Reasoning, intellect and subjectivity in Tomas Aquinas thoughts: evolutions in contemporary context - DOI: 10.4025/actascihumansoc.v30i1.5103

Abstract

The present paper was developed by making use of some theoretical contributions by Tomás de Aquino, in order to understand his conceptions, concerning reasoning and intellect, as well as to be aware of the role played by reasoning and intellect aspects in the medieval period. Thus, it is necessary to reflect upon the influence played by Church and by Christian philosophy on the constitution of medieval society. Within such a context, the relationship between reason-subjectivity in Aquino’s thought is emphasized. Thus, based on both, the theoretical contributions by Deleuze and Guattari (1996), and on the conceptualizations about the significance of intellect in the human constitution, it is made a brief conceptualization about subjectivity. Tomás de Aquino conceives the human reasoning as the subject’s power for acting when in search for knowledge, a fact that makes possible a counterpoint with the concept of instrumental reasoning, established by Adorno and Horkheimer (1985), whose peculiarity or singularization is understood as a possibility for developing the intellectual power of human being, as well as a possibility of constituting more conscious subjectivities in contemporary society.