“The Problem of Bread: Art and Nature in Thomas’s Ontology of Artifacts”

Like Monsignor's, this paper is also a work in progress.

I have nearly completed my dissertation, which considers Aristotle and Thomas' considerations on art as making and attempts to describe a full account of their understanding of this genus of human action.

After my principal research and writing was done, I kept reading in the field and discovered a scholarly debate over the last 25 years solely concerning the question of the artifact itself and what it is.

The standard account of an artifact following Aristotle in Physics II is that the artisan introduces an external accidental form onto pre-existing material substances.

Recent discussions have been divided, however, regarding how to distinguish an accidental form from a substantial one, as well as how to understand the relation between material substances and the accidental form.

Thomas' account in subsequent interpretations is further complicated by his recognition that bread, which is a product of art, is also a substance.

If it were not, then transubstantiation would be impossible.

But he qualifies this by stating, quote, for art does not produce such a form by its own proper power, but by the power of natural principles.

And that's from the Tertiapar's Question 75, Articles 6, Reply to the First Objection.

A scholarly note, I have read a considerable amount of references to art by Thomas, ranging over many of his works, and until reading this in a secondary source, I had not seen any mention of such a qualification.

A few others exist, but none among his main discussions concerning art and artifacts.