The Radical Academy Discussion Forum

Ivo

Sep 8, 07 - 6:13 AM

thingification of ideas - Thomas’ Commentaries on Aristotle

Kevin,

I am reading on another board, to which you directed me, that you refer to St Thomas' distinction between sense and intellect, or in other words WHAT the intellect KNOWS concerning universals vs. singulars>

Here’s from the backcover of a book I bought last week:
Thomas began his series of Aristotelian commentaries with a commentary on “On the Soul”, which, in keeping with the order found in traditional catalogues of Aristotle’s work, he followed with commentaries on “On Sense and What is Sensed” and “On Memory and Recollection” written in 1268-70. Until now these latter two have never been published in English translation.

The book I bought are the English translations, one (“On Sense and What is Sensed”) by Kevin White, the other by Edward M. Macierowski, of these latter two works published in 2005 by The Catholic University of America Press.

The commentary on “On Sense and What is Sensed” develops inter alia Aristotle’s discussion of sense powers.
The commentary on “On Memory and Recollection” addresses inter alia the questions “What is memory?” and “What is recollection?”

Does memory equal intelligence, or do the senses also remember?

You are explaining:
“The reason this question is important is because ALL MODERN PHILOSOPHERS have had the same problem as Dennis and all modern "philosophies" likewise fail to bridge the gap between sense and intellect that Aquinas actually "bridges" in Question 85, Article
2. of the Summa.”

The Second Article of Question 85 of Part I of the Summa theologiae concerns the question
whether the intelligible species abstracted from the phantasm is related to our intellect as that which is understood.

It’s too late for me now, but in a footnote to this article Peter Kreeft writes on p. 324 of the “Summa of the Summa”, edited and annotated by himself, published in 1990 by Ignatius Press in San Francisco, that this is perhaps the most important article in St Thomas’ epistemology, for it is his alternative to most classical modern epistemology, which in turn is most of classical modern philosophy. Modern epistemology is haunted by the spectre of scepticism and even solipsism because of its constant subjectivistic tendency. This in turn stems above all from the ‘thingification of ideas’.

The footnote continues.
But now I understand your question whether I see my ideas.

More later. It’s too late.

Except this:
Consciousness accompanies not only our Consciousness accompanies not only our sense perceptions and thoughts, but also certain functions of our physiological life, our appetites, volitions, and sentiments or affections. Further, not only does it accompany the EXERCISE of our activities, but it attains in a more obscure way the EGO, which exists in these activities. "I think, therefore I exist," is an intuition, which St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas formulated long before Descartes.
(Maurice de Wulf, “The Philosophical System of Thomas Aquinas”, Chapter II, “Different Kinds of Knowledge”, in fine
http://radicalacademy.com/philaquinasmdw2.htm)

And this:
Perhaps, it’s not only Summa theologiae, I, 85, 2, but also the Commentaries on “On Sense and What is Sensed” and “On Memory and Recollection” which are important to resolve the question.

Ivo

Sep 8th, 2007 - 8:03 PM

Re: thingification of ideas - Thomas’ Commentaries on Aristotle

The knowledge of singulars seems (also) to be dealt with in De Veritate (On Truth), q.7, a 5, c:

Human and angelic intellects know material things in diverse ways. Human intellectual knowledge is directed, first, to material things according to their form, and, second, to matter as correlative to form. Because every form is itself universal, our knowledge of matter as correlative to form is itself universal, our knowledge of matter as correlative to form is universal knowledge. Thus considered, matter is not the principle of individuation. Because form receives its individuation from “quantified matter”, existing under definite dimensions as singular, this kind of matter is the principle. Hence, the Philosopher states: “The parts of man are matter and form understood in general, but this form and this matter are the parts of Socrates.”

And so evidently, we cannot know singulars directly through our intellect, inasmuch as singulars are directly known through our sense powers’ receiving forms from things using a bodily organ. Our senses thus receive them under definite dimensions, and from them originates our knowledge of the material singular. For just as we derive our knowledge of matter in general through a universal forms, so we derive our knowledge of quantified matter – the principle of individuation – through individual form.

Yet insofar as the intellect has continuity with the sense power having singulars as objects, the intellect has a certain contact with singulars. There is a twofold conjunction here. First, sense motion ends in the intellect, as when motion proceeds from things to the soul. In this way the intellect knows singulars by a certain reflection, as when the intellect, through knowing its object, some universal nature, reflects upon its own act, then upon the species that originates the act, and finally upon the image from which it has derived the species. Thus does it reach some knowledge of singulars.

(Mary T. Clark, “An Aquinas Reader”, Fordham UP, 2000 rev. ed., pp. 189- 190)

==

Now back to Summa theologiae, I, 85, 2 ,
the question being whether I can see my own ideas.

Ivo

Sep 8th, 2007 - 9:09 PM

Re: thingification of ideas - Thomas’ Commentaries on Aristotle

The passage I quoted was from Thomas' On Truth, not from Clark.
Clark is "just" the editor of the book "An Aquinas Reader".

In said in section 3 of
Re: new stuff on universals
http://pub13.bravenet.com/forum/1108592048/show/719218
that
“ I am still troubled by the fact that at first sight, I don’t find the Problem of Universals discussed by Fernand Van Steenberghen (F-X. de Guibert, ed.) in his “Philosophie fondamentale (Longueuil, Quebec, Editions du Preambule, 1989).
Here’s Copleston’s conclusion of Chapter “The Problem of Universals” in Volume II of his History:
In the later Middle Ages the problem of universals was to be taken up afresh and a NEW SOLUTION was to be given by William of OCKHAM and his followers;
but the principle THAT ONLY INDIVIDUALS EXIST AS SUBSISTENT THINGS had come to stay; the new current in the fourteenth century was set not towards realism but away from it.
The index (of names quoted) to Van Steenberghen has no reference to Ockham.”

Here’s the top of p. 32 of Van Steenberghen:
Is the idea itself of an epistemology, and in particular the idea of a critique of knowledge not totally absent from the perspectives of the medieval scholastics? The moderns think that before William of Ockham nobody was interested in such a critique. This, says Van Steenberghen, would be surprising from/of people interested in Aristotle and St Augustine.

The reason I found this is that p. 31 contains two very interesting, I think, footnotes concerning Thomas’ theory of knowledge.

In a first footnote, Van Steenberghen says that Thomas’ doctrine of knowledge should not be confused with an epistemology of common sense or with “vulgar realism”.

In a second footnote Van Steenberghen quotes
“forma individuatur et multiplicatur per materiam’
the form is being individualised and multiplied through matter.

Google, google, where does that quote come from?

Praeterea, intellectus possibilis Socratis vel Platonis intelligit essentiam suam, *** intellectus in seipsum reflectatur. Ergo ipsa essentia intellectus possibilis est intellecta in actu. Sed nulla forma individuata et multiplicata per materiam est intellecta in actu. ERGO INTELLECTUS POSSIBILIS NON INDIVIDUATUR ET MULTIPLICATUR PER MATERIAM CORPORALEM; et sic relinquitur quod sit unus intellectus possibilis in omnibus.
[64319] De spiritualibus creaturis, a. 9 s. c. 1

This seems to be about the possible intellect.

And guess what, Section 85 of the “Shorter Summa”
(Thomas’ Own Concise Version of His Summa theologiae (Manchester, New Hampshire, Sophia Institute Press 2002, 2nd ed.))
is titled “Unity of the Possible Intellect”.

According to the “Summa of the Summa”, the Second Article of Question 85 of Part I of the Summa theologiae concerns, as I said, the question
whether the intelligible species abstracted from the phantasm is related to our intellect as that which is understood.

I don’t find the answer in the excerpts quoted in the “Summa of the Summa”.

In the “Shorter Summa”, I find however, on p. 83, in Section 85 which starts on p. 80 (and goes to the top of p. 85), I find:
{…] we concede that the same thing may be understood by all. By the thing understood I mean that which is the object of the intellect. However, the object of the intellect is not the intelligible species, but the quiddity of the thing. The intellectual sciences are all concerned with the natures of things, not with intelligible species (just as the object of sight is colour, not the species of colour in the eyes.) Thus, although there may be many intellects belonging to different men, the thing understood by all may be but one (just as a coloured object which many look at is but one.)

==

I don’t know anything.

I am trying to understand Thomas’ theory of knowledge as outlined in Summa theologiae, I, 85, 2.

I’d better stop trying. Or can anybody help?

Ivo Cerckel
ivocerckel AT siquijor DOT ws

Kevin

Sep 24th, 2007 - 1:48 AM

Re: thingification of ideas - Thomas’ Commentaries on Aristotle

IVO:
I don’t know anything.

I am trying to understand Thomas’ theory of knowledge as outlined in Summa theologiae, I, 85, 2.

I’d better stop trying. Or can anybody help?

Ivo Cerckel
ivocerckel AT siquijor DOT ws

REPLY:
Have you ever tried, once in your life, to simply read one article of the Summa --- without consulting 6 different books and authors, none of which are the actual author (ie. Aquinas), of one article of the Summa. In this case it is the 2nd article of the 85th Question of the first part of the Summa.

In short What was Aquinas's answer to the question he posed. His answers are all very easy YES and NO answers. Why he chooses YES over NO on some occasions, and NO over YES on other occasions, for other questions, is in the details and opposite answers to the same question posed by other theologians and philosophers.

Never-the-less, he always answers either YES or NO to the clear questions he poses, in the various articles of each major question. WHY he answers the way he does, is in the details.

Finally, Aquinas's so-called "theory" of knowledge is not restricted to one single question of the Summa, for MAN HIS POWERS HIS KNOWLEDGE begins at Summa I, Q. 75. You have to follow him from Q. 75 to the article in question to get a better idea of the meaning and contents of Q. 85. But even if you don't follow him from Q. 75, the article still gives you a clear answer to the actual question of Q. 85., Article 2 and also the reasons for his clear answer.

IVO (again):
as I said, the question whether the intelligible species abstracted from the phantasm is related to our intellect as that which is understood.

I don’t find the answer in the excerpts quoted in the “Summa of the Summa”.

COMMENT:
You'll find the answer in the actual article of the Summa under the part where Aquinas says, ON THE CONTRARY... and then immediately thereafter writes, quote, I ANSWER THAT...

Try reading those parts. Sometimes they do wonders for some people in at least hearing Aquinas's YES or NO answers to the question posed. Does he say YES the intelligible species are THAT WHICH the intellect understands or NO the intelligible species are NOT "that which" the intellect understands.

Hint:- "NO!" was his actual answer. Not "that which", but rather "that-by-which" we understand a REAL THING, which makes Aquinas a REALIST rather than an IDEALIST.

Kevin

Ivo

Sep 8th, 2007 - 10:54 PM

Re: thingification of ideas - Thomas’ Commentaries on Aristotle

Two more quotes:

Alejandro Llano, “Gnoseology”, Manila, Sinag-Tala Publishers, 2001, pp. 114 – 155:
The knowledge of singulars is, in us, anterior to the knowledge of universals,
just as sense knowledge is anterior to intellectual knowledge.
(Summa theologiae, I, q. 85, a.3)

James L. Schultz and Edward A. Synan, “Introduction”, in: St Thomas Aquinas, “An Exposition of the “On the Hebdomads” of Boethius”, Catholic University of America Press, 2001, xi,
p. lviii
section “ Aquinas on Boethius”
subsection “Being”:
What is striking to the careful reader is how much Aquinas stresses form as a principle of being, reminiscent of the statement made by Boethius in “De Trinitate” that all being (“esse”) is from form.

Ivo

Sep 24th, 2007 - 7:14 PM

Re: thingification of ideas - Thomas’ Commentaries on Aristotle

Summa of the Summa I, 85

SECOND ARTICLE

WHETHER THE INTELLIGIBLE SPECIES ABSTRACTED FROM THE PHANTASM IS RELATED TO OUR INTELLECT AS THAT WHICH IS UNDERSTOOD

OBJECTION 2
Further, what is actually understood must be in something; else it would be nothing. But it is not in something outside the soul: for, since what is outside the soul is material, nothing therein can be actually understood. Therefore what is actually understood is in the intellect. Consequently it can be nothing else than the aforesaid intelligible species. …

ON THE CONTRARY,
The intelligible species is to the intellect what the sensible image is to the sense. But the sensible image is not what is perceived, but rather that by which sense perceives. Therefore the intelligible species is not what is actually understood, but that by which the intellect understands.

I ANSWER THAT,
Some have asserted that our intellectual faculties know only the impression made on them, as, for example, that sense is cognizant only of the impression made on its own organ. According to this theory, the intellect understands only its own impression, namely, the intelligible species which it has received, so that this species is what is understood.

This is however manifestly false for two reasons. First, because the things we understand are the objects of science; therefore if what we understand is merely the intelligible species in the soul, it would follow that every science would not be concerned with objects outside the soul, but only with the intelligible species within the soul … . Secondly, it is untrue, because it would lead to the opinion of the Ancients [the Sophists} who maintained that “whatever seems, is true” [cf. Arist., “Metaph.”, iii, 5}, and that consequently contradictories are true simultaneously. For if the faculty knows its own impression only, it can judge of that only. Now a thing seems, according to the impression made on the cognitive faculty. Consequently the cognitive faculty will always judge of its own impression as such; and so every judgment will be true: for instance, if taste perceived only its own impression, when anyone with a healthy taste perceives that honey is sweet, he would judge truly; and if anyone with a corrupt taste perceives that honey is bitter, this would equally be true; for each would judge according to the impression on his taste. Thus every opinion would be equally true; in fact, every sort of apprehension.

Therefore it must be said that the intelligible species is related to the intellect as that by which it understands. … But since the intellect reflects upon itself, by such reflection it understands both its own act of intelligence, and the species by which it understands. Thus the intelligible species is that which is understood secondarily; but that which is primarily understood is the object, of which the species is the likeness … .

REPLY OBJ. 2

In these words “the thing actually understood” there is a double implication: the thing which is understood, and the fact that it is understood. In like manner the words “abstract universal” imply two things, the nature of a things and its abstraction or universality. Therefore the nature itself to which it occurs to be understood, abstracted, or considered as universal, is only in individuals; but that it is understood, abstracted, or considered as universal, is in the intellect. We see something similar to this in the senses. For the sight sees the colour of the apple apart from its smell. If therefore it be asked where is the colour which is seen apart from the smell, it is quite clear that the colour which is seen is only in the apple: but that it be perceived apart from the smell, this is owing to the sight, forasmuch as the faculty of sight receives the likeness of colour and not of smell. In the like manner humanity understood is only in this or that man; but that humanity be apprehended without conditions of individuality, that is, that it be abstracted and consequently considered as universal, occurs to humanity inasmuch as it is brought under the consideration of the intellect.

Ivo

Sep 24th, 2007 - 7:59 PM

Re: thingification of ideas - Thomas’ Commentaries on Aristotle

I said on Sep 8th, 2007 at 9:09 PM that according to the Shorter Summa, section/article 85 concerns the unity of the possible intellect.

Next question: What is the possible intellect?

Here’s section/article 83 of the Shorter Summa.

83 NECESSITY OF THE AGENT INTELLECT

This discussion brings out the truth that knowledge of things in our intellect is not caused by any participation or influence of forms that are intelligible in act and that subsist by themselves, as was taught by the Platonists and certain other philosophers who followed them in this doctrine. No, the intellect acquires such knowledge from sensible objects, through the intermediacy of the senses. However, since the forms of objects in the sense faculties are particular, as we just said [question 82], they are intelligible not in act, but in potency. For the intellect understands nothing but universals. But what is in potency is not reduced to act except by some agent. Hence there must be some agent that causes the species existing in the sense faculties to be intelligible in act. The possible intellect cannot perform this service, for it is in potency with respect to intelligible objects rather than active in rendering them intelligible. Therefore we must assume some other intellect which will cause species that are intelligible in potency to become intelligible in act, just as light causes colours that are potentially visible to be actually visible. This faculty we call the agent intellect, which we would not have to postulate if the forms of things were intelligible in act, as the Platonists held.

To understand, therefore, we have need, first, of the possible intellect which receives intelligible species, and secondly, of the agent intellect which renders things intelligible in act. Once the possible intellect has been perfected by the intelligible species, it is called the habitual intellect (“intellectus in habitu”), for then it possesses intelligible species in such a way that it can use them at will; in other words, it possesses them in a fashion that is midway between pure potency and complete act. But when it has there species in full actuality, it is called the intellect in act. That is, the intellect actually understands a thing when the species of the thing is made the form of the possible intellect. This is why we say that the intellect in act is the object actually understood.

Ivo

Sep 25th, 2007 - 1:55 AM

Re: thingification of ideas - Thomas’ Commentaries on Aristotle

Call me crazy!
But is the agent intellect not a decoder?

Here’s section/article 83 of the Shorter Summa:
there must be some agent that causes the species existing in the sense faculties to be intelligible in act. The possible intellect cannot perform this service, for it is in potency with respect to intelligible objects rather than active in rendering them intelligible. Therefore we must assume some other intellect which will cause species that are intelligible in potency to become intelligible in act, just as light causes colours that are potentially visible to be actually visible. This faculty we call the AGENT INTELLECT, which we would not have to postulate if the forms of things were intelligible in act, as the Platonists held.

Microsoft, Principle of Distinctness and Heraclitus
http://pub13.bravenet.com/forum/1108592048/show/724021
Judgment of the Court of First Instance (Grand Chamber)
17 September 2007 in Case T-201/04,
http://www.curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=en
817 First of all, the Commission defines MEDIA PLAYERS as software products that are able to ‘play back’ audio and video content, that is to say, to DECODE the corresponding data and translate them into instructions for the hardware, such as loudspeakers or a display (recital 60 to the contested decision).

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