The Intellectual Cognition of Material Individual in the Thomistic School of Thought

Abstract:

There are two predominant traditions whitin the thomistic school that have been developed around the interpretation of Thomas Aquinas’s thesis of the intelectual knowledge of the material individuals: the one that has Cajetan as its prominent representative and the one whose leading exponent is John of Saint Thomas. Although both lines of interpretation assert that the intellection of the material singulars is indirect, the first one says that it is an inappropriate, confusing and discursive knowledge while the second holds that it is proper, distinct and immediate. In the first group we may place Thomas de Sutton, Capreolo and Cajetan while Ferrara, Báñez and John of Saint Thomas followed the second way. The continuation and modifications of these traditions in ongoing thomism, particularly in Jacques Maritain, Cornelio Fabro, Joseph Gredt, Joseph Maréchal and Francisco Canals Vidal are also expounded.

Key words:

Cornelio Fabro, Thomas Aquinas, human knowledge, modern philosophy, contemporary philosophy.