something in reality can be called a being. In thefirst way, therefore, blindness and the like
are not beings.^18
The ten genera referred to by Aquinas are Aristotle’s ten categories, which for the
sake of convenience have been here compressed into two.^19 According to Aquinas,
there is a sense of“being”whose job is to range over the entities that fall under the ten
categories. This sense is like ourm(“ (^9) d”).^20 There is also a sense of“being”that
ranges overmore, according to which privations such as blindness and the like
(which presumably include holes and other almost nothings) are beings. This sense
of“being”is“being-true.”^21 I am inclined to think that Aquinas’s beings in the sense
of being-true are beings by courtesy.
The sort of distinction Aquinas draws does not seem to be unique to“Western”
philosophy. Potter (1977: 140–6) discusses various schools of Indian metaphysics
that made a distinction between the real categories of things and absences, and
argued over whether absences are “really” there. Similarly, McDermott (1969:
62 – 3) claims that the metaphysicians of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika traditions recognized
a similar distinction between entities like substances, tropes, and motions, which
enjoy existence in the strict sense, and absences, which do not exist in the strict sense
(but which are nonetheless quantified over and theorized about).^22
There are apparent and important differences between Aquinas’s view and the one
defended here. First, the view defended here is consistent with the claim that, as a
matter of fact,“being”has exactly one sense, i.e.,“being”is not polysemous. Call the
putatively sole meaning of“ 9 ,”“m(‘ 9 ’).”“ 9 ”is semantically simple, i.e.,m(“ 9 ”)
does not have other meanings as parts. Likewise,m(“ (^9) d”), a merely possible
meaning for“ 9 ,”is semantically simple. Part of what is meant by saying thatm
(“ 9 ”) is simple is that sentences of the form“ 9 xΦ”will not be identical in meaning
to sentences containing“ (^9) dxΦ”plus additional operators or other linguistic
machinery. There is a sense in whichm(“ 9 ”)isanextendedsense of“ 9 ”relative
tom(“ (^9) d”), in that“ 9 ”contains more in its domain of quantification than“ (^9) d.”
(^18) See Aquinas’sBeing and Essence, section 4 (Aquinas 1965: 21). Similar passages are translated and
discussed in Klima (1993). See also Kenny (2005a: 3 19 – 4).
I have ignored other ontological categories besidessubstanceandattributehere. And perhaps an
accurate picture of Aquinas will postulate further modes of being beyond those of the ten categories; this is
persuasively argued in Brower (2014). 20
As noted in section 4.4, Aquinas also sometimes speaks as though, for each category of being, there is
a sense of“being”associated with it. For example, Aquinas (1993: 92) says that“being”is used in one sense
to stand for substances and in another sense to stand for properties. See also McInerny (1961: 39) and
Miller (2002: 16). Brentano (1981b: 90) attributes this claim to Aristotle:“This much is certain: he thought
that there was a sense of the term being for each category; and in making the classification, he wanted to
distinguish as many different senses of being. 21 ”
The inspiration for this doctrine in Aquinas is Aristotle’sMetaphysics, specifically IV.2, 1003b5
(Aristotle 1984b: 1584). Similarly, Kukkonen (2012: 56) notes that Averroes recognizes a distinction
between the metaphysically important sense of being applying to entities belonging to categories and an
impoverished sense applying to privations. See Kenny (2005a: 3 22 – 5) for discussion of Aquinas.
See also Matilal (1982: 100).