Abstract
This paper considers Gianni Vattimo’s rejection of metaphysical conceptions of being in favor of a hermeneutic ontology developed along the lines of ‘weak thought.’ I argue that Vattimo’s critique neglects an abiding pluralism within the very history of metaphysical thought itself; at least some metaphysical conceptions of being in that history do not fall prey to his critique. To establish my claim I turn to Thomas Aquinas, whose metaphysics is couched within a larger theological context and presents itself dynamically, thereby expressing some of the very features that Vattimo himself accords to Being.
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Notes
Cf.: “Metaphysics… does not end because one discovers a better truth, which would refute the current one. This would be just another kind of fundamentalism held to be truer than what preceded it” (Vattimo 2002: 89).
In pointing to this feature of Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysics I do not mean to suggest that other metaphysicians both medieval and beyond succumb to Vattimo’s critique. Indeed, I think medieval metaphysics—taken as a heterogeneous collective—does not possess the maligned features Vattimo attributes to metaphysics in general.
Indeed, I think Thomas is only a representative figure within the metaphysical tradition of the Middle Ages, which does not present the same account of metaphysics that Vattimo finds so problematic. Other thinkers, such as Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, and Francisco Suárez all develop ways to attenuate the reach of human reason in face of the ineffable intelligibility of God, who is, as they see it, Being itself. Unfortunately, limitations in space prevent my developing this argument further.
Scott Youree Watson offers a helpful treatment of the meanings Thomas attributes to these terms (Watson 1972).
It is worth noting that virtually the entire Christian medieval tradition follows suit and identifies real being with the proper object of metaphysics. This would hold all the way until the late sixteenth century with Francisco Suárez, who excludes entia rationis from the proper object of metaphysics. See his Disputationes metaphysicae 1.1.26.
“… dico esse est actualitas omnium actuum, et propter hoc est perfectio omnium perfectionum.” Cf. Aquinas 1888: 50: “… dicendum quod ipsum esse est perfectissimum omnium: comparator enim ad omnia ut actus.”
“… esse est actualitas omnis formae vel naturae ….”
“Nec intelligendum est, quod ei quod dico esse, aliquid addatur quod sit eo formalius, ipsum determinans, sicut actus potentiam: esse enim quod hujusmodi est, est aliud secundum essentiam ab eo cui additur determinandum.”
“Sicut potentia passiva sequitur ens in potentia, ita potentia activa sequitur ens in actu: unumquodque enim ex hoc agit quod est actu….” All English translations of the Latin are my own.
“… communicatio enim consequitur rationem actus: unde omnis forma, quantum est de se, communicabilis est.”
“… et sic. imponitur hoc nomen res, quod in hoc differt ab ente… quod ens sumitur ab actu essendi, sed nomen rei exprimit quiditatem vel essentiam entis.”
Thomas’s resolution of ens to the dynamic act of being is not atypical among scholastics. Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) maintains much the same. See Disputationes metaphysicae 2.4.2 (vol. 25, 88): “… ens autem non praedicatur quidditative, quia non significat absolute quidditatem, sed sub ratio essendi, seu quatenus potest habere esse….”
“… formae substantiales, quae secundum se sunt nobis ignotae, innotescunt per accidentia….” Cf. also Aquinas 1933: 1198: “… ad intima non pervenitur nisi per circumposita quasi per quaedam ostia; et hic est modus apprehendendi in hominibus, qui ex effectibus et proprietatibus procedunt ad cognitionem essentiae rei. Et quia in hoc oportet esse quemdam discursum, ideo hominis apprehensio ratio dicitur, quamvis ad intellectum terminetur in hoc quod inquisitio ad essentiam rei perducit. Unde si aliqua sunt quae statim sine discursu rationis apprehendantur, horum non dicitur esse ratio, sed intellectus….”
“… sed cognitio nostra est adeo debilis quod nullus philosophus potuit unquam perfecte investigare naturam unius muscae: unde legitur, quod unus philosophus fuit triginta annis in solitudine, ut cognosceret naturam apis. Si ergo intellectus noster est ita debilis, nonne stultum est nolle credere de Deo, nisi illa tantum quae homo potest cognoscere per se?”
“Cognitum autem est in cognoscente secundum modum cognoscentis.”
I find it ironic that an historian of medieval philosophy such as Vignaux himself calls attention to the vast diversity of thought within the Middle Ages that postmodern theorists seem content to paper over with a single account.
Here one can easily think of chaotic Black Friday sales that oftentimes spillover into violent confrontations.
Girard himself seems rather ambivalent regarding the efficacy or value of metaphysics. On the one hand, he does identify certain “common structural matrices” that remain invariant across cultures (Girard 1987: 61–62). On the other hand, he seems to have negative view of efforts to codify those structures, as is evident, for example, when he speaks of Freud’s Oedipal complex as a kind of metaphysically decadent Platonism (Girard 1987: 352–59).
I am not convinced that Vattimo would be entirely content to embrace relativism for the reason that he does offer a hermeneutic criterion, namely, caritas. Nevertheless, the idea of caritas that Vattimo elaborates is extraordinarily anemic and only negatively defined as that which is not metaphysical.
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Salas, V. Faith overcoming metaphysics: Gianni Vattimo and Thomas Aquinas on being. Int J Philos Relig 92, 99–113 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-022-09829-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-022-09829-y