Exploring Key Philosophical Concepts: A Deep Dive
Key Philosophical Concepts
Fundamental Principles
Obvious: This proposition is self-evident, stemming from first principles. First Principles: Refer to the provided definition in the notes.
Proposition/Trial: The act of affirming or denying the identity of two concepts (subject and predicate). Truth or falsity resides only in propositions, not simple concepts.
Subject: The concept about which the predicate is affirmed or denied.
Predicate: The concept affirmed or denied of the subject.
Common Concepts
Notions or ideas evident to the wise and spiritual, dealing with various realms of reality.
Understanding and Senses
Understanding: The higher cognitive faculty focused on the totality of being and the essences of sensible things. (Contrast with Hume’s conception of understanding.)
Senses: Cognitive faculties targeting sensible qualities. They collaborate with understanding by providing images for concept formation. (Example: Senses perceive Socrates; understanding applies the universal concept of “man”.)
Good and Fin
Good: The ultimate aim of all things. Different beings have different goods. Goodness is a transcendental property, applicable to all beings. The highest good is God.
Fin: The teleological endpoint of all beings. Fin is synonymous with good. (Recall Aristotle and Aquinas’s Five Ways.)
Reality and Vía
Reality: That which exists independently of the mind.
Vía: Demonstrations affirming God’s existence (Five Ways, unique to Aquinas).
Cause and Effect
Cause: A principle influencing the existence of an effect.
Effect: A distinct reality dependent on a cause.
- Material Cause: Provides the matter.
- Formal Cause: Determines the form of the matter.
- Efficient Cause: The agent of change.
- Final Cause: The purpose or end goal.
Principle of Causality
The foundation of Aquinas’s Five Ways. It’s metaphysical (explaining being as being) and universal (encompassing all beings). Causality is understood through reason, not direct sense perception.
Everything that moves is moved by another: Reflects the contingency of beings (composed of essence and existence).
Perfection, Existence, and Essence
Perfection: Being is the ultimate perfection (see notes on the Fourth Way).
Existence: The act by which a substance exists outside the mind. It’s part of the essence of contingent beings.
Essence: That by which a thing is what it is. It’s the dynamic principle of a reality’s operations.
Act and Potency
Act: The realization of potency (from Aristotle).
In essence-existence, existence is the act, essence is the potency.
Contingent and Necessary
Contingent (Quota): A being that could have not existed and may cease to exist.
Necessary (Required): A being whose essence includes existence (only God).
Order and Creature
Order: The harmony governing the world, directing beings towards their ends.
Creature: A contingent being dependent on God.
Process to Infinity and Movement
Distinguish between actual infinity (impossible for causal series) and mathematical infinity (ideal/logical).
Movement: Metaphysical change from potency to act, perceived by the senses. Includes substantial and accidental change.