Abstract

St. Thomas Aquinas's views on the separated soul's knowledge can be found in several texts in both his earlier and later writings. In contradistinction to other texts on the topic, Summa theologiae I, q. 89 and Quaestiones disputatae De anima, qq. 15--20, which scholars regard as later writings, have distinctive similarities. Noting the distinctive characteristics of these two texts, some scholars have held the view that Thomas corrected his own earlier doctrine on this question. ;This dissertation argues that Thomas's view of the knowledge of the separated soul is basically the same in both his earlier and later writings, but that he refined his teaching in the later writings making his doctrinal synthesis more comprehensive and better integrated. It shows that Thomas's discussions of the separated soul's knowledge should be understood in light of his systematic theory of human nature, which focuses on man's dynamic movement towards God as his primary mover and ultimate end. It proposes a new interpretation of the separated soul's natural knowledge and the meaning of the soul's embodied and separated modes of being and activity. ;Chapter One reviews the interpretations of some scholars, and shows some questionable points to be clarified through our reexamination of Thomas's arguments concerning the separated soul's cognition. Chapter Two analyzes Thomas's earlier texts on the question, and shows the presupposition in Thomas's argument that the soul has the least intellectual power among intellectual substances, and so has a natural necessity of being united with the body. Chapter Three analyzes Thomas's later texts, and shows that his view of the separated soul's knowledge is not pessimistic but rather positive. Thomas does not regard the separated soul's natural knowledge as being simply inferior to the knowledge which the soul can acquire in this life. The separation of the soul from the body implies not only a loss, but also a gain, because in the separated state, the soul will be open to a nobler mode of understanding and have the possibility of attaining perfect beatitude, although it will indeed lose the use of sense-powers, and thereby the opportunity to perfect its knowledge through sensible things