Glossary
GLOSSARY
accident. An incidental property of a thing; that which affects something and is outside its essence. For example, “whiteness” can be an accident of a wall but is not of its substance. See substance.
action, moral. An action in which the agent persuades, exhorts, and the like. See action, natural.
action, natural. An action in which an agent brings about an effect on a passive object and in which the agent is of greater power than the object. See action, moral.
actions, elicited. Acts called forth or accomplished by a human ability. The opposite of this is “commanded actions.”
actuality, primary (actus primus). A power or potential that is not currently actualized. See actuality, secondary.
actuality, secondary (actus secundus). The actual operation of a thing. See actuality, primary.
adjunct. Anything added to something else which is not part of its essence. An adjunct is really distinguished from its subject, even if it is proper to the subject. While adjuncts are often accidents (like wisdom in a man), they can also be substances (like wine in a bottle).
appetite, concupiscible and irascible. The sensitive appetite (see appetite, sensitive and intellectual) is subdivided into “concupiscible” and “irascible.” The concupiscible appetite (ἐπιθυμία) is the faculty by which someone desires what seems good to him and avoids what seems bad. For example, a person desires food and avoids poison. The irascible appetite (θύμoς), on the other hand, is the faculty by which someone desires to give up what seems good or undertake what seems bad in order to obtain a greater good or avoid a greater evil. For example, someone may desire to fight in order to obtain food, or may desire to abstain from a pleasant, though poisonous, drug in order to retain health.
appetite, sensitive and intellectual. The sensitive appetite is the faculty by which a sensing being desires what it perceives as good and avoids what it perceives as bad. It is subdivided into the concupiscible appetite and the irascible appetite. (See appetite, concupiscible and irascible.) The intellectual appetite, on the other hand, is the faculty by which a human being desires the good or avoids the bad that he has known by his intellect; it is the same thing as the “will.”
cause, adequate. The total cause of something, which perfectly constitutes the essence of an effect. An effect proceeds from the whole adequate cause and from it alone.
cause, efficient. That through which something is accomplished or made and on which the result depends.
cause, final. The same as an “end,” that is, an aim, purpose, or goal. An end is the cause for which a doer acts, or that for whose sake something happens.
cause, formal. See form.
cause, impulsive. That which impels a principal efficient cause to act. This impulsion comes either from inside or outside of the principal cause.
cause, material. See material.
cause, proximate. The nearest and immediate cause of something, also called “first cause,” because it moves the effect primarily and is linked with it most closely. A proximate cause attains an effect through itself and immediately. For example, fire is the proximate cause of heat.
contradiction in the predicate (ἀντικείμενoν ἐν πρoσκειμένῳ). This occurs when the predicate in a proposition cancels the subject or introduces a contradiction.
differences, constituent and dividing (differentiae constituentes and dividentes). Differences divide a category (genus) and constitute a subcategory (species). For example, the difference “rational” divides the category “animal” into “human” and “brute.” In so doing, the difference establishes each of these as its own subcategory, different from the other.
disposition, innate and acquired. See habit, innate and acquired.
end. Aim, purpose, goal. An end is the cause for which a doer acts, or that for whose sake something happens.
evil of fault (malum culpae). An evil that is constituted by deliberate fault or guilt. See evil of punishment.
evil of punishment (malum poenae). The punishment that God renders for sin according to His justice. This is not “evil” in the English sense of the word, but rather “bad” to the one who experiences it. See evil of fault.
form. That which completes another thing or determines it or through which it operates. “Form” is that which gives the being of a thing. For example, wood can be the material of a carved statue. In this case, the form of the statue is the shape or figure that makes it a statue and not simply wood. See material.
habit (habitus). A durable, accidental quality in the nature of a thing, or a disposition or inclination toward something.
habit, innate and acquired. In scholastic thought, a disposition or habit [habitus] is an inclination of a rational being toward doing certain acts. A habit does not compel the doer, but makes him more ready and able to do certain acts. An “innate disposition” arises from a person’s nature. An “acquired disposition,” on the other hand, comes from repeated human actions, and hence it derives from free choice. For example, one can acquire the habit of playing the guitar by much practice.
“in a certain manner and simply” (παρὰ τὸ πῆ καὶ ἁπλῶς). This invalid argument takes something that was stated only in a certain manner or respect and applies it simply or absolutely.
intelligible. Something that can be thought or understood (by the intellect or reason) above and beyond the senses. See sensible.
material. In scholastic thought, most things are composites, consisting of matter (or “material”) and form. The matter is thought of as determinable, and the form is what determines it, or makes an individual thing to be what it is. For example, a particular statue’s matter may be marble, and its form is its figure or shape. See form.
necessity, absolute. Elsewhere called “necessity of the consequent.” It is a necessity by which something simply cannot be other than it is.
necessity, conditioned. Elsewhere called “necessity of the consequence.” It is a necessity by which something is not necessary by its own nature but only on the supposition of something antecedent. For example, supposing that each of the boys in Chicago owns a ball, it is necessary that John, a boy who lives in Chicago, owns a ball. Yet there is no intrinsic relationship of living in Chicago and owning a ball.
potentiality, proximate. Being on the point of having something. For example, a full-grown, healthy man can fight in the army with proximate potentiality, whereas a young boy can fight in the army only with remote potentiality (after he has grown into a man).
potentiality, remote. See potentiality, proximate.
power, absolute and ordered (or ordinary). Normally God’s “absolute power” means what God is able to do when we consider His power on its own, whereas His “ordinary” or “ordered power” is what God is able to do given what He has already chosen to do in creating and providentially directing this world. “By His absolute power God can do other things than what He foreknew and foreordained that He would do.” Gerhard sometimes uses these terms to distinguish what God could possibly due without means (absolute power) from what God can do through the means He has chosen (ordinary power).
principle (principium). A source or origin from which something proceeds or emanates.
principle, impulsive. See cause, impulsive.
quality, positive. Something posited within the realm of reality, not “good.” Its opposite, “negative,” means “lacking,” not “bad.”
sensible. Perceptible by the senses, rather than “reasonable” or “prudent” as this word often means in modern English. See intelligible.
subject. An individual subsisting of itself, distinct from other individuals either of the same or of a different species; attributed to inanimate as well as animate things, to beasts as well as to rational persons.
subordinates. Subordinates are noncontradictory things or propositions of which one is categorized under the other.
substance. A being subsisting of itself. A concrete reality, that which exists. See accident.
SOURCES
Deferrari. Roy J. A Lexicon of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1948–49.
Lewis, Charlton T., and Charles Short, eds. A Latin Dictionary: Founded on Andrews’ Edition of Freund’s Latin Dictionary, Revised, Enlarged, and in Great Part Rewritten. Oxford: Clarendon, 1879.
Micraelius, Johann. Lexicon philosophicum terminorum philosophis usitatorum: Ordine alphabetico sic digestorum, ut inde facile liceat cognosse, praesertim si tam Latinus, quam Graecus index praemissus non negligatur. Editio Secunda ab ipso Authore correcta & aucta, cum novis novorum terminorum & vocabulorum indicibus. [Electronic edition.] Stetini: Mamphrasius, 1661; PURL: http://diglib.hab.de/drucke/201-29-quod/start.htm.
Scherzer, Johann Adam. Vade mecum sive Manuale philosophicum. Leipzig: Christian Kirchner, 1675. Reprint, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1996.
Signoriello, Nuntio. Lexicon peripateticum philosophico-theologicum, in quo scholasticorum distinctiones et effata praecipua explicantur. Editio novissima. Naples: Apud officinam Bibliothecae Catholicae Scriptorum, 1893.
FOR FURTHER STUDY
Altenstaig, Joannes, and Joannes Tytz. Lexicon Theologicum. Cologne: Petrus Henningius, 1619. Reprint, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1974.
Eisler, Rudolf. Wörterbuch der Philosophischen Begriffe: Historisch-quellenmässig bearbeitet. Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler & Sohn, 1904.
Gilson, Etienne. Index scolastico-cartesien. New York: Burt Franklin, 1913.
Gracia, Jorge J. E., and Douglas Davis. The Metaphysics of Good and Evil according to Suárez: Metaphysical Disputations X and XI and Selected Passages from Disputation XXIII and Other Works. Munich: Philosophia, 1989.
Kappes, Matthias. Aristoteles-Lexikon: Erklärung der philosophischen termini technici des Aristoteles in alphabetischer Reihenfolge. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1894.
Meisner, Balthasar. Philosophia sobria, Hoc est: Pia consideratio quaestionum philosophicarum, in controversiis theologicis, quas Calviniani moverunt Orthodoxis, subinde occurrentium. Wittenberg: Johannes Richter, 1614.
Mellinius, Josephus Zama. Lexicon Quo Veterum Theologorum Locutiones Explicantur Theologiae Tironibus Accomodatum. Coloniae: J. M. Heberle (H. Lempertz), 1855.
Muller, Richard A. A Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985.
Schütz, Ludwig. Thomas-Lexikon: Sammlung, Übersetzung und Erklärung der in sämtlichen Werken des h. Thomas von Aquin vorkommenden Kunstausdrücke und wissenschaftliche Aussprüche. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1957.