Aquinas’ Balancing Act

Balancing the Soul Between the Realms of Matter and Pure Spirit

Gyula Klima | Fordham University

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
Notes

Published online: 08 March 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/bpjam.00022.kli

Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Stephan, Karl D. & Gyula Klima

2021. Artificial intelligence and its natural limits. AI & SOCIETY 36:1 ► pp. 9 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 07 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.