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And You Thought Her First Thought Was “Mama”
Published by Cynthia R. Nielsen July 17th, 2008 in AquinasDid you know that your child’s first conceptions are the transcendental conceptions of being, one, and good? According to Robert Pasnau (articulating St. Thomas’s position), these transcendental conceptions rather than food, mother, father, etc are the first conceptions of a child’s mind. As Pasnau explains,
“all of these more obvious candidates for a child’s first conceptions will presuppose one or more of the above transcendental ideas. When a child utters the word ‘mama,’ the child must be expressing the thought either of mama’s presence (being), or of the desire for mama’s presence (being + good). And to have a thought about any determinate object requires the conception of a discrete entity (one). All of this takes some sophistication to recognize, let alone articulate, but Aquinas is of course not claiming that infants actually recognize their basic conceptual framework. The claim, instead, is that the framework must be there, unarticulated, as a precondition on all subsequent thought” (Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, p. 326).
I now feel completed affirmed with regard to a previous post.
best thing i’ve read all week.
To testify of my own experience in animation of philosophy’s workshop with children, I can testify of the presence, non only of transcendantal concepts in their minds, but even of significance traces of major conceptual changes wich have occurred in the history of philosophy, for exemple of the ambiguity of the truth’s meaning , somestimes understood from the speech, sometimes from being itself.
Go on to write about the relationship of philosophy to childhood, and childhood to philosophy. It’s exciting and lovely, as your previoust post was.
Just wait until they turn 14. Then you can deal with tricky philosophical questions like, “Hey, where’s the remote?”
HAHAHA. My 17mo old is already doing that!
I’m such a terrible parent.
Yep! And, did you know that Henry of Ghent built his _a priori_ proof for God’s existence from such simple thinking?