The “Aquinas at 800” conference serves as a strategic examination of a thinker who viewed philosophy not as a closed system, but as a collective journey toward the “path of truth.” Operating as a “non-partisan” intellectual, Thomas Aquinas engaged deeply with Muslim predecessors—specifically Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd)—to construct a framework of relational rationality. By evaluating Aquinas’s learned and fair dependence on these thinkers, we gain insight into the structural logic of human intelligence and the ethical purpose of scientific pursuit.
2.1 Intellectual Acquisition: Aquinas, Avicenna, and Averroes
A central tension in medieval psychology involves how the human mind acquires “intelligibles,” or universal concepts. Professor Steven Ogden highlighted the contrast between Avicenna’s “emanationist” model—where a separate Agent Intellect flows forms into a prepared mind—and the “abstractionist” model shared by Averroes and Aquinas. Notably, Ogden emphasized that Aquinas follows an “Averroistic bridge,” adopting Averroes’s strategy of reading Aristotle’s De Anima to argue that the intellect must dematerialize truth directly from sensory images (fantasms).
To challenge Avicenna, Aquinas employed the “blind person” example: if knowledge were purely emanated from a higher source, a person born blind could theoretically possess scientific knowledge (scientia) of colors. However, Ogden provided a critical synthesis, noting that this famous reductio may actually misfire. Since even a sophisticated emanationist like Avicenna views sensory images as a sine qua non—a necessary preparatory condition—the blind person’s lack of color-knowledge does not inherently disprove emanation. This nuance suggests that the sensory world is not merely a trigger, but an essential anchor for the structural integrity of information.
As we consider how the mind acquires knowledge from the physical world, we must also evaluate the status and value of the scientific frameworks we use to categorize that world.
2.2 The Utility and Dignity of Science
In the modern era, science is often constrained by a “linear model” where research exists solely to fuel applied technology. Professor Maria Krause contrasted this utilitarianism with the medieval concept of Scientia (Wissenschaft). For Aquinas, science was not a tool for a socioeconomic contract but was “intrinsically valuable” and “honorable in itself.”
Krause introduced a sophisticated distinction regarding the “Known Unknowns” versus “Unknown Unknowns.” While modern “Grand Challenge” models target “Known Unknowns”—problems already identified by society—the medieval model protects a space for “Unknown Unknowns,” or absolute possibilities. By viewing science as the highest expression of human reason rather than a servant to utility, we prevent the “dehumanization” of progress. This broader view ensures that scientific inquiry remains a courageous exploration of nature’s absolute potential rather than a predictable industrial output.
While the dignity of science protects our inquiry into the world, that inquiry must ultimately rest upon a stable metaphysical foundation regarding the nature of existence itself.
2.3 Metaphysical Foundations: Essence, Existence, and Creation
The conference’s metaphysical climax arrived with Professor Richard Taylor’s analysis of Aquinas’s dependence on Avicenna and the Liber de Causis. While Aquinas utilized Avicenna’s distinction between essence and existence, he pivoted from Avicenna’s focus on “necessity” to the act of being (esse) itself.
Taylor highlighted a brilliant intellectual “twist” in Aquinas’s use of the Liber de Causis. While adopting its language of esse tantum, Aquinas reinterpreted the text’s “paradigmatic participation” (a Platonic framework) into “immediate efficient causality” (an Aristotelian-Thomistic framework). Aquinas rejected “mediate creation”—the idea that God creates through a hierarchy of intermediate intellects—insisting instead on God’s immediate presence in every act of being. By positioning God as the immediate cause of existence for every creature, Aquinas established a model of total existential intimacy between the Creator and the mundane world.
2.4 Conclusion and Synthesis
The perspectives of Ogden, Krause, and Taylor converge on a singular realization: Aquinas’s genius lay in his ability to integrate diverse intellectual lineages without succumbing to partisanship. His “relational rationality” acknowledged the structural debts owed to the Falsafa tradition while refining them to emphasize the dignity of the human subject and the immediacy of existence. This legacy invites us to view intellectual history as a continuous, collaborative effort to discern the truth, reminding us that the most resilient information architectures are those built upon a fair and learned engagement with all who have walked the “path of truth.”
