Moderate Realism (Aquinas 101)

Straddling between two extremes, St. Thomas Aquinas follows Aristotle in proposing a theory of moderate realism.

Against Plato, St. Thomas insists that the universals are first in things themselves. Against William of Ockham, he insists that real connections exist among generically similar things, and that we can actually know and name them.

Moderate Realism (Aquinas 101) - Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.

❓ Questions you want answered? Make sure to put #AskAFriar in your comment!

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[fallingcrane]

2:12 I love how St. Thomas Aquinas, the good Angelic Doctor, is reaching for the dog’s head. The instinct to pet the head of a good doggo is one of humanity’s best accidents!

Edit: 2:48 AAAA HES PETTING THE DOG, SO ADORABLE I-

[bebetonguga]

From Argentina, thanks for these videos. I'll see a way of using them for my students!!!! God bless you!!!

[joesquash]

That was beautifully well put. Thank you for sharing some solid Thomistic truth Father.

[paolo]

Read today Feser's treatment of the topic in "scholastic metaphysics" and you did a great job summarizing that clearly and in just over 3 minutes!! Well done!

[adamdominguez]

There is a certain kind of depression that sets in when you subscribe to nominalism.

[davidrasch]

Each video adds a little more to my understanding of the world around me.

[MMichiganSalveRegina]

Also Martin Luther held nominalism, which is the philosophy system that Protestantism comes out of

[denohkyugush]

I was just arguing with my brother seminarian till we found a good concept from this video. Thank you to this channel

[superdavidss]

Those subtle matter must teach in the school system. Aristotle and Saint Thomas set the concept of universals and pave the way for immortality of the human soul. Great work, Fr Pine. I watched your video on "Pint with Aquinas" on the immortality of the human soul. Awesome.God bless you.

[mb]

So for Plato (which seems to come more naturally to me): any individual dog participates in the Form of Dogness, which we can recognize because our souls were in contact with the Forms before our birth. For Aristotle/Aquinas: each dog is given the form of dogness by virtue of its essence, and these essences exist only in the things themselves or in the mind. But the essence of Dogness is indeed a real thing, and not just a mental shortcut or quirk of language, and we can recognize these real essences by means of the innate knowledge/instinct we are imparted with by God? Please correct me where I err, many thanks.

[TheIntruder]

Thank you for your video series. Respectfully, would Aquinas not follow Augustine, Dionysius, and others in also holding forms to exist as ideas in the Logos/Sophia/God the Son? Thus, wouldn't unniversals exist first 'before things' (as ideas in the Logos), then 'in things' (as their form and intelligibility), and finally 'after things' (as concepts in our minds)? Is he not, then, still a kind of radical realist, only one who has found a proper home for the Forms (which was perhaps implicit but not explicit in Plato)?

[iqgustavo]

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:

00:00 🐕 When recognizing different instances of something as belonging to a kind (e.g., recognizing various dog breeds as dogs), it raises the question of how we do it.
01:19 🌟 Plato's radical realism suggests that there is an eternal form for each kind, and things in our world participate in these immaterial forms.
01:46 💭 Nominalism, associated with William of Ockham, argues that there's no real connection between instances of a kind; they are simply labeled conventionally.
03:08 🧠 Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas propose that universals exist both in things themselves (forms) and in our minds as conceptual forms. They emphasize real connections among similar things and the ability to know and name them.

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[xelan]

Crazy that this intersection of epistemology and metaphysics should become THE philosophical battleground of our time. I think that for communication to contemporary audiences the substition or approximation of "form" by "pattern" might be a useful didactic bridge.

[firstlast]

I just found out how tall Fr. Pine is and I'm now wondering if Pine is a nickname or his actual name

[kristindreko]

Thank you for this video!
May our Lord Jesus Christ bless you!

[vwissler]

TI, thanks for the reading selections on the lesson site. This reading was extremely helpful: Selection from An Introduction to Philosophy by Daniel J. Sullivan
(Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, 1992), 67-69.

[mattnd]

@ThethomisticInstitute Assuming, biological macro evolution were true, how would forms evolve? And if so, wouldn't this blur the distinction of what a thing is, as it could simply have the potential to become actualized to a different form?


Thank you for your help!

[hughmungus]

Do you have any videos/suggestions on Mathematical Platonism and Thomism/Divine Simplicity?. Thank you!

[crabking]

Good video! I have a question. If you’ve heard of the animal called a liger, it’s a hybrid between a lion and a tiger. Both a lion and a tiger are connected by being in the feline family. They’re both cats. So I guess technically, they both have cat form. However, how would this work for a liger? Would it have both tiger and lion form? Or is there a completely separate liger form? Here’s another thing which I’m confused with. We typically call something with four legs and a surface a table. It’s used to put items on it. But a chair can also have the exact same parts. The only difference is that they’re used to be sit on. But what if someone decided to use the chair as a table? One could say that they’re just using the chair wrong which is technically correct. But what if slight modifications were made so that the chair was now practically indistinguishable from a table and everyone else who came across it recognized it as a table? Are they just simply deluded? If not, did the form somehow switch from chair to table? Sorry if these are bad questions. I’m somewhat new to universals.

[asdfghjklzxc]

Studying the concepts of Realism Conceptualism and Nominalism side my side and I think I'll levitate 😭