Toward a Thomistic Theory of Sensation

TOWARD A THOMISTIC THEORY OF SENSATION WHEN we investigate sense-intuition and interrogate its implications to the end of determining the extent of its contribution to our knowledge, we are not isolating ourselves in a "fine point" of philosophical inquiry. Such an investigation is as basic as it is subtle.. Profound stirrings in the areas of philosophy of nature and metaphysics witness to this fact. It is true that genuine physical theory, beyond certain epistemological involvements, no longer has philosophical pretensions . It is no less true that this acceptance of more modest boundaries does not begin to remedy positively the evil effects sustained by philosophy of nature in its unfortunate combat with the empirical sciences.1 There can be little doubt that a crucial ground demanding rehabilitation is occupied by senseintuition . Long in the service of an exclusively quantitative and material analysis of objects, its role has been rigidly circumscribed . For the most part it has been reduced to registering pointer readings. Constantly checked against mechanical devices and increasingly supplanted by them, its testimony is neither expected nor desired to contribute positively to science at this level. With the recognition of the radical insufficiency of such knowledge, with the growing conviction that we have here only the corpse of reality, there is an implied demand for the restoration of a full, unimpeded natural activity to sense experience.2 Similarly, when some of our contemporary thinkers undertook the revindication of metaphysics, they found themselves 1 J. Maritain, Philosophy of Nature (New York, 1951). • V. Smith, Philosophical Physics (New York, 1950). 143 144 SISTER M. ALOYSIUS forced to begin by repudiating the Kantian equation of a priori and metaphysical knowledge. In thus opposing a " transcendental science " wherein ideas are altogether independent of a sensory origin and exercise a constitutive function which is in no way based upon the implications of perception, they have been led to re-examine the crucial part played by this initial moment of the knowledge act in a properly metaphysical approach and procedure.3 If, then, it is plain that a thorough reconsideration of sensation from every possible point of view is in order, it should be equally obvious that such a study is vast in scope and in need of data from many sciences. The present study does not pretend to be exhaustive. It considers sensation only under the aspect of its objectivity,4 and this objectivity, in turn, only as it is presented in a selection of texts from Aquinas and his classical commentators. However limited the area of this article may appear at first glance, there is reason to believe within it is to be found that which is most basic to an adequate theory of sensation. When we affirm objectivity, we implicitly affirm those epistemological and speculative values so conspicuous by their absence in theories of knowledge whose point of departure is a rejection of objectivity. Moreover, we find that the reasoning of St. Thomas here, as in so many other instances, is a deep and fruitful mine, the exploration of which should lead us toward a true and comprehensive view of sensation in its relationship to the total meaning of human knowing. s J. Owens, "A Note on the Approach to Metaphysics," New Scholasticism, XXVIII (4), 4.54-476. • It must be noted that terms central to this discussion have suffered significant alterations in meaning. Thus, objectivity, intuition, and experience are today frequently regarded as having no reference to actual existents. Similarly, sensation is sometimes used to indicate purely internal affections rather than awarenesses of the external senses. If we are not to be hopelessly entangled in unresolvable difficulties of communication, we must insist at the outset that these terms be given their original and primary signification. Cf. L. Noel, Le Realisme lmmediat. (Louvain, 1938), p. 205; F. Gregoire, "Notes sur les termes 'intuition' et 'experience ,' " Revue Philosophique de Louvain XLIV (1946), 401-415; F. H. Heinemann, "The Analysis of Experience," Philosophical Review, L (1941), 569; A. Hammond. "On Sensation," ibid., L (1944), 260-285. TOWARD A THOMISTIC THEORY OF SENSATION 145 OBJECTIVITY OF SENSATION IN ST. THOMAS Because we do not find an ex professo examination of this question in Aquinas, we...