Essence

Use in the book

The concise division of each thing into essence, body, and appearance makes essence what causes it to be itself; the body is its case and appearance multiplies it. This explanatory image is stronger than a loose claim about a thing’s general character. Joubert’s criticism of Locke, meanwhile, explicitly distinguishes nominal and real essences while saying that Locke often seems to confuse them.

A thought may contain the essence of an entire book. Here the vocabulary of constitution becomes an account of concentration: small verbal extent need not imply meager intellectual content. The literary use should not be mistaken for a separate physical substance extracted from a book.

Places to read

1. II, p. 501–502, entry 15, ¶1Essence, body, and appearance receive different functions.
2. I, p. 275, entry 5, ¶1Nominal and real essences enter a criticism of Locke’s terminology.
3. II, p. 589, entry 7, ¶1One thought may contain an entire book’s essence.

Translation in this edition

The translation keeps “essence” in all three passages. The lexical continuity lets the reader see a philosophical term carried into literary judgment without forcing the judgments into one formal system.

Use in the book

In the Trinitarian meditation, one essence belongs to love in its begetting, communicated, and proceeding relations. In the account of divine knowledge, God’s essence is described through the perfect sight of things, and the Fifth Century presents it as living knowledge, goodness, and providence in act. These formulations resist the picture of God as an inactive substance behind his relations. The striking language of infinity as the essence of Deity belongs to this wider attempt to connect limitless presence with active care and delight.

Places to read

1. II.40Love is one in essence while subsisting in three manners.
2. II.84Divine essence is characterised through eternal knowledge and the sight of things.
3. V.3Infinite extent is called the eternal and incomprehensible essence of Deity.
4. V.10God’s essence is expressed as a pure and simple act present in its operations.

In this edition

Do not flatten every occurrence into “material stuff.” Equally, do not isolate the spatial language of V.3 from passages that describe divine being as knowledge, love, and action.

Use in the book

Essentia concerns what a thing is or its ontological constitution; substantia marks a subsisting reality, especially in contrast to dependent accidents. Esse, being, is related but not interchangeable. Ficino expressly lists essence and being among the distinctions in angelic intellect. These words do not reproduce a modern contrast between abstract definition and material stuff: an incorporeal substance can be more fundamental than a body. Subsistere often means standing or existing through itself rather than inhering in a material subject. Such independence from matter does not remove every causal dependence; soul and angel remain below God.

Essence is the first member of the triad essence, power, operation. Soul's substance remains while its operations change; quality changes in essence as well as activity. The 'third essence' is rational soul, third between the two higher and two lower grades, not an additional kind beyond soul. Angelic essence is receptive of illumination and intelligible form, so stable incorporeal existence does not entail divine simplicity.

The dependency of substance and accident is asymmetric: an accident needs a substance, whereas substance does not depend upon an accident in the same fashion. God cannot receive additional qualities, and the many forms of his effects cannot be separate substances or accidental additions within him. They are understood through his own single substance. Divine essence and operation are identical; he is not an intelligence perfected by an object outside himself.

II.7.15 criticizes accounts that make matter, world, and mind dependent on God in operation but independent in essence. Ficino argues that what needs an external end to complete its activity cannot be wholly self-sufficient in its being. Essentialis can meanwhile identify the inherent natural power of a subordinate agent or mind's fundamental inclination, prior to vital and intellectual activity. Constitution, subsistence, causal dependence, and operation thus remain connected without becoming synonymous.

Further passage references. I.3.4, I.3.13, I.3.25, I.3.33; I.4.1–I.4.52345; I.6.4; II.6.2; II.6.23; II.7.9–162345678; II.8.5; II.9.5–8234; II.11.2–723456; II.12.8, 15; III.1.12–1723456; III.2.1–22, 17–23

Places to read

1. I.3.4Quality’s inherence and dependence contrast with self-subsistence.
2. I.3.13, I.3.25Substantial unity grounds accidents and is prior to quantity by nature and dignity.
3. I.3.33–I.4.523456Third essence is named and its stable essence distinguished from changing operation.
4. I.6.4Essence and being contribute to angelic multiplicity.

Translation in this edition

I.6.4 expressly distinguishes essentiam atque esse in angel. “Third essence” names rational soul in the graded order, not a sixth substance added to the five grades. Independence from material support must remain distinct from independence of every higher cause.

essentia / essentialis / substantia

essentia / essentialis / substantia. Printed forms: essentia; essentiam.

Essence or substantial constitution, distinguished locally from operation and received being. Ficino rejects independence from God in essence despite dependence in act; in God essence and operation coincide. References: II.4.6, II.7.15, II.9.5. See Essence and substance.

essentia / substantia

essentia / substantia. Printed forms: essentiam; substantia.

Essence / substance. Soul’s substance remains while operations change; the third essence names its rank and nature, not a third bodily ingredient. References: III.1.15, III.2.1. See Essence and substance.

essentia atque esse

essentia atque esse. Printed forms: esse; essentiam.

Essence and being as distinguished within intellect. They are listed beside intellectual power, its act and understood forms, showing why angelic stability does not equal absolute simplicity. References: I.6.4. See Essence and substance.

Use in the book

The comet example in V.72 introduces essence as a defining account and being as its actual occurrence. The account can be true when no comet shines today; a present comet requires a particular place and time. If such coordinates belonged to the common definition, all comets would have to occur together there. Humanity likewise belongs across ages and in East and West, while Plato and Socrates must live in particular conditions. Ficino therefore calls every essence considered in itself immortal, then immediately distinguishes the ways it may be brought into actual being.

The comet passage also differentiates a definition's truth from the existence of its instances. Its definition remains true “today” without an actually shining comet “today.” That does not mean an uninstantiated comet has a secret astronomical location. Nor does it establish that Plato's personal soul is identical with the universal definition of humanity. Ficino uses the contrast to detach defining content from a single spatiotemporal occurrence, then asks in the next unit how an agent determines such a nature to actual being. His language gives the essence considered in itself a wider standing than a modern nominalist might allow; the companion should expose that premise rather than translate it away.

The argument from the receiver's mode at V.7.2 is the decisive bridge. Whatever receives something receives according to its own character. A form whose being is in matter is subject to matter's limits; a form whose being is in itself receives according to its own immaterial essence. Because essence as such was already called immortal, the independent form's act is received immortally. The conclusion is therefore stronger than the definitional observation and depends on the claim of real self-subsistence. Without that premise the reasoning would incorrectly make every definition's individual instances perpetual; Ficino blocks that route with the contrast between bodily and separate forms.

V.112345678 then makes the distinction do another kind of work. Essence is what would supposedly remain when an act of being is lost. Ficino provisionally grants the objector this model, then insists that a surviving essence already is. The objection must consequently identify a merely potential destination that avoids actual survival. The following alternatives show why none is available for soul. The essence/being distinction is not an invitation to imagine an actually existing essence with no being; that is precisely the incoherent situation the reductio exposes.

Finally, V.1323456789101112131415161718 prevents the language of self-subsisting form from collapsing into divine simplicity. A creature's being is circumscribed by its essence; its power is circumscribed too, and operation is actualization of that power. Divine being is not another received instance. These distinctions explain why soul can be immaterial and imperishable while still possessing received actuality and a limited created nature. “Simple” must be read relative to the excluded bodily composition, rather than as an assertion that essence, existence, power and operation are all numerically identical in soul.

Places to read

1. V.7.1, V.7.2Definition and actual presence are distinguished before bodily and separate modes of being are contrasted.
2. V.11.1, V.11.3, V.11.8Essence/being supports the analogy of spiritual potency and its proper act.
3. V.13.3, V.13.7, V.13.8, V.13.9Absolute being and the creature’s nonidentity with its act are specified.

Translation in this edition

The translation retains esse as “being” while using verbal constructions when necessary. The long definition in V.72 follows Ficino’s historical comet theory; it is not a modern scientific definition. “Every essence” is expressly qualified by secundum se ipsam, considered in itself.

esse

esse. Printed forms: esse; Esse; essendi.

Being or existing; the act of essence rather than its definition alone. Common being and a particular mode of being are separated; soul's being is repeatedly identified with living. References: V.7.1, V.11.3, V.13.2, V.13.3. See Essence and being.

To be, either as an ordinary predication or as substantive being when used absolutely. The analysis of substance reaches being, and the self-causation passage distinguishes being-well from being according to form; those technical uses must not be imposed on every copula. References: VIII.1.1, VIII.1.2, VIII.1.3, VIII.1.5, VIII.2.1, VIII.2.3, VIII.2.5, VIII.2.7, VIII.2.8, VIII.3.1, VIII.3.6, VIII.3.8, VIII.4.1, VIII.4.2, VIII.4.3, VIII.4.4, VIII.4.5, VIII.4.8, VIII.4.9, VIII.4.10, VIII.4.12, VIII.4.13, VIII.5.2, VIII.6.1, VIII.7.1, VIII.9.1, VIII.10.2, VIII.12.1, VIII.13.2, VIII.14.1, VIII.15.2, VIII.15.3, VIII.16.1, VIII.16.2, VIII.16.3, VIII.16.4. See First concepts, unity, and the end of analysis.

essentia

essentia. Printed forms: essentia; Essentia; essentiae; Essentiam; essentiam; essentias.

Essence, what a thing is as grasped in its defining account. V.72 distinguishes this from actual presence; V.1323456789101112131415161718 denies that a creature's essence is identical with its received being. References: V.7.1, V.7.2, V.13.7. See Essence and being.

Essence, what a thing is; as intelligible it is distinguished from mind's representing form. The simplicity of the known essence constrains its intellectual image; later essence is related to life and reflexive mind. References: VIII.4.9, VIII.15.1, VIII.15.2. See Intellectual forms and intelligible essences.

existentia

existentia. Printed forms: existentiae; existentiam.

Existence or subsistence, the fact or mode of being rather than merely the defining account. At V.4.9 matter is said not to require an aggregate of determinate parts for its existence because it is naturally prior to quantitative dimensions. The noun is related in meaning to esse, but existentiam is not an inflection of the verb esse. References: V.4.9. See Essence and being.

Existence or the state of being; existentiae means of existence. Vita est primus existentiae actus calls life the first act of existence. The ensuing self-cause is explicitly formal, not efficient. References: VIII.15.3. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.

locus / tempus

locus / tempus. Printed forms: loco; locum; locumque; tempore; temporis; tempus.

Place and time, bodily conditions of extension and succession. A definition is not tied to one here and now, whereas a corporeal instance and a form contracted to body are. References: V.7.1, V.7.2, V.10.2. See Essence and being.

res

res. Printed forms: re; rebus; rei; rem; rerum; Res; res.

A thing or reality, whose exact ontological level must be learned from context. The word can refer to a composite, its form, soul or a hypothetical subject; 'thing' itself does not settle whether the referent is bodily. References: V.8.3, V.11.1, V.12.1, V.13.1. See Essence and being.

A thing or object under consideration, bodily or incorporeal according to its predicates. The phrase 'things known' does not by itself restrict knowledge to bodies, while a thing's account is distinguished from the particular mode of its material occurrence. References: VIII.1.1, VIII.1.4, VIII.2.1, VIII.2.5, VIII.2.7, VIII.2.8, VIII.3.1, VIII.3.2, VIII.3.3, VIII.3.4, VIII.3.5, VIII.3.6, VIII.3.7, VIII.3.8, VIII.4.1, VIII.4.2, VIII.4.3, VIII.4.4, VIII.4.5, VIII.4.9, VIII.4.10, VIII.4.11, VIII.4.12, VIII.4.13, VIII.5.1, VIII.6.1, VIII.7.1, VIII.8.1, VIII.9.1, VIII.10.1, VIII.10.2, VIII.13.1, VIII.13.2, VIII.14.1, VIII.15.1, VIII.15.3, VIII.16.1, VIII.16.2, VIII.16.3, VIII.16.4. See Intellectual forms and intelligible essences.

secundum se

secundum se. Printed forms: Secundum se; secundum se; secundum se ipsam.

Considered in itself, abstracting from further conditions or support. Essence as such is called immortal, while derivative life is naturally mutable even when continuously maintained in a reported perpetual vehicle. References: V.7.1, V.13.18. See Essence and being.