Philosophical Psychology II (Study of the Philosophical Proofs for the Soul)

8/14/2019 Philosophical Psychology II (Study of the Philosophical Proofs for the Soul)

1/45

Philosophical Psychology II

(Study of the Philosophical Proofs for the Soul)

Class Notes(Taken at a Pontifical University)

First Lesson:

First general definition of the soul according to St. Thomas: The soul is the first principle of life.

Questions 75-76 of Summa Theologica (ST); Content:

First problem: Incorporeality/immateriality of the soul seen from different points of view. Then he moves on to its

being a form and a substance.Second problem: Simplicity of the soul. From there he goes to the incorruptibility of the soul (he is not talking about

immortality of the soul).

Third problem: Union between soul and body (human person) and the number of the souls we have.

Question 75, 1st article: Whether the soul is a body.

This sounds strange because you could rephrase the question as Is the immaterial material? and you might want to

ask first whether there is a soul in us at all. But according to St. Thomas definition of the soul the question makes

sense, because we dont find anything as immateriality in his 1st definition of the soul. So Thomas needs a proof for

the immateriality or materiality of the soul. Thomas is not a materialist. He accepts material and spiritual dimensions of

reality. But his division is not exhaustive, because he admits the existence of the human person, which is partially

material and immaterial reality. This kind of reality (the human person) is due to the fact that we have a particular kind

of soul according to Thomas.

Proving the immateriality of the soul Thomas engages in a dialogue with the old philosophers, starting with the

Sophists. They claimed whatever exists is a corporeal reality, what is not a corporeal reality does not exist. In doing so

they confused two things: They confused what is a material source of the vital activities with what is the first

principle of life. There is a difference between these. As an example Thomas talks about seeing: There can be a

bodily principle of the vital activity (seeing), which is not a cause of life. In order to perform a vital act (an act, which

speaks about life) we have to use bodily organs. So parts of our bodies are material sources of our vital acts. A body

can be seen an a material source of life. There the ancients were right from a particular point of view, because in this

limited dimension we can say that the body is a principle of life. But nobody would say, that the eye (being a material

source or vital act) is a soul. Because the eye is only the material principle needed in order to perform an act, but it is

not the source of life. Imagine an eye separated from the living organism. It will not perform a vital act, because it is

not the first principle of life, or the root of life. So Thomas says it is clear that some principles of life are of bodily

nature, but body as such is not the soul, therefore not the first principle of life. The soul answers the question What

makes the body capable of performing vital acts? What makes it alive? This is not the body, because the body out of

itself does not make itself alive. Thomas concludes the argument saying that there is no soul of whatever kind

(vegetative, sensitive, rational), which can be identified with corporeal reality, which would be a body. If a soul is in


2/45

some respect corporeal, it is not in virtue of its own corporeality. The soul is the first principle of live, of things that

can potentially perform vital acts. It is the first principle of an organized body.

Since it is not material, it has to be a formal principle of life: The soul is a form.

Question 76, 1st article: Whether the intellectual principle united to the body (rational soul) is the bodys form.

Positive answer: The soul is a form!

Man is a rational animal. There is the specific difference of rationality. The genus is animal. The specifying element is

identified with a form. The rational has to be a formal element, because it is a specifying element in us. The soul is

out of which we act in a specific way. This element has to be identified with a formal principle. Soul: This in virtue of

which something acts in a specific way. Nothing acts unless it exists actually. Whatever exists actually, exists under a

specific form. Animals and plants have souls the way we do. But they do not have the soul that is spiritual in the way

the human soul is. Yet Thomas denies strongly that the souls of plants and animals are simple material realities. In

plants and animals the soul is a formal element, too. Thomas speaks of the soul in terms of incorporeality (the soul

not being a corporeal reality), not immateriality. Even in case of plants and animals the soul is not a body. There has

to be a body to perform vital acts, but this body is not the soul, the first principle. There is a formal element always

present in each being belonging to the material world. Difference between plants/animals and humans: The human

soul has the capacity to exist on its own, separated from the body. Immateriality here for Thomas is first in terms of

non-materiality or form, not in a sense like Plato (the forms, which can exist by themselves, have an act of existence

on their own). Thomas is working on Aristotelean notion of form. For Aristotle the form is the reality that cannot exist

independent from matter, the other co-principle of reality. So the form stands in opposition to the body, is immaterial.

Yet it is not immaterial in the Platonic sense. Incorporeality is the first aspect for immateriality of the soul.

Question 75, 2nd article: Whether the human soul is something subsistent.

Subsistence of the soul: Second aspect of the immateriality of the human soul and an aspect proper only to the

human soul.

We already have: No soul of whatever kind can be identified with something corporeal.

Human soul: This what is distinctly human activity: Rationality. So when he speaks about the human soul, Thomas

speaks about rational soul. He speaks about its immateriality not only in negative terms (being non-corporeal). He

defines immateriality of the human soul in affirmative terms: It is a subsistent reality. It has an independent existence.

It can act independently from the body and exist independently from the body. Thats the meaning of subsistent.

Argumentation towards subsistence of the soul: He takes up arguments from Aristotle, from the analysis of the

intellectual acts, the rational thinking. Two claims: 1) The human person by means of his intellect can know all

material things, the whole material universe. 2) The faculty that can reach the cognition of certain things cannot have

in itself those things in its nature, cannot have anything bodily in itself.

1) There is no limitation to what we can know. We are able to grasp the nature of all corporeal realities. Doesnt mean

that we do know every particular thing but rather that no corporeal reality exists that is not potentially an object of our

intellect. We can make potential distinctions between different kinds of existence.

2) The presence of matter implied in organs gives a determined nature to an organ preventing if from knowing all

material things. Our corporeal organs are limited (sight, touch etc.). But we have the potentiality to know everything.

Therefore the principle of knowledge, intellect, cannot directly make use of a material organ. If this was the case our

intellect would be limited in our capacities of knowing as our senses are. It would be complex, but by being corporeal

it would be limited. Our mind is extrinsically dependent on the body. It depends on our bodily organs for the material

from which it can abstract the concepts and formulate judgments and begin to reason. Intellect is kind of using the


3/45

body. It is an objective dependence in regard to the corporeal element. From the subjective point of view (what the

mind is in itself, in its own act of abstracting/understanding/judgment/reasoning) the intellect is independent from

corporeal organs. According to Thomas the intellect (what we can do in virtue of having a rational soul), the highest

vital act is performed without the use of corporeal organs. From there Thomas concludes the subsistence of the soul.

He makes use of a classical principle of traditional metaphysics. Only what can exist by itself can act by itself

(capacity of operating per se). If I wasnt able of a substantial existence I would not be able to perform my own acts.

The human soul responsible for the acts of reasoning, has to have the capacities of existing by itself, because it is

able to perform the act of thinking independent from the body.

Only what exists on its own can act on its own. The human soul does not only in-form the body but has additional

perfections. It also has the perfection of subsistence, because it neither mixed with nor dependent on matter. It is able

to exist apart from the body, which it informs. The soul is so closely united with the body that it is its form, yet it is able

to exist apart from the body. Here we are speaking about a different notion of the form, going beyond Aristotle. We

have here a meaning of the term form that is understood as this reality, which informs the matter making it a

specified body, but goes beyond the opinion that the form always is a co-principle without independent existence. But

because of Thomas discovery of another dimension of being (which is the act of being) we can make the distinction.

For Thomas the biggest difference is not matter and form, but act and potency.

The immateriality of the soul in all cases means non-corporeality (being a form) and in the second place only for

humans it means that it is a subsistent reality. Souls of animals and plants are non-corporeal but not subsistent.

Question 75, 3rd article: Whether the souls of plants and animals are subsistence?

Answer: Nope!

Because they do not have an act which can be performed independently from the body. All vital acts of animals and

plants are always performed mainly using the corporeal organs. These acts are made in dependence of the body.

Nothing acts by virtue on its own, therefore the souls cannot exist on their own.

Question 75, 5th article: Whether the soul is simple?

Is the soul composed of matter and form? Sounds weird, again. But if we know what Thomas speaks about, it

becomes clear: If we take the definition of matter not as extended and tangible, but as potential, then the question is

not out of place. The immaterial realities, which are the soul can be questioned/analyzed from the point of view of its

being composed. If something is immaterial it doesnt mean that it is not composed. Bonaventure, someone from

Thomas time, claimed that the soul is immaterial but also is composed. Thomas question was directed at people who

had another definition/interpretation of what is the material co-principle of reality. They interpreted material principle

not as extended and tangible but as potentiality, a capacity of undergoing changes or assuming new qualities. From

this point of view it could be said that the soul has a corporeal element, because by means of the act of living beings it

is assuming new qualities (ignorance to knowledge i.e.).

According to Thomas this is not correct. Strictly speaking it is not the soul passing from ignorance to knowledge but

the human person, because the act of knowing presupposes the preparatory stages (bodily) of the sensorial

apparatus. Even if Thomas says that if someone a) assumes that the soul is a concrete entity and b) defines

materiality as potentiality, there seem to be no good reasons to deny that the soul is composed of matter and form.

But making a correct distinction of different types of potentiality, we will see that Bonaventure is not correct. There are

three different levels of contrast between actuality and potentiality:

- The substance is in potency toward accidents

- Prime matter is in potency towards substantial form


4/45

- The essence stands in potency towards an act of existence

Substance is in potentiality to take on different accidental forms. Matter is what has the potentiality towards substantial

forms, forms that change the substantial reality, make a different substantial being. The soul being a substance is

changing in the act it is performing, but it assumes only accidental forms. All the acts of knowledge are introducing

only accidental changes. If they were substantial, the soul would be changing whatever it is in every act of knowledge.

The soul cannot assume in itself another substantial form. A substantial form stands in potency towards matter.

There is a composition of matter and form not in a sense as Bonaventure thought. Potentiality means that we are

speaking about the whole of the soul. The soul in itself is potentiality towards accidental changes. There is a

composition in the soul, yes, but not like Bonaventure, because that would mean that the soul is a material reality that

all the time assumes substantial forms. In the soul we have the potentiality between/the composition of essence and

existence. The composed reality of the soul is the composition of essence and existence. Potentiality of the soul is not

equivalent to a material element, but it is towards accidental forms.

Soul is composed, but not in the way Bonaventure/Franciscans claim. It is not matter and form, it is form and the act

of being. It is not a perfectly absolute reality like God, but it is composed. Pure form and the act of being. In the soul

there is a complete lack of matter in the physical sense and in the metaphysical sense.

Next step: A thing can be said to be a simple reality when it is not composed of separable parts, from the quantitative

and the entitative point of view. Simplicity means a lack of composition. The soul is inseparable because being

immaterial it does not have one organ that is divisible by nature. This is in regards to the quantitative point of view.

From the entitative point of view we can say the following: The soul is a form. This is its nature essentially. Speaking

of the human soul, St. Thomas says there is no composition except the one of the soul itself, its essence, the form

and the act of being. But the act of being does not belong to the essence of what a soul is. The soul is not essentially

being. Being is an act given to it, an act in which it participates.

Question 75, 6th article: Whether the soul is incorruptible?

Incorruptible means: Can it decompose itself, can it pass away, can it cease to exist?

According to Thomas the human soul cannot decompose itself. The argument for that is the simplicity of the soul:

Certain things can cease to exist, they are corruptible, when the other things stop to exist. This refers to things that

cannot exist in themselves. When the reality they depend on stops to exist, so do they. I.E: The shape and the color of

a table stop to exist when we it is burned, they depend on the substantial reality they are inherent in. This is also the

case with the souls of animals and plants. They do not have an independent existence. They are forms in an

Aristotelean sense, co-principles without their own existence. The human soul is self-subsistent, therefore it has an

act of existence of its own. This means that for its own existence it does not depend on the other reality. Its existence

is independent from the existence of the composite. The human soul can only stop to exist when it decomposes itself.

But given the fact that it has no parts composing it, it cannot decompose itself, because it is a simple reality, as

shown. Another possibility would be if it lost its form, but being a self-subsisting form, the human soul cannot loose its

form. All this does not mean that the human person cannot die, because the human person is a composite being. The

moment of death is the separation of the material and the formal element of the human person: the body and the soul.

Suppose the soul was composed of matter and form, as according to Bonaventure, the soul still would be incapable of

decomposition, because the decomposition is transformation from one state of matter to the contrary state, an

incompatible state to the previous one. According to Thomas this is not to be found in the human soul, because our


5/45

intellect, the capacity proper to us in virtue of the particular kind of soul we have, can assume contradictory forms and

still it does not cease to exist. Oppositions like health and disease can be present in our mind at the same time. So

when these concepts assume the mental way of existing, the reality looses the contradiction, which would be able to

decompose in the material world.

Thomas does not say that the soul will survive forever. He says God has the power to annihilate the soul, because it

is not absolutely simple. The act of existence is given to it and remains something external. He affirms that in the

human soul there is no potentiality to non-existence. In our soul there is no capacity for decomposition. Where is this

potentiality? It is in God. He - and only he - has the power to cease the existence of a soul.

Who is the human person? The unity of the soul and body in the human person.

The human soul survives the death of the body, continues to think and will. Thomas refuses to speak about non-

embodies souls as human persons. Thomas never admits that an individual separated soul is still a human person.

Human person is a composed reality of body and soul. After death the soul exists in an incomplete way.

Question 75, 4th article: Whether the soul is man or is the human person composed of soul and body?

Thomas refuses two positions present in the discussions among his contemporaries. The first is a platonic point of

view, a dualistic vision. Human person essentially is a soul, embodied/imprisoned in matter during the earthly time.

Thomas says this is not true, because all the vital acts like vegetative and sensorial acts are properly speaking human

acts. They cannot be performed on the basis of a separated soul. The soul cannot perform these acts separated from

the body. The second position Thomas refuses is the point of view from the Arab commentators of Aristotle

(Avicenna): The human person as such is equivalent to the soul, but an actual human person (the one who walks,

eats, senses) is not just a soul but also a body. But having a body is not a part of what it means to be a human

person. Having a body is due only to the fact that we are individualized. Thomas says that if you want to indicate a

species properly it is not enough to introduce a specific difference but also a genus to which it makes a difference:

Rational and animal. According to Thomas human person does not apply to the soul but body and soul together.

Having a soul and a body is what it means to be a human person

Question 76, 1st article: The soul is a part of the human body.

Commonly we use the word soul as one of the two elements composing the human person. Thomas also speaks

about soul and body, as if they were related to another in terms of form and matter. But once he comes to the proper

discussion about the relation between body and soul, he says that the soul is a part of the body. This means that the

human being is a body, which as any other physical body is composed of matter and form. From this point of view the

soul as the formal element is one part of the body, the matter is another part. We are speaking about the two co-

principles that together make up the human body. The soul is the substantial form that joins the prime matter and

makes of it a human body. The soul is the unifying principle, the substantial form, that gives to us the particular way of

organic existence proper to human beings. From this point of view the union of soul and body is not only natural but

also good for the soul. It is the nature of our soul to be united with the body. Here you have a strong opposition to the

dualistic vision of the human person. There are positive and negative aspects of this vision of the nature of the soul.

Thomas solution to what is the soul was very much dictated by our Christian thinking, by a dogma of immortality of the

human person, which represents a different problem than a simple immortality of the soul. If we want to prove our

belief in the resurrection of the body, the corporeal being, we have different problems. We need the soul, which is free

enough to be able to survive the moment of separation from the body. We also need on the other hand the body,


6/45

which is so intimately with the soul that it can retain the link with the soul even after the moment of death. To solve

this problem Thomas points to his vision of the soul: It is the form of a body, a co-principle of what we are as humans.

At the same time it is a subsistent reality, that can exist on its own. It is free enough from the body to exist of its own,

yet it is so associated with the body that it retains a virtual link with the non existing body. But how Thomas does that

is not answered clearly. He would say that the soul after separation from the body exists in an imperfect way. It wont

be able to perform certain acts in the same perfection as when it was united with the body. It can perform these acts

only with the help of Gods power.

For Thomas the highest activities connect to our personality are the capacities of the rational soul: thinking, creativity.

We develop our capacities in different ways, the exist in individual ways. Because of that it is said that the I remains

in the soul after death.

Second Lesson:

Question 76: Dedicated to the number of souls we have. Whether we have one soul or many souls?

Since Aristotle we have the division of soul into vegetative, sensorial and rational soul. Thomas confirms vegetative

functions in animals, which have a sensorial soul. Proper to the human soul are rational functions, rationality. Humans

have vegetative and sensorial functions, too, but rationality is the most characteristic function. So the question is: Do

we have a vegetative and a sentient soul in addition to our rational soul?

Some of Thomas contemporaries said: We have more than one soul.

Question 76, 2nd and 3rd article: Relation between human body and human soul. Is there a one-to-one-relationship

between body and soul (one person = one soul). Answer: Yes.

Thomas has to argue with two different points of view: We have many souls and There is one soul giving live to

many different bodies.

2nd article: Opposing the One single intellect united to different bodies-argument. Held by Arabic commentators of

Aristotle (Avicenna, Averroes). Thomas says that if we all had the same soul, we would all be the same person. There

wouldnt be individuals. We would all think in the same way. This is not the case, therefore we do not have one

intellect. Thomas says that my thinking might be different from the thinking of other persons because of phantasms.

The agent intellect dematerializes and makes the potentially intelligible things intelligible in act. We only could have

one and the same agent intellect and still think differently if we had different phantasms informing the mind. But

according to Thomas the phantasms are not the things informing the mind, the passive intellect. After the things

actually became intelligible through the work of the agent intellect we have the same concepts of them, the same

universals. Here Thomas argument seems to lack something, because this is also the case when each of us has his

own agent intellect: The universals after abstraction are the same.

3rd article: Whether a single human being can have more than one soul. Upheld by some contemporaries of

Thomas. According to some philosophers we could have four souls (veg., sent., rat. and corp). Thomas says it is

impossible, because if there are other material forms existing before the intellectual soul enters the body, the

intellectual soul would only be an accidental change in the body, which is already formed. We couldnt even say that

what forms us essentially is rationality. Also the departure of the rational soul would not mean that the human life is

finished but would only mean some insubstantial accidental change takes place. It would also change the concept of

Who is the human person. Thomas is defending Aristotles division of the soul: A co-principle of reality. The soul in

itself is immediately joined with the prime matter and therefore a part of the body. We hove only one substantial form,


7/45

which is the rational form, which informs prime matter directly. This soul gives to the human person all vital faculties

(vegetative, sentient, rational). The soul has more perfection than the others, but it can enable a being to perform the

acts of the lesser ones.

The act of being belongs directly to the soul. In plants and animals the act of being is the act of being, which partakes

to the composite (matter and form) participating in the act of existence, whereas in human beings what participates in

the act of being is the soul. The act of being proper to the human person is communicated to such a being by means

of the soul.

Question 76, 6th, 7th and 8th article: How is the soul present in the body?

Soul is immaterial by nature. Therefore it cannot be joined with matter in a material way, because it has no

quantitative parts, no extension. There is no dimension contact with the body. It is present everywhere. The soul in its

totality is in every part of the human body. Yet the soul does not perform all of its operations in each part of the body.

So the exercise of the powers of the soul is limited by the material organs. Therefore particular operations can be

performed only in defined parts of the body, because they are performed by certain organs.

All these are only certain characteristics of the soul. According to Thomas we cannot know what the soul really is. We

only know what it makes us do.

Question 77: The powers of the soul.

The soul confers to us a capacity to perform certain acts, vital acts. Thomas here starts to discuss the relationship

between the soul and the powers conferred to us:

1st article: Whether the essence of the soul is its power?

2nd article: How many powers are in our soul?

3rd article: How are the powers of the soul distinguished from another?

4th article: How are the powers ordered?

5th article: In what way are the powers inherent in the soul?

6th article: Whether all the powers flow from the essence of the soul.

7th article: Do all powers remain in the soul after death?

Faculty: A special kind of ordination of nature to perform particular kinds of acts once an appropriate object/input is

presented to a human being.

From the ontological point of view the powers are accidents, they come from the nature of the thing possessing them,

they are not a substance.

1st article: Whether the soul is essentially its powers? Thomas: No

Thomas always underlined the essential unity of the soul and the body. The soul as form of the body is the form of the

body. Yet he also underlined a distinction between the soul and its faculties and the faculties themselves. According

to Thomas it is impossible to admit that the power is its essence, that the soul is all of its powers. Why? This would

mean we would be equal to God, because only in God the power of acting and acting itself are identical in substance.

The soul by its very essence is an act, an actual reality. Therefore, if the very essence of the soul were its powers, the

principles of operation, whatever has a soul, as something being in act, would always be actually performing all the

vital operations. But this is only true for God. The soul in itself is in potentiality to another act. It is an actual reality, but

in potency of performing something. It is in this potentiality not according to its essence. It cannot be in its essence an

act and a potency at the same time. It is in potency not essentially but according to its powers. This means that the

soul can be called the f irst act, which is in potency towards a second act. It has in itself a potency, but not a passive

potency, because this would mean it would be able to be perfected by bringing it closer to its essence. It is in potency


8/45

according to its powers, not its essence. The powers can be actualized by the second act, by bringing into actuality

the capacities. Passive potency would be prime matter, as something that stands open to the substantial form. So

according to Thomas the essence of the soul is not its powers. These powers are the principles of action due to

substantial form, to the soul. This means that it is the soul (the first act/substantial form) which is the first principle of

act, but it is not the proximate principle, which would be the powers, rooted in the soul as the first principle. The soul is

essentially the form of the body, the principle of life in us. From the operational point of view it is also an ultimate

principle of our acts/operations. In each operation there are two principles involved: The reality, which acts (the

substance, the human person, the body and the soul) and the first principle by which it acts (the soul). Then we have

the proximate principles by which someone acts, the powers.

2nd article: How many powers are in our soul? According to Thomas there is an ontological necessity for several

powers in the human soul. Why? Because (taken from the order of the universe) we can look at the order of things:

The lowest category are the plants and the animals, because they can not acquire a perfect goodness, can not arrive

at absolute perfection, only at a certain, imperfect goodness, by few movements. The second level of living beings are

human persons. We can acquire a perfect goodness and we do it by many movements, by many vital operations.

There is a third level: Separate substances or agents, which can acquire perfect goodness by few movements. The

highest level would be proper to God, which is perfect goodness without any movement. The conclusion Thomas

draws is that plants and animals have a few determinate operations and powers. Humans can acquire universal and

perfect goodness, because we can strife for beatitude. But we are at the lowest level of the beings, which can acquire

happiness/beatitude. Among those beings that can acquire happiness there is a different degree of movements (God

= none, agents = few, humans =lots). Thats why we need to have a multiplicity of different powers. Another reason for

the necessity of having multiple powers is the fact that we are on the confines of two different worlds, corporeal and

spiritual. Therefore we have to have the operations proper to both worlds.

3rd article: What is the principle of distinction of the powers of our soul?

The soul in itself is unknown to us. We only know something about it by means of the accidental realities of the soul,

the powers. A power being a potentiality is directed towards an act. Therefore the nature of the power we can know

from the act to which it is directed. Consequently the nature of the power is diversified according to the nature of the

acts. The nature of the act is diversified by the nature of the objects. What a human person can do is known from

what we are doing, from the actual acting. We know what we actually do from the objective world, which sets in act

our powers, activates them. The powers are distinguished by the acts and the objects (object = something which is

thrown against a power, something to which a power reacts once it meets with it). Different powers can be activated

by one object. A fruit can activate the power of perception, memory, thinking, desiring etc. Each of these acts

responds to one material object, but also to a formal aspect of this material object. In each material object there are

different formal aspects. Such an object can cause different acts. So the formal aspect of an object is that which

distinguishes powers. The powers are distinguished by the formal object.

4th article: Is there an order between the powers?

According to Thomas there is only one soul with different powers. Where there is a relation between one and many,

there has to be an order. Thomas indicates two different kinds of order: an order of nature and an order of generation

or time. The order of nature means that the perfect things are by nature prior to imperfect things. The order of time

means the consideration from the point of view of coming to existence. Here the order is inverted. We go from

imperfect towards perfect. Considering the powers of the soul according to the order of nature, the intellectual/rational

powers are prior to the sensitive powers and they are able to command them, as the sensitive are prior to the

vegetative and command them. In the order of time and generation the powers of the vegetative soul are preparing

the body, so it can exist to be able to sense. Sensing on the other hand enables to think.


9/45

5th article: In what way are the powers inherent in the soul?

What is the substance in which the powers as accidental realities are inherent?

Subject of the operative powers is this what is able to operate. According to Thomas, this, which is able to operate

and this which operates is the same: The subject of the operation is the same as the subject of the power. The subject

of some powers not performed by the corporal organs is the soul. Other powers which have the composite as a

proper subject belong to the soul, too, but in a different way, namely in the way that the soul is the principle, but not

the subject of those powers (the soul is the principles of all powers).

6th article: Whether all the powers flow from the essence of the soul.

All the powers flow from the essence of the soul, they are not equivalent with the essence of the soul but are

equivalent with it.

7th article: Whether all the powers of the soul remain in the soul after death.

Answer differs in regards to powers. All powers belong to the soul, because it is the principle of the powers. Some

powers belong to the soul only, because the soul is their subject. Those powers remain in the soul after the

destruction of the body. All the other powers, those which are subjected to the composite (sensitive, nutritive) do not

remain in the soul, because they have their proper subject in the composite. The accidents cannot remain after the

destruction of the substance/subject. Still those powers remain in the soul in a virtual way, because the soul still is the

principle of those powers.

Question 78, 1st article: Indication of the division of the powers.

In whatever is alive we can see three different kinds of souls with different powers. In the human persons we find one

soul with the powers of all three souls. Article one starts with the indication of these three levels of life/souls.

What is the reason for the diversity in the world of life? Thomas indicates that the soul of the human person is joined

with the matter of the body. If the soul of man is so essentially related to the matter such a union is necessary to the

very being of the human person. It is no surprise that all the powers of the human soul are related to the material

objects. As the proper object the human powers have the material objects. Each power is somehow exercised in

relationship with matter. The different souls/three levels of the souls can be distinguished according to the level of

transcendence over matter, according in the way the operations of these souls transcend the corporeal matter.

Operations of the soul exceed the corporeal nature in two points of view (object and operation).

In the rational soul: Those operations are concerned with the essence of the corporeal realities, not with the

individual physical qualities and the power of the rational soul is not performed by using a corporal organ.

In the sensitive soul: The operations proper to it transcend the matter in a lesser degree, because from the operative

point of view these acts are performed through a corporeal organ. But as far as the object is concerned we have a

certain transcendence, because the act of sensorial knowledge/perception is performed by a formal aspect, a formal

element of nature is apprehended.

In the vegetative soul: The operations of that soul are performed by means of corporeal organs and by virtue of

corporeal quality. The operations consist in the transformation of corporeal elements by corporeal organs.

Four different genera of powers: The higher power a power is, the more universal is its object.

The object of the souls operation can be considered according to a triple order: In the soul there are certain powers,

whose object is the body united with the soul. These are the vegetative powers. They act only on the body to which

the soul is united. Another kind of powers are those which have a more universal object and have as a proper object

every kind of sensible body, not only my body, but everything else that exists in a corporeal way. The third kind of

powers are those whose object is even more universal, because they are concerned not only with sensorial qualities


10/45

but the essences of the corporal bodies.

When we speak about the relationship between an acting agent and the external world, e see that the operation goes

in both direction between those two. Whatever operates on the objects that are not the proper operation must in some

way be connected to them. Such an object can be related to the soul in two ways: It can be united to something

extrinsic according to the nature of the soul. This means the object is in virtue of a particular act finally going to find

itself in the active principle. The object - as a result of an act - find itself inside of the acting agent according to the way

in which the agent exist. These are the cognitive powers. We are relating ourselves to something extrinsic to us and

these realities are finding themselves in us. Two kinds of cognitive powers: The powers of the sensitive kind and of

the rational kind. The second kind of relationship between agent and object are the acts in which the agent has an

inclination towards an object, is trying to achieve the object according to the way of existence of the object itself.

These are the powers of appetite. Two kinds of powers: Appetite and local motion. Appetitive powers are those which

enable us to perform acts of going toward something and such a thing firstly finds itself in our cognition. We go

towards something known to us. In local motion the soul is related to something, which is the term of a physical

movement.

Four genera:Vegetative powers, cognition at the sensitive and the rational level of live, appetition at the sensitive

and the rational level of live and the power oflocal motion on the sensitive level of life.

We can divide powers further in a specific way: Here the principle of division of the soul in different species is

according to the formal relationship of the object towards the soul.

On the vegetative level of life there are three species of powers, because there is a triple relationship of the soul to

the body. First the body lived by a particular soul is something to be nourished, to be developed (which has to grow),

and something to be propagated, if the species is going to survive (nutrition, growth, reproduction = three vegetative

powers with their corresponding acts/the objects corresponding to it). This is seem from a formal point of view as a

body which has to be nourished, developed, reproduces.

On the sensitive level we can divide the powers into species, too: The object of the cognitive powers are certain

corporal qualities. This is the physical reality as something we can touch, smell, taste, see, hear. We have the powers

to do this, so we have the power oftouch, taste, smell, hearing and sight, the external senses. There are internal

senses, too, according to Thomas: Common sense, imagination, memory and estimation. We are able not only to

see color, but to apprehend if something is in motion or in rest and what its figure is (common sense, which also

answers, why things are present to us). Once perceived, things can be imagined, even when they are not present

anymore (imagination). We can remember qualities and past events, locate them in time (memory). Apprehension of

usefulness or harmfulness of objects (estimation). Next there are two different appetitive powers: Objects of desire or

repulsion can be seen as simply desired/yucky or as something, which is a strong object of desire/repulsion. There is

a certain level of difficulty involved in getting what we want, which would be the formal object of the appetition.

Concupiscible appetites are simple. Irascible appetites do have an element of difficulty.

Third Lesson:

I. The Sensitive Powers

Sensorial Cognition: From the object to the subject, the object is material. How do we perceive the object? As a

tangible reality.


11/45

Sensorial Appetites: Towards the object. This is divided into 2 species:

Concupiscible Appetite: when there is no difficulty involved in attaining an appetite.

Irascible Appetite: If the reality towards which we're drawn to is difficult to achieve

(meaning a difficult good to possess) or avoid (meaning a difficult evil to avoid) it

requires this appetite (from S.T. Quest. 22-29).

The act of a sensitive appetite is known as passion. Although the appetites are different from any process of

cognition, its life and being are dependent on knowledge.

According to Thomas, we perform 11 acts according to the above 2 appetites:

Concupiscible = Love/hate; desire/disgust, Joy/sorrow

Irascible = Hope, despair, courage, fear, anger

Local motion: Different from sensorial appetite, the local motion is a physical transportation; whereas in the sensorial

appetites, it is an "2nd intention of the mind".

Outer behavior is the product of local motion, according to St. Thomas.

II. The Rational Powers

2 Levels of Powers

Rational Cognition: Thomas divides this into two species:

1. Agent Intellect: the specific difference is that the objects of the Agent Intellect, the

essences, are potentially understandable. The Act is Abstraction.

2. Possible Intellect: The objects of Possible Intellect are the essences of realities as

actually understood. The Act is Universality

Rational Appetites: Objects are of Universal nature. This is also known as the "Will Power", the act of volition and

deliberation and choice. The Act of the Will is about the goods potentially desirable.

The vegetative properties have as object the bodies united with the soul.

When there are many powers, there is order in them. Thomas held the Principle of Immanence: the more perfect the

power is, the more removed it is from matter, as the case with sensible power is more noble than vegetative power.

III. The Vegetative Powers

The first group of our powers: the lowest, not in the sense that it is unimportant, but just the most basic, and, in a

way, the most fundamental part.

Life means self-movement and self-organization; the living being is alive due to its organs (tools).

Question 78, 2nd article: Whether the parts of the vegetative soul are fittingly enumerated as the nutritive,

augmentative, and generative? Thomas physiological detail is only valid in light of the science of his time. But the


12/45

metaphysical truth of his treatment is valid.

The living being acquires due quantity, the power of growth. The body of the living things is preserved in existence,

the power of nutrition. The essential difference between them is nutrition and growth have their own effect in the being

where these powers are seated, but reproduction has its effect in another one, namely, the reproduced organism.

Nutrition means a movement. The ultimate goal is to preserve the organism and perfect it. This power serves the

power of growth, the power, which serves the power of Reproduction

The Act of Growth is an outcome of constructive metabolism. Linked to this is "development", very closely to growth,

but not the same. Development involves quantitative changes, but also obtaining a definitive organic structure,

physical maturity.

The power of reproduction has the greatest nobility. It belongs only to the one that has reached maturity.

Question 78, 3rd article:

General Comment: as a kind of preamble, he is interested in rationality and will. In Question 75, regarding the Soul,

he says that animals have more explicit and manifest vital action. Animals have some capacity for knowledge, desire,

and local movement - a significant improvement compared to the vegetative life.

What differentiates vegetative from sensitive? Vegetative possess things by destruction, as is the case in nutrition;

whereas in sensitive, it doesn't destroy the thing possessed, but only takes in the form. Here is where we can say that

there's a real possession of something.

The principle of sensitive life. Knowledge begins with the external senses, which is an organism's means of contact

with objective reality. This reality exists in what Thomas calls 1st intention, meaning existing in its natural mode, an

extramental being. This kind of existence is differentiated from 2nd intention which is an existence as a supramental

reality.

The product of sensorial knowledge is called the impressed species.

Fourth Lesson:

In cognition and sensation the thing known is reproduced in the knower/the subject. How? Act of knowledge is not a

simple possession of facts but an identification between the subject and the object. Here lies the main difference

between vegetative acts and ratio. Food is not simply possessed but converted into living organs. In cognitive acts the

object of knowledge becomes identified with us, becomes a part of us without being destroyed. It does not become us

but is identified with us. It is impossible to say that the subject of knowledge knows something if in the nature of

cognition we would have changed the nature of the object. The act of sensation has to leave the object known intact.

To know means to become something other than oneself. But the subject does not become like the object. It is the

object. They are identical. Therefore knowledge implies not a doing something but being/becoming something.

Subject and object have to be identified, but in a way that is different from the way in which the object I come to know


13/45

exists. We do not become identified with a stone in the way a stone exists. Still we are becoming identical. This

means that whatever is known to us through sensation is in the subject according to the way of the existence of the

human person, not according to the way of existence of the object. The eye does not become red when you see a red

flower.

The knowing subject can receive into its proper being something else as something else, without converting it into

parts proper to the organism, destroying it. The subject remains what it is but assumes another reality. What are the

ways of existence of the subject? What are the kinds of change? According to Thomas, the nature of the change

involved in the act of sensation is obscure. He tries to clarify by introducing distinctions.

A sense is a passive power, a power to undergo a change, only when it is affected by external stimuli. What is that

change that a sense undergoes? Thomas introduces the distinction between natural/physical and psycho-spiritual

change. Natural is when the form of an object, which as an agent provokes a change in me, is received in a subject

according to its natural way of existence and undergoes an substantial change. It is a substantial change, a change

proper to vegetative acts. The spiritual change is an accidental one. It is the kind of change when the form of the

source of change, the form of the object causing a change in me, is received according to a new way of existence.

The form is received as a kind of spiritual existence, an existence that it does not have in nature. The spiritual kind of

change is what happens when a stimulus has an impact on the sense organs. Senses can only operate when there is

a spiritual change. Feeling heat is something else than becoming hot. When the sun shines on a stone the stone

becomes hot, absorbs the heat, but it does not sense the heat. The natural change happens to the stone. Spiritual

does not mean something ghostly. It is a contrast to a natural physical change. It does not mean immaterial. The

powers of the senses do not go beyond the world of matter, they can only operate under the appropriate physical

condition. The change in sensation is not immaterial, properly speaking, it is between purely physical and beyond

matter. It is not altogether physical, because it does not pertain only to the body. It consists in a disengagement of the

form from the matter. The act of sensation receives the form without the matter. On the other hand it is not an act that

solely belongs to the soul, therefore it is not completely spiritual. It is a kind of change proper to a material organ,

whose source of life is also a source of consciousness. It is conjoined with immaterial principle. In the spiritual change

material and form are only intentionally separated, not on the level of nature. It is an intentional separation.

Sensation is change, two forms of change, natural (authentic real separation of form and matter), spiritual (accidental

change consisting in intentional separation between form and matter in the knowing object). The capacity on

intentionally separation form and matter implies different forms of existence.

To know implies the capacity of one being entering into another. We have to speak about two different orders/ways of

existence in regards to the object of our knowledge/sensation: The object has a natural existence, as it exists in itself,

and an intentional existence, as it exists in the knowing subject. The capacity of giving an additional intentional

existence to the physical object distinguishes beings with cognitive powers from the ones who only have vegetative

powers.

[Cognition = The object tends toward the subject, Appetition = the other way. Cognition is when as a result of such an

act the object finds itself in the subject but according to another way of existence. In appetitive acts we tend towards

an object as it exists in itself, according to its own way of existence. In cognition the object has an impact on the

cognitive power of our soul, but with appetitive power we ourselves are able to reach out to the objects.

For the object it is enough to exist. It is in our nature, to be acted upon by the object or reach out to it.


14/45

A feeling of hunger is a non-intentional act. I have no object connected with it. Cognitive or appetitive acts are

intentional acts. As far as cognition is concerned, it is based on the fact on the fact that we are able to relate ourselves

to the object in a spiritual way, so that we can operate on it an intentional act of separation. I can look into it, into what

it is. It becomes my intention, it is in front of me, I am operating on it as it is, I am able to perform the division between

form and matter. I can consider its color, smell etc.

In the act of appetition, such a intentionality is present. Because the appetites awake on the basis of cognition.

Cogitative acts are presupposed for appetitive acts. Appetition presupposes cognition.]

There must be something common in object and subject when the object can become identified with the subject.

Which element constitutes the point of identification? Form!

The part of an object, which can be assimilated by a knowing subject is the form. When the knowing subject becomes

the object, this means that it becomes the form of the object, which is known. When the act of sensation is completed

a new entity is brought into existence, which is made up of subject and object. The moment of unification is the form,

which is the form of the object, but created in the subject according to its own way of existence. Thomas speaks about

cognitive species. He means the form of the physical particular objective reality outside of us but in its intentional

form, as it exists in a spiritual way. In its intentional way of existence the form is (only) an instrument of knowledge

(important difference between classic and modern philosophy). The form as it exists in the subject as a cognitive

species is only an instrument of knowledge or an intermediary enabling the subject to become an object, without

seizing what it is, without destroying the object. Cognitive species at different levels are the objects themselves under

a new way of existence. Form has on form of being in this sense and another one in the sensible object. In the

sensible object it has natural being. Thomas says that this ability to create a new spiritual existence (a subjective one)

is the main difference between the beings with vegetative and sensual faculties.

The intentional forms (of which the highest creation is the concept) are the means by which subject and object are

united. The act of existence brings into existence this little reality. Intentional forms are (on one side) the means of this

unification. At the same time in reality the form exists in the real world. But the object of our knowledge is the reality

itself. Thats why intentional forms are only the means of knowing, the act of knowledge is grasping the reality, but it is

not the form existing outside my mind that I have in my knowledge. This is the newly created species, the intentional

form. Still the object of our knowledge is reality.

According to Thomas, the sense faculties in operation are identical with the object in action. Our senses in act are

identical with the object acting upon them because the act of sensation exists in unification. When I see, my organ of

sight is identical with the object working on it, by means of intentional species. Undergoing a change is a creation of

the intentional species.

Fifth Lesson:

The internal powers: Thomas deals with the internal senses in questions 78, article 4 and in De Anima, 3rd part,

lectio 3, 4, and 5.

Question 78, 4th article: The powers we are sharing with the animals. Our knowledge is not limited to what we can

grasp by means of our senses. We make separate experiences with our senses (smell, sound, sight) but we can unify

the sensations into totalities. We can remember things, we can see them as bad or good. Therefore Thomas says that


15/45

we have more senses than animals. He calls these internal senses: Common sense, memory, imagination,

estimation or cogitation (vis estimativa, vis cogitativa). The word sense as such is properly assigned only to

external senses. Still Thomas calls the internal powers senses because he wants to underline the fact that their

operation still belong to the sensitive level of live. They do not involve reason. Thomas fixes four internal senses? The

answer comes from experience and the different aspects of consideration of an object before us. When we have a

distinguished consciousness of something it means that there is a new formality to it, which is a principle that allows

us to introduce a new power. The four powers are:

If we do some analysis of how we know reality, if we know the impressions of the things present to us (Common

sense).

When the things are present to us while they are absent (Imagination).

When the things are past (Memory).

When things are useful and harmful to us (Estimation or cogitation).

Common sense: What is the nature of common sense? It does not have to do anything with good judgment.

Common sense it what the name brings out: A sense, a sensorial power, which has something in common with the

other, the external senses. It receives the impressions of all the external senses and is the sense, which is a root for

the external senses, a life giving foundation from which the external senses derive the proper activity. Sensation is an

act proper to external senses. Sensations do not exist except as a part of a broader process, which is a process of

making experiences, a perception. Sensation happens in direct link with a perception. The external senses are

functionless as isolated powers, they are rooted in common sense. External senses work only in conjunction with the

internal power of common sense. This is the sense on which the external senses depend. Common sense is

important, because it is the unifying principle of the external sensations. It is the power from which all the external

derive and are rooted in . It also is the power to which all impressions are related. What the external senses gather

from reality is send or returned to the common sense. All the functions of the external senses are unified in the

common sense. What is the object of the common sense? There are different aspects of material objects. One

material object can appear to different external senses. In order for an object to be known it requires many senses.

The impressions coming from external senses are therefore dissociated. Every reality of the physical reality is located

in space and time. According to Thomas the specific aspects proper to the common sense are those characterizing

the things because they are located in space and time. What are these aspects? First of all, the aspects, which are

linked with figure and movement. Figure and movement are common sensibles, not proper ones. One kind of objects

proper to the common sense are the qualities of the things that are linked to space and time. They are not the proper

objects of the common sense, because we know movement by means of proper sensibles, by means of these

characteristics, which are the proper objects of apprehension of our external senses. I know something is moving,

because I can see or hear it moving. Everything has a shape, everything is able to move/change. All these things are

objects of common sense, although they are perceived by means of the proper sensibles. The difference between the

external senses and the common sense is the modality in which the qualities of sensible objects affect the external

senses and the common sense. In the case of external senses the physical reality can affect the sense only by means

of the proper objects. Each external sense can be affected only by its proper sensibles. In case of common sense the

modality is double, because the common sense can be affected by the quality of things proper to one sense or by the

qualities, which are so-called common sensibles. So we do not only perceive movement or change with the common

sense, but also color, taste, smell etc.

According to Thomas the first important act of the common sense is the fact that it is some kind of a consciousness of

the sensations we have of reality. Without the common sense external senses would have no significance for the


16/45

higher process of knowledge, because through the common sense the external senses receive some kind of

consciousness. The outer senses are conscious of the proper sensibles because they are rooted in common sense.

The perception of sensation is one of the first acts of common sense. It is the capacity of knowing that we see, or

hear, or smell something. An eye senses only several colors, but common sense allows us to have the consciousness

of an act of sensation. Common sense is the perception of an act of seeing or hearing. The second important act of

common sense is the act of unification and then the act of distinction. Sensations give us the materials, which are

dissociated. When we look at the orange or catch it we get information, but on the level of sensation they are

disunited. Common sense makes out of all the data a totality. This is a capacity or synthesis of different, dissociated

data into one unit, into a totality. The next important act proper to common sense is an act of distinction. It is a

discriminatory power, which allows us to make a distinction between white and sweet, a distinction between the

different groups of the characteristics of external senses. Sight can distinguish between white and black, but not

between white and sweet. So it analyses and synthesizes the material coming in from the external senses. The act of

the common sense consists mainly in conjoining different sensations into a whole. Sensations do not give an

experience of a unified being, but only dissociated characteristics of this being. Perception is of a totality of a being,

therefore perceptions are different from sensations from this point of view. We sense color, smell, taste, but we

perceive an apple. Perception is a process in which the elements given in sensation are taken together and fashioned

into a being. Common sense can be defined as the power of perceiving the things, which are here and now affecting

ourselves, our organisms, making expressions on our external senses. Can we make errors on the level of

perception? Important question, because it comes back in the discussion of truth. At the level of common sense the

point of major interest is to define how a mistake in a sensorial perception gives rise to mistakes on the level of the

intellect. The senses as such cannot judge the true or false of the impact made on them, because they dont have the

capacity of judgment. Only the mind can do that. Thomas says on the level of common sense things happen that can

lead to mistakes. Like a mind, the common sense perceives by dividing and composing. It is unifying different

elements or divides them. When the common sense divides and unifies in a proper way, as it is in reality, it is acting

like a mind if it judges correctly. Sometimes common sense might separate things that are united in nature or vice

versa and then it acts like the mind when it judges in a wrong way. There is a likeness in action between common

sense and mind. Yet the knowledge we get by means of the common sense is the material out of which our ideas are

derived. If something goes wrong with the perception in the beginning, it will lead to wrong thinking, wrong judgments.

Our external senses now and then can present to us data of things different from how they appear in nature. If I see a

movement where there is rest, than what has failed me is not so much the external sense, but the common sense,

which has given me a wrong message. The effect can be due to the weakness of the external senses on which the

common sense depends. Or it might have been an effect of disordered fantasy. Or it might have been an effect of an

unusual apprehension to things. If we emerge a stick in water, it looks like it is crooked. Common sense can make

mistakes. Are we sure that the mind is ever sure in its judgments? Thomas says that the senses are the witnesses of

reality. We can rely on them. There is always a margin of error, but it is small and of such a nature that the mind

always has a way of managing those exceptions.

Sixth Lesson:

Imagination: We notice that our experience tells us that we are able to relive what happened before, even when the

objects are not present to our senses anymore. According to Thomas certain things in our life would mean nothing or

not that much to us, if they always had to be experienced at a moment. If we were not able to relief ourselves from the


17/45

shackles of the here and now our lives would be poor and certain things wouldnt have the same meaning for us.

The power of external senses and common sense are linked to the present. But what if we were not able to think

about past experiences or think of the summer coming. Without imagination we couldnt make a lot of projects come

true. If our capacities stopped in the present we would be very limited. In order to function the external senses and the

common sense require the presence of the object, which has to make an impact on the organs of the external senses.

We must not think, however, that those senses only work when the objects are present. The same impact of the

external objects that move us to perceive also moves us to form the images. Imagination liberates us from the here

and now, from the present moment and helps us to go beyond. Imagination requires the contact between the external

world and the senses and it is operative while the common sense and external senses are functioning. Imagination

cooperates with external senses and common sense. If is differentiated from the other senses, because even in the

absence of the sensorial objects, imagination is able to recall the images formed during the actual experience. This

capacity is a formal aspect of imagination. The object proper to the common sense is something present as present.

The proper object of imagination is something absent. The sensation presents the objects, imagination represents

them. In order to be able to exercise of the power of imagination we have to be able to recall its content from our

external senses and the common sense. The power of imagination is therefore limited to the power of our external

senses. We cannot recall something we have never experienced before. Imagination is provoked, comes from the

acts of presentative senses (external and common), which are drawn into cooperation by the sensorial characteristics

of the physical world. In the human person we have at least two imaginations: A simple reproductive act of

imagination and creative acts of imagination, which are more complicated.

Reproductive imagination pictures the objects and events just as they happened. It gives us back faithful copies of

our previous actual experience in mental images. This procedure does not require special skills or willpower.

According to Thomas, this act of imagination is an act, which we share with the animals. In this sense imagination is

called a storehouse of the things it has received from the senses. What is the first product in the chain of knowledge

is what we call impressedsensorial species, a percept, the fruit of the common working of external senses and the

common sense. Expressed sensorial species, an image/phantasm, are the products of the first product,

imagination and memory, because through the first product there is an impression made on us, the expression

happens at the level of the next internal senses. For Thomas the first impressed species is the product of imagination.

While reality makes an impression on us, imagination makes a picture and stores it away. Thomas talks about

material powers when he talks about the internal senses, because he sees them located in the brain. The act proper

to the imagination consists not only in representation of the things past but also consists in retention of the images. It

is a capacity of making a picture of reality (the picture is made at the time when the external senses are creating the

impress sensible species) and creating of the express sensorial species and later representing them to us, when

needed. Common sense has as a function the reception the images from the external world, while imaginations task

is the retention of what was received.

The second act of imagination if a creative, productive act of imagination. This is an act proper only to humans not

to animals. It consists in elaborating the picture that have never been actually experiences in reality, have never been

the objects of our senses. It is the capacity to imagine the world and the events different than it is. By will and reason

we can guide the acts of our imagination and when it is so we can arrive at certain purposes (What happens if/What

would have happened, if). From this point of view this power is more than the recalling of percepts we have already

experienced.

Imagination is a power that is both of power and soul. It presupposes three functions.

The first is, that there must be an original impression made on the organ of our external senses that has to be

forwarded to the common sense.


18/45

The second is an act of retention that happens on an unconscious level. When we look at something the express

species are formed without our knowledge of it.

The third is a conscious revival of what has been experienced. This consists in taking awareness of the forms stored

in our mind. It consists in bringing to ourselves or creating the images out of previously stored pictures.

This storehouse of images is often called memory, but it is not! Retaining the images of the things is not memory.

Memory is also based on this act, but it is not the same.

Thomas often uses the term phantasm. e is not speaking about ghostly realities. It is a technical term he uses in

order to indicate one of the three products of the representative senses. Products of memory and cogitative powers

are often called phantasms, the products of representative senses. The products of presentative senses (external

and common) are percepts. Phantasms as such are express species, while the precept is an impress species.

What is the image between an image and percept? What is the difference between the difference between expressed

and impressed sensitive species? They are the final products of different powers. Each has its own specific

characteristics. One has to do with the objects present, the other with the objects that are absent. The fact that

percepts deal with the objects while they are present, while images do not, introduces a significant difference in those

realities.

From some point of view percept seems to be more perfect than the image, that the product of the lower senses is

more perfect than one of the higher senses. The first difference between those reality is strength. When we look at

something our perception is vivid and clear, while the image of it often is obscure or weak and less vivid. It also

depends on the attention given to the original image. The second difference is that percepts are stable while our

images are not. As long as we continue to look at something we have a clear perception of it. We can look at it as

long as we want. Close your eyes and try to picture it. In the first moment the picture is clear, but becomes less clear

later, becomes more general, until it becomes very weak. A third difference is in the completeness of the picture. A

percept is complete and exact. The images lack completeness, they are more vague and can become more and more

unreal. From this point of view the percept is more perfect than the image. We can never be sure that what we

imagine corresponds totally with the original percept.

From another point of view image is more perfect than precept. This is the abstraction of the image from matter.

Imagination does not require the presence of the material object to perform its act. Imagination does work when the

objects are present to us, but it can work in the absence of those objects as well. For Thomas imagination is the basis

of intellectual operations.

Percept and image have some important common characteristics. The percept is a result of the synthetic act of the

common sense. The same goes for the act of imagination. The image has a value for the mind. With the organized

data of our imagination we have a starting point in the elaboration of ideas. The role of imagination and its product,

the image, is important for our rational life. Because of the synthetic and whole-making process the image has a value

for the mind. The image is only a representation. They are different, because the object of the percept is always

present, while the object of the image is absent. Imagination takes directly from the common sense, but in it the

influence of reason is stronger and manifests itself in the acts of creative imagination.

Imagination has an important effect on our activities. A simple image of something can make us sweat or afraid. We

can experience psychosomatic effects. Imagination has an effect on our psyche and on our body. If you have a

nightmare, you wake up sweating, panting.


19/45

Imagination is one step in the chain of reaching ideas and making judgments. Imagination does not present the object

to us, as the common sense does, but represents it. It is a fundamental element, which makes us able to say that

imagination is subdued to errors. But the ides of falsity has to be understood in relationship to imagination. Images are

neither true nor false. A formal error only occurs when we judge that particular image that comes back to us. Diseases

only lead to falsity: Illusions and hallucinations. An illusion is an image evoked by the sensation, present at the

moment. But the image created is more alive than the sensation itself and more precise. The person/subject of the

illusion and perception believes to see what in reality is nothing else but imagination. The perception of the reality and

the image do not correspond, but there is a perception of reality it just is weaker than the image created out of it.

Hallucination is having a precise image without a corresponding object. If you see someone walking in the garden but

there is no-one, it is an hallucination. If there is no corresponding perception of any object in your imagination, it is an

hallucination. In both cases the pictures stored in our mind do not correspond to reality. Thats it for imagination.

Memory: The proper object of imagination is something absent, it recalls things from the past. But it does not

recognize those things under the aspect of pastness, just as not present. We are able to identify things not only as

absent but also as past. This function belongs to memory. Similarity between imagination and memory, because from

the point of view of knowledge memory requires the same presuppositions as imagination: Original percepts made by

external senses and common sense, production and retention of the images, ability to reproduce the images of what

has been experienced previously. Imagination supplies the basis for the acts of memory, because imagination in itself

is the one to which belongs the act or production and retention of an image. Up to here there is no formal particular

difference between imagination and memory. There is a fourth characteristic, which will separate them. This is a

difference in the formal object, because memory always recognizes the images it produce as past events. It is able to

trace them back to the origin of the images. It is not only reproducing and bringing back the pictures but also traces

them down to their own origin. Imagination does not do that. In our images there is no temporal or historical content

involved. Memory is the power to locate our images in the proper historical and temporal setting. What is pictured is

linked to a particular time in the past. For St. Thomas the ability to date things is a new formal characteristic and

suffices to justify the supposition of a new power different from imagination. Memory recalls past events and identifies

the past as past. Memory is more excellent than imagination, not only because one presupposes the other but also

because the acts of memory are more difficult. Memory is a psychosomatic power, which still operates on the level of

the soul, its first root, but also by means of a specific organ, the brain. It is a power, which we share with animals,

because it cannot work on its own but is connected with the sensorial organ. It belongs to a composite nature. Our

memory is different than animals memory, because we have rational capacities and will. We can both remember,

know the past as past and learn from that, but only we can try to remember things or make an effort to recall things to

the mind. Thomas uses two different words in order to indicate the two acts: Simply remembering things is called

memory. Acts proper to human memory are called reminiscence. From this point of view the first act is natural and

spontaneous while the second one is a process controlled by reason and will. Memory gains advantages from the fact

that it is controlled and guided by reason. It can perform acts similar to inference, because it has similarity to the

procedure of the mind to from what is unknown to what is already known. Reminiscence is not only about recognizing

past events but also about the control of the memorial procedures in a way that memory proceeds in syllogistic way.

Reminiscence presupposes thinking.


20/45

Seventh Lesson:

Our memory does not work by chance in performing memory and reminiscence. Even in the ordinary and simple

forms of recall (without help of will and reason) memory functions in virtue of certain connections, those which exist

between our images. The act of remembering is guided by how these images were installed in our mind. There is

always a connection between the images and according to these connections things are brought back to our

consciousness. We have a natural tendency on the level of our images to reproduce the representation of the things

in the order as they have occurred. Imagination produces images when perception takes place, the images are stored

according to temporal order. It is normal for us to perceive several objects in one experience. We have different

perceptions in an experience. Each object makes an impression on its proper sense. All these perceptions are stored

away in forms of images that are linked together in us in the way of the objects of the origin of these phantasms.

When a part of a previous experience is recalled, it tends to bring back the whole of the experience. The process of

remembering in particular (but also a simple memory) happens mainly on the basis of the temporal connection

between different events. If we want to remember something consciously (reminiscence) we usually start with the

most recent impression linked to the experience. If you think about yourself, you might wonder how you arrived at

thinking about a cow, for instance. Well, I was thinking about holidays in Switzerland, about a chalet in the Alps with

green meadows and BINGO: Theres a cow! This actually is not reminiscence but it is similar. You want to remember

something from the past. And you can use the same process if you want to remember a particular event. You use the

inferential process to locate the things in time.

There are three kinds of relationships in which images are linked. Those are so-called laws of association. They

are:

1.) The law of similarity: One thing can bring back another because they are related (Socrates can bring back Plato).

2.) The law of contrast: One image can bring back another because it is its opposite (Black can make you think of

white).

3.) The law of proximity: One thing can bring back another because it is close to another. But this closeness can be

of different: Proximity in time, proximity in place, or relationship.

Our memory works according to these laws of association: Like produces like. Similar produces dissimilar. Something

produces something else which is near to it.

The laws of association are properly speaking the laws of reminiscence, the laws of syllogistic recalling.

Images produced by acts of memory have the whole-making role as the images produced by imagination. Each is a

germ of ides of concept. Phantasms from imagination and memory are a picture of concrete data from our

experiences from which we can abstract what will become a concept. Without those images there would not be

understanding at all. They are the condition without which knowledge and reason would not take pace. Phantasms

and images are related to the reason as the sensible objects are related to our external senses. Without these objects

or senses would remain inactive. Without the phantasms and the images our reason would remain inactive. From this

point of view imagination and memory have the same importance.

Memory is more significant for the mind than imagination. In the first place the acts of memory are not as casual as

the acts of imagination. Imagination does not need to speak about reality. We can produce images not corresponding

to reality. Memory does not do that. It is not so far removed from the world of reality as imagination sometimes is. The

main task of memory is to bring back events of the past not in a capricious way but just as they happened in fact and

in truth. Memory speaks about the actual aspects of reality as located in the past. Thomas takes up Aristotle here and


21/45

says: Beings, which have more experience have more science and knowledge.

Thomas is interested in training of the memory. So he gives us some rules for a good memory. In question 49, 1st

article of the Summa he gives four rules:

1.) If we want to remember well (learning, i.e.), we must launch into the task of learning of learning with a real will to

learn. Here the role of will power in the cognitive acts of memory is underlined.

2.) We must reconsider and set in order the things we want to remember, because or memory works according to the

laws of association. So if we have a good order in the things we want to remember we can bring them back to our

memory easier later.

3.) It is always good to search for a good illustration of what we want to remember. This again is based on the laws of

association. Associate something you want to remember with something strange.

4.) Rehearse often!

Estimation or cogitation (vis estimativa, vis cogitativa):

Given the fact that nature never fails us in matters, which are urgent, we have another inner sense which is concerned

with our biological welfare, our survival. If an animal is to survive it has to avoid certain things beside those, which are

simply pleasant or unpleasant. There is a difference between something unpleasant and something bad. When for

instance a sheep escapes from a wolf it does not because the wolf does not look pretty or nice, but because the wolf

is dangerous for the sheep. It shows that the animals have some kind of awareness of danger and the awareness of

utility. Animals are able to apprehend things, which are not perceivable with the senses.

The estimative sense deals with insensate qualities of the objects. This means it deals with the aspects of usefulness

and harmfulness. It does not mean that you can not sense the quality. It can be sensed but they cannot be sensed by

any other power except the power of estimation. The eye of a gazelle can see the lion, its ear can hear the lion and

the nose can pick up the scent. But there is nothing in the perception of the outer senses giving a signal of danger.

The power of estimation is therefore different from imagination and memory because the estimative power is a power

of forming images, of bringing to the surface of the consciousness the images that are already in the animal from its

birth. So the innate images that are not coming from experiences are brought forth. Memory can conserve the actual

experiences of the situations when the life of the animal was at stake and can therefore collaborate with the power of

estimation. But the basis of the judgment of the estimative power does not come from memory originally. The power

of estimation recognizes the elements in the experience that no other sense can be aware of it is a special pow

Date post:	30-May-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	thomisticphilosophy
View:	219 times
Download:	0 times

Philosophical Psychology II (Study of the Philosophical Proofs for the Soul)

Documents