The theory of species problem and the origin of human knowledge in Aquinas

Abstract

There are three interpretations on the theory of intelligible species. These interpretations debate the relationship between the species and the external object and explain the intellective act of the human soul. The first interpretation refers to the species as a way of direct access to the object, in which the intellect would be able to access it due to its own nature. Aquinas’ species theory, according to this interpretation, is classified as a naive direct realism. The second interpretation states, to the contrary, a representationalism. The species would not be the first object of apprehension. In the process of knowing, the external object would be known secondarily. A third interpretation about species renders us a modified direct realism. This interpretation supports that species are necessary cognitive resources, and do not imply differences with the external object. The intellect aims for the external object. For this reason, the external object is primarily apprehended, while the species is apprehended by a reflexive act, therefore, secondarily. This paper aims to review the debate between Aquinas and Platonism about the origin of human knowledge on the assumption of these three interpretations on intelligible species. It aims subsequently to present how intelligible species can be both id quod and id quo, since in the first case the form of the external object – present in the intellect – is identical to the form of the external object in its natural form. In the second case, it demonstrates how the intellection of something material – in the immaterial form – needs an intermediary, however, not an intermediary which is itself the first object of intellective knowledge.