The term participation (from the Latin participatio, derived from participare, “to partake of,” “to share in,” “to have a portion of”) designates the fact that one reality receives or possesses partially what another possesses fully. In metaphysics, participation expresses the relationship by which a finite being receives a perfection, a quality, or even being itself from a principle that possesses it in a more eminent or absolute manner.
More particularly
The notion of participation is one of the most important in all traditional metaphysics. It makes it possible to conceive both the dependence of beings upon their principle and their own proper reality. To participate does not mean either to be identical with that in which one participates or to be absolutely separate from it; it means to receive, in a limited mode, that which exists more perfectly in its source.
This notion already appears in Plato. Sensible realities are what they are because they participate in intelligible Ideas. A thing is beautiful because it participates in Beauty, just because it participates in Justice, true because it participates in Truth. Particular things therefore do not possess these perfections by themselves; they receive them according to their own nature.
Neoplatonism deepens this perspective by understanding all levels of reality as participating in higher principles. Every degree of being receives and reflects something of that which transcends it, according to an ordered hierarchy extending from the most manifested realities to the most universal principles.
Christian metaphysics adopts this doctrine while integrating it into the notion of creation. Created beings participate in being because they receive it from God. They are not being by themselves; they are because they receive existence. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, every creature is a being by participation, whereas God alone is Being by essence (ipsum esse subsistens).
This distinction between participation and identity is essential. To participate in a perfection does not mean to be that perfection in its fullness. A creature may be good without being Goodness itself, true without being Truth itself, existent without being Being itself. Participation thus preserves both the resemblance and the difference between the principle and that which participates in it.
Participation also helps explain the diversity of the world. The same perfection may be received according to very different degrees and modes. All beings participate in being, but each according to its own nature. Likewise, truth, beauty, and goodness manifest themselves in innumerable forms without losing their principial unity.
This doctrine sheds light on the relationship between contingency and being. Contingent beings do not possess existence autonomously; they participate in being. Their ontological dependence is precisely what makes their reality possible. Participation is therefore not a diminution of being, but the very manner in which creatures exist.
Participation also grounds the symbolic dimension of the world. Because a being participates in a reality that transcends it, it can manifest that reality. A visible thing thus becomes the symbol of an invisible reality. What participates reveals something of that in which it participates. Symbolism is therefore inseparable from participation.
This perspective helps explain why the cosmos can be read as a language. Natural realities are not merely objects; they are also signs. Each expresses, in its own manner, certain perfections in which it participates. The world thus appears as a collection of symbols referring to their principles.
The notion of participation also illuminates that of theophany. If creatures participate in divine perfections, they can manifest something of them. The beauty of the world, its intelligibility, its order, and its goodness become so many analogical testimonies to their source. Without being God, creatures can thus reveal certain divine perfections.
Modern thought has often replaced participation with purely causal, mechanical, or functional relationships. Yet causality itself remains incompletely understood if one does not see that an effect receives something from its cause. Participation makes it possible to think this communication of perfections while preserving the distinction between beings.
Jean Borella emphasizes that participation constitutes one of the foundations of all symbolic knowledge. If the visible can lead to the invisible, it is because it truly participates in what it signifies. The symbol is not an arbitrary convention; it rests upon an ontological relationship between different levels of reality.
Participation thus appears as a central notion of metaphysics. It makes it possible to understand the relationship between being and beings, between the principle and its manifestations, between the visible and the invisible, between the finite and the infinite. It expresses the dependence of created realities upon their source while grounding their intelligibility, beauty, and symbolic significance.
See also: Being, Contingency, Creation, Manifestation, Principle, Symbol, Theophany, Transcendence.
Further Reading
• Plato, Phaedo; Republic, Books VI–VII; Parmenides.
• Plotinus, Enneads, V, 1–5.
• Dionysius the Areopagite, The Divine Names.
• Thomas Aquinas, De ente et essentia; Summa Theologiae, I, q. 44; De participatione (attributed texts and commentaries).
• Étienne Gilson, Being and Essence.
• Cornelio Fabro, La nozione metafisica di partecipazione.
• Jean Borella, The Metaphysics of Symbol (Métaphysique du symbole); The Crisis of Religious Symbolism.
• Wolfgang Smith, The Wisdom of Ancient Cosmology.
• Bruno Bérard, Metaphysics for Everyone, Angelico Press, 2024 (trans. Métaphysique pour tous, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2022, It. trans. Sui sentieri della metafisica; Sp. trans. ¿Qué es la metafísica?; Ger. trans. Was ist Metaphysik? Zwischen Ambition und Wirklichkeit).
Note: This entry is, together with Being, the most structurally important in the entire glossary. For Plato, Plotinus, Dionysius, St. Thomas Aquinas, Coomaraswamy, Schuon, Borella, and Smith, participation is what links being to contingency, creation to manifestation, symbol to theophany, and the cosmos to the Principle. In other words, if Being is the ontological center of the glossary, Participation is its explanatory principle. It is participation that allows us to understand why the world can be real without being absolute, meaningful without being divine, and symbolic without being arbitrary.