Aquinas 101: Lesson Nine

Saint Thomas Aquinas by Carlo Crivelli, downloaded from Wikipedia

Lesson 9: Argument and Dialectic

It's probably best to start with the selected readings which define and give an outline in preparation for the video and lecture. The selection from Aristotle makes a distinction between different types of arguments: 1) demonstration from premisses which are primary and true, 2) dialectic from premisses which are from opinions generally accepted, 3) contentious if from reasoning of what seems to be generally accepted but it is not so, and 4) mis-reasoning. The selection from Alasdair MacIntyre discusses three developments which came together in the twelfth century: 1) quaestiones, 2) dialectic, and 3) distinctiones. 

It is from here that we can better understand the background for the video by Fr. James Brent, OP. He gives an outline of the disputed question in St. Thomas Aquinas, but it's from the vantage point of a scholar seeking the truth. From the first lines of the video: 

Our world is filled with conflicting perspectives and opinions about many things, and the clash of options and perspectives leads many people to despair about the possibility of finding any truth.  But the ancient philosopher Aristotle saw in the conflict of opinions not a reason to despair about finding truth, but precisely an opportunity to find it.

The audio lecture, "Thomism as a Paradigm of Academic Discourse" by Prof. Jessica Murdoch, is a discussion about the movement from the realism of Aristotle and Aquinas to the anti-realism of modernist and post-modernist philosophies. She contends that by looking at the nihilist philosophy of Gianni Vattimo, one could have a good summary of the anti-realist critique of realism. It seems to me that the anti-realist philosophers believe that realist philosophers are imposing their ideas upon reality, but as Prof. Murdoch continues that this misses the humility of St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas seeks the truth for love of truth. Indeed, Aquinas treats his interlocutors (not his opponents) with respect as others who are seeking the truth. In the disputed questions, which starts with objections, Josef Pieper has observed that Aquinas argues the objection better than his interlocutors from which Prof. Murdoch comments that many of her freshman students first believe Aquinas is arguing for the other side. Indeed, Aquinas seeks to conform his mind to the truth, to bring the mind in touch with reality. For Aquinas, a dialog is where listening is critically important, but not to harmonize two conflicting opinions, but to clarify the truth (finding the distinction), or correcting one's own understanding of the truth.