Judgment (Thomism)
| Latin | iudicium; compositio et divisio |
|---|---|
| Principal locus | Summa theologiae I, q. 16, a. 2; q. 85, aa. 5–6 |
| Scope | Logic, epistemology, conscience, and wisdom |
| Doctrinal standing | Thomistic synthesis; conscience as judgment of reason is authoritative Catholic teaching |
| School | Thomism and the wider scholastic tradition |
Judgment (Thomism) is the second act of the intellect, by which the mind composes or divides concepts and affirms that something is or is not the case, thereby expressly bearing truth or falsity.[1]
Composition and division
Judgment unites or separates what simple apprehension has conceived. In the affirmative proposition man is mortal, the intellect predicates mortality of man; in the negative proposition an angel is not corporeal, it removes corporeality. The copula does not merely place two words beside each other. It signifies an intellectual synthesis claiming correspondence with reality. Aquinas therefore calls the second operation composition and division in the commentary on the Posterior Analytics I, lecture 1, no. 4.[2]
Summa theologiae I, question 85, article 5 grounds this operation in the gradual manner of human knowledge. We first apprehend something about a thing and then learn its properties, accidents, and relations. Comparison is required. The intellect's composition is not necessarily a physical composition in the thing: subject and predicate can signify diverse concepts that are identified in one subject. The proposition the man is white says that the same concrete man possesses whiteness, not that humanity and whiteness are one essence.[3]
The proper seat of logical truth
Question 16, article 2 provides the central Thomistic account. An apprehension may be true as a likeness of its object, but the intellect does not yet know truth as truth merely by conceiving what a thing is. It knows and expresses truth when it judges that the thing corresponds to the apprehended form. Logical truth is thus the conformity of intellect and thing as recognized in composition or division. Falsity properly enters when the asserted synthesis fails to match reality.[1]
This correspondence is realist without being naive. The judgment concerns reality through concepts; it is not a comparison between an inner picture and an unreachable world. The mind can also judge about mathematical entities, privations, fictional beings under a stipulated description, and its own acts. In every case the claim has an object and conditions under which it is true. The Catholic Encyclopedia's article on Truth summarizes this scholastic account while distinguishing logical truth from moral truthfulness and ontological truth.[4]
Judgment, reasoning, and certainty
Reasoning orders judgments as premises and conclusion. Judgment is therefore both prior to discursive inference and its terminus. A conclusion is not merely the sensation of being persuaded; it is an affirmation reached because another truth supplies a middle term. Demonstration produces scientific knowledge when the premises are true, primary, and causally explanatory. Dialectical, probable, and rhetorical arguments can rationally move assent with lesser firmness, but their mode must not be disguised as demonstration.[2]
Certainty qualifies assent, not the grammatical loudness of a sentence. A self-evident first principle, a demonstrated conclusion, credible testimony, and supernatural faith ground assent differently. Thomism distinguishes these motives without making truth relative. The same proposition cannot be both true and false in the same respect. Prudence can judge contingent particulars without the necessity of metaphysical demonstration. Faith can be more certain by its divine cause even when the believer does not see what is believed.[5]
Conscience and theological judgment
The Catechism, 1776–1802, calls conscience a judgment of reason by which a person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act. It must be obeyed when certain and must also be formed. This is a practical exercise of judgment, not an oracle creating good and evil. Ignorance can diminish culpability, yet a person can be responsible for refusing truth. Object, intention, circumstances, law, virtue, and prudent attention to the particular all bear upon sound moral judgment.[6]
Theological judgment likewise operates under received principles. A theologian may draw conclusions from revealed premises, distinguish a dogma from a school thesis, and judge whether an expression preserves the faith. The Magisterium possesses a teaching authority no private syllogism can usurp. At the same time, authority does not abolish intelligence: the believer truly assents to propositions and theology truly reasons. Judgment is the hinge by which concepts answer to reality and argument answers to first truth.
References
- Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 16, article 2 — Truth as known and expressed by the intellect when it composes or divides and judges its apprehension to correspond to the thing.
- Back to citation occurrence 2.0 Back to citation occurrence 2.1 Thomas Aquinas, Expositio libri Posteriorum Analyticorum I, lecture 1, no. 4 — The exact locus in which Aquinas distinguishes understanding of indivisibles, composition and division, and discursive reasoning as the three acts of reason.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 85, articles 1 and 5–6 — Abstraction from phantasms, composition and division, and the different ways in which error can enter intellectual knowledge.
- Back to citation Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), Truth — Historical scholastic account of logical truth as conformity of intellect and thing, expressed in judgment.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II–II, question 45, articles 2 and 5 — Judgment through connaturality with divine things as an effect of charity and the gift of wisdom.
- Back to citation Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1776–1802 — Authoritative teaching on conscience as a judgment of reason, its formation, and the duty to obey a certain judgment.