Recent Thomistic Interpretations of Ens Primum Cognitum

chapter 2 Recent Thomistic Interpretations of Ens Primum Cognitum

When we turn our attention to the Thomistic authors of later centuries, we find much different concerns; for our two representatives, Gilson and Marit- ain, ens primum cognitum, though addressed, was not an explicit topic of con- cern. The ability of the human intellect to truly grasp things as existing outside of the mind takes precedence in their work, confronted as they were with the yet-unresolved problem of modernity’s epistemological quagmire. While they succeeded in overcoming this problem, their ardor for realism may be taken too far in some cases, to the exclusion of a complete perspective on ens primum cognitum. Let us, therefore, address their considerations of being and the human intellect.

2.1 Étienne Gilson’s “Metaphysical Realism”

It is true to say that there would likely be far fewer students of Thomas Aqui- nas in North America today if not for the work of Étienne Gilson. It is equally true to say that Gilson’s work has made significant contributions both to the overcoming of modern philosophy and to the understanding of Thomas him- self, particularly as regards the Angelic Doctor’s metaphysics and philosophy of knowledge. The resurgence of genuine Thomism—as opposed to the Su- arezian impostor which had come to dominate—following Leo xiii’s Aeterni Patris had much to overcome, not the least of which was the preponderance of modernity’s idealist epistemology. Descartes’ mathematicism, the insistence that all things lacking the certitude of mathematics cannot truly be called “knowledge”,1 begat Cartesian idealism, which in turn launched a centuries- long quest, carried out by numerous philosophers, for an answer to what is perhaps best called “the wrong question”: namely, “how is it that we can know things outside the mind?” This question, particularly in the most thorough treatment among moderns given by Kant, coursed through philosophy so strongly that many Thomists were swept along by its current.

1 Cf. Gilson 1937: The Unity of Philosophical Experience (hereafter Unity), 132–133.

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Enter Gilson. By participating in the recovery of the thought of the scholas- tics, and especially Thomas Aquinas, Gilson formulated a theory of knowledge which, though aimed at answering the question of the moderns, avoided their fundamental errors. If one adopts the necessity of defending a knowledge of the extramental real, Gilson argued, by grounding it in a critical philosophy which begins with the nature of knowledge itself, he is condemned to idealism.2 Against the idealist philosophy Gilson opposed a position which he calls “metaphysical realism”: that is, a philosophy which begins one’s inquiry, and thereby provides a foundation for not only a theory of knowledge but for all branches of philosophy, in a systematic manner which takes being, ens, as its principle. Further, he argued that any attempt at a “critical realism” which at- tempts to synthesize the two positions is fundamentally impossible: “We… have come to the conclusion that the critique of knowledge is essentially incompatible and irreconcilable with metaphysical realism”.3 Gilson’s view on the question of knowledge may be boiled down to a simple, mutually exclu- sive, and entirely exhaustive division: either one is a realist or one is an idealist, and there is no middle ground, for their points of departure are inherently incompatible. In the course of his missives against idealism—both in itself and in the at- tempts to incorporate it into Thomism—Gilson outlines many of the principles of his own theory of knowledge. Consequently, we will begin our consideration of his position on being as first known by looking at Gilson’s works; secondly, we will turn to his interpretation of Thomas Aquinas on the relevant issues of abstraction and the nature of the intellectual concept; and third, we will con- clude by considering the opposition between realism and idealism as inform- ing his philosophy.

2.1.1 Overcoming Critique What is “critique”? In short, critique is the theory that in order to provide a val- id foundation for philosophical inquiry, one must first arrive at a satisfactory demonstration of the theory of knowledge; or, in other words, that the success or failure of a philosophy’s ability to prove the existence or proper nature of anything outside of one’s own mind depends on whether or not one can first

2 Cf. Gilson 1935: Methodical Realism, 21. 3 Gilson 1939: Thomist Realism and the Critique of Knowledge (hereafter Thomist Realism), 149. Cf. Raymond Dennehy 2003: “Maritain’s Reply to Gilson’s Rejection of Critical Realism” in Thomistic Tapestry: Essays in Honor of Étienne Gilson, ed. Peter A. Redpath (New York: Rodopi B.V.): 57–80 for an enlightened consideration of this dispute as it unfolded between Gilson and Maritain.