Material
or Immaterial?
By:
Carlisle K. 2008
Is the
intellect material or immaterial? Is human intellectual
activity simply a material process, or is something else
necessary for the production of human intellectual
activity? The materialist would argue that the intellect
is simply a function of the brain, or a function produced
by a composite of the various material organs. While the
non-materialist would argue that the brain is only a part
of what is necessary for producing intellectual
activity—that thoughts are formed immaterially outside of
the brain. After careful consideration, the later view
seems to be the more valid of the two. The following
essay explores both materialism and anti-materialism with
an eye toward the immaterial/material intellect question.
In exploring the former point, primarily more modern
philosophers will be cited (e.g., Thomas Hobbes).
Aristotelian and Thomistic thought are going to be
primarily consulted in exploration of the latter.
Materialism
is the belief that all things are composed of only
matter. Materialists hold that human consciousness,
including intellectual activity, is the result of
material processes alone. Concepts referring to a
separate soul or any non-material substances represent a
kind of myth in the mind of the materialists.
Materialists hold that all that is real can be known and
observed through material means.
Although materialism is sometimes taken to be a thing of
modern philosophy, recorded history shows materialism to
be centuries old. Aristotle writes the following
regarding early materialism in the metaphysics: “Of the
first philosophers, then, most thought the principles
which were of the nature of matter were the only
principles of all things.” He goes on to tell of Thales,
“the founder of this type of philosophy,” who thought the
first principle to be water. Then Anaximenes and Diogenes
who believed the first principle to be air. Another early
form of Greek materialism was atomism, founded by the
Greek Philosopher Leucippus. Atomists believed, as modern
materialist do, that all things were made up of
material—including the soul.
Some materialist philosophers hold Democritus to be the
foremost of the ancient Greek philosophers. Democritus
claimed, as many materialists do today, that thought
cannot be separated from the brain, that all is just
matter in motion. More precisely, Democritus was an
atomist. The atomists held to the idea that all things
were composed of what they referred to simply as “atoms.”
One of the key aspects of Democritus’ philosophy was that
“what is, must always be and have been.” Some modern
materialists still use this point as their basis of
argument. How can something come to be from nothing?
Nothing can come from nothing; therefore, everything must
always have been.
Materialists
may argue against the existence of a god from “the wholly
logical view” that to assume something came from nothing
is to assume something improvable by human means and
therefore illogical. The same basic argument is often
applied in arguing against the immateriality of the
intellect.
The Greek
philosopher Aristotle very cleverly agrees with the idea
that nothing can come from nothing while expanding the
point to include certain distinctions. Aristotle roughly
claims that while nothing can come from nothing, we have
to recognize the difference between what is actual and
what is potential. Aristotle’s idea of a first mover
offers an explanation for the beginning of “something,”
an explanation held in contempt by the materialists.
Regarding Democritus, Saint Thomas Aquinas, following
Aristotle, writes the following in his Summa Theologica:
“says (De Somn. et Vigil.) Democritus held that knowledge
is cause by a ‘discharge of images.’" And the reason for
this opinion was that both “Democritus and the other
early philosophers did not distinguish between intellect
and sense….” The immateriality of the intellect, as held
by Aquinas, is dependent on the separation of intellect
and sense—the intellect being immaterial the senses being
material. One of the chief opponents of Democritus’
materialist philosophy was Plato.
Plato was all
the rage in the early years of Christian philosophy.
Plato offered an account of human nature that could
easily adapted to Christian theology. His claim that the
body and soul were two separate substances made the idea
of an eternal soul less problematic. Plato argued
vehemently against materialism. It is said that if Plato
would have had it his way, all of Democritus’ books would
have been burned. In the Phaedo
Plato makes
several arguments for the immortality of the soul, his
arguments being based on his theory of forms and
recollection.
Aristotle, in
the De
Anima, tells us,
“Observation of the sense-organs and their employment
reveals a distinction between the impassibility of the
sensitive and that of the intellectual faculty.” In the
same work he also has the following to say:
Thus that in
the soul which is called mind (by mind I mean that
whereby the soul thinks and judges) is before it thinks,
not actually any real thing. For this reason it cannot
reasonably be regarded as blended with the body: if so,
it would acquire some quality, e.g. warmth or cold, or
even have an organ like the sensitive faculty: as it is,
it has none.
Aristotle
goes on to point out that it is through the senses that
we discriminate—for example, the hot and the cold. But
the essential qualities of such are known through
something other than the senses. The essential qualities
of things is known through the mind.
Later, in
the De
Anima, Aristotle
has this to say: “That which cognizes must have an
element of potentiality in its being, and one of the
contraries must be in it. But if there is anything that
has no contrary, then it knows itself and is actually and
poses independent existence.”
Following
Aristotle, Saint Thomas Aquinas introduced Christian
theology to a whole new understanding of the body-soul
relationship. Rather than presenting the soul and body as
separate substances, Aquinas put forth the idea that the
soul is simply the substantial form of the body. Aquinas
claimed the soul to be something not distinctly human. He
further suggested that the human soul is connected to
nature in a way far greater than what Plato suggested.
Later, the
well-known 17th
century
materialist philosopher Thomas Hobbes, echoing the early
Greek materialists, held that everything is simply matter
in motion, that the process of reasoning is simply adding
and subtracting. Hobbes claims all man has are his five
senses and other faculties that are gained through
education and discipline. Hobbes likened the human body
to a machine, limiting humanity to the material alone:
For seeing
life is but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is
in some principle part within, why may we not say that
all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and
wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life? For what
is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many
strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving
motion to the whole body, such as was attended by the
artificer?
Hobbes’ claim
that all that is human can be understood in terms of
matter suggests the same is true of the intellect.
Hobbes’ claim, however, never seems to be backed by any
real proof. Hobbes tells us that “Whatsoever we imagine
is finite. Therefore there is no idea or conception of
anything we call infinite.” Hobbes holds that because man
cannot perceive things without sense, it is hack
philosophy to make claims like, “anything is all in this
place, or in another place at the same time.”
Hobbes, like
many materialists, suggests that the material intellect
need not be proven, but, on the contrary, the burden of
proof lies on the immaterialist to prove that that cannot
be sensed. This seems to be a common thread that runs
through mmaterialist arguments. Many materialist
arguments seem to be based on “the activity of matter”
and provide no explanation for where matter initially
comes from. Materialists tend to offer material
explanations for how material things work in themselves,
believing that somehow these explanations threaten the
immaterial. In modern times, many materialists argue that
materialism is the friend of logic and real reason, many
times turning to, for example, Newton's laws of motion,
Darwin’s work on evolution, or Maxwell's laws of
electromagnetism in quantum theory. However, while
proving the various parts or steps of a material process
may address questions regarding the material, they don’t
counter the idea of there being something immaterial. For
instance, a staunch materialist may argue against
creation by pointing out various proofs for evolution;
however, such an argument may only explain how things
materially take place, not how these things were first
set into motion or whether or not there can be something
other than these material processes.
It seems that
many arguments for the material intellect seem to run
along the same lines. By explaining certain functions of
the brain, materialists sometimes suggest that these
proofs some how refute the idea of an immaterial
intellect. However, such a view reflects a gross
misunderstanding of what many anti-materialists (e.g.,
Aristotle and Aquinas) claim. Both philosophers celebrate
matter and an understanding of the material world; they
simply point out that there is more to things than the
material. Aquinas’ proofs of an immaterial intellect and
scientific understanding of the physical brain are not
mutually exclusive; most materialist and
anti-materialists would agree that the brain is a
concrete, tangible thing; however, they tend to disagree
on what, if anything, lies beyond the brain.
Rather than
offering proofs for a material intellect, materialists
many times defend their position by attempting to
disprove anything cited as proof for the immaterial
intellect. Many times the arguments target radical
spiritualist or duelist philosophies that are easy to
refute. Christian philosophy has been the most successful
in debunking materialism and offering logical support for
the idea of an immaterial intellect. Saint Thomas Aquinas
offers several arguments for the immateriality of the
intellect:
a) that it
knows sensible things in abstraction from the here and
now, that it doesn't require their actual presence to
ponder them; b) that it apprehends the universal and not
just the singular, e.g., not just water but what it is to
be water; c) that, unlike sense, its objects are not
limited to a set of contraries, that the whole of being
comes under its purview, and d) that it is
self-reflective; sense doesn't know or even sense that it
sense, while by an act of self-appropriation the
intellect is simultaneously aware of that which it knows
and that it is knowing.
Aquinas
argues that because we can think of sensible
things—sensible things that are not physically
present—the intellect must be immaterial. As Aristotle
tells us, “One may have visions with his eyes shut.”
Aquinas points out that not all that is thought of is not
true, while all that is sensed is true. He tells us that
the perception of what we sense is responsible for any
error in comprehension. Such a claim suggests that
sensing and thinking are separate things. Aquinas points
out that human intellect has the ability to abstract data
imbibed by the senses and filter it in order to separate
the universal from the particular or singular. Aquinas
tells us the following:
For if the
intellectual soul were composed of matter and form, the
forms of things would be received into it as individuals,
and so it would only know the individual: just as it
happens with the sensitive powers which receive forms in
a corporeal organ; since matter is the principle by which
forms are individualized. It follows, therefore, that the
intellectual soul, and every intellectual substance which
has knowledge of forms absolutely, is exempt from
composition of matter and form.
Aquinas
argues that because the intellect can take things beyond
the singular and recognize them as universals, the
intellect must be immaterial. Aquinas also argues that
the intellect is self-reflective. The human intellect has
the ability to know something about itself—it has the
ability to know that it is thinking. The senses do not
have the ability to know that they are sensing. Aquinas
has the following to say in the Summa Theologica:
Therefore,
the intellectual principle, which we call the mind or the
Intellect, has an operation in which the body does not
share. Now only that which subsists in itself can have an
operation in itself. ... We must conclude, therefore,
that the human soul, which is called intellect or mind,
is something incorporeal and subsistent.
The Catholic
philosopher William Wallace, in the spirit of Saint
Thomas Aquinas, tells us that “as the soul is to the body
so the intellect is to the senses.” Wallace continues
with the following:
Unlike the
senses, the intellect has no material organ or organic
structure on which it directly depends for its operation,
and on this account is itself an immaterial or spiritual
faculty. Because of the involvement of the internal and
external senses in thought, however, man’s brain is
required for thinking. Still the brain is not the cause
of thinking; it is merely a necessary condition.
The late
philosopher Mortimer Adler presents an argument for the
immaterial intellect that was never quite presented by
Aristotle or Aquinas. He starts out posing the idea that
the brain is the organ of thought as the eye is the organ
of seeing. We use our eye to see, but our eye does not
think, it simply perceives something that is then
processed and turned into a thought. Adler argues the
same is true for the brain. The brain, according to
Adler, is simply an organ like the eye is an organ: It
cannot form thoughts on its own. In fact, the immaterial
intellect is necessary for the forming of any thoughts.
Adler then
argues that all common names are universals (e.g.,
elephant, house) while names like proper names (e.g.,
Bill, Ted) are particular. He uses the example of a
triangle to illustrate his idea: Adler claims that
because we cannot imagine such a thing as a triangle but
only types of triangles, the “idea” of a triangle is
shown to be a universal. Adler goes on to argue that
because two pieces of matter cannot be in the same place
at the same time (matter being the principle of
Individuation) the universal cannot be in matter. If a
triangle can take many forms and still be a triangle, the
idea of simply “triangle,” cannot be in matter without
being in more than one place at a time.
Adler pondered another interesting aspect of the
material/immaterial intellect argument, the matter of
whether or not a computer can eventually become mans
intellectually equal—forming thoughts the way men form
thoughts. Adler argues against such a notion by
presupposing an immaterial intellect. Adler points out
that it logically follows that if the intellect is
immaterial (not simply a brain function), a material
object like a computer, that hasn’t the immaterial
capacity of a man, can never mimic man in this regard.
Humans physically create by working within matter: Humans
cannot create the immaterial; the idea in itself is a
contradiction. Because humans work within matter to
create, humans cannot create a thing (like a computer)
and give it immaterial aspects. However, this does not
stop materialists from arguing otherwise. The materialist
claim that it is only a matter of time before the
totality of human functioning is scientifically
understood and replicable. Materialists argue that humans
can be likened to computers composed of flesh and bone;
thus, Adler’s presupposition of an immaterial intellect
is false. Here again, like with materialist arguments,
believers in a true artificial intelligence have a
tendency to base their arguments in the material. They
may allude to “Fritz” the computer program that defeated
the world chess champion, or the fact that scientist have
discovered new complex things about the brain. However,
none of these things have anything to say about real
understanding but simply pint out that mankind is
developing a deeper understanding of the material world.
Is there a
real difference between man and machine? According to
Aristotle and Aquinas the answer is yes. According to a
materialist the answer is likely no. Saint Thomas
Aquinas, supplementing Aristotle, strongly espoused
belief in an immaterial intellect; in doing so he laid
out a logical set of arguments that were consistent
within the whole of his philosophy. Thomas Hobbes and
other modern materialists, conversely, lay out arguments
opposed to any immateriality (and thus a immaterial
intellect). However, “true” arguments for a material
intellect seem scarce indeed. Rather than arguing for a
material intellect, materialists philosophers (in regard
to this issue) seem to spend their time, more often than
not, attempting to debunk any immateriality. And perhaps
rightfully so: If matter is all there is it would be
rather difficult to find an argument for it from outside
of it. Nonetheless, it seems that the approach taken by
Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas is the necessary
approach for obtaining a true understanding of the
intellect.
End Notes
1Aristotle, Metaphysics, The Basic Works of Aristotle,
ed. Richard McKeon, (New York: Random House, 2001) p.
983.
2
McKeon, ed., Metaphysics, 983.
3St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Internet Sacred
Text Archive,
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/aquinas/summa/index.htm
19th December, 2008.
4
Aristotle, De Anima, The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed.
Richard McKeon, (New York: Random House, 2001), p. 590.
5
The basic Works of Aristotle, p. 590.
6
McKeon, ed., De Anima, 593.
7
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Michael Oakeshott, (New
York: Simon And Schuster, 1962) p. 482.
8Oakeshott, ed., Leviathan, 475.
9
Oakeshott, ed., Leviathan, p. 483.
10Thomas S. Hibbs, The Philosophy of Human Nature:
Aristotle’s De Amina,
http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c01503.htm 19th December,
2008.
11
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Internet Sacred
Text Archive,
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/aquinas/summa/sum085.htm
19th December, 2008.
12St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, New Advent,
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1075.htm 19th December,
2008.
13William Wallace, The Elements of Philosophy: Compendium
For Philosophers and Theologians, (New York: Alba House,
1977) p. 72.
14Wallace, 73.
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