"Aquinas On Self-Perception"

Haldane does Aquinas no justice when he utterly ignores the fact that everything Aquinas wrote was meant to bolster the Christian faith. He was trying to combine Aristotelian reasoning with Christian faith, to demonstrate that the fundamental tenets of belief in God were supported by rational processes. The word spiritual is mentioned twice in the essay---one of those being enclosed in quotes as if Haldane were granting a courtesy to a religious fool. The word spiritual is then quickly supplanted by "immaterial" or "intentional" or "nonphysical." Haldane insults Aquinas when he says the latter's thoughts on sense-perception comprise "a philosophical theory of cognitive psychology." This is nonsense. To say that Aquinas was mainly developing a psychological theory when he is actually a

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ceiving themselves. What is really important in the dialogue, according to Siemsen, is the failure of Socrates to directly address the problem of overwhelming ambition of such would-be politicians as Alcibiades. Had this young man been the self-confident, ambitious and power-hungry young man he is said to be, he would never have been so easily weaned from his ambition by Socrates's transparent, rhetorical "tricks." All Socrates has done is to confuse the poor man, rather than truly persuade him that he should want to rule out of a humble desire to provide justice to the people, rather than out of a desire for power and an inflated sense of his own superiority. What both Klosko and Siemsen are saying is that philosophy should rule politics. They both agree, rightly, that the philosopher-king of Plato/Socrates is the best ruler. The question is whether Socrates in this dialogue advances or impedes the process toward such philosophical politics. Siemsen is convincing and effective in arguing that Socrates fails to advance the cause of philosophy in politics. He is not educating poor Alcibiades in the ways of philosophy. He is not clearly demonstrating to him that his ambition and arrogance will make him a dangerous politician. H
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1675
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)