Aquinas on Quality

Nicholas Kahm

Abstract

For Kant, Aristotle’s categories are arbitrary but brilliant and they don’t

ultimately correspond to extramental reality. For Aquinas, however, they are rational

divisions of extramental and real being. In this perennial and ongoing dispute the various

positions seem to dissolve upon delving into the particulars of any one category. If,

however, the categories are divisions of extra-mental being, it should be possible to offer

plausible accounts of particular categories. I offer Aquinas’s unstudied derivation of the

particular category quality as a test case to see how one could hold, and how Aquinas did

hold, to a realism about Aristotle’s categories at a highly specific level. Although

Aristotle divides quality into four species and some further subspecies, unlike Aquinas,

he offers no reasons for these divisions. For Aquinas each accident is a particular mode of

existing, i.e., it is a particular way that an accident exists in a substance. In the case of

quality, this mode of existing follows substantial form and its real extramental causes or

effects further divide it into four species. Aquinas’s account is both compelling and

original, inspired by Aristotle but also un-Aristotelian. The paper concludes by

comparing Aquinas’s account of quality with the best extant account of Aristotle’s

quality, namely, Paul Studtmann’s.

1
Aquinas on Quality

Some scholars have strongly objected to Aristotle’s treatment of quality because

he offers no apparent reason for dividing the genus as he does.1 It has been suggested that

Aquinas has a plausible answer to this objection, but thus far there has been no attempt to

explain what that might be.2 Aquinas does indeed offer clear and cogent reasons for

Aristotle’s division of quality into four kinds and their further subdivisions. This paper

presents Aquinas’s interpretation and possible clarification of Aristotle’s division,

showing where Aquinas differs from Aristotle and where he follows Aristotle. The paper

begins with a brief overview of Aquinas’s metaphysical grounding of the categories and

their philosophical derivation. Then it delves into quality and its particular divisions and

subdivisions, as well as the hierarchical ordering of quality. It concludes with a

comparison of Paul Studtmann’s recent division of Aristotle’s quality with Aquinas’s

division.

1
Montgomery Furth writes, ‘I shall largely dispense with questions like … the rationale (if there

be one) for comprehending into a single category the monstrous motley horde yclept Quality....’, 1998, 14;

cf. Studtmann 2008, 102-3; Ackrill 1963, 104.

2
Paul Studtmann writes, ‘[A]s Ackrill's and Furth's comments illustrate, Aristotle's scheme has

been severely criticized by scholars and philosophers alike. Aquinas's comments about quality, however,

show that in the hands of a truly talented interpreter—and there certainly has been no interpreter of

Aristotle greater than Aquinas—many of the criticisms can be met’ Studtmann 2007.

2
Aquinas’s Categories

Aquinas’s categorical division of being is firmly rooted in his own metaphysics.

According to the classical Parmenidian line of thinking, being is not a genus that can be

divided by some differentia outside of itself, for such a difference would have to be

nonbeing. But according to Aquinas, something can be added to being insofar as it

expresses a mode of being that the name ‘being’ itself does not express, that is, some

particular mode of existence (modus essendi). The name ‘substance’, for example, does

not add a difference that is external to being; rather, it expresses a particular mode of

existing, in this case, existing per se.3

Aquinas says:

[S]ome things are found to add something to being since being is contracted to the
ten categories, each of which adds something beyond being, not indeed some
accident or some difference that is beyond the essence of being, but a determinate
mode of existence (modum essendi) that is founded in the very existence of the
thing (fundatur in ipsa existentia rei). (QDV 21.1, Leon.22/3.593.129-36)

In other words, the categories are divided by the existential modifications already

intrinsic to being itself—not by something external to being. Thus, substance is distinct

from the other categories since it exists in itself, whereas an accident exists in another.4

The mode or way in which a substance has existence is different than the way in which

an accident has existence.5 Any predicament, as it exists in a being, is a way in which that

3
QDV 1.1[Leon.22/1.5.15-23]. See also In V Metaph. 9[Marietti.238.889-90]. All translations,

unless noted otherwise, are my own.

4
For a full account of Aquinas’s distinction between substance and accidents, see Wippel,

Metaphysical Thought, chapters 7-8, esp. pp. 228-238.

5
Tomarchio 2001, 592, argues that the term modus is tied to Aquinas’s metaphysics of esse.

Tomarchio emphasizes this point by translating De veritate, q. 21, a. 6, ad 5 as follows: ‘Whenever there is

3
being either has a certain kind of being (accidental being, inesse) or the way in which a

being is a certain kind of being (substantial being, esse). For Aquinas, the general rule is

quite simple: ‘Once it is known whether something is [an est], it remains to inquire how

it is [quomodo est], in order to know what it is [quid est]’ (ST I.3 proem). In other words,

in order to know what something is, one must know how it has existence: this is different

than that because this way of existing is different than that way of existing. Thus a claim

about which category something belongs to is also a claim about how something actually

has existence, i.e., about its particular modus essendi.

Granting Aquinas’s theory of knowledge, the modes of existing are proportionate

to our ways of predicating, i.e., the modes of predication follow the modes of existing (In

V Metaph. 9, Marietti.238.890). However, Aquinas does not simply think that all speech

signifies extramental being. Following Aristotle, he argues that the modes of signification

signify the modes of existence of things through a mediate mode of understanding, for

words are likenesses of what is understood, and what is understood is a likeness of

things.6 Therefore, through a careful investigation of human speech and thought (while

something received, it is necessary that there be a mode, because the received is limited according to the

receiver; and thus since both the accidental and the essential existence of a creature is received, mode is

found not only in accidents but also in substances.’ Tomarchio comments on this text as follows: ‘Note that

in considering a perfection as received, one is ipso facto considering it according to a distinct individual

existence and not abstractly, as one does when considering the ratio of the perfection in itself. The notion of

the mode of perfection, nature, essence, or form enters in with the consideration of its relation to existence.’

Ibid., 593. For more on Aquinas use of the term modus in his metaphysics see Tomarchio 1998, 1999, and

2001.
6
In VII Metaph. 1[Marietti.317.1253]. See Aristotle’s De Interpretatione I, 14a3-9 and Aquinas’s

commentary on this text in Expositio libri peryermenias I.2[Leon.1/1.10:95-11:112].

4
being mindful of our mistakes), it is possible to uncover the most elemental modes of

existing. Aquinas would thus have us employ, as John Wippel puts it, a ‘logical

technique’ within his metaphysics to discover the ultimate categories of being.7 In

however many ways being is predicated, in so many ways is esse said to be, which is why

the modes of existing are called ‘predicaments.’ Of these modes of predication, some

signify what something is, i.e., substance, others signify how much it is, i.e., quantity,

others signify how it is, i.e., quality, and so on (In V Metaph. 9, Marietti.238.889).

Aquinas uses this ‘logical technique’ to derive the ten supreme predicaments or

categories. He argues that a predicate can be related to a subject in three fundamental

ways: (a) the predicate is the subject, (b) the predicate is taken from something in the

subject, or (c) the predicate is taken from something extrinsic to the subject. In the case of

the first way, we can say ‘Socrates is an animal,’ and here the predicate signifies (1) first

substance, which is a particular substance of which everything else is predicated. In the

case of the second way, the predicate can be in the subject per se and absolutely

considered either as following matter, i.e., (2) quantity, or as following form, i.e., (3)

quality. The predicate can also be in the subject not absolutely, but with respect to

something else, i.e., (4) relation. The third way can be further subdivided. If the predicate

is taken from something that is altogether outside of the subject but does not measure the

subject, we have (5) habit (think of the Franciscans’ habit), e.g., Socrates is clothed. If the

external thing measures the subject in some way, there is (6) time, and (7) place, and if

7
Wippel 2000, 211. For more on Aquinas’s use of logic within his metaphysics see Doolan 2014,

133-55; te Velde 1996; Pini, 2002, ch. 1-2; Doig 1964; Doig 1972, 239-322; Schmidt 1966; Reichmann

1964.

5
the order of the subject’s parts in that place are taken into consideration there will be (8)

position. If the predicate is taken from something in the subject that is a principle of

action in another, there is (9) action, but if the predicate is taken as the subject receives

the terminus of an action from another, there is (10) passion, for passion terminates in the

subject.8

As Wippel has pointed out, Aquinas’s account of the categories is not vulnerable

to Kant’s famous criticism of Aristotle’s list of categories as being fundamentally

arbitrary. Granting Aquinas’s non-Kantian philosophy of mind, in which the order of

thought ultimately reflects extramental reality, it is possible to deduce the ten irreducible

metaphysical predicaments by reflecting on the order of predication (Wippel 2000, 215-

6).9 For our purposes in this paper, then, quality comes from the mode of predicating in

which the predicate is taken from something in the subject, namely, form; quality follows

(consequens) form. We will return to this point later.

The Genus Quality

In his De ente et essentia 6, Aquinas explains how one takes genus, difference,

and species vis-à-vis accidents. Genus is first taken from the mode of existing insofar as

being is said in different ways of the ten predicaments (Leon.43.381.132-5). ‘But their

8
In V Metaph. 9[Marietti.239.891] and In III Physic. 5[Marietti.159.322-3]. For Aquinas’s

derivation of the predicaments see Wippel 1987, 13–34; Wippel 2000, 208–28; Doolan forthcoming; Bos

and van der Helm 1998, 187–89; Symington 2008, 119-44; 2010; Pini 2003, 25-7.
9
Concerning questions about Aquinas’s categorical realism and their irreducibility, see Wippel

2000, 208-28; Pasnau 2011, 229-32; Pini 2005, 69-71. For discussions of the various later medieval

responses to Aquinas’s position see Pini 2002; 2003; 2005; Pasnau 2011, 221-244; McMahon 2004, 46-57;

Newton; 2008; Symington 2013.

6
differences are taken from the diversity of principles by which they are caused. . . . But

since the proper principles of accidents are not always manifest, so sometimes we take

the difference of accidents from their effects’ (Leon.43.381.139-40:156-59). In other

words, the genus of accidents is taken from their particular accidental mode of existence.

In the case of quality, this is the kind of accidental being (inesse) that follows form, as we

saw in Aquinas’s general derivation of the ten categories. The differences that divide this

genus, however, are taken from the different principles that cause the specific accidents.

However, there are times when the causes of these accidents are obscure, and in such

cases the differences are taken from their effects. It is by these differences (by causes or

effects) that we divide the genus quality into its four species.

Aquinas’s best formulation of the genus quality is lodged in his discussion of the

nature of habits, which serve as a propaedeutic to his virtue ethics. In article 2 of question

49 of the Prima secundae of his Summa theologiae, Aquinas articulates what it means for

a habit to be in the first species of the predicament quality. The question, even for

Aquinas’s metaphysically laden ethics, is extraordinarily metaphysical. Article 2 (and

question 49 as a whole) comprises an interesting nexus of two different lines of thinking.

On the one hand, Aquinas is metaphysically categorizing human beings according to

various modes of existing (modi essendi) that divide being into substance and the nine

accidents. On the other hand, he is categorizing humans according to ethics, an approach

that is ultimately teleological.

Aquinas begins his division of the genus quality in ST I-II 49.2 by noting that

measure precedes mode and that mode implies a determination according to some

measure. Although the terms ‘mode’ and ‘determination’ are somewhat synonymous,

7
‘mode’ has a stronger existential aspect, while the emphasis of ‘determination’ is more

formal. Aquinas notes that ‘just as that according to which the potency of matter is

determined according to esse substantiale is called quality, which is a differentia of

substance, so that according to which the potency of a subject is determined according to

accidental esse is called accidental quality, which is also a certain differentia’ (ST I-II

49.2). Thus, the key lies with the measure since it is the determining principle or cause of

the particular mode of existing. To put this in terms of De ente 6 just discussed, the

measure is the principle, cause, or difference, by which the genus quality is divided into

its species.

In the case of quality, the mode or determination of the subject according to

accidental esse can be taken according to four measures or differences corresponding to

the four species of quality. When nature is the measure, we have the first species of

quality (habits and dispositions). When action and passion (which follow upon the

principles of nature, matter and form) are the measures, we have the second (capacity and

incapacity) and third (passion and sensible qualities) species, respectively. When quantity

is the measure, we have the fourth species of quality (form and figure) (ST I-II 49.2).

Aquinas thus follows Aristotle’s basic division of quality in Categories 8 into four

species, each of which is further subdivided. But one immediately wonders how quantity,

action, passion, and nature serve as distinct measures or principles. Let us work

backwards from the fourth to the first species.

The Fourth Species of Quality

The fourth species of quality is divided into two kinds, figure and form (figura

and forma). Figure is the termination of dimensive quantity or simply quality concerning

8
quantity.10 Among all accidents (in material beings), quantity is nearest to substantial

form, and thus, among the four qualities, figure, which is the termination of quantity, is

the closest to substantial form because substantial form directly informs matter, upon

which quantity follows. Figure is the termination, or we might say the ‘shape,’ of that

quantity. This is why Aquinas says that of all the qualities, figure most follows and

demonstrates the species of material things. In fact, he says that there is no more certain

judgment of the diversity of species of plants and animals than that which is taken from

the diversity of figures.11

The other kind in the fourth species of quality, form, is the form of an artificial

thing. Since art imitates nature, and an artificial thing is a certain image of a natural thing,

the forms of artificial things are figures, or something like them. However, forms of

things made by humans are not substantial forms, i.e., they are not united

hylomorphically to matter.12 The form of a statue does not inform matter, even though we

might think and speak of the form of the David, and its matter as marble (In IV Sent. 3.1.1

qc. 1 ad 3, Moos.113). Artificial forms are accidental forms that inhere in substances. A

human may shape or ‘form’ some matter in some fashion, for example, a sculptor may

shape marble thereby changing the outlines of the block’s dimensive quantity, but the

underlying substance, i.e., marble, remains the same.

Although this division of the fourth species is not articulated as such by Aristotle

in the Categories, there is certainly a kind of rough precedent for it in bk. VII, chapter 3,

10
ST I 78.3 ad 2; In IV Sent.1.1[Moos.149]; ST III 45.1 ad 2; ST III 63.2 ad 1; In VII Physic.

5[Marietti.469.914-5].
11
In VII Physic. 5[Marietti.470.917 and 915]; ST I-II 52.1, etc.
12
See previous note.

9
of the Physics, 245b5-246a19 and 246b15; and it is not farfetched to suggest that

Aquinas’s division of the fourth species of quality is an interpretation and perhaps even a

clarification of Aristotle.13 To use the terms of De ente. 6, the cause of the fourth species

is quantity, and the cause that subdivides the species is the cause of that particular

dimensive quantity, whether it follows the quantity of a natural substantial form or the

quantity of an artificially made thing.

The Third Species of Quality

The division of the third species into sensible quality and passion (qualitas

sensibilis or passibilis and passio) is more difficult to tease from Aquinas’s texts because

Aquinas, following Aristotle, sometimes uses these terms synonymously, but sometimes

he does not. There are two main Aristotelian passages that influenced Aquinas’s thinking

on this division: the discussion of quality in Categories 8 and the discussion of alteration

in Physics VII, 2 & 3. Alteration is simply a change (mutatio) in a sensible quality.14 It is

important to note that for Aquinas, alteration itself is not a quality but falls in the

category passion;15 however, these are closely bound together, for the alteration and the

13
(Owens 1983, 170-8) offers a brief and incomplete overview of the four species in which he

denies that there is any significance to the distinction between form and figure. However, Owens is not

explicitly presenting Aquinas’s thought, but rather what he calls ‘Christian metaphysics.’
14
In VII Phys.5[Marietti.469.914]; In VII Phys.4[Marietti.465.909]. Moreover, alteration usually

involves a motion between contraries, e.g., from white to black, and becoming black consists in the

expulsion of the contrary whiteness, see QDV 26.1[Leon.22/3.747.164-185:202-205]. However, the

intension and remission of qualities, e.g., becoming whiter or hotter, is also a kind of alteration: In I Sent.

37.4.3[Mand.888]; SCG 2.19[Leon.manualis.104.Amplius].

15
See the distinction between passio as its own predicament and passio as included in the

predicament quality: In V Metaph. 20[Marietti.1065-66.278]. Alteration is only in the third species of

10
altered qualities occur simultaneously (In VII Phys. 4, Marietti.465.909). Let us begin by

assuming and noting a few main points from Aristotle’s treatment in the Physics, namely:

‘everything that undergoes alteration is altered by sensible causes’(245b3), and alteration

only occurs ‘in sensible things and in the sensitive part of the soul’(248a7-8). Moreover,

sensation itself always involves alteration.16 Inanimate objects may be altered (244b7-

245a3), say, from white to black, but such alterations of sensible qualities nevertheless

concern what can be sensed even if they are not actually sensed. Such sensible qualities

can be described as passiones of sensible bodies in the manner in which we might call

them properties, since they manifest the differences between (or properties of) sensible

things qua sensibles, e.g., this differs from that since this is hot and that is cold.17

These sensible properties, of course, always point back to the senses that can

sense them (ST I, 77.3). Thus, we may speak of the other and more common use of the

quality in the sense that the alteration from white to black is the destruction of one quality and generation of

another—the qualities themselves are the terms of the motion of alteration, but the alteration itself is in the

predicament passion.
16
In VII Phys.4[Marietti.466.910]. This does not mean that these sensitive actualizations or

motions are completely material. Aquinas explicitly denies this. In ST I 78.3 he says that sense is a passive

power that is changed by exterior sensibles in two ways, either by a natural immutatio according to esse

naturale, such as heat in the thing heated, or by a spiritual immutatio according to esse spirituale, such as

color being received in the eye without itself being colored. In ibid., ad 1 he notes that not all accidents

have vim immutativam secundum se, but only those of the third species of quality, in which alteration

happens. For example, when color is spiritually received in the power of sight, it nevertheless alters the

material organ of the eye, ST I 77.5. Aquinas is very explicit in ST I 78.1 that all operations of the sense

powers require material organs.

17
Ibid.

11
term passio, for alteration necessarily involves a kind of passivity insofar as what is

altered is passively moved by another sensible quality.18 Both of these senses of passio (a

property of a sensible body or the passive reception of alteration—more particularly, the

external senses’ being passively affected by these sensible qualities) can be used to

describe sensible quality, and thus Aquinas often uses the terms ‘passion’ (passio) and

‘sensible quality’ interchangeably.19

However, Aristotle draws a different distinction between the two in Categories 8,

and there is some evidence suggesting that Aquinas also subscribes to this other

distinction. Aristotle states that sensible (or affective) qualities are ‘called affective not

because the things that possess them have themselves been somehow affected . . . but it is

because each of the qualities mentioned is productive of an affection of the senses that

they are called affective qualities’ (9a34-9b7). For example, paleness affects sight,

hotness affects touch, and sweetness affects taste. However, in the case of passions or

affections, the sensible qualities ‘themselves have been brought about by an affection.

That many changes of color do come about through affection is clear: when ashamed, one

18
In I de generatione 3.8[Leon.3.293]; ST I 78.3 ad 1. But it is important to note that sensation is

not itself alteration, even if alteration always accompanies it: QDV 26.3 ad 11[Leon.22/3.758.413-421].
19
For example, Aristotle calls whiteness and heat a passion (passio in Aquinas’s Latin version of

Aristotle’s text: In IV Phys.4 textus Aristotelis [Marietti.214]) in the Physics, 210b25-26, 224b11-15, and

he had explicitly called them sensible qualities in the Categories 8. Aquinas is quite aware that Aristotle

sometimes uses the terms ‘passion’ and ‘sensible quality’ interchangeably and rarely forces the distinction

when commenting on Aristotle. In VII Physic. 8[Marietti.488.952]; In De sensu. tract.

1.14[Leon.45/2.79.165-6]; In I De generatione, 5.11[Leon.3.303]; etc. However, sometimes, when not

commenting on Aristotle, Aquinas also uses passio to describe sensible qualities, referring to the passive

nature of the external sensation, In III Sent. 14.1.1 sol. 2[Mand.435-6].

12
goes red; when frightened, one turns pale; and so on’ (Aristotle, Categories 8, 9b11-15).

Moreover, ‘a man who reddens through shame is not called ruddy . . . ; rather he is said to

have been affected somehow’ (9b30-1). Thus Aristotle divides the genus quality between

sensible qualities and passions, e.g., shame and anger. The difference between the two is

causal: the former affect the senses directly, while the latter are passions or affections that

cause a sensible quality, such as the passion shame causing one to become red.

Aquinas, however, does not completely accept this distinction. He does not

explicitly say anywhere that what he calls a passion—specifically, a motion of the sense

appetite such as shame—is itself a quality of the third species. However, since there is

alteration only in the third species of quality, and such motions in the sense appetites are

always accompanied by alteration20—namely, alterations in the sense appetite’s organ,

(QDV 26.1, Leon.22/3.748.265-66) we might reduce the passions to this third species.21

Aristotle, at least, certainly includes them in the third species of quality (Categories,

9b26-32). Be that as it may, Aquinas seems to read the distinction between sensible

qualities and passions/affects in the Categories as primarily causal: either sensible

qualities affect the external senses or sensible qualities are caused by passions and are

20
In VII Physic. 6[Marietti.474.921]; QDV 26.1[Leon.22/3.747.173-5:183-6]; QDV

26.2[22/3.752.105-7]; QDV 26.3 ad 12[22/3.758.429-33].

21
For Aquinas the paleness caused by the passion of fear is a sensible quality of the third species,

but the passion itself is not strictly speaking a quality. Because such a passion is a motion, in particular, of

the species of alteration QDV 26.1[Leon.22/3.747.173-77]; In III Sent. 15.2.1 sol.1[Moos.483], it is in the

category of passion, In V Metaph. 20[Marietti.278.1066] (note that here Aquinas is going beyond

Aristotle’s text at 1022b15-21 and also note Aquinas’s qualification at ibid., [n.1066]). Cf. In III Phys

5[Marietti.158-60.319-24].

13
called passions (In VII Phys. 4, Marietti.910.466; In IV Sent. 4.1.1, Moos.150). In other

words, either redness affects and causes the alteration in the senses or the passion causes

the redness. Of course, the redness of a blushing face is a sensible quality, strictly

speaking. But Aquinas nevertheless makes the distinction between alterations concerning

the passions of the sense appetite and alterations concerning the apprehensive sense

powers (ST I-II 52.1 ad 3). For example, in one passage Aquinas explicitly says that the

passion of redness as caused by shame is not a sensible quality (QDV 20.2,

Leon.22/3.575.104-11).

Thus, I think it fair to say that Aquinas accepts a version of the distinction

between sensible qualities and affects/passions in the Categories, even if he does not

always make the distinction.22 It seems to me that the easiest way to make this distinction

22
In the Categories 8, Aristotle also adds that sensible qualities are more permanent, e.g., skin

hue, or irascibility or bad temper in a person; these answer the question of how a person is somehow

qualified, e.g., a ruddy, irascible, or ill-tempered person. In contrast, passions are short-lived and easily

disperse. For example, we do not say that someone who turns red is ruddy, or that someone in a bad temper

is ill-tempered, or that someone who is angry is an irascible person, but rather that they are somehow

affected. See Categories 8, 9a20-10a10. This distinction also holds quite well since the passions of the

sense appetite are necessarily short-lived; see QDV 20.2[Leon.22/3.575.104-11]. But this distinction does

not map perfectly onto the distinction between the passions of the sense appetite and the sensible or

affective qualities, since heat (a sensible quality), for example, can be quite short-lived. Furthermore, I

doubt whether Aquinas would wish to call being ill-tempered a sensible quality. Aquinas rather speaks of

such temperaments as dispositions, which belong to the first species, e.g., being naturally disposed (by a

bodily disposition) to temperance or courage; see ST I-II 63.1 and De virtutibus 8 ad 10[Marietti.728-9].

Likewise, color or skin hue, such as ruddiness, would rather belong to the dispositions of the body, as these

are related to the soul; see the discussion of beauty in n. 38 below.

14
is simply to distinguish between the powers/organs that these qualities affect, i.e.,

passions affect and alter the organs of the sense appetites and sensible qualities affect and

alter the organs of the apprehensive sense powers.

To put it in terms of De ente. 6, the cause of the third species is a passive

receiving or material principle of alteration (QDV 26.1, Leon.22/3.747.158-63). The

difference that subdivides this third species (when Aquinas distinguishes between the

subspecies) is the particular power of the soul (and its organ) that receives the quality by

way of alteration and in which the accidental quality inheres, namely, the external senses

or the sense appetites.23

The Second Species of Quality

The second species of quality is divided into potentia and impotentia naturalis,

(QSC 11, Leon.24/2.119.257-8). which can be translated as capacity and incapacity or

power and defective power. These qualify a subject in the sense that something is said to

be able to do something or not do something by means of them—so, of course, it is by

means of these qualities that a substance can in fact do something or not (SCG 4.77,

Leon.manualis.542.Adhuc). These powers are all the powers of the soul, including

vegetative, sensitive, and rational powers.24 For Aquinas, the soul itself is not the

23
One might ask of the internal senses’ powers—the common sense, imaginative, cogitative, and

memorative powers—whether the qualities inhering in them can be considered to be in one or the other

kind of the third species. In ST I 78.3 ad 1, Aquinas reduces common sensibles, the object of these internal

sense powers, to quantity, but he does not specify whether he would relegate their concomitant bodily

alterations (all sensitive powers have organs) to one or the other of the third species.
24
N.B. Aquinas sometimes uses potentia naturalis in the sense in which natural is contrary to

rational, i.e., to denote the vegetative or sensitive powers; cf., e.g., ST I-II 50.3, ST I-II 55.1 et ad 1, ST II-

15
immediate principle of operation; rather, the powers of the soul, or potentias naturales,

are the immediate principles of operation (Quodlibet X 3.1, Leon.25/1.131.43-50). These

powers are caused by the essential principles of the species, that is, they ‘flow’ from and

are inseparably caused by the soul.25 Although the powers of the soul are directly caused

by the soul, in this case Aquinas does not take the difference of quality from the power’s

cause (the soul), but rather from the power’s effect—namely, action. Presumably this is

because the powers’ effects are better known to us than their causes.26 Thus the

determining measure of the second species is action that follows form or nature, since

nature causes action only by means of these powers.27

A defective power is a power that is defective or deprived,28 for example,

blindness or a weak power of reason (QDP 1.3 ad 2, Marietti.15; In II Metaph.5,

II 104.1. This is not the sense in which the powers of the soul are in the second species of quality. He also

uses the phrase potentia naturalis to mean the rational powers; cf. ST II-II 23.2 and ST II-II 24.2.
25
DQSC 11[Leon.24/2.120.272-7]; ST III 63.4 ad 2. In VII Physic. 5[Marietti.470.914]; ST I-II

75.2 ad 1; ST III 1.3 ad 3.

26
QDV 10.1[Leon.22.1.296-97.107-11]. ST I.77.1 ad 7; Aristotle De anima I.402b22-25.
27
In ST I-II, 49.2, Aquinas seems to suggest that the difference in the second species is taken from

action that follows the natural principle of form and the difference in the third species is taken from passion

that follows the natural principle of matter. The powers of the soul are caused by the soul itself, so it is easy

to understand how they follow upon form. The third species is caused by a passive alteration, which is a

kind, a material motion, and thus we understand why it is bound to matter. Furthermore, because some acts

of the powers of the soul, e.g., volition and intellection, are completely immaterial acts proceeding from

immaterial powers, i.e., will and intellect, the second species cannot be bound to matter.
28
In V Metaph. 14[Marietti.258.967]; QDP 1.1 ad 17[Marietti.10]; In V Metaph.

14[Marietti.256.957].

16
Marietti.93.334). The word ‘natural’ is important here, implying as it does not just any

lack of power, but a lack of or deficiency in the powers that such and such a nature ought

to have (In V Metaph. 14, Marietti.257-58.960 & 967). Thus, although one might call,

say, our inability to look at the sun or our inability to see in darkness an impotentia, one

cannot call it an impotentia naturalis, since humans are not naturally capable of either (In

II De an. 21, Leon.45/1.156-7.121-35).

It seems to me that Aristotle’s influence on the second species of quality is

somewhat tenuous. Aquinas has clearly attached the second species of quality to his own

faculty psychology. Aristotle does divide the second species of quality into natural

capacity and incapacity, but the examples he uses do not quite fit with Aquinas’s account

of this species. For example, Aristotle says that a boxer and a runner have natural

capacities for boxing and running.29 Aquinas would rather categorize these as bodily

dispositions, which are included in the first species of quality.30 Moreover, Aristotle also

includes health and sickness and hardness and softness as natural capacities and

incapacities. Aquinas explicitly categorizes the former pair as dispositions31 and the latter

as sensible qualities (In VII Physic. 4, Marietti.465.910). Aquinas nevertheless grants that

these two pairs may be considered as belonging to the second species, for when

something is corrupted because of a defective natural principle, it lacks the natural power

to resist and thus is called an impotentia. In this sense, softness and sickliness may be

characterized as impotentiae naturalia. And because the capacity to resist such corruption

29
For Aristotle’s discussion of the second species of quality, see Categories 8, 9a14-27.
30
See his use of macies In VII Phys. 4[Marietti.471.918] and macies and fortitudo in ST I-II 54.1.
31
ST I-II 49.2 ad 3. Aristotle himself also included health in the first species of quality;

Categories 8, 8b37.

17
is a kind of power, hardness and health may also be characterized as potentiae naturalia

since they both have a natural power to resist corruption.32

The First Species of Quality

Generically, the first species of quality is a disposition (I-II 49.2 ad 3).

Paraphrasing Aristotle’s Metaphysics V (1022b1), Aquinas notes that disposition

signifies order, and he says more specifically that a disposition is ‘nothing else than an

order of parts in that which has parts.’33 Aquinas specifies this even further and says that

every such disposition is said to be toward something (ad aliquid) and thus involves a

relation, although the disposition itself is not a relation (In VII Phys. 5, Marietti.470-

1.918). It is a certain way of being related (modus se habendi), either in oneself or to

something else (ST I-II 49.1).

Moreover, such dispositions are to ‘what is perfect in its own nature in relation to

what is best, that is, the end, which is operation (In VII Phys. 5, Marietti.471.918).

Likewise, in ST I-II 49.2, Aquinas says that a quality of the first species, in contrast to the

other three, is according to nature (secundum naturam), and the understanding of nature

includes the end (the rationem finis). The first species is thus inherently teleological and

is ordered to the end of nature. Because it is so related to the end of nature, goodness or

badness can be predicated of it, depending on whether it attains or falls short of its end

32
In V Metaph. 14[Marietti.257.960]; In III Sent.16.1.2 ad 5[Moos.513-4]. Cf. In II Sent.19.1.4 ad

3[Mand.492-3].
33
In V Metaph. 20[Marietti.277.1058]; Ibid, n.1061; ST I-II 49.1 ad 3. As a quality it is considered

insofar as it has inesse (existing in) and as a relation it is considered insofar as it has adesse (existing

towards; Aristotle’s pros ti), but it is exactly the same accident that is considered from both perspective, see

ST I 28.2. For a discussion and more texts, see Henninger 1987.

18
(ST I-II, 49.2 and ad 1). Because the other three species have no such teleological

ordering, they cannot be said to be good or bad in this way.

In his commentary on the Metaphysics, Aquinas notes that a quality of the first

species is a disposition according to which one is well or poorly disposed either with

respect to oneself or with respect to something else—for example, by the disposition

health one is well disposed to oneself and by the disposition robustness one is well

disposed to doing something. Not only is this first species of quality concerned with the

disposition of the whole (as the material dispositions of health or robustness are

dispositions of the whole body), but it also includes the dispositions of the parts of the

whole such as the good dispositions of the parts of animals and the good dispositions of

the parts of the soul such as temperance in the concupiscible appetite, courage in the

irascible appetite, and prudence in reason (In V Metaph.20, Marietti.277.1064).

Such a perfection is not a perfection that necessarily follows upon creation, that

is, a being’s first perfection, but it is a perfection that a creature may or may not attain,

that is, its second perfection. In other words, it is a dispositive perfection or actualization

that a creature is naturally in potency towards but may not actually possess. Furthermore,

this perfection can only be in a potency that can be actualized in many different ways,

that is, a potency that can be disposed either according to nature or contrary to it (ST I-II

49.4).

More specifically, this perfection concerns a dispositive actualization of two kinds

of potency: 1) as the body is in potency to the soul, or 2) as the being is in potency to

operation through its powers. Thus Aquinas distinguishes between two ways of taking

‘according to nature’: as 1) according to form (ad formam) or 2) according to operation

19
(ad operationem).34 The former may be subsumed under the latter, since the perfections

of the body are ordered to the soul, which is itself ordered to operation.35

The first species, then, is a disposition according to nature (secundum naturam),

and the primary way that Aquinas divides this species is into dispositions that are ordered

to form and dispositions that are ordered to operation. Dispositions towards form (ad

formam) are called ‘dispositions’ and dispositions towards operation (ad operationem)

are called ‘habits’. Habits and dispositions may be distinguished both by their potencies,

which they perfect, and by their causes.

Let us first consider dispositions towards form (ad formam). Qualities of the first

species that are according to form are in the body as it is related to the soul, e.g., health

and beauty (ST I-II, 50.1). Since a habit or a disposition can only be in a potency that can

be disposed in different ways, it is impossible for there to be a disposition in the rational

soul as it is ordered to the body because the soul, as the form of the body, is already

perfectly actualizing the body, and there is no potency for a perfecting disposition.36 The

body, however, being inherently potential and composed of contrary elements, is always

unstable, which is why there is room for perfecting dispositions in the body. Furthermore,

such dispositions do not have stable causes (ST I-II, 49.2 ad 3).

34
ST I-II, q. 50.1; ST I-II, q. 50.2; ST I-II 54.2. This distinction is ubiquitous in ST I-II qq. 49-66.
35
ST I-II 49. 4 ad 1; ST I-II 49.3; I-II 49.3 ad 3. In VII Phys.5[Marietti.471.918].
36
ST I-II, 50.2. There is one exception here, grace, but it is supernatural. In the natural order,

which can be investigated philosophically and which we are concerned with, there is no exception to this

rule. It is important to note that grace is not immediately ordered to operation, but to esse spirituale. See

QDV 27.2 ad 7[Leon.22/3.795.192-202]; ST I-II 110.3 ad 3 and In II Sent. 26.1.4 ad 1[Mand.678].

20
 Health, for instance, is a certain proportion of humors, heat, and coldness that is

according to nature.37 There is no reason to insist on the details of medieval medicine; the

general point is simply that health involves a proportion of material parts to one another.

When someone is sick, for example, it is fair to say that something material and internal

is somehow out of proportion; it is disordered. Beauty (pulchritudo) is also included in

this species, but as the proper figure of the body and the proportion and color of the

members of the body.38 Aquinas even considers strength and weakness to belong to this

species of quality, as a kind of fitting or unfitting commensuration of nerves, flesh, and

bones (ST I-II, 54.1). These are all material dispositions of the body and its parts as they

are ordered to the soul, and they all have changeable and corruptible material causes (ST

I-II 49.2 ad 3; ST I-II 50.1).

Because one of the distinguishing marks of habits is that they have immutable or

permanent causes and these dispositions have changeable causes, they are not truly habits

and they do not perfectly have the nature of habits (ST I-II 50.1), although Aquinas often

37
The humors are the four fluids of the body. QDV 27.1 ad 4[Leon.22/3.791.190-3]; De virtutibus

3[Marietti.823]; In II Physic. 4[Marietti.87.170]; In De div. nom. 4.22[Marietti.215-5.589]; In I Sent.

19.5.1[Mand.486]; QDV 11.2[Leon.22/2.353.78-82].

38
ST I-II 49.2 ad 1; Super Psalmo 44, n. 2[Parma, v.14, 520]; SCG 3.139[Leon.manualis.397.Sed

si.]; In X Ethic. 3[Leon.47/2.559.46-55]. In In II Ethic. 7[Leon.47/1.98.12-21], De regno

1.3[Leon.42.452.47-50], and QDM 8.4[Leon.23.206.55-8]. Aquinas also discusses beauty’s opposite,

turpitudo. Pulchritudo always has some pleasing relation to the apprehensive power, ST I-II 27.1 ad 3, in

our case, sight. But Aquinas does distinguish between spiritual and sensible beauty, ST I-II 27.2. Thus we

may distinguish between spiritual beauty apprehended by the intellect and sensible beauty apprehended by

sight (and presumably the internal senses). For example, see ST II-II 145.2.

21
calls them ‘habits’.39 Aquinas says that these dispositions are as habits (ut habitus) (ST I-

II 50.1 ad 2), and at times he refers to them as ‘habitual dispositions’ (habituales

dispositiones) (ST I-II 49.3 ad 3; ST I-II 50.1).

Habits proper, as we noted, concern the manner in which the soul is ordered to

operation or action. Thus Aquinas contrasts dispositions that are in the body with habits

that are in the soul. However, as we have noted, habits can only be in a potency that can

be determined in different ways. Since the soul itself as form is always actual, a habit

cannot be in the soul as it informs the body, and thus Aquinas denies that habits inhere in

the essence of the soul. But the soul is precisely in potency to operation through its

potencies or powers (ST I-II 50.2; ST I-II 50.1 ad 2), and thus habits are in the soul as the

soul is ordered to operation through its powers (ST I-II 50.2; ST I 77).

Habits of the soul, which are ordered to operations, perfect and determine the

powers of the soul according to nature. These virtues include reason and will in their

nature (ratio), and their immutable principles are the natural inclination of the will and

synderesis.40 Thus the proper division between habits and dispositions is as follows:

Dispositions are dispositions of the body as it is related to the soul and have mutable

causes; habits are dispositions of the soul, inhering in the powers of the soul as it is

ordered to operation, and have immutable causes. When Aquinas says that a disposition

39
See, for example, ST I-II, 49.1; In VI Ethic.10[Leon.47/2.371.131]. In III Sent.

23.1.1[Moos.699].
40
ST I-II, 63. 1; ST I-II 51.1. Synderesis is the habitual possession of the first principles of

practical reason; see Hoffmann, ‘Conscience and Synderesis,’ 255-64. The natural inclination of the will is

the will’s natural inclination towards happiness, health, existence, etc.; see ST I-II, qq. 8-10, esp. q.10, a. 1.

22
cannot become a habit, he is distinguishing between dispositions and habits in this way,

and as such they are different species of the genus disposition.41

However, Aquinas also grants that there is another legitimate way to draw the

distinction between habits and dispositions. One may further divide each of these two

species between what is perfect and what is imperfect, or what is perfectly in a subject

(perfecte inest) and thus cannot be easily lost and what is imperfectly in a subject

(imperfecte inest) and thus can be easily lost.42 This is a reference to the medieval

discussion of the intension and remission of accidental forms.43 One way that we may

speak of the perfection or imperfection of accidents (the esse of which is inesse) is in

terms of the degree to which they inhere in a subject. That is, any given accidental form

may be more or less firmly entrenched in the subject—or one can say that the accident is

more or less perfectly in the subject.44 Thus we may say that any given subject has more

or less temperance according to whether temperance inheres more or less firmly in the

soul. On this way of making the division, habits have firm inesse and are thus immobile,

41
ST I-II 49.2 ad 3; QDM 7.3 ad 4[Leon.23.168.243-51] and ad 11[Ibid. lines 292-5]; QDM 7.2

ad 4[Leon.23.164.265-9]; De virtutibus. 1.1 ad 9[Marietti.710].

42
ST I-II 49.2 ad 3; 4 Sent. 4.1.1[Moos.150]; QDM 7.6 ad 5[Leon.23.175.117-120]. However, it is

important to note that the division between perfect and imperfect also applies to the distinction between

habits of the soul and habits of the body: habits of the soul are inherently more perfect than habits of the

body, see QDM 7.3 ad 4[Leon.23.168.243-50].

43
Aquinas’s fullest treatments of this topic are in In I Sent.17.2[Mand.409-427]; De

virtutibus.11[Marietti.790]; ST I-II, qq.52-53; ST II-II, 24. a.4-7 and 10. See Maier 1951,1-89, for Aquinas

see esp. 23-27; Wippel 1979, 316-55; Brown 1985.

44
QDM 7.2 ad 4[Leon.23.164.273-88]; ST II-II 24.4 ad 3; ST I-II 54.4 ad 1.

23
while dispositions have weak inesse and are thus easily removable. According to this

division, a disposition can become a habit.45

Thus, there is a tremendous amount of flexibility in Aquinas’s usage of the terms

‘habit’ and ‘disposition’, and it can at times be difficult to know which way he is using

the terms. Moreover, sometimes he seems to use the terms interchangeably and

imprecisely (e.g., QDM 7.3 ad 11, Leon.23.168.292-4). But the two ways of making the

division make sense: 1) between dispositions of the body as they are ordered to the soul

with mutable causes and habits of the soul as ordered to operation with immutable

causes, and furthermore, 2) within this division, we may speak of any given disposition

or habit as a habit if it has firm inesse or as a disposition if it has weak inesse. Thus

health is a disposition, since it is a bodily disposition ordered to the soul, but we may

speak of it as a habit if it is firmly entrenched in a subject. And in the process of

acquiring virtue, a novice may have the habit of temperance, but if the novice is

bordering on continence, we may call that habit a disposition, since metaphysically it has

weak inesse.

The Fourfold Division of Quality

Although each of the ten predicaments or categories is its own distinct mode of

existing, one might ask about the species and subspecies of quality: In what way are they

distinct? For example, Aquinas (following Aristotle) sometimes says that heat may be

45
QDM 7.2 ad 4[Leon.23.164.265-71]. For an argument suggesting that the mature Aquinas

thought that a disposition could not become a habit, see Mckay Knoble 2011, 347. In response to this

argument, I would note that the De malo is a late text: Torrell 2005 dates it to roughly 1270, which is

contemporaneous to the parallel passage in ST I-II 49.2 ad 3.

24
considered to be in the first and third species46 and sometimes he says that figure is in the

fourth and first species (I-II 49.2 ad 1)—that is, the same numerical quality may be in

different species of quality. Because the division of the genus quality is through its

principles and since there can simultaneously be multiple principles or causes operating

in different respects, we may classify a quality in a species according to the cause being

considered. Thus, we may consider heat to be in the first species, since it can be viewed

as a causa transmutable of sickness or health, which is either good or bad for the

subject,47 or we may simply consider it as a sensible quality. Any particular quality has

its own mode of existing as a quality, but it is distinguished from the other qualities by

reference to a real cause.

Aquinas thus offers a reason for the fourfold division based on causes or effects.

The first species is caused by nature as a final cause, the second is taken from the effects

or actions of the powers of the soul, the third is taken from its cause, namely, the passive

reception of an alteration, and the fourth is also taken from its cause, namely, quantity.

Moreover, Aquinas does claim that these four species are comprehensive, (In IV Sent.

1.1, Moos.149) that is, these four kinds of quality account for all of the various ways in

which we say that some substance is qualified.

I would like to further suggest that Aquinas’ hierarchical ordering of the species,

from first to fourth, was inspired by Aristotle’s very brief discussion of quality in book 5

of his Metaphysics. Aristotle’s text distinguishes between two broad ways of taking

46
Aristotle placed heat in the first and third category; for his placement of it in the first species,

see Categories VIII.8b35-38, and for his placement of it in the third species, see Categories VIII.9a30-31

and 9b2.
47
I-II 52.1 ad 3; I-II 50.1 ad 3; ST I-II, 12.3 ad 2.

25
quality: on the one hand, as a difference of substance (as abstracted from motion), and on

the other hand, as a difference of things in motion as they are in motion (Metaphysics,

1020b14-25). When Aquinas comments on this passage, he notes concerning the first

sense of quality that if we ask what kind (quale) of an animal man is, we can say he is

biped, etc. This sense of quality is not discussed in Aristotle’s Categories, says Aquinas,

because it is not contained under the predicament quality (In V Metaph. 16,

Marietti.262.987-88); however, the fourth species of quality reduces to this sense of

quality (In V Metaph. 16, Marietti.263.990-992). The form or figure of something, say a

cube, is obviously not a consideration of that thing as in motion (De virtutibus.1.1,

Marietti.709). Moreover, Aquinas notes that Aristotle does not discuss the second species

of quality at this point in the Metaphysics since he deals with it in his treatment of act and

potency (In V Metaph. 16, Marietti.263.995).

The first and third species of quality, however, reduce to the other sense of

quality, that is, to things in motion as they are in motion (In V Metaph. 16, Marietti.263-

4.998-9). We may infer that the second species does so as well, since powers or

impotentia are inherently ordered to operation. The third species of quality also involves

motion, namely, alteration. Qualities of the first species, habits and dispositions, imply

being moved well or badly, for ‘good and bad indicate quality especially in living things,

and among these especially in those that have choice’ (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 120b24-

25).

26
 Because form is the principle of substance, we can also consider form as it moves

and is moved or we can consider form in abstraction from motion.48 This dovetails neatly

with Aquinas’s claim in the general derivation of the ten categories that the predicate

quality follows (consequens) from form and his claim that nature (which, according to

Physics II, is that which moves itself) is first in the division of quality. This broad

division forms a kind of spectrum, where substantial form in complete abstraction from

motion lies at one extreme and qualities concerned with beings that above all move

themselves by choice lie at the opposite extreme, with the realm of the various ways in

which substances actively move (second species) and are passively moved (third species)

in between. Thus Aquinas’s hierarchical division of quality is quite Aristotelian, although

many of the details, as we have seen, are undoubtedly his own.

Another Interpretation

Paul Studtmann has recently offered an insightful interpretation of Aristotle’s

division of quality. Studtmann follows Aquinas’s claim that quality follows form and

quantity follows matter, and also Aquinas’s claim that the fourth species follows upon

quantity, although Studtmann doesn’t subdivide the fourth species as Aquinas does

(Studtmann 2008, chapters 4 & 5 and pp. 22-23 & 17-8). The similarity ends there. For

Studtmann, the first three species of quality are all dispositions. The first and second

species of quality both concern dispositions that cause motions in the subject that has the

disposition, but the first species concerns acquired dispositions while the second concerns

48
One could not make this argument with matter, the correlative principle to form, since matter is

in no way a principle of motion, but only of substantial generation. Soul, or nature, however, is precisely a

principle of motion, whether in an active or a passive manner.

27
natural ones. The third species, in contrast, concerns dispositions that cause motions in a

subject other than the subject that has the disposition.49

A few obvious differences between Aquinas and Studtmann emerge. To begin

with, for Aquinas, a disposition, in his understanding of Aristotle’s categorical scheme, is

restricted to the first species. Moreover, he would strongly disagree with Studtmann’s

characterization of this first species as having to do with acquired nonnatural qualities.

For example, does it make sense to characterize the health of a healthy newborn as

acquired?50 Aquinas’s differentia by way of saying that health is a disposition that is

according to nature is more straightforward. Furthermore, Aquinas rightly reads Physics

7, 3 (245b3-248a9) as contrasting qualities of the third species, which are caused by

alterations, with qualities of the first and fourth species, which are not. In this text,

Aristotle lists the perfections of knowledge, moral virtue and health, and he explicitly

includes beauty in the list (Aristotle, 246b6; for Aquinas see ST I-II, 50.1). Would

Studtmann consider physical beauty to be acquired? This passage, which Studtmann does

not consider, seems to me to point strongly to Aquinas’s reading of the first species as

essentially ordered to the perfection of nature.51

We might also ask why, on Studtmann’s reading, Aristotle includes heat and cold

in both the first and third species of quality. Given Studtmann’s division, it is difficult to

see how he would account for this. Furthermore, Aquinas would disagree with

Studtmann’s characterization of the third species as being a disposition to be moved by

49
For Studtmann’s division of quality, see 2008, 101-123.
50
Aquinas levels this exact criticism against Simplicius’s division of quality. See ST I-II, 49.2.

For Moerbeke’s translation of Simplicius’s division of quality see 1975, 313-14.

51
See Aquinas’s commentary on this passage in In VII Phys. 5-6 [Marietti.469-476.913-927]

28
another subject. Although this is true of sensible qualities, this does not seem to be so

with affects. When one is moved by fear or shame (Aristotle’s examples in Categories.

8), is it the case that one is really moved by another subject? Aquinas would insist that in

such cases one is also moved interiorly by the soul, that is, the passion or affect of shame

or fear is a somatic expression that is at least partly (and at times perhaps entirely) caused

by the thinking of the same subject with the quality. The soul itself is at least partly

causally responsible here, and hence Aquinas doesn’t force the distinction by way of an

external subject as Studtmann does.

Be that as it may, Aquinas’s account of the second and third species is bound to

his own original faculty psychology, parts of which seem to have only tenuous textual

support in Aristotle’s text. Additionally, Studtmann’s account of the second species

seems to be far closer to Aristotle than Aquinas’s account. There is no need, of course, to

simply read Aquinas as an expositor of Aristotle since his account is original in many

respects. Although there are undoubtedly other possible ways of dividing quality, and

undoubtedly some remain buried in the commentaries on the Categories, for the time

being, Studtmann and Aquinas have given us the two most serious and coherent

philosophical accounts of the genus quality in its particulars. Although the reasons for

Aristotle’s divisions of quality may be obscure, Aquinas’s, at least, are not.52

St. Michael’s College

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