# Esse and Ens in Latin philosophy



## Davidius

I started reading Aquinas' _De Principiis Naturae_ in Latin and already in the first chapter I have come across the infinitive verb _esse_ being used as a noun ("being"), which corresponded, I thought, to the Greek ὦν (present participle of εἰμί, infinitive εἶναι). Later, however, he used _esse_ and _ens_ in the same passage. Since _ens_ appears to be a made-up present participle of _esse_, it correlates more directly to ὦν, but I can't sense any difference between the two Latin words in the text. Does anyone know if there is one? Here is an example:



> Et quia generatio est qu[a]edam mutatio *de non esse vel ente ad esse vel ens*, e converso autem corruptio debet esse de esse ad non esse.



Are the two meant to be interchangeable?


----------



## Davidius

:bump:


----------



## CharlieJ

I'm not really qualified to speak of Latin, but I am somewhat familiar with Aquinas. Could it be his way of distinguishing between Aristotle's "being" and "essence"?

Also, I know Aristotle speaks of essence with the phrases "to ti en einai" or "to ti esti." That idea is translated with the Latin essentia.


----------



## Davidius

CharlieJ said:


> I'm not really qualified to speak of Latin, but I am somewhat familiar with Aquinas. Could it be his way of distinguishing between Aristotle's "being" and "essence"?
> 
> Also, I know Aristotle speaks of essence with the phrases "to ti en einai" or "to ti esti." That idea is translated with the Latin essentia.



Interesting. Perhaps "being" and "essence" is the right distinction, but as noted he doesn't say _essentia_, so I'm still not sure.


----------



## JohnGill

You might try here for help: Perseus Digital Library

If his work is at the site then it should have a commentary.


----------



## Davidius

JohnGill said:


> You might try here for help: Perseus Digital Library
> 
> If his work is at the site then it should have a commentary.



Perseus deals with Classical Greek and Latin, so unfortunately they don't have anything for Aquinas.


----------



## JohnGill

Davidius said:


> JohnGill said:
> 
> 
> 
> You might try here for help: Perseus Digital Library
> 
> If his work is at the site then it should have a commentary.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Perseus deals with Classical Greek and Latin, so unfortunately they don't have anything for Aquinas.
Click to expand...


You might try here then: What is Metaphysics According to Thomas Aquinas?

If the article doesn't have the answer, you might try emailing them.

This site may also be of help: http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/index.shtml

I think that was the site I was thinking of this morning and not the Perseus site.


----------



## MW

Different metaphysics will do different things with the words, but as a base concept I would be inclined to take _esse_ in the abstract as "being" and _ens_ in the concrete as "a being." Aquinas presumably follows Aristotle's concern to give being to concepts apart from their real existence.


----------



## VictorBravo

armourbearer said:


> Different metaphysics will do different things with the words, but as a base concept I would be inclined to take _esse_ in the abstract as "being" and _ens_ in the concrete as "a being." Aquinas presumably follows Aristotle's concern to give being to concepts apart from their real existence.



I think that is a fair statement. I recall, without having a reference, that "ens" was a term the scholastics used to indicate existence without category (in the abstract), as distinguished from essence.


----------



## Davidius

Thanks Matt and Vic. So does that mean that _ens_ would be the existence of something like "blindness," for which we have a term, but does not exist in the same way a cat exists?


----------



## Semper Fidelis

Davidius said:


> Thanks Matt and Vic. So does that mean that _ens_ would be the existence of something like "blindness," for which we have a term, but does not exist in the same way a cat exists?



In other words, you can swing a dead cat but you can't swing blindness without hitting someone.


----------



## Davidius

Semper Fidelis said:


> Davidius said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks Matt and Vic. So does that mean that _ens_ would be the existence of something like "blindness," for which we have a term, but does not exist in the same way a cat exists?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In other words, you can swing a dead cat but you can't swing blindness without hitting someone.
Click to expand...


Or a live cat! 

Anyway, that's what I was thinking, but it appears that Aquinas (and Aristotle before him?) still wants to assign some sort of existence to things like blindness. If that's the distinction between _ens_ and _esse_, I'm satisfied that I can keep reading without confusion.


----------



## VictorBravo

Davidius said:


> Anyway, that's what I was thinking, but it appears that Aquinas (and Aristotle before him?) still wants to assign some sort of existence to things like blindness. *If that's the distinction between ens and esse, I'm satisfied that I can keep reading without confusion*.



That's probably the best bet. 

In looking at the sentence in context, (it's from _De Principiis Naturae_, right?)it seems like he's more focused on substantial form versus accidental form, and relative change versus absolute change. 

In that passage he seems to be using the two words interchangeable simply for the sake of saying "whatever you want to call this type of being, a change in that is different from relative change."


----------



## MW

Davidius said:


> Thanks Matt and Vic. So does that mean that _ens_ would be the existence of something like "blindness," for which we have a term, but does not exist in the same way a cat exists?



I may have muddied the waters with the use of abstrace and concrete. You can have "catness" and one can be "blind." So the terms don't apply to specific objects but to the act of being of all objects. If we strip away all metaphysical connections and look at the words in their grammatical sense, we see that esse and ens stand verbally related to one another. We could substitute the word "clamare" and see how it functions under the same two forms. That might provide a better understanding as to how esse and ens are functioning semantically.

[Matthew, not Matt]


----------



## Davidius

armourbearer said:


> Davidius said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks Matt and Vic. So does that mean that _ens_ would be the existence of something like "blindness," for which we have a term, but does not exist in the same way a cat exists?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I may have muddied the waters with the use of abstrace and concrete. You can have "catness" and one can be "blind." So the terms don't apply to specific objects but to the act of being of all objects. If we strip away all metaphysical connections and look at the words in their grammatical sense, we see that esse and ens stand verbally related to one another. We could substitute the word "clamare" and see how it functions under the same two forms. That might provide a better understanding as to how esse and ens are functioning semantically.
> 
> [Matthew, not Matt]
Click to expand...


Sorry about that, Rev. Winzer.  I must have seen "Vic" and gone into one syllable name mode. 

So _clamare_ and _clamans_?


----------



## VictorBravo

David, earlier I said something about ens meaning being without category, but couldn't remember a reference. Well, I found it, unlikely as it may sound, it's from my 1928 Webster's Dictionary.

It is a term used by the Scholatics (among whom I include Thomas Aquinas):



> Being, in the most abstract sense; being which is not necessarily existent and which requires the addition of a category to yield reality.



And it gave some examples:



> Ens reale is being apart from the mind or as ontological being. Such being may be either ens in potentia, or potential being, or ens in actu, or reality. Ens rationis is that which is conceived as being while yet it has no real entity; it is the being of a logical concept, especially of one which expresses mere privation, as blindness.



Beyond that, I've run out of steam. My Latin is approximately as good as my Arabic at this point (See Spot Run. . .How much milk has come from the dairy?. . . etc.).


----------

