Understanding Knowledge, Truth, and Philosophy: A Concise Analysis
The Scale of Knowledge to Truth
The Scale of Knowledge to Truth:
Augustine classified the liberal arts as fundamental knowledge, including grammar and practical application. These arts include dialectical rhetoric, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy, culminating in dialectics and philosophy. Practical science is a popular pursuit aimed at satisfying artistic intelligence.
Philosophy and Purpose: Philosophy is valuable because it encourages the cultivation of reason and the development of the soul. The concerns of philosophy should be understood as a practice and exercise for the progressive and continuous development of reason.
Religion as the Culmination of Rational Progression: The internal need to bridge expectations and concerns of the soul leads Augustine to the Christian faith. This limitation of the truths of reason creates the attitude that moves towards the Christian religion, where truth is accompanied by happiness.
Scholastic Methodology
Scholastic Methodology: Despite its theoretical rigor, scholasticism exemplifies and demands precision in the use of words and the articulation of arguments.
However, the focus on presenting and refuting opinions led to excessive verbiage, resulting in disquisitions taken to the extreme and undue emphasis on words rather than the substance of the matters being taught or discussed.
Hispanomuslim Philosophy: Averroes
Hispanomuslim Philosophy: Averroes: Averroes was recognized as “The Commentator” in recognition of his work and admiration for Aristotle. He also commented on Plato’s Republic to respond to harsh attacks on philosophy from theologians. Averroes set out to prove the harmony between philosophy and religion, stating that philosophers are the best interpreters of sacred law.
Apparent contradictions between demonstrative syllogisms and Koranic texts are erroneously known as the theory of double truth.
Five Ways to Demonstrate the Existence of God
Five Ways to Show the Existence of God:
First Way: The Argument from Motion: Based on Aristotle’s metaphysics, this argument starts from the experience of movement. Everything that moves requires a mover, and that mover requires another, and so on. Therefore, there must be a first mover, which is God.
Second Way: The Argument from Causation: All beings and effects arise from prior causes. There needs to be a first cause to explain the existence of other causes. That first cause is God.
Third Way: The Argument from Contingency: All things are contingent, but contingent things cannot exist on their own. This requires a necessary being that has always existed and cannot not exist. This being is God.
Fourth Way: The Argument from Degrees of Perfection: We perceive things in different degrees of perfection, so it seems logical that there is a maximum degree of perfection. There exists a supreme being who has all perfection. This being is God.
Fifth Way: The Teleological Argument: All things, even irrational ones, tend toward an end to achieve what is best for them, like an archer’s arrow heading towards its target. There is a being who directs things toward their end. This being is God.
Morality, Freedom, and Ethics
Morality and Freedom = Ethics:
Freedom as an Anthropological Attribute: Thomas Aquinas defends human freedom, understood as free will to determine human acts. Acts are consciously performed, not merely acts of man. Freedom implies that the will, seeking the good, should discern in each case.
The Natural Law as an Anthropological Reflection of the Eternal Law: The eternal law is God’s design over all creatures. This design is imprinted in the form of natural law, compelling them to conduct themselves according to their own purposes in the world. Natural law is the presence of eternal law in human nature. In natural law, the tendency towards good is to be sought, and evil is to be avoided. The capacity to distinguish right from wrong is the moral conscience.
The Function of Habits and Virtues: In humans, habits are the recruitment of the first moral principles, but the fundamental habits are virtues:
- The Intellectual Virtues: These are intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, and prudence.
- The Moral Virtues: These are temperance, fortitude, and justice.
- The Theological Virtues: These are faith, hope, and charity.