/lit/ - Literature

>>18960081
Think of a unicorn, a trilobite, and a lion. Even if you were to understand its essence (it's "quiddity," what-ness, what you would give in answer to "what is it?") with perfect understanding, you wouldn't be able to say which exists now, which used to exist, and what never has existed. From this, St. Thomas concludes that existence is not part of these essences. They must receive existence from something else. If that thing's existence is distinct from its essence, you encounter the problem again.
The tl;dr is that you are able to reason from the distinction between essence and essentia, "what it is" and "that it is" to that which IS subsistent Being Itself, that in which essence and existence are not distinct. There's a lot of philosophical groundwork going into this, but if you want more it's in Ed Feser's book on proofs, and Gaven Kerr and Chris Tomaczewski do good jobs presenting it on youtube, eg https://youtu.be/a633NN2cMoE

>>18960010
As stated he's most famous for his esse/essentia distinction, but he also systemized theology and presented Aristotle's thought in a more clear and refined way, Christianized it but also harmonized it with the more dominant platonic strains in western thought. His opinions on things like divine simplicity, foreknowledge and free will, the uses of act and potency in metaphysics, etc. build on Aristotle and Plato but with key improvements. You can't pretend he's not important, even if you're a prot, simply because he stands head and shoulders above anyone else after 500 AD. Also certain prots like Southern Evangelical Seminary rely on his philosophical method even when they ignore his Catholic distinctives.

>>18961045
Hylic hands typed this post. Who are Boethius, Roscelin, Anselm, Bonaventure, Duns Scotus Erigenia, (((William of Ockham))), and countless more?