Aquinas on Forms, Substances and Artifacts
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Thomas Aquinas sees a sharp metaphysical distinction between artifacts and substances, but does not offer any explicit account of it. We argue that for Aquinas the contribution that an artisan makes to the generation of an artifact compromises the causal responsibility of the form of that artifact for what the artifact is; hence it compromises the metaphysical unity of the artifact to that of an accidental unity. By contrast, the metaphysical unity of a substance is achieved by a process of generation whereby the substantial form is solely responsible for what each part and the whole of a substance are. This, we submit, is where the metaphysical difference between artifacts and substances lies for Aquinas. Here we offer on behalf of Aquinas a novel account of the causal process of generation of substances, in terms of descending forms, and we bring out its explanatory merits by contrasting it to other existing accounts in the literature.
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5
Stump, Aquinas, 43; eadem, “Substances and Artifacts in Aquinas’s Metaphysics,” 70.
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6
Stump, Aquinas, 44; eadem, “Substances And Artifacts in Aquinas’s Metaphysics,” 70-71.
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9
M. Rota, “Substance and Artifact in Thomas Aquinas,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 21 (2004), 241-259.
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15
E. Feser, “Between Aristotle and William Paley: Aquinas’s Fifth Way,” Nova et Vetera 11 (2013), 707-749, at 711.
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43
J.F. Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas and the Unity of Substantial Form,” in Philosophy and Theology in the Long Middle Ages: A Tribute to Stephen F. Brown, ed. K. Emery Jr., R. Friedman, and A. Speer (Leiden, 2011), p. 118.
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44
Stump, “Substances And Artifacts in Aquinas’s Metaphysics,” 77.
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Aquinas on Forms, Substances and Artifacts
In: VivariumSearch for other papers by Anna Marmodoro in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Ben Page in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Thomas Aquinas sees a sharp metaphysical distinction between artifacts and substances, but does not offer any explicit account of it. We argue that for Aquinas the contribution that an artisan makes to the generation of an artifact compromises the causal responsibility of the form of that artifact for what the artifact is; hence it compromises the metaphysical unity of the artifact to that of an accidental unity. By contrast, the metaphysical unity of a substance is achieved by a process of generation whereby the substantial form is solely responsible for what each part and the whole of a substance are. This, we submit, is where the metaphysical difference between artifacts and substances lies for Aquinas. Here we offer on behalf of Aquinas a novel account of the causal process of generation of substances, in terms of descending forms, and we bring out its explanatory merits by contrasting it to other existing accounts in the literature.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 1139 | 177 | 15 |
| Full Text Views | 346 | 10 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 182 | 15 | 3 |