Segundo Tomás de Aquino, a forma é o que instancia a substância em determinada natureza; sem ela, a substância não seria o que é. Saliente-se que definir o que é (quid est) algo não é o mesmo que afirmar que ele é, pois, neste caso, o que é afirmado é sua existência, não sua natureza. Isso indica que a existência não é posta pela forma da substância, mas por algo outro, que, em sua Exposição aos Ebdomadibus de Boécio, Tomás chama de ato de ser (actus essendi). Imiscuído na substância que é seu sujeito , o ato de ser concede-lhe existência, tornando-a um ente, o qual possui um vínculo com o próprio ser (ipsum esse), que é deus. O aquinatense chama esse vínculo de participação, donde o ente participa do ser tal como o efeito de sua causa. O problema é instaurado quando se passa do plano ontológico ao gnosiológico, isto é, quando o intelecto busca inteligir a participação do ente no ser. Nessa intelecção, a limitação do intelecto humano se evidencia: a participação do ente no ser é entendida não como tal, mas como a do concreto no abstrato. O ente é significado em concreto, pois nele o ato de ser se encontra concretizado; a dificuldade, contudo, apresenta-se quando o intelecto tenta abstrair o ato de ser do ente: nessa abstração, o ato de ser não é inteligido enquanto tal, mas enquanto abstrato. Diante disso, torna-se inevitável levantar as seguintes questões: qual o modo de abstração que tenta obter o ato de ser do ente? Por que o intelecto não é capaz de inteligir o ser enquanto ser, mas apenas enquanto abstrato? O ato de ser, inconcebível pelo intelecto humano, é de fato superior à forma substancial? A participação do concreto no abstrato corresponde à do ente no ser? São estas as principais questões que, neste estudo, buscaremos responder. / According to Thomas of Aquinas, form is that which instantiates substance in a determinate nature; without it, substance would not be what it is. It should be emphasized that defining what something is (its quid est) is not not the same as to assert that it is, for in this case what is asserted is its existence, not its nature. That indicates that existence is not given by the form of the substance, but by something else, which in his Exposition to the Boethius\'s Ebdomadibus, Thomas calls act of being (actus essendi). Mingling in the substance its subject , the act of being gives it its existence, turning it into an entity, which is vinculated to being itself (ipsum esse), or God. The Aquinate calls this nexus participation, whence the entity participates in being as the effect of its cause. The problem is set when one traverses the ontological level to the gnoseological, that is, when the intellect tries to grasp the participation of the entity in being. In this intellection, the limits of the human intellect become clear: the participation of entity in being is understood not as such, but as the concrete in relation to the abstract. The entity is signified in concrete, for in it the act of being is found concretized; the difficulty, however, reveals itself when the intellect tries to abstract the act of being from the entity: in this abstraction, the act of being is not grasped as such, but as abstract. Thus it becomes inevitable to formulate the following questions: which is the mode of abstraction which tries to obtain the act of being of the entity? Why is the intellect not able to grasp being as being, but only as abstract? Is the act of being, inconceivable to the human intellect, in fact superior to the substantial form? And does participation of the concrete in the abstract correspond to that of the entity in being? These are the main questions that this study aims to answer.

Lorsque Thomas d’Aquin lit la Bible comme enseignant à l’université, il entre dans le texte de la même manière que dans les autres textes profanes qu’il commente. Pourtant la lecture biblique est chargée par l’Aquinate d’un rôle particulier dans la doctrine sacrée considérée comme science : c’est par cette lecture qu’une participation à la sagesse de Dieu est acquise, ce qui permet au théologien de forger les principes dont il a besoin pour argumenter scientifiquement. Cela donne un statut particulier au commentaire biblique qui est alors conçu comme un prolongement homogène du texte de l’Écriture où Dieu se révèle. Le Commentaire de l’évangile de Jean est un bon témoin de cela dans l’œuvre du dominicain. Un modèle de ce chemin intellectuel parcouru par la lecture biblique est la Samaritaine qui écoute le Christ puis l’annonce conduisant les habitants à venir au Christ. Elle écoute les mots humains de Dieu, cherche à les pénétrer, elle peut alors prendre à son tour la parole et transmettre la profondeur de la sagesse qu’elle a découverte. / When Thomas Aquinas reads the Bible as a university teacher, he enters the text as any other secular text he comments. Yet biblical reading is given a special role by Aquinas in sacred doctrine, considered as a science: this reading enables a participation to God's wisdom and allows the theologian to elaborate the principles he needs in order to argue in a scientific manner. This gives a particular status to biblical commentary which is then designed as a homogenous extension of the sacred text where God reveals himself. The Commentary on the Gospel of John provides good evidence of this in the work of the Dominican. A model of this intellectual approach of biblical reading is the Samaritan woman who listens to the Christ, then announces it, conducting inhabitants to come to the Christ. She listens to the human words of God, seeking to penetrate them, being then in a position to speak herself and convey the depth of this wisdom she discovered.

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Cette thèse vise à mener une étude détaillée sur la manière dont les penseurs du XIIIème siècle ont appréhendé et utilisé le fameux dictum d’Aristote du De anima II : « l’âme est l’acte premier du corps organique qui est potentiellement en vie » En effet, nous examinons les modalités philosophiques qui ont poussé Bonaventure et Thomas d’Aquin à proposer chacun une lecture originale de ce passage tout en admettant tous les deux que l’âme humaine et le corps ne sont pas à prendre comme deux substances distinctes, mais comme deux parties qui constituent l’essence d’une personne humaine. Nous tentons ainsi de décrire, dans leur processus d’élaboration et de mise en œuvre, ces théories qui visent à nous démontrer l’unité naturelle de l’être humain, ce qui constitue au final des solutions aux problèmes issus de la « two substances view », c'est-à-dire celui du dualisme des substances. / The objective of this thesis is to understand how 13th century thinkers have adopted the famous dictum of Aristotle's De anima II that “the soul is the first act of the organic body potentially having life”. In this perspective, this thesis examines the way in which Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas, each with his own creativity, elaborated to establish the unity of human being that consist in their claim that the human soul and body are not two distinct substances, but two essential parts of the human nature or a human person. In so doing, this thesis analyses the concepts like “substance”, “hoc aliquid”, “intellective soul” “intellect” etc and their meaning in respective contexts where Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas give us relevant solutions that can deal with problems arising from the "two substances view", or substance dualism.

Nous entendons, dans ce mémoire, préciser le sens d'actus essendi par l’analyse de l’emploi du terme par Thomas d’Aquin. Bien que la notion d’acte d’être soit sousjacente à nombre de développements philosophiques et théologiques de l’Aquinate, elle n’est considérée pour elle-même dans aucun texte du corpus thomasien. En exposant le cadre théorique des onze unités textuelles dans lesquelles on retrouve nommément l’expression, nous explicitons les distinctions qu’opère Thomas entre l’acte d’être et les notions ontologiques corrélatives (étant, quiddité, être du jugement prédicatif et être commun). Si « actus essendi » désigne en premier lieu un principe constitutif de l’étant, il peut encore désigner le terme abstrait correspondant à cette perfection de l’étant. L’acte d’être est ainsi ce par quoi l’étant est étant; il est cependant, au plan ontologique, propre à chaque étant singulier tandis que, au plan conceptuel, le même terme exprime ce qui est commun à tous les étants. Une traduction des extraits du Scriptum super Sententiis, des Quæstiones de quolibet, de la Summa Theologiæ, des Quæstiones disputatæ De potentia, de l’Expositio libri De hebdomadibus et de la Expositio libri Metaphysicæ a été produite pour les fins de cette étude. / In this paper, we intend to precise the meaning of actus essendi by analyzing how Thomas Aquinas uses this term. If the notion of the act of being underlies a number of Aquinas’ philosophical and theological developments, it is not treated in itself in any of his writings. By exposing the theoretical framework of the eleven textual units in which the expression namely appears, we explicate how he distinguishes between the act of being and the correlative ontological notions (the being, the essence, the predicamental judgment being and common being). If « actus essendi » first designates a constitutive principle of being, it can also designate the corresponding abstract term of this perfection of being. The act of being is that by which being is being; however, it belongs, at the ontological level, to each particular being whereas at the conceptual level, the same term expresses that which is common to all beings. Extracts of the following texts have been translated in French for this purpose: Scriptum super Sententiis, Quæstiones de quolibet, Summa Theologiæ, Quæstiones disputatæ De potentia, Expositio libri De hebdomadibus and the Sententia libri Metaphysicæ.

Dans la philosophie de Thomas d’Aquin, les puissances principales de l’âme, l’intelligence et la volonté, interagissent dans les activités humaines. Une des activités les plus importantes est identifiée par le docteur comme étant la recherche de la vérité. Cette recherche s’inscrit dans la finalité ultime de l’homme. La vérité, en tant que bien de l’intelligence, est voulue par la volonté qui est un appétit rationnel. Ainsi, selon le Dominicain « la volonté veut que l’intelligence intellige ». Puisque la vérité n’est pas le seul bien proposé au libre arbitre, la volonté doit choisir de poursuivre cette fin au détriment d’autres biens concurrents. Elle doit pour se faire perfectionner les puissances de l’âme par le biais d’habitus et de vertus en plus d’éviter les vices qui conduisent à l’erreur. La recherche de la vérité est, selon Thomas d’Aquin, un acte moral. / According to the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the main powers of the soul, the intellect and the will, interact in human activities. One of the most important activities is identified by the doctor as the search for truth. This research is part of the ultimate purpose of man. The truth, which is the good of the intelligence, is willed by the will which is a rational appetite. Thus, according to the Dominican “the will wants that the intelligence thinks.” Because the truth is not the only good proposed to the free will, the will must choose to pursue it to the detriment of other competing goods. To achieve this goal, the will must perfect the powers of the soul through habitus and virtues while avoiding the vices that lead to errors. The search for truth is, according to Thomas Aquinas, a moral act.

Ce mémoire propose une analyse de la théorie de la volonté en relation avec le mal dans la pensée de Thomas d’Aquin. Le mal est une privation d’être et l’être est identique au bien. La volonté est une forme intellectuelle d’appétit, ainsi que la gouvernante des puissances inférieures, mais aussi de la raison qui est à la fois son principe. L’appétit est un mouvement vers ce qui est le bien d’une nature, il est donc difficile d’accepter que la volonté puisse élire son contraire qui est le mal. La thèse de Platon selon laquelle le mal n’est désiré que par ignorance est écartée, puisque le propos de Thomas est d’expliquer le consentement en faveur du mal connu. Or, si le mal peut être voulu, on ne peut le vouloir sans le référer au bien. Ainsi, le libre arbitre, bien qu’ayant Dieu pour principe, est le principe du premier mauvais choix. La compréhension de la problématique passe par la division de ce qui appartient à l’extérieur de la volonté et ensuite à l’intérieur. De soi, un acte extérieur peut être immoral, comme le vol, mais la volonté d’une intention bonne qui choisit cet acte devient mauvaise, bien qu’elle garde le mérite de sa bonne intention. Son choix mauvais est parfois dû à une certaine ignorance, mais, puisque nous n’ignorons pas toujours le mal, il faut attribuer une faiblesse à la volonté, car elle n’accomplit pas pleinement sa nature. Quand elle répète ses actes de faiblesse à l’égard du mal, elle se dispose à accueillir l’habitus de la malice, et alors elle cherche d’elle-même le mal. Aucun de ces principes, cependant, ne peut s’appliquer à l’homme originel ni au diable. Ceux-ci n’auront pour principe de leurs choix que l’orgueil dans le libre exercice de la volonté. / This paper proposes to analyse the theory of will in interaction with evil in Thomas Aquinas’s thought. Evil is a privation of being, and being is identical to good. The will is an intellectual form of appetite, as well as the governor of lower faculties and of reason, which is also its principle. Appetite is a movement towards the good of a nature; it is therefore difficult to accept that will could elect its opposite, which is evil. Plato’s thesis consisting of attributing the will towards bad to ignorance is discarded, because Thomas’s explanation concerns the consent towards evil witch is known. Now, if evil can be wanted, we cannot want it without referring it to good. In that way, free will, though having God for principle, is the principle of the first bad choice. The comprehension of the problem has to go through the division of that which belongs to the will’s exterior and to it’s interior. In itself, an exterior act can be immoral, like stealing, but the good intentioned will that choses this act then becomes evil, keeping nonetheless the merit of its good intention. The bad choice is sometimes attributable to ignorance, but since we do not always ignore evil, we have to accuse a certain weakness in the will for not being able to fulfill its nature. When it repeatedly acts weakly towards evil, it makes itself available for the mischievous habitus, and it then, on its own, searches the evil act. None of these principles, though, can apply to the original man or for the devil. They will not have any other principle for their choice than that of pride in the free exercise of their will.

La question d’un monde créé sans commencement ou, comme on le dit souvent, le problème de « l’éternité du monde », a été l’occasion d’une vive controverse entre les penseurs latins du XIIIe siècle, dont saint Thomas d’Aquin. Nonobstant sa foi avérée en une création avec un commencement, Thomas, théologien et philosophe catholique, s’est interrogé tout au long de sa carrière : « Aurait-il été possible que Dieu créât un monde sans commencement ? » Cette persévérance est suffisamment paradoxale pour attirer l’attention, d’autant que Thomas, en sa réponse, s’opposait à la grande majorité de ses contemporains.Après une courte partie introductive qui brosse à grands traits et sans prétention le contexte historique, sont donc présentés les onze textes thomasiens traitant de la durée du monde, et spécialement de la possibilité d’un monde créé sans commencement, en leur langue latine ainsi qu’en une traduction française originale. Puis sont analysés les arguments présentés par Thomas, et les questions qu’ils peuvent soulever. Si les rapports entre la philosophie et la foi, comme entre la philosophie et la science, entrent en ligne de compte, les notions de causalité naturelle et de causalité volontaire, de fini et d’infini, de création divine et d’action humaine, de temps et d’éternité, de démonstration rationnelle et d’argument de convenance, constituent le cœur de cette élucidation philosophique.Au terme de la démarche, il apparaît que, pour saint Thomas d’Aquin, si le monde, en fait, a été créé avec un commencement (c’est pour lui une certitude de foi), en droit il aurait pu être créé sans aucun commencement (et c’est pour lui une affirmation légitime de la raison). / The question of a world created without beginning or, as is often said, the problem of « the eternity of the world », was the occasion of a controversy between the latin thinkers of the thirteenth century, including St. Thomas Aquinas. Despite his unquestionable faith in a creation with a beginning, Thomas, catholic theologian and philosopher, wondered throughout his life : « Would it have been possible that God created a world without beginning ? » This perseverance is paradoxical enough to attract attention, especially as Thomas, in his reply, was opposed to the vast majority of his contemporaries.After a short and unpretentious introduction that describes historical context, eleven thomasians texts dealing with the duration of the world are presented, and especially the possibility of a world created without beginning, in the original latin and in a new french translation. Then the arguments given by Thomas are analyzed, as well as the issues they may raise. If the relationship between philosophy and faith, and between philosophy and science, are taken into account, the concepts of natural causality and voluntary causality, finite and infinite, divine creation and human action, time and eternity, rational demonstration and argument of convenience, are the heart of this philosophical elucidation.At the end of the process, it appears that, for Aquinas, if the world, in fact, was created with a beginning (this is for him a certainty of faith), nevertheless it could have been created without a beginning (and this is for him a legitimate statement of reason).

Este trabalho sustenta que o teólogo cristão do início do século VI conhecido como Pseudo Dionísio Areopagita exerce profunda influência no pensamento do teólogo e filósofo medieval Tomás de Aquino (1225-1274). Essa influência se dá principalmente em dois temas fundamentais da filosofia tomasiana: negatividade e participação. Negatividade diz respeito ao caráter de mistério que envolve as essências mais íntimas dos seres desde a natureza visível e o homem até o princípio de todas as coisas, Deus e que, portanto, não são plenamente compreensíveis para o entendimento humano. Participação se refere ao fato de que, por outro lado, o mundo participa do ser de Deus e, por isso, revela traços do divino, ainda que de modo deficiente e remoto. Dada essa influência de Dionísio, Tomás de Aquino não pode ser considerado um pensador racionalista, com respostas definitivas para todos os problemas da existência, como costuma ser visto por epígonos o que constitui uma deturpação do pensamento tomasiano, marcado pela consciência da insuficiência da razão. Para Tomás, não é possível aos homens ter clareza absoluta sobre qualquer assunto, daí, por exemplo, a necessidade de eles se conduzirem segundo a clássica doutrina cristã da prudência a virtude de agir corretamente, com base no límpido conhecimento da situação presente. Tendo em vista a negatividade e a participação, para o acesso às realidades mais profundas impõe-se o uso de metáforas, alegorias e símbolos, capazes de algum modo de se aproximar do que, afinal, é incognoscível. No que se refere ao conhecimento de Deus, a via de acesso é a mística entendida como uma experiência com o Absoluto que se dá num plano além da razão, e não aquém , uma vez que todo discurso racional, afinal, fala mais do homem do que de Deus. Como conclusão, este trabalho propõe que o pensamento negativo do Pseudo Dionísio Areopagita e de Tomás de Aquino precisa ser mais conhecido também por educadores, pois ele permite uma visão diferente da realidade, uma visão menos lógico-racionalista que tantos problemas tem trazido à sociedade contemporânea e mais sensível, lúdica e profunda, portanto, mais humana. No anexo, é apresentada a tradução, direta do original grego, do livro Da teologia mística, do Pseudo Dionísio Areopagita. / This dissertation argues that the Christian theologian of the early sixth century known as Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite exerts profound influence on the thought of medieval theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). This influence is mainly on two major topics of Aquinas philosophy: negativity and participation. Negativity means the character of mystery that involves the most intimate essence of beings from the natural world and man to the cause of all things, God and therefore not fully comprehensible to human understanding. Participation refers to the fact that, on the other hand, the world participates in the being of God and, therefore, shows traces of the divine, even in a poor and remote way. Given the influence of Dionysius, Aquinas can not be regarded as a rationalist thinker, with definitive answers to all problems of existence, as is often seen by followers which is a perversion of Aquinass thought, marked by awareness of the insufficiency of reason. For Aquinas, it is not possible for men to have absolute clarity on any issue, then, for example, requiring them to conduct themselves according to the classical Christian doctrine of prudence the virtue of doing right, based on clear understanding of the current situation. Given the negativity and participation, accessing deeper realities requires the use of metaphors, allegories and symbols, which are able somehow to get closer to that, after all, is unknowable. With regard to knowledge of God, the way of access is the mystique understood as an experience of the Absolute that is given beyond reason, and not short , since all rational discourse, after all, speaks more about man than about God. In conclusion, this study suggests that the negative thought of Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite and Thomas Aquinas should be more well known by educators, because it allows a different view of reality, less logical-rationalist that has brought many problems to contemporary society and more sensitive, playful and profound, therefore, more human. The annex includes a translation directly from the original Greek of The mystical theology, by Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite.