A Reaction to Aquinas' "Treatise on Man"

           Aquinas was a boring read.  It was relatively easy to follow, but it was just hard to stay interested.  In “Treatise on Man” he is basically explaining what is and is not the soul, what is and is not intellectual, how the body goes through corporeal things, and finally what the knowledge of the separated soul is.  How this was organized was that Aquinas listed a few objectives and then he gave another philosophers opinion sometimes and then proceeded to give his own opinion as well, after that then he gave reasons as to why you would reject the previously listed objectives.

            In his first group of chapters he is basically explaining what a soul really is.  The various chapters are consist of; “Whether the soul is a body?, Whether the human soul is a subsistence?, Whether the souls of brute animals are subsistent?, Whether the soul is man, or is man composed of soul and body?, Whether a soul is composed of matter and form?, Whether the soul is incorruptible?, and finally Whether the soul is of the same species as an angel?”  A few arguments that were done in this chapter was whether the soul was a body or not.  The result of this argument seemed still slightly on the fence between yes and no, but it looked as though it was more leaning towards, yes, the soul and the body are on in the same.

            In Aquinas’ second chapter he talks about “Whether the intellectual principle in united to the body as its form?, Whether the intellectual principle is multiplied numerically according to the number of bodies; or is there one intelligence for all men?, Whether in the body the form of which is an intellectual principle, there is some other soul? Whether in the body there is any other substantial form?, Of the qualities required in the body of which the intellectual principle is the form?, Whether it be united to such a body by means of another body?, Whether by means of an accident?, and Whether the soul is wholly in each part of the body?”  In an argument in this chapter Aquinas tries to figure out if there is another form besides the intellectual soul.  An objective is the fourth one listed. It talks about the elements within body, which make it a missed body and because it is mixed and not pure then “there are other substantial forms besides the intellectual soul” within the body.

            His third chapter talks of “Whether the soul knows bodies through the intellect?, Whether it understand them through its essence, or through any species?, If through some species, whether the species of all things intelligible are naturally innate in the soul?, Whether these species are derived by the soul from certain separate immaterial forms?, Whether our soul sees in the eternal ideas all that it understands?, Whether it acquires intellectual knowledge from the senses?, Whether the intellect can, through the species of which it is possessed, actually understand, without turning to the phantasms?, and Whether the judgment of the intellect is hindered by an obstacle in the sensitive powers?”  An objective from this Chapter is objective 2 under the argument “Whether the intellectual soul knows material things in the eternal types?”  This objective states “the eternal types are known through creatures and not the converse”.  I interpret this as just by talking about things that are eternal will not allow you to know them, but if you are quiet and you look at nature itself you can just seeing the eternal beauty of things.

            As you can kind of grasp Aquinas explains things in depth, yet not in depth at the same time.  He seemed as though he was trying to make everyone happy with his philosophy about what was what and why is was that way.  In some cases he might have just confused people instead of explained things and in other cases he probably helped people understand better.