{"id":4110,"date":"2015-04-27T08:00:42","date_gmt":"2015-04-27T13:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/?p=4110"},"modified":"2015-04-25T14:36:26","modified_gmt":"2015-04-25T19:36:26","slug":"todays-aquinas-do-humans-and-animals-think-in-the-same-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/2015\/04\/todays-aquinas-do-humans-and-animals-think-in-the-same-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Today’s Aquinas: Do Humans and Animals Think in the Same Way?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"ThomasAquinas\"<\/a> Last week\u2019s discussion of \u201cnobler beings<\/a>\u201d predictably started a comment thread about the nature of intelligence and the intelligence of animals, with excursions on language and tool use.\u00a0 Thomas believed (as did Aristotle before him) that human intelligence is qualitatively different than animal intelligence\u2014that human beings are defined as being the kind of animal that reasons.\u00a0 I might add that reason<\/i>, to Thomas, encompassed more than logical argumentation.\u00a0 Human reason encompasses three things, the Three Acts of the Mind<\/i>.<\/p>\n

First, given a sensory impression of a thing, a human being can abstract from it the essence of the thing: can recognize it at as a dog, or a tree, or a triangle, that is, as a member of a class having things in common with other members of that class.\u00a0 As an example, I might see a triangular \u201cYield\u201d sign, and recognize it as a triangle with rounded corners, where a triangle is a closed plane figure with three sides and three angles adding to 180 degrees.\u00a0 I might further recognize it as an isosceles triangle, one with two sides and two angles the same.<\/p>\n

The thing to note about this definition is that it applies to all triangles, regardless of the length of the sides or how it is drawn or what the angles are.\u00a0 You can\u2019t draw a picture of all triangles at once, but you can define them all at once.\u00a0 Thomas and Aristotle would claim that this is a uniquely human ability.<\/p>\n

Second, human beings can consider a proposition and judge it as true or false.<\/p>\n

Third, human beings can reason from premises to a conclusion in a logical fashion.<\/p>\n

One might jest that they\u2019ve met people who don\u2019t seem able to do these three things, but in fact we all do them constantly.\u00a0 If you tell me it\u2019s raining, and I\u2019m standing bone dry under a clear blue sky, I\u2019ll surely tell you you\u2019re mistaken, and so would anyone else.\u00a0 If that last slice of cake is missing, and I didn\u2019t eat it, I know that someone else must have.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t rocket science; it\u2019s basic human equipment.<\/p>\n

Thomas and Aristotle would make a further claim: that human reasoning cannot be explained in purely materialistic terms.\u00a0 There must be a component to the human being that is immaterial<\/i>: that exists, and operates, but is not explainable in terms of the body (though it will certainly need to work with the body).\u00a0 This is how human beings have immortal souls: the material is naturally corruptible, but the immaterial is not.\u00a0 (I do not intend to try to prove this statement here; the go-to writeup is James Ross\u2019 1992 paper \u201cImmaterial Aspects of Thought\u201d<\/a>).<\/p>\n

This understanding of human reason is no longer as common as it once was; most people more or less assume that animal intelligence is on a spectrum with snails, say, at one end, and human beings on the other.\u00a0 Some animals rank highly (dolphins, apes, crows, some parrots) and others do not.\u00a0 From the scientific point of view (and science has nothing to say to the immateriality of thought, which is not susceptible to experiment), this seems a reasonable assumption, although I believe it to be wrong on philosophical grounds.<\/p>\n

Even if you disagree with me, let\u2019s assume for the moment that the above statements are all true: that human reason is as I\u2019ve described, and that human reason has immaterial aspects.<\/p>\n

The question, then, is this: are humans in fact alone as \u201crational animals\u201d?<\/p>\n

If there is intelligent life on other planets, life capable of the three acts of the mind, I would infer that they too are \u201crational animals\u201d with an immortal soul.<\/p>\n

But what about the various smarter animals on our planet?\u00a0 Do chimpanzees reason?\u00a0 Do dolphins reason?\u00a0 No one knows for sure.\u00a0 The experiments with Koko the Gorilla are suggestive but inconclusive.\u00a0 Is there a form of animal intelligence that is qualitatively or quantitatively less than human but still has immaterial aspects?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s even possible.<\/p>\n

In any event, for Thomas et al<\/i>, the mark of intelligence is the three acts of the mind, not simply the ability to use speech or tools.<\/p>\n

____
\nphoto credit: Public Domain; source Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week\u2019s discussion of \u201cnobler beings\u201d predictably started a comment thread about the nature of intelligence and the intelligence of animals, with excursions on language and tool use.\u00a0 Thomas believed (as did Aristotle before him) that human intelligence is qualitatively different than animal intelligence\u2014that human beings are defined as being the kind of animal that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1131,"featured_media":3682,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[360],"tags":[841,744],"class_list":["post-4110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-believing-thomas","tag-thomas-aquinas","tag-three-acts-of-the-mind"],"yoast_head":"\nToday's Aquinas: Do Humans and Animals Think in the Same Way?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Last week\u2019s discussion of \u201cnobler beings\u201d 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