Esencia, realidad y concepto: impacto doctrinal de la concepción aviceniana de la natura en la escolástica medieval

Abstract

The so-called “doctrine of indifference of nature or essence” by Avicenna had a deep influence in a great number of XIII and XIV century scholastic authors, partly in the development of the wellknow problem of the universals and, in general, in key matters in metaphysics, the theory of knowledge and even theology. Several variations are distinguished in the interpretation of the doctrine. Particularly regarding the ontological status that may or may not be given to the essence in its absolutist consideration or in itself. Thomas Aquinas seems to lean towards an abstractive consideration, according to which the essence itself does not belong to any one being. Henry of Ghent gives the essence an intentional being, placing it, ultimately, in the divine intellect. Duns Scotus elaborates a distinction frame so as to grant it a real unit inferior than the numeric unit. Leaving some theological implications aside, the discussion about Avicenna’s essentialism can be understood as the legacy of a fundamental ambivalence in Aristotelian ontology. Behind the singular subsistence’s effective reality there is an intrinsic essential order that seeks to support the universality of the concepts of science.