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Aquinas, the Plotiniana Arabica, and the Metaphysics of Being and Actuality

Aquinas, the Plotiniana Arabica, and the Metaphysics of Being and Actuality Richard C. Taylor Historians of Western philosophy have long thought that the Liber de causis played an important role in the formation of metaphysical thinking in the Latin West following its translation in the mid-twelfth century.1 This was clearly based on the incorporation of this work into required philosophical studies at the University of Paris and elsewhere as well as on the frequent citation of or even commentary on the doctrines of the Liber de causis. The text generated at least 27 different Latin commentaries and is extant today in Latin in nearly 240 manuscripts.2 Doctrinally, the text played a very significant role in the thought of philosophers and theologians of the thirteenth century, particularly with its notion of being as alone caused in things by God, who is described as esse tantum and ens primum.3 Both notions were used by Thomas Aquinas as early as the time when he wrote his De ente et essentia, in which he asserted that God's essence and quiddity are his being and that the notion of God as pure being or esse tantum is not to be understood as formed by abstraction upon the Thanks to the American Philosophical Society and http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of the History of Ideas University of Pennsylvania Press

Aquinas, the Plotiniana Arabica, and the Metaphysics of Being and Actuality

Journal of the History of Ideas , Volume 59 (2) – Apr 1, 1998

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Publisher
University of Pennsylvania Press
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 The Journal of the History of Ideas, Inc..
ISSN
1086-3222
Publisher site
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Abstract

Richard C. Taylor Historians of Western philosophy have long thought that the Liber de causis played an important role in the formation of metaphysical thinking in the Latin West following its translation in the mid-twelfth century.1 This was clearly based on the incorporation of this work into required philosophical studies at the University of Paris and elsewhere as well as on the frequent citation of or even commentary on the doctrines of the Liber de causis. The text generated at least 27 different Latin commentaries and is extant today in Latin in nearly 240 manuscripts.2 Doctrinally, the text played a very significant role in the thought of philosophers and theologians of the thirteenth century, particularly with its notion of being as alone caused in things by God, who is described as esse tantum and ens primum.3 Both notions were used by Thomas Aquinas as early as the time when he wrote his De ente et essentia, in which he asserted that God's essence and quiddity are his being and that the notion of God as pure being or esse tantum is not to be understood as formed by abstraction upon the Thanks to the American Philosophical Society and

Journal

Journal of the History of IdeasUniversity of Pennsylvania Press

Published: Apr 1, 1998

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