Question

Thomas Aquinas compared the senses to

Answer 1

Thomas Aquinas compared the senses to an essential element in the process of knowing, arguing that all intellectual concepts originate from sensory experience.

Step-by-step explanation:

Thomas Aquinas compared the senses to being a crucial part of the knowing process, instrumental in acquiring knowledge about reality. Following Aristotelian thought, Aquinas wrote that "nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses," suggesting that empirical data, which is sensable and typically testable, forms the basis of our intellectual understanding. Unlike Anselm, who was a rationalist, Aquinas preferred to rely on empirical evidence rather than non-empirical evidence to demonstrate God's existence, asserting God as the ultimate Cause or prima causa. In this way, sense experience is fundamental to Aquinas's philosophical method and contributes to his arguments for the existence of God such as in his Five Ways.

Answer 2

Thomas Aquinas is one of the most prominent theologists during the Medieval Ages in Italy. He was famously known for his contribution in theology in which he also incorporated the principles of philosophical thinking in his scholastic research.  In addition to that, he compared senses to the soul of a body.