Thomas Aquinas and the Method of Predication in Metaphysics

Lenotre, Gaston (Author); The Catholic University of America (Degree granting institution); Doolan, Gregroy (Thesis advisor); Noone, Timothy (Committee member); Gorman, Michael (Committee member)

Degree Awarded: Ph.D. Philosophy. The Catholic University of America

355

Philosophy; Medieval history; Metaphysics; Aquinas, Logic, Medieval, Metaphysics, Method, Realism

http://hdl.handle.net/1961/cuislandora:60008

http://hdl.handle.net/1961/cuislandora:60008

Aquinas; Logic; Medieval; Metaphysics; Method; Realism

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

2017-01-01T00:00:00Z

St. Thomas Aquinas sometimes uses strictly conceptual and logical insights to draw insights about things in reality. I show that, throughout his career, Aquinas’s metaphysics employs a logical procedure that he calls the “method of predication” (modus praedicandi). This method consists in using what logic teaches about modes of predicating as a tool for deductive reasoning in metaphysics. The first chapter examines passages in Aquinas’s Commentaries on De Trinitate and on the Metaphysics that describe this method of predication or “logical method” as a “fitting” and “proper” way for metaphysics to proceed. This chapter also provides the context for Aquinas’s method by identifying some important classical and contemporaneous sources (Aristotle, Boethius, Averroes), including a discussion on topical arguments and the distinction between doctrinal and instrumental logic (logica docens, logica utens). In chapters two and three, I consider the realist framework behind the method of predication. I discuss cognitive realism in chapter two focusing on the origin and role of essence or nature (absolutely considered) in predication. I offer an account of how concepts and predications are ultimately caused by (real) things. I discuss metaphysical realism in chapter three focusing on the relationship between the subject of logic, rationate being (ens rationis), and the subject of metaphysics (ens communis), which is real being (ens naturae). This chapter finishes with an examination of essential being (ens secundum se) and different types of predication (e.g., per se, per participationem, denomative). In chapter four, after examining Aquinas’s rejection of similar types of arguments from previous authors (Parmenides, Plato, Avicebron), I consider the application of the method of predication to various metaphysical issues. Aquinas uses the method of predication in many different contexts. He uses it in order to derive different properties and categories of being, to distinguish esse from essence, to establish the unicity of the substantial form, and to justify the reality of prime matter in a properly metaphysical fashion. These arguments are analyzed for their soundness, and the interpretation of some authors are taken into consideration.

Dissertation

Lenotre_cua_0043A_10759.pdf

The Catholic University of America

2017