Subjectivity and Knowledge in the Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas

The philosophers of the middle Ages were profoundly interested in the metaphysical explanation of reality. None of them questioned the validity of human knowledge; they took for granted the intellect’s capacity to arrive at truth and to construct valid sciences. Problems raised by the medievals concerning human knowledge were those of the Universals, of it is not surprising to find St Thomas Aquinas treating the problem of knowledge under its metaphysical aspect. Many present-day thinkers claim that even within the metaphysical explanation of knowledge, the Scholastic speculations centred round the object and the objectivity of knowledge without giving importance to the knowing subject and the spiritual riches of subjectivity. The modern age is often called the age of the discovery of subjectivity, of the triumph of the thinking subject and his interiority over the anonymous, impersonal and exterior object.