Autor: Thomas Aquinas

Buch: Aquinas on Being and Essence

Titel: Aquinas on Being and Essence

Stichwort: Das Ersterfasste: Seiendes und Wesen ("something-there"); Wesen: Prinzip d. unabhängigen Existenz, P. d Wissens

Kurzinhalt: ... "something-there" ... something different from us and confronting us (this is rooted in essence as principle of independent existence), something doing things to our senses (this is rooted in essence as principle of knowability).

Textausschnitt: What the Intellect First Conceives Is Being and Essence.

8b Among all the words we use apropos of sensible things, the meaning of the word "being" is analytically first. But the word "being," used apropos of sensible things, has many meanings, as will be seen below; and its first meaning—i.e., the meaning first conceived by the intellect—is a meaning which one can formulate in this way: what has essence. (It must be noticed that one can also formulate the meaning of the word "essence" in terms of the meanings of the word "being," as is in fact done by St. Thomas in chapter one; see page 44, [5] in the text of the treatise; also page 45.) This—i.e., what has essence—is real being, is something-there (some things have no essence—e.g., blindness—and are therefore not real beings); this is the being of the categories. Things which are not real things are of themselves inconceivable; being which has no essence is of itself inconceivable; it is conceivable only after, and in terms of a reference to, being which has essence. (Fs) (notabene)

9a This can perhaps be made clearer if one considers in some way, at this point, what the word "essence" means (more will be said below). Whatever else it means, it means a certain quality with a twofold aspect: (1) that within things by which things exist independently of our knowing that they exist—i.e., a principle of independent existence—and (2) that within things by which things cause us to know them, i.e., a principle of knowability. We have already in some way expressed this idea above (see page 4; also page 6) in attempting to give a clear meaning to the expression "something-there" as representing the intellect's first concept: something different from us and confronting us (this is rooted in essence as principle of independent existence), something doing things to our senses (this is rooted in essence as principle of knowability). Essence, thus, is simultaneously that in things whereby things are there and whereby they are knowable. If things were not there, then they could not cause us to know them; the source of their being there is the source of their causing us to know them; this source is called essence. To be sure, things which are not there can be known; but only in terms of something other than themselves, only in terms of things which are there. And this in a way similar to the way in which sight grasps color by virtue of light, but light by virtue of nothing other than light itself. Essence can be described as being related to the human intellect as light is to sight; and what has essence is grasped by the intellect in the way in which what emits light is grasped by sight. (Fs) (notabene)

10a Thus, the analytical beginning point of our intellectual knowledge about sensible things is a grasp of being, but of being which has essence. And this is why St. Thomas adds here: "and essence." (Fs) (notabene)