Outline of De ente, Chapters 1 and 2

Prologue

• “Small error in the beginning is a great one in the end.”
• Outline
• What is signified by “being/ens” and “essence”
• How essence is found in diverse things
• What it relates to the logical intentions (genus, species, difference)
• Understanding should go from composed things to simple things
• Therefore, we will consider ens and then essential

Chapter 1: What ens and essentia mean

• [1] Ens per se is said in two ways
• What is divided through the 10 genera
• What signifies the truth of propsitions
• The second way is said of anything (even “nothing” and “blindness”); the first way is only of what posits something in the thing
• [2] “Essence” is from “ens” in the first way, and is that through which something is in its genus and species
• [3] Other names for essence:
• “Whatness/Quidditas,” since the genus and species tell what a thing is
• “What it was to be,” that is, that through which something has it to be a what
• “Form,” through form is signified the exactness of anything
• “Nature,” taken to mean everything that can in any way be seized upon by the understanding, or it means the essence of thing as it is ordered to its proper operation
• “Essence,” since through it and in it a being/ens has existence/esse
• [4] Since ens is first said of substances, so essence is most properly in substances
• Furthermore, essence is in composed and simple substances
• But in the simple in a more noble way since they cause the composed ones
• The simple essences are more hidden, so we begin with the composed

Chapter 2: How essence exists in composed substances

• [1-2] What the essence of a composed thing is not
• Not the matter alone
• A thing is knowable and in its genus/species through essence
• Matter is not a principle of cognition, nor does it place in genus/species
• Not the form alone
• Essence is signified by the definition of a thing, but natural things have matter in their definition (otherwise their definition would be like math definitions which do not have matter in them)
• Therefore the essence comprehends matter and form
• Not the relation between matter and form (or any other accident)
• This would be an accident and extraneous, and would not make the thing known
• Nor do accidents make a thing be simply, but only in a way (secundum quid); e.g. whiteness only makes a thing to be white, whereas the form makes a thing to be simply
• [3] This account agrees with many philosophers and with reason

Important distinction: Designated and undesignated

• [4] Difficulty: Since matter is the principle of individuation, it may seem that an essence that contains matter is only the essence of a particular; universals could not be defined
• Solution:
• Principle of individuation is not matter taken in any way
• Principle of individuation is signate or designated matter, matter considered under determinate dimensions
• This designated matter is not in the definition of man as man, but would be in the definition of Socrates
• Undesignated matter is in the definition of man (not this bone or this flesh, but bone and flesh absolutely)
• Therefore, the essence of man and Socrates do not differ except by according to the matter being designated (signate) or undesignated (non-signate)
• [5] The essence of genus and species also differ according to designation, but not in the same way
• Designation of an individual with respect to species is through matter under determinate dimensions
• Designation of a species with respect to genus is through a difference taken from the form of the thing
• Also, it is through something that is somehow in the genus
• Whatever is in the species is in the genus in an indeterminate way
• If this were not so, one could not predicate the genus of a species (e.g. one could not say man is an animal)
• [6-7] Body is said in many ways
• “Body” as it is in genus of substance (this is the sense taken below)
• Said about that which has such a nature that the 3 dimensions can be designated in it
• “Body” as it is in genus of quantity
• Said about those 3 dimensions which can be designated in a body
• “Body” can signify with precision
• In this way, to add anything would put that thing outside of the signification of body; man would not a be a body in this sense
• Body in this sense is therefore a part of a man (soul is the other part), and not the genus of man; in this sense, man has a body
• “Body” can signify without precision
• In this way, it signifies a certain thing that has such a form due to which 3 dimensions can be designated in it, but it allows that there be further perfections
• Body in this sense will be the genus of animal and man, for it will implicitly contain everything in animal and man; in this sense, man is a body
• [8] Animal stands to man in the same as body to animal

Genus, difference, species each signify the whole essence

• [9] Genus, difference, species and definition signify the whole, but in diverse ways
• Genus signifies whole as a certain denomination determining that which is material in the thing without a determination of the proper form
• It is taken from matter, but is not matter
• Difference signifies whole as a certain denomination taken determinately from the form
• Definition or species signifies the whole and comprehends both the determinate matter (which genus designates) and the determinate form (which difference designates)
• [10] Consequences
• Man is a rational animal, but is not made up of rational and animal
• Conversely, man is made up of body and soul, but is neither body nor soul (Taking body with precision, so that it is a component of man)
• Man is only “composed” of rational and animal, inasmuch as the understanding of man is composed of the understanding of rational and the understanding of animal
• [11] One genus predicated of many does not mean one essence in the many, for the unity of the genus is from indetermination
• [12-14] How “humanity” and “man” signify the essence
• Just as the genus signifies the whole species contained in it implicitly, so the species signifies indistinctly the whole that is essentially in the individual
• “Man” can be predicated of an individual man, and it signifies the whole essence through the mode of a whole
• “Humanity” signifies the whole essence through the mode of a part, for it signifies that by which a man is a man
• Since individuated matted is not that by which a man is a man, it is not included in the signification of the word “humanity”; for this reason, it cannot predicated of an individual man