- Tytuł:
- Filozofia intelektu. Tomasza z Akwinu koncepcja intelektu możnościowego i czynnego
- Autorzy:
-
Zembrzuski, Michał
Płotka, Magdalena
Andrzejuk, Artur - Powiązania:
- https://bibliotekanauki.pl/books/2117598.pdf
- Data publikacji:
- 2019
- Wydawca:
- Wydawnictwo Liberi Libri
- Opis:
- Philosophy of intellect Thomas Aquinas on potential and active intellect The spectrum of issues concerning human cognition introduced in this work has been presented on the basis of the Aristotelian differentiation between two intellects, potential and active. This differentiation was related to further domains of theoretical philosophy which became a fundament of that what has been described as the philoso- phy of the intellect. The philosophy of the intellect is a systematic presentation of these metaphysical and theory of cognition issues, which on the basis of the Aristotelian distinction are directly concerned with domain of intellect. According to the presented research and its results, we assume that one cannot easily equate the philosophy of intellect and the philosophy of mind, as it might result in the process of implementing the enormous interpretative difficulties into the Thomistic understanding of the nature of human being and its activities. Philosophy of intellect is a proper perspective then, to conduct a further research on specific issues concerning human cognition. Further research should consider both a practical aspect of activity of the human intellect, domain we may call „the ethics of intellect”, and aspects strictly theological, which might be called „the theology of intellect”. In the first part the metaphysical issues concerning the nature of intellect has been presented. On the one hand, it was shown what is the purpose in differentiating intellects with regard to the fact of relating and belonging a human being to other intellectual beings. In this part the metaphysical status of intellects as the properties (proprietates) of soul has been stressed, and further, the dependence of intellects on substantial form. The potential and active intellects are not only the aspects of human cognition, whose differentiation is only a historical domain of low importance. Both intellects constitutes the principles of human, and only human, activity. They in reality differ in a way such as act differs from potentiality. They differ because man has both, ability enabling cognition and ability to its entirely passive perception. In the second part the fundamental issues concerning human cognition has been presented in the light of the theory of two intellects. These issues consist of: relation of intellect to sensual cognition, abstraction, understanding and judging, theory of cognitive forms, identity of object with the cognizing intellect, the question of truth located in the intellect, the problem of intuition, the problem of self- cognition (cogni- tion of the self), and finally the issue of formation of the word. Solution of each of the above issue in the thought of Aquinas depends on the prior, deepen understanding of human intellect in which there is a particular place for the potential and active intellect. Key statements included in the work, concerning the potential and active intellect, might be gathered at the end and presented in the essential points. At first, Thomas interpreted the text of Aristotle in a way that allows to say that the potential and active intellects were related to a particular human being individually and that they would enable the intellectual cognition in each particular case. Following Aristotle, Thomas stressed immateriality of the potential intellect and being (existing) in the act of the active intellect whose power is not of absolute character and is strictly related with introducing the intelligible structure in cognition with regard to that what is material and sensually cognizable. Determination worked out by the Peripathetic tradition regarding the intellect in the act, the acquired intellect, the improved intellect served to describe the nature of the potential intellect. Secondly, the differentiation between the potential and active intellect describing the nature of human being as the intellectual one has been related with the under- standing of the hierarchy in beings, especially with relating human being to beings of the intellectual nature. Man, for the fact that it falls to the domain of intellectual beings, has the lowest of the intellects within intellectual beings, the intellect in the possibility to cognize and acquire forms from the sensual objects. In the result, its access to cognize things within its own order is impeded. Thirdly, the potential and active intellects are not of subsistent character and their form designates them to be an area of powers (possibilities), which determine the acts of taking place the immaterial acts of cognition. Soul as substantial form is, according to Thomas, both a subsistent form, which means that is strictly united with body, and it also is independent from body in its (soul’s) functions and existence. The fact that Thomas calls the intellect the form of body was an expression of his intention to object to Averroism and in that way stressing the individual nature of both intellects related with the particular human being. They are related to each particular man to the extend they condition the fact that hic homo intelligit. The fourth issue is that the potential intellect and the active intellect differ as two powers with regard to acts they proceed and with regard to objects which condition precisely these specific acts, not the other ones. Differentiation between them is not only the process of applying different functions to them, but presenting them as actually different powers. Denoting the potential intellect as a passive power, and the active intellect as an active power, enabled to understand them as the faculties of substance, and at the same time, as their specific kind- properties (proprietates). For denoting the potential intellect Aquinas employs various names, it is that what denotes phrases like: the theoretical intellect and the practical, intelligence, reason, memory, higher and lower reason, conscience and synderesis and mind. The potential intellect is that whose nature (possibility) is decisive for justifying immateriality. The impediment argument appeals to the intellect in quo omnia fiunt. At the same time however, the human intellect is not determined to anything proper to its own area. The potential and active intellects could be called the mind on the strict specific conditions. The mind is a name which either should specify the will or should specify the act of both intellects which means „measuring” things according to cognitive principles. The term mind may also designate the intellectual soul (mind) from which its highest powers, ascribed to it, will result. The fifth, the potential and active intellect are differentiated with regard to the object of activity which is an essence of material things, cognizable within a frame of that what is cognizable sensually. In describing the nature of the potential intellect we turn to negation of any prior understandings which could have exceeded cognition and conditioned it. The proper activity of the intellect is abstraction. It is both demateriali- sation of the imagined thing and the turning the subject of the intellectual cognition, which is in a state of possibility toward cognition, into an object which actually acts on the potential intellect. Assessing the intellectual structure (generality and necessity) of that is cognizable sensually is on the part of the active intellect (agit sibi simile). In this sense we can admit that the character of active intellect is such that it can form that what is cognized and what further form the potential intellect. Abstraction is not introducing a content into what is cognized, it is rather the process of unveiling the essential parts of the cognized being. The proper activity of the potential intellect is the „understanding that what is undivided” and „joining and dividing” which are expressed in simple acts of understanding things and formulating judgements. Analysis of these acts shows the potential intellect as that which is in a natural way directed toward cognizing the essence and the existence, accompanied with the activity of the active intellect. The sixth is that the intellectual cognitive forms (species intelligibiles) explain cognition as far as they show a relation between the cognized thing, the influence (operating) of the active intellect on the imagination and on their perception in the potential intellect. The active intellect adapts the sensual cognitive form in such a way that it can be grasped by the potential intellect, without altering the content of the object in no way. From the perspective of the potential intellect the cognitive forms remain that what is the condition for the object to be cognized (medium quo), they are not that on what the intellect focus its attention (medium quod). The potential intellect which adopted a cognitive form becomes a thing cognizable in the act. Species intelli- gibilis actualizes the human intellect in a way that it gains a perfection and fulfillment of cognition. The act of the intellectual cognition expresses the formal identity of the cognizing subject, the cognized object and the intellect in the act (intellectus in actu), which in uniting with form cognizes in a thing all that the thing is consisted of. The seventh issue. The potential and active intellects explains the Thomistic un- derstanding of truth. The potential intellect while cognizing a thing (which posseses a property of truth for the very fact of existence) remains in relation with it, a relation which can be assumed in the act of judgement and further either accepted or rejected. The essence of truth (ratio veritatis) is expressed through, stressed by Aquinas, a strict dependence of the existing being and the intellect cognizing it. And although the hu- man intellect measures the existed thing, it itself is antecedently measured by the thing. The eight. Intuition is an activity of the potential and active intellect as far as it cognizes its object non-discoursively. Intuition then, is strictly related to the first act of the intellect in which „the understanding of that what is undivided” takes place. The intellectual cognition (intuitive) is described by Thomas as an act of „reading the interior of a thing” and also of the „reading in the interior of a thing”. In both cases cooperation of the potential and active intellect is expressed through cognition of the essence and existence of things. The ninth. The acts taking place in the potential and active intellects decide on cognition of the self. The intellectual cognition of the self is conditioned by activities of two intellects – both when the actual self-knowledge is concerned, cognition of the self through the acts undertaken, habitual self- knowledge and the self-knowledge ravealing itself in each cognition according to the first principles. The tenth. The moment of formation of the word in the intellect shows the nature of the intellect. It not only passively adopts the form, but also expresses the understandings (intellectum). The word in the intellect expresses and reveals the prior acts of the intellect, what means that it is the end of the intellectual activities, and also the beginning (principium) of any other volitional relations towards existing and cognized reality. Thomas’ conception of the intellectual cognition is grounded in the differentia- tion between two intellects, and their actions and improvements reveal the nature of human being, which belongs (however in an impaired mode) to the intellectual beings. The topic of two intellectual powers, or rather the most important cognitive abilities of human being, was for Thomas as much important as the problem of being in which he constantly seen the essence and the existence as separated. Hence, the small error concerning the principles of being was for Aquinas of general importance, for the understanding of reality, and the small error concerning the intellectual domain in human being is decisive for the understanding of reality and the human being itself.
- Dostawca treści:
- Biblioteka Nauki
Książka