Intellect and thought

[STT]

St. Thomas Aquinas did not hold that the soul differs from form (essence). Also, Aristotle argues that the intellect (nous: mind or intellect), which is a part of the soul, can exist without the body. (See: De anima, Book III, Chapter 5 psychclassics.yorku.ca/Aristotle/De-anima/de-anima3.htm)

Summa Contra Gentiles Book II: God The Origin of Creatures, Chapter 56 contains some of this (continues through Chapter 69), some key points are:

• “A subsistent intelligence cannot be united with a body by any manner of combination”
• “cessation of actual existence cannot befall subsistent intelligences; for they are imperishable.”
• “there is one mode of contact whereby a subsistent intelligence may be mingled with a body.”
• “a subsistent intelligence may be united with a body by virtual contact.”
• “body and soul are not two actually existing substances, but out of the two of them is made one substance actually existing: for a man’s body is not the same in actuality when the soul is present as when it is absent: it is the soul that gives actual being.”

Reply 5. Nor is it necessary, as was argued in the fifth place, that if the soul in its substance is the form of the body, its every operation should be through the body, and thus its every faculty should be the actuation of some part of the body: for the human soul is not one of those forms which are entirely immersed in matter, but of all forms it is the most exalted above matter: hence it is capable of a certain activity without the body, being not dependent on the body in its action, as neither in its being is it dependent on the body.

Reference:
56: How a Subsistent Intelligence may be United with a Body, with a Solution of the Arguments alleged to prove that a Subsistent Intelligence cannot be United with a Body as its Form
www3.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/gc2_56.htm

So Aquinas believed that soul is form of matter. The question however was that whether he proved soul as an **incorporeal ** entity.

 

[Vico]

So Aquinas believed that soul is form of matter. The question however was that whether he proved soul as an **incorporeal ** entity.

Summa Theologica I, Q75, A2:

Question 75. Man who is composed of a spiritual and a corporeal substance: and in the first place, concerning what belongs to the essence of the soul
Article 2. Whether the human soul is something subsistent?

It must necessarily be allowed that the principle of intellectual operation which we call the soul, is a principle both incorporeal and subsistent. For it is clear that by means of the intellect man can have knowledge of all corporeal things. Now whatever knows certain things cannot have any of them in its own nature; because that which is in it naturally would impede the knowledge of anything else. Thus we observe that a sick man’s tongue being vitiated by a feverish and bitter humor, is insensible to anything sweet, and everything seems bitter to it. Therefore, if the intellectual principle contained the nature of a body it would be unable to know all bodies. Now every body has its own determinate nature. Therefore it is impossible for the intellectual principle to be a body. It is likewise impossible for it to understand by means of a bodily organ; since the determinate nature of that organ would impede knowledge of all bodies; as when a certain determinate color is not only in the pupil of the eye, but also in a glass vase, the liquid in the vase seems to be of that same color.

Therefore the intellectual principle which we call the mind or the intellect has an operation per se apart from the body. Now only that which subsists can have an operation “per se.” For nothing can operate but what is actual: for which reason we do not say that heat imparts heat, but that what is hot gives heat. We must conclude, therefore, that the human soul, which is called the intellect or the mind, is something incorporeal and subsistent.