"Being and non-being are infinitely separated, Saint Thomas tells us. And it is precisely somewhere between the extremes of these two notions that we must seek the antecedents of being [ . . . ] Being in all its latitude is a vast field for investigation and on worthy of the many works written on the subject of metaphysics, that science which has for its object ens qua ens. The limits of a doctoral dissertation are necessarily restricted to the solution of a specific problem with its entanglement of implications and applications. This dissertation is no exception, and its specific problem is to determine the antecedents of being."--From the introduction
