Date of Award

5-1938

Degree Type

Bachelors Essay

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Department

Philosophy

First Advisor

John O. Riedl

Second Advisor

Donald J. Keegan

Abstract

Man, whenever he is sufficiently sure of the necessities of life and his sufficient leisure to think, has become interested in the acquisition of knowledge and of the wisdom which grows out of it. And then, as soon as he has acquired some knowledge for its own sake, he becomes self critical and wonders about the truth of that knowledge. Thus, at the very foundation of our western philosophy we find philosophers earnestly engaged in making the distinction between knowledge and opinion, and in trying to solve the problem of truth.

That this problem is a most persistent one is evinced by its frequent recurrence in the history of philosophy, and in particular by the over emphasis which it has received in modern times since the days of Descartes and even before. The modern appearance of idealism has, of course, colored the problem exceedingly. It has tried to prove the non-existence of objective reality, claiming that all things, temporal and spiritual, are products only of the mind. The objects to which we refer in speaking really do not exist, they say, but are so fashioned in our minds that we have true convictions as to their real existence. It might be interesting, therefore, to see what sort of presentations of the problem was prevalent before the advent of idealism. For that purpose we have selected the treatment given the problem by St. Thomas Aquinas.

Comments

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty and Student Body of the College of Liberal Arts in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for a Degree of Bachelor of Arts, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Download

Included in

Philosophy Commons

Share

COinS