on ex(s)istere revisiting the “to be”–“to exist” debate

7252019 on Ex(s)Istere Revisiting the ldquoto Berdquondashldquoto Existrdquo Debate

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullon-exsistere-revisiting-the-to-beto-exist-debate 112

copy 2009 American Catholic Philosophical Association Proceedings of the ACPA Vol 82

On Ex(s)istere Revisiting the ldquoto Berdquondashldquoto Existrdquo Debate

Richard Colledge

AbstractThis paper looks to revive and advance dialogue surrounding John Nijen-huisrsquos case against lsquoexistence languagersquo as a rendering of Aquinasrsquos esse Nijenhuis

presented both a semanticgrammatical case for abandoning this practice as wellas a more systematic argument based on his reading of Thomist metaphysics Onone hand I affirm the important distinction between being and existence and lendqualified support to his interpretation of the quantitiativequalitative correlationbetween esse and essentia in Aquinasrsquos texts On the other hand I take issue withNijenhuisrsquos relegation of exist(ence) to a second-rate ontological principle and tothis end undertake a brief historical and etymological survey noting its emergencein Greek thought ( uJpavrcein hparxi~) its translation into medieval Latin(ex(s)istere ex(s)istentia ) and thus something of the pedigree of this terminology in

modern usage I conclude with some brief remarks on the task of exegeting Aquinasvis-agrave-vis the revivification of contemporary metaphysical ontology in general

Just over a decade ago a lively debate sprang up primarily in American Catho-lic Philosophical Quarterly concerning the common practice in Thomistscholarship of translating esse (and indeed ei nai) by ldquoexistencerdquo and its

cognates1 At the time the instigator of the discussion John Nijenhuis prosecuted astrong case against this practice However the dialogue between Nijenhuis and his in-terlocutors Russell Pannier and Thomas Sullivan ended abruptly with the conclusionthat as Nijenhuis put it at the time ldquoour visions are worlds apart philosophicallyand lsquometaphysicallyrsquo we speak and think in two different languagesrdquo2 In whatfollows I would like to both revive and then further this unfortunately truncateddiscussion My reasons for wanting to do so are twofold First Nijenhuis raised herean issue of great importance not only for Thomist scholarship in particular but forthe future of metaphysical ontology in general Second I believe that there is greatpotential for the conversation to be pushed much further than was the case a decade

ago on the basis of something much closer to the shared ldquovisionrdquo and a commonldquolanguagerdquo that are needed if productive dialogue is to ensue

I begin by presenting a brief preacutecis of Nijenhuisrsquos several articles from theperiod which beyond semantic and grammatical reasons for abandoning the still



F983090983094983092

quite widespread practice of translating Thomasrsquos esse by exist(ence) presents also asubstantial metaphysical argument rooted in his quantitativequalitative reading ofthe esse -essentia relationship in Aquinas My response to Nijenhuisrsquos position is rathercomplex First I affirm his semanticgrammatical argument one that has been madeby several others in recent years (eg Cornelio Fabro3 Oliva Blanchette4 and to alimited extent John Knasas)5 Second I argue that insofar as his understanding of Aquinas is correct concerning the close quantitativequalitative correlation betweenesse and essentia in his thought then Nijenhuisrsquos absolute opposition to the use ofexist(ence) language for esse is also to be affirmed However third while Nijenhuismay be correct in his reading of Aquinas I nonetheless take issue with his relegationof exist(ence) to a necessarily second-rate ontological principle and to this end Ilook to highlight something of the dynamism and metaphysical complexity to be

discovered through a careful etymological investigation of its semantic field Accord-ingly I trace the emergence of this terminology in late Greek thought ( uJpavrcein uparxi~) its uneven translation into medieval Latin metaphysics (ex(s)istere andex(s)istentia ) and thus something of the pedigree of the modern and contemporarylanguage of lsquoto existrsquo (existieren exister ) and existence (die Existenz lrsquoexistence ) Iconclude with a few necessarily brief remarks on the obvious problems that are raisedby a juxtaposition of the two lsquohornsrsquo of my Nijenhuis interpretation concerningthe task of exegeting Aquinas vis-agrave-vis the context of contemporary metaphysicalontology in general6

The Case for Decoupling Being and Existenceon the Basis of Semantics and Grammar

Aquinas writes of a real distinction in the determinate being (ens ) betweenessentia and esse That there is a well-established practice of substituting exist(ence)for esse in translating and discussing Thomist texts is beyond dispute In his tell-ingly entitled 1947 work Court traiteacute de lrsquoexistence et de lrsquoexistant Jacques Maritain writes of ldquothis concept of existence [lrsquoexistence ] of to-exist (esse )rdquo7 and he regularly

reinforces the purported equivalence of the actus essendi with the ldquoact of existencerdquothrough direct allusion to the words of Aquinas himself8 The consequence is thevirtual proclamation of a doctrine of ipsum existere subsistens as seen for examplein Gilsonrsquos claim that ldquoGod alone Who is a pure act of existence can cause an actof existence [lrsquoexistence ]rdquo9 Two more recent figures who have routinely continuedthis practice are Joseph Owens10 and Norris Clarke with the latter writing of ldquotheessence-existence doctrinerdquo as the ldquocentral piece of [Aquinasrsquos] whole metaphysicalsystemrdquo11 While generally far more circumspect in this regard John Wippel also

lapses into lsquoexistence talkrsquo on occasion12

and the tendency is not unknown either intexts by John Knasas even in his most recent book in which he nonetheless labelsthis very practice as ldquounfortunaterdquo13

Nijenhuis is vociferously opposed to this translatory and scholarly practiceand a close reading of his papers indicate both semanticgrammatical reasons fordoing so as well as a more substantial metaphysical reason I will turn to the latter



O E X ( S )ISTERE R ldquo Brdquondashldquo Erdquo D 983090983094983093

in a moment Of his semantic grammatical case he (and others) mention two mainproblems The first of these concerns the pervasive tendency to translate an infinitiveesse by a substantive ldquoexistencerdquo (lrsquoexistence Existenz ) Not only does this scholarlycustom have the effect of pasting over the dynamic connotations of Aquinasrsquos esse butit also opens the way toward an implicit reification of this supremely act ive principle Accordingly existence can quickly come to be thought of as a kind of property thatcan be possessed by an essence by which it is made actual or real The consequencesof this kind of distortion of Thomist thought are well known On one hand thereare questions concerning the ldquoessencerdquo of existence as the actualising principle ofthe being a line of thought that raises the ghosts of late medieval debates aroundthe infinite regress of principles of essence and existence14 Blanchette is perhapsparticularly alluding to this problem in his caveat that existence can be understood

ldquoas if it were another quiddityrdquo besides essence itself15

and in a similar veinNijenhuis warns that replacing the verb esse by the noun existentia risks ldquoturningesse into a kind of static receptacle into which lsquobeingsrsquo are thrownrdquo16 On theother hand this talk of a metaphysical principle of existence suggests Kantrsquos famousanalogy of the hundred Thalers a scenario in which beingexistence is presentedas a pseudo quality which can by definition add nothing to the thing qua res Thisis presumably the context of Fabrorsquos warning about confusing esse with a ldquomodaldistinctionrdquo17 by which he seems to be suggesting understanding esse in the lightof Kantrsquos Wirklichkeit and thus as a merely ldquological predicaterdquo In sum the use of a

substantive to translate an infinitive risks obscuring what is most distinctive about Aquinasrsquos notion of esse ie its active and yet abyssal character its complete othernessto essence by which it is to be understood as radical act (through which the thingis per se) rather than simply as a quality or mode or state of the thing

The second problem is that since being and existence have quite distinct etymo-logical roots substituting exist(ence) for being amounts to a confusion of semanticfields As will be seen shortly the precise nature of the relationship between these twofields in terms of the history of usage in western metaphysics is extremely unclear

However despite the extraordinarily ancient roots of this lack of clarity one thingis clear ldquoto berdquo and ldquoto existrdquo einai and uJpavrcein esse and existere are indeeddifferent words arising from distinct roots and with their own quite different (albeitat times ambiguously overlapping) semantic fields It therefore makes little sense forthese highly metaphysically significant vocabularies to be used interchangeably as ifthey were virtually synonymous even given the difficulties of translation involvedNijenhuis is quite right to insist upon a higher level of scholarly care than is indicatedby this practice however well attested it is in the history of metaphysics

The Case for Decoupling Being and Existenceon the Basis of Thomist Metaphysics

Over and above this general contention Nijenhuis also offers a relativelyuniquely developed reading of Thomist metaphysics which leads him to concludethat Aquinasrsquos doctrine of esse has little to do with ldquoexistencerdquo as such In order to



F983090983094983094

explore his case it will first be useful to backtrack a little The preceding discussionabout the danger of reification mentioned that for some scholars the substitutionof existence for esse is to be associated with the reduction of esse to a state-like des-ignation which merely indicates the fact of exist-ing rather than the act of beingFabro for example argues that the language of exist(ence) corresponds to the mereldquoactualityrdquo of a being rather than to its basic constitution as a being Consequentlya precise understanding of Thomist ontology requires ldquodistinguishing esse as act notonly from essence which is its potency but also from existence which is the fact ofbeing and hence a lsquoresultrsquo rather than a metaphysical principlerdquo18 This is to insiston the distinction between esse as a cause and existence as the result

The problem with such a critique however is that Existential Thomism cer-tainly does not simply stop at existence qua fact Rather all grammatical issues aside

it is clear that these scholarsrsquo use of existential language is suffused with an eminentlyactive sense appropriate for Aquinasrsquos esse One need only look for example toClarkersquos description of ldquothe act of existence by which every real being actu-ally existsrdquo19 as well as his strong emphasis on ldquobeing as activerdquo20 to see how despiteall inappropriate renderings a strong sense of Aquinasrsquos esse qua act is nonethelessconveyed The claim that Existential Thomism is on the basis of its faulty transla-tion of esse involved in a simple confusion between acts (cause) and facts (results) isunsustainable Words and meanings are not so two-dimensionally correlated

Nijenhuisrsquos more substantial case concerns his claim that the language of esse

(as well as actualitas ) is historically rooted in a ldquoquantitativerdquo sense not possessedby existere and its kin and certainly absent from the contemporary language ofexist(ence) This argument is linked it seems to the intensified interest in Thomistscholarshipmdashchampioned by Fabro himselfmdashinto the influence of the Platonicparticipatory motif on Aquinasrsquos notion of esse 21 Nijenhuis argues that Aquinasrsquosesse is related less to the Aristotelian tradition (with its categories of duv nami~ and ej nevrgeia) than to Platorsquos einai in that both Plato and Aquinas understand be-ings as relative mixtures of being and non-being Aquinasrsquos use of esse therefore

must be understood in the context of varying levels of the perfection or ldquofullnessrdquoof acts all of which are relative to the total fullness or perfection of God who isof course pure esse and the source of all finite beings who share (or participate in)this fullness Nijenhuis sets out his textual evidence for this reading in some detailattending especially to the quantitativequalitative language Aquinas uses to discussthe participation of the ens in esse eg ldquoAll entia to the degree that [inquantum]they are entia are in act [in actu]rdquo22 such that ldquosome things participate morefully [quaedam perfectius ] in esse other things less fully [quaedam imperfectius ]rdquo23 And again ldquo[t]o the degree that a creature approaches God to that extent does it

possess being [quantummdashtantum habet de esse ] but to the degree that it is removedfrom God to that extent it is affected with nonbeing [habet de non esse ]rdquo24

This then is for Nijenhuis the deepest reason for the inappropriateness ofusing existential language for Aquinasrsquos esse Even if exist(ence) is understood in apurportedly active sense it cannot also be understood in a quantitativequalitativesense Beings can only be said to exist or not exist they cannot be said to ldquoexist




to some extentrdquo As such exist(ence) is an irretrievably locative notion ie thingsare said to ldquobe thererdquo as opposed to ldquonot being thererdquo or being absent In sumexist(ence) is ldquoan all-or-nothing notionrdquo25 and thus contrasts sharply with beingthat is able to be possessed in degrees of intensity and perfection In making thisclaim Nijenhuis argues against both some standard translations of Aquinas and theclaims of Existential Thomists themselves such as Gilson26

Nijenhuisrsquos reading of Aquinas on this point deeply influences his under-standing of the relationship between esse and essentia Albeit only in a footnoteNijenhuis enthusiastically recommends the work of John A Peters who some timeearlier had taken this argument further still by portraying essence as a virtual func-tion of the relative fullness of the beingrsquos participation in esse ie of essence as aqualitative correlate of the (quantitative) degree of esse possessed by the ens by virtue

of its participation in the Divine fullness Peters put it this way ldquoThe all-embracingnature of [esse ] means that it constitutes also all contents all essences An essence has value only because it contains more or less [esse ] because it indicates themeasure in which a being participates in [esse ]rdquo27

This qualitativequantitative conception of the esse -essentia relationship in theens is deserving of a great deal more attention than it can be given here and indeedthan it has thus far received within Thomist scholarship in general28 Suffice to saythat to the extent that this reading is judged to be an accurate interpretation ofThomist texts doubt will justifiably be cast over the continued practice of using the

language of exist(ence) as a convenient substitute for Aquinasrsquos being (esse ) In whatfollows however I hold this question somewhat in abeyance in order to undertakea fresh examination of the pedigree of existential terminology

An Etymological Reclamation ofthe Depth-dimension of Exist(ence)

In what follows I reject Nijenhuisrsquos claim (shared as has been seen by FabroBlanchette and others) that while the language of being is to be extolled for its ety-

mological and semantic richness and metaphysical depth exist(ence) is to be viewedas a second-rate ontological principle insofar as it denotes mere ldquotherenessrdquo It isin this context that I present a very different reading of the category of exist(ence) within the western metaphysical tradition by looking to reclaim its active sense andindeed its depth-dimension And I should say at the outset that in what follows Iam deeply indebted to the still seminal work of Charles Kahn for his detailed ety-mological insights into these matters

In Greek the semantics of exist(ence) are closely connected to the category of

ajrchv and this sense of origin or foundation clearly emerges in the verb uJpavrcein (to exist) which originally meant ldquoto make a beginningrdquo or ldquoto take the initiativerdquoBy the fifth century the verb uJpavrcw was used in several poetic and prosetexts not so much in the sense of ldquomakingrdquo a beginning (ie in conjunction withpoiei` n) but rather of being a beginning in its own right and in this way of speak-ing there is a strong convergence between uJpavrcein and ei nai itself both carrying



F983090983094983096

the connotation of availability or being on-hand29 However what uJpavrcw adds to ei nai is temporality originally in the direction of past emergence but eventuallyalso encompassing the idea of present actuality though even here generally retainingthe broader context of temporal situatedness30

Evidence for a ldquohardeningrdquo of the various ldquoquasi-existentialrdquo uses of uJpavrcein into a fixed term that is discrete from ei nai and its cognates appears as early as thegeneration after Aristotlersquos death and by the Roman era uparxi~ was being usedas an abstract substantive form Indeed Kahn goes as far as to say that the differencebetween essence and existence was already in place in Hellenistic philosophical textsof the third century 31 and thus much earlier than is often assumed by those who would see it as a function of the medieval worldview of the Abrahamic religions After all once the notions of being and non-being are implicitly juxtaposed in the

context of beginnings and thus the emergence of something that once was not it isonly the shortest of steps to a reflection upon the contingency of exist(ence) per sethe thatness of what is

uJpavrcein and its cognates were often used in Hellenistic literature as roughlysynonymous with ei nai though the temporal connotation of the former remainedcentral throughout In this way uJpavrcein is implicated in the (in)famous distinctionbetween ldquobeingrdquo ( ei nai) and ldquobecomingrdquo (givgnomai) as it was set up by Parmenidesin particular whereby the dynamism of givgnomai (and thus by extension uJpavrcein)is distinguished from the strongly durative sense of ei nai32 A very similar sense is

evident in the Latin verb used to translate uJpavrceinmdashex(s)istere mdashwith the dynamicconnotations suggested by the prefix ex- (ldquoto come out fromrdquo) alongside sistere (ldquotocause to stand firmrdquo derived from stare ldquoto standrdquo) To exist in this Latin sense thenis to come-to-be to emerge as something new and to thereby stand as a viable andindependent entity As Kahn points out the prefix (ex -) that speaks of emergencesuggests ldquothe completion of a processrdquo while the punctual form sistere (ie theidea of momentary action) contrasts with the durative sense of stare 33 In this waythe substantive ex(s)istentia mdashwhich seems to have been coined around the fourth

century CE from ex(s)istere specifically in order to translate uparxi~mdashis preciselythe state or result of the process of having come-to-be Similarly an individual ex(s)istent which performs the act of ex(s)istens (the present participle of ex(s)istere ) isldquothat which has emergedrdquo through this process Note the strong sense here of thedeep ontological contingency of each ex(s)istent a dimension that bears close com-parison with Aquinasrsquos ens

Despite this pedigree however the fate of the language of exist(ence) through-out the medieval era is decidedly mixed and generally confused The substantiveex(s)istentia appears to have largely fallen out of usage not long after it was coined

Boethius preferred esse to translate uparxi~ while Priscian used substantivum Whilethe language of exist(ence) was reclaimed in the high medieval period its usage eventhen was far from consistent Aquinas essentially adopted (or continued) the usage ofBoethius with the dynamic and emergent sense of exist(ence) being taken over intohis use of esse a practice which (as has been seen) had clear systematic metaphysicaladvantages for him34 Yet it was Duns Scotus rather than Aquinas who established




the usage subsequently bequeathed to modernity in his distinction (inspired by IbnSīnā and passed on to later figures such as Henry of Ghent) between esse essentia and esse existentiae

In turning to the modern era then there is a strange paradox concerning thefate of the language of exist(ence) On one hand it survived and further (by virtueof the early modern predominance of the Scotist over the Thomist formula) it didso largely in terms of a couplet involving essential and existential being respectively Yet on the other hand while it survived linguistically it also underwent a strikingdelimitation in its semantic field by which the dynamic temporal and emergentsense of uJpavrcein and existere was lost even as the kindred qualities of Aquinasrsquosesse failed to be translated into early modern ontology The result was twofoldFirst the theme of emergence and ontological contingency in metaphysics was

decidedly dissipated as neither of the two alternative means by which it had beenexpressedmdashexistere andor essemdash continued to carry this sense Second now shed ofthese connotations the whole raison drsquoecirctre of the language of exist(ence) vis-agrave-vis thelanguage of being was quite lost and this is I would suggest the historical contextfor the strange afterlife of exist(ence) in modern philosophical texts where the wordis used as a quite superfluous synonym for being35

In light of this brief survey I wish to make three brief comments concerningthe Nijenhuis thesis considered earlier First While Nijenhuis is largely correct topoint to the contemporary sense of exist(ence) as indicating mere ldquotherenessrdquo or bland

actuality it is crucial to note that this current situation has a very long history andthat it certainly was not always thus To the contrary there is evidence that the Greekand Latin precursors of contemporary exist(ence) language contain much that heconsiders to be rather native to the medieval language of being (esse ) Consequentlyhis comment that in comparison with the Indo-European verbs ldquoto berdquo exsist(ere) has a ldquorather dull originrdquo in the mere conflation of ex and sistere 36 rings decidedlyhollow It is of course true that the verb ldquoto berdquo has an etymologically more diversepedigree than the verb ldquoto existrdquo (being related to ancient Indo-European roots with

senses as diverse as living being true being real emerging growing and abiding) andthat it functions across a hugely more diverse semantic range (having predicationalidentificational copulative as well as existential and other functions) However asan historic marker of the depth dimension of actuality there is absolutely nothingldquodullrdquo or flat about exist(ence)

Second It is perhaps telling that Nijenhuisrsquos etymological excursions rarelyventure back behind the Latin terminology of being and exist(ence) to the Greekprecursors since in this way he misses the temporal dynamism and emergent sense of uJpavrcein and its progeny But even given this omission Nijenhuisrsquos declaration of

the self-evident metaphysical poverty or flatness of existere existentia is still somewhatsurprising for even the Latin etymologymdashof which he makes specific referencemdashprovides a clear glimpse of precisely this sense At one point for example he claimsthat for Aquinas esse means ldquoto stand out of (be removed from) nothingnessrdquo andthen acknowledges in a footnote the ldquoironyrdquo of understanding esse in this sense giventhat ldquothis definition is couched in terms reminiscent of the classical ex(s)istere rdquo 37



F983090983095983088

Indeed In any case even while identifying the emergent sense of existere Nijenhuisrsquosinterpretive emphasis clearly falls much more on ldquo-sistere rdquo (ldquobeing at a standrdquo) thanon the active and dynamic sense of the ldquoex -ldquo (the coming-out-of )

Third Nijenhuisrsquos contention that exist(ence) is a matter of the mere ldquotherenessrdquoof things leads him to conclude that ldquothe lsquoexistencersquo of things is perceived by thesensesrdquo which is a matter only of empirical noticing by which things are consideredldquofrom the outsiderdquo whereas the investigation of the ldquobe-ingrdquo of things ldquois a matterfor the intellectrdquo by which ldquowe look into them examine their insiderdquo and in this wayengage in metaphysics per se38 The foregoing analysis of the historical semantic fieldof exist(ence) shows that any such neat demarcation between the acts of recognisingthe existing and be-ing of things is unsustainable True that a being exists (or not)is something perceived by the senses But this sight becomes metaphysical insight to

the extent that the underlying truth uncovered by such perception is the act by andthrough which the being exists There is a major difference between just noticingthat something exists and metaphysically contemplating its existing

Concluding RemarksExist(ence) Thomism and Contemporary Metaphysics

In this paper I have responded to Nijenhuisrsquos thesis along several lines Onone hand I have agreed that one cannot simply slide between the language of being

and exist(ence) as if they were synonymous and further I have given a qualifiedbut sympathetic account of his reading of Thomist metaphysics by which it wouldappear that the practice of substituting exist(ence) for esse seriously distorts thepresentation of Aquinasrsquos own distinctive vision of creation On the other hand Ihave argued against Nijenhuisrsquos dismissal of the depth and richness of the languageof exist(ence) per se suggesting that much of the dynamic and emergent qualitythat is central to Aquinasrsquos notion of esse is equally to be found in the traditionallanguage of exist(ence) even if the sense of graduated levels of fullness is not asclearly apparent In the time remaining I wish to conclude with a few brief remarks

on what I see as perhaps the most pressing question raised by this position ieconcerning the relationship between exegesis of Thomist texts and the furtheringof contemporary metaphysical ontology in general

Central to the account I have given here of the development in western thoughtof the idea of exist(ence) in its depth dimension is the contention that there havebeen various ways in which this idea has been deployed The genius of Aquinasrsquosapproach was to bring the insight of existential contingency back within the cat-egory of ldquoto berdquo itself and in an extraordinarily theologically-productive way to

integrate this with a theory of essence In making such a statement it is clear that Iam suggesting a degree of inspired contrivance on Aquinasrsquos part to pull the threadstogether in quite this way Nijenhuis himself provides what I think is a fine glimpseinto something like this process in action in noting a small liberty Aquinas tookin his commentary on Boethiusrsquos De Hebdomadibus While closely paraphrasing asentence from Boethiusrsquos text that includes a rare use of the term existere Aquinas





F983090983095983090

Notes

1 See articles by Nijenhuis ldquolsquoTo Bersquo or lsquoTo Existrsquo That Is the Questionrdquo The Thomist 503 (1986) 353ndash94 ldquolsquoEnsrsquo Described as lsquoBeing or Existentrsquordquo American Catholic Philo-

sophical Quarterly 681 (1994) 1ndash14 and ldquoExistence vs Being An All-Important Matter ofTerminologyrdquo American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 691 (1995) 89ndash95 See also theresponses to Nijenhuis by Pannier and Sullivan ldquoBeing Existence and the Future of Thomis-tic Studies A Reply to Professor Nijenhuisrdquo American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 691(Winter 1995) 83ndash88 Note that in what follows I use the shorthand term ldquoexist(ence)rdquo torefer to ldquoexistence languagerdquo in general (including infinitive and substantive forms such asrespectively ldquoto existrdquo and ldquoexistencerdquo)

2 Nijenhuis ldquoExistence vs Beingrdquo 89

3 Eg Fabro ldquoThe Intensive Hermeneutics of Thomist Philosophy The Notion of

Participationrdquo Review of Metaphysics 27 (March 1974) 450 470

4 Eg Blanchette Philosophy of Being A Reconstructive Essay in Metaphysics (Wash-ington DC Catholic University of America Press 2003) 13 90

5 Eg Knasas Bring and Some Twentieth Century Thomists (New York FordhamUniversity Press 2003) 175

6 Both questions deserve significant papers unto themselves However if this papercan succeed in raising again the issue at hand and bringing it forward even to a small degreethis will be achievement enough

7 Maritain Existence and the Existent trans Lewis Galantiere and Gerald B Phelan(Garden City New York Image Books 1956) 33

8 See eg his allusion to De Potentia Dei 7 2 ad 9 223 ldquothe act of existing is theact par excellence the act and the perfection of all form and all perfection Hoc quod dico esse est actualitas omnium actuum et propter hoc est perfectio omnium perfectionumrdquo (Existenceand the Existent 45ndash46)

9 Gilson Being and Some Philosophers (Toronto Garden City Press 1952) 90 Seealso W Norris Clarke ldquoWhat Cannot Be Said in St Thomasrsquo Essence-Existence DoctrinerdquoThe New Scholasticism 481 (1974) 19 23ndash25 33 and passim

10 See Owens ldquoAquinas on Knowing Existencerdquo Review of Metaphysics 29 (1976)670ndash690 which is filled with particularly blatant examples of this practice

11 ldquoWhat Cannot Be Saidrdquo 19 This language is continued in his most recent workeg his talk of Aquinasrsquos real distinction between ldquoan act of existencerdquo and ldquoa limiting es-sencerdquo (The One and the Many A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics [Notre Dame IndUniversity of Notre Dame Press 2001] 80)

12 See eg Wippel The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Washington DCCatholic University of America Press 2000) 3 Later in the same text he writes of ldquoesse taken

as actual existence or as Thomas often expresses it as the actus essendi (act of being)rdquo (25) 13 See Being and Some Twentieth Century Thomists 211 Cf 175

14 The contributions of Giles of Rome and his kin on this issue are notorious Seeeg Wippel Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas 134ff

15 Blanchette Philosophy of Being 90




16 Nijenhuis ldquolsquoEnsrsquo Described as lsquoBeing or Existentrsquordquo 3fn I leave to one side Nijenhuisrsquosbadly misplaced reference here to Heideggerrsquos Geworfenheit in his allusion to a supposedldquoHeideggerianrdquo notion of being ldquothrownrdquo into such a ldquostatic [existential] receptaclerdquo

17 Fabro ldquoIntensive Hermeneuticsrdquo 450

18 Ibidrdquo 470

19 Clarke The One and the Many 80 (emphasis added) Many other texts might alsobe offered See eg Maritain Existence and the Existent 74

20 See Clarke The One and the Many 294 where he even raises this principle in Aquinas to a virtual ldquotranscendentalrdquo

21 It is important to note that Existential Thomists are among those who have alsostrongly pointed out this link See eg Clarke The One and the Many chap 5 and passim

22 De Veritate q21 a 2

23 From De substantiis separatis quoted in Nijenhuis ldquolsquoTo Bersquo or lsquoTo Existrsquordquo 371

24 De Veritate q21 a 2 quoted in Nijenhuis ldquolsquoEnsrsquo Described as lsquoBeing or Existentrsquordquo8 Other passages cited by Nijenhuis concerning esse as quantitative in this sense include ST 1 20 2 1 5 3 1 48 2 De Potentia Dei q 1 a 2 q 5 a 8 q 3 a 4 and De Ver 2 3 16

25 Nijenhuis ldquolsquoTo Bersquo or lsquoTo Existrsquordquo 357

26 See ibid 384ff and 363f fn 33 (and 389) respectively

27 Peters Metaphysics A Systematic Survey (Pittsburgh Duquesne University Press

1963) 108 Quoted in Nijenhuis ldquolsquoTo Bersquo or lsquoTo Existrsquordquo 363 fn 32 28 Take eg Thomas A F Kellyrsquos contention that Aquinasrsquos language of esse sits un-integrated alongside ldquoanother more traditional view of the ascending hierarchy of actualityrdquo(ldquoOn Remembering and Forgetting Being Aquinas Heidegger and Caputordquo AmericanCatholic Philosophical Quarterly 76 2 [2002] 321ndash40)

29 Kahn ldquoOn the Terminology for Copula and Existencerdquo In Islamic Philosophy andthe Classical Tradition ed S M Stern et al (London Bruno Cassirer 1972) 152

30 Ibid 152

31 Ibid 154 32 See Kahn ldquoThe Greek Verb lsquoto Bersquo and the Concept of Beingrdquo Foundations ofLanguage 2 (1966) 255

33 Ibid 256

34 There is one fascinating exception to this rule in the Thomist corpus that Nijenhuisdoes not mention A quick search of the Index Thomisticus lists a single case (in an opusculain response to Johannes de Vercellis) of Aquinasrsquos use of the expression ldquoactus existendi rdquo(act of existence) ldquoQuod vero quadragesimo septimo dicitur actus existendi triplex est quidamomnino potentiae impermixtus ut esse divinum alius semper potentiae permixtus tale est rerum

generabilium tertius modo medio se habens est enim potentiae permixtus inquantum est ab alio partim vero non inquantum est simplex et simul totus completus et tale est esse Angeli sanum potest habere intellectumrdquo (De 108 articulis q 47)

35 In his ldquolsquoTo Be or lsquoTo Existrsquordquo (359ndash362) Nijenhuis provides a useful overview ofthis practice of ldquoclumsy unnecessary or tautologicalrdquo uses of being and exist(ence) languagein a survey of texts by Locke Hume Descartes and Kant



F983090983095983092

36 See Nijenhuis ldquolsquoEnsrsquo Described as lsquoBeing or Existentrsquordquo 2 and ldquoExistence vs Beingrdquo92

37 Nijenhuis ldquolsquoTo Bersquo or lsquoTo Existrsquordquo 365 and fn 35

38 Nijenhuis ldquoExistence vs Beingrdquo 92 39 Nijenhuis ldquolsquoTo Be or lsquoTo Existrsquordquo 357

40 Colledge Richard ldquoRevisiting Heidegger on Natur and Vorhandensein TowardsMetontologyrdquo forthcoming



F983090983094983092

quite widespread practice of translating Thomasrsquos esse by exist(ence) presents also asubstantial metaphysical argument rooted in his quantitativequalitative reading ofthe esse -essentia relationship in Aquinas My response to Nijenhuisrsquos position is rathercomplex First I affirm his semanticgrammatical argument one that has been madeby several others in recent years (eg Cornelio Fabro3 Oliva Blanchette4 and to alimited extent John Knasas)5 Second I argue that insofar as his understanding of Aquinas is correct concerning the close quantitativequalitative correlation betweenesse and essentia in his thought then Nijenhuisrsquos absolute opposition to the use ofexist(ence) language for esse is also to be affirmed However third while Nijenhuismay be correct in his reading of Aquinas I nonetheless take issue with his relegationof exist(ence) to a necessarily second-rate ontological principle and to this end Ilook to highlight something of the dynamism and metaphysical complexity to be

discovered through a careful etymological investigation of its semantic field Accord-ingly I trace the emergence of this terminology in late Greek thought ( uJpavrcein uparxi~) its uneven translation into medieval Latin metaphysics (ex(s)istere andex(s)istentia ) and thus something of the pedigree of the modern and contemporarylanguage of lsquoto existrsquo (existieren exister ) and existence (die Existenz lrsquoexistence ) Iconclude with a few necessarily brief remarks on the obvious problems that are raisedby a juxtaposition of the two lsquohornsrsquo of my Nijenhuis interpretation concerningthe task of exegeting Aquinas vis-agrave-vis the context of contemporary metaphysicalontology in general6

The Case for Decoupling Being and Existenceon the Basis of Semantics and Grammar

Aquinas writes of a real distinction in the determinate being (ens ) betweenessentia and esse That there is a well-established practice of substituting exist(ence)for esse in translating and discussing Thomist texts is beyond dispute In his tell-ingly entitled 1947 work Court traiteacute de lrsquoexistence et de lrsquoexistant Jacques Maritain writes of ldquothis concept of existence [lrsquoexistence ] of to-exist (esse )rdquo7 and he regularly

reinforces the purported equivalence of the actus essendi with the ldquoact of existencerdquothrough direct allusion to the words of Aquinas himself8 The consequence is thevirtual proclamation of a doctrine of ipsum existere subsistens as seen for examplein Gilsonrsquos claim that ldquoGod alone Who is a pure act of existence can cause an actof existence [lrsquoexistence ]rdquo9 Two more recent figures who have routinely continuedthis practice are Joseph Owens10 and Norris Clarke with the latter writing of ldquotheessence-existence doctrinerdquo as the ldquocentral piece of [Aquinasrsquos] whole metaphysicalsystemrdquo11 While generally far more circumspect in this regard John Wippel also

lapses into lsquoexistence talkrsquo on occasion12

and the tendency is not unknown either intexts by John Knasas even in his most recent book in which he nonetheless labelsthis very practice as ldquounfortunaterdquo13

Nijenhuis is vociferously opposed to this translatory and scholarly practiceand a close reading of his papers indicate both semanticgrammatical reasons fordoing so as well as a more substantial metaphysical reason I will turn to the latter














F983090983094983094
























F983090983094983096






















F983090983095983088














F983090983095983090

Notes























18 Ibidrdquo 470












30 Ibid 152


33 Ibid 256






F983090983095983092


















F983090983094983094
























F983090983094983096






















F983090983095983088














F983090983095983090

Notes























18 Ibidrdquo 470












30 Ibid 152


33 Ibid 256






F983090983095983092




















F983090983094983096






















F983090983095983088














F983090983095983090

Notes























18 Ibidrdquo 470












30 Ibid 152


33 Ibid 256






F983090983095983092


















F983090983095983088














F983090983095983090

Notes























18 Ibidrdquo 470












30 Ibid 152


33 Ibid 256






F983090983095983092









F983090983095983090

Notes























18 Ibidrdquo 470












30 Ibid 152


33 Ibid 256






F983090983095983092










18 Ibidrdquo 470












30 Ibid 152


33 Ibid 256






F983090983095983092







F983090983095983092





on ex(s)istere revisiting the “to be”–“to exist” debate

Documents