Aquinas Position on Knowing Essences and Existence

Transcription

1 Aquinas Position on Knowing Essences and Existence Hezekiah Domowski PH502 April 21, 2017

2 Introduction One of the fascinating aspects of Thomism is the detail with which Aquinas describes reality. One of those areas is the process by which a person gains knowledge. From learning about particular things in the world around them, observers can come to know principles that govern all of reality. In this paper, the process by which Aquinas describes gaining knowledge will be presented and the resulting knowledge about existence will be discussed. From this overview of Aquinas epistemology some insight into human understanding can be gained. Furthermore, it provides a solution to some of the modern epistemic problems. First, Aquinas definition of essence will be described. Second, the abstraction will be explained. Third, the role of the intellect will be stated. Fourth, certainty will be discussed. Last, some first principles of existence will be outlined. Essence An essence and a nature are interchangeable terms. To explain how one comes to know an essence, it must first be defined. The way in which it is defined, however, uses specialized terminology. Therefore, the definition of an essence will need to be explained. What an essence is can be described in great depth or with brevity. A balance between these extremes is necessary for understanding how it is known. The short answer states that an essence is what something is. This is contrasted with existence which is that something is. Geisler explains in the Baker of Christian Apologetics, The heart of Aquinas s Metaphysics is the real distinction between essence (what something is) and existence (that something is)

3 1 (emphasis in original). 1 Feser explains what an essence is in multiple ways. It is a nature, what a thing is, and what is grasped intellectually when a species or genus or specific difference is identified. 2 When a person realizes what something is in contrast to things that it is not, that person has realized the essence. But what is it in the thing that a person is realizing? Aquinas would answer, The substantial form. 3 This is a key term in Aquinas epistemology. Both of these words (substantial and form) need to be understood to ensure clarity of an essence. Understanding form is not difficult once it is understood that it is not merely a shape. Feser notes that it is not always a matter of spatial configuration of parts. 4 The shape or spatial configuration are types of forms, but the idea of form is much broader than that for Aquinas. Feser explains, [A]ny determining, actualizing pattern counts as a form. 5 Matter is a substratum of existence that has the potential to be actualized by a form. When done, this combination of matter and form is an object. To use the analogy of a shape, consider a circle. A true circle does not exist. Nothing that is only two-dimensional exists because the world is threedimensional. While a circle cannot exist as a material object, a sphere can. However, if the sphere is not made of anything, it is just as real as a circle. When the sphere is made of rubber, wood, or plastic, then it is real. Consider a carver making a wooden sphere. He will apply a circular motion to the wood with a knife. In this way, the form (circularity and sphericalness) 1 Norman L. Geisler, Thomas Aquinas, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, November 1, 1998), Edward Feser, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (Piscataway, NJ: Editiones Scholasticae, 2014), Ibid. 4 Ibid., Ibid.

4 2 actualizes the matter. But again, the term form is much broader than just a shape. Also, matter is broader than just physical material. Shape and material are both examples of the larger categories of form and matter. To understand a substance, it helps to contrast it with an accident. Oderberg explains what a substance is in his book, Real Essentialism: It has existence in itself and by virtue of itself as an ultimate distinct subject of being. 6 A substance is something that exists independently, versus an accident that exists in a substance. For example, a red car exists as a substance, and the redness is an accident. To use an grammatical analogy, a substance is a noun and an accident is an adjective. Communication works this way because accidents do not exist on their own. Redness is meaningless without some substance to be red. The redness exists in the substance. A car does not exist in something else. There are two types of forms: substantial forms and accidental forms. A substantial form is a form that is naturally actualized in a substance because of some intrinsic principle. An accidental form is one that is externally imposed on a substance. Aquinas builds his position on Aristotle, and Aristotle says in his work Physics: Of things that exist, some exist by nature, some from other causes. 'By nature' the animals and their parts exist, and the plants and the simple bodies (earth, fire, air, water)-for we say that these and the like exist 'by nature' Each of them has within itself a principle of motion and of stationariness (in respect of place, or of growth and decrease, or by way of alteration). On the other hand, a bed and a coat and anything else of that sort, qua receiving these designations i.e. in so far as they are products of art-have no innate impulse to change. 7 He is explaining that some things are the way they are because by nature they naturally 6 David S. Oderberg, Real Essentialism (Routledge, 2007), Aristotle, Physics Book II, trans. R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye, 350AD, pt. 1,

5 3 become that. Fire is hot by nature. Wood is solid by nature. Wood is not a chair by nature; that is a condition imposed on it by a person. But the chair is solid because it is made of wood. Therefore, a wooden chair has an accidental form of a chair and a substantial form of wood. Objects with substantial forms have forms that result naturally by some intrinsic principle. Aristotle continues, 'Nature' then is what has been stated. Things 'have a nature' which have a principle of this kind. 8 An example of this principle would be the way that an acorn becomes an oak tree. Contained within the form and matter of an acorn are the principles that govern how it will grow. This is why all natural objects produce after their own kind (even hybrids produce after the kinds of the parents - plants or animals). Aquinas expounds on this in his commentary of Aristotle: He says that those things which have in themselves a principle of their motion have a nature. And such are all subjects of nature. For nature is a subject insofar as it is called matter, and nature is in a subject insofar as it is called form. 9 Notice that the nature is the subject in relation to matter, but the nature is in the subject in relation to form. Both matter and form are two sides of the same subject: nature (or essence). To conclude, an essence is a substantial form. A form is a determining pattern, and a substance is that which exists on its own. A substantial form is a form that occurs in a substance because of an intrinsic principle. Whatever that principle may be depends on the substance. Such an inquiry would venture into the domain of biology and outside the scope of this paper. 8 Aristotle, Physics Book II, pt Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle s Physics Book II, trans. Richard Blackwell, Richard Spath, and W. Edmund Thirlkel (Yale University Press, 1963), 146.

6 4 Abstraction Abstraction is the term used to describe how a person gets the essence of a thing into their mind. There are several details that need to be examined. To understand the process, Aquinas view of act and potency must be partially explained. This will show that the senses and the object they are sensing have a causal connection. Then the senses abstract the form from the matter, so that the senses only have a form without the matter. Because the form is immaterial, it can actualize the object, the medium, (such as light or air) and the senses. In this way it will be shown that a person has direct access to reality. They do not have a copy of reality or a vague secondhand description of reality. They have in their senses the same form that actualized the matter in the object. Aquinas never wavers from the principle that whatever is potential can only be actualized by something that is already actual. A ball has the potential to roll, fly through the air, melt, and so on. However, it will not do any of that unless something else acts on it. A foot can potentially kick the ball, and only when the foot actually makes contact will the ball move. This principle applies to sensation. Senses have the potential to receive the form of an object. However, they do not cause themselves to sense and they are not spontaneously sensing with no cause. Rather, the actual object actualizes the potential in the sense. This understanding of causality renders the cause and the effect to be connected and simultaneous. This is in contrast to David Hume s view of causality. Consider two object colliding with one another; Hume says, [W]e find only that the one body approaches the other; and that the motion of it precedes that of the other, but without any sensible interval. Tis in vain to rack ourselves with farther thought and reflection upon this subject (emphasis added). 10 Feser uses the example of throwing a brick at a window in his book 10 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (London, 1739), 78,

7 5 The Last Superstition. 11 According to Hume s view, the brick hitting the window is one event and the window breaking is a second event. There is no connection between the two events except that humans have made an unjustified psychological connection from watching an event happen, and then watching a second event follow. If there is no connection between events, then to claim that one causes the other is to commit the Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy. The Aristotelian and Thomist avoid the fallacy by understanding that there is a real connection between causes and effects. Feser explains that the immediate efficient cause is not prior to the effect but rather simultaneous with the effect. 12 As the brick touches the window there is a time, if only a millisecond, when the brick is moving with the window. Physicists understand that as a brick touches a window the force from the brick is transferred to the glass. As the force leaves one it enters the other. There is no delay; one is giving while the other is receiving. The point is that there is an actual brick with a certain hardness and speed hitting a window that has the potential to break if it receives a certain amount of force. When the actuality of the brick actualizes the potential in the window to break, the window shatters. The key is that there is a real connection between the cause and effect. The senses are analogous to the window, and a material object is comparable to a brick. The object actualizes the potential in a sense organ. However, they are not loose and separate; they are simultaneous and connected. Recall that a form is an actualizing pattern, and it exists when matter has such a pattern. The observer can then sense this pattern. In other words, this object can act on the senses of the observer. Aristotle says, The sense of any sense-object is Edward Feser, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism (St. Augustine s Press, 2010), Ibid., 66.

8 6 acted upon by a thing having colour or flavour or sound; not, however, in respect of what each, is called as a particular thing, but in so far as each has a certain quality and according to its informing principle. 13 The informing principle is referencing the form of the object. People do not take in the whole object, just the form of the object (which is immaterial). For this reason, it is not necessary to directly touch the object. For instance, eyeballs do not touch the object at which they look. In the case of sight, light is a medium to deliver the form to the senses. The object actualizes the light, which is reflected, and the observer s eyes are actualized by the light. This same pattern follows with the other senses. Aquinas explains, There must be a medium affected by sound or odour, which itself then affects our sense of hearing or of smell. 14 But note that the form is not material itself, it is the principle of whatness by which the material is actualized. Thus, this same principle can actualize both the matter of the object, the medium, and the matter of the senses in the observer. Thus, the senses become the object they observe. Aquinas says, Since, then, sight perceives an object and its actuality, and the one who sees is assimilated to the object, so that his act of seeing is the same being as the actuality of the object (though the mind can distinguish them). 15 So the mind can distinguish between the form acting in the senses and the form acting in the object. However, it is the same being in both. Consider grasping a baseball and discovering that it is round. The hand becomes round, but in a different way than the baseball. Furthermore, even while wearing a glove, the roundness would still be perceived 13 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle s De Anima, trans. Kenelm Foster and Sylvester Humphries, 402a1-411b30 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951), Ibid., Ibid., 591.

9 7 through that medium. This is analogous to seeing an object. Light is to the eyes like a glove is to the hand. In both cases the observation is not direct but it is not completely hindered. The two points above have significant ramifications in answering problems in modern epistemologies. The first point is that the senses are acted on by the form, and in a way, become the form. The second is that the same form in the object is in the senses. This is not the form being copied from the object and into the person. The same form in the object is also in the person. An example of this is on a computer, one picture can remain as one file on the storage drive. The same bytes of data can be opened by three programs at once. PowerPoint, Photoshop, and Paint might all display the picture slightly differently as they express the data in slightly different ways, but what is displayed on the screen in all three instances is the actualization of the bytes to be displayed in a graphical configuration on the screen. The alternative to this is to copy the data and have three sets of identical bytes. The question arises, if you only have access to one set of bytes, how do you know that the other sets of bytes are identical? What if corruption occurred, or the data in one set of bytes is lying about the other bytes existence? These questions do not arise if all three programs have access to the same bytes. With observation, the matter, light, and eyes all receive the form of an object. They may manifest this actualization in different ways, but the form is the same. Aquinas should not be criticized for not having access to the original external reality. If the form was being copied, this would be a concern, but instead the same form actualizes the matter, light, and eyes so that the observer has direct access to reality. This also avoids the problem of induction. For Aquinas, an essence can be abstracted by careful examination instead of hastily inferring a universal from a small sample. Up to this point, it might seem as though Aristotle and Aquinas only have knowledge of what they see. This is because only sensation has been described because it is the starting place of knowledge. Aquinas

10 8 affirms his stance clearly in the Summa Theologiæ, Our natural knowledge begins from sense. 16 However, truths that are not observable can be known because the form of the object does not remain in the senses; the intellect can receive the form. Intellect Now that the sense has reality, the form goes to the intellect. Since this form is immaterial, whatever receives it must be immaterial as well. In fact, since the intellect is receiving forms, the intellect itself is a form. As Aquinas argues, Now a thing is known in as far as its form is in the knower. But the intellectual soul knows a thing in its nature absolutely and therefore the form is in the intellectual soul. Therefore the intellectual soul itself is an absolute form. 17 Aquinas is clear that the intellect is not in the senses. The senses reside in a material sense organ, and the intellect does not. Furthermore, they have different roles in the receiving of information. He says, Now intellect and sense are moved by their objects, the one by an intelligible thing to understand it, the other by a sensible thing, to sense it. 18 The senses take in limited aspects of a form. Consider a bird: the eyes see the shape, the hands feel the smooth feathers, and the ears hear the chirps. However, the intellect does not have separate places of understanding the different senses. The intellect combines all the principles of the bird form into a single bird form. Recall that all of the senses had access to the same form and took in the same form; they did not make separate copies of the form. This seems to be why the intellect can understand it as one form, which is the nature of a bird. ST I, Q12, A Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Revised., 1920, 17 Ibid., I, Q75, A5. 18 Aquinas, Commentary on De Anima, 606.

11 9 In addition to understanding, people can imagine and form opinions. All four of these are separate. Aristotle says, Concerning understanding, since it is one thing and sensation another, while imagination seems to differ from both of these and from opinion also. 19 Aristotle and Aquinas go on to describe how imagination works and how opinions are formed. However, imagination and opinion are separate from understanding and outside the scope of this paper. Starting with reality, an observer takes in forms and they come into the intellect. Through this process one comes to know reality. They can reason about the forms and draw conclusions they had not directly observed. In this view, there is no reason for epistemic skepticism or crippling doubt. While humans are generally fallible, they are also generally right about everyday objects. Aquinas view makes sense of that experience and allows for a reasonable degree of certainty. As knowledge begins with the senses, so does certainty. That certainty is brought into the intellect where a person can recognize it. Certainty Dealing with epistemic doubt is a noble cause. However, the methodological doubt put forth by Descartes is not the correct way to find certainty in a framework. Nevertheless, dismissing doubt because most people do not doubt is also not helpful. Even though Aquinas has provided a method by which something in external reality can be brought internally into the intellect, this is obviously not always perfect. Any realistic epistemology must account for the errors that humans make. Because people commit errors, it seems that doubt is a legitimate 19 Aristotle, De Anima, trans. Kenelm Foster and Sylvester Humphries, 402a1-411b30 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951), 637.

12 10 concern. However, human error does not render all beliefs false until proven true. It simply means that one must use caution. For this reason, Aquinas epistemic certainty will be examined. According to Aquinas, reality is in the mind. This is knowledge. This avoids the problems of induction while avoiding the arbitrariness of being born with innate knowledge. While it is good to look at multiple similar objects, (for instance, trees) one does not have to withhold judgement about all trees or be extremely qualified about the low probability of all trees having a certain nature. Rather, one can observe multiple trees and gradually abstract the nature of a tree. The more investigation, the clearer the nature or essence will be. Interestingly, for Aquinas, there are some things that humans cannot mistake. He says, Each sense judges the objects proper to itself and is not mistaken about these But the senses can be deceived both about objects only incidentally sensible and about objects common to several senses. Thus sight would prove fallible were one to attempt to judge by sight what a coloured thing was or where it was. 20 There are some things that only one sense can detect, such as color or weight. These are the proper objects of sensation. The only way to detect these attributes is to use the correct sense organ. Thus, if someone is using their eyes, they are seeing color, and if they are using their ears, they are hearing noise. They cannot be mistaken that they are sensing these things because that is precisely what that sense organ does. However, Aquinas rightly observes that what the object is that is reflecting the color, or where the object is located is another matter about which persons can be mistaken. If one hears a sound, they are correct that they heard a sound, but what produced the sound is not the proper object of sensing, and so one might be entirely wrong about the origin of the sound. If one were to hallucinate, this would originate in the mind and not the senses, and Aquinas is quite eager to admit that one can 20 Aquinas, Commentary on De Anima,

13 11 imagine errors. He says, But phantasms [imaginations] are very often deceptive, when there is nothing real that corresponds to them. 21 Furthermore, opinions must also be capable of error because they rely on the imagination: For imagination is other than both sensation and intellect. Yet it cannot occur without sensation, and without it there is no opinion. 22 From this, it can be concluded that humans do have access to reality, and they can be certain about some things, yet wrong about other things. The next step is to examine some of the things that one can be certain are true. First Principles The one commonality between all that is observed is that those items exist. It is possible to recollect essences after they cease to exist. If a dog dies, this has no effect on the other dogs with the same form, or essence. Thus, the existence is separate from the essence. Nevertheless, because the form exists when it is abstracted, a person can learn about existence from the form. The form actualizes the senses in a way that is based on what the form is, but existence is the reason that the form actualizes anything. Because existence is common in all sense experience, and sense experience is the basis for knowledge, the principles of existence are the most fundamental truths. While general observation can tell a person about aspects of one essence, learning about existence is applicable to all of reality. The basic truths about existence are the first principles of being. Geisler explains, The only way to understand being or reality as such is by the first principles of being, for all thought 21 Aquinas, Commentary on De Anima, Ibid., 632.

14 12 is based on and is reducible to the first principle of reality. 23 He goes on to explain that the principles must be self-evident because all evidence is based on them. 24 And since they are selfevident, they are principles that are understood in terms of themselves. When the subject is understood and the predicate is understood, the statement is known to be true. As Aquinas says, For first principles become known through the natural light of the agent intellect, and they are not acquired by any process of reasoning but by having their terms become known. 25 In Kantian terms these are analytic statements as opposed to synthetic statements. 26 Using these principles that are reducible to themselves as first principles of reality is called reductive foundationalism. Geisler explains, Reductive foundationalism, as in Thomas Aquinas, begins with reality and proceeds to reduce what we know intuitively about it to self-evident first principles. 27 So far, it has been explained how reality gets into the mind, how existence is knowable, and how the principles are analytically true. Now, the principles will be presented. These principles will provide a foundation for logic, and hence the ability to reason about the forms a person receives in the senses and understands in the intellect. They also provide some examples of the types of information one can know with metaphysical certainty in Aquinas epistemology. Logical certainty entails a contradictory statement when denied. 28 Metaphysical certainty entails 23 Norman L. Geisler, Christian Apologetics, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), Norman L. Geisler, Christian Apologetics, Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle s Physics Book IV, trans. Richard Blackwell, Richard Spath, and W. Edmund Thirlkel (Yale University Press, 1963), Georges Rey, The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction, ed. Edward N. Zalta, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2016), n. pag., accessed April 21, 2017, 27 Ibid., Norman L. Geisler, Certainty/Certitude, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, November 1, 1998), 124.

15 13 a contradiction with the reality of the denial. For instance, if one were to state, I do not speak English, their statement does not contain a contradiction. However, the very act of saying the claim contradicts the claim. So it is with a statement such as I do not exist. While it does not contain a contradiction within it, the very act of making the statement contradicts the reality of the person s own existence (the person must exist to make the statement). This is an example of metaphysical certainty; that is, beliefs that are certainly true simply because the belief exists. The first principle is quite simple: being is. This is the principle of existence. 29 To deny this, one would have to exist. Thus, the act of denying this principle would prove the principle. It is reductively true because the verb is is a state of being verb in third person singular. The most basic form of the verb is to be. Both the word being and the word is reference existence. Being is the noun and is is the verb form of the same referent. The second principle is: being is being. This is the law of identity. 30 It simply says that existence is identical to itself. To deny this, one would have to identify what is being denied. The third is: being is not nonbeing. This is the law of noncontradiction. 31 Given the double negative, when analyzed, this statement reduces into the second statement. This is expected because the predicates all reduce into the subject, and the subject is being in all of these statements. The fourth principle is: either being or nonbeing. This is the law of excluded middle. 32 The opposite of this is: both being and nonbeing. Something cannot exist and not exist at the 29 Geisler, Christian Apologetics, Ibid., Ibid. 32 Ibid.

16 14 same time and in the same sense. That is a contradiction. Thus, a denial of this principle entails a contradiction. These principles are different descriptions of the truth that there is no contradiction in existence. These principles, and others, govern reality; they apply to all that exists. Aquinas says, [F]irst principles pertain to being as being. From mathematical objects to empirical objects, there is no contradiction within them. Conclusion It has been shown that Aquinas outlined a robust epistemology capable of answering and explaining many of the basic questions of knowledge and certainty. Understanding essence and existence is crucial for understanding Thomistic thought. After knowing what an essence is, it was shown how it actualizes the senses. From there it is brought into the intellect. Once in the intellect, they can be reflected on and truths about existence are recognizable. Because of the process of knowing an essence and the nature of first principle truths, the some things can be known with metaphysical certainty.

17 15 Bibliography Aquinas, Thomas. Commentary on Aristotle s De Anima. Translated by Kenelm Foster and Sylvester Humphries. 402a1-411b30. New Haven: Yale University Press, Commentary on Aristotle s Physics Book II. Translated by Richard Blackwell, Richard Spath, and W. Edmund Thirlkel. Yale University Press, Commentary on Aristotle s Physics Book IV. Translated by Richard Blackwell, Richard Spath, and W. Edmund Thirlkel. Yale University Press, Summa Theologiæ. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Revised., Aristotle. De Anima. Translated by Kenelm Foster and Sylvester Humphries. 402a1-411b30. New Haven: Yale University Press, Physics Book II. Translated by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye, 350AD. Feser, Edward. Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction. Piscataway, NJ: Editiones Scholasticae, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism. St. Augustine s Press, Geisler, Norman L. Certainty/Certitude. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, November 1, Christian Apologetics. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, Thomas Aquinas. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, November 1, Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. London, Oderberg, David S. Real Essentialism. Routledge, Rey, Georges. The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, Accessed April 21,