Thomist Epistemology - Sensible Form and Intelligible Form

[EQV]

@John

The point was that pretending to throw the ball is a performative contradiction within the context of the dog’s expectation. I’m looking at such things as being the concrete basis for symbolically elaborated logical contradictions.

Another example in relation to grasping necessary relations―if I throw the ball from the verandah and it goes over the edge, the dog doesn’t know where it is but he grasps that it cannot be on the verandah since he saw it go over the edge.

Your examples show that animals can track practical constraints within a situation — what follows from what within a field of experience. The dog sees the ball go over the edge and so no longer searches the verandah; that is a perfectly good case of situational intelligibility guiding behavior.

But calling this a “performative contradiction” already imports a level of articulation that belongs to a uniquely reflective standpoint that the dog never achieves. The dog does not grasp contradiction as such; it simply updates its anticipations when experiential cues change. By contrast, logical contradiction arises when we explicitly apprehend the incompatibility of two propositions under the same conditions—something that presupposes the ability to formulate and hold those propositions as claims that can be evaluated for truth.

In other words, the animal’s adjustments show that experience contains structured regularities that behavior can track, but the recognition of contradiction in the logical sense involves a further act in which those regularities are made thematic and judged as necessarily incompatible.

@John

I think the idea of an agent intellect is a reification of what is merely a theoretical concept. If it is merely a cognitive act then it is an act of intellection―a doing rather than a being, so why the need to posit an entity, a kind of being, that performs the act?

We don’t. The term “agent intellect” was used by Aquinas as a way of distinguishing that active moment from the merely receptive aspect of experience. Ontologically speaking, there is a subject with a capacity for understanding. This capacity is not a homunculus within the subject — it’s something the subject is capable of doing.

Now if you’re questioning the existence of the subject itself, I would push back on that. It doesn’t sound like that’s what you’re saying though.

[Meta_U]

@EQV

Please try to be more careful before accusing people of fabricating references, especially when it can be easily verified.

Thank you very much for obliging, with the clarification of your reference EQV. And, I’m very sorry for the accusation. I see now, that “I” in your reference refers to Primary part, and I was looking at the Secondary Part. That’s why I asked you to please clarify, I was lost. When you refused, I got upset.

@EQV

“For the intellectual light itself which is in us…

Look at this closely now. “The intellectual light itself which is in us”. Doesn’t this imply to you, that the light participates in each of us, rather than each of us participating in the light. That is what I tried to point out to you. It’s a subtle difference, an inversion of the Platonic position, but a difference nonetheless.

Here is the entire passage, below. Notice, first he describes why Augustine rejected the Platonic position. Independent Forms, in that understanding could not be active in creation. Then he asserts that “the soul, in the present state of life, cannot see all things in the eternal types”. However, “the blessed” (immaterial angels etc.) who share in the eternal existence of God, do see “all things in Him”.

Then he describes how “we might say that we see in the sun what we see by the sun”. After this, the proper reply: “And thus we must needs say that the human soul knows all things in the eternal types, since by participation of these types we know all things.” Please pay close attention to the wording, “by participation of these types”. That is not “participation in” these types, but “participation of” these types.

Following this, he presents another subtle difference, a further qualification: “For the intellectual light itself which is in us, is nothing else than a participated likeness of the uncreated light, in which are contained the eternal types.” Notice, the intellectual light which is in us, is now described as a participated “likeness”. This is somewhat ambiguous, but it implies that the uncreated light of the eternal types participates in us through a likeness to itself, and so, this may not truly be the eternal light participating in us at all.

There is much to be made of this in speculation. Commonly, I think it is believed that Aquinas signifies in his further explanations, that matter is a sort of medium between the uncreated light of the eternal types, and the “participated likeness” in the human intellect. This is the separation which Kant takes hold of.

In the next paragraph he firmly dismisses the Platonist view:

“But since besides the intellectual light which is in us, intelligible species, which are derived from things, are required in order for us to have knowledge of material things; therefore this same knowledge is not due merely to a participation of the eternal types, as the Platonists held, maintaining that the mere participation of ideas sufficed for knowledge. “

I answer that, As Augustine says (De Doctr. Christ. ii, 11): If those who are called philosophers said by chance anything that was true and consistent with our faith, we must claim it from them as from unjust possessors. For some of the doctrines of the heathens are spurious imitations or superstitious inventions, which we must be careful to avoid when we renounce the society of the heathens. Consequently whenever Augustine, who was imbued with the doctrines of the Platonists, found in their teaching anything consistent with faith, he adopted it: and those thing which he found contrary to faith he amended. Now Plato held, as we have said above (A. 4), that the forms of things subsist of themselves apart from matter; and these he called ideas, by participation of which he said that our intellect knows all things: so that just as corporeal matter by participating the idea of a stone becomes a stone, so our intellect, by participating the same idea, has knowledge of a stone. But since it seems contrary to faith that forms of things themselves, outside the things themselves and apart from matter, as the Platonists held, asserting that per se life or per se wisdom are creative substances, as Dionysius relates (Div. Nom. xi); therefore Augustine (83 Questions, Q. 46), for the ideas defended by Plato, substituted the types of all creatures existing in the Divine mind, according to which types all things are made in themselves, and are known to the human soul.

When, therefore, the question is asked: Does the human soul know all things in the eternal types? we must reply that one thing is said to be known in another in two ways. First, as in an object itself known; as one may see in a mirror the images of things reflected therein. In this way the soul, in the present state of life, cannot see all things in the eternal types; but the blessed who see God, and all things in Him, thus know all things in the eternal types. Second, one thing is said to be known in another as in a principle of knowledge: thus we might say that we see in the sun what we see by the sun. And thus we must needs say that the human soul knows all things in the eternal types, since by participation of these types we know all things. For the intellectual light itself which is in us, is nothing else than a participated likeness of the uncreated light, in which are contained the eternal types. Whence it is written (Ps 4:6, 7), Many say: Who showeth us good things? which question the Psalmist answers, The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us, as though he were to say: By the seal of the Divine light in us, all things are made known to us.

But since besides the intellectual light which is in us, intelligible species, which are derived from things, are required in order for us to have knowledge of material things; therefore this same knowledge is not due merely to a participation of the eternal types, as the Platonists held, maintaining that the mere participation of ideas sufficed for knowledge. Wherefore Augustine says (De Trin. iv, 16): Although the philosophers prove by convincing arguments that all things occur in time according to the eternal types, were they able to see in the eternal types, or to find out from them how many kinds of animals there are and the origin of each? Did they not seek for this information from the story of times and places?

But that Augustine did not understand all things to be known in their eternal types or in the unchangeable truth, as though the eternal types themselves were seen, is clear from what he says (83 Questions, Q. 46)—viz. that not each and every rational soul can be said to be worthy of that vision, namely, of the eternal types, but only those that are holy and pure, such as the souls of the blessed.

[John]

@EQV

The dog sees the ball go over the edge and so no longer searches the verandah; that is a perfectly good case of situational intelligibility guiding behavior.

Right, that is just the point―that the instinctive or intuitive evolved capacity for situational intelligibility is the implicit, pre-linguistic basis for linguistically enabled and explicated intelligibilty.

@EQV

But calling this a “performative contradiction” already imports a level of articulation that belongs to a uniquely reflective standpoint that the dog never achieves. The dog does not grasp contradiction as such; it simply updates its anticipations when experiential cues change.

Again, of course I am not suggesting that the dog has an explicit grasp of contradiction, but that the contradiction of animal expectations forms the primal basis for the counterfactual thinking that grounds logic.

@EQV

In other words, the animal’s adjustments show that experience contains structured regularities that behavior can track, but the recognition of contradiction in the logical sense involves a further act in which those regularities are made thematic and judged as necessarily incompatible.

Yes, animal experience has an implicit structure, you might even say an implicit logic, that is reflected in the evolution of symbolic language and thought and the explicitation it enables. So, I am not one to speak of ‘transcendental egos’ or ‘agent intellects’―minds that create the world. That said, I think every animal co-creates its world of experience,its “Umwelt” (Jakob Johann von Uexküll).

@EQV

We don’t. The term “agent intellect” was used by Aquinas as a way of distinguishing that active moment from the merely receptive aspect of experience. Ontologically speaking, there is a subject with a capacity for understanding. This capacity is not a homunculus within the subject — it’s something the subject is capable of doing.

Now if you’re questioning the existence of the subject itself, I would push back on that. It doesn’t sound like that’s what you’re saying though.

I am not familiar with Aquinas’ philosophy at all, so I cannot judge as to whether his ‘agent intellect’ was, for him, an innocent reification or not.

I don’t deny the reality of the subject, but again the idea easily slips into reification. The sentient, sapient body, at least, is the obvious subject of experience. I don’t believe in a separate soul. I agree with Spinoza (as I read him) that the soul and body are not separate entities. I think he views the soul as part of the body, with both being aspects of a single substance. To understanding the nature of the body is to understand the nature of the soul, as they are inseparable, even though we might make the distinction.

A conceptual distinction is not a division―to think so is again to commit Whitehead’s fallacy of misplaced concreteness, as I see it.

[Count_Timothy_von_Icarus]

Anyhow, to my original point, which I didn’t make very well, I actually think attempts to make Saint Thomas “relevant” to contemporary thought, to put him on its terms, tends to make him counterintuitively less attractive even in contemporary contexts. It is Aquinas’ virtue epistemology, his inheritance going back to the Patristics, Platonists, and Stoics, the influence of Saint Augustine, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Dionysius the Areopagite, Proclus, the great Islamic thinkers, etc. that gives him a novel way to respond to the epistemic debates that still dominate contemporary thought.

In particular, I think the ascetic virtue epistemology is a great asset. And Thomas isn’t the strongest example of this (Saint Bernard is better, but Saint Maximos, Saint Gregory Palamas, Saint Bonaventure, Dante and the Patristics might be better), but he does package it in a way that is more accessible than most.

When Thomas and other medievals are reduced to sets of propositions or theories, this tends to get lost (and you get takes that seem odd to me, like the claim that Palamas and Bonaventure are basically immature forms of Scotus because the propositional form of some claims might be cashed out in the same form).

There is a great irony here. Some scholars seem to make great use of Thomas (and others’) understanding that the theory, model, etc. is not primarily what we know, but rather how we know. Thus, many disparate discursive structures might lead towards the same unifying understanding (with some more pedagogically useful in some cases than others). The irony is that this point will get used, by people who continue to wield Thomas’ work as a sort of “model” in philosophical debates. Whereas, I would think the perhaps the biggest takeaway, provided someone is convinced by Thomas, might be how defective contemporary philosophical pedagogy is for its focusing so heavily on theorizing and discursive argument (essentially ignoring all other praxis).

[Wayfarer]

@Count_Timothy_von_Icarus

When Thomas and other medievals are reduced to sets of propositions or theories, this tends to get lost (and you get takes that seem odd to me, like the claim that Palamas and Bonaventure are basically immature forms of Scotus because the propositional form of some claims might be cashed out in the same form).

You might have missed this quotation I gave earlier:

@Wayfarer

A genuine realist should see “forms” not merely as a solution to a distinctly modern problem of knowledge, but as part of an alternative conception of knowledge, a conception that is not so much desired and awaiting defense, as forgotten and so no longer desired. Characterized by forms, reality had an intrinsic intelligibility, not just in each of its parts but as a whole. With forms as causes, there are interconnections between different parts of an intelligible world, indeed there are overlapping matrices of intelligibility in the world, making possible an ascent from the more particular, posterior, and mundane to the more universal, primary, and noble. In short, the appeal to forms or natures does not just help account for the possibility of trustworthy access to facts, it makes possible a notion of wisdom, traditionally conceived as an ordering grasp of reality. Preoccupied with overcoming Cartesian skepticism, it often seems as if philosophy’s highest aspiration is merely to secure some veridical cognitive events. Rarely sought is a more robust goal: an authoritative and life-altering wisdom.” ~ What’s Wrong with Ockham, Joshua P Hochschild

The point I want to add is the participatory dimension of Thomist epistemology, which I think Hochschild’s passage articulates. Knowledge in that framework isn’t primarily a matter of constructing models or defending propositions, but of the intellect being assimilated to the intelligible form of what it knows. In that sense the knower participates in the intelligible order itself; knowledge of the forms foreshadows the unio mystica. That’s why the classical account naturally aims at sapientia—an ordered grasp of reality—rather than merely securing isolated true propositions.

So in that respect I think Hochschild is recognizing something very close to the point you’re making: that the medieval framework presupposes a different conception of knowing altogether, one that modern philosophical pedagogy tends to miss because it focuses almost entirely on discursive theorizing.

[Wayfarer]

And on that happy note, logging out for 3-4 days.

[EQV]

@John

Yes, animal experience has an implicit structure, you might even say an implicit logic, that is reflected in the evolution of symbolic language and thought and the explicitation it enables. So, I am not one to speak of ‘transcendental egos’ or ‘agent intellects’―minds that create the world. That said, I think every animal co-creates its world of experience,its “Umwelt” (Jakob Johann von Uexküll).

I think we actually agree on part of this: the human capacity for explicit reasoning clearly develops out of more primitive forms of situational intelligence. The point at issue is not whether there is continuity, but what kind of continuity it is. Animal cognition successfully navigates an Umwelt structured by cues, correlations, and expectations; human understanding, by contrast, can thematize those relations, ask why they hold, and evaluate whether a proposed explanation is correct. I’d describe that as an emergent cognitive capacity that is not fully reducible to the preconditions that made its emergence possible.

@John

I don’t deny the reality of the subject, but again the idea easily slips into reification. The sentient, sapient body, at least, is the obvious subject of experience. I don’t believe in a separate soul. I agree with Spinoza (as I read him) that the soul and body are not separate entities.

We seem to be in agreement here. Nothing in what I’m saying requires positing two separate substances. The Thomistic language can give that impression if lifted out of context, but the underlying claim is simply that the concrete subject who understands is the living human being. The distinction between “soul,” “intellect,” and “body” is meant to mark different aspects of that one subject, not to divide it into separate things.

[John]

@EQV

The point at issue is not whether there is continuity, but what kind of continuity it is. Animal cognition successfully navigates an Umwelt structured by cues, correlations, and expectations; human understanding, by contrast, can thematize those relations, ask why they hold, and evaluate whether a proposed explanation is correct. I’d describe that as an emergent cognitive capacity that is not fully reducible to the preconditions that made its emergence possible.

As far as continuity goes perhaps we grasp linguistically mediated ideas in some way analogous to how the pre-linguistic context is grasped. It’s hard to see what a more comprehensive account could look like since it will always be framed in language, and as such will always be inadequate to capturing the pre-linguistic situation. I think it must be admitted that inevitably dualistic conceptual accounts can never be adequate to experience.

I agree the linguistic account of the linguistically mediated cognitive capacity is not reducible to the pre-linguistic account for the obvious reason that it is linguistic. The corollary would seem to be that there can be no pre-linguistic account.

The question as to whether the linguistically mediated cognitive capacity is dependent on the pre-linguistic intuition is a separate question. And the question as to how the language enableb cognitive capacity evolved out of the pre-linguistic cognitive capacity is another question again. Perhaps these questions cannot ever be adequately answered.