The Divine Lamp

Note: This post continues a PREVIOUS ONE.

4. The Via Media between Naive Realism and Idealism. The Thomistic doctrine of the correspondence between sense perceptions and abstract ideas on one hand, and the external world on the other hand may be called the via media between naive realism and idealism.

For the person whom we call a ‘naive realist,’ reality is altogether independent of our knowledge of it, and our minds faithfully and accurately reflect things just as they are outside of us, in a merely passive way. The external world is reflected in consciousness as in a mirror. Scholasticism rejects this explanation of the absolute correspondence between the world of reality and the world of thought, as being too superficial, and instead gives us the conception of knowledge as a complex phenomenon, the product of two factors,-the object known and the subject knowing. The knower invests the thing known with something of himself.

Does this imply that the known object is simply a product of our mental organization, and that we know directly only our internal or subjective modifications? This doctrine, which is that of idealism, is equally opposed to the scholastic conception. For, according to the latter, the real object plays a part in knowledge, and is present to us in the act of knowing. We directly attain to reality and being,-so much so that the process by which reality acts upon us, the impression received, is discovered only as the result of reasoning. (III,1).

The epistemology of Qauinas is thus a moderate realism, a via media between exaggerated or naive realism, and idealism. We attain to a reality itself independent of our act of knowing, and in doing so we become possessed of knowledge which is true, but inadequate. The process of psychological elaboration which goes on in the mind limits the field of knowledge, but does not disfigure it.

5. The nature of the mental synthesis. The second problem, which we must examine now, is to find out whether we have a plausible motive for joining two ideas in a judgment, and what is that motive. We may reply with Thomas: “The motive for the mental synthesis is the very nature of the represented objects.” It is the nature of what we call water, ebullition; number, even, odd, which leads the mind to unite them, in the first case with, in the second case without the aid of experience.

This correspondence between represented objects constitutes truth. As soon as the connection between the contents of the subject and that of the predicate appears to the mind, in other words becomes evident to it, the mind asserts it; and certainty is nothing but the firm adhesion of the mind to what it perceives.

It is important to note that the mind merely perceives the connection, without creating it, and herein lies the difference between Thomistic and Kantian intellectualism.

This doctrine applies to all judgments, and therefore to those directing principals which we have called the laws of universal intelligibility. For instance, in the principle of contradiction, the motive of our assertion is our insight into the compatibility of being and non-being. The question of the applicability of these principles to existing beings follows immediately, once the existence of such extra-mental reality has been proved. Given that beings exist, no matter of what kind, I have the right to declare it incompatible with non-being. Now if there is such a thing as contingent being, I am justified in applying to it that which belongs to the inmost nature of all contingent beings.

Another corollary of this doctrine is that error is a property of judgments only. Error can belong neither to existing beings, nor to sensations, nor to simple apprehensions. Thomas employs this theory to solve the problem of sense illusions. The senses affirm nothing: they do not reflect upon the data, but present themselves just as they are, without any interpretation. That which is sweet to the palate of a healthy man appears bitter to an invalid. Consequently, the senses can neither correct themselves, nor find out the causes of their failures or illusions. Reason must intervene to test and control, and separate the true from the false. Error comes in with the judgment, for instance, when we rely on our sense-perception in predicating an attribute which the sensation in question is not competent to give (II,2); or else a content which is disfigured because of the abnormal condition of the organism. In any case, we possess the means of controlling the illusions of the senses, and an illusion which is capable of control is no longer really deceptive.

6. Conclusion. We perceive directly reality itself, and not our subjective modification of it. We perceive it thanks to a close collaboration between sense and intellect. The abstract work of the mind, either superficial or profound, accompanies all our sense knowledge, and the mind has a tendency to unify all the data, and to arrive at an itelligible object that is increasingly complete. The mind is ever on the lookout for being, and seizes it whenever it presents itself. Intellectus potest quodammodo omnia fieri.-“The mind can in a way become all things.” But it grasps reality imperfectly. The reflective study of the epistemological problem throws ligh upon the spontaneous operation of the mind.

Reflection makes it evident that truth is found only in a judgment. Secundum hoc cognoscit veritatem intellectus quod supra se ipsum reflectitur.-“The mind knows truth inasmuch as it reflects back upon itself.” It also makes it evident that mind is made naturally to attain reality, in cujus natura est ut rebus conformatur (De Veritate q.1, art. 9)

Taking what precedes into consideration, we may summarize thomistic doctrine in that well-known formula, current in the thirteenth century: truth is the correspondence between reality and the mind, veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus.