A Lesson in the Practicality of Philosophy I Learned Today

[Mudhammam]

Kant says that only ideas are that which can be known. In contrast to this, Aquinas says that ideas are the means by which we know. Personally, I think Aquinas makes the better case and that Kant's distinction between noumenal and phenomenal is a difference without a difference. Just because someone doesn't have complete knowledge of a sensible object doesn't mean that the object isn't knowable.

Well, as I understand Kant, he failed to make a distinction between intuitive knowledge and abstract knowledge, the latter of which we draw from the former. That's probably a cause of tension between him and Aquinas, whom I have not read directly, but seems to be saying that concepts, rather than intuition, precede perception, which I would judge incorrect (by intuition I mean the structure of the mind that allows for understanding). We begin with perception, through touch, and then with the addition of a particular intuition that includes language, abstract as one means of acquiring and communicating "knowledge" about the objects of perception. Insofar as Aquinas admits this, swell, but...

As for physical science, I thought everyone knew that scientific inquiries take certain metaphysical positions for granted, like the existence of universals.

...if he wishes to submit that concepts which never establish a connexion to objects in perception, i.e. exist concretely, can nonetheless be asserted in the actual and objective, then I find it quite probable that he has failed to demonstrate as much. Clearly, science only makes presumptions so far as they yield predictive value.