What Kind Of Thomist Are You? And Why Is Your Thomism The Correct One?

[Betterave]

Kant will agree: God is, I am, you are, my desk is. The existential use of ‘is’ however is not a real predicate. That doesn’t mean any of the things listed are not real. It just means that their reality lies in the terms ‘God’, ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘my desk’, and not in the terms ‘is’, ‘are’, ‘am’; the latter signify the subject’s positing in existence the things referred to by the concepts. So God is being, but so is everything else that is.

 

[TheWhim]

Kant was saying that existence is not a predicate(or, if we like to term it thus, it isn’t a characteristic, a property) but only tells us if something “is” or “is not”. In consequence, existence does not add anything, no new property to a concept.
Therefore he said that his thousand pieces of money won’t become more real by attributing ‘existence’ to them. ‘Existence’ cannot be attributed. It either is or isn’t. It cannot be attributed because it doesn’t change the concept.
Hegels reply, though short, has been quite remarkable. In short, Hegel said that to compare physical objects and God is not valid. God is the most real or something like this and will always be… I don’t remember.

What is meant by this? Though existence doesn’t add anything to a concept, necessary existence does. Necessary existence indeed changes the concept. If something exists contingently or necessarily obviously marks a conceptual difference. And Anselm meant there is just one being to which necessary existence applies - the one which a greater cannot be thought of.

 

[Betterave]

Here’s how I understand Hegel:
For Hegel the rational is what is real (wirklich), because the real has become (in the course of history, in particular, in the incarnation) rational. The dialectical self-movement of the notion or concept (Begriff) is historical reason’s movement towards the Idea (God). Necessity, for Hegel, pertains not just to the Idea/God; the grasping of the rationality of all that is real means grasping all that is real in its necessity - in its inexistence in the Idea.

 

[cpayne]

N.B. Esse means being or existence, as opposed to essence (essentia). This seems confused in Cpayne’s comment.

Hi, all. Finally made it back; sorry about the long delay.

Regarding the above quoted part: Well, metaphysics itself begins with the understanding of the distinction between a thing’s “essence” and its “existence.” But its “being” includes the grasp of both as a whole, both essence and existence as a unified being: “id quod habet esse,” in Aquinas’s phrase. I don’t think I would say “being or existence,” leaving the impression that they are equivalent. But you are right that I was not very clear about this.

As to the citation from Gilson: most of what I said is taken from his “Being and Some Philosophers” (1952). Gilson argues that “is” is not a predicate as such when it is used within existential propositions, and so “is existing” does not predicate anything. For example, “John is tall” is different from “John is existing,” in that the first establishes a meaningful relationship between “tall” and “John is” but the second cannot do that between “John is” and “existing.” Nothing is predicated because nothing is added.

This is fine and well; however, Gilson seems to be arguing that this is Aquinas’s position as well. I don’t think so; there are places where Aquinas does specifically state that existence can be understood as a meaningful predicate (for example, in his commentary on the Perihermeneias). To address this, Gilson notes the different uses of “esse” in Aquinas and argues that “esse” must be arrived at by means of a judgment–i.e., by an existential act (pages 224-25 of his book). So I would argue that “existentialist Thomism” seems a bit more “existentialist” than “Thomism.”

Of course, this interpretation of Aquinas might very well be valid. But I don’t see it.

I might also add that this is a small piece of Gilson’s Thomistic work, and I would agree that in general he is outstanding.

 

[Betterave]

Well, metaphysics itself begins with the understanding of the distinction between a thing’s “essence” and its “existence.” But its “being” includes the grasp of both as a whole, both essence and existence as a unified being: “id quod habet esse,” in Aquinas’s phrase. I don’t think I would say “being or existence,” leaving the impression that they are equivalent. But you are right that I was not very clear about this.

But isn’t “id quod habet esse” just the ens? And we could translate ens as ‘being’ or ‘that which is’, or ‘that which has *esse *(that which has being/existence)’.

there are places where Aquinas does specifically state that existence can be understood as a meaningful predicate (for example, in his commentary on the Perihermeneias).

Ok, but what does ‘meaningful predicate’ mean? Kant agrees that existence can be a meaningful predicate, but its meaning is not ‘real’, it adds nothing to a concept, although it has a very real effect on the subject’s relation to that which is designated by the concept.

Here’s a relevant quote from De ente et essentia:

“ex significatione entis ad significationem essentiae procedendum est” - we should proceed from the meaning of ens to the meaning of essence.

p.s.: I don’t know if it’s true but I’ve read that ‘Thomism’ is *often *not very ‘Thomist’!

 

[MindOverMatter]

Kant will agree: God is, I am, you are, my desk is. The existential use of ‘is’ however is not a real predicate. That doesn’t mean any of the things listed are not real. It just means that their reality lies in the terms ‘God’, ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘my desk’, and not in the terms ‘is’, ‘are’, ‘am’; the latter signify the subject’s positing in existence the things referred to by the concepts. So God is being, but so is everything else that is.

No. God cannot be given the same reality as other things which potentially exist. IF a Chair was a being by nature, it would simply exist, it would not begin to exist or have the potentiality to exist. A chain would simply be what it is to exist. No concept can be achieved without reality. There is either that which is what it means to exist, or that which participates in that meaning. God does not partcipate in existence. God is existence

 

[MindOverMatter]

Kant agrees that existence can be a meaningful predicate, but its meaning is not ‘real’, it adds nothing to a concept, although it has a very real effect on the subject’s relation to that which is designated by the concept.

Existence is act. There are those beings which potentially participate in act. By the way i am not saying that a thing is real simply by describing it, but that God and existence are necessarily one and the same in a way that is not true of potential entities or abstract entities. To say that God is necessary is to say that God is reality.