Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas (review)

592 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 25:4 OCT 1987 John F. Wippel. Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas. Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, Vol. lO. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1984. Pp. xi + 293. $31.95 9 These essays on Aquinas are loosely grouped, after a first chapter on Gilson's "Christian philosophy" issue, into essays on the nature and subject matter of metaphysics, and on the metaphysics of created and uncreated being. Father Wippel traces the development, over thirty years and in many works, of Gilson's notions of "Christian philosophy," which seem, finally, to come to this: Christian philosophy is any "use the Christian makes of philosophy in either philosophy or theology insofar as he joins religious faith and philosophical reasoning" (2o). Gilson apparendy thought the thinking process is "transfigured" by the encompassing religious task, so that it becomes difficult to "extract" the philosophy from the overall text. It amazes me how intensely this notion was debated, as the notes display, even though the issues were constantly clouded by Gilson's vague formulations and by his entirely unsubstantiated claim about transfiguration of thought. Wippel, in effect, says there really is little difficulty, as he illustrates, in identifying Aquinas' philosophy. The second essay traces the influence of Avicenna on Aquinas' account of why metaphysics, first philosophy, is not prior to physics (say) since the other sciences derive their principles from it. This, and the third essay, on Aquinas' reasons for calling metaphysics "first philosophy," "the study of the first causes of things" and "what gives the principles of the other sciences," is a model of scholarship. In chapter four, "Metaphysics and separatio," Wippel provides a lucid account of a contested matter. The basic idea of separatio, first noted by L. Geiger in 1947, is that the intellectual activity by which we begin the study of being qua being is not an abstraction (say, our forming the notion 'dog' by leaving out certain features, say 'retriever', 'golden' or which animal it is), but the formation of a notion, ens, by judgmental separation from the materiality and composition of the beings we perceive. Wippel shows that Aquinas did have a distinctive teaching on separatio, and describes ' "the kind of knowledge presupposed for one's discovery of being qua being" and argues that knowing or demonstrating the existence of an immaterial being, or a first cause, is not, as other scholars he cites think, a precondition for separatio. Instead, he argues, one has only to judge that "being need not be identified with that by which it is recognized as material being or changeable being or being of a given kind" (79, 82-1o4). This is the clearest explanation of "separatio" I have seen, though, in my opinion something needs to be added (see next). Father Weisheipl asks why "the mere possibility is sufficient to ground the new science of metaphysics.'" He treats "possibility" and "mere possibility" as if they were the same. Weisheipl did not notice, and Wippel did not say, that if we see that "being need not be identified with that by which it is recognized as material being, or changing being," etc., it follows logically that being cannot be so identified. (Identities, ' Review of this book by Fr. James A. Weisheipl, Review of Metaphysics 38 (March a985): 700. BOOK REVIEWS 593 properly picked out, are necessary.) So, if it is possible that A is not identical with B, then it is impossible that A= B. Therefore, metaphysics does not begin with the realization of a "mere" possibility, or even just with a possibility; it begins with the judgmental recognition of an actual non-identity which is a necessity (not, perhaps recognized to be a necessity, just, perhaps, recognized as a difference). So, 'to-be' and 'to-be-materially ' arejudgmentally separated; thus, the subject of metaphysics is disclosed: to-be, as such. Wippel develops an interpretation of the argumentative structure and the intentions , of the crucial fourth chapter of De Ente et Essentia against formidable scholarly opposition, particularly of Father Joseph Owens. Our author says there are three steps (among others) in a certain order: (a) to provide the intellectus essentia...