AIslvaclion and MelapIsics in Sl.

TIonas' Sunna
AulIov|s) FIiIip MevIan
Bevieved vovI|s)
Souvce JouvnaI oJ lIe Hislov oJ Ideas, VoI. 14, No. 2 |Apv., 1953), pp. 284-291
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ABSTRACTION AND METAPHYSICS IN ST. THOMAS' SUMMA
BY PHILIP MERLAN
On
reading
modern
interpretations
of St. Thomas'
philosophy
one fre-
quently
receives the
impression
that St. Thomas
professed
the
following
doctrine: 1. The active intellect extracts the
species intelligibiles
from the
phantasmata by
an act of abstraction. 2. There are three
degrees
of ab-
straction. The first is from the materia
signata (individualis) sensibilis,
the
second is from the materia communis
(sensibilis),
the third from all matter
(including
the materia
intelligibilis) altogether.
3a. The first
degree
of ab-
straction is
applied
in
physics;
3b. the second in
mathematics;
3c. the third
in
metaphysics.1
Now,
it is the
purpose
of this
paper
to remind the reader that 3c is not
the doctrine to be found in the Summa and to
explain
the
importance
of this
absence. What the Summa
says
is:
by
the third
degree
of abstraction we
grasp
such
objects
as
ens, unum, potentia, actus,
etc. All these can exist
also without
any
matter
(while physicals
and mathematicals
cannot); by
which is meant that
they apply
also
(are
present in,
are
predicable of)
im-
material substances.
They
are immaterial
only
in this sense of the
word,
or to use a later
term, they
are immaterial
praecisive.
But this kind of im-
materiality
is of course
quite
different from the
immateriality
of
God,
the
angels, etc., which,
to use a later
term,
are immaterial
positive.
Accord-
ingly,
the Summa stresses that we cannot reach disembodied forms
(im-
material
substances) superior
to the soul such as God and the
angels, by
the
method of abstraction. The assertion to the
contrary
the Summa considers
to be an erroneous doctrine of
Avempace (Ibn Bagga).
The doctrine is
erroneous
according
to St. Thomas because these immaterial substances are
neither forms nor universals. Thus
they
can be reached neither
by
ab-
stractio
formae
nor
by
abstractio universalis
(I q. 88,
art.
2, resp. dic.).
1
Cf. J.
Maritain,
The
Degrees of Knowledge (1937):
the third
degree
of abstrac-
tion enables the mind to consider immaterial
objects
like
God, pure spirits, etc.,
and
also
substance, quality, act, potency,
etc.-all of which
belong
to the realm of meta-
physics (46).
See the
penetrating
criticisms of Maritain in L. M.
Regis,
" La
phi-
losophie
de la
nature,"
Jtudes et Recherches
publiees par
le
College
Dominicain
d'
Ottawa, Philosophie,
Cahier I
(1936),
127-158. Maritain's answer in
Quatre
Essais sur
l'esprit
dans sa condition charnelle
(1939), 240,
n.
1,
is
hardly satisfying
either from the historical or from the
systematic point
of view. In Ri.
Gilson,
The
Philosophy of
St. Thomas Aquinas
(1929),
we read that immaterial substances like
angels
or God are known
only by abstracting
the
intelligible
from the material and
sensible
(236);
we are thus left with the
impression
that "abstraction
"
should be
taken in its technical sense.
True,
Gilson later
expresses
himself without
any
am-
biguity by saying
that the
incorporeal
is known to us
only by comparison
with the
corporeal (256),
and
by emphasizing
that there are no
phantasms
of
intelligible
realities,
so that no abstraction can take
place.
284
ABSTRACTION AND METAPHYSICS IN ST. THOMAS' SUMMA 285
It is
true,
the Summa
emphasizes
that the
only way leading
to even in-
adequate knowledge
of these immaterial substances starts from
objects
of
sensation. This
starting point
is common to several
ways:
one
leading
to
physicals
and
mathematicals,
another to such
objects
as
ens, unum, etc.,
a third to immaterial substances. But this third
way
is from the
very
be-
ginning
different from the other
ways.
It is described
by
St. Thomas in dis-
tinction from the
way
of abstraction in such terms as:
per comparationem
ad
corpora
sensibilia or
per
remotionem
(I q. 84,
art.
7; q. 88,
art.
2,
ad
sec.); by
some kind of similitudines and habitudines ad res materiales (I
q. 88,
art.
2,
ad
primum).
In other
words,
the method of abstraction is
applicable
to
metaphysics
only
to the extent to which
metaphysics
treats forms common to material
and immaterial substances
(transcendentals).
As far as
metaphysics
deals
with immaterial
substances,
it
requires
a method different from the method
of abstraction.
Since the sentence
impossibile
est intellectum . . .
aliquid intelligere
. .nisi convertendo se ad
phantasmata (I q. 84,
art.
7, resp. dic.)
is some-
times
quoted
to
prove
that abstraction is the
only
method
by
which we can
know
anything
above the
sensibilia,
it should be stressed that this sentence
occurs in the
topic
indicated in the title of
q. 84; quomodo
anima . . . in-
telligat corporalia.
The
knowledge
of immaterial substances is treated ex
professo only
in
q.
88
(title: Quomodo
anima humana
cognoscat
ea
quae
supra
se
sunt),
and
throughout
this
quaestio
the
applicability
of abstraction
to immaterial substances is denied.
If we consider it
legitimate
to
designate metaphysics dealing
with
im-
material substances such as
God, angels, etc.,
as
metaphysica specialis,
and
to
designate metaphysics dealing
with such
things
as
ens, unum, potentia,
actus,
as
metaphysica generalis,
we should
say
in brief: in his Summa St.
Thomas teaches that the method of abstraction is
inapplicable
to
meta-
physica specialis. Geoffrey
of Fontaines will
say
later: Secundum
statum
vitae
praesentis
non est nisi unus modus
intelligendi omnia,
sive materialia
. . . sive immaterialia . . . scilicet
per
abstractionem
speciei
intelligibilis
virtute intellectus
agentis,
mediante
phantasmata.3
But this is not what
St.
Thomas
said,
and it should not be
presented
as his doctrine.
2
This is made
completely
clear in some other
presentations
of St. Thomas. An
older
example
is K.
Werner,
Der
heilige
Thomas von
Aquino (1859):
abstraction in
metaphysics
is
insufficient,
as
metaphysics
deals not
only
with the most universal
but also with the most
real,
which must be reached
by
a method other than that of
logical
universalization. This other method Werner
correctly
calls
separatio (II,
157,
n.
1)-the explanation
of this term is
given
in the body of the
present paper.
A more recent
example:
M. L.
Habermehl,
Die Abstraktionslehre des hi. Thomas
von
Aquin (1933),
58-60.
3
Quodl. 6, q. 15,
in M.
Wulf,
" L'intellectualisme de Godefroid de Fontaines
d'apres
le Quodlibet
6, q. 15," Festgabe
. . . Clemens Baeumker
(1913), 287-296,
esp.
294.
286 PHILIP MERLAN
We find the above results
fully
confirmed when we read St. Thomas'
Expositio
super
Boetium De Trinitate.
Commenting
on Boethius'
tripar-
tition of
speculative knowledge
into
physics, mathematics,
and
theology
(metaphysics),4
St. Thomas declares that
only physics
and mathematics
make use of
abstraction,
the former
mainly
of abstractio
universalis,
the
latter of abstractio
formae.
The method used
by theology, says
St.
Thomas,
should be called
separatio
rather than abstractio;
separatio being clearly
the
intellectual method
underlying
all discursive
thinking.5 Again Avempace
is
quoted
as
having
committed the mistake of
assuming
that the
quiddities
of
immaterial substances are
adequately expressed
in the
quiddities
of sensible
things-so
that we can abstract them.6 And
again
one branch of meta-
physics only
is credited with
dealing
with
ens, substantia, potentia, actus,7
all of which can
obviously
be reached
by
abstraction. The method
appro-
priate
to
special metaphysics
St. Thomas describes in terms of
excessus,
re-
motio,
via causalitatis
(causa excellens)-and
he refers to Pseudo-Dio-
nysius.8
All this should have been obvious even before the
study
of the
Expogitio
received a new basis in the form of
Wyser's
edition of
parts
of the
Expositio,
based
directly
on St. Thomas
autograph.9
Such a
study
establishes two
4
Boetius,
De
Trinitate,
ch. 2
(p.
8 in the Loeb Stewart-Rand
ed.).
I intend
to deal with the doctrines of Boethius elsewhere.
5
Expositio
super
Boet. De
Trin., q. 5,
art.
3, resp.
Even if we
prefer
to
speak
of modes rather than degrees
of abstraction
(see
R.
Allers,
" On Intellectual
Opera-
tions,"
The New Scholasticism 26
[1952], 1-36, esp. 26),
it still is
impossible
to
interpret separatio
as one of three modes of abstraction. But it is
equally impossi-
ble to
recognize fully
the
complete
difference between abstraction and
separation,
and at the same time to assert that
separation
is the
only
method
appropriate
to
metaphysics,
as is done
by
J.-D.
Robert, O.P.,
"La
metaphysique,
science distincte
de toute autre
discipline philosophique,
selon Saint Thomas
d'Aquin,"
Divus Thomas
(Piacenza)
50
(=ser. 3,
vol.
24), 1947,
206-222.
Precisely
to the extent to which
transcendentals are the
subject
matter of
metaphysics,
the method of abstraction
must be
applied
in
metaphysics.
6
Ibid., q. 6,
art. 4. On
Avempace
see the introduction of M. Asin Palacios in
his edition of
Avempace,
El
regimen
del solitario
(1946);
E. A.
Moody,
"Galileo
and
Avempace,"
this Journal 12
(1951), 163-193;
375-422. For historical
perspec-
tive
see, e.g.,
B.
Nardi,
"Note
per
una storia del' Averroismo Latino. II. La
posizione
di Alberto
Magno
di fronte all'
Averroismo,"
Rivista critica di storia di
filosofia, 2,
fasc. 3-4
(1947), 197-220, esp.
200 and 216.
7
Expositio
super
Boet. De
Trin., q. 5,
art.
4, resp.
8
Ibid., q. 6,
art.
2, resp.;
cf. St.
Thomas, Expositio super Dionysium
de div.
nom.,
c.
7,
lectio 4: we know God ex ordine totius universi
by applying
the methods
per ablationem, per excessum,
secundum causalitatem omnium.
9
P.
Wyser, O.P.,
Die
wissenschaftstheoretischen
Quaest. V u. VI. in Boethium
De Trinitate des hi. Thomas von
Aquin (1948);
cf. the
important
review
by
B.
Decker in Scholastik 20-24
(1944-1949),
415-418.
Indeed,
the
body
of this
paper
was written without
any knowledge
of
Wyser's
edition. I am
extremely obliged
to
Dr. Decker
(himself preparing
an edition of St. Thomas' Boethius
commentary)
for
ABSTRACTION AND METAPHYSICS IN ST. TfHOMAS' SUMMA 287
facts
beyond any
doubt. The first is that in the
original
draft of the
key
sentence St. Thomas had written
patet ergo quod triplex
est abstractio,
making
it clear at the same time that one of these three kinds of abstraction
is the
forming
of
negative propositions (precisely
what he later called
separatio
in the strict sense of the
word)
and
only
the other two are abstrac-
tion
(of
the form or the
universal)
in the
proper
sense of the
word;
but
even so in the final draft he
replaced
the words triplex
abstractio
by triplex
distinctio,
dividing
it in
separatio (discursive thinking)
and abstractio
for-
mae or abstractio universalis.
(q. 5,
a.
3, resp.).
Thus St. Thomas con-
sciously preferred
the term
triplex
distinctio to
triplex
abstractio
precisely
to avoid the
misunderstanding
that he was
teaching
the doctrine of three
degrees
of abstraction. The second fact is that in this sentence
(.
. . ab-
tractio a materia
sensibili;
et haec
competit metaphysicae)
the word meta-
physicae
as found
e.g.
in the Parma edition
(v. 17, p.
386)
or in Mandonnet
(v. 3, p. 113)
is a
simple misprint,
to be
replaced by
mathematicae. These
two facts should
destroy any hope
of
finding
the doctrine of the three de-
grees
of abstraction in the
Expositio.
This has been
clearly perceived by Geiger.10
The results of his
analysis
of the
Expositio
coincide with the results of the
present paper
with
regard
to
the
Summa,
and
again
it is
noteworthy
that the main
body
of the
present
paper
was written without
any knowledge
of
Geiger's (cf.
n.
9). Now,
the
correctness of
Geiger's interpretation
has been contested
by Leroy.11
To
prove
the weakness of
Leroy's argument
it is sufficient to concentrate on two
points. Leroy
asks: if there is no doctrine of the three
degrees
of abstrac-
tion in the
Expositio,
how are we to
explain
that in all his
writings posterior
to the
Expositio,
St. Thomas does teach this
very
doctrine? The fact
established in the
present paper
that St. Thomas does not teach it in the
Summa should
provide
a sufficient answer to
Leroy.
This answer
would
hold
quite regardless
of the
temporal
relation between the
Expositio
and
the
Summa
(or
between
any
other
writings
of St.
Thomas),
for the
simple
reason
that the Summa
explicitly rejects
the doctrine of the three
degrees,
and such
an
explicit rejection
would
outweigh any
evidence
provided by
incidental
and
non-explicit
references which could be
interpreted
as
implying
that doc-
trine.
Secondly, Leroy
asserts that the term
separatio
does not mean any-
thing
else in St. Thomas but the
highest degree
of abstractio. However,
Leroy quotes
no evidence to
support
this
assertion,
and it must be
empha-
sized that
according
to St. Thomas abstractio is the method by which
we
"separate
" the universal from the
particular
or the form from the whole
a letter informing me of the wording
of the
original
draft of the decisive
passages
in St. Thomas'
autograph.
10
L. B.
Geiger, O.P.,
"Abstraction et
separation d'apres
Saint Thomas in de
Trinitate
q. 5,
a.
3,"
Revue des sciences
philosophiques
et
theologiques
31
(1947),
3-40.
11
M.-V.
Leroy,
"
Le savoir
speculatif,"
Revue Thomiste 48
(1948), 236-339, esp.
328-339.
288 PHILIP MERLAN
which is
composed
of form and
matter,
whereas
separatio
is the method
by
which we "
separate
"
e.g.,
a
quality
from the
subject
in which it
inheres,
as
when we
say
"
this man is not white." This
separation
is
simply
the
opera-
tion of discursive
thinking or,
as St. Thomas
says,
the
operation
of the intel-
lectus
componens
et
dividends, i.e.,
the
operation described, e.g.,
in his com-
mentary
to De
Interpretatione I,
ch. 4
(lectio 3),
as the
process
of
forming
propositions.
The former "
separation
" should not be called
separation
at
all
according
to St.
Thomas; only
the latter is
separation
in the
proper
sense
of the word. The
process
of abstraction does not entail
propositions,
whereas
the
process
of
separation
does. The two kinds of
"separation
"
(or
as we
could
equally
well
say,
the two kinds of "abstraction
")
are
succinctly
described in the
Opusculum
XLV
(De
sensu
respectu singularium,
et intel-
lectu
respectu universalium):
. . . si ab homine albo
separetur
albedo hoc
modo, quod
intellectus
intelligat
eum non esse
album,
esset
apprehensio
falsa.
Si autem sic
separetur
albedo ab homine albo
quod apprehendatur
homo non
apprehensa albedine,
non esset
apprehensio falsa
. . . Sic
ergo
[i.e., by
the second kind of
separation]
intellectus
absque falsitate
abstrahit
genus
a
speciebus
. . .
(Parma ed.,
vol.
17, p.
118. Cf. in De Anima 1.
II,
1.
12,
ib.,
vol.
20, p. 68).
To
say,
as
Leroy does,
that
separation
is
simply
a maximization of abstraction is to contradict clear evidence.
Of
course,
it
may
be said that the
operations
of
separatio
and abstractio
have
something
in common in that both
"
divide."
Accordingly,
St. Thomas
sometimes uses the term
separatio
or abstractio to cover both:
separatio
in
the
proper
sense of the
word,
and abstractio. In such cases he
may
add a
word of
explanation, e.g., speak
of a
duplex
abstractio
(Summa q. 85,
art.
1,
ad
primum;
cf.
Expositio,
loc.
cit.)
or
separatio proprie.
Or he
may rely
on
the context
(as
in the
passage
from
Opusc.
XLV
quoted above)
to make it
clear whether he uses the words in their broader or in their strict sense. But
it is
always
clear that there is a radical difference between abstractio and
separatio
taken in their strict sense.12
There is no
way
to
deny,
of
course,
that in St. Thomas all
knowledge
is
ultimately
based on
sensory perception.
But it is
oversimplifying
St.
Thomas'
position
to
say
that abstraction is the
only way
in which to ascend
to immaterial substances. We should
simply
admit that St. Thomas left
unexplained
how
precisely
the non-abstractive ascent takes
place,
and lim-
ited himself to hints like
remotio,
ablatio,
comparatio, similitudo,
habitudo
(relatio)
ad
corporalia,
excessus,
via causalitatis.13 He made it
perfectly
12
On some
important implications
of the
question
whether truth resides essen-
tially
in
apprehensions
of
quiddities
or in
propositions, see, e.g.,
R.
McKeon,
"Thomas
Aquinas'
Doctrine of
Knowledge
and Its Historical
Setting," Speculum
3
(1928), 425-444, esp.
434ff.
13 The ultimate roots of some of these
concepts, esp.
ablatio and
remotio;
simili-
tudo, habitudo,
relatio;
excessus,
seem to be found in Albinus'
Epitome (Didascali-
cus),
ch. 10
(p.
61 ed.
Louis).
Albinus describes the different
ways
towards the
knowledge
of God
by
"kat'
aphairesin" (ablatio, remotio),
"kat'
analogian"
(similitudo, habitudo, relatio),
and "metabasis" based on "en toi timi6i
hypero-
ABSTRACTION AND METAPHYSICS IN ST. THOMAS' SUMMA 289
clear, however,
that it is such a non-abstractive ascent which is the basis of
our
(always inadequate) knowledge
of immaterial substances. We
may
even risk
saying:
abstraction makes it
possible
to intuit the
objects
of
physics
and
mathematics,
so that
they
later can be made the terms of our
discursive
thinking.
But there is no intuition of the
objects
of
metaphysica
specialis
to start
with; they
become accessible to discursive
thinking
alone.14
The whole
problem
is of interest
simply
as one of correct
interpretation
of St. Thomas' doctrines. But it has still another
aspect.
If abstraction
cannot be
applied
to the
subject
matter of
special metaphysics,
while it can
be
applied
to the
subject
matter of
general metaphysics,
the
unicity
of meta-
physics
is threatened. It is
very interesting
to notice that a Thomist like
Sertillanges
denies the existence of a
metaphysica specialis altogether,
as-
serting
that
God, angels, etc.,
when treated in
metaphysics
are not treated
as
such; they
are rather treated as
being
in
general.
In this
way Sertillanges
can
easily
save the method of abstraction for both branches of
metaphysics
and also establish the
unicity
of
metaphysics.15
But it seems obvious that
St. Thomas did not
bring
about the
unicity
of
metaphysics
in the manner of
Sertillanges.
In his
commentary
to the An. Post.
I,
lectio
41,
St. Thomas
says:
The essences
(quiddities)
of immaterial substances are not the sub-
ject
matter of
speculative
sciences
(metaphysics being
one of
them).
But
Sertillanges
writes as if St. Thomas had said:
separate (immaterial)
sub-
stances are not the
subject
matter of
speculative
sciences
(metaphysics
be-
ing
one of
them).
But all that St. Thomas ever said was that
knowledge
of
separate
substances in
metaphysics
is not the
knowledge
of their quiddities.
chen"
(excessus).
In the same
chapter
Albinus
explains
the
principle
of the so
called
negative theology (p.
59 ed.
Louis);
cf.
Proclus, Theologia
Platonica III
7,
p.
131f. ed. Portus. See R. E.
Witt,
Albinus
(1937)
124 and
132f.;
H. A.
Wolfson,
Philo,
2 vols.
(1947),
II,
73-164. In Albinus the
meaning
of
"aphairesis"
is some-
what
ambiguous.
See also H. A.
Wolfson,
"Albinus and Plotinus on Divine Attri-
butes,"
Harvard
Theological
Review 45
(1952), 115-130, esp. 117-121;
129f.
14
There is a certain
similarity
between St. Thomas' criticism of
Avempace
and
a
passage
in Ibn
Khaldoun,
Les
Prolegomenes,
3 vols.
(1863-1868),
III, 233,
indi-
cating
a common source. On the relation between abstraction and intuition in St.
Thomas see A.
Hufnagel,
Die intuitive Erkenntnis nach dem hi. Thomas v.
Aquin
(1932), 49,
n. 4.
15
A. D.
Sertillanges,
"
La science et les sciences
sp6culatives d'apres
St. Thomas
d'Aquin,"
Revue des sciences
philosophiques
et
theologiques
10
(1921), 1-20, esp.
15f.
P. J.
W6bert,
Essai de
Metaphysique
thomiste
(n.d.; 1927?),
after
having explained
the difference between the abstraction of the universal and abstraction of the
form,
asserts of the latter that it can be either mathematical or
metaphysical (51).
This
assertion is
clearly
based on the
misprint
indicated above in the
present paper.
It
would be
interesting
to check how
many misinterpretations
of St. Thomas have been
caused
by
the failure to notice this
misprint. Generally,
one has the
impression
that
in Webert and
Sertillanges general metaphysics
has simply
absorbed
special
meta-
physics.
For an older
example
of a similar
interpretation
in most succinct form
cf. C.
Baeumker,
Witelo
(1908),
276-280.
290 PHILIP MERLAN
And this assertion is
simply
another
aspect
of his doctrine that
abstraction,
i.e.,
the method
leading
to the
knowledge
of
quiddities,
cannot be
applied
to
special metaphysics.16 By this, however,
St. Thomas did not intend to ex-
clude
special metaphysics
from the order of the
speculative
sciences.
Also a
passage
of St. Thomas' In De sensu et sensato seems to
imply
clearly
that when St. Thomas
by metaphysics
meant
special metaphysics,
he
explicitly
excluded the
necessity
of abstraction for the
grasping
of its
objects,
because the
objects
sunt secundum
seipsa intelligibilia
actu
(lectio
1).
All of
which,
in
turn,
leads to one of the most
persistent problems
in the
history
of
metaphysics.
Is
metaphysics exclusively ontology, i.e.,
the sci-
ence of
being
as such and its
categories,
or is it
knowledge
of
supra-empirical
reality?
Avicenna and Averroes
respectively
could serve as the medieval
representatives
of these two
points
of view-this at least was the
way
in
which Duns Scotus
presented
them.17 Or is
metaphysics both, knowledge
of
being
as such and
knowledge
of the
supra-empirical?
This was answered
affirmatively by
St.
Thomas,
as it was also
by
Suarez.18 This leads to the
assertion that
special
and
general metaphysics
are
simply
two branches of
one
metaphysical
science. But this assertion never went uncontested."
Today
it is discussed
implicitly by interpreters
of
Aristotle, who,
it
seems,
defined
metaphysics
as
knowledge
of the
uppermost,
immaterial
sphere
of
being, and, by
the same
token,
as
knowledge
of the most
universal,
or
being
as such
(Met.
E
1,
1026a23-32). According
to
Jaeger
this is a self-contra-
dictory definition,
because
knowledge
of what is universal and common to
all
things,
material and immaterial alike
(ontology, general metaphysics)
cannot at the same time be
knowledge
of the immaterial alone
(theology,
special metaphysics)
which is
only part
of all
things
and
particular.
Is
Jaeger right?
If he
is,
how can this self-contradiction be
explained?
20 We
16
Cf. footnote
"
e
"
of the Leonine edition to lectio 31 of the same
commentary.
Today
the note reads almost like an advance refutation of
Sertillanges.
17 Duns
Scotus, Quaqstiones
subtilissimae
super II.
Met.
Arist.,
1.
1, q.
1
(VII,
11-40,
ed.
Vives).
18
On Suarez' treatment of
metaphysics
see M.
Grabmann,
Mittelalterliches
Geistesleben,
2 vols.
(1926), I, 525-560, esp. 546;
E.
Conze,
Der
Begriff
der Meta-
physik
bei F.S.
(1928), esp.
18-22.
19
Cf. E.
Lewalter, Spanisch-jesuitische
and deutsch-lutherische
Metaphysik
(1935), esp. 44ff.,
and M.
Wundt,
Die deutsche
Schulmetaphysik
des 17. Jahr-
hunderts
(1939), 161-227, esp.
170.
20
Natorp
had tried it
by treating
as
spurious
the
passages
in which Aristotle's
text describes
metaphysics
as the
knowledge
of the
supranatural (P. Natorp,
"Thema und
Disposition
der Aristotelischen
Metaphysik," Philosophische
Monats-
hefte
24
[1888], 37-65; 540-574, esp.
51 n.
23, 550, 542). Jaeger
does it
by apply-
ing
his
developmental
method.
According
to
him,
Aristotle had
originally
conceived
metaphysics
in Platonistic manner as
knowledge
of the
supersensible,
but was later
moving away
from this
position
to another which would have
eventually
reduced
ABSTRACTION AND METAPHYSICS IN ST. THOMAS' SUMMA 291
see that these two
questions
are
closely
linked to the
question concerning
the
difference between abstractio and
separatio
in St.
Thomas,
because this dif-
ference results from the different
qualities
of the
objects
of
general
and
spe-
cial
metaphysics.
Thus what started as a
very specific problem
in St.
Thomas leads to such
comprehensive questions
as: What is
metaphysics,
its
subject matter,
and its method? What was Aristotle's answer and how are
we to
interpret
it?
21
Scripps College
and Claremont Graduate School.
metaphysics
to a
positive science, dealing
with the
only
kind of
reality
still acknowl-
edged by him, i.e.,
sensible
reality-so
that what we now read as Aristotle's defini-
tion of
metaphysics
would show him
oscillating
between the two
points
of view
which he tried in vain to reconcile
(W. Jaeger, Aristotle,
2nd ed.
[1948], 216-219).
Ivanka
may
be
right
in
asserting
that this dual
aspect
of
metaphysics appears
throughout
the whole
Metaphysics,
thus making it
very
difficult to
apply Jaeger's
developmental
method to the solution of the
problem (E.
v.
Ivanka,
"Die Be-
handlung
der
Metaphysik
in
Jaegers Aristoteles,"
Scholastik 7
[1932], 1-29).
But
even if Ivanka is
right,
the
problem
still remains. H. Cherniss tried to solve it in
his review of
Jaeger's
book
(AJP
56
[1935], 261-271, esp. 265),
and tries it
again
in his Aristotle's Criticism
of
Plato and the
Academy
I
(1944), by assuming
that the
contradiction in Aristotle's definition of
metaphysics
is
only
an inevitable conse-
quence
of the more basic contradiction
vitiating
the whole
system
of
Aristotle,
which
is to
deny
and to assert at the same time that the universal is the real:
primary
reality
is
supposed
to be the
principles
of
particulars,
and
yet
these
principles
can
be real
only by satisfying
conditions
peculiar
to
particulars (Cherniss,
loc.
cit., 352;
cf.
220, 369-372).
21 On this
problem
see P.
Merlan, Being
and Divisions
of Being from
the Acad-
emy
to
Neoplatonism
(in
course of
publication),
ch. VII.