Aquinas and qualia

[gferrer]

For anyone with knowledge of Aquinas and contemporary issues in philosophy of mind, I’m trying to check my understanding of some concepts.

In the Thomistic approach, there exist vegetative, animal, and rational souls. Only the rational soul has an immaterial component, and this is because a rational soul can apprehend forms directly. Nevertheless, animal souls experience qualia.

So in the Thomistic approach, it would appear that qualia are material. This winds up looking weird in the context of contemporary arguments about philosophy of mind, where the Thomist would be siding with materialists on the issue of qualia (although not on intentionality).

This leads to my question for any Thomists out there. Would it be fair to say that, for the Thomist, qualia are material, but that the Thomistic idea of “material” is a “richer” or “broader” idea than a contemporary materialist notion of “material”?

Thanks!

 

[Linusthe2nd]

For anyone with knowledge of Aquinas and contemporary issues in philosophy of mind, I’m trying to check my understanding of some concepts.

In the Thomistic approach, there exist vegetative, animal, and rational souls. Only the rational soul has an immaterial component, and this is because a rational soul can apprehend forms directly. Nevertheless, animal souls experience qualia.

So in the Thomistic approach, it would appear that qualia are material. This winds up looking weird in the context of contemporary arguments about philosophy of mind, where the Thomist would be siding with materialists on the issue of qualia (although not on intentionality).

This leads to my question for any Thomists out there. Would it be fair to say that, for the Thomist, qualia are material, but that the Thomistic idea of “material” is a “richer” or “broader” idea than a contemporary materialist notion of “material”?

Thanks!

Would you mind defining what you mean by " qualia ? "

The rational soul does not have an immaterial component, it is ENTIRELY immaterial.
The immateriality of the soul is proven in that it abstracts the natures of the realities outside itself and holds them in the intellect as concepts. Only an immaterial subject ( soul) can perform these operations.

You should read " Aquinas " by Edward Feser.

 

[wittgenstein]

Google,“qualia Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy” for an excellent article about qualia.
In my opinion to be an eliminative materialist ( google for exact definition) that believes in qualia is too hold two contradictory views. However, you did say that Aquinas might have had a more expansive definition of “matter”.
Also, rational understanding ( cognitive phenomenology ) is based on qualia. Knowing something is a subjective feeling. For example, google, “Searle Chinese room”

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Google,“qualia Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy” for an excellent article about qualia.
In my opinion to be an eliminative materialist ( google for exact definition) that believes in qualia is too hold two contradictory views. However, you did say that Aquinas might have had a more expansive definition of “matter”.
Also, rational understanding ( cognitive phenomenology ) is based on qualia. Knowing something is a subjective feeling. For example, google, “Searle Chinese room”

My friend you are speaking to ordinary humans here. If you would condescend to come down to our level we might be able to understand what you are saying.

 

[wittgenstein]

“So in the Thomistic approach, it would appear that qualia are material. This winds up looking weird in the context of contemporary arguments about philosophy of mind, where the Thomist would be siding with materialists on the issue of qualia (although not on intentionality).”
gferrer

Qualia (plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/ ) cannot by definition be material.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_argument
Here is something I wrote about this subject.
Has Mary learned anything? According to the objections she has not. Here is my variation on the theme of “Mary’s room”. Suppose, she knows everything about triangles from a strictly words and numbers basis. However, she has never seen a triangle or even visualized one. She can calculate using the Pythagorean Theorem what one side of a triangle is but she never knows the form of a triangle.
One day all of a sudden she visualizes ( imagines it in her mind) a triangle. There is no triangle in her brain. The neurons are not firing in a triangle shape etc. However, even if we describe that mental triangle as an epiphenomenon it is still new information, not encoded in the brain ( there is no triangle shape in her brain) . To say the visualized triangle= the words or mathematical formulas for a triangle, is like saying a CD of Mozart = hearing Mozart!
The below is from the Mary’s room site given above,
"Thus, at the conception of the thought experiment, Jackson was an epiphenomenalist. Later, however, he rejected epiphenomenalism. plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/ This, he argues, is because when Mary first sees red, she says “wow”, so it must be Mary’s qualia that causes her to say “wow”. This contradicts epiphenomenalism because it involves a conscious state causing an overt speech behavior. Since the Mary’s room thought experiment seems to create this contradiction, there must be something wrong with it. "
The only way out, it seems to me is to claim that it is impossible for a person to visualize a triangle!!!
Physicalists (such as Dennett) deny the existence of qualia. I hope to show that such a position requires them (if they are consistent) to assert something that they themselves will deny. Therefore, there position is untenable and perhaps absurd.
I believe that Dennett will not deny the obvious fact that a person can visualize a triangle. When one visualizes a triangle one sees a triangle. One does not see neurons firing or whatever.
Dennett has two options. 1. Deny that one sees a triangle. Saying that the triangle is an illusion is not a solution because Dennett (if consistent) must say that there is nothing “what it feels like” to see a triangle.
Or 2, There is an actual physical triangle in one’s brain. Both options are absurd. Therefore Dennett’s position is untenable.

“Only the rational soul has an immaterial component”
gferrer
Even a simple experience of pain ( qualia) is immaterial and accessible to even animals. Rationality is a sub set of qualia. plato.stanford.edu/entries/intentionality/ is based on qualia. If knowledge is not experienced it is not knowledge because knowledge requires intentionality and matter can not be about something. I believe that plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/ makes it clear and proves my contention.