Demonstration and Self-Evidence

DEMONSTRATION AND SELF-EVIDENCE . I. SCIENTIFIC METHODOLOGY IT can be forcefully argued that there is no place in phi- .losophy for an " epistemological critique " of knowledge, as though the integrity of the intellect stood in doubt till it was somehow philosophically "cleared." 1 Surely, for reason to attempt to establish the trustworthiness of reason is for it to try to pull itself up by its own epistemological boot straps. The history of thought gives ample evidence that critical attempts to justify the philosophical effort are in vain. No matter how honest the epistemological critique in intention, it results characteristically in an unnatural imposition of artificial limits placed upon our capacities to know. Witness the divergent streams of extreme rationalism and extreme empiricism which find their source in the critique of Descartes.2 Significantly, St. Thomas did not find it necessary to initiate his philosophical effort with a critique of knowledge. A Thomist speaks meaningfully of epistemology best in reference to a metaphysical inquiry into the character of intentional being. He takes epistemology as an attempt to understand what it is to know, not an attempt to defend the radical integrity of our 1 Cf., Gilson, Etienne, Realisme Thomiste et Critique de la Connaissance (Paris: J. Vrin, 1947); Realisme Methodique (Paris: P. Teque, 1935). • Gilson's frequently quoted remark on Berkeley and the Cartesian critique bears repetition here: " Everyone is free to decide whether he shall begin to philosophize as a pure mind; if he should elect to do so the difficulty will not be how to get into the mind, but how to get out of it. · Four great men have· tried it and failed. Berkeley's own achievement was to realize at last, that it was a useless and foolish thing even to try it. In this sense at least, it is true to say that Berkeley brought Descartes' ' noble experiment ' to a close, and for that reason his work should always remain as a landmark in the history of philosophy." The Unity of Philosophical Experience (New York: Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1937), pp. 196-197. 189 140 EDWARD D. SIMMONS capacities for knowledge. That we can know is evident. It is both futile and unnecessary to attempt to prove this.8 Although St. Thomas did not hamper his capacities for knowledge by imposing a priori restrictions upon them, he saw that, in a sense, they imposed restrictions upon him. There is no question, from the very start, as to the radical integrity of sense and intellect. Despite the fact that we are sometimes in error, it is evident that we can, and adequately, know what is. But our capacities for knowing are in no sense unlimited. Honest reflection upon the epistemological facts reveals that the human intellect is that lesser type of intellect which is at once a reason. For us all doctrine and discipline is from preexisting knowledge.4 We learn by moving from what is already known to what follows from this. The fact is clear that, as far as learning is concerned, the human intellect is naturally discursive. Moreover, the price of discursive advance in knowledge is the construction within the intellect of logical artifices such as definitions and argumentations. The method of construction which is called for by the demands of discourse is in no sense arbitrary. As always, the final cause is the cause of the causality of the other causes. The end of the logical construct requires certain determinate rules according to which the objects known are to be ordered in knowledge in reference to one another. Thus, there are definite rules of procedure which constrain the intellect in its discursive progress.5 These 8 Cf., Smith, Gerard, S. J., "A Date in the History of Epistemology," in The Maritain Volume of The Thomist (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1948), pp. 246-255. • In 1 Post. Anal., lect. 1, n. 9: " Omnis autem disciplinae acceptio ex praeexistenti cognitione fit." (The quotations from St. Thomas will be taken from the Leonine for the Summa, the Decker for the De Trinitate, the Lethielleux for the Sentences, and from the respective Marietti editions for each of the other works cited.) • The general rules of discursive...