Aquinas on Esse/Existence

[Anonymous No.22756027]

When Aquinas speaks of the "esse" (existence) of a being, is it something whose scope must be constrained to that very being (like essence/essentia)? Or must any close examination of a particular thing's esse result in a survey of the esse of all beings, e.g. the totality of existence, or even Being itself?

Allow me to introduce a short primer on existence. The question of existence centers on what we can say about beings that goes beyond essence. Essence is not the only reason for why things are the way they are, so existence has to be "larger" than that. For example, it is true that you are reading this post. But why are you reading this post? Is it due to your essence (e.g. your form of a human being, instantiated in the matter of the particular human being you are?). Obviously not, or else everybody would be reading my post, too. So when we look into a thing's existence, we're looking into its causes, as nothing is ever purely self-caused (except God).

It's worth noting that all things in existence must first brought into existence and then continuously sustained in existence in order to exist. A good example is music. To exist, a piece of music must begin with the first note played, continues as long as there is somebody or something playing, and ends as soon as the last note is played. But music is not self-caused. It doesn't just exist because of what it is. It must be brought into existence by something else. Another good example is life. Living organisms are self-caused in some sense, as once they are brought to life, they can continue to live on their own power due to their essence for quite some time. However, no living organism was able to bring itself into existence solely due to their own essence.

All of the previous examples shows that, for most things, there is a difference between esse and essentia, between existence and essence. The "sphere" of existence "engulfs" the "sphere" of essence. So, if you want an existential account of, let's say, a particular person, you first have to start with 1) what not only what that person did in their lifetime (self-caused), and 2) what affected him in his lifetime (outside causes), but also 3) the causal chain that led to both 1) & 2). You could always cut it off at some point for practical purposes, since we cannot give an infinite account of somebody's life, but we would have to recognize that it is an incomplete account, and perhaps wildly so.

[Anonymous No.22756059]

>>22756027
>esse" (existence)
it's not, 'esse' is the Latin translation of Greek 'ousia' which is the underlying reality past 'existentia' which is thhe spatio-temporal material plane. A things essence is what that thing is in itself beyond the material plane, what it really is, not what it appears to be.

[Anonymous No.22756116]

>>22756059
>it's not, 'esse' is the Latin translation of Greek 'ousia' which is the underlying reality past 'existentia' which is thhe spatio-temporal material plane.
Sort of. Existence can either refer to things in the spatio-temporal sense, or things in the general sense. In Aquinas's case, we're not referring to the material component of essence, so we're referring to the general case instead.

I think you have a strong argument that "existence" is a confusing translation of "esse", and the pointer towards "ousia" is incredibly helpful for the discussion.

But let's not get distracted in terminology. Historically speaking, the "existence-essence" distinction is translation for the esse-essentia distinction.

>A things essence is what that thing is in itself beyond the material plane, what it really is, not what it appears to be.
However, I think this tangent is besides the point of discussion. I don't think Aquinas problematized reality in this way.

[Anonymous No.22756172]

>>22756027
>But why are you reading this post? Is it due to your essence (e.g. your form of a human being, instantiated in the matter of the particular human being you are?).
Big problem here.

If matter is meant in the classical “what individuates to be a this kind, e.g. Socrates, this horse, etc.”, then we run into the problem where matter and “esse” sort of mean the same thing. What distinguishes “this man” from “that man”? The answer is the causes that brought each person into existence and perpetuate their existence. And they’re never exactly alike due to their unique history of causes. It’s like a combination of materialism and historicism for the definition of the individual.

If matter is meant less in terms of individuating principle and more in the general sense of “stuff” or “hyle”, then this problem goes away, but we’re left with the problem of what this “stuff” is. We can find more “beings”, the parts that make up the whole, but ultimately we’ll have to run into some elementary substance that comprises everything else. It also seems to run into a similar, but more benign, problem of materialism as the last definition. You still have form, so secondary substances like “life” and “man” are real, but there’s no individuating principle, as you can reduce that to a collection of elementary substance. Again, we have a combination of materialism and history as a definition for the individual, except here it’s even more atomistic.

The only thing that saves this picture from something like Marxism is treating the secondary substances as ideas and natural kinds. But you still have this odd mixture of idealism for kinds, materialism for ”stuff”, and materio-historicism for individuals. This leads to the Averroist controversy where we’re all one giant soul, and we either are saved or damned together. Our individual spirits are otherwise wiped out as nonfactors.

[Anonymous No.22756216]

>>22756172
>The only thing that saves this picture from something like Marxism is treating the secondary substances as ideas and natural kinds. But you still have this odd mixture of idealism for kinds, materialism for ”stuff”, and materio-historicism for individuals. This leads to the Averroist controversy where we’re all one giant soul, and we either are saved or damned together. Our individual spirits are otherwise wiped out as nonfactors.
That's a very good point. I think this is solved by relegating matter to being merely "stuff", and taking advantage of the difference between genera (e.g. life, animal, mammal, etc.) and species (e.g. human being). With the latter, we would make "human being" another (very specific) genera, and we would make the individual the "species." In other words, the individuals would be kinds with a count of 1.

This would mean that your "form" will never be merely limited to the fact that you're human at its greatest resolution, but rather to the fact that you're "you." In this way, the individual soul (as an individual form) can exist without being merely reduced to the history of material forces.

[Anonymous No.22756221]

>>22756027
> When Aquinas speaks of the "esse" (existence) of a being, is it something whose scope must be constrained to that very being (like essence/essentia)?
I couldn’t possibly fathom being an English speaking subhuman, unable of philosophy and art.

[Anonymous No.22756746]

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[Anonymous No.22757711]

>>22756059
You called?

[Anonymous No.22758110]

Welcome to our server centred mainly around western theology and philosophy, civility is the only rule here.
https://discord.com/invite/bSh9qvV7

[Anonymous No.22759372]

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[Anonymous No.22759628]

>>22756027
>the contingency of all things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFHSUFGgXzc