Czy ipsum esse św. Tomasza z Akwinu to istnienie czy egzystencja?

• Authors: Piotr Cyciura

Title variants

EN

Is ipsum esse of Thomas Aquinas existence or (perfection of) being?

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

While dealing with the topic that he discovered himself, Thomas had to use the language of his predecessors and colloquial language too. That is why it is so difficult to spot the originality of his metaphysics of the esse-being. The most deceiving term about it is existence (to exist), because to exist is far less than to be, viz. to be in the full perfection of what is real. On the other hand, being completely perfect in a kind does not mean the same as being “divine”. Pseudo-Denis had accurately noticed it using the ambiguous term proballein. For the real being might be regarded as proposed to us by God, and lead us to Him consequently, but might veil Him from us as well. Everything depends on whether we regard esse as the utmost common – the universal in Aristotelian sense (revealing the cause, and the Cause eventually), or as something directly perceived and satisfying our desire of knowledge. The former meaning allows to put esse as a perfection-end; the latter does not. As we first behold what is imperfect, the utmost perfection of being must be seized at the end of cognition. That is why only the proofs of existence of God involve seizing the act of being, whereas so-called existential judgments are a myth.

Keywords

EN

metaphysics; existence; existential judgments; the proofs of the existence of God

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego
• Journal: Analiza i Egzystencja. Czasopismo Filozoficzne
• Year: 2011
• Issue: 13
• Pages: 53 – 68

Contributors

author

Piotr Cyciura

• Uniwersytet Kazimierza Wielkiego w Bydgoszczy, Wydział Matematyki, Fizyki i Techniki