TRANSLATION NOTES — Appendix: On the Necessary Connections Between Existential Acts

1. Philological & Conceptual Analyses

1.1. Actus Existentialis (Existential Act)

• Latin: Actus existentialis / actus essendi.

• Distinction: In classical Thomism (ST I, q. 3, a. 4; q. 7, a. 1), esse is not a form, a genus, or an essence; it is the ultimate actuality of all acts (actualitas omnium actuum).

• Application in the Appendix: Hoenen distinguishes between:

  • Substantial Esse: The primary, permanent act of existence of a supposit (esse per se).

  • Accidental Existential Acts: Secondary acts of existence, notably motion (esse fluens) and duration, which inhere in another (esse in alio).

• Noetic Significance: The human intellect can intuit necessary connections directly between these existential acts, without needing to pass through abstract quidditative definitions.

1.2. Cogito Ergo Sum as Immediate Intuition

• Context: § 1 (pp. 249–251).

• Source: René Descartes, Secundae Responsiones (AT VII, 140–141); Hoenen’s 1937 Rivista di Filosofia Neo-scolastica study.

• The Core Finding: The cogito is not a syllogism (it does not presuppose the major premise “everything that thinks exists”). It is a simple intuition of the intellect in internal experience:

  \[\text{I think (accidental existential act)} \longrightarrow \text{I am (substantial existential act)}\]

• Aristotelian-Thomistic Precedence: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics IX, 9, 1170a31) and Aquinas (Q.D. de Veritate, q. 10, a. 12, ad 7) formulated this centuries before Descartes: Sentimus nos sentire et intelligimus nos intelligere, et ideo intelligimus nos esse.

1.3. Energeia (ἐνέργεια) vs. Entelecheia (ἐντελέχεια)

• Greek: ἐνέργεια (energeia, activity/operation) vs. ἐντελέχεια (entelecheia, full actuality/perfection).

• Philological History: In Metaphysics IX, 3 (1047a30), Aristotle explains that the word energeia was historically derived from movement (ek tōn kinēseōn), because movement is the most obvious and tangible actuality to human perception.

• Alexander of Aphrodisias: In his In Metaph. (573, 16), Alexander notes:

  \[\text{ἡ ἐνέργεια ἐν κινήσει θεωρεῖται}\]

  (“actuality is contemplated in motion”). Motion is the epistemic gateway through which human consciousness first discovers the very notion of actuality.

1.4. Motus Quasi Digito Monstrat Aliam Existentiam

• Latin: Motus quasi digito monstrat aliam existentiam quae praesupponitur (“Motion points, as with a finger, to another existence that is presupposed”).

• Target: David Hume’s skepticism (Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. I, Pt. III; Enquiry, Sect. IV).

• Hoenen’s Argument: When we observe a body in local motion, that fluent existential act is radically unintelligible in isolation:

  1. It points to the existing mobile subject without which motion cannot exist.

  2. It points to the existing place (locus) through which translation occurs.

  3. It points to an actual moving cause (causa movens in actu) that accounts for its becoming.

• The intellect intuits these existences not as psychological associations, but as objective, necessary conditions of reality.

1.5. Facio Ergo Materia Rei Factibilis Adest

• Latin: Facio ergo materia rei factibilis adest (“I make, therefore the matter of the factible thing is present”).

• Source: Aristotle, Metaph. IX, 9 (1051a32): ποιοῦντες γιγνώσκουσιν; Aquinas, In IX Metaph., lect. 10, no. 1894; Hoenen, Théorie du jugement, ch. X, § 5.

• Epistemological Role: The definitive realistic test distinguishing authentic perception from hallucination. In pure imagination, I can mentally divide or move a body at will. But an actual physical operation can only take place upon actual external matter. The felt resistance and successful completion of an operative act guarantees the actual existence of the external object.

1.6. Differentia vs. Diversitas (Seipsis Totis)

• Latin: Differentia (difference) vs. diversitas (diversity).

• Aristotelian Foundation: Metaphysics X, 3 (1054b23–26); Aquinas, In X Metaph., lect. 4, no. 2017:

  • Things are different when they share a common genus and are distinguished by an added specific difference (\(A + d_1\) vs. \(A + d_2\)).

  • Things are diverse when they are not the same by their whole selves (seipsis totis), without any added difference.

• Application to Modes of Being: Being (esse) is not a genus; therefore diverse modes of being (esse in se, esse in alio, esse fluens) are diverse seipsis totis.

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2. Historical, Intertextual & Bibliographical Context

2.1. The Confrontation with Étienne Gilson: Is Esse Conceptualizable?

• Source: Étienne Gilson, L’être et l’essence (Paris: Vrin, 1948); Being and Some Philosophers (Toronto: PIMS, 1949).

• The Debate in § 7 (pp. 273–281):

  • Gilson’s Position: Gilson argued that “concept” belongs strictly to the first operation of the mind (quiddity/essence); esse is reached only in the second operation (judgment). Conceptualizing esse supposedly reduces it to an essence (“essentialism”). Gilson called the relation between essence and existence “un centre d’obscurité”.

  • Hoenen’s Thomistic Resolution: St. Thomas repeatedly speaks of a concept of esse (ratio essendi, conceptio mentis, ST I, q. 12, a. 4, ad 3; q. 75, a. 6; De Potentia, q. 8, a. 1). Hoenen illuminates Gilson’s center of darkness with Aquinas’s formula:

    \[\textbf{« Non sic determinatur esse per aliud sicut potentia per actum, sed magis sicut actus per potentiam »}\]

    (De Potentia, q. 7, a. 2, ad 9: “Esse is determined by another not as potency by act, but rather as act by potency”).

  • Operational Definition of Esse: In realism, esse is operationally defined as that which affirmative judgment attributes to an apprehended disposition of the thing (« ita est in re »).

2.2. David Hume and the Causal Nexus

• Source: David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Bk. I, Pt. III; An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), Sect. IV.

• Hoenen’s Refutation:

  1. The intellect intuits the necessity of an efficient cause in motion immediately, prior to and independently of any repeated observation.

  2. The principle does not state which physical object is the cause (that requires empirical inquiry); it states that motion in se demands an actual cause (energeia ti aition).

  3. Hume falsely assumed that the causal principle asserts that the cause must act necessarily. Hoenen points out that the cause can be a free cause; the principle requires only that an actual cause exist.

2.3. Albert Einstein, Spatial Distance, and Temporal Simultaneity

• Sources: Albert Einstein, “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper”, Annalen der Physik 17 (1905); “Raum-, Äther- und Feld-Problem”, Forum Philosophicum 1 (1930).

• Hoenen’s Analysis:

  1. In his 1930 Forum paper, Einstein correctly acknowledged that spatial relations (distance) are grounded in mutual contacts between bodies.

  2. Hoenen demonstrates that two bodies cannot touch an intermediate body to establish a real distance unless they exist simultaneously in duration.

  3. Coexistence in duration is an absolute ontological prerequisite for spatial distance. By denying the objectivity of distant simultaneity in 1905, Einstein undermined the metaphysical foundation of his own 1930 relational localization.

2.4. Nicole Oresme and Configurations of Velocity

• Source: Nicole Oresme, Tractatus de configurationibus qualitatum et motuum (14th century); Anneliese Maier, Zwei Grundprobleme der scholastischen Naturphilosophie (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1951).

• Historical Context: Oresme recognized that velocity in motion is the exact analogue of intensity in quality. By graphing velocity over time, Oresme created “configurations in fluent esse.” Hoenen applies this to modern wave mechanics (photons, electromagnetic oscillations), showing how existential acts mirror essential forms.

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3. Technical Glossary for the Appendix

Latin / Greek Term	English Rendering	Philological & Conceptual Definition
actus existentialis	existential act	The act of existing (esse), whether substantial (esse per se) or accidental (esse in alio, such as motion).
esse fluens	fluent being	The successive, transient act of existence characteristic of motion and duration.
ratio essendi	intelligible ratio of being	The intellect’s concept of existence determined by essence (De Pot. q. 7, a. 2, ad 9).
ἐνέργεια (energeia)	activity / actuality	Actual operation; historically derived from movement (Metaph. IX, 3).
ἐντελέχεια (entelecheia)	complete actuality / entelechy	The perfected state of being having its end within itself.
seipsis totis	by their whole selves	The mode by which diverse acts of being differ, without an added specific difference (Metaph. X, 3).
motus quasi digito monstrat	motion points as with a finger	The immediate intentional illation from fluent motion to the existence of subject, place, and cause.
facio ergo materia adest	I make, therefore matter is present	The operative criterion verifying the objective reality of the external world against illusion.