Hillary Nestor's List: Philosophers

• According to Plato, nothing that we experience with our five senses is real. We perceive change all around us.
• According to David Stewart and H. Gene Blocker, Plato posited that reality is "unchanging, eternal, immaterial, and can be detected only by the intellect."(3) Plato referred to these realities as Ideas or Forms.
• Plato speculated that since we have ideas of perfections that do not exist in the real world, they must exist somewhere.
• Plato also talked about things that exist apart from man. There are things that exist that we merely discover, such as the laws of gravity, mathematics, and logic.
• According to Plato, human beings participate in two separate worlds. One is the material world with which we are all familiar: we experience this world through our senses. It exists within space and time and contains particular objects such as trees, cats, and dogs. The other world is made up of immaterial and eternal essences that we apprehend with our minds.
• A Form then is an eternal, unchangeable, and universal essence.
• according to Plato, this perfect idea exists in the world of Forms, and we all have access to this Form.
• Plato believed that the way we actually come to know these Forms is through our pre-existence. According to Plato, Forms, matter, as well as our souls, are eternal.
• His theory also involves the belief in the immortality of the soul and reincarnation. We are basically a soul that inhabits a body. Our body is a hindrance to true knowledge. When we die, we return to the realm of the Forms where we await another rebirth, and thus the process begins again.
• The Demiurge used the pre-existing matter and formed the matter using the Forms to bring about sensible objects.
• Plato believed that the universe existed hierarchically, in three major levels.
• At the base we have the world of particular things. This is the material world apprehended through our senses. Above the base, we have the world of Forms. This level is divided into the lower and higher Forms.
• the lower Forms include Forms that can be imagined such as a perfect circle, and the higher Form includes concepts humans cannot change such as Forms of Truth, Beauty, and Justice.
• the height of the pyramid is the Good. The nature of Good is in debate. Ronald Nash believes there is a clear relationship between the Good and the Christian concept of God.
• This is evident in the distinction made by Thomas Aquinas between form and matter. Every material substance is composed of both form and matter. The form is the universal element that places an object in its class or species
• St. Thomas also made a clear distinction between act and potency. Act is that which exist, while potency is that which can be, or the capacity for being.
• At the center of Aquinas' metaphysics is his distinction between essence and existence. Essence is what a being is. Existence is the act by which a being is.
• Aquinas' metaphysics begins with God. God is Being. In Him essence and existence are identical. He is necessary, essential, and without limitation. He is existence while everything else has existence.
• hierarchy of being we have God who is Pure Act in which essence and existence are identical. Below Him are angles: they posses no matter because they are spiritual beings; they are pure form; they have both essence (potency) and existence (act). Below the angles, we have man: his form is that of the rational soul and body; he also has both essence and existence. Below humans are things: they have no soul; they are purely material form; they also have both essence and existence.
• they all stem from one primary difference; that is in the idea of existence.
• Plato was unaware of the nature of being from the point of view of existence. This resulted in significant consequences: one such consequence being the rejection of existence itself.
• According to Aquinas, man is a composite being; he is composed of both body and soul. But instead of the Platonic view of man being a soul in a body, Aquinas maintains that it is the body that is in the soul, not the soul in the body
• Aquinas contends that objects exist in and of themselves and that each object has actuality, that is, its own existence.
• Plato's metaphysics concentrated on the Forms which were abstractions of real sensible objects.
• Plato, Forms were universals that existed separately from their objects
• Both adhered to some type of concept of Forms
• Aquinas believed that form and matter together formed objects in reality.
• Aquinas dealt with these through God. It is God who instituted the laws of the universe as well as mathematics and logic. It is God who also instituted the absolute concepts of morality, such as Justice.
• Plato, in an effort to address the import issues of how we know, proposed the idea of Forms. This he proposed in order to explain certain concepts and laws which are eternal and unchanging.
• Aquinas responded with his own metaphysics which made a distinction between essence and existence, act and potential, form and matter.

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• Plato's doctrine of Forms was, in its general character, highly mathematical, the Forms being somehow identified with, or explained in terms of, numbers.
• Aristotle himself had little use for this sort of mathematical metaphysics and rejected Plato's doctrine of transcendent eternal Forms altogether
• Aristotle's system in his beliefs that the reality of anything lay in a changeless (though wholly immanent) form or essence comprehensible and definable by reason and that the highest realities were eternal, immaterial, changeless self-sufficient intellects which caused the ordered movement of the universe.

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• He was the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle
• Though influenced primarily by Socrates, to the extent that Socrates is usually the main character in many of Plato’s writings
• It is most of all from Plato that we get the theory of Forms, according to which the world we know through the senses is only an imitation of the pure, eternal, and unchanging world of the Forms.
• Plato, the Athenian philosopher, was born in 428-7 B.C.E and died at the age of eighty or eighty-one at 348-7 B.C.E.
• Plato’s parents were Ariston and Perictione
• Plato’s birth was the result of Ariston’s rape of Perictione
• Plato also had two older brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, and a sister, Potone, by the same parents
• Plato’s mother married her uncle, Pyrilampes (in Plato’s Charmides, we are told that Pyrilampes was Charmides’ uncle, and Charmides was Plato’s mother’s brother), with whom she had another son, Antiphon, Plato’s half-brother
• Plato came from one of the wealthiest and most politically active families in Athens.
• Plato’s actual given name was apparently Aristocles, after his grandfather. “Plato” seems to have started as a nickname (for platos, or “broad”), perhaps first given to him by his wrestling teacher for his physique, or for the breadth of his style, or even the breadth of his forehead
• Plato returned to Athens and founded a school, known as the Academy. (This is where we get our word, “academic.”
• Phaedo, we are told that particular sensible equal things—for example, equal sticks or stones (see Phaedo 74a-75d)—are equal because of their “participation” or “sharing” in the character of the Form of Equality, which is absolutely, changelessly, perfectly, and essentially equal.
• the Form as a kind of imaging, or approximation of the Form.
• greater or smaller and the Forms of Great and Small (Phaedo 75c-d), or the many tall things and the Form of Tall (Phaedo 100e), or the many beautiful things and the Form of Beauty
• Plato believes that The Form of Beauty is perfect beauty, the Form of Justice is perfect justice, and so forth
• for Plato, Forms are exemplars
• it enabled the philosopher who grasps the entities to be best able to judge to what extent sensible instances of the Forms are good examples of the Forms they approximate.
• Scholars disagree about the scope of what is often called “the theory of Forms,” and question whether Plato began holding that there are only Forms for a small range of properties, such as tallness, equality, justice, beauty, and so on, and then widened the scope to include Forms corresponding to every term that can be applied to a multiplicity of instances.
• Republic, he writes as if there may be a great multiplicity of Forms
• come to believe that for any set of things that shares some property, there is a Form that gives unity to the set of things
• Knowledge involves the recognition of the Forms (Republic V.475e-480a), and any reliable application of this knowledge will involve the ability compare the particular sensible instantiations of a property to the Form.

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• immensely influenced by scholasticism and Aristotle and known for his synthesis of the two aforementioned traditions.
• his most influential work is the Summa Theologica which consists of three parts.
• The birth-year of Thomas Aquinas is commonly given as 1227
• He died at the monastery of Fossanova, one mile from Sonnino (64 m. s.e. of Rome), Mar. 7, 1274
• father was Count Landulf of an old high-born south Italian family, and his mother was Countess Theodora of Theate, of noble Norman descent.
• He accompanied Albertus to Paris in 1245, remained there with his teacher, continuing his studies for three years, and followed Albertus at the latter’s return to Cologne in 1248.
• he remained with the famous philosopher of scholasticism, presumably teaching
• Thomas with the great polyhistor was the most important influence in his development; it made him a comprehensive scholar and won him permanently for the Aristotelian method.

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• Metaphysics is taken by Thomas Aquinas to be the study of being qua being, that is, a study of the most fundamental aspects of being that constitute a being and without which it could not be.
• a thing cannot be unless it possesses an act of being, and the thing that possesses an act of being is thereby rendered an essence/existence composite.
• The essence in itself is the definition of a thing; and the paradigm instances of essence/existence composites are material substances
• A material substance (say, a cat or a tree) is a composite of matter and form, and it is this composite of matter and form that is primarily said to exist.
• the matter/form composite is predicated neither of, nor in, anything else and is the primary referent of being
• clarifies the nature of metaphysics through ascertaining its particular subject-matter, its field of investigation.
• these fall into two categories: the speculative and the practical
• two distinct classes of science: speculative science and practical science.
• Speculative sciences are those that contemplate truth whereas practical sciences are those that apply truth for some practical purpose.
• our understanding of a thing is separated from its matter and is necessary to it in some respect.
• what is in motion is not necessary, since what is in motion can change.
• three divisions that can apply to speculative objects, thereby permitting us to differentiate the sciences that consider such objects
• (i) there is a class of speculative objects that are dependent on matter and motion both for their being and for their being understood
• (ii) there is a class of speculative objects that depend on matter and motion for their being, but not for their being understood
• (iii) there is a class of speculative objects that depend on matter and motion neither for their being nor for their being understood.
• (i) physical science considers those things that depend on matter and motion both for their being and for their being understood; (ii) mathematics considers those things that depend on matter and motion for their being but not for their being understood; (iii) metaphysics or theology deals with those things that depend on matter and motion neither for their being nor for their being understood.
• there could be no fourth speculative science; the reason for this is that the subject-matter of such a science would have to be those things that depend on matter and motion for their being understood but not for their being, for all other combinations have been exhausted.
• all things that include matter and motion in their definitions are dependent on matter and motion for their being, but not all things that depend on matter and motion for their being depend on matter and motion for their being understood.
• no fourth speculative science since there is no fourth class of speculative objects depending on matter and motion for their being understood but not for their being.
• third class of speculative objects comprises those things depending on matter and motion neither for their being nor for their being understood. Such things are thus immaterial things
• There are things that are immaterial insofar as they are in themselves complete immaterial substances; God and the angels would be examples
• let them be called positively immaterial.
• things that are immaterial insofar as they simply do not depend on matter and motion, but can nevertheless be sometimes said to be found therein. In other words, things of the latter category are neutral with respect to being found in matter and motion, and hence they are neutrally immaterial.
• unaided human reason cannot have direct knowledge of the positively immaterial; this is because such things (God and angels) outstrip the human intellect’s capacity to know.
• metaphysics will be a study of the neutrally immaterial aspects of things, that is, a study of those modes of being that apply to all beings, whether they are material or immaterial.
• Thomas does not adopt the Aristotelian phrase (being qua being) as the subject-matter of metaphysics
• ens commune (common being) is the proper subject-matter of metaphysics.
• ens commune, an investigation into the aspects of being common to all beings, the metaphysician may indeed come to a knowledge of the causes of being and might thereby be led to the affirmation of divine being, but this is only at the end of the metaphysical inquiry, not at the beginning.
• metaphysics for Aquinas is a study of ens commune where this is understood as the common aspects of being without which a thing could not be
• Metaphysics then is a study of the certain aspects common to all beings
• There are certain aspects of being that are common insofar as they are generally applicable to all beings, and these are essence and existence
• all beings exist and have an essence, hence metaphysics will be primarily concerned with the nature of essence and existence and their relationship to each other.
• (i) the composition of substance and accident, and (ii) the composition of matter and form.
• Thomistic metaphysics then takes a somewhat dyadic structure of descending generality: (i) essence and existence, (ii) substance and accident, (iii) matter and form. The format of the remainder of this article will be an investigation into these dyadic structures.
• essence is the definable nature of the thing that exists.
• Thomas takes the notion of universal hylemorphism to be absurd. Not only does it conflict with the common sayings of the philosophers, but also it is precisely as separated from matter and all material conditions that we deem separate (immaterial) substances separate, in which case they cannot be composed of matter.
• led to hold that they have an element of potentiality, but this is not the potency supplied by matter; rather, immaterial substances are composed of essence and existence, and it is the essence of the thing, standing in potency to a distinct act of existence, that accounts for the potentiality of creatures and thereby distinguishes them from God, who is not so composed.
• the first stage Thomas argues as follows. Whatever does not enter into the understanding of any essence is composed with that essence from without
• we cannot understand an essence without understanding the parts of that essence
• we can understand the essence of something without knowing anything about its existence
• essence and existence could well be identical in the thing yet distinct in our understanding thereof (just as ‘Morning star’ and ‘Evening star’ are distinct in our conceptual expressions of the planet Venus, yet both are identical with Venus).
• this stage establishes a real distinction focus on the distinction between the act of understanding a thing’s essence and the act of knowing its existence, and they argue that a distinction in cognitional acts points to a distinction in reality
• the second stage of argumentation, Thomas claims that if there were a being whose essence is its existence, there could only be one such being, in all else essence and existence would differ.
• A thing can be multiplied in one of three ways: (i) as a genus is multiplied into its species through the addition of some difference, for instance the genus ‘animal’ is multiplied into the species ‘human’ through the addition of ‘rational’; (ii) as a species is multiplied into its individuals through being composed with matter, for instance the species ‘human’ is multiplied into various humans through being received in diverse clumps of matter; (iii) as a thing is absolute and shared in by many particular things, for instance if there were some absolute fire from which all other fires were derived.
• A being whose essence is its existence could not be multiplied (i) through the addition of some difference, for then its essence would not be its existence but its existence plus some difference, nor could it be multiplied (ii) through being received in matter, for then it would not be subsistent, but it must be subsistent if it exists in virtue of what it is.
• if there were a being whose essence is its existence, it would be unique, there could only be one such being, in all else essence and existence are distinct.
• John Wippel takes this to be the decisive stage in establishing that essence and existence are really distinct. He argues that insofar as it is impossible for there to be more than one being whose essence is its existence, there could not be in reality many such beings, in which case if we grant that there are multiple beings in reality, such beings are composed of essence and existence.
• Owens argues that we cannot establish the real distinction until we have established that there is something whose essence is its existence. Given the existence of a being whose essence is its existence, we can contrast its existence with the existence of finite things, and conclude that the latter are composites of essence and existence
• the proof that there actually is a being whose essence is its existence.
• Thomas begins stage three with the premise that whatever belongs to a thing belongs to it either through its intrinsic principles,  its essence, or from some extrinsic principle.
• A thing cannot be the cause of its own existence, for then it would have to precede itself in existence
• what is caused to be by another is led back to what exists in itself (per se). There must be a cause then for the existence of things, and this because it is pure existence (esse tantum); otherwise an infinite regress of causes would ensue.
• we can contrast the existence of such a being with the existence of finite entities and observe that in the latter existence is received as from an efficient cause whereas in the former it is not.
• the real distinction could not enter into the argument for the existence of a being whose essence is its existence; for, on Owens’s account, such argumentation is taken to establish the real distinction. If it can be shown then that Thomas’s argumentation for the existence of a being whose essence is its existence does presuppose the real distinction, then Owens’s views as to the stage at which the real distinction is established would be considerably undermined.
• Thomas goes on to conclude that in immaterial substances, essence is related to existence as potency to act.
• Thomas has thus shown that immaterial substances do indeed have an element of potency, but this need not be a material potency.
• Thomas need not presuppose the existence of God in order to hold that essence and existence are related as potency and act; all he need presuppose is (i) that essence and existence are distinct and (ii) that existence is efficiently caused in the essence/existence composite.
• A very crude definition of matter would be that it is the ‘stuff’ out of which a thing is made
• Consider a marble statue. The marble is the matter of the statue whereas the shape signifies the form of the statue. The marble is the ‘stuff’ out of which the statue is made whereas the shape signifies the form that the artist decided to give to the statue.
• metaphysical level, form is the principle whereby the matter has the particular structure that it has, and matter is simply that which stands to be structured in a certain way.
• if the matter is that which stands to be structured in a certain way, matter can be potentially an indefinite number of forms. Form on the other hand is not potentially one thing or another; form as form is the kind of thing that it is and no other.
• one level we can think of the matter of a statue as being the marble whereas we can think of the shape of the statue as signifying the form.
• a different level with can think of the marble as signifying the form and something more fundamental being the matter.
• before the marble was formed into the statue by the sculptor, it was a block of marble, already with a certain form that made it ‘marble’. At this level, the marble cannot be the matter of the thing, since its being marble and not, say, granite, is its form.
• at a higher level, this formed matter stands as matter for the artist when constructing the statue.
• rime matter, and this is a type of matter that is totally unformed, pure materiality itself. Prime matter is the ultimate subject of form, and in itself indefinable; we can only understand prime matter through thinking of matter as wholly devoid of form.
• wholly devoid of form prime matter is neither a substance nor any of the other categories of being
• prime matter is not a thing actually existing, since it has no principle of act rendering it actually existing.
• Designated matter is the type of matter to which one can point and of which one can make use.
• Matter can be considered in two senses: (i) as designated and (ii) as undesignated.
• Undesignated matter is a type of matter that we simply consider through the use of our reason; it is the abstracted notion of matter.
• Designated matter is what individuates some form.
• The form then can be said to be universal, since it remains the same but is predicated over different things.
• On the one hand, form can be substantial, organising the matter into the kind of thing that the substance is. On the other hand, form can be accidental, organising some part of an already constituted substance.
• ubstantial form always informs prime matter and in doing so it brings a new substance into existence; accidental form simply informs an already existing substance (an already existing composite of substantial form and prime matter), and in doing so it simply modifies some substance.
• there can only be one substantial form of a thing.
• Thomas’s account the essence of a thing is the composition of its matter and form, where matter here is taken as undesignated matter.
• the essence of a thing comprises its essential properties, properties that are true of it in all possible worlds; but this is surely not Aquinas’s view.
• the essence of a thing is not the conglomeration of those properties that it would possess in all possible worlds, but the composition of matter and form.
• Aquinas does not adopt a possible-worlds view of essence; he envisages the essence of a thing as the definition or quiddity of the thing existing in this world, not as it would exist in all possible worlds.

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• the visible world, that is, the world you see, has two kinds of visible objects in it. The first kind are shadows and reflections, that is, objects you see but aren't really there but derive from the second type of visible objects, that is, those that you see and are really there.
• The relation of the visible world to the intelligible world is identical to the relation of the world of reflections to the world of visible things that are real.
• the lower region deals only with objects of thought (that are, in part, derived from visible objects), which is why it is part of the intelligible world.
• the higher region of the intelligible world encompasses these first principles.
• Plato's line is also a hierarchy: the things at the top (first principles) have more truth and more existence; the things at the bottom (the reflections) have almost no truth and barely exist at all.

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