PLATO

PLATO’S LIFE: From Student to University President

 When Socrates was put to death, his student Plato was not quite thirty.
 Plato was born in an aristocratic Athenian family; he was educated to become a great
political leader. After Socrates’ death, however, he decided to devote allhis energies to
philosophy.
 He founded his own school called the Academy.
 Republic- one of his famous works. He suggested philosopher kings/queens.

PLATO’S TASK: Making Philosophy Comprehensive

 Plato had an intense interest in ethical questions; however, Socrates’ fate taught him that
good people will not survive unless society itself is transformed. Therefore, political
philosophy was also a major concern in his works.
 The answers to our ethical and political questions could be found in our adequate
understanding of reality.

THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE: Reason vs Opinion

A. Rejection of Relativism
 In the dialogue Theatetus, he critically examines the claim of Protagoras that “man is the
measure of all things.”
 To say that “truth is relative” is relative.
 Everyone recognizes a difference between wisdom and ignorance and between true belief
and false belief.

B. Rejection of Sense Experience

 Sense perception only gives us the world of constant change that Heraclitus described. In
this realm, we can never say with confidence what is true because it is always in flux.
 The object of knowledge must be something universal that we can capture in an
unchanging description or definition.
 We can only know some things conceptually and not through experiences.

C. Rejection of Knowledge as True Belief

 Beliefs can be either true or false
  Knowledge must always be true — an arbitrary guest which happened to be a true belief
by virtue of fortunate coincidence is not knowledge.
 Knowledge should be rational. It must be grounded in some sort of rational insight.

Plato believes that genuine knowledge is:

1. Objective
2. Unavailable to the senses
3. Universal
4. Unchanging
5. Grounded in a rational understanding

 Universal forms are the basis of knowledge

 Particulars- come into being, change, and pass away
 Universals- reside in an eternal, unchanging world
 Constants with experience- universals
 Platonic Ideas (realities that exist independently of the minds that know them) are
different from the English term “idea” (subjective content of one’s mind).

Knowledge Comes Through Recollection

 Since our souls are eternal, we have innate knowledge
 When the soul entered the physical world, we forgot this knowledge, but waiting to be
recovered through the process of recollection.

PLATO’S DIVIDED LINE

 Plato correlates the degrees or levels of knowledge with the different levels of reality
METAPHYSICS: Shadows and Reality
 Plato’s attempt to work out Socrates’ insights drove him to pursue their metaphysical
foundations. Plato argued that if the Forms are true objects of knowledge, then
knowledge must be of something real.
 The Forms must be objective, independently existing realities

The Problem of Change

 Plato believes that Heraclitus and Parmenides are both wrong and both right about
change. They are wrong in their monism but they are right in describing half of the whole
picture.
 Plato embraces metaphysical dualism.

The Relationship of Particulars to the Forms

 According to Plato, no earthly, physical being ever attains the perfect reality of its form,
for to be physical is always to be limited, deficient, and changing.
1. The Forms are the cause of the existence of particular things, analogous to the way a
statue causes its shadow.
2. Physical objects resemble their Forms, analogous to the way a photograph is the
likeness of the person.
3. Particular objects participate in their Forms.
4. Forms represent the standards of evaluation we use to judge particulars as excellent
or deficient
5. The Forms make particulars intelligible.

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

 Freed Prisoner- symbolizes a philosopher that was enlightened.
 The Allegory of the Cave speaks of ignorance of humanity trapped in the
conventional ethics formed by society.

Against Relativism
 Plato’s discussion of morality is set in contrast to those of the Sophists. If moral norms
are subjective, then ethical values will be arbitrarily decided by whoever in society is the
most persuasive.
 Plato maintains that ethics is just as objective as science and mathematics.
MORAL THEORY
Socrates claims that the just life falls into the second category,
 Plato’s notion of justice is not just a fair, decent, and correct ordering of society.
 For Plato, the essential core of the person is the psyche (soul=self)
Different Parts of the Soul (kinds of desires)
1. Appetites- associated with bodily desires and needs. Lowest and most dangerous
2. Spirited part- willful, dynamic, executive faculty within the soul. Includes passion and
emotion
3. Rational Part- reflective part of the soul. It is the source of love of truth and the desire to
understand
4 PRIMARY MORAL VIRTUES
1. Wisdom- when our reason is in control
2. Courage- when spirited part is in the right place
3. Temperance- when appetite is controlled
4. Justice- overarching virtue that is present when all the other elements have achieved their
correct balance. It constitutes health and well-being of the soul.

WHY BE MORAL? Because wickedness is the cancer of the soul.

POLITICAL THEORY
 The soul of the individual person is a miniature version of the structure of the society.
 Plato believes it is impossible to live the good life apart from the state.
 Furthermore, a good society is only possible if the people in power are good and live by
the light of philosophical reason. The good person and the good society depend on each
other.
 Plato has a strong bias against individualism.
 For Plato, the most functional society is built around a division of labor.

3 KINDS OF PEOPLE WITHIN SOCIETY

1. Producers- provide the necessities of life. Equivalent of appetitive part of soul
2. Auxiliaries- concerned with the welfare of society. Equivalent of the spirited part of the
soul
3. Guardians- ultimate rulers of the state. Equivalent of the rational part of the soul.
  Ironically, the people in the lowerclass are accorded the most freedom and economic
gain.
 Meritocracy- Plato’s society, a society based on merit alone.
 Plato was well aware that this ideal society is a very fragile accomplishment.
 Plato believes that democracy is unstable, both as a political system and as an
organizational principle of the soul, for if we treat every interest and desire equally, then
there will be war between them for supremacy.

PLATO’S COSMOLOGY: Purpose and Chance

 Plato believes that the universe could not exist without a principle of order.
 Plato starts from the premise that “everything that becomes or is created must of
necessity be created by some cause.”
 The supreme cause is referred to as God or the Demiurge (meaning Craftsman).
 Plato explains the universe in terms of a purposeful order that permeates it. (Teleological
explanation).
 The measures of beauty, goodness, and order found in the world are the result of the
Form and the Demiurge’s activity.

ARISTOTLE
 Aristotle was born in 384 BCE in the Macedonian town of Stargia.
 His father was Nicomachus, a physician to Amyntas II, the King of Macedonia
 Around age 18, he sought out the best education offered in his day and became a student
in Plato’s Academy in Athens. He studied and taught there with Plato for 20 years.
 He spent several years travelling around the Greek islands doing research in marine
biology.
 He became a tutor of thirteen-year-old Alexander the Great.
 He returned in Athens on 335 and founded his own school and research institute named,
“Lyceum,” which became a rival to the Academy.

Theory of Knowledge: Finding Universals within Particulars

A. Aristotle’s Appeal to Experience

 Aristotle says that knowledge begins with a study of particular things. Thus, he thinks it
is a mistake to study an abstract quality in isolation from its concrete exemplifications.
 For example, “Musicalness cannot exist unless there is someone who is musical” (M
5.11). In other words, if we want to study “musicalness” we had better take a close look
at musicians and what they do.
 Aristotle says that someone who is full of theory but lacks experience of the relevant
particulars is deficient in his or her knowledge.
 For Aristotle, the structure of true science is like that of geometry. It consists of necessary
truths demonstrated from self-evident axioms and definitions that compose a complete
deductive system.

B. Language, Thought, and Reality

 One of Aristotle’s fundamental convictions is that the structures of language, thought,
and reality are the same.
 Language is important because knowledge does not consist of a mute, mystical insight
but in the ability to discourse intelligently about the world. Language must have the same
structure as thought, for how else could we put our thoughts into words?

C. The Essential Categories

 According to Aristotle, the way we understand things is revealed by the sorts of
assertions we can make about anything. These will reveal not only the categories of our
thought and language but the categories of reality as well.
 Substance- unique among all the others that follow after it. They are individual things.
They are the subject of assertions to which predicates (or the other nine categories) are
applied.

D. The Discovery of Logic

 To be more than a mere list of facts, science must employ reasoning.
 This is a process by which we acquire new information from information that we already
have. However, for reasoning to be useful it must follow a procedure that guarantees that
true information will always yield more true information and never a false conclusion.
 Aristotle was the first person to discover the rules of reasoning that we now call logic.
His work on logic was so complete that very few modifications were made to it until the
late nineteenth century.
 We can make four kinds of assertions about the relationship between two categories. For
example, we can say (1) “All students are poets,” or (2) “No students are poets,” or (3)
“Some students are poets,” or (4) “Some students are not poets.”
 These different kinds of individual statements can be related together to form arguments.
 In an argument, the arguer claims that one set of statements, the premises, provide
reasons for believing another statement, the conclusion.
 One of the most common forms of arguments, and the form that Aristotle analyzed, is the
syllogism.
 A syllogism is an argument that is composed of two premises that lead to a conclusion.
 Valid Argument- the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises.
 All P are M. Some S are not M. Therefore, some S are not P.
 In this argument, if you consistently substitute any other terms in place of the original
ones and if the premises are true, this form of argument will always give you a true
conclusion. However, Aristotle showed that some forms of reasoning are not valid. They
do not reliably lead you from true information to a true conclusion.

E. First Principles
 Aristotle points out that not everything can be deductively demonstrated.
 Aristotle’s answer is found in a twofold process of induction and intuiton.
 Through induction we become acquainted with the universal and necessary features
within the changing world of particulars. He says that sense experience leaves its traces
within memory.
 Although it is clear how induction can enable us to make generalizations in this way, it is
not clear how induction alone can give us necessary first principles. Here is where
intuition comes in. Aristotle is convinced that the world consists of a rational order.
Experience alone cannot demonstrate this order to us, but can acquaint us with it.
However, only through a sort of intellectual intuition do we really “see” the universal and
necessary truths that are the foundation of all genuine knowledge.
 Whereas Plato described the act of intuiting universals as a kind of “recollection” of
knowledge already latent within the soul, the more empirical Aristotle refers to it as an
act of “recognition.”

METAPHYSICS
A. CRITIQUE OF THE PLATONIC FORMS
 The examination of the principles that are the common foundation for every science is
what Aristotle called “first philosophy.” The most complete discussion of this topic is in
his book Metaphysics. We now use the term metaphysics to refer to the area of
philosophy concerned with the nature of reality.
 Here are some of the main criticisms that Aristotle offers in his Metaphysics (M 1.9):
1. The Forms are useless. They have no explanatory power. Instead of explaining the
natural world, Plato’s theory creates a second world, thereby doubling the number of
things that require explanation.
2. The Forms cannot explain change or the movement of things within our experience.
3. The Forms cannot be the essence or substance of things if they are separated from
them
4. It is not clear what it means for particulars to “participate” in the Forms.
5. Also, Aristotle uses the Third Man Argument that was introduced in the chapter on
Plato. If the relationship between two men is explained by means of the Form of Man,
then do we need yet another Form to explain the similarity between the individual
man and the Form of Man? If so, then this process would never end, for we would
have Forms explaining Forms forever
 Despite Aristotle’s rejection of the Platonic version of the Forms, we must not suppose
that Aristotle does away with them altogether. With Plato, he still believes there are
universal forms that are objective and that constitute the essences of things in the world.
It is because of these forms that we are able to have knowledge. Furthermore, Aristotle
agrees that the order in reality can only be explained by reference to the forms.
 Having dismissed Plato’s extreme dualism, where does Aristotle locate the forms? To
answer this question, he turns to the only reality we have—the natural world around us.
For Plato’s picture of transcendent Forms, Aristotle substitutes the notion of immanent
forms. The forms can only be the cause and explanation of things if they are an intrinsic
part of things.

B. SUBSTANCE: THE KEY TO REALITY

 For Aristotle, the fundamental reality is the collection of substances we find in our
everyday experience.
 To understand any individual substance, we must understand two things about it: (1)
whatness (common or universal property and its form); and (2) thisness
(matter).
 The form constitutes an object’s essence. The essence of something is the set of
qualities that make it the sort of thing it is. Typically, the essence of a thing is what a
dictionary definition attempts to describe. For example, the essence of a coffee cup is
to hold coffee so that we can drink from it.
 Matter, as we have indicated, is the principle of individuation. It is what
distinguishes the individual members of a class that share the same form.
 C. POTENTIALITY AND ACTUALITY
 Aristotle describes the stages that a changing, developing individual goes through as
potentiality changes to actuality.
 Potentiality is associated with matter.

D. UNDERSTANDING CHANGE
To understand a changing world, Aristotle says, we must understand the causes that operate in
the world. According to Aristotle, four kinds of causes explain why a particular event happens or
why something is the way it is.
1. Material Cause- its matter.
2. Efficient Cause- origin of the process
3. Formal Cause- essence of the item, the form being actualized in its matter, that which
makes it the sort of thing it is
4. Final Cause- most important aspect. This is the end or purpose or function it is to fulfill

E. TELEOLOGY
 “telos”- meaning is end (purpose) or goal
 Entelechy- Aristotle used this word to describe the end stage of a process, meaning the
full actualization of a thing’s form.

F. THE UNMIVED MOVER

 Matter by itself is merely a bundle of potentialities. It needs some other force to actualize
its potential.
 The Unmoved Mover should be eternal. It is not a transcendent anthropomorphic,
personal God. It cannot be an efficient cause but it operates as the final cause. It must be
the highest sort of reality.

ETHICS
Aristotle does not pretend to offer us a radically novel ethical theory. He thought it would be
absurd that no one in the history of the human race have ever found what it means to be morally
good.
For Aristotle, ethics constitutes a body of objective knowledge. It is a science of correct conduct
that guides us toward the goal of achieving human excellence.

A. HAPPINESS
 All human actions aim at some end.
 The final goal of all human activity is happiness.
 Pleasure does not equal happiness
 The term Aristotle used is Eudaimonia (well-being)
 The road to happiness involves two dimensions. You must rationally judge what are the
right principles to follow, and your appetites, feelings, and emotions must be disciplined
to follow those rules. This requires two kinds of human excellence. These are intellectual
virtue (or excellence of intelligence) and moral virtue (or excellence of character). A
good life cannot be had if either of these is neglected.

1. Virtue is a state of character- a morally good person is not simply one who performs
morally right actions but one who has developed a habit or disposition to do what is right.
2. Virtue is concerned with choice- being moral involves knowing what is good and
choosing it for its own sake. It should be voluntary.
TWO CLASSES OF INVOLUNTARY ACTION: 1. UNDER COMPULSION
(EXTERNAL OR INTERNAL), 2. OUT OF IGNORANCE
3. Virtue and the Mean- virtue is the choice lying in a mean.

4. Universal Principles and Relative Applications- Aristotle has said that virtue entails
finding the “mean relative to us.” Hence, the mean will not be the same for every
individual under all circumstances.
5. The Mean determined by practical wisdom- it is “determined by a rational principle,
and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it” (NE
2.6). It is at this point that moral virtue links up with the intellectual virtue of practical
wisdom. A person who has moral virtue will know which goals are the right ones for
human life (the balance among her various desires and emotions).
THE BEST FORM OF LIFE- thinking/contenmplation

CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHY AFTER ARISTOTLE

1. Cynicism- a school of thought in ancient Greek philosophy. They believe that the best
life is one that is lived in accordance with nature and free from rules and regulations of
society.
 Antisthenes- initially studied under Gorgias but eventually turned as a pupil of
Socrates. He was credited with starting the movement. He is a legitimate spiritual
heir to Socratic doctrine and Plato's opponent. He believed that society, with its
emphasis on material goods, statues, and employment, was a distortion of natural
life and should be avoided. He has “back-to-nature” philosophy. He was involved in
living a life free from wants, passions, and the many conventions of society that
leads to eudaimonia or true happiness.
 Diogenes- he was son of a banker. He released counterfeiting coins to the public.
He was stripped of his citizenship, his money, and all his possessions. Since he was
exiled, he decided to reject the opinions of others along with conventional religion,
manners, housing, food, fashion, sex, fame, and power which he believes then
results to true freedom. He teased passers-by and mocked the powerful, eating,
urinating, and even masturbating in public. He was given the nickname “cynic”
which means doglike, also called as “kyon” which means barking dog. It was meant
as an insult but then turned into a good symbol for his philosophy. They are happy
creatures, free from abstractions like wealth or reputation.
 Dog Philosophers- Diogenes’ growing number of followers. A designation that
eventually became the word cynic.
 Crates- passed on the best features of Cynicism to the Stoics. He carried on the
concern for virtue, independence, and liberation.

2. Epicureanism- Founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.E). Lucretius, his disciple, refer to

him as the “destroyer of religion.” It was a school that holds the belief that the best life is
one long term pleasure that results from moderation. Epicurus and his followers strongly
protested against magic, astrology and divination. It was different from hedonism.
Hedonism is the pursuit of sensual self-indulgence and pleasure. Epicureanism aims not
for maximum pleasure, but ataraxia. Epicurean pleasure is simply absence of pain. To
avoid pain, we must avoid intense pleasure because it is always followed by pain. For
Epicurus, happiness comes from what is fun. Peace of mind is what he calls the “good
life”, which we need to attain in this world. Epicurus stated that happiness is not from
having romantic and sexual relationship.

3 things to be happy: 1st - we need our friends around. 2nd - start doing things for your own
happiness. 3rd - find things that makes you calm, avoid absorbing negative thoughts.
 3. Stoicism- It flourished for 480 years in ancient Greece and Rome, it was popular, with
everyone because it helped people regarding anxiety and anger. It was founded by Zeno
Stoic Metaphysics
Stoics also embraced material monism, but they did not believe that there was no room for the
chance in the scheme of things.
Their universe was teleological and permeated by the divine. They used multiple names to
describe or refer to the same fundamental reality.
Their divinity
Benevolent and just, which guides all things by his wisdom to realize/learn the perfect, most
powerful, beautiful, and good outcome.
Logoi- spread throughout the world to help the logos guide the growth and development of each
thing
The stoics said that all rational beings were part of the divine fire, or sparks, and we are all
children god making us a one great family. The god of the stoics is not a free personality.
Evil did not leave the world. Wickedness only cause anthropogenic events
Pleasure- a present good
Desire- a future good
Grief- a present evil
Fear- a future evil
Virtue cannot be good, better, but as their philosophy progressed, they later accepted that some
were neither perfectly virtuous nor entirely bad.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Aurelius Augustus is one of the most influential writers in the history of the Christian Church,
specifically in the Roman Catholic Church. He was prominent in the history of the world,
particularly, because he existed at the era when the world is slowly transitioning from the
Hellenistic period to the Middle Ages.
Augustine’s philosophy is very significant in learning Medieval Philosophy as he greatly
influenced it. However, he is not only significant because of his influence in philosophy and
theology, rather, he also became a prominent figure in the history of literature because of his two
major works: the Confessions and City of God.
1. Confessions- considered as the greatest spiritual autobiography of all time. It is a diverse
work of literature which consists of autobiography, philosophy, theology, and critical
exegesis of the Scriptures.
2. City of God- originally, “On the City of God Against the Pagans,” known as the first
philosophy of history. Augustine did not only provide a mere description of historical
events but used them to tell a story. He wrote this book to answer allegations that
Christianity was the reason behind the decline of Rome in the early 5th Century.
Other works of Augustine includes The Enchiridion, On Christian Doctrine, and On the Trinity.
Augustine was canonized as saint the Catholic Church. He is venerated and became the patron
saint of brewers, printers, and theologians.
St. Augustine is among the four doctors of the church in the early history of Christianity
alongside with St. Ambrose, his teacher; St. Gregory the Great, and St. Jerome.
He is referred as the Doctor of Grace.

LIFE OF ST. AUGUSTINE

- born in 354 B.C.E. in North Africa
- Patricius (Patrick), was not a Christian (although he became one on his deathbed).
- Monica, was a devout Christian who was later declared a saint.
- Studied rhetoric at Carthage in 370
- lived with a mistress for ten years and fathered an illegitimate son by her.
- under the influence of the Manichaean religious cult.
- pursued a successful career teaching rhetoric and literature.
- went to Rome to further his career and to seek better students had adopted skepticism as his
philosophical outlook.
- became rhetoric professor at Milan in in 384.
- befriended by St. Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan.
- “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet”
- he took another mistress and gave up on any pretentions to moral purity.
- began to read the Neoplatonists, including Plotinus, in earnest.
- was moved when he heard of the Christian conversion of the great teacher Victorinus.
- In the summer of 386, he eventually thought about conversion.
- between “Let it be now” and “Are you getting rid of us? (Voice of his lustful passions)” taunted by the
question, “Do you think that you can live without them?”
- on Easter Sunday in 387, he was baptized by St. Ambrose.
- abandoned the teaching of rhetoric and returned to his home in Africa and decided to devote all his
energies to the work of the Church.
- he was made Bishop of Hippo in 396.
- in 430, as the barbarians were taking over the Empire and surging at the gates of Hippo, Augustine died.

AUGUSTINE’S TASK: UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT

The content of Augustine’s writings slowly evolved as his thought developed in response to the
different philosophical and theological issues he faced throughout his life.
Augustine tended to be fairly optimistic about the capabilities of reason and mainly addressed
topics that can be handled by natural reason alone.
His later writings, which include City of God (completed in 426), are more scripturally based
and insist more strongly that reason is subordinate to faith.
Explicit theological content reflects both Augustine’s developing interests and the threat posed
by Christian heresies such as Pelagianism (also called Pelagian heresy, it is a 5th-century
Christian heresy taught by Pelagius and his followers that stressed the essential goodness of
human nature and the freedom of the human will).
In every aspect, Augustine’s philosophy draws deeply from the wells of Platonic and
Neoplatonic
philosophy. he notes that “none of the other philosophers has come so close to us as the
Platonists have” (CG 8.5).
They “have unlawful possession” of God’s truth, we should not shrink from their ideas but can
rightfully claim them for ourselves (CD 2.40.60). All philosophical ideas are either obstacles or
vehicles in the journey of the soul to God and eternal life.
He used the rhetorical style that earned him fame in his first career and his philosophical energies
were spent so that his audience would lead to God. He also emphasized that no aspect of our
world
can be understood apart from a religious perspective.
Augustine insists that knowledge, philosophy, the world, and humanity are always to be
understood
in the light of their religious significance.
Two central issues lie at the heart of Augustine’s philosophy. These are
(1) the primacy of the will and
(2) the fact that love motivates all action, both human and divine.
It has 2 dimensions: First, with respect to God, everything in the universe is a result of his free
and sovereign will. Second, with respect to us, everything human is to be explained on the basis
of the will. According to him, the intellect follows the will, not the other way around.
The will is moved in the direction of what it chooses to love. every one of us is pulled by the
affections of our hearts toward that which is the center of our lives. As Augustine says, “My
weight is my love. Wherever I am carried, my love is carrying me” (C 8.9)
The problem we face, according to Augustine, is that ever since the disobedience of the first man
and woman, Adam and Eve, the human race has fallen into the downward spiral of sin. Every
one of us inherits and reenacts in our own lives, is that every area of human life has been infected
and corrupted by sin. Our wills are bent away from God, and the weight of our love is pulled in
the wrong direction.
Augustine tries to convince us that this human predicament affects not only our ethical life but
our quest for knowledge and the entire course of human history.
The preceding points lead to one of the major tensions in Augustine’s philosophy, which is
howto reconcile the total power of God and the effects of our sinful nature on the one hand, with
his claim that humans have free will.

St.Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas stands between antiquity and modernity (ca. 1225–1274). He epitomizes the
scholastic method of the newly founded universities as the greatest figure of thirteenth-century
Europe in the two preeminent sciences of the era, philosophy and theology. Aquinas, like Dante
or Michelangelo, draws inspiration from antiquity, particularly Aristotle, and creates something
entirely new. When viewed through a theological lens, Aquinas is frequently regarded as the
pinnacle of the Christian tradition that dates back to Augustine and the early Church. As a
philosopher, he is regarded as a pivotal figure in modern thought.
49 years old
Dominican Friar
From Naples
Eight siblings
Studied in Naples University
“I would rather believe that a cow could fly.”
Aquinas was dubbed “the dumb ox” by his fellow students, for being large and quiet. He was
apparently quiet because he was busy thinking; he became the Catholic church’s top theologian,
a title he still holds today, without dispute
While celebrating Mass a few months before he died, he had a mystical experience. “I can write
no more,” he later said to a friend, “I have seen things which make all my writings like straw.”
Without any further explanation, he gave up writing.
TWO KINDS OF TECHNOLOGY:
NATURAL
SUPERNATURAL
THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY CAN’T CONFLICT: BOTH REVEAL TRUTHS FROM IN
THE AUTHOR OF ALL TRUT
HUMAN INTERPRETATIONS DO
THOMAS DOES NOT BELIEVE IN INNATE KNOWLEDGE
HE BELIEVS THAT KNOWLEDGE CAME FROM SENSES
INTELLECT RECEIVES RAW MATERIALS FROM SENSES
AQUINAS BELIEVES THAT THE INTELLECT IS SELF SUFFICIENT, NOT NEEDING
DIVINE ILLUMINATION TO OBTAIN KNOWLEDGE
HE DOESN’T BELIEVE THAT UNIVERSALS ARE ONLY MENTAL. IF WE SEPARATE
UNIVERSALS FROM OBJECTS, THEN IT IS PROBABLY REAL