Ontology, or the Theory of Being

by P. Coffey

Ontology, or the Theory of Being, published in 1918, is the textbook of general metaphysics that Peter Coffey, professor of logic and metaphysics at Maynooth, wrote to give English-speaking students the subject from the standpoint of Aristotle and the schoolmen. Fifteen chapters treat being and its primary determinations, becoming, existence and essence, the one and the many, truth, goodness and beauty as aspects of reality, the categories of substance and accident, nature and person, quality, quantity, space and time, relation, and the classification of causes, with closing chapters on efficient causality against phenomenism and occasionalism and on final causes and universal order. Coffey argues that the scholastic questions are the ones modern philosophers debate under other names. The full text is available to read online in your browser on Vinteuil, and the first chapter is free.