"Homo non est intellectus". Aquinas about relation between soul and intellect

Author(s): Michał Zembrzuski / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2017

This paper discusses Thomas Aquinas’ stance on the relation between intellect and human soul, where the former is a power and the latter its principle. Due to the fact that Aquinas understands soul as the form of a body, rather than its mover, the problem of how to separate and characterize intellective powers arises. For it is accidental intellectuality that enables cognitive and volitional acts, which are independent of body in their essence. To explain his own position, Aquinas employs the so-called “impediment argument” for the spirituality of the human intellect. He also employs the whole/part distinction when discussing the relation between intellect and soul as whole/part categories. As a result, his account can avoid Averroistic flaws without having to identify intellect with the soul or the whole human being (as argued by Albert the Great). M. Gogacz’s thesis that the intellectual accident of the soul is identical with the possible intellect seems to solve the problem of the accidental and potential character of this particular human power.

"Quintavia” św. Tomasza z Akwinu we współczesnej dyskusji filozoficzno-przyrodniczej

Author(s): Mirosław Twardowski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2017

Dla św. Tomasza z Akwinu celowość, jako istotny element w wyjaśnianiu świata, obejmuje całą przyrodę, zarówno nieożywioną, jak i ożywioną, w tym byty rozumne. Widoczna jest ona w aktywności bytów fizycznych, które działają w taki sposób, aby osiągnąć to, co jest dla nich najlepsze. Tak rozumiana celowość wyklucza przypadek i jest argumentem wskazującym na istnienie Boga. Kazimierz Kłósak dostrzega konieczność reinterpretacji piątej drogi św. Tomasza, w punkcie wyjścia kładąc nacisk na porządek występujący w świecie bytów ożywionych, a nie na celowość. Według Christopha Schönborna wnikliwa obserwacja wszechświata, Ziemi, życia dostarcza nam „przytłacza-jących dowodów” na istnienie porządku, planu i celu. Przestrzega jednak przed zbyt po-chopnymi próbami doszukiwania się wszędzie „inteligentnego projektu”. Richard Dawkins przekonuje, że silne złudzenie, że świat został zaprojektowany lub stworzony w jakimś celu, da się łatwo wytłumaczyć jako skutki działania darwinowskiego doboru naturalnego i mutacji. Francisco J. Ayala twierdzi, że nie ma sprzeczności między mechanizmami ewo-lucji a działaniem Boga Stwórcy. Ewolucję postrzega on jako naturalny proces, za pomo-cą którego Bóg stworzył istoty żywe, a także rozwinął je zgodnie ze swoim planem. Paul Davies, choć nie uważa, że wszystkie bez wyjątku złożone układy stanowią wynik koń-cowy naturalnych procesów, podkreśla jednak, że należy zachować ostrożność w wycią-ganiu jednoznacznego wniosku o istnieniu projektodawcy na podstawie powierzchownych obserwacji. Dla Roberta Jamesa Berry logiczne i naukowo poprawne jest komplementarne podejście do zagadnienia przyczynowości: naturalistyczne i teistyczne. John C. Polkin-ghorne podkreśla, że Bóg pozostaje ze światem w nieustannej interakcji, chociaż nie inter-weniuje doraźnie w zachodzące w nim procesy. Wreszcie, według Michała Hellera, Bóg stwarzając świat, „określił strategię wkomponowywania przypadków w działanie praw przyrody”.

A Common Good in Doctrinal and Legal Terms. An Attempt at a Holistic Approach

Author(s): Paweł Sydor / Language(s): English / Issue: 9.1/2018

The aim of the article is to present two opposing visions of the common good (value) in the history of political and legal doctrines. Such outline of extreme positions allows the author to assess the wide range of doctrinal differences in particular epochs and to impose the principles of the rule of law expressed in art. 2 of the Constitution in the historical tradition derived from the ancient republicanism and political and legal thought of the Middle Ages and which absorbs the postulates of modern liberalism, republicanism and conservatism, based on the democratic model.

A Critical Analysis of Some of the Arguments for the Illegitimacy of Rational Investigation in Religion

Author(s): Husain Agha Shiraz / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2018

The permissibility of rational investigation into matters of religion is atopic that has always been a subject of debate among Muslim scholars. It is even possible to categorize the various sects within the Islamic world based upon their view regarding this subject. Some Muslim scholars went to extremes in their rational investigations, to the extent that they attempted to prove any and every religious verity by means of logic and reason. Otherswere at the opposite end of the spectrum in that they rejected all forms of rational discourse and said that the sole way to attain the truth is by means of a blind imitation of religion. Of course, there were many groups between the two. This paper seeks to critically analyze some of the arguments of the group of scholars who say that it is absolutely impermissible to use reason to understand religion. These arguments revolve around the comprehensiveness of the Qur’an, the idea that useful knowledge only belongs to the pious, the fact that rational investigation leads to the rejection of the apparent meanings of the religious texts, that rational investigation was introduced in the Islamic world with evil motives, that it sometimes leads to incorrect conclusions, that it leads to a vicious circle of argumentation, the idea that people often arrive at correct conclusions without the need forlogic, that reality does not observe the formal laws of logic, etc. There are some objections that are common to all of these arguments and there aresome that are specific to each one of them. In brief, none of these arguments are sound.

A Foreword to Eriugena’s Periphyseon

Author(s): Gerd Van Riel / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2014

A short summary of Ibn Gabirol’s Fons Vitae Book One

Author(s): Timo Schmitz / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2018

Ibn Gabirol Fons Vitae is one of the most renowned books of medieval Jewish Neoplatonism which is dedicated to the matter of true knowledge of the world and its substances. In this paper, we want to summarize the thought process of Ibn Gabirol as the work is very profound, it shall be a help for all students of Ibn Gabirol’s philosophy to grasp his basic world outlook. All references are taken from the Jacob-translation.

A success story in Central Europe: the Lumen anime, its manuscript tradition, its versions, its attribution

Author(s): Baudouin Van den Abeele / Language(s): English / Issue: 44/2014

The 14th century Lumen anime, a collection of materials for sermons introduced by short scientific statements, is known through several versions (Lumen A, B and C). A further version is presented here as Lumen D, the Proprietates rerum naturalium adaptatae sermonibus de tempore, which has not been recognized so far. A new overview of the manuscript tradition is given, adding 35 copies to the existing lists (R. & M. Rouse, N. Harris), which brings the total amount of manuscripts to 205. The text has been especially successful in Central Europe, with a majority of copies in Bavaria, Austria, Bohemia and Poland. Medieval provenances are, when known, linked most often to contemplative orders (Benedictines and Cistercians) or canons (Augustinians, Premonstratensians). In an epilogue, the attribution of Lumen A to Berengar of Landorra, archbishop of Compostella, is discussed and several arguments are advanced against it. The appendix gives a complete list of manuscripts of the Lumen anime.

A Trial of Interpretation of Meister Eckhart’s Thought on God and Man through the Analysis of Its Paradoxes

Author(s): Zbigniew Kaźmierczak / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

This article interprets Eckhart’s contradictions by presenting them as a result of an existential search for salvific power. It is shown that power is ambivalent in nature: it is the power of what is and the power of (self)overcoming (of what is). Just because power is in itself ambivalent and the process of searching for it existentialist (so not completely conscious), Eckhart’s mystical texts are full of contradictions and the German mystic is apparently not aware of it. The sample of them is shown in this article with regard to his ideas on God and man. Three other interpretations of Eckhart’s (“apophatic,” “educational,” “methodological”) are presented and argued against.

Abbagnanowska krytyka tradycyjnej filozofii: Augustyn, Descartes, Kant

Author(s): Jakub Bartoszewski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2016

The article discusses the issue of possibilities in the context of Abbagnano’s perspective on traditional philosophy. Following the founder of the philosophy of possibilities, certain philosophers were selected who in the opinion of the Italian existentialist had a significant impact on culture and philosophical tradition. Therefore, only three figures are discussed: Augustine, Descartes and Kant.

Abelaro teologijos metodologija

Author(s): Dalia Marija Stančienė / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 36/2004

Despite the condemnation of the Council of Soissons, Abélard continued his theological writing. In 1120- 1140 he wrote the Theologia christiana, the Theologia Scholarum, and Sic et non as commentaries to the Book of Genesis and to the Epistle to the Romans. In these works Abélard repeats all his theses condemned by the Council of Soissons. He applies a method which deals with apparently incompatible authors. It demands the precise definition of words, the meaning of which changes because of different contexts and different authors. At first Abélard gives a precise exposition of contrary opinions, then indicates the points of their contradictions, and finally shows the possible ways of their solution. The most difficult contradictions he finds in matters of the Catholic faith. Abélard treats them by purely logical methods and therefore he undermines the authority of the Scriptures and the Catholic faith. In 1140 the Council of Sens condemned the whole of Abélard’s theology as heretical.

ACADEMIILE DOMNEŞTI DIN BUCUREŞTI ŞI IAŞI ŞI ÎNCEPUTURILE ÎNVĂŢĂMÂNTULUI FILOSOFIC ROMÂNESC MODERN. SCHIŢA UNUI CONTEXT ISTORIC ŞI CULTURAL

Author(s): Dragoș Popescu / Language(s): Romanian,Moldavian / Issue: 1/2016

The paper presents the historical and cultural context of the establishmentof the two higher education institutions in the capital cities of the Romanian Principalities(Moldavia and Wallachia), between around 1700 and 1821. In the investigated period,the political and economic dependence of Moldavia and Wallachia to the OttomanEmpire increased, but the administrative organization of the two Principalitiesimproved. At the Princely Academies of Bucharest and Jassy, the education was held inGreek (the recognized language for culture and religion in the former regions of theByzantine Empire), many teachers being Greek language speakers, while the studentswere mainly of Romanian upper class origin or Orthodox Christians from the OttomanEmpire. There are two important periods in the functioning of the Princely Academies:1. The Neo-Aristotelian Period (around 1700 – around 1770); 2. The EnlightenmentPeriod (around 1770–1821). The article analyses each period, with a special focus onthe philosophical disciplines taught in the respective time.

Adequatio rei et intellectus kod Tome Akvinskog

Author(s): Ivan Dunđer / Language(s): Bosnian / Issue: 1/2014

The aim of this work is to express standpoint about concept of the truth as it was taken and supported by Thomas Aquinas. He was convinced that truth is spread all over the world and that the primarly task of the human thought is to seek and gather the truth. His originality is in its entirety. He does not repeat some old ideas. Thomas is a realist in a special sense who resolves all the difficulties and problems that carry the question of reality with faith in reality. Things are more realistic than they are shown to us. We have to discover them. They are unrealistic if they are just in the row of the possibilities, and not in the reality. They are still incomplete and they are waiting for their further development. Thomas loved God more than his mind, and yet he loved the mind more than any other philosopher. He was an apostle of the mind, a teacher of truth and a renewer of intellectuality not only for 13th century but also for our time. Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas is a philosophy of faith and truth which is known, and at the same time a philosophy of natural reason. According to the methodological principle, suspicion is necessarily the starting point for unbiased scientific and theological research, and the aim of this research is to remove suspicion. But it is necessarily to be on clear with the suspicion on its own and to know what we can resonably doubt. Because the one who doubts in all, doubts also in validation of his own doubt. God's being is the first and the most perfect, and his truth is the first and highest. The truth for Thomas, by his definition, which remained stigmatized for the whole scholastic period defined as an adequate, is an adequate state of rei et intellectus. Thinking further about the truth, Thomas answers on question: is there only one truth where everything is true? It is emphasized again that the truth, all truths, expressed about things in comparation with human mind do not affect on the existence of the thing in their essence because there is a truth about these things in comparation with god's mind that is inseparable from them. That is why everything is true, thanks to one truth and that is the truth of the God's mind. On that truth, which comes from God's mind into ours, we judge everything. It is not changeable and cannot be aqcuired with the human sense. Everything that is sensational owns something similar to false, so that can be recognized, but there is nothing false in the true. Something is considered for truth when truth exist in mind and when it is not a reality. If the truth of things is observed in the right way towards the human mind, it can be changed either into a lie or to another truth.When compared with things, the statement is considered true if it is in accordance with them. From this comparison comes out variability of the truth, and the first truth remains unchanged. When one thing changes because of it's decay, which is important to the thing, it will change truth of the thing. The mind, while realizes the truth thinks of its own act, realizes its relation to things, co-forms with things, in fact, the mind realizes even the truth of the mind, it thinks about itself. So, in comparation with God's mind one thing cannot be false. In comparison with the human mind, a disharmony of thing with the mind sometimes happens, and that disharmony is always caused from thing itself.

Affectio iustitiae при Джон Дънс Скот

Author(s): Bistra Gospodinova / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 24/2018

This exposition regards to some moments of the theory of will of Duns Scotus as it is presented in Ordinatio II, distinctio 38. According to the Thomist’s teachings, the will is considered an intention of the intellect toward happiness, i.e. toward goodness. In this sense, the will is affectio comodi. The problem of this conception, as Duns Scotus thinks, is related to the question of the freedom of will. Scotus does not accept the idea that the will, on one hand, is freely acting power and at the same time is power, which desires goodness with necessity. That is the reason, Soctus to bring into his philosophical system one additional necessary guarantee for the freedom of will – and that affectio iustitiae, which is precisely the focus of this paper.

Agnostos Theos: Relacja między nieskończonością a niepoznawalnością Boga w doktrynach medioplatoników

Author(s): Damian Mrugalski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2019

In the times preceding the emergence of Neo-Platonism (1st–3rd century BC), the philosophers now known as Middle Platonists elaborated an extensive reflection on the possibility of knowing God, and the ways that could lead to acquiring knowledge about the transcendent. According to Plato, “To discover the Maker and Father of this Universe were a task indeed; and having discovered Him, to declare Him unto all men were a thing impossible” (Plato, Timaeus 28c). The Middle Platonists believed that God, whom they sometimes identified with the Platonic One and Good, is possible to know but not possible to express. Even though the knowledge of God is accompanied by all the difficulties associated with the process of intellectual and ethical improvement, and although what one comes to know in this process is ultimately impossible to express in human language, gaining knowledge of God and becoming like Him is nevertheless the goal of all Platonic philosophy. Jewish and Christian thinkers working at this time came to similar conclusions. These include Philo of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, who are themselves sometimes deemed Middle-Platonic philosophers. Unlike their pagan colleagues, they believed that man’s process of coming to know God would go on forever. They thought that the finite human mind would never be able to contain the infinite, and they held that the essence and power of God are indeed infinite. The goal of this article is to expose the relationship between the infinity and the unknowability of God, and at the same time to point out the differences in the theses put forward on this question by pagan Middle Platonists and those who accepted Judeo-Christian revelation.

Ako je možná metafyzika? Východisko a metóda metafyziky u Johanna Dunsa Scota

Author(s): Ludger Honnefelder / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 3/2002

Každa epocha dejIn filozofie pozna mysliteaov, ktorých osobitný význam spočiva v tom, že pomohli preniknut' novému sposobu pýtania sa a hovorenia.

Akt i możność w poznaniu anielskim według Tomasza z Akwinu

Author(s): Tomasz Tiuryn / Language(s): Polish / Issue: XXI/2015

The topic of this paper is Aquinas’ doctrine of angelic cognition. Its point of departure is the importance of the opposition between actuality and potentiality in angelic cognition. This perspective enables us to see how the differentiation of cognitive powers in terms of actuality and potentiality becomes the basis for the emergence of the angelic hierarchy. Also, it allows us to stress the contrast between human and angelic cognitive powers. One of the particular problems which arise within the discussion of angelic cognitive powers is the relation between angels and the order of time. Aquinas’ remarks about their cognition show that angels also participate to some extent in the order of time. Furthermore, he unequivocally states that angels are able to cognize particular material entities that change within time. This poses some difficulties for Aquinas’ doctrine that are dealt with in the second part of the paper.

Akty woli w myśli średniowiecznej — od św. Augustyna do Wilhelma z Auxerre

Author(s): Monika Michałowska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2017

Harry Frankfurt’s concept of autonomy that has been acknowledged as one of the most important theories of autonomy underlines the essential role of a moral agent’s ability to reflect on herself and her life. The core element of the concept is the ability of a moral agent to formulate first as well as second order desires. Intriguing seems the fact that we can find the concepts referring to the complexity of the will and its first and second order acts already in medieval thought. In this paper I examine the development of the terminology and argumentation employed in these medieval concepts which analyze first and second order acts of the will as well as the subtle difference between various acts of the will. I focus on the concepts formulated until the first half of the 13th century pointing out to the terminology and arguments which became the point of departure for late medieval theories of the will.

Akviniečio Ir Avicebrono Disputo Dél Paprastųjų Substancijų Sandaros Teo-Filosofinis Pamatas

Author(s): Gintautas Vyšniauskas / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 55/2008

The article discusses Thomas Aquinas’s polemics with Jewish-Arab thinker Solomon ibn Gabirol (lat. Avicebron). Aquinas focuses his critique on the hylomorphic structure of the simple substances postulated by Avicebron. But the analyses and comparison of the texts of both the thinkers lead us to the more fundamental philosophical problem of relation between simplicity and complexity, unity and diversity, one and many or, to be more precise, to the question, how it could be possible to derive diversity from the absolute unity? It seems that Aquinas derives diversity directly from the First Principle but corrupts its simplicity introducing into it Aristotelian causes. Avicebron preserves the unicity of the First Creator by deriving the diversity of the world from two secondary principles: the universal matter and universal form. However, in both cases we observe the solution of the problem by means of creating similar problem in another place: Aquinas has to speak of the absolutely simple triune First Being; Avicebron - of the simple composed substances. We conclude that these oxymoronic concepts of the medieval thinkers could be treated either as manifestation of ultimate logical incompatibility of Platonism an Aristotelianism with theism or as the metes of rational human knowledge beyond which the realm of mysticism and pure faith starts.

Akviniečio Ir Avicebrono Disputo Dël Paprastuju Substanciju Sandaros Teo-Filosofinis Pamatas

Author(s): Gintautas Vyšniauskas / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 54/2008

The article discusses Thomas Aquinas’s polemics with Jewish-Arab thinker Solomon ibn Gabirol (lat. Avicebron). Aquinas focuses his critique on the hylomorphic structure of the simple substances postulated by Avicebron. But the analyses and comparison of the texts of both the thinkers lead us to the more fundamental philosophical problem of relation between simplicity and complexity, unity and diversity, one and many or, to be more precise, to the question, how it could be possible to derive diversity from the absolute unity? It seems that Aquinas derives diversity directly from the First Principle but corrupts its simplicity introducing into it Aristotelian causes. Avicebron preserves the unicity of the First Creator by deriving the diversity of the world from two secondary principles: the universal matter and universal form. However, in both cases we observe the solution of the problem by means of creating similar problem in another place: Aquinas has to speak of the absolutely simple triune First Being; Avicebron - of the simple composed substances. We conclude that these oxymoronic concepts of the medieval thinkers could be treated either as manifestation of ultimate logical incompatibility of Platonism an Aristotelianism with theism or as the metes of rational human knowledge beyond which the realm of mysticism and pure faith starts.

Akvinietis apie teisingumą

Author(s): Eleonore Stump / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 38/2004

The article focuses on the ethical consideration concerning the choice between the ethics of justice and the ethics of care, which currently dominates the horizon of ethical problematics. Another distinction, formulated by Nagel, deals with the tension between individual and impersonal standpoints in the sphere of political theories. The author attempts to demonstrate that Aquinas’ theory of justice provides unique and actual opportunities to combine the above-mentioned oppositions and create a feasible, yet practically complicated, ideal for their solution. Detailing particular aspects of Aquinas’ theory, e.g. his insistence on the necessity to help the poor and provide “brotherly correction for wrongdoers”, the author discovers that this might well be helpful, considering the acute problems of nowadays, the evaluation of collaboration with the Nazis and the evasion of overestimation of utilitaristic and liberally formalistic approaches.