It is difficult to see how purely philosophical considerations might lead to an understanding of why there should be anything at all. After looking at the cosmological and ontological arguments for the existence of God, and considering issues associated with the notions of essence and existence, a negative answer is returned to the question whether it makes sense to suppose that there might have been nothing. No particular being had to be, but there had to be something. (...) This leads on to a discussion of the question whether it can be said that the universe began to exist, as Big Bang cosmologies would appear to imply. (shrink)

Spinoza’s employment of essence and existence is well-known. Though there are precursors to Avicenna for the essence/existence distinction, it is Avicenna who firmly establishes it and many of the surrounding arguments for the rest of the Islamic, Jewish, and Christian traditions. Although there are myriad possible links, it is worth considering how Avicenna himself factors into Spinoza’s views since he is the major source for this tradition. I aim to show even tighter textual and conceptual connections (...) between these philosophers, delineating how Spinoza drew from Avicenna (directly or indirectly) on the definition of essence and the essence/existence distinction. Nevertheless, Spinoza departs from Avicenna, potentially regarding the tendency of essences for existence and especially regarding their universality and particularity. (shrink)

This chapter shows even tighter textual and conceptual connections between these philosophers, delineating how Spinoza drew from Avicenna on the definition of essence and the essence/existence distinction. Spinoza departs from Avicenna, potentially regarding the tendency of essences for existence and especially regarding their universality and particularity. Multiple doses of Avicennianism likely made their way into Spinoza's bloodstream. Avicenna's Najāt and the IP are the most likely sources for Maimonides's own knowledge of Avicenna. In medieval philosophy, including (...) Avicenna accidents are real beings and are isomorphic to Spinoza's modes. As may already be clear and is well‐attested, Avicenna and Spinoza agree that the essence/existence distinction only holds for things other than God. Spinoza's apparent insistence on essence as particular in itself seems to a more fundamental contrast with Avicenna and a more obviously modern/late medieval innovation than Spinoza's utilization of God's nominal essence in an ontological proof. (shrink)

Definition: An essence is a meaning, a structure, the character, the nature of an entity, "what" it is.

The concept of every real thing from all eternity contains the unavoidability of its existence before the divine decision. Thus every complete concept of a real thing contains the property of being such that the thing will exist if a created universe exists. Then a thing's existence cannot be external to its concept. There is bound to be more in the concept of something that exists than in that of "something" that does not-since existence is explained through (...) the quidditative property of being an essence that constitutes an integral part of the most perfect series of things. Such an essential, quidditative perfection explains the divine decision, and hence existence. Therefore, existence can be deduced from that essential perfection. The essence-as-such, the mere possible, contains something from which existence follows. What Leibniz never manages to explain is what distinguishes existence from the quidditative perfection it unavoidably stems from. (edited). (shrink)

Essence and Existence: Selected Essays brings together fifteen essays by Bob Hale, mostly written between the publication of his last book, Necessary Beings, in.

THE FIRST EXHAUSTIVELY SCIENTIFIC, speculative inquiry into the notion and nature of essence in the Western philosophical tradition is found in Aristotle's Metaphysics. In contrast to the earlier Greek philosophers and Plato, after considering the problem of being and change Aristotle reached the conclusion that the essential identity of material phenomena, or ousia, is an immanent and inseparable quality that forms the identity of each particular phenomenon. In Aristotle's concept, however, which constitutes the original form of phenomenal realism, ousia (...) is not "it"-self some-thing or some it. For though its presence may certainly be speculatively implied, "it" is not. Following Aristotle, though, and for reasons extraneous to the theme of this present article, the speculative inquiry into the nature of essence and phenomenality deviated from the orientation that Aristotle initially imputed to that study, evolving in a philosophical milieu whose theoretical propensity was predominantly transcendental. This article, then, focuses on the problematic of essential identity in the Western transcendental tradition, and, more particularly, seeks to contrast and compare the essence of the transcendental philosophers against the ousia of Aristotle's metaphysic. (shrink)

This work aims to depart from conventional interpretations of Spinoza’s notions of essence and existence by offering an alternative perspective called the onto-gnoseological reading. Typically, these concepts of essence and existence are approached from an ontological standpoint or are simply disregarded. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that Spinoza, within his corpus associates these notions with the activity of the genres of knowledge rather than with the ontological realm. This reinterpretation of the concepts from (...) a gnoseological standpoint allows for a deeper comprehension of Spinoza’s philosophical undertaking. It becomes evident that this project involves the coexistence of gnoseological duality in perfect harmony with the univocity of reality, serving as a crucial instrument for recognizing the boundaries and possibilities of human knowledge and, subsequently, the potential for achieving human virtue. (shrink)

This book is a collection of essays written by Bob Hale (three co-authored), with a critical introduction from Kit Fine. They comprise Hale’s final years of work, adding to and extending beyond his landmark monograph Necessary Beings: An Essay on Ontology, Modality, and the Relations Between Them (OUP, 2013, 2nd edition 2015). The essays develop and consolidate several key themes in Hale’s work, most notably the notion of definition, especially as it extends beyond definition of a word to definition of (...) a thing more generally, and its relations to essence and existence; how the recently influential notion of truthmaking relates to and illuminates some of these issues; and ontological questions connected with Hale’s metaphysical commitments on the one hand, and his commitments in the foundations of mathematics on the other. Several of the essays engage with and respond to work by Kit Fine, and contributions to Being Necessary: Themes of Ontology and Modality from the Work of Bob Hale (OUP 2018). As such, these essays also demonstrate a rich and fruitful philosophical dialogue between Hale and his critics and friends. (shrink)

Truth of x (independently of any description of x) that it is f. A property f which holds of x but is not per se of x is said to hold per accidens of x. The essence of an individual is the sum of its per se properties. We can formulate the following: doctrine a: concrete individuals do not have essences though abstract entities do. Doctrine b: concrete individuals have essences but they do not individuate, whereas abstract entities have (...) essences which do individuate. Assumption i: we shall say that a thing exists insofar as it has an essence. Assumption ii: we shall say that we know a thing when we know what its per se properties are. We argue that plato held doctrine a and aristotle doctrine b (with assumptions i and ii). (edited). (shrink)

When presenting one of a sequence of theories on individuation, Duns Scotus argues for a formal distinction in creatures between an individual essence and its existence. His reason is that, otherwise, an individual creature would be a necessary existent. Since Scotus maintains that essence is potential to existence, this paper shows how this discussion relates to his exhaustive analysis of actuality and metaphysical potency in the questions on the Metaphysics, book IX, qq. 1–2, concluding that Scotus’s (...) views on essence and existence do not commit him to a realm of real but unactualized possibilia. The paper tentatively suggests that existence, in creatures, consists in a relation to an efficient cause or causes. Scotus holds that God’s existence, identical with his essence, is nevertheless formally distinct from God, since essence/existence and the divine attributes are formally distinct from each other and all included in God. (shrink)

El presente artículo explora las percepciones sobre la existencia de los filósofos medievales musulmanes Avicena (m. 1037) y Averroes (m. 1198), cuyas obras se encuentran muy próximas a la filosofía de Aristóteles. Además de la influencia aristotélica, que caló en toda la filosofía islámica medieval, Avicena y Averroes estuvieron inspirados por la teología islámica, conocida en árabe como Kalam. La distinción entre esencia y existencia es uno de los más fundamentales y controvertidos aspectos de la filosofía de Avicena junto a (...) su aseveración de que la existencia es un accidente. Averroes, en cambio, concibe de forma radicalmente diferente la existencia, identificándola con los seres existentes más que considerarla como algo en sí misma. Con la traducción al latín de los trabajos de metafísica de Avicena en el siglo XII, su distinción prosiguió modelando el debate sobre la existencia en la filosofía escolástica medieval y más allá. Este artículo evalúa el significado de la distinción en la crítica tanto de Avicena como de Averroes. Al explicar sus concepciones, radicalmente distintas, de la existencia se establece un contacto con posteriores discusiones concernientes a la misma, como, por ejemplo, la cuestión de si la existencia es un predicado, en la edad moderna. (shrink)

According to St. Thomas Aquinas, "that which is said to exist through any nature is called a suppositum or subject of that nature. For example, that which has the nature of horse is said to be a subject or suppositum of equine nature." Subjects or supposita, moreover, occupy all the room there is in the Thomistic universe, since existence belongs properly only to individual subjects. These may be simple, as in the case of separate intelligences or composite as in (...) the case of inanimate and animate substances: "existence belongs properly to subsisting things, whether they be simple, as in the case of separate substances, or composite, as in the case of material substances. For the act of existing belongs properly to that which has existence: that is, to that which subsists in its own existence.". (shrink)

Philosophers have often debated the truth of microstructural essentialism about chemical substances: whether or not the structure of a chemical substance at the molecular scale is what makes it the substance it is. Oddly they have tended to pursue this debate without identifying what a structure is, and with some confusion and about what a chemical substance is. In this paper I draw on chemistry to rectify those omissions, providing a pluralist account of structure, clarifying what (according to chemistry) a (...) chemical substance is and defending microstructural essentialism, as I understand that position. I then give an account of the existence of composite substances and objects in chemistry, an issue that goes back to Aristotle. (shrink)

This paper studies the first metaphysical theory in Arabic philosophy, that of al-Kindi, as found in "On First Philosophy" and other of his works. Placing these works against the background of translations produced in al-Kindi's circle (the "Theology of Aristotle," which is the Arabic version of Plotinus, and the "Liber de Causis," the Arabic version of Proclus' "Elements of Theology"), it argues that al-Kindi has two conceptions of being: "simple" being, which excludes predication and derives from Neoplatonism, and "complex" being, (...) which is based on Aristotle's notion of substance. At the end of the paper the "simple" notion of being is seen to anticipate in some respects Avicenna's distinction between existence and essence. (shrink)

The operation of the human intellect is twofold, however; first, simple perception, 'simple apprehension,' the 'simple gaze of indivisibles' and second, composition and division or judgment. In considering the principles of human knowledge it is therefore necessary to distinguish simple principles from complex principles or axioms. It is evident, however, that being is absolutely first of all complex as well as incomplex principles. "That which first falls under apprehension is being, the understanding of which is included in all things whatsoever (...) man apprehends. Therefore, the first indemonstrable principle is the same cannot be affirmed and denied at the same time, which is based on the constitutive intelligibility of being and non-being: and on this principle all others are based.". (shrink)

In answer to jordan's "disputed questions" the reasons why gilsonianism has been chosen as interlocutor are clarified; the analogous character of the "transcendental sense" of essence and the "primary sense" (first analogate) of essence ((1) "essence of and in really existing beings," (2) ideal and immutable eide, (3) essence of the absolute, real and eternal being) are further elucidated. The main arguments in the essay for "ideal essences" are further explained and the main charges answered by (...) the speculative attempt to reconcile clearly given ideal "essences" with a divine being (subject of philosophical proof) which is not limited by "ideas" like plato's demiourg. Existential thomism (gilson) is credited with having referred to an unmistakably given important metaphysical "principle": existence, which is then wrongly "absolutized," while jordan's "absolutized" "esse" is suspected to refer to no single original datum; the limitation implied in "essence" seems to be held on the basis of a "concoction" of existence, being and essence. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger devotes extensive discussion to medieval philosophers, particularly to their treatment of Truth and Being. On both these topics, Heidegger accuses them of forgetting the question of Being and of being responsible for subjugating truth to the modern crusade for certainty: ‘truth is denied its own mode of being’ and is subordinated ‘to an intellect that judges correctly’. Though there are some studies that discuss Heidegger’s debt to and criticism of medieval thought, particularly that of Thomas Aquinas, there is (...) no constructive reply to his assertions. As a result, Heidegger’s critique had an unprecedented effect on the credibility of medieval philosophy, whereby great portions of the philosophical community dismiss it altogether as an illegitimate Onto‐Theology. It is the aim of this study to offer a constructive reply that will fundamentally grapple with these allegations. By constructive reply we mean not only a reply that avoids the problems Heidegger raises regarding existence, essence and truth, but more importantly, one that uses Heidegger’s criticism in order to present a more insightful account of these notions. The present study is composed of two parts where the second serves as a sort of addendum. The first part, the core of this study, is an attempt to develop an understanding of the distinction between essence and existence that, on the one hand, accords with Heidegger’s criticism while on the other hand advances our understanding of how we think and understand reality. After presenting Heidegger’s depiction of Aquinas’s distinction between essence and existence (esse) as a real distinction, the study will present several views propounded by scholars of Aquinas regarding the status of this distinction. It will be argued that it is not clear whether the distinction is real, formal or conceptual, and that different types of distinction are applied in different places, particularly in regard to the phantasm that Aquinas considers essential to the human act of thinking. The second part diverges from the first part and focuses on Heidegger’s criticism of Aquinas’s conception of truth as adequation, i.e., what it is that grounds the possibility of truth as adequation. This divergence is necessary in order to present a full metaphysical response to Heidegger’s criticism. Since the aim of the present study is to argue that Aquinas’s philosophical system can contend with Heidegger’s criticism, a partial reply would greatly diminish its effectiveness. (shrink)