Aquinas on Mind

191 Pages·2003·0.47 MB·English

by  Anthony Kenny

Aquinas on Mind
Topics in Medieval Philosophy
Edited by John Marenbon
Trinity College, Cambridge
In recent years philosophers in England and America have come to
recognize the interest and importance of medieval philosophy.
However, there are very few books to which the student and scholar
can turn with ease. The choice is often between general studies
which lack the rigour which philosophers expect, or specialist works
which are hardly comprehensible to those not already deeply
familiar with medieval ways of thought. This series provides books
which consider problems and arguments in medieval philosophy in
detail and with precision, but which do not assume any familiarity
with the Middle Ages.
In the same series:
Modalities in Medieval Philosophy
Simo Knuuttila
Epistemic Logic in the Later Middle Ages
Ivan Boh
Aquinas on Mind
Anthony Kenny
London and New York
First published 1993
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
First published in paperback 1994
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1993, 1994 Anthony Kenny
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Kenny, Anthony
Aquinas on Mind.—(Topics in Medieval Philosophy Series)
I. Title II. Series
189.4
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Kenny, Anthony John Patrick.
Aquinas on Mind/Anthony Kenny.
p. cm.—(Topics in medieval philosophy)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?–1274. 2. Philosophy of mind
—History. 3. Mind and body—History. I. Title. II. Series.
B76¢5.T¢54K44 1993
128 .2 092–dc20 92–12224

ISBN 0-203-00494-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-20065-9 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-04415-4 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-11306-7 (pbk)
Content
Preface vii
Abbreviations viii
1 Why read Aquinas? 1
2 Mind and metaphysics 15
3 Perception and imagination 31
4 The nature of the intellect 41
5 Appetite and will 59
6 The freedom of the will 75
7 Sense, imagination and intellect 89
8 Universals of thought 101
9 Knowledge of particulars 111
10 Self-knowledge 119
11 The nature of the soul 129
12 Mind and body 145
Notes 161
Further reading 177
Index 179

Preface
My interest in the philosophy of mind of St Thomas Aquinas was
first aroused in the 1950s by two professors at the Gregorian
University in Rome, Fr Peter Hoenen, SJ and Fr Bernard Lonergan,
SJ. To this day I regard Hoenen’s La Théorie du jugement selon
S.Thomas d’Aquin and Lonergan’s Verbum as two of the most
illuminating books about Aquinas’ work in this area.
The relevance of Aquinas to contemporary philosophy of mind
was later brought home to me by Professor Peter Geach and Father
Herbert McCabe. Significant parts of the present book are the result
of reflection on the texts of Aquinas undertaken in joint classes with
McCabe in Oxford. I am greatly indebted to him and to the other
scholars I have mentioned.
In 1989 I published a book entitled The Metaphysics of Mind.
This was a systematic, not a historical, treatise, and its structure was
based on that of Gilbert Ryle’s The Concept of Mind. None the less,
the philosophical account presented was influenced by the thought
of Aquinas, and scholars will have been able to recognize many
Thomist elements in the book.
For some years I have been collecting material for an explicit
account of Aquinas’ philosophy of mind. It is here presented not in a
systematic structure, but rather in the form of a close reading of that
part of St Thomas’ Summa Theologiae which contains the most
mature and comprehensive presentation of his philosophical
psychology. The translations of the texts of Aquinas quoted in the
course of my commentary are my own, but I am much indebted to
the previous translations by Suttor, Durbin and McDermott
mentioned in the Note on further reading.
I am indebted to Dr John Marenbon for the invitation to present
this material in the Routledge series in medieval philosophy.
Oxford, February 1992
Abbreviations
In citing works of Aquinas the following abbreviations have
been used:

A In Aristotelis Librum de Anima, ed. A.M.Pirotta (Rome, 1959), cited
by lecture and paragraph number
C In I ad Corinthios, ed. R.Cai (Turin, 1953), cited by chapter and
paragraph number
G Summa Contra Gentiles (Rome, Leonine Commission, 1934), cited by
book and chapter number
H In Libros Peri Hermeneias, ed. R.M.Spiazzi (Turin, 1955), cited by
book and paragraph number
M In XII Libros Metaphysicorum, ed. R.M.Spiazzi (Turin, 1950), cited
by book, lecture and paragraph number
S Summa Theologiae, ed. P.Caramello (Rome, 1953), cited by number
of part (1, 1–2, 2–2, or 3), question, article, and if applicable
objection or reply; thus ‘1–2, 3, 2 ad 2’ means: the reply to the second
objection in the second article of the third question of the First Part of
the Second Part
U De Unitate Intellectus, ed. L.W.Keeler (Rome, 1936), cited by paragraph
number
V Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate, ed. R.M.Spiazzi (Turin, 1953)
1 Why read Aquinas?
Why should anyone wish to study the philosophy or psychology of
St Thomas Aquinas? He was an Italian friar of the thirteenth century,
writing in low Latin encumbered with antiquated jargon, subservient
to the teaching authority of the medieval church. Why should a secular
English reader in the twentieth century expect to learn anything of
philosophical value as a reward for the labour of working through
the text of the Summa Theologiae? Surely, one may think, the progress
of psychology in the centuries that have passed will have rendered
obsolete everything Aquinas wrote about the nature of the mind.
The answer that one gives to questions such as these will depend,
in the first place, on one’s conception of the nature of philosophy.
Philosophy is an unusual, indeed unique, discipline. Some people
would claim that it was the most attractive of all disciplines, for the
following reason. On the one hand, philosophy seems to resemble a
science in that the philosopher, like the scientist, is in pursuit of truth.
In philosophy, as in science, there are discoveries to be made. There
are certain things which philosophers of the present day understand
which even the greatest philosophers of earlier generations failed to
understand. The philosopher, therefore, has the excitement of
belonging to a continuing, cooperative, cumulative endeavour, in
the way that a scientist does. Each practitioner may nourish the hope
of adding a stone to the cairn: one may make one’s tiny contribution
to the building of the great edifice. And thus philosophy has some of
the attractions of the natural sciences.
On the other hand, philosophy seems to have the attraction of the
arts and of the humanistic disciplines, in the following way. Unlike
works of science, classic works of philosophy do not date. If we