Deely and Geach on Abstractionism in Thomistic Epistemology

DEELY AND GEACH ON ABSTRACTIONISM IN THOMISTIC EPISTEMOLOGY I N THE JANUARY, 1971 issue o£ The Thomist, there appeared a quite long and involved article by John N. Deely entitled "Animal Intelligence and Concept Formation ." Deely admits that the provocation of the article was his reading o£ Peter Geach's Mental Acts.1 As Deely notes/ Mortimer Adler, in his The Difference in Man and the Difference It ~Makes, remarks that Professor Geach had adequately treated the theory of abstractionism and had found it to be epistemologically wanting. Adler appeared convinced by Geach's arguments. Furthermore, Geach purported to find support for his anti-abstractionist position in the writings of St. Thomas. In Mental Acts, Geach both explicitly quotes and makes allusions to the Summa Theologiae on numerous occasions . Moreover, Geach includes an appendix exclusively devoted to a " Historical Note " on " Aquinas and Abstractionism ." Throughout his text Geach affirms that St. Thomas would structurally agree with his own remarks on the epistemological errors latent in the theory o£ abstractionism. Deely is very much concerned about Geach's negative critique o£ abstractionism and its relation to St. Thomas's epistemology. He explicitly proclaims that he has a two-fold goal in his article; he intends to show the "utter absurdity " of: a. Geach's historical claim-" that the 'mature Aquinas' was not an abstractionist "; 1 Peter Geach, Mental Acts: Their Content and Their Objects (London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, Ltd.). 2 John Deely, "Animal Intelligence and Concept-Formation," The Thomist, XXXV (January, 1971), pp. 43-93. 548 DEELY AND GEACH ON ABSTRACTIONISM 549 b. Geach's personal claim-" that the ' whole idea ' of abstraction is completely incoherent." 3 In this article I intend to argue that Deely has conceptually blurred two aspects of Geach's treatment of abstractionism. First of all, I believe that Geach's comments are intricately connected with the "use theory of meaning." Although Deely notes that Geach begins from a linguistic basis-and Deely finds fault with this beginning point for a philosophical analysis 4-he seems unaware of the great significance played in Geach's critique by the "use theory of meaning." Secondly, I believe that Deely has misunderstood the structural account of abstractionism as used by Geach and a fortimi of abstractionism as found in the epistemological treatises written in the analytic tradition of British Philosophy since 1900. Accordingly , I believe that if Geach is to be understood in his critique of abstractionism, a necessary condition for such an understanding is both an awareness of the connection of the "use theory of meaning " to Geach's analysis as well as a thorough elucidation of the concept of " abstractionism " as utilized by the early twentieth-century analytic philosophers. Furthermore , I believe that only in this light can Geach's claims about St. Thomas's epistemology and abstractionism be critically evaluated. In order to understand Geach's position on abstractionism, it would be well to begin with Geach's own description of this purported epistemological process: I shall use "abstractionism" as a name for the doctrine that a concept is acquired by a process of singling out in attention some one feature given in direct experience-abstracting it-and ignoring the other .features simultaneously given-abstracting from them.5 Geach is arguing that a process of singling out discriminative data in direct experience-what has been referred to as " direct acquaintance "-is not a sufficient condition for an analysis of the acquisition of concepts. Furthermore, it must be re- • Ibid., p. 56. • Ibid., p. 89 ff. 'Geach, p. 18. 550 ANTHONY J. LISSKA membered that Geach is concerned over how we acqmre a meaningful command of language.6 A prima facie consideration of these remarks by Geach would indicate that St. Thomas could hardly be used in support of Geach's anti-abstractionist position. It is obvious to any reader even vaguely familiar with the Thomistic epistemological texts that the term " abstractio" and its various derivatives appear quite frequently when St. Thomas considers both concept-formation through the workings of the intellectus agens and the actual understanding of a concept by means of the intellectus possibilis. Nevertheless, I will argue that Geach's remarks must not be...