Commentary on
Expositio in librum Boetii De hebdomadibus, lecture 2
(Quotations from the writings of J. A. Aertsen—Part I)
In his commentary on
Boethius’s De hebdomadibus Aquinas
uses the expression actus essendi twice,
in lecture 2: “Sicut possumus dicere de
eo quod currit sive de currente quod currat inquantum subiicitur cursui et
participat ipsum, ita possumus dicere quod ens sive id quod est sit inquantum
participat actum essendi. (…) Sed
id quod est, accepta essendi forma, scilicet suscipiendo ipsum actum essendi,
est, atque consistit, idest in seipso subsistit; non enim ens dicitur proprie
et per se nisi de substantia cuius est subsistere.”
Since the publication of Cornelio Fabro’s works on participation (in 1939 and 1960), the In librum Boetii De hebdomadibus expositio has received considerable attention. Thus, before offering my own commentary on the context surrounding the text where Aquinas explicitly employs the expression actus essendi in his In De hebdomadibus, I shall first review some of the comments that have been offered by other authors in the relatively recent period since Fabro’s books.
Similar remarks can also be
found in two other works by Aertsen: Medieval Philosophy and the
Transcendentals: The Case of Thomas Aquinas (Leiden : E. J. Brill, 1996), 146-151 and 326-330; and
“What is First and Most Fundamental? The Beginnings of Transcendental
Philosophy,” a contribution to Was
ist Philosophie im Mittelalter? ed. Jan A. Aertsen and Andreas Speer (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.,
1998), 177-192.
Since the publication of Cornelio Fabro’s works on participation (in 1939 and 1960), the In librum Boetii De hebdomadibus expositio has received considerable attention. Thus, before offering my own commentary on the context surrounding the text where Aquinas explicitly employs the expression actus essendi in his In De hebdomadibus, I shall first review some of the comments that have been offered by other authors in the relatively recent period since Fabro’s books.
C.1. Jan A. Aertsen
From the passages from Jan A. Aertsen’s “Thomas Aquinas: A First Model” reported
below we take the following points:
(a) Aertsen argues that original
to Aquinas is the foundational aspect with which he characterizes the
transcendental notions in the commentary on Boethius’s De hebdomadibus. According to
Aertsen, Aquinas endorses Aristotle’s reduction of the scientia
to principles per se nota
and Avicenna’s reduction of our concepts to primary notions, but goes one step
further. For Aquinas that which is first in the order of concepts founds that
which is first in the order of propositions.
(b) With reference to the
two kinds of “common conceptions of the soul” that Boethius distinguishes in
his De hebdomadibus,
Aquinas introduces a distinction
that is based on the reduction of these common principles to the terms of which
they are composed. Some
axioms are universally self-evident, because the terms of these propositions
are known to all (omnibus). Other
propositions are self-evident only to the learned, who understand the meaning
of the terms of such propositions. Aquinas reduces Boethius’s
first kind of ‘common conceptions’ to the transcendental terms ens, unum
and bonum.
(c) According to Aertsen, Aquinas
identifies the Boethian communis
conceptio animi with the Aristotelian principium per se notum.
Thus, the highlighted originality proves that Aquinas understands the axiom diversum est esse et id quod est
as a self-evident principle of the kind that is self-evident to all.
In what follows I report
passages form J. A. Aertsen’s
“Thomas Aquinas: A First Model,” chapter VI in his Medieval Philosophy as
Transcendental Thought: From Philip the Chancellor (ca. 1225) to Francisco
Suárez (Leiden
“Thomas wrote commentaries
on two works of Boethius, which was quite unusual in the century after the aetas Boetiana.
He composed a commentary on De trinitate,
which is a significant source for his epistemological and methodological views,
and a commentary on De
hebdomadibus, the most important metaphysical treatise
of the Boethian age. Aquinas interprets the axiomatic structure of this
treatise from the perspective of the transcendentals. The nine axioms put
forward by Boethius can be reduced to ‘the most common conceptions’ (maxime communia)
‘being’ (axioms 2-6), ‘one’ (axioms 7-8) and ‘good’ (axiom 9). Through these
three notions Aquinas is able to give an order and depth structure to
Boethius’s axioms, which remain altogether implicit in De hebdomadibus
itself” (Medieval Philosophy as
Transcendental Thought, 209).
Footnote:
Thomas Aquinas, Expositio libri
De ebdomadibus, lect. 2 (ed. Commissio Leonina,
in: Opera Omnia,
Vol. L, Rome Leiden – New
York
“In his account of the
transcendentals in De veritate
q. 1, a. 1, Aquinas adopts Avicenna’s argument for the necessity of primary
notions. The argument rests on an analogy between the order of demonstration
and the conceptual order. Just as propositions, so the conceptions of the human
intellect must be reduced to principles known per se. But in later writings, Aquinas goes a step
further in comparison with both Avicenna and his own account in De veritate
q. 1, a. 1.” There is not only an analogy between both orders, but also a
relation of foundation: that which is first in the order of concepts founds
that which is first in the order of propositions. This ‘foundational’ aspect of
the transcendentals, an original element of Aquinas’s doctrine, will be
analyzed in the present section” (Medieval
Philosophy as Transcendental Thought, 239-240).
“The central moment in the
search for foundation is the idea of a continuing reduction
in addition to Aristotle’s reduction of the scientia to principles per se nota
and Avicenna’s reduction of our concepts to primary notions: self-evident
principles must be reduced to the terms of which they are composed. This idea
was inspired by Boethius’s work De
hebdomadibus, on which Aquinas wrote a commentary. He
was not only interested in the metaphysical problem of this treatise, the
relation between being and goodness, but also in its methodology” (Medieval Philosophy as Transcendental Thought, 240).
“In De hebdomadibus,
Boethius puts forward nine axioms, of which the first one provides a general
description of the cognitive status of these axioms: ‘a common conception of
the soul (communis animi
conceptio) is a statement that anyone approves as he
hears it.’ Boethius adds that these conceptions are of two kinds. One is common
in that all men possess it, as, for instance, the proposition ‘If you take
equals from two equals, the remainders are equal’ (= the third axiom in Euclid
Footnote:
Boethius, De hebdomadibus
(ed. Moreschini, in: De
Consolatione Philosophiae—Opuscula Theologica,
Leipzig 2000 (Bibliotheca Teubneriana), p. 187): “Ut igitur in mathematica
fieri solet ceterisque etiam disciplinis, praeposui terminus regulasque quibus
cuncta quae sequuntur efficiam. (I) Communis animi conception est enuntiatio,
quam quisque probat auditam. Harum duplex modus est. Nam
“In his commentary, Aquinas
identifies the Boethian communis
conceptio animi with the Aristotelian principium per se notum”
(Medieval Philosophy as
Transcendental Thought, 240).
Footnote:
Cf. L. F. Tuninetti, ‘Per se
notum.’ Die
logische Beschaffenheit des Selbsverstāndlichen im Denken des Thomas von Aquin,
Leiden – New
York
“What is also noteworthy is
the way in which he interprets Boethius’s distinction between the two kinds of
‘common conceptions.’ The distinction can be explained by the terms of which
such propositions are composed. A principle per se notum is a proposition whose predicate
is included in the essence of the subject. Universally self-evident are
therefore propositions that use terms understood by all human beings. That
which falls in every intellect is what is most general (maxime communia),
as ‘being,’ ‘one’ and ‘good’” (Medieval
Philosophy as Transcendental Thought, 240-241).
Footnote:
Thomas Aquinas, Expositio libri
De hebdomadibus, lect. 2 (ed. Commissio Leonina,
Vol. L, p. 270): “ille propositiones sunt maxime notae quae utuntur terminis
quos omnes intelligent; ea autem quae in omni intellectu cadunt sunt maxime
communia, quae sunt ens, unum et bonum.”
“Aquinas reduces Boethius’s
first kind of ‘common conceptions’ to the transcendental terms, which are the
first conceptions, because they are communissima. He names ‘being,’ ‘one’ and
‘good,’ since through these three notions he is able to give a depth structure
to Boethius’s axioms” (Medieval
Philosophy as Transcendental Thought, 241).
“A similar idea underlies
Aquinas’s reflections in his Metaphysics
commentary on the foundation of theoretical knowledge in general. In the fourth
book of the Metaphysics,
Aristotle states three conditions of the first and firmest principle of
demonstration that ‘everyone, who wants to know something of that which is,
must possess:’ No one can be mistaken or be in error regarding this principle;
it must not presuppose anything—Aristotle employs the phrase anhypotheton
that Plato attribute to the Idea of the Good—, but must be self-evident; and,
finally, it is not acquired by demonstration. These conditions are met by the
principle of contradiction: ‘the same thing cannot at the same time belong and
not belong to the same thing in the same respect’” (Medieval Philosophy as Transcendental Thought, 241).
Footnote:
Aristotle, Metaphysics,
IV, c. 3, 1005b 14-20. Cf. K. H. Volkmann-Schluck, “Der Satz vom Widerspruch
als Anfang der Philosophie,” in: G. Neske (ed.), Durchblicke (Festschrift zum 70 Geburtstag M. Heidegger),
Pfullingen 1959, pp. 134-150.
“The fact that those making
demonstrations reduce all their arguments to this axiom as the ultimate one in
the analysis (resolvendo)
shows that this principle does not presuppose anything” (Medieval Philosophy as Transcendental Thought, 241).
Footnote:
Thomas Aquinas, In IV
Metaphysicorum, lect. 6, nn. 603-604 (ed.
Cathala, p. 167): “Et propter hoc omnes demonstrationes reducunt suas
propositiones in hanc propositionem, sicut in ultimam opinionem omnibus
communem: ipsa enim est naturaliter principium et dignitas omnium dignitatum
(…) inquantum in hanc reducunt demonstrantes omnia, sicut in ultimum resolvendo.”
“This axiom Aquinas had in
mind, when in De veritate
q. 1, a. 1, he stated that in demonstrable matters a reduction must be made to
self-evident principles” (Medieval
Philosophy as Transcendental Thought, 241).
“In his commentary on the Metaphysics,
Aquinas goes far beyond the littera
of the text and gives Aristotle’s anhypotheton a philosophical foundation. His
argument is a different version of the reduction of propositions to the
knowledge of concepts. Aquinas’s point of departure is the Aristotelian view (De anima
III, c. 6) that the intellect has two operations. The first is the operation by
which the intellect knows ‘what something is,’ the other the operation by which
it composes and divides, that is, by which it forms affirmative and negative
propositions. In both operations there is something first. In the first
operation the first that the intellect conceives is ‘being’—nothing can be
conceived by the mind unless ‘being’ is understood. The principle ‘it is
impossible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time’ depends (dependet)
on the understanding of ‘being’ and is therefore by nature the first in the
second operation of the intellect” (Medieval
Philosophy as Transcendental Thought, 241-242).
Footnote:
Ibid., n. 605 (pp. 167-168): “Ad huius autem evidentiam sciendum est, quod, cum
duplex sit operatio intellectus: una, qua cognoscit quod quid est (…); alia,
qua componit et dividit: in utroque est aliquod primum: in prima quidem
operatione est aliquod primum, quod cadit in conceptione intellectus, scilicet
hoc quod dico ens; nec aliquid hac operatione potest mente concipi, nisi
intelligatur ens. Et quia hoc principium, impossibile est esse et non esse
simul, dependet ex intellectu entis, (…) ideo hoc etiam principium est
naturaliter primum in secunda operatione intellectus, scilicet componentis et
dividentis.” Cf. R. Imbach, “Primum
Principium. Anmerkungen zum Wandel in der Auslegung
der Bedeutung und Funktion des Satzes vom zu vermeidenden Widerspruch bei
Thomas von Aquin, Nikolaus von Autrecourt, Heymericus de Campo und Nikolaus von
Kues,” in: M. Pickave (ed.), Die
Logik des Transzendentalen. Festschrift für Jan A. Aertsen,
Berlin
“Aquinas gives what we might
call a ‘transcendental’ foundation to the first principle of demonstration as
the beginning of theoretical science—he himself uses the term fundatur
in Summa theologiae
I-II, q. 94, a. 2. He grounds the Aristotelian anhypotheton on ‘being’ as the first
conception of the intellect. Its implication is that the consideration of this
principle belongs to metaphysics, since it is the office of this science to
consider being as such and its properties” (Medieval Philosophy as Transcendental Thought, 242).
Footnote:
Thomas Aquinas, In I Posteriora
Analytica, lect. 5 (ed. Commissio Leonina, in: Opera Omnia,
Vol. I*/2, Rome
“Aquinas gives a
‘transcendental’ foundation not only to theoretical knowledge, but also to
practical knowledge. (…) Aquinas develops a structure for practical science
that is analogous to that of theoretical science. (…) His argument proves to be
a synthesis of the different moments that played a role in his foundation of
theoretical thought” (Medieval
Philosophy as Transcendental Thought, 242-243).
“The starting point of
Thomas’s exposition is an analogy of proportionality between theoretical and
practical reason that concerns their relation to first principles. (…) The
analogy is indicative both of the structural agreement between theoretical and
practical reason and of their difference. Practical and theoretical science
have the same formal structure of rationality, insofar as scientific knowledge
in both domains has to be reduced to self-evident principles. At the same time,
the analogy is an indication of the autonomy of ethics, insofar as practical
reason has its own first principles distinct from those of theoretical reason.
Just as man possesses a natural habitus,
the intellectus principiorum,
through which he knows the theoretical principles, so he possesses a natural habitus
of the first practical principles that is called synderesis” (Medieval Philosophy as Transcendental Thought, 243-244).
Footnote:
Thomas Aquinas, De veritate,
q. 16, a. 1 (ed. Commissio Leonina, Vol. XXII/2, p. 504): “Sicut
autem animae humanae est quidam habitus naturalis quo principia speculativarum
scientiarum cognoscit, quem vocamus ‘intellectum principiorum’; ita in ipsa est
quidam habitus naturalis primorum principiorum operabilium, quae sunt universalia
principia iuris naturalis; qui quidem habitus ad ‘synderesim’ pertinent”. Cf. Summa
theologiae I, q. 79, a. 12. The origin of the curious term synderesis rests
on a corrupted transliteration of the Greek word syneidesis (“conscience”).
For the complex history of the concept, cf. O. D. Lottin, “Syndérèse et
conscience aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles”, in: id., Psychologie et morale aux
XIIe et XIIIe siècles, Vol. II/1: Problèmes de morale,
Louvain-Gembloux 1948, pp. 101–349. C. Trottmann, Vers la contemplation. Etudes
sur la syndérèsis et les modalités de la contemplation de l’Antiquité à la
Renaissance, Paris 2007 (Le savoir de Mantice, 13).
“Aquinas goes on to discuss
the nature of the principia per
se nota, from which theoretical and practical reason
start. With an explicit reference to Boethius’s work De hebdomadibus,
which had distinguished two kinds of ‘common conceptions of the soul,” he introduces a distinction with respect to these
principles that is based on their reduction to the terms of which they are
composed. Some propositions are self-evident only to the learned, who
understand the meaning of the terms of such propositions. Other axioms are
universally self-evident, because the terms of these propositions are known to
all (omnibus)” (Medieval Philosophy as Transcendental Thought, 244).
Footnote: Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae,
I–II, q. 94, a. 2 (ed. Commissio Leonina, Vol. VII, p. 169): “sicut dicit
Boetius, in libro De hebdomad., quaedam sunt dignitates vel
propositiones per se notae communiter omnibus: et huiusmodi sunt illae
propositiones quarum termini sunt omnibus noti (. . .). Quaedam vero
propositiones sunt per se notae solis sapientibus, qui terminos propositionum
intelligunt quid significent.”
“Thus, Thomas enters the domain of the transcendentals
by reducing the universally self-evident principles to the first conceptions of
the intellect” (Medieval
Philosophy as Transcendental Thought, 244).
“The next part of the argument draws a conclusion from
the so far purely formal exposition. Among the most common notions there exists
a conceptual order, in which ‘being’ has primacy. That which the intellect
first conceives is ‘being,’ for its understanding is included in all things
whatsoever a human being apprehends. Aquinas establishes a relation of
foundation between ‘being’ and the first principle of theoretical reason, which
we already know from his commentary on the Metaphysics. ‘Therefore, the
first indemonstrable principle, the proposition “the same thing cannot be
affirmed and denied at the same time,” is founded (fundatur) on the
notions of “being” and “not-being;” all other propositions are founded on this
principle,’ the anhypotheton of human thought” (Medieval Philosophy as Transcendental Thought, 244-245).
Footnote: Ibid. (pp. 169–170): “In his autem quae in apprehensione
omnium cadunt, quidam ordo invenitur. Nam illud quod primo cadit in
apprehensione, est ens, cuius intellectus includitur in omnibus quaecumque quis
apprehendit. Et ideo primum principium indemonstrabile est quod non est
simul affirmare et negare, quod fundatur supra rationem entis et non entis:
et super hoc principio omnia alia fundantur, ut dicitur in IV Metaphys.”
