Abstract
Summary: T his s tudy c onsiders St. T homas’ d octrine of t he weakness (debilitas) and the proportion (proportio) of the human intellect, starting from the Aristotelian metaphor of the eye of the owl (νυκτερίδων ὄμματα: Metafisica α, 1, 993 b 9-10). Thomas considers human intellect as ultimate human intelligence, thus full of potential, but far from the intuitive glory of pure intelligence, that only by uniting itself to a body can it find its way in history to its becoming act (per viam sensus; quam magis experimur), becoming a ratio (intellectus rationalis), that, as Isaiah says, “oritur in umbra intelligentiae”. In this way, it determines itself as a possible intellect (intellectus possibilis), linked naturally to the body (intellectus
lealis), which becomes its conjoined instrument (proprium et coniunctum). It remains natured, to come with all beings to their Principle (God Πάγκαλος), but accompanying all of its actions with phantasms drawn from the senses (intelligere phantasticum) and moving from abstract forms to physical things (quidditas rei materialis). The study makes use also of some distinctions proper to Thomas’ metaphysics: being in rerum natura and being in anima, that
which (id quod) is known and the way in which (modus quo) it is known, the intelligible in se and the intelligible nobis.
Key words: Thomas Aquinas, Thomistic philosophical theology, Minerva’s owl, human knowledge, analogy.
Parole chiave: Tommaso d’Aquino, teologia filosofica tomistica, nottola di Minerva, conoscenza umana, analogia.
