Classical Metaphysics and the senses of Being

‘Analytical Thomism’ in the face of logical quantification

Abstract

The article aims to analyse the question of Being, in its meaning of ‘existence’, in relation to the theory of logical quantification. Some authors are considered who believe that the realist imprint of Fregean philosophy can make a decisive contribution to the clarification of classical, and especially Thomistic, doctrine on the different meanings of the verb ‘to be’. The use of the existential quantifier would thus be one – and not the only – of the meanings that belong to ‘is’, understood as 'to exist', and would moreover be a meaning derived from actual existence, in analogy to the way in which esse ut verum is founded on actus essendi. However, this conception is based on a theory of knowledge that suffers from a gnoseologistic, and ultimately naturalistic, presupposition. By recovering a correct ‘logic of presence’, it is possible to show how the difficulties encountered by the theory of logical quantification can be traced back to the failure to thematise a certain 'ontological difference' between Being and entity.