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Advanced Course Metaphysics

Academic year 2013/14 (fall)
Wednesday, 4 6 p.m.
Prof. dr. Henning Tegtmeyer





Topic: Aquinas on Aristotles metaphysics

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1. Introduction
Thomistic philosophy, as one important version of Scholasticism, has to be
seen within the broader context of Christian Philosophy (tienne Gilson).
However, this term is quite misleading in some respects. For instance, it
suggests that scholastic thought, as occidental medieval thought in general, is
ruled by Christian faith and dominated by Christian theology. Although this
view is not completely mistaken it at least underrates the impact of pagan,
Jewish and Islamic philosophy on Scholasticism. Furthermore, it covers up the
fact that the autonomy of scientific philosophy, its relative independence from
theology, is an achievement of scholastic thought in the 12
th
and 13
th
century.
The rediscovery of Aristotelian philosophy during these times plays an
essential role in this development since Aristotle provided occidental
philosophy with a coherent methodology for conducting scientific research and
teaching in a rigorous manner for the first time. This is why Platonism, which
has been the key paradigm of doing philosophy as a Christian thinker before, is
replaced by Aristotelianism in a surprisingly short time span.
But it is not Aristotle as a logician and philosopher of science who plays the
most important role here. Aristotles Organon, his collected writings on logic
and dialectics, has always been well known. Rather, it is Aristotle as a
metaphysician, as a philosopher of nature and as a moralist that comes into
view, mainly through the important commentaries by Islamic philosophers like
Avicenna and Averroes.
By far the most important issue in this respect is the rediscovery of
metaphysics (which is called first philosophy or theology by Aristotle himself).
The startling question for a Christian medieval thinker is how this science,
which is supposed to be both the culmination and the most important
philosophical discipline, relates to Christian theology. Many theologians
suspect that Aristotelian metaphysics is in fact incompatible with Christian
faith. This suspicion is nourished by certain passages in Averroes
commentaries on the Metaphysica and on De Anima where Averroes suggests
that Aristotle does neither believe in creation nor in the immortality of the
human soul.
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Against these suspicions, Dominican philosophers like Albert the Great and his
disciple Thomas Aquinas do claim not only that Aristotles philosophy is
entirely compatible with Christian faith, but moreover that it lends strong
support to Christian theology, in spite of some merely apparent tensions. In
order to justify this claim they have to show that Averroes and his followers
misunderstand some difficult, but important passages in Aristotles texts.
However, this is no easy task for a Dominican philosopher of the early 13
th

century. There are a lot of opinions, remarks, commentaries and indirect
quotations concerning Aristotle that circulate in the Sorbonne and elsewhere
then. But it is hard to find a good translation (Aquinas did not master the
ancient Greek language) or even a reliable copy of Aristotles major works. So
once good translations are available Aquinas starts writing commentaries on
Aristotle of his own, in order to show how his reading of Aristotle can be
derived from the text itself, without citing further authorities or relying on
arguments that are alien to Aristotles own thinking. In this way, Aquinas
wants to prove that his interpretation of Aristotles philosophy is correct and
able to uncover the true meaning of the original texts.
With respect to the Metaphysica, Aquinas uses primarily the translation of his
Dominican brother, the Flemish priest and scholar William of Moerbeke. But
he also consults different translations where the Latin meaning appears to be
unclear or ambiguous. The basic presupposition is that the text forms a unified
coherent whole. This is what makes up the greatest difference between
Aquinas approach to Aristotles metaphysics on the one hand, and that of
many modern Aristotle scholars on the other. (For example, in the 1920s,
Werner Jaeger famously claimed that the Metaphysica is nothing but a
posthumous compilation of different texts by Aristotle, and perhaps some of
his disciples, wherein different and incompatible views about a certain variety
of logical and ontological topics are presented and discussed, with no coherent
theory or doctrine emerging from the whole.)
However, Aquinass reading of Aristotle was challenged seriously even shortly
after his death when some theologians and philosophers of the Franciscan
order came up with new versions of metaphysical nominalism. This
metaphysical doctrine was developed mainly out of theological motives. But
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thinkers like Duns Scotus tried to show that their views are also compatible
with Aristotelian metaphysics. In order to do this, they have to call into
question Aquinass realistic understanding of Aristotelian forms. Thereby,
they start a debate that is both systematic and exegetical and eventually
terminates not before the 17
th
century, with the breakdown of classical
Scholasticism in general.
There is a straight line of thought from scholastic nominalism to modern
skepticism and Kantian criticism. In the beginning of debate about universals
in the 13
th
century, however, all parties still agree about the essence and
definition of metaphysics, i.e. that it is the science of being in itself, being as
being, being as such, or of esse commune, i.e. being in general. (The Greek
term is: To on kathauto,but also: to on he on, or to ontos on) They also agree
that metaphysics therefore has to deal with the first causes of being. In order to
do so, it has to develop a very general conception of causality.

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2. The importance and the aim of metaphysics (Prologue, Book I, Lesson 1)
The preface is supposed to establish two claims: (i) There is a supreme
science. (ii) Its object is esse commune, or being as such. A corollary of both
claims is that this science has to be theoretical rather than practical. (The latter
claim is proven in the beginning of Book II.)
Ad (i): If several things are ordained towards a common aim or good, an
ordering and ruling principle is required. This part has to be taken by the
noblest and best of the things in question. (Major premise) Thus, the soul is the
ruling principle of the living body, and the intellect is the ruling principle of
the rational soul. (Examples) Now, all human arts and sciences are ordained
and directed towards a common good, i.e. human happiness. (Minor premise)
Therefore, there has to be a noblest and highest art or science. (Conclusion)
Ad (ii): The object of this art or science needs to be of ultimate intelligibility
because the intellect is the highest faculty of the human soul, and it has to have
its ultimate and most important task in this field. Now, the term ultimate
intelligibility allows for three different readings: (1) It may refer to the highest
and ultimate causes of being, in the light of which we will be able to
understand being on the most general level. And since the aim of philosophy in
general is to understand, an understanding of the first causes of everything is
the proper task of what Aristotle calls First Philosophy (prote philosophia,
philosophia prima). (2) It may refer to the highest genera of everything, e.g.
substance, quantity, relation, etc. This task is the proper aim of metaphysics,,
i.e. of a philosophy that goes beyond the realm of physical beings and their
movements. (3) It may refer to the separate forms and pure intellects that are
the causes of everything, i.e. to God and the pure spirits. And since God is the
object of this science Aristotle calls it theology, i.e. the science of God.
Does this mean that we have three distinct highest sciences rather than one?
No, since (2) is part of one and incomplete without it, and (1) will turn out to
be identical with (3) in the final analysis. Thus, (1) (3) are not distinct aims
and objects of the highest science but rather different ways to express one
common aim.
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Lesson 1 reduces the necessity of a first philosophy in the human desire for
knowledge. Therefore, it gives a short account of human nature and of the
order of human praxis, of which science is an important part.
Corollary: An important task for Aquinas is to show that Aristotle follows a
strict scientific method. Therefore, he wants to elucidate the logical structure of
Aristotles arguments. Furthermore, he attempts to trace back the patterns of
Aristotles investigation to the rules for a perfect scientific argument that
Aristotle has established in the Posterior Analytics and in the Topic.
o The desire to know
Aquinas says that there are three arguments in favour of the claim that human
beings have a natural desire for knowledge.
First argument:
Each thing desires its own perfection.
As a rational animal, man needs intellectual perfection, i.e. knowledge.
Therefore, man desires knowledge.

Second argument:
Everything has a natural inclination to perform its proper operation.
The proper operation of man is to understand, i.e. to know.
Therefore, man as a natural inclination to acquire knowledge.

Third argument:
Everything desires to be united to its own source.
The source of the human intellect is the Divine intellect.
Man desires to be united to the Divine intellect (i.e. by acquiring
knowledge).

The third argument is not officially available yet. But in Book XII,
Aristotle tries to prove that there in fact is a Divine intellect which in one
way or the other is the source of the human intellect.
Objection: It is not the case that every human being has a desire for
knowledge; in fact only few people seem to care for real knowledge at all.
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Answer: That many men do not care for knowledge does not disprove the
claim. It is simply not the case that people prefer ignorance instead. Rather,
they do care for knowledge but find the process of learning too hard and
difficult. Some people do not even find the time to satisfy their intellectual
desires because of other business, e.g. politics or trade. And some people
are simply too lazy or too hedonistic for serious studies. But that all these
people in fact prefer knowledge instead of ignorance when knowledge is
available for them is shown by the fact that all human beings have some
kind of natural curiosity to some degree.
Example: All human beings love seeing things and enjoy sight for its own
sake, not for its utility. Sight is the most intellectual or spiritual of the
senses for two reasons: (i) Sight is almost immaterial since it is not changed
by act of seeing at all, in contrast to those senses that require some kind of
immediate bodily contact with the perceived object, which alters the sense
organ in a certain respect. This is not the case with sight although one can
be blinded by a light that is too intense. Hearing is similar to sight in some
respects since it allows for the perception of distant objects as well. But it
has also some similarities with smell and touch that sight does not have. (ii)
Sight is more objective than the other senses. It gives us more information
about its proper object in one act than any act of any other sense ever can.
Moreover, seeing an object allows us to make up our minds with respect to
its ontological rank with sufficient security, at least in many cases. So sight
has a certain priority over the other senses with respect to the acquisition of
knowledge. (iii) Only sight and touch capture the permanent accidents of an
object whereas hearing, smell and taste deal with temporary accidents only.
But sight is much more effective than touch. Therefore, sight is a privileged
sense with respect to its cognitive significance.
After this comparison of the different senses, Aquinas develops a fuller
account of the hierarchy of the cognitive capacities of human beings.
o Thus, the senses are on the lowest level of human cognition, with
touch being the most vital sense (without touch, no animal can
survive), but also the most primitive and imperfect of the five
senses. At the other extreme, sight is the noblest sense but also the
one that we can do without most easily (similar to hearing).
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o Any sense perception causes some kind of image of the perceived
object. But the higher animals need images that are more detailed
and long-lasting for locomotion, i.e. in order to navigate their bodily
movements. Therefore, they need memory. If they have memory
this allows for full-blown imagination.
o Animals that are both capable of hearing and of memory are able to
learn, i.e. to form primitive forms of experience. In order to do so,
animals need communication with conspecific animals. They use
primitive gestures and sounds to allure or warn fellow animals, but
also potential predators, etc.
o Humans possess all the animal cognitive capacities. But over and
above them, they have intellectual capacities. These are:
Full-blown human experience, i.e. knowledge of particulars
by abstracting certain common features of a series of similar
events.
Art, i.e. the ability to generalize and thus to move from
particular to specific knowledge and from knowing that
something is the case to knowing why it is the case
(including the knowledge of how to manipulate different
kinds of objects in a certain preconceived way).
Science, i.e. general knowledge of species and genera,
including specific and general causes on a theoretical level.
Wisdom, i.e. knowledge of the first causes of everything.
Knowledge of causes is superior to knowledge of mere facts. This is why
the artist or architect is superior to the mere craftsman or bricklayer, with
the latter resembling even inanimate tools in some respects (not in all, of
course). The superiority of causal knowledge over mere knowledge of
facts can also be gathered from the observation that causal knowledge
enables its owner to teach, whereas the merely experienced person cannot
teach but only utter her opinions or show her practical skills.
If practical and theoretical arts are to be compared it has to be noted first
that the owners of scientific, i.e. theoretical knowledge are more admired
than the artist, not because the knowledge of the former is more useful but
because it is outstanding (eminens).
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Second, and in line with this, it should be noticed that the sciences came up
only after the necessities and commodities of life were already provided
for, e.g. in Egypt or in Babylon. Thus, they were not necessary to satisfy
practical needs and desires. All this shows that the theoretical sphere is
superior to the merely practical sphere of human life.
To sum the results up, Aquinas offers an overview over the different
faculties of the human soul, i.e. the senses, memory, and the intellect. As
perceptual capacities, the senses are inborn and cannot be improved by
learning. As capacities of sensitive desire, however, they can be habituated
according to reason to a certain degree. This holds even for some domestic
animals. Memory can be improved only within certain limits. Only the
human intellect is both capable and in need of perfection both through
learning and habituation (cf. Nicomachean Ethics II and VI). Aristotle not
only distinguishes the theoretical from the practical intellect, but also in
both domains an intellect (nous) in the proper and superior sense (which
is also called reason in some translations) from the inferior capacity of
rationality (logos) whose task it is to draw valid inferences from given
premises. The perfection of the theoretical intellect is called science
(episteme, scientia); its highest and ultimate perfection wisdom (sophia,
sapientia). The perfection of the practical intellect is called art (techne, ars);
its highest and ultimate perfection prudence (phronesis, prudentia).
Points for further discussion: (1) Does Aristotle commit a naturalistic
fallacy when he infers that wisdom is desirable from the fact that wisdom is
desired by many people? (2) Has he really shown the superiority of
theoretical knowledge over practical? (3) What does the contribution of
wisdom to human happiness consist in?

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3. Principles and first causes (Lessons 2 5)
Aquinas lists six criteria of wisdom:
1. universality;
2. difficult achievement;
3. certainty in the highest possible degree;
4. teachability;
5. self- sufficiency;
6. freedom.
The second criterion creates a difficulty since not every kind of universal
knowledge is difficult to achieve. Sometimes the acquisition of specific
knowledge is more difficult than the acquisition of generic knowledge, e.g. in
the empirical sciences. However, this is not true with respect to the ultimate
causes and principles of being.
First philosophy meets these criteria in the highest degree (provided that it is
possible in the first place). Thus, it shows certain formal characteristics:
Wonder and amazement are the beginning of the search for
wisdom since we want to escape from ignorance. In order to
prove this, Aristotle tells a short history of philosophy which is
a history of moving from mythos to logos, from poetry to
science proper. Poetry thus stands at the beginning of true
wisdom since the mythical poets already tried to explain why
everything is at it is. Pythagoras thus appears as the first
philosopher, with philosophy as the name for an intense love for
wisdom for its own sake. Mathematics and logic are discovered
as means to approach the goal of wisdom.
Philosophy is the only truly free activity, i.e. not subordinate to
another human activity in any sense whatsoever. In a narrow
reading, this is true only of first philosophy. In a broader
reading, however, the sciences and liberal arts are all free in
comparison with the mechanical arts. Aquinas considers both
readings to be correct, although the second reading is true only
in a certain respect (secundum quid).
First philosophy appears to be even a superhuman activity in
some sense. First, an entirely free activity does not seem fitting
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for the servile natures of most men. Second, one might think
that God does not want us to have the kind of knowledge that
forms the aim of metaphysics, since God might appear to be
envious. At least, this is what both the Greek poet Simonides
and some interpreters of Genesis hold. But Aristotle and
Aquinas reject this view since envy is incompatible with Gods
true nature. Nonetheless, the acquisition of metaphysical
knowledge is very difficult and fraught with problems for us
finite, mortal beings.
But once we have perfected our knowledge by reaching the
level of first causes, evidence and certainty entirely replace
wonder and amazement. For Aquinas, this state can only be
reached in the divine vision of our immortal souls eternal life.
The joyful experience of learning and having insights is only
some weak foretaste of eternal bliss (beatitudo). But even then,
love and gratitude will certainly remain.
The history of philosophy before Aristotle is a history of the discovery of the
four causes, i.e. formal and material causality on the one hand, efficient and
final causality on the other. The latter two kinds of causality have to be
distinguished although they coincide in some cases, e.g. in the process of the
growth of living beings where the mature state is both the full actualization of
the specific form in an organic body but also the goal (finis) of the whole
process. They have to be distinguished nevertheless since they do not coincide
in all cases.
The ancient philosophers first discovered matter as an ultimate cause because
every change in nature seems to be a transformation of matter, to the effect that
matter as such seems to survive any change, transformation or even
destruction. So, the first philosophers sought for ultimate matter.
Thales thought that water might be the right stuff since water can undergo
many changes without losing its basic nature. Furthermore, water seems to be
both of highest importance for the preservation of life and contained in every
living body. But Aquinas also mentions religious reasons that Thales probably
had for thinking that water is ultimate matter.
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But Anaximenes and Diogenes hold that air is ultimate matter rather than water
whereas Heraclitus seems to believe that fire should be considered as the world
stuff. Empedocles was the first to postulate a plurality of kinds of basic matter,
the so-called elements fire, water, air and earth. Anaxagoras rejects this view
by claiming that the number of material elements is infinite (apeiron).
However, the very same philosophers also discovered efficient causality,
driven by the necessity to explain the coming-about of change. This cannot be
matter again since matter is what is being changed; it is a patient rather than an
agent.
Eleatic philosophers like Parmenides have denied change, but even Parmenides
had to admit apparent change in the world around us.
Others, such as Empedocles, Heraclitus and even Hesiod, have posited love
and hate as moving forces. But they were unable to explain stability and
persistence, both of which are common features of nature. Like them, most of
the materialistic philosophers fail to account for that. This holds for
Democritus as well.
Anaxagoras was the first to ascribe a leading role to the intellect (nous) as a
cosmic principle. However, Aristotle criticizes him for not pursuing this idea.
So, both Empedocles and Anaxagoras had a vague idea of final causality. But
only Plato discovered the forms as causes although he gave a completely
misguided account of their nature.
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4. The search for truth in metaphysics (Book II, Lessons 1 5)

In Lesson 1, Aquinas reminds us that first philosophy deals with the most
general truths. Therefore, it has to examine first whether man is capable of
knowing the truth all, and if yes, whether mans capacities are strong enough to
reach certainty with respect to the first causes and principles of being. Aristotle
states, however, that gaining knowledge is in one sense easy and in another
sense difficult, and that both is true of metaphysical knowledge, too. Aquinas
adds that there are even two readings of that claim:
o First reading: It is almost impossible for one person to find out
scientific truths all on her own, let alone metaphysical truths. But it is
rather easy to do science jointly. And this is the main point of joining
efforts in research and discourse, both with respect to a due division of
labour and to mutual criticism. Even though science is a long-term
project for an indefinite amount of time, it is designed to gather and
secure knowledge from the beginning on. One should keep in mind,
though, that the idea of dividing labour is a key principle of Platos
philosophy of the polis (cf. Republic II).
o Second reading: The first principles to start the metaphysical inquiry
are rather simple and self-evident, e.g.: (1) It is impossible to affirm
and deny a certain proposition at the same time in a rational manner.
(2) Every whole is greater than the parts that it is made of. On the other
hand, the material starting point for scientific inquiry is perception, and
the objects of perception are confused, i.e. complex, unanalyzed
wholes. But one cannot gain knowledge of a whole and of its parts
simultaneously, that means through one and the same cognitive act.
Synthesis, i.e. the successive understanding of a whole that starts from
an understanding of its parts, and analysis, i.e. the successive
understanding of the parts that starts from an understanding of the
whole, are contrary research procedures, but both are needed for
science to reach its goal. All this holds for first philosophy as well.
Furthermore, some things are hard to recognize in a scientific manner
due to their imperfection. This holds for matter and motion in general.
Therefore, physics is a really difficult science.
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A corollary of this is that scientific knowledge would be completely impossible
if Heraclitus was right, i.e. if it was true that everything is in constant flux.
But some things are difficult to know, but not in themselves but rather for the
finite, embodied human mind. In themselves, the pure intellects and immaterial
substances are of utmost intelligibility, but this is of no help for the weak
human intellect. In this respect, Aristotle compares the human intellect with the
eyes of the owl that cannot perform their proper function in the brightness of
daylight. However, Aquinas warns us not to overemphasize this analogy since
the intellect is not like a sense organ at all. E.g., the intellect is strengthened by
carrying out difficult tasks whereas the sense organs can be worn out by
intensive use. Furthermore, a sense organ can even be destroyed by a sensory
stimulus that is too strong. In contrast to that, there is no such thing as a
thought that can destroy the intellect. But what Aristotle really wants to say
with this comparison is that of all the intellects that exist, the human intellect is
by far the weakest.
The weakness of the human intellect consists in its dependence on phantasms
delivered by perception and imagination for operating at all, i.e. for abstracting
quiddities and forms.
It follows from this that the human intellect cannot grasp the essence of
immaterial, purely intellectual beings since an immaterial being is
imperceptible by nature. This does not mean, however, that immaterial beings
are not recognizable at all, as Averroes thinks. What is at issue here are the
limits of human cognition, not the inscrutability of immaterial beings. One can
consistently affirm the former claim while denying the latter. Therefore,
Aquinas points out against Averroes that Aristotle is quite coherent when he
states that the human intellect is limited in this respect.
The point is relevant for Thomistic theology since it implies that Gods very
nature has to remain unknown for us human beings unless Divine grace reveals
it. If there is something like an essential definition of God, we have to remain
ignorant about it. Therefore, everything that Aquinas himself says about God
has to be interpreted as a kind of merely nominal explication.
Aristotle closes the passage that Aquinas comments on in the first lesson with a
plea for gratitude: We have to be grateful both for the insights and for the
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errors of our predecessors in first philosophy. We can rely on their insights
while being warned not to take certain directions of thought by their errors.
Therefore, both insights and errors are useful and valuable for philosophical
research.
In Lesson 2, Aquinas returns to the main issue of finding first causes. He does
so by considering the purposes of theoretical and practical thinking once again.
In both ways, thinking seeks to understand causality, but the ultimate goals of
these two modes of thought are rather contrary. Theoretical thinking aims at
knowledge, practical thinking at action. This already implies that first
philosophy is theoretical rather than practical since it is directed at knowledge
of the first causes of everything. But the first causes of everything are eternal
and unchangeable, i.e. beyond the reach of human action. This is why
metaphysical knowledge has no practical utility. It rather enhances our
understanding of ourselves and the world around us in a deep way.
In order to be a cause of something, a cause must possess the property that it
causally transmits to something else as its effect in an even higher degree. For
example, in order to set something in flames, fire must be hotter than this
thing, at least initially. Furthermore, some causes are simply abundant; they do
not wear out by causing changes in other beings.
All this must hold with respect to first causes as well. This implies two things:
(1) The first causes of being must be beings, i.e. they must exist in the first
place. (2) If we take nature and the cosmos to be eternal, as Aristotle does,
their first causes have to be eternal causes as well. This holds at least with
respect to the celestial bodies, which are eternally moved. So there has to be
eternal causality at least with respect to astronomy.
The provocative potential of these passages for contemporary philosophy, e.g.
for the philosophy of science, lies in the idea that first causes, which figure as
the ultimate explanantia of reality, have to be real entities themselves. This
rules out the idea that they might as well be merely heuristic fictions or just
convenient posits to base a scientific theory on. Fictions and posits do not
explain anything at all if they are not more than that. Thus, Aristotelian first
philosophy is incompatible both with pragmatism and radical constructivism,
not to mention Logical Empiricism and Kantianism. This is due to the fact that
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their respective understandings of scientific method are incompatible. It is little
wonder, thus, that most followers of these varieties of mainstream 20
th
century
philosophy think that Aristotelian metaphysics is an impossible project. Many
philosophers of science, even if they are scientific realists, believe that the
concept of a first cause should be replaced by the concept of a fundamental
natural law. But natural laws play a different explanatory role than first causes
do. At least, Aristotle offers an argument to the effect that a natural law needs a
first cause in order to be established and to rule over natural objects at all (see
below). This is so because we do not need just an explanation of celestial
movement but also of the existence of celestial bodies.
All natural bodies, including the sun and the stars, exist by participating in
being, i.e. they do not exist essentially. Therefore, there has to be an essential
form of being wherein the celestial bodies participate. But this implies that
there can be an essentially true proposition about essential forms, that means a
proposition that is not merely true by accident. This consideration thus leads to
the conclusion that there are essential truths, some of which are the proper
domain of metaphysics.
Aquinas adds a complication: Two things can have a certain property either
univocally (both the fire in the hearth and the boiling water are hot) or
analogously (both the fire and the sun are hot, but neither univocally nor
equivocally, but in an analogous sense; more on that in the commentary on
Book IV). Thus, it might be the case that there is also both univocal and
analogous causality. But we should be prepared that not everything that is true
of univocal causality also holds for analogous causality. However, this creates
no serious difficulty here since analogous causality is eminent causality. This
means that an analogous cause of something by far surpasses its effect with
respect to the property in question. Thus, the sun causes heat because it is
immeasurably hot itself. But there are some important exceptions to that rule:
E.g., God is the analogous first cause of movement, but God himself is not
moving at all.
But the quest for first causes would be in vain if there was an infinite regress of
causes such that no first element in any given chain of causes and effects could
ever be identified. Thus, this possibility has to be ruled out in the following
step.
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Thus, in Lesson 3, Aquinas begins to explain Aristotles attempts at showing
that there cannot be an infinite regress in causality, which Aquinas himself
takes to be successful.
Since there are only four kinds of causes (formal, material, efficient, final)
Aristotle considers each kind of causality separately. He starts with efficient
causality. Someone who claims that there can be infinitely many efficient
causes might think either that there are infinitely many actual subspecies of
efficient causality (e.g. mechanic, thermodynamic, chemical, organic, agent
causality and so on). Or he might think that the number of particular actual
efficient causes is infinite. Although this is not considered by Aristotle or by
Aquinas, one might even think that the number of actual causal chains is
infinite.
Aquinas merely argues against the second option. He says that a chain of
efficient causes cannot have infinitely many links because this would imply
that any efficient cause within this chain was only a middle cause. But
according to Aquinas, this is impossible because a causal chain needs a first
link that starts the whole causal process. Unfortunately, this argument seems to
beg the question since it already presupposes the notion of a finite chain. This
in turn does not prove that Aristotle and Aquinas are wrong here, to be sure. It
just shows that the argument against actual infinite causal chains needs further
elaboration.
Aquinas does not refute the first option explicitly, maybe because he thinks
that finitude with respect to the number of actual efficient causes also rules out
infinity with respect to the number of species. But one might also offer a
deductive argument in the following fashion:
(i) No genus contains an infinite manifold of species.
(ii) Efficient causality is a genus that contains species.
(iii) Efficient causality does not contain an infinite manifold of
species.
The major premise of this argument can be justified on purely logical grounds
since a genus concept is contracted to lower species concepts by way of
division. But no division yields an infinity of resulting parts. If it was
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otherwise, no conceptual division, and hence no conceptual analysis, would
ever be possible.
Thus, the only remaining possibility is an infinite number of efficient causal
chains. As mentioned above, Aquinas does not consider this possibility, but if
he did perhaps he would not have found the idea threatening since he can
interpret such an infinity of efficient causal chains as merely potential. It seems
that Aristotle can allow for that possibility since he thinks that the process of
nature is eternal. Thus he can, or even must, admit that there might be a
potential infinity of efficient causal chains, past and future. This creates no
difficulty since Aristotle associates infinity and potentiality from the beginning
on.
In the following step, Aquinas tries to show that there cannot be an infinity of
material causes either. The argument runs thus:
A material cause is that out of which a change occurs; matter is by its nature
subject to change. If we neglect improper uses of the expression out of which
(e.g. in saying that Epiphany comes out of Christmas), two proper meanings
remain: Both substantial and accidental change can be said to come out of
something, i.e. have a material cause in the proper sense.
Substantial change is either generation or destruction, i.e. the coming to be or
the ceasing to exist of a certain substance.
Accidental change is either perfection or decline or some further kind of
change, e.g. of quality acquisition.
Generation, corruption, perfection and decline are usually irreversible. Other
kinds of accidental change can be reversible, e.g. being healthy and falling ill.
Although recovering health is the direct opposite of falling ill, the whole
process can be understood as a reversal of the process of becoming ill.
Aristotle and Aquinas even believe that there are some kinds of substantial
change that are reversible, e.g. the turning of water into air (= steam) and back
again, which both take to be instances of substantial change since the take
water and air to be different substances of different kinds.
But the whole chain of becoming something out of something else cannot be
infinity, i.e. it must have extremes. One extreme has to be something that
Aristotle calls prime matter (prote hyle, materia prima), that is matter that has
19

not taken any special form whatsoever, that is purely potential out of which
anything can become. The other extreme is the ultimate perfection of complete
actuality, of a formed substance that cannot become something else anymore,
but might be destroyed nonetheless. Perfect substances are given to us in
experience since material perfection is always perceivable. The pure
potentiality of prime matter, however, can only be grasped though inductive
speculation since a pure potential is not actually there to be perceived at all.
By inferring that prime matter exists necessarily if there are material
substances at all, we already go beyond the realm of the empirical.
In Lesson 4, Aquinas tries to reach a similar conclusion with respect to final
and formal causes.
With respect to final causality, the argument is twofold but straightforward: In
its dialectical part, it is argued that whoever posits an infinity of final causes
does away with the good and with final causality as such. This is so because
the good itself is the ultimate final cause of any process that has a finality (not
every process has). In its ontological part, it is argued that no action and no
goal-directed movement whatsoever would ever start if not for an ultimate
final cause. This is shown with respect to human actions whose final cause is
happiness. That human behavior in general has this kind of ordered,
intentional, goal-directed structure is an important result of Nicomachean
Ethics I. The appeal to human action and behavior suffices to confirm the
result. The argument does not require Aquinas to show that there is teleology
in nature on a large scale, although both Aristotle and Aquinas believe that this
is true. But the ontological argument has a categorical and a hypothetical part.
The categorical claim is: There is final causality (e.g. in human action). The
hypothetical part says: If there is final causality, there has to be an ultimate
final cause and not just an infinite chain.
With respect to formal causality, the discussion rests on the distinction
between nominal and essential definitions that is so crucial for Aristotelian
logic. For the nominal definition of a certain concept, it suffices to give the
necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for an item to fall under that very
concept. Thus, even nominal definitions might have truth conditions, e.g.
extensional adequacy. But a nominal definition gives us no information
whatsoever about the essence of the items that fall under the definiendum, i.e.
20

about what makes these things into what they actually are. Thus, Aristotle
himself considers animal with earlobes as a nominal definition of human
beings. As such, it is perfect, provided that there is no other animal species
whose members have earlobes, too.
By contrast, an essential definition gives us the key to the understanding of the
whole mode of being of the species to be defined. It does so by identifying
both the genus proximum, the closest genus under which the species to be
defined falls, and the differentia specifica, the specific difference that accounts
for the peculiar properties of the species in question. Thus, rational animal is
a perfect example of an essential definition of human being since a human
being is, generically speaking, and animal whose peculiarities can all be
reduced to one basic feature, i.e. rationality.
It is evident that an essential definition is not always easy to find. In some
cases it might be that he have to remain ignorant with respect to the true
essence of a given species and remain content with the second-best option, i.e.
with using a proprium, a certain important property instead of the specific
difference.
One should note, however, that nominal and essential definitions do not
necessarily have different logical forms. Thus, animal with earlobes and
rational animal are formally identical complex terms. This means that there
cannot be a simple grammatical test to tell nominal from truly essential
definitions.
In the process of research, nominal definitions are a good place to start from
whereas essential definitions are typically a result at the end of an inquiry into
formal causality. We have sufficient knowledge of the essence of a certain
species if we are able to derive all the properties and peculiarities of its
member from a certain specific difference, while also being able to trace back
common features of this and other species to a common genus. E.g., that
human beings have a sense of humour, that they are capable of producing
artifacts and form political communities under the rule of law has to be
explained in the light of their being rational beings. In contrast, the human
proneness to affections and feelings, to animal desires and fears can be traced
back to the animal nature of the human kind.
21

Now, given the idea of essential definitions, it becomes apparent that no chain
of essential definitions (and the specific form, or formal cause, of any being
whatsoever has to be identified through an essential definition) can proceed to
infinity. Every definitional chain has an upper and a lower end. The upper end
is a genus that does not fall under an even higher genus (the highest genus).
The lower end is a species that does not conatin further subspecies but only
individual beings, e.g. individual substances (the lowest species, infima
species). Both ends are simple, as Aquinas points out, but in different respect.
A highest genus is simple because it has no essential definition, i.e. no logical
parts that make up its essence. If this was not the case it would not be a highest
genus, for obvious reasons. A lowest species is simple because it rules out the
possibility of further conceptual division. That means that its specific
difference is in a certain sense ultimate. There might still be many differences
between the different members of a lowest species, but they are not specific
but only individual differences within the framework of being conspecific.
And since being human is being member of a lowest genus it follows that
human races do not create specific differences between different human
beings. This is an essentialist argument against racism.
The indefinability of highest genera does not imply, however, that highest
genera are unintelligible. Is this was the case we would have a serious problem.
But the essence of a highest genus can be explained using what Aquinas calls
immediate propositions, i.e. a proposition that truly states the basic nature of
the genus in question, without reducing it to a higher genus. So consider
substance which is the highest genus both for inanimate and for living material
substances, including human beings. One might explicate this concept either
by saying that a substance is an independent, self-contained entity, or one
might give examples and say, that human beings, horses or statues are
substances. Aristotle employs both ways in his Categories.
Aquinas adds a further consideration to the effect that all forms stand in a finite
order of genera and species. It has the form of a reductio ad absurdum.
(i) If there was an infinite number of forms, no
understanding of formal causes would ever be possible.
(ii) We understand at least some formal causes.
22

(iii) Therefore, the number of forms is finite.
In Lesson 5, Aquinas follows Aristotle in listing some considerations
concerning the proper method of research and discourse in first philosophy.
First, he explains that not every person is prepared for metaphysical
inquiry. Some people have a very strong imagination and a weak intellect.
Others are in the firm grip of merely traditional opinions and inherited
prejudices, or their respect for recognized authorities is much too strong.
So, they expect a philosopher not to come up with systematic arguments
but with proverbs and quotes from famous poets (arguments from
authority). On the other hand, there are other people who expect
philosophers to speak with mathematical precision and blame them if they
do not do so, being ignorant of the fact that things do not always allow for
precision.
So, what is needed is intelligence and openness for what is evident in
combination with a healthy skepticism towards authorities.
Mathematics is not the high road to metaphysical inquiry as Plato and
modern scientism think.
Rather, it is the scientific and systematic, inductive study of nature that
both leads us to metaphysical questions and guides us through metaphysical
inquiry, at least with respect to the most important initial steps.

23

5. The concept of being (Book IV, Lessons 1 4)
At the beginning of Lesson 1, Aquinas makes an introductory remark
concerning methodology. He says that whereas Book III proceeds dialectically,
listing all the problems and puzzles that first philosophy has to face, in Book
IV the demonstrative part of the metaphysical investigation starts. Its starts
with further methodological clarifications, by explicating the basic
epistemological principle that is needed for first philosophy. Book V, then, will
explain the technical terms that have to be employed. Aquinas adds that being
and its necessary accidents are the proper object of first philosophy, not
contingent beings or chance events. And a further remark seems to be in place
here: Being can only be reduced to being. It is impossible to have an adequate
understanding of being in other terms than ontological ones, e.g. in
mathematical or even physical terms. Mathematical terms simply do not apply
to being, as will become clear in Book XIII and XIV. And the scope of physics
is simply not broad enough to cover being as being.
But a difficulty comes up right at the beginning. It is the following: Substance
and accident are both genera of being but they do not fall under a common
genus. Does this mean that being is an equivocal term? No, being is analogous
since the meanings of the terms substantial being and accidental being are
not mutually independent. Rather, accidental being implies dependent
being, i.e. being that depends on substantial being, since being an accident
means being the accident of a substance. Thus, accidental being is ordained
towards substantial being. The type of analogy in place here is the pros-hen
analogy that Aristotle has discovered.
1
Accidental being stands in a certain
proportion to substantial being, and the proportion is defined by the categories.
Aquinas points out that the analogous unity that is in place here is the unity of
a common subject, i.e. substantial being. The concept of the analogy of being

1
Pros hen means towards one. The standard example is the analogous meaning of the term to be healthy.
Both a living being, a piece of fruit and a certain medicine can be said to be healthy, but the expression has a
different sense in each context. A living being is in a healthy condition when it is not ill, and all its vital functions
are in order. A piece of fruit can be healthy insofar as eating it tends to preserve the healthy condition of a
living being, and a medicine is healthy if it can contribute to restoring health. The term healthy is not
equivocal, though, because all its meanings are ordained towards the first and basic meaning; referring to the
good condition of a living being. It is easy to see that this Aristotelian type of analogy is quite different from the
analogies that we find in Plato, e.g. between the soul and the state in the Politeia.
24

(analogia entis) allows even for a precise formulation of the Platonic intuition
that there are in some sense grades of being:
o Negations have no real being at all, except in thought. They are entia
rationis only.
o Privations are certain lacks, deficiencies or deformities of being and
therefore in a sense a kind of real non-being. Consider blindness
(=lack of sight in a being that ought to have sight).
o Affections and properties are real, but dependent beings.
o Substances are real, independent, self-contained beings.
It might even turn out eventually that substantial being allows for grades as
well, e.g. material being, living, intellectual being, pure intellectual being. But
that has to be investigated later. In any case, the result of this consideration is
that the analogy of being allows for metaphysics as one unified science since
the principle of an analogous unity is the prime and proper object of one
science. And since substantial being is this principle, substance is the primary
object of metaphysics. But it should be noticed that metaphysics cannot
explore the real manifold of all kinds of substances that there are. Rather, it
explores the nature of substance in a very general fashion.
But what about unity? Is not unity the most fundamental term after being as
Plato suggested, since every being is also a unity of some kind? But Aristotle
rejects this view in arguing that unity follows being but not vice versa:
o Logically: If Socrates is a man, he is also one man.
o Physically: If Socrates is generated or corrupted, a certain unity is
generated or corrupted as well.
But in fact there are three different concepts in play here:
o A substance term (Socrates, man), according to an underlying quiddity.
o The term being, according to the act of existence: What comes about
when Socrates is begotten by his parents, and what takes place during
his whole lifetime is actual existence. Aristotle will explain later on
that, for a living being, to live means to exist.
o Unity, according to the absence of any divison.
Aquinas does not want to deny that these terms stand in necessary relations,
since there is no actual substance deprived of being and unity, and vice versa.
25

In this context, he criticizes Avicenna for claiming that being adds something
to quiddity and unity, and who also mistakes unity in general with quantitative
unity, as the principle of numbers. Against this, Aquinas argues that being is
determined by quiddity, and the same holds for unity in general, which is a
transcendental term that should not be mixed up with quantitative unity.
Transcendental unity, however, presupposes substance and quiddity.
Therefore, it cannot be an ontological principle of its own since it is not
autonomous.
In a certain sense, a science of being as being also has to deal with non-being.
This is clear with respect to privations. Privations are something real, but they
are non-beings as well. This fact is mirrored in their proper definition: You
cannot define a privation unless you mention the contrary habit. E.g. If you
define blindness you have to mention sight, since blindness, properly speaking,
is lack of sight.
This enables us to observe that unity cannot properly be taken to be a privation
of plurality. Rather, you have to mention unity in order to define plurality. But
this does not imply that plurality is a privation of unity either.
In the light of all the considerations concerning the importance of substance for
metaphysics, it becomes apparent why so many philosophers err about being.
Many of them simply do not pay sufficient attention to substance, which has to
be the primary object of metaphysics.
This error is common both to sophists and dialecticians. So new light is shed
on Platos worries about the real difference between a sophist and a true
philosopher. The true philosopher differs from the sophist, but he is not
identical with the dialectician either, as Plato believed.
The sophist only simulates philosophy. He wants to appear as a lover of
wisdom but is not sincere and dedicated to serious philosophical
investigations. Aristotle says that the sophist displays a lack of choice
(prohairesis; Heidegger: Entschlossenheit) for a true philosophical life.
Like the sophist and the true philosopher, the dialectician disputes about
everything. And they do not have the bad character of the sophist. But their
starting-point is not reality but the opinions of the many and of the wiser few.
Therefore, they can never be sure that their disputes yield true knowledge; they
26

rather have to end up with mere probabilities. Dialectics is all about coherence,
not necessarily about truth.
Aquinas adds that these remarks are not intended to rule out the possibility of a
true science of sophistry and of dialectics, if it rather teaches than uses (non
utens sed docens) sophistical and dialectical means. This is in place because it
is useful to know the tricks of sophistry in order not be fooled by them, and
dialectics is an important instrument to discover theoretical errors. Aristotle
himself has developed both a science of sophistry (in the Sophistical
Refutations) and of dialectics (in the Topic; both being part of the Organon).

27

6. The impossibility of true contradictions (Lessons 6 10)
As Aquinas states in the beginning of Lesson 6, a first principle of
investigation cannot be merely hypothetical, nor can it rest on a convention.
Otherwise, the results of the investigation would continue to be merely
hypothetical or conventional themselves. This goes against constructivist
accounts of logic and scientific research.
Rather, the first principle has to be self-evident in the natural light of the
agent intellect (intellectus agens).
2
The reason for this is that if the first
principle were not self-evident, it would need a proof. But if a proof of the first
principle was possible then it would not be the first principle of investigation.
From this it follows that not every principle that is not proved is thereby shown
to be unjustified or a mere hypothesis. There have to be self-justifying
principles if science shall be possible in the first place.
Now, the only plausible candidate for a first principle of investigation is the
law of non-contradiction. However, there are different ways to put it:
o Logical rule: A proposition cannot be both true and false.
3

o Epistemological rule: It is not possible to consistently both affirm and
deny the same proposition.
o Ontological rule: An attribute cannot both belong and not belong to a
subject in the same respect.
The transition from the logical via the epistemological to the ontological
reading of the principle of non-contradiction is quite natural if you think of the
fact that apophantic logic (the logic of assertion) describes the formal rules for
valid inferences from assertions, i.e. bearers of a propositional content and a
truth-value. So epistemologically speaking, we want to affirm true propositions
and to deny false ones. But semantically speaking, propositions are about
something; they refer to certain objects or states of affairs that are taken to be
the truth makers of true proposition. So, it is quite natural to think of ontology
as corresponding to the truth-claims of assertoric discourse.

2
According to Aristotle, the agent intellect is the intellect insofar as it is a principle of agency, either in thought
only or in action as well. Cf. De Anima III 5. The relation between the intellect as a capacity for rational agency
and the intellect as a receptive, passive capacity for sensory inputs is a difficult matter over which there is
intensive debate in the 13
th
century.
3
From this alone, it does not follow that the negation of a false proposition yields a truth. Hence, the principle
of the excluded middle (tertium non datur) is not implied by the principle of non-contradiction. Nevertheless,
Aristotle thinks that both principles are universally valid.
28

Now, one has to keep in mind that the principle of non-contradiction is quite
minimalistic since it cannot tell us whether any given, logically consistent
proposition is true or not. Its sole force consists in ruling out inconsistent
propositions from the realm of possible truths.
Nonetheless, Aristotle builds his correspondence theory of truth on the
principle of non-contradiction, and in the light of its ontological reading this
seems to be quite consistent. The correspondence theory of truth defines both
truth and falsity in the following manner:
o If A says that something is while in fact it is not, or if A says that
something is not while in fact it is, what A says is false.
o If A says that something is while it in fact is, or if A says that something
is not while in fact it is not, what A says is true. (Cf. Lesson 16)
Note that the ontological reading of the principle of non-contradiction already
implies a certain pre-established understanding of being (Heidegger: ein
Seinsverstndnis). This is also stressed by Avicenna who says that being is the
first concept that enters into the human mind. That becomes apparent when we
reflect on the fact that we accept the principle of non-contradiction as self-
evident. This implies that we take being to be consistent, so that no self-
contradictory assertion can be true of being. At least we think so unless we are
confused by sophists.
Some sophists cast doubt on this principle by blurring the distinction between
contradictions and contraries. Black and white are contrary terms, and so are
good and evil. Terms like these can have a middle; so if Socrates is not black
this does not entail that he is white, and if Alcibiades is not evil this does not
entail that he is good. But with truth and falsity, being and non-being it is
different. So if a proposition is not true it is false; and if it is not the case that
something exists it is the case that it does not.
4


4
This might explain why both Aristotle and Aquinas think that the principle of non-contradiction and of the
excluded middle are closely related and universally valid principles of apophantic logic. But consider the
assertion: The present king of France is bald. Since France has no king anymore the assertion is false. One
might argue then, with Aristotle, that it is plausible to take the negation to be true and infer: So, it is not the
case that the present king of France is bald. This seems in order but should not be confused with the negation
of the predicate, i.e.: The present king of France is not bald; since the latter assertion presupposes that France
has a king today. This shows that the negation of a false assertion can be ambiguous with respect to
presuppositions concerning the subject term.
29

Aristotle repeats that it is both impossible and unnecessary to prove the
validity of the principle of non-contradiction. So, demanding that it should be
proved shows a lack of education (apaideusia). Whoever does so does not pay
attention to the fact that any attempt to do so will lead into an infinite regress,
since any proof whatsoever has to rely on the very same principle of non-
contradiction in order to get started.
However, even though a direct, demonstrative proof of the first principle is
impossible, an indirect proof is possible, i.e. a reduction to the absurd of the
assumption that the principle of non-contradiction is invalid, to the effect that
there might be propositions that are both true and false. Aristotle calls this
method a proof through refutation (elegchos).
The starting point as to be an assertion that the opponent is urged to make. (Cf.
this strategy with K.-O. Apels transcendental argument against skepticism
that relies on the observation that the skeptics claim Knowledge is
impossible is itself a knowledge claim.) If he refuses to do so he behaves like
a plant, i.e. indifferent to the world around him.
But if the defender of true contradictions in fact makes an assertion he has to
use words with a certain meaning. And if he insists that his assertion does not
have any definite meaning since words can have many meanings, this poses no
problem since equivocal terms can be reduced to univocal terms by
disambiguation. But if the opponent protests that words can have indefinitely
many meanings this would put an end to any meaningful conversation since
understanding what the other says would become impossible.
But if a term has a meaning, at least the one proposition that expresses it is
necessarily true.
On the other hand it should be clear that terms refer to objects but not to all the
properties that an object has. The contrary claim would lead to the conclusion
that all terms have identical meanings.
In order to see this, let us assume that the proposition Socrates is wise does
not only refer to Socrates and his wisdom but also to his snub nose. So, for
reasons of logical consistency, this implies that the position Socrates is wise
has to refer to all the other snub-nosed persons as well. This operation can be
30

iterated until any predicate refers to any attribute whatsoever. And since this is
absurd, the opposite has to be true.
Contrary to many scholars, Aquinas points out that Aristotle allows for second-
order predication, i.e. for predicates of predicates. Second-order predication
can take on many forms: Adverbial (Socrates talks ironically; i.e. his talk has
the quality of being ironical), co-attributive (Socrates is wise and brave; i.e.
wisdom and bravery go together in Socrates), inferential (Socrates is brave,
therefore he is virtuous), or even causally (Socrates does not run away from
prison because he is brave; i.e. his behavior is caused by his virtue). There
might even be third-order predication. But it the final analysis, it cannot be just
predication over predicates. Predication has to be grounded in substantial
predication to have a foothold at all. If this is denied substances and essences
are denied together.
In Lesson 8, Aquinas comments on the further consequences that Aristotle
draws from the denial of the principle of non-contradiction. The first will be
that all things become one, a man is also a ship and a wall and a quality, and so
on. This is so since the denial of the first principle is a license to affirm or deny
anything of anything on any occasion, which would eliminate any difference
between one thing and another. It does not even make a difference any more
whether one says that everything is identical with everything, or if one says
that nothing is identical with anything because any logical difference between
these statements has to be denied then. (Ontological support for the ex falso
quodlibet rule of apophantic logic)
One might find it hard to believe that anyone would ever accept this view. So it
might seem as if Aristotle fights with imaginary enemies here. But Aristotle
insists that these are in fact consequences of the view of Protagoras and
Anaxagoras. Anaxagoras, as Aquinas points out, was led to his erroneous
views because he was unable to distinguish between actual and potential being.
This forced him to believe that contrary affections and even contradictory
states of affairs are actually co-present in everything. E.g., old age would have
to be present in a child since a child will grow old if nothing intervenes. But
being a child and being aged are incompatible affections. It follows that
Anaxagoras has to accept true incompatibilities. The distinction between act
and potency does away with this logical inconsistency.
31

Aristotle stresses another consequence of this view, and this is the damage
which it does to the security and determinateness of knowledge. We all believe
that knowing that an affirmative proposition is true is a much more determinate
piece of knowledge than knowing that a negative proposition is true. But if it
turned out that there is no such difference since affirmations and negations are
logically equivalent this would do away with all our intuitions about
determinate knowledge. We also believe that some false propositions are closer
to the truth than others, and whoever embraces the idea of true contradictions
has to deny this as well. Total insecurity would be the unavoidable result.
In Lesson 9, the relation between truth and being is explored further. The
underlying idea is that truth is a factive concept. From A truthfully asserts that
p it follows that p is true, or, according to the correspondence principle of
truth and being, that p is the case. Now, Aristotle argues that we are not
indifferent to the difference between truth and falsity, since we seek truth and
try to avoid falsity. This becomes evident even in desire (election) and aversion
(fuga). If we walk along a dark path at night and are informed that it leads into
a pond we will turn around and go back. This shows that our desires and
aversions are informed by beliefs about being, by opinions about the object
that is desired or abhorred. But this is not so because we love our opinions as
they are but because we want them to be true.
For Aristotle, the fact that the sophist who denies the principle of non-
contradiction nonetheless behaves like the rest of us in practical matters shows
that his denial is insincere. And if he really did not care whether his own
opinions were true or false this would not display a sovereign attitude. Rather,
we must think that his attitude towards truth and falsity is simply not healthy.
In Lesson 10, some final considerations about the right way to deal with
sophists and agnostics are added. Aristotle distinguishes between those
thinkers that are merely misled into absurd beliefs by some real difficulties or
by sophistry. They can be cured from them by showing them how their
problems can be solved without the absurd principles that they thought they
would have to embrace to solve them. Anaxagoras is perhaps one of them.
Others, like Heraclitus, found it difficult to form true beliefs about sensible
things without allowing for true contradictions. They can be healed in the same
32

fashion. But then there are people like Protagoras who simply argue for the
sake of argument. And they should be refuted by a suitable elegchos in the
manner sketched in Book IV.

33

7. Substance and essence (Book VII, Lessons 1 3)
In Lesson 1, Aquinas starts his commentary on Book VII with an overview of
Aristotles metaphysical investigation up to Book XII. According to him, the
following treatment of being as being as two topics: 1. Ens per se; 2. the first
causes. The latter is treated in Met. XII. Concerning the former, the relation
between being and unity is clarified in X (whereas XI sums up the results of
the previous books). Now, since being as such has two meanings, namely
either actual or potential being on the one hand, and being according to the
categories on the other, IX is about actuality and potentiality, whereas VII and
VIII deal with being according to the categories. And here, the clarification of
substantial being is of utmost importance.
As Aquinas explains then, being either refers to the quiddity of something or to
a particular thing (tode ti), or to some quality, quantity, relation, etc. But the
first two are prior, since accidental being presupposes substantial being. Only
substantial being is being in an unqualified sense.
According to Aquinas, there are mainly two arguments in the Aristotelian text
to support this claim:
1. A linguistic argument: The question What is X? has priority over
other questions since it seems to be much more fundamental than
questions like What is X like?, How big is X?, Is X good or bad?,
etc. In general, answers to the first question have to be given before it is
even possible to think of answering the following in a sensible way.
But any answer to a What is X? question has to mention a substance
or a quiddity, not an accidental attribute.
2. An ontological argument: Accidental being, considered in itself, is
rather non-being than being. This does not rule out the possibility that
an accident can be abstracted in thought and considered in the abstract
(Aquinas refers to Peri hermeneias 16 a to support this claim). Thus, it
is possible to abstract the quality of being white from white objects and
consider whiteness. Nevertheless, this operation does not turn
whiteness into a substance. The upshot of this is that accidental being is
incomplete, not semantically but ontologically speaking.
3. Aquinas offers a third argument of his own, i.e. a physical argument:
Becoming a substance is the same as becoming simpliciter. If Socrates
34

becomes a human being, he thereby simply comes into being, and vice
versa. In contrast to that, becoming white is not becoming simpliciter at
all since in order to become white something has to exist before this
change of color.
So, according to Aristotle, there is a threefold priority of substantial over
accidental being: 1. in the order of knowing (gnosei); 2. in definition (logo); 3.
in time (chrono). 1., however, does not refer to the cognitive process but to the
order of explanation. In explaining why things are as they are, the reference to
substances has to precede the reference to accidents. 2., then, means that any
definition of an accident (cf. Lesson 4) will have to mention an underlying
substance (although this might happen in a rather oblique fashion, by using
placeholder terms like something, object, surface or similar expressions.
Finally, 3. rests on the impossibility of free-standing accidents. I.e., in order to
have the existence of accidents, it is necessary to have an actual underlying
substance. The reverse need not be true, i.e. it might be that there is a substance
that has no accidents whatsoever.
But, as Aristotle adds, there is also a dialectical priority of clarifying the
concept of substance in first philosophy, since the urge to understand the
nature of substantial being has created the most intense and long-standing
debates in the history of philosophy.
1. The Eleatic philosophers, most notably Parmenides, Zenon and
Melissos, thought of being in general as substantial and therefore
immobile and, due to the latter, eternal.
2. Materialist thinkers such as Democritus identified substance with
matter and therefore take being to be eternal but in constant flux.
Some of them, like Democritus himself, think of matter as
consisting of eternal particles, the so-called atoms.
Others, such as Empedocles, think of matter in terms of
elements, i.e. different basic kinds of simple matter.
3. Plato thinks that the only true substance is not matter but form, and that
forms exist apart from matter, whereas for a material being existence is
the same as participation in a form. So, according to Plato, material
entities have existence but no subsistence; i.e. there is no material
substance.
35

This means, for Aristotle, that some questions have to be answered:
1. Is substance identical with matter?
2. If not, do substances essentially consist of matter?
3. If not, are there two kinds of substances, material and immaterial? Or
are the only true substances immaterial? Or are there even more
different kinds of substances, with material and immaterial substances
as extremes, as Speusippos and some mathematicians seem to hold?
4. How about the shapes and visible forms of objects that are taken to be
of substantial nature by the Pythagoreans?
As Aquinas observes, however, Aristotle tacitly dismisses (4), probably due to
the consideration that the visible shapes of material obejcts can be reduced
either to matter or to some kind of inner form.
Lesson 2: If we think of substances according to the criteria that have been
established so far (independent, self-contained beings that are not attributable
of other beings) then four possible candidates for substantial being have to be
considered: (i) Essence or quiddity; (ii) the universal (Aquinas takes this to
mean the Platonic idea); (iii) unity; (iv) the first substance.
First substances seem to be substantial beings insofar as the proper names of
first substances are not predicable of another subject, except in an accidental
fashion, e.g. when someone says The white object over there is Socrates. But
this is not true predication but rather identification.
o But against this consideration, it might be objected that every first
substance consists of matter and form, with form having priority over
matter, as the actual is prior to the potential. And since form seems to
be the actualizing principle of something being a first substance in the
first place, form appears to be even more substantial than first
substance itself.
o On the other hand, to say that first substance is a composite (synholon)
of matter and form means to give a mere nominal definition of
substance. That is enough both for the Categories and for the Physics,
but it is not a reliable guide through the metaphysical issue of what
substance essentially is.
36

So, might substance be the same as matter? This is what many pre-Socratic
philosophers thought. They reason that the ultimate subject of change seems to
be matter since matter seems to be the only thing that survives any kind of
change.
o In support of this, a thought experiment might be developed in which a
material object is, step by step, stripped of all its determinations. So,
take a house and abstract from its being a house, from its extension in
space, from the ordering of its parts, from its shape and the shape of its
elements, and so on. What will remain in the end, according to the
materialists, will be matter of some kind. You cannot abstract from
matter, so it seems, because otherwise there would be nothing left, and
a house cannot be built out of nothing.
o But Aquinas argues that this reasoning is invalid on two counts: (1) The
ancient philosophers were ignorant of substantial form; therefore they
could not recognize the fact that it takes both suitable matter and a
suitable form to have a material object like a house. (2) The ancients
did not know that there are different kinds of predication, e.g. univocal
and denominative predication. X is a dog is an instance of univocal
predication since it says that X falls under the concept of dog. By
contrast, X is wooden is an instance of denominative predication since
it says that X is made of wood, rather than being wood. This means that
matter can be predicated of material objects in an denominative fashion.
But from this it follows that matter is not the ultimate subject of
predication in cases like these. And this, in turn, means that matter is
not identical with substance. Matter is neither self-contained nor
determinate. This means that matter is not anything in particular. Matter
cannot be substance.
But how about form? The discussion which will take the following
chapters/lessons starts with sensible substances since their existence is,
according to Aquinas, less controversial because knowledge of sensibilia is
more commonly acknowledged than any alleged knowledge of immaterial
substances. Aquinas, however, also considers the possibility to start from
mathematical objects, since there is no contrast between being known in itself
and being known to us in mathematics. But this possibility is rejected because
37

first philosophy has to account for the being of material objects, and
mathematics seems unable to do that.
So, in Lesson 3, the concept of essence (to ti en einai) come into focus, guided
by the question what a material substance is. This, to be sure, is a quidditative
question which needs to be answered by giving an essential definition. So, as a
first step, the concept of essence has to be clarified. So, the third lesson on
Book VII is about the most extensive treatment of the problem of essential
definitions that can be found in Aristotle outside the Topica.
As a start, Aristotle insists that no accidental attributes can ever be appear in a
true essential definition since accidents are external to essence. E.g., being
musical is not part of the essence of a human being, whereas being rational is.
Furthermore, he adds that not even essential properties (idia, propria) can be
allowed to enter in an essential definition since properties flow from essences
(D. Oderberg) without being part of them. But since this is not obvious it has to
be shown in a dialectical manner.
This is at odds with mainstream positions in contemporary essentialism, e.g.
with Saul Kripke, David Wiggins, Kit Fine and others who all believe that the
essence of a substance consists of a list of essential properties. This idea rests
on a certain distinction between essential and accidental properties, according
to which an accidental property is a property whose presence or absence in a
certain object does not affect the numerical identity of the object in question.
So if a certain object a can gain or lose a certain property F and nonetheless
remain the same object a (according to a suitable principle of sameness or
numerical identity), then F is an accidental property of a. If the antecedent does
not hold, however, F is an essential property of a.
The idea of essential properties is not foreign to Aristotle. But he insists that an
essence does not consist of a number of essential properties. The reverse is
true: What makes a property essential for the being of a certain substance is the
fact that it flows from its essence. That means that only the prior knowledge of
a certain essence will allow us to establish the distinction between the essential
and accidental properties of the substance that has the essence in question.
To show this, Aristotle considers the example of a colored surface. It seems
quite appropriate to think of color as an essential quality of material surfaces
38

since there can be no material surface without a color. So the essential property
theorist might think that Surfaces are colored is a perfect (albeit perhaps
partial) essential definition of what a surface is.
5
But for every essential
definitions, a further essential definition of the definiens has to be available, at
least until one reaches the level of the highest, and therefore indefinable,
genera. So if an essential definition of color is asked for the answer obviously
has to be something like Color is a visible quality of a surface. So, the
attempt to define surface with color leads into a circle of definitions. And if the
acceptance of essential properties as elements of essential definitions leads to
circular definitions like this, the very idea of such an acceptance is shown to be
absurd.
Furthermore, true essential definitions are never circular, as Aquinas points
out. For example, animal is predicated of man essentially, but man must not
be mentioned in the definition of animal. This shows, that being an animal is
part of the essence of man but not an essential property.
Aristotle adds a further dialectical consideration according to which the
acceptance of properties as parts of essences would imply that all property
terms that refer to one and the same substance have identical meanings. This is
not easy to grasp, though. But it makes sense if we think of a purely
extensional reading of the meaning of property terms. The argument then
would run like this: Property terms refer, by definition, to those substances that
possess the property in question. But substances seem to have many properties.
But since a property term refers to all the members of a certain class of
substances and to nothing else, it follows that all property terms that refer to
the same class of substances are co-extensional. And since co-extensional
terms, according to semantic extensionalism, have identical meanings, the
result will be that all the property terms that refer to the same class of
substances have identical meanings. Thus, if having earlobes and having a
sense of humor are both essential properties of man, then having earlobes
means the same as having a sense of humor. Which is absurd.

5
By the way, this is precisely the definition of surface that Socrates accepts as sufficient in Platos Meno.
39

The overall argumentative strategy is obviously directed against the idea that
an essence is nothing but a certain bundle of properties, an idea that still has
many supporters in contemporary metaphysics.
But if not even properties can be part of the essence of a substance then it turns
out to be impossible that an accidental unity should have an essence, and thus
be capable of an essential definition. There is no essence of the sitting Socrates
that differs in any respect from the essence of the walking Socrates, although
Socrates has an essence (and perhaps sitting and walking have essences, too).
Keeping the essential and the accidental apart will help to avoid many of the
difficulties that the sophists have brought up. As Aristotle stresses in Book VI
(1026 b), most of the sophistic difficulties have their home in the sphere of the
accidental.
But Aristotle insists that the fact that there is no essence of walking Socrates is
not due to the fact that the expression walking Socrates consists of two
words. Consider the term red squirrel which consists of two words as well but
refers to an essence nonetheless. The number of words is not important, since
one might introduce a new, one-word term to replace the initial many-word
expression. But replacing, for example, the expression white man by
garment does not turn being a white man/a garment into an essence.
Another necessary condition for a definition to be essential is logical
completeness. Completeness is not the same as logical equivalence. The logical
equivalence of definiendum and definiens, which allows for substituting one
for the other in all contexts, is of course a necessary condition of adequacy as
well. But it does not suffice; otherwise a man that walks would be an
essential definition of the term a walking man, and a complete paraphrase of
the Iliad would be an essential definition of that work.
So, the proper form of an essential definition is via the next higher genus
(genus proximum) and the specific difference (differentia specifica). E.g., the
essential definition of human being is rational animal, with animal being the
genus term and rational being the difference.
This implies that only species have essential definitions, not first substances, at
least not as first substances (although they fall under essential definitions as
being members of a certain species).
40

That many terms are not essentially definable does not mean that their meaning
is inexplicable. The Trojan war might be undefinable. Nonetheless the meaning
of the proper name Trojan war can be explicated by giving a narrative of the
events that are said to have taken place during that war, as Homer does in the
Iliad.

41

8. Being and change (Lessons 4 6)
In Lesson 4, Aquinas explains the way in which Aristotle allows for accidents
to have essences. Accidents can be said to have essences insofar as they are
essentially definable. But there are essential definitions of color, movement,
etc. Therefore one is forced to accept accidental essences. This cannot mean,
however, that they have essences in the same way that substances have
essences. Rather, they have essences in an analogous sense. If one says so, one
thereby says that whatness, essence and definition have as many meanings as
being has. And since accidental being is not being simpliciter but being in a
qualified sense, so, too, are accidental essences. This idea bears some
similarity to Platos thought that non-being is, or to the sophistic paradox that
the unknown is known.
6

But then a complication arises when we have to distinguish between simple
and compound accidents. Compound accidents are definable by addition
only, i.e. by adding some distinctive feature to an underlying, more basic
simple accident. Compare, for example, snubness and concavity. Concavity
is a simple accident, but snubness is compound since snubness is the concavity
of a (human) nose. So if we stick to the principle that an essential definition
allows for the substitution of the expression on the left side of the definition by
the expression on the right side (and vice versa) in all contexts this has to work
with snub nose. But if snubness is the concave quality of a nose, it follows
that a snub nose is a concave-nose nose.
This is a hint that accidents do not have essences in the same sense that
substances have essences. Therefore, Aristotle concludes this consideration by
saying that it does not matter whether we say that accidents do not have
essences, or whether we say that they have essences in an analogous sense.
Scholastic essentialism, however, has favored the second option.
In Lesson 5, the precise relation between substance and essence is clarified.
The guiding question is whether substance and essence are identical or
different. The answer is that they are identical.

6
Both propositions are true in a certain reading (i.e. with qualification). Non-beings may be said to exist-in-
thought, but privations are also non-beings in a way, and there are certainly privations. The unknown is known
precisely to the extent that we know that there is something which we do not know, i.e. it is precisely the
quality of being unknown that we may know of.
42

In order to elucidate this point, Aquinas compares the identity of substance and
essence (as it is stated in an essential definition) with the kind of relation
between a substance and its accidents. So take, for example, the proposition
Socrates is musical. It implies, that Socrates falls under the concept
musical, and that musicality is instantiated in Socrates. But it does not
establish an identity between being Socrates and being musical but rather an
accidental unity. This becomes even clearer when further accidents of
Socrates come into view. So if one says that Socrates is white and musical this
does not mean that being Socrates, being white and being musical are identical.
Rather, Aquinas speaks of being Socrates as a kind of middle that unifies the
extremes of being white and being musical. Being white and being musical,
regarded in themselves, do not stand in any relationship whatsoever, except for
the fact that they are co-instantiated, e.g., in Socrates.
Now, consider an essential definition, e.g. A human being is a rational
animal. Here you have an instance of perfect conceptual identity between the
left side and the right side of the proposition. This is absolutely necessary in
order to have the kind of substitution license in place that an essential
definition has to guarantee. So, if you take the essential proposition Socrates
is a human being you may substitute the term human being by rational
animal without changing the meaning of the proposition. This is the reason
why Aristotle can say that substance (the term to be defined in an essential
definition, left of the copula) and essence (the defining term, or the quiddity,
right of the copula)are identical. They have to if the definition is true.
Aquinas points out that it is strict identity and not participation. To say that
Socrates is a human being implies that Socrates has a human essence, and not
that Socrates just participates in a detached form of humanity. To insist that
substance and essence are identical is an anti-Platonic move that, according to
Aquinas, stands in the center of both Lesson 6 and 7 (and also in Lesson 9).
We have to keep in mind, however, is that species is the ultimate subject of
definition, not individual substance. So, several substances have a common
essence insofar as they fall under the same essential definition. Or to put it the
other way round, since both Socrates and Plato are essentially human beings
they have the same essence (which cannot mean, though, that Socrates and
43

Plato are the same human being). Aristotle brings this under the short formula
that essence is substance without matter. In his De ente et essentia, Aquinas
takes this to mean that different substances with identical essences are
individuated by the matter that they consist of. So, Plato and Socrates are
different because they have different bodies. This doctrine, however, needs a
lot of refinement, as Aquinas is acutely aware of himself.
Aristotle adds, against many sophists, that Socrates and being Socrates are the
same, too, since being Socrates means having the essence that Socrates has and
instantiating it as Socrates.
7

So the quiddity or whatness of any substance is contained within its essential
definition. In this context, Aquinas mentions the fact that we sometimes say
that the essence of being human is humanity. But strictly speaking, humanity is
not the essence of human being but merely an abstract name for it. The essence
of human being is rational animal. However, by nominalizing essential terms
like being human or being a rational animal, we construe abstract names
like humanity, rationality, and animality. So, we do no harm if we say that
humanity is the same as rational animality. But we should keep in mind that
this is not an essential definition itself but merely founded in an essential
definition of what a human being is. The anti-Platonic consequences of this
approach seem clear.
It is clear that the accidents of a substance are not part of its essence. But on
the other hand, material substances have accidents, or to put it another way:
Their essence allows for accidents. This shows that material substances are not
completely contained within their essences, or that a material substance is
somehow more than an instance of a certain essence and certain essential
properties.
But if there was a substance that was by its very nature incapable of having
accidents this substance would be everything that it is essentially, or it would
be identical with its essence in the strongest possible sense. And it will turn out
that there is at least one such being that is strictly identical with its essence,
and that is God.

7
The latter part of the formula may sound a bit odd, but it is supposed to rule out the possibility that another
human being that is just like Socrates, for example, an actor who plays Socrates in a perfect manner, can be
said to be (identical with) Socrates. It is numerical identity and not just similarity that counts here.
44

In Lesson 6, Aquinas takes Aristotle to sharpen his anti-Platonic point by
considering how forms are present in sensible, material substances. He
therefore considers the way in which material substances come into existence.
According to the different dimensions of causality that Aristotle has shown to
be fundamental, a material substance is brought into existence by a certain
agent (efficient cause), out of a certain matter (material cause), and receiving a
certain form that turns it into what it finally is (formal cause, in the case of
substantial becoming identical with final cause).
Every becoming of some substance is an actualization of a potency, with
matter being the principle of potency and form being the principle of actuality.
However, substances differ with respect to how their actual existence comes
about, i.e. with respect to the efficient cause through which form and matter
are united. Some substances come into being by nature, others by art, and
certain others by chance.
Natural becoming takes place when a natural agent causes the becoming of a
substance, e.g. when fire causes fire (by igniting some combustible peace of
matter), or when horses beget horses by copulation.
Artistic becoming takes place when an artist forms a given piece of suitable
matter according to a mental form or mental image. It is worth being noted that
the relation of form and matter in an artifact is rather loose and external. One
and the same piece of matter might take on different artistic forms, and one and
the same artistic form might be actualized in different pieces or even kinds of
matter. Aristotle says that the artist uses his power to impress a certain form
onto matter, Aquinas takes this to mean that the artistic act sometimes even
includes some violence. In different contexts, Aristotle contrasts the artist with
the farmer or the winemaker who do not change the natural form of a certain
fruit but rather assist nature in bringing to perfection its own immanent form.
Nonetheless, art has to respect certain natural limits of the material that it
works with, and to study natural processes in order not to violate the laws of
nature; otherwise the artistic attempt would be doomed to failure (ars imitatur
naturam).
Chance becoming is not a genuine third class of substance causation since it
can be a counterpart both to natural and to artistic becoming. According to
45

Aristotle, there is chance becoming in nature since some natural substances
come into being in an irregular way (generation aequivoca, generatio praeter
ordinem naturae), e.g. living beings out of putrefaction or plants out of dry
desert soil. And there is chance becoming in art, i.e. in cases where an artist
fails with his creative idea and creates a different artifact than the one that he
has had in mind before, or in cases where someone creates an artifact by pure
luck and without any artistic competence.
With respect to chance generation in nature, Averroes does not believe that a
living being with a deviant causal history can have the same essence as one
with an ordinary history, e.g. with conspecific parents. And people like
Michael Thompson follow his line of reasoning. Avicenna, in contrast, denies
that the causal history affects the essence of a natural substance. Therefore, he
affirms that two substances with radically different generational histories can
have the same essence, i.e. can be conspecific. According to Aquinas, Aristotle
himself seems to occupy a kind of middle position between his two
commentators since he allows for equivocal generation but thinks that it is
impossible for higher, more perfect species, e.g. higher animals and human
beings.
Natural substances and artifacts are not substances in the same sense, due to
their formal, material and generational differences. Natural substances come
into being by generation (either univocal, ordinary; or equivocal, by chance)
whereas artifacts come into being by production (poiesis, either by art or by
chance).
But the saying of the ancients that nothing comes from nothing (nihil ex nihilo
fit) is true for both kinds of becoming. That means: If a material substance is to
come into being, three things have to exist before: suitable matter, a suitable
agent and a suitable form. Things are different with respect to Divine creation,
though.
Aristotle concludes his consideration with pointing out a verbal difficulty that
may give rise to sophistic objections. I.e. when it is said that matter is the kind
of thing out of which a substance is generated or produced one should keep in
mind that not everything out of which something come into being is matter.
For example, one might say that health can come out of sickness, but that does
46

not turn sickness into the matter of health. Remember that matter is predicated
of substance denominatively. One says, e.g., of a spoon that it is wooden, that
means made of wood. This is a standard way of predicating matter that does
not give rise to sophistic difficulties and quibbles.

47


9. Parts and wholes (Lessons 9 12, 17)
In Lessons 7 and 8, Aquinas continues to follow Aristotles reasoning on
natural generation, with its special focus on the role of form. The main results
of this anti-Platonic discussion are the following:
o Form is not and cannot be detached from substance but is an inner part
of it (albeit the meaning of part in this context needs elucidation).
o Form does not exert any causal power from outside a material
substance. So if, e.g., an artist creates a brazen circle, he does create
neither the brass nor the circle separately. Rather, he creates a certain
whole with a certain form (circular) out of a pre-given material (brass).
8

This is the reason why Aquinas said that it is merely a nominal definition of
material substances to say that they are compounds of matter and form. (Cf.
VII, Lesson 1) The definition is merely nominal because it leaves open
whether or not matter and form have an independent pre-existence before they
are united. Now we can say that matter pre-exists in another form whereas
form has no independent pre-existence at all, except in the agent that is the
efficient cause of the generation or production of the material substance in
question, be this an artist or a natural agent that transmits form in a natural
way, e.g. through seed or sperms or something similar.
In Lesson 9, however, Aquinas addresses the question how an essential
definition can define an essential unity if it consists of parts. And it has to have
parts since otherwise it would not be an essential definition. This question
however, will not be answered before Lesson 12. Before doing so, Aristotle
has to clarify the notions of part and whole and their mutual relation.
A first question about parts is whether the parts of a substance are essential. If
they have to be mentioned in the definition then the answer will have to be
Yes, otherwise No. But if we look at different essential definitions we do not
get a clear picture. So, an essential definition of a circle (assuming that a circle
has an essence) does not mention the segments that a circle seems to consist

8
To avoid misunderstandings: This does not mean that an artist cannot create new forms or invent something
new. Both Aristotle and Aquinas knew that the contrary was true. It rather means that if the artist creates a
new form, he does so by creating a certain artifact with a new form.
48

of.
9
By contrast, an essential definition of the syllable ba has to mention its
components, b and a, together with an ordering rule. So it seems that the parts
are essential in some cases, while being inessential in others.
A preliminary answer to this first question is that there need not be identity
between the parts of which a substance consists and the parts of an essential
definition but rather a certain kind of correspondence. For example, given that
rational animal is the essence of man, rationality and animality are nevertheless
not parts of a human being, strictly speaking. Rather, they are taken from the
parts of a human being, as Aquinas puts it. Thus, animality refers to the human
body (its being an organic body, capable of being ensouled, having sensations,
etc.), whereas rationality refers to the human soul (its having an intellectual
part).
But then a second question becomes urgent, concerning priority. Are the
essential parts prior to the whole, or is it the other way round?
o The former seems to be true since wholes seem to consist of parts. So,
the circle somehow consists of segments, the right angle of two acute
angles, the line of points, the human body of hands, feet, etc.
o But the latter seems to be true with respect to at least some substances,
i.e. those for which the whole is prior essentially. So, the right angle is
prior to the acute angle since the definition of the acute angle has to
mention the right angle (This is true of the obtuse angle as well. But
nobody would hold that a right angle consists of obtuse angles,
anyway.). The same holds for the circle and its segments, the line and
the point, the human body and its parts (a hand that is cut off a living
human body is not a hand univocally since it cannot perform the proper
operations of a hand anymore. In this respect, it resembles the hand of a
statue.). This does not speak against the possibility of vital parts of a
human body that are, in a sense, prior to the whole body, e.g. the heart
or the brain, which play an essential role for the functioning of the
whole organic body.
Solution: We have to distinguish between the quantitative and the essential
parts of a whole. There is no contradiction involved when we say that lines and

9
According to Aristotle, a circle is a closed figure (on a plane) with a circumference of which each point is
equidistant from the center. This definition obviously does not mention segments.
49

circles consist of segments as their quantitative parts but that these parts are not
essential for their respective wholes. In the same way, the right angle consists
of acute angles, without their being essential parts of the right angle.
With respect to material substances, Aristotle adds that proximate matter
(material proxima) is an essential part of their essence. So, organic matter is an
essential part of a living substance. Aquinas points out that this invalidates
Averroes reading according to which only form is essential whereas matter is
not. Averroes criticizes Avicenna for having it otherwise. But Aquinas stresses
that Avicenna was right in this respect.
With respect to the circle this implies, that the circle as such (qua form) is not
made up of segments, whereas a particular material circle might be. E.g., a
material circle may be made of certain brazen segments. In similar fashion, the
syllable ba is essentially made of the consonant b and the vowel a (in this
ordering). Consonants and vowels are rather formal than material parts of
syllables. But ba does not essentially consist of noises or shaped inscriptions or
something similar. But, on the other hand, a material utterance or inscription of
ba neccesarily consists of certain noises or material inscriptions with a certain
shape (on pain of being deficient or mistaken).
In p. 1477, Aquinas tries to clarify and develop this idea a little further. He
points out that we have to distinguish between defining the essences of
material substances and defining the essences of their essential parts.
o If one defines a material substance, one thereby defines an essential
unity of matter and form, which are the essential parts of material
substances.
o If, however, one defines an essential part of a material substance, one
cannot do so unless one also mentions the complementary part in
addition. E.g., if one defines the soul one has to say that it is the form
of an organic body. This holds even for geometric forms. Their
essential definitions have to refer somehow to what Aristotle calls
intelligible matter. That means that they are abstracted from any
concrete matter while nonetheless referring to a certain abstract feature
of matter, i.e. spatial extension.
50

In sum, Aquinas holds that the essential parts of material substances are prior
to the respective whole whereas the material parts need not be prior. Priority,
however, does not mean pre-existence, nor does it mean separate existence
after the destruction of the whole. Rather, it is priority in the explanatory order,
according to which the essential parts of a material substance are capable of
being understood before the whole becomes intelligible. Precisely in this sense
are the concepts of soul and organic body prior to the concept of a living
substance.
Particular material substances, however, do not consist of proximate but of
ultimate matter (materia ultima, materia designata). Ultimate matter is
precisely that individual portion of matter (or matters) that makes up an
individual material substance. But matter is inscrutable unless it takes on a
certain form. But then it can be scrutinized only to the degree that it has taken
on this form, that means only in general. Individual substances, however, have
contingent features that cannot become the object of scientific inquiry. Now,
Aquinas thinks that the inscrutability of the individual material substance for
science is at least largely due to the fact that individual material substance
consists of ultimate matter.
In Lesson 11, however, it is asked how we manage to find the essential parts of
material substances, since it is one thing to say that matter and form are the
essential part whereas to identify matter and form in a given material substance
is quite another. Regarding the latter, it is not enough to say that precisely
those parts are essential that a substance has during the whole time of its
existence. In order to see this, one might imagine that all circles in the world
were made of brass. Certainly this would not prove that brass is essential for
circularity. But then one might think that the same might hold for human
beings as well. I.e., the mere observation that human beings consist of an
organic body and an intellectual soul does not entitle us to infer that such a
body and such a soul are in fact essential parts of being human.
In considering this point, however, Aquinas arrives at the conclusion that
matter of a certain kind has to be an essential part of the essence of material
substances. He offers several arguments to support this conclusion. The main
argument is that matter is needed to individuate substances. That is, if
51

conspecific material substances do not consist of different ultimate portions of
proximate matter they are numerically identical. So, we should not be confused
by the fact that matter is no essential part of a circle since it is not contained in
the concept (ratio) of a circle (at least if we neglect intelligible matter). At
least, matter is an essential part of animality, and, more general, of material
substantiality.
But if matter has to be an essential part of material substances as well since
form is even more dominant than matter can be. And the fact that it may be
difficult to identify the form of a certain material substance does not prove that
both form and matter are inscrutable. Quite to the contrary, since proximate
matter, in contrast to both prime matter and ultimate matter, is usually given to
us in perception it is not too difficult a task to isolate the matter and the form of
a material substance that we are acquainted with through experience, at least
not in most cases.
Now, since material substances, by their very nature, have accidents they are
not identical with their essences. Rather, they have essences, just as they have
forms, rather than being forms.
In Lesson 12, Aquinas eventually addresses the problem of essential unity. The
problem is stated thus: How can an essence be one, given the fact that it
consists of genus and difference, and given also that no genus can be allowed
to participate in its differences? (Cf. VII, Lesson 4) And this cannot be allowed
for two reasons: (1) If a genus may participate in its differences circular
definitions will be the result, similar to the case of snub nose and nose. (2)
If a genus may participate in its differences it will participate in contraries
since differences are contraries. E.g., being rational and being irrational are
differences of animality, but rational and irrational are contraries. So, if it is
possible that a genus participates in its differences it is possible that an animal
is both rational and irrational. But this is impossible because nothing can have
contrary attributes at the same time and in the same respect (this follows from
the law of non-contradiction). Now, since this option has to be ruled out, it
seems that the differences can only be alien, external determinations of the
genus that is additional to the generic essence. It seems impossible, however,
that essential unity should come about via addition.
52

Further, it is worth noting that the problem has nothing to do with a lack of
precision. Philosophers like Leibniz think that the main problem of essential
definitions is vagueness and that we can come closer to the essence of a certain
thing by adding as many of its attributes as we can. But this only increases the
difficulty that Aristotle addresses here since every additional attribute makes
the question of essential unity more pressing.
Aristotles own solution is radical, so Aquinas points out. Its core idea is to
reduce essences to the primary genus (primum genus), i.e. the category,
together with a complete list of all the differences that are constitutive of the
essence in question. So if we want to explore the essential unity of humanity
we have to reduce the human essence (rational animality) to its primary genus,
i.e. substance, and see this genus together with the constitutive differences. I.e.,
we will see that human beings are material, living, sentient, rational
substances. But why do the genus and all the differences form an essential
unity together? Well, they do so because the differences are already virtually
contained within the genus. That means that any real difference whatsoever is a
possible determination of the next genus, but then necessarily of all the higher
genera as well. E.g., if being rational is a possible determination of being an
animal, it is necessarily also a possible determination of being a living being,
of being a material substance, and of being a substance simpliciter.
This solution does not violate the law of non-contradiction because it does not
imply that a genus participates in contraries. It is one thing to say that
something has contrary attributes, and it is another thing to say that it is
determinable in contrary ways. E.g., it is self-contradictory to say that animals
are (both) rational and irrational (because being irrational implies not being
rational). But it is perfectly consistent to say that animals may be either
rational or irrational.
This solution presupposes that the genus has no separate existence from the
species and from the instantiations that fall under it. Thus, there are animals
because there are human beings, horses, dogs, birds, mice, etc. That means that
there cannot be an animal that is not a member of a certain ultimate species
(infima species) of animality. The concept ainmal abstracts from the
differences and focuses on what all animals essentially have in common.
53

But if somebody objects to this solution by referring to examples of seemingly
separate genera one has to show that the putative examples are in fact instances
of denominative predication, i.e. cases of deriving a genus concept from
matter. (Cf. VII, Lesson 2) E.g., a certain noise might be both an instance of
the letter a and a pure, material noise, perhaps as an expression of
amazement. However, strictly speaking, pure noises and utterances of letters
are not identical; rather the former are the material out of which the latter are
formed. So if we say nonetheless that the spoken letter a is a certain noise
this is a case of denominative attribution. But since there is such an intimate
correlation between form and matter in the material world it is no surprise that
essential attributes may refer to matter, e.g. when we say that at least the higher
animals are essentially of flesh and blood.
The two main results of this discussion are: (1) Any genus whatsoever, taken
as such, lacks determination since it contains a certain variety of species that
are constituted by contrary differences. The differences, however, must not be
mentioned in the essential definition of the genus since they are no part of the
essence of the genus qua genus. (2) Essential differences preserve the unity
both of the genus and of the species that they constitute. This is the case
because a difference refers to a form and therefore to a species.
In Lessons 13-16, Aquinas shows how Aristotle rules out separate forms from
the sphere of possible entities. So, if we consider the list of possible candidates
for substantial being at the beginning of Book VII we can see now that both
matter and the universal (=the Platonic idea) can no longer be regarded as
substances in the proper sense. Matter, taken as such, is not substance but that
of which a substance is made. Universals, by contrast, are not substances
because they are mere entia rationis which have no mind-independent
existence.
So the only remaining candidates are (1) essences and (2) concrete compounds
of matter and form. But in case there are immaterial substances the contrast
between (1) and (2) disappears. That is: Individual substances that are not
compounds of matter and form are identical with their essences. But this
cannot be so with respect to material substances. They are not essences but
have essences. The contrast between substance and essence applies here.
54

In Lesson 17, some important consequences for the whole project of
metaphysics are drawn, and an outlook on what will come is provided.
The overall aim of this lesson is to show that substances and essences are
causes, and therefore principles of scientific explanation. This sheds a light in
the issue of immaterial, separate substances, as Aquinas emphasizes.
In order to do so, Aristotle refers back to the forms of scientific questions that
he distinguishes in the Posterior Analytics. There he teaches that questions of
the form Does X exist? are logically distinct from questions of the form
What is X? but also different from Why is X the way it is?, or even Why
does X exist? In spite to these logical differences, Aristotle insists here that
questions of these different logical types may be interchangeable in certain
scientific contexts nonetheless. I.e., the question What is X? presupposes that
X exists. And an answer to a What is X? question can be an answer to a Why
is X G? question as well. For example: Why is Socrates able to make valid
inferences from what his interlocutors say? Because he is rational. And
certain answers to a certain subtype of why-questions, i.e. Why does X exist?
are answers to questions of the first type, too. For example: Why does
Socrates exist? Because he was begotten by his parents and born by his
mother. The answer also rules out any doubt whether or not Socrates exists.
The important point to make here is that substance and essences can figure in
answers to questions of all types that are mentioned here. This proves that
substances and essences are causes and principles.
In this context, Aquinas explains that there is a fundamental difference
between the mere logician and the true philosopher. That is, whereas the
logician is content with stating the rules of correct predication and valid
inference, the true philosopher wants to know precisely why these rules apply,
i.e. how they are grounded in reality.
Two corollaries follow in the concluding passages of the commentary on Book
VII: The first is that simple substances cannot be investigated this way. Thus it
seems that there can be no knowledge and no demonstrative reasoning about
them. So one of the main worries that are expressed in Book II seems to be
confirmed here. But Aquinas argues that there might be another, more indirect
way to get cognitive access to this topic, i.e. the way of causal reflection that
55

starts with material substances. So if we have no immediate access to the
essences of immaterial substances we might study their effects on material
substances instead (if they have any).
The second is that the range of the above inquiry into parts and wholes is
limited to substantial unities. However, we have to keep in mind that there are
different kinds of wholes, i.e. integral wholes (of which material substances
and essences form a species) and aggregative wholes, e.g. masses, heaps, etc.
Wholes that form a unity due to an external force (through binding, nails or
glue, etc.) obtain a kind of middle position between aggregative and integral
wholes. If the above considerations pertain to aggregative and non-substantial
integral wholes they can do so only mutatis mutandis. And since aggregative
wholes are extreme cases of accidental unities it is no surprise that sorites
paradoxes and other problems apply here.
10
They do not do so with respect to
essential unities.


10
E.g., the problem: How many grains of sand are required to form a heap? How many hairs must a man have
on his head in order not to be bald? Remember also the paradox of Theseus ship: How many parts of a ship
can be replaced by other parts without changing the numerical identity of the whole ship? And imagine that
someone took all the old, former parts of Theseus ship and built another, formally identical ship. The result
would be that we had two ships instead of one, But which of them is the original?
56

10. Act and potency
The concept of substance is the most basic and most important conceptual
element in Aristotelian ontology, and so a lot hangs on its precise explication.
So it is very important to understand the intricate relationship between
substances and essences, and how the difference between material and
immaterial substances is supposed to matter here. To sum up everything, one
can perhaps say that substances can be known, distinguished, classified and
scientifically examined qua having forms and therefore belonging to species.
At the same time, they are real entities that stand in causal relations qua being
material, which also explains why substances have accidents. I.e., substances
are principles of causation both as the causes and effects of natural movement
in virtue of being made of matter.
This consideration provides a useful criterion for the existence of immaterial
substances as well. If there are immaterial substances they must have at least
some kind of causal powers, in spite of their being immaterial. Otherwise,
there would be no difference between immaterial substances and Platonic
ideas, which are said not to exist precisely because they cannot have causal
power.
But before this question can be addressed a further distinction has to be made,
i.e. the distinction between act and potency.
In Lesson 1 on Book IX we are told that the difference between act and
potency defines a further sense of the term being: Whatever is, is either
actually or merely potentially. Thus, the terms act and potency cut across
the categories just like being does (and unity, truth and goodness as well).
That means that it is a transcendental distinction, in the scholastic sense of the
term transcendental. Act and potency, however, are usually not counted
among the transcendent terms.
Aristotle starts his investigation with an explication of potency. This term has
many senses, some of which are proper, others improper.
In an improper, equivocal use, potency can mean any kind of possibility, e.g.
when we say in mathematics that numbers can be squared or that a right angle
potentially contains two acute angles, etc. This sense should be dismissed in
metaphysical considerations, however, since squaring numbers and dividing
57

angles in halves are merely intellectual operations that do not bring about real
changes.
In a more proper sense, logical possibilities are sometimes also called
potencies or potentials. E.g. some people hold that human beings can be
immortal. Now, if we take the can in this proposition as a modal operator the
whole proposition expresses a mere logical possibility. According to Leibniz,
any proposition is possible that does not involve a contradiction, either in
itself or with another possible proposition (the latter being called the principle
of compossibility). And both conditions seem to be fulfilled here. The
proposition There might be immortal human beings is neither self-
contradictory (since the terms human being and immortal do not seem to
be incompatible), nor does it contradict any further logical possibility, at least
not obviously. This cannot mean, however, that there really are human beings
that have a potency for physical immortality.
But it far from being necessary to identify ontological potencies with logical
possibilities at all since the inferential rules for the terms that are involved are
a bit different. A potency is ordained towards an act. Its contrary is impotency,
i.e. the incapability to bring about an act of the kind in question. By contrast, a
possibility is not ordained towards anything. Its contrary is an impossibility,
which is logically equivalent to an opposing necessity. I.e.: If p is impossible
then non-p is necessary. But if p is possible then non-p is not necessary.
Aristotle gives the basic inference rules of modal logic in Peri hermeneias. In
sum: Potency and act are correlative ontological terms whereas possibility and
necessity are correlative in the logical sphere.
Of course, the relation between logical possibilities and necessities, on the one
hand, and potencies and causality, on the other, is quite intricate and needs a
lot of further clarification. A first step, however, is to distinguish the sphere of
the logical from the sphere of the ontological. Contemporary metaphysics
notoriously fails to do so when it just assumes that having a theory of real
potencies and powers is nothing more than giving an interpretation of a certain
modal calculus. It seems that Leibniz was one of the first philosophers who
did not make the necessary distinctions. He can therefore be called the
founding father of modern metaphysical modalism.
58

Aristotle then distinguishes a variety of proper meanings of the term potency.
In one sense, having a potency means being able to bring about a certain
movement (Socrates can walk). In another sense, a potency is an inability to
change to the worse (Sue has a robust health; she does not fall ill easily). In a
further sense, a potency is an ability to perform a certain movement or
operation well (Ronaldo can play football). And, finally, a potency may also
be a susceptibility for change of a certain kind (Paper can burn).
All of these meanings, however, can be reduced to one basic meaning. And so
Aristotle defines a potency as a principle of change in something other insofar
as it is another thing (in alio inquantum est aliud). This is the definition of an
active potency, to be sure. But the definition of a passive potency is correlated
thus: A passive potency is a principle of being changed by something else.
Active and passive potencies are always correlative and have to go together if
change is to happen. The otherness condition in the definition of active
potencies is inserted to exclude self-causation. But this does not rule out
accidental identity. To use Aristotles own example: It might be the case, that
a person A heals herself. But this is not self-causation, since A qua patient is
healed by A qua physician, which is a case of accidental identity between
agent and patient. Being a physician and being ill are essentially different,
however. So medicine is the art of healing, and not the art of self-healing.
Impotency or incapacity, then, is contrary to potency. So if potency has many
meanings, impotency does have as many.
In Lesson 3, Aquinas discusses Aristotles rejection of actualism, which is a
doctrine of the Megarian school of philosophy according to which potencies
exist only when actualized. Aquinas assumes that this is due to the fact that
the Megarian thinkers were determinists who wanted to rule out
indeterminism. But, surprisingly enough, Quine tried to give an epistemic
justification of Megarian actualism in his Word and Object (1960). According
to Quine, unactualized potencies pose a severe threat to empiricism because
they are by definition unobservable (only actual being is observable). Thus
potency terms violate the empiricist sense criterion for meaningful terms.
Therefore, Quine thinks that empiricists should do without them. Quine also
59

wanted to put an end to the long debate about dispositions in Logical
Empiricism. This is why he rejects modal logic.
But the consequences of abolishing potency terms are absurd. Aristotle shows
this by arguing that if a certain substance A is not allowed to have a certain
unactualized potency P unless it performs a certain operation S at a certain
time t
1
, it follows that A cannot have P at t
0
. But if this is the case then A must
somehow acquire P in the time interval between t
0
and t
1
, either by magic or
by another potency. But since the latter is to be ruled out and the former is not
an attractive option either, it seems that A cannot have P at all. But this means
that A is impotent to perform S, i.e. S will not be performed at all. That means
that we can either allow for unactualized potencies or give up the notion of
motion and change at all. It seems clear what option we have to choose. The
Megarians do away with movement and change, with action, and even with
time, since time is a measure for movement and rest, as Aristotle says in his
Physics.
For similar reasons, Aristotle also rejects the contrary view according to
which everything is possible. This is clearly false with respect to mathematics
since mathematical truths are necessary truths. But it is also false with respect
to nature because not everything can become of everything but only what has
a suitable potency.
In Lessons 2 and 4, Aquinas explains why Aristotle divides potencies into
rational and irrational ones. This division does not seem to pay enough
attention to the differences between animate and inanimate beings and their
respective potencies. But according to Aquinas, there is a basic feature that is
common to both inanimate and irrational animate potencies, and that is their
being ordained towards one kind of act. Thus, fire has a potency to heat like
sight is a potency to see and touch a potency to feel. By contrast, rational
potencies are ordained towards contraries, especially to one thing and its
privation. So, the speculative intellect is directed towards truth and falsity and
the will is about goodness and badness, just like medicine deals with health
and illness.
To be sure, rational potencies do not aim at opposites at the same time (which
is impossible). Rather, they involve a certain knowledge of the relevant
60

oppositions, in order to aim at one thing and to avoid its privation. So the
intellect seeks for truth and wants to avoid falsity, just as the will strives for
the good and flees from the bad. And medicine has to know about illness in
order to restore health, which is the principle goal of medicine.
In general, rational potencies require the will to be actualized. An irrational
potency cannot fail to become actual once the circumstances are appropriate.
E.g., if fire comes close enough to a dry piece of paper it will infallibly burn
it. By contrast, the bearer of a rational potency can always choose to refrain
from actualizing it under appropriate circumstances. E.g., a physician can
decide not to treat a certain patient even though he could do so if he wanted.
Since man is a rational animal he has many irrational potencies, e.g. the senses
and sensual appetites. But he also has rational potencies. Some of them he is
born with (intellect and rationality), others are acquired by learning and
training. The acquired potencies are certain perfections partly of the inborn
rational potencies, partly of the unity of body, rational and irrational soul. This
is true both of virtues (aretai) and skills (technai).
Aristotle further distinguishes between productive and contemplative
potencies. The former are directed towards manipulating external objects, the
latter are directed towards their bearer; they stay within the mind, as Aquinas
often puts it. This becomes clearer once we also consider the difference
between productive and contemplative acts: The former aim at perfecting
something external, the latter at perfecting their bearer.

61

11. The priority of actuality
In Lesson 5, Aquinas proceeds to explain what an act or an actualization
(energeia, actus) is. The term is taken from the sphere of movement, where it
signifies activity (energeia is derived from ergon, which means action or
work). However, we have to assign a much broader meaning to it since not
every actualization is an activity.
11

An essential definition of what an act is is impossible, though, since act is a
basic and simple concept that has no definition, just like the categories and the
transcendentals.
Nonetheless, the concept of act can be elucidated inductively, i.e. by giving
examples. Aquinas notes that examples of acts always have to stand in
proportion to an underlying potency. So, if architecture is the art, i.e. the
potency of building then planning and building an edifice is its act. And if
medicine is the art, i.e. the potency of healing the actual healing of an ill
person is its act. Similarly, if seed and soil are potentially a plant the actual
plant is the actualization of the joined potentials of seed and soil.
It appears from the examples that there are basically two kinds of acts, i.e.
being (actus essendi) and operation (actus operandi).
Aristotle points out that this does not imply that any potential being necessarily
has an act. This is not the case since the void, the infinite and prime matter are
all purely potential beings that cannot become actual, at least not to Aristotles
mind.
Now, since there are active and passive potencies there also has to be a passive
counterpart to any actus operandi. E.g., the act of seeing involves not just a
seeing potential but also something visible. So being seen is the appropriate
passive act that corresponds to any act of seeing.
In Lesson 6, the role of matter as the principle of passive potencies, and hence
of passivity, is explained. So, proximate and ultimate matter have the
immediate passive potency of being formed, i.e. of receiving a form that is
effected by an agent if nothing interferes. By contrast, if a certain portion of
matter is not ready to receive a certain form, either not at all or at least not

11
Recently, however, Aryeh Kosman has argued that energeia should be rendered as activity throughout
Aristotles Metaphysics; cf. his The activity of being. An essay on Aristotles ontology, Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2013.
62

without further preparation it is not proximate matter, but more remote. So
neither seed nor earth as such are the proximate matter of a plant, but their
unification, together with an appropriate quantity of water, is.
As has been noted before, proximate matter can be indicated by denominative
or derivative predication (ekeininon, ecininum, thaten). E.g., to say that a
chest is wooden or that a figure is brazen indicates that the proximate matter of
the chest is wood and that the proximate matter of the figure is brass. But we
can reduce proximate matter to remote matter by predicating remote matter of
proximate matter in the same way. So we may say that both wood and brass
are somehow earthen, as Aristotle thinks. If, however, we finally reach a
certain matter that has no constituting proximate matter this must be prime
matter.
Aquinas concludes the discussion with the observation that matter is predicated
of substances almost like an accident. This sheds further light on the above
claim that matter cannot be substance.
In Lessons 7 and 8, Aquinas explains in which ways acts are prior to potencies.
It is not accidental that this discussion has some similarity with the claims
concerning the priority of substance over accidents in Book VII, since
potencies are ordained towards acts in a similar fashion as accidents are
ordained towards substances, in spite of the differences.
o Priority in definition: Acts are essentially prior to potencies since any
definition of a potency must mention the corresponding act.
o Priority in time (secundum quid, with qualifications): A potency always
needs a corresponding actuality to come into being. E.g., a boy is a
potential man and a girl a potential woman. But it takes an actual man
and an actual woman to beget a boy or a girl. The corresponding
actuality, however, is specifically but not numerically identical with the
potency (no man begets himself). With respect to the numerical identity
of potency and act, the potency is necessarily prior in time than the act.
o Priority in knowledge: We can add as a further point that acts are prior
to potencies with respect to knowledge, since potencies become
observable and knowable through their corresponding acts. E.g., we
know that A is musical if we hear that he actually makes music.
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o Priority in acquisition (secundum quid, with qualifications): With
respect to acquired potencies, we may also observe that there is a
certain priority of the act here because the acquisition of a potency is
through the performance of appropriate acts. E.g., one become musical
by making music, and one becomes a mathematician by doing
mathematics.
This does not create the so called paradox of learning that the
sophists have presented,
12
because performing certain
operations does not require the agent to possess the mature
potency in question. An inchoate stage of the development of
that very potency often suffices. And this is what takes place in
learning something or acquiring a potency. Aristotle says that
this is an application of the physical principle that anything that
is being moved also has been moved already. In the end,
however, the very possibility of acquiring a potency
presupposes the presence of potencies that are not acquired but
inborn or natural.
o Priority in perfection (substance): The mature form is prior in
perfection, but subsequent in time. Therefore, a man is prior, i.e. more
perfect than a boy, but a boy is also prior, i.e. earlier in time, than a
man. In general, the mature form of a substance is prior to the potency
of actualizing it because becoming is a teleological process that aims at
perfection. This also holds for operations: The natural or intentional
goal of a movement is its principle, i.e. its final cause (telos, finis). The
potency to perform a certain operation stands in a for-the-sake-of
relation to the actual operation. Thus, sight is for the sake of seeing,
and knowledge is for the sake of speculation, not vice versa. But in
such a relation, the right-hand part is necessarily nobler and more
perfect than the left-hand part.
13


12
According to this paradox, learning is impossible since learning requires the learner to perform operations
that she does not master yet. But if she does not master them she cannot perform them. Thus etc.
13
But note that this claim cannot be applied to passive potencies without caution. For example, it would be
absurd to claim that actually falling ill is better than the mere susceptibility for illness. The reserve seems to be
true. And so in similar cases.
64

Aquinas points out that the priority of act over potency in the above
dimensions also holds for those acts and potencies that are not productive but
contemplative. Contemplative acts, e.g. seeing or understanding something, do
not eventually result in an external perfection; rather they are inner perfections
of the contemplative intellect. But this does not keep them from being more
perfect than the underlying potencies. This has consequences for Aristotles
theology.
In Lesson 9, Aquinas compares corruptible and incorruptible substances (if
there are any) with respect to their perfection.
The basic idea is that incorruptible, eternal things are always actual, either
simpliciter or secundum quid. Thus, the heavenly bodies are incorruptible and
always actual with respect to existence but corruptible, i.e. changeable with
respect to position (they move on orbits). By contrast, a substance that was
incorruptible as such and in every respect would be more perfect than the
celestial bodies since corruptibility is one mode of imperfection. Being
corruptible means being capable of non-being, which is less perfect than being
incapable of non-being.
Everything potential is also corruptible, at least insofar as it is potential. The
heavenly bodies, however, are incorruptible with respect to both existence and
movement because theye moved effortlessly. (Aquinas adds: Deo volente, nota
bene.)
14

But all the incorruptible things, both material and immaterial, are better and
more perfect than corruptible substances.


14
The natural incorruptibility of the celestial bodies does not rule out their being corrupted through the Divine
will.
65

12. Material and immaterial substances
Aquinas regards Book XII as the culmination of Aristotelian metaphysics. For
him, all the investigations of the previous books are brought to final results
here, whereas Book XIII and XIV do not contain any further positive results
but merely negative answers to some questions. Most of them have to do with
the ontological status of mathematical objects. In his commentary, however,
Aquinas stops at Book XII; and it is hard to tell whether he did not comment
on the final books because he did not think it worthwhile to do so or whether
he did not have time to complete his commentary.
So what might seem to be mere repetition here is in fact, according to Aquinas,
a decisive step in the direction of answering questions about first causes and
first principles.
This is supposed to hold even for the introductory passages on the importance
of the concept of substance for metaphysics, which Aquinas comments on in
Lesson 1. For Aquinas, Aristotle here takes a new and much broader view on
substance than in Book VII and VIII. Whereas the latter books are chiefly
concerned with comparing substances to accidents and with elucidating the
structure and composition of material substances, the beginning of Book XII
reflects the position of substances within reality as a whole. Aristotle says that
substances are the principal and most important part of reality. He compares
the relation of substance and reality to the relation of the heart to the rest of a
living animal body and to the that of the front line to the whole of a battling
army.
In this context, Aquinas criticizes Averroes for missing the new perspective on
substance that Aristotle takes here since Averroes takes Aristotle simply to
restate here that substance is (i) a highest genus and (ii) logically different from
the accidental genera.
But according to Aquinas, Aristotle presents three further arguments in favor
of the metaphysical priority of substance.
o Substance is prior to accidents with respect to ontological perfection.
o Substance is prior to accidents with respect to ontological
independence.
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o Last not least, there is an argument from authority since all of the
ancient philosophers from Thales to Plato wondered about the nature of
substance more than they were concerned with accidents, albeit in
different times and misguided in many different ways.
Up to Book IX at least, only material substances have come into view, due to
the methodology chosen by Aristotle. But now it might be asked how many
kinds of substances there are and if all substances are material or not. This is
the main topic of Lesson 2. Aristotle says that there cannot be more than three
kinds of substances, and perhaps there are even less than three. These are the
following:
o Corruptible material substances. They have been the main object of
inquiry in Book VII, VIII an IX.
o Incorruptible material substances. They have emerged as an object of
metaphysical concern in Book IX, Lesson 9. For example, Aristotle
takes the celestial bodies to be material but incorruptible, hence eternal
substances.
o Immaterial substances. It is not clear by now whether there are any, but
if there are immaterial substances they have to be immutable and
incorruptible by their very nature. It is also unclear what suitable
candidates for immaterial substantiality there might be. For example,
the Platonists think that Ideas are immaterial substances whereas the
Pythagoreans seem to take only mathematical objects to be substantial
but immaterial. By contrast, Anaxagoras holds that there is a pure,
immaterial intellect that is the first cause of order in everything. The
late Plato is sympathetic to that idea, too.
15

Aristotle also calls the first two kinds of substances sensible substances and the
third kind intelligible substances. This is some kind of extrinsic denomination,
though, taken from their respective modes of givenness to the human mind.
The existence of sensible substances is not called into question by anyone,
except some radical skeptics, perhaps. But purely intelligible substances that
cannot be given in perception are contested entities. But in any case, it seems

15
Cf. his proof of the existence of a first mover in the Nomoi, which sounds almost like a paraphrase of
Aristotles own argument.
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clear that there cannot be a fourth kind of substance. That means, whatever
substance there might be, it has to fall under one of the three kinds listed here.
Metaphysics, however, seems to be the only philosophical discipline that can
take all three possible kinds of substances into view. Neither physics nor
mathematics is prepared to do so. But if it turned out that there are no
immaterial substances whatsoever then mathematics would immediately drop
out of the picture, and the task of metaphysics would be merely negative, i.e. to
explain that there is nothing beyond the material. Or to put it another way, the
positive part of metaphysics would coincide with physics. This is a neat
description of the idea of ontological materialism or, as it is often called
nowadays, naturalism.
In Lessons 2 and 3, Aquinas also comments on the way in which Aristotle
describes the respective roles of matter and form in processes of substantial
change. First, Aristotle repeats that change is a movement between opposites,
but not between any arbitrary opposites (e.g. between white and musical) but
rather between well-determined, correlative opposites, i.e. between contraries
(i.e. between black and white, or between unmusical and musical).
But since the contraries themselves are not changed in change processes
(blackness itself does not turn into whiteness, but something turns from
blackness to whiteness), an underlying subject of change is required for change
to be possible. In the case of substantial change, i.e. of generation or
destruction, this underlying subject has to be matter.
In a next step, Aristotle generalizes this point by emphasizing that the same
holds for all for kinds of change (kinesis): (1) generation and destruction, (2)
growth and decline, (3) locomotion, (4) qualitative change. Although it is true
that these different kinds of change pertain to different aspects of substances
they all have one thing in common: They all involve matter, as Aristotle points
out here. I.e., none of these kinds of change can happen if the underlying
matter has no passive potential for precisely this particular type of change to
occur.
16
This thought will eventually lead to the claim that first matter is the
universal first passive principle of change and movement.

16
Although it might well be that one particular change is accidentally caused by another, as Aristotle stresses
elsewhere. For example, the destruction of a material substance (1) might also cause qualitative change (4), as
in the case of a corpse that turns pale and cold. In this case, the qualitative change has no qualitative cause of
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Aquinas extracts two implications of this doctrine with respect to the teachings
of the ancient philosophers:
o The concept of substantial change does not violate the principle Ex
nihilo nihil fit Nothing comes out of nothing that the ancients held
to be universally valid, since matter and therefore a potential for
becoming a substance has to preexist before any actual substantial
becoming can take place, and matter in a sense also survives the
destruction of a substance. Thus, it is not necessary to follow
Parmenides into the extreme position of denying the possibility of
change.
o When a substance begins to exist this is a case of true generation and
not just of alteration, as Anaxagoras and many other thinkers held. It is
more than just a rearrangement of material parts. However, Anaxagoras
was right in insisting that there is one ultimate material basis of
material reality, and this is matter as such, and so were Empedocles and
Democritus when they taught similar doctrines. But Anaxagoras was
wrong when he taught that every ontological possibility is equally
present in matter since the taking-on of form for matter has to follow a
certain ontological order. One should not identify matter with chaos as
Anaxagoras seems to have done.
With respect to the role of form (Lesson 3), Aquinas first reminds us that
neither form nor matter as such are generated in the process of substantial
generation. Aristotle says, accordingly, that neither ultimate form nor ultimate
matter are generated or produced when a material substance is generated or
produced. Rather, both of them preexist before generation in a certain sense.
But neither of them has active causal powers, which implies that a third
element is needed to account for the unification of ultimate matter and ultimate
form. And this third element is an efficient cause.
Aquinas further reminds us that there are three kinds of effective substantial
causation, i.e. natural, artificial and chance causation. For all them, however,
there has to be some likeness between cause and effect.

its own but is rather a further effect of substantial change. This complication, however, does not affect the
main point that Aristotle wants to make here.
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o The strongest variety of likeness is necessary in natural efficient
causation where the efficient agent has to be conspecific with the
substance that it generates.
o In artificial causation, by contrast, there is not specific identity but at
least similarity between the preconceived image of the artifact in the
mind of the artist or craftsman (exemplar) and the final material artifact
that is produced. This special kind of causality is called exemplary
causality in scholastic thought. In an analogous extension of the term,
exemplary causation is supposed to take place in Divine creation as
well.
o The weakest variety of likeness, then, is present in luck production
(when an intentional agent acts above his capacities) or in chance
generation (when a natural agent generates something beyond its
natural potency). Even here, though, there has to be at least some kind
of likeness between cause and effect.
So in these different senses precisely, the form of a substance has a
preexistence before the existence of the substance itself, i.e. a preexistence in
the efficient agent, albeit in different degrees of reality.
The preexisting form, however, should not be conflated with the formal cause,
since it is rather a certain necessary feature of the efficient cause. The formal
cause, i.e. the particular form of a material substance, has no preexistence as
such. This is why Aquinas says that efficient causes are prior in time to their
effects whereas formal causes are not.
This has natural implications for the understanding of the soul and the intellect
that Aquinas therefore touches upon here, although Aristotle does not mention
the issue in his text. So if the soul is the form of a living body, as Aquinas has
pointed out in Book VII, it has no preexistence before the existence of the
living body. And if the intellect is a genuine part of the human soul the same
has to hold for the intellective soul. This goes against Plato who believes that
the human soul has a kind of preexistence of which it can have some kind of
recollection (anamnesis). According to Aristotle, this is impossible. But on the
other hand, Aristotle thinks that at least the intellect can survive the death of
the human body. This has lead the Averroists to hold that the intellect is not a
genuine part of the human soul but rather the Divine mind, and that the so-
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called passive intellect is nothing but a temporary participation in the Divine
intellect that is not separable from the body and therefore mortal. Aquinas
objects that this is (1) a degradation of the human intellect and (2) not
Aristotles own view. He insists instead, here and elsewhere, that also the so-
called agent intellect is a genuine part of the soul, given what Aristotle says
about it in Book III of De Anima.
17

In Lesson 4, then, Aquinas deals with the question whether or not the causes of
accidents are the same as substantial causes. Aristotle discusses this point in a
dialectical way when he first says that, e.g. the cause of the existence of a
substance must be generically different from the causes of the existence of a
relation, and the same seems to hold for the other accidents because a
substantial cause can only have substantial effects whereas an accidental cause
can only have accidental effects. So if there are to be common causes for both
substances and accidents they have to be prior to substances and accidents. But
nothing is prior to substances except substances. And transcendentals like unity
or being have no causal force. But if there are no common causes then
substantial causes must also have accidents as effects, or the causes of
accidents must have substances as their effects. And then we are back at the
first difficulty.
The solution, however, is to establish an analogous unity of substantial causes
and the causes of accidents, to the effect that it is possible to say both that the
causes of accidents are and are not the same as the substantial causes. This
solution is reached in three steps:
o First, Aquinas distinguishes between internal and external causality.
Formal and material causes are the internal causes whereas efficient
causes are external to the substances that are their effects.
o Aquinas then observes that accidents can be grounded in accidents.
E.g., relations are grounded in non-relational accidents (equality and
inequality in quantity, parenthood and childhood or the relation of
master and servant in action and passion). So accidents can cause
accidents. This obviously pertains both to internal and external

17
Cf. also his De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas On the unity of the intellect against the Averroists.
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causality, because quantity is an internal feature of a material substance
whereas action and passion refer to external causality.
o But the internal accidents are themselves caused by internal causes, i.e.
matter, form or privation, and this necessarily so: A substantial change
with respect to matter, to form or to the privation of form has to involve
a concomitant change of the internal accidents. It cannot fail to bring
about accidental change.
o Now the same has to hold for external causes: Forming matter or
depriving a substance of its form through efficient causality necessarily
involves the exertion of a causal influence on accidents.
o In sum, one can say that accidents do not have causes of their own, nor
are they causally efficient in their own right, but that they are caused by
substantial causes analogous to substances.
Aquinas further explains that the final cause is not mentioned here since it
coincides with form in case of substantial causation, including the question
why a substance has the accidents that it has.
Aristotle adds that the first mover is the one cause of everything, and Aquinas
takes him to say: the univocal cause of everything, substances and accidents
included.
In the remainder of Lesson 4, however, Aristotle works up towards the idea of
a first moving principle by distinguishing between proximate and more remote
causes. But the term remote cause has several meanings. In one sense, a
substance a is a remote cause of the substance c if a causes b and b causes c. In
a slightly extended sense this also pertains to a substance as the remote cause
of its accidents causing accidents. But in a different sense, causal influences
also have to be considered as remote causes. So for Aristotle, the movement of
the sun on the zodiac is a remote cause for the generation of a living being
because life would be impossible without the movement of the sun (or of the
earth around the sun, to put it in heliocentric terms). And since, for Aristotle,
the heavenly bodies, including the sun, are moved by intellects (the Gods) the
intellects have to be considered as remote causes of life. Note that the sun is a
real causal agent and not just a happy circumstance for the generation of life
since the sun has a strong causal influence. It heats the earth and thus prepares
it for bearing life, while the change of day and night brought about by the
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movement of the sun keeps the earth from being overheated (or from cooling
down too much on the dark side). And since the sun causes not just one living
being but life in general it can be called a universal cause. This cannot mean,
though, that the sun is a universal in the Platonic sense since the sun is a
particular substance, as Aquinas stresses.

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13. The necessity and nature of the first mover
At the beginning of Lesson 5, Aquinas points out that Platonic forms and
mathematical objects will be effectively disqualified as candidates for
immaterial substantiality in Books XIII and XIV. On these books, however,
there is no commentary by Aquinas.
In the remainder of Book XII, Aristotle develops what has been called a
cosmological proof or cosmological argument for the existence of God. This is
probably the best-known a-posteriori argument for theism and even
monotheism and has been highly influential until today. Note, however, that
Aristotles argument differs very much in richness and content from the
attenuated cosmological argument that Kant discusses in the Critique of Pure
Reason.
The basic premise of this argument is that there is eternal circular and
continuous movement (of the celestial bodies) and, therefore, eternal and
continuous time. So there must be an eternal cause for this to happen. And this
cause must be external since no movement is caused by itself. But if the
planets and stars should have an internal cause for being moved it is
nonetheless necessary to find a further external cause for this. One important
idea for making this claim seems to be that the celestial bodies move in an
orderly manner, and if there were only internal moving causes for the
movement of each of them the order of the whole cosmos would be a chance
product, which seems highly improbable, if not impossible.
The first cause must be purely actual (actus purus) because otherwise the
continuity of eternal movement could not be explained. From this it follows
that the first cause is immaterial because being material entails being potential
in certain respects, i.e. not being purely actual. But it has to be a substance
nonetheless, since only substances have causal powers. So the first cause has to
be characterized as a first mover.
Aquinas stresses that this part of the argument is merely dialectical and not
fully demonstrative since it rests on the premise that the cosmos is eternal.
According to Aristotle himself, however, this assumption is merely probable,
and so is everything that follows from it. But as Aquinas points out, nothing
impossible follows from the idea that God has created the universe and time in
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one and the same act, although the nature of this act is beyond human
comprehension.
In spite of this objection, Aquinas uses the assumption of an eternal world in
his own proofs for the existence of God, probably because of two advantages:
1. The assumption of an eternal world seems less demanding than the idea that
the world was created by an omnipotent being. 2. The task of showing that a
first immaterial mover is necessary for explaining movement in spite of the
eternality assumption seems much more demanding than the task to show that
a created world needs a creator, or first effective cause. This is why
Aquinas calls this assumption is the most effective (efficacissima) tool for a
theistic proof.
In Lesson 6, a possible objection against the argument is considered. It is taken
from the priority of potency before act in time and runs like this: If everything
that is actual comes into being by actualizing a potency, then it seems that the
first cause cannot be purely actual but rather purely potential. A similar
consideration may have led the theological poets and Anaxagoras to saying
that everything has come out of darkness or chaos. But this is impossible since
it implies that being comes out of non-being since potential being is a kind of
non-being. Furthermore, the objection is invalid since the priority of potency
before act is not absolute, but holds only secundum quid, i.e. for the existence
and the operations and passions of numerically identical material substances.
(cf. Book IX, Lesson 7). This does not rule out the possibility of a purely
actual being.
But as Aristotle observes, the argument for a first mover also attack both
Leucippus and Plato, both of whom held that movement is eternal while failing
to see that they needed an active ordering principle to account for this claim. It
seems impossible that order should come about by chance.
In 2508, Aquinas happily sums up the main content of Aristotles cosmological
argument: He says that the generation of life is an eternal, ongoing process that
needs the well-ordered movement of the celestial bodies, most of all of the sun.
This implies that the sun and the planets are in eternal movement. And this
claim in turns requires us to posit an eternal first, purely actual, unchangeable
first mover. And this can only be an immaterial substance. Thus, the existence
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of a numerically identical, eternal first mover explains the eternal movement of
the sun and the planets, and their movement in turn explains the continuing
existence of life on earth (among other things, of course).
Aquinas stresses that no further element is needed for a complete explanation
of natural movements, including the generation and corruption of living
beings. So Platonic ideas or Empedoclean Love and Hate become unnecessary
principles.
In Lessons 7 and 8, Aquinas follows Aristotles inquiry into the essence and
the attributes of the first mover. In his own systematic theology, Aquinas takes
a lot of care to establish a strict methodology for theological discourse,
18
but
here he merely explains how Aristotle himself develops his ideas. The main
steps of Thomistic theology are recognizable nonetheless. So in a first step, it
is established that a first mover exists, by making an inference from effects to
causes. This is the way of causality (via causalitatis). Then the attributes of
such a first being are collected by speculating on what such a being must be
like in order to qualify for the first mover. And the method here is to move
from negative (via negativa) to affirmative attributes (via affirmativa).
Some of the negative attributes are the following: The first mover or God, as
Aristotle eventually calls this being is immaterial, unmoved, immutable, one
(not many).
Some attributes are ambiguous since they admit for both a negative and an
affirmative reading (pure act, eternal existence, substance).
But in Lesson 7 and 8, clearly affirmative attributes are added to the list. And
these are ultimate intelligibility and ultimate desirability. Both are attributes of
God since only what is intelligible and desirable can move other things without
being moved or changed itself. In natural movements, the agent mover is also
moved or altered by causing movement in other things, e.g. it gets exhausted,
loses strength, or something similar. But even in intentional movement, i.e.
movement that is caused by a human will, the will itself is a moved mover
since it is moved by the object that it desires or abhors. And this object in turn
may either be moved or unmoved, actual or potential, real or imaginary, etc.
But for God, only being unmoved, actual and real are possible attributes.

18
This is explained very well in Te Velde 2006.
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Similar things hold for intelligibility. The human intellect is not moved in a
physical sense since it is not a bodily function. Nonetheless, it performs certain
operations, i.e. acts of thinking. And these acts are somehow caused or
provoked by the objects that the intellect strives to understand. So the intellect
is moved by the intelligible object, which in turn might be moved or unmoved,
material or immaterial, actual or potential, etc. But since God is unmoved,
immaterial and purely actual it follows that God is of ultimate intelligibility.
But God can only be of ultimate intelligibility if He is an intellect, because this
is the only way how God can be held to be a substance.
In God, intelligibility and desirability come together necessarily. But there is
no conceptual tie between intelligibility and desirability, as Aquinas points out,
making use of Aristotles analysis of incontinence in Book VII of the
Nicomachean Ethics. There is a necessary connection between goodness and
desirability, but it is ambiguous. Sometimes we desire things because we take
them to be good, and sometimes we call things good because we desire them.
The incontinent person does so even in spite of her better knowledge.
This cannot be the case with respect to God however. God is ultimately
desirable because Good is ultimately good and because we can know that He is
ultimately good; i.e. Gods goodness is of ultimate intelligibility, although not
necessarily for every human intellect.
The result of this consideration is that God is absolutely perfect, a pure
intellect, which also implies that God is ultimately free, not bound by any kind
of higher necessity. But everything else depends on Him; thus God is a
necessary being given the world is as it is.
In Lesson 8, Aquinas stresses that desiring and understanding God are the most
pleasant acts that can be imagined. This is due to the fact that every well-
ordered act is more desirable and more pleasant than the underlying potency.
This is clear with respect to the intellect: Using ones intellect is more pleasant
than merely having it (cf. Aristotle, EN X), and having an insight is more
pleasant than merely attempting to have one.
But understanding material substances is always imperfect, since there
necessarily remains a rest of opaqueness about them. But a pure intellect is a
much more satisfying object of thought and contemplation, even though it
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might not be possible to understand its very essence. Nonetheless,
contemplating such an intellectual substance brings about a certain kind of
unification with it, which has no exact parallel in the contemplation of material
substances.
Furthermore, the noblest and most satisfying kind of thought is about the
noblest object, and that is God. Every imperfection is incompatible with His
being.
Aristotle also says that God is alive (zoon, animal) since being an intellect is a
supreme way of being alive.
It is true to say that God has neither extension nor magnitude since He is
immaterial, hence incorporeal. But God has infinite power.
Note that Aristotle introduces a second conception of infinity here that is not
linked to indeterminedness (apeiron) but to unlimited perfection. This sheds
further light on his argument against an infinite regress in efficient causality in
Book II.
In Lessons 9 and 10, Aristotle considers the possibility of further first, or rather
secondary, movers that account for the variety of different celestial
movements. He identifies these with the gods of Greek mythology. This
consideration, however, does not invalidate the argument for the unity of the
first mover, and thus for monotheism, since Aristotle thinks that the hypothesis
concerning a manifold of first and secondary movers presupposes a certain
hierarchy wherein the secondary movers are completely dependent on a first
mover that can only be one in number.
In Lessons 11 and 12, the causality of the first mover is considered in closer
detail. For Aristotle, God does not move the world as an efficient agent, but
rather as a desired being, like someone who is loved. Otherwise, God would
not be immutable and unalterable. So, God moves everything because
everything tries to conform to Gods essence as much as possible. This means
that Gods attributes are abundant; traces of Gods attributes can be found in
everything (form, endurance, goodness, order, etc.).
But then Aristotle is worried about the objects of Gods intellectual activity.
On the one hand, it does not seem fitting that the noblest intellect has thoughts
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about things that are less noble than he himself. I.e. God thinks about God. But
on the other hand, this would put a severe limitation on Gods mind.
Aristotles and Aquinas solution is that Gods thoughts are thoughts about
thought or knowledge of knowledge (noesis noeseos). That is, God has an
absolutely self-transparent self-conciousness. His thoughts are entirely self-
referential. This does not rule out Divine omniscience since Gods self-
knowledge, since it is perfect, necessarily includes knowledge of all of Gods
effects, i.e. of the world as it is, was and will be. By contrast, human thought is
not entirely self-transparent; reflecting on ones own thought activity takes us
to make an extra reflective move. Aquinas calls the object-directed mode of
thinking intentio prima and the act-directed, self-reflective mode of thinking
intentio secunda. This distinction was later taken up by Brentanto in his
psychology and influenced phenomenology. With respect to Gods intellect,
however, the distinction between two modes of intentionality is merely
analytical since both are necessarily co-present in God.
God as the highest good is the source of everything that is good in the world.
So goodness is both separate from the world and present in it, and the latter
because of the former. Aristotle compares the relation of God and the world
with the relation between a commander and the army that he commands. If the
army is ordered, this will be due to the order that the commander has
established. This does not imply, however, that everything has to be equally
good, which is impossible. Quite the contrary is true: Higher beings have to
conform to more demanding standards of goodness than lower beings.
Aristotle compares the world also to a well-ordered household in which the
master and his wife and family have to fulfil more demanding tasks than the
servants and the domestic animals. In a certain sense, they have to be better
than the latter. Aquinas uses this argument for his solution of the theodicy
problem.
And since God is one and not many, there can be no contrariety in Him. But
Anaxagoras was wrong when he claimed that highest goodness is different
from God and that God forms everything according to an independent standard
of goodness, because this means that goodness is better than God, which is
impossible.
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God has to be one because the cosmos is one and not many, unified and not
incoherent like a bad tragedy, as Aristotle puts it in Book XIV.
Some final remarks on the systematic relevance of Aristotelian metaphysics:
o Being old does not imply being outdated, at least not for a
philosophical theory.
o The recurrent revivals of Aristotelianism in the history of philosophy
rather speak a different language, as well as his omnipresence even in
his critics. Think of classical Arabian philosophy, scholasticism, British
empiricism, German Wolffianism, early phenomenology, and, most
recently, neo-Aristotelian metaphysics in Analytical ontology.
o Similar remarks can be made about Thomism, from classical Thomism
in its Dominican and Jesuit flavor to Neo-Thomism in the 19
th
century
up to the so-called Analytical Thomism of Elizabeth Anscombe, Peter
Geach, Fred Sommers or David Oderberg.
o Systematically speaking, one should at least acknowledge that Aristotle
still has to teach us some important lessons, i.e. 1. concerning rigour in
method, including the respect for difficulties and problems; 2.
concerning the respect for phenomena which demand to be explained
rather than being explained away.
o If we consider Aristotelian metaphysics especially, the arguments for
the explanatory priority of substance over every other kind of being are
not so easily dismissed as many adherents of alternative ontologies
believe.