Self-knowledge is commonly thought to have become a topic of serious philosophical inquiry during the early modern period Already in the thirteenth century, however, the medieval thinker Thomas Aquinas developed a sophisticated theory of self-knowledge, which Therese Scarpelli Cory presents as a project of reconciling the conflicting phenomena of self-opacity and privileged self-access Situating Aquinas's theory within the mid-thirteenth-century debate and his own maturing thought on human nature, Cory investigates the kinds of self-knowledge that Aquinas describes and the questions they raise She shows that to a degree remarkable in a medieval thinker, self-knowledge turns out to be central to Aquinas's account of cognition and personhood, and that his theory provides tools for considering intentionality, reflexivity and selfhood Her engaging account of this neglected aspect of medieval philosophy will interest readers studying Aquinas and the history of medieval philosophy more generally

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Aquinas on Human Self-Knowledge

Es bien conocida la definicion aristotelica de ser humano como “animal racional”, la cual se ha relacionado tradicionalmente con la atribucion exclusiva de la inteligencia a la especie humana. Sin embargo, en Historia Animalium, algunos animales son descritos con capacidades que, en terminos aristotelicos, son llamadas “disposiciones intelectuales” por medio de conceptos como phronesis, synesis, dianoia, techne, entre otros. La tradicion interpretativa afirma que se trata de usos puramente metaforicos de estas expresiones. No obstante, en el presente trabajo, con una revision cuidadosa de los pasajes aristotelicos, muestro que hay argumentos suficientes para conceder que Aristoteles reconocio inteligencia en sentido propio en algunos animales no-­humanos. En efecto, Aristoteles reconocio que varias especies animales realizan procesos cognitivos complejos para poder llevar a cabo comportamientos vitales exitosos, incluyendo la posibilidad de aprender de miembros de su propia especie y de otra. Esto conduce a cuestionar el salto que tradicionalmente se ha asumido como insalvable entre humanos y animales no-­humanos por cuenta de la definicion aristotelica del hombre como “animal racional”, y por lo tanto “superior”, que la tradicion filosofica ha pretendido adjudicar al estagirita. Propongo, en cambio pensar, en coherencia con el pensamiento aristotelico, que la inteligencia muestra una suerte de continuidad entre todos los seres sintientes. Asi mismo, mi interpretacion lleva a resignificar, en la propuesta aristotelica, las lineas que comunican a la biologia con la etica y la politica.

Inteligencia animal:Un estudio desde Historia Animalium de Aristóteles

A Comparative Study of Metaphor in Arabic and English General Business Writing with Teaching Implications

ion of universals from particulars, for this is the condition of all intellectual knowledge. Mathematical abstraction (abstractio formae), however, abstracts a form from materia sensibilis non signata. This abstraction is not another step in the process of general abstraction proper to natural science, but it is another process, another kind of abstraction. This must be emphasized, because when we are talking about abstraction of form from matter, as opposed to the abstraction of universal from particular, we neverion. This must be emphasized, because when we are talking about abstraction of form from matter, as opposed to the abstraction of universal from particular, we never mean the abstraction of substantial form, for “substantial form and matter corresponding to it, depend on each other, and one without another is unintelligible.” The abstraction proper to mathematics involves abstracting only the accident of quantity. St. Thomas states that not every form can be abstracted from matter in this way, but only such forms whose essence is intelligible independent from sensible matter. Sensible matter (signata or non signata) is called also materia corporalis since it is a foundation for sensible qualities. Apart from sensible matter there is also something like intellectual matter. Substance is called in this way insofar as it constitutes the basis for quantity. Aquinas clarifies that all accidents are compared to their substance as form to matter and so their intelligibility depends upon substance; that is to say, they are understandable only as existing in substance. Earlier in section 2.2, while enumerating different categories, we said nothing about the proper order of accidents in relation to substance, because we were concerned more about the relation between real being and the being of reason. Now, considering the division of sciences, we are faced with this 17 Cf. In Boet. De Trin., 5, 3 c. 5. Cf. also Edward D. Simmons, “In Defense of Total and Formal Abstraction,” The ew Scholasticism 29 (1955): 427-440. 18 Cf. De ver., 2, 6 ad 1. 19 “Cum dicimus formam abstrai a materia, non intelligitur de forma substantiali, quia forma substantialis et materia sibi correspondens dependent ad inuicem, ut unum sine alio non possit intelligi, eo quod proprius actus in propria materia fit; set intelligitur de forma accidentali, que est quantitas et figura” (In Boet. De Trin., 5, 3 c.). 20 “Forma autem illa potest a materia aliqua abstrai, cuius ratio essentie non dependet a tali materia, ab illa autem materia non potest forma abstrai per intellectum a qua secundum sue essentie rationem dependet” (In Boet. De Trin., 5, 3 c.). 21 Cf. STh, I, 85, 1 ad 2. 22 “Vnde cum omnia accidentia comparentur ad substantiam subiectam sicut forma ad materiam, et cuiuslibet accidentis ratio dependeat ad substantiam, impossibile est aliquam talem formam a substantia separari” (In Boet. De Trin., 5, 3 c.). The matter or material cause of a substance is part of the substance, while the matter or material cause of an accident is not part of the accident but rather its appropriate subject: cf. STh, I-II, 55, 4; In Meta., VIII, 4, n. 1742-1745. 5. The Division of Theoretical Sciences 150 order of accidents because it is the key to understanding the difference between natural science and mathematics. We recognize an order to exist between individual accidents of a substance (which means, that some of them are related to substance more fundamentally than others) when we perceive that the comprehension of some accidents does not depend on the comprehension of others, though the comprehension of some accidents does depend in this way. Hence, there are some accidents which are more fundamentally or primarily related to their substance than others, while the others require understanding both their substance and its other accidents to become intelligible. Consequently, we receive the dictum that what is more knowable intellectually, that is what has precedence in the intellectual order, can be understood without what is posterior, but not conversely. Accordingly, in the analysis of accidents, quantity appears as the most fundamental accident, which we can understand only in dependence upon substance and without any dependence on other accidents. Obviously, this “without any dependence” is to be taken secundum rationem, et non secundum esse, because in reality quantity does not exist without sensible matter and it would be impossible to perceive a quantity as it exists in things without other accidents. Quantity, therefore, is posterior in our perception as regards quality, for it is known through some sensible qualities. But being prior in relation to substance, quantities can be understood without sensible qualities, in abstraction from sensible matter, although not in abstraction from intellectual matter. In other words, quantity can be considered apart from matter but not apart from substance because with substance quantity is essentially united secundum rationem et secundum 23 “Manifestum est autem quod posteriora non sunt de intellectu priorum, sed e converso: unde priora possunt intelligi sine posterioribus, et non e converso” (In Phys., II, 3, n. 5). 24 “Set accidentia superueniunt substantie quodam ordine: nam primo aduenit ei quantitas, deinde qualitas, deinde passiones et motus. Vnde quantitas potest intelligi in materia subiecta antequam intelligantur in ea qualitates sensibiles, a quibus dicitur materia sensibilis; et sic secundum rationem sue substantie non dependet quantitas a materia sensibili, set solum a materia intelligibili” (In Boet. De Trin., 5, 3 c.). “Inter accidentia omnia quae adveniunt substantiae, primo advenit ei quantitas, et deinde qualitates sensibiles et actiones et passiones et motus consequentes sensibiles qualitates. Sic igitur quantitas non claudit in sui intellectu qualitates sensibiles vel passiones vel motus: claudit tamen in sui intellectu substantiam. Potest igitur intelligi quantitas sine materia subiecta motui et qualitatibus sensibilibus, non tamen absque substantia” (In Phys., II, 3, n. 5). 25 Cf. De pot., 9, 5 ad 8. 26 “Quantitas dimensiva secundum suam rationem non dependet a materia sensibili, quamvis dependeat secundum suum esse” (Super IV Sent., 12, 1, 1 qc. 3 ad 2). “Quae enim coniuncta sunt in re, interdum divisim cognoscuntur ... Sic etiam et intellectus intelligit lineam in materia sensibili existentem, absque materia sensibili: licet et cum materia sensibili intelligere possit. Haec autem diversitas accidit secundum diversitatem specierum intelligibilium in intellectu receptarum: quae quandoque est similitudo quantitatis tantum, quandoque vero substantiae sensibilis quantae” (CG, II, 75, n. 1551). 5. The Division of Theoretical Sciences 151 esse. Sensible qualities and movement can only be understood by presupposing quantity. Mathematics is interested only in the accident of quantity and what pertains to it. In his science, therefore, the mathematician puts aside all the remaining accidents. Mathematics is the abstract study of the quantities of physical objects. Hence, “the mathematician does not consider lines, and points, and surfaces, and things of this sort, and their accidents, insofar as they are the boundaries of a natural body,” to which we have an immediate cognitive contact through our senses. The mathematician abstracts from all these sensible qualities. This is possible because quantities and their accidents do not contain in their notions any sensible matter. Therefore, quantities and their accidents can be understood without any reference to sensible matter. Because sensible matter is also the subject of motion, it follows that all mathematical consideration secundum intellectum is abstracted also from any movement. It is worth underlining, however, that in Aquinas’s account mathematical consideration would not occur if we had no experience of sensible matter. Only after knowing material things as they are in their real existence, are we able to abstract some accident which is prior in se but not quoad nos, and treat it as separated, even if, as it exists, it is never separated. St. Thomas concludes that it is evident that mathematical science studies some things insofar as they are immobile and separate from matter, although they are neither immobile nor separable from matter in being. ... Hence mathematical science differs from the philosophy of 27 “Manifestum est autem quod quantitas prius inest substantiae quam qualitates sensibiles. Unde quantitates, ut numeri et dimensiones et figurae, quae sunt terminationes quantitatum, possunt considerari absque qualitatibus sensibilibus, quod est eas abstrahi a materia sensibili, non tamen possunt considerari sine intellectu substantiae quantitati subiectae, quod esset eas abstrahi a materia intelligibili communi. Possunt tamen considerari sine hac vel illa substantia; quod est eas abstrahi a materia intelligibili individuali” (STh, I, 85, 1 ad 2). Cf. In Meta., VIII, 5, n. 1762. 28 “Qualitates sensibiles non possint intelligi non preintellecta quantitate, sicut patet in superficie et colore; nec etiam potest intelligi esse subiectum motus quod non intelligitur quantum” (In Boet. De Trin., 5, 3 c.). “Res alique sunt sensibiles per qualitatem, quantitates autem preexistunt qualitatibus, unde mathematicus concernit solum id quod quantitatis est absolute, non determinans hanc uel illam materiam” (In De an., I, 2 [Leon. 45/1, p. 12, lin. 235-239]). 29 “Quantitas potest intelligi in materia subiecta antequam intelligantur in ea qualitates sensibiles, a quibus dicitur materia sensibilis ... Et de huiusmodi abstractis est mathematica, que considerat quantitates et ea que quantitates consequuntur, ut figuras et huiusmodi” (In Boet. De Trin., 5, 3 c.). Cf. also Bertrand Mahoney, The otion of Quantity in a Thomistic Evaluation of the Sciences (River Forest, Ill., 1951). 30 “Quia enim mathematicus considerat lineas et puncta et superficies et hui

https://doc.rero.ch/record/9411/files/LichaczP.pdf

Did St. Thomas Aquinas justify the transition from "is" to "ought"?

Marc Lange and Ann Whittle have independently developed an important challenge to dispositionalism, arguing that dispositions are reducible to primitive subjunctive facts. I argue in reply that by pairing dispositionalism with a certain version of natural-kind essentialism, their objection can be overcome. Moreover, such a marriage carries further advantages for the dispositionalist. My aim is therefore two-fold: to defend dispositionalism, and to give the dispositionalist some new motivation to adopt natural-kind essentialism.

Using Natural-Kind Essentialism to Defend Dispositionalism

Introduction. In the opening passages of his De interpretatione,(1) Aristotle provides a simple summary of how he thinks language relates to the mind and the mind to reality, a sketch which has often been called his "semantic triangle." He writes: Now spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the soul, and written marks symbols of spoken sounds. And just as written marks are not the same for all men, neither are spoken sounds. But what these are in the first place signs of--affections of the soul--are the same for all; and what these affections are likenesses of--actual things--are also the same. These matters have been discussed in the work on the soul and do not belong to the present subject.(2) It has been called a triangle because of the three vertices, words, affections of the soul, and actual things. It is semantic because it has been interpreted to be providing a sketch of the meaning of words, and how they relate to things. As Norman Kretzmann points out, in the form of Boethius's sixth-century Latin translation, this passage "constitute[s] the most influential text in the history of semantics,"(3) having an enormous influence on the subsequent philosophical tradition of reflection upon the interrelations of language, mind, and the world, or as Hilary Putnam often puts it, "how language hooks onto the world." This is particularly true of the Middle Ages, but also beyond into modern philosophy. Indeed, among some contemporary philosophers, there is a vision of this opening passage that one might call a standard or received view, namely that Aristotle's reflections upon language in the De interpretatione planted a seed that grew relatively continuously in Western philosophy, flowered within British empiricism, and continues to influence the philosophy of language to this day. In light of criticism in this century directed at this relatively continuous tradition, however, these contemporary philosophers characterize the Aristotelian tradition as fundamentally flawed. Consider Michael Dummett's remarks: A continuous tradition, from Aristotle to Locke and beyond, had assigned to individual words the power of expressing `ideas', and to combinations of words that of expressing complex `ideas'; and this style of talk had blurred, or at least failed to account for, the crucial distinction between those combinations of words which constitute a sentence and those which form mere phrases which could be part of a sentence.(4) Perhaps the most important of all the contributions made by Grundlagen to general philosophy is the attack on the imagist or associationist theory of meaning. This is another of those ideas which, once fully digested, appear completely obvious: yet Frege was the first to make a clean break with the tradition which had flourished among the British empiricists and had its roots as far back as Aristotle. The attack that was launched by Frege on the theory that the meaning of a word or expression consists in its capacity to call up in the mind of the hearer an associated mental image was rounded off by Wittgenstein in the early part of the Investigations, and it is scarcely necessary to rehearse the arguments in detail, the imagist theory now being dead without a hope of revival.(5) In fact, even recent translators and commentators on the De interpretatione make oblique reference to the "notorious" problems with Aristotle's remarks.(6) Norman Kretzmann, on the other hand, hopes to protect Aristotle from these kinds of criticism by distancing Aristotle's text from its Latin tradition of interpretation. He believes that the "traditional misreading of [these] passages" in the West is a product of Boethius's unfortunate translation of the Greek words for "symbols" ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) and "signs" ([GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) by the single Latin word "notae," thereby "obliterating the Aristotelian distinction between symbols and symptoms. …

The Problem of Language and Mental Representation in Aristotle and St. Thomas

IN THIS PAPER I WANT TO ADDRESS the metaphysical status of concepts in Thomas Aquinas. The need to do so is raised by contemporary criticism of Aristotelian reflections upon how language "hooks up with the world." Many contemporary philosophers, following upon the later Wittgenstein think that in the opening passages of the De interpretatione Aristotle provides a very bad "theory" of semantic relations, when he sketches how words are related to things via the mind. It is a bad "theory" inasmuch as it seems to involve "mental representationalism" as a constitutive element. Amidst all their disagreements, it is fair to say that the many authors anthologized in Richard Rorty's The Linguistic Turn come together in a common disdain for any hint of mental representationalism in philosophical discussions of the semantic of language.(1) This is not the place to rehearse in detail all the difficulties posed for mental representationalism within contemporary philosophy, in particular because they are very familiar. Yet it would be good to characterize briefly what I have in mind. Hilary Putnam, one of the most forceful critics, and with the De interpretatione text explicitly in mind, describes the relationship between meaning and mental representationalism in this way: ... the picture is that there is something in the mind that picks out the objects in the environment that we talk about. When such a something (call it a "concept") is associated with a sign, it becomes the meaning of the sign.(2) If we use William Alston's distinctions between referential, ideational, and behavioral theories of meaning, Putnam appears to be attributing an ideational theory to Aristotle.(3) Broadly speaking, the mental representation or concept is conceived of as an internal mental object or thing directly related to or operated upon by the mind, a mental thing or object that has no intrinsic or individuating relation to the world. In this sense it is tertium quid, a third thing that stands within the mind of the language user and the world he would speak about. Because of the interposition of this mental representation, words are thought to be directly related to or directly to signify things in the world. The criticism that is leveled against this as an account of meaning is that language fails to "hook onto the world" because the mental representations that constitute the semantic content of language fail to "hook onto the world," despite any claims about the natural likeness of similitude of the mental representations to objects in the world. Michael Dummett, characterizing this tradition slightly differently, believes that in contemporary philosophy it is "dead without hope of a revival," mainly because of the attacks of Frege and Wittgenstein.(4) St. Thomas comments at length on the passage from Aristotle in his commentary on the De interpretatione.(5) If we try to make the picture of language and mental representationalism correspond more explicitly to St. Thomas's understanding of Aristotle as he analyzes that text, then the third thing appears to be the concept in anima (in the soul). Moreover because words signify concepts without mediation, and mediately signify res extra animam, it is by knowing the concepts as primary objects of knowledge, holding them before the mind's conscious attention, that the language user knows what extra-mental objects are talked about. This application of the picture of mental representationalism to St. Thomas's analysis puts us in a position to ask whether his appropriation of Aristotle is subject to Putnam's criticism--does it cut at the joints of St. Thomas's appropriation of Aristotle. I will confine myself to the first presuppositions of the picture described above, the presupposition that takes the concept to be a third thing, a mental object or thing "in the mind" in some fashion. As a preliminary, I will clarify the use of the internal-external dichotomy as it is used in the discussion and in St. …

Concepts, Beings, and Things in Contemporary Philosophy and Thomas Aquinas

HOW MANY ESSENCES does a natural kind have, one or many? In this paper I address an argument of Hilary Putnam to the effect that the plurality of modern sciences shows us that any natural kind has a plurality of essences. Putnam argues for this claim in the context of objecting to what he takes to be the Thomistic assumption of a single essential or substantial form for any particular natural kind. (1) Putnam's objection to the Thomist is prompted by his longstanding worries about how language or the mind "hooks onto the world." (2) He has argued that no system of representations, mental or linguistic, could have an intrinsic relationship to the world. He has long used "Aristotelian" as a descriptive term applied to representationalist accounts of mind and language that appear to suggest such a built-in relationship. However, Putnam now grants that the Thomistic notion of form and its application to the identity of concepts may avoid the earlier objections he directed at what he called Aristotelianism. In this concession, he has in mind the Thomist thesis that the mind's concepts are formally identical to and determined by the objects in the world that fall under those concepts, what I will call the concept identity thesis (CIT). When we use a term like "dog," it succeeds in referring to dogs because the concept we have in mind is in some fashion formally identical to dogs. This looks like a powerful candidate for an intrinsic or built-in relation to the world on the part of concepts. Having granted CIT to the Thomist, Putnam now looks to defeat the Thomist's position on other grounds. Now he objects that the various different sciences of today reveal a multitude of essences for any particular natural kind. The application to the Thomist is straightforward. The advance of the sciences has shown us that there are too many substantial forms in any particular kind of thing to provide the unity of conceptual identity required by the Thomist's account. To put it plainly, Putnam denies or at least doubts that "substances have a unique essence" (3) that could provide formal identity conditions for the concepts under which those substances fall. In this regard, the dispute between Putnam and the Thomist is of great contemporary relevance, insofar as it bears upon longstanding questions in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of biology, and metaphysics. To address Putnam's objection, I will begin by describing his argument. A striking feature of his argument is the family resemblance it bears to a set of arguments Aquinas faced in the thirteenth century that also argued for a plurality of essences or substantial forms for the natural kind human being. This parallel suggests that a look at Aquinas's own arguments against the pluriformists or pluralists may prove helpful for providing philosophical resources for responding to Putnam in the twenty-first century. Thus, I will examine the famous plurality of forms position that Aquinas argued against in the Summa Theologiae in order to acquire reources useful for responding to Putnam. Finally, I will consider a particular case of recent scientific practice, in order to apply the results of my examination of Aquinas's arguments to the broader contemporary situation brought to our attention by Putnam's obejction, and to suggest whose position, Putnam's or the Thomist's, more adequately captures the practice of the natural sciences as we see them practiced today, and their bearing upon the metaphysical question of the nature of essence in natural kinds. I Putnam's Argument for the Multiplicity of Substantial Forms. Putnam states his objection to the Thomist as follows: "The greatest difficulty facing someone who wishes to hold an Aristotelian view is that the central intuition behind that view, that is, the intuition that a natural kind has a single determinate form (or 'nature' or 'essence') has become problematical." (4) He believes there is a philosophical consensus in modern thought that, given the plurality of modern sciences under which some object in a natural kind may fall, we must recognize a plurality of essences for that object, one each for each science. …

John O'Callaghan

Papers

The Problem of Language and Mental Representation in Aristotle and St. Thomas

Concepts, Beings, and Things in Contemporary Philosophy and Thomas Aquinas

The Plurality of Forms: Now and Then