Comments on P. Ridpath's Paper on St. Thomas Aquinas - by John Smithin

Quotes from Peter Ridpath 2020 (implicitly about ‘metaphysical realism’).

Peter A. Ridpath (2020): 14 Evident Truths from the Organizational Genius of St. Thomas Aquinas: How ‘Born Again Thomism’ Can Help Save the West from Cultural Suicide. Studia Gilsonia 9: 625-50.

(I think these quotes are a good description of a realist - specifically ‘metaphysical realist’ - philosophy. Cf. Gilson himself.)

pp. 625-26:

Evident to many Westerners today is that contemporary Western culture exists within a condition of severe identity crisis, the West appears to be internally imploding from a lack of sound leadership – generated by centuries of consistent application within Western culture (and especially within institutions of higher education and politics) – of irrational principles of induction and reasoning. Because we cannot preserve the identity of any being, including that of ourselves, without admitting that identities other than ourselves exist independently of us, the rational starting point for anyone seeking to solve this problem must consist in admitting three evident truths recognized centuries ago … [by] … St. Thomas Aquinas:

1.  Beings other than ourselves (real natures) exist independently of the human mind.

2.  Like us, the identity of such beings consists in being (sic) organizational wholes (wholes made up of parts).

3.  Organizational unity exists in and through the harmonious relationships of the parts of an organizational whole to each other and to some chief aim, or act.

p. 635:

… according to St. Thomas all philosophy, … [all] … science, starts in … [a] … sense … [of] … wonder essentially involving:

1.  A complicated psychological state of fear.

2.  Intellectual confidence about the unity of truth and the essential reliability of our sense and intellectual faculties.

3.  Personal hope to achieve to achieve intellectual, volitional, and emotional satisfaction

through resolving the wonder and putting fear to rest.

As St. Thomas recognized even before the historical birth of some later mistaken notions of philosophy’s first principles of generation,  philosophy does not start in … [any of] … faith seeking understanding, absolute skepticism, universal method[ological] doubt, impossible dreams of pure reason,[1] … [the] … Absolute Spirit’s urge to emerge, historical economic dialectic, veils of ignorance, or any of the other false starting points that Western intellectuals – mistaking themselves to be doing philosophy - have wrongly induced over the centuries.

Philosophy, science, starts in a psychological opposition between fear and hope within the human soul in which the act of philosophizing, pursuing science, essentially constitutes an act of hope of success based upon an essential conviction about the unity of truth and the essential reliability of our human sense and intellectual faculties.

pp. 636-37:

St. Thomas explained that … [the] … initial sense of fear grips us in two stages:

1.  Initial recognition (induction) of partial intellectual weakness and fear of failure (some doubt about the strength of our personal abilities) causes us to refrain immediately from passing judgement.

2.  Induction of hope of … [the] … possibility of understanding an effect’s cause, and confidence in our ability to effect this understanding, prompts us intellectually to seek the cause.

Actually, this fear appears to include an intervening third stage between fear and hope in which we induce intellectual, volitional, and emotional dissatisfaction with being in a state of fear, and a determination to eliminate it. Thomas added that … [even though] … philosophical investigation starts with wonder ‘it must end or arrive at the contrary of this’.[2]