Aquinas and Buridan on the Substance of the Soul and its Powers: On the Intermediary Nature of Properties (original) (raw)

The Human Soul as Hoc Aliquid and as Substance in Thomas Aquinas

Dois Pontos, 2021

Thomas Aquinas defines the human soul with the same words of Aristotle: it is the substantial form of a human body potentially alive. However, one of the problems of the Thomistic psychology, according to D. Abel, consists in classifying the human soul by means of terms that are commonly used to name hylomorphic compounds, namely, substance and hoc aliquid. If the human soul is part of a hylomorphic compound, how could it be named as substance and hoc aliquid? The aim of this paper is to show the strategy that underlies this classification used by Aquinas. We suggest that it dates back to Aristotle when he attributes different meanings to the words substance and hoc aliquid. Aquinas' novelty consists in expanding this semantic field by introducing a meaning that refers exclusively to the human soul, that is, the peculiar sense.

An Introductory Taxonomy of Aquinas' Powers of The Soul Part 1 and 2

Christian Apologetics Journal, 2015

This is part one and two together of the series on an introductory taxonomy of Thomas Aquinas’ powers of the soul. The first part will cover the basic definition of the soul, principles for building the taxonomy, and then treat some of the lower grade powers. This includes the generative, augmentive, and nutritive vegetative powers. It also includes the external five sensitive powers, and the four interior powers: common sense, phantasia/imaginative, estimative/cogitative, and memorative powers. The second part will cover the intellectual powers, the appetitive powers for both the sensitive and intellectual, and the locomotive power. This includes the agent intellect and possible intellect under the intellectual powers. For the appetitive powers, this inludes concupiscience and irascible sensitive appetities. And for the intellectual appetite, it includes the will.

An Introductory Taxonomy of Aquinas' Powers of the Soul Part 1

Christian Apologetics Journal, 2015

This is part one of a two part series on an introductory taxonomy of Thomas Aquinas’ powers of the soul. This first part will cover the basic definition of the soul, principles for building the taxonomy, and then treat some of the lower grade powers. This includes the generative, augmentive, and nutritive vegetative powers. It also includes the external five sensitive powers, and the four interior powers: common sense, phantasia/imaginative, estimative/cogitative, and memorative powers.

An Introductory Taxonomy of Aquinas' Powers of the Soul Part 2

Christian Apologetics Journal, 2015

This is part two of a two part series on an introductory taxonomy of Thomas Aquinas’ powers of the soul. This second part will cover the intellectual powers, the appetitive powers for both the sensitive and intellectual, and the locomotive power. This includes the agent intellect and possible intellect under the intellectual powers. For the appetitive powers, this inludes concupiscience and irascible sensitive appetities. And for the intellectual appetite, it includes the will.

The Physical Status of the Spiritual Soul in Thomas Aquinas

THERE ARE probably several factors contributing to make Thomas Aquinas's conception of the human soul difficult for the contemporary mind to assimilate. But one of them is surely the profound change in the approach to the study of man initiated in the seventeenth century by René Descartes.This is the so-called "turn to the subject." In relation to Thomas, a particularly interesting figure in the transition to the modern approach is that of Nicolas Malebranche. As is well known, Malebranche received Descartes' L'Homme with great enthusiasm. On the other hand, Malebranche remains in some ways closer to Thomas than Descartes. Like Thomas, he is first and foremost a priest and a theologian; and the spirit of his philosophical thought is still very much in the tradition of fides quaerens intellectum.What he does not share with Thomas is the aristotelianism of the scholastics (against which, of course, Descartes also strove). This difference is nowhere more significant than on the question of the soul. And no one thinks this question more important than does Malebranche. A passage from the very beginning of his major work, The Search for Truth, shows how grave the issue is for him.