Folia Theologica 12. (2001)
Tibor Rászlai: Aquinas ont the Infallibilty of the Intellect
130 T. RASZLAI form, insofar as the essence is grasped in the idea. As Lonergan tells us, the term 'quod quid erat esse' is generally used by Thomas "with special reference to the ground of essential definition, namely, the formal cause, so that at times it almost is, or simply is, the formal cause."20 The formal cause as the ground of essential is not in the intellect, but in the individuals with the form in question. The FOI is true, then, in that its ideas correspond to the essences of things. Let us say that when the intellect is true with respect to a certain idea in this sense it is directly true. As I am interpreting Aquinas, then, he is claiming that the FOI is always veracious in the sense that it is always directly true with respect to its ideas. That is, he is making the strong epistemological claim that the ideas of natural, essential kind formed spontaneously in the FOI invariably correspond to the essences of things with whose phantasmata the intellect is presented. "Hence the intellect is never deceived in thinking what human being is /quid est homo/", as Aquinas writes.21 Of course, in the prejudgmental stage of the FOI, the intellect does not understand or affirm that its apprehensions correspond to the essences of things; as Aquinas writes, "the intellect (is true) in thinking what something is: but not because it thinks or affirms the truth."22 That ding to be true, nevertheless, from the third-person point of view, the intellect in apprehending a quiddity can be said to have a true understanding of the essence. IV. There is, however, an obvious objection to my stronger reading. Aquinas himself recognizes and discusses cases of imperfect and incorrect apprehensions of natural essences: he mentions our ignorance of the respective essences of flies23, bees and fire24; he says that, because essences are often unknown to us, we must use accidents in place of substantial differences in our definitions25; and, 20 op. cit., 23. 21 In de Anima, III., XI., 761. 22 ST I., q. 16., a. 2. c 23 In symbolum apostolorum. Prologus 864. In Opuscula theologica, II. ed. Marietti, 1923. (Translated for hung. Gusztáv Geese. Budapest, 1992.) 24 Ibid, and ST I., q. 29., ad 3.
