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An Elementary Christian Metaphysics
Joseph Owens presents an introduction to metaphysics designed to develop in the reader a habitus of thinking. Using original Thomistic texts and Etienne Gilson's interpretation of St. Thomas Aquinas, Owens examines the application of metaphysical principles to the issues that arise in a specifically Christian environment. From a starting point of external, sensible, non-human beings, An Elementary Christian Metaphysics focuses in the questions of existence and the nature of revealed truths. Following his historical introduction to metaphysics, Owens provides a general investigation of the first principles and causes of being, and a study of knowledge and of the divine nature and attributes in light of natural reason.
402 pages, Paperback
First published April 30, 1985
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About the author
Joseph Owens
43 books9 followersJoseph Owens (April 17, 1908 – October 30, 2005) was a Canadian Roman Catholic priest and a philosopher specializing in the thought of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and medieval philosophy.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 7, 2021
An absolutely fantastic introduction to Thomistic Metaphysics. Although much of the history of criticism against Thomistic Metaphysics is left out of this work, it is still worth consulting and keeping at hand as a reference on Metaphysics. Although this work claims to be "elementary" it is anything but! Regardless, the outline and organization of material, the bolding and defining of terms when first used, and the footnotes and bibliographies for further research, all lead me to rate this 5 stars. Comprehensive, Accessible, Rigorous, and Practical. Throughout this work I found myself worship the God of Scripture as the Necessary Self-Sufficient, Simple, Immutable, and Impassible Uncaused Cause.
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April 2, 2009Elementary... ha.
March 28, 2022
A demanding but rewarding book. One of the essential texts for learning traditional / classical metaphysics. Excellently foot-noted. However, it does not cover the entire field. In fact, there is a lot it leaves out. A warning: no one book, no matter how good, will give you enough information on traditional metaphysics to provide anything close to a full overview (let alone a full grasp) of the subject. Another worthwhile general elementary introduction to metaphysics (not as detailed as Owen, but a little more comprehensive) is J.P. Noonan's _General Metaphysics_. Also, _An Introduction to the Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas," ed. James F. Anderson. Etienne Gilson's "The Elements of Christian Philosophy" is a great companion to Owen's book. Absolutely indispensable, too, are Bernard Wuellner's "Dictionary of Metaphysics" and "Summary of Scholastic Principles."
January 22, 2025
This may have been an ‘elementary’ book in 1963 when it was first published, and when students would approach a book like this with a significant previous background study of Aristotle’s texts. For modern readers without that background, this is a complex and potentially challenging text.
What the book does well is to provide a 25 chapter overview of the main topics and issues within the compass of a traditional metaphysics course. Traditional Scholastic (albeit Wolffian influenced) Metaphysics courses covered 4 major areas: ontology, cosmology, psychology and natural theology. The book touches on all the relevant areas, but its main focus is upon issues of ontology and psychology.
While the book was generally well-written and thoughtful in its analyses, there were a few places where the text was confusing. For example, the author distinguished between ‘real being’ (ie existing in the world) and ‘cognitive being’ (ie existing in the mind). He notes that a non-existent but possible object (like a tunnel from America to England) has ‘real being’ because it has the possibility to exist in reality (p.38)
But surely, a non-existent tunnel has (at this point in time) merely mental existence? It may (or may not) come to acquire real being, if the tunnel is actually dug. But why would we say that it has real being, when it does not actually (yet) exist?
The author recognises that there are problems in the use of the language of real and mental existence. But some of those problems are compounded by how he chooses to use the word ‘possible.’ When he talks of the existence of possible objects, the possibility refers to the object, rather than to the existence. So, a tunnel is a real-being (regardless of where the tunnel stretches from) because tunnels are realities in our world. (p.39). And so presumably a unicorn is just a possible being, because there are no actual unicorns.
That whole discussion of real, mental and possible existence seemed peculiar and potentially muddled. Surely possibility should (also) be analysed as a feature of existence, rather than simply as a feature of objects. Ultimately, how can we even know what is possibly possible in the future? Perhaps one day someone will splice horse genetics to produce unicorns… or perhaps that will not occur. But should what might or might not occur in the future, determine our ability to use the word ‘possible’ today?
Another area which was less clear in the book occurred in the chapters on Psychology, when the author discussed how humans know things. We apprehend objects by gaining sensory information about them, and the mind abstracts universal concepts which are the basis of reasoning. But how do we actually know a specific individual thing? How can we recognise a friend in the street?
Some other scholastic writers talked about the role of the Phantasm as putting together the non-abstracted (ie non-universal) elements of apprehension, and thus it enables the ‘representation’ or ‘species’ by which recognition of friends can take place. But that role of the Phantasm is not explored in this book, probably because it is a somewhat arguable interpretation of Aquinas’ own views. But there isn’t a suggestion of an alternative, and so this issue of recognising individuals (ie friends) was left somewhat vague in the text.
One of the features of the book which I found less helpful, was the (very) long footnotes. Page 90 for example consists of almost entirely a footnote. That style of footnoting was fashionable in the era in which the book was published. But I think the book would have been clearer if relevant discussions from footnotes could have been incorporated into the text, and if less relevant discussions could simply have been omitted, or removed to appendixes.
Overall, this is a complicated text to read. It contains a lot of useful and accurate exegetical information of scholastic texts, so the book is still relevant for readers wanting to understand scholastic ideas.
However, philosophically, the book is also somewhat dated. There have been a lot of developments in the 60 years since it was first published, especially in aspects such as modal logic, thought experiments, possible worlds and engagement with Analytic Philosophy. This means that the book is less philosophically comprehensive today, than it would have been when first published. It also means that the works of contemporary authors like John F X Knasas and Edward Feser are potentially more helpful for readers who are looking to understand scholasticism in the light of the most modern discussions of its key issues.
What the book does well is to provide a 25 chapter overview of the main topics and issues within the compass of a traditional metaphysics course. Traditional Scholastic (albeit Wolffian influenced) Metaphysics courses covered 4 major areas: ontology, cosmology, psychology and natural theology. The book touches on all the relevant areas, but its main focus is upon issues of ontology and psychology.
While the book was generally well-written and thoughtful in its analyses, there were a few places where the text was confusing. For example, the author distinguished between ‘real being’ (ie existing in the world) and ‘cognitive being’ (ie existing in the mind). He notes that a non-existent but possible object (like a tunnel from America to England) has ‘real being’ because it has the possibility to exist in reality (p.38)
But surely, a non-existent tunnel has (at this point in time) merely mental existence? It may (or may not) come to acquire real being, if the tunnel is actually dug. But why would we say that it has real being, when it does not actually (yet) exist?
The author recognises that there are problems in the use of the language of real and mental existence. But some of those problems are compounded by how he chooses to use the word ‘possible.’ When he talks of the existence of possible objects, the possibility refers to the object, rather than to the existence. So, a tunnel is a real-being (regardless of where the tunnel stretches from) because tunnels are realities in our world. (p.39). And so presumably a unicorn is just a possible being, because there are no actual unicorns.
That whole discussion of real, mental and possible existence seemed peculiar and potentially muddled. Surely possibility should (also) be analysed as a feature of existence, rather than simply as a feature of objects. Ultimately, how can we even know what is possibly possible in the future? Perhaps one day someone will splice horse genetics to produce unicorns… or perhaps that will not occur. But should what might or might not occur in the future, determine our ability to use the word ‘possible’ today?
Another area which was less clear in the book occurred in the chapters on Psychology, when the author discussed how humans know things. We apprehend objects by gaining sensory information about them, and the mind abstracts universal concepts which are the basis of reasoning. But how do we actually know a specific individual thing? How can we recognise a friend in the street?
Some other scholastic writers talked about the role of the Phantasm as putting together the non-abstracted (ie non-universal) elements of apprehension, and thus it enables the ‘representation’ or ‘species’ by which recognition of friends can take place. But that role of the Phantasm is not explored in this book, probably because it is a somewhat arguable interpretation of Aquinas’ own views. But there isn’t a suggestion of an alternative, and so this issue of recognising individuals (ie friends) was left somewhat vague in the text.
One of the features of the book which I found less helpful, was the (very) long footnotes. Page 90 for example consists of almost entirely a footnote. That style of footnoting was fashionable in the era in which the book was published. But I think the book would have been clearer if relevant discussions from footnotes could have been incorporated into the text, and if less relevant discussions could simply have been omitted, or removed to appendixes.
Overall, this is a complicated text to read. It contains a lot of useful and accurate exegetical information of scholastic texts, so the book is still relevant for readers wanting to understand scholastic ideas.
However, philosophically, the book is also somewhat dated. There have been a lot of developments in the 60 years since it was first published, especially in aspects such as modal logic, thought experiments, possible worlds and engagement with Analytic Philosophy. This means that the book is less philosophically comprehensive today, than it would have been when first published. It also means that the works of contemporary authors like John F X Knasas and Edward Feser are potentially more helpful for readers who are looking to understand scholasticism in the light of the most modern discussions of its key issues.
June 19, 2023
This book's title is quite a misnomer; Owens explains in the preface that he expects his reader to have a solid grasp of Aristotle's physics, metaphysics, and categories - and he means it. That being said, this book is extremely helpful in understanding technical Aristotelian terms and the differences between them, such as the difference between substance and subsistence. His section on the Transcendentals was fantastic, as well as the chapter on the Sciences. His metaphysical explanation of falsehood was fascinating too. It was also very helpful that he included as "Resume" at the end of each chapter where he recaps his chapter-long argument. I don't imagine I'll read through this book cover-to-cover again, but will use it for reference.
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November 12, 2009Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 8, as one of Eight Helpful Books on Metaphysics.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews