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Full Idea
Our imagination and senses grasp only the outer properties of things, not their natures. ...Understanding, however, grasps the very substance and nature of things, so that what is represented in understanding is a likeness of thing's very essence.
Gist of Idea
Senses grasp external properties, but the understanding grasps the essential natures of things
Source
Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibeta [1267], 8.2.2)
Book Ref
McDermott,Timothy: 'Aquinas: how to read' [Granta 2007], p.20
A Reaction
This is exactly the picture I endorse for modern science. Explanation is the path to understanding, and that must venture beyond immediate experience.
22168 | Minds take in a likeness of things, which activates an awaiting potential [Aquinas] |
22170 | Senses grasp external properties, but the understanding grasps the essential natures of things [Aquinas] |
22169 | Initial universal truths are present within us as potential, to be drawn out by reason [Aquinas] |
16641 | Whiteness does not exist, but by it something can exist-as-white [Aquinas] |