Natural law theorists believe that laws are a direct extension of morality based on the notion that laws are a list of rules. Morality, as it is, is the standard of moral, societal rules that, if one does not follow, will result in one being looked down upon in society, or gaining a sullied reputation. Morality, as it should be, according to natural law theorist John Austin, is the true moral world according to theologians and philosophers, which often is not reflected in reality or human society. Austin would agree that the jurors in this case did the right thing in following morality as it should be to achieve an ideal society; however, morality as it was in society at the time did not support these jurors’ decision.

Aquinas, one natural law theorist, states that law stems from morality, which comes from natural reason, which comes from the imprint of divine light. Therefore it is impossible for law not to reflect morality, and that morality stems from the divine, making it inherently right. Aquinas states that because all rational creatures have a conscience, which again comes from the imprint from the divine, laws should be a natural progression of our conscience and morality. Aquinas, were he alive today, would certainly agree that the jurors in the case of United States v. Morris did the right thing. The Fugitive State Law would seem unnatural to natural law theorists, because this idealist type of morality dictates that human beings should not be treated as property, especially for those who hold the beliefs Aquinas himself does: that the divine body created all of mankind equal.

Morality is entirely avoided, however, by other types of law theorists, such as positivists. There are no fewer than twelve differing theories that are referred to as positivism; therefore we will only examine H. L. A. Hart’s theory of legal positivism for the purposes of this essay. The main points of Hart’s view is that there is no inherent or necessary connection between the validity conditions of law and ethics or morality (this being the main difference between positivism and natural law theory) and that laws are rules made, not necessarily intentionally, by human beings. Hart theorized that commands dictate what one must do or must not do. Rules, however, can be accepted or rejected. No punishment or sanctions follow, unlike commands.

According to Hart, a rule becomes a law when primary rules (ones set by society without state-mandated laws) and secondary rules (recognizing primary rules in an official, legal manner) unite. Judges are not meant to base their decisions primarily on rules; rules are merely applied where relevant. Principles, on the other hand, must always be taken into account but are not always applied case-by-case. His theory seems to support the jurors in the case of United States v. Morris because the law they broke was a rule – they were under oath to obey the rules, yes, but they were not wrong for rejecting the rule imposed by the Fugitive Slave Law.

To be certain that Hart is in accord with those jurors, however, we must examine how he defines rules, to determine whether a law set by the state is a rule or a command. Hart says there are different types of rules: descriptive rules, which are impossible to debate (for example, “As a rule, mothers have children.”), and normative or prescriptive rules, which we mention in order to guide action. It would seem that the Fugitive Slave Law is a normative/prescriptive rule, and was set to guide an action among society: return runaway slaves to their owners. Still, Hart’s theory supports the jurors’ rights to reject that very rule.

Although Hart’s notion of judicial discretion (which states that when a judge is faced with a case to which no rule clearly applies or is not controlled by an established rule, then the judge must exercise discretion) cannot fully apply in this case because there was an established rule, the aim of discretion, as Hart defines it, can also be made to support the decision of the judges in the case of United States v. Morris. Hart claims that discretion may sometimes involve creating a new rule, but certainly aims for making the most justified outcome for the good of society. While positivism avoids relating morality to law, “the most justified outcome” is debatable, to say the least. While society thrived on slave labor, was slave labor itself justified? The jurors in this specific case felt it was not and thus, from a positivist perspective, did the correct thing by not finding the perpetrators in this case guilty.

Ronald Dworkin disagrees with some of Hart’s positivist views and is generally concerned with the coercive power of the state which may lead a democratic majority to violating one’s inherent, personal rights. Dworkin disagrees with Hart mainly in his opinion of discretion. Dworkin feels that judges do not use discretion if one defines discretion as drawing on non-legal sources to make decisions. He claims that principles merely turn on or off the function of the rules, and therefore should not be considered outside of very specific cases. Dworkin feels that the United States Constitution protects the moral rights of citizens which restrict what the democratic majority may do with its power. This alone indicates that Dworkin would have supported the jurors in this case, because treating a human being like property is a violation of their natural, moral rights. In this sense, Dworkin is like a natural law theorist. The jurors’ decision would have been justified, in Dworkin’s eyes, because of the deep, moral justification they based it upon.

Critical race theorists, like positivists, do not tend to consider morality. Instead their justifications come in statistics. Due to the nature under which critical race theory arose, it is easy to state that they, too, would support the jurors’ decision in United States v. Morris. This is simply because critical race theory came about when left-wing scholars started to become critical of the civil rights movement. Rather than articulating an opinion of whether race and racism should be involved in law, they strive to understand it, recognizing that ignoring it is foolish. While critical race theorists believe that the United States is a white supremacist society supported and maintained by the law, they also argue that the law can be used for positive social change. This brought about tools such as affirmative action and jury nullification. The purpose of these tools is to spread opportunities more widely throughout society despite racism – not guaranteeing to eliminate racism. The point critical race theorists stress is never to ignore racism, but rather proactively work to create equality. Therefore they certainly would have supported the jurors in the case of United States v. Morris.

While it is hard to consider the heavily prejudiced societal environment at the time of this case, it seems that the four different types of theorists mentioned above (natural law theorists, positivists, Dworkin, and critical race theorists) would have all supported the jurors’ decision, some for moral reasons and others for practical ones. Natural law theorists, along with Dworkin, feel that people have moral rights which protect them from such discrimination at the hands of the state. Critical race theorists would justify this decision in stating the large percentage of laws advantageous to white people and the extremely small percentage advantageous to minority groups, specifically black people. Positivists like Hart, on the other hand, would have supported these jurors primarily based on their right to accept or reject rules, and through his interpretation of rules and discretion.

Thus, St. Thomas says the perfection of the whole universe requires the existence corruptible beings which are subject to corruption in death as well as those that are not subject to corruption. However, God, Aquinas says did not will corruption or death for its own sake but it could concluded that he caused it accidentally i.e. per accidence given that he willed a universe which its order required that some beings should have the capacity for both defect and corruption. Thus, Aquinas is of the view that God will physical evil per accidence rather than per se, for the perfection of the whole universe which is God’s work of art.

Freedom in St. Thomas Aquinas’s view is a very significant good without which man could not offer God the love and respect which is wroth of freedom affords man the opportunity of participating in the divine freedom in own limited capacity. However, man’s freedom involves the capacity for choosing against God and the moral law and for sinning. Given the foregoing, should we now say that God willed moral evil or that he is the cause of moral evil per accidence?

From Aquinas’ perspective, God did not will moral evil either per se or per accidence, but rather he permitted it. But why did he permit it? For the sake of a greater good, Aquinas says, to be precise, that man might be free and that he might love and serve God out of his own choice. From the foregoing, it may readily appear that since God permitted certain physical evils not for their own sake but for the perfection of the entire universe, he equally willed moral evil for sake of a greater good, namely, that moral good might shine intensely in contrast.

However, the difference is crystal clear. Physical perfection of the universe, according to Aquinas, requires the existence of beings which are capable of dying and as such that it could be said that God will evil per accidence. By that he meant that God willed the creation of animals and men which naturally are mortal creatures, for the sake of the perfection of the universe. In the natural order of events, death, as it were, is unavoidably connected with animal and human existence.

On the other hand, even though it is required that man should free for the sake of the perfection of the entire universe, he is not required to misuse his freedom thereby committing sins. Hence, God could not be said to have willed moral evil either per se or per accidents. He only permitted in order to produce or to bring about a greater good.

The source of human knowledge has been one of the major preoccupations of philosophers over the ages. The attempt to find out where human knowledge comes from has led to diverse views. Some believe that human knowledge comes from experience and that human beings are born tabula rasa, that is, the human mind at birth is blank. Others believe that human beings do not acquire knowledge from experience; rather human beings are born with knowledge, which is referred to as the innate ideas.

However, Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas are among the philosophers who believe that human beings acquire knowledge through sense experience or rather sense perception. It was Aristotle who first introduced the idea of the process of abstraction in explaining the source of human knowledge. The theory of abstraction was also embraced by St. Thomas Aquinas. They both held the view that human beings are born without any ideas in their minds, man only knows through the process of abstraction of the essences of particular things and forming them into universal ideas.

The doctrine of abstraction has received a lot of criticism from many philosophers. One of the notable critics of abstraction was George Berkeley. According to Berkeley, abstraction is instrumental to the practice of a kind of transcendentalism which has no existential status, yet giving the deceitful impression of concrete existence. For Berkeley, the only things that exist are particular things; to talk of abstract general idea is an existential aberration. He therefore describes abstracted entities as involving metaphysics without ontology.[1]  

The aim of this paper is to look into what Aristotle and Aquinas thought about abstraction. To do this, I shall first define the meaning of the term abstraction and the types of abstraction. Second, I will consider the different views of philosophers about universal since abstract ideas are also universal ideas. Among those views to consider are Exaggerated Realism, Nominalism and Moderate Realism. And finally, the thoughts of Aristotle and Aquinas on   abstraction will be explicated.

MEANING OF ABSTRACTION1.1       What is Abstraction?

The term ‘abstraction’ is the usual expression in medieval philosophical terminology for several processes distinguished in Aristotle’s writings by different terms, viz., aphaeresis and korismos described in different ways. It was Boethius, most probably, who introduced the Latin abstractio and abstahere to translate these Greek nouns and related verbs.[2] Abstraction is a philosophical process by which people develop concepts either from experience or from other concepts. Abstraction is the process of drawing out the essence of things and giving them independent existence from the things of which they are inextricably connected.  It is also seen as a process whereby qualities are drawn from particular object and given a universal application. However, in this process a quality is abstracted and made to stand as a generic term housing a class of objects. For instance, when we  use the generic term ‘man’ we have merely extracted the essence of all men and have made it to stand for the general idea of collectivity of men.[3]

Abstraction also involves the process of separating a quantity from all other qualities with which it is intimately united in existence. This means that abstraction embraces discerning common properties and assigning them independent existence or, the separating off of properties and make them have their existence independently of minds and things that go with them in their real existence.[4] In ancient Greek of antiquity, the main theories of concept formation were those of Democritus, Plato and Aristotle. According to all these theories, sense perception and intellectual cognition have to be distinguished both by their objects and by their nature.

Abstract ideas are the same as universals in some way, and abstract ideas are said to exist independently of their natural or physical substantives. The process of forming universal ideas is the same as that which leads to the formation of abstract ideas, and that is why the two terms can be used interchangeably. Universal ideas are formed when the mind abstracts the essences (that is, what is common to all) of particular material beings. For instance, the idea of ‘dogness’ is abstracted from particular dogs and this idea ‘dogness’ now becomes universal idea of all dogs. Before considering the different views of philosophers about universal ideas, we shall first investigate into the kinds of abstraction. 

1.2.      TYPES OF ABSTRACTION

There are two ways of abstraction. These are abstraction of the form from the sensible matter, and abstraction of universal from particular. These two ways of abstraction are further explained as follows:

1.2.1.   ABSTRACTION OF THE FORM FROM THE SENSIBLE MATTER

This type of abstraction corresponds to the union of form and matter or the accident and its subject. For example, I may draw four circles of equal size on the blackboard and ask you to close your eyes and imagine this multitude of objects. This type of abstraction makes the human mind terminate in imagination of the geometric figure, that is, form or of a multitude of objects. This is the imagination of a sensible figure or multitude, and so it is an act of sensation. And what attention is paid to is the figure or multitude, in so far as both can be imagined. All other sensible qualities are not of interest, and no attention is paid to them e.g. colour, taste, etc.[5]

This way of abstraction supplies us with the ‘raw material’ of geometry and arithmetic. It is exactly when human intelligence starts thinking and understanding the nature of those figures and multitudes that mathematics beings. The pure imaginations of those figures and multitudes precede –logically- mathematical understanding, which is a different activity indeed.[6]

1.2.2.   ABSTRACTION OF THE UNIVERSAL FROM THE PARTICULAR

This type of abstraction corresponds to the union of the whole and its parts. The human mind conceives a universal concept abstracting it from a percept which is particular. This type of abstraction does not consider what is particular to each single object or person. It only pays attention to what is essential and common to all objects or persons of one and the same group of species. And this type of abstraction belongs to our intellectual knowledge. It is an activity of human intellect, which may be called concept formation. This is different from the first type of abstraction which is terminated in imagination, and belongs to our sense-knowledge.[7]

However, this way of abstraction is common to all sciences; for every science considers what is essential while it does not consider what is accidental.[8] What all the sciences derive from what is essential to things are abstract ideas which are also universal ideas. These ideas are universal because they can be predicated of all things that fall into its genus. The question of universals has been a point of debate between the realists and the nominalists, especially in the medieval period. Since the concern of this paper is abstraction, and abstraction is also universal, we shall then consider the views of these two groups of philosophers on universal ideas.

 UNIVERSALS

2.1.      Different Views about Universals

Universal is the name given to general ideas in medieval philosophy. The dispute about universals centred on whether they are objective, real or merely names of things; whether, on the other hand, they exist “before things”, ideally, or “in things” as held by or whether they are mere words.[9] There are basically three different views about universals, and these are exaggerated realism or ultra – realism, moderate realism and nominalism.

2.2.      Exaggerated Realism

Realism is a trend in medieval scholasticism, which maintains that universal concepts possess real existence and precede the existence of singular objects. In other words, it is a view that universals are existing realities distinct from particular things to which they refer. According to the realists, particular things are what they are because they share in the universals. For instance, particular men are men because they share in humanity which is an existing reality independently of particular men. Man or humanity is a unitary substance, and existing entity in which all men share. Some philosophers who held this view are Plato, John Scotus Eriugena, Remigius of Auxerre and St. Anselm.[10]

2.3.      Nominalism

Nominalism refers to a reductionist approach to problems about the existence and nature of abstract entities. The nominalists deny the existence of abstract entities and typically seek to show that discourse about abstract entities is analysable in terms of discourse about familiar concrete particulars.[11] The nominalists hold that universals neither exist independently nor as part of particular objects. All that exist are particular objects; universals are unnecessary duplication of existent entities. This is the reason why Berkeley described abstracted entities as involving metaphysics without ontology.[12] The nominalist view is that the talk about the so called abstract entities is really just talk about nominal or linguistic expressions.[13]

Also, nominalists like Abelard and Okham insisted that everything that exists is a particular. Okham insisted that everything is a particular, and he construes the distinction between universals and particulars as a distinction between categorematic terms that signify just one thing and those that signify many.[14] This view however poses a problem because with the rejection of the existence of universals, we are deprived of the possibility of knowing the essences of things. For instance, we will not be able talk of man in general and to identify what men have in common. Since it is only through abstraction that we can know the essence of things; therefore, the existence of abstract entities cannot be denied.

2.4.      Moderate Realism

The moderate realists are stand between the two extremes of exaggerated realism and nominalism. According to the moderate realists, the universals exist in individual things. The mind extracts them from individual things and forms them into concepts. They are the forms of individual things, but they do not and cannot exist independently of individual things, although they can be considered abstractly and independently of any individual thing. Thus, they exist in the mind as concepts, but with objective foundation in individual things. Philosophers like Aristotle, John of Salisbury and St. Thomas Aquinas held this view.[15]

ARISTOTLE3.1.      LIFE OF ARISTOTLE

Aristotle was born in Strageira in 384 B.C his father was a physician. At the age of seventeen, Aristotle went to Athens to study in Plato’s academy and he remained a pupil of Plato for over twenty years. After Plato’s death, Aristotle left the academy and began to develop his own philosophy. He eventually founded and carried on a lot of scientific research. Aristotle main interest besides philosophy was in the empirical sciences, especially biology. Aristotle was invited to Macedon in 343 B.C by King Philip to educate his son Alexander who was then about thirteen years old. Aristotle thus became a tutor of the future Alexander the great.

Aristotle wrote books on a variety of subjects, logic, physics, metaphysics, ethics politics, psychology, biology aesthetics and rhetoric.  And Aristotle died in 322 B.C.

3.2.      ABSTRACTION IN ARISTOTLE

Knowledge, according to Aristotle, is possible as a fruit of observation and intellectual inquiry. Aristotle’s theory of knowledge is a reaction to Plato’s theory that reckoned that the senses were inadequate for getting information about the external world. However, for Aristotle knowledge is not only possible but truly so through the instrumentality of the senses. He held that there is no world of forms where things exist separately from their physical counterparts.[16]

Every object, he says, has its substantial and formal dimensions. He called the substance matter and the form, the physical form. Therefore, every particular thing is made up of matter and form; these matter and form are earthly and not transcendental. All what we need to do is to understand the way things are to be able to have perfect knowledge about them.

For Aristotle, it is the empirical observation of the physical things that provide us the true insight that leads to the abstracting of their forms. We look at individual men, and we see that they all die and from there we arrive at their essence, that is, mortality. Consequently, all objects can be known by examining their nature as they relate to their matter and form.[17]

 3.3.      THE PROCESS OF ABSTRACTION

According to Aristotle, the process of acquiring knowledge begins with sensation. Sensations are the acts of perceiving things through the sense organs. This is the first step in the process of acquiring knowledge. He believed that through our senses we come to know about the things around us. Besides the five senses – hearing, smelling, feeling, tasting, and seeing, there is also the ‘common sense’ which synthesizes what we perceive  separately with the separate sense organs and accounts for certain aspect of perception (e.g. duration, motion) which cannot be accounted for by any of the five senses.[18] After the stage of perception, the imagination produces images of objects of sensation. These images (phantasmata) are particular images of particular objects as they are perceived through the senses. On the second stage, the intellect begins to work on these images. Aristotle also identified two kinds of intellect: the passive and active intellects. It is the active intellect that abstracts forms from the images or phantasm, which, when we received in the passive intellect, are actual concepts.[19] The active intellect illuminates the images by extracting from them the essences or the forms of the objects they represent, removing from them all particular traits such as size, colour, etc. after this process of extraction of the essences from these images, the active intellect impresses them on the passive intellect.  Finally, the passive intellect is a receiving entity; it has the potentiality to receive and to become what it receives in an immaterial way. When the passive intellect receives these essences or forms, it transforms them and so we have abstract ideas.[20]

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS4.1.      HIS LIFE

St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest medieval philosopher, was born in 12224 in Italy. At the age of fourteen, after his elementary education at a Benedictine Abbey, he went to study at the University of Naples. In Naples, he joined the Dominican Order and later went to Paris to continue his studies at the University of Paris. He eventually became a professor of philosophy and theology and taught at the University of Paris and in a number of theological institutions in Italy.

St. Thomas was a prolific writer. The two most famous of his works are his two summa-Summa Contra Gentiles and especially, Summa Theologica. Other interesting works from the philosophical point of view are his De Ente et Essentia, De Malo De Vertate, De anima, De unitate intellectus contra Averroista, and his commentaries on the works of Aristotle.

St. Thomas was an expert on Aristotle’s philosophy which he re-interpreted and developed in his own way. Aquinas died on 7th March 1274 at the age of 49.

4.2.      ABSTRACTION IN AQUINAS

Aquinas’ theory of abstraction was influenced by Aristotle’s.  According to him, “the object of knowledge is proportionate to the power of knowledge.” He, therefore, identified three grades of cognitive powers: the sensitive power, the angelic power and the human intellect. [21]

According to Aquinas, the sensitive is the act of a corporeal organ. And the object of every sensitive power is a form as existing in corporeal matter. And because such matter is the principle of individuality, it follows then that every power of the sensitive part can only have knowledge of individual. The angelic intellect which is in no way connected with corporeal matter. The object of whose cognitive power is a form existing apart from matter. The angelic intellect knows material things in something immaterial, that is, either in themselves or in God. The human intellect, however, holds a middle place, for it is not the act of an organ and yet it is a power of the soul which is the form of the body. It is the nature of the human intellect to know a form existing individually in corporeal matter, but not as existing in the individual matter. In order to know what is in the individual matter is to abstract the form from the individual matter that is presented by the phantasm.[22] Therefore, the human intellect comes to understand material things in “abstracting from the phantasms; and through material things thus considered we acquire some knowledge of immaterial things, just as, on the contrary, angels know material things through the immaterial”.[23]

For St. Thomas, we consider colour and its properties without reference to the apple which is coloured, and so, quantities such as number, dimension and figures, which are the terminations of quantity, can be considered separately from sensible matter

Since therefore the intellect is not material, what is presented in it must be stripped off of matter, but not of all matter, only of signate matter, which is the individual matter, this flesh and these bones.[24] According to Aquinas, however, the process of abstraction takes place in three different degrees. And these degrees produce different kinds of knowledge.

4.3.      THE DEGREES OF ABSTRACTION

The degrees of abstraction are determined according to the diverse modes by which the objects of thought are discovered in things by the operation of the intellect are free from matter. The intellectual process by which we go beyond the merely material character of things is called abstraction. Aquinas therefore recognises that the human mind operates in three different ways, the first is the intellectual process called separation in the proper sense, the second is the abstraction of a form from the sensible matter and the third is the abstraction of a universal from a particular matter. These three ways through which the mind operates is also referred to as t he three degrees of abstraction. These “three degrees”[25] can be explained as follow:

1. The first degree is where the intellect abstracts the species of natural things from the sensible individual matter, not from sensible matter in general. It abstracts the species of man from this flesh and these bones, not from flesh and bones in general. “This is way is found in the sciences of nature and it is common to all sciences; for every science considers what is essential while it does not consider what is accidental”[26] to sensible matters.
2. In the second degree, the intellect comprehends mathematical essences by abstracting from all sensible matter, both individual and in general. It also abstracts from intelligible matter, but only from the individual, not from intelligible matter in general.  In this instance, intelligible matter is substance, inasmuch as it underlies quantity. But the intellect is able to lift the absolute nature of quantity from sensible matter, and comprehend it as a universal concept in its essential element and in the essential laws of being. At this level of abstraction, we acquire mathematical knowledge (e.g. geometrical figure).
3. The highest form of abstraction is metaphysical abstraction. In it the intellect leaves behind even intelligible matter in general and forms concepts like being, unity, potency and act, which attain actualization without any matter in the region of immaterial substances. Through this process, the mind operates by uniting and dividing, and this is found in Metaphysics. In other words, the knowledge derived here is a metaphysical knowledge. 

For Aquinas, who is a moderate realist, all universal ideas are formed from the objects of sense perception through the process of abstraction. When we perceive an object, an image is formed in the mind. This image (phantasm) is the image of particular object, with its particular characteristics. Then the active intellect illuminates it, removing from it all its particular features – colour, size, height etc. it extracts from it the intelligible species, that is, and its essential and universal characteristics. Then the active intellect impresses it on the passive intellect, thus producing the impressed species in the passive intellect. The passive intellect reacts, and receives this impressed species and produces expressed species, which is a universal concept.[27] Universal ideas are therefore produced when the passive intellect receives the images that are impressed on it by the active intellect.

CONCLUSION

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.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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.

Hume’s Cleanthes and Aquinas’s Fifth Way each present a version of the argument from design. An argument by design asserts that the empirical study of nature offers evidence that the world and its parts have purpose and direction.1 Advocates of the theory conclude that the world is designed. Thus, both Cleanthes and Aquinas argue that from the smallest blade of grass to the largest mammal on the planet, every part of the natural world is deliberate and designed. Naturally following this belief is the need for a designer of the natural world. This designer, both Cleanthes and Aquinas assert, is God.2

Although their proofs for God’s existence are essentially the same, the two philosophers’ depictions of nature differ considerably. Cleanthes’s account of the natural world is mechanistic. From this perspective, everything in the world follows certain natural laws, regardless of size or complexity. In fact, Cleanthes asserts that the world is “nothing but one great machine” where closer examination reveals “an infinite number of lesser machines” that regress to a point that even intelligent human beings cannot observe and understand.3 Therefore, in the same way that a desk lamp and a stadium floodlight are different objects built to operate in a similar way, so too in nature, a small flower and a large forest are built to operate in a similar way. On the other hand, Aquinas describes the world in terms of “natural bodies” that lack any type of intelligence or knowledge.4 A natural body, to Aquinas, could be anything from a bit of algae to an entire lake of water. Evidently, the two philosophers’ views of nature portray the world in to very distinct ways.

However, despite differences in terminology describing the world, both Cleanthes’s and Aquinas’s a posteriori methods lead them to the conclusion that all of nature has purpose and is therefore designed. Cleanthes argues that from the “one great machine” to the smallest machine imaginable, all have “an accuracy” about them.5It is this mechanical accuracy, Cleanthes maintains, that allows the parts and the whole of nature to act for a purpose, as “means to ends.”6 For Cleanthes, it follows that there must be an “Author of Nature,” a designer, who creates such accuracy of function.7 Aquinas agrees that nature acts for a purpose. He believes that, although natural bodies may lack any internal knowledge,8 they still “act for an end” in the world.9 For instance, rain falling from the sky will nurture plants, which in turn will transpire water into the air, which in turn will fall from the sky as rain again. Aquinas does not believe it is an accident that natural bodies, such as water in all its forms, act for specific, unchanging purposes.10Indeed, he argues that the natural bodies have been designed in order to reach their ends.11 Therefore, despite their striking differences in descriptions of the natural world, both Cleanthes and Aquinas advocate a fundamentally similar teleological argument.

Cleanthes and Aquinas also agree that the designer of the world is God. To reach this conclusion, they both employ analogies that equate human capabilities to God’s capabilities. Cleanthes argues that the accuracy evident in the natural world “resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the production of human contrivance.”12 He believes that the design of nature is comparable to a human design, such as a piece of architecture or an entire city comprised of such architecture.13 By stating that these two designs are similar, Cleanthes feels he can infer that the two creators of such designs must be similar too.14 Following the notion that no human design, no matter the size of the building or the magnificence of the city, will ever be as great as the design of nature, Cleanthes argues that the mind that designed nature must also be greater then the mind of a human.15 He further states that this great mind is God’s.16 To Cleanthes, it is therefore God who directs nature’s “machines” to reach certain ends.17 Aquinas uses a comparable, though simpler, analogy to arrive at his need for a designer of the world. He notes that the designed nature of the world cannot exist without an intelligent being to guide it, “as the arrow is directed by the archer.”18 Again, Aquinas has described a human intelligence, in this case an archer. In the same way that the archer directs an arrow, Aquinas reasons that another, similar entity directs natural bodies towards their respective ends. He too believes this entity is God. Hence, like Cleanthes, Aquinas also infers that this intelligent, human-like designer is God.

Because of their shared use of analogy, Cleanthes’s and Aquinas’s arguments are comparable in the way that they fail to prove the existence of God. Although both philosophers take pride in their use of empirical methods, the human-to-God analogy is ultimately unempirical.

Cleanthes’s analogy can be written as:

Man’s effects (a city) • God’s Effects (nature)

Man (city planner) • God (creator of nature)

Aquinas’ analogy can be written as:

Arrow • Natural Bodies

Archer • God

The proportion aspect present in these analogies – that nature is greater than a city and God is greater than a human – is clear and easy to accept. In fact, it is an argument commonly used by theologians.19 However, both the analogies not only show proportion, but also presume that there is more than a similarity between man and God and their respective effects. Cleanthes maintains that the city planner and his city are the exact same type of thing that God and “His” nature are. 20 In effect, Aquinas argues that the arrow and his archer are essentially the same as natural bodies and God21.

The common mistake in Cleanthes’s and Aquinas’s respective arguments is the assumption that God’s intelligence is the same type of intelligence as a human intelligence. In essence, they anthropomorphize God by claiming that God has human-like intelligence. Yet, as Cleanthes himself notes, such an intelligence could not create nature.22 For a fuller understanding of this problem, it helps to look at an example of an good analogy. For instance, a city is to a planner as a house is to a builder. Here, there is sameness, rather than resemblance, since both the planner and the builder have human intelligence, and both the city and the house are created from this same type of intelligence. However, the analogies between a human’s characteristics and a God’s characteristics fail because they claim the two are equivalent, when they have no empirical evidence to suggest this.

Consequently, the differences in Cleanthes’s and Aquinas’s descriptions of nature are not sufficient to prevent their respective arguments’ shared downfall. It is easy, however, to understand why they both fall into the trap of flawed analogies. It is extremely difficult to grasp with a human mind (the only one that I, and presumably you, the reader, have ever known) that something other than a human-like mind, and therefore human-like intelligence, could create a world in which so many patterns and laws can be found empirically by our minds.

This concept is even harder to grasp for believers like Aquinas and Cleanthes. Every day believers make a “leap of faith” by accepting there is a God. But Aquinas and Cleanthes attempt to rationally prove God’s existence to atheists. Accordingly, there can be no “leap of faith” in this reasoning. Yet, the philosophers do make a leap in their arguments. They anthropomorphize that which by their own definitions is beyond human capacity. Thus, their main fault lies in the fact that they do not distinguish between the belief in God based on faith, and one which appeals only to reason. Thus, Scott Adams sarcastic quip: “The creator of the universe works in mysterious ways. But he uses a base ten counting system and likes round numbers.”23

Bibliography

Adams, Scott. 2009. “Scott Adams Quotes.” Retrieved January 29, 2009.

“http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/scott_adams.html”

Aquinas, St. Thomas, “Summa Theologiae” In First Philosophy, Fundamental Problems

and Readings in Philosophy, edited by Andrew Bailey, 42-47. (Canada: Broadview Press 2002).

Hume, David, “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” In First Philosophy,

Fundamental Problems and Readings in Philosophy, edited by Andrew Bailey, 54-89. (Canada: Broadview Press 2002).

1 Philosophy or Religion – Does God Exist? 18: “these arguments begin from the premise that the natural world shows signs of intelligent design or purpose.”

2 Hume 56, Aquinas 46

3 Hume 56

4 Aquinas 46: “We see things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies.”

5 Hume 56

6 Ibid

7 Ibid

8 By this I mean that these bodies lack intelligence

9 Aquinas 46

10 Ibid

11 Ibid

12 Hume 56

13 Ibid

14 Ibid

15 Ibid

16 Ibid

17 Ibid

18 Aquinas 47

19 In Class 01-20-2009

20 Hume 56

21 Aquinas 47

22 Hume 56: “The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all of nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the production of human contrivance; of human designs, thought, wisdom, and intelligence.”

23 Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert Comic Strip and writer of the relatively unknown thought experiment God’s Debris