Thomas Aquinas on the Immateriality of the Intellect

The chief aims of Thomas Aquinas on the Immateriality of the Human Intellect are to provide a comprehensive interpretation of Aquinass oft-repeated claim that the human intellect is immaterial, and to assess his arguments on behalf of this claim. Adam Wood argues that Aquinass claim refers primarily to the mode in which the human intellect has its act of being. That the human intellect has an immaterial mode of being, however, crucially underwrites Aquinass additional views that the human soul is subsistent and incorruptible. To show how it does so, Wood argues that the human intellects immateriality can also be put in terms of the impossibility of explaining its operations in terms of coordination between bodily parts, states and processes. Aquinass arguments for the human intellects immateriality, therefore, can be understood as attempts to show why intellectual operations cannot be explained in bodily terms. The book argues that not all of them succeed in this aim and also proposes, however, a novel interpretation of Aquinass argument based on human intellects universal mode of cognition that may indeed be sound. Wood concludes by considering the ramifications of Aquinass position on matters pertaining to the afterlife. Thomas Aquinas on the Immateriality of the Human Intellect represents the first book-length examination of Aquinass claim that the human intellect is immaterial, and sogiven the centrality of this claim to his thoughtshould interest any scholars interested in understanding Thomas. While it focuses throughout on careful attention to Aquinass texts along with the relevant secondary literature, it also positions Thomass thought alongside recent developments in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. Hence it should also interest historically-minded metaphysicians interested in understanding how Thomass hylomorphism intersects with recent work in hylomorphic metaphysics, philosophers of mind interested in understanding how Thomass philosophical psychology relates to contemporary forms of dualism, physicalism and emergentism, and philosophers of religion interested in the possibility of the resurrection.