The Dumb Ox | Themes

The Dumb Ox Themes

Realism in Thomistic Philosophy

Chesterton continually highlights that Thomistic philosophy is founded on the acceptance of reality as it is without any compromise or confusion. St. Thomas is firmly committed to the view that the physical senses give us real information about the external world, and that all philosophy has to begin with the affirmation that the world is, for the most part, as it seems. This realism comes mainly from the work of Aristotle, who believed that science and philosophy should begin with gathering data about the natural world.

St. Thomas' realism is also seen in his rejection of Nominalism and monism. Nominalism is the view that there are not actual "kinds" of things in nature, but rather that people just create words to class together what are fundamentally distinct and unique objects. On St. Thomas' view, it is an obvious fact of nature that there is a real similarity between two blades...
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