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BEING
AND EXISTENCE
A Brief
Introduction into the Nature of
Reality
by Jonathan Dolhenty, Ph.D.
PART
EIGHT
We have seen that the ultimate question we
can ask of anything is about its very being. The
term
being is
at first the vague, general being of common sense.
We have disassociated being from its strictly
sensible manifestation and taken it to the highest
abstraction possible. We have investigated the
various kinds of being: real, ideal, and logical.
We have also seen that we must recognize the term
being in an analogical sense, one of
proportionality.
The supreme principles of being are of utmost
importance. We have seen that they are basic to any
understanding of reality.
These principles are:
the principle of identity, the principle of
contradiction, the principle of excluded middle,
and the principle of sufficient
reason.
Oneness or unity, truth
or trueness, and goodness are the transcendental
properties of all being. Beauty and
perfection are general properties of some, but not
necessarily all, being. Besides the most general
aspects of being which are found in common in all
beings, there are special aspects of being which
reveal certain lines of division running through
creation.
We have considered being from the standpoint
of its
intelligibility
and saw that there is a twofold aspect in being:
existence and essence. We have also considered
being from the standpoint of its
action
and saw that the concepts of act and potency give
us another way of dividing the term being. Lastly,
we have considered being from the standpoint of its
existence
as outside our intellects and divided being into
substance, that being which can exist in itself,
and accidental being, that being which must
existence in another.
We have used the concepts of
act and
potency to explain the concept of
change and we have identified and explained the
category of substance and the nine categories of
accidental being.
The study of the causes of being is perhaps
one of the most important studies we make in
metaphysics. We have seen how the four causes,
material, formal,
efficient, and final, explain
reality, becoming, and change in all their fullness
and richness.
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