Abejo

1.What is meant by a “transcendental property of being”?

- It means that something can be predicated for every existing being specifically because it does exist.
This indicates that a genuine existent is a characteristic that may be really inferred of every actual being.

2. What is the difference between “one” as part of a number series and “one” as an ontological
property? Is “undivided” the same as “indivisible”?

- The difference is that "one" as an ontological property means unity as a property of being,
which signifies the inner cohesion of something by which it constitutes an undivided whole. One
that which is undivided in itself and divided from every other. Undivided is not the same as
indivisible; only that which is at present actually undivided, though it may be potentially divided
whole as long as it is alive but can be easily be broken up into parts at which point it ceases to
be a single being and breaks down into many beings.

3. Sum up the argument why every being must be one.

- There is no something that exists in the singular; if we can examine each of these parts in turn
and if to be this part does not require it to be one, then each part immediately breaks down into
a multiplicity of further parts of this and that. The conclusion is we must stop at the beginning:
where we fine a real being it must cohere internally as a unity, an undivided whole or else it will
crumble into an endlessly fragmenting dust of pure multiplicity. To be real is to be one.

4. How can unity be an analogous property, when it does not seem to signify any action, as do other
analogous terms? The answer to this is very significant for understanding the unity of different kinds of
beings, including God. Why?

- As unity is a transcendental quality that must apply to all levels and types of beings, adapting
to how similar and dissimilar each is, its definition must be the same in every instance as it is in
the case of being itself. It includes all the modes of unity from the absolute unity of pure
simplicity, found only in God, all the way to the most complex unity composed of many parts like
a human being. To be one is not a static state or given, but an active doing, an active ongoing
achievement of each real being carried on by each according to its own distinctive mode of
being.

5. How is the psychological unity of a human personality achieved? What is the basic principle at work?

- To become a truly integrated (unified) personality we must deliberately unify our multiple
actions under integrating goals or dens-in-view for each set of activities. To set up our own
scale of priority of goals and values to organize all these projects and subordinate lower goals to
higher, more important ones; and to integrate our whole life under one great dominant goal. To
be a fully developed, integrated personality one's life must take the form of a journey, unified by
a final destination or goal. The basic principle is: whatever truly is, must be one.

6. What is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic unity? Examples? What are the criteria for
distinguishing them, e.g., an airplane from a bird? Is the universe as a whole an intrinsic or extrinsic
unity? How can you tell?
- Intrinsic unity refers to a unity that exists in a real entity's own being, such that it has a single
act of being, behaves as a single unit, and is directed from a single point of action. Examples
include an atom, molecule, plant, animal, person, and angel. Every living thing has
characteristics that are unique to it as a whole and not just the sum of the characteristics of its
individual components. This means that every living thing is more than the sum of its parts.
Extrinsic unity is a unity among dissimilar actual beings, each having their own unique act of
existence and center of action but connected by ties of connections. It is not a unity inside the
very being of a single actual being. The fundamental evaluation standard is whether the
phenomenon we are attempting to comprehend exhibits, by its behavior, that it functions as a
unit from a single governing center of action. It can only be determined by a process of
intellectual reflection on the data and a potentially incorrect interpretive judgment. When
components of a whole are taken out and studied, it's important to determine if they still behave
or possess the same qualities as they did inside the whole. In the first case, unity is extrinsic; in
the second, it is intrinsic.

7. What is meant by the method of “Materialist Reductionism” in analyzing the nature of beings in our
material world? Why is it such an obstacle to authentic understanding of the being of complex real
things? What has its method left out or overlooked in the nature of real beings?

- The result of succumbing to the philosophical position's urge to accept or deny the critical
difference between intrinsic and extrinsic unity is material reductionism. Reductionism is the
theory that all purportedly high levels of being are actually nothing more than more or less
intricate systems or assemblages of the most basic material constituents.