This study examines a number of different answers to the question: wheredoes Avicenna demonstrate the existence of God within the Metaphysics of the Healing? Many interpreters have contended that there is an argument for God’s existence in Metaphysics of the Healing I.6–7. In this study I show that such views are incorrect and that the only argument for God’s existence in the Metaphysics of the Healing is found in VIII.1–3. My own interpretation relies upon a careful consideration of the scientific (...) order and first principles of the Metaphysics of the Healing, paying attention to Avicenna’s own explicit statements concerning the goals andintentions of different books and chapters, and a close analysis of the structure ofthe different arguments found in the relevant texts of the Metaphysics of the Healing. I conclude that Avicenna’s explicit goal in I.6–7 is to establish the properties that belong to necessary existence and possible existence, which consists, not in ademonstration of God’s existence, but in a dialectical treatment of the first principlesof metaphysics. (shrink)

This study has two goals: first, to show that Avicenna’s account of being and thing significantly influenced Aquinas’s doctrine of the primary notions; second, to establish the value of adopting a mereological construal of these primary notions in the metaphysics of Avicenna and Aquinas. I begin with an explication of the mereological construal of the primary notions that casts these notions in terms of wholes and parts. Being and thing refer to the same entitative whole and have the same extension, (...) but they are distinct in intension according to the different entitative parts they signify. Existence and essence constitute the two most fundamental entitative parts of every entitative whole. Being is taken to mean that which has existence, and thing signifies that which has essence. I then show how this mereological construal of the primary notions clarifies a number of texts in Avicenna and Aquinas. Finally, I address a few arguments against employing this mereological interpretation of the primary notions. (shrink)

This article, the first of a two-part essay, presents an account of Aristotelian hylomorphic animalism that engages with recent work on neuroscience and philosophy of mind. I show that Aristotelian hylomorphic animalism is compatible with the new mechanist approach to neuroscience and psychology, but that it is incompatible with strong emergentism in the philosophy of mind. I begin with the basic claims of Aristotelian hylomorphic animalism and focus on its understanding of psychological powers embodied in the nervous system. Next, I (...) introduce the new mechanist approach to neuroscience and psychology and illustrate how it can enrich the more abstract ontological framework of Aristotelian hylomorphic animalism. In the third section of this article I establish in detail the many ways Aristotelian hylomorphic animalism is incompatible with strong emergentism in the philosophy of mind. Based on these fundamental differences I show why a criticism leveled against emergentism by the new mechanist philosophy does not hamper my proposed rapprochement between hylomorphism and the new mechanist philosophy. This conclusion, however, leaves untouched the problem I address in the second article, namely, is the new mechanist philosophy compatible with Aristotelian philosophical anthropology’s contention that intellectual operations are immaterial and interact with the psychosomatic operations of the rational animal? (shrink)

This essay expounds Avicenna’s doctrine of the analogy of being and examine the function it plays in his Metaphysics of the Healing. In the first part addresses the question: What is Avicenna’s doctrine of the analogy of being? The essay begins by situating Avicenna’s doctrine of the analogy of being within the epistemological framework of his account of metaphysics as an Aristotelian science. It then explicates Avicenna’s own presentation of analogy within his account of names of univocity, analogy, resemblance, and (...) equivocity, and elucidates his division of absolute and relational analogies. The second part probes the question: Is Avicenna’s doctrine of the analogy of being consistent with his account of the subject of metaphysics as being qua being? This part shows why Avicenna rejects that being is univocal and presents two ways for interpreting consistently his doctrine of the analogical character of being qua being. (shrink)

This article, the second of a two-part essay, outlines a solution to certain tensions in Thomist philosophical anthropology concerning the interaction of the human person’s immaterial intellectual or noetic operations with the psychosomatic sensory operations that are constituted from the formal organization of the nervous system. Continuing with where the first part left off, I argue that Thomists should not be tempted by strong emergentist accounts of mental operations that act directly on the brain, but should maintain, with Aquinas, that (...) noetic operations directly interact with psychosomatic operations. I develop a Thomist account of noetic–psychosomatic interactions that expands upon the first part’s rapprochement between the new mechanist philosophy of neuroscience and psychology and hylomorphic animalism. I argue that noetic–psychosomatic interactions are best understood as analogous to the way diverse higher and lower order psychosomatic powers interact by actualizing, coordinating, and directing the operations of other psychosomatic powers. I draw on James Ross’s arguments for the immateriality of intellectual operations as realizing definite pure functions in order to elucidate the way noetic operations uniquely actualize, coordinate, and direct the psychosomatic operations they interact with. I conclude with a conjectural sketch of how this presentation of Thomist philosophical anthropology understands the noetic and psychosomatic deficits brought about by damage to the nervous system. (shrink)

This paper aims to establish some of the taxonomical groundwork required for developing a robust philosophy of perception on the basis of the Thomistic doctrine of the cogitative power . The formal object of the cogitative power will be divided into aspectual, actional, and affectional percepts. Accordingly, the paper contends that there is an internal sense power capable of a non-conceptual and pre-linguistic perceptual estimation of what some particular is, what could be done with respect to it, and what is (...) to be done with respect to it. The argument begins with a synopsis of Thomas Aquinas’s philosophical anthropology. It then presents an extensive taxonomical analysis of three different kinds of cogitative percepts. This analysis is followed by a short exegetical defense of the threefold division of percepts. Finally, the essay concludes with a comparison of the Thomistic doctrine of the cogitative power with recent work in the philosophy of perception. (shrink)

This paper will argue that the order and the unity of St. Thomas Aquinas’s five ways can be elucidated through a consideration of St. Thomas’s appropriation of an Avicennian insight that he used to order and unify the wisdom of the Aristotelian and Abrahamic philosophical traditions towards the existence of God. I will begin with a central aporia from Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Aristotle says that the science of first philosophy has three different theoretical vectors: ontology, aitiology, and theology. But how can (...) all three be united into a single Aristotelian science? In his Metaphysics of the Healing, Avicenna resolved the impasse by taking the ontological vector as the subject of metaphysics. He then integrated the question of the four first causes into the penultimate stage of his demonstration for the existence of God, thereby placing aitiological and theological questions among the ultimate concerns of a unified Aristotelian metaphysics. In the five ways, St. Thomas integrated Avicenna’s Aristotelian search for the first four causes into the last four of his five ways, by showing that each of the four aitiological orders terminate in an ultimate first cause that we call God. Finally, by appending the proof from the Physics to the beginning of the five ways, St. Thomas was able to show that the ultimate aim of both natural philosophy and metaphysics is the divine first principle, which is the beginning and subject of sacra doctrina. (shrink)

This paper presents a Thomistic analysis of addiction that incorporates scientific, philosophical, and theological features of addiction. I will argue first, that a Thomistic hylomorphic anthropology provides a cogent explanation of the causal interactions between human action and neuroplasticity. I will employ Karol Wojtyła’s account of self-determination to further clarify the kind of neuroplasticity involved in addiction. Next, I will elucidate how a Thomistic anthropology can accommodate, without reductionism, both the neurophysiological and psychological elements of addiction, and finally, I will (...) make clear how Thomism can provide an ethics and a theology of grace that can be integrated with these ontological and scientific considerations into a holistic theory of addiction. (shrink)

In this study, I outline a heuristic for Thomist philosophical anthropology. In the first part, I introduce the major heuristics employed by Aquinas to establish the objects, operations, powers, and nature of his anthropology. I then identity major lacunae in his anthropology. In the second part, I show how an integrated approach to commonsense, experiential, experimental, and metaphysical psychologies can fill these lacunae and contribute to the enquiries of a contemporary Thomist philosophical anthropology.

This paper aims to show that the thought of Aristotle can shed much light on the irksome problems that lurk around the philosophical foundations of neuroscience. First, we will explore the ramifications of Aristotle’s mereological principle, namely, that it is not the eye that sees, but the human person that sees by the eye. Next, we shall draw upon the riches of Maxwell Bennett’s and Peter Hacker’s Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience in order to elucidate how Aristotle’s mereological principle can be (...) of service to contemporary neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers. In the third and fourth parts we aim to complement the project of PFN by showing how Aristotle’s philosophical anthropology and doctrine of pros hen equivocation can strengthen PFN’s response to eliminativists, reductionists, and other critics of “folk psychology.” Finally, our last section will investigate the kinds of correlations involved in brain scanning techniques, such as fMRI, so as to determine whether the most recent empirical discoveries do in fact support various critics’ rejection of “folk psychology.” We will show that the empirical evidence does not in fact favor eliminativist or reductionist views, and that we would do well to turn to the more Aristotelian approaches to neuroscience adopted by PFN and ourselves. (shrink)

Is it necessary for all Christians – including Christians who are metaphysicians with demonstrative knowledge of God’s existence – to hold by faith that God exists? I shall approach this apparently straightforward question by investigating two opposing lines of interpretation of Thomas Aquinas’s own response to this question. I shall begin with two texts from Thomas that motivate two incompatible theses concerning Thomas’s doctrine of the harmony of faith and reason with respect to the existence of God. Next, I shall (...) clarify the salient points of disagreement between these two interpretations of faith and reason in Thomas Aquinas before examining dialectically a number of arguments in favor and against the respective theses of these two interpretations. In the final section I shall argue that the results of our dialectical inquiry reveal that the initial disagreement between the two positions is not irresolvable. Accordingly, I shall conclude by proposing two revised versions of the initial theses that emphasize the compatibility of these two interpretations of Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of the harmony of faith and reason. (shrink)

In this essay I explore the resources Thomas Aquinas provides for enquiries concerning the psychological abilities of nonhuman animals. I first look to Aquinas’s account of divine, angelic, human, and nonhuman animal naming, to help us articulate the contours of a ‘critical anthropocentrism’ that aims to steer clear of the mistakes of a na¨ıve anthropocentrism and misconceived avowals to entirely eschew anthropocentrism. I then address the need for our critical anthropocentrism both to reject the mental-physical dichotomy endorsed by ‘folk psychology’ (...) and to articulate a more adequate ‘commonsense psychology’ that acknowledges most embodied animal behavior is observable psychological behavior. Next, I argue that we can develop Aquinas’s doctrine of estimation and conation to formulate an account of nonhuman animal action that more adequately characterizes the purposeful behaviors of nonhuman animals. To do so, we first need to recognize a wider range of nonhuman animal behaviors that are captured by Aquinas’s ‘estimative sense’, and that all of these behaviors are specified by a finite variety of particular goods confined to the animals’ environmental niches. But we also need to supplement Aquinas’s account of human and nonhuman animal agency by exploring the ontogeny and ecology of how humans and other animals become attuned to affordances within these different environmental niches. I argue that we should look to Aquinas’s account of nonhuman animal capacities in ST I-II 6-17 for subtle insights that can expand our understanding of how nonhuman animals engage in purposeful behavior by exercising analogous nonrational and imperfectly voluntary forms of intention, deliberation, choice, execution, and enjoyment. I conclude with an outline for how future enquiry can seek to explain the nonrational purposeful problem-solving competencies of chimps, canines, corvids, cetaceans, cephalopods, and other nonhuman animal species. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas consistently defended the thesis that the separated rational soul that results from a human person’s death is not a person. Nevertheless, what has emerged in recent decades is a sophisticated disputed question between “survivalists” and “corruptionists” concerning the personhood of the separated soul that has left us with intractable disagreements wherein neither side seems able to convince the other. In our contribution to this disputed question, we present a digest of an unconsidered middle way: the separated soul is (...) an incomplete person. (shrink)

I am tasked with addressing philosophical hazards in the neuroscientific study of religion. As a philosopher concerned with the well-being of neuroscientists studying religion, I am inclined to begin with the philosophical hazards of philosophy. I am well aware of the extraordinary difficulties of both tasks, for the hazards are many and it is easy to miss the forest for the trees or the trees for the forest. Instead of focusing on one issue in great detail, I shall hang a (...) number of warning signs around a forest of issues that identify various philosophical hazards which deserve particular caution when it comes to neuroscience and religion. Since I am aiming for breadth over depth, my brief remarks on each issue shall be synoptic, non-exhaustive, contentious and suggestive for additional consideration and reflection. To redress such deficits, I have provided references for further reading. (shrink)

Is Neo-Aristotelian hylomorphism compatible mechanistic science? In this essay I forge a rapprochement between Neo-Aristotelian hylomorphism and the "new mechanist philosophy" in biology, neuroscience, and psychology by drawing attention to their shared commitments concerning multilevel organization, mechanisms, and teleology. Significantly, the new mechanists endorse organization realism (a touchstone of hylomorphism). Similarly, Neo-Aristotelian hylomorphism is committed to the reality of mechanisms or causal powers that produce, underlie, or maintain the behavior of (i) phenomena that are constituted through the (ii) spatial, temporal, (...) and active organization of their (iii) component entities and (iv) component activities (the four hallmarks of the new mechanist philosophy). In the course of the essay I address potential disagreements between these two positions pertaining to emergence, downward causation, and teleology. I conclude that Neo-Aristotelian hylomorphism should not been seen as fundamentally opposed to mechanisms; rather, hylomorphism provides a rigorous ontological framework that complements the insights of the new mechanist philosophy of biology, neuroscience and psychology. (shrink)

In this study, I expound Avicenna's doctrine of truth as it is presented in his Metaphysics of the Healing. My aim is to establish two theses. First, that Avicenna has a rich and systematic metaphysical doctrine of truth that is worked out within the epistemological, ontological, aitiological, and theological investigations of the Ilāhiyyāt. Second, that his doctrine of truth draws upon the accounts of truth he found in his predecessors, and that he amplifies these accounts in light of his own (...) innovative account of the first principles of metaphysics, which he articulates at the outset of his Ilāhiyyāt. I show that these first principles, along with Avicenna's... (shrink)

In the target article, Iain McGilchrist draws upon his work, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (=ME), to develop the relevance of its central claims to religion. Here and elsewhere McGilchrist contends, contrary to some critics, that his construal of the divided brain hypothesis (=DBH) does not make the fundamental philosophical error which is known as the homunculus fallacy. The critics’ charge is this: McGilchrist’s DBH purports to explain certain psychological features (...) of human persons by providing an explanation that is in fact a pseudo-explanation. It is a pseudo-explanation because the DBH’s explanation of these psychological phenomena merely reintroduces the same psychological phenomena as explanatory factors that belong to the two different hemispheres of the brain. This article addresses whether McGilchrist’s position is in fact innocent of the charge of the homunculus fallacy. It is one thing to recognize the principle of contradiction and aim to avoid contradictions, it is another thing to avoid actually contradicting oneself. I show that McGilchrist consistently violates the homunculus fallacy despite his consistent claims to the contrary. I then argue that it is impossible for McGilchrist to articulate the central thesis of ME, namely, DBH, without violating the homunculus fallacy. Indeed, McGilchrist’s DBH requires that the error identified by the homunculus fallacy is not a fallacy at all, but is a deep insight crucial to understanding the making of the western world. Let us begin with the homunculus fallacy. (shrink)

This paper investigates Thomas Aquinas’s threefold division of pleasure into delectatio, gaudium, and fruitio, and its taxonomical basis in his threefold division of knowledge into tactility, the cogitative power, and the intellect. -/- Thomas Aquinas distinguishes three ways in which the sensory and intellectual appetites rest in the good. When the will rests in the intellectually apprehended good, this act is called fruitio; when the concupiscible appetite rests in a good apprehended by the internal senses this passion is called gaudium; (...) and when the concupiscible appetite rests in a good apprehended by the external senses this passion is called delectatio. Each of these appetible goods presupposes a different kind of knowledge of a present good, namely, the knowledge of the intellect, internal senses, and external senses, respectively. The difficulty is that it is not entirely perspicuous what the difference is between the goods apprehended by the external senses and those grasped by the internal senses. How does Thomas justify the distinction between delectatio and gaudium? Can he reasonably maintain that there are three sufficiently different kinds of knowledge that specify three different kinds of pleasure? In order to address these questions this study investigates Thomas’s account of the external and internal senses, and in particular the way in which tactility and the cogitative power supply two kinds of knowledge that specify two kinds of pleasure. (shrink)

In this paper I will delineate the psychological operations and faculties required for linguistic apprehension within a Thomistic psychology. This will require first identifying the proper object of linguistic apprehension, which will then allow me to specify the distinct operations and faculties necessary for linguisticapprehension. I will argue that the semantic value of any linguistic term is a type of incidental sensible and that its cognitive apprehension is a type of incidentalsensation. Hence, the faculties necessary for the apprehension of any (...) linguistic term’s semantic value will be the cogitative power and the intellect. The cogitativepower, because it is the faculty of particular intentions, and the intellect, because it is the faculty of universal intentions. (shrink)

This thesis is concerned with answering the question, what is the central argument of Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing that brings its opening ontological approach to the subject of first philosophy to its ultimate theological goal and conclusion? This dissertation contends that it is the function of the fundamental scientific first principles of metaphysics, and in particular the fundamental primary notion necessary, to provide the intelligible link that Avicenna employs to demonstrate the existence and true-nature of the divine necessary existence (...) in itself on the basis of his doctrine of being. This conclusion is pursued through a systematic and cumulative line of inquiry that begins in Part I with Avicenna’s logical–cum–epistemological doctrine of conceptualization and assent, the heuristic order of the basic scientific questions, and his theory of a demonstrative science. The thesis then moves from the wider concentric circles concerned with logical matters into a series of narrowing concentric circles pertaining to the scientific order of the MH. Part II presents a close analysis of the Metaphysics of the Healing’s novel reception and reorganization of Aristotelian metaphysics according to Avicenna’s theory of demonstrative science, which consists in a subject, scientific first principles, and objects of inquiry that includes the species, proper accidents, and the science’s ultimate goal which is the aitiological–cum–theological inquiry into the causes of being. Part III transitions into a still narrower set of concentric circles that provide a detailed explication of the formal and material aspects of the scientific first principles of the Metaphysics of the Healing. Finally, the main argument of the thesis reaches the central point and question of the dissertation in Part IV, which establishes the fundamentality of the primary notion the necessary in the ontology, aitiology, and theology of the Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing. Part IV concludes that the principal function of the fundamental primary notion the necessary is to provide the intelligible link that connects Avicenna’s doctrine of being with the divine necessary existence in itself. (shrink)

In Necessary Existence and the Doctrine of Being in Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing Daniel De Haan explicates the central argument of Avicenna’s metaphysical masterpiece. De Haan argues that the most fundamental primary notion in Avicenna’s metaphysics is neither being nor thing but is the necessary ( wājib), which Avicenna employs to demonstrate the existence and true-nature of the divine necessary existence in itself. This conclusion is established through a systematic investigation of how Avicenna’s theory of a demonstrative science is (...) employed in the organization of his metaphysical science into its subject, first principles, and objects of enquiry. The book examines the essential role the first principles as primary notions and primary hypotheses play in the central argument of Avicenna’s metaphysics. (shrink)

In this paper I will delineate the psychological operations and faculties required for linguistic apprehension within a Thomistic psychology. This will require first identifying the proper object of linguistic apprehension, which will then allow me to specify the distinct operations and faculties necessary for linguistic apprehension. I will argue that the semantic value of any linguistic term is a type of incidental sensible and that its cognitive apprehension is a type of incidental sensation. Hence, the faculties necessary for the apprehension (...) of any linguistic term’s semantic value will be the cogitative power and the intellect. The cogitative power, because it is the faculty of particular intentions, and the intellect, because it is the faculty of universal intentions. (shrink)