Absoluta consideratio naturae: An Avicennian Theme as a Leitmotiv of Thomas Aquina´s Metaphysics

FERREIRO, HÉCTOR

Paris

Simposio; Conference Thomas d'Aquin et ses sources arabes / Aquinas and 'the Arabs'; 2013

Université de Paris - Sorbonne

What Aquinas denominates “absolute consideration of the essence” expressly appears in two of his early writings, namely in De ente et essentia, Chapter II, and in the Quodlibetal VIII, q. 1, a.1; it is possible, however, to find less clear variants of it in other works, like for example in De potentia, q, 5, a. 9, ad 16; In De anima, lect. 12; Summa Theologiae I, q. 85, a. 2, ad 2; a. 3, ad 1 and ad 4; In VII Met, lect. 13. An essence can be considered in the existing singular things, as a mental definition and in itself or absolutely, that is to say, according to the determinations that belong to it as such. In De ente et essentia as well as in the Quodlibetal VIII Aquinas relates these three ways of considering the essence to Avicenna; although in neither cases he mentions the precise passages of Avicenna´s Metaphysica (Liber de philosophia prima sive scientia divina) to which he is making reference, Chapter I, Book V is traditionally considered as the main source of the so-called theory of the three “states “ of the essence (there are also other related texts, like for example, some passages of Book I, Chapter 5). The three considerations of the essence could in principle be merely different possible perspectives from which the definition of an object can be analyzed by the subject; in such case everything would be about a simple classification in order to improve the rhetorical clarity of the exposition. Yet, in the context of Aquinas´ philosophy the threefold consideration of the essence, and, within this division, its consideration in itself or absolute consideration appears as the premise of an argument in favor of a not merely logical distinction between the way an object is and its existence, but in favor of an ontological one. If Avicenna himself considered the difference between essence and being as an ontological or real difference and not just as a logical one is not completly clear; anycase, if the categories of essence and being are analyzed from the point of view of the role they play in the general context of his metaphysical thought, it is likely that Avicenna had considered, as Aquinas did, the distinction of essence and being as a not purely mental or logical distinction, but as a real or ontological one. At this point I would like to clarify what I mean here with “real” distinction: The different possible gradations of the difference between essence and being at an ontological level have been traditionally catalogued in a perhaps too simplistic way in only two groups, namely: as “real” ans as “modal” distinction. But the differences inside that way of distinguishing essence and being are actually much more complex: thus, for example, the kind of real distinction defended by Aquinas is different from the one defended by his disciple Giles of Rome; on the other hand, within the so called modal distinction there are also differences between the position of Duns Scotus and the position of authors like Antonio Trombetta or Franciscus Lychetus. In this communication I classify the different kinds of distinction between essence and being in only two groups, namely as real – or ontological -distinction in a broad sense and as rational - or logical or mental – distinction. The real distinction in this more inclusive sense contains thus all the variants of what has been traditionally denominated real distinction as well as the different variants of the modal distinction; what matters here is that the distinction between essence and being is not considered to be a difference only made by our minds, but rather some kind of complex structure of reality itself. I said before that the essence in itself or absolute essence functions in Aquinas´ metaphysics as the major premise of his main argument to prove a real distinction between essence and being, namely of the often called “intellectus essentiae argument”. This argument appears already in Aquinas´ early works De ente et essentia, Chapter III, and the Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (Scriptum super libros Sententiarum) and can be formulated as follows: what it is not included in a definition as one of its terms does not belong to the object of the definition and therefore comes to it from outside by the action of an external cause, since it doesn´t derive from the constitutive principles that specify that object as such; existence never belongs to the definition of the determined objects that we know, for their definition can be understood without knowing whether they exist in reality or not; therefore, existence comes to the objects meant by our definitions extrinsically as the effect of a cause that differs from those objects as such, that is to say, that differs from their essence. This argumentation strategy to prove the difference between essence and being as an ontological difference is inspired by Avicenna´s theory of essence and plays a key role in Aquinas´ metaphysical thought. Thus, the influence of Avicenna in Aquinas´ metaphysics is broader and deeper than what an exclusively exegetical analysis reveals at first sight. In this communication, I don´t aim to provide a historical reconstruction of the presence of Avicenna in Aquinas´ writings in the sense of a comparison of the thought of both philosophers on the particular issue of the doctrine of essence and being; my purpose is rather to analyze the conceptual influence, the Wirkungsgeschichte, of an avicennian topic - namely, of the consideration of the essence in itself - in Aquinas´ metaphysical thought.