From First Physics to Fundamental Physics and Back Again

Now published in Aquinas and Us, edited by Timothy Kearns, Gyula Klima, and Alex Hall, the latest volume (no. 18) of the Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics. From the publisher: “This volume considers the contemporary relevance of Aquinas’ thought and what parameters should influence its reception. It discusses the reception of Aquinas on creation ex nihilo and offers guidelines for reception in the fields of metaphysics and natural theology. Chapters on physics and philosophy of mind intersect with key modern debates. Contributions interpret Aquinas’ physics in light of contemporary findings and discuss his account of human self-awareness.” My essay is a response to one by Timothy Kearns:

To understand nature and what bodies do by nature, one must know motion; to know motion, one must grapple with potency, with real power. The “potency as such” that formally defines mobile being is grasped generically at first and must be made more conceptually determinate by further insights had through research into nature (measurements of mass, momentum, energy, or action). These are not derivable by proof or demonstration from the generic notion of mobile being, yet they are implied in it as species and properties are contained virtually within a genus. “The philosophy of nature is a kind of wisdom, but it is not the first.” So, as “first physics,” Thomistic natural philosophy must provide us with a good beginning along the road to fundamental physics.