“I Partly Agree”: On the Distribution of Rightness in a Debate, as seen on the Example of Quaestiones Disputatae de Anima by St. Thomas Aquinas

Robert PIŁAT

Abstract

In the article, I present an analysis of some chosen sections of Quaestiones Disputatae de Anima by St. Thomas Aquinas with the intention to reconstruct
the principle on which the partial rightness is granted by the author to the quot ed views of other philosophers. The precise distribution of the consent and dissent was important in the scholastic discourse insofar as it made it possible to protect an important pillar of philosophical activity of that period, namely, the authority of the thinkers of old, without simultaneously curbing the development of ideas. Thus I examine a few cases of partial recognition of rightness and I defend the quadruple thesis: (1) Defining the extent of the rightness of a quoted author in a given matter is accomplished by resorting to more general philosophical concepts. (2) The conceptual settlements thus made remain valid only for the central cases within the examined categories; therefore they are valid only for a limited number of assertions pertaining to the examined question. (3) The reasonings that interrelate these central cases (resp. the central contents of a the given concept) are normative, the source of the norm in question being their relation to the most general metaphysical categories – the transcendentals – which encompass the goods par excellence. (4) The concept of normativity thus outlined may be
incorporated into the contemporary analytic discussion of normativity.

Translated by Dorota Chabrajska