This paper explores the possibility of developing a new understanding of the traditional notion of human death as the separation of soul and body by relying on the resources of St Thomas’s hylomorphism. It therefore develops the concept of material kenosis, showing in what way the Thomistic understanding of death should be broadened beyond the mere understanding of it as substantial change. The paper concludes by suggesting that this view of human death supplements St Thomas’s interpretation of the notion of (...) Divine kenosis in Philippians 2:7. (shrink)

Following in the hylomorphic tradition of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas holds that all material substances are composed of matter and form. Like Aristotle, Aquinas also recognizes two different types of forms that material substances can be said to possess: substantial forms and accidental forms. Of which form or forms, then, are material substances composed? This paper explores two competing models of Aquinas’s ontology of material substances, which diverge on precisely this issue. According to what the author refers to as the “Standard (...) Model,” Aquinas’s view is that a material substance is composed of prime matter and substantial form. According to the “Expanded Model,” Aquinas’s view is that a material substance is composed of prime matter, substantial form, and all of its accidental forms. After outlining the main claims of each of the two competing models and considering two arguments in favor of the Standard Model, the author offers two arguments in favor of the Expanded Model. He argues that, given the way in which Aquinas argues for God’s simplicity in question three of the Prima pars, and the way in which he consistently describes the difference between an essence and a suppositum, or individual substance, throughout his works, there is good reason to believe that Aquinas thinks that the accidental forms of a material substance are included among its metaphysical parts. (shrink)

This article addresses a difficult case at the intersection of philosophical theology and truthmaker theory. I show that three views, together, lead to difficultiesin providing truthmakers for truths of contingent predication, such as that the bread is white. These three views are: the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, astandard truthmaker theory, and a trope (or accident) view of properties. I present and explain each of these three views, at each step noting their connections to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. After (...) presenting the three views, I show why they entail a difficulty for providing truthmakers for truths of contingent predication,drawing on two cases that are not impossible, for all we know. I then present four ways that one can respond to this difficulty, afterward noting some shortcomingsof those responses. (shrink)

Philosophical questions concerning parts and wholes have received a tremendous amount of the attention of contemporary analytic metaphysicians. In what follows, I discuss some of the central questions. The questions to be discussed are: how general is parthood? Are there different kinds of parthood or ways to be a part? Can two things be composed of the same parts? When does composition occur? Can material objects gain or lose parts? What is the logical form of the parthood relation enjoyed by (...) material objects? (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to offer a detailed exegetical analysis of the argument in chapter four of "de ente et essentia" in which aquinas argues for a distinction between "esse" and essence and to develop an interpretation of it on the basis of the analysis. I argue that the reconstructed argument shows that aquinas argues for a real distinction and that he establishes it earlier in the argument than some commentators have thought. I criticize a rival interpretation of (...) the argument defended recently by joseph owens. (shrink)

This article compares and contrasts three claims published in The Review of Metaphysics in recent decades: that there is, according to Aquinas, a difference between “esse as act” and “existence which is the fact of being” (Cornelio Fabro in 1974); that, to the contrary, it is the same “existence” (esse) that is conceptualized both as an “actuality” and as a “fact” (Joseph Owens in 1976); and that there is, indeed, contrary to Owens and as Fabro suggests, a distinction in Aquinas’s (...) writings between “esse as facticity” and “esse as intrinsic actus essendi” (John F. Wippel in 1989). The article attempts to bring the differences between these interpreters on the question into sharp focus. (shrink)

What kind of entities are faculties? How are they related to the soul and to the entire living being? How can they be classified? And in what sense are they responsible for a large variety of activities? This chapter examines these questions, which were extensively discussed by scholastic authors, and focuses on the metaphysical models established by William of Auvergne, Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham, and Francisco Suárez. It argues that there was no unified scholastic doctrine. While some authors (e.g. (...) Ockham) took the faculties to be mere ways of acting of the soul, others (e.g. Suárez) conceived of them as distinct entities with their own power. The latter theory gave rise to a new model of the soul—a model that presented it as a complex entity with many distinct causes. (shrink)

In the Aristotelian tradition, there are two broad answers to the basic question "What is soul?" On the one hand, the soul can be described by what it does. From this perspective, the soul seems to be composed of various different parts or powers (potentiae) that are the principles of its various actions. On the other hand, the soul seems to be something different, namely, the actual formal principle making embodied living substances to be the kinds of things that they (...) are. Contemporary Aristotelians are split on how to interpret Aristotle: Anna Marmodoro (2013, 18), Thomas Johansen (2012, 81), and most others argue that the soul is nothing but a kind of cluster or group of powers. Rebekah Johnston (2011), however, strongly disagrees and argues that the soul is only the actual principle of embodied substance. Aquinas provides a novel and neglected solution to this problem and would argue that both sides are partly right but that either side is insufficient without the other. (shrink)