Aquinas's Naturalized Epistemology
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Language
eng
Format of Original
16 p.
Publication Date
2005
Publisher
American Catholic Philosophical Association
Source Publication
Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association
Source ISSN
0065-7638
Abstract
Recently much interest has been shown in the notion of intelligible species in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Intelligible species supposedly explain human knowing of the world and universals. However, in some cases, the historical context and the philosophical sources employed by Aquinas have been sorely neglected. As a result, new interpretations have been set forth which needlessly obscure an already controversial and perhaps even philosophically tenuous doctrine. Using a recent article by Houston Smit as an example of a novel and anachronistic modern interpretation of Aquinas’s abstractionism, this paper shows that Aquinas follows the intentional transference of Averroes who proposes a genuine doctrine of abstraction of intelligibles from experienced sensible particulars. The paper also shows that Aquinas uses the doctrine of primary and secondary causality from the Liber de causis when he asserts that human abstractive powers function only insofar as they are a participation in Divine illumination
Recommended Citation
Taylor, Richard C., "Aquinas's Naturalized Epistemology" (2005). Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications. 259.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/phil_fac/259
Comments
Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, Vol. 79 (2005): 85-102. DOI.