It is a mistake to build a metaphysics upon the concepts of our mind of certain beings--essences or natures--rather than being. It seizes upon the lesser, the universals, and forgets the greater, the transcendentals. Plato, of course, idealized the concepts in the mind which were abstracted from observations obtained through sensory experience. Therefore, for Plato, the concept of elephant in the human mind was but a shadow of the ideal elephant, an ideal elephant which was a real existence outside the mind. This was a wrong step, corrected by Aristotle.
While the mental concepts we have in our mind are valuable--they are the kith and kin, the warp and woof of much of our thinking--they are not the sorts of things we ought to be building our metaphysics on, though they are just fine for building our science or our logic upon. However, to build a metaphysics upon these universals, these univocal mental concepts, is to confuse epistemology with ontology, the study of knowledge (ἐπιστήμη or epistēmē) with the study of being (τὸ ὄν, the to on, that which is, the being thing, or οὐσία, ousia, or being). Worse, it may lead us into some sort of Spinozism, a pantheism, a panentheism, or panousianism.
Metaphysics ought to be built not on those concepts with which logic and science plays, but upon being "according to its own presence" upon the "intelligibilities existing in beings," not those concepts existing in the mind. It should be occupied with inherent being, not being as known, not things as signified, but things as things. Anderson (1967), 9-10. Metaphysics tries to get outside the subjective conceptual knowledge of being to the very objective reality of being. Someone who plays with essences or natures to try to build a metaphysics is like an architect desiring to build a skyscraper with children's blocks. It just cannot be done. It is a mistake to try.
Building upon essences or natures instead of being is not solved by "metaphysicizing" the concept of essence or nature. Even classifying or abstracting the essence or nature of being does not solve the problem, but exacerbates it by disguising it. To think that essentializing or naturalizing being does being any good is as if one were to believe that one has done a lion good by trapping him and putting him in a cage. One ought not to tame a transcendental by making it into a universal. Neither, however, should one try to make universal into a transcendental. To ennoble a univocal concept (essence or nature) in this manner does not change the underlying univocality of the concept, any more than dubbing a cad a knight makes him less than a cad. Sir Mick Jagger was no better a man than Mr. Mick Jagger. Sir Elton John was every bit as much a bugger as Mr. Elton John.
The problem of categorizing being as an essence or nature should be at once apparent. Since essences or natures are abstractions or mental concepts, and univocal ones at that, the participation by individuals in abstractions or mental concepts is strictly logical, mental, not something real or ontological. "The quidditative commonness founding this sort of participation is formally logical in character." Anderson (1967), 10. As Anderson summarizes it:
An effort to remove the mental, abstractive aspect of essences or natures may be tried through some sort of idealiziation or realization of these essences or natures. But this is not a way out of the original mistake of making being an essence. You might be able to take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl. You cannot take the univocality involved in essence and nature simply by transcendentalizing that essence or nature (e.g. by making the essence or nature of "being" the supreme ideal or supreme form) just like you do not help things by taking the transcendental being and stuffing it in a univocal cage of essence or nature.
No. The transcendentals must remain wild and free, as it were. Being in particular is not to be restrained in univocal chains, even if those chains are called analogy of inequality. Being must be allowed to live the life it was meant to, to live a life of analogy not in name, but in reality. Our participation in being is not a participation in a common essence or nature, an essential participation, one in the mind or logic, but is a participation in a common existence, it is an existential participation, a real "most actual and causal" reality. Anderson (1967), 12.
To force being into the confines of a univocal concept leads to monism or Spinozism. This is because "the mode of predication follows the mode of being." So if we have forced being into a univocal box, then everything we predicate it with becomes univocal. So being all of a sudden becomes univocal, and there becomes only one reality--Being--in which all participate, so that there is a vast monism, a pantheism, for there is no way--being having been captured and put in a univocal box--to avoid equating the Being of God or the Supreme Reality with the Being of any other created thing. Being will then be said of both God and creature univocally, and there is no distinction between God and the cosmos. Voilà: God has become the world and the world has become God. And we have abandoned in one fell swoop, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Isaiah, Elijah, and Christ.
This is the curse of systems of metaphysics built on the analogy of inequality:
Anathema sit!
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*As we shall see, the Analogy of Being, which is an "intrinsic proportional sharing of things in existential act," is built upon an analogy entirely separate and distinct from the analogy of inequality.
While the mental concepts we have in our mind are valuable--they are the kith and kin, the warp and woof of much of our thinking--they are not the sorts of things we ought to be building our metaphysics on, though they are just fine for building our science or our logic upon. However, to build a metaphysics upon these universals, these univocal mental concepts, is to confuse epistemology with ontology, the study of knowledge (ἐπιστήμη or epistēmē) with the study of being (τὸ ὄν, the to on, that which is, the being thing, or οὐσία, ousia, or being). Worse, it may lead us into some sort of Spinozism, a pantheism, a panentheism, or panousianism.
Metaphysics ought to be built not on those concepts with which logic and science plays, but upon being "according to its own presence" upon the "intelligibilities existing in beings," not those concepts existing in the mind. It should be occupied with inherent being, not being as known, not things as signified, but things as things. Anderson (1967), 9-10. Metaphysics tries to get outside the subjective conceptual knowledge of being to the very objective reality of being. Someone who plays with essences or natures to try to build a metaphysics is like an architect desiring to build a skyscraper with children's blocks. It just cannot be done. It is a mistake to try.
Building upon essences or natures instead of being is not solved by "metaphysicizing" the concept of essence or nature. Even classifying or abstracting the essence or nature of being does not solve the problem, but exacerbates it by disguising it. To think that essentializing or naturalizing being does being any good is as if one were to believe that one has done a lion good by trapping him and putting him in a cage. One ought not to tame a transcendental by making it into a universal. Neither, however, should one try to make universal into a transcendental. To ennoble a univocal concept (essence or nature) in this manner does not change the underlying univocality of the concept, any more than dubbing a cad a knight makes him less than a cad. Sir Mick Jagger was no better a man than Mr. Mick Jagger. Sir Elton John was every bit as much a bugger as Mr. Elton John.
The problem of categorizing being as an essence or nature should be at once apparent. Since essences or natures are abstractions or mental concepts, and univocal ones at that, the participation by individuals in abstractions or mental concepts is strictly logical, mental, not something real or ontological. "The quidditative commonness founding this sort of participation is formally logical in character." Anderson (1967), 10. As Anderson summarizes it:
[I]n an ontology of the kind described [where transcendentals are essentialized or naturalized], these principles or terms [transcendentals, which "stand for no such univocally predicable formality"] are necessarily conceived of as univocal universals. Only essences taken out of their existential contexts can be conceived of univocally. An essentialist sort of participation is rightly understood to be basically "univocal" because it implies a community of essence among the things participating and the things participated. But that which is common essentially does not exist actually but only abstractly or logically as common.Anderson (1967), 10-11. There is a huge divide between what is essentially common and what is existentially common.
An effort to remove the mental, abstractive aspect of essences or natures may be tried through some sort of idealiziation or realization of these essences or natures. But this is not a way out of the original mistake of making being an essence. You might be able to take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl. You cannot take the univocality involved in essence and nature simply by transcendentalizing that essence or nature (e.g. by making the essence or nature of "being" the supreme ideal or supreme form) just like you do not help things by taking the transcendental being and stuffing it in a univocal cage of essence or nature.
No. The transcendentals must remain wild and free, as it were. Being in particular is not to be restrained in univocal chains, even if those chains are called analogy of inequality. Being must be allowed to live the life it was meant to, to live a life of analogy not in name, but in reality. Our participation in being is not a participation in a common essence or nature, an essential participation, one in the mind or logic, but is a participation in a common existence, it is an existential participation, a real "most actual and causal" reality. Anderson (1967), 12.
To force being into the confines of a univocal concept leads to monism or Spinozism. This is because "the mode of predication follows the mode of being." So if we have forced being into a univocal box, then everything we predicate it with becomes univocal. So being all of a sudden becomes univocal, and there becomes only one reality--Being--in which all participate, so that there is a vast monism, a pantheism, for there is no way--being having been captured and put in a univocal box--to avoid equating the Being of God or the Supreme Reality with the Being of any other created thing. Being will then be said of both God and creature univocally, and there is no distinction between God and the cosmos. Voilà: God has become the world and the world has become God. And we have abandoned in one fell swoop, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Isaiah, Elijah, and Christ.
This is the curse of systems of metaphysics built on the analogy of inequality:
Systems that do not recognize the Analogy of Being in the sense meant* [but are built upon an Analogy of Inequality] are (if they admit plurality at all) characterized by the unequal sharing of all putative things in a single univocal Reality, Substance, Absolute, Nature, Idea.Anderson (1967), 12.
Anathema sit!
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*As we shall see, the Analogy of Being, which is an "intrinsic proportional sharing of things in existential act," is built upon an analogy entirely separate and distinct from the analogy of inequality.
...true..incoherent...The world is contingent and composite...While being is simple and necessary...therefore an ontology not built upon God...is logically contradictory...
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