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vivarium 56 (2018) 47-82 viva rium brill.com/viv

Aquinas’ of Transeunt Causal Activity

Gloria Frost University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, USA [email protected]

Abstract

This paper reconstructs and analyzes ’ intriguing views on transeunt causal activity, which have been the subject of an interpretive debate spanning from the fifteenth century up until the present. In his commentary, Aquinas defends the Aristotelian positions that (i) the actualization of an agent’s active potential is the motion that it causes in its patient and (ii) action and passion are the same motion. Yet, in other texts, Aquinas claims that (iii) action differs from passion and (iv) “action is in the agent” as subject. This paper proposes a solution for how to reconcile Aquinas’ varying claims about what transeunt causal activity is in reality. In addition to advanc- ing understanding of Aquinas’ views on causal activity, the paper also offers insights into more general in his thought, such as the relationship between actualities and accidents and the of extrinsic accidents.

Keywords

Thomas Aquinas – action – causality – activity – motion – – accidents – Aristotle – dynamics

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Society for Thomistic Natural ’s sponsored session at the 2017 meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. I am grateful to the organizers and audience at this session for their questions and comments. I am also grateful to Jeff Brower and Sydney Penner for helpful written comments on an earlier draft. I would especially like to thank the anonymous referees for Vivarium for very careful and constructive comments, which helped to improve the paper in several ways.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/15685349-12341351Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:31:29PM via free access 48 Frost

This paper reconstructs Thomas Aquinas’ intriguing views on transeunt causal activity,1 the type of activity by which an agent changes a substance distinct from itself. This kind of causality is exercised when fire burns a log, a builder builds a house, and a person slices an orange. Transeunt activity is contrasted with the immanent causal activity exercised when a person thinks or wills. In immanent activity, only the agent itself is changed. What, according to Thomas Aquinas, is posited in reality when a transeunt cause exercises its causality? What differs in the world, for example, when a fire goes from potentially burn- ing a log to actually burning it? Is the only difference the change of burning that happens in the log or does the fire itself somehow differ in virtue of caus- ing the log to burn? Does the fire’s activity posit anything in the fire itself? Aquinas’ views on the ontology of transeunt causal activity have been the subject of a long-standing interpretive debate spanning from the fifteenth cen- tury up until the present. Aquinas wrote no systematic treatise on the topic and, furthermore, there are several texts throughout his corpus in which he makes seemingly conflicting claims about what transeunt causal activity is in reality. As is well known, Aquinas and many of his medieval counterparts were heavily influenced by Aristotle’s Physics. In Book III of this work, Aristotle ar- gues that the motion or change that an agent causes in its patient is the joint actualization of both the agent’s and the patient’s respective active and passive potentialities.2 For instance, when fire burns a log, the realization or fulfill- ment of the fire’s active potential is nothing other than the change of burning that happens in the log. In both his Physics commentary and in other works, Aquinas explicitly adopts the Aristotelian position.3 He even follows Aristotle in arguing that agents are not themselves changed in virtue of exercising their

1 I quote Aquinas’ texts from Sancti Thomae Aquinatis, Doctoris Angelici, opera omnia, iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P.M. edita, 50 vols. (Rome, 1882-). I use the following abbreviations: In Phys. = In VIII libros Physicorum; De veritate = Quaestiones disputatae de veritate. For texts not included in the Leonine edition, I quote from the following editions, using the following abbreviations: In Meta. = In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio (ed. M.R. Cathala and R.M. Spiazzi, 2nd ed., Torino-Rome, 1971); In Sent. = Scriptum super libros sententiarum magistri Petri Lombardi (4 vols.: 1-2, ed. P. Mandonnet; 3-4, ed. M.F. Moos, Paris, 1929-1947); De potentia = Quaestiones disputatae de potentia (ed. P.M. Pession, 10th ed., Torino-Rome, 1965). All English translations are my own. 2 Aristotle, Physics III, ch. 3. For scholarship on this text in Aristotle, see, for instance, M.L. Gill, “Aristotle’s Theory of Causal Action in Physics III 3,” 25.1 (1980), 129-147; A. Marmodoro, “The Union of Cause and Effect in Aristotle: Physics III 3,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 32 (2007), 205-232. 3 In III Phys. lec. 3 and 4. For a relevant text that is not within an Aristotelian commentary, see for instance Summa theologiae I, q. 28, a. 3.

Downloadedvivarium from Brill.com09/26/202156 (2018) 47-82 07:31:29PM via free access Aquinas’ Ontology of Transeunt Causal Activity 49 causality.4 Yet, there are several texts spanning from throughout his career in which Aquinas suggests that an agent’s transeunt causal activity is something other than what it causes in its patient and that it involves some difference in the agent itself. In multiple texts Aquinas asserts that transeunt actions are accidents in the agent as subject, and that transeunt actions are different acci- dents from the accident that is the patient’s passion.5 According to these texts, when fire burns a log, the fire’s action of burning is an accident in the fire and it is a different accident from what the log undergoes. Aquinas’ interpreters have reached no consensus about how to fit together his varying claims about tran- seunt causal activity.6 Some have claimed that his views on transeunt causality changed over time.7 Identifying the source of the interpretive difficulty brings a new level of clarity to Aquinas’ understanding of transeunt causal activity. The paper is organized around Aquinas’ most important discussions of transeunt activity, as well as some of his broader views that are required to interpret these discussions properly. In section 1, I consider Aquinas’ commen- tary on Physics III, which includes his most extensive discussion of the posi- tion that a single motion in the patient is the joint actualization of both the agent’s active potential and the patient’s passive potential. In section 2, I pres- ent a sample of the texts that seem to conflict with the Physics commentary account of transeunt activity. In these texts, Aquinas states that “action is in the agent” as subject and that action and passion are different accidents from

4 In III Phys. lec. 3 and 4. 5 See, for instance, In I Sent., d. 32, q. 1; In II Sent., d. 40, q. 1, a. 4, ad 1; and II, c. 9. These texts are quoted and discussed in section 2. 6 For an overview of the different scholastic and neo-scholastic interpretations of Aquinas’ position on action, see M.T. Miller, “The Problem of Action in the Commentary of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Physics of Aristotle,” Modern Schoolman 23.3 (1946), 135-167 (part two of this article appears in Modern Schoolman 23.4 [1946], 200-226). Miller’s article summarizes the interpretations of Thomas de Vio (1469-1534) and Francesco Sylvestri (1474-1528), as well as early 20th-century Thomists. For an exposition and defense of the interpretation of Johannes Poinsot (1589-1644), see W.D. Kane, “The Subject of Predicamental Action according to John of St. Thomas,” The Thomist 22.3 (1959), 366-388. For a critique of Kane’s interpretation, see T.S. McDermott, “The Subject of Predicamental Action,” The Thomist 23.2 (1960), 189-210. For more recent discussions of Aquinas’ views on action, passion, and motion, see J. Brower, Aquinas’s Ontology of the Material World (Oxford, 2014), 205-210, and R. Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes: 1274-1671 (Oxford, 2011), 230-232. Neither Pasnau nor Brower makes any mention of the seemingly conflicting passages in which Aquinas claims that the subject of action is the agent. 7 Bernard Lonergan is one especially prominent interpreter who has defended this view. See his Grace and Freedom. Operative Grace in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1 of The Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, ed. F. Crowe and R. Doran (Toronto, 2013), 254-267.

vivarium 56 (2018) 47-82 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:31:29PM via free access 50 Frost each other. In section 3, I propose the general solution of how to reconcile Aquinas’ varying claims about what transeunt causal activity is in reality. In section 4, I show how Aquinas’ claim that action and passion are diverse ac- cidents can be reconciled with his view that the agent and the patient’s active and passive potentialities have a single actuality. I claim that in Aquinas’ view accidents are numerically diversified in different ways than actualities are, so, although there is just one actuality that fulfils the agent’s and patient’s respec- tive potentialities, the agent’s action and the patient’s passion are nevertheless two numerically and specifically distinct accidents. In section 5, I show how Aquinas’ claim that the actualization of the agent’s active potential happens in the patient can be harmonized with his claim that the agent is the subject of action considered as an accident. I provide a textual case to defend the claim that Aquinas acknowledged accidents that were extrinsic to their subjects. I maintain that Aquinas thought that the motion that the agent caused in its patient constituted an extrinsic accident of the agent as subject. This analysis of the ontology of transeunt activity will also provide insights into more general topics in Aquinas’ thought, such as the relationship between, on the one hand, potentialities and actualities, and, on the other hand, acci- dents classified under the Aristotelian categories. Furthermore, the accidents of action and passion provide an ideal test-case for examining the precise sort of difference and sameness that Aquinas thought obtained between some ac- cidents of diverse categories. Lastly, the accident of action provides a window into Aquinas’ views on extrinsic accidents. In Aquinas’ view, there are some accidents that belong to a subject even though they are not forms that inhere in the subject’s matter.

1 Aquinas: An Agent’s Action Is the Same Motion as Its Patient’s Passion

Aquinas’ most extensive discussion of the Aristotelian view that one and the same actuality is the fulfillment of both the agent’s and the patient’s respective potentialities occurs in book III of his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics.8 The first half of this book of the Physics is devoted to the topic of motion. Aristotle first discusses the of motion and then turns to the question of which substance is the subject whose potency is actualized by motion (i.e., the mover or the mobile). In addressing this latter question, he advances the thesis that a

8 Aquinas also discusses this issue in In XI Meta., lec. 9. This discussion is shorter and the main arguments overlap substantially with the Physics commentary discussion.

Downloadedvivarium from Brill.com09/26/202156 (2018) 47-82 07:31:29PM via free access Aquinas’ Ontology of Transeunt Causal Activity 51 single motion is the actuality of both the patient’s passive potentiality and the agent’s active potentiality. In order to understand Aquinas’ comments on Physics III, it is necessary to first provide some brief background on the notions of potentiality and actual- ity. In his commentary on book IX of Aristotle’s , Aquinas explains that potentiality and actuality are basic notions that cannot be defined. Yet, like Aristotle, he thinks that we can come to an understanding of the relation- ship between potency and act through analogies. According to Aquinas, the relationship between any potentiality and its corresponding actuality is analo- gous to the relationship between the following pairs:

[T]he one who is building to what is capable of built; the one who is awake to the one who is sleeping; and the one who sees to the one who has his eyes closed when he has the faculty of sight; and of that which is separated from matter, that is, formed through the operation of art or nature, and so is separated from unformed matter; and similarly by the separation of what is prepared to what is not prepared; or that which is elaborated to that which is not elaborated.9

In each pair, there is one member that is incomplete, imperfect, unrealized or unfulfilled. Yet, it is capable of being completed, perfected, or realized. The other member of the pair relates to this imperfect member as its completion, fulfillment, or realization. Aquinas claims that the relationship that obtains between the members of each of these pairs is that of an actuality to its cor- responding potentiality. An actuality in general is the completion, realization, perfection, or fulfillment of its corresponding potentiality. The concepts of potentiality and actuality are crucial to the discussion of motion in Physics III. Following Aristotle, Aquinas maintains that the proper way to define motion is in terms of potency and act.10 Though motion is a very ordinary phenomenon, which is easy for our sense to grasp, it is quite difficult

9 In IX Meta., lec. 5 (ed. Cathala-Spiazzi, 437, n. 1827): “Ut si accipiamus proportionem aedificantis ad aedificabile, et vigilantis ad dormientem, et eius qui videt ad eum qui habet clausos oculos cum habeat potentiam visivam, et eius quod ‘segregatur a materia’, idest per operationem artis vel naturae formatur, et ita a materia informi segregatur; et similiter per separationem eius quod est praeparatum, ad illud quod non est praeparatum, sive quod est elaboratum ad id quod non est elaboratum. Sed quorumlibet sic differen- tium altera pars erit actus, et altera potentia.” 10 For discussions of Aquinas’ views on motion, see S. Brock, Action and Conduct (Edinburgh, 1998), 76-79; R. te Velde, Aquinas on God (London, 2006), 55-60; C. Trifogli, “Thomas Wylton on Motion,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 77.2 (1995), 135-154; and S. MacDonald,

vivarium 56 (2018) 47-82 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:31:29PM via free access 52 Frost to define. Aquinas notes that one cannot define motion as the process of going from potency to act (exitus de potentia in actum non subito), because a “going out” is itself a motion.11 Thus, it would be circular to define motion in this way. Aquinas takes this point from .12 According to Aquinas, the proper way to define motion is as a type of actuality. Motion is an imperfect act that has (i) the order of potency to a further act and (ii) the order of act to a prior potency. Aquinas uses the motion of heating as an example to illustrate this definition. The imperfect heat that is in an object while it is being heated is the realization or fulfillment of its subject’s prior capacity for heat, and yet that heat is said to be incomplete or unrealized with respect to the greater heat the object is in the process of acquiring.13 Thus, motion is an actuality that is mid-way between potency and act. In summarizing the definition of motion, Aquinas writes, following Aristotle’s own definition: “motion therefore is the act of a thing existing in potency insofar as it is in potency.”14 Motion is the imperfect actuality a subject has when it is in potency toward a further more perfect act. The next major question that is raised after motion is defined as a type of actuality is the question of which substance is the subject of the potential that motion fulfills and realizes as an actuality. Is motion the fulfillment and real- ization of the mover’s or of the moved thing’s potential? Aquinas notes that the answer to this question is apparent from the definition of motion. Aquinas thinks that, according to its definition as the “act of a thing in potency insofar as it is in potency” motion must be the act of the mobile.15 This is because the mobile—not the mover—is the substance that retains a potential for further actuality even when it is actualized. Consider fire heating water. The water undergoing heating has a potential for more perfect heat even while it is ac- tually being heated. By contrast, the fire is not, in virtue of the fact that it is actually moving something else, in potency to being a more perfect heater or itself more perfectly hot. When a mover is actualized as a mover, it is simply

“Aquinas’s Parasitic Cosmological Argument,” Medieval Philosophy and 1 (1991), 119-155. 11 In III Phys., lec. 2, n. 2 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 105). 12 See Avicenna, Liber Primus Naturalium: Tractatus Secundus de Motu et de Consimilibus, c. 1 (ed. S. Van Riet, J.L. Janssens, and A. Allard, Brussels, 2006, 149): “facile est dicere quod motus est exitus de potentia ad effectum in tempore, continue et subito. Sed in omnibus istis descriptionibus est declaratio circularis implicita.” 13 In III Phys., lec. 2, n. 3 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 105). 14 In III Phys., lec. 3, n. 2 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 108): “motus igitur est actus existentis in poten- tia inquantum huiusmodi.” 15 In III Phys., lec. 3, n. 2 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 108).

Downloadedvivarium from Brill.com09/26/202156 (2018) 47-82 07:31:29PM via free access Aquinas’ Ontology of Transeunt Causal Activity 53 in act. It is not also in potency toward a more perfect act. So, Aquinas con- cludes that motion, when it is considered according to its definition (i.e., as the act of a being in potency toward a more perfect act), must be the act of the mobile.16 The mobile, not the mover, is imperfectly actualized and ordered toward a more perfect actuality. He even adds, again following Aristotle, that another way to define motion is as “the act of mobile being insofar as it is mobile.”17 But this is not the whole of the story about whose act motion is. After arguing that motion is the act of the mobile, Aquinas follows Aristotle to claim that motion “is also in some way the act of the mover.”18 This is to say that motion is also the completion and fulfillment of the mover’s active poten- tial for causing motion. He then goes on to explain how it is that motion is also the act of the mover. First, Aquinas explains that, for both the mover and the mobile, there must be something in reality that is the actualization of their respective potentiali- ties for causing motion and undergoing motion. Aquinas writes:

For whatever is said to be according to potency and act has some act that corresponds to it. Just as what is moved is called mobile according to po- tency, insofar as it can be moved, but it is called moved according to ac- tuality, insofar as it is actually moved, so too on the part of the mover, it is said to be capable of moving according to potency, namely, insofar as it can move, but motion in the action itself, that is, insofar as it actually acts. Therefore, some act must correspond to both, namely mover and mobile.19

If we can make the true predication ‘x is a potential mover of y’ and ‘x is an actual mover of y’, there must be something in reality that makes the differ- ence between a potential and actual mover. The ‘act’ of the mover is that in

16 In III Phys., lec. 4, n. 1 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 109): “… existens autem in potentia inquantum huiusmodi, est mobile, non autem movens, quia movens inquantum huiusmodi est ens in actu; sequitur quod motus sit actus mobilis inquantum huiusmodi.” 17 In III Phys., lec. 4, n. 1 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 109): “actus mobilis inquantum est mobile …” This reproduces what Aristotle writes in Physics III, ch. 2: 202a7-8. 18 In III Phys., lec. 4, n. 8 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 110): “… est etiam quodammodo actus motivi.” 19 In III Phys., lec. 4, n. 9 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 110): “Quidquid enim dicitur secundum poten- tiam et actum, habet aliquem actum sibi competentem: sed sicut in eo quod movetur dicitur mobile secundum potentiam inquantum potest moveri, motum autem secundum actum inquantum actu movetur; ita ex parte moventis motivum dicitur secundum poten- tiam, inquantum scilicet potest movere, motus autem in ipso agere, idest in quantum agit actu. Oportet igitur utrique, scilicet moventi et mobili, competere quendam actum.”

vivarium 56 (2018) 47-82 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:31:29PM via free access 54 Frost reality which is the realization and fulfillment of the mere potential to move something. Aquinas then argues that one and the same act is the act of both the mover and the mobile. He writes: “This is why it is necessary that there is one act of both, namely of the mover and the moved: the same thing is what is from the mover as agent cause and what is in the moved as patient and recipient.”20 Aquinas reasons that, since what the mover causes is the same in reality as what the mobile receives in being moved, it must be the case that the actu- alization of the mover’s potential to move is also the actualization of the mo- bile’s potential to be moved. In Aquinas’ view, agents act immediately on their patients. The mover does not cause one entity that then gives rise to a second entity that is its effect in the patient. What immediately arises from the mover is the very motion that the moved substance undergoes. Thus, Aquinas con- cludes that one and the same imperfect actuality, i.e., motion, is the realization and fulfillment of both the potential to move and potential to be moved. Aquinas then gives the following examples from Aristotle to illustrate the point that, though the mover and mobile have the same act, the act is the act of each in a different way:

For the proportion of two to one and of one to two is the same according to reality, but they are different according to account (secundum ratio- nem); since if we begin the comparison with two and then proceed to one, it is said to be ‘double’; but if we begin with one and then proceed to two, is said to be ‘one-half’. Similarly, the same space is traversed by the one ascending and the one descending, but according to the difference of the starting point and the end point, it is called an ascent or a descent. It is similar with the mover and the moved. For motion as it is proceeding from the mover to the mobile is the act of the mover, but as it is in the mobile from the mover it is the act of the mobile.21

20 In III Phys., lec. 4, n. 10 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 110): “Quare oportet unum actum esse utri- usque, scilicet moventis et moti: idem enim est quod est a movente ut a causa agente, et quod est in moto ut in patiente et recipiente.” 21 In III Phys., lec. 4, n. 11 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 110): “Eadem enim distantia est unius ad duo et duorum ad unum secundum rem, sed differunt secundum rationem; quia secundum quod incipimus comparationem a duobus procedendo ad unum, dicitur duplum, e con- trario vero dicitur dimidium. Et similiter idem est spatium ascendentis et descendentis; sed secundum diversitatem principii et termini, vocatur ascensio vel descensio. Et simili- ter est in movente, et moto. Nam motus secundum quod procedit a movente in mobile, est actus moventis; secundum autem quod est in mobili a movente, est actus mobilis.”

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In each of the examples, there is one reality that is between two terms. There is one numerical distance between the numbers of one and two; and one physi- cal stretch of land between two points. But two different accounts of that one reality can be given depending on which term one begins with. The stretch of land, for example, is an ascent if one begins at the lower point. Yet, it is a descent if one begins at the higher point. The proportion between two to one is ‘double’ if one starts with two; it is a ‘one-half’ if one begins with one. It is tempting to think that, when Aquinas claims that the ascent and the de- scent and the proportion of ‘double’ and of ‘one-half’ are the same in reality and different only according to account, he is claiming that there is merely a conceptual distinction between these correlatives. On this reading, there is no real difference between an ascent and a descent and 1:2 and 2:1. The difference is merely between two ways in which a mind can conceive of the one real- ity. I think this reading is mistaken. For Aquinas, distinctions according to ac- count (secundum rationem) are not necessarily mere conceptual distinctions. Aquinas maintains that many of the accounts of things (i.e., rationes) grasped by our intellect are also found in reality.22 Though corresponding ascents and descents are in reality inseparable from each other, there is a difference in real- ity between whether one begins at the bottom of a stretch of land or the top. It is not a difference between two different entities, but rather it is a differ- ence between two different orders involving one and the same entity. There is a mind-independent difference between the order that the hiker at the bottom has to the stretch of land and the order that the one at the top has to it. The accounts (i.e., rationes) ‘ascent’ and ‘descent’ pick out the same entity, but each according to a different mind-independently distinct order. Similarly, the two different accounts that can be given of motion as the ‘act of the mover’ and the ‘act of the mobile’ respectively respond to a real, mind-independent difference between the manner in which motion is ordered to the agent and that in which it is ordered to the patient. Though one in reality, motion realizes two different potentialities, and each in a different way. Considered as an act proceeding from the mover, motion has the account ‘act of the mover’. Considered as an act in the mobile from the mover, the motion has the account ‘act of the mo- bile’s passive potential’. Though the accounts ‘act of the mover’ and ‘act of the moved’ both respond to one and the same entity, namely a motion, there is a

22 See, for instance, In I Sent., d. 2, q. 1, a. 3 (ed. Mandonnet, vol. 1, 67): “… ratio dicitur esse in re, inquantum significatum nominis, cui accidit esse rationem, est in re: et hoc contingit proprie quando conceptio intellectus est similitudo rei.” Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 75 (ed. Leonine, vol. 13, 474): “Id vero quod intelligitur, est ipsa ratio rerum existentium extra animam … [R]es in suis naturis existentes cognoscantur.”

vivarium 56 (2018) 47-82 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:31:29PM via free access 56 Frost basis in reality for distinguishing these two accounts from each other, namely the two different orders that obtain between the motion and the agent, on the one hand, and the motion in the patient, on the other. It is worth noting that the features that are distinctive of the motion as a unique type of actuality, i.e., its imperfection and order as potency toward a greater act, are incidental to it insofar as it is the act of the mover. As we have seen, the mover is not imper- fectly actualized and in potency toward a greater act insofar as it is actualized as a mover. This underscores the fact that, though there is one act of both the mover and the moved thing, the act completes or fulfills the potential of each substance in a different way. The two different accounts of motion are based on the difference in reality between these two different orders that motion has to the agent and patient respectively. Following Aristotle, Aquinas then goes on to consider a doubt about the position that the mover and the mobile share one act: the potentiality of the mover is an active potential and the potential of the moved is a passive potential.23 Furthermore, the act of each of these different types of potential- ity is called by a different name. Aquinas writes:

The act of an active is called action, while the act of a passive is called passion. And he [i.e., Aristotle] proves this as follows: that which is the work and end of anything is its act and perfection. Hence, since the work and end of the agent is action, and that of the patient is passion, as is im- mediately evident, what was said follows, i.e., that action is the act of the agent and passion is the act of the patient.24

The fact that the act of an active potency is called action and the act of a pas- sive potential is called passion is supposed to give some reason to think that they are two different acts in reality. In response to this difficulty, Aquinas argues, as Aristotle did, that absurdi- ties follow if one postulates that an agent’s action is a distinct motion from its

23 See In IX Meta., lec. 1, for Aquinas’ claim that, within the division of being into poten- tiality and actuality, there is a further division of potentialities into active and passive potentiality. 24 In III Phys., lec. 5, n. 2 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 112): “Et actus quidem activi vocatur actio; actus vero passivi vocatur passio. Et hoc probat, quia illud quod est opus et finis uniuscuiusque, est actus eius et perfectio: unde, cum opus et finis agentis sit actio, patientis autem passio, ut per se manifestum est, sequitur quod dictum est, quod actio sit actus agentis et passio patientis.”

Downloadedvivarium from Brill.com09/26/202156 (2018) 47-82 07:31:29PM via free access Aquinas’ Ontology of Transeunt Causal Activity 57 patient’s passion.25 There are various ways in which the position that action is a different motion from passion can be developed, and Aquinas considers and rejects each of them. Of most interest to our present topic is what Aquinas has to say about the possibility that action is a motion in the agent:

If someone should say that action is in the agent and passion is in the patient, then, since action is a kind of motion, as was stated, it follows that motion is in the mover … [I]t follows then either that every mover is being moved or that something has motion and is not being moved. Both of these possibilities are unreasonable.26

Aquinas had already explained earlier in his commentary on the Physics why it is unreasonable to think that movers are themselves moved insofar as they act.27 The details of this argument are not so important to our concerns. What is of most interest for our purposes is the fact that Aquinas here explicitly re- jects that action is a motion in the agent. He finds it unreasonable to suppose that agents are themselves changed in virtue of acting. After showing that it leads to absurdities to posit that action and passion are two distinct motions, Aquinas then enumerates and responds to a host of difficulties for the view that the mover and the mobile have one act. Here I will mention just a few. The first difficulty is what one could call the problem of the separation of actuality from its corresponding potential. If the act of an agent’s potential is a motion in its patient, then it follows that the potential of one substance is completed and fulfilled in a different substance. But it seems that the actualization of a potential ought to be in the same subject in which the potential is. It would be absurd to think that Socrates’ potential to be tan can be realized in or that Aristotle’s potentiality for learning English can be actualized in Shakespeare. So, how can fire’s potential to burn be actualized in a log? Must not the actualization of fire’s potency to burn be some reality in the fire?

25 In III Phys., lec. 5, nn. 2-4. 26 In III Phys., lec. 5, n. 4 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 112): “Si enim aliquis dicat quod actio est in agente et passio in patiente; actio autem est motus quidam, ut dictum est; sequitur quod motus sit in movente … sequitur vel quod omne movens moveatur, vel quod aliquid ha- beat motum et non moveatur; quorum utrumque videtur inconveniens.” 27 In III Phys. lec. 4, n. 6 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 110). In brief, the reason why movers are not moved insofar as they are movers is because movers move in virtue of being actualized through a form. Motion, however, is the act of a thing insofar as it is in potency. If movers move in virtue of being actualized by a form, then movers are not in potency in virtue of being movers. Therefore, they cannot be moved in virtue of being a mover.

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In responding to this difficulty, Aquinas writes:

It is not unfitting that the act of one be in another, because teaching is the act of the teacher, but it is nevertheless continuously tending from the teacher to the other and without any interruption. Therefore the same act belongs to him, that is, to the agent, as that-from-which, and yet is in the patient as being received in it.28

Aquinas’ point in this text is that the agent is not metaphysically separated from the actualization of its active potential. There is a causal connection be- tween the two, since it is through the active potential that the actualization comes to be. Thus, though the actualization of an active potential is not a form inhering in it, it nevertheless bears a real connection to the potential that it completes: it is immediately and continuously arising from it. Another difficulty for the position that action and passion are the same mo- tion is that there will be only one act for two distinct potentialities. The same motion of burning, for instance, will be both the act of the log’s capacity to be burned and the fire’s potential to burn. It seems problematic for two distinct potentialities to have the same act, because potentialities are supposed to be individuated by their acts.29 Thus it seems that, if the potential to cause a mo- tion and the potential to undergo motion are in fact really distinct potentiali- ties, then their actualizations must be really distinct as well. In response to this worry, Aquinas claims that it is not problematic for two potentialities to have the same act, so long as that actuality relates to each po- tentiality in a different way:

Nothing prohibits one act from being of two things, such that it is not one and the same act according to account [secundum rationem], but [only] according to reality [secundum rem] … The very same act according to reality is the act of two things according to diverse accounts: it is of the agent insofar as it is from it, and it is of the patient insofar as it is in it.30

28 In III Phys., lec. 5, n. 9 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 113): “non est inconveniens actum unius esse in altero quia doctio est actus docentis, ab eo tamen in alterum tendens continue et sine aliqua interruptione: unde idem actus est huius, idest agentis, ut a quo; et tamen est in patiente ut receptus in eo.” 29 On the individuation of potencies, see for instance Summa theologiae I, q. 77, a. 3. 30 In III Phys., lec. 5, n. 10 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 113): “nihil prohibet unum actum esse duorum, ita quod non sit unus et idem secundum rationem, sed unus secundum rem … Sic enim

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Aquinas claims that it is possible for the same act to be the actualization of two different potentialities so long as it is not the act of each according to the same meaning or account of what it is to be an actuality of a potentiality. In his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Aquinas explains that ‘act’ is an analogous term. There are two different ways in which an act can be the fulfillment or realization of a potency:

The term ‘actuality’ is said in different ways … We do not predicate actual- ity of all things in the same way, but in diverse ways. This diversity can be illustrated through diverse proportions. Proportion can be taken in one way, as when we say that just as A is in B, likewise Y is in X. For example, just as sight is in the eye, so is the ability to hear [auditus] in the ear. This type of proportion involves the comparison of substance, i.e., of form, to matter. For form is said to be in matter. Another kind of proportion is when we say that just as A is ordered to B, likewise Y is ordered to X. For example, just as sight is ordered to seeing, so is the ability to hear ordered to hearing. It is by this kind of proportion that motion is compared to the motive power, or any operation is compared to an operative power.31

While every actualization is the fulfillment and realization of a corresponding potentiality, not every act fulfills or realizes its corresponding potential in the same way. Some actualities, such as forms, are such that they perfect or com- plete the potential in which they inhere. Aquinas explains that the potency for vision is the actuality of the eye in this way. Sight is the form of the eye insofar as a material organ is an eye in actuality, rather than merely a potential eye, when it has the potency for vision existing in it.32 Other acts, however, fulfill or realize their corresponding potentialities not by completing or perfecting them, but rather by arising from them. Actualities of this other sort do not exist

idem actus secundum rem est duorum secundum diversam rationem: agentis quidem secundum quod est ab eo, patientis autem secundum quod est in ipso.” 31 In IX Meta., lec. 5 (ed. Cathala-Spiazzi, 437, nn. 1828-1829): “… diversimode dicatur actus … non omnia dicimus similiter esse actu, sed hoc diversimode. Et haec diversitas consi­derari potest per diversas proportiones. Potest enim sic accipi proportio, ut dicamus, quod sicut hoc est in hoc, ita hoc in hoc. Utputa visus sicut est in oculo, ita auditus in aure. Et per hunc modum proportionis accipitur comparatio substantiae, idest formae, ad materiam; nam forma in materia dicitur esse. Alius modus proportionis est, ut dicamus, quod sicut habet se hoc ad hoc, ita hoc ad hoc; puta sicut se habet visus ad videndum, ita auditus ad audiendum. Et per hunc modum proportionis accipitur comparatio motus ad potentiam motivam, vel cuiuscumque operationis ad potentiam operativam.” 32 See for instance In II de Anima, lec. 2.

vivarium 56 (2018) 47-82 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:31:29PM via free access 60 Frost in their corresponding potentialities as a form actualizing matter. The action of seeing, for instance, is not that in virtue of which the potency for sight is an actual potency for sight. Rather, the action of seeing is an actuality that arises from the potency for sight in virtue of its already being perfected as an actual potency for sight. Potentialities of the second type (e.g., the power for sight) are not matter for their actualities, as the first type, but rather they are merely “ordered to them.” Aquinas claims that it is in this way that motion relates to the active potency to move. The motion that is its fulfillment does not inhere in the active potency to move as a form in matter. Nevertheless the motion com- pletes and fulfills that active potential as an actuality arising from it. Motion is that to which the power to move is ordered. We can now see how the distinction between two ways in which an act can fulfill or realize a potency responds to the initial difficulty. Two potentialities that are both the sort of potentialities that are perfected by an act inhering in it as a form in matter cannot be perfected by one actuality, because this would imply that one actuality is inhering as a form in two distinct subjects. For instance, Plato’s and Socrates’ potentialities to be sunburned cannot be ac- tualized by a single sunburn, because this would imply that one and the same sunburn informs two different subjects. There is no similar problem, however, with the claim that complementary active and passive potentialities are ac- tualized by a single motion. This is because the actuality of an active potency does not inhere in it as a form in matter. The act of an active potency fulfills and completes it by arising from it. There is no difficulty with one and the same act fulfilling one potency by being from it, while fulfilling another potency by being in it as a form in matter. According to Aquinas, the two different ways in which an act can complete or fulfill a potency (i.e., by being in it or by arising from it) are the basis in real- ity for the difference between action and passion. Aquinas considers the worry that the difference between action and passion will be destroyed if a single actuality is the fulfillment of the agent’s and the patient’s respective poten- tials. For example, if teaching and learning are one and the same motion that happens in the student, then it seems that teaching and learning would be the same in reality. This implies that anyone who is learning would also be teach- ing and vice versa. In response to this worry, Aquinas writes:

It must be said that it does not follow that action and passion are the same, or that teaching and learning are the same, but rather that the mo- tion in which both are is the same. For motion according to one account is action and according to another account is passion. For it is different

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according to account to be the actuality of something as existing in it and to be the actuality of something as from it.33

While the actuality that completes and fulfills the agent’s and the patient’s po- tential is one actuality, there is nevertheless a real (i.e., mind-independent) difference between how this actuality completes and fulfills each potential. The act arises from the agent’s potential and, considered precisely as some- thing arising from the agent, the act is counted as an action. An action is an act arising from a potency. The same act, however, inheres in the patient’s passive potential and, considered precisely as an act existing in the patient, the act is counted as a passion. A passion is an act that exists in a potency. Thus, though teaching and learning are the same process that happens in the student, it does not follow that there is no mind-independent difference between teaching and learning. The process is teaching insofar as it is arising from the teacher. The process is learning insofar as it is existing in the student. Arising from and exist- ing in are the two different orders that the process has to the teacher and the student and this is the mind-independent basis for distinguishing the action of teaching from the passion of learning. In the remainder of his Physics commentary discussion of action, passion, and motion, Aquinas goes on to discuss the difficulty of how to reconcile the view that action and passion are the same motion with the position that ac- tion and passion are different categories of accident. Aquinas’ solution to this difficulty will be discussed in section 3 after Aquinas’ understanding of the categories has been introduced. In concluding this section, we can summarize the main theses that Aquinas accepts in his commentary on Physics III: (1) a single actuality fulfills and completes both an agent’s active potential and its patient’s passive potential; (2) this actuality exists in the patient—the fulfillment of an agent’s active po- tential is not an actuality existing in it; (3) there are two different ways in which an actuality can fulfill and complete a potentiality: by existing in it or arising from it—active potential is fulfilled in the latter way. In case anyone might wonder whether these positions found in Aquinas’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics are really an expression of his own views, it should be noted that

33 In III Phys., lec. 5, n. 13 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 114): “dicendum est, quod non sequitur quod actio et passio sint idem, vel doctio et doctrina, sed quod motus cui inest utrumque eorum, sit idem. Qui quidem motus secundum unam rationem est actio, et secundum aliam rationem est passio. Alterum enim est secundum rationem esse actum huius ut in hoc, et esse actum huius ut ab hoc.”

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Aquinas considers and responds to objections to these theses that were not even discussed by Aristotle himself.34 This shows that Aquinas was interested in defending these views, rather than merely commenting on what Aristotle said. Furthermore, it is worth emphasizing that Aquinas endorsed these views in other texts that were not commentaries on Aristotle’s works. For example, in his Summa contra Gentiles Aquinas writes that “motion is the common act of the mover and the moved.”35 Yet, we will see that there are other passages in Aquinas’ works that initially seem to conflict with the positions advanced in the Physics commentary.

2 Aquinas: Action Is in the Agent and It Is a Distinct Accident from Passion

Despite Aquinas’ defense of the claim that the act of an agent is the motion in its patient, there are texts from works spanning across his career in which he asserts that transeunt actions are entities in the agent itself. For example, consider the following passage from his early commentary on the Sentences: “and that an action is in the agent, this accrues to it insofar as it is an accident.”36 In the later Summa contra Gentiles, Aquinas likewise writes: “An action that is not the substance of an agent is in it as an accident in a subject: hence action is counted among the nine categories of accidents.”37 How can it be that the

34 McDermott, “The Subject of Predicamental Action,” 190, notes that nearly half of Aquinas’ In III Phys. lec. 5 is devoted to objections to the thesis that action and passion are the same motion that were not even raised by Aristotle. The two difficulties not found in Aristotle that Aquinas considers at length both have to do with the categories: (1) How can action and passion be distinct categories if they are the same motion? (2) If motion is action and passion, how can there be motion in other categories, such as substance and ? 35 Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 57 (ed. Leonine, vol. 13, 406): “… motus sit communis actus moventis et moti …” There are also a variety of texts in which Aquinas advances the more general view that the actions of transeunt agents exist in and perfect their patients, rather than agents themselves. See, for instance, Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 1 (ed. Leonine, vol. 13, 271): “Est autem duplex rei operatio, ut Philosophus tradit, in IX Metaphysicae: una quidem quae in ipso operante manet et est ipsius operantis perfectio, ut sentire, intellige- re et velle; alia vero quae in exteriorem rem transit, quae est perfectio facti quod per ipsam constituitur, ut calefacere, secare et aedificare.” See also De veritate, q. 8, a. 6, and q. 14, a. 3, co. 36 In I Sent., d. 32, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Mandonnet, vol. 1, 743): “Actio enim, secundum quod est actio, significatur ut ab agente; et quod sit in agente, hoc accidit sibi inquantum est accidens.” 37 Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 9 (ed. Leonine, vol. 13, 284): “Actio quae non est substantia agentis, inest ei sicut accidens subiecto: unde et actio unum inter novem praedicamenta accidentis computatur.”

Downloadedvivarium from Brill.com09/26/202156 (2018) 47-82 07:31:29PM via free access Aquinas’ Ontology of Transeunt Causal Activity 63 actuality of an agent’s potential is in its patient and also that an agent’s action is something in the agent as subject? As we saw, Aquinas in his commentary on the Physics explicitly claimed that action and passion were the same motion and that this motion existed in the patient. A reader may initially think that passages such as the ones above refer only to immanent actions such as knowing and willing. On this reading, the pas- sages pose no tension for the view that an agent’s transeunt activity is a motion in its patient, because such passages are not even about transeunt activity. This would certainly be a tidy resolution to the interpretive difficulty. It will not work, however, because there are other passages in which Aquinas explicitly claims that actions that pass over into an external patient are likewise in the agent. Aquinas writes elsewhere in the Sentences:

As is clear in natural actions such as when fire heats wood, and in artifi- cial actions, as when a builder makes a house from matter […] the action is received in that which is made in the manner of a passion, according to which motion is in the moved thing as its subject. Therefore in such cases one finds action in the acting thing and passion in the thing undergoing change.38

This passage claims in its last lines that action is in the agent. The text makes quite clear by its examples of heating and building that it is referring to tran- seunt, rather than immanent, actions. But how can a transeunt action be both the motion that the agent causes in its patient and also a reality that is in the agent as subject? Aquinas, like his Aristotelian counterparts, rejected that one accident could be in two distinct subjects, as well as the possibility of the same numerical accident passing from one subject to another. Thus, what is in the agent cannot be the very motion that exists in the patient. It likewise will not work as an interpretive strategy to suggest that Aquinas’ position developed over time. This is because Aquinas asserts that action is in the agent and that action is in the patient in proximate passages within one and the same work. For example, in Summa contra Gentiles II, ch. 9, Aquinas claims: “An action that is not the substance of an agent is in it as an accident in a subject.”39 Just seven short chapters later in this same work, he writes:

38 In I Sent., d. 40, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1 (ed. Mandonnet, vol. 1, 942): “ut patet in actionibus natu- ralibus sicut ignis calefacit lignum, et in artificialibus, sicut aedificator facit domum ex materia … actio est recepta in eo quod fit, per modum passionis, secundum quod motus est in moto ut in subjecto: et ideo in talibus est invenire actionem in re agente, et pas- sionem in re patiente.” 39 Cf. note 37.

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Compared to the agent, matter is as the recipient of the action that is from the agent: for the act that is of the agent as from-which is of the pa- tient as in-which. Therefore matter is required by some agent to receive its action. For the very action of the agent received in the patient is the act and form (or some beginning of form) of the patient.40

The proximity of these two passages in the Summa contra Gentiles shows that Aquinas held within the same time period both (1) that the actualization of an agent’s active potential is the motion that it causes in the patient and (2) that action is in the agent as its subject. Yet, it is hard to see how these views are not straightforwardly contradictory. How can the agent’s causal activity be the same as what the patient undergoes and also be something in the agent? In the next section, I suggest that, in order to answer this question, it must first be recognized that there are two different respects in which an agent’s causal activity can be considered.

3 Being Is Divided in Various Ways: The Division of Potency-Act vs. the Division of the Ten Categories

It is important to note that, in some of the passages quoted above, Aquinas qualifies the respect in which action is in the agent. In one of the Sentences passages above, he claims that action insofar as it is an accident is in the agent and in the Summa contra Gentiles text he similarly claims that action is in the agent as an accident in a subject. This qualifier is important, because it indi- cates that, when Aquinas asserts that “action is in the agent,” he is invoking a different metaphysical division from the division between potentiality and actuality that was central to the discussion in Physics III. Aquinas notes at the beginning of his commentary on Physics III and also in his commentary on the Metaphysics that being, i.e., reality, is divided in various ways. First, there is the division of reality into potentialities and actualities. This division does not distinguish between different kinds of in terms of what they are (e.g., substances vs. qualities vs. quantities). Rather, as we have seen, the division

40 Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 16 (ed. Leonine, vol. 13, 299-300): “Materia comparatur ad agens sicut recipiens actionem quae ab ipso est: actus enim qui est agentis ut a quo, est patientis ut in quo. Igitur requiritur materia ab aliquo agente ut recipiat actionem ipsius: ipsa enim actio agentis in patiente recepta est actus patientis et forma, aut aliqua incho- atio formae, in ipso.”

Downloadedvivarium from Brill.com09/26/202156 (2018) 47-82 07:31:29PM via free access Aquinas’ Ontology of Transeunt Causal Activity 65 between potency and act is a division between what is incomplete or unful- filled vs. its realization, completion, or perfection. Beings of various kinds can be potential or actual. The second division of being is the division of beings into the ten categories. This division divides beings according to what kind of being they are.41 Following Aristotle, Aquinas identified the following ten cat- egories: substance, quality, quantity, relation, time, place, position, habit (i.e., clothing), action, and passion.42 The last nine categories are known as the ac- cidental categories. They divide types of beings that exist in dependence on a substance, as opposed to of themselves. Notice that ‘motion’ does not appear on the list of categories. In Aquinas’ view, motion is not one of the ten genera.43 As we have seen, motion is a type of imperfect act. It is defined in terms of the potency-act division. The imperfect act that is motion can be of many dif- ferent categorial types. Put otherwise, ‘motion’ does not express what kind of being something is, but rather it expresses that the being is in an in-between state with respect to potency and act. Substances can be moving with respect to quantities, qualities, and places. Thus, there are motions that are of each of these categorial types. Note that, while Aquinas does not identify motion as a categorial type, he nevertheless follows Aristotle in including both action and passion as categories. Actions and passions are types or kinds of beings, along- side qualities, quantities, etc. So far we have seen that Aquinas thinks that there are two different schemas according to which being can be classified: one in terms of act and potency, and another in terms of what-ness. The potency-act schema divides beings in terms of whether they are (1) complete or realized, (2) incomplete or unreal- ized, or (3) partly between each of these (i.e., in motion). By contrast, the ten categories divide being in terms of what kind of being it is. Every potentiality, actuality, and motion will fall under one of the ten categories.44 This is to say

41 In III Phys., lec. 1, n. 6, and In IX Meta., lec. 1. In the Physics texts, he also mentions a third division, which is a division between types of relations contained under the of relation. 42 On Aquinas’ derivation of the categories, see J.F. Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas’s Derivation of the Aristotelian Categories (Predicaments),” Journal of the History of Philosophy 25.1 (1987), 13-34. 43 In XI Meta., lec. 9 (ed. Cathala-Spiazzi, 544, n. 2291): “… motus non est aliquod unum praedicamentum distinctum ab aliis praedicamentis; sed sequitur alia praedicamenta.” See also In III Phys., lec. 1. Aquinas rejects the Avicennian view that identifies motion with the category of passion. 44 Summa theologiae I, q. 77, a. 1 (ed. Leonine, vol. 5, 236): “cum potentia et actus dividant ens et quodlibet genus entis, oportet quod ad idem genus referatur potentia et actus. Et

vivarium 56 (2018) 47-82 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:31:29PM via free access 66 Frost that each category can be divided according to potency and actuality. So, there is an important sense in which the two divisions of reality are intertwined. I believe that the confusion surrounding Aquinas’ views about the metaphys- ics of transeunt activity is due in large part to the fact that there are two differ- ent perspectives from which causal activity can be considered in light of the two divisions of reality. Given the two divisions of reality, there are two differ- ent schemas one could have in mind when considering the question of what an agent’s transeunt causal activity is in reality. First, one could have in mind the act-potency schema. If one is thinking in terms of the act-potency schema, to address the question of what an agent’s activity is in reality is to ask how the actuality that realizes or fulfills the agent’s active potential relates to the actu- alities of other potentialities. When Aquinas asks whether the act of the agent’s potential to cause motion is the same act as the act of the patient’s potential to undergo motion, he is considering causal activity from the perspective of the act-potency schema. In in his commentary on Physics III, his primary concern is to answer the question of which potentialities motion fulfills and completes as a corresponding actuality. But this is not the only perspective from which action can be considered. In a second way, one can consider an agent’s tran- seunt causal activity in terms of the categorial schema. As we have seen, the categories divide beings according to what kind of being they are. Actions are numbered among the types of accidental beings that depend on and modify substances. With the categorial framework in mind, it can be asked how the ac- cident of action relates to other accidents. Is action the same accidental being as the accidental being that is passion? When Aquinas writes about an agent’s causal activity, it is not always clear whether he is referring to the actuality that completes the agent’s potential or the categorial accident of action. In Aristotle’s Greek, the term used for actu- ality is energeia. The term for action as a categorial accident is poiesis. Latin translators of Aristotle, however, often rendered both energeia and poiesis as actio.45 Thus, it is necessary to pay close attention to context to know whether

ideo, si actus non est in genere substantiae, potentia quae dicitur ad illum actum, non potest esse in genere substantiae.” 45 For an example where energeia is translated as actio (rather than the more frequent actus), see William of Moerbeke’s translation of Aristoteles, Metaphysica IX, c. 8 (Aristoteles Latinus XXV.3.2, ed. G. Vuillemin-Diem, Leiden, 1995, 190: 1050a35): “Quorum vero non est aliud aliquod opus praeter actionem, in ipsis existit actio, ut uisio in uidente et specu- latio in speculante et vita in anima (quare et felicitas; uita namque qualis quedam est).” Aristotle’s Greek reads: “ὅσων δὲ μὴ ἔστιν ἄλλο τι ἔργον παρὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν, ἐν αὐτοῖς ὑπάρχει

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Aquinas is making a claim about action as an accident or action considered as an actuality that completes a potentiality. At the beginning of this section, I noted that, in the passages in which Aquinas claims that action is in the agent as subject, he qualifies his claim to indicate that he is referring to action as an accident. I believe that this is the key to resolving the apparent contradiction in Aquinas’ texts. Aquinas’ claim is that the accident of action is in the agent as subject—and it is a different accident from the accident of passion. His claim in his Physics commentary, however, is that the actuality of the agent’s active potential is in the patient and is the same actuality as the actuality of the pa- tient’s active potential. There is no contradiction in Aquinas’ claims, because the first set of claims is about accidents, while the second set of claims is about actualities. Even if it turns out that Aquinas does not explicitly contradict himself in his claims about what transeunt activity is, there are nevertheless conceptual dif- ficulties about how Aquinas’ views are supposed to fit together. There are two difficulties. First, it would seem that the view that the act of the agent’s active potential and the act of the patient’s passive potential are one and the same actuality (i.e., the same motion) entails that the agent’s action and the patient’s passion must be numerically one and the same accident. How can the agent and the patient have one and the same actualization, and yet their respective action and passion be numerically different accidents? Second, it would seem that if the accident of action is in the agent as subject, then so too must the actuality of the agent’s potential be in the agent as subject. How can the actual- ity of the agent’s active potential be in the patient, while the accident that is action is in the agent as subject? While the explicit contradiction in Aquinas’ texts can be resolved by referring his claims about action to either the accident of action or the actuality of the agent’s potential, there are, nevertheless, these underlying conceptual conflicts between the views Aquinas expresses about the actuality and the accident of action. The next two sections of the paper will show how these apparent concep- tual tensions in Aquinas’ thought can be resolved. In section 4, I explain how Aquinas’ claim that (i) the agent’s and the patient’s respective potentialities have one and the same actuality can be reconciled with his view that (ii) action and passion are generically and numerically diverse accidents. In section 5,

ἡ ἐνέργεια (οἷον ἡ ὅρασις ἐν τῷ ὁρῶντι καὶ ἡ θεωρία ἐν τῷ θεωροῦντι καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ, διὸ καὶ ἡ εὐδαιμονία: ζωὴ γὰρ ποιά τίς ἐστιν)”: Aristotle’s Metaphysics, bk. IX, ch. 8 (ed. W.D. Ross, Oxford, 1924: 1050a34-b1). Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 269-270, also discusses these ter- minological difficulties.

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I show how Aquinas’ view that (i) the actualization of the agent’s potential is a motion in its patient can be reconciled with his view that (ii) the subject of the agent’s action accident is the agent itself.

4 Action and Passion Are the Same Actuality, and yet They Are Generically and Numerically Distinct Accidents

This section will first reconstruct how Aquinas conceived the relationship be- tween actualities and accidents, and more specifically motion, which is the actuality of the agent’s and the patient’s respective potentialities, and the ac- cidents of action and passion. I will argue that, given Aquinas’ assumptions about how accidents are diversified both according to genus and number, he was able to maintain consistently that the respective potentialities of the agent and the patient have one act and, yet, the agent’s accident of action is not the same accident as the patient’s passion accident. To understand Aquinas’ views on this matter, we must begin with his thoughts about what it is that the cat- egories classify in reality. Aquinas claims that the ten categories mark out a division in reality be- tween modes of being or ways of existing. He writes in his De veritate:

There are diverse degrees of being according to which we understand the diverse modes of being, and in accordance with these modes we under- stood the diverse genera of things. For substance does not add to being some difference that designates some nature superadded to being, but rather the name ‘substance’ expresses a certain mode of being, namely per se being, and so it is for the other genera.46

The different modes of being are differences in how an entity exists, as op- posed to differences that arise through the addition of a nature.47 What

46 De veritate, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Leonine [A. Dondaine], vol. 22.1/2, 5): “Sunt enim diversi gradus entitatis, secundum quos accipiuntur diversi modi essendi, et iuxta hos modos accipi- untur diversa rerum genera: substantia enim non addit super ens aliquam differentiam quae designet aliquam naturam superadditam enti, sed nomine substantiae exprimitur specialis quidam modus essendi, scilicet per se ens, et ita est in aliis generibus.” 47 On Aquinas’ understanding of “modes of being” see J. Tomarchio, “Aquinas’s Division of Being According to Modes of Existing,” Review of Metaphysics 54.3 (2001), 585-613; idem, “Four Indices for the Thomistic Principle Quod recipitur in aliquo est in eo per modum recipientis,” Mediaeval Studies 60 (1998), 315-367; idem, “Thomistic Axiomatics in an Age of Computers,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 16.3 (1999), 249-275.

Downloadedvivarium from Brill.com09/26/202156 (2018) 47-82 07:31:29PM via free access Aquinas’ Ontology of Transeunt Causal Activity 69 it means for two beings to exist in different ways from each other can most easily be grasped by the example of a substance and an accident. Substances exist of themselves, whereas accidents exist as modifications of substances.48 Socrates, for example, is not a being that modifies some more fundamental subject. He exists through himself. By contrast, Socrates’ whiteness, courage, height, and fatherhood only exist insofar as they belong to or modify Socrates. The difference between a particular substance and a particular accident is not merely a difference in their nature, as is the difference between a cat and a dog or between brownness and greenness. More fundamentally, a substance and an accident differ with respect to how they exist. One exists of itself, while the other exists as something belonging to another being. Since all accidents are beings that depend on and modify a subject, it might seem that all accidents have the same mode of being, i.e., existing in depen- dence on a substance. But in the passage above Aquinas claims that all of the genera marked out by Aristotelian categories have in reality different modes of being. While all accidents depend upon substance for their existence, acci- dents can be distinguished according to different genera in virtue of the differ- ences in how they depend upon or are of a substance. Quality, for example, is a different category of accident than quantity because belonging to a substance as a qualitative modification of it is a different way of being of a substance than belonging to a substance as a measure of it. Thus, each of the nine types of accident is said to exist in a different way from every other because each is of or belongs to a substance in a different way. Put otherwise, the nine different types of accident mark out different ways in which a dependent entity might modify or depend on a subject. Aquinas thinks the point about how different categories of accident are distinguished from each other, i.e., in terms of modes of being—or, as I have glossed it, different ways of being of or belonging to substance—is crucial for understanding how action and passion can both be the same motion (i.e., the same actuality) and yet different accidents from each other. After introducing the worry that the distinction between action and passion as categories will collapse if action and passion are the same motion, he writes in his Physics commentary: “It must be understood that being is divided into the ten catego- ries not univocally, as a genus into its species, but rather according to diverse

48 In VII Meta., lec. 1 (ed. Cathala-Spiazzi, 317, n. 1254): “… modus essendi accidentium non sit ut per se sint, sed solum ut insint …” In VII Meta., lec. 1 (ed. Cathala-Spiazzi, 316, n. 1248): “Sed substantia est ens simpliciter et per seipsam: omnia autem alia genera a substantia sunt entia secundum quid et per substantiam: ergo substantia est prima inter alia entia.”

vivarium 56 (2018) 47-82 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:31:29PM via free access 70 Frost modes of being.”49 Aquinas’ point here is that if the division between types of accidents were a division of types of actualities, each of which existed in the same way (i.e., each of which belonged to its subject in the same way), then the objection would prevail. There would be no way for action and passion to be the same actuality (i.e., the same motion) and yet different accidents. Aquinas emphasizes, however, that this assumption about how the categories are distinguished is mistaken. The fact that the accidental categories are distin- guished in virtue of the different ways in which a being might be of or belong to a substance makes it possible for two different accidents to consist of the same actuality and yet be different accidents from each other. In his Metaphysics commentary, Aquinas provides an example to show how the diversification of accidents in terms of modes of being (i.e., ways of being of or belonging to substances) makes it possible for there to be a sameness between diverse accidents:

Therefore, one and the same thing pertains to different categories ac- cording to how it is predicated in diverse ways of diverse things. A place, for example, insofar as it is predicated of the locating body, pertains to the category of quantity, but insofar as it is predicated denominatively of the one that is located, it constitutes the category of where.50

Since accidents are divided into categories in terms of how an actuality is of or belongs to a subject, there can be a sameness with regard to actuality between diverse types of accidents. This is because one and the same actuality A can

49 In III Phys., lec. 5, n. 15 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 114): “sciendum est quod ens dividitur in decem praedicamenta non univoce, sicut genus in species, sed secundum diversum modum es- sendi. Modi autem essendi proportionales sunt modis praedicandi. Praedicando enim aliquid de aliquo altero, dicimus hoc esse illud: unde et decem genera entis dicuntur decem praedicamenta.” See also In V Meta., lec. 9 (ed. Cathala-Spiazzi, 238, n. 890): “Unde oportet, quod ens contrahatur ad diversa genera secundum diversum modum praedican- di, qui consequitur diversum modum essendi; quia quoties ens dicitur, idest quot modis aliquid praedicatur, toties esse significatur, idest tot modis significatur aliquid esse.” 50 In XI Meta., lec. 9 (ed. Cathala-Spiazzi, 547, n. 2313): “Unde idem, secundum quod diver- simode de diversis praedicatur, ad diversa praedicamenta pertinet. Locus enim, secun- dum quod praedicatur de locante, pertinet ad genus quantitatis. Secundum autem quod praedicatur denominative de locato, constituit praedicamentum ubi.” Aquinas speaks of predication in this passage because in his view the different ways in which a predicate can be applied to a subject track the different modes of being in reality, i.e., the different ways in which a being can belong to a substance. See for instance In III Phys., lec. 5, n. 15 (quoted above in note 45).

Downloadedvivarium from Brill.com09/26/202156 (2018) 47-82 07:31:29PM via free access Aquinas’ Ontology of Transeunt Causal Activity 71 belong to two different substances in two different ways. In such a case, A will be the same as two types of accidents a1 and a2. Consider, for example, the place on the table where my coffee cup is now placed. Compared to my coffee cup, that place is its location.51 Compared to the table, however, that place is a quantity of it. The coffee cup’s location is one and the same actuality as a certain quantity of the table’s surface. This actuality both completes and fulfills the table’s potential to be quantified and the cup’s potential to be located. Yet, the coffee cup’s location is a different accident from a portion of the table’s quantity. This, as we have seen, is because accidents are distinguished into their types according to different ways of being of or belonging to substances. To be the location of substance is a different way of being of or belonging to a substance than the way of being of or belonging to a substance that is to be a quantity of it. Aquinas continues in the passage quoted above from his commentary on the Metaphysics to explain how these points apply to action and passion: “Similarly, motion insofar as it is predicated of the subject in which it is con- stitutes the category of passion. However, insofar as it is predicated of the one from which it is it constitutes the category of action.”52 In Aquinas’ view, mo- tion is a single actuality that is of or belongs to two different substances in two different ways. Motion considered in itself, apart from how it belongs to the agent or the patient, is merely an imperfect act. But since the motion is of or belongs to two substances according to two different ways, the motion is the same as two different types of accident.53 Put otherwise, an accident is not

51 In this example of place and quantity, Aquinas does not use a neutral term to refer to the actuality that belongs to the locating body (as its quantity) and the located body (as its place). He simply refers to it as a ‘place’. Strictly speaking, though, ‘place’ signifies the actuality that is predicated of the located body together with the order this body has to it as located by it. 52 In XI Meta., lec. 9 (ed. Cathala-Spiazzi, 547, n. 25): “Similiter motus, secundum quod praedicatur de subiecto in quo est, constituit praedicamentum passionis. Secundum autem quod praedicatur de eo a quo est, constituit praedicamentum actionis.” See also In III Phys., lec. 16, n. 2 (ed. Leonine, vol. 2, 115): “Sic igitur patet quod licet motus sit unus, tamen praedicamenta quae sumuntur secundum motum, sunt duo, secundum quod a di- versis rebus exterioribus fiunt praedicamentales denominationes. Nam alia res est agens, a qua sicut ab exteriori, sumitur per modum denominationis praedicamentum passionis: et alia res est patiens a qua denominatur agens. Et sic patet solutio primae dubitationis.” 53 “Sameness” here should not be taken as ‘’ in the modern sense. According to the modern sense of ‘identity’, two entities are identical if they share all of the same proper- ties. In Aquinas’ view, motion considered in itself does not share all of the same proper- ties as action and passion. In addition to the properties of the motion, action and passion

vivarium 56 (2018) 47-82 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:31:29PM via free access 72 Frost merely an actuality considered in itself. It is an actuality taken together with a particular way of belonging to, being of, or depending on a substance. If one and the same actuality is of two different substances, then there will be two different accidents. In other texts, Aquinas more explicitly clarifies how it is that action and passion can be different accidents though they are each the same as a single motion. He writes in his Summa Theologiae:

[A]ccording to the Philosopher in III Physics this argument holds: what- ever are the same as one thing are the same as each other in those things that are the same according to reality and account [ratione], just as ‘tunic’ and ‘garment’. But this is not the case in those things that differ according to account. Hence he says in the same place that although action is the same as motion, and likewise passion is the same as motion, nevertheless it does not follow that action and passion are the same, because action implies a relation [respectus] as the from-which the motion is in the mo- bile, and passion implies a relation as what is from another.54

According to this passage, one cannot infer that action and passion are the same accident as each other from the fact that they are the same motion, be- cause action and passion each imply something more than the motion that they are the same as. ‘Motion’ signifies the very actuality that is caused and received—abstracting from its order to the agent as caused by it and its order to the patient as received by it. By contrast, ‘action’ signifies both a motion and its being from a substance as its origin, and ‘passion’ signifies both the motion

each include a different order to a particular substance. Motion, of itself, does not include these orders to an agent and patient among its properties. 54 Summa theologiae I, q. 28, a. 3, ad 1 (ed. Leonine, vol. 4, 324): “secundum Philosophum in III Physic., argumentum illud tenet, quod quaecumque uni et eidem sunt eadem, sibi invicem sunt eadem, in his quae sunt idem re et ratione, sicut tunica et indumentum: non autem in his quae differunt ratione. Unde ibidem dicit quod, licet actio sit idem motui, similiter et passio, non tamen sequitur quod actio et passio sint idem: quia in actione importatur respectus ut a quo est motus in mobili, in passione vero ut qui est ab alio.” The passage occurs in the context of a discussion of the Trinity. According to Christian belief, there is one God, and yet three divine persons (i.e., the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit). While each of the three persons is a numerically distinct person from the other, each is the same as the divine . Aquinas appeals to the relationship between action, passion, and motion as a model for how two entities A and B can be the same as a third C without implying that A and B are the same as each other.

Downloadedvivarium from Brill.com09/26/202156 (2018) 47-82 07:31:29PM via free access Aquinas’ Ontology of Transeunt Causal Activity 73 and its being of a substance as received by it.55 As we have seen, accidents are not mere actualities. They are actualities taken together with a particular way of belonging to a substance. Because the accidental name terms ‘action’ and ‘passion’ each signify the motion together with a different order to a differ- ent substance, one cannot infer that action and passion are the same accident from the fact that they are the same motion. The action is the motion taken together with one order a substance has to it, while the passion is the motion taken together with another order a substance has to it. It must be emphasized that the ways in which motion is ordered to the agent and to the patient respectively are real, mind-independent orders in reality. They are not merely different ways of conceiving of the motion in relation to other things. There is a real difference between how the motion is of the agent and how it is of the patient. In Aquinas’ view, unlike David Hume’s, causal or- ders are not projections of the mind.56 In reality, it is the case that motion arises from an agent and is received in a patient. This different way in which the motion is of the agent from how it is of the patient is what the categories of action and passion distinguish. Aquinas writes in his Summa contra Gentiles: “Although motion is the common act of the mover and the moved, neverthe- less it is one operation to produce motion and another to receive motion, and, thus, there are two categories posited: to do and to suffer.”57 Though the actual- ity (i.e., the motion) involved in action and passion is one and the same, the categories of action and passion nevertheless pick out two really different ways

55 In the following passage Aquinas gives a particularly clear account of the meaning of ‘action’: Summa theologiae I, q. 41, a. 1, ad 2 (ed. Leonine, vol. 4, 421): “Et ideo actio, secun- dum primam nominis impositionem, importat originem motus … ita origo ipsius motus, secundum quod incipit ab alio et terminatur in id quod movetur, vocatur actio. Remoto igitur motu, actio nihil aliud importat quam ordinem originis …” Regarding the meaning of ‘passion’, he writes in De veritate, q. 26, a. 1 (ed. Leonine [Dondaine], vol. 22.3/1, 747): “Communiter quidem dicitur passio receptio alicuius quocumque modo et hoc sequendo significationem vocabuli, nam passio dicitur a patin graeco, quod est recipere. Proprie vero dicitur passio secundum quod actio et passio in motu consistent, prout scilicet ali­ quid recipitur in patiente per viam motus.” 56 Aquinas recognizes that we cannot perceive causality with our senses, but, neverthe- less, he thinks that one can know on the basis of rational argumentation that there must be entities ordered to each other as cause and effect in the reality. See, for instance, In VI Meta., lec. 1, n. 1146. 57 Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 57 (ed. Leonine, vol. 13, 406): “Licet motus sit communis actus moventis et moti, tamen alia operatio est facere motum et recipere motum: unde et duo praedicamenta ponuntur facere et pati.”

vivarium 56 (2018) 47-82 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:31:29PM via free access 74 Frost in which motion can belong to a substance in reality, namely as something arising from it and as something received by it from another. The mind-independent difference between the order that the agent has to motion and the order that the patient has to it is underscored by Aquinas’ re- peated claim that “passion is an effect of action.”58 Initially, it seems incoherent to hold that action is the cause of passion while also maintaining that action and passion are the same motion, since this seems to imply that one and the same motion causes itself. But what must be kept in mind is that action and passion do not signify the motion alone. As we have seen, these terms refer to the motion together with a real, mind-independent way in which it belongs to a substance. When Aquinas claims that passion is an effect of action, what he means is that the motion’s being of the agent as something causally arising from it is naturally prior to the motion’s being of the patient as something re- ceived by it. Actions cannot be temporally prior to passions, because what time measures is motion. As we have seen, in Aquinas’ view, the agent’s causation of motion and the patient’s reception of motion are not themselves motions. Causing and receiving are really different ways in which a substance can be ordered to or otherwise relate to a single motion.59 Thus, the priority of action over passion is not temporal, but rather ontological priority. Passions depend on actions, but actions do not depend on passions (even if it turns out that the actions and passions are inseparable). When Aquinas describes action as the cause of passion, what he means is this: a motion’s belonging to the patient as something undergone by it ontologically depends on the motion’s being of the agent as something arising from it. As the texts above make clear, the real difference between how the single motion belongs to the agent and how it belongs to the patient provides the basis for distinguishing action and passion as two distinct accidents. Though there is one motion, there are two accidents, because each accident is not merely the motion, but the motion taken together with a certain way in which it belongs to a given substance. Aquinas’ discussions of cooperative action fur- ther confirm that he thought that action accidents were not reducible to the actuality (i.e., the motion) that they involved. In a case in which two agents

58 Summa theologiae I, q. 44, a. 2, ad 1 (ed. Leonine, vol. 4, 458): “… passio est effectus actio- nis.” De veritate, q. 26, a. 2 (ed. Leonine [Dondaine], vol. 22.3/1, 752): “… passio patientis derivatur ab agente, eo quod passio est effectus actionis.” See also Summa theologiae I, q. 97, a. 2; In V Ethic., lec. 14, n. 7. 59 Summa theologiae I, q. 45, a. 2, ad 2 (ed. Leonine, vol. 4, 466): “Sed cum actio et passio con- veniant in substantia motus, et differant solum secundum habitudines diversas … oportet quod subtracto motu, non remaneat nisi diversae habitudines.”

Downloadedvivarium from Brill.com09/26/202156 (2018) 47-82 07:31:29PM via free access Aquinas’ Ontology of Transeunt Causal Activity 75 together move one patient, there is just one motion. Yet, Aquinas claims here that there are two action accidents: “one passion corresponds to two actions when neither of the agents is sufficient through itself to complete the action.”60 When two agents cooperate to cause a single motion there are two action ac- cidents because the motion arises from two distinct substances. As we have seen, an accident is an actuality taken together with a certain order it has to a particular substance. Elsewhere he writes:

It is impossible for there to be one operation of things that are diverse according to being. But I mean ‘one operation’ not with respect to that in which the action terminates, but rather insofar as it arises from the agent. For when many people pull a boat they perform one action with respect to the work done, which is one, but nevertheless with respect to the ones pulling there are many actions because there are different impulses [impulsus] toward pulling. Since action follows upon form and power, those things that have diverse forms and powers must also have diverse actions.61

In this passage, Aquinas makes clear that action accidents are counted not in terms of the number of motions or actualities that they involve, but rather in terms of the number of sources from which the motion or actuality arises. It is Aquinas’ general view that accidents are distinguished numerically in virtue of the numerical distinction of the subjects to which they belong.62 If, for exam- ple, one agent quits pulling and the others carry on, there continues to be one motion, but there are fewer accidents in the category of action because that

60 In III Sent., d. 8, q. 5 (ed. Moos, vol. 3, 293): “… una passio respondet duabus actionibus, quando neutrum agens sufficit per se ad actionem complendam, sicut est in eo qui una nativitate nascitur ex patre et matre …”. 61 Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 57 (ed. Leonine, vol. 13, 406): “Impossible est quod eorum quae sunt diversa secundum esse, sit operatio una. Dico autem operationem unam, non ex parte eius in quod terminatur actio, sed secundum quod egreditur ab agente: multi enim trahentes navim unam actionem faciunt ex parte operati, quod est unum, sed tamen ex parte trahentium sunt multae actiones, quia sunt diversi impulsus ad trahen- dum, cum enim actio consequatur formam et virtutem, oportet quorum sunt diversae formae et virtutes, esse et actiones diversas.” 62 See for instance, Summa theologiae III, q. 77, a. 1 (ed. Leonine, vol. 12, 193-194): “… acciden- tia non transeunt de subiecto in subiectum: ut scilicet idem accidens numero quod primo fuit in uno subiecto, postmodum fiat in alio. Accidens enim numerum accipit a subiecto. Unde non potest esse quod, idem numero manens, sit quandoque in hoc, quandoque in alio subiecto.”

vivarium 56 (2018) 47-82 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:31:29PM via free access 76 Frost motion belongs to fewer substances.63 This further illustrates that a motion is not of itself an accident in the category of action. Rather, a motion constitutes an accident in the category of action in virtue of its order to the substance from which it arises. When one motion arises from many numerically distinct substances, the motion constitutes many numerically distinct accidents in the category of action.64 From this section we can conclude that, since Aquinas maintains that ac- cidents are not generically and numerically diversified in accord with the number of actualities that they involve, he does not find any inconsistency in maintaining that the agent’s and patient’s respective potentialities have one actuality and yet action and passion are numerically and generically different accidents. Though there is just one actuality (i.e., one motion) involved in ac- tion and passion, that actuality constitutes two specifically distinct types of accident, since that actuality actualizes two different substances in two differ- ent ways. There is not a one-to-one correspondence between actualities and accidents, because the division of accidents takes into account the various different ways in which actualities complete the potentialities of substances. An accident is not merely an actuality. It is an actuality taken together with a particular way in which it belongs to a particular substance. As we have seen, a particular action accident is not merely a motion. It is a motion that is of or belongs to a particular substance as arising or originating from it. Since part of what it is to be a particular action accident includes an order to a particular substance, in a particular way, it follows that, though action and passion con- sist of the same motion, they cannot be the same accident.

63 In Aquinas’ view, for a motion to be the same motion it must be in the same subject, toward the same term, and it must be continuous. See In V Phys., lec. 7, n. 706. Thus, the motion in the example stipulated here would only be one motion if the switch in which agents were producing it did not involve any interruption to the motion. So far as I know, Aquinas nowhere claims that being produced by a particular agent is essential to motion’s identity. 64 Furthermore, supposing that the agents who are pulling the boat are doing so through an exercise of their wills, it is possible that the agents’ distinct actions have different moral species. One agent’s act of pulling might be morally good while another’s is morally evil depending upon the end for which each is pulling. On a related note, Aquinas explicitly claims that, in the moral order, action and passion can have different moral classifica- tions. For example, an act of cutting can be morally evil, while its corresponding passion of being cut is not evil. See, for example, Summa theologiae I-II, q. 20, a. 6, ad 2; q. 20, a. 3 ad 1; and q. 18, a. 7, ad 1.

Downloadedvivarium from Brill.com09/26/202156 (2018) 47-82 07:31:29PM via free access Aquinas’ Ontology of Transeunt Causal Activity 77

Action accident Patient Agent

Motion Active Passion (Imperfect potency accident Actuality) Arising from Existing in Passive potency

Figure 1 The realities involved in transeunt action.

5 The Agent as Subject of the Action Accident

The puzzle about how action and passion can be different accidents if the agent’s and patient’s potential have just one actualization is not the only per- plexing aspect of Aquinas’ claims about transeunt causal activity. It also seems perplexing that Aquinas claims (i) the actuality that completes and fulfills the agent’s active potential is an actuality in the patient and (ii) action considered as an accident is in the agent as subject. How can the act of the agent’s active potential be in the patient while the accident that is the agent’s action is in the agent as subject? I will elucidate this aspect of Aquinas’ views in this final section. I believe that the key to understanding how it is that Aquinas can maintain that the agent’s action accident is in it as subject (though the motion or actu- ality that constitutes the accident is in the patient) is recognizing that not all accidents exist in their subjects as forms in them. In Aquinas’ view, realities that are extrinsic to a given substance can nevertheless belong to it as an ac- cident. For Aquinas, inherence is an analogous term. Not all accidents inhere in their subjects as forms in matter. Some accidents belong to their subjects in virtue of being ordered to them. Regarding what it means for an accident to be in a subject, Aquinas writes: “… being in [inesse] does not mean the being of an accident absolutely, but rather a mode of being that belongs to it from an order to the proximate cause of its being.”65 According to this passage, to exist

65 In IV Sent., d. 12, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1 (ed. Moos, vol. 4, 499): “… quod inesse non dicit esse acciden- tis absolute, sed magis modum essendi qui sibi competit ex ordine ad causam proximam sui esse.” Aristotle similarly writes in his Categories: “By ‘present in a subject’ I do not

vivarium 56 (2018) 47-82 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:31:29PM via free access 78 Frost in a subject does not imply that what exists in the subject is itself a form in the subject as in matter. Rather for an entity to be ‘present in a subject’ is for it have a mode of being in virtue of an order to that subject. Aquinas explicitly claims even that what is a substance in itself can nevertheless be an accident of a dif- ferent substance: “Nevertheless something might be an accident with respect to something else even though it is a substance in itself, just as clothes are with respect to a body …”66 While no substance can exist in another substance as a form in matter, nevertheless some substances are accidents of other sub- stances when they are extrinsically ordered to them in the right sort of ways. Aquinas counts clothes as an accident of the wearer because they belong to the wearer in such a way as to actualize its potential. It is in virtue of actual- izing the wearer’s potential to be clothed that wool or the cloth is an accident in the category of habit. While the clothes do not depend on the wearer to exist absolutely, they depend on the wearer to exist as clothing. Wool is cloth- ing in virtue of belonging to the wearer in a certain way. Aquinas’ remarks on the meaning of inherence and his willingness to count clothes as an accident of the wearer show that he recognized that it was possible for something ex- trinsic to a substance to belong to it as an accident.67 This is significant for our present topic, because action turns out to be this type of accident. Though the motion that exists in the patient is extrinsic to the agent insofar as it is not a

mean present as parts are present in a whole, but being incapable of existence apart from the said subject”: Aristotle, Categories, c. 2: 1a24-26 (trans. E.M. Edghill, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. R. McKeon, New York, 1941, 7). 66 In II Sent., d. 26, q. 1, a. 2 (ed. Mandonnet, vol. 2, 671): “Sed tamen aliquid accidentaliter ad aliud se habet quod tamen in se substantia est, sicut indumentum ad corpus …” See also I Sent., d. 17, q. 1, a. 2, co. 67 In discussing locomotion, Aquinas draws a distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic actualities. See for instance In III Sent., d. 22, q. 3, a. 1, ad 1 (ed. Moos, vol. 3, 679-680): “motus localis, ut dicit Philosophus in VII Phys., non mutat aliquid de eo quod est intra rem, sed solum est secundum id quod est extra. Unde motus localis non ponit exitum de potentia ad actum aliquem intraneum rei, sed ad actum extrinsecum.” Even though it is not a form within the substance’s matter, Aquinas conceives of this extrinsic act (i.e., a substance’s location) as actualizing the substance’s potential. Cf. De potentia, q. 5, a. 5, ad 7 (ed. Pession, 144): “Ad septimum dicendum, quod res non dicitur esse imperfecta, quacumque potentia in ipsa non reducta ad actum, sed solum quando per reductionem in actum res suum consequitur complementum. Non enim homo qui est in potentia ut sit in India, imperfectus erit, si ibi non fuerit; sed imperfectus dicitur, si scientia vel virtute careat, qua natus est perfici.” For Aquinas’ statement that locomotion does not involve any change in forms that inhere in the subject, see for instance In II Sent., d. 8, q. 1, a. 2 (ed. Mandonnet, vol. 2, 206): “… sed quantum ad motum localem, per quem nulla forma ponitur in re mota …”.

Downloadedvivarium from Brill.com09/26/202156 (2018) 47-82 07:31:29PM via free access Aquinas’ Ontology of Transeunt Causal Activity 79 form inhering in the agent as in matter, it nevertheless belongs to the agent as its accident in the category of action. In the following passage, Aquinas distinguishes between two different types of categorial accidents: those that are defined as inherent and those that are not. Accidents defined as inherent are in their subjects as forms in matter, while accidents that are not defined as inherent depend on their subjects as “beings from them.” Aquinas holds up action as the paradigm case of the latter sort of accident:

Certain categories according to their account signify inherence, such as quantity and quality, and others of this kind. Nothing is denominated in these categories except by an inherent form, which is according to some being, whether substantial or accidental. Certain categories, however, signify according to their account being from another [ab alio ens], and not as inhering, just as is clear especially in action. For action, insofar as it is action, signifies being from an agent; and that it is in the agent ac- crues to it insofar as it is an accident. Therefore an accident in the genus of action is denominated by virtue of the fact that it is from that [i.e., the agent], and not by virtue of the fact that it is its [i.e., the agent’s] prin- ciple. Likewise an agent is so-called by its action. Nevertheless the action is not a principle of the agent, but rather the agent is the principle of the action.68

As Aquinas explains here, an accident is of the type ‘action’ in virtue of the subject from which it is. It is through its order to the subject that an accident is an action. Though the motion exists in the patient as a form in matter, it is not an action accident through its order to the patient. It is by virtue of its order to the agent (i.e., its arising from the agent) that it has the mode of being which is action. Though it does not inhere in it as a form in matter, the agent is the subject to which the action accident belongs. The agent is the subject on which

68 In I Sent., d. 32, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Mandonnet, vol. 1, 743): “Quaedam enim genera secundum rationem suam significant ut inhaerens, sicut qualitas et quantitas, et hujusmodi; et in talibus non fit denominatio nisi per formam inhaerentem, quae est secundum aliquod esse vel substantiale vel accidentale. Quaedam autem significant secundum rationem suam, ut ab alio ens, et non ut inhaerens, sicut praecipue patet in actione. Actio enim, secundum quod est actio, significatur ut ab agente; et quod sit in agente, hoc accidit sibi inquantum est accidens. Unde in genere actionis denominatur accidens per id quod ab eo est, et non per id quod principium ejus est; sicut dicitur actione agens; nec tamen actio est principium agentis, sed e converso.”

vivarium 56 (2018) 47-82 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:31:29PM via free access 80 Frost the accident depends according to the mode of being of or belonging to, which is action. Aquinas makes clear in a passage from his De potentia that accidents that are not defined as inherent can cease to be without any intrinsic change in the subject upon which they depend for their existence:

Action from the fact that it is action is considered as from the agent, but inasmuch as it is an accident it is considered as in the agent. Therefore, nothing prohibits an accident of this kind from ceasing to exist without any change of the subject in which it is. This is because its account is not completed by its being in its subject, but by its passing over into another.69

An agent’s action accident can pass in and out of existence without the agent changing intrinsically, because the agent’s action depends on it by being from it—not by being in it as a form in matter.70 As Aquinas explains elsewhere, “That which is attributed to something as proceeding from it into another does not make composition with it, just as action does not make composition with the agent.”71 Earlier in that same passage, Aquinas explicitly contrasts accidents that do not make composition with their subjects with the accidents of quan- tity and quality. He describes the latter accidents as “remaining in the subject.”72 Accidents that do not remain in or make composition with their subjects can be or not be without their subject changing intrinsically. Thus, Aquinas can consistently maintain, as he argues in his commentary on Physics III, ch. 3, that

69 De potentia, q. 7, a. 9, ad 7 (ed. Pession, 208-209): “actio ex hoc quod est actio, consideratur ut ab agente; in quantum vero est accidens, consideratur ut in subiecto agente. Et ideo nihil prohibet quod esse desinat huiusmodi accidens sine mutatione eius in quo est, quia sua ratio non perficitur prout est in ipso subiecto, sed prout transit in aliud …”. 70 Aquinas has real changes in mind here, rather than mere Cambridge (i.e., extrinsic) changes. 71 Aquinas explicitly claims that actions do not make composition with their subject in De potentia, q. 7, a. 8 (ed. Pession, 206): “Quod autem attribuitur alicui ut ab eo in aliud pro- cedens non facit compositionem cum eo, sicut nec actio cum agente.” There is an earlier Sentences passage in which Aquinas claims, in contradiction with this text, that all ac- cidents form a composition with their subjects, In I Sent., d. 8, q. 4, a. 3 (ed. Mandonnet, vol. 1, 224): “Sed in unoquoque novem praedicamentorum duo invenio; scilicet rationem accidentis et rationem propriam illius generis, sicut quantitatis vel qualitatis. Ratio autem accidentis imperfectionem continet: quia esse accidentis est inesse et dependere, et com- positionem facere cum subjecto per consequens.” 72 De potentia, q. 7, a. 8 (ed. Pession, 206): “… quantitas et qualitas sunt quaedam accidentia in subiecto remanentia.”

Downloadedvivarium from Brill.com09/26/202156 (2018) 47-82 07:31:29PM via free access Aquinas’ Ontology of Transeunt Causal Activity 81 agents are not moved in virtue of acting and that their actions inhere in them as accidents in subjects. As he makes clear, there are some accidents that come and go from their subjects without their subjects being moved. The upshot of Aquinas’ recognition of ‘extrinsic’ accidents is that it elu- cidates how it is that Aquinas could hold both that the actualization of the agent’s active potential is in the patient as subject and that such an action, con- sidered as an accident, is in the agent as subject. The motion in the patient that actualizes the agent’s active power is extrinsic to the agent insofar as it is not a form in it as in matter. The motion is a form in the patient. Nevertheless, the motion is an accident of the agent because it depends on the agent as a being arising from it. It is tempting to conceive of the way in which accidents are in their subjects according to the model of quality, since sensible qualities are the accidents that are most apparent to us. To conceive of other accidents as if they were qualities is to think of them as forms that exist in their subjects as in matter. If it is assumed that ‘being in’ a subject means being in it as a form in matter, then it would be contradictory for the motion that moves the patient to belong to the agent as an accident. Yet, in Aquinas’ view, inhering as a form in matter is just one particular way in which an accident can be in a subject. Inherence as such is a mode of being that is marked by being of or belonging to a substance. The particular way in which actions depend on or inhere in their subjects (i.e., agents) is by being from them. When Aquinas defines the mean- ing of the term ‘action’ he says that ‘action’ means that which is “arising from a substance and inhering in it as subject …”73 Arising from just is the special way in which actions inhere in (i.e., depend on) their subjects.

Conclusion

So what is an agent’s transeunt causal activity in reality? One conclusion of this paper is that this question does not admit of a single, unqualified answer. In Aquinas’ view, reality is divided both into potentialities and actualities and also into substances and various kinds of accidents. Within the act-potency schema, the activity of a transeunt cause is the actualization of its active po- tential. The actualization of an agent’s active potential is the motion that it causes in its patient. From the perspective of the categories (i.e., the division of substance and accidents), an agent’s transeunt causal activity is an acci- dent that depends on the agent as subject. The particular way in which action

73 Expositio libri Peryermeneias, c. 3, lec. 5 (ed. Leonine [R.A. Gauthier], vol. 1*/1, 24): “… ut scilicet est egrediens a substantia et inhaerens ei ut subiecto …”.

vivarium 56 (2018) 47-82 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:31:29PM via free access 82 Frost accidents depend on their subjects is by arising from them. Within the act- potency schema, the actuality of an agent’s active potential and a patient’s pas- sive potential are one and the same act. Yet, within the schema of substances and accidents, an agent’s action accident is a distinct accident from its patient’s passion accident. This paper has shown that accidents are not diversified in accord with the number of actualities that they involve. Rather, accidents are diversified in accord with the number of ways that an actuality is of or belongs to a substance. An actuality might possibly fulfill or complete the potentialities of two different substances, and in two different ways. In this case, that actu- ality constitutes two numerically and specifically different accidents. Such is the case with the accidents action and passion. A single motion actualizes the agent’s active potential by arising from it and the patient’s passive potential by inhering in it. In virtue of the distinct ways that motion is of the agent and of the patient, the motion constitutes two numerically and specifically different accidents. While correlative actions and passions are not really separable from each other nor from the motion that constitutes each, the proportion or order that exists between the agent and the motion and the patient and the motion are mind-independent and really different from each other. In Aquinas’ view, the nine accidental categories divide these different ways of being of or be- longing to a substance.

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