We can now turn from Aquinas’s metaphysics to his epistemology and theory of perception.
Aquinas’s Summa is organized into Questions, which in turn are made up of Articles, each defined by a particular question.After stating the question, Aquinas gives a series of objections to the view he will go on to defend. Next, he briefly states his ownview (these paragraphs always begin ‘sed contra,’ ‘on the contrary’) before explaining it (‘respondeo dicendum,’ ‘I answer that’)and then replying to the objections. One needs to be careful in quoting from Aquinas—obviously what he writes in the Objections,for example, does not reflect his own view. (Some of the objections and replies have been omitted here.)
<!–_The following passages concern the mind’s relation to the things it knows and thinks about, chiefly, material beings. (Articles [One](#question-eighty-four-article-one-whether-the-soul-knows-bodies-through-the-intellect) and [Three](#article-three) constitute an attack on the rationalism of Plato.)_–>
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