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Aquinas on The Distinction Between Esse and Esse:

How the Name ‘Esse’ Signifies Essence in Metaphysics Δ.7

Symposium Thomisticum: Aquinas and the Greeks

Athens, Greece; June 7–9, 2018

Gregory T. Doolan ©
The Catholic University of America
doolan@cua.edu

In the philosophical thought of Thomas Aquinas, few teachings are as

foundational as his doctrine of esse as the act of existing (actus essendi). God, he argues,

is esse by his very essence and, hence, a subsisting esse. By contrast, in every other

being, its esse is really distinct from its essence. The reader familiar with these teachings

might be surprised, then, to find Aquinas stating at times that in fact the term ‘esse’

can also be used to signify essence—the very metaphysical principle that he takes such

care to show must be distinct from the act of existing.1 Given the importance of this

metaphysical distinction in Aquinas’s thought, one might wonder why he would present

the term ‘esse’ as signifying essence at all?2 Moreover, one might ask how seriously we

should take these statements as reflecting his own views regarding the term ‘esse’?

Lending to the latter question is the fact that those texts in which Aquinas most

clearly voices the position that the term ‘esse’ can signify essence occur in one of his

earliest works, the Scriptum Super Sententiis (1252–56).3 For example, in the context of

1 For examples and references, see below.

2 Some valuable scholarly treatments of this question are offered by Joseph Owens, “The Accidental

and Essential Character of Being in the Doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas,” Mediaeval Studies 20 (1958): 1–
40; Ralph McInerny, “Being and Predication,” in Being and Predication: Thomistic Interpretations, vol. 16,
Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press, 1986), 173–228. This chapter includes two earlier published articles: "Some Notes on Being and
Predication," The Thomist 22 (1959): 315–35, and “Notes on Being and Predication,” Laval théologique et
philosophique 15 (1959): 236–74.

3 All dating of Thomas’s works follows Jean-Pierre Torrell’s Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin, vol. 1,

Sa personne et son œuvre, Nouvelle édition profondément remaniée (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2015).
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considering whether the Divine Relations are the divine essence itself, Aquinas notes

that “‘Esse’ is said in three ways:

[1] In one way, ‘esse’ names the very quiddity, or nature, of a thing …
[2] In another way ‘esse’ names the very act of an essence …
[3] In a third way, ‘esse’ names what signifies the truth of the composition in propositions,
inasmuch as it is called the ‘copula’.4

Given the early date of such texts, one possible explanation for such statements

could be that they are a youthful semantic indiscretion, later to be abandoned by the

mature Aquinas. Another possible explanation is that these statements are intended

merely to acknowledge a common usage by others of the term ‘esse’. Until recently,

these sorts of explanations would have been my own. But a careful review of Aquinas’s

corpus in light of both his metaphysics and semantics reveals that such explanations

dismissively “explain away” a view that Aquinas in fact consistently holds as his own

throughout his career, namely that the term ‘esse’—along with its related grammatical

forms ‘ens’ and ‘est’—can signify essence.

Here it should be acknowledged that Aquinas’s threefold distinction quoted above

concerning being departs from his more common twofold distinction. One noteworthy

example is at the outset of De ente et essentia, where he observes that “As the

Philosopher says in Metaphysics Δ, per se being (ens) can be said in two ways: [1] in one

way as it is divided by the ten categories, [2] in another way as it signifies the truth of

propositions.”5 Here, we see Aquinas clearly acknowledging the influence of Aristotle for

4 Emphasis added. Scriptum super libros Sententiarum magistri Petri Lombardi episcopi Parisiensis,
vol. 1 (hereafter Super Sententiis I), d. 33, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1, ed. P. Mandonnet (Paris: Lethielleux, 1929), 765–
66: “Sed sciendum, quod esse dicitur tripliciter. Uno modo dicitur esse ipsa quidditas vel natura rei, sicut
dicitur quod definitio est oratio significans quid est esse; definitio enim quidditatem rei significat. Alio modo
dicitur esse ipse actus essentiae; sicut vivere, quod est esse viventibus, est animae actus; non actus
secundus, qui est operatio, sed actus primus. Tertio modo dicitur esse quod significat veritatem
compositionis in propositionibus, secundum quod est dicitur copula: et secundum hoc est in intellectu
componente et dividente quantum ad sui complementum; sed fundatur in esse rei, quod est actus essentiae,
sicut supra de veritate dictum est.” Mandonnet notes that the Parma edition has ‘dupliciter’ instead of
‘triplicter’ (766).

5 De ente et essentia (hereafter De ente), c. 1 in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 43

(Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1976; 369:1–5): “Sciendum est igitur quod, sicut in V Methaphisice
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this twofold distinction. How, we might ask, does the threefold distinction relate to this

twofold one? To make matters more complicated, the very text that Aquinas cites from

Metaphysics Δ.7 as support for his twofold distinction in fact provides a fourfold

distinction. How, then, do these other sets of distinctions relate to Aristotle’s fourfold

distinction?

As I intend to show, if we address the more basic question of why Aquinas thinks

the term ‘esse’ can signify essence, we will be in a better position to answer all of these

questions. In particular, by looking at Aquinas’s semantic thought, we will have a better

sense of how, exactly, he reads Aristotle’s account of being in Metaphysics Δ.7. To this

end, my paper will have three parts. (1) First, I will offer a brief chronological review of

the texts in which Aquinas draws either a twofold or threefold distinction regarding what

esse and ens signify (see Table 1, p. 5). My concern here will be, in particular, to

highlight his treatment of essence in these considerations. (2) Then, I will offer a brief

overview of Aquinas’s account of signification to provide a frame of reference to consider

how the terms ‘ens’ and ‘esse’ could signify essence. (3) Next, I will look at Aquinas’s

Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics to see where he sees this quidditative sense of

‘esse’ at work in Δ.7. (4) Finally, I will offer some concluding thoughts in which I consider

how Aquinas views this quidditative sense of ‘esse’ to be related to the other senses of

being outlined by Aristotle in Metaphysics Δ.7.

I. Textual References Chronologically Considered

Aquinas’s observation that being is said in two ways appears numerous times

throughout his corpus. Sometimes this observation is presented in term of ‘ens’ and

sometimes in terms of ‘esse’. As we have already seen, on occasion he notes that being

Philosophus dicit, ens per se dupliciter dicitur: uno modo quod diuiditur per decem genera, alio modo quod
significat propositionum ueritatem.”
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is said in three ways. Aquinas draws these distinctions most frequently to explain how

evil can be said ‘to be’ even though it is a privation. At other times, he does so to explain

how we can know the ‘is’ in the assertion “Deus est” even though we do not know the

esse that is God’s essence. And, still other times, he draws these distinctions in order

to address whether and how there can be many esses in Christ.6 The question I am

interested in here, however, is less about the context than the observations themselves

and what Aquinas means by them.

In order to compare the various relevant texts, and to do so in a manageable way,

I have produced below Table 1 cataloging these observations about the term ‘ens’ and

‘esse’ throughout Aquinas’s corpus. This catalog does not pretend to be exhaustive, but

it is intended to be thorough.7 In reviewing Table 1, the reader should keep in mind the

following principles of presentation:

Col. 1: Indicates the chronological order of texts within time periods.8

Col. 4: Identifies the term Aquinas focuses on in that text (‘ens’ or ‘esse’), as well as the
number of ways he notes, there, that the term is said.

Cols. 5–7: Each cell in these columns states one of the ways in which ‘ens’ or ‘esse’ is said,
listed in the order in which Aquinas presents them in that text. For all of these
texts, the original Latin is provided in an Appendix to this paper. My summaries
in these columns attempt to be as true to his phrasing as possible.
(One liberty I have taken, however, is to simplify and standardize the phrases
decem genera and decem praedicamenta as ‘categories’, since those are what
Aquinas clearly has in mind).

Framed Cells: These highlight texts where Aquinas explicitly observes that ‘ens’ or ‘esse’
signifies essentia (or a conceptually related notion such as quidditas and natura).

For these different contexts, the reader can examine the quotations provided in the Appendix to
6

this paper.

7 The texts identified in this table were located in part through a search through the work of prior

scholarship and in part through searches of the Index Thomisticus (e.g., [ens/esse *2 dicitur *2
dupliciter/tripliciter]). For prior work in this area, see Hermann Weidemann, “The Logic of Being in Thomas
Aquinas,” in The Logic of Being, ed. Simo Knuuttila and Jaakko Hintikka, vol. 28, Synthese Historical
Library (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1986), 181–200; Gyula Klima, “The Semantic
Principles Underlying Saint Thomas Aquinas’s Metaphysics of Being,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 5
(1996): esp. 92, n. 9; Gyula Klima, “Aquinas’ Theory of the Copula and the Analogy of Being,” Logical
Analysis and History of Philosophy 5 (2002): esp. 160, n. 1.

8 As noted before, dating of texts follows Jean-Pierre Torrell’s Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin, vol.

1, Sa personne et son œuvre.

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Table 1:
Texts on Ways that ‘Being’ is Said
Ways in Which
Date Text Source In One Way In Another Way In a Third Way
Ens/Esse is Said

Divided by the categories.

De ente Ens: ‘Essence’ taken from ens Signifies the truth of
1 N/A
c. 1 2 Ways said in this way. Thus, ens propositions
signifies the essence of a thing.
Ens [sic] signifies Esse signifies
Sup. Sent. I Esse:
2 the essence of things composition made by N/A
19.5.1 ad 1 2 Ways
divided by the categories the mind: the true.

Sup. Sent. I Esse: Signifies the truth of Signifies the act of

3 N/A
28.2.3 expos. 2 Ways a composition an essence

Signifies as copula
Sup. Sent. I Esse: Said of the quiddity, Said of the act
1252–56 4 truth of composition in
33.1.1 ad 1 3 Ways or nature, of a thing of an essence
propositions; in intellect

Signifies something Signifies the truth

Sup. Sent. II Ens:
5 existens in natura. of a proposition; in intellect N/A
34.1.1 co. 2 Ways
Divided by the categories composing and dividing

Sup. Sent. II Ens: Signifies the essence of a thing Signifies the truth
6 N/A
37.1.2 ad 3. 2 Ways extra animam existens of a proposition

Names what belongs

Esse: As copula, signifies Sometimes taken for
Sup. Sent. III to a thing’s nature.
7 2 Ways the truth of a proposition. the essence according to
6.2.2 co. Divided by the categories.
(Aquinas adds a 3rd) Not in things, but in mind. which a thing is
In a thing as act.
[Subdivisions of 2nd way
As act of a being qua being.
As copula signifying provided to account for esse
Xmas Quodlibet IX Esse: Denominates something as
8 composition of enunciation. of substances, accidents,
1257 2.2 [3] co. 2 Ways ens in rerum natura.
This esse is only in the mind. forms, substantial parts,
Divided by the categories.
and accidental being.]

SCG III Ens: Signifies essence of a thing; Signifies the truth

1259–65 9 N/A
9.9 2 Ways is divided by the categories of a composition

Signifies either
De potentia Ens AND Esse: Signifies the truth
1265–66 10 • the essence of a thing N/A
7.2 ad 1 2 Ways of a proposition
• or the act of existing
Signifies the composition
Summa theol. I Esse: Signifies the act of a proposition; mind
11 N/A
3.4 ad 2 2 Ways of existing discovers by joining
1265–68 subject & predicate
Signifies the truth
Summa theol. I Ens: Signifies entitas rei as it is
12 of a proposition. N/A
48.2 ad 2 2 Ways divided by the categories.
Answers question an est.

After
De malo Ens: Signifies a nature Answers the question
March 13 N/A
1.1 ad 19 2 Ways of the categories an est
1266
Divided by categories and
Signifies the composition signifies natures of the
In Metaph. X Ens:
1270–72 14 of a proposition and is an categories, inasmuch as N/A
3.1982 2 Ways
accidental predicate. they are EITHER in act
OR in potency
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As we look over these texts, a few common features stand out, along with some

noteworthy differences. The first common feature, present in almost all of these texts,

is Aquinas’s account of a sense of being that signifies the truth of a composition in a

proposition. Considering this sense of being, he makes clear in some of these texts (4,

7, 8) his view that the verb ‘est’ functions in this way as a copula, joining together

subject and predicate terms. For this reason, he notes at times that ‘esse’ taken in this

way is present in the mind and not in things (2, 7, 8). The one text in which Aquinas

does not present this sense of being with his usual terminology of ‘composition,’

‘enunciaton,’ ‘proposition,’ or ‘truth’ is t.13 from the De malo. There, he notes instead

that one sense of ‘ens’ answers the question an est: “Does it exist?” Nevertheless, it is

clear that he has in mind here the propositional sense of being if we consider what

Aquinas notes in t.12, namely that the sense of ‘ens’ that signifies the truth of a

proposition, which consists in a composition, is the sense that answers the question an

est.9 For simplicity sake, let us call this sense of being “the propositional sense” of being,

or simply “propositional being”.

A second common feature of these texts is Aquinas’s identification of another

sense of being that is divided by the categories (1, 2, 5, 7–9, 12–14). Here we have nine

of the fourteen texts indicating what is clearly the fundamental character of this sense

of being. Let us call this the “categorial sense” of being, or simply “categorial being”.

Thomas is clear in several of these texts that—whereas propositional being is present

9 Moreover, in this text from De malo Aquinas is concerned with answering the question of whether
evil is something (aliquid). His answer is similar to those other texts in which he identifies the propositional
sense when considering evil: although it is a privation and, as such, has no nature, it can be said ‘to be’
according to this propositional sense by which a subject term is joined together with a predicate in a true
proposition. See, e.g., texts 9, 12, 13.
On the how the propositional sense of being answers the question an est, see Weidemann, “The
Logic of Being,” esp. 183–86; C. F. J. Martin, “The Notion of Existence Used in Answering an est?,” in
Thomas Aquinas: God and Explanations (Ediburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997), 50–79; Lawrence
Dewan, O.P., “Which Esse Gives the Answer to the Question: ‘Is It?’ for St. Thomas,” Doctor Communis N.S.
3 (2002): 80–97; Stephen L. Brock, “Thomas Aquinas and ‘What Actually Exists,’” in Wisdom’s Apprentice:
Thomistic Essays in Honor of Lawrence Dewan, O.P., ed. Peter A. Kwasniewski (Washington, DC: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 13–39.
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only in the mind—categorial being sense signifies something existens in natura, or in

rerum natura (5, 8), i.e. outside of the mind in reality. Within this basic commonality of

categorial being found in this Table 1, however, we find one of the more striking

differences between texts. Sometimes Aquinas presents the categorial sense of being as

signifying essence (1, 2, 9, 13), whereas other times he presents it as signifying act: the

act of a being qua being, or of its essence (7, 8).10 Let us call the former the “quidditative

sense” of being and the latter the “actuality sense” of being. 11 Which, then, is the

categorial sense of being? The quidditative sense, the actuality sense, or perhaps both?

We will need to return to this question, but not until Part IV of this essay.

First, however, we should consider that when presenting the quidditative sense

of being, Aquinas sometimes speaks of ‘esse’ as signifying essence (4, 7, 10) whereas

other times (and more commonly), he speaks of ‘ens’ as signifying essence (1, 2, 6, 9,

10, 13, 14). That ‘ens’ could signify essence is not surprising if we consider that for

Aquinas ‘ens’ signifies quod est, or id quod est. 12 Whereas the term ‘esse’ signifies

abstractly, he explains that ‘quod est’ signifies concretely, apparantly capturing the

notion of essence.

Offering a linguistic point of comparison in his Commentary on Boethius’s De

hebdomadibus, Aquinas notes that in a similar way ‘running’ (currere) signifies in the

10 In these lists, I am focusing only on texts where Aquinas speaks of essence and actuality in the

contexts where he explicitly speaks of the categories as dividing being. It should be noted that in other texts
in this table, where he does not speak of the categories, Aquinas also notes that being can signify essence
(4, 6, 10) or that it can signify act (3, 4, 10, 11).

11 The quidditative sense of being can be taken either concretely or abstractly, since essence can

be taken either concretely or abstractly (human vs. humanity). Although the term ‘quiddity’ is an abstract
name, I intend the expression ‘quidditative sense’ to capture both the concrete and the abstract senses of
essence, as will become clearer below. I choose this phrasing over ‘essential sense’ to avoid confusion with
the notion of per se being, which is frequently rendered by translators as ‘essential being’. On the concrete
versus the abstract signification of ‘essence’, see De ente, c. 2 (Leon. 43.373:243–308).

12 See, e.g., In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis exposition (hereafter, In Metaphysicam),

M.-R. Cathala and R. M. Spiazzi eds. (Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1950), IV.1, 151:535: “[…] ens sive quod est
[…]”; Expositio libri Boetii De ebdomadibus (hereafter In De hebdo.) c. 2 in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera
Omnia, vol. 50 (Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1992), 271:97–98: “[…] id quod est siue ens […]”
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abstract whereas ‘someone-who-runs’ (currens) does so in the concrete. We do not say

of running that “It runs” because the running is not itself the subject of running; rather,

we say of someone-who-runs that “He is running” precisely because the runner is the

subject of running. Similarly, Aquinas explains, we do not say that esse itself ‘is’ because

the term ‘esse’ does not signify as though it were the subject of existing (essendi); rather,

id quod est, or ens, is the subject of esse.13 It would seem, then, that the term ‘ens’

signifies essence precisely because essence is included in the ratio of the term, which

includes both quod and est. With that in mind, we should turn to a brief consideration

of Aquinas’s semantics of signification, as well as its metaphysical implications. Doing

so will help us answer the questions of how the term ‘ens’ and ‘esse’ could signify both

essence and the act of existing.

II. Signification: ‘Ens’ and ‘Esse’

Following Aristotle, Aquinas holds that words signify conceptions of the intellect,

which conceptions in turn are the likenesses of things. Thus, in a mediated way our

words signify things.14 Here, we need to be careful to keep in mind that for the medievals,

signification is not the same as meaning. As Paul Vincent Spade observes, the medieval

notion of signification concerns what he terms a ‘psychologico-causal’ property of terms:

“The psychological overtones of ‘to signify’ are similar to those of the modern ‘to mean’.

Nevertheless, signification is not meaning. A term signifies that of which it makes a

person think, so that, unlike meaning, signification is a species of the causal relation.”15

13 In De hebdo. c. 2 (Leon. 50.271–72:36–54).

14Expositio libri Peryermeneias (hereafter In Peri.), I, lect. 2 in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia,
vol. 1*/1
(Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1989), 9–13. To be precise, spoken words immediately signify concepts.
Written words immediately signify spoken words.

15 Paul Vincent Spade, “The Semantics of Terms,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval

Philosophy, ed. Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1982), 188. To say that the medieval account of signification is not the same as meaning is not to
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Indeed, the common account of signification for Aquinas and his contemporaries is that

“‘to signify is to establish an understanding’ (‘significare est intellecturn constituere’).”16

In a mediated way, then, our language connects both speaker and listener to

reality through its psychologico-causal role. As Aquinas sums up this role, “The ratio

that a name signifies is a conception of the intellect of the ‘thing’ (res) signified by the

name.” 17 Whereas the significatum of a name’s ratio (account, analysis) is a

conceptualization within the mind, then, this conceptualization is itself the likeness of

some res; thus, the ‘thing’ signified (res significata) by a term is something beyond the

concept.18 Paradigmatically, this res significata is something outside of the mind (extra

animam), in reality (in rerum natura).19

suggest that there is no understanding of the notion of meaning. Rather, ‘meaning’ is indicated by words
like sensus, sententia, or definitio. See Umberto Eco, “Denotation,” in On the Medieval Theory of Signs, ed.
Umberto Eco and Constantino Marmo (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1989), 53.

16 E.J. Ashworth, “Signification and Modes of Signifying in Thirteenth-Century Logic: A Preface to

Aquinas on Analogy,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 1 (1991): 44. This formulation is from Aristotle’s
Peri hermeneias, 16b19–21.

17 Summa theologiae: Pars Prima (hereafter ST I), 13.4 co. in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia,

vol. 4 (Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1888), 144: “Ratio enim quam significat nomen, est conceptio intellectus
de re significata per nomen” (Emphasis added in translation). Cf. ST I.5.2 (Leon. 4.58). ‘Analysis’ is
Ashworth’s preferred translation of ratio in these contexts (see Ibid., 50–52.).
A conception can be either simple or complex. A conception signified by a term (noun or verb) such
as ‘human’ is simple; a conception signified by a proposition such as “A human is an animal” is complex.
In what follows, I will principally be concerned with simple conceptions, namely the simple conceptions of
ens and esse. On the distinction between simple and complex conceptions, see In Peri. I.5 (Leon.
1*/1.29:277–86); ibid., I.6 (Leon. 1*/1.32:20–23); Rosa E. Vargas Della Casa, “Thomas Aquinas on the
Apprehension of Being: The Role of Judgement in Light of Thirteenth-Century Semantics” (Dissertation,
Marquette University, 2013), 63–67.

18 On the distinction between significatum and res significata, see Ashworth, “Signification and

Modes of Signifying,” 50–53.

19 I say ‘paradigmatically’ because, as we have already seen in Aquinas’s consideration of the

different senses of being, we can have meaningful language also about privations, such as blindness. Still,
as Ashworth observes, although there is debate among the medievals on aspects of signification theory, one
point of agreement is that “spoken words, with the obvious exception of syncategorematic terms such as
‘not’ and of words picking out fictional or mental entities such as ‘chimera’ and ‘concept’, typically refer to
things in the external world” (Ibid., 45.). Regarding how there is meaningful signification not only in the
cases of names for entia rationis such as privations and second intentions, but also for names of fictions
such as the chimera, see Gyula Klima, “The Changing Role of Entia Rationis in Mediaeval Semantics and
Ontology: A Comparative Study with a Reconstruction,” Synthese 96, no. 1 (1993): 25–58; Klima, “Semantic
Principles,” esp. 91–97; Klima, “Aquinas’s Theory of the Copula.”
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Here, we need to be careful not to confuse the medieval accounts of signification

and supposition. The extramental res that a name signifies is typically not the same as

what the name supposits for, or references.20 When we say that “Socrates is human”

(Socrates est homo) the res significata of ‘human’ is not Socrates. Rather, Socrates is

what the term ‘human’ supposits for, or references, in context of this proposition. What

the term ‘human’ signifies, Aquinas explains, is human nature.21 In short, the ‘thing’

that is signified by a name is neither an individual, nor a collection of individuals, but

some form (nature, property, perfection). 22 Thus, humanity (humanitas) is the res

significata of the term ‘human’. With that said, humanity is also the res significata of the

term ‘humanity’. In other words, both ‘human’ and ‘humanity’ signify the same res.

Still, each does so in a different way. Here, we must consider that according to medieval

semantics, the res that is signified by a word is always signified according to some way,

or mode: a modus significandi. And this is no less true for the words we are concerned

with, namely, ‘ens’ and ‘esse’. Both signify esse, but they do so according to different

modes.

20 See Ashworth, “Signification and Modes of Signifying,” 52–53. There are occasions where the

two—referent (suppositum) and res significata—coincide, such as when the name ‘Socrates’ is said of
Socrates. In the context of such a proposition, the name signifies that to which it also refers.

21 Here, and in what follows, I put terms in single quotation marks and italicize a concept or a res

significata. Scriptum super Sententiis magistri Petri Lombardi III (hereather Super Sententiis III), 6.1.2 ad 4,
vol. 3, ed. R. P. Maria Fabianus Moos, O.P. (Paris: Lethielleux, 1933), 231: “Homo significat humanam
naturam, et supponit pro subsistente in natura illa.”
Note that whereas a term signifies in its own right, it supposits for (or references) something only
in the context of a proposition. On the doctrine of supposition and its relation to signification, see Spade,
“The Semantics of Terms,” 192–96; Henk J. M. Schoot, “Aquinas and Supposition: The Possibilities and
Limitations of Logic In Divinis,” Vivarium 30 (1993): 193–225.

22 Ashworth, “Signification and Modes of Signifying,” 52–53; Klima, “Semantic Principles,” 103–

106; Vargas Della Casa, “Apprehension of Being,” 53–54. Note, therefore, that in this semantic context the
term ‘res’ is not indicating the sense of res that is transcendental and convertible with ens. Moreover, it
should also be noted that to say that the res significata of a word is some form is not to say that it is always
some metaphysical form. For example, there is no extramental metaphysical form with terms for second
intentions (like ‘genus’ and ‘species’), privations (like ‘blindness’), and fictions (like ‘chimera;). On this point,
see Quaestiones disputatae de potentia (hereafter De potentia), 7.10 ad 8 in vol. 2, Quaestiones disputatae,
8th rev. ed., ed. M. Pession (Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1949), 65; Super Sententiis I.19.5.1 (Mandonnet 1.486);
Klima, “Semantic Principles,” 107, n. 37; Vargas Della Casa, “Apprehension of Being,” 59.
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The modi significandi of words were of particular interest to the speculative

grammarians of Aquinas time, and shortly thereafter, known as the Modistae. Unlike

the Modistae, Aquinas himself does not provide us with any systematic treatment of the

modes of signification of terms. With that said, he does clearly acknowledge throughout

his corpus a distinction between a number of grammatical and logical modi

significandi—for example, between male, female, and neuter nouns; between different

cases of nouns; and between different tenses of verbs. And, what concerns our

considerations, he identifies a distinction between concrete and abstract modi

significandi.23 Indeed, as we have already, seen Aquinas observes that the term ‘ens’

signifies concretely, whereas ‘esse’ signifies abstractly.

Regarding these modi significandi, Aquinas is clear about this much: just as

words signify an extramental res in a mediated way via concepts, so modes of

signification follow upon extramental modes of existing (modi essendi) in a mediated

way—namely, through modes of understanding (modi intelligendi).24 In affirming this

connection between this triad of modes—significandi, intelligendi, essendi—Aquinas

shares something in common with the Modistae. But unlike these speculative

grammarians, Aquinas does not see a simple isomorphism between word and reality.

Modi significandi have a foundation in reality, but not a necessary one-to-one

correspondence between that mode and a modus essendi.25 Nevertheless, on this point

23Schoot catalogs these and twenty other modi significandi acknowledged by Aquinas. See Schoot,
“Aquinas and Supposition,” 200–201. For the distinction between grammatical and logical modi significandi,
see Vargas Della Casa, “Apprehension of Being,” 40–43.

24 In Metaphysicam, VII.1 (Marietti, 317.1253): “Licet modus significandi vocum non consequatur
immediate modum essendi rerum, sed mediante modo intelligendi; quia intellectus sunt similitudines
rerum, voces autem intellectuum, ut dicitur in primo Perihermenias.”
As Vargas Della Casa makes clear, for Aquinas modes of signification are not directly tied to
grammatical properties of terms. Rather, “The modi significandi of terms are for Aquinas first and foremost
a function of our modi intelligendi.” See Vargas Della Casa, “Apprehension of Being,” 81.

25 A clear example offered by Aquinas that there is not always a connection between a modus

significandi and a corresponding modus essendi concerns abstract terms for an accident such as ‘whiteness’
(albedo). This term signifies per modum substantiae, because according to our modus intelligendi the
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he is clear: words that signify their res according to a concrete modus significandi do so

because of some extramental composition.26

We find this view exemplified with the term ‘human’: it signifies the form

humanity, but according to a concrete mode. This is because what ‘human’ fully

signifies is one who has humanity. Similarly, the concrete term ‘something white’ (album)

signifies what has whiteness.27 In each case, the formality that is signified (humanity,

whiteness), is signified as in a haver—i.e. a composition is indicated. For Aquinas, we

find the same to be the case with the concrete term ‘ens’. It signifies that which has

esse (id quod habet esse), or a haver of esse (habens esse).28 Here, too, composition is

indicated.

Still, we should be careful to note with Aquinas the way in which composition is

indicated in these concrete terms. They are not themselves complex, even though the

account of them may be expressed in a complex phrase. Let us consider again the

concrete term ‘human’. It immediately signifies the conception what has humanity. In

the phrasing of this conception, there is complexity, but Aquinas is clear that the

conception itself is formally simple. As Rosa Vargas Della Casa explains, for Aquinas “A

intellect treats whiteness as if it were something subsistent. Nevertheless, its modus essendi is not that of
a substance but of an accident. See In Metaphysicam, V.9 (Marietti, 239.894).
On the tendency of the Modistae to treat speculative grammar as entailing an isomorphism between
modi significandi and modi essendi, see Keith A. Buersmeyer, “Aquinas on the ‘Modi Significandi,’” The
Modern Schoolman 64 (1987): 75–79.

26 The exception would be the case of divine names, in which concrete names are said of God who
is perfectly simple and in whom there is no composition. But this is the exception that proves the rule,
since Aquinas explains that concrete names, which are said of God by reason of his subsistence, must
include the denial of the mode of concretion and composition signified by these names as they are said of
the effects from which we take them, namely creatures. See, e.g., ST I.13.1 ad 2 (Leon. 4.139–40).

27 In De hebdo. c. 2 (Leon. 50.272:129–31): “Aliter autem se habet in hiis que significantur in

concreto, nam homo significatur ut qui habet humanitatem, et album ut quod habet albedinem.” Here, and
in what follows, I italicize and underline a modus significandi in my translations.

28 See, e.g., In Meta. XII.l (Marietti, 567.2419): “Nam ens dicitur quasi esse habens […]”; Summa
theologiae: Prima Secundae (hereafter ST I-II), 26.4 co. in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 6
(Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1891), 144: “[…] ens simpliciter est quod habet esse […].”
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conception is said to be simple or non-composite (conceptio incomplexa) because it lacks

the composition of a proposition.”29 And as it is for the term ‘human’, so it is for the

Latin term ‘ens’.

In her masterful dissertation entitled “Thomas Aquinas on the Apprehension of

Being,” Vargas Della Casa shows, among other noteworthy things, that for Aquinas the

concept of ens as what is (quod est) does not entail the composition of a proposition, as

though quod were the subject and est the predicate. If that were the case, simply

enunciating the term ‘ens’ would be to assert that “Something exists” (aliquid est). To

the contrary, Aquinas is clear that the word ‘ens’ on its own does not assert that

anything exists. In his Commentary on Aristotle’s Peri hermeneias, he acknowledges

that one might be tempted to draw this erroneous conclusion, but he is careful to point

out the following:

If this word ‘ens’ were to principally signify esse just as it signifies a thing that has esse,
then without a doubt it would signify that “Something is” (aliquid esse). But the composition
that is indicated in this [word ‘ens’] when I say ‘is’ (est) does not principally signify
[composition] but rather consignifies it inasmuch as [‘ens’] signifies a thing that has esse.
Hence, such a consignification is not sufficient for truth or falsity because the [sort of]
composition in which truth or falsity consists can only be understood inasmuch as the
composition joins the extremes of the composition.30

In this text, then, Aquinas acknowledges that in signifying quod est, the term ‘ens’

somehow signifies a composition, but he is clear that it is not the sort of composition

that is involved in a proposition, in which the extremes of subject and predicate are

joined together by a copula. That sort of composition is immediately signified by a

29 Vargas Della Casa, “Apprehension of Being,” 66. See Summa contra gentiles I (hereafter SCG I) c.

59 in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 13 (Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1918), 167.3.

30 In Peri., I.5 (Leon. 1*/1.31:362–76): “Et tamen maxime uidebatur de hoc quod dico ‘ens’, quia
‘ens’ nichil aliud est quam ‘quod est’, et sic uidetur <et> rem significare, per hoc quod dico <‘quod’, et esse,
per hoc quod dico> ‘est’. Et si quidem hec dictio ‘ens’ significaret esse principaliter sicut significat rem que
habet esse, procul dubio significaret aliquid esse; set ipsam compositionem, que importatur in hoc quod
dico ‘est’, non principaliter significat, set consignificat eam in quantum significat rem habentem esse; unde
talis consignificatio compositionis non sufficit ad ueritatem uel falsitatem, quia compositio in qua consistit
ueritas et falsitas non potest intelligi nisi secundum quod innectit extrema compositionis.’ Italics added in
translation.
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proposition. By contrast, we are told, the sort of composition indicated by the term ‘ens’

is not immediately signified but, rather, consignified. The consignification of a term is a

secondary, or additional, signification that is, as it were, an ‘accidental’ property of the

term. This secondary signification is implied ex consequenti by a word’s modus

significandi.31 Aquinas commonly speaks of consignification when discussing the nature

of verbs. Whereas a verb primarily signifies an action or passion, by means of its tense

it also consignifies time.32

As regards the noun ‘ens’, we can see how it consignifies composition if we

consider again both its res significata and modus significandi. ‘Ens’ signifies esse, but it

does so according to a concrete mode. It is because ‘ens’ is a concrete term, then, that

it signifies composition ex consequenti. Again, this is not a propositional composition of

subject and predicate; rather it is a composition of haver and had that is consignified

inasmuch as ‘ens’ principally signifies what has esse (habens esse). Here, we can return

to the comparison with the concrete term ‘human’ (homo). ‘Human’ signifies a simple

conceptual unit: what has humanity (habens humanitatem).33 The term does not signify

the propositional composition that some x in fact has humanity. Rather, ‘human’ simply

signifies humanity according to a concrete mode.34 Acknowledging this mode, we say

that the principle signification of ‘human’ is of this simple whole: what has humanity,

or in other word, the subject of humanity. But the composition between haver and had,

31 I am focusing on categorematic terms here since ‘ens’ is such a term. For a consideration of the

consignification of syncategorematic terms (such as prepositions) along with an overview of consignification

in general in Aquinas, see Vargas Della Casa, “Apprehension of Being,” 38–43, 103–109.

32 In Peri. I.5 (Leon. 1*/1.25–31). Thus, the word ‘runs’ (currit) in the proposition “Socrates runs”

(Socrates currit) signifies the action of running (currere) and, inasmuch as it does so according to the present
tense, the ‘runs’ secondarily signifies that this action occurs in the present time.
33 In Peri., I.6 (Leon. 1*/1.32-33:20-39).

34 Vargas Della Casa, “Apprehension of Being,” 114.

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subject and form, is consignified ex consequenti by that concrete mode.35 Similarly, the

term concrete term ‘ens’ does not principally signify composition of subject and esse,

but does so only ex consequenti. Nevertheless, inasmuch as ‘ens’ does signify esse

according to a concrete mode as quod est, or habens esse, its principle signification

includes the notion of a subject. Thus, Aquinas will sometimes present the whole that

‘ens’ signifies as the subject of esse (subiectum essendi).36

We are now at last in a position to see how Aquinas can coherently at times say

that the term ‘ens’ signifies essence and at other times say that it signifies the act of an

essence, namely esse. It is not that it signifies two different things, as though it had two

different res significatae. If that were so, ‘ens’ would signify two different concepts.

Rather, the term ‘ens’ has a single res significata which is esse, taken as the act of

existing (actus essendi). Nevertheless, it signifies this res according to a concrete mode.

We have seen this expressed in several ways: what is (quod est), what has esse (habens

esse), or subject of esse (subiectum essendi). Each of these formulations acknowledges

the same: that the concrete term ‘ens’ signifies esse as of something. In other words,

inasmuch as it signifies the subject of esse, ‘ens’ signifies essence.

In this way, the ‘ens’ can signify both esse and essence at one and the same time

since it signifies esse as its res significata and it signifies essence by means of its

35 We find something different with concrete nouns for accidents. As Aquinas explains, “Nec est
verum quod Avicenna dicit, quod praedicata, quae sunt in generibus accidentis, principaliter significant
substantiam, et per posterius accidens, sicut hoc quod dico album et musicum. Nam album ut in
praedicamentis dicitur, solam qualitatem significat. Hoc autem nomen album significat subiectum ex
consequenti, inquantum significat albedinem per modum accidentis. Unde oportet, quod ex consequenti
includat in sui ratione subiectum. Nam accidentis esse est inesse. Albedo enim etsi significet accidens, non
tamen per modum accidentis, sed per modum substantiae. Unde nullo modo consignificat subiectum” (In
Metaphysicam V.9 (Marietti 239.894).

36 In De hebdo. c. 2 (Leon. 50.271:52–59): “Set id quod est significatur sicut subiectum essendi, uelud
id quod currit significatur sicut subiectum currendi; et ideo sicut possumus dicere de eo quod currit siue
de currente quod currat in quantum subicitur cursui et participat ipsum, ita possumus dicere quod ens
siue id quod est sit in quantum participat actum essendi.” Italics added for emphasis.
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concrete modus significandi.37 This, I believe, is why in t.10 from the De potentia (1265–

66), Aquinas groups the quidditative and actuality sense of ‘ens’ together when he

observes that it is said in two ways, the first of which occurs “when it signifies either the

essence of a thing or the act of existing,” whereas the second way in which ‘ens’ is said

is when it signifies the truth of a proposition.38

In t.12 from the Prima Pars of the Summa theologiae (1265–68), Aquinas again

identifies two ways in which ‘ens’ is said. As with t.10, the second of these ways occurs

when ‘ens’ is used it signify the truth of a proposition. But here, as regards the first

way, he says that occurs when the term “signifies the entity of a thing (entitas rei),

inasmuch as it is divided by the ten categories and, thus, is convertible with thing

(res).”39 Here, with the Latin ‘entitas,’ Aquinas presents us with a new abstract form of

the verb ‘to be’. Whereas the term ‘ens’ is a concrete participial noun derived from the

infinitive ‘esse’, ‘entitas’ is clearly in turn derived from ‘ens’. What precisely is this

‘beingness’ to which Aquinas refers? Surely as with these related other terms, its res

significata is esse, taken as actus essendi. Moreover, it has an abstract modus essendi.

Is ‘entitas’ then a synonym for ‘actus essendi’?

Aquinas’s usage of the term elsewhere suggests otherwise. For example, when

treating of powers and operations, he will speak of their “actualitas et entitas,” indicating

that the terms are at least conceptually distinct.40 Moreover, he tells us that “no creature

can be in act regarding [its] entire entity (totius entitatis), since it is a finite being.”41 If a

37 Here, again, I am indebted to the fine work of Vargas Della Casa. See “Apprehension of Being,”

120–22, 161–62.

38 For the Latin, see t.10 in the Appendix. In this text, he in fact says that both ‘ens’ and ‘esse’
signify either essence or the act of existing. We will shortly see why Aquinas says this of the term ‘esse’.

39 For Latin, see t.10 in Appendix below.

40 De potentia, 1.3 co. (Marietti, 18–20); ibid. 1.6 ad 5 (Marietti, 22).

41 Super Sententiis III, 14.1.1 qc. 2 co.: “Nulla autem creatura potest esse in
actu totius entitatis, cum sit ens finitum” (Moos ed., 3.435 n. 34).
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created being’s entitas were its actus essendi, then definitionally it would be in act by

its entire entity. I read Aquinas, therefore as indicating that a being’s entity includes

more than just its act of existing, namely that it includes a mode of existing as well.

Thus read, the term ‘entitas’, like ‘ens’, includes the notion of both actus essendi

and essence—but ‘entitas’ does so in an abstract rather than a concrete way. We have

already seen that ‘ens’ signifies the subject of esse. Thus, the notion this term signifies

also signifies, indistinctly, the sort of being that is a habens quidditatem: the subject of

a quiddity (namely, a material being).42 By contrast, the abstract term ‘entitas’ does not

include the notion of the subject of essence, even implicitly; rather, it includes essence

taken abstractly as quiddity, prescinding entirely from the notion of a subject. As I read

Aquinas, then, whereas ‘ens’ signifies in a concrete way quod and est together, ‘entitas’

signifies the same in an abstract way—namely, quidditas and esse together, prescinding

entirely from a consideration of the subject of esse. This would be what Aquinas

elsewhere refers to as the ‘nature of being’ (natura entis).43

Again, the point in clarifying the meaning of the term ‘entitas’ here is to note that

this term simultaneously signifies both actus essendi and essence taken abstractly as

quiddity. As Aquinas indicates in t.12, the concrete term ‘ens’ signifies the entitas rei,

42 Includes, but is not limited to, the sort of being that is a habens quidditatem. A separate

substance, by contrast, is not such a being since it is identical with its quiddity. See Quaestiones disputatae
de anima a. 17 ad 10: “In substantiis autem separatis, quia immateriales sunt, natura speciei non recipitur
in aliqua materia individuante, sed est ipsa natura per se subsistens. Unde non est in eis
aliud habens quidditatem, et aliud quidditas ipsa. Sed tamen aliud est in eis esse, et aliud quidditas.”

43 It is noteworthy in the following text from the Summa theologiae that Aquinas presents the natura

entis as including both form and matter (i.e. for those kinds of beings that are material) and, moreover, that
he connects the notions of natura entis and entitas in this text by identifying these quidditative principles
as belonging to the entitas of a being: “Virtute agentis finiti non potest forma in formam mutari, nec materia
in materiam. Sed virtute agentis infiniti, quod habet actionem in totum ens, potest talis conversio fieri: quia
utrique formae et utrique materiae est communis natura entis; et id quod entitatis est in una, potest auctor
entis convertere ad id quod est entitatis in altera, sublato eo per quod ab illa distinguebatur.” Summa
theologiae: Tertia Pars, 75.4 ad 3. in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 12 (Rome: Commissio
Leonina, 1906), 168.
Aquinas also indicates the quidditative aspect of the notion of entitatis in his treatment of how
being a ‘what’ (esse quid) is present in all of the categories, but with reference back to substance. See In
Metaphysicam, VII.4 (Marietti, 331.1334).
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presumably as what has entity (quod habet entitatem), i.e. as the subject of entity

(subiectum entitatis). Thus, we find further support for the interpretation that he sees

the categorial sense of the term ‘ens’ as simultaneously signifying both the actuality

sense and the quidditative sense of being: these are not two different terms with two

different res significatae signifying two different concepts. ‘Ens’ signifies a single concept

with a single res significata (the act of existing) according to a concrete mode (the subject

of that act).

So far, we have seen how for Aquinas ‘ens’ can signify essence, but his account

provides no answer for us yet to the question of how he could claim, at times, that ‘esse’

too can signify essence (4, 7, 10). Unlike the participial noun ‘ens’, the infinitive verb

form ‘esse’ signifies according to an abstract mode. As an abstract term, it signify as

something simple and as that by which something is (quo est); unlike, a concrete term

that signifies as something composite and subsistent (quod est).44 If we consider again

the abstract term ‘humanity’, it signifies the simple form of humanity as that by which

a human is a human. Unlike the concrete term ‘human’, it prescinds from and does not

signify the very subject of humanity. Similarly, the abstract term ‘esse’ signifies only the

act of existing (actus essendi) as a simple form by which a being (ens) is a being, thereby

prescinding from a signification of the subject of that act. Thus, the very modus

significandi of the term ‘esse’ prevents it from signifying essence at all. Our question is

thus heightened: Why would Aquinas say on occasion that ‘esse’ can signify essence?

We get begin to get an answer to this question if we consider what Aquinas tells

us in t.7, from Super Sententiis (1252–56). There, in the context of considering whether

44 SCG I.30 (Leon. 13.92.3): “Unde intellectus noster, quidquid significat ut subsistens, significat

in concretione: quod vero ut simplex, significat non ut quod est, sed ut quo est.” See also ST I.13.1 ad 2
(Leon. 4.140); Super Sententiis I.8.5.2 (Mandonnet 1.229). Vargas Della Casa, “Apprehension of Being,” 74–
83, 123–29.
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there is only a single esse in Christ, he notes that esse is said in two ways: (1) as it

signifies the truth of a propositions, inasmuch as it is a copula, and (2) as the act of a

being resulting from its principles. Then he adds a third way:

Nevertheless, sometimes ‘esse’ is taken for the essence according to which a thing is, since
the principles of [acts] customarily come to be signified by means of [those] acts, as with
powers and habits.45

In this text, Aquinas is giving us something of an etymological account for a certain

usage of the word ‘esse’. As I read him here, this third sense of the term ‘esse’ does

indeed has a different res significata than the actuality sense of the term. If that is the

case, then he is presenting two different terms that signify two different concepts. Let

us refer to the actuality sense as ‘esse1’ and the quidditative sense he identifies in this

text as ‘esse2’. As Aquinas presents the matter, the rationale for ‘esse2’ signifying

essence is that the word in this case is imposed from (i.e. derived from) the act of existing,

but by convention it is imposed upon (i.e. applied to)—not the act itself—but rather what

is actualized by that act, namely essence. Thus, while ‘esse2’ is etymologically derived

from ‘esse1’, its res significata appears to be essence itself.46

If this reading is correct, then I think we should be grant that this is not

Aquinas’s own customary way of speaking. We do not find him using the terms ‘essence’

and ‘esse’ interchangeably. With that in mind, I do think it a fair interpretation to say

that in this early text Aquinas is merely accounting for a customary usage of the term

‘esse’ as it is employed by other writers, a point needing to be acknowledged in his

45 Super Sententiis III.6.2.2 co. (Moos 3.238): “Aliquando tamen esse sumitur pro essentia,
secundum quam res est; quia per actus consueverunt significari eorum principia, ut potentiae vel habitus.”
46 This reading is supported, I would argue, by t.4 which is also from Super Sententiis. In this text,

Aquinas considers whether the Trinitarian question of whether the divine relations are the divine essence.
Here, as in t.7, we find him presenting three ways in which ‘esse’ is said. Again he identifies two of these
ways as the actuality sense and the propositional sense of ‘esse’. This time, however, he begins by listing
quidditative sense of the word, noting that “Uno modo dicitur esse ipsa quidditas vel natura rei, sicut dicitur
quod definitio est oratio significans quid est esse; definitio enim quidditatem rei significat.” Super Sententiis
I.33.1.1 ad 1 (Mandonnet, 1.765–66).
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youthful master’s degree work, the Super Sententiis. With that said, we are still faced

with some texts from the De potentia and Summa theologiae (10 & 12) that indicate a

continued acknowledgment by Aquinas of some sort of quidditative sense of the term

‘esse’. What is going on then? Why does he continue to acknowledge a quidditative sense

of this term if he does not himself in fact employ it that way?

Here, returning to a consideration of modi significandi, I would propose a simple

grammatical explanation: when speaking of ‘esse’ in these contexts, Aquinas is simply

using the term as the name of the verb. As he notes in commenting on Aristotle’s Peri

hermeneias, when verbs in the infinitive mode are placed in the subject position of a

proposition, “they have the force of a name.” 47 Thus read, the term ‘esse’ in these

contexts is intended to indicate, not the infinitive form as such, but rather the name for

the various relevant grammatical forms of ‘esse’ that can signify essence, such as ‘ens’

and also ‘est’.48 As support of this interpretation, we should turn now to a consideration

of the source text that Aquinas relies upon to draw his distinctions between the twofold,

or threefold, ways in which ‘being’ is said. For as I will argue, we find in his very

Commentary on Metaphysics Δ.7 that Aquinas presents a quidditative reading of the

verb form ‘est’.

III. Aquinas on the Quidditative Sense of ‘Est’ in Metaphysics Δ.7

In Metaphysics Δ.7 Aristotle considers the ways in which ‘being’ (on) and ‘to be’

(einai) are said. He begins with an initial distinction between [1] accidental (kata

47 In Peri., I.5 (Leon. 1*/1.26:52–56): “Set dicendum est quod uerba infinitiui modi, quando in

subiecto ponuntur, habent uim nominis; unde et in Greco et in uulgari Latina locutione suscipiunt
adiectionem articulorum sicut et nomina.”

48 I take it that this is why in t.2 Aquinas starts by noting that “Esse dicitur duplicter” and then
quickly shifts word form to note that “uno modo secundum quod ens significat essentiam …” (Super
Sententiis I.19.5.1 ad; Mandonnet 1.488).
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sumbebēkos) and [2] per se (kath’ auto) senses of being. He treats the former by looking

at accidental predications. As regards the latter, Aristotle looks at the figures of

predication, namely the categories. [3] He then identifies a third sense of ‘to be’, noting

that ‘is’ can indicate that a statement is true, whereas ‘is not’ that it is false.

[4] Finally, he observes that ‘to be’ and ‘is’ in statements sometimes means that

something is potentially and sometimes that it is actually.49

If we follow Aquinas’s reading of this passage in his Commentary on the

Metaphysics, Aristotle considers all three of the last three senses of being as modes of

per se being, and not just the first.50 According to Aquinas, in treating of these modes of

per se being, Aristotle does the following:

[1] First, he divides [the mode of] ens that is outside of the mind (extra animam) by the ten
categories, which is ens perfectum.
[2] Second, he sets out another mode of ens, which is only in the mind …
[3] Third, he divides ens by potency and act. And ens divided in this way is more common
than ens perfectum. For ens in potency is ens only in a qualified way and is
imperfect ….51

If we consider these prefatory remarks that Aquinas offers prior to his consideration of

each of these three modes of per se being, we have indication already that the second of

them concerns the propositional sense of being since he describes it as “only in the

mind”. This is language that appeared in a number of texts in Table 1, but most

emphatically in t.7 and t.8. And, indeed, as Aquinas proceeds to comment on Aristotle’s

49 Metaphysics, V.7, 1017a8–b9.

50 Aristotle himself is ambiguous on this point. Although the third and fourth senses of ‘being’ that

he identifies could be read this way, they could also be read as distinct from and in addition to the accidental
and per se senses of ‘being’. For a consideration of Aquinas on the ordering and interrelation of these four
senses of being, see Alejandro Llano, “‘Being as True’ According to Aquinas,” Acta Philosophica 4 (1995):
73–82; Alejandro Llano, “The Different Meanings of ‘Being’ According to Aristotle and Aquinas,” Acta
Philosophica 10 (2001): 29–44. See also Brock, “What Actually Exists.”

51 In Metaphysicam, V.9 (Marietti 238.889): “Deinde cum dicit «secundum se». Distinguit modum

entis per se: et circa hoc tria facit. Primo distinguit ens, quod est extra animam, per decem praedicamenta,
quod est ens perfectum. Secundo ponit alium modum entis, secundum quod est tantum in mente, ibi,
«Amplius autem et esse significat». Tertio dividit ens per potentiam et actum: et ens sic divisum est
communius quam ens perfectum. Nam ens in potentia, est ens secundum quid tantum et imperfectum, ibi,
«Amplius esse significat et ens».” Italics in original.
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treatment of this second mode of per se being in Metaphyiscs Δ.7, he makes clear that

it concerns propositional being.

What is less clear from Aquinas’s prefatory remarks, however, is where the

quidditative sense of being lies in this Aristotelian text—if anywhere at all. Again, the

first mode of per se being concerns being as it is divided by the categories. Going beyond

a literal commentary of the text, Aquinas refers to this first mode as ens perfectum:

perfect being. His acknowledgment of the third mode of per se being, which entails a

division by act and potency, refers back to this first mode in Aquinas’s observation that

this third mode is more common than the first, viz. ens perfectum. The reason it is more

common, we are told, is that potential being, unlike actual being, is imperfectum. Thus,

unlike the first mode, the third mode of per se being embraces both ens perfectum and

ens imperfectum. From all of these initial remarks, then, we might conclude that Aquinas

considers Aristotle’s first mode of per se being to be concerned principally with the

actuality sense of being: being as it signifies actus essendi. But this reading, I would

argue, is in fact a misreading of the text. To see why, we must look at what Aquinas says

next.

He begins his analytic commentary of Aristotle’s first mode of per se being by

reminding us that ens is not a genus. Thus, it cannot be contracted to the diverse genera

that are the categories by means of the addition of differences; instead, Aquinas

explains, ens is contracted to the categories according to diverse modes. Here, as

elsewhere, Aquinas looks to modes of language for insights about reality. Unlike before,

however, the modes he focuses our attention on here are not the modi significandi of

terms in their own right; rather, he focuses our attention on modi praedicandi—

analogical modes of predication that are revealed in the context of a proposition. As

Aquinas explains,
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Ens must be contracted to the diverse genera according to a diverse mode of predicating,
which follows upon a diverse modus essendi. For “in as many ways as ‘ens’ is said”—i.e.,
in as many ways as something is predicated—“so in just as many ways ‘esse’ is signified”—
i.e., in just as many ways is it signified that ‘Something is’. And for this reason those
[genera] into which being is first divided are said to be ‘predicaments’ since they are
distinguished according to a diverse modus praedicandi.

Since, therefore, of these [terms] that are predicated, some signify what (i.e., substance),
some what sort, some how much, and so forth regarding the others, it must be the case
that for each mode of predicating, ‘esse’ would signify the same. For example, when it is
said, “A human is an animal,” ‘is’ (esse) signifies substance. And when it is said, “A human
is white,” ‘is’ signifies quality. And so forth for the others.52

It is noteworthy that in his focus on the connection between modi praedicandi and modi

essendi in this text, nowhere does Aquinas speak of actuality. Surely he is drawing some

sort of connection between predication and the act of existence. But to be clear: it is the

act of existence as modified—modified by essence.53 And as he indicates here, this

modification is seen in the very use of the verb ‘to be’ (esse).

Let’s consider again his examples of propositions that reveal distinct modi essendi

by means of distinct modi praedicandi:

1. “A human is an animal.”
2. “A human is white.”

As Aquinas presents the matter, the diverse modi essendi of the predicates in these

propositions are revealed to us—not by some prior classification of animal as a kind of

substance and whiteness as a kind of quality—but, rather, their diverse modi essendi

are indicated by the way they are predicated of the subject using the verb ‘is’ (est). In

this way, diverse modi praedicandi signify the fundamental kinds of essences that are

52 In Metaphysicam, V.9 (Marietti 238.890): “Unde oportet, quod ens contrahatur ad diversa genera

secundum diversum modum praedicandi, qui consequitur diversum modum essendi; quia «quoties ens
dicitur», idest quot modis aliquid praedicatur, «toties esse significatur», idest tot modis significatur aliquid
esse. Et propter hoc ea in quae dividitur ens primo, dicuntur esse praedicamenta, quia distinguuntur
secundum diversum modum praedicandi. Quia igitur eorum quae praedicantur, quaedam significant quid,
idest substantiam, quaedam quale, quaedam quantum, et sic de aliis; oportet quod unicuique modo
praedicandi, esse significet idem; ut cum dicitur homo est animal, esse significat substantiam. Cum autem
dicitur, homo est albus, significat qualitatem, et sic de aliis.” Italics added in translation.

53 To draw this connection between essence and modus essendi is not to identify the two, as though

modus essendi were another name for essence. Rather, as already mentioned, it is to point out that a being’s
mode of existing follows from the kind of essence that it has. On mode and essence, see John Tomarchio,
“Aquinas’s Division of Being According to Modes of Existing,” The Review of Metaphysics 54 (2001): 585–
613.
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the categories. This conclusion might be surprising in that Aquinas holds that the term

‘est’ simply taken signifies “actuality absolutely”.54 How, then, could it signify essence?

The answer is that like the term ‘ens’, ‘est’ signifies actus essendi according to a

concrete modus significandi. As Aquinas explains,

The verb ‘est’ consignifies composition because it does not signify [composition] principally
but rather ex consequenti. For, [‘est’] signifies that which first falls into the intellect in the
mode of actuality absolutely; for ‘est’ simply said signifies to be in act (esse in actu), and
thus it signifies in the mode of a verb.55

Unlike the term ‘ens’, which signifies in the mode of a noun, then, ‘est’ signifies

in the mode of a verb. Thus, ‘est’ signifies according to the “mode of action, namely as

proceeding from a substance and inhering in it as a subject.”56 Still, like ‘ens’, the term

‘est’ signifies in a concrete way and, consequently, consignifies composition. Thus, the

signification of ‘est’ include the notion of a subject with an essence. To assert that

“Something is” is also to assert that it is (exists) in some way—according to some modus

essendi.

With this account of predication in mind, Aquinas proceeds in his analysis of the

first per se mode of being in Metaphysics Δ.7 to go beyond a literal commentary of

Aristotle and provide a quasi-deductive derivation account of the categories. Offering a

what is intended as an exhaustive enumeration of the fundamental modi praedicandi,

Aquinas attempts to reveal the fundamental modi essendi that divide ens.57 Or, in other

54 See n. 53 below.

55 In Peri., I.5 (Leon. 1*/1.31:391–97): “[H]oc uerbum ‘est’ consignificat compositionem, quia non

principaliter eam significat, set ex consequenti: significat enim id quod primo cadit in intellectu per modum
actualitatis absolute; nam ‘est’ simpliciter dictum significat esse actu et ideo significat per modum uerbi.”

56 In Peri., I.5 (Leon. 1*/1.26:55-66): “[P]otest autem actio significari tripliciter: uno modo, per se

in abstracto, uelut quedam res, et sic significatur per nomen, ut ‘actio’, ‘passio’, ‘ambulatio’, ‘cursus’, et
similia; alio modo per modum actionis, ut scilicet est egrediens a substantia et inherens ei ut subiecto, et
sic significatur per uerba aliorum modorum, que attribuuntur personis.”

57 For scholarship on Thomas’s derivation of the categories, see John F. Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas’s
Derivation of the Aristotelian Categories (Predicaments),” Journal of the History of Philosophy 25 (1987): pp.
13–34; id., Metaphysical Thought, 208–28; E.P. Bos and A.C. van der Helm, “The Division of Being over the
Categories According to Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus,” in John Duns Scotus:
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words, he shows the fundamental ways in which ‘est’ can signify essence in light of both

its modus significandi as a term and its modi praedicandi in the context of categorical

propositions.

To be clear, in arguing that Aquinas presents Aristotle’s first mode of per se being

as signifying essence, I am not arguing that it in no way signifies actuality. To the

contrary, Aquinas is clear that as with the term ‘ens’ so for ‘est’: its res significata is

esse taken as the actus essendi. Thus, we find him observing the following in his

Commentary on the Peri hermeneias:

When the verb ‘is’ (est) in a proposition is predicated in itself—as when we say
“Socrates is”—we intend by this nothing other than to signify that Socrates is in reality (sit
in rerum natura).58

Surely this text is acknowledging an existential, or actuality, sense of ‘est’. Still, if we

return to Aquinas’s commentary on Δ.7, we find a somewhat different treatment of the

signification of this proposition “Socrates is”.

The analysis of this proposition appears, not in Aquinas’s treatment of the first

mode of per se being but the second, namely being as it signifies the truth of a

proposition. As he explains, this second mode of per se being is related to the first as

effect to cause; for the truth or falsity of a proposition that the intellect signifies by the

Renewal of Philosophy (Amsterdam, 1998), 187–89; Paul Symington, “Thomas Aquinas on Establishing the
Identity of Aristotle’s Categories,” in Medieval Commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories, ed. Lloyd Newton
(Boston, 2008); id., On Determining What There Is: The Identify of Ontological Categories in Aquinas, Scotus
and Lowe (Piscataway, NJ, 2010).

58 In Peri., II.2 (Leon. 1*/1.88:36–52): “[H]oc uerbum ‘est’ quandoque in enunciatione predicatur
secundum se, ut cum dicitur: «Sortes est», per quod nichil aliud intendimus significare quam quod Sortes
sit in rerum natura; quandoque uero non predicator per se, quasi principale predicatum, set quasi
coniunctum principali predicato ad connectendum ipsum subiecto, sicut cum dicitur: «Sortes est albus»:
non enim est intentio loquentis ut asserat Sortem esse in rerum natura, set ut attribuat ei albedinem
mediante hoc uerbo ‘est’; et ideo in talibus ‘est’ predicatur ut adiacens principali predicato, et dicitur esse
tercium non quia sit tercium predicatum, set quia est tercia dictio posita in enunciatione, que simul cum
nomine predicato facit unum predicatum, ut sic enunciatio diuidatur in duas partes, non in tres.”
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verbal copula follows from the fact that something is (exists) in reality. 59 He then

observes the following:

Now, it is accidental to any thing that something should be truly affirmed of it either in the
intellect or vocally. For a thing is not related to knowledge, but the other way around. Now
the esse that each thing has in its own nature is substantial. Therefore, when we say that
“Socrates is,” if the ‘is’ is taken according to the first mode [of per se being], it concerns a
substantial predicate. For ‘ens’ is a higher predicate with reference to any single being, just
as ‘animal’ with reference to ‘human’. But if ‘is’ is taken according to the second mode, it
concerns an accidental predicate.60

Regarding Aquinas’s observation at the end of this quotation about the second mode of

per se being, his point is perfectly clear: it is accidental to Socrates that we assert

anything about him at all. What is particularly intriguing about this text, however, is

Aquinas’s observation that considered from the perspective of the first per se mode of

being, the term ‘is’ in the proposition “Socrates is” is a substantial predicate. On the one

hand, this would seem to follow since his actus essendi is an esse substantiale. On the

other hand, Socrates as a substance does not exist by his very essence. How then can

‘is’ be a substantial predicate, even according to the first mode of per se being?

This question is answered, I believe, in another text that Aquinas composed

shortly before his Commentary on the Metaphysics, namely Quodlibet 2 (Christmas

1269). In Question 2, art. 1 [3], he considers whether an angel is substantially composed

of essence and esse. In this text, he again provides a twofold distinction regarding being,

59 In Metaphysicam, V.9 (Marietti, 239.896). Aquinas then acknowledges that the intellect is capable

of considering even a nonbeing as a kind of being, as with a privation such as blindness. Thus, sometimes
something is said “to be” according to this second mode of per se being even though it is not according to
the first.

60 In Metaphysicam, V.9 (Marietti, 239.896): “Accidit autem unicuique rei quod aliquid de ipsa vere

affirmetur intellectu vel voce. Nam res non refertur ad scientiam, sed e converso. Esse vero quod in sui
natura unaquaeque res habet, est substantiale. Et ideo, cum dicitur, Socrates est, si ille est primo modo
accipiatur, est de praedicato substantiali. Nam ens est superius ad unumquodque entium, sicut animal ad
hominem. Si autem accipiatur secundo modo, est de praedicato accidentali.”
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but this time in terms of answers to two different questions: “Is it?” (an est) and “What

is it?” (quid est).61 As regards the answer to the first question, Aquinas explains,

[1] Since everything that is other than the essence of a thing is called an accident, the
esse that pertains to the question “Is it?” is an accident. And, therefore, the
Commentator says in Metaphyisics V that [in] this proposition, “Socrates is,” ‘is’
concerns an accidental predicate inasmuch as it indicates either the entity of a thing
or the truth of a proposition.

Here, then, in Aquinas’s consideration of the proposition “Socrates is”, we find him

identify ‘is’ as an accidental predicate both according to the propositional sense of being

and according to the actuality sense as actus essendi. That he has in mind the actuality

sense is clear from his observation that the entitas of a thing such as Socrates is other

than his essence. If we adopt my earlier reading of entitas, we can see why Socrates’s

entitas could be considered accidental to him: not in the sense of a categorial accident,

but in the sense that it is distinct from his essence. And this distinction follows from

the fact that Socrates’ entitas includes his actuality, which is other than his essence.

Now let us see what Aquinas has to say about the sense of being that is relevant

for answering the question “What is it?”:

[2] But it is true that this name ‘ens’, inasmuch as it signifies a thing to which such esse
belongs, thus signifies the essence of a thing and is divided by the ten categories—
nevertheless, not univocally, because the same ratio does not belong to all esse; rather,
to substance per se and to the other [categories] in other ways.

Thus, in an angel there is a composition of essence and esse. Nevertheless, there is not a
composition as though from the parts of a substance, but instead as from a substance and
from that which inheres in a substance.62

61 I have not included this text in Table 1 since it presents a distinction between these senses of
being in terms of these two questions rather according to the ways that word ‘being’ is said.

62 Quodlibet Secundum, 2.1 [3] co. in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 25/2 (Rome:

Commissio Leonina, 1996), 214–15:50–72. “Vnde participatur sicut aliquid non existens de essencia rei, et
ideo alia questio est ‘an est’ et ‘quid est’; unde, cum omne quod est preter essenciam rei dicatur accidens,
esse, quod pertinet ad questionem ‘an est’, <est> accidens. Et ideo Commentator dicit in V Methaphisice
quod ista propositio: ‘Sortes est’, est de accidentali predicato, secundum quod importat entitatem rei uel
ueritatem propositionis, set uerum est quod hoc nomen ‘ens’, secundum quod importat rem cui competit
huiusmodi esse, sic significat essenciam rei, et diuiditur per decem genera. Non tamen uniuoce, quia non
eadem ratione competit omnibus esse, set substancie quidem per se, aliis autem aliter. Sic ergo in angelo
est compositio ex essencia et esse, non tamen est compositio sicut ex partibus substancie, set sicut ex
substancia et eo quod adheret substancie.” Italics added in translation.
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Aquinas’s account, here, of the sense of being that answers the “What is it?” question is

clearly related not only to Aristotle’s first mode of per se being in Δ.7 but to his own later

treatment of that mode of being in his Commentary on the Metaphysics. Being as it is

divided by the categories, we are told, signifies the essence of a thing and does so in

analogical ways.63 This is because ‘ens’ in this sense signifies a thing to which such esse

belongs (whether substantial or accidental).

Following Aquinas’s account here, we can see how he can later hold in his

Metaphysics Commentary that according to the first mode of per se being the word ‘is’

can be predicated substantially of Socrates. ‘Is’ does not function as a substantial

predicate insofar as its res significata is esse taken as actus essendi since that act is

other than Socrates’ essence. Rather, the term ‘is’ can be a substantial predicate of

Socrates inasmuch as it signifies his essence by means of a consideration of this term’s

modes: the modus praedicandi by which ‘is’ is predicated of him in a proposition, which

presupposes the concrete modus significandi of that term. As we have seen, in

commenting on Δ.7, is clear that a consideration of a consideration of such modes

reveals the fundamental modi essendi of extramental being (ens extra animam). And, as

he makes clear elsewhere, the most fitting definition (or more precisely quasi-definition)

of ‘substance’ that expresses its modus essendi is not “ens per se”, but rather “a thing

to which esse belongs, not in another”.64 Whereas the actuality sense of ‘is’ does not

63 That the categorial sense of being is in fact the quidditative sense of being is also brought out in
t.5 from the earlier Super Sententiis (see Appendix for Latin). There, Aquinas observes that ‘ens’ is said in
one way inasmuch as it is divided by the categories and, thus, is a substantial (i.e. essential) predicate. The
second sense of ‘ens’ he identifies is inasmuch as the term signifies the truth of a proposition and, thus, is
an accidental predicate. And Aquinas explains that it belongs to this propositional sense of ‘ens’ to answer
the question “Is it?” By contrast, he explains, the categorial sense answers the question “What is it?” In
other words, the categorial sense of ‘ens’ is not an existential sense. Again, I take this distinction to clearly
indicate that this sense of ‘ens’ is a quidditative sense.

SCG I.25 (Leon. 13.76–77): “Oportet igitur quod ratio substantiae intelligatur hoc modo, quod
64

substantia sit res cui conveniat esse non in subiecto; nomen autem rei a quidditate imponitur, sicut nomen
entis ab esse; et sic in ratione substantiae intelligitur quod habeat quidditatem cui conveniat esse non in
alio. Hoc autem Deo non convenit: nam non habet quidditatem nisi suum esse.”
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belong to Socrates by his essence, this modus essendi surely does. And this is what I

take Aquinas to be indicating in his Commentary on the Metaphysics when he tells us

that according to the first mode of per se being the term ‘is’ as said of Socrates is not an

accidental predicate but a substantial one. Because by means of the modus praedicandi

of ‘is’ as that term is predicated of Socrates in a proposition—which presupposes a

concrete modus significandi of the term itself—Socrates’ essence as a substance is

signified.

But what about the quidditative signification of ‘is’ for the other categories?

Again, following Aristotle, Aquinas notes that “in as many as something is predicated …

in just as many ways is it signified that ‘Something is’.” 65 Thus, as we have seen,

Aquinas considers the proposition “A human is white”, noting that in this example ‘is’

signifies quality. Here, as with predication “Socrates is”, Aquinas again looks to a modus

praedicandi to identify a modus essendi. But in this case, ‘is’ signifies the essence of the

the essence of the predicate in the proposition rather than the subject. It is able to do

so precisely because we find the term ‘is’ adjoining (adiacens) with the principal

predicate ‘white’ in this proposition. What results, Aquinas tells us, is “a single

predicate, so that the proposition is divided into two parts, not into three.”66 Thus, in

the proposition “A human is white”, the full predicate is not simply ‘white’ but rather

‘is-white’.67 It is this full predicate that is asserted of the subject, thereby revealing a

For a consideration of Aquinas’s treatment of the definition of ‘substance’, see my essay “Substance
as a Metaphysical Genus," in The Science of Being as Being: Metaphysical Investigations, ed. Gregory T.
Doolan (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 99–128.

65 See n. 52 above.

66 In Peri., II.2 (Leon. 1*/1.88:36–52). For Latin, see n. 58 above.

67 Regarding Aquinas’s views on ‘is’ as a predicate, I am in agreement with the readings of both

Louis-Marie Régis and Ralph McInerny who took issue with Étienne Gilson’s position that ‘is’ is not a
predicate either in what he referred to as “one-term” propositions (“Socrates is”) nor in “two term”
propositions (“Socrates is white”). See Étienne Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers, 2nd ed. (Toronto:
Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies, 1952), 190–232; Louis-Marie Régis, “The Knowledge of Existence
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distinctive modus essendi, namely quality: to-be-something-white. And so it is, mutatis

mutandis, for predicates in the remaining categories.68 In each case, ‘esse’ signifies

essence inasmuch as the concrete mode of the verb form ‘is’ (est) signifies following the

the mode according to which it is predicated.

Granting that Aquinas views the first per se mode of being from Metaphysics Δ.7—

the categorial sense—as identical with the quidditative sense of being, we are still posed

with some questions in light of two texts from Table 1 (7, 8). In these texts, Aquinas

seems to present the actuality sense of ‘esse’ as the sort of being that is divided by the

categories. Nevertheless, I would contend that these observations, when properly

understood, are not at odds with the reading of Aquinas I have given. To see why not,

we will briefly need to consider how Aquinas sees the categorial sense of being in Δ.7 as

related to the being as it is divided by act and potency.

IV. The Relation Between the Quidditative

and Actuality Senses of ‘Esse’ in Metaphysics Δ.7

In his Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Aquinas presents the four senses

of being in Δ.7 in terms of a fundamental division between per accidens being and per

se being. Aristotle himself subdivides the former in light of three kinds of per accidens

predication; following him, Aquinas refers to these as three modes of per accidens being.

As I have noted above, in treating of per se being, Aristotle explicitly terms only categorial

being as such, leaving ambiguous the remaining senses. Aquinas, however, treats all

in St. Thomas Aquinas,” Modern Schoolman 28 (1951): 121–27; McInerny, “Being and Predication,” esp.
173–80.

68 Following Aquinas’s derivation account of the categories from his Commentary on the

Metaphysics, Aquinas notes that a predicate is related to a subject in one of three ways: (1) When it says
what the subject is (substance); (2) when the predicate is taken as in a subject (quantity, quality, relation);
(3) when the predicate is taken from what is outside of the subject (habitus, time when, place where, position).
For a detailed accounting of the subdivisions of the latter two modi praedicandi to derive the nine modi
essendi that are the categories of accidents, see the sources cited above in n. 57.
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three remaining senses of being in Δ.7 as three modes of per se being. I have summarized

Aquinas’s treatment of all of these modes in Table 2 below:

Table 2:
Aquinas’s Commentary on Metaphysics Δ.7
Mode of Being Aquinas’s What ‘esse’
(ens, esse) Description of Mode signifies
Accident Predicated of
1.
Ens per accidens

an Accident
ex. “Iustus est musicus.”

Accident Predicated of
Results from Happens [To Be]
2. a Subject
an accidental cause (accidere)
ex. “Homo est musicus.”

Subject Predicated of
3. an Accident
ex. “Musicus est homo.”

• extra animam, in rerum natura

• Figures of Predication
• ens perfectum – quid (substantia)
As Divided by – quale
1. • contracted to diverse genera – quantum
the Categories by diverse modi praedicandi – etc.
• modi praedicandi follow from • Modi Essendi
modi essendi

• tantum in mente
• veritas propositionis caused by
Ens per se

veritas rei • Composition of a Proposition

As signifying
2. • Said of all that ‘is’ according to
Truth of a Proposition
1st per se mode of being • That a Proposition is True

• Also, of nonbeings according to

1st mode: negations, etc.

• More common than ens

perfectum (1st per se mode)
• Divides each category (1st mode) • That Something is Sayable …
As Divided by
3. – either in act
Act and Potency • Also, divides acts of the mind – or in potency
and privations (res rationis
tantum; i.e. being according to
2nd mode)

From this table we see that Aquinas clearly distinguishes the first, or categorial,

mode of per se being from the third—namely from being as it is divided by act and

potency. It would seem, therefore, that the actuality sense of being is brought out in this
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third mode, not in the first. So, again, we are posed with the question: why does Aquinas

at times seem to indicate in other texts that what is divided by the categories is being

taken according to the actuality sense? The answer, I would argue, lies in a

consideration of the division indicated in that third mode of per se being. Although it is

a different sort of division than the distinction found between the categories,

nevertheless the division between act and potency is fundamentally related to that first

mode of per se being. For, as Aquinas explains in commenting on Δ.7, “In all of the

aforementioned terms that signify the ten categories, something is said ‘to be in act’ and

something ‘in potency’. And from this it follows that every single category is divided by

act and potency.”69

Aquinas thus does not see Aristotle’s first mode of per se being as itself signifying

either actuality or potentiality; rather, what it signifies according to that first mode is

essence. As he subsequently observes in in his Commentary on the Metaphysics (t.14),

“The ‘ens’ that is divided by the ten categories signifies the very natures of the ten genera

inasmuch as they are [either] in act or in potency.”70 According to this first mode of per

se being, ‘ens’ signifies essence in analogical ways, with substance as the primary

referent. According to the third mode of per se being, ‘ens’ also signifies in analogical

ways, with actuality as the primary referent. What Aquinas indicates to us is that these

two ways are not mutually exclusive: to the contrary, inasmuch as ‘ens’ signifies

essence, it must signify essence either as in act or as in potency. Categorial being does

not—indeed cannot—abstract entirely from act and potency.71

69 In Metaphysicam, V.9 (Marietti 239.897): “In omnibus enim praedictis terminis, quae significant

decem praedicamenta, aliquid dicitur in actu, et aliquid in potentia. Et ex hoc accidit, quod unumquodque
praedicamentum per actum et potentiam dividitur.”

70 In Metaphysicam, X.3 (Marietti 472.1982): “Sed ens quod dividitur per decem praedicamenta,

significat ipsas naturas decem generum secundum quod sunt actu vel potentia.” Emphasis added in
translation.

71 On this point, see Brock, “What Actually Exists,” 27, n. 54.

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Thus, we see for Aquinas the interrelation between Aristotle’s first and third

modes of per se being.72 As noted before, the term ‘esse’ according to its grammatical

forms of ‘ens’ and ‘est’ signify both actus essendi and essence at one and the same time

since they signify that act as their res significata, and they signify essence by means of

their concrete modus significandi. Moreover, as Stephen Brock puts it so well, “There is

still a reference to actus essendi even when the nature is signified merely as being in

potency. To be in potency is nothing other than to have an order toward being in act.

The division into act and potency is per prius et posterius, and a nature is signified

simpliciter as a being only when it is signified as in act.”73 Indeed, it is because of the

priority of act, I would argue, that when commenting on Δ.7 Aquinas speaks of the first

mode of per se being as ens perfectum. His intention is to note that when the categorial

(i.e. quidditative) sense of being is taken in an unqualified way, it is taken according to

the mode of actuality—he is not arguing that this first per se mode of being signifies

actuality, nor is he indicating that it is limited to the actual.

Just as the categorial sense of being does not exclude the act-potency sense,

neither does it exclude the propositional sense being, which is the second mode of per

se being listed in Δ.7. As Aquinas tells us in t.5, “Whatever are called ‘beings’ (entia)

according to the first mode [the categorial sense] are beings according to the second

mode [the propositional sense], for everything that has a natural esse in reality (in rebus)

can, by means of an affirmative proposition, be signified ‘to be’—for example, when it is

said that ‘A color is,’ or ‘A human is’.”74 As Aquinas frequently reminds us, however, not

72 This is not to suggest that the division of act and potency is simply a division of categorial being.

As Aquinas makes clear in commenting on Metaphysics Δ.7, this third mode of per se being divides the
second (propositional being) as well.
73 Brock, “What Actually Exists,” 27, n. 54.

74 Super Sententiis, II.34.1.1 co. (Mandonnet, 2.872): “Quaecumque ergo dicuntur entia quantum
ad primum modum, sunt entia quantum ad secundum modum: quia omne quod habet naturale esse in
rebus, potest significari per propositionem affirmativam esse; ut cum dicitur: color est, vel homo est.” For
fuller context, see t.5 in the Appendix to this paper.
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everything according to the second mode can be said “to be” according to the first, as is

the case with privations such as blindness, which are entia rationis. But even here, there

is a presupposition of categorial being: although beings of reason such as blindness do

not have a nature found in the categories, Aquinas makes clear that they are reduced

to something real in the categories. Thus, blindness, as the privation of sight, is reduced

to the genus of habit; moreover, blindness presupposes a real subject—a substance—in

which it is present as a privation.75 In this way, even in the case of entia rationis, the

propositional sense of being ultimately presupposes the categorial, or quidditative,

sense.76

Conclusion

A review of those texts throughout Aquinas’s corpus in which he identifies the

ways in which ‘being’ is said reveals that what he held at the start of his career is a

position he affirms throughout: that the term ‘esse’ can signify essence. Nevertheless,

in saying this Aquinas does not mean to indicate that the term ‘esse’ itself should be

directly employed as a synonym for the words ‘essence’, ‘quiddity’, or ‘nature’. Rather,

what we have seen, is that when he speaks of ‘esse’ in this way, Aquinas employs the

term as the name of the verb, standing for its relevant conjugated forms, such as ‘ens’

and ‘est’. These terms signify essence following from their concrete modus significandi.

In do so, these terms signify essence in a way that does not exclude the other modes of

75 See, e.g., ST I.3.5. co. (Leon. 4.43). The situation is more complex regarding a fiction of the mind,

such as the conception of a chimera, which Aquinas tells us has no foundation in reality, whether proximate
(as with our concept of a stone) or remote (such as our concept of a privation). As Klima brings out in his
writings, for Aquinas ‘being’ cannot be predicated of a chimera even in the sense of an ens rationis in the
manner of a privation. In the propositions, “A chimera is thought of,” it is not a chimera that is referred to
since nothing is a chimera. Still, the name has meaning and if it is meant to signify a certain fictional
animal, there is a presupposition of categorial being for that conceptualization.
See Klima, “Semantic Principles,” 125–27. For Aquinas on the lack of a foundation for concept of a
chimera, see Super Sententiis I.2.1.3 co. (Mandonnet 1.67).

76 For a full treatment of the resolution of entia rationis to categorial being, see Klima, “Aquinas’s

Theory of the Copula.”

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per se being, namely the propositional sense and being as it is divided by act and

potency. Since Aquinas does look to modi significandi and modi praedicandi to draw

conclusions about modi essendi, a consideration of his views on semantics and logic are

essential to understand his account of being according to all of its different senses.

Nevertheless, it is clear that for Aquinas it does not belong to the grammarian or logician

to identify and clarify these various senses. This is a task for the metaphysician.77

77 Regarding Aquinas’s view that it is the metaphysician’s job to clarify the senses of ‘being’, see

e.g. In Metaphysicam, IV.1 (Marietti, 151–53.534–43); ibid., IV.4 (Marietti, 160–62.570–87).

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APPENDIX
1252–56

1. De ente, c. 1 (Leon. 43.369:1–26):

Sciendum est igitur quod, sicut in V Methaphisice Philosophus dicit, ens per se dupliciter dicitur:
[1] uno modo quod diuiditur per decem genera,
[2] alio modo quod significat propositionum ueritatem.

Horum autem differentia est quia secundo modo potest dici ens omne illud de quo affirmatiua
propositio formari potest, etiam si illud in re nichil ponat; per quem modum priuationes et negationes
entia dicuntu: dicimus enim quod affirmatio est opposita negationi, et quod cecitas est in oculo. Sed
primo modo non potest dici ens nisi quod aliquid in re ponit; unde primo modo cecitas et huiusmodi
non sunt entia.

Nomen igitur essentie non sumitur ab ente secundo modo dicto: aliqua enim hoc modo dicuntur entia
que essentiam non habent, ut patet in priuationibus; sed sumitur essentia ab ente primo modo dicto.
Vnde Commentator in eodem loco dicit quod ens primo modo dictum est quod significat essentiam
rei. Et quia, ut dictum est, ens hoc modo dictum diuiditur per decem genera, oportet ut essentia
significet aliquid commune omnibus naturis per quas diuersa entia in diuersis generibus et speciebus
collocantur, sicut humanitas est essentia hominis, et sic de aliis.

2. Sup. Sent., I.19.5.1 ad 1 (Mandonnet, 1.488):

Esse dicitur dupliciter:
[1] uno modo secundum quod ens significat essentiam rerum prout dividitur per decem genera;
[2] alio modo secundum quod esse significat compositionem quam anima facit; et istud ens
Philosophus, V Metaph., text. 14, appellat verum. 


3. Sup. Sent., I.28.2.3 expos. (Mandonnet, 1.684):

Esse dicitur dupliciter:
[1] scilicet prout significat veritatem compositionis,
[2] et secundum quod significat actum essentiae.

Quando ergo dicitur: «Aliud est Patrem esse, aliud est Filium esse,» ita quod ly «esse» sit praedicatum
dicti; significatur esse quod est accidens essentiae; unde falsa est, quia sicut una est essentia trium,
ita et unum esse. Cum autem dicitur: «Aliud est esse Patrem, aliud Filum esse», ita quod ly «Patrem»
praedicetur in dicto inesse; significatur veritas compositionis, et secundum hoc pater eo est pater
quo verum est ipsum dici patrem, scilicet paternitate, et non essentia. Et quia alio Deus dicitur Pater,
scilicet paternitate, et alio Filius, scilicet filiatione, ideo conceditur quod aliud est esse Patrem et aliud
esse Filium, secundum quod ly «aliud» dicit alietatem notionis, et non alietatem essentiae.


4. Sup. Sent., I.33.1.1 ad 1 (Mandonnet, 1.765–66):
Esse dicitur tripliciter.
[1] Uno modo dicitur esse ipsa quidditas vel natura rei, sicut dicitur quod definitio est oratio
significans quid est esse; definitio enim quidditatem rei significat.
[2] Alio modo dicitur esse ipse actus essentiae; sicut vivere, quod est esse viventibus, est animae
actus; non actus secundus, qui est operatio, sed actus primus.
[3] Tertio modo dicitur esse quod significat veritatem compositionis in propositionibus, secundum
quod est dicitur copula: et secundum hoc est in intellectu componente et dividente quantum ad
sui complementum; sed fundatur in esse rei, quod est actus essentiae, sicut supra de veritate
dictum est.


5. Sup. Sent., II.34.1.1 co. (Mandonnet, 2.872)78:

78 Scriptum super libros Sententiarum magistri Petri Lombardi episcopi Parisiensis, vol. 2, ed. P.

Mandonnet (Paris: Lethielleux, 1929).

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Philosophus ostendit quod ens multipliciter dicitur.

[1] Uno enim modo dicitur ens quod per decem genera dividitur: et sic ens significat aliquid in natura
existens; sive sit substantia, ut homo; sive accidens, ut color.
[2] Alio modo dicitur ens, quod significat veritatem propositionis; prout dicitur, quod affirmatio est
vera, quando significat esse de eo quod est; et negatio, quando significat non esse de eo quod non
est; et hoc ens compositionem significat, quam intellectus componens et dividens adinvenit.

Quaecumque ergo dicuntur entia quantum ad primum modum, sunt entia quantum ad secundum
modum: quia omne quod habet naturale esse in rebus, potest significari per propositionem
affirmativam esse; ut cum dicitur: color est, vel homo est. Non autem omnia quae sunt entia quantum
ad secundum modum, sunt entia quantum ad primum: quia de privatione, ut de caecitate, formatur
una affirmativa propositio, cum dicitur, caecitas est; nec tamen caecitas aliquid est in rerum natura;
sed est magis alicujus entis remotio: et ideo etiam privationes et negationes dicuntur esse entia
quantum ad secundum modum, sed non quantum ad primum. Ens autem secundum utrumque
istorum modorum diversimode praedicatur: quia secundum primum modum acceptum, est
praedicatum substantiale, et pertinet ad quaestionem quid est; sed quantum ad secundum modum,
est praedicatum accidentale, ut Commentator ibidem dicit, et pertinet ad quaestionem an est.

6. Sup. Sent., II.37.1.2 ad 3 (Mandonnet, 2.765–66)79:

Ens dicitur dupliciter.
[1] Uno modo quod significat essentiam rei extra animam existentis; …
[2] Alio modo secundum quod significat veritatem propositionis.


7. Sup. Sent., III.6.2.2 co. (Moos, 3.238)80:
Secundum PHILOSOPHUM, V Meta. (δ 7. 1017a, 31–35; l. 9, n. 895–896) esse duobus modis dicitur.
[1] Uno modo, secundum quod significat veritatem propositionis, secundum quod est copula; et sic,
ut COMMENTATOR ibidem (text. 6) dicit, ens est praedicatum accidentale. Et hoc esse non est in re,
sed in mente, quae conjungit subjectum cum praedicato, ut dicit PHILOSOPHUS in VI Meta. (ϵ 4.
1027b 25–27; l. 4, n. 1230–1231). …
[2] Alio modo (1017a 22–27; l. 9, n. 889–895) dicitur esse quod pertinet ad naturam rei, secundum
quod dividitur secundum decem genera. Et hoc quidem esse in re est, et est actus entis resultans
ex principiis rei, sicut lucere est actus lucentis.
[3] Aliquando tamen esse sumitur pro essentia, secundum quam res est; quia per actus
consueverunt significari eorum principia, ut potentiae vel habitus. 



Christmas 1257

8. Quodlibet IX, 2.2 [3] co. (Leon. 25/1.94–95:31–66)81:
Dicendum quod esse dupliciter dicitur, ut patet per Philosophum in V Methaphisice et in quadam
glosa Origenis super principium Iohannis.


[1] Vno modo secundum quod est copula uerbalis significans compositionem cuiuslibet
enunciationis quam anima facit, unde hoc esse non est aliquid in rerum natura, set tantum in
actu anime componentis et diuidentis; et sic esse attribuitur omni ei de quo potest propositio
formari, siue sit ens siue priuatio entis: dicimus enim cecitatem esse.
[2] Alio modo esse dicitur actus entis in quantum est ens, id est quo denominatur aliquid ens actu
in rerum natura; et sic esse non attribuitur nisi rebus ipsis que in decem generibus continentur,
unde ens a tali esse dictum per decem genera diuiditur. Set hoc esse attribuitur alicui rei
dupliciter.

79 Scriptum super libros Sententiarum magistri Petri Lombardi episcopi Parisiensis, vol. 2, ed. P.

Mandonnet (Paris: Lethielleux, 1929).

80 Scriptum super Sententiis magistri Petri Lombardi, vol. 3, ed. R. P. Maria Fabianus Moos, O.P.

(Paris: Lethielleux, 1933).

81 Quodlibet Nonum, 2.2 [3] co. in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 25/1 (Rome:

Commissio Leonina, 1996), 94–95:31–66.

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[2.1] Set hoc esse attribuitur alicui rei dupliciter. Vno modo, sicut ei quod proprie et uere habet
esse uel est; et sic attribuitur soli substancie per se subsistenti, unde quod uere est dicitur
substancia in I Phisicorum. [Subdivided below]
[2.2] Omnibus uero que non per se subsistunt set in alio et cum alio, siue sint accidencia siue
forme substanciales aut quelibet partes, non habent esse ita quod ipsa uere sint, set
attribuitur eis esse alio modo, id est ut quo aliquid est, sicut albedo dicitur esse, non quia
ipsa in esse subsistat, set quia ea aliquid habet esse album.

[2.1] Esse ergo proprie et uere non attribuitur nisi rei per se subsistenti. Huic autem attribuitur
esse duplex.
[2.1.1] Vnum scillcet esse quod resultat ex hiis ex quibus eius unitas integratur, quod
est proprium esse suppositi substanciale.
[2.1.2] Allud esse est supposito attributum preter ea que integrant ipsum, quod est esse
superadditum, scilicet accidentale, ut esse album attribuitur Sorti cum dicimus:
Sortes est albus.

1259–65

9. Summa contra gentiles, III.9.9 (Leon. 14.22)82:

Ens enim dupliciter dicitur, ut Philosophus in Metaphysica docet.
[1] Uno modo, secundum quod significat essentiam rei, et dividitur per decem praedicamenta: et sic
nulla privatio potest dici ens.
[2] Alio modo, secundum quod significat veritatem compositionis: et sic malum et privatio dicitur
ens, inquantum privatione dicitur aliquid esse privatum.

1265–66

10. De potentia, 7.2 ad 1 (Marietti 191–92)83:

Ens et esse dicitur dupliciter, ut patet V Metaph.


[1] Quandoque enim significat essentiam rei, sive actum essendi;
[2] quandoque vero significat veritatem propositionis, etiam in his quae esse non habent: sicut
dicimus quod caecitas est, quia verum est hominem esse caecum.



Cum ergo dicat Damascenus, quod esse Dei est nobis manifestum, accipitur esse Dei secundo
modo, et non primo. Primo enim modo est idem esse Dei quod est substantia: et sicut eius
substantia est ignota, ita et esse. Secundo autem modo scimus quoniam Deus est, quoniam hanc
propositionem in intellectu nostro concipimus ex effectibus ipsius.

1265–68

11. Summa theologiae, I.3.4 ad 2 (Leon. 4.42)84:

Esse dupliciter dicitur:

[1] uno modo, significat actum essendi;
[2] alio modo, significat compositionem propositionis, quam anima adinvenit coniungens
praedicatum subiecto. 



82 Summa contra gentiles III, 9.9 in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 14 (Rome:

Commissio Leonina, 1926), 22.

83 Quaestiones disputatae de potentia, 7.2 ad 1 in vol. 2, Quaestiones disputatae, 8th rev. ed., ed. M.

Pession (Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1949), 191–92.

84 Summa theologiae I, 3.4 ad 2 in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 4 (Rome: Commissio

Leonina, 1888), 42.

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Primo igitur modo accipiendo esse, non possumus scire esse Dei, sicut nec eius essentiam, sed
solum secundo modo. Scimus enim quod haec propositio quam formamus de Deo, cum dicimus
Deus est, vera est. Et hoc scimus ex eius effectibus, ut supra dictum est.



12. Summa theologiae, I.48.2 ad 2 (Leon. 4.492)85:
Sicut dicitur in V Metaphys., Ens dupliciter dicitur.


[1] Uno modo, secundum quod significat entitatem rei, prout dividitur per decem praedicamenta:
et sic convertitur cum re. Et hoc modo, nulla privatio est ens: unde nec malum. 


[2] Alio modo dicitur ens, quod significat veritatem propositionis, quae in compositione consistit,
cuius nota est hoc verbum est: et hoc est ens quo respondetur ad quaestionem an est. Et sic
caecitatem dicimus esse in oculo, vel quamcumque aliam privationem. Et hoc modo etiam
malum dicitur ens.

After March 1266



13. De malo 1.1 ad 19 (Leon. 23.8:468–77)86:
Ens dicitur dupliciter:


[1] uno modo, secundum quod significat naturam decem generum, et sic neque malum neque aliqua
priuatio est ens neque aliquid;
[2] alio modo secundum quod respondetur ad quaestionem an est, et sic malum est sicut et cecitas
est. Non tamen malum est aliquid, quia esse aliquid non solum significat quod respondetur ad
questionem an est, set etiam respondetur ad questionem quid est.

1270–72

14. In Metaphysicam X, 3 (Marietti 472.1982)87:
[Avicenna] deceptus est ex aequivocatione entis.
[1] Nam ens quod significat compositionem propositionis est praedicatum accidentale, quia
compositio fit per intellectum secundum determinatum tempus. Esse autem in hoc tempore vel
in illo, est accidentale praedicatum.
[2] Sed ens quod dividitur per decem praedicamenta, significat ipsas naturas decem generum
secundum quod sunt actu vel potentia.

85 Summa theologiae I, 48.2 ad 2 in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 4 (Rome: Commissio

Leonina, 1888), 492.

86 Quaestiones disputatae de malo, 1.1 ad 19 in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 23

(Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1982), 8:468–77.

87 In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio, X.3.1982, M.-R. Cathala and R. M.

Spiazzi eds. (Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1950), 472.