Resumo

CARAM, Gabriela de los Ángeles. Ontological Contiguity Argument. Neoplatonic and Dyonisian antecedents and their resolution in Thomas Aquinas. Scripta Mediaevalia [online]. 2015, vol.8, n.2, pp.115-136. ISSN 1851-8753.

The ontological contiguity argument, used in several passages of the Thomistic Opera Omnia formulates the existence of a metaphysical affinity between all beings in the universe. According to it, reality is understood hierarchically as an analogy of entities that are sorted in descending waterfalls until the last degree, in which the lower nature, in its higher self "touches" the bottom of the superior nature ("inferior natura secundum supremum infimum sui attingit superioris naturae"). Thus, each level originates in the attenuation of the higher immediate degree. The tracing and analysis of this principle allowed structuring the thesis according to the scheme outlined in this paper.

Palavras-chave : Ontological contiguity; Hierarchy of beings; Medieval Ontology; Thomas Aquinas; Neoplatonism.