Transcendentals

The transcendentals (comunissima) are taken from ‘‘the philosophers,’’ especially Avicenna, who is unnamed.

An individual creature is intelligible at two levels of universality. Its essential features fall within Aristotle’s ten categories, but it has even more universal features that stand to its categorical attributes as higher genera stand to species. These are the four transcendentals: ‘‘a being (ens), one, true, and good.’’

Since it is the ‘‘first’’ notion, ‘‘a being’’ cannot be defined using a higher genus. But since the transcenden-tals are ‘‘convertible,’’ they can be described through each other, and also through their subdivisions. ‘‘A being (ens)’’ is divided into substance and accident, but Philip uses a second distinction to explain his metaphysical doctrine of creation. ‘‘Every creature differs in this way from the first essence, because in it being (esse) and what is (quod est) differ.’’ Here ‘‘being’’ refers to the creature’s ‘‘essence (essentia)’’ and ‘‘what is’’ refers to its individuality. The hallmark of the creature is unity achieved through ontological composition.

To describe the other three transcendentals, Philip turned to Aristotle’s description of unity: ‘‘the one is undivided in itself and divided off from others.’’ About truth, Philip recognized Aristotle’s notion of truth in the mind, but he preferred the Avicennian notion of ontological truth. The true is ‘‘what has indivision of being (esse) and that which is (quod est).’’ A creature is true to the extent it realizes its own essence. Philip noted the Aristotelian description of the good as ‘‘what is desired by all things’’ and also the neo-platonic conception that ‘‘the good is diffusive or communicative of being,’’ but moved beyond both: ‘‘The primary definition of the good is not given causally, but through a ‘difference’ that consists in a negation.’’ So the good is ‘‘what has indivision of act from potency.’’ This definition provides the metaphysical foundation for distinguishing goods of ‘‘nature’’ and ‘‘grace.’’ A creature is good primarily through a first act that gives it an actual essence; moral goodness is achieved through a second act - human action.