Metaphysics and Ontology III

C.  The Question of Potency and Actuality in Incorporeal Creatures and the Possibility of Universal Hylomorphism 

While those defending a real distinction between esse and essentia regarded the latter as in potency to actualization by the former, those rejecting it simply conceived potency as all of that which God could have brought about, even though He had perhaps not done so.  Accordingly, those in the first camp could speak of a "subjective potency" (potentia subjectiva) of the essentia toward existence, while those in the second claimed there was only an "objective potency" (potentia objective) of the nonexistent esse/essentia complex toward existence (Wippel, p. 407).  While subjective potency presupposes there is a subject which could either have existence or not, objective potency simply asserts that while a substance with its qualities in fact does not exist, it nonetheless could.  Thinking of existence E as a predicate, the first claims that there is an x such that Ex, while the second that there is not an x such that Ex.

Universal hylomorphism approached the question by claiming that the form/matter distinction applies to all of created reality, even the realm of the incorporeal.  Advocates included Roger Bacon, Bonaventure and Gonsalvus of Spain.  Critics were legion, including William of Auvergne, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and Godrey of Fountains.  Those of the first camp generally regarded Avicebron or Augstine as adumbrating their own views, while thinkers of the second group appealed to Aristotle in substantiating their position.  Thinkers divided on the notion of prime matter, with advocates of universal hylomorphism tending to opt for a realm of pure potentiality, e.g., Albert, Thomas, Siger and Giles.  The Franciscans, on the other hand, seemingly advocated that any definite matter whatsoever had some degree of actualization, because actualization is necessary for matter to be definite and particular. Representatives included Richard of Middleton, Scotus, Henry of Ghent and William of Ockham.

D.  The Question of Universals 

 Plato had famously held that universals such as 'man' and 'whiteness' exist part from their instantiation in existent objects.  Those committed to such a view in the Middle Ages are generally termed "realists," asserting that universals are real regardless of their worldly exemplification and  their relationship to the thinker.  Moderate realists, on the other hand, claimed to be following Aristotle in holding that natures really do exist in individual things of which they are their natures.  If a bovine nature exists in Gertrude, Bessy and Bossie -- a general nature by virtue of which each of the three is a cow -- what is it that ultimately individuates Gertrude from Bessie and Bossie?   Is it the accidents of Gertrude that make her not Bessy?  But this seems wrong on Aristotelian grounds because the primary substances which Gertrude and Bessy are must individuate apart from any accidents.  But what could be a metaphysical constituent of a substance that individuates particular cows?  If not an accident, then perhaps it could be an individual nature.  Yet if such a nature exists, what is its relationship to the general nature by which each of the three individuals are cattle?  These issues dominated metaphysical discussion in the fourteenth century.

Duns Scotus famously argued the general nature common to each individual, must someone exist in each individual without a possibility of existing apart from some individual or other.  If Jack is going to be more similar to Jill than a tugboat, then there must be something common to Jack and Jill that is not found in Jack and the tugboat.  This common nature, which exists apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language, is nonetheless not numerically one.  Marilyn McCord Adams writes that for Scotus, "human nature is numerically one in Socrates and numerically many in numerically many distinct particulars, or thisnesses, that are numerically one and particular of themselves and that contract the nature, which is common of itself, rendering the nature numerically one and particular as well" (Adams, "Universals in the Fourteenth Century," Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, p. 413).  Just as Socrates is particularly white by virtue of the inherence of whiteness in him, so is he particularly Socrates by virtue of the particular contraction of the general nature in him.  Accordingly, human nature cannot be universal in re because it is not numerically one and particular in itself.  For Scotus, it is simply axiomatic that nothing predicable of many can be numerically one and particular.  But while the universal cannot exist in re because it is neither numerically one and particular, Scotus admits that it can exist in mente as an object of thought.

Scotus' position is that the nature which is one from the standpoint of what it denominates, is nonetheless many in numerically distinct particulars.  So what is the relationship of this one and many?  Here Soctus introduces his notion of a formal distinction: "The nature and contracting difference are formally distinct, or not formally the same" (Adams, p. 414).  While Scotus offers different metaphysical accounts of how this is possible, he seems to settle on discriminating between a distinctio simpliciter and a distinctio secundum quid.  While every man is an animal, and man is not metaphysically distinct from animal, they are formally distinct in that animal has "more perfection" than man because it can be predicated of more things (Adams, p. 416).  

William of Ockham took a very dim view of Scotus' metaphysical machinations stating, in fact, that Scotus' position is internally incoherent.  He has a number of arguments that I won't rehearse here.  Maybe the best of his arguments is the following:

• Scotus holds that the principle of individuation (e.g., what makes Socrates Socrates) or contracting difference is numerically one and particular, and thus cannot be common to numerically distinct particulars.  (Assumption 1)
• He also assumes that the nature and contracting difference are formally distinct, that is, not formally the same.  (Assumption 2)
• According to Ockham, however, on assumption 1 it is not metaphysically (or logically) possible for the humanity of Socrates to exist without Socrateity.  This is the case, even though it is logically possible for Socrates to exist without a particular whiteness existing in him.  
• More generally, no contracting principle that operates on a general nature to particularize it is contingently instantializable; e.g., the humanity in Socrates can only be Socrates' humanity and the humanity in Plato can only be Plato's humanity. Therefore, it is not possible that one and the same nature can exist in many things.  (Contradicting Assumption 2)

There are a number of other positions in the fourteenth century that deserve at least some mention.  Walter Burley attempts a moderate realism claiming that "the whole universal (secundum se totum) exists in each of its particulars and is not numerically multiplied by its existence in numerically distinct particulars" (Adams, p. 423).  Henry of Harclay, along with Ockham, attacked Burley's views, the former holding that "everything that exists in reality is essentially singular -- i.e., logically incapable of existing or, as a constituent of, numerically many simultaneously" (429).   Henry believes that individual substances act on the intellect in two ways, either confusedly or distinctly: "The universal is a thing confusedly conceived, and a particular is the same thing distinctly conceived" (430).   A universal and particular are thus the same thing, although they are distinct in reason.  (One might say, they could be described differently.)  Throughout the 14th century nominalism gained strength, even if it was not always able to show that its realist opponents were committed to explicit contradiction.  At some point, the attempt to save realist vocabulary seemed to many disputants simply obscurantist with regard to the underlying metaphysical facts.