Ontology: Or, The Theory of Being; an Introduction to General Metaphysics

Peter Coffey

Longmans, Green and Company, 1914 - Metaphysics - 439 pages

Contents

• GENERAL INTRODUCTION I Reason of Introductory Chapter: 1
• Divisions of Philosophy Speculative and Practical Philosophy: 7
• Logic Ethics and Esthetics: 10
• Departments of Speculative Philosophy Metaphysics: 14
• Cosmology Psychology and Natural Theology: 18
• Ontology and Epistemology: 20
• Remarks on some Misgivings and Prejudices: 23
• CHAPTER I: 32
• In what Sense are All Things that Exist or can Exist said to be Real or to have Being?: 36
• Real Being and Logical Being: 42
• Real Being and Ideal Being: 45
• Fundamental Distinctions in Real Being: 46
• CHAPTER: 51
• a Possibility Absolute Relative and Adequate: 52
• b Subjective Potentia Active and Passive: 54
• its Relation to Potentiality: 56
• Analysis of Change: 61
• Kinds of Change: 68
• 1: 74
• Essence: 75
• Characteristics of Abstract Essences: 79
• Grounds of those Characteristics: 82
• Possible Essences as such are Something Distinct from mere Logical Being and from Nothingness: 84
• 89 91 17 Possible Essences have besides Ideal Being no other sort of Being or Reality Proper and Intrinsic to Themselves: 86
• Inferences from our Knowledge of Possible Essences: 89
• Critical Analysis of those Inferences: 91
• Essences are Intrinsically Possible not because God can make them Exist actually nor yet because He freely wills them to be possible nor because He ...: 95
• Distinction between Essence and Existence in actually existing Con tingent or Created Beings: 101
• State of the Question: 103
• The Theory of Distinctions in its Application to the Question: 104
• Solutions of the Question: 107
• CHAPTER IV: 114
• Transcendental Unity: 115
• Kinds of Unity: 116
• Multitude and Number: 118
• The Individual and the Universal: 120
• The Metaphysical Grades of Being in the Individual: 122
• Individuality: 123
• The Principle of Individuation: 125
• Individuation of Accidents: 133
• Identity: 135
• Distinction: 139
• Logical Distinctions and their Grounds: 140
• The Virtual Distinction and the Real Distinction 38 The Real Distinction and its Tests 39 Some Questionable Distinctions The Scotist Distinction 123 1...: 142
• CHAPTER V: 158
• Ontological Truth Considered Synthetically from the Standpoint of its Ultimate Real Basis 42 Ontological Truth a Transcendental Aitribute of Reality ...: 160
• CHAPTER VI: 167
• The Good as an End Perfecting the Nature: 168
• The Perfect Analysis of the Notion of Perfection: 171
• Grades of Perfection Reality as Standard of Value: 172
• The Good the Real and the Actual: 173
• Kinds of Goodness Divisions of the Good: 174
• Goodness a Transcendental Attribute of Being: 177
• Optimism and Pessimism: 181
• its Nature and Causes Manicheism: 182
• REALTY AND THE BEAUTIFUL: 192
• Objective Factors in the Constitution of the Beautiful: 198
• CHAPTER VIII: 207
• The Phenomenist Attack on the Traditional Doctrine of Substance: 213
• Phenomenist Difficulties against this View Its Vindication: 219
• Erroneous Views on the Nature of Substance: 225
• The Nature of Accident Its Relation to Substance Its Causes: 232
• Real Existence of Accidents: 240
• Distinction between Substance and its Proper Accidents Unity: 246
• CHAPTER IX: 252
• Subsistence and Personality: 261
• Consciousness of the Personal Self: 273
• CHAPTER X: 285
• Habits and Dispositions: 292
• Powers Faculties and Forces: 298
• 168: 305
• Corporeal Substance Quantity and Extension: 311
• Place and Space: 318
• Eternity: 328
• CHAPTER XII: 332
• Analysis of the Concept of Relation: 336
• Logical Relations: 338
• Real Relations Their Existence Vindicated: 341
• 173: 343
• Predicamental Relations Their Foundations and Divisions: 345
• In what does the Reality of Predicamental Relations Consist?: 349
• 174: 350
• CHAPTER XIII: 357
• Aristotles Fourfold Division: 361
• Material and Formal Causes: 364
• Efficient Cause Traditional Concept Explained: 366
• Some Scholia on Causation The Principle of Causality: 369
• Classification of Efficient Causes: 372
• CHAPTER XIV: 381
• Origin of the Concept of Efficient Cause: 385
• a The First Cause and Created Causes: 388
• b Actio Immanens and Actio Transiens: 391
• Erroneous Theories of Efficient Causality Imagination and Thought: 392
• The Subject of Efficient Causality Occasionalism: 396
• CHAPTER XV: 404
• Classification of Final Causes: 406
• Causality of the Final Cause Relation of the Latter to Efficient Formal and Material Causes: 411
• Nature and the Laws of Nature Character and Grounds of their Necessity and Universality Scientific Determinism and Philosophic Fatalism: 416
• The Order of the Universe A Fact and its Implications: 428
• INDEX: 435
• 177: 436
• 182: 438

Popular passages

Page 31 - Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before, But vaster.

Page 277 - I think, is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places...

Page 228 - Per substantiam intelligo id, quod in se est et per se concipitur; hoc est id, cujus conceptus non indiget conceptu alterius rei, a quo formari debeat.

Page 213 - We may well ask what causes induce us to believe in the existence of body; but 'tis in vain to ask whether there be body or not. That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.

Page 213 - The idea then we have, to which we give the general name substance, being nothing but the supposed but unknown support of those qualities we find existing, which we imagine cannot subsist, "sine re substante," without something to support them, we call that support substantia; which, according to the true import of the word, is in plain English, standing under or upholding.

Page 198 - Filii: nam ad pulchritudinem tria requiruntur. Primo quidem integritas sive perfectio; quae enim diminuta sunt, hoc ipso turpia sunt; et debita proportio sive consonantia; et iterum claritas. Unde quae habent colorem nitidum, pulchra esse dicuntur.

Page 380 - The Law of Causation, which is the main pillar of inductive science, is but the familiar truth, that invariability of succession is found by observation to obtain between every fact in nature and some other fact which has preceded it ; independently of all considerations respecting the ultimate mode of production of phenomena, and of every other question regarding the nature of

Page 277 - ... are three names standing for three different ideas; for such as is the idea belonging to that name, such must be the identity...

Page 276 - This also shows wherein the identity of the same man consists; viz. in nothing but a participation of the same continued life, by constantly fleeting particles of matter, in succession vitally united to the same organized body.

Page 276 - That being then one plant which has such an organization of parts in one coherent body par.taking of one common life, it continues to be the same plant as long as it partakes of the same life, though that life be communicated to new particles of matter vitally united to the living plant, in a like continued organization conformable to that sort of plants.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Ontology: Or, The Theory of Being; an Introduction to General Metaphysics
• Author: Peter Coffey
• Publisher: Longmans, Green and Company, 1914
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Jun 10, 2005
• Length: 439 pages