Abstract

The question of the real distinction between esse and essence in being constitutes the core of Thomistic ontology. While there is a primacy of esse over essence, such as that of the founding over the founded, one must neglect neither of these aspects in the analysis of the act-potency transcendental relationship that links them. Through a brief historical journey—from the years following the death of St. Thomas Aquinas to the present—the author tries to show the way in which the notion of esse has been gradually distorted and obscured by the notion of essence, and then replaced by the notion of existence.