Abstract Thomas Aquinas's realist theory of abstraction requires a sense power that works in... more Abstract Thomas Aquinas's realist theory of abstraction requires a sense power that works in conjunction with reason and (sentient and rational) appetite to determine which individual will be considered by the intellect and to determine how that individual will be ...
An ongoing debate among natural law theorists concerns the way in which the various basic goods a... more An ongoing debate among natural law theorists concerns the way in which the various basic goods are related to each other. St. Thomas maintains that the ultimate good ofhuman beings is the beatific vision. It follows that any action is good inasmuch as it leads one toward this goal, while an action is evil if it leads one away. Germain Grisez laments the way in which many post-Suarezian or "conventional" natural law theorists have used this understanding of the ultimate human end as a foundation for their natural law theory. According to Grisez, they have attempted to derive basic moral principles by combining a theoretical knowledge of human nature with the knowledge that God wills that we achieve the fulfillment ofthat nature.' By seeking to act in conformity with the natural purposes of one's faculties, one fulfills the divine will, and this in tum leads to the attainment of the beatific vision. This attempt at natural law theory leads to an otherworldly attitud...
El realismo de Aquino está apuntalado en su teoría de la cognición como recepción de las formas s... more El realismo de Aquino está apuntalado en su teoría de la cognición como recepción de las formas sensibles que existen en la naturaleza. Para comunicar la receptividad de las potencias cognitivas a las formas en la naturaleza, él, como Aristóteles, compara las semejanzas entre la sensación y la intelección al ser de la cera impreso en la forma de un sello. Mientras que esta metáfora enfatiza vívidamente el aspecto receptivo de la percepción humana y la intelección, no comunica la imagen completa. La conciencia perceptual que compartimos con brutos de nuestras interacciones con el ambiente dirigidas a fines es, asimismo, esencial para el realismo; nuestra conciencia humana de estas interacciones es transformada, si se me permite, por el “instinto” humano de un bien universal, de manera que pueda convertirse en la base de nuestro recibimiento de formas mediante las cuales podemos conocer la naturaleza de las cosas. Sin el componente interactivo de la percepción, podríamos quedarnos sin...
El realismo de Aquino está apuntalado en su teoría de la cognición como recepción de las formas s... more El realismo de Aquino está apuntalado en su teoría de la cognición como recepción de las formas sensibles que existen en la naturaleza. Para comunicar la receptividad de las potencias cognitivas a las formas en la naturaleza, él, como Aristóteles, compara las semejanzas entre la sensación y la intelección al ser de la cera impreso en la forma de un sello. Mientras que esta metáfora enfatiza vívidamente el aspecto receptivo de la percepción humana y la intelección, no comunica la imagen completa. La conciencia perceptual que compartimos con brutos de nuestras interacciones con el ambiente dirigidas a fines es, asimismo, esencial para el realismo; nuestra conciencia humana de estas interacciones es transformada, si se me permite, por el “instinto” humano de un bien universal, de manera que pueda convertirse en la base de nuestro recibimiento de formas mediante las cuales podemos conocer la naturaleza de las cosas. Sin el componente interactivo de la percepción, podríamos quedarnos sin...
A study of St. Thomas Aquinas’s theory of animal perception is needed in order to help us unders... more A study of St. Thomas Aquinas’s theory of animal perception is needed in order to help us understand how humans think, for both speculative and practical reasoning typically involve many layers of influence of sense and intellect upon each other, and this mutual influence needs to be sorted out. In order to be able to sort out the influence of reason and perception upon each other, we must first identify those properties that belong to human perception apart from any influence by reason. The present study attempts to uncover such properties by looking at those features of perception that seem to be common to brutes and humans. A novel approach is employed in this study inasmuch as it turns not only to those passages in Aquinas’s writings that are concerned with perception as such, but also to his discussions of animal actions and passions. By merging the former, more standard approach with the latter, it obtains a more comprehensive view of perception than could otherwise be obtained.
According to St. Thomas, animals (both rational and irrational) perceive objects in terms of goal... more According to St. Thomas, animals (both rational and irrational) perceive objects in terms of goal-directed interactions. Repeated interactions give rise to consuetudo (translated custom or practice), a habit of sense memory that enables one to act skillfully. The interactive component of perception enables animals and humans to communicate. In humans, these perceptions are instrumental to the formation of concepts pertaining to life in society (such as law and liturgy) as well as to the understanding of human nature. But perception is able to perform this role only because it has been elevated by rational appetite. This elevation occurs in the context of practical reasoning, through which a kind of sortal awareness called "experience" (experientia or experimentum) is generated. Experience serves as the basis not only for our formation of concepts of things pertaining to life in society and human nature, but of other entities as well. In this way, the perceptual awareness of objects in terms of goal-directed interactions serves as the basis for the formation of all concepts.
It is common for readers of Aquinas to regard his theory of abstraction as indispensable to a rea... more It is common for readers of Aquinas to regard his theory of abstraction as indispensable to a realist account of human intellectual cognition. What is far from common, however, is an understanding of how, according to Aquinas, sentient cognition makes abstraction possible. Aquinas himself offers very few details about this matter, although he does assert in the Summa contra gentiles that the operation of the vis cogitativa or cogitative power is needed to prepare the phantasm for abstraction. 1 Many studies of the cogitative power have taken Aquinas at his word in this regard, but none have sought to justify the claim that this power is needed to make way for intellectual cognition. 2
This article is the second in a pair (the first being Instinct and Custom, published in The Thomi... more This article is the second in a pair (the first being Instinct and Custom, published in The Thomist in 2002) aimed at explaining how perception in human beings is brought to a higher level by the influence of reason, and how this modified perception in turn facilitates conceptual development.To put this in the language of Aquinas, this article studies how the operation of reason "overflows" into the vis cogitativa, thereby enabling the latter to prepare the phantasm for abstraction. According to Aquinas, this same internal sense power plays a cardinal role not only in abstraction, but in human actions and passions as well. Since he gives a much richer view of perception when discussing actions and passions, the modus operandi of this article (and its prequel) is to use the analysis of perception vis-à-vis actions and passions as a basis for understanding better how perceptual processes facilitate the development of concepts.
Abstract Thomas Aquinas's realist theory of abstraction requires a sense power that works in... more Abstract Thomas Aquinas's realist theory of abstraction requires a sense power that works in conjunction with reason and (sentient and rational) appetite to determine which individual will be considered by the intellect and to determine how that individual will be ...
An ongoing debate among natural law theorists concerns the way in which the various basic goods a... more An ongoing debate among natural law theorists concerns the way in which the various basic goods are related to each other. St. Thomas maintains that the ultimate good ofhuman beings is the beatific vision. It follows that any action is good inasmuch as it leads one toward this goal, while an action is evil if it leads one away. Germain Grisez laments the way in which many post-Suarezian or "conventional" natural law theorists have used this understanding of the ultimate human end as a foundation for their natural law theory. According to Grisez, they have attempted to derive basic moral principles by combining a theoretical knowledge of human nature with the knowledge that God wills that we achieve the fulfillment ofthat nature.' By seeking to act in conformity with the natural purposes of one's faculties, one fulfills the divine will, and this in tum leads to the attainment of the beatific vision. This attempt at natural law theory leads to an otherworldly attitud...
El realismo de Aquino está apuntalado en su teoría de la cognición como recepción de las formas s... more El realismo de Aquino está apuntalado en su teoría de la cognición como recepción de las formas sensibles que existen en la naturaleza. Para comunicar la receptividad de las potencias cognitivas a las formas en la naturaleza, él, como Aristóteles, compara las semejanzas entre la sensación y la intelección al ser de la cera impreso en la forma de un sello. Mientras que esta metáfora enfatiza vívidamente el aspecto receptivo de la percepción humana y la intelección, no comunica la imagen completa. La conciencia perceptual que compartimos con brutos de nuestras interacciones con el ambiente dirigidas a fines es, asimismo, esencial para el realismo; nuestra conciencia humana de estas interacciones es transformada, si se me permite, por el “instinto” humano de un bien universal, de manera que pueda convertirse en la base de nuestro recibimiento de formas mediante las cuales podemos conocer la naturaleza de las cosas. Sin el componente interactivo de la percepción, podríamos quedarnos sin...
El realismo de Aquino está apuntalado en su teoría de la cognición como recepción de las formas s... more El realismo de Aquino está apuntalado en su teoría de la cognición como recepción de las formas sensibles que existen en la naturaleza. Para comunicar la receptividad de las potencias cognitivas a las formas en la naturaleza, él, como Aristóteles, compara las semejanzas entre la sensación y la intelección al ser de la cera impreso en la forma de un sello. Mientras que esta metáfora enfatiza vívidamente el aspecto receptivo de la percepción humana y la intelección, no comunica la imagen completa. La conciencia perceptual que compartimos con brutos de nuestras interacciones con el ambiente dirigidas a fines es, asimismo, esencial para el realismo; nuestra conciencia humana de estas interacciones es transformada, si se me permite, por el “instinto” humano de un bien universal, de manera que pueda convertirse en la base de nuestro recibimiento de formas mediante las cuales podemos conocer la naturaleza de las cosas. Sin el componente interactivo de la percepción, podríamos quedarnos sin...
A study of St. Thomas Aquinas’s theory of animal perception is needed in order to help us unders... more A study of St. Thomas Aquinas’s theory of animal perception is needed in order to help us understand how humans think, for both speculative and practical reasoning typically involve many layers of influence of sense and intellect upon each other, and this mutual influence needs to be sorted out. In order to be able to sort out the influence of reason and perception upon each other, we must first identify those properties that belong to human perception apart from any influence by reason. The present study attempts to uncover such properties by looking at those features of perception that seem to be common to brutes and humans. A novel approach is employed in this study inasmuch as it turns not only to those passages in Aquinas’s writings that are concerned with perception as such, but also to his discussions of animal actions and passions. By merging the former, more standard approach with the latter, it obtains a more comprehensive view of perception than could otherwise be obtained.
According to St. Thomas, animals (both rational and irrational) perceive objects in terms of goal... more According to St. Thomas, animals (both rational and irrational) perceive objects in terms of goal-directed interactions. Repeated interactions give rise to consuetudo (translated custom or practice), a habit of sense memory that enables one to act skillfully. The interactive component of perception enables animals and humans to communicate. In humans, these perceptions are instrumental to the formation of concepts pertaining to life in society (such as law and liturgy) as well as to the understanding of human nature. But perception is able to perform this role only because it has been elevated by rational appetite. This elevation occurs in the context of practical reasoning, through which a kind of sortal awareness called "experience" (experientia or experimentum) is generated. Experience serves as the basis not only for our formation of concepts of things pertaining to life in society and human nature, but of other entities as well. In this way, the perceptual awareness of objects in terms of goal-directed interactions serves as the basis for the formation of all concepts.
It is common for readers of Aquinas to regard his theory of abstraction as indispensable to a rea... more It is common for readers of Aquinas to regard his theory of abstraction as indispensable to a realist account of human intellectual cognition. What is far from common, however, is an understanding of how, according to Aquinas, sentient cognition makes abstraction possible. Aquinas himself offers very few details about this matter, although he does assert in the Summa contra gentiles that the operation of the vis cogitativa or cogitative power is needed to prepare the phantasm for abstraction. 1 Many studies of the cogitative power have taken Aquinas at his word in this regard, but none have sought to justify the claim that this power is needed to make way for intellectual cognition. 2
This article is the second in a pair (the first being Instinct and Custom, published in The Thomi... more This article is the second in a pair (the first being Instinct and Custom, published in The Thomist in 2002) aimed at explaining how perception in human beings is brought to a higher level by the influence of reason, and how this modified perception in turn facilitates conceptual development.To put this in the language of Aquinas, this article studies how the operation of reason "overflows" into the vis cogitativa, thereby enabling the latter to prepare the phantasm for abstraction. According to Aquinas, this same internal sense power plays a cardinal role not only in abstraction, but in human actions and passions as well. Since he gives a much richer view of perception when discussing actions and passions, the modus operandi of this article (and its prequel) is to use the analysis of perception vis-à-vis actions and passions as a basis for understanding better how perceptual processes facilitate the development of concepts.
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