Monday 7 October 2019

Preparation for the 5 November Session

Our readings will be the last four articles of De veritate, Question 1:



Resultado de imagen para quaestiones disputatae de veritateIf you are not very familiar with this kind of material and have to decide between trying to  understanding very well only part of the reading or doing the whole reading without understanding it completely, go for the second option. You'll be able to deepen once you have the whole picture and have learned the meaning of key terms. 
Some concepts that regard the process of knowing in Aquinas's perspective may result useful, here is a glossary and summary explanation in lay terms as an introduction:
  • Particular senses: what we call the external or "five senses": sight, smell, etc.
  • Common sense: the "central" sensitive faculty that allows us to distinguish sensorial information coming from the "particular senses" in the same perception (eg sweet from blue or noisy from bitter). 
  • Cogitative power: a bridge between of our senses and the intellect. The equivalent power in animals is the estimative one. It helps us perceive something particular as beneficial or harmful. In animals that knowledge is instinctive, in humans it is "sprinkled" with rationality (eg the urge to run away from fire).
  • Imagination: the internal sense through which we represent to ourselves an object known by the external (particular) senses. 
  • Memory: the internal sense through which we represent to ourselves an object known through the external senses in the past, remembering the circumstances that accompanied that knowledge.   
  • Agent intellect: an "active" part of the intellect (therefore the spiritual faculty) that works on the product of what the external and internal senses have captured. 
  • Passive intellect: a receptive part of the intellect on which the agent intellect produces as conclusion the form of the object known.   
The process described above is called simple apprehension, and its outcome is for us to capture the essence or "quiddity" of the object known.

After the simple apprehension comes judgement, the affirmation or negation of what the object is or is not. For instance that a rabbit is a living being. Several times in the reading you'll find Thomas pointing out that truth or falsity occur in this "judgement" part.  

An example using these concepts:

Resultado de imagen para birch treeI am walking by the lake and as I turn to one side, a few metres away from me, on the grass I perceive some shiny pieces of white and green moving with the wind. I turn my head to see better and I realise they are leaves with a darker colour in the front and a clearer colour under. They are attached to a white trunk. I suddenly remember a similar image outside the house where I grew up. I conclude this is a tree. Simple apprehension so far. Then I think "This is a birch". This is a judgement and it can be right or wrong, be true or false. Maybe it is a birch, of a similar kind to the ones I used to see outside my childhood house. Or maybe it is not a birch, it is an aspen tree.

Except for a case in which my senses are defective, eg I don't see colours properly, the simple apprehension is pretty straightforward and I will get "the concept" of the tree in front of me, that's why St Thomas says at this level there is no falsity. It is at the judgement stage that truth or falsity come to the stage. 

You don't have to understand at this stage the whole process of simple apprehension (you may not find it that "simple" after all!). But it is important to see what the process is like, what the terms mean and how that relates to the truth / falsity discussion in the last four numbers of Question 1 De veritate.  



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Wednesday 2 October 2019

F&R 2020 Program

Resultado de imagen para disputations middle agesCourse theme: The Church and Philosophy.

Description: Become acquainted with the Church’s perspective on faith and reason and the role philosophy plays in that regard. The "research question" guiding our readings and discussions throughout the year will be whether a "Christian philosophy" is definable, possible and desirable.

Readings: Four papal documents that have treated this topic at some length, all of them available online for free (click on the hyperlinks to access them). Additional material suggested by F&R members and pertinent to the discussion may be added as optional.

Readings:

Aeterni Patris, Leo XIII, 1879.

Studiorum ducem, Pius XI, 1923.

Lumen Ecclesiae, Paul VI, 1974.

Fides et ratio, John Paul II, 1998.

Calendar:

4 February - Aeterni Patris, paragraphs 1-16.

3 March - Aeterni Patris, 17-34.

7 April - Studiorum ducem, 1-15.

5 May - Studiorum ducem, 16-32.

2 June - Lumen Ecclesiae, 1-14.

7 July - Lumen Ecclesiae, 15-30.

4 August - Fides et ratio, 1-23.

1 September - Fides et ratio, 24-48.

6 October - Fides et ratio, 49-79.

3 November - Fides et ratio, 80-108.

Outcome: F&R members will be able to appreciate the importance of philosophy for their own lives, for their understanding of the world around them and for the holistic integration of what they know by faith, through study and life experience. Participants will become more familiar with what the Magisterium has often termed "perennial philosophy" and will be able to contrast it with other philosophical perspectives and systems.





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Highlights and Resources after the 1st October Session

In the October session we reviewed the last two chapters of Guide to St Thomas. Chapter XI argued that St Thomas's most valuable and original contribution to philosophical thought was the discovery of the actus essendi, the action of being or existing, as the innermost feature of all reality, of all what exists. Actus essendi is not one more element in the description of beings, but a distinct element that is not in the essence of anything we know. This actus essendi found in every being is not, however, caused by any of them. Therefore there must be a being whose essence is actus essendi itself, and that's God who in Revelation has spoken about Himself as the one who is.

The most important conclusion from Chapter XII regarded the relationship between Philosophy,  Theology and the sciences in St Thomas's perspective. Both philosophy and theology with the whole of reality as object of study. The sciences study particular segments of reality (physical world--Physics, living beings--Biology, weather--Meteorology, numbers--Mathematics, the governing of cities and states--Politics and so on). Both Philosophy and Theology benefit from the outcomes of scientific research and must take it into account when they judge about the whole of reality. Though neither philosophy nor theology depends for its existence on, or can be proven or disproven by scientific experiments. Philosophy, which relies on reason for its enquiries, benefits from the findings of Theology in the way of a challenge. Theology shows truths from Revelation to which Philosophy must arrive through reasoning (say the existence of God, see above). At the same time Theology benefits from the rigour of philosophical reasoning to ensure it does not jump to mistaken conclusions from the initial point of departure of Revelation (an example could be the rational explanation of the Holy Trinity).



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