TRUTH

TRUTH IN THE PHILOSOPHY
Thomas Aquinas is well known for having defended the view that truth consists of an adequation between the intellect and a thing. Truth, like religion, culture or morality, is a general term in constant use and seems to be part of the eternal furniture of the mind, but upon closer examination what truth consists in is not so clear and the use of the word has changed over time. All knowledge signifies the conformity of him who knows with the object that is known, the agreement of the thinker with the things known. In other words, truth is “the conformity of the mind to the object”; that is, if we accept the outward information that our senses are transmitting to our intellect and our intellect accepts these as they are, and doesn't deny them or distort them, through self-interest or other motives. This conformity or adequation of the intellect and the object expresses the full content of the idea of truth.

Truth comes into being through the participation of both the object and the intellect, and thus the question now arises: does truth resides in the intellect or in things? Thus St. Thomas Aquinas, together with Aristotle concludes that truth exists primarily in the intellect and figuratively in things. The things of nature, which have received the measure of their being from the divine intellect, are themselves the measure of man’s speculative reason. A thing may be said to be true with reference to the divine intellect inasmuch as it fulfills that for which it was intended by the divine intellect. A thing is said to be true with respect to a human intellect if it can allow atrue concept of itself to be formed; it is false in so far as it presents an existence or a nature which it does not possess.

ONTOLOGICAL TRUTH
Every existing thing is true, in that it is the expression of an idea which exists in the mind of God, and is, as it were, the exemplar according to which the thing has been created or fashioned. Just as human creations — a cathedral, a painting, or an epic — conform to and embody the ideas of architect, artist, or poet, so, only in a more perfect way, God's creatures conform to and embody the ideas of Him who gives them being. (Q. D., De verit., a. 4; Summa 1:16:1.) Things that exist, moreover, are active as well as passive. They tend not only to develop, and so to realize more and more perfectly the idea which they are created to express, but they tend also to reproduce themselves. Reproduction obtains wherever there is interaction between different things, for an effect, in so far as it proceeds from a given cause, must resemble that cause. Now the cause of knowledge in man is — ultimately, at any rate — the thing that is known. By its activities it causes in man an idea that is like to the idea embodied in the thing itself. Hence, things may also be said to be ontologically true in that they are at once the object and the cause of human knowledge. (Cf. IDEALISM; and Summa, I:16:7 and 1:16:8; m 1. periherm., 1. III; Q.D., I, De veritate, a. 4.)
LOGICAL TRUTH
The Scholastic theory to judge that things are what they are is to judge truly. Every judgment comprises certain ideas which are referred to, or denied of, reality. But it is not these ideas that are the objects of our judgment. They are merely the instruments by means of which we judge. The object about which we judge is reality itself — either concrete existing things, their attributes, and their relations, or else entities the existence of which is merely conceptual or imaginary, as in drama, poetry, or fiction, but in any case entities which are real in the sense that their being is other than our present thought about them. Reality, therefore, is one thing, and the ideas and judgments by means of which we think about reality, another; the one objective, and the other subjective. Yet, diverse as they are, reality is somehow present to, if not present in consciousness when we think, and somehow by means of thought the nature of reality is revealed. This being the case, the only term adequate to describe the relation that exists between thought and reality, when our judgments about the latter are true judgments, would seem to be conformity or correspondence. “Veritaslogicaestadaequatiointellectus et rei” (Summa, I:21:2). 

Whenever truth is predicable of a judgment, that judgment corresponds to, or resembles, the reality, the nature or attributes of which it reveals. Every judgment is, however, as we have said, made up of ideas, and may be logically analyzed into a subject and a predicate, which are either united by the copula is, or disjoined by the expression is not. If the judgment be true, therefore, these ideas must also be true, i.e. must correspond with the realities which they signify. As, however, this objective reference or significance of ideas is not recognized or asserted except in the judgment, ideas as such are said to be only "materially" true. It is the judgment alone that is formally true, since in the judgment alone is a reference to reality formally made, and truth as such recognized or claimed.

The negative judgment seems at first sight to form an exception to the general law that truth is correspondence; but this is not really the case. In the affirmative judgment both subject and predicate and the union between them, of whatever kind it may be, are referred to reality; but in the negative judgment subject and predicate are disjoined, not conjoined. In other words, in the negative judgment we deny that the predicate has reality in the particular case to which the subject refers. On the other hand, all such predicates presumably have reality somewhere, otherwise we should not talk about them. Either they are real qualities or real things, or at any rate somebody has conceived them as real.

Consequently, the negative judgment, if true, may also be said to correspond with reality, since both subject and predicate will be real somewhere, either as existents or as conceptions. What we deny, in fact, in the negative judgment is not the reality of the predicate, but the reality of the conjunction by which subject and predicate are united in the assertion which we implicitly challenge and negate. Subject and predicate may both be real, but if our judgment be true, they will be disjoined, not united in reality.But what precisely is this reality with which true judgments and true ideas are said to correspond? It is easy enough to understand how ideas can correspond with realities that are themselves conceptual or ideal, but most of the realities that we know are not of this kind. How, then, can ideas and their conjunctions or disjunctions, which are psychical in character, correspond with realities which for the most part are not psychical but material? To solve this problem we must go back to ontological truth which, as we saw, implies the creation of the universe by One Who, in creating it, has expressed therein His own ideas very much as an architect or an author expresses his ideas in the things that he creates except that creation in the latter case supposes already existent material.

Our theory of truth supposes that the universe is built according to definite and rational plan, and that everything within the universe expresses or embodies an essential and integral part of that plan. Whence it follows that just as in a building or in a piece of sculpture we see the plan or design that is realized therein, so, in our experience of concrete things, by means of the same intellectual power, we apprehend the ideas which they embody or express. The correspondence therefore, in which truth consists is not a correspondence between ideas and anything material as such, but between ideas as they exist in our mind and function in our acts of cognition, and the idea that reality expresses and embodies — ideas which have their origin and prototype in the mind of God.With regard to judgments of a more abstract or general type, the working of this view is quite simple.

The realities to which abstract concepts refer have no material existence as such. There is no such thing, for instance, as action or reaction in general; nor are there any twos or fours. What we mean when we say that “action and reaction are equal and opposite”, or that “two and two make four”, is that these laws which in their own proper nature are ideal, are realized or actualized in the material universe in which we live; or, in other words, that the material things we see about us behave in accordance with these laws and through their activities manifest them to our minds.Perceptual judgments, i.e. the judgments which usually accompany and give expression to acts of perception, differ from the above in that they refer to objects which are immediately present to our senses. The realities in this case, therefore, are concrete existing things. It is, however, rather with the appearance of such things that our judgment is now concerned than with their essential nature or inner constitution.
The depositary of Logical Truth.
St Thomas says that truth exist primarily in the intellect, in the uniting and separating intellect, i.e., the judging intellect. For the sake clarity we must keep in mind that Aristotle and St. Thomas speak of two distinct activities of the intellect; the first is the activity that forms the simple concepts and comprehends the essences of things, the intellectusincomplexus ; the second is the activity which judges, that is; unites or divides these simple concepts, the intellectuscomplexus.
The truth is a pre-eminently the property of judgment. Therefore, it is imperative that we obtain a clear idea of judgment. The simple comprehension of an essence precedes the judgment and is intended to serve the uniting or separation of the essences in the judgment. As a union and separation, judgment is synthesis, but is a synthesis preceded by analysis.
St. Thomas speaks of twofold different between the uniting and dividing judgment and the conceptual image. While the concept comprehends the essence, the judgment comprehends the being of things and gives it expression. Again, the judgment is not a passive occurrence, but it is an act, a purposeful activity.  In making a judgment, the intellect to a certain extent engaged in a creative activity since it produces ist own proper mental image, something that does not belong to the objective. The intellect when it forms mere concept, does not have a proper mental image but only an image of the thing that lies beyond the conscious Sphere.  In these phase the intellect is like the sense, which likewise receive the sensible species by passive reflection and not by any creative activity.
A true judgment consists in the agreement of the mental judgment with the objective state of thing. In every judgment a certain, called the predicate , is affirmed or denied of some object called the subject. In itself this activity of the subject is a union, but with reference to the objective thing there is a union when the intellect knows the actual union of the object and certain dispositions and at the same time sees the agreement of the objective world with its own mental world.
Truth is found in the intellect inasmuch as a resemblance to the know thing is found in the intellect. The intellect is able to understand this conformity of the content  of its consciousness with external things and thus, it knows the truth. The highest perfection of the intellect is the power to unite and separate. This conclusion sounds somewhat against the background of Aristotelian Scholastic thought. The Platonic  theory that the intellect possesses an intuitive power as its  highest perfection would have been more reasonable since it would have displayed more similarity with God, who does not unite and separate in mental judgments.
The proposition that truth and error are found only in the uniting and separating of judgments needs some modification. St. Thomas found himself obliged to make the concept of truth applicable to the comprehensive power of the intellect and the perceptive power of the senses. The mental judgment depend on the senses and the mental images and it uses in its act, and the truth of the judgment will depend on a certain extent on how faithfully these images reflect the external world.
Ontological truth and its connection with the concept of God.
Things are the cause and the standard of human knowledge. Truth in the human knowledge corresponds to a foundation in things.  Thomas recognizes an ontological, transcendental truth, a truth in things. Thus, a thing is true inasmuch as it possesses a proper essence;. Each thing’s form is guidepost for the knowing human intellect. Things are knowable because they contain an essential content that is mentally comprehensible, and the human intellect is by its nature disposed to comprehend  these essential content of things. The inner constitutive element of things inform the knowing mind.
The perfection and truth of things and also of the intellect come from God, whose being is the cause of all being and whose knowledge is the cause of all other knowledge. The divine radiance penetrates everything with its power and cast its light into every intellect and support the correct knowledge of things. The Thomistictheory  of spiritual and intellectual knowledge can best be characterized by the term “ideal realism”. It is realistic inasmuch as the res, the thing, is the beginning and standard of knowledge; it is idealistic inasmuch as the ideal content of things is proportioned object of the human mind, and also inasmuch as God, i.e., the divine idea, provides the reason for the thing’s being and knowledge.
The Pythagorian principle that knowledge is possible only when the knowing intellect has a certain relation with the nature of things, lies at the bottom every system of ideal realism, as it is the basis of the Thomistic system. Ontological truth is founded in the essential content of things, and since things, because of their perfection, represent a hierarchy, St. Thomas was able to assert: the greater the being the truer it is.
The Eternity and the Unchangeableness of Truth.
St. Thomas considered the much discussed question about the eternity and unchangeableness of truth. He does not admit the existence of a separate sphere composed of metaphysical essences that exist of themselves.  Since truth is in the intellect, eternal truths are only found in the eternal mind, i.e., the divine mind, and never in the created mind. God is the presupposition before we can speak of eternal truth. Every truth has its foundation in being, and the concept of truth applies the comprehending activity of the intellect. The idea of truth comprising these two elements, foundation in being and comprehension by an intellect can be said to be eternal only with respect to God.  Only the divine intellect is by its nature eternal and unchangeable, whereas the being of contingent thing is subject to change.  From this divine, eternal truth are derived, the truth of all things and the truth of the human intellect. There is but one divine truth through which everything is true, yet there is multiplicity of truth in things the human intellect. The human mind is not eternal; therefore the truth it thinks  are not eternal.  Likewise things are not eternal; they go from being to non-being, from this form to another, and the truth in an intellect must be guided by these changes.
St. Thomas found the eternity and the unchangeableness of truth expressed nowhere more clearly than in St. Augustine. The often repeated theme of the Augustinian writing is that mathematical laws and logical principles, the laws of beauty and the norms of morality, are things independent of experience, and that they are eternally valid, rising above all individuals and binding all equally. These truths are eternally valid and necessary because they come from eternity. There is an unchangeable Truth containing all unchangeable truth, and that is God.
2. KNOWLEDGE
The Nature and Limits of Human Knowledge

3. Essence and Existence
It is evident that material substances exist contingently. They come into being and they pass out of being. While they exist, their existing is not what they are. Thomas accepts from Boethius that it is self-evident that what a thing is and its existing differ (diversumestesse et id quod est). Material things depend upon causes to exist, both to become and to be. There is no need to dwell on this except insofar as it provides a springboard to speak of immaterial substance. Only in God is it the case that what he is and his existing are identical: God is His own existence. The phrase Thomas uses to express this is ipsumessesubsistens. Of course this is paradoxical. Existence is the actuality of a substance, not itself something subsistent. This is true with material substances. But when we ask what we mean by saying that God exists, we have to negate aspects of material existence in order to avoid speaking of Him as if he were a contingent being.
The problem that Thomas now faces is how to speak of the immaterial substances which are less than God although superior to material substances, that is, angels. For a material thing to exist is for its form actually to inhere in its matter. But what is it for a pure form to exist? Since immaterial substances less than God are dependent on the divine causality in order to exist, existing cannot be what they are of their essence. In short, in angels too there is a distinction of essence and existence. Thomas notes that a created separate substance is what it is and not another thing: that is, it has the perfection it has, but not unlimited perfection. It is a being of a kind, not being as such. Gabriel is perfect as to his nature, but he lacks the perfection of being Raphael or Michael. Form thus operates as a restriction on existence as such. In God alone is there unrestricted existence; He is existence, ipsumessesubsistens. Here we have an argument for the fact that God's essence is his existence, because His essence is not a restriction of esse to a finite expression or character. And yet it remains true that while we know the fact, we do not know the why of the fact because the knowledge of God's essence remains unknown to us.

A Thomistic Evaluation of Idealism
The term “Idealism” derives from the Greek word “idea”, which was used of something seen or looked upon According to the cyclopedia Philosophy, the word idealism came to be used as: a philosophical term in the eighteenth century.  Leibniz was the first to use the term in a philosophical context to distinguish between his own philosophical views and those of materialists. However, the term came to be used of the philosophical system of Bishop Berkeley and “was applied to the view that nothing could be known to exist or did exist except the ideas in the mind of the percipient. There are many different definitions of idealism given in the standard histories of philosophy.

Traditionally, epistemological idealism has been taken to be the view that the object of knowledge depends upon the experiencing or knowing process. That view may, however, be interpreted in a number of different ways. It may mean that the finite knower creates or conditions the finite object, or in any case that some knowing process creates or conditions those objects. It may mean that all reality is essentially experiential in character, or it may mean . . . that all of reality, embracing both objects and knowings, belongs to a single interdependent and coherent system.

There are different classifications of idealists, depending upon the focus of their speculation. Epistemological idealists are primarily concerned with questions of knowledge, while subjective idealists are primarily concerned with self as the criterion of
reality in which the conceptual determines the real. Mortimer Adler identifies six theses that have been proposed in modern times by idealists of one kind or another.
1. the denial that there is an independent reality, which is the object of our knowledge and understanding, or at least the denial of a reality that is the same for all of us;
2. the assertion that the structure and features of the world in which we live and the shape of our experience of it are determined by the ideas we employ to think about it;
3. the assertion that the innate structure of our minds--our senses, our imagination, and our intellect--is itself constitutive of the world we experience;
4. the belief that the experienced world is not the same as an unknowable independent reality if that unknowable, independent reality does in fact exist;
5. the view that there is a variety among our experienced worlds, varying with the ideas that diverse persons employ in thinking about them;
6. the doctrine that our own ideas are the only objects with which we can have direct acquaintance, though they can also somehow be regarded as representations of a reality with which we cannot have direct acquaintance or of which we cannot have experience.4
Although modern Idealist philosophers may not endorse all of these theses, a majority would agree that the sixth thesis is valid.

An examination of Idealism
In considering the epistemology of Idealism it must be clear that we are not narrowing our consideration to Epistemological Idealism per se. Rather, we will consider the more general aspects which cut across all particular emphases, and which ultimately lead
to a universal idealistic epistemology, regardless of the particular focus of any certain idealistic system

Its Metaphysical Foundation
According to most historians of philosophy, it was the achievement of Rene Descartes to bring the world out of the middle ages and into the modern age. But, Descartes also laid the foundation of modern idealistic subjectivism A Thomistic evaluation of Descartes’ system is ably presented by Etienne Gilson As he has explained, the ambitious desire of Descartes was to apply his universal mathematics to all problems and thereby to effect a “complete liberation of knowledge from its objects “‘ By thus removing knowledge from the dictates of the various objects, Descartes believed he could successfully demonstrate the applicability of his universal method to solve all problems, even those of ethics and metaphysics His mathematical method would provide the same kind of certainty for metaphysics as was enjoyed in mathematics. Apparently, Descartes did not realize that the certainty of the mathematical method was due to “the extreme simplicity of the object of mathematics,” not to any guaranteed (or “a priori”) universal applicability of its method.

Nevertheless, the success of the mathematical method in its application to its proper object led Descartes to apply this method to all disciplines, regardless of their proper objects. Gilson identifies the root of Descartes’ method. The ideals of the mind dictate the essences of things in reality. The test for truth resides in the clear and distinct idea in the mind. Although Descartes could doubt the existence of the external world, and even the existence of his own body, he could not doubt his own internal states and ideas. John Wild succinctly states the conclusion to which Descartes’ method led: “Since we know only our own subjective states which are the direct objects of knowledge, the existence of an external world is at once called in question.” By this bold move, Descartes had made a subtle shift away from the Realism of the Scholastic philosophers and had introduced an error which has become the plague of modern philosophy.

Descartes wrongly considered thought to be the object of thought, and almost every philosopher outside the scholastic tradition has accepted what he affirmed as though it were a demonstrated truth. Descartes was the originator of what has become a deep—seated and definite prejudice in favor of subjectivism.
  The foundation of knowledge was no longer the objective realm of reality as had been asserted by traditional Aristotelian and Thomistic Realism, but the subjective realm of ideas The analysis of Locke’s proposals by Joseph Brennan identifies the crucial problem with a subjectivistic philosophy from the Thomistic perspective Locke’s analysis of perception tells us (1) that what we know are our sensations or “ideas,” (2) that these sensations are produced in us by physical objects external to us, (3) that there is at least a partial correspondence between our perceptions and these external causes But it is just at this point that a difficulty rises. What assurance have we that there is any correspondence at all between our “ideas” and their external causes’ What justifies our belief in this likeness between perceptions and the things which produce them in us, if what we know are perceptions only’ There is simply no way of showing that any correspondence whatever exists between our “ideas” and the physical objects which are supposed to cause them Indeed, there is no way of demonstrating that there any physical objects existing independently of us. In short, the problem was not the identification of the object of knowledge. That which we know is not objective reality. Rather, that which we know is the idea or concept in the mind.
Its epistemological Synthesis
Although the two camps of Rationalism and Empiricism were saying the same things about that which is the object of knowledge, they could not agree upon the source of that knowledge. From where do ideas come’ The Rationalism of Descartes proposed that knowledge derived primarily from innate ideas. The Empiricism of Locke countered that all knowledge is derived from sense impressions, from which the mind forms its ideas. Each system had.
As Kant described, though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience. For, on the contrary, it is quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impressions, andthat which the faculty of cognition supplies from itself (sensuous impressions giving merely the occasion), an addition which we cannot distinguish from the original element given by sense, till long practice has made us attentive to, and skilful in separating it.
Kant’s synthesis was not merely a blending of the elements of Rationalism and Empiricism, but, as Collins characterizes it, a radical reconstitution, of the elements provided by the previous century of modern speculation. Kant’s synthesis involved the acknowledgement that all knowledge begins with sense experience, but that the necessary categories which make the confusing barrage and changing diversity of sense experience intelligible is supplied by the mind of the knower. As Vincent Brummer describes,
Perception, he maintained, is not the passive recording of an inherent order in reality: it is an active process of creating order in the chaos of disorderly impressions we receive through perception. Our concepts are not, therefore, this belief. Everyday experience demonstrates this Therefore, the Idealist explanation of knowledge is inadequate to account for the facts of real experience Joseph Owens’ observation clearly exhibits the inadequacy of Idealism. Everyday experience indicates that meaning is communicable because the meanings of our words can somehow be objectively verified Idealism does not allow for or explain this self—evident experience.
A Thomistic Evaluation of Nominalist
There are many varieties of Nominalism However, there is an essential element by virtue of which a particular variety is necessarily nominalistic “The fundamental contention of Nominalism is that all things that exist are only particulars. Nominalism is a position which seeks to offer a solution to the problem of universals and particulars The problem arises from the consideration the classical question, how can we draw from singular things a concept that is general? D. M. Armstrong identifies five general classes of Noininalism, and gives a brief description of each.
Predicate Nominalism. The question arises, “In virtue of what do these general terms apply to the things which they apply to? The fundamental fact in this situation, which cannot be further explained, is that the predicates do apply.

Concept  Noininalism. This calls upon concepts, conceived as mental entities, to do the job for which the Predicate Norninalist employs predicates.

Class Nominalism: For the Class Nominalist: ‘a’ has the property, F, if and only if ‘a’
is a member of the class of F’s
Mereological Nominalism. For this variant of Class Nominalism:
‘a’ has the property, F, if and only if ‘a’ is a part of the aggregate(heap) of the F’s
Resemblance Nominalism. According to this view:‘a’, has the property, F, if and only if ‘a’ suitably resembles a paradigm case(or paradigm cases) of an F.
It is easy to identify the universal characteristic of Nominalism in each of these particular varieties. In each case the assertion identifies a certain quality by virtue of which can be truly said to be an instance of F. It is not because there is any essential characteristic or identity of nature between, and which accounts for the relationship. Jacques Maritain provides a helpful description of Nominalism.
The nominalist school, for which universals have no existence except as names or ideas with which nothing in reality corresponds for instance, there is nothing in the reality of human nature which is equally present in Peter or Paul.
An examination of Nominalism
Although there are varieties of Nominalism, they all agree that all things that exist are particulars. The differences arise in their explanations of “the way that the problem of apparent identity of nature is to be solved. The ensuing investigation will therefore be general in nature so as to be applicable to all varieties of Nominalism.

Nominalism and Subjectivism
William of Ockham is the nominalist par excellence For Ockham, “Universals have no existence in reality They are convenient mental fictions, signs standing for many particulars at once His criticism of Realism followed the basic theme that “a single distinct entity appearing in a multiplicity of individual things is a contradiction in terms of Armand Mauer provides a clear analysis of Ockham’s position, but in the perspective of Ockham’s nonunalism, no two items have anything in common. In his view, it is absurd to speak of a number of things presenting a common intelligible or formal object Every reality or thing is individual and one in number and it shares nothing in common with anything else. Only terms or concepts are common or universal, in the sense
that they are predicable of many things. But things themselves are not common or universal. The implication of this for a knowledge of reality is clear. If every individual thing exists only as one thing with nothing in common with anything else, then it is impossible for the same thing to exist outside of the mind and inside the mind Consequently, what is known is not the thing that is in reality, but a mental copy of that thing John Lyons gives a synopsis of Ockham’s intuitionism.

The intuitive apprehension of an object causes a concept of that thing to arise naturally in the mind This individual concept is a natural sign of the object; and it can be regarded as the meaning of the written or spoken word which, by convention, signifies it in particular languages. The crucial point here is that the concept that is formed must, by Ockham’s own lights, be something other than the real thing. It must be a representation of that thing A particular thing is one and indivisible There is no aspect of a particular that can exist simultaneously in several things Lyons further asserts, Nominalism . . . does not necessarily imply subjectivism or skepticism with respect to the possibility of our acquiring knowledge of the external world. Ockham, at least, seemed to have held that our knowledge of individuals is direct and intuitive, and is caused by the individuals.

However, according to Etienne Gilson, “Ockham’s intuitive cognition is the immediate perception of a really existing thing, but, this intuition exists only as long as the event of perception takes place It is the abstraction that is the memory of certain past events, or “our mental representation of mere individuals 1145 So then, the immediate perception is the sense impression, and the abstraction is the image or idea in the mind that is a representation, or copy of the indivisible particular thing in reality
How, then, can it be known whether the representation in the mind is an accurate copy of the thing in reality? If the thing in reality is indivisible, then that which is known is not that which s in reality As Gilson comments, what Ockham wants us to realize is that, since everything that really exists is individual, our general ideas cannot correspond to anything in reality, whence it follows necessarily that it is not their nature to be either images, or pictures, or mental presentations of any real or conceivable thing. Consequently, contrary to Lyons’ claim, Nominalism in fact does entail subjectivism and ultimately skepticism.
Nominalism and Sensism
Further, on the basis of the Thomistic Realist view that metaphysics and epistemology are inextricably connected, it seems that Nominalism entails sensism John Wild explains this point. The nominalist is a consistent materialist. He holds that there is no evidence for the existence of immaterial universals outside the mind, and concludes that all being is material and individual The universal exists neither outside the mind nor in the mind. What are commonly called concepts or universals, in his view, are really mere words or physical disturbances of some kind in the organism. These peculiar disturbances, according to the nominalist, are produced, like sense impressions, by physical agencies which are either outside or within the organism. Thus reason tends to be reduced to sense.

Working from the Thomistic Realist position of the priority of metaphysics and the view that epistemological assertions have metaphysical implications, the logic seems to be inescapable. If there is a material reality, and the things of material reality are singular and indivisible units, and there is no aspect of them that can exist in common with other units, then there is no immaterial aspect to particulars It is precisely this immaterial form in the Thomistic Realist system accounts for the common nature, or essence, of material things. To allow for the immaterial aspect in material things opens the door for the assertion by the Realist that there is in fact a common nature. But to eliminate the material is to be left only with the material. Consequent knowledge is reduced to the sense perception and the objects of knowledge are copies or representations that the mind forms from these impressions.
Even if a nominalist claims to believe in immaterial particulars, like souls, minds, numbers, etc., these are not items of knowledge, at least not according to the Thomistic Realist definition of knowledge, but are items of belief. But even according to the nominalist’s own system, there can be no evidence presented by which one can know that immaterial particulars exist. One must simply believe that they do. If such evidence were presented in favor of immaterial particulars, then the same evidence could be employed in favor of immaterial universals. The same method, namely sense perception, by which the nominalist rejects immaterial universals necessarily involves the rejection of immaterial particulars. It is not the “universality” as such that is rejected. Rather, it is the “immateriality” by which universals are said to be universal that is rejected. A nominalist who believes in immaterial particulars does precisely that--he believes.

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