Aquinas Article 1

Aquinas begins Article 1 by asking if the soul is a body. According to philosophers the soul is the first principle of the living body. It is the act of the living body. What Aquinas is considering is the soul a part of the matter or the form of a substance? If the soul has some of the same characteristics of the natural body? To answer this question Aquinas gives the definition of the soul as the “(anima) principle of life cognition and movement” (S.T, I, q.75, ad 1). The definition of soul insists that in order to be alive means to be animate, so if you no longer have life or soul it is concluded that the body is inanimate. With that being said it is inferred that Aquinas is trying to explain how a subject comes to be.

In order to answer

2). It is arguing that a soul must be a body in order to have cognition of corporeal things (S.T, I, q.75, obj. 2). As if the cognition of corporeal objects can only occur in the body. Though Aquinas disputes this by stating that cognition happens when the body transitions from potentiality to actuality. The body itself is in potentiality and therefore can only understand corporeal objects. Unlike the body the soul is immaterial, so it can cognize incorporeal material and is able to recognize the nature of all bodies. Humans being more complex than other animals have an intellective soul that is capable of activity without the assistance of any other organs. Due to the human soul’s being incorporeal it has cognitive activity that the body does not share. In conclusion the body does not perform cognition, but the potentiality to form the similarity of a material object is a part of its

3). Aquinas response is that “there are two sorts of contact, a contact of quantity that is a body touched only by the body, or the latter where a body can be touched by the incorporeal entity moving it” (S.T, I, q.75, ad 3). An animate body can move, but without the soul the body remains inanimate. The premise being that the fact that a body is a particular kind is due to its act. Therefore a body is alive by the fact that it is a particular kind of body. Therefore a body is alive due to a principle that is its act.

The argument that the soul is not a body relies heavily on Aquinas definition of the soul. Also his differentiating between living and non-living beings. It is then concluded that the body is not considered animate or cognitive simply because the body is a body, but due to an intrinsic factor the body becomes capable of performing certain