Peter Thomae's Definition of Form

I've been working through Peter Thomae's unpublished De formis, a treatise that like all his treatises defies assignment to a classical medieval genre. Is it natural philosophy? Or metaphysics? It is a thorough investigation utilizing all the knowledge about form from the middle ages. My interest in it is partially because I am comitted to publish it as part of the general Petri Thomae opera series, but also because of its relation, or non-relation to Scotus. As is well known, Scotus left us no commentary or set of questions on the Physics. His followers then had to fill in the gap and develop a "scotist" natural philosophy. Peter seems to use the available works on Scouts, which I suppose is unsurprsing. He relies on the De primo principio for the relation of matter and form, and sometimes cites Scotus' Quaestiones super Metaphysicam and Ordinatio as well. Peter Thomae also uses more Aquinas in this work than he does in others. While elsewhere Peter has a decidedly non-adversarial approach to Aquinas (quoting Aquinas on the primacy of the concept of being without taking him to task over the object of the intellect), here in the De formis Peter is more critical.

Sadly, the De formis survives in only 1 manuscript, that is heavily damaged, and the scribe is the same one from the De esse intelligibili, who is  an extremely poor copyist. Thus this may well be the most challenging entry in the Petri Thomae opera.

Here is Peter's description of form from the beginning of the work, after he has surveyed the definitions of Aristotle, Averroes, Augustine, and Avicenna. Following the definition he breaks it down word by word in true medieval style and offers commentary on it.

Quaestiones de formis, q. 1 a. 2:

forma est pars essentialis compositi, alterius eiusdem partis actuativa simpliciter, ab eo tamen dependens in fieri et in esse, vel in esse tantum vel compositi, principaliter essentiativa vel specificativa.

Form is an essential part of the composite, absolutely actuating the other part of the composite, yet depending upon it both in being and in becoming, or in the being alone of the composite, essentiating and specifying [the composite].

Thomism leads to ... nominalism (?)

The theory of plural substantial forms is not a problem for the Platonist mind-set [i.e., for Bonaventure]. However, the view of the rational soul as the form of the human body [i.e., Thomas's view] is a problem, for this view seems to cast considerable doubt on the possibility of the soul's immortality. Furthermore, the unicity doctrine implies that form is not being, since such a union could only take place if essence and existence are really distinct and enter into composition. Conversely, if form is being, and essence and existence are not really distinct, a plurality of substantial forms, when hypostasized or instantiated in an individual, remain distinct though hierarchically ordered. The unicity doctrine seems a first step on the slippery slope to nominalism.

--Christopher Cullen, Bonaventure (Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 50

Reportatio Statements on the Plurality of Forms

Scotus has often been accused by certain people of violating the Council of Vienne's censure of Olivi's position on the plurality of substantial forms. Thomists would have us belive that Vienne endorsed the Thomistic unicity of substantial form, though Ludwig Ott believes that the Council was only censuring an extreme view, not affirming the Thomistic view and closing the discussion. At issue is the relation of the intellective soul to the body. According to Ott (p. 97 of the "Fundamentals"), the intellective soul is the per se form of the body.

Scotus' view in Ordinatio IV is that there are two substantial forms in the human composite, the intellective soul and the form of the body. He sees humans as being consituted by a series of potency-act relationships, a situation in which lower elements (bones, organs) are in potency to higher, more complex elements. The top of this little pyramid is the intellective soul which brings the ultimate actuality to the substance. He is aware of the Thomistic position and criticizes it extensively. In short, he denies Thomas' view that there can be only one substantial form per esse, instead holding that all these various grades of form have a partial esse, which join together to form the single, complete esse of the substance. In these discussions he is also quite clear that the intellective soul is the form of the body, though there is also a mediate actuality of the body as such, the forma corporeitatis (which, I think can better account for such things as organ transplants or persistent vegetative states than can the Thomistic view, to say nothing of the rather absurd consequence in the latter view that upon death the substanial form of a man is replaced by the numerically different substantial form of a corpse).

I came across the following passage in Reportatio IA, which is also quite explicit on the role of the intellective soul to the body (d.2 pars 3 q.4 n 218-219); the general context is that he is giving four arguments for there being no contradiction between holding that there is a unity of essence with trinity of persons in divinis. This consitutes his third argument.

"Tertio hoc idem declaratur ex ratione infinitatis divinae. Et pono exemplum familiarius de anima intellective quae tota est in toto et tota in qualibet parte, ita quod in anima perfectionis est quod sine sui divisione det esse totale pluribus partibus corporis eo quod tota in toto etc. Et in hoc excedit omnes formas materiales quae certam partem corporis perficiunt.

Tria autem sunt imperfectionis in anima intellectiva prout perficit corpus. Primo quod dat esse per informationem materiae; secundum quod non dat totale esse corpori, sed esse partiale ut esse intellectum; tertium quod plures partes eiusdem totius quas perficit, sunt distinctae realiter eo quod non dat partibus distinctis alicuius tertii esse. Ergo ablatis isti imperfectionibus, reservando quod est perfectionis in ea, possible est manuduci in aliam essentiam quae det esse totale, non per informationem, pluribus distinctis quae non sunt partes alicuius totius et quae erunt per se subsistentes. Et sic potest intelligi una essentia numero esse in tribus personis."

Translation:
Third, this same conclusion is declared from the notion of divine infinity. And I give a more familiar example about the intellective soul, which is total in the total and total in every part so that in the soul it is of perfection that without division of itself it gives total being to many parts of the body, because it is total in total, etc. And in this it exceeds all material forms which perfect a certain part of the body.

Three things are of imperfection in the intellective soul insofaras it perfects a body. First that it gives being through the information of matter; second that it does not give total being to the body, but partial being as intellectual being [esse intellectum]; third that many parts of the same whole which it perfects, are distinct really because it does not give to distinct parts the being of some third thing. Therefore with those imperfections removed, and by reserving what is of perfection in it, it is possible to think of another essence which gives total being, not by informing, to many distinct things which are not parts of some whole and which would be subsisting per se. And so can be understood the idea of an essence one in number with three persons.

This Just In-Unicity of Substantial Form Condemned!

Well, according to Roger Marston. Here's a quote I came across in Gilson's history but haven't been able to track down the latin. This is a quote from one of Roger Marston's Quodlibets, reporting an incident that Gilson thinks happened around 1270. p. 417

"I was in Paris, and I heard it with my own bodily ears, at the inception of the Precentor of Peronne, before master Gerard of Abbeville, in the presence of brother Thomas Aquinas, of brother John of Peckham and of about twenty-four other doctors in sacred theology, when this opinion was solemnly excommunicated as contrary to the teaching of the Saints, particularly of Augsutine and Anselm, as was made manifest by the opposition."

Fr. Emery on Thomas on Spiritual Matter

Here's one for Michael, from Gilles Emery, OP, "Trinity, Church, and the Human Person". A collection of essays we are reading through the ethics and culture center (all translations, often awkward, from Emery's original french).

"By definition, form is act. This definition excludes the possibility of any matter entering into the composition of the soul itself, as was suggested by St. Bonaventure, among others. Following the Jewish philosopher Avicebron, and more distantly, St. Augustine, the Franciscan master effectively taught that the soul contains some kind of matter, a spiritual matter (materia spiritualis) that bears witness to its creataurely status. St. Thomas criticizes this conception of the soul for its metaphysical inconsistency. Since the soul is created, it includes composition: a composition not of matter and form, but of essence and participated existence. Like every creature, its essence (what it is) is not identical with its exiwtence, which it receives from God at the moment of creation."

This is in an essay on the unicity of the substantial form in Thomas. Like all of Fr. Emery's essays, its framed within contemporary debate; the point is that Thomas doesn't fall prey to contemporary claims that posit a dichotomy between dualism and biblical wholism (ie, various protestants). Once again, we learn that Thomas really is relevant in today's world. Emery is better than most Thomist scholars, despite the criticisms (far more extensive than what i've whined about before), in that he at least mentions the fact that there were other theologians than st. Thomas, and sometimes even quotes them in latin. But there're ultimately just the frame for Thomas's greatness. The usual tedious historiographical tale. I'm still reading the essay, and so far Emery hasn't mentioned the Eucharist, one of the fault lines in which the unicity thesis is shown to be implausible. One also wonders what St. Thomas would have made of organ transplants; the organ is still alive, but removed from the body which is actualized by the single substantial form. I am tempted to say that the only options are substantial form and form of the corpse. Presumably the latter, as it is a form and therefore has some actuality that might continue on in an organ separated from its original body, though being taken into a second body seems problematic. All in all, the Scotist line seems easier to maintain, with various bodily organs, bones, CNS, being separate forms of some kind, all ordered in potency-act relations to higher forms until you reach the rational soul at the top. An organ removed from this setup would have its own actuality once separated from the chain.

separate question: does Thomas think that the intellect is active, functioning (ie, are we thinking) at all times?

Plurality of (Substantial) Forms

One of the issues that arose in the discussion in the 1277 post was the compatibility of Scotus's views on the plurality of forms and the intellectual soul's relation to the body. In my continued reading of the (long) question mentioned in the post de materia, I came across some comments that are related to some of the wider issues of the plurality of forms, though it does not directly touch on whether or not the intellective soul is the form of the body. Scotus thinks that it is, but he does not say so clearly here. One thing that is clear is that Scotus, while deciding in favor of a plurality of forms against Aquinas, does partially accept the latter's view that there can only be one esse per being. Partially, in that Scotus thinks there is an ultimate form that interacts "completive" with the previous forms that dispose matter so that it can receive the intellective soul (either the forma corporeitatis or the forma mixti).

Now for some Scotus. Scotus is here responding to an argument identified by the commentator in the wadding-vives to be that of Aquinas: "of one being (ens) there is one act of being (esse). one act of being (esse) is from one form. therfore of one being (entis) there is one form." To this Scotus takes issue with the second proposition, and makes a number of interesting comments that I will be quoting here.

Ord. IV d. 11 q. 3 (whether the bread can be transubstantiated):

"To the first, I grant the first proposition, that of one being there is one act of being; but the second, that one act of being requires only one form, should be denied, by taking 'act of being (esse)' uniformly in the major and the minor. For just as being (ens) and one are divided into the simple and the composite, so also to be (esse) and to be one (or one 'to be': ita esse et unum esse) is distinguished into to be such and such; therefore to be (esse) per se one does not determine itself precisely simple (?? non determinat sibi esse simplex praecise), just as neither something divided determines for itself precisely the other of the dividing ones. In that way there is one act of being (esse) of the entire composite, and nevertheless it includes many partial acts of being, just as the total is one being (ens), and nevertheless has many partial entities. For I know not (nescio quid) that fiction, that esse is something supervening to a non-composed essence, if essence is composite.. In this way the esse of the entire composite includes the being (esse) of all the parts, and includes many partial esse's of many parts or forms, just as a total being (ens) from many forms includes thos partial actualities.

"If, nevertheless, there be made any force in speech, I grant that the formal esse of the total composite is principally through one form, and that form is that by which the total composite is this being, that however is the ultimate advening to all the preceding (forms); and in this way the total composite is divided into two essential parts, in its proper act, namely ultimate form, by which it is that which it is, and proper potency of that act, which includes prime matter with all the preceding forms. And in that manner I grant that that total being (esse) is completed by one form, which gives to the total that which it is. But from this it does not follow, that in that total is included precisely one form, or that in the total are included many forms, not just as specifically constituting that composite, but just as certain things included in the potentiality of that composite."

The wider context of this (if anyone is interested) is that of eucharistic conversion. Aquinas holds (and here Scotus agrees) that transubstantiation entails a conversion of the matter and the form of the bread into the matter and form of Christ. Scotus thinks Thomas's view is problematic because of the latters' thesis of the unicity of the substantial form. The identity of the terminus ad quem is supplied by the words of institution: the body of Christ. On Aquinas's view, the body of Christ is the term of the change and the soul is only present by natural concomitance, that is, what is present naturally in the body of Christ. But it isn't the term of the change. Aquinas tries to get around it with a clipped remark that since the intellective soul virtually contains all the lower functions, one of which is esse corporeum, this lower function can act in place of the soul. Scotus attacks this as insufficient due to the fact that the functions of the soul (on Aquinas's view) amount to only being distinct by reason and instead postulates that the terminus ad quem must instead be the forma corporeitatis of Christ.

One could ramble on all day about this stuff.