Abstract

Does Thomas Aquinas use non-monotonical reasonings? In my recent paper Thomas Aquinas Non-monotonically I argued that he does. However Patryk Pogoda has opposed to my statement. In this paper I try to disarm his arguments. What is more this polemic became for me an occasion to develop some crucial problems concerning non-monotonicity. Before all while answering to some arguments of my opponent I had an opportunity to show that non-monotonical reasoning is a proper way of inferention in theology. The main causes of this fact are: the plurality of meanings in theology, the process of deeper and deeper penetrating the revelation and the fact that information studied in theology is given not by a human, but by God. These three causes create a specific situation for the theologian who cannot translate a revealed information which looks as it was metaphorical to some simple unequivocal sentences. In the starting point he does not know the status of this information and should first trust to God’s word to became aquainted with it, so he has to accept it as it is and on this basis infere what he can. But if he (or another theologian) get some other premises he may dismiss the former correct inference – and this is exactly what we call non-monotonical reasoning