In this paper, I will primarily argue for the consistency of Aquinas’ conception, according to which the human
soul, uniquely in God’s creation, is both the inherent, material, substantial form of the human body, and the subsistent
immaterial substance underlying the immaterial operations of its immaterial, rational powers, namely, intellect and will. In this
discussion, I will point out that typical challenges to Aquinas’ conception usually rely on semantic or ontological assumptions
that can plausibly be denied in Aquinas’ own conceptual framework. Since the issue of consistency merely assumes the less than
self-evident claim of the immateriality of the human intellect, I will also provide a brief sketch of what I take to be Aquinas’
most promising proof of this claim.
Article outline
Introduction
1.The problem of consistency
2.A bit of Thomistic semantics
3.Aquinas’ ‘semantic’ solution
4.An objection to Aquinas’ ‘semantic’ solution, solved by some more semantics
5.Another objection to the ‘semantic’ solution, solved by some mereology and type theory
6.A metaphysical objection to the ‘semantic’ solution
7.A Thomistic metaphysical solution
8.The immateriality of the intellect
9.Conclusion: The Thomistic balance between dualism and materialism, and the real distinction thesis
2023. Aquinas, perversor philosophiae suae. In Metaphysics Through Semantics: The Philosophical Recovery of the Medieval Mind [International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, 242], ► pp. 95 ff.
Dobie, Robert J.
2023. Truth and Person in Aquinas’s De veritate. In Metaphysics Through Semantics: The Philosophical Recovery of the Medieval Mind [International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, 242], ► pp. 153 ff.
Fornasieri, Giacomo
2023. Connotation vs. Extrinsic Denomination: Peter Auriol on Intentions and Intellectual Cognition. In Metaphysics Through Semantics: The Philosophical Recovery of the Medieval Mind [International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, 242], ► pp. 323 ff.
Klima, Gyula
2022. Language and Intelligence, Artificial vs. Natural or What Can and What Cannot AI Do with NL?. Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science 367 ► pp. 1 ff.
Stephan, Karl D. & Gyula Klima
2021. Artificial intelligence and its natural limits. AI & SOCIETY 36:1 ► pp. 9 ff.
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