Abstraction and the Distinction of the Sciences

ABSTRACTION AND THE DISTINCTION OF THE SCIENCES !\.RECENT author 1 has treated of abstraction in regard to its objective basis and to the division of the speculative sciences. He notes that moderate realism requires an objective basis for the abstractive process of the intellect, and asserts that this basis can be found in the real composition of distinct principles which are combined in sensory things. There will be as many orders of abstraction as there are of real composition in these things. Three orders of composition can be found in sensory things, namely, the composition of substance with accidents, the composition of substantial form with primary matter, and the composition of essence with existence. In each of these three orders there is an act or formal principle combined with a potential subject, although both subject and form are diverse in the distinct cases, not similar. It is asserted that in regard to each of these three orders the intellect is able to grasp an act or formal principle apart from this or that potency. Thus there are three ascending orders of abstraction from sensory matter, each of which has a basis in objective reality, and according to which there is an increasingly deeper penetration of sensory being by the inquiring mind. It is suggested that the usual ordering of physical and mathematical abstraction is defective and should be the reverse. The real composition of substance with accident is the basis newly proposed for the abstraction which should be regarded as of the first degree. This composition is the more superficial, and yet it is the basis for the abstraction by which we attain the object of mathematical science. The real compo1 F. S. Connolly, "Science vs. Philosophy," The Modem Schoolman, XXIX (1952), 197-209; " Abstraction and Moderate Realism," The New Scholaaticism, XXVII, No. I, (1958), 72-90. 48 44 WILLIAM H. KANE sition of the substantial form with primary matter is the basis proposed for the second degree of abstraction, by which we attain the object of the philosophy of nature. This science is not very extensive, because there is only a small number of natural species to be· known philosophically. Modern natural science is distinct from the philosophy of nature, because it is merely empirical and schematic knowledge, and is not science in the Aristotelian sense of the term. The real composition of essence with existence is the basis proposed for a third degree of abstraction, by which we attain the object of metaphysics. Finally, the author inquires why St. Thomas was unable to correlate the three degrees of abstraction and the three kinds of speculative science with the distinct orders of real composition in sensory things, a correlation which seems to be demanded by moderate realism. To the present writer it seems that St. Thomas has clearly answered all of these and many other pertinent questions in his explanation of the fifth and sixth questions of the work On the Trinity by Boethius.2 But because this doctrine which St. Thomas explains and defends is not well known or well understood , we shall try to interpret it and apply it to the problems raised above. In doing so we shall depart somewhat from the order of the articles in the commentary by St. Thomas. The Angelic Doctor first proves that there are three and only three kinds or genera of speculative science, and then he proceeds to defend; characterize and compare the knowledge attained in each. For the present purpose we shall consider first what it is to abstract, and why we abstract. Then we shall try to see what is required for the validity of abstract knowledge, and finally what it is that distinguishes the different sciences. ABSTRACTION To abstract, says St. Thomas,8 is to consider separately things which are not really separated but are conjoined in reality. We abstract because we are not able to know things perfectly in • In Boet. de Trin. (ed. Paul Wyser. 0. P.; Fribourg, 1948). 3 Ibid., q. 5, a. S; II Physic., lect. S. ABSTRACTION AND THE DISTINCTION OF THE SCIENCES 45 their wealth of detail and intelligibility in a single act of knowing . What we cannot do in...