. his substance)
2 The problems connected with the Thomistic conception of accidental predication are
discussed more widely in my book: Identitni teorie predikace [= The Identity Theory of Predication]
(Praha: OIKOYMENH, 2006).
3 CAJETANUS, Commentarius in opusculum S. Thomae Aquinatis De ente et essentia, cap. 4. (there
are many old and modern editions of this work).
4 IOANNES A SANCTO THOMA, Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, vol. 1, Logica, pars 2, q. 1-5
(first edition Romae, 1636; modern critical edition by B. Reiser, Turin: Marietti, 1948
edition is cited here, henceforward Reiser]), 251-369.
5 LUDOVICUS BABENSTUBER, Philosophia Thomistica Salisburgensis (Augustae Vindelicorum,
1706), tomus 1: 139-185.
6 JOSEPHUS GREDT, Elementa Philosophiae Aristotelico-Thomisticae, § 114-139, 13`h ed. (Barci-
nonae, Friburgi Brisgoviae, Romae, Neo-Eboraci, 1961), vol. 1: 108-133.
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as human. So we have to distinguish: the empirical feature of Peter (the laughter,
the DNA pattern etc.) and a trait of his substance hinted at by that feature (in our
example: Peter's humanity)! It generally holds that if A is a necessary condition of
B, then B can be considered as a sign of A. Consequently we can take a proposition
as a whole for a compound sign for something that is a condition of its being true,
i.e. for the „truthmaker". The truthmaker (= the "verificativum" of the scholastics)
consists - in the case of essential predication - of what was mentioned in points
(1) and (2), i.e. of an individual substance with a trait hinted at by a certain feature
of it.
2.2 Second observation
If a singular proposition is a compound sign, the question arises, how its parts
(viz. subject and predicate) contribute to what is signified by it as a whole.
The answer seems to be clear in the case of the subject term, Peter in our
example. Such a term picks out a certain individual we want to speak about. I hold
that a proper name refers directly to the bearer of the name without a mediation
of some "sense". I have two reasons for my opinion: Firstly, I find the causal theory
of S. Kripke convincing. The second reason is that a very similar theory was also
held by many old Thomists (scholars such as Ioannes a S. Thomas). That follows
from the fact that in the case of proper names they didn't admit any so called
"suppositio simplex". So I suppose together with them that we refer directly to an
individual (person or thing) by a proper name.
Let us consider the predicate, is a man in our case, now. The task of the predi-
cate is to "characterise" the individual referred to by the subject term in some
way. To characterise an individual means in general to direct the attention of the
hearer to some trait which the thing characterised has.
If this is true, an important question arises: What does it mean, when we say
that an individual has some trait?9 In other words: what is the relation between
an individual substance and its trait?
2.3 Third observation
It is well known, that we use proper names not only in affirmative, but also in
vocative sentences. We say not only e.g.
' So by "feature" I mean what the scholastic tradition calls "proprium". According to Tho-
mists, we do not have direct knowledge of substance, we are able to get only an indirect one,
[this by means of "propria". Proprium is not a concrete accident, but the fourth "praedicabile", that
means a concept of a certain concrete accident.
B Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, vol. 1, Logica, pars 1, q. 6, a. 3 (Reiser, 176).
9 A different question would be: What does it mean, when we say that an individual has
some feature? But this question does not pertain to the essenial, but to the accidental way of
predication, so I leave it aside here.
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(1)Peter is a man,
but also
(2)Peter, come here!
Now it seems clear, that a proper name used in an affirmative sentence refers
to an individual who is identical with what is addressed by using the same proper
names in vocative sentence.
Let us notice now that instead of proper names, we can also use common terms
in addressing individuals. A teacher can say e.g.:
(3)Peter, don't speak without permission!
but he can express the same thought by saying
(4)Man, don't speak without permission!
Now, if the proper name Peter used in (3) refers to a certain individual (viz.
Peter), the common term man used in (4) seems to refer (in the right situation)
to the same individual. So we can see that not only proper, but also common
names refer to individuals in natural language. So if common terms, used as
predicates, direct our attention to some traits of the individual referred to by
the subject term, it means consequently that these traits must be identical with
that individual in some sense.'
2.4 Fourth observation
The traits of an individual we refer to by the predicate cannot be identical
with the individual in the usual way of speaking. It is clear that by Peter is a man
we provide some information, but no information is offered by Peter is Peter. So
the "is" in the first sentence must express some other type of identity than in the
other. Nevertheless, it seems that both cases of "is" have something in common."
If this is correct we have to abandon (what is after Frege generally accepted) that
there is a principal difference between "is" as a sign of identity and "is" as a sign
of predication. In both cases "is" seems to express some identity relation: in one
case (Peter is Peter) we shall speak about "strong" identity, in the other (Peter is man)
about "weak" one.
'° An interesting fact follows from the third observation: The grammatical predicate e.g.
"is a man" does not seem to be an unanalysable whole, but a composite sign consisting of
what is traditionally called "copula" and the predicate in the strict sense of the word, "man"
in our example.
" It is generally accepted that "Peter is Peter" expresses identity. But from 2.3 it follows
that "Peter is a man" expresses some kind of identity, too. So it seems there cannot be a prin-
cipal difference between the "is" occuring in the first and "is" in the second sentence.
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2.5 Fifth observation
(a) We can predicate more than one common term of an individual, we say
e.g. not only Peter is a man but also Peter is an animal, Peter is a living being, Peter is
a substance etc.
(b) We can often predicate one and the same common term of more than one
individual.
2.6 Sixth observation
Every empirical individual and every part or trait of it is particular. The
individual is "all through" particular.
2.7 Seventh observation
No real part of an individual, which is actually distinguished from the whole,
can be predicated of it. So every proposition like "Peter is his left foot" is logically
false.
2.8 The problem
The task is now to answer the question, what the "weak identity" means and
by means of it to show, how the six observations mentioned above build a coherent
whole. To solve this problem, it doesn't suffice what we have done so far, viz.
to observe the way we understand and use natural language. It is necessary to
explain all that by a certain theory.
3. THE THEORY
3.1 The distinctions
According to the fifth observation it is possible to assert more than one
essential predicate about one and the same individual subject. If - according to
the second observation - these predicates refer to some trait of the individual,
the question arises, what the difference between these traits in one and the same
individual is. In the identity theory of predication it is presupposed that between
these traits there is the so called "virtual distinction". What kind of relation is it?
(Def. 1) Between x, y there is virtual distinction, iff (i) x, y are really identical;
(ii) x can become an object of some cognitive act (I), withouty being the object
of the same act (I) (the range of variability of x,y are entities, viz. individuals
and any kind of components these individuals may have).
Now what does the term "real identity" used in the above definition mean?
(Def. 2) Between x,y there is real identity, iffx,y have all properties F in common
(the range of variability of F being every property with the exception of "to
be an object of a cognitive act (I)").
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I Stanislav Soused&
Let us now make a stipulation, that we shall use the word "metaphysical part"
(abbreviated: "MP") instead of the word "trait". By the word "part" we usually
mean a piece of a body, so e.g. we can call Peter's left leg a part of his body. So it
may seem strange to call a trait of a substance its "metaphysical part". However,
it is a traditional scholastic way of speaking,12 and - if we respect the stipulation
above - an absolutely innocent one.
By means of this new term one may say that between metaphysical parts there
is virtual distinction.
3.2 The essence
Our consideration 2.5b seems to suggest that really distinct individuals can
have a numerically identical metaphysical part. But this is with respect to obser-
vation 2.6 unacceptable. To prevent what seems to follow from 2.5b, we must
suppose that among the proper metaphysical parts of an individual, there must be
one improper part, which (in contrast to the proper parts) can be from any point of
view only in the individual, whose part it actually is. Let us call this special part
"individuality"." Let us suppose that between the individuality of an individual
x and every other MP of x there is virtual distinction. Since the individuality is
really identical with the other MPs, it makes them individual. Thus observation
2.6 is satisfied.
(Def. 3) The specific essence of an individual is the sum of all proper metaphysical
parts of that individual.
(Def. 4) The individual essence of an individual is the sum of all proper and
improper metaphysical parts of that individual.'"
(Consequently the individual essence is thus really identical with the sub-
stance of the individual).
12 See e.g. IOANNES A S. THOMA, Cursus philosophicus Thomisticus, vol. 1, Logica, pars prima,
Summulae, lib. 2, cap. 3 (Reiser 20 b 11).
13 Individuality differs from Scotistic haecceitas by having its source (= principium) in a cer-
tain physical part of the (empirical) substance, viz. in prime matter. We are able to refer to the
individualities of different individuals by the common term "individuality" in consequence
of the fact, that the relations of singular individualities to "their" substances are similar. So
the concept "individuality" is an analogous one.
" Thomas Aquinas does not speak about "individual", but about "particular" essence: „Sed
quia individuationis principium est materia, ex hoc forte videtur sequi, quod essentia, quae materiam
complectitur in se simul et formam, sit tantum particularis et non universalis..." - THOMAS AQUINAS,
De ente et essentia, cap. 2.
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3.3 Metaphysical parts in concrete and abstract states
So far we have considered the metaphysical parts only in as much as they are in
the concrete state ("in an individual"). We have seen that according to the identity
theory they are really identical, but virtually distinct in that state. Now, as proper
MPs are virtually distinct, they may be grasped separately from one another by
our understanding. If so (i.e. separately or "abstractly") grasped they get into
another state than they originally were in. Let us call their original state the
concrete state (abbreviated: "C"), that new state the abstract state (abbreviated: "A").
It seems clear that a metaphysical part in the abstract state is partly different
from what it has been in the concrete state. What are the properties that differen-
tiate a metaphysical part in one state from the same metaphysical part considered
in the other?
First difference: Each in C occurring metaphysical part of an individual is only
potentially distinguished from every other MP contained in the same individual,
the same part considered in A is distinguished actually from every other.
Note: Between MPs in A there is an "intentional distinction" (traditionally:
distinctio rationis ratiocinatae): We can define it as follows:
(Def. 5) There is an intentional distinction between F, G, iff (i) F, G are actually
distinguished, and (ii) there is an individual essence in which (the absolute
subjects" of) F, G are really identical.
Second difference: The metaphysical parts in the state C exist really, the meta-
physical parts in the state A exist intentionally.
Note: In the identity theory existence is considered to be a first level predicate.
Two kinds of first level existence are distinguished within this theory: real exis-
tence belongs to entities which exist independently of the fact whether they
are object of our understanding or not. Intentional existence belongs to entities
which exist only in dependence upon the fact that they are objects of our under-
standing.
The proper metaphysical parts in the C state are particular in consequence of
their real identity with individuality, the same metaphysical parts in the A state
are universal in consequence of their intentional distinction from individuality.
3.4 Weak identity
We have stated in our fourth observation that the meaning of a predicate is
"somehow" identical with the individual of which it is predicated. Our task will
now be to explain, what that "somehow" exactly means.
A proper metaphysical part in A state is called by the late scholastic tradition
"conceptus obiectivus". Within the identity theory of predication these objective
15 The meaning of the term "absolute subject" will be explained later in 3.4.
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concepts are held for the meaning of a certain kind of predicates, let us call them
elementary predicates. The most conspicuous feature of elementary predicates is
that they are built up without any formal signs (as conjunctions, quantifiers etc.),
Now, one could be tempted to say that a metaphysical part F in the abstract
state is weakly identical with an individual, if this individual has F among its MPs.
However, this cannot be correct, because a MP in A is universal, has an intentional
existence etc. and as such it cannot be one of the MP in C(oncrete state) of an
individual. It is necessary to define weak identity with more caution:
(Def. 6) The metaphysical part F in A is weakly identical with an individual x, if
the individual x has among its metaphysical parts in C such a metaphysical
part (I) that (I) and F have a common constituent.
Stipulation: Let us call this common constituent "absolute subject".
By the term "absolute subject" I mean what remains, if we abstract from both
the properties that are possessed by F only in A, and the properties possessed by
(I) only in C. The tradition (following Avicenna) speaks about "natura secundum se".
But I prefer to call it "the absolute subject" here.
We shall call the converse relation of weak identity the relation of partici-
pation.
The notion of universality is linked with weak identity. Universality is a pro-
perty of a MP in A consisting in the fact that it may be weakly identical with more
than one individual.
Between "weak" and "strong" identity there is obviously a great difference.
Strong identity is reflexive, symmetric and transitive, weak identity has none of
these formal properties. Despite that there is an interesting connexion between
both these identities. Weak identity may have degrees (e.g. the weak identity be-
tween the notion "body" and Socrates is weaker, than the weak identity between
"man" and Socrates). It seems clear that one can conceive strong identity as a
final state, a certain "maximum", of weak identity. Within the identity theory
the principal difference between "is" as a copula and "is" as a sign of identity (as
stated by Frege) is not admitted.
4. TRUTH
4.1 Truth conditions
The notion of weak identity offers a tool for formulating the main idea of the
Thomistic adequacy theory of truth a little clearer (with respect to the tradition).
The truth conditions of a singular predicative proposition are as follows:
(Def. 7) A singular positive predicative proposition is true, if (i) the individual
denoted by the subject term exists in the time indicated by the verb, and (ii)
the meaning of the predicate is weakly identical with that individual.
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According to the adequacy theory, truth is a kind of relation ("adaequatio")
between the meaning of a proposition with the piece of the world we speak
about." At the end of my paper I would like to say something about the terms of
that relation, i.e. about (a) the meaning of a proposition, and then (b) about its
denotatum.
4.2 The meaning of a proposition
Let us remind the reader once more that by a true singular predicative pro-
position we characterise an individual x by means of a universal concept F. In a
positive proposition the universal concept F is - as we have seen - a MP in A of the
individual x. So it seems to be clear that a positive proposition about an empirical
individual expresses weak identity of F (= a MP in A) with x (an individual). As the
converse of weak identity is what we have called participation," we can express
the same idea by saying that a true singular predicative proposition expresses
that an individual participates on a MP in A (= on a universal concept). On the
other hand, a negative true singular proposition (e.g. Peter is not a horse) expresses
the lack of participation of an individual on a MP in A."
Consequently, it seems that the meaning of a singular proposition (irrespec-
tive of its truth-value) is a compound entity, in which a really existing individual
is placed into a relation with an intentionally existing object, i.e. with an objective
concept. The most important (but also the most scandalous for many people)
feature of the identity theory is the thesis that two profoundly different objects
are connected within the meaning of a singular proposition, namely a real exis-
ting individual on the one hand and an intentionally existing concept on the
other. However, this is a sign of the Aristotelian origin of the theory.
4.3 Denotation
True singular propositions not only have a meaning, but they also denote
some piece of the world by means of that meaning. It seems possible to conceive
the relevant piece of the world that a true positive proposition denotes as its
denotatum. In the case of a true positive proposition of the type Peter is a man the
denotatum is an individual considered as having the same M(etaphysical)P(art) in
the concrete state which in the abstract state is the meaning of the predicate. By
"the same" I mean "having a common absolute subject" here. In the case of a true
negative proposition (Peter is not a horse) the denotatum is an individual considered
as lacking the relevant MP. A false proposition like Peter is a horse applies to Peter,
but lacks a denotatum: There is no such a thing as Peter having the MP horse.
76 It is not necessary to stress, I presume, that the relation of adequacy is quite different
from the relation of correspondence.
'7 See above, section 3.4.
Hence negative facts are admitted in the identity theory.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
AQUINAS, THOMAS. Summa theologiae. Vol. 4-12 of Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII P. M. edita.
Romae, 1888-1906.
— De ente et essentia. Vol. 43 of Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII P. M. edita. Romae, 1976.
BABENSTUBER, LUDOVICUS. Philosophia Thomistica Salisburgensis. Augustae Vindelicorum,
1706.
CAJETANUS, THOMAS DE VIO, CARDINALIS. In De ente et essentia divi Thomae Aquinatis commen-
tarius. Edited by M.-H. Laurent. Turin: Marietti, 1934.
GREDT JOSEPHUS. Elementa Philosophiae Aristotelico-Thomisticae, 13th ed. Barcinonae, Friburgi
Brisgoviae, Romae, Neo-Eboraci, 1961.
IOANNES A SANCTO THOMA. Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus. Edited by B. Reiser. Augusta
Taurinorum: Marietti, 1948.
SOUSEDIK, STANISLAV. Iclentitni teorie predikace. Praha: OIKOYMENH, 2006.
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1
AUTHORS
MARK FALLER is Professor of Philosophy and former Chair-
person at the Liberal Studies Department of the Alaska Pa-
cific University. As an undergraduate Physics and Philosophy
major at Harvard University he worked under Hilary Putnam
and David Layzer on an Honors Thesis challenging the Pre-
Chaos Theory assumptions of an easy reconciliation between
Evolutionary Theory and the Second Law. As a Doctoral
student under Edward Halper at the University of Georgia,
Dr. Faller worked on interpreting the mathematical puzzles
in Plato's dialogues as a heuristic system for determining how
geometrical analysis can guide logical argument. His writing
continues to follow both vectors. Along the way he has taught
rock climbing, coached college and Olympic wrestlers, and
sailed around the world in the merchant marine. He is an
addict of used book stores and chocolate, and now teaches
philosophy because he is convinced that ideas are the living
tools by which we transform the world.
E-MAIL: mfaller@alaskapacific.edu
EDWARD FESER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pasa-
dena City College in Pasadena, California. He holds a Ph.D. in
philosophy from the University of California at Santa Barbara,
an M.A. in religion from the Claremont Graduate School, and
a B.A. in philosophy and religious studies from the California
State University at Fullerton. He is the author of On Nozick,
Philosophy of Mind, Locke, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of
the New Atheism, and Aquinas, and editor of The Cambridge Com-
panion to Hayek, and of many academic articles. His primary
academic research interests are in the philosophy of mind,
moral and political philosophy, and the philosophy of religion.
Feser also writes on politics and culture, from a conservative
point of view; and on religion, from a traditional Roman Ca-
tholic perspective. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and
six children.
E-MAIL: edwardfeser@hotmail.com
257
 AUTHORS
Ross INMAN is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at Trinity
College, Dublin. His general interests include metaphysics,
mediaeval philosophy, value epistemology, and philosophy of
religion. He has a particular interest in bringing ancient and
mediaeval metaphysics to bear on current debates in material
objects. His current research focuses on the intersection of
metaphysical grounding and mereology.
E-MAIL: rossinman@gmail.com
PETER VAN INWAGEN is the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor
of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. His
work in the fields of ontology (nature of material objects),
philosophical theology (problem of evil, bodily resurrection)
and philosophy of action (he introduced the "compatibilism
vs. incompatibilism" distiction into the free will debate) make
him one of the leading figures in contemporary analytical
metaphysics broadly construed.
E-MAIL: peter.vaninwagen.1@nd.edu
V: •141 1
i4
GYULA KLIMA is Professor of Philosophy at the Fordham Uni-
versity, New York. His scholarly interests comprise mediaeval
il, philosophy, semantics, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and
' ff language, and, significantly, comparative studies of mediae-
val and modern theories. He has published almost a hundred
articles and several books on these topics. In his research he
pays special attention to Aquinas and Buridan.
E-MAIL: gyula.klima@gmail.com
258
AUTHORS
MICHAEL J. Loux is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, past
George Shuster Professor of Philosophy, and past dean of the
College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame.
His interests include Greek philosophy (especially Aristotle)
and metaphysics. He has authored numerous influential works
in metaphysics and Greek philosophy, including Substance and
Attribute (1978), Primary Ousia: An Essay on Aristotle's Metaphysics
Z and H (1991), Metaphysics: a Contemporary Introduction, 3rd ed.
(2006), and "Aristotle's Constituent Ontology" (2006). He has
edited Universals and Particulars (1970), The Possible and the Actual
(1990), and The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics (with Dean Zim-
merman, 2003).
E-MAIL: MichaelJ.Loux.i@nd.edu
E. J. LOWE is Professor of Philosophy at the Durham Univer-
sity, UK. He has published over 150 articles on metaphysics,
the philosophy of mind and action, the philosophy of logic,
the philosophy of language, and early modern philosophy.
Some of his books include: Kinds of Being (1989), Locke on Hu-
man Understanding (1995), Subjects of Experience (1996), The Pos-
sibility of Metaphysics (1998), An Introduction to the Philosophy of
Mind (2000), A Survey of Metaphysics (2002), Locke (2005), The
Four-Category Ontology (2006), and Personal Agency (2008). He
is a General Editor of the Cambridge Studies in Philosophy
monograph series.
E MAIL: e.j.lowe@durham.ac.uk
UWE MEIXNER teaches philosophy at the University of Augs-
burg, Germany. His main philosophical interests are meta-
physics (general and special, including the philosophy of mind
and the philosophy of causation), the history of philosophy,
and logic. He is currently working on a comparative study of
the philosophies of psychology of Husserl and Wittgenstein.
His main publications in English are: Axiomatic Formal Ontology
(1997), The Two Sides of Being. A Reassessment of Psycho-Physical
Dualism (2004), The Theory of Ontic Modalities (2006), Modelling
Metaphysics. The Metaphysics of a Model (2010).
E-MAIL: uwe.meixner@phil.uni-augsburg.de
259
 111
AUTHORS
DANIEL D. NOVOTNi is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at
the Faculty of Theology, University of South Bohemia in Ceske
Budejovice, Czech Republic. His interests include history of
philosophy, metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, com-
parative philosophy, and teaching philosophy. His current
research focuses on the history of the controversies about
entia rationis in post-mediaeval scholasticism. He is the Edi-
tor-in-Chief of Studia Neoaristotelica, A Journal of Analytical
Scholasticism.
E-MAIL: danieldnovotny@gmail.com
Lux.Ag NovAK is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Fac-
ulty of Arts and Philosophy, Charles University, Prague, and
Faculty of Theology, University of South Bohemia in Ceske
Budejovice, Czech Republic. Historically, he is interested in
the philosophical legacy of Duns Scotus and its later develop-
ment especially in the 17th century. In his systematic work he
attempts to combine traditional scholastic and contemporary
analytic approach in areas such as metaphysics, philosophy
of logic and epistemology. He has been editor of the journal
Studia Neoaristotelica since its foundation in 2004.
E-MAIL: lukas.novak@skaut.org
DAVID PEROUTKA OCD studied theology and philosophy at
the Charles University, Prague. He teaches philosophy at the
Faculty of Philosophy, Jan Evangelista Purkyne University,
Usti nad Labem, Czech republic. Up to now his research has
focused mainly on the dialogue between Aristotelian and
analytic philosophy.
E-MAIL: david.peroutka.ocd@seznam.cz
260
AUTHORS
ANNE SIEBELS PETERSON is a philosophy Ph.D. candidate at the
University of Notre Dame. She focuses on metaphysical issues
in Aristotle, in particular on topics surrounding Aristotle's
hylomorphism. She is writing her dissertation on the issue
of numerical diversification in Aristotle's Metaphysics, with
an eye toward exploring the implications which Aristotle's
metaontology has for this issue. She is also especially inter-
ested in Aristotle's account of change, including his reply to
the Parmenidean argument for the impossibility of genera-
tion and destruction, as well as the understanding of matter
presupposed by this reply. Having also studied contemporary
metaphysical issues, she concentrates on ontology and meta-
ontology in the contemporary scene, and on exploring ways
in which Aristotle's views might provide a promising perspec-
tive different from those currently on offer in contemporary
metaphysics. She is also interested in the philosophy of biol-
ogy, wherein she has focused on the problem of articulating
the metaphysical basis for the homology of biological traits.
E-MAIL: asiebels@nd.edu
EDMUND RUNGGALDIER SJ was born in 1946, studied theology
(Mag. Theol.) and philosophy - he received his Ph.D. from
Oxford University in 1977, his thesis having been supervised
by A. J. Ayer. He has been Professor for Philosophy at the Theo-
logical Faculty of Innsbruck University since 1990 and from
2003 to 2007 he was "Professore titolare" for analytic ontology
at the University Cattolica di Milano. From 2007 to 2009 he
held the Romano Guardini Chair at the Protestant Theological
Faculty, Humboldt University, Berlin. From 2000 to 2006 he
was President of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society.
His interests comprise ontology, classical metaphysics and
scholasticism. Currently he is working on a research project
"Powers and the Identity of Agents" funded by the Austrian
Science Fund (FWF Austria).
E-MAIL: Edmund.Runggaldier@uibk.ac.at
261
 ra

AUTHORS

PROKOP SOUSEDlK works at the Department of Logic, Institute

of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Repub-
lic. He teaches logic, epistemology and analytic philosophy at
the Catholic Theological Faculty of the Charles University and GENERAL INDEX
at the Faculty of Arts of the Jan Evangelista Purkyne Univer-
sity. He is interested in philosophy of mathematics.
E-MAIL: Prokop.Sousedik@seznam.cz The index does not comprise the abstracts and the descriptions of individual articles in the
preface. References to occurences in footnotes are in parentheses, bold numbers imply substantial
discussion in the text. In crossreferences, semicolons separate distinct entries, commas parts of the
same entry.

a priori vs. a posteriori - in relation to substance 29, 81-86,

STANISLAV SOUSEDIK, born 1931, is Professor Emeritus of the 177, 180-181, 211, 216-217,241-242 119-120, 123; cf inherence
History of Philosophy at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy abstract - mental 30
and the Catholic Theological Faculty, Charles University, - answer 12-13 - separated 73, 78, 81, 83, 87
Prague. Among the main areas of his scholarly interest belong - concept 137 - vs. essence 104
history of early modern scholasticism, and analytical philoso- - idea 13 accidental
phy. His aim is to find inspiration there for the renewal and - nouns 98, (174) - being: see being accidental
development of Catholic-orientated philosophy (in the spirit - number 134-137 - form 86, 88, 119, 202
of the encyclical Fides et ratio) in the Czech republic. - object, thing, entity - property: see property' essential
12, 18, 22-23, 37, 48-50,134-139,153,230 vs. non-essential or accidental
E MAIL: sousedik.s@volny.cz - quality 59 act' (vs. potency) 85, 145-146, 160;
- state: see state concrete vs. abstract cf. actuality
- structure 138-139 - first vs. second 188
- units 129 - of existence: see existence act of
- vs. concrete 17-18, 22-23, 48-50, 138; - pure 145-150,163,165
DAVID SvosoDA is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the
cf state concrete vs. abstract
Department of Philosophy, Catholic Theological Faculty, act': see action
Charles University, Prague. His scholarly interests include abstraction 17, 23, 103, 120, 137, 139, 152, - abstractive: see abstraction
history of mediaeval and early modern academical philo- 161, 176, 203, 217, 239 - mental 35, 176, 251
- mere 103, 120, 152, 161, 203, 239
sophy, metaphysics, and philosophy of mathematics; he is action: cf. operation
- of numbers 126-128,137
specially interested in the thought of Thomas Aquinas and - and causality 191-192
- of prime matter 65, 70
his followers. His current research focuses on the problem of - and reaction 186-187
the ontological status of number and the ontology of relations accessibility - as second act 188
- of possible worlds 187 - belongs to the substance 190
in post-mediaeval scholasticism.
- - causal 205-206 - for an end 155-156, 221
E-MAIL: davidsvoboda@sovice.net accident - indicative of active potency 187-188, 193
- a modified meaning of 139 active vs. passive potency, power,
- and predication (50), 67, 73 capability 163-165,188-190,193, 195,
- and truthmaking 86-89 204, 206; cf. power; capability causal;
- concrete (249) disposition
- conditioned 202
actual
- contingent, vs. property 94-95
- actualiser 146-149
- dispositional 199;
- dependence:
cf. disposition; power; potency
see dependence actual vs. aptitudinal

262 263
 GENERAL INDEX
- distinction 251, 253
- existence 30, 52, 64, 83, 85, 105, 109-110,
156, 170-173, 178-181
- foundation of predication 243
- generation of effect 155
- object, thing, entity
27, 29, 52, 105, 109-110, 172, 204
- reality 29-31
- thinking 33
- union of substance and accident;
inherence: see inherence actual
vs. potential
- world : see world actual, this, real
actualism 60, 64-66, 70-71, 150, 204
actuality: cf act'; actual
- amounts to keeping one's essence 171
- condition of being at all 64
- given by accidents 85
- of prime matter 64-65, 70, 151
- pure: see act' pure
- vs. potentiality 32, 82, 85, 145-146, 150,
189-190
aggregate 28, (36), 126-137, 160-161
analysis
- algebraic 213
- Aristotelian of the elements 69
- conceptual 137, 211, 213
- mathematical 210, 213-216
- of dispositions
cf. disposition; power; potency
- - Aristotelian 186, 190, 195, 203, 206
- - conditional 185, 195-197, 206
- of free action 203
- of language (logical) 5, 114, 129-131
- of natural substances 164
- of predication Aristotelian
235, 239, 244, 255; cf: predication
- situs, geometric 213-214, 216
analytic vs. synthetic 49, 116, 216-217
analytical metaphysics 5-6, 26, 32, 37, 73
analytical philosophy 5-8, 11, 26, 28, 32,
113-114
Analytical Thomism 6
angel (26), 151-152
264
anti-essentialism: see essentialism
vs. anti-essentialism
Antiquity 234, 239
appellatio 174-178
Aristotelian
- account of dispositions:
see analysis of dispositions Aristotelian
- account of events 188
- account of number 127
- account of predication:
see analysis of predication Aristotelian
- analysis of the elements 69
- categories: see category Aristotelian
- causes: see cause Aristotelian
- constituent ontology 67-71;
et ontology constituent vs. relational
- definition of efficient cause 191-192
- definition of ontology 23
- essentialism:
see essentialism Aristotelian
- form: see form Aristotelian
- hylomorphism:
see hylomorphism Aristotelian
- metaphysics:
see metaphysics Aristotelian
- ontology: see ontology Aristotelian
- teleology: see teleology Aristotelian
- tradition: see Aristotelianism
- universals 66, 242; cf. universal
Aristotelianism
78, 84, 150, 186-193, 195, 244
- vs. Platonism 46, 136, 239-240
Aristotelian-scholastic (doctrines)
6, 187, 193
Aristotelian-Thomistic (doctrines)
148, 158, 163-164, 165
arithmetic 131, 136, 139, 223
astrology 16-17
atheism 49, 163, 205
ausser-being 34
axiology 231
Baroque scholasticism
6, 25, 28, 30-33, 37
GENERAL INDEX
being (15), 22-24, 27, 32-36, 123, 153-154,
157, 210-211; cf. existence; object; entity
- accidental 28, 88, 123
- actual: see actual object, thing, entity
- contingent: see contingency of things,
beings, objects
- extrinsic 27-28, 31, 36
- genuine 62-63
- impossible 29-31
- intentional:
see intentional object, being, entity
- necessary: see necessary being
- negative vs. positive 27, 30, 35
- of reason 25-37;
cf non-being; non-existence;
intentional being, object, entity
- possible: see possible being, entity
- rationate, intentional, mental:
see intentional being, object, entity
- real 30, 36
boson 16-17, 21
calculus
- differential and integral
214-215, 218, 221
- of situation 214
capability, capacity causal 82, 187-191,
195, 204, 206, 215; cf. causal power,
potency, disposition; disposition; power;
potency; active vs. passive potency,
power, capability
categorical basis 198-200
category 25, 28-29, 32-33, 128;
cf. super-category
- Aristotelian 97-98, 128, 133, 189-190, 201
- non-material 128, 133
- of quantity: see quantity
- ontological
13, (15), 18-24, 98-100, 103, 120, 135
category mistake 48-51
causal
- accessibility 205-206
- capability: see capability causal
- connexion, interaction 109, 195, 203-205
- dependence: see dependence causal
- necessity: see necessity causal
- power, potency, disposition
147, (156), 158, 193, 195, 198, 204;
cf capability, capacity causal
- of God 203
- process 205-206
- - and laws of nature 203
- - unintelligent 156
- production 191
- regularity 155
- role and efficacy 187, 190-193, 199
- series, chain 195, 205;
cf. causal connexion
- - per se vs. per accidens ordered
81, 146-147, 149, 152, 158
- tendency 155
- theory of reference 108-109, (133), 249
causality 187, 191, 195, 198
- divine 162, 203
- efficient 148, 155, 157, 191-192, 155,
191-192; cf. cause efficient
- event vs. agent causation 187, 191-193
- final, finality 145, 154-158, 163, 218-219;
cf cause final, teleology
- formal 85, 153
- - of quantity 124
- in Leibniz 210, 212, 220
cause
- and the principle of sufficient reason 197
- Aristotelian (162), 191-192
- determinant 224
- efficient 82, 148-149, 153-154, 191-192
- final 154-158, (162), 221; cf. end
- formal 161-(162), 221; cf. form
- has many meanings 191-192
- immediate 206
- intrinsic vs. extrinsic (162)
- material 161-(162)
- mechanical 218
- natural 155, 157, 192
- not power but bearer thereof 191
- of beings of reasons 36
- of oneself 149
- of return of metaphysics 5
- of the matter-form conjunction 152
265
 GENERAL INDEX
- of truth: see truthmaking
- personal 192
- proper vs. accidental 192-193
- sufficient 204
- sustaining 159-(160)
- uncaused 147, 148-149, 153
class 26, 31, 97-98, 124, 135-136
- complementary 15-16
- empty 15-16, 21
- large 17-18, (22)
- natural 13-23, 31
- high 18
- highest 19, 21
- of sentences maximal 204
- universal 15-18, 22-23
- virtual 21
coincidence (local) 94, 107
combination: cf. composition
- of matter and form 93-99, 103
- of substance and accident 88
commitment ontological, metaphysical
(32), 37, 54, 100
composition: cf. combination; relation of
composition
- metaphysical 160, 162-163, 165;
cf: part metaphysical
- of essence and existence
145, 147, 151-152, 162, 170
- of matter and form
145, 147, 150-152, 161-162
- of (ordinary) objects 44-45, 51-55, 102
- of potency and act 145, 160, 162
- of the intellect 247
compossibility 210, 212, 218-221, 224
conceivability, thinkability 31, 150
concept 109, 132-139, 176
- absolute
- abstract 137
- and number 132-139
- and opaque context 174, 176
- and predication 240-243, 255
- common 31
- complete 241-242
- determinate, clear, distinct 174, 176
- empirical 217
266
- extensional (243)
- objective 255
- of an accident (249)
- primitive: see primitive notion
- quidditative (80), 82, 176-178
- scientific 176-177
- sortal vs. non-sortal 133-134
- superior 128
- universal 255
- vague, confused 176
- vs. object 115, 120, 132-133, 217
concept formation 178, 216
concrete
- accident (249)
- individual 137-138
- number, unit, aggregate 126-131, 137
- object, thing, entity 17-18, 22-23,
48-50, 95-98, 110, 134, 137-139, (238)
- state: see state abstract vs. concrete
- substance 95, 127-130
- system 138
- vs. abstract: see abstract vs. concrete
condition necessary 248-249
conditional analysis of dispositions:
see analysis of dispositions conditional
connexion causal: see causal connexion
consistency 182, 192, 205, 241
constituent: 4 part
constituent ontology, strategy: see
ontology constituent vs. relational
contingency
- of constitutional role 52
- of dependence 66-67, 83-84
- of exemplification 47, 101-102
- of existence 178
- of history 20
- of non-existence 34, 36
- of properties, features 54, 95, 114
- of substantiality 119
- of the world 150, 164
- of things, beings, objects
20, 52-53, 102, 144, 152, 158-163, 178
- of truths 102, 211-212, 219, 241
- radical vs. superficial 158-160
GENERAL INDEX
continuum 211-215
contradiction 31, 34-35, 115-116, 173-175, - of number 124, 139
211; cf. incoherence
contraries 34, 131-132, 191
- elemental 59, 65-71
convention 13, 17-18, 186
- social 230-232, 245
conventionalism social 231
copula 134, (250), 254
correspondence 210, (255)
corruption:
see generation and corruption
creation 143-144, 151
creature 18, 79, 169-172, 181
de re vs. de dicto 113-116, 120-121
definition
- as original truth 212-213
- biological 218
- mathematical 217
- of number 126-128, 133-134, 136
- of ontological category 19-21
- of ontology, first philosophy 23;
see Aristotelian definition of ontology - intentional 253
- of potency 202
- of small number 18
- real, quidditative vs. verbal, nominal
104-106, 108, 110, (171)
- scientific, quidditative
(171)-172, 176, 178-181
denomination, denominativeness
36, 85-86
denotatum of a proposition 255
dependence
- actual vs. aptitudinal 83-85
- causal 81, 147
- contingent 66-67, 83-84
- essential 73-79, 84, 87;
cf order essential
- existential 78-87, 147, 151-153, 160;
cf d. rigid vs. non-rigid
- identity (77), 101-103, 106
- logical 178; cf logical independence
- metaphysical 75-77, 87
- of dispositions 187, 193, 203
- of matter and form 151-152
- of truth 84, 100
- on mind: see mind-dependence
- on substance or subject
81-84, 86, 123, 138
- ontological 65-67, (77), 86, 102-103
- rigid vs. non-rigid 75-76, 87
- the order of 79, 81; cf order essential
- upon predication 65-66, 71
description 130, 132-134
description of a world 205
disposition 185-190, 193, 195-206;
cf. potency; power; capability; active
vs. passive potency, power, capability
- causal:
see causal power, potency, disposition
- to inhere 82
- ungrounded 200
dissipation 222-224
distinction
- essential vs. accidental 119
- grammatical 98
- numerical 63, 88, 107
- real 119, 172, 252
- between essence and existence 148-149,
152-154, 158, 169-175, 177, 181
- virtual 251-253
divided line 210-213, 218, 224
divine conservation 143-145
division
- material 125-128, 133
- real among things 13-17
dormitive power 163
dualism 48, 212, 218
dynamical vs. mathematical (model,
relationship, explanation...) 217-221
eide 232-233, 236, 239; cf. idea
electron 12, 16, 96-97, 101, 178, 222
element'
- Aristotelian 59-71
- chemical 161, 179, 186
267
 GENERAL INDEX
element' (member)
131, 133, 135, 137, 221, 243
elemental transformation 59-71
ellipse 105-108
eminence 79
empirical
- concept 217
- feature 249
- object, individual
135-139, 233, 247-249, 255
- world 123, 233
empiricism 13, 209-210, 185, 216-217
end' (goal) 145, 155-158, (162), 221;
cf. cause final
end' (extremity) 125
Enlightenment 224, 239, 240
ens in se vs. ens in alio 123-124, 136-139
ens rationis 25, 29-30 see being of reason
entelechy 221,189-190
entity
- abstract:
see abstract object, thing, entity
- and essence 108-110
- broadest meaning of 26
- complete vs. incomplete 93-94
- concrete:
see concrete object, thing, entity
- hypostatic 79
- characterising vs. characterisable;
instantiated vs. instantiating 97-98
- predicative 65
- saturated vs. unsaturated 243
epistemology 11, 108, 110, 127
error 36
essence 60-64, 73-88, 94, 104-110, 252
- and essential order 79;
cf order essential
- and universals 120
- divine 177; cf. act pure
- includes transcendental relations 201
- individual vs. specific
172-173, 180, 252-253
- its built-in finality 155, 157
268
GENERAL INDEX
- knowledge thereof: - individual 171-173 feature
see knowledge of essence - intentional 253-255; - extrinsic vs. intrinsic 31
- lack thereof 63-64 et e. objective - necessary 101; cf: trait; property'
- low-level 60 - knowledge thereof: - of prime matter 68-69
see knowledge of existence
- modal construal of 75, 104, 113-114, 150 - real of the world 146, 148
- of a quality 200-202, 206 - objective (in the intellect) 30; - vs. trait 249
- part thereof: see part of essence et e. intentional; intentional object, fermion 16-17, 21
- real (vs. nominal) 171-173 being, entity
fiction 30, 36-37, 210
- robust construal of 73, 104-110, 114, 150 - of God 144, 163, 165, 170-171, 177, 205
- vs. existence 145-165, 169-182, 219 - of natural classes 13-16 figure (geometrical)
- - real distinction thereof: see distinc- - of prime matter 65 105-106, 108, 200, 213-214
tion real of essence and existence - of universals 46-47 finality: see causality final
essential - real 95, 100, 119, (171), 188, 253, 255 form
- dependence: see dependence essential - specific vs. individual 170-171 - abstracted 137
- order: see order essential existential inertia 143-145, 159-165 - accidental: see accidental form
essentialism existential quantifier: - in the mind 156
- analytic 114 see quantification, quantifier - inherent, Aristotelian
43-44, 55, 67, 79, 85-86, 93-98, 242, 200
- Aristotelian experience
- logical: see logical form
60, 62-64, 67, 71, 105, 108, 113-114 146, 148, 150, 152, 154, 157, 160, 216
- constituent 52-54 - material 152, 172
- our as agents, deliberators
- mereological 52 - particular
186, 188, 190-193
- real or serious 73 99, 172, 235-236, 238-239, 241-242
explanation - Platonic 153-154, 232, 236; cf. eicle
- strong vs. weak 114 - and the principle of sufficient reason 197 - qualitative 200, 214
- vs. anti-essentialism 113-116, 120 - end-driven 221
- separate 236, 232, 236
Eucharist 73, 78, 81-84, 87 - of events, behaviour 187, 192, 199-200
- substantial 98, 147, 149, 154, 161, 172, 202
event 49, (128), 146-147, 150, 185, 187-189, - of change and variety 117 - universal 55, 98-99, 235-239, 241-242
192, 212 - of persistence 162-164
- vs. feature 94
- quantum level 163 - of truth 244-245 - vs. matter 88, 93-95, 98, 103, 145,
event causality: see causality event - ontological, of character 44, 47, 53
150-152, 158-160, 162-165, 172, 202;
vs. agent - ultimate 153, 165 cf hylomorphism
extension 22, 130, 136, 153, 240-241, 243
exemplification 47, 98-103, 117-119; formal content 178
cf: instantiation extrinsic freedom 210, 215, 220, 203, 206
existence: et being - being: see being extrinsic
- property, feature, relation 31, 37, 101, function biological 155
- act of 147-149, (151), 157-158, 160,
106, 119; cf. extrinsic denomination function' (mathematical etc.) 77, 242-245
172-175; cf essence vs. existence
- teleology 154, (156) function' (role, office) 137-138
- actual: see actual existence
- and dependence: - thinkability 31 future 33, 36, 178, 190, 210
see dependence existential fact 28, (35), 50, 245; cf. state of affair generating principle 105-106
- and its presuppositions 145-149 - axiological vs. natural 231
generation
- and truthmaking 74-77 - brute 163 - and corruption 151-152, 159;
- as a predicate (32), (74), 253 - negative 33-36, (255)
cf existence gained or lost
- continued, persistent 81-82, 143-144, - objective 231 - of universals 118
150, 159, 161-163, 165 - physical 212
- of elements 60-64
- gained or lost 54, 96, 148-151, 159, 161; - prephilosophical 47
generic (properties etc.) 62, 120, 180
cf change; generation and corruption
1 269
 GENERAL INDEX
genus 13, 97, 62, 180, 193
- of particular numbers 125-126
God 18, (29), 143-157, 163-164, 170-171,
203, 205, 220-221, 224.
good 32, 153-15 4, 220, 220, 224, 234
harmony 220-224
Humanism 239
hylomorphism 53, 73, 87-89, 93-97, 99,
103, 160-161; cf. form; matter;
combination of matter and form
- Aristotelian 93, 147, 160
hyper-essentialism 116
hypostatisation 95, 103
change 53-54, 116-119, 145, 148, 159,
188-192, 198-199; cf existence gained or
lost; generation and corruption
- accidental 95, 116-119
- elemental 59, 61, 68-69
- of matter 94-95
- substantial (60)
character of familiar particulars
43-48, 51, 55
characterisation
32, 67-69, 71, 77, 97-103, 106, 129, 249, 255
Characterisation Principle 35
Cheshire Cat's grin 101
chimera 35; cf being impossible
Christ 78, 81
idea' (Platonic, exemplar) 135, 156-157;
cf form Platonic, eide
idea' (in mind) 128, 156-157
idealism 136
identity
- i.e. whatness
77, 88, 95, 101-103, 106, 116, 186, 202
- is unity 131
- numerical 62-64, 199-200
- of essence and existence 170-171, 173
- of indiscernibles: see principle of the
identity of indiscernibles
- of knowledge and being 211
- real 251, 253
- statement 134-135, 250
270
GENERAL INDEX
- theory of predication intellectus essentiae 169-171 - private 5
244, 247-248, 251, 253-255 intention' (purpose, directedness) law
- through change 54, 61, 107-108, 117, 200; 155-156; cf intentionality' - natural, of nature
cf persistence intention' (notion) 176 101, 164-165, 198, 203, 205-206, 218, 220
- vs. similarity 214 - second 27, 35 - of (Newtonian) mechanics 145, 164, 220
- weak vs. strong 250-251, 253-255 intentional - of excluded middle 35
identity dependence: - act 35 - of identity 213
see dependence identity - distinction: see distinction intentional - of inertia 145, 164
implication material 197 - existence 253-255 - of thermodynamics 221, 223-224
- linguistic context 173-174, 176 - Snellius' 220
import
- modal 74, (82) - object, being, entity 29-30, 33-35; linguistic
cf being of reason - expression 176
- ontological 32, 230
intentionality' (mind-dependence) - level etc. mere 130, 133
impossibility
29-31, 33, 36, 116, 188-189, 205 30, 33-37, 253 - product, item 118, 230
intentionality' (mental directedness) - relation 97
in-being, being in 97, (236)-237, 240-241;
cf inherence 187, 192; cf intention' location in space (and time) 48-50, 118
ipsum esse subsistens, pure existence logic 11, 36, 113, 121, 129-130, 211-218
incapability
148, 153 see act pure; God - (first-order) predicate 173, 230
Incarnation 78
item (22), 26-27, 31-33, 37 - formal 121
incoherence 48, 53, 60, 69, 100, 109, 163, - Fregean 115, 120-121
165; cf: self-contradiction kat' allo vs. kath' hauto 43-44
- modal 5
individual kind 43, 95, 98-99, 101-109, 211, 213 - Transparent Intensional:
- bare (115); et particualr bare - natural 101, 119-120 see Transparent Intensional Logic
- essence: - substantial 65-67, 98, 120-121;
et substance secondary logical
see essence individual vs. specific - analysis: see analysis of language
- existence: see existence individual knowledge: cf cognition - commensurability 182
- office, role 115 - a priori vs. a posteriori: - form 100, 121, 230, 240
- propertied 55 see a priori vs. a posteriori - functor 229-230
- substance: see substance primary, - by acquaintance 110 - grammar 96
individual, particular - clear and distinct 176-177, 180 - independence 176, 178
- thing, object, entity 22, 26, 43, 55, 98-99, - divine 220 - modality: see modality logical
114-118, 137-138, 248-255; cf. particular - empirical vs. rational 215-216 - necessity: see necessity logical
- vs. universal: - evening vs. morning 209-210 - omniscience 180
see universal vs. individual, particular - in general 211, 229 - positivism 5, 213
- mathematical 213-218
individuality 252-253 - possibility: see possibility logical
- of essence, quidditative
inertia 145, 164-165; cf existential inertia - rationalisation 243-244
108, 110, 172-181, 211
inherence 50, 81-85, (124), 137; - of existence 172-175, 177-181 manifestation of a tendency or
et in-being; characterisation - of metaphysical modality 108, 110 disposition 150, 155, 185, 188, 191,
- actual vs. aptitudinal 81-86 - of potencies or dispositions 188, 198-199 196-200, 202-203, 205-206.
instantiation 46-47, 66, 96-103, - of the world, of nature 209, 216, 230 material' (stuff) 55, 186
(115), (118)-119, 129-130, 138, 191; - scientific 163, 173-181, 211 material'
cf. exemplification language - cause: see cause material
- Principle of:
see principle of instantiation I - formal 114
- natural 5, 114-115, 130, 134, 229, 248-251
- division 125-128, 133, 135
- form 152
I 271
 GENERAL INDEX
- implication 197
- object, thing 43, 50-51, 89, 107, 133,
150-151, 165; cf. substance material
- part, constituent 46, 50-51, 98, 159-161
- substance: see substance material
- vs. non-material (29), 124, 133
- whole 124; cf. division material
materialism 46, 48
mathematics 139, 211-222, 243
matter 96-99
- prime
59-71, 93, 147, 149, 152, 161, 202, (252)
- vs. form:
see form vs. matter, hylomorphism
mediaeval period, doctrines:
see Middle Ages
mechanics; mechanism 212, 218-221
mental representation 178
mereological
- sum 95-96
- theory of predication 234-242
mereology 21, 44-45, 51-52
meta-ontology 24
metaphysics
5-6, 11, 21, 36, 47, 89, 104, 115, 214, 218
- analytical 5-6, 26, 32, 37, 73
- Aristotelian 25, 73, 104, 172
- descriptive 130
- scholastic 25, 37, 73, 104, 161
- Thomistic 163-166
Middle Ages
5, (25), 113, 230, 234, 237-239, (243)
mind 215, 239-240, 242
mind-affinity 239-240, 243
mind-dependence: see intentionality'
modality 5, 21, 54, 75-76, 78, 86-88, 102-
104, 116, 119 ; cf truth' modal; necessity,
contingency, possibility, potentiality
- de re vs. de dicto: see de re vs. de dicta
- logical 189
- metaphysical 108, 110
mode 77, 88, 99-102
- of being 160
272
- of substance 84
modus dicendi (per se) 114;
cf predication essential
multitude 125-127, 131-134
natural kind: see kind natural
nature' (essence) 45, 51, 79, 101, 106, 109,
150, 159, 163, 172-173, 176; cf. essence
- common 34, 45, 254
- human in Christ 78, 81, 83
nature' (non-artificial reality)
186, 192, 216-219, 221, 224;
cf law natural, of nature
necessary
- being 76-77, 145, 150-151, 153
- condition: see condition necessary
- property: see property'
- feature 101; cf trait; property'
necessity
- absolute 145, 150-153
- causal 195-196, 202-206
- de re vs. de dicta: see de re vs. de dicta
- dispositional 195, 197-198, 203;
cf. necessity causal
- from reason vs. from the world 209-210
- Humean account 203, 209-210
- hypothetical 206 , 211, 212, 218
- Leibniz's account
210-220, 224, 241-(242)
- logical 75, (82), 115-116, 150, 202
- mathematical 217
- metaphysical 75, (82), 101-107, 110, 150;
see de re vs. de dicto
- moral 211
- of itself vs. from another thing
151-152, 159
- physical 75
- psychological 203
- vs. possibility or contingency 103-104,
110, 150, 209-210, 213, 215; cf modality
negation' (non-entity) 36, 115
negation' (logical constant)
173, 175, 204-205
negation of material division 125
GENERAL INDEX
nominalism (14), 21, 115, 216, 230, 239, 244
- austere (22), 47
non-being 23, 27-31, 33-37;
cf being of reason; non-existence
non-contradiction 204-205
non-existence 22-23, 33, (35), 28-37, 76,
150; cf non-being
number 17-18, 26, 76-77, 123-139, 222-223
- absolute vs. concrete 126-130;
ef. multitude
- particular 125-127
- small 18
object
- abstract: see abstract object
- actual: see actual object
- geometrical 106
- intentional:
et existence objective in the intellect
- kooky 89
- material: see material' object, particular
- mental : see object intentional
- of thought: see object intentional
- ordinary : see particular familiar
- set theoretical
- vs. concept: see concept vs. object
objective' (vs. object) 27-28
objective' (vs. subjective) 30;
cf intentional object, being, entity;
concept objective
Ockham's Razor 158, 164, 203
ontological
- commitment (32), 37, 54, 100
- strategy:
see ontology constituent vs. relational
Ontological Square 97-99
ontology 11-24; cf. metaphysics
- Aristotelian 23, 64, 81, 93, 97-98, 103,
120, 123, 187-193, 238-239
- constituent vs. relational
11, 43-54, 67, 70-71, 99-103, 120
- four-category 97-103
- Meinongian 22-24, 34-35
- Quinean 11-13, 19
- scholastic (30), 33, 37, 123, 187, 193
optimality 210, 219, 221
order
- essential 78-84, 87
- of dependence vs. of eminence 79;
cf dependence essential
- of parts in the whole 125
overtone 221-223
para-being 27-28
part: cf constituent; component
- commonsense 44, 50-52
- integral 124, 187
- material: see material' part, constituent
- metaphysical 44, 50-51, 252-255
- of essence 77, 80, 82, 88, 101-108, (165),
175-177, 252; cf. part metaphysical
- proper vs. improper' 50, 88, 94
- proper vs. improper' 252
- substantial 51
- temporal 12, 48-51
- vs. whole: see whole vs. part, constituent
participation 45, 47, 153-154, 233,
254-255
particular 13, (22), 94, 97-98, 115-120, 126,
129-131, 172, 216, 238-241, 245, 251, 253;
et individual
- bare or thin 54, 56, 114-116, 120
- concrete (22), 48
- familiar 43-49, 52-55
- form: see form particular
- material 50, 151
- number: see number particular
- sensible 44, 47
- substance: see substance primary,
individual, particular
- vs. universal:
see universal vs. individual, particular
passive vs. active potency, power,
capability: see active vs. passive
potency, power, capability
past 33, 47, 178, 209
per se vs. per accidens
- causal series 81, 146-147, 149, 152, 158
- unity 28
perception 28, 36, 103, 110, 127, 137
273
 GENERAL INDEX
persistence
53-54, 94, 150-151, 159-162, 165
- conditions 107-108
- of prime matter 59-66, 70-71, 151
person 49, 79, 186-187, 192
petitio principii 179
phenomenalism 53
phenomenon 164, 172, 192;
cf. world phenomenal
phoenix 170-171
physics (modern) 97, 218
place: see location in space (and time)
Platonism 46, 124, 135-137, 147, 153-156,
220, 232, 234, 237, 239-240
Porphyrian Tree 126, 180
positivism 5, 146, 213
possibility 27, 29, 36, 54, 187-193, 195,
204-206, 209-215, 219-220; cf-. potency;
potentiality; power; disposition;
contingency; modality
- logical 150, 193, 195, 188, 195
- mere 29-30, 33, 146, 149, 178, 187-190, 193
- metaphysical 83, 87, 104, 107, 110, 150
- of non-existence 150
- ontological 195, 205
- real: see real capability, disposition,
possibility, power
- synchronous 119
- vs. impossibility 29, 33-34, 188-189
- vs. necessity:
see necessity vs. possibility, contingency
possible
- being, entity
27, 29-30, 33-(37), 188, 211, 219
- world 7, 20-21, 74, 76, 101-104, 108, 150,
187, 189-190, 193, 202-206, (242)
potency
- active 188
- causal: see causal power, potency,
disposition; potency active, passive
- identical with accident 201-202
- knowledge thereof 188, 198-199
- logical 188
- objective 188
274
- passive 82, 85-86, 188; cf: active vs. pas-
sive potency, power, capability
- pure 60-61, 65, 147, 151-152, 161;
cf. matter prime
- rational vs. natural or physical 191, 203
- receptive 201-202
- subjective 187, 191
- vs. act: see actuality vs. potentiality
potency, potentiality 33, 60-61,
64-65, 145-147, 149, 185-193, 195, 198,
201-205; cf potency; possibility; power;
disposition; capability
- vs. act, actuality:
see actuality vs. potentiality
power' (potency) 36, 163, 186-193, 195,
198-205; cf. disposition; potency;
capability causal
- active 163-(165); cf. active vs. passive
potency, power, capability; capability
causal; disposition
- causal: see causal power
- dormitive 163
- mental 36
power2 social 230-232
predicate
- elementary 254
- essential 251
- existential (32), (74), 253
- grammatical (250)
- higher-order 35
- low-level 12
- ontological 234
- universal 237; cf. universal
- vs. subject: see subject vs. predicate
predication 251
- accidental 77, 86-88, 248-(249)
- and prime matter 65-71
- essential 114, 248-249
- identity theory thereof:
see identity theory of predication
- relational vs. non-relational 231, 234,
242-245
- various analyses thereof 229-245,
247-255
primitive notion (76), 192
GENERAL INDEX
principle
- "spite"/"moderation" 224
- of conservation of mass-energy 164
- of constituent identity 53, 55
- of contradiction 213, 224
- of identity of indiscernibles 55
- of independence of so-being from being 35
- of instantiation 46-47, 66, (118)
- of least action 221
- of sufficient reason
197-198, 200, 212, 220, 224
private language 5
privation 27, 30, 36, (118), 189
probability 154-156, 210, 220, 223-224
proper name 130, 133, 173, 248-250
property monism 199-200
property' (wide sense) 43, 46-55, 86,
115-116, 119-120, 131-139, 187-190, 193,
203, 245, 251, 253-254; cf. feature
- causal (155) see disposition; power;
capability causal; active vs. passive
potency, power, capability
- contingent vs. necessary 47, 54, 62,
113-115; see property2
- essential vs. non-essential, accidental 54,
62, 64, 68, (70), 104, 106, 108, 114-115, 199
- extrinsic: see extrinsic property,
feature, relation
- generic: see generic (properties etc.)
- material vs. non-material 128
- qualitative 198-199, 202, 214
- real, irreducible 185-188
- relational: see relational properties,
attributes, modes
- repeatable vs. nonrepeatable 53, 55
- trivial vs. non-trivial 32, 114-116
property2 (flowing from essence)
94-95, 106, 114-115; cf. trait
proposition 110, 249, 255;
et statement; sentence; truthbearer
- atomic vs. molecular 247
- false 255
- logical 213, 216
- negative 255
- particular 171
- positive singular 248-249, 254-255
- predicative 247-249, 254-255
proton 96-97
pure act: see act pure; God
quality 59, 94, 189-190, 198-203, 206, 214
quantification, quantifier
12, (13)-(14), (32), 170-171
quantity 50, 124-128, 131-132, 136,
189-190, 213-214, 218
- continuous 125
- discrete 125, 128, 131
al 34, (35)
real
- being, thing, object
30-36, 100, 118, (171), 187, 255
- capability, disposition, possibility, power
187-188, 119, 190-193, 205
- definition: see definition real, quiddita-
tive vs. verbal, nominal
- difference, change 98, 117-119, 233
- distinction: see distinction real
- division among things 13-17
- essence: see essence real (vs. nominal)
- existence: see existence real
- identity: see identity real
- property: see property' real, irreducible
- world: see world actual, this, real
realism (15), 185-187, 191, 193, 210-211
reason' (ground)
- ontological 198
- sufficient 197-200, 212, 220, 224
reason2 (faculty), reasoning
209, 211-218, 224
reductionism 115, (155), 185, 215
reference
- identifying 26
- oblique vs. explicit 174
- same 160
- theory thereof 108-109
- to accidents or modes vs. to their bearer
68, 88, 190
- to aggregates 130-133
- to classes (13)-(15)
275
 GENERAL INDEX
regress (infinite)
- causal etc. 146, 149, 152, 165
- in explanations of characterisation or
exemplification 44-45, 99-100, 119
- of essences 108
relation, relationship
22, 26, 43-45, 49, 137, 200-201, 214, 245
- across the categories 99-103;
cf. r. transcendental
- dynamical 218;
cf dynamical vs. mathematical
- harmonic 222-223
- industrial 137-139
- internal vs. external 100-102
- linguistic, syntactical 97, 213
- mathematical 214, 218
- of accessibility:
see accessibility of possible worlds
- of composition 51-53; cf. composition
- of dependency: see dependence
- of exemplification: see exemplification
- of identity: see identity
- of more and fewer 138-139
- of parts in a whole 125
- of reason 27, 30, 36
- of subject and predicate 66, 212, 240;
et predication; subject vs. predicate
- of substance and accident 81, 83, 85-86;
cf. inherence; in-being
- of truthmaking: see truthmaking
- ordering 79, 81; cf. order essential
- secundum dici 201
- social 37
- spatial, geometrical 100, 213
- subclass 16, (19)
- to act or effect 188, 192, 201;
et causality; act vs. potency; power;
capability, capacity causal; disposition
- transcendental 201-202
relational
- ontology, strategy: see ontology
constituent vs. relational
- predication: see predication relational
vs. non relational
276
- properties, attributes, modes
99-100, 137, 200
- system 137, 139
- theory of space 15
- truth 100
relativism 209-211, 229
Renaissance 6, 25, (28), 239
representation mental:
see mental representation
Russell's paradox 136
scepticism
67-(70), 109, 209-211, 216-217, 236
Scotism 6, (252)
second intention: see intention' second
Sein: cf being; existence
self-contradiction
31, 35; cf-. contradiction; incoherence
self-evidence 177
self-identity (32), 114
self-predication 232
semantics 36-37, 115, 213, 243, 247
- Fregean 115, 120
sense' (meaning) 28, 109, 128, 133, 249
sense2 (cognitive faculty)
36, 110, 137, 150, 187, 198
sentence 28, 204-205
- conditional 196-202, 206
- positive predicative 247, 250
- vocative vs. affirmative 249-250
series causal: see causal series
set 12-14,21,37,51-52,77,95,104,108,
127-129,136,243-244
- of possible worlds 21
- of properties 104, 108
set theory 136, (217)
set-theoretical
- composition 52
- object 135-136
- theory of predication 243-244
shape 106, 199-200
GENERAL INDEX
scholasticism 6, 73, 78, 81, 84, 104, 161, - of predication 65-71, 97
186-188, 191, 193, 200-201, 253 - of properties, accidents 53, 65-67, 81,
- second (Renaissance or Baroque) 84-88, 97, 113-116, 119-120
6, 25-37, 248 - ontological 119, 234
signum - vs. predicate 66-67, 71, 126-135,
- identitatis 247 211-212, 240-241, 247-254; cf. relation
- quantitatis, particulare 171 of subject and predicate; predication
singleton 77, 104 subjectivism 5
social conventionalism 231 subjectivity 12-13, 19-20
something 31 substance
- its constitution 50, 93-96, 103, 252
sophists 230-231
Sosein 22-23 - its generation and corruption (64), 81, 96
- material 124-125, 151-152, 159-162, 164;
soul (33), 86, 151-152, (161), 214-216 cf. material' object
species - natural 146-149
- biological 16, 178, 218 - of a thing 50, 172, 248, 252
- of metaphysical dependence or necessity - primary, individual, particular
76-77, 87 22, 83, 93-95, 97-99, 103, 120, 129-130,
- of quantity 124-126
152, 159, 189-190, 236, 249
- vs. genus 13, 62, 97, 126, 131-132, (176) - secondary, universal 97-98, 236-237;
state concrete vs. abstract 138, 253-255 et kind substantial
state of affairs - separated 46
- spiritual 124
27-(28), 50, 87, 192, 197, 242, 245; cf. fact
- vs. accident 29, 78, 81-88, 94-95,
statement: cf. proposition; sentence
- axiological 231 119-120, 123-124, 139, 190, 202
- vs. aggregate of substances 127-130
- conditional 185; cf sentence conditional
- existential 21 - vs. attribute 18, 21, 97
- vs. event or state of affairs 146-147, 242
- justification thereof 197
- modal 104 - vs. feature and trait 248-249
- vs. mode 97
- number 126-135
- senseless 130, 133 - vs. potency 191, 201-202
- vs. property 94-95, 193
- simple predicative
229-231, 234, 240-245 - vs. relation 22
- singular 129-132 substance-kind: see kind substantial
- subject-predicate 132, 134 substratum 54, 59-71
strategy ontological (constitutive or substratum theory 54-55
relational): see ontology constitutive subsumption 240-241
vs. relational super-category 26-28, 31, 37
subclass 15-16, 18-19
super-transcendentals 31-32
subject
supposition 178
- absolute (253)-255
- of change, transformation synthesis 216
67-68,116-119 tautology 164, 212-213
277
 GENERAL INDEX GENERAL INDEX
teleology 212, 219, 221; cf. causality final truth' (trueness) universal 22, 31, 34, 37, 46-47, 66-67, Word (divine person) 78, 81
- Aristotelian 154-157 - adequacy theory thereof 254-255 77, 97-99, 101, 117-120, 129-131, 216, world
temporality 36, 48, 119, 219 - its grounding 74-78, 84, 87-88, 100, 210, 236-245, 253-255 - actual, this, real 21, (29), 101, 126, 150,
tendency 155, (162), 186;
230-231; cf. truthmaking - class: see class universal 187-188, 190, 203, 205, 219
cf finality; teleology; disposition - its nature 210-211, 230-243, 254-255 - form: see form universal - empirical 123, 233
- to cease or continue to exist 150-151, - transcendental 153 - substance: see substance secondary, - its continuance 143-146, 148, 155-156,
159, 161-163; cf: existential inertia - vs. fiction 210 universal 164-165
truth' (something true) 74-75 - term 127, 129 - its furniture 185
test of a disposition
- contingent vs. necessary - vs. individual, particular - knowledge thereof 209, 215, 217
196-198, 200, 202-20 4, 206
100-102, 106-107, 113, 212, 219, 241 34, 94, 97, 117-120, 130, 216, 253 - material 160-161
theism 48, 163, 205 - essential 102, 106-107, 110, 219 Universal Characteristic 213, (217) - microscopic vs. macroscopic 186, 199
theory of predication - historical 241 universality 254 - most perfect 220
(84), 229-245, 247-255 - Leibniz's classification thereof 211 - natural 156-157, 163-164, 191
- Aristotle's 235-236, 240, 243 ununoctium 179-180
- logical vs. mathematical 211-216 - of particulars 116-119
- fact-referring 245 - modal 110 way of givenness 132
- of things 28-29, 169, 178
- Frege's 242-243, 245 - negative 33 whole - phenomenal 211, 218-221
- identity 244, 247-248, 251, 253-255 - of coincidence 107-108 - arbitrary 28 - physical 202, 221
- Leibniz's 240-242, (244) - of exemplification 102 - composite vs. its part, constituent - possible: see possible world
- minimal Aristotelian 244 - of fact vs. of reason 211-212, 214, 218 32, 44-45, 50-54, 67, 71, 125, 129-130, 147 - theistic vs. atheistic 205
- Plato's 232-234 - original vs. derived 212 - essence 106-107
- pre-Fregean 234, 241 - phenomenal 218 - material vs. spiritual 124
- quasi-mereological 235-238, 240-241 - physical, temporal vs. eternal, - quantitative 125
- redundancy 244 metaphysical 219
- set-theoretical 243-244 - relational 100
- socially-conventionalist 231 truth conditions 254
- Thomistic 247-248
- truthmaking (84) truth-explanation 244-245
thermodynamics 220-224 truth-value 36, 198, 200, 255
thinkability, conceivability 31, 150 truthbearer 28
truthmaker, truthmaking 28, 73-78, 81,
Third Realm 135, 156
83, 84-88, 100, 102, 197-198, 230, 249
Third-Man-Argument 233
truthmaker necessiatrianism 74
Thomism 6, (30), 201, 145-148, 150, 158,
163-166, (171), 175, 247-249, 254 units
- analytical 6 - class 15
- charge 101
thought 33, 36, 103, 109
unit' (of a multitude or number)
time (13), 54, 95, 107, 110, 117, 118-119, 123, 125-129, 132-135
135; cf temporality; past; future - synonymous to individual etc. 26
trait 249, 251-252; cf property' unity
transcendentals 32, 153-154 - divine 153
Transparent Intensional Logic (TIL) - hypostatic 78
114-116 - internal of things 15-17, 28
trope 46-47, 49, 53-55, 87, 99, 119-120; - per se vs. per accidens 28
cf accident - transcendental 153-154
- vs. number 128-133

278 279
 INDEX OF PERSONS

The index does not comprise the abstracts and the descriptions of individual articles in the
Preface. Persons not discussed but merely cited in footnotes and bibliography are usually omitted,
as well as the authors of the articles themselves (unless significantly mentioned by someone else)
and persons mentioned merely in titles of written works. References to occurences in footnotes are in
parentheses, bold numbers imply substantial discussion in the text. "GI:" refers to the General Index.

Adams, Marilyn McCord (81), 86 - on being 15

Adler, Mortimer 143, 158-164 - on causality 191-192, 207
Aquinas, Thomas - on change 116, 192
- his "Five Ways" 143-158 - on essence 105, 108
- his legacy 6, 248; see also GI: Thomism - on essential order 79
- criticised by Buridan - on kat' allo vs. kath' hauto 43-44
173-176, 178, 181-182 - on kinds of composition 50-51
- on absolute nature 34 - on knowledge 174-175
- on beings of reason 32 - on matter and form 43, 53, 93, 97, 172
- on change 145-147, 159 - on number 123-124, 126-127, 133
- on divine conservation 143-166 - on ontology and metaphysics
- on essence 150, 169, 171, 175-182 23, 25, 60, 97-98, 104
- on existence - - relational vs. constituent 43-47
148,159-162, 169-173, 177-179, 182 - on predication
- on inherence 85-86 67-68, 97, 230, 234-237, 240, 243
- on matter and form - on prime matter 59-71
73, 87-88, 97, 151, 159-160, 172, 200 - on quality 201
- on mental representation 178 - on rational potencies 191, 203
- on metaphysical composition - on substance and accident
160-162, 165 (50), 97, 116, 123, 190
- on modalities 150-153, 159, 188-189, 204 - on teleology 155-156, 221
- on number 123-129, 133-134 - on truthmaking 84
- on participation 153-154 - on universals 46, 67, 97, 236-237
- on potency and act 146-147 Armstrong, David M. 45-46, 200
- on predication 128, 237-238, 247 Augustine 143
- on substance and accident Babenstuber, Ludwig 248
85-86, 146, 190
Beaudoin, ohn 143-144, 162-165
- on teleology 155-156
- on transcendentals 153 Benacerraf, Paul Joseph Salomon 136
- on truthmaking 84-88 Bergmann, Gustav 11, 45-46, (115)
Aristotle Berkeley, George 45, 53, 210
- on abstraction (217) Bird, Alexander 185
- on act and potency 189-191, 207 Bradley, Francis Herbert 99

281
i
 INDEX OF PERSONS INDEX OF PERSONS
Braine, David 164-165 Kant, Immanuel 210, 213, 215-218 - on mathematics and numbers Scotus, ohn Duns 78-88
Bruno, Giordano 214 Kenny, Anthony 169-173 123-124, 215-217 Shields, Christopher 144
Buridan, John (36), 169, 173-182 Kestin, Joseph 224 - on participation 154
Shoemaker, Sidney 198, 202-203
- on predication 230, 232-234, 240, 243
Butler, Judith (231) Kistler, Max 200 Snellius, Willebrord 220
- paradigm of relational ontology 43, 46
Cajetanus, Thomas de Vio (171), 248 Kripke, Saul 5, (133), 249 Socrates 232
Plotinus 239-240
Cantor, Georg (217) Kvanvig, Jonathan (144), (163)-165 - in examples
Poinsot, Joao
Carnap, Rudolf 197-198, 204 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 18, 76-77, 82, 85-88, 104, 115-116,
(Ioannes a Sancto Thoma) 248
Cartwright, Nancy 186 209-224, 230, 240-24 2, (244) 137-138, 171, 220, 235, 239-241, 248, 254
Porphyry see GI: Porphyrian Tree
Cassirer, Ernst (217) Lewis, David Kellogg 51 Speusippus 46
Prigogine, Ilya 224
Castaileda, Hector 45, (55) Lewis, Frank (62) Spinoza, Baruch 105-106
Prior, Arthur Norman 28
Chisholm, Roderick 45 Locke, John 13-14, 45, 98, 103, 105 Strawson, Peter Frederick 26, 45, 49-50
Protagoras 210, 231
Cmorej, Pavel (116) Loux, Michael 60, 68, 120 Suarez, Francisco 28, 30-31, 192
Pythagoras 116-117, 123
Cohen, Sheldon (70) Lowe, E. J. (48), 73, 75-77, 80, 87, (117), (127) Thompson, Ian J. 199
Quine, Willard Van Orman
Cross, Richard (83), 85, Lullus, Raymundus 214 Tich3i, Pavel 114
5, 11-13, 32, 34, 47, 113, (198)
Dedekind, Julius Wilhelm Richard (217) Mally, Ernst 35 Voltaire 220
Robinson, H. M. 61
Dvaik, Petr 204 Martin, Charles B. 196, 201 Williams, C. J. F. 59
Rundle, Bede 162
Einstein, Albert 12 Matthews, Gareth 89 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 28, 158, 164-165, 230
Russell, Bertrand
Ellis, Brian 185 Maupertuis, Pierre-Louis Moreau de 220 26, 34, 43, 45, 135-136, 217 Wolff, Christian 213
Euler, Leonhard 220 Maxwell, James Clerk 221 Scaltsas, Theodore (62) Wolterstorff, Nicholas 44-45, 47, (99), 120
Fermat, Pierre de 220 McCann, Hugh (144), (163)-165 Schrecker, Paul 219 Zermelo, Ernst 136
Ficino, Marsilio 240 Mclnerny, D. Q. 160, (161)
Findlay, John N. 34 Meinong, Alexius
Fine, Kit 75, 104 (15), 22-24, (27)-(28), (33)-35
Fox, John 84 Mirandola, Pico della 240
Frege, Gottlob Molnar, George 185, 199-201
32, 115, 120-121, 124, 126, 128, 131-136 Monty Python 161
Gilson, Etienne 159 Mumford, Stephen 185, 199
Gorgias 109 Neumann, John von 136
Gorman Michael 80 Newton, Isaac 145, 164, 218-220
Gredt, Josephus 248 Ockham, William see GI: Ockham's Razor
Grice, Paul 49-50 Paley, William 154, 156-157
Heidegger, Martin 220 Parmenides 33, 233
Helmholtz, Hermann von 221 Pasnau, Robert 144
Heraclitus 209 Paul, Laurie 45
Hobbes, Thomas 13 Plantinga, Alvin 45, (62)
Hume, David 135, 187, 191, 198, 203, Plato see also GI: Platonism
209-210, 213, 216-217 - compared to Leibniz 211-220, 224
Husserl, Edmund 238 - his Divided Line 211-212
- on ideas 135,153-154,236,239
Inwagen, Peter van 49

282 283