Immaterial Aspects of Thought

Ross, James F.

doi:10.2307/2026790

Cited by 39 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…But human beings also grasp the criterion, the universal property or nature, by which the similars are grouped together (cf. Connell 1981, 87–93; Haldane 2000; Adler 1990; Pannier and Sullivan 2000; Ross 1992).…”

Section: The Difference In Kind Between Human Beings and Other Animentioning

confidence: 99%

The Nature and Basis of Human Dignity

Lee¹,

George²

2008

Ratio Juris

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We argue that all human beings have a special type of dignity which is the basis for (1) the obligation all of us have not to kill them, (2) the obligation to take their well-being into account when we act, and (3) even the obligation to treat them as we would have them treat us, and indeed, that all human beings are equal in fundamental dignity. We give reasons to oppose the position that only some human beings, because of their possession of certain characteristics in addition to their humanity (for example, an immediately exercisable capacity for self-consciousness, or for rational deliberation), have full moral worth. What distinguishes human beings from other animals, what makes human beings persons rather than things, is their rational nature, and human beings are rational creatures by virtue of possessing natural capacities for conceptual thought, deliberation, and free choice, that is, the natural capacity to shape their own lives.

show abstract

Section: The Difference In Kind Between Human Beings and Other Animentioning

confidence: 99%

The Nature and Basis of Human Dignity

Lee¹,

George²

2008

Ratio Juris

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Hence some judgments can be niether wholly physical processes nor wholly functions among physical processes. (Ross 1992) Yet, he maintains, we cannot deny that we perform determinate mental operations. He writes:…”

Section: Why Reduction Failsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Argument from Reason

Reppert

1999

Philo

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…For intellectual understanding is an act that cannot be performed by a corporeal organ, in the way that vision is exercised. But it is in matter insofar as the soul itself, to which the intellectual power belongs, See Lonergan 1992, 538-44;Oderberg 2007;Feser 2013; Madden 2013, 265-274;Ross 2008Ross , 1992Haldane 2016;Klima and Hall 2011;Braine 1992Braine , 2014. For THP, the human person is a rational animal because it belongs to the nature of its substance to ground both immaterial noetic powers as well as essentially psychosomatic powers and to enable their integrated operations, which includes the wide range of activities that comprise human agency.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Interaction of Noetic and Psychosomatic Operations in a Thomist Hylomorphic Anthropology

Haan

2018

SetF

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. This article, the second of a two-part essay, outlines a solution to certain tensions in Thomist philosophical anthropology concerning the interaction of the human person's immaterial intellectual or noetic operations with the psychosomatic sensory operations that are constituted from the formal organization of the nervous system. Continuing with where the first part left off, I argue that Thomists should not be tempted by strong emergentist accounts of mental operations that act directly on the brain, but should maintain, with Aquinas, that noetic operations directly interact with psychosomatic operations. I develop a Thomist account of noetic-psychosomatic interactions that expands upon the first part's rapprochement between the new mechanist philosophy of neuroscience and psychology and hylomorphic animalism. I argue that noetic-psychosomatic interactions are best understood as analogous to the way diverse higher and lower order psychosomatic powers interact by actualizing, coordinating, and directing the operations of other psychosomatic powers. I draw on James Ross's arguments for the immateriality of intellectual operations as realizing definite pure functions in order to elucidate the way noetic operations uniquely actualize, coordinate, and direct the psychosomatic operations they interact with. I conclude with a conjectural sketch of how this presentation of Thomist philosophical anthropology understands the noetic and psychosomatic deficits brought about by damage to the nervous system.The Interaction of Noetic and Psychosomatic Operations... 6(2)/2018 DA N I E L D E H A A NKeywords: hylomorphism; new mechanist philosophy; neuroscience; psychology; philosophical anthropology; aristotelianism; intellectual and psychosomatic operations; Thomas Aquinas; thomism; James Ross; emergentism. and many are hylomorphically embodied in the nervous system. Just as the substance of the animal is constituted from the formal organization of its matter, so also the psychosomatic powers and operations of the animal are constituted from zones of organized material components, like the nervous system. Animals are fundamental entities for HMA, and it is the substance 6(2)/2018 In the first article, I introduced the well-known distinction between personal and sub-personal level attributes. In this article, I shall reserve this distinction for human persons and will employ a similar distinction between psychological and sub-psychological (or animal and sub-animal) level attributes in my treatment of topics common to humans and other animals. Abbreviations for the works of St. Thomas Aquinas DV T H E I N T E RACT I O N O F N O E T I C A N D P S YC H O S O M AT I C O P E RAT 2Elsewhere I have argued that HMA can accommodate the insights of NMP and that HMA's ontology of animal psychology can find in NMP the prospects of a complementary philosophy of biology, neuroscience, psychology. I take such claims for granted in this essay. See De Haan 2017a. 6(2)/2018 DA N I E L D E H A A N Thomist Hylomorphic PersonalismBecaus...

show abstract

Immaterial Aspects of Thought

Cited by 39 publications

References 0 publications

The Nature and Basis of Human Dignity

The Nature and Basis of Human Dignity

The Argument from Reason

The Interaction of Noetic and Psychosomatic Operations in a Thomist Hylomorphic Anthropology

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About