Aquinas's theory of human self-knowledge (Saint Thomas Aquinas)

This thesis investigates whether Thomas Aquinas's treatment of human self-knowledge constitutes a coherent theory of self-knowledge. It concludes that a case can be made for coherence, provided Aquinas's ex professo discussions of self-knowledge supply the principles that govern the interpretation of his commentary on Aristotle's De anima and exposition of the Neoplatonic Liber de causis.; The first chapter examines the various divisions of self-knowledge treated in the ex professo discussions and argues that Aquinas requires only the twofold Aristotelian distinction between awareness of oneself as an individual and knowledge of the nature of the soul. Intuitive self-knowledge is rejected, since the soul knows itself through actualization by intelligible species. The soul's habitual self-presence and self-knowledge through the eternal exemplars also figure in Aquinas's account, but are not predominant.; Chapter two examines self-reflexivity (reflexio) and the mind's return to itself (reditio), which are developed in supplementary texts, and suggests that reflexivity stands to return as individual to universal self-knowledge. While reflexio and reditio both indicate a movement of the mind back upon itself, reflexivity is used as a premise in an argument to the soul's immateriality, while the return of the mind to its essence (reditio completa) presupposes that the soul's nature has already been attained.; Finally, chapter three examines Anthony Kenny's critique of Aquinas's treatment of self-knowledge, which argues (1) that it presupposes but cannot account for the individuation of thought, and (2) that it attributes to the soul a capacity for disembodied existence incompatible the soul's nature as the form of the body. I respond (1) by pointing to Aquinas's individuation of thinkers by their intelligible species, and (2) by investigating Aquinas's account of the disembodied soul, especially his claim that the soul will then know itself as a separate substance. On this latter point I indicate certain potential difficulties for the coherence of Aquinas's theory of self-knowledge.; I conclude by suggesting that an epistemological study ultimately provides fullest sense will be attained by broadening the scope of such study to include Aquinas's moral and theological thought.