The Esse/Essentia Argument in Aquinas's De ente et essentia

The Esse/Essentia Argument in Aquinas's De ente et essentia SCOTT MACI)ONAI.D DeSPnTE ALL OF TIlE ATTFNTION which has been paid to the issues which Aquinas raises in an important argument in Chapter 4 of De ente et es.~entia' (1 shall call it the Esse/Essentm [E/E] Argument), no one has offered a detailed account of exactly what the argumetat is.~ There have been discussions of its general character, of the interpretation of certain of its segments and conclusions , and of the argument's place in tile broad context of Aquinas's thought. It seems to me, however, that one must be clear about the precise structure of the argument before one can address these more general questions . In Section n, therefore, I shall set out the E/E Argument in detail attd discuss some misconstruals of the argument's structure. On the hasis of the exegetical work done in Section t, 1 shall sketch in Section '., an interpretation of the E/E Argument paying special attention to its status as an argument for the real distinction between e.sse and essence. 1 shall then consider briefly in Section 3 one interpretation of the argument which differs from mine. i.1 At the beginning of Chapter 4 Aquinas rejects the view that separate substances are composed of matter and torm. :~Insofar as they do not exhibit the ' l)e ente el e~sentta, Leonine edition, vol. 43. The lext I shall be discussing is 376.9o. 377.154 m the l.eonine edition, l have provMed a translation of the lext in an appendix. Quotations ~'ill be from this translation, and 1 ~'ill give the line nulnl• twonl tile Iranslalion immediately following the quotation. For a bibliography of the literature on De ente 4 see.John F. Wippel, "'Aqumas's Route Io the Real Distinction", Thomtst 43 (n979): e79, n. n. "Separate substante" is Aquinas's designation for an entity whir h is immateria|, i.e., separated from matter. At the beginning of Chapter 4 Aquinas indicates that there are three types of separate substances: souls, intelligences--by which he means angels and the movc0"sof the heavenly bodies--and the first cause. In the course ot the argument he takes intelligences alone [157] 158 Esse/Essentia A~GUMENT composition of matter and form, separate substances are simple. The view that separate substances are in some sense simple, however, is open to two possible objections. First, it might be objected that if separate substances are simple, they are like God, which is impossible. Second, it might be pointed out that Aquinas himself has claimed that individuation is dependent on matter. 4 If separate substances do not have matter, then it will be impossible to individuate them. Aquinas devotes the remainder of the chapter to meeting these two objections. His tasks, then, are to show that, although separate substances lack the composition of matter and form, they are not (like God) simple in every way and are not pure actuality? and that, although they have no matter, they may still be individuated. The first task is the one Aquinas undertakes in the passage with which I am concerned. Aquinas makes clear what the argument is supposed to establish by stating the conclusion at the outset. He says that although separate substances are form alone without matter, "nevertheless, they are not simple in every way nor are they pure actuality but they are permeated by potentiality" (lines ~-3)- The argument proceeds to establish that they are not simple in every way (lines 26-28) and that they are a mixture of potentiality and actuality (lines 49-51). I believe that the following schema accurately represents Aquinas's E/E Argument: 6 (E/El) Whatever belongs to a thing and is not part of its essence either (a) comes from without and effects a composition with the essence or [4-6] (b) itself constitutes the entire essence. [11-12] as representative of separate substances generally. The view of universal hylomorphism, the view Aquinas is criticizing in the present chapter, is that all substances contain matter and form. The designation "separate substance" would not, therefore, be acceptable to someone...