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11195
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If affirmative propositions express being, we affirm about what is absent [Aquinas]
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Full Idea:
If being is what makes propositions true, then anything we can express in an affirmative proposition, however unreal, is said to be; so lacks and absences are, since we say that absences are opposed to presences, and blindness exists in an eye.
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From:
Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.92)
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A reaction:
See Idea 11194 for the alternative Aristotelian approach to being, according to categories. Do absences and lacks have real essences, or causal properties? The absence of the sentry may cause the loss of the city.
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22103
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Being is basic to thought, and all other concepts are additions to being [Aquinas]
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Full Idea:
Being is inherently intellect's most intelligible object, in which it finds the basis of all conceptions. ...All of intellect's other conceptions must be arrived at by adding to being, insofar as they express what is not expressed by 'being' itself.
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From:
Thomas Aquinas (Disputed questions about truth [1267], I.1c), quoted by Kretzmann/Stump - Aquinas, Thomas 09
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A reaction:
I like the word 'intelligible' here. We might know reality, or be aware of appearances, but what is intelligible lies nicely in between. What would Berkeley make of that? I presume 'intelligible' means 'makes good sense'.
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15812
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Being implies distinctness, which implies division, unity, and multitude [Aquinas]
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Full Idea:
What first comes to mind is being; secondly, that this being is not that being, and thus we apprehend division as a consequence; thirdly, comes the notion of one; fourthly the notion of multitude.
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From:
Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologicae [1265], I Q11 ar2 ad4), quoted by Roderick Chisholm - Person and Object 1.5
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A reaction:
This is one of the best things I have read on 'being'. It is the Aristotelian recognition that we can only study being by studying identity, and that this leads on to wider metaphysics. Other approaches to being are dead ends.
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21268
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Non-human things are explicable naturally, and voluntary things by the will, so God is not needed [Aquinas]
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Full Idea:
All natural things can be reduced to one principle, which is nature; and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle, which is human reason, or will. Therefore God does not exist.
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From:
Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologicae [1265], Ia,Q02,Art3,Ob2)
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A reaction:
Not, of course, the opinion of Aquinas. So the possibility of naturalism (assuming the human will can be further reduced to nature) was a clear option in the thirteenth century. In reply Aquinas cites his Fifth Way.
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16655
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Different genera are delimited by modes of predication, which rest on modes of being [Aquinas]
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Full Idea:
Being is delimited into different genera in accord with different modes of predicating, which depend on different modes of being.
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From:
Thomas Aquinas (On Aristotle's 'Metaphysics' [1266], V.9.890), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.3
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A reaction:
I like this. When people say that predication is the way we divide things up, and go all linguistic-relativist about things, they forget how closely language not only describes reality, but arises out of, or is even caused by, reality. 'Grue' is silly.
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