Autor: Thomas Aquinas

Buch: Aquinas on Being and Essence

Titel: Aquinas on Being and Essence

Stichwort: Wesen: Washeit, Form, Natur (Boethius, Aristoteles)

Kurzinhalt: Essence ... is what all that is real being has, and all that is true being has not; and the name "essence" is taken from its fundamental character as that through which and in which a real being is there: "But it is called essence from the fact that ...

Textausschnitt: Meanings of the Word "Essence"

46a Having noted that the word "being" (and the word "is") is used apropos of real beings and apropos of true beings (i.e., to signify the truth of propositions), St. Thomas points out in (5) that the meaning of the word "essence" is taken from the word "being" used in the first way, i.e., from its use apropos of real beings. This means that essence is that which all that is real being has. The meaning of the word "essence" can perhaps more clearly and precisely be formulated in terms of a reference to both of the uses of the word "being" distinguished in (4); thus, essence is that which all that is real being has and all that is true being has not. It can also be formulated in terms of a reference to beings of reason; thus, essence is that which real beings have, and beings of reason have not. (Fs)

46b What follows in (6) through (11) can be taken as answers to the question which one naturally wants to ask apropos of the meaning of the word "essence" given in (5). The question is this, Well, what is it that all that is real being has, and all that is true being has not?
46c The answer proposed in (6) is this: something by virtue of which real beings can be differentiated from one another and can be placed into one or other of the ten categories which were discovered, apparently, by Aristotle's philosophical reflections on everyday discourse (in any case recorded by him) and which are easily recognized as present in everyday English. Placeability into a category is being taken here in the sense in which a genus or a species is placed into a category, as opposed to the sense in which a principle or a part is placed into a category; e.g., prime matter is placed into the category of substance as a principle of substance, not as a species or a genus of substance. This description of essence goes by the name "essence."

47a The answer given in (7) is this: something which can furnish the answer to the question "What is it?" This description goes by the name "quiddity." That by which a real being can be placed into a category is what is put into the definition which expresses what the thing is (hence the name "quiddity"). This is what St. Thomas, following Aristotle, often calls the quod quid erat esse, or quod quid est esse, or quod quid est, or simply quid (rei).1 And it is to be distinguished from the quid nominis at least in this respect: to ask the question "What is it?" (the question about the quiddity of a real being) presupposes knowledge of the fact of the existence of the being; whereas the question "What does the word mean?" (the question of the quid nominis) is presupposed to asking the question "Is there such a thing?" (the question of an est). (Fs)

47b In (8) we are told that essence is something which constitutes the total determination or identity of a real being, in the sense of the totality of the thing's shared characteristics. This description, Avicenna's, goes by the name "form," not in the sense of the form of the part (forma partis), which is nothing other than the substantial form2 of a real being, and which is but part of its total identity, but in the sense of the form of the whole (forma totius), which is nothing other than what is expressed in the definition. (Fs)

47c In (9) we are told essence is something by which real beings can be grasped by the intellect, i.e., by which they are intelligible. This description, Boethius', goes by the name "nature." A real being is intelligible only by virtue of its essence, which is expressed in its definition. (Fs)

47d In (10) essence is something by which real beings are ordered to the performance of their proper operations or activities. This description, Aristotle's, goes by the name "nature." What a real thing does is determined by what it is. (Fs)

48a In (11) essence is something by virtue of which real beings are there as something positive. This description goes by the name "essence." And it is to be taken as the most fundamental of the answers to the question "What is it that all that is real being has, and all that is true being has not?" For, first of all, their being there as something positive is that by which real beings can be differentiated from one another (the answer given in [6]); it is that which furnishes the content of their definition (the answer in [7]); it is that which constitutes their total identity (the answer in [8]); it is that by which they are graspable by the intellect (the answer in [9]); it is that whereby they are ordered to the performance of their proper activities (the answer in [10]). Secondly, beings of reason can be said to share with real beings, at least in some way, though not per se, the following: (a) placeability in a genus and in a species—e.g., the relation genus is placed in the genus "logical intentions of the intellect's first operation"—(of course, beings of reason are not placed in a genus within one or other of the ten categories recorded by Aristotle); (b) definability of some kind; (c) a total identity of some kind; (d) a graspability by the intellect of some kind; and (e) the fact that they do according to what they are, e.g., a centaur is thought to do according to what it is thought to be. What beings of reason lack (and this is what true being, considered precisely as true being, also lacks) is being there as something positive; what they lack is something by virtue of which to be there. (Fs) (notabene)

48b Essence, thus, is what all that is real being has, and all that is true being has not; and the name "essence" is taken from its fundamental character as that through which and in which a real being is there: "But it is called essence from the fact that through it and in it a real being has existence." (Fs) (notabene)