How do we come to know things?

[JuanFlorencio]

Flowers are the fertilization bodies of their plant. They send and receive pollen, which is the male sex cell, (yes, some plants have sexual reproduction), absorb it and enable the plant to generate the seed body.

But that is not what our eyes and nose perceive, but the accidents, ie, the color and the smell (which are there to help perform its function, ie by calling in insects to carry the pollen).

If we have studied botany, we can “perceive” the essence of them, but not with our senses, rather by the mind in our head. And our mind can do that only if we have put other knowledge in our head first.

ICXC NIKA.

Hi GEddie:

That is precisely the point! Could you please let me know the following?:

1. What is the essence of a flower?
2. What previous knowledge do we need to “perceive” such essence?
3. Does it have to do with flowers?
4. is the essence of flowers to be “perceived” in the flowers?
5. If yes, why do we need extra knowledge to “perceive” it?
6. If not, is the essence of flowers really their “essence”?

Best regards
JuanFlorencio

 

[Aloysium]

Let’s see what I can come up with:

1. What is the essence of a flower?
   The flower is part of a plant. The essence of plants is their plantness.
2. What previous knowledge do we need to “perceive” such essence?
   You need to know words and what they mean. Adam was given the ability and task of naming the animals. I take this to mean that we can identify objects in reality and create a symbol to identify them, as part of our relationship with creation. We need knowledge and experience to see anything. A baby at birth cannot truly recognize its mother. The mother exists and the child develops a life-long relationship with her. This same capacity allows us to identify components of things to the point that we have arrived at an understanding of the sub-atomic.
3. Does it have to do with flowers?
   I don’t understand the question. Yeah, we need knowledge to differentiate a rose from a peony. You ask two-year-olds, they will respond, “pretty flower”. Two-year-olds frequently know more than philosophers.
4. is the essence of flowers to be “perceived” in the flowers?
   You need a physical nervous system and the mind that goes with it in the unity that is the person who exists in relation to God and His creation, in order to perceive and think. In terms of a flower, I doubt that a new-born could perceive it. To perceive an object one needs to distinguish between the foreground and background, and activities such as dropping the spoon from the highchair - “Oops, hah, hah, hah, hah!” can go on for very long times.
5. If yes, why do we need extra knowledge to “perceive” it?
   We always need extra knowledge if we are to grow in understanding. This is a big part of the reason why I am bothering to write this.
6. If not, is the essence of flowers really their “essence”?
   The reality (I am starting to despise the word “essence”) of a flower, is the reality of a flower. Some philosophers call it essence. Apparently, you dislike the word too.

 

[GEddie]

A neonate may not recognize mommy by sight, as he has not yet learnt to see, having never before used his eyes.

But he’d recognize her voice, the sound of her breathing, the sensation of her heartbeat.

The neonate mind is very nearly, but in all likelihood not altogether empty.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[Bahman]

Simple, through consciousness.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . The neonate mind is very nearly, but in all likelihood not altogether empty.

ICXC NIKA.

I would imagine it to be filled with the same joy and wonder that is within us when we gaze onto this miracle of creation.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Dear Aloysium:

Perhaps I should say first that the original discussion concerns the “abstraction process” that, according to St. Thomas, we carry out over material entities. Linus defends that there is actually such process and as St. Thomas says -among many other things-, that

"The human intellect must of necessity understand by composition and division. For since the intellect passes from potentiality to act, it has a likeness to things which are generated, which do not attain to perfection all at once but acquire it by degrees: so likewise the human intellect does not acquire perfect knowledge by the first act of apprehension; but it first apprehends something about its object, such as its essence, and this is its first and proper object; and then it understands the properties, accidents, and the various relations of the essence."

I asked Linus about the essence of a flower (it could have been any other object!). If it is true that we apprehend the essence of objects in the first place, we must know a great amount of them already.

My position in this respect is that there is no abstraction process, if it is understood as the direct apprehension of the essence of material objects.

So…

Let’s see what I can come up with:

1. What is the essence of a flower?
   The flower is part of a plant. The essence of plants is their plantness.

Plantness, wordness, bookness, waterness, worldness, treeness, toothness, knifness, etcetera, are just abuses of language. It seems that according to you, “flowerness” would be the essence of a flower. But if that were the case, surely you would agree that knowing the essence of things and don’t knowing them makes no difference.

1. What previous knowledge do we need to “perceive” such essence?
   You need to know words and what they mean. Adam was given the ability and task of naming the animals. I take this to mean that we can identify objects in reality and create a symbol to identify them, as part of our relationship with creation. We need knowledge and experience to see anything. A baby at birth cannot truly recognize its mother. The mother exists and the child develops a life-long relationship with her. This same capacity allows us to identify components of things to the point that we have arrived at an understanding of the sub-atomic.

When Linus asked me how did I know that there were flowers in my garden, I responded to him that when I was a child I knew flowers through language. I guess this is what you are saying. But I continued: still, even today I would not be able to say what the essence of a flower is.

If you are defending the abstraction process, I would respond to you: If we need to know words and their meaning in order to apprehend the essence of material objects, the same must have applied to Adam. So, he put names to the animals without knowing their essences.

1. Does it have to do with flowers?
   I don’t understand the question. Yeah, we need knowledge to differentiate a rose from a peony. You ask two-year-olds, they will respond, “pretty flower”. Two-year-olds frequently know more than philosophers.

All philosophers were once two-year-olds, so they know that what you say is false. The series of questions I asked are related to each other. The second question is this: if you need extra knowledge to perceive the “essence” of a flower, does such extra knowledge have to do with the “essence” of the flower or is it strange to it?

You said that the extra knowledge we need is words and their meanings, but according to what I have responded above, words do not have any relation to the essence of material objects. So, the answer to my second question would be: No, there is no relation between the essence of objects and the previous knowledge that we must have.

1. is the essence of flowers to be “perceived” in the flowers?
   You need a physical nervous system and the mind that goes with it in the unity that is the person who exists in relation to God and His creation, in order to perceive and think. In terms of a flower, I doubt that a new-born could perceive it. To perceive an object one needs to distinguish between the foreground and background, and activities such as dropping the spoon from the highchair - “Oops, hah, hah, hah, hah!” can go on for very long times.

The question is not about perceiving material objects, but their essences.

1. If yes, why do we need extra knowledge to “perceive” it?
   We always need extra knowledge if we are to grow in understanding. This is a big part of the reason why I am bothering to write this.

I would be glad if your understanding could grow thanks to this discussion, Aloysium. Now, focusing on the problem: the flower is in front of you and you just need to know its essence (and according to St. Thomas, the first thing you apprehend is precisely the essence). Why should you look somewhere else (for help, maybe?), and why do you need something extra?

1. If not, is the essence of flowers really their “essence”?
   The reality (I am starting to despise the word “essence”) of a flower, is the reality of a flower. Some philosophers call it essence. Apparently, you dislike the word too.

Aristotle says that the essence of an object can finally be reduced to its definition. The definition would be called a “universal” and it’s correlate would be the essence of the object. So, using those terms, question 4 could be re-stated this way: is the “universal” abstracted from the flower or is it formed from something else?

I really do not dislike the word, but I think that we do not apprehend the essences of material objects.

Best regards
JuanFlorencio

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Dear Aloysium:

Since you mentioned my name several times I will intervene. Aloysium, I’m sure, will add his own thoughts later - when he gets the time and energy…

Perhaps I should say first that the original discussion concerns the “abstraction process” that, according to St. Thomas, we carry out over material entities. Linus defends that there is actually such process and as St. Thomas says -among many other things-, that

And it is absolutely true ( and let’s not quibble over where " passive intellect " and " agent intellect " should be in the process. It is clear that it is the one and same intellect ( mind ) exercising different powers that is at work. Just as it is the same intellect which acts as the " commen sense " which collates all the incoming data, and which forms or constructs the phantasm, the same intellect which stores the phantasm in memory, the same intellect which recalls the phantasm from memory and abstracts a universal idea, an essence, the same intellect which makes the judgment that this is the the same essence that exists in a particular object outside of the mind. A particular essence which exhibits definite characteristics and behaviors.

"The human intellect must of necessity understand by composition and division. For since the intellect passes from potentiality to act, it has a likeness to things which are generated, which do not attain to perfection all at once but acquire it by degrees: so likewise the human intellect does not acquire perfect knowledge by the first act of apprehension; but it first apprehends something about its object, such as its essence, and this is its first and proper object; and then it understands the properties, accidents, and the various relations of the essence."

I asked Linus about the essence of a flower (it could have been any other object!). If it is true that we apprehend the essence of objects in the first place, we must know a great amount of them already.

A child apprehends an essence as soon as he says ( perhaps not in words ) that somethng exists out there. That something is an essence, a nature, a substance. But at this point in its life the child cannot further define that essence or any other. At one or two years the world is a jumble of essences that exist. Discrimination grows with age, experience, and education.

My position in this respect is that there is no abstraction process, if it is understood as the direct apprehension of the essence of material objects.

And you are wrong. Your great learning has become a handicap. You have fallen under the seductive allure of hard science, or perhaps the unconscious ideology it inculcates in its students.

Plantness, wordness, bookness, waterness, worldness, treeness, toothness, knifness, etcetera, are just abuses of language.

Of course you are wrong, that is a prejudical statement which convicts you of an anti philosophical ideology. I do admit we have to distinguish between essences and accidents, between substances and artifacts.

It seems that according to you, “flowerness” would be the essence of a flower. But if that were the case, surely you would agree that knowing the essence of things and don’t knowing them makes no difference.

Perhaps you selected the wrong object for analysis. For infact, the essence of a flower, even your favorite flower, is entirely subjective. What is the difference between the essence of your favorite flower than the common weed? Nothing but human convention. Now I do think we could come to some common agreement on the genus of things underwhich would fall weeds and flowers. But that probably has no great interest to people other than botanists and local magistrates who have to keep " weeds " out of park areas and farmers who want to keep them out of their crops.

When Linus asked me how did I know that there were flowers in my garden, I responded to him that when I was a child I knew flowers through language. I guess this is what you are saying. But I continued: still, even today I would not be able to say what the essence of a flower is.

As a child you knew that essences did exist, but you had not yet learned to discriminate.

If you are defending the abstraction process, I would respond to you: If we need to know words and their meaning in order to apprehend the essence of material objects, the same must have applied to Adam. So, he put names to the animals without knowing their essences.

We don’t necessarily need words. Any uneducated farmer could tell you some of the essential differences between his wife and the family cow, and the viper in his garden and the trees in his wood lot. And calling things by name helps in communicating the farmers knowledge to his neighbors or to that,know it all, professor who comes down for vacation every year. You know, the one who is always bragging how much he knows and how dumb the farmer is.

Cont. on next post.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Dear Aloysium: continued.

All philosophers were once two-year-olds, so they know that what you say is false.

That is not true, in fact Aristotle and Thomas used exactly that example, the example of the child just discovering the world.

The series of questions I asked are related to each other. The second question is this: if you need extra knowledge to perceive the “essence” of a flower, does such extra knowledge have to do with the “essence” of the flower or is it strange to it?

It helps us distinguish between essences and it helps us refine our knowledge of each essence. Aristotle and Thomas both addressed this.

You said that the extra knowledge we need is words and their meanings, but according to what I have responded above, words do not have any relation to the essence of material objects. So, the answer to my second question would be: No, there is no relation between the essence of objects and the previous knowledge that we must have.

Words help us catelogue essences in memory and to recall them for contemplation and thought. They also facilitate the communication of our knowledge of essences to other people, to sysmatize our acquired knowledge of essences in books, papers, addresses, journals, etc. So you are dead wrong in your assessment here.

The question is not about perceiving material objects, but their essences.

Actually the O.P. was, " How do we come to know things? " Perhaps I should have been more specific.

[QUOGTE]I would be glad if your understanding could grow thanks to this discussion, Aloysium. Now, focusing on the problem: the flower is in front of you and you just need to know its essence (and according to St. Thomas, the first thing you apprehend is precisely the essence). Why should you look somewhere else (for help, maybe?), and why do you need something extra?

Thomas never suggested that we come to a full knowledge of an essence right from the cradle! So your question is misleading. Naturally our knowledge of any essence will improve with age, experience, education, and possibly even with grace - at least in respect to some essences.

Aristotle says that the essence of an object can finally be reduced to its definition. The definition would be called a “universal” and it’s correlate would be the essence of the object. So, using those terms, question 4 could be re-stated this way: is the “universal” abstracted from the flower or is it formed from something else?

That’s an unfair question, Allosium is not a philosopher. But the answer is, the essence is abstracted by the intellect from the idea it has formed from the phantasms it has stored in memory. Then the will judges that this abstracted essence agrees with the object we " see " outside of the mind.

I really do not dislike the word, but I think that we do not apprehend the essences of material objects.

And you would be absolutely wrong.

Linus2nd

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Dear Linus and Alloysium:

I had no idea that you did not know about philosophy. There is nothing wrong with that. Billions of people haven’t known it. So, to me you are ok!

Philosophers do not have the intention of offending anyone. They just follow an inclination that is in them previous to any conscious desire. To be rigorous is one of their traits, but without any ill will against anybody. Socrates teachings resulted offensive to certain powerful guys, and they promoted a trial against him. He has declared “non-innocent”, and was condemned to death. But he never intended to cause any harm to their fellow men. Aristotle had to run away from Athens to escape the same destiny. But Aristotle was a fine man.

However, when philosophers discuss among them, their arguments would seem like mortal weapons to anyone of you. Still, they don’t think the same. They just are as rigorous as they can, and it is what they have to do.

I do not have any intention to offend any of you either. So, I will find it acceptable if you quit.

Good night
JuanFlorencio

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Dear Linus and Alloysium:

I had no idea that you did not know about philosophy. There is nothing wrong with that. Billions of people haven’t known it. So, to me you are ok!

Philosophers do not have the intention of offending anyone. They just follow an inclination that is in them previous to any conscious desire. To be rigorous is one of their traits, but without any ill will against anybody. Socrates teachings resulted offensive to certain powerful guys, and they promoted a trial against him. He has declared “non-innocent”, and was condemned to death. But he never intended to cause any harm to their fellow men. Aristotle had to run away from Athens to escape the same destiny. But Aristotle was a fine man.

However, when philosophers discuss among them, their arguments would seem like mortal weapons to anyone of you. Still, they don’t think the same. They just are as rigorous as they can, and it is what they have to do.

I do not have any intention to offend any of you either. So, I will find it acceptable if you quit.

Good night
JuanFlorencio

No one is quitting Juan, but we won’t be bullied either. You raised questions and issues that cannot be logically defended. The principle on is that we have no need of a knowledges of essences, even querying whether such a thing existed at all.

Linus2nd

 

[JuanFlorencio]

No one is quitting Juan, but we won’t be bullied either. You raised questions and issues that cannot be logically defended. The principle on is that we have no need of a knowledges of essences, even querying whether such a thing existed at all.

Linus2nd

I had never known any individual who changed his mind as fast as you do, Linus.

Yes, we have absolutely no need of a knowledge of essences.

Yes, we don’t even need to know if such things exist at all.

Yes, the doctrine of the abstraction of essences from material entities cannot be defended logically.

Good bye!
JuanFlorencio

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I had never known any individual who changed his mind as fast as you do, Linus.

Yes, we have absolutely no need of a knowledge of essences.

Yes, we don’t even need to know if such things exist at all.

Yes, the doctrine of the abstraction of essences from material entities cannot be defended logically.

Good bye!
JuanFlorencio

Aristotle, Aquinas and Catholic philosophers, theologians, and most of the Popes ( probably all really) since the end of the 13th century until now disagree with you as do the most important of the Muslim and the odd Jewsih philosophers disagree. Would you like a list of the more famous ones? I knew from the beginning you were an ideologue. Was just waiting for the colors to show.

Good Night
Linus2nd

 

[GEddie]

The problem is that essences often cannot be defined without recourse to lists of accidents.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Linusthe2nd]

The problem is that essences often cannot be defined without recourse to lists of accidents.

ICXC NIKA

That is not a problem, they take the place of the " middle " of the syllogism from which the definition is made.

Linus2nd

 

[JuanFlorencio]

The problem is that essences often cannot be defined without recourse to lists of accidents.

ICXC NIKA

Hi GEddie!,

Could you please put an example of the definition of an essence through a list of accidents?

Thank you
JuanFlorencio

 

[Nixbits]

I’m still trying to understand what essence actually is. Let me take an example. In my front garden there is a daffodil (not in flower yet but it soon will be). That actually existing individual thing is a flower.

The website www.aquinasonline.com that Linus provided a link to in post #14 states about essence: “It is a formal principle since for material reality, it is abstracted by the human intellect. Hence, it is a universal principle making many material individuals to be of the same kind”. This makes it sound like a subjective category concept dependent upon the human intellect that makes the abstraction. There are many levels in which we can describe individuals things to be ‘of the same kind’. In this case: daffodil, perennial, type of amaryllis, flower, plant, living thing etc.

A child might see this individual daffodil and abstract the essence as ‘flower-ness’. But this is not sufficient to make this individual daffodil what it is. Similarly, an adult might abstract the essence as ‘daffodil-ness’ and a gardener (knowing that there are different types of daffodil) might abstract the essence as ‘yellow-petalled daffodil-ness’. The adult and the gardener would be closer to the true essence, but presumably they would still not be totally correct. A passing botanist might abstract the essence as ‘narcissus pseudonarcissus-ness’. This might be closer to the true essence, but perhaps the botanist would have to discern the precise variety of hybrid to abstract the true essence of what makes this individual daffodil what it is.

I’m quite capable of simultaneously holding in my feeble brain the notions that many individual daffodils are ‘of the same kind’ and that many individual perennial flowers are ‘of the same kind’, along with many other simultaneous category groupings. But, as Linus has said, “every substance has an essence or nature, it is real and actual”. My individual daffodil has one essence that makes it what it is. So, what precisely is the essence of this individual daffodil? Is it that which it has in common with all other daffodils of its hybrid variety?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I’m still trying to understand what essence actually is. Let me take an example. In my front garden there is a daffodil (not in flower yet but it soon will be). That actually existing individual thing is a flower.

The website www.aquinasonline.com that Linus provided a link to in post #14 states about essence: “It is a formal principle since for material reality, it is abstracted by the human intellect. Hence, it is a universal principle making many material individuals to be of the same kind”. This makes it sound like a subjective category concept dependent upon the human intellect that makes the abstraction. There are many levels in which we can describe individuals things to be ‘of the same kind’. In this case: daffodil, perennial, type of amaryllis, flower, plant, living thing etc.

A child might see this individual daffodil and abstract the essence as ‘flower-ness’. But this is not sufficient to make this individual daffodil what it is. Similarly, an adult might abstract the essence as ‘daffodil-ness’ and a gardener (knowing that there are different types of daffodil) might abstract the essence as ‘yellow-petalled daffodil-ness’. The adult and the gardener would be closer to the true essence, but presumably they would still not be totally correct. A passing botanist might abstract the essence as ‘narcissus pseudonarcissus-ness’. This might be closer to the true essence, but perhaps the botanist would have to discern the precise variety of hybrid to abstract the true essence of what makes this individual daffodil what it is.

I’m quite capable of simultaneously holding in my feeble brain the notions that many individual daffodils are ‘of the same kind’ and that many individual perennial flowers are ‘of the same kind’, along with many other simultaneous category groupings. But, as Linus has said, “every substance has an essence or nature, it is real and actual”. My individual daffodil has one essence that makes it what it is. So, what precisely is the essence of this individual daffodil? Is it that which it has in common with all other daffodils of its hybrid variety?

Yes. The child begins by thinking ( following a sense experience of sight, feel, sound, smell, taste ) that something exists out there that is not him. Something, in this case, is the universal act that all substances ( essences, natures ) have in common. They all exist. Very soon the child will notice that this essence exists in many different objects. As the child matures, it begins to notice that these numerous individuals, which share the universal of existence, can be divided into groups which share other common notions, such as living and non-living.

Later on the child begins to distinguish types of living and non-living things. And eventually, with age, experience, education, the maturing child begins to distinguish between sub-groups of living and non-living groupings. And eventually, the mature adult begins to distinguish more particularized characteristics and behaviors, further dividing the groups. At some point the child may go to school and his knowledge of the numerous sub-groupings becomes more precise.

At each stage of the evolving act of knowing, the essence or universal form held by the intellect becomes more and more true of the individuals which posses this essence in a particular way. The universal essence or form held by the mind, however, has been abstracted from all particularizing aspects. It is never reflected in reality exactly as it exists in the mind. It is reflected in reality with the common aspects of all individuals in a genus or species plus individualizing accidents, hairy, bald, white, black, tiny, huge, and so on.

And at some point the farmer ( the grown up child ) says, " This thing in my garden belongs in a class of living, growing things which must be taken out of my garden." At the same time, the farmer’s wife sees other similar things she wants in her flower garden. Are these two things any different. No, not really. Both of them, if left in the garden, would probably ruin a crop or greatly reduce its productivity. The wife on the other hand has noticed that some of these things are quite beautiful and fragrant and has decided to have a small garden to grow these, which she calls a flower garden. The educated botanist at the local universlty may be able to distinguish between weed and flower, but his ability to distinguish between them is largely governed between the notion of what is harmful to crops and what is pleasant to scent and beauty. And this is largely a matter of convention and does not necessarily add to any knowledge of the essence of any group.

The point of this explanatory note is to illustrate, in a practical way, how we come to know individual things which exist outside the mind. And in this process, the mind or intellect is busy going through all the mental gymnastics Aristotle and Aquinas have described in my earlier notes above.
Linus2nd

 

[lmelahn]

There are a number of interesting problems being discussed on this thread, which I did not have time to look at until now.

Let’s tackle first Aquinas’ theory of knowledge, and leave the discussion of essence/substance to another post. (I don’t think we can abandon a proper understanding of essence, because it has a lot of implications for our problem.)

As other readers have noted, the theory of knowledge is a philosophical problem, because, on the one hand, the things that we know are material and concrete, whereas our thoughts are universal and immaterial. (At least to some degree: obviously, when I know a tree, it is not as if the tree starts to grow in my brain. There is some kind of image or representation in me, through which I know the tree. This turns out to be probably the strongest argument for the spirituality of the soul, but let’s leave that aside for the moment.)

So, we start out with a concrete, material tree, and we end up, in our minds, with an abstract, universal notion of tree. How do we get from here to there? In essence, there are the steps that Aquinas outlines (borrowing heavily from Aristotle’s De Anima). First, the short list:

1. 
   *]Sensation
   *]Sense perception (which is not the same thing!): i.e., the unification of sensations into “common sensibles.”
   *]Interaction with the imagination.
   *]The unification done by the cogitative power, and judgment of beneficialness/noxiousness.
   *]Storage of this judgment in the memory; recollection of past judgments.
   *]Production of the phantasm (not really a separate step; this is just the what the cogitative power’s unification produces).
   *]Abstraction, accomplished by the agent intellect.
   *]Production of the concept, which resides in the “possible” intellect (again, not really a separate step; it is just the product of abstraction).
   
   Here is an explanation in more detail:
   
   1. 
      *]Sensation: the collection of colors, sounds, tastes, smells, and sensations of touch by the five external senses. These sensations are called the “proper sensibles” in Thomistic lingo. For example, when you see a tree, your eyes receive the sensation of greenness and brownness, coming from different locations in space: that is “sensation.”
      *]Grouping the “proper sensibles” together into what are called the “common sensibles,” like shape, size, and things like that. This is the work of an internal sense that Aquinas calls the “common sense” (not to be confused with the modern-day “common sense,” referring to the knowledge that is available to all people). This is “sense perception,” properly so called. Note that, for the moment, all we have is a jumble of different “common sensibles”–they are not assembled into a coherent whole.
      *]At this point, the imagination may come into play: our past experience of trees, for example, enables us to imagine what the back part of the tree looks like, even though we cannot see it directly. Our current experience is also stored for future reference. (Note that what Aquinas calls “imagination” includes what modern psychologists would probably call “memory;” but memory for Aquinas means something different. See below.)
      *]The most important internal sense, the “cogitative power” (vis cogitativa) takes all the common sensibles and the data from the imagination and unifies them into a coherent whole. This is the power that enables me to realize that there is a tree (even before I can give it a name), in front of me, not just a jumble of green and brown shapes. The cogitative power also judges a thing’s beneficialness or noxiousness (on the sensual level)–like when you get to know poison ivy or nettles for the first time (or, on the positive side, chocolate or something like that).
      *]That judgment of beneficialness or noxiousness gets stored in what is properly called the memory. It because of the sensual memory that, for example, when you eat something that makes you sick, the next time, you are not hungry for it. Or why people who were bitten by dogs when they were children often have an irrational fear of dogs.
      *]The image produced by the cogitative power is what Aquinas calls the “phantasm.” Note that it is still entirely sensual–it has not yet entered the intellect. It is still concrete: if I am seeing a tree, it enables me to see this tree only.
      *]The intellect is fundamentally a receptive faculty: it receives whatever the external senses place before it. (If we see things that the the external senses don’t present, we call that “hallucinating” or “dreaming”!) Nevertheless, in order to get from a purely sensible, concrete image (the “phantasm”) to the intellectual, universal “concept,” the intellect has to perform an action called abstraction, in which the purely material aspects of the phantasm are left aside. In this capacity, the intellect (which is one and whole, of course) functions as the agent intellect.
      *]The end product is a concept, which is received by the intellect, and in this respect the intellect functions as the “possible” intellect. (Again, it is not a different intellect; it simply has an active role in separating the intelligible aspects of the phantasm out from the purely material aspects, but takes on a passive role as the place where the end product–the concept–resides.)

 

[lmelahn]

If you got through the previous post , here are a few observations.

1. 
   *]What we know (according to Aquinas) is things, like trees, birds, and people. The various representations that we have in our minds (the phantasm, the concept) are only the means by which we know the things. It was a common error (in my opinion) of Modern philosophers (like Descartes, Kant, or even Locke) to confuse the two. They began to think that what we know is the representation itself; and in my opinion, that small error caused a whole series of philosophical problems (a topic, however, for another thread).
   *]We know those things, whole and entire, before we come to know their constituent parts (such as their accidents). We might have a vague and confused notion at first, but our knowledge is always of whole beings, not just of colors and geometric forms.
   *]Our intellects, as I said, are fundamentally receptive. They simply register what our senses place before them. There are pine trees outside my window, and they are green, whether I like it or not. (Really nice Roman umbrella pine, actually.)
   *]It is sufficient to have a single experience of a thing, in order to form a concept about it. Even if the pine tree outside my window were the first tree I ever saw in my life, I would still form a valid concept about it, albeit a very vague and confused one. Concepts are “universal” inasmuch as they are applicable to many concrete individuals, not because the knower has actually had contact with many such individuals.
   *]What does the “concept” consist of? Aquinas says that the proper object of the human intellect is quidditas rei materialis, literally the “whatness of material things” (, I, q. 84, a. 2, corpusSumma). However, “quiddity” is another name for essence, and I think we may need to reconsider the premise that the essence is unknowable. (I think it goes back to specifying what we mean by “essence;” that is a topic, however, for another post.)

 

[Aloysium]

. . . All philosophers were once two-year-olds, so they know that what you say is false. The series of questions I asked are related to each other. The second question is this: if you need extra knowledge to perceive the “essence” of a flower, does such extra knowledge have to do with the “essence” of the flower or is it strange to it? . . .

Hi Juan,

As Linus observes, and is clear to anyone, I am no philosopher.
And, that may make it easier for me to see that a two-year-old may “know” more than he will later in life.

As Imelahn very concisely describes above, there exists a complex mental apparatus that governs our relationship with nature.

I am going to assert that
the relationship that exists between the mystery of the person and of the reality in which he participates,
while made possible in its human form
by these “mechanisms”,
may be broken
as the ideas themselves
take the place of the reality
which they are supposed to reveal.

One juggles ideas, rather than using them to reveal the truth.

The ideas that allow us to see,
if distorted, misapplied, or solely considered on their own,
can disconnect us from reality

• from the essence of things (if I understand the term correctly).

I do actually observe what is revealed in scripture:
Matt 11:25 - At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.
Now, imho scientists are far worse than philosophers in this regard; and they, with all the thinking about theories and categories going on, may actually no longer see a pretty flower.

Regards Louis.