Materia, forma y privación en el opúsculo de “Principiis naturae” de Santo Tomás de Aquino

Abstract

 In this article we follow St. Thomas Aquinas’ presentation of matter, form and privation, in the first two chapters of De principiis naturae. Identified as the principles of nature, they are the key notions in order to understand the definitions of generation provided by Aquinas. He understands generation —main actor of the changes in the natural world— in its principles, discovered in their actual-potential relations. He completes this presentation with the distinction between substances and accidents and its consequences in the domain of the bodies. Then, St. Thomas develops the analysis of privation and matter. On the one hand, privation is well distinguished from negation, because Aquinas shows its potential dimension. On the other hand, he discovers matter’s multiplicity of senses, which allows us to speak of a participation of matter, beginning from the most important sense of prime matter, or materia ex qua. Lastly, we collect some texts of St. Augustine and Averroes, which are secondary sources of De principiis naturae.