1. Pertaining to those beings which have a principle of motion and rest in themselves. In Aristotelian philosophy, primarily attributed to non-artificial beings. 2. Pertaining to the essence of a thi...
The natural power that reason or the intellect has to know as contrasted to the power to know intrinsically supernatural realities by way of the theological virtue of faith.
(also called Philosophical Theology).— The division of metaphysics that studies God, His attributes (or “names”), and His causal activity, insofar as all of these can be known by reason alone. Someti...
The doctrine according to which all that exists and can be known is what belongs to the natural world. In many contemporary versions of naturalism, the natural world is understood as that which can be...
1. The essence of a thing considered as an immanent principle of operative acts. In this sense, Aristotle defines nature as “the principle of motion and rest in that to which it belongs primarily and...
That which cannot be otherwise or is unlikely to be otherwise.
The doctrine according to which universals (and, therefore, essences or natures) are merely names and have no existence in reality or in the mind. In its radical form, nominalism holds that everything...
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