Kant and Aquinas

[thinkandmull]

I believe in the Eucharest, but am excited about reading Kant’s attack on common sense.

Here’s a question: if according to Aquinas we can’t understand reality except according to the mode of our reason and not as it is in itself, than how do we know there are motionS out there, instead of one motion? It undercuts his argument for God’s existence

I think belief in God comes from an understanding heart

 

[Nihilist]

I have noticed some action on this thread. I just wanted to give an update on my research. I picked up a book by Gilson “Methodical Realism: A Handbook for Beginning Realists”. It outlines Gilson’s case against Descarte, Kant, and Berkley (basically against Idealists) and his case for realism. A sampling of his final case in chapter 5 in defining methodical realism and his attack on idealism are as follows:

1. 
   *]Step1.1 Recognize that one has always been a realist. Step 1.2 However one tries to think differently, one can’t. Step 1.3 All those who claim differently, think as realists as soon as they forget to act the part. When one asks oneself why, one’s conversion to realism is all but complete.
   *]All idealists objections to realism are formulated on idealist terms. If you accept those terms, they always win. A realist should basically refuse to play their game.
   Ut

1. 
   We could say the same about realists- they argue assuming they are right.
   
   A materialist might also say, a la Gilson, “Recognize that you have always been a meterialist”- and present convincing evidence.
   
   Idealism admit the REAL truth of spirit, moral value, etc. Realism always tends toward materialism, by positing a greater degree of reality to material things then ideas. That is why all atheists are realists.

 

[polytropos]

A materialist might also say, a la Gilson, “Recognize that you have always been a meterialist”- and present convincing evidence.

But it is pretty rare that a person has always been a materialist. We behave as realists; we quantify over natural structures in our common language, usually without any pretense that those structures are conventions or merely supervene on lower-level features or what have you. (Though I do find the point somewhat well taken, in that I think there are a lot of people with very strong materialist intuitions. I used to be one of them.)

Realism always tends toward materialism, by positing a greater degree of reality to material things then ideas. That is why all atheists are realists.

First: Positing a greater degree of reality to material things than ideas need not (and does not) tend toward materialism, because doing so does not prioritize material things. Thomism, for instance, holds that immaterial things, because they are more intellectual, are more perfect and more like God (who is, needless to say, immaterial).

Second: There is a greater degree of reality to material things than ideas. Ideas are intentional beings, derived from material things (at least in the human case). Idealism varies on this topic. For Kant, there is still noumena underwriting phenomena (although it’s arguable whether this is necessary–since if you can’t know noumena it isn’t clear why you can say it exists). For Berkeley, one might describe the “naive realist” tree as a tree-idea. But such locutions betray a primacy of the tree to the idea. To be sure, Berkeley would deny that this linguistic feature is philosophically significant, but it’s there (and perhaps is evidence that it’s difficult to behave like an idealist). (Wittgenstein, in On Certainty, remarks that if we were to take all of our non-negotiable “certain” beliefs like “I have a hand” and instead say “It is very probable that I have a hand” then the result would be the same–because we would still use such statements as though they were non-negotiably certain. The same issue would seem to be the same if we tried to restate all naively realist statements about some object x as an x-idea or an x-that-I-perceive or something of the sort.)

 

[utunumsint]

We could say the same about realists- they argue assuming they are right.

A materialist might also say, a la Gilson, “Recognize that you have always been a meterialist”- and present convincing evidence.

Idealism admit the REAL truth of spirit, moral value, etc. Realism always tends toward materialism, by positing a greater degree of reality to material things then ideas. That is why all atheists are realists.

I agree with what polytropos said and would add that Thomas grounds his metaphysics in his realist philosophy because that is what is most evident to us first. It is only in the world of things and objects that we slowly enter into the world of the intellect. He does not limit reality to only physical things, but builds on the foundation of what is most evident to us to reach the immaterial. If you study Thomas and Aristotle, you will find multiple ways in which they do this. Thomas’ five ways is a perfect example.

God bless,
Ut

 

[polytropos]

For Berkeley, one might describe the “naive realist” tree as a tree-idea. But such locutions betray a primacy of the tree to the idea. To be sure, Berkeley would deny that this linguistic feature is philosophically significant, but it’s there (and perhaps is evidence that it’s difficult to behave like an idealist). (Wittgenstein, in On Certainty, remarks that if we were to take all of our non-negotiable “certain” beliefs like “I have a hand” and instead say “It is very probable that I have a hand” then the result would be the same–because we would still use such statements as though they were non-negotiably certain. The same issue would seem to be the same if we tried to restate all naively realist statements about some object x as an x-idea or an x-that-I-perceive or something of the sort.)

I was also thinking of the problem of Berkeley’s categorical distinction between perceivers and things-perceived (ie. ideas). Perceivers aren’t ideas. (So they can’t be perceived.)

I think it’s obvious that perceivers should be ontologically richer than perceptions on Berkeley’s philosophy. But with that distinction in mind, why should we regard the status Berkeley accords to ideas as significant? Doesn’t the distinction between perceivers and perceptions come to parallel the distinction between intellectual substances and the material world? In other words, if Berkeleian idealism is true, then there’s nothing special about ideas–Berkeleian idealism only appears to preserve meaning and value if it is framed in counter-realist idiom. (This is the oddity of Berkeley’s pronunciation that the common man is under the prejudice that extramental objects exist. Idealism is difficult to frame except as a reaction against realism.)

I am less familiar with Kant. However, I think some of the same points apply, particularly with respect to noumena/phenomena distinction. There is no reason to posit noumena if you can’t know anything about it; the reason it is posited is because of realist intuition.

 

[CatholicWhovian]

Thomas Aquinas says that we can’t understand things as they truly are, but merely according to the “mode of the intellect”. Sounds just like Kant. As with the Eucharest, you can’t see the substance. Doesn’t sound like common sense, as Chesterton claimed it was

Are you sure that’s from Aquinas? Because from what I’ve read from him on the matter we use our intellect to understand the essence of things - which are basically their true nature. It doesn’t sound like Kant at all.

 

[Skeptic92]

Here’s a question: if according to Aquinas we can’t understand reality except according to the mode of our reason and not as it is in itself, than how do we know there are motionS out there, instead of one motion? It undercuts his argument for God’s existence

I think belief in God comes from an understanding heart

Okay, that principle isn’t Aquinas it doesn’t accord with his Epistemology. An axiom taken by Aquinas explicitly is “there is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses”, and through the senses is formed a percept of reality which the intellect abstracts and receives intelligible datum from.

I think you need to stop equivocating between apprehension and comprehsnions, and retrospection with reasoning simply.

 

[levinas12]

Anyone care to clarify what a synthetic a priori intuition is …

And then would anyone care to summarize Kant’s argument that space is (1) an individual object (not a universal concept) and (2) is “known” through a synthetic a priori intuition …

No cites to wiki or other commentators are allowed. Everything has to be in one’s own words (more or less).

 

[thinkandmull]

I am reading the Summa first Part right now and he says that we understand according to the mode of our reason, which sees reality in a “simpler” way then it really is. Very Kantian