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Scholastic Metaphysics editiones scholasticae Volume 39 Edward Feser Scholastic Metaphysics A Contemporary Introduction Edward Feser Bibliographic information published by Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de Distribution: North and South America by Transaction Books Rutgers University Piscataway, NJ 08854-8042 [email protected] United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, Turkey, Malta, Portugal by Gazelle Books Services Limited White Cross Mills Hightown LANCASTER, LA1 4XS [email protected]©2014 editiones scholasticae Postfach 15 41, D-63133 Heusenstamm www.editiones-scholasticae.de ISBN 978-3-86838-544-1 2014 No part of this book may be reproduced, stored In retrieval systems or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use of the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany by CPI buchbiicher.de 1 Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction Table of Contents Acknowledgements 5 0. Prolegomenon 6 0.1 Aim of the book 6 0.2 Against scientism 10 0.2.1 A dilemma for scientism 11 0.2.2 The descriptive limits of science 13 0.2.3 The explanatory limits of science 20 0.2.4 A bad argument for scientism 23 0.3 Against “conceptual analysis” 27 1. Act and potency 34 1.1 The general theory 34 1.1.1 Origins of the distinction 34 1.1.2 The relationship between act and potency 39 1.1.3 Divisions of act and potency 42 1.2 Causal powers 45 1.2.1 Powers in Scholastic philosophy 45 Edward Feser 2 Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction 1.2.2 Powers in recent analytic philosophy 51 1.2.2.1 Historical background 52 1.2.2.2 Considerations from metaphysics 58 1.2.2.3 Considerations from philosophy of science 69 1.2.2.4 Powers and laws of nature 75 1.3 Real distinctions? 79 1.3.1 The Scholastic theory of distinctions 80 1.3.2 Aquinas versus Scotus and Suarez 85 1.3.3 Categorical versus dispositional properties in analytic metaphysics 87 2. Causation 97 2.1 Efficient versus final causality 97 2.2 The principle of finality 101 2.2.1 Aquinas’s argument 101 2.2.2 Physical intentionality in recent analytic metaphysics 111 2.3 The principle of causality 116 2.3.1 Formulation of the principle 116 2.3.2 Objections to the principle 120 2.3.2.1 Hume’s objection 120 2.3.2.2 Russell’s objection 126 Edward Feser 3 Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction 2.3.2.3 The objection from Newton’s law of inertia 130 2.3.2.4 Objections from quantum mechanics 133 2.3.2.5 Scotus on self-motion 140 2.3.3 Arguments for the principle 142 2.3.3.1 Appeals to self-evidence 142 2.3.3.2 Empirical arguments 143 2.3.3.3 Arguments from PNC 148 2.3.3.4 Arguments from PSR 152 2.4 Causal series 161 2.4.1 Simultaneity 161 2.4.2 Per se versus per accidens 165 2.5 The principle of proportionate causality 171 3. Substance 177 3.1 Hylemorphism 177 3.1.1 Form and matter 177 3.1.2 Substantial form versus accidental form 181 3.1.3 Prime matter versus secondary matter 189 3.1.4 Aquinas versus Scotus and Suarez 194 3.1.5 Hylemorphism versus atomism 196 3.1.6 Anti-reductionism in contemporary analytic metaphysics 204 3.2 Substance versus accidents 210 Edward Feser 4 Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction 3.2.1 The Scholastic theory 210 3.2.2 The empiricist critique 213 3.2.3 Physics and event ontologies 218 3.3 Identity 220 3.3.1 Individuation 220 3.3.2 Persistence 223 3.3.2.1 Against four-dimensionalism 223 3.3.2,2 Identity over time as primitive 230 4. Essence and existence 234 4.1 Essentialism 234 4.1.1 The reality of essence 234 4.1,2 Anti-essentialism 240 4.1.3 Moderate realism 247 4.1.4 Essence and properties 254 4.1.5 Modality 261 4.1.6 Essentialism in contemporary analytic metaphysics 263 4.2 The real distinction 267 4.2.1 Arguments for the real distinction 267 4.2.2 Objections to the real distinction 273 4.3 The analogy of being 284 Bibliography 292 Edward Feser 5 Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction Acknowledgements I want to thank Rafael Hüntelmann for his kind invitation to write this book, as well as for his other acts of kindness and his patience in waiting for delivery of the book. I thank my beloved wife and children — Rachel, Benedict, Gemma, Kilian, Helena, John, and Gwendolyn — for their patience and self-sacrifice in tolerating the many hours I put into writing this book. And I thank my dear friend David Oderberg, to whom this book is dedicated, for his work, for our many hours of conversation about philosophy and much else, and for our friendship itself. If this book leads the reader to study David’s work, I will have done well. Edward Feser 6 Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction 0. Prolegomenon 0.1 Aim of the book The title of this book, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, was chosen quite deliberately, and each word merits a brief comment. Scholasticism is, of course, that tradition of thought whose most illustrious representative is Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) and whose other luminaries include John Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308), William of Ockham (c. 1287-1347), Thomas de Vio Cajetan (1469-1539), and Francisco Suarez (1548- 1617), to name only some of the most famous. By no means only a medieval phenomenon, the Scholastic tradition was carried forward in the twentieth century by NeoScholastics like Desire Joseph Mercier (1851-1926) and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (1877-1964), and Neo-Thomists such as Jacques Maritain (1882- 1973) and Etienne Gilson (1884-1978). In contemporary analytic philosophy it finds sympathizers among writers sometimes identified as “analytical Thomists” (Haldane 2002b; Paterson and Pugh 2006). The philosophical core of the mainstream of the Scholastic tradition is Aristotelian, with key insights drawn from the Neoplatonic tradition but suitably Aristotelianized. This book has been written in that vein. More specifically, its point of view is Thomist, but Scotist, Suarezian, and Ockhamist positions on matters of dispute among Scholastics are discussed as well. It is Scholastic metaphysics that is the subject of the book, not Scholastic theology (whether dogmatic theology or natural theology), nor Scholastic views on epistemology, logic, ethics, philosophical psychology, or even philosophy of nature per se. Edward Feser 7 Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction Occasionally I have reason to touch upon issues in some of these other fields, and those familiar with Scholastic thought will know how the topics treated here are relevant to them. But this is a book about “the science of the absolutely first principles of being” (Wuellner 1956a, p. 76), about fundamental issues in ontology – causation, substance, essence, modality, identity, persistence, teleology, and the like. In other writings I have provided substantive treatments of topics in natural theology (Feser 2009, Chapter 3; 2011a; 2013b; 20130, philosophy of mind (Feser 2006; 2009, Chapter 4; 2011b; 2013a), ethics (Feser 2009, Chapter 5; 2010b; 2013e; 2013g), and philosophy of nature (Feser 2010; 2012; 2013d). Readers interested in those topics are directed to those writings. Readers interested in a deeper analysis of the metaphysical underpinnings of arguments presented in those works will want to read on in this one. The Aristotelian theory of actuality and potentiality provides the organizing theme, and the book aims both to defend that theory and to show how the rest of the key elements of Scholastic metaphysics – efficient and final causality, substantial form and prime matter, substance and accident, essence and existence, and so on – follow from it. A more detailed list of precisely which topics will be treated and in what order of presentation can be found in the table of con- tents. The book is an introduction to Scholastic metaphysics. There are others. For those who want to pursue these matters beyond the treatment I offer here, I recommend seeking out those unjustly long- neglected twentieth-century manuals of Scholastic philosophy once so familiar to anyone seeking to learn the subject – works by Tittle, Coffey, De Raeymaeker, De Wulf, Gardeil, Garrigou-Lagrange, Harper, Hart, Klubertanz, Koren, McCormick, Mercier, Phillips, Renard, Rickaby, Smith and Kendzierski, Van Steenberghen, Wuellner, and others, which are now and again cited in the pages to follow. It has become something of a cliché, rather thoughtlessly repeated by well-meaning people of a certain generation, that to learn Edward Feser 8 Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction Thomism one ought to read Thomas himself and ignore the Thomist commentators and manualists who built on his work. I couldn’t disagree more. No great philosopher, no matter how brilliant and systematic, ever uncovers all the implications of his position, foresees every possible objection, or imagines what rival systems might come into being centuries in the future. His work is never finished, and if it is worth finishing, others will come along to do the job. Since their work is, naturally, never finished either, a tradition of thought develops, committed to working out the implications of the founder’s system, applying it to new circumstances and challenges, and so forth.
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