By GLEN COUGHLIN, PHD

Introduction

         In this paper, I discuss the views of Charles De Koninck about the necessity of proving the existence of immaterial beings before beginning metaphysics. De Koninck was a Canadian-Belgian Thomist who was the leading light at Laval University in Quebec City until his death in 1965. Though he strongly affirmed the need for a proof of immaterial being before beginning metaphysics, he did not, to my knowledge, write in any detail about his reasons for so thinking. Consequently, this paper will be to some extent a reconstruction.[1]

         I do not intend to discuss every reason for studying natural philosophy before metaphysics, nor every argument for any one sort of priority. I wish to restrict myself to what seems most basic and crucial – the need for natural science to prove the existence of immaterial beings in order to have a science of metaphysics at all.

Part I - Preliminaries

         Now, to pursue this question, we must ask, what science we mean. We clearly are speaking here in the context of Aristotelian and Thomistic notions of science, not of modern experimental science or its adumbrations.[2] De Koninck brings out few salient points immediately.[3]

         First, science in the Aristotelian sense amounts to a syllogism or a series of syllogisms the premises of which are self-evident principles.[4] A syllogism has a middle term and, in science, the middle term of the first demonstration must be the definition of the subject. We proceed to a scientific understanding of mobile being; for example, we have the science of triangles based on the definition of a triangle. That definition becomes the middle term in our syllogism; we use it to show that some property belongs to the subject as such.[5]

         In distinguishing sciences from each other, De Koninck argues that sciences should be divided by the sorts of definitions we have of their subjects. He concludes to this as follows: because science is a kind of knowledge, it should be divided by degrees of “knowability” or “intelligibility.” This amounts to saying that sciences should be divided by the sort of definition we can give of the subject, for the intelligibility of the subject is reflected in the sort of definition we can give.

         But how can some definitions be more intelligible than others? Here we are not concerned with a definition being less intelligible because it is wrong or imperfect, but with definitions which, even though they are as perfect as they can be, are more or less intelligible than other such perfect definitions. The definition of triangle, “a three-sided plane figure” is intrinsically more intelligible than the definition of motion, “the act of the potential as such” even if both are as good a definition of their respective subjects as you are going to find. The difference is in the sorts of things you are trying to define – an abstract mathematical being or a concrete physical becoming.

         De Koninck is more or less content to note that the sciences are distinguished by the degrees of remotion from matter which the definitions of their subjects display: physics defines with sensible matter, mathematics with intelligible matter, and metaphysics without matter. He does impresses upon the reader, in “Abstraction from Matter” (hereafter AFM) and elsewhere, that the distinction of the sciences is not based upon mere generality. As he notes, the abstraction of the universal from the particular is found in all the sciences, not only in physics.[6]

         It will be useful to think a little more about this “remotion” or “removal from matter” and how it is found in the different sciences. The sense is that when we think of an object, we think of it without the matter that is somehow conjoined with that object in reality. This is, properly speaking, what abstraction from matter means. In the case of the natural sciences, we think of things like man or electron and we treat them universally, not as individuals. There is no science of Socrates or of this particular electron, there is only a science of man or of electrons in general. In order to think of man in general, we have to think of flesh and bones. So we abstract only from the particular material in which the natures we are concerned with actually exist. And yet, in natural science, we must retain common sensible matter, matter such as flesh and bone rather than this flesh and this bone. We cannot think of man except as composed of flesh and bone, so our general consideration of man must still look to a sort of matter, so-called “common matter.”

         The things we deal with in mathematics are likewise abstracted or removed from matter, but now in a different way, as De Koninck insists. First, we remove from our consideration sensible qualities. We are not concerned as to whether our triangles are hard or soft, bronze or plastic. By removing from our consideration sensible qualities, we also remove from consideration sensible matter. Unlike natural science, mathematics has no concern with the world of sensation. De Koninck points out that we proceed incorrectly if we think we need to judge our mathematics by how it lines up with the sensible world.[7] In this, mathematics and natural philosophy differ. But the two sciences are alike in that we retain something like matter nevertheless. For example, a triangle is made of three lines; these lines are the material from which it is made. St. Thomas calls this mathematical matter “intelligible matter,” because these materials are not defined with sensible qualities like hot and cold, but are removed from sensible qualities. Nevertheless, we still have universal and particular – both the universal nature of triangle and this particular triangle. Like natural philosophy, mathematics is about universal and necessary natures abstracted from the particular matter, but unlike natural philosophy, the mathematicals are also abstracted from sensible qualities, and so are more abstract. 

         The case of metaphysics is a in a way a little easier to grasp. There are some things the definitions of which include no matter at all, neither sensible nor intelligible, neither common nor individuating. God and angels are purely spiritual beings and neither exist in nor are defined by matter. So too, “being” and “one” are found not only in material things and mathematical things, but even in these immaterial things. Though being and one can exist in material things, they can also exist outside of material things. Consequently, they too can be defined without sensible or intelligible matter.

         So one thing De Koninck emphasizes is that the sciences are distinguished by the way they define their subjects, with sensible matter, or without sensible matter but with intelligible matter, or without any matter at all. They are not distinguished by generality.[8]

         A second notion we can gather from De Koninck is this: science is about a thing, not about a nothing or a fiction or an illusion. De Koninck has a somewhat involved discussion of this.[9] When he says we do not have science about a non-being, what he means is that we don’t have science about things that are not real in any way. We might think this means that we cannot have knowledge or science about dodo birds or dinosaurs, and though there may be reasons that this is so, it is not because they are the wrong sorts of being by mere dint of happening not to exist right now. Were all triangles to be somehow wiped out, the science of geometry would be unchanged. As De Koninck says, science is not about the contingent particular but about the sorts or kinds of things and their properties. So, if science is about what is real, that still does not mean that the subject has to exist outside my mind when I am thinking about it.

       In an unpublished note which seems to be part of a draft of AFM, De Koninck says that “ens est id cuius actus est esse, vel actu, vel potentia.” And then he adds in English: “Noting this, we can see why there is a difference between being in the sense of true and being as simply conceivable in the way square-circle is. The one can have being in act (or does), one cannot – it is outside of ens in actu and ens in potentia – it is nothingness, le néant, non-ens simpliciter.”[10] The latter is an illusory being about which there is no science.

       De Koninck several times cites the following passage from St. Thomas’ Commentary on the Posterior Analytics:

For because there is no quiddity or essence of a non-being, no one is able to know the “what it is” about what does not exist; but one is able to know the signification of the name, or the notion composed from many names: just as one is able to know what this name “goat-stag” … signifies, because it signifies a certain animal composed from a goat and a stag: but it is impossible to know the “what it is” of a goat-stag, because there is no such thing in rerum natura (quia nihil est tale in rerum natura ).[11]

And a little later St. Thomas adds: “It is vain to seek what a thing is if one does not know that it is.”[12]

         According to De Koninck, then, there is no science about mere fictions. We do not have science about the things we make up, about hobbits. Whether we invent the fiction deliberately, for entertainment’s sake, or unwittingly, by committing an error, makes no difference. There is no science of phlogiston, any more than there is one of hobbits, however much some nineteenth scientists may have believed that that hypothetical substance really existed. They did not have science about phlogiston; they had its polar opposite, error. It may even be the case that they were not merely positing something fictional as the cause of combustion, but something self-contradictory, something like a goat-stag or a square-circle. For, even if I do not see any contradiction in the notion of phlogiston, it does not follow that there is none, just as my not seeing that the idea of a greatest prime number is self-contradictory does not imply that it is not.

         De Koninck’s frequent citation of the Aristotelian claim that the an est (the ‘that it is’) precedes the quid est (the “what it is”), may be seen as following from the foregoing concern. Failing to see that a subject can really exist is a problem. I may well say that hobbits are fit carriers of the ring of power or that angels are individuated by their forms, but unless I can see that the antecedent of my conditional statement is true, or that the subject of my argument is real sort of thing, I am fettered to a merely rational being, at least so far as I know. I do not come to know the truths I may per chance enunciate until such time as I can tether my knowledge to reality. Science is an assimilation of the mind to reality, and if I do not even know that my subject exists, there is no such assimilation. I may, for all I know, be speaking of an absurdity when I argue blithely about celestial spheres or duck-billed platypuses or angels. Without some evidence, we do not know this or that is not a self-contradiction.

         It is, I believe, for this reason that CDK speaks of the notion of the quid nominis and its insufficiency for science.[13] The meaning of the name, the quid nominis, may, after all, refer to a complete absurdity. If I say “blitrig” means 17-sided regular solid, I know the meaning of the name, but I may well be ignorant that there can be no such thing, as Euclid proves in Book XIII. Thus, if we do not know that a thing exists in the sense that there is such a sort of thing, that it is a real nature even if not existent in rerum natura, we cannot have science about it, since science is not about non-beings, but about beings.

         How, then, do we the verify the existence of our subjects? In the case of the natural sciences, we either encounter them in our experience or we judge, from what we experience, that there must be such things. For example, we see there are dogs and we deduce from the things that we see that there are electromagnetic waves. In these ways we know that the things we are studying are not self-contradictories.

         In the case of the objects of mathematics, things are a little trickier, at least in one way, as De Koninck is well aware.[14] Is there a reality called “square,” a really possible configuration of four equal lines joined at four right angles? We may think the answer is obvious, but we cannot simply resolve to our sense experience here.[15] If mathematics defines without sensible matter, as St. Thomas teaches, then looking at the world as given to us in sensation is insufficient. We might see things that are square enough for practical purposes, but are they absolutely square? The only way to know would be to measure the sides and the angles, but every physical measurement has a degree of imprecision built into it. The measurement is always something like “1.7 meters plus or minus .01 meters.”[16] That’s just not good enough for geometry.

         What we must do is construct the objects we wish to study, prove they are possible from things we know already to be possible. De Koninck, following St. Thomas, explains in some detail how the very first proposition of Euclid is a construction proving the existence of an equilateral triangle.[17] But his point does not depend on this particular case. Even if one thinks the possibility of such a triangle is too obvious to need verification, one could not say that about, for example, the twenty-sided regular solid which Euclid constructs in Book XIII.[18] The only way we know they are possible is by constructing them, as Euclid in fact does in Book XIII.

         Obviously, he must also assume some things in his act of construction.[19] For example, in the first proposition he assumes the third postulate, that he can draw a circle with any given center and radius. It seems that this act is understood as possible given the mere homogeneous matter which the mind understands to underlie sensible quality and which is that which the mind can abstract from sensible matter, so as to have a new kind of abstract being and so a new science. De Koninck’s consideration of the mode of being of mathematicals underlines the need to establish the existence of the subject of a science. [20]

         Thus, to sum up, for there to be a science of a subject, that subject must be real and we must know it to be real, not in the sense that it actually exists outside the mind right now or ever but in the sense of being a possible nature. Moreover, for that nature to be the subject of a science other than physics or mathematics, it will have to have a new mode of definition, where the per se differences of the modes of definition have to do with the way matter enters into the definition. As De Koninck asks, are there non-sensible qualities as there are non-sensible quantities? There is intelligible matter; is there intelligible form? Is wisdom such a thing? De Koninck says that, without proof, one could not assume that its definition is really separable from matter,[21] nor, he suggests, could we know there are living beings without matter except by way of an argument.[22]

Part II – Metaphysics is after Physics

         So the question for De Koninck is this: is another mode of definition available for a third science and how do we know anything so defined can exist? De Koninck insists that we must prove that there is some real thing which would be so defined, though he does not elaborate on this much.[23] Still, there are only so many plausible paths to metaphysics and De Koninck does address some of these possibilities.

         Now, we might think we can just by-pass such an argument and go directly to metaphysics because St. Thomas will frequently describe the subject of metaphysics as “universal being” or “being as being.” We might think that there can be a science of metaphysics simply because there is a universal name “being.” But as we saw, mere universality will not do the trick because a new science demands a new mode of definition with regard to matter. Just as the studies of plants and mobile being in general both belong to one sort of science, so would being and mobile being, unless that greater generality is accompanied by a new mode of definition, a new degree of separation from matter. This leads to a second problem.

         For there is an implicit assumption here, namely, that, because there is no overt reference to matter in the meaning of “being,” one can immediately grasp that there is a science which transcends matter, one which studies being in a universal way. Take away “mobile” and we have left a “being” which does not depend on matter for its concept, so we can just study that.

         But according to De Koninck’s discussion of the insufficiency of the quid nominis for science, this is a mistake. It is true that the meaning of the word “being” does not include an overt reference to matter, but it does not follow that there really is an immaterial being or even that we can really conceive of it, except as a quid nominis, in the same way that we can entertain the notion of a greatest prime number. De Koninck asks, what would an immaterial quality be? Once we remove matter here, we are left, he says, with a “mere expression, whose meaning could be susceptible of no more than the logical verification conveyed by the question: ‘Is there an immaterial quality?’ The point is that, though the question may have meaning, it does not answer itself. If the answer is to be that there does exist immaterial quality, such an answer calls for positive proof.”[24]

         But as Aristotle says, “If … there be not some other substance besides those constituted by nature, physics would be the first science.”[25] For the actual principles of being as such would simply be the principles of mobile being – there would be no new kind of thing to study, but at best a new set of names. If natural beings are all that can exist, then potency is simply reducible to matter and its consequences, act is correlative to matter, being is always and only the result of the union of such matter and such form, and unity is convertible with that sort of being. There would be no other really existent principles but those of physical things; there would be neither any new subject to be understood nor any new principles, nor even any new way to understand the old principles.[26]

         Thus, it turns out that we may have been too generous when we said that the primitive notion of being was more general than the notion of mobile being. If there are no immaterial beings, then “being” is not really more general; it is just a more obscure and imperfect way of saying “mobile being.” On the other hand, if we treat being as if it were applicable to immaterial things without knowing the first thing about them, namely, that they exist, we would be resolving to a quid nominis of a mystery, a mystery about which we are not even assured that it is not merely the absurd expression of our own ignorance. Proceeding on the grounds of terms like these is merely looking at an ens rationis and our propositions about them are never about reality but about the relations among our thoughts. If, armed with only such knowledge of the meaning of the name, I argue that angels, because they are immaterial, are individuated by their forms, I am no better off than if I argue that hobbits, because they are childlike, are fit carriers of the ring of power. Both statements are true, in fact, but they are true simply due to the relations between their antecedents and the consequents. The grounding of the antecedent, and so of the whole statement, in extra-mental reality would require that I know that angels or hobbits are actual things and not just figments of my imagination. Unless we can show that immobile beings are real possible natures, metaphysics is only a fancy name for natural philosophy.

         We still need to see that there are immaterial beings, then. What are the possible routes to such knowledge? I suggest that there are four possibilities, only one of which is a real possibility, namely, argument from effect to cause. This is a position De Koninck emphatically affirms.

         The first possibility is based on a direct experience or intuition of immaterial being.  De Koninck gives Descartes as an example of a philosopher who seems to feel no need to establish the reality of immaterial things.[27] He simply postulates the distinction of res cogitans and res extensa – his clear and distinct ideas, he thinks, demand it. It is hard not to think that he only thinks this is obvious because he was raised in a time and place where the distinction between material and immaterial being was taken for granted. The number of philosophers who have held on to the notion of spirit as a rarefied body militates against the assumption that the distinction between material and immaterial things is not something in need of proof.[28] For Catholic philosophers in particular, there will always be a temptation to think that we see by reason what we really see only by faith, but faith is not a basis for metaphysics.

         A second possible route to seeing that there are immaterial realities is that of Avempace (Ibn Bajja). St. Thomas reports that Avempace held that one could abstract from material things the essences of immaterial things. The argument goes like this: “For since our intellect is naturally apt to abstract the quiddity of a material thing from material, if in that quiddity there is again something material, it will be able to abstract again, and since this cannot go on to infinity, at length it will be able to arrive at understanding some quiddity which is wholly without matter. And this is to understand immaterial substance.”[29]

         One might argue that this process, if it could occur, would only show us what immaterial things are, not that they are. But it would seem that this response misses the point here. For if we really could abstract such an essence, it would by that fact be known to be possible, for it would exist in the thing from which we are abstracting it. Just as we draw the notion of plant out from the particular plants we see around us, and so know that the nature “plant” is a possible one, so would we abstract this supposed immaterial essence. The very fact that we could abstract it from what is before us would prove that it is a real possibility. And the grasp of the real possibility of such an essence would then be sufficient to ground a new science.

         St. Thomas’ critique of this view is pertinent not only to its refutation but also to our more general consideration. Here are his words:

 This would be said efficaciously, if immaterial substance were the forms and species of these material things, as the Platonists posit. But if we do not posit this, but suppose that immaterial substances are of a wholly other notion from the quiddities of material things, however much our intellect might abstract the quiddity of a material thing from matter, it would never arrive at something similar to immaterial substance. And therefore we are not able to understand immaterial substances perfectly through material substances.”[30]

St. Thomas is saying that we cannot abstract the quiddity of an immaterial thing from a material thing for the very simple reason that it is not there in the material thing to begin with. If immaterial things are of a wholly other notion than material ones, then the notions we get from material things will never be the same as the notions of immaterial things. Since abstraction is only the drawing away of one notion from another, we cannot arrive at the notions of immaterial things from material things by way of abstraction.

         Secondly, though he says this is so if we suppose that the immaterial substances are of a wholly other nature than material quiddities, seeming to put all under the shadow of mere conjecture, his conclusion is straightforward: that we simply are unable to understand immaterial substances perfectly through material ones, and this because they are of a wholly other notion. How he knows they are of another ratio is not stated, but if they indeed are of a wholly other nature, one cannot abstract that other nature from the one in front of us – it is not there to be abstracted.[31]

         The upshot of all of this is that immaterial things are of such a profoundly different sort from material things that we cannot divine what they are by looking at what is present in material things. Because this is so, the names which we use of immaterial things and of material ones, like being, one, potency, act, and so on, are not univocal, but analogous. The only way they could be univocal is if the natures they named were the same, and if they were the same, then we could abstract the notion of an immaterial thing from a material thing. St. Thomas even says that the name quiddity itself is equivocal when said of immaterial and material things: “quiddity and all such names are said altogether equivocally of sensible things and of those (i.e., immaterial) substances.”[32]

         While De Koninck does not, to my knowledge, explicitly address this text or this position, it is likely he would agree with St. Thomas on this score. De Koninck’s continuous insistence that we need to recognize the analogous nature of words in order to pursue philosophy also makes me think this text would be one he would loudly endorse. In “Metaphysics and the Interpretation of Words,” he writes:

…metaphysics is about things that are defined without matter and that can be without matter. But how can we know that there are such things, that some do in fact exist without matter whether sensible or intelligible ? Knowledge and certitude about them will be either intuitive or demonstrative. If intuitive, then not only the subject of our science but even God, the extrinsic principle of this subject, would be immediately known and accordingly named. But this is absurd, if God can be known only by way of proof from things previously known. Now, if God can be known only from things previously known, these will be named first, and God will be named only with dependence upon the things first known and named. Since the things we name first are in the order of sense experience, all further naming will have to relate in one way or another to these things. In other words, unless the names employed by the metaphysician can be related to earlier impositions that refer to objects in the order of sense experience, they will be meaningless. Yet if such names receive new impositions, if they are more than metaphors, they simply must be ambiguous.[33]

The implication here seems to be that the names said of immaterial things such as God are analogous, not univocal, and that this results in the need for demonstration of the existence of the immaterial.

       On to our third possibility: rather than think we either have direct experience of an immaterial thing or that we can abstract the real nature of an immaterial thing from the material things which are our minds’ proper objects, we might think we can, based on our direct experience of the natural world, separate by an act of judgement something which transcends matter from the material things in front of us. This would differ from the possibility just considered because the act of the mind would not simply be an abstraction, but a judgement, something not of the first but of the second act of reason.[34] I do not wish to address every take on this here, but to consider what would be necessary for any such claim and whether it is really a path to metaphysics.

         The argument might go something like this: when we grasp a being, “ens,” we grasp it as possible because we see that it really does exist in front of us. If we know by abstraction and the first thing we grasp in the first operation of the mind is ens or a being, then we must grasp ens by abstraction. But the name ens is taken from esse, as St. Thomas says.[35] Ens is “quod est,” “that which is,” or “quod habet esse,” “what has being.” So immediately upon grasping the first object of the mind, we see that something exists, and this is a judgement, a statement, not the simple abstraction of a quiddity. The notion of existence is given to us immediately, or very nearly so, certainly not by way of some lengthy argument in natural, or for that matter, any other science, but by unpacking our initial experience of ens, an unpacking which is expressed in a statement. And since esse or existence is not necessarily material, we can judge by a separation that non-material being is possible. We seem to have arrived at the beginnings of metaphysics already. But I suggest there is a serious problem with this view.
         For it is not obvious that esse as grasped in this thought can be applied to something immaterial. The problem is the old one: we think because we see no problem, there is no problem, as if our intellect with its flickering light is the measure of all things. But we do not see that it is possible for a thing to be (taking thing as broadly as you please) unless we see an example of it actually before us or else we infer that, given what do see actually before us, the thing in question must be. To belabor a point, the fact that we do not see that a thing is impossible does not mean that we see that it is possible.[36] 

Secondly, and more particularly, it is a commonplace in St. Thomas that the esse of a material thing arises in some sense from the union of form and matter.[37] A statue comes to be when a sculptor puts a shape into clay and a man comes to be when the soul is joined to the body. Whether one thinks this is all there is to it or one thinks that such a union is only presupposed to the act of esse of the material thing, it remains that the notion of esse in material things is intimately linked to the union of form and matter. The esse one can understand from material things is not univocally named with the one which any immaterial substance would have, for the latter could obviously have no reference to matter in its notion. If so, then not only essential names but even the name esse is common only in name, that is, it is equivocal. But if esse is equivocally named, we cannot understand it to transcend or even to be able to transcend materiality just from seeing the esse in the material things around us. The problem is the same as that of the abstraction of an immaterial quiddity from a material thing – if it is equivocal, it is simply not there within the material thing to be understood in any way. Claiming that the act of the mind which seizes esse is the second and not the first act is to no purpose at all in this regard.

         Even if we drop from the argument the reference to esse and just say that we are able to separate out from the notion of mobile being the notion of some immaterial thing, we are no better off. It still remains that everything in the material substance before us is understood by reference to matter. Whether we think we can divine the possible immateriality of ens or esse or unum or res or bonum, etc., we are foiled by the need to understand all these things by way of matter. We certainly cannot merely negate the material element in our notions and stand in confidence of the coherence of the resulting notion. I might as well say that because my initial notion of water does not include hydrogen, I can have a science of hydrogen-free water.

         Though De Koninck was, I think, familiar with this view, he did not address it directly, so far as I know. But given his insistence that we cannot even know that our words refer to something possible until we prove that immaterial things exist, it seems likely he would apply that conclusion to the present case as well.

         Having seen that we cannot base metaphysics directly on experience of something supernatural nor on abstraction of a quiddity from something sensed nor on a separation in judgment of esse or anything else from quiddity or ens or anything else in something sensed, we are left with but one option: we must arrive at the notion of a thing to be defined without matter by way of a demonstrative argument from what is already known, namely, material being. We need the third act of the mind, argument.[38]

         For we must begin from what we know and go to what we do not know.[39] What we know first is the natural object of our mind. Because color is the proper, formal object of the eye, we see everything else by way of seeing color, as we see motion by seeing color and a man by seeing color and a shape by seeing color. Following Aristotle, St. Thomas says that the proper object of the human mind is the quiddity of material things.[40] If so, we cannot know anything except by way of material things just as we cannot see anything expect by way of seeing color. In the Commentary on the  Sentences, St. Thomas writes: “but our intellect is not proportioned to knowing something by natural knowledge except through sensibles; and therefore it is not able to arrive at pure intelligibles except by arguing.”[41] De Koninck agrees that only by way of an argument can we come to the notion of the immaterial:

Now … that there is a definition of ‘life’ or of ‘living being’ which does not include sensible matter, could only be show by an a posteriori demonstration (i.e., from effect to cause). We would have to prove that there can or must be such a thing, a reality without sensible matter; for there can be no way of learning that there is a reality of this kind except by a proof that it is, and that sensible matter does not pertain to what it is. Hence, that there is a third mode of defining is a matter for demonstration.[42]

He adds in a note: “The mere fact that the possible expression ‘a wholly immaterial substance’ reveals no contradiction does not entail that there can be such a substance;’ and in another that only after proving there are immaterial living things could we be justified in changing the imposition of the words ‘living’ or ‘living being’ and make them analogical terms.[43]

         The arguments in question will result in negative judgements, separations, but they will be the conclusions of arguments grounded in an understanding of the things we directly experience, not mere statements about the things we directly experience.[44] Such an argument is given by Aristotle in the Physics, for example. He argues that there must be a first mover and this first mover must have infinite power, but no body can have infinite power. We draw the negative conclusion, then, that the first mover is not material. This separation or negative judgement is the sort of thing St. Thomas means when he says that what characterizes metaphysics is separation. The separation which grounds metaphysics is the establishment of the existence of an immaterial substance by argument and the judgement that the thing in question is not material.

         Having understood the immaterial as a principle of something we grasp in the material world, for example, motion, we can ask what names we should give our newly discovered object of thought. Because the quid nominis of the name “being” is very indeterminate and, in particular, does not contain any overt reference to matter, it seems like an appropriate name to extend to the immaterial. This does not mean that it is univocal when said of the material and immaterial.[45] It is not so clearly equivocal as it would be were there overt reference to matter in its primary use, but that is neither here nor there with regard to a scientific understanding of being necessary to ground metaphysics; it remains that the word is equivocal.[46]

         Thus, the immaterial principle at which our argument arrives can be named “being,” though only in an analogous way, for its definition could not be the same as the definition of a material thing.. Such an analogical word can still express the subject of a science, just as “medical” is an analogous word which can apply to many different things with different notions, e.g., medical tools and buildings and procedures, and yet express a single intelligible principle which unites the science of medicine.[47] So too “being” is analogously said not only of the ten categories but even of substances which are material and immaterial. Yet it is said first of all of material substance and only later of immaterial substance, for we name things as we know them. Reflection leads us to see that it is really immaterial substances which better deserve the names “substance” and “being,” because they are what they are in a more stable way and because they are the principles or causes of material beings.[48]

         It might be good to review at this point what the evidence is for CDK’s position on the existence of metaphysics. He clearly affirms that a new science would demand a really possible subject, one which we know is possible, and would demand a new mode of definition, namely, one without matter. Further, he explicitly denies that we have any direct experience which could ground this claim. With regard to the possibilities of arriving at the science of metaphysics by simple abstraction or by separation without argument, we do not have direct evidence, but he does say, though only implicitly, that we must prove the immaterial things exist before we can even investigate the meanings of the words we use in metaphysics. This would seem to exclude either simple abstraction or simple judgement as a road to metaphysics. Finally, he explicitly affirms that it is only by arguments a posteriori, from effect to cause, that one can arrive at the immaterial. While an element of reconstruction is necessary in discussing CDK’s opinion on our subject, most of what I have suggested is found more or less explicitly in his writings.

         The principle at work throughout this lecture has been this: act is before potency. This, De Koninck says, is why the mathematician must construct his subject.[49] If we are to come to know, the knowledge we seek must be based on some actual pre-existent knowledge. But our actual knowledge must be originally knowledge of material things; this is implied by saying that the proper object of the human intellect is the quiddity of material things. Because the mind attains as its proper object the quiddity of material things, we know everything we know starting from those quiddities. Given, then, that the quiddity of immaterial things is different from the quiddities of material things, and that all the names shared by immaterial and material things are equivocal, we will never get from one to the other by generalization, abstraction, or simple judgement. All these would falsely imply that immaterial being is univocally named with material being.

         So we must get from the material to the immaterial by some necessary link, but one which appeals from what is actually present in material things before us to what is not so present, from a material nature to an immaterial nature. Since the beginning and the end are of different natures, the link in question must be founded on an argument from some form of extrinsic causality, either final, exemplary, or agent cause.[50] Having seen the reality of immaterial things, we recognize that there is another science, more universal than natural philosophy, the science of being as such.

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[1] The primary texts for this endeavor are an unfinished series of papers: “Abstraction from Matter (I) : Notes on St.Thomas's Prologue to the Physics,” Laval théologique et philosophique 132 (1957): 133–196; “Abstraction from Matter (II),” Laval théologique et philosophique 161 (1960): 53–69; and “Abstraction from Matter (III),” Laval théologique et philosophique 162 (1960): 169–188. (Hereafter: AFM 1, AFM 2, and AFM 3) I believe that, had he finished this series, he would have directly discussed the mode of definition of metaphysics as well the importance of establishing the real existence of immaterial being in the grounding of metaphysics.

[2] Cf. AFM 1, passim. De Koninck refers especially to In De Trinitate, Q. 5, aa. 1-3.

[3] De Koninck’s thoughts on the likenesses and differences between modern and Aristotelian science cannot easily be summarized. This was a life-long concern of his. However, perhaps a good place to begin looking into his views would be The Hollow Universe, Les Presses De l’Universite Laval, Quebec, Quebec, 1960.

[4] Posterior Analytics, I.2.

[5] AFM 1, pp. 137-138.

[6] In his personal notes, De Koninck cites approvingly Cajetan’s opusculum on the subject to natural philosophy, a work in which Cajetan emphasizes that the division of the sciences is not based on generality but on the various ways matter enters into the definitions of the sciences. In fact, CDK went so far as to produce an edition of this work for his students.

[7] AFM 1, p.188-190.

[8] AFM 2, pp. 59-60; cf In De Trin. Q5, a. 3, c.: Tertia secundum eandem operationem quae est abstractio universalis a particulari; et haec competit etiam physicae et est communis omnibus scientiis, quia in scientia praetermittitur quod per accidens est et accipitur quod per se est.

[9] AFM 2, pp. 54-56.

[10] Unpublished archives.

[11] In Posteriorum Analyticorum Expositio, L. II, l. 6, n. 461 [2]: Quia enim non entis non est aliqua quidditas vel essentia, de eo quod non est, nullus potest scire quod quid est; sed potest scire significationem nominis, vel rationem ex pluribus nominibus compositam: sicut potest aliquis scire quid significat hoc nomen Tragelaphus vel Hircocervus, quod idem est, quia significat quoddam animal compositum ex hirco et cervo; sed impossibile est scire quod quid est Hircocervi, quia nihil est tale in rerum natura.

[12] Ibid, L. II, l. 7, n. 476 [7]: Vanum autem est quaerere quid est, si aliquis nesciat quia est.

[13] AFM 2, p. 62.

[14] De Koninck is at pains to establish the possibility of mathematical science. Cf. AFM 1, esp. pp. 135-138; AFM 2, pp. 55-59.

[15] AFM 1, 147-8.

[16] AFM 1, pp.61-2.

[17] De Koninck’s understanding of this proposition seems to be derived from St. Thomas’. Cf. In Posteriorum Analyticorum Expositio, L. I, l. 2, nn. 14-17 [2-5]. Cf. AFM 1, 135-8,

[18] Elements XIII.17.

[19] What De Koninck thinks is assumed is the intelligible matter which is abstracted from sensible things. We grasp that there is extension below the sensible accidents we perceive, and we recognize that it is prior to them because they are present in it, but it can be without them. This is the “abstraction of the form from matter” about which St. Thomas speaks in the De Trinitate commentary, Q. 5, a. 3. Within this homogeneous matter we recognize the possibility of drawing lines from point to point and of drawing circles of a given size and center. From these assumptions, we construct all the other possible subjects of mathematics, subjects which are themselves seen as properties of the continuum of intelligible matter. Cf. AFM 1, p. 145-146; In Post. Analyticorum, L. I, l. 2, #5 [17].

[20] In Sent. I, D. 2, q. 1, a. 3, c. St. Thomas goes so far as to say: Aliquando autem hoc quod significat nomen non est similitudo rei existentis extra animam, sed est aliquid quod consequitur ex modo intelligendi rem quae est extra animam: et hujusmodi sunt intentiones quas intellectus noster adinvenit; sicut significatum hujus nominis genus non est similitudo alicujus rei extra animam existentis; sed ex hoc quod intellectus intelligit animal ut in pluribus speciebus, attribuit ei intentionem generis; et hujusmodi intentionis licet proximum fundamentum non sit in re sed in intellectu, tamen remotum fundamentum est res ipsa. Unde intellectus non est falsus, qui has intentiones adinvenit. Et simile est de omnibus aliis qui consequuntur ex modo intelligendi, sicut est abstractio mathematicorum et hujusmodi. Cf. AFM 2, pp. 55-56.

[21] AFM I, pp. 62-3: AFM 2, pp. 59.

[22]  AFM 2, p. 57 – 63.

[23] Cf. AFM 2, 59, 60-61, 61-63.

[24] AFM 2, p. 62.

[25] Metaphysics VI.1, 1026a27-29; cf. also In Meta. III, n.398.

[26] It will be apparent from this essay that, while I think CDK would agree with Fr. Wipple about the necessity of separation as opposed to abstraction for the undertaking called metaphysics, he would disagree about how it is to be attained. Cf., e.g., Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas, Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, Vol. 10, The Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 1984, p. 78-80.

[27] This is De Koninck’s example. “Metaphysics and the Interpretation of Words,” p. 31; cf. also “Le Langage Philosopique,” Laval Theologique et Philosophique, XX. n. 2 (1964), p. 210

[28] Even the great St. Augustine said that the reason he was seduced by Manicheanism was that he could not think of being except as body Confessions, V.10, #19.

[29] ST, Ia, Q. 88, a.2, c.: Cum enim intellectus noster natus sit abstrahere quidditatem rei materialis a materia, si iterum in illa quidditate sit aliquid materiae, poterit iterato abstrahere, et cum hoc in infinitum non procedat, tandem pervenire poterit ad intelligendum aliquam quidditatem quae sit omnino sine materia. Et hoc est intelligere substantiam immaterialem.

[30] Ibid., Quod quidem efficaciter diceretur, si substantiae immateriales essent formae et species horum materialium, ut Platonici posuerunt. Hoc autem non posito, sed supposito quod substantiae immateriales sint omnino alterius rationis a quidditatibus materialium rerum; quantumcumque intellectus noster abstrahat quidditatem rei materialis a materia, nunquam perveniet ad aliquid simile substantiae immateriali. Et ideo per substantias materiales non possumus perfecte substantias immateriales intelligere.

[31] The situation would be parallel to trying to abstract the notion of being as said of substance from instances of colors or shapes; the name being is said analogously in these cases; that fact directly implies that the notion of being is simply other in the two cases and therefore the one notion cannot be seen simply by looking at the other.

[32] In De Trin. Q. 6, a. 3, c: quiditas et omnia huiusmodi nomina fere aequivoce dicantur de sensibilibus et de illis substantiis. Cf. also Summa Contra Gentiles III.41.

[33] Charles De Koninck "Metaphysics and the Interpretation of Words." Laval théologique et philosophique 171 (1961): 22–34., p. 22. Cf. also ibid, p. 29: “But the meanings of some words can also depend on a process of reasoning, or on demonstration proper. Such is the case of all divine names in metaphysics, while even these refer to conceptions and things previously known to us, which are that whence the names were extended to mean what is proper to God.” Cf. also p. 31: “Any statement containing, for instance, the word ‘ soul,’ taken in a sense wholly unrelated to sense experience, yet with the assumption that this abstract significance could, or should, be its first imposition, is going to be a word not entirely understood by its author. Aristotle’s instance is that of first philosophy when taught to the young. The neglect of meanings relating to experience, most especially in metaphysics, opens the way to a philosophical jargon — such as ‘essences’ ‘ quiddities,’ ‘ being ’ and ‘ existence ’ — that all can repeat but few feel any need to explain.”

[34] Cf. In Posteriorum Analyticorum, proemium; In De Trinitate, Q. 5, a. 3.

[35] Cf., for example, In De Trinitate, Q. 5, a. 3, c.

[36] It seems that Fr. Wipple holds to a position akin to this, for he says, without any argument, that “ in order for being to be realized as such, it need not be realized as material and changing. At least the separatio will have indicated that, insofar as one can determine, there is nothing inside the intelligible content of being as such to imply that it must be material.” From this he seems to wish to conclude that one can begin metaphysics in good conscience, perhaps discovering purely immaterial being along the way as the cause of the “genus” of being. But that would seem to simply suppose we have a distinct science because we do not see that we cannot; the reality of the arguments would then be merely logical. Cf. Op. cit., pp. 102-104.

[37] Cf. Sent. I, D. VIII, Q. 4, a. 1, c.: Sed cuiuslibet compositi esse dependet ex componentibus, quibus remotis, et esse compositi tollitur et secundum rem et secundum intellectum. QD de Anima, a. 6, c: In substantiis enim ex materia et forma compositis tria invenimus, scilicet materiam et formam et ipsum esse. Cuius quidem principium est forma; nam materia ex hoc quod recipit formam, participat esse. Sic igitur esse consequitur ipsam formam. Nec tamen forma est suum esse, cum sit eius principium. In De Trin., Q. 5, a. 3: Secunda vero operatio respicit ipsum esse rei, quod quidem resultat ex congregatione principiorum rei in compositis vel ipsam simplicem naturam rei concomitatur, ut in substantiis simplicibus.

[38] The three acts are delineated in the Prologue to the Commentary on the Posterior Analytics.

[39] Wipple asserts that the Thomistic texts most in accord with my position are In Meta. VI, commenting on Ch. 1, nn. 1169-1170 and In Meta IX, commenting on Ch. 7, nn. 2266-2267.

[40] For example, Ia, Q. 87, a. 4, c, among many other places.

[41] In I Sent. D. III, Q. 1, a. 2, ad 2. “…sed intellectus noster non est proportionatus ad cognoscendum naturali cognition aliquid nisi per sensibilia; et ideo in intelligibilia pura devenire non potest nisi arguendo.”

[42] AFM 2, pp. 60-61.

[43] AFM 2, p. 61, notes 1 and 2.

[44] Cf. In De Trin., Q. 6, a. 3, c.

[45] In Ia, Q. 88, a. 2, ad 4, St. Thomas says that there is a logical genus, one according to intention, that is common to the created immaterial and the created material substances. Such a genus could only be known to be such when the existence of the immaterial is known. It cannot be inferred that there really are immaterial things just because the logical intention does not explicitly include matter.

[46] The lack of an overt reference to matter is perhaps what leaves open the possibility of a logical community of genus between material and immaterial created substances. Cf. Ia, q. 88, a. 2, ad 4.

[47] Metaphysics IV.2

[48] Someone might think a science other than natural philosophy could ground metaphysics. For example, one might argue from the moral law to the existence of supreme governor. But this would merely be a special version of the fifth way. I believe other possibilities also implicitly reduce to natural science.

[49] AFM 1, p. 138. De Koninck cites Metaphysics IX.9, 1051ª20, where Aristotle argues that act is prior to potency in acts of knowing. Cf. also AFM 1, p. 162.

[50] While I think the causality in question has to be agent, I do not wish to try to establish that here.

Dr. Coughlin, a tutor at Thomas Aquinas College, earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in philosophy at Université Laval in Quebec, after which he taught briefly at Champlain Regional College in Quebec and St. John’s College in Santa Fe, N.M., before returning to the College as a tutor. In 2006, St. Augustine’s Press published his widely praised translation of Aristotle’s Physics, which has become the standard among students at Thomas Aquinas College and elsewhere.