Overcoming an Anaxagorian Conception of Noûs by a Metaphysical Theory of the Best Possible: from Socrates to Aquinas

SANTIAGO ARGÜELLO

Seúl

Congreso; The XXII World Congress of Philosophy 2008; 2008

The XXII World Congress of Philosophy

This paper intends to show that our reception of Plato?s criticism of Anaxagoras? philosophy of mind is somehow mediated by Thomas Aquinas? conception of freedom. The Socratic-Platonic Metaphysical theory of mind as something essentially connected to the best is transformed by Aristotle into a theory of the intelligence which, in its acting, necessarily records the possibility of performing the opposites or contraries. Therefore, ?the (Platonic) best? is now specifically understood as ?the best possible?. Within this Metaphysical conception, Aquinas distinguishes two levels (which are also to be found in ?freedom?). In the first or more superfical one ?here called ?horizontal??, the mind chooses to perform the best possible or not, that is, it can fulfill the science which is within the mind itself or not. In the second or more radical one ?here called ?vertical??, the mind has to perform a reflexive act, by means of which it chooses willing or not its necessary possibility of performing the science that the mind possesses.