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On the causal role of privation in Thomas Aquinas's metaphysics
Author(s) -
Gartenberg Zachary Micah
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
european journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.42
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1468-0378
pISSN - 0966-8373
DOI - 10.1111/ejop.12526
Subject(s) - privation , subject (documents) , metaphysics , epistemology , property (philosophy) , philosophy , order (exchange) , psychology , computer science , neuroscience , cognition , sleep deprivation , finance , library science , economics
“Privation” ( privatio ) is defined by Thomas Aquinas as the want of some property in a subject that ought naturally to possess that property. In this paper, I explicate the ontological status of privation as a form of nonbeing in order to shed light on the challenging question whether privation, as a kind of absence, can play a causal role for Aquinas, and if so, how. According to Aquinas, I argue, privations in a subject serve to determine what sort of (efficient) causal relations that subject can enter into, but, as nonbeings, privations cannot be the cause of the subject's entering into those relations, and in this way, they cannot be efficient causes of effects distinct from the subject.