Cornelio Fabro

In the Dialogue of Comfort (II, 1: 82/17-21), Antony and Vincent discuss “Whether a man may not in tribulation use some worldly recreation for his comfort,” and make an explicit reference to the auctoritas of St. Thomas Aquinas. The paper investigates the Thomistic foundation of the virtue of recreation, which is presented as a key aspect of More’s spirituality and theological outlook. Some theological sources for this study can be found in José Morales, Cornelio Fabro, Hugo Rahner and Louis Bouyer.

The notion of “self” in Cornelio Fabro constitutes a point of convergence between Thomistic anthropological principles and the concept of subjectivity in Kierkegaard. This article analyzes the integration of these two influences through a consideration of three key elements in the work of Fabro: perspective and the existential sphere; the choice of the concrete final end; and the reflexivity of the human will as indicated by the notion of amor sui.

For students of Thomas Aquinas, Cornelio Fabro is well known for his thorough examinations of Thomas’s doctrine of participation. Less well known, however, is Fabro’s occasional reference to a doppia, or double, participation of the creature in the divine: one for its essence, the other for its act of existing (esse). In this paper, I examine these references to “double participation” by looking at another, related, doubling explicitly affirmed by Thomas Aquinas: double exemplarism. From his earliest writings, Thomas draws a distinction between two kinds of divine exemplarism, one of the divine ideas and the other of the divine nature. As I show, despite affirming this double exemplarism—or, more precisely, because of the way he affirms it—Thomas presents only a single line of what Fabro would term “transcendental participation.” Moreover, as I argue  Fabro himself in fact follows Thomas on this point, a reading that can be strengthened through a careful consideration of what Thomas’s doctrine of double exemplarism entails.

Questo articolo semplice riprende il testo di una conferenza tenuta a Tuscania (Lazio), il 22 maggio 2014. Non pretende altro che abbozzare la struttura fondamentale della soluzione che la metafisica dell'essere intensivo offre all'enigma della quarta via.

Ciò che mi prefiggo con questo scritto è di analizzare la struttura di un esperimento mentale in modo da comprendere se e come sia usabile per stabilire la verità o meno di una tesi. Cercherò quindi di vedere i vari aspetti che sono sottesi da una tale procedura sperimentale e in che modo le varie parti convivono, si collegano o confliggono tra loro. Indagherò alcuni ambiti tra i quali vi sarà ovviamente quello scientifico del metodo, quello fisico della teoria dei colori, quello mentale con un accenno alla teoria dei qualia e quello del linguaggio, cercando di sollevare, per quanto possibile alcuni interrogativi su quest’argomento.

Alasdair MacIntyre’s seminal work After Virtue,  first published in 1981, provided invaluable contributions to a resurgent virtue theory and critique of the Enlightenment project. The idea of narrative at heart of this proposal has also led to a new impulse in narratology, that is, the theory of a narrative ethics which is compatible with natural law theory along the lines of St. Thomas Aquinas. This proposal has the unique advantage of providing a coherent ethical theory that has intimate connections with, and implications in, anthropology and theology. Man, in this view, is understood as moral agent insofar as he is an author of his own story which he tells by his moral actions. Yet, it remains an open question as to how to ground this proposal metaphysically. In other words, how can one explain man as a fundamentally narrative being in a way that both accounts for the stability of his identity and nature as well as the dynamicity of the moral actions by which he defines himself in time?

The first stage of this paper will be to clarify where exactly this particular understanding of narrative ethics finds its place in the general meaning of narratology. In this light, though the proposed theory of narrative is rather recent, one will see that it is implicitly part of a long anthropological and ethical tradition, both in philosophy and in the arts.

The second stage seeks to explore the resources of Thomistic theory of being (esse) in order to provide a proposal for a metaphysical grounding of narrative ethics in answer to the question above. The contributions of C. Fabro and his interpretation of intensive and emergent esse are key to this proposal, in contrast to the extremes of a metaphysics that, by focusing on the essence, takes little account of dynamic operation, and to an existentialism by which man has absolute liberty and defines his very being by his moral choices.

Cet article, publié originalement dans la "Revue thomiste", a été traduit en espagnol pour la revue "Diálogo" par le P. José Gabriel Ansaldi, que nous voudrions vivement remercier ici. Nous exposons dans ce travail les deux « résolutions » ou « réductions » en lesquelles consiste, selon Cornelio Fabro, la métaphysique. La première de ces deux investigations explore l’étant fini qui se donne à l'appréhension de l'intellect sans laisser de se tenir au-delà de l'intellect. Elle commence par la notion initiale de l’étant, qui est celle d’un « concret-transcendantal », c’est-à-dire d’un étant réel, et jamais seulement possible, dont l’intelligence atteint avant tout l’actualité d’être. Mais cette dernière étant indissociable de son contenu, il est nécessaire de passer à une deuxième notion de l’étant, qualifiée de méthodologique, afin de clarifier le statut respectif de l’essence et de l’acte d’être. C’est alors que naît la troisième notion de l’étant, dite intensive, qui ramène toute la richesse actuelle de l’étant à son acte d’être originaire ou esse. Cette première réduction, immanente, en appelle nécessairement une seconde, transcendante, qui remonte de l’étant fini à l’Être infini grâce à une intensification de la « quatrième voie » de saint Thomas d’Aquin. Au cours et au terme de ces deux processus, il apparaît que les différents niveaux d’actualité de l’étant fini participent à son esse, et que celui-ci participe à son tour à l’Ipsum esse subsistens, de telle sorte que la science de l’étant est fondée tout entière sur la participation.

In this paper, we study the relationship between the metaphysic of participation and the hermeneutic of Vatican II. In the first part, we propose an outline of the metaphysical notion of participation according to Thomas Aquinas and Cornelio Fabro, on both transcendental and predicamental levels. In the second one, we investigate the three most important novelties of the Council under the light of the participation, helping us with the theology of Charles Journet: at first and in detail, the ecclesiological implications of the subsistit (Lumen Gentium, 8); secondly and shortly, the collegiality; thirdly and also shortly, the religious freedom. In the last and concluding part, we show how the hermeneutic of continuity is founded upon the participation, and how the hermeneutic of discontinuity implies the rejection of the participation.
Our study must be quoted in this way:
Alain CONTAT, « La métaphysique de la participation, instrument pour une herméneutique sapientielle de Vatican II », Nova et Vetera 91/2 (2016), p. 95-124.

Ce Mémoire de métaphysique fut dirigé par le P. Alain Contat. Il retrace la notion thomiste de l'être en reprenant l'interprétation de Cornelio Fabro. Cette compréhension de l'être comme intensif et émergeant ouvre la porte à une lecture originale de l'histoire de la métaphysique, que l'auteur confronte à quelques études récentes du monde universitaire français.

Bonum is a primitive notion that is known in the very act of experiencing desire or appetite. It is, therefore, an undeniable fact that many things—substances, qualities, actions—exercise an attraction and can be characterized as “good.” By reflecting on bonum we come to realize that ens is by no means a static reality: it has an internal dynamism by which it possesses intrinsic perfection and thus is able to act on other entia. Moreover, this operari is always for the sake of an end (omne agens agit propter finem) and at the same time is always for the sake of the suppositum that acts. In short, ens is always in action, and it acts in order to reach its own fulfillment or (for spiritual beings) happiness. The fact can be established by simple recognition; the purpose of this paper, however, is to discover the metaphysical foundation for the tendency to self-fulfillment. I will show that a metaphysics based on a conception of actus essendi as an intensive act, or—as the title suggests—as a virtus essendi that is the source of all the proper perfections of an individual substance (suppositum), provides the basis for an answer to this problem. The actus essendi, the radical and original act of a substance, is composed and co-created with a radical potency that I will call essentia ut potentia essendi, which determines, limits, and measures the actus essendi. Since the actus essendi is act, which is by nature generous, fecund, and expansive, it cannot be completely contained by the essence. Therefore, it tends to flow forth, first in a necessary way into the esse of the substance and the accidentia propria, and then into operari, which constitutes its final expansion. Actus essendi, or esse ut actus (which is the radical act), is therefore distinct from esse in actu (which is the “fact” of being that is proper to predicamental ens). Hence, there is a profound communion between esse and agere, for it is precisely the expansiveness of the actus essendi that explains the tendency of ens to act for its self-fulfillment: every suppositum seeks to let its actus essendi expand into the greatest “quantity” of esse in actu that its essence allows.

This study intends to present, analyse and evaluate the fairly divergent interpretations elaborated by experts studying St. Thomas, from the 1930s onwards, with regard to his doctrine of analogy, particularly in the transcendental context of the question
of God. With this purpose in mind, it proceeds in three stages. In the first place, we offer an inventory of the successive positions adopted by St. Thomas on this matter, from the Scriptum to the Summa theologiae. Secondly, we study the theories of analogy of Maurilio
Texeira-Leite Penido, Johann Baptist Metz and Cornelio Fabro, highlighting the very close link between these theories and the respective ontologies of these authors. In this way, we bring out the connection between the way each author understands the Thomasian esse and the way his thought reflects upon analogy. In the third place, we outline the development of the historiographical reconstructions of the problem which have emerged in the time from the end of the Second World War up to our own days. This brief reconstruction provides us with criteria of judgment to undertake a historical and a theoretical evaluation of the three positions investigated in the second part.

Key words: the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas, the metaphysics of being, analogy, analogy of proportionality and analogy of reference, theological discourse, Maurílio Teixeira-Leite Penido, Johann Baptist Lotz, Cornelio Fabro, George Peter Klubertanz, Bernard Montagnes.

The term “participation” as I am are concerned with it in this thesis signifies the package of relations forming a structure of dependence between the manifold of inferior subjects and the higher source of their similitude or nature. Thomistic participation is most properly understood as the expression of the dependence relation of creatures to God, a relation exemplified by a metaphysical structure open to analysis by the thinker sufficiently trained in the general science of created being (metaphysics). Participation is the way in which created beings are related to God and receptive of divine causality—the most superior and most transcendental type of cause.
      This study, in examining key sources and some principle texts of the Angelic Doctor, will bring to light his mature doctrine of participation as a synthesis operating on two mutually interpreting planes of thought: the philosophical, where he synthesizes the principle metaphysical concerns of Plato and Platonism (pagan Greek, Islamic, Jewish, and Christian sources) with the critical revision of Plato that is the achievement of Aristotle; the theological, where the Angelic Doctor grants a metaphysical certification to fundamental Christian commitments about God: his essential goodness, radical simplicity, and his ultimate and total causal power with respect to creatures.
      For Aquinas, creation means that all but God is creature, and that the creaturely nature of the world definitively saturates the world and everything in it. By means of an analysis of the metaphysical structure of being and beings in terms of participation Aquinas arrives at a conception of a God who, as the first and supreme cause of the world, is both transcendent of it and immanent in it, such that the world is a manifold of created natures at once utterly under divine governance and free in their own order.

The purpose of this article is to present Cornelio Fabro’s claim that for Aquinas being (ens) is grasped by the intellect’s first operation. Otherwise, he maintains, any other possibility, such as judgment regarding the existence of a being, may lead to idealism. He also argues that according to the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas the act of being is somehow present in the first apprehension of ens, since ens is “id quod habet esse,”  that which has being. This presentation will focus on Fabro’s interpretation of the matter; however, other interpretations will be briefly mentioned since his claim produced much controversy among scholars, as might be expected.

Tesina de Licencia presentada en la Facultad de Filosofía de la Pontificia Universidad Lateranense (Roma) en el año 2008. Dirigida por el prof. Dr. Antonio Livi. Se intenta mostrar como Fabro resuelve las distintas dialécticas del acto cognoscitivo (inteligencia-sensibilidad, sujeto-objeto, esencia-fenómeno) a partir de la noción metafísica de participación, propia del pensamiento de Santo Tomás de Aquino.

Un estudio comparativo sobre la doctrina de la analogia entis en la escuela del tomismo formalista entre Tomás de Vío, Card. Cayetano y el P. Santiago Ramírez, O. P. y una propuesta conclusivo-resolutiva para resolver el problema desde la propuesta del tomismo intensivo de Cornelio Fabro, E. Gilson y Alain Contat. El P. Alain Contat tuvo la gentileza de dirigirme en este proyecto de tesina de licencia.

Resumen Traducción del francés del estudio La constitution de l"étant dans le thomisme contemporain: Tomas Tyn, Johann Baptist Lotz, Cornelio Fabro, publicado originalmente en M. Raffray (dir.): Actus essendi. Saint Thomas d"Aquin et ses interprètes. Parole et Silence, Paris, 2019, pp. 369-433. Se analiza cómo fue entendida la metafísica tomista según los mencionados autores, y se da una posición propia al final. Abstract Translation of the article La constitution de l"étant dans le thomisme contemporain: Tomas Tyn, Johann Baptist Lotz, Cornelio Fabro, published in M. Raffray (dir.): Actus essendi. Saint Thomas d"Aquin et ses interprètes. Parole et Silence, Paris, 2019, pp. 369-433. It analyzes how Thomist Metaphysics has been understood by Tomas Tyn, Johannes Baptist Lotz and Cornelio Fabro. Author makes a critical evaluation of them.

Advertencia para el lector El término francés suppôt, que traduce el latino suppositum y, en última instancia, el griego hypóstasis, no ha sido traducido por el español supuesto por los distintos sentidos de esta palabra que pueden llevar a un equívoco en metafísica. De hecho, mientras que suppositum señala a la substancia en cuanto ejerce el acto de ser como propio, el término supuesto puede aludir a esa misma realidad o, por el contrario, hacer dudar de su existencia. Por esta razón, hemos mantenido el término latino suppositum para traducir el francés suppôt. Contrariamente, el término francés sujet (que traduce el latino subjectum, y este, el griego hipokéimenon, y señala a la substancia como sustento de los accidentes) sí ha sido traducido por el español sujeto; aunque es posible un equívoco sobre este vocablo, sin embargo consideramos que puede salvarse sin dificultad. Hacemos notar que no seguimos el estilo de notas habitual en nuestra revista, sino el que aparece en el original que estamos traduciendo. Además, se han traducido todas las citas directamente de la lengua original cuando son así señaladas por el autor del artículo. Si no aparecen los originales a pie de página, nos ha bastado traducir del francés el sentido que el autor ha querido manifestar al utilizar esas citas en su texto. En contadas ocasiones hemos transcripto el término francés original a pie de página, para ganar claridad en la comprensión de la idea original del autor.

While Aquinas sees himself as a faithful interpreter of Boethius so much so that he repeatedly cites him as an authority in his whole corpus, scholars such as Roland- Gosselin, Brosch, Fabro and Geiger claim that Aquinas took a colossal blunder in his interpretation of Boethius’s texts. More specifically, they maintain that for Boethius esse is the universal, abstract essence, and id quod est the individual, concrete essence.
A thorough analysis of Boethius’s Isagoge, De consolatione philosophiae and Opuscula theologica, shows instead that this exegesis should be rejected first of all because for Boethius too esse means existence. Furthermore, in the Quomodo substantiae, the id quod est indicates a real, individual and concrete object that subsists because it has received the forma essendi.
I then show that Aquinas undoubtedly further develops, albeit without distorting it, Boethius’s id quod est, which becomes id quod subsistit in esse, the subiectum essendi that is actualised by the actus essendi. This definition allows Aquinas to explain the participation par excellence: the id quod est participates in the equally universal notion of esse just as something concrete participates in something abstract.
Finally, I explain that it is precisely the ontological gulf between God and creatures that explains why and in what manner there can be something outside the only Ipsum esse subsistens that contains within itself the totality of being.

L’Europa sembra in crisi ma non ogni crisi è anche un declino inevitabile. Al fine di comprendere se il genio europeo od occidentale abbia un futuro è necessario descrivere la genesi e lo sviluppo storici di questo improprio “continente culturale”, rinvenendo la tipicità di tale genio, e osservare quale sia lo stato di salute di cui esso ancora possa godere attualmente: pur lontani da ogni pessimismo, i dati non sembrano incoraggiare l’analista, alla luce dell’impoverimento filosofico che affligge la cultura europeo-occidentale. L’unica via d’uscita sarebbe il recupero ermeneutico della tradizione filosofico-politica che ha caratterizzato tale cultura, di cui oggi sembra essersi smarrita la memoria, ma v’è da capire se e quando un tale recupero sarà possibile.

This study, on Thomas Aquinas’ doctrine on the transcendentals, is both epistemological
and metaphysical. From the epistemological point of view, we want to determine
if and how the sequence subiectum / principia subiecti / passiones subiecti can be applied
to ens qua ens and to the transcendentals. Our investigation concludes that the five transcendentals
– res, unum, aliquid, verum, bonum – are effectively founded on the principles
of ens, and that the last four are counted among the properties that are predicated per se
secundo of ens, even though they do not add anything real to their subject, but rather only a
negation or a relation of reason. From the metaphysical perspective, we want to clarify, in
the most precise way possible, the additio rationis proper to each transcendental, and then
explore the nexus that links each of them to the esse of ens. What results is that the transcendentals
are ultimately founded on the act of being that is the terminus of the metaphysical
resolutio, and that each transcendental explicates an aspect of esse considered as perfectio omnium perfectionum.

This paper presents an analysis of North American Thomists, specifically according to their consideration of the place of the doctrine of the divine ideas in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. The thesis is that this consideration can be compared according to the respective weight given to Plato and Aristotle by these thinkers in their approach to Thomas. The more that these Thomists tend to elevate the role of Aristotle and minimize that of Plato, the less they consider the doctrine of the divine ideas to have a meaningful place in the thought of Thomas. The reverse is likewise true, in that the greater their appreciation of Platonic and Neoplatonic influences on the thought of Thomas, the greater the place North American Thomists give to the divine ideas in the thought of Thomas, even holding them to be an integral and indispensible part of his system.

In this study, we have sought to establish if and how the metaphysics of participation can offer a valid instrument for the “hermeneutics of reform in continuity”, which Pope Benedict XVI encouraged for a correct understanding of Vatican II. Using the ontology of Cornelio Fabro and the ecclesiology of Charles Journet as inspiration, we have studied and organized under this light five great novelties of the Council: 1. the “subsistence” of the Church of Christ in the Catholic Church, which alone has the totality of the means of salvation, refers to “ecclesiality per essentiam”; 2. The presence of “elements of sanctification” beyond the visible limits of the Catholic Church manifests the reality of an “ecclesiality per participationem”; 3. the “strains of truth”, at work in the non-Christian communities and denominations are interpreted as means that manifest the participability of the human condition to Christic Revelation; 4. civil liberty in religious matters, results from the transcendence of the human person with respect to the State in this sphere; 5. the existence of a twofold subject of supreme magisterial and jurisdictional power in the Church, constitutes a very particular case of univocal participation in the same perfection.

Introducción a "La actualidad del ser en la “Primera Escuela” de Salamanca. Con lecciones inéditas de Vitoria, Soto y Cano", Eunsa (“Colección de Pensamiento Medieval y Renacentista”), Pamplona, 2004, 515 págs. Sólo índice e introducción. El presente estudio determina la realidad histórica de la metafísica salmantina en cuanto a sus condicionantes, a sus autores y a las fuentes, para luego ceñirse a la investigación de los tres grandes maestros de la llamada 'Primera Escuela' de Salamanca: Francisco de Vitoria, Domingo de Soto y Melchor Cano. Constata un intento de renovación respecto de la escuela tomista tradicional; descubre el despuntar de concepciones metafísicas que pasarían con fuerza a la modernidad, como la ontología de los modos; y detecta el problema teológico de la unidad de Cristo como una de sus principales claves interpretativas.

Pre-publication draft, please cite the published version.

In this introduction, I attempt to do three things: (i) to introduce briefly Fabro’s Thomistic approach to Kierkegaard’s writings; (ii) to highlight the ecumenical aspects of Kierkegaard’s Christian spirituality; and (iii) to explore Kierkegaard’s use of Aristotle as the background to Kierkegaard’s view of subjectivity and ethico-religious truth. My claim is that rather than viewing Kierkegaard as the irrational antithesis of a Thomist approach, Fabro discovered in Kierkegaard’s writings an important resource for his Thomist project. To better understand the uniqueness of Fabro’s approach to Kierkegaard’s writings, it is necessary to take a brief look at Fabro’s view of Kierkegaard’s spirituality and metaphysics.

This paper considers the relevance of the theory of the cogitative power in Aquinas, as highlighted by Cornelio Fabro during his early research in the fourth decade of the past century, in contemporary neuropsychological studies, and particularly as a specific way of overcoming the dualistic approach in the psychology of perception. The thesis is coherent with an anthropological view based on the substantial unity between soul and body. As a consequence, the capacities of the cogitative faculty (estimative in animals) involve a special account of perception, irreducible to pure thought and to sensations as well, an account that is present in the psychological view of M. Merleau-Ponty and J. J. Gibson.

Este trabajo procura recordar el trabajo que los tomistas del siglo XX desarrollaron para reinterpretar la tradición del Doctor Angélico, en uno de los temas más famosos de la metafísica: Las pruebas de la existencia de Dios. Por ello, compara la escuela del tomismo trascendental, la del tomismo clásico y aquella del tomismo intensivo para hacer ver la riqueza de especulación filosófica contenidas en las pocas lineas de la cuarta vía y tener un piso firme sobre el cual poder emitir un juicio de valor. Sólo escogiendo la interpretación más fidedigna se es capaz de admitir o negar la validez de la vía más metafísica de todas, camino a la existencia de Dios.

Catholic Theology after Kierkegaard investigates the writings of emblematic Catholic thinkers in the twentieth century to assess their substantial engagement with Kierkegaard's writings. Joshua Furnal argues that Kierkegaard's writings have stimulated reform and renewal in twentieth-century Catholic theology, and should continue to do so today. To demonstrate Kierkegaard's relevance in pre-conciliar Catholic theology, Furnal examines the wider evidence of a Catholic reception of Kierkegaard in the early twentieth century-looking specifically at influential figures like Theodor Haecker, Romano Guardini, Erich Przywara, and other Roman Catholic thinkers that are typically associated with the ressourcement movement. In particular, Furnal focuses upon the writings of Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and the Italian Thomist, Cornelio Fabro as representative entry points.

Dans cette étude dédiée à la constitution intégrale de l'étant au sens fort, c'est-à-dire de la substance en acte, nous montrons d’abord que les textes de saint Thomas semblent laisser quatre problèmes ouverts :
• En quoi consiste précisément l’esse auquel, selon le Docteur commun, l’étant doit justement d’être un étant ?
• Corrélativement, en quoi consiste alors l’essentia qui reçoit et spécifie l’esse ?
• En vertu de quoi l’étant substantiel subsiste-t-il ?
• Que faut-il comprendre par l’esse superadditum des accidents ?
Ensuite, nous examinons trois grandes solutions qui furent proposées au cours du XXe siècle, et qui constituent autant de configurations systématiques de l’étant :
1. celle de Tomas Týn, qui reprend et approfondit les thèses des commentateurs dominicains et que nous proposons de nommer « configuration duale » ;
2. celle de Johann Baptist Lotz, qui élabore, à la suite de Joseph Maréchal et en dialogue avec Kant et Heidegger, ce qu'il convient de caractériser comme « configuration transcendantale » ;
3. et celle de Cornelio Fabro, qui oppose aux deux précédentes ce que nous appellerons  « configuration intensive ».
Enfin, nous expliquons comment ces trois analyses se rattachent aux trois significations par soi de l’ens-esse que l’Aquinate reprend d’Aristote, c'est-à-dire l'être considéré successivement comme contenu de la chose (1), comme copule et horizon du jugement vrai (2), comme actualité de l'étant (3). Pour conclure, nous exposons brièvement pourquoi la troisième solution nous paraît être la seule compatible avec l'esprit et la lettre des textes thomasiens.

Dans cette étude, qui fait suite à d'autres travaux sur les convergences et les divergences entre les thomistes du XXe siècle, nous avons voulu offrir aux lecteurs de la revue Espíritu une brève comparaison structurelle entre la philosophie théorétique de Jacques Maritain et celle de Cornelio Fabro. Notre propos s'articule en deux étapes: 1. la critique du cogito cartésien et de ses avatars postérieurs; 2. l'analyse métaphysique de l'étant. Sous ce dernier rapport, nous expliquons de quelle manière les deux philosophes s'opposent, d'abord quant au statut ontologique et noétique de "l'étant premier connu", ensuite quant aux principes - acte d'être et essence - en lesquels se résout "l'étant en tant qu'étant".

In this study which follows other works on the convergences and divergences between 20th century Thomists, we wanted to offer the readers of Espíritu a brief structural comparison between the theoretical philosophy of Jacques Maritain and that of Cornelio Fabro. Our purpose is articulated in two stages: 1. the critique of the Cartesian cogito and its later vicissitude; 2. the metaphysical analysis of the being. In this last respect, we explain how the two philosophers oppose each other, first as regards the ontological and noetic status of the "ens primum cognitum", then as regards the principles-act of being and essence-in which they resolve themselves "being qua being".