Volume 20, Issue 2 -

This paper explores the Aristotelian context of the real distinction between existence and essence thought to be posited in Thomas Aquinas’ early work De Ente Et Essentia . In doing so, the paper situates its own position in the context of contemporary scholarship and in relation to the contemporary trend to downplay Aristotle’s influence in Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy. The paper argues that re-reading De Ente Et Essentia in this way sheds new light on some of the crucial debates in contemporary Thomist scholarship, particularly with respect to the analogous relation between potency and act: essence and existence, the distinction between conceptual and causal explanation, and the relationship between philosophy and theology in the thought of Thomas Aquinas.

In the region where some cat sits, there are many very cat-like items that are proper parts of the cat (or otherwise mereologically overlap the cat), but which we are inclined to think are not themselves cats, e.g. all of Tibbles minus the tail. The question is, how can something be so cat-like without itself being a cat. Some have tried to answer this “Problem of the Many” (a problem that arises for many different kinds of things we regularly encounter, including desks, persons, rocks, and clouds) by relying on a mereological maximality principle, according to which, something cannot be a member of a kind K if it is a large proper part of, or otherwise greatly mereologically overlaps, a K. It has been shown, however, that a maximality constraint of this type, i.e. one that restricts mereological overlap, is open to strong objections. Inspired by the insights of, especially, Sutton and Madden, I develop a type of functional- maximality principle that avoids these objections (and has other merits), and thereby provides a better answer to the Problem of the Many.

I argue that it is not acceptable to restrict the claim that linguistic types are concrete entities (type-concretism) to some categories of linguistic types (such as words or proper names), while at the same time conceding that other categories of linguistic types (such as sentence types) are abstract entities. Moreover, I suggest a way in which type-concretism can be extended to every linguistic type, thereby responding to the so-called productivity objection to type-concretism, according to which, whenever tokens of a type t are produced in different, causally isolated circumstances, then t needs to be identified by a certain form or structure. This extension of type-concretism detaches type-concretism from so-called originalism and gives rules a prominent role in type-concretism.

Many have written about trope ontology, but relatively few have considered its implications for some of the ontological conditions needed for us to have knowledge. I explore the resources of trope ontology to meet those conditions. With J. P. Moreland, I argue that, being simple, we can eliminate tropes’ qualitative contents without ontological loss, resulting in bare individuators. Then I extend Moreland’s argument, arguing that tropes undermine some of the needed ontological conditions for knowledge. Yet, we do know many things, and trope nominalists presuppose that too. Therefore, I consider three counter-arguments, starting with David Lewis’s rebuttal based on appeal to brute facts. Second, I explore Jeffrey Brower’s recent proposal as a possible solution. Last, I consider Robert Garcia’s recent distinction between module and modifier tropes, to see if it can be of assistance. I conclude, however, that trope nominalism cannot preserve some of the needed ontology to have knowledge.

In his “Are Properties, Particular, Universal, or Neither?” Javier Cumpa argues that science not metaphysics explains how properties are instantiated. I accept this conclusion provided physics can be stated using rather few primitive predicates. In addition, he uses his scientific theory of instantiation to argue for Neutralism, his thesis that the “tie” between properties and their instances implies neither that properties are particular nor that they are universals. Neutralism, I claim, is a thesis that realist about universals have independent reason to accept and their opponents have reason to reject. So, neutralism is not neutral on the topic of whether properties are universals. Nor is Cumpa’s Theory of Instantiation as naturalistic as he claims. I argue that although compatible with Ontological Naturalism, his theory provides a precedent for the non-naturalistic emergence of mental properties. Finally, I argue that because his theory requires a simple physics it presupposes a more rationalist epistemology than that of Methodological Naturalism.