27 Sep
Thomistic Confusion
Okay, bear with me. I recently purchased The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas by Etienne Gilson, and I can’t make heads-or-tails of anything inside it. I’ve been meaning to learn about Thomism for a long time, but I had absolutely no idea it’d be this complicated!
Here goes my shoddy attempt to present the Angelic Doctor’s metaphysics.
A substance is a distinct ontological unit of existence. In other words, a substance is matter with form. The form of a particular substance, say a human individual, might be Socrates. The accidents of a substance are its properties, such as rationality, blueness, and weight.
Did I totally screw that up or what?
If any of you know how to decode Aquinas, please help me!
What is the difference between matter, form, substance, and accident?
Well, it has been a long, long time (circa 1983) since I studied Aquinas, so I may mislead you. Be warned.
Here is what I recall Thomas takes his vocabulary from technical terminology of Aristotle. See Aristotle’s Metaphysics V.
Substance is the thing in itself: accidents are properties that the thing can (but does not necessarily) have to have. The reason why substance is called ’sub’ is that it is the foundation, the underpinning, the thing that supports the accidents. A property that a thing necessarily has is called an essence, and is said to be essential.
Some examples will help. Matter is the substance of the things seen by the senses. If you see a red apple, there is some real thing, an apple, that supports or causes the appearance of the apple to your eye. Thought is the substance of the things thought-of in thought.
“Fruit” is an essential property of an apple, because it is not logically possible, in this world or any other, for an apple to be an apple without being a fruit. “Redness” is not an essential property of the apple, because there can be, and there are, apples that are yellow in this world, and no logical reason prevents apples from being purple in some other world. It is possible for apples to be apples without being red.
Notice we still use the word “accident” in this way, though we don’t notice what we mean. When I drive my car into a lamp-post, that is called an accident, because it is not necessarily what I meant to do. It is not an essential property of the act of driving a car. When I step on the gas, that is not an accident and we do not speak of it as an accident, because it is what I mean to do: the act of driving a car cannot, in this world or any other, BE the act of driving a car without that I am steering the car.
In short, we now use the word accident only to refer to those outcomes that fall outside the intention of our acts, but in general and accident means any property (not just outcomes of acts) that falls outside the essential definition of the object involved.
Form is shape. Water in a tumbler is shaped like a cylinder; water in a wine glass is shaped like a cone. Matter is the essential property of the thing regardless of shape. Water is water, whether it is in a tumbler or a wine glass. When you see a tumbler of water, the form is “cylinder” and the matter is “water.”
Substance exists in itself, and stands beneath the “accidens” and serves as their foundation and support.
Substance is not a ‘unit’ of anything. Do not think like a scientist. We are not talking about substances like chemicals or whatnot. We are talking about what, in a sentence, can be necessarily predicated of an object of the sentence.
The accidents of a substance are its non-essential properties.
Here is a fair summary of Aristotlean and Scholastic ideas on the subject I’ve found on the internet. I cannot vouch for it, but it seems to square up with what I recall.
http://www.saintaquinas.com/primer.html
September 27th, 2008 at 10:57 pmDid you screw it up? Well, I wouldn’t use those words necessarily. Thomistic metaphysics is hard to master, it takes alot of time and effort to understand it as an idiom and worldview. I would recommend putting away Gilson for the time being and picking up a terrific book by Brian Davies called “The Thought of Aquinas”. Hang it there- it can be a tough go at times but it is worth it. Trust me. God bless.
September 29th, 2008 at 10:42 amThank you for all the wonderful feedback! I will take all these things into consideration, most certainly.
I also found some great Web sites that are really helping me understand Thomistic metaphysics. Within the next week, I’ll make a follow-up post to this one, and try to fully explain the Angelic Doctor’s metaphysics in my own words.
Then, you all can point out my mistakes, and I’ll keep chugging along down the Thomistic trail until I get it right.
Pray that God grants me the gift of knowledge and understanding in these matters.
September 29th, 2008 at 10:58 amHeh, just started seminary and I’m immersed in Thomistic metaphysics (Gilson’s Being and Some Philosophers is sitting right next to me now) so I feel your pain. Good luck!
September 29th, 2008 at 12:12 pmIn the natural world, substance is the union of prime matter and form. Prime matter cannot acutally exist independent of itself but it that which is in principle shared by all natural things. Form is that which individuates the thing into a certain substance (e.g., man). The substance is thus the essence of the thing in itself. Accidents are those things that are properties of the thing but are not of its essence. Such things as extension (size), color, etc. are not essential to the substance since they can change without the substance becoming something else. For example, you can grow older from a child to an adult to an old man or woman without it changing the fact that it is still you. Thus they are accidents but when you die, the corpse left behind is no longer you – something drastically has changed in the substance.
September 29th, 2008 at 4:07 pmBy far the best, fastest, most enjoyable shortcut to Thomism is G. K. Chesterton’s “Thomas Aquinas” [I think I've read it about six times, just for fun] – Etienne Gilson said as much himself (he of all people should know).
September 29th, 2008 at 4:12 pmFair warning, I’m only about four months ahead of you, so take anything I say with a grain of salt.
I found Mortimer Adler’s Aristotle for Anybody to be a good introduction to the basics of Aristotle’s ideas of matter and form. It doesn’t go nearly far enough, but I probably wouldn’t have gotten off the ground without it.
Actually attempting to read Aquinas requires some understanding of Aristotelian logic. I’ve just started Peter Kreeft’s introductory logic text Socratic Logic, which takes a very self-consciously Aristotelian approach; thus far I recommend it. I think it’s going to be very helpful.
I’ve been reading slowly through Herbert McCabe’s On Aquinas, which is easier going than Gilson, and which I’ve found helpful.
I’ve been working through Aquinas’ Of Being and Essence, which is heavy going, but helps.
I second the recommendation for G.K. Chesterton’s biography, but it didn’t really help to understand St. Thomas’ thought; it simply inspired in me a strong desire to do so.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:56 pmOh, and pace Mr. Wright, “form” is not “shape”, at least not necessarily. My precise shape is an accidental form; but my essential form is that I am a rational animal, which has little to do with what I look like.
(Salt shaker available on request.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:58 pm