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In Summa Contra Gentiles II.6.7, Aquinas suddenly claims that "act is the principle of action" (actus autem actionis principium est).

Is this phrase supposed to be a definition of act? Or a tautology? Or, in general, what does this mean? I can't find anywhere else that Aquinas makes this precise claim.

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    The source is Aristotle: an action presupposes an agent.
    – Mauro ALLEGRANZA
    Commented May 21 at 12:50
  • 1
    Aristotle, Nic. Eth. 1113b.1: "it is manifest that a man is the author of his own actions".
    – Mauro ALLEGRANZA
    Commented May 21 at 13:12
  • Also there is a connection with the concept of actuality. For example, when they say that God is pure act, they mean more to deny mere potentiality than passivity.
    – Kristian Berry
    Commented May 21 at 17:35
  • No, but it is an Aristotelian platitude. More commonly translated as "actuality is the principle of action", so "But pure actuality, which God is, is more perfect than actuality mingled with potentiality, as it is in us. But actuality is the principle of action." Elsewhere "Everything acts inasmuch as it is in actuality. Whatever then is not all actuality, does not act by its whole self, but by something of itself. But what does not act by its whole self, is not a prime agent... The prime agent then, which is God, has no admixture of potentiality, but is pure actuality."
    – Conifold
    Commented May 21 at 20:22
  • Golly! Aint that wise?!
    – Rushi
    Commented Jun 22 at 19:20

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No. Aquinas is not a nominalist but a metaphysical realist. As a Christian Aristotelian, Aquinas is true to the empirical by holding that "nothing is in the intellect which is first not in the senses." Therefore, the act always precedes the principle of action in question. A principle is merely the formal objectification of the action. The same is true for his notion of actus purus or God as the "pure act of Being." Without the divine nature, which is expresses God's existence and essence as the identical, there would be no metaphysical principle to correspond with such an entity.

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  • Can you explain what you mean by "formal objectification"?
    – Doubt
    Commented May 23 at 8:03
  • It is precisely, for Aquinas, how the potential (possible) and active intellects work through the schema of perception and abstraction when we come to know a thing. This is an extension of Aristotelian epistemology.
    – Peirceverance
    Commented May 23 at 18:10
  • I'm still not following. When you said, "A principle is merely the formal objectification of the action," I would have expected you to say "A principle is merely the source of the action." Can you please define "formal" and "objectification" as you are using those terms?
    – Doubt
    Commented May 24 at 7:49
  • "Formal" pertains to the abstraction of "form" from matter. Objectification results from the representation of "object" to the intellect.
    – Peirceverance
    Commented May 24 at 8:29

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