John Aquinas s The Body And Soul - 1480 Words

Aquinas holds that the body and soul are one united as one in his hylomorphic view of the Human person. This paper will breakdown his three main points of interest, that the soul is the immaterial form of the body, that it is substantial and that it is subsistent while providing an objection and rebuttal to reaffirm the Hylomorphic view on the soul. Thorough breakdown and analysis of these claims will give a better understanding of the connection between body and soul, and what it means to be human. Part 1: Aquinas moves to claim the soul as the first principle of life. The soul is what distinguishes life from the non-living. A vital operation may be material such as the principle of hearing is the ear but it is not the principle of all†¦show more content†¦He does so by claiming that the soul is capable of knowing all corporeal things. First Aquinas identifies the soul as being the principle of intellectual operations in all humans. Through perceptions we are able to form cognitions of all material things. For this to be true the human soul cannot have in it the nature of any material body in particular because the presence of such body would not allow for cognition or understanding of that specific material thing. Aquinas supports the thesis in our bodily states can change our view on the world from scenario to scenario. After this Aquinas argues that the intellectual understanding cannot be gained through a bodily organ. By this he means that if the human soul were understoo d through some material substance or organ, then that organ would somehow interfere with the souls perception and the soul’s being. â€Å"Now every body has a determinant nature (ST Q.75 Art. I p.63).† Much like a person with â€Å"Rosy† glasses might perceive the world as a Rosy color the glasses are an example of the medium that would impact the perception of the wearer if the soul was indeed a bodily organ. If this soul wasn’t subsistent then our perception of things would be constrained by that medium. For example if we only