There was no conscious attempt to paraphrase Aquinas. I thought mainly of Aristotle, from which the philosophy of Aquinas is largely derivative. For the discussion of conscience, Kant and his concepts of the Categorical Imperative and practical reason, i.e., of synthetic a priori judgments would be the primary reference.
I wasn’t really suggesting you were…however in so far as you were trying to explain Church teaching on conscience, an important concept in moral theology, you will be driving in Aquinas’s world - which as you say himself largely drives in Aristotles.
I am not sure how easy it may be to use modern philosophers to explain a concept that is largely the fruit of a scholastic system.
So the small point I was making is that for scholastics faith is primarily seen as a virtue that perfects the intellect. And that leads to hope and charity and so engages the will.
But not necessarily.
Practical reason is intuitive. It is also transcendental. This is helpful for an understanding of CCC 1780, I think, and why the conscience is spiritual.
Oh dear, “intuitive” and “transcendental”. According to whose philosophic system!
I find “intuitive” an interesting word.
For myself I tend to use it, amongst other things, to identify non-conceptual communications of the intellect to consciousness. So that would suggest it plays an important role in the “voice of conscience”. But it comes from the intellect and appears as a “feeling”. Just like those of the heart…yet different.
In Aquinas, virtue is objective knowledge and this follows Classical Greek philosophy.
Its probably more complicated than this. Some virtues perfect the will, some the intellect. some the “irrational appetites”.
It was Augustine who first attempted to present an Asiatic religion in a manner understandable to the Western World, and the influence of Classical Greek philosophy in this endeavor should not be discounted. The primacy of the head (mind) became the traditional way of philosophers and theologians,
I think it is again a bit more complicated than this. Use of logic and judgements and concepts and tight definitions and categories is certainly the way of the west, as reflected in our jurisprudence as well. There is also an integration of appetites and love and emotion into the structure as well.
but there is a separate tradition in the Church. It is the way of mysticism and of many Catholic Saints–and not the way of reason and the intellect.
You are referring to Platonic structures, which was mainstream in the Church until the 1100s when the Muslims made the lost works of Aristotle accessible? or perhaps hesychiasm?
I do not know what “emotions of the soul” might mean.
I added it to my list as I have seen the expression used by Aquinas in my radings of the last few months - was wondering if you would query it as I have been. Haven’t discovered what he means as yet. Any thoughts - it will no doubt derive from Aristotle if its a real concepot as opposed to a poor translation.
It seems a contradiction of terms. “Unconscious recognitions of the mind” are just that–unconscious recognitions of the mind. Well…maybe not.
Its an insight I had many years ago from the existentialists, especially Paul Riceour.
I have also noted it in modern neurology and my own experience. It is what I meant by “intuitions” above. The mind communicates with feelings to consciousness because it is quicker, especially in times of danger. Some times riding a bike I just know I have to make a sudden emergency evasive manoeuvre - its a sudden feeling/intuition…like the truth of first principles…ya just know! And sure enough, something was coming at me …registered in my peripheral vision unconsciously I suppose and I was already banking the bike by the time I actually saw the danger. There have also been some pretty weird experiements re vision.
There have been cases of people with damaged brains (some may have been surgically lobotimised) where one of the eyes no longer sees. The eye itself is fine but the sufferer is not conscious of sight in the opposite eye of the damaged side of the brain. When the good eye is covered they do tests. The questions are verbal but suggested answers are visually projected on a screen before the “bad” eye. An amazing correlation of the answers to what is projected on the screen is found. yet the patient at no time is conscious of vision. Obviously there is a subconscious communication channel to the conscious mind all the same. This is what I mean by “feelings of the mind” (intuitions) at an intellectual level.
This is why I disagree with you that conscience is a voice from the “heart” (will).
It can equally be the intellect…as Aquinas would maintain. And in fact, the workings of intellect and will are so interwoven where one is present so too the other methinks.
Anyways, just 45 years of my inconclusive musings.
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