Brief Essay on the Nature and Method of Metaphysics

This is a book about the road which the Christian philosophers of the Latin world travelled from the concept of being they received from antiquity, focused on essence (or even reduced to consideration of quid est), to the gradual formation of a fuller theory, whose crowning achievement was the discovery that at the foundation of every thing is the act of existence, its proper actus primus.

Philosophia, 2013

The article analyzes the status of metaphysics in relation to other sciences, especially the sense and reasons behind its priority in the system of sciences, as conveyed in the works of Thomas Aquinas. The question of what comes first in the system of sciences has led to an exploration and justification of the criteria behind this priority. According to Thomas Aquinas, metaphysics is justly considered to be the first philosophy: on the one hand it is occupied with what comes first in the ontological orderthe first causes of being, on the other hand, other sciences rely on it for their first principles. The article critically analyzes both substantiations of the idea of being first. The substantive criterion is questioned by the introduction of revealed theology into the system of sciences accepted by Aquinas; revealed theology is also occupied with what comes first, and does so with greater authority than metaphysics. The article focuses on the analysis of main doubts concerning metaphysics' methodological criterion of priority: the idea that metaphysics, in relation to other sciences, is in a sense first and functions as a determinant, while also being last and determined by these very sciences. Metaphysics is first, as other sciences draw from it their first principles, and last, as it utilizes facts established by other sciences which come first in the process of knowledge acquisition. Hence the charge that Aquinas' argumentation concerning metaphysics' priority is circular in nature. The article analyzes various aspects of this difficulty and offers suggestions on how to overcome them.

2021

This book offers a philosophical analysis of metaphysics as conceived and practised by Thomas. Its aim is not to present another exposition of the doctrine of Thomistic metaphysics; its focus is on the characteristic movement of metaphysics, going from the world of experience to the divine principle of all being. By a close reading and interpretation of the relevant texts, it seeks to clarify the specific dynamics of the science of metaphysics, as present in the works of Aquinas.

Oxford Handbook of the Reception of Aquinas, 2020

This chapter reviews Aquinas’ reception in contemporary metaphysics as it is practiced today in the analytic tradition, focusing on issues that make this reception problematic. I identify the main trouble spots based on the historical development of the analytic tradition. The discussion will target those major conceptual hurdles inherent in the analytic tradition that Aquinas’ genuine reception faces regarding his metaphysical notions of being and essence and his conception of the hylomorphic composition of material substances. This strategy will allow me to introduce a hopefully “analytically acceptable” sketch of the metaphysical foundations of Aquinas’ unique position on the ontological status of the human intellective soul, which places it on a razor-thin borderline between the material and purely spiritual realms of reality, running right across our very being. I conclude with a summary of the conceptual pre-requisites of a genuine and full reception of Aquinas’ thought in contemporary metaphysical discourse.

American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 2014

Aquinas's theology, as presented in his Scriptum, is "scientific" in the Aristotelian sense of this term. Some of its arguments for conclusions are based on theology's "proper" principles-the articles of faith-but many others are purely rational demonstrations. As the basis for his rational arguments in theology, and in particular his treatment of the divine essence in d. 8, he introduces philosophi cal principles, and offers dialectical arguments for them, which are thoroughly Avicennian. In order to understand Aquinas's commentary on d. 8, then, it is not just helpful but necessary to see how he makes use of doctrines coming from the Metaphysics of Avicenna's Book o f Healing. So we look first at Aquinas's source texts in Avicenna, and then at how he makes use of them in his commentary on the Sentences, Bk. 1, d. 8. T he name of Avicenna shows up very early in Aquinas's Parisian Scriptum on Lombard's Sententiae. While the Master had focused Bk. 1 on "the mystery of the Trinity" as known through faith, he had begun d. 3 by citing the authority of the Apostle Paul in support of ratio knowledge: "The invisible things of God, his eternal power and divinity, are seen intellectually by the creature of the world," that is, the human, on Aquinas's un derstanding, "through the things that have been made" (Rom. 1:20). Devoting the first question of his commentary on d. 3 to rational knowledge of God raises an issue his teacher Albert had not asked, though the Franciscan Br. Bonaventure had: Is "God exists" known self-evidently? In response, Thomas distinguishes three senses of the question. W hen we are "speaking about God in himself, his existence is known self-evidently." And when we are "speaking about God in relation to us. .. according to his likeness or participation, his existence is also

In the beginning of the Metaphysics, Aristotle claims that “first philosophy” is both the most universal of all sciences, and the science of first causes. Immediately, the question arises whether the universals are the same as the first causes. I propose that the answer to this question can be deduced from the writings of Thomas Aquinas, who distinguishes between three relevant senses of universal: the universal in praedicando, in causando, and in repraesentando. While it is the second, the universal cause, that is the aim of metaphysics, nonetheless the universal in predication (i.e. a concept) is necessary, for this purpose, as an element of a dialectical process – an interplay between universals and particulars – that approaches the universal in repraesentando as an unattainable limit. This latter is a universal concept that is properly possessed only by the First and most universal Cause, namely God Himself, who is “Thought thinking Itself.” To know God as far as humanly possible is, in effect, to approach a mode of knowledge that is itself Divine. Thus I demonstrate how, though not themselves the aim of metaphysics, the universals (in praedicando) play a necessary role in the science of the First Cause.

Theological Studies, 2016

Recent post-metaphysical trends in contemporary theology seek to overcome "metaphysics," in order to free God-language from the trappings of onto-theology. This means that theology prioritizes the conventional discourse of the church over the universal ambitions of metaphysical language. This article offers a corrective to the "post-metaphysical" corrective by proposing a broader definition of metaphysics, one rooted in concrete experience. In this regard I constructively consider Jean-Yves Lacoste's "conceptual rescue operation" metaphysics in his wide-ranging Etre en danger (201 I)

in "Quaestio", 8 (2008), pp. 219-277., 2008

This essay examines the positions of Scotus and a number of Scotists on the nature of metaphysics and its object. According to the mature Scotus, metaphysics is possible as a science distinct both from physics and from revealed theology thanks to a capability and a limitation. The capability is expressed by Scotus in two ways. Firstly: the ratio of being that is included in everything can be abstracted from it; in particular, this ratio can be abstracted from sensible things. Secondly: in reality, metaphysics is a “transcendentology”, which deals both with absolute transcendentals (first of all with the ratio of being) and with disjunctive ones (moreover, considering separately each of their two parts). In particular, metaphysics has to deal with the proper characteristics of the two parts of the disjunctive transcendental “infinite being / finite being”. The limitation posed by Scotus is twofold. First of all, in the present state the human intellect (and, as a consequence, human metaphysics) cannot grasp the proper characteristics of the infinite being. Secondly, in any case the couple “immobile being / mobile being” is not a disjunctive transcendental, so that metaphysics cannot study the proper characteristics of the immobile being. Thanks to these tenets, Scotus advocates a conception of metaphysics as a unitary science dealing both with rationes generalissimae, and – but only to some extent – spiritual substances, nevertheless he binds together these two parts of this science in a way which is intrinsically complex and (due to the fact that one of his works, the De cognitione Dei, failed to circulate) not even fully known by his followers. In this essay I argue that Scotus’ followers solved the “open problems” posed by the theory and the texts of their master by developing divergent strategies. Francis of Marchia and Bonet removed all sorts of asymmetry inside metaphysics between the study of material substances and the study of spiritual substances, but separated the science of transcendental rationes from the science of spiritual beings. By contrast, Andrés, Zerbi and Trombetta combined into a single science the science of tran¬scendental rationes and the science of spiritual beings, but emphasized that metaphysics deals with spiritual substances more in detail than it does with the material ones. In particular, the position of the Scotist Trombetta diverges from the position of his ideal master on an essential point. According to Scotus, the distinction between metaphysics and physics lies in the simple and immediate abstractability of being from what is sensible. This abstractibility is such that the comprehension of being, considered as a unitary and intelligible ratio, does not change during the entire development of metaphysics. By contrast, for Trombetta, the distinction between metaphysics and physics lies in the cognizance that spiritual beings can occur. This cognizance is the result of the demonstration of the existence of spiritual beings.

Contemporary philosophy of religion almost allergically reacts to metaphysics. They do so because of the various critiques of the potential reach of reason, which each in their own way argue that God cannot be appropriately approached via autonomous reason. In this article, I argue, on the one hand, that these critiques are furtively inspired by a certain outlook on transcendence, which I call the 'Protestant view' and, on the other hand, that numerous contemporary philosophers of religion are slowly starting to appreciate a more 'Catholic view' on transcendence, which allows for a more metaphysically ambitious philosophy of religion.

It is not unusual for scholars to recognize the puzzle that arises from the many and seemingly divergent accounts that Aristotle gives in the Metaphysics of the subject-matter of that work. It is also not unusual for scholars to recognize the way in which Aquinas’s prooemium to his commentary on the Metaphysics offers an ingenious solution to that puzzle. What is unusual is for scholars to recognize that Aquinas’s answer to this question trades one aporia for another. Specifically, Aquinas’s solution to the problem of the subject of metaphysics raises a new problem concerning its principles, for in the prooemium St. Thomas identifies the principles of being as being with separate substances in the plural, and not just with God. In what sense can the angels be counted among the principles of ens inquantum ens? And how is this possible if they also fall under being? While recent interpreters of Aquinas offer few resources for solving this new puzzle, the same is not true when we turn to older commentators. In particular, the purpose of this paper is draw attention to a striking answer offered by the 15th century Dominican metaphysician, Dominic of Flanders (aka Flandrensis), who argues that, unlike God, the angels both fall under being, insofar as they are immaterial beings in the category of substance, and are principles of being, insofar as they are truly causes of categorial being itself. The paper will proceed in three parts: §1 will consider the initial aporia regarding Aristotle’s account of the subject-matter of the Metaphysics; §2 will turn to Aquinas's prooemium to the commentary on the Metaphysics and consider both the answer it provides and the new problem that it raises; §3 will outline Flandrensis’ resolution of this further puzzle, according to which the angels’ causal role as celestial movers renders them not only cosmological principles of change, but ontological principles of being. The paper will then close by asking whether or not this solution itself raises any further puzzles about the science of metaphysics.