Abstraction in Aristotle and Aquinas
by The doctrine of abstraction is one of the important views of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. This article explores the understanding of this doctrine in Aristotle and Aquinas.
Abstraction is a process of drawing out essence of material things that are presented to our senses. Through abstraction we are able to arrive at knowledge of things; not of particular things but a universal knowledge that enable us to know things. Though, the nominalists have denied the existence of universals thereby denying abstraction, the theory of abstraction will still remain vital as far as acquisition of knowledge is concerned. With abstraction we are able to reach knowledge of the essence of things. This has been defended well by the realists who were of the opinion that universal ideas are not just names but exit either independently or in things.
There are two basic ways of abstraction or rather there are two kinds of abstraction. And these are the abstraction of the form from the sensible matter and abstraction of the universal from the particular. The abstraction of the form from the sensible matter corresponds to the union of form and matter or the accident and its subject. This kind of abstraction gives us the raw material of geometry and arithmetic. It is an imagination of a sensible figure or multitude. However, the abstraction of the universal from the particular corresponds to the union of the whole and its parts. The human mind conceives a universal concept by abstracting it from the particulars, that is, particular beings or things.
The views of Aristotle and Aquinas about abstraction and its processes is practically the same. Both held the view that the human mind is tabula rasa at birth, and that knowledge is only acquired through experience. They both held that universal ideas or abstract ideas are formed through the activity of human mind that abstract the essence (or what is common to) particular beings. This activity begins with sense experience and the senses present images (phantasm) to the mind, while the mind now works on those images or phantasm through the active intellect. It strips the phantasm of their particular traits and impresses them on the passive intellect. It is the passive intellect that transforms this phantasm into abstract ideas or universal ideas.
However, Aquinas took this process a little further by introducing the notion of separation in abstraction which has to do with the different kinds of knowledge gained from the three degrees of abstraction. According to him, the first degree of abstraction gives the knowledge that is found in the natural sciences, and the second degree provides us with mathematical knowledge while through the third degree we get metaphysical knowledge. And this is the highest form of abstraction because it transcends the material substances.
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica, Trans. by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. (New York: Christian Classics, 1981).
Copleston, Federick. A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1, Greece and Rome, Part II. (New York: Images Books, 1962).
Klinger, I. Unpublished Class notes on Aristotle’ Natural Theology. (Nairobi: Catholic University of Eastern Africa, 2007).
Laky, J. J. A Study of George Berkeley’s Philosophy in the Light of the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1950).
Omoregbe, Joseph. A Simplified History of Western Philosophy, Vol. 1, Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. (Lagos: Joja Press Limited, 1991).
Ozumba, G. O. A Concise Introduction to Epistemology. (Calabar: Ebenezer Printing Press & Computer Service, 2001).
Routledge Encyclopedia, (1998) vol. 7. s.v ‘Nominalism’ by Michael J. Loux.
A Dictionary of Philosophy, (1984). s.v ‘Universals’ edited by Murad Saifulin and Richard R. Dixon.
Weinberg, Julius, (2003). Abstraction in the Formation of Concepts, http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/DicHist/analytic/anaVI.html,.
[1] G. O. Ozumba, A Concise Introduction to Epistemology, (Calabar: Ebenezer Printing Press & Computer Service, 2001), p. 89.
[2]Julius Weinberg, 2003. Abstraction in the Formation of Concepts, http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/DicHist/analytic/anaVI.html,.
[3]G. O. Ozumba, p. 88.
[4]Ibid.
[5]Klinger I., Unpublished Class notes on Aristotle’ natural Theology, (Nairobi: Catholic University of Eastern Africa, 2007), p. 5
[6]Ibid.
[7]Ibid.
[8]Ibid.
[9]A Dictionary of Philosophy, (1984) s.v ‘Universals’ edited by Murad Saifulin and Richard R. Dixon.
[10]Joseph Omoregbe, A Simplified History of Western Philosophy, Vol. 1, Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, (Lagos: Joja Press Limited, 1991), p. 127.
[11]Routledge Encyclopedia, (1998) vol. 7. s.v ‘Nominalism’ by Michael J. Loux.
[12]Ozumba., p. 88 – 89.
[13]Ibid.
[14]Ibid.
[15]Omoregbe, p. 128.
[16]Ozumba, p. 36 – 37.
[17]Ibid.
[18]Omoregbe, p. 60.
[19]Federick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1, Greece and Rome, Part II
(New York: Images Books, 1962), p. 71.
[20]Omoregbe, p. 60 – 61.
[21]John, Joseph Laky. A Study of George Berkeley’s Philosophy in the Light of the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1950), p. 59.
[22]Thomas, Aquinas. Summa Theologica, I, q. 85, a. 1
[23]Ibid.
[24]Laky, p. 60.
[25]Ibid.
[26]Klinger, p. 6
[27]Omoregbe, p. 150.
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