“Beauty” and Its Transcendental Status in the Metaphysics of Thomas Aquina

450 Pages·2016·3.79 MB·English

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

The Meaning of “Beauty” and Its Transcendental Status in the Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Faculty of the

School of Philosophy

Of The Catholic University of America

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

By

Michael J. Rubin

Washington, D.C.

2016
The Meaning of “Beauty” and Its Transcendental Status in the Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas

Michael J. Rubin, Ph.D.

Director: John F. Wippel, Ph.D.

This dissertation investigates whether “beauty” is a transcendental in the metaphysics of
Thomas Aquinas. For Thomas, a transcendental is a term that expresses a distinct attribute of
every being insofar as it exists, and which therefore reveals something unique about the nature of
all reality. Hence, the question of whether beauty is a transcendental for Thomas has important
implications not only for his metaphysics, but for his thought in general.
The Introduction argues that the question we are investigating actually consists of two
questions, a historical one and a systematic one: “Did Thomas himself consider beauty to be a
distinct transcendental?” and “Does Thomas’s thought imply or entail that beauty is a distinct
transcendental?” Furthermore, since beauty cannot be a distinct attribute of every being for
Thomas unless it has a distinct meaning, neither question can be answered in isolation from a
third question: “What is the meaning of ‘beauty’ in Thomas’s thought?”
Chapter One examines the historical question regarding beauty’s transcendental status,
namely whether Thomas himself considered beauty a transcendental. The chapter proceeds by
extracting from his writings the characteristics that distinguish the transcendentals from all other
terms, and then determining whether he attributes these marks to beauty.
Chapter Two begins our investigation of the systematic question regarding beauty’s
transcendental status, namely whether Thomas’s metaphysics implies or entails that beauty is a
transcendental. The chapter examines the attempts of certain contemporary Thomists to prove
either that beauty is a transcendental or that it is not.
Our examination of the systematic question concerning beauty’s transcendental status
continues with an analysis of Thomas’s opinions on both the subjective factors of aesthetic
experience, i.e. a person’s perception of and delight in beauty, and the objective factors of that
experience, i.e. the ontological conditions for beauty in a being. Hence, we investigate the nature
of aesthetic perception in Chapter Three, the nature of aesthetic pleasure in Chapter Four, and the
nature of beauty’s conditions in Chapter Five.
The sixth and final chapter uses these findings to formulate a conclusion regarding the
meaning of beauty and its transcendental status in Thomas’s metaphysics.
This dissertation by Michael J. Rubin fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree
in philosophy approved by John F. Wippel, Ph.D., as Director, and by Gregory T. Doolan, Ph.D.,
and Kevin White, Ph.D., as Readers.

John F. Wippel, Ph.D., Director

Gregory T. Doolan, Ph.D., Reader

Kevin White, Ph.D., Reader

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To Mom and Dad,

and to Meghan, Stephanie, Kolbe, and Joseph

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“So I think, Hippias,
that I have been benefited by conversation with both of you;
for I think I know the meaning of the proverb
‘beautiful things are difficult.’”
—Socrates, in Plato’s Hippias Major, 304e

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CONTENTS

Illustrations .................................................................................................................................. ix

Abbreviations................................................................................................................................. x

Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... xii

Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1

A. The Transcendentals for Thomas Aquinas ..................................................................... 1

B. Beauty for Thomas Aquinas ........................................................................................... 6

C. The Phrase “For Thomas Aquinas” .............................................................................. 16

The Structure and Significance of the Present Work ......................................................... 17

Chapter One: The Historical Question

Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 21

A. Thomas’s Texts on the Transcendentals ....................................................................... 21
1. In Sent. I, 8.1.3 .................................................................................................. 23
2. In Sent. I, 19.5.1 ad 3 and corpus ....................................................................... 28
3. De veritate 1.1 ................................................................................................... 34
4. De veritate 21.1 ................................................................................................. 43
5. De veritate 21.3 ................................................................................................. 51
6. Texts before and after the In De divinis nominibus ........................................... 65

B. Thomas’s Texts on Beauty ........................................................................................... 68
1. In Sent. I, 31.2.1 ad 4 ......................................................................................... 69
2. In De divinis nominibus 4.5 ............................................................................... 71
3. Summa Theologiae I, 5.4 ad 1 and I-II, 27.1 ad 3 ............................................. 79

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 82

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Chapter Two: The Systematic Question

Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 88

A. Transcendentalist Arguments for Beauty’s Being a Distinct Transcendental .............. 92
1. Beauty Is the Synthesis or Unity of Other Transcendentals .............................. 93
2. Beauty Is Being as Related to a Third Power of the Soul ................................. 95
3. Beauty Is Being as Related to Both Intellect and Will ...................................... 98
4. Beauty Is Being as Proportioned to the Intellect by Its Perfection .................. 101
5. Aertsen’s Guideline Is Based on a Deficient Account of Adding to Being ..... 106

B. Aertsen’s Arguments against Beauty’s Being a Distinct Transcendental ................... 116
1. There Is No Third Power of the Soul to which Beauty Can Relate ................. 117
2. Goodness Ends the List of Transcendentals as “The Ultimate” ....................... 120
3. Beauty Is an Attribute of Goodness, Not Being ............................................... 123
4. Truth Already Adds to Being What Beauty Adds to Goodness ....................... 131
5. Beauty Is “The Extension of the True to the Good” ........................................ 133

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 144

Chapter Three: The Vision of the Beautiful

Introduction .................................................................................................................... 150

A. Thomas’s Theory of Knowledge ................................................................................ 157
1. The Nature of Knowing for Thomas ................................................................ 157
2. The Process of Human Knowing for Thomas .................................................. 169

B. Candidates for Aesthetic Visio .................................................................................... 181
1. Pre-abstractive Sense-Intellectual Intuition .................................................... 184
2. Connatural Knowledge ................................................................................... 187
3. The Return to the Phantasm ............................................................................. 194

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 200

Chapter Four: The Delight of the Beautiful

Introduction .................................................................................................................... 211

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A. Candidates for Aesthetic Pleasure .............................................................................. 211
1. Pleasures of Sense ........................................................................................... 214
2. Pleasures of Intellect ....................................................................................... 221
i. Pleasure in the Act of Knowing ............................................................ 221
ii. Pleasure in the Thing Known .............................................................. 232

B. Confirmations That Aesthetic Pleasure Is Delight in the Object Known .................... 238
1. The Pain of Ugliness ....................................................................................... 238
2. Non-aesthetic Pleasure in Knowing ............................................................... 240
3. Connatural Knowledge and Aesthetic Judgment ............................................. 243
4. The Exclusion of the Lower Senses from Aesthetic Experience ..................... 245

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 261

Chapter Five: The Objective Conditions for Beauty

Introduction .................................................................................................................... 270

A. The Three Conditions for Beauty ............................................................................... 275
1. Beauty’s Conditions in Themselves ................................................................ 276
i. Integrity or Perfection (Integritas vel Perfectio) .................................. 277
ii. Harmony or Due Proportion (Consonantia vel Debita Proportio) ...... 283
iii. Brightness (Claritas) ......................................................................... 286
2. Beauty’s Conditions in Relation to Each Other ............................................... 298
i. Their Order according to Nature ......................................................... 301
ii. Their Order according to Generation ................................................. 313

B. Beauty, Brightness, and Possession through Vision ................................................... 321
1. The Nature of Comprehensio .......................................................................... 322
2. The Cause of Comprehensio ........................................................................... 331
3. Confirmations That Beauty Causes Comprehensio ......................................... 335

C. Beauty in Thomas’s Metaphysics: The Extension of the True to the Good? .............. 346

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 356

Chapter Six: The Meaning and Transcendental Status of Beauty

Introduction .................................................................................................................... 361

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A. The Meaning of “Beauty” .......................................................................................... 361

B. Beauty and the Marks of the Transcendentals ............................................................. 364
1. The General Mode of Being Expressed by Beauty .......................................... 365
2. Beauty and the Marks according to Reality .................................................... 376
3. Beauty and the Marks according to Meaning ................................................. 378

C. The Last Transcendental ............................................................................................. 380

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 389

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 396

Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 408

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