Clear or distinct?
In the realm of things which subsist, the division between clarity and distinctness maps well onto the division between metaphysics and physical science. Metaphysics is extremely clear, non-hypothetical, eternal, etc. but one must be able to tolerate that it never attains to the concrete, tangible world. We can talk about causes, but not about what is the cause of such and such. Metaphysics is continually overreaching itself, assuming that it knows things about the physical world that it can only be known by hypothetical, experimental methods. Physical science gives much more concretion and distinct knowledge — one is in awe of the degree of precision they can bring to their concepts — but one must be willing to tolerate never attaining to the non-hypothetical. There are trade-offs either way.
James is probably the sharpest Thomist philosopher on the Internet, at least that I’ve stumbled across. And this musing — on the gulf of difference between “clarity” and “distinctness” (concepts which most people, including myself, would assume are very similar and so tend to conflate) — is a fine example of that. Thomism looks at many such situations, and can draw some truly marvelous things out of the differences between seemingly similar things.
But why note the difference at all?
…in the measure that our knowledge is clear, it cannot be very distinct and in the measure that it is distinct, it cannot be clear. For beings that know as we do, making knowledge more distinct means getting further and further from those things about which we are most certain; and the things about which we are most certain are the most mixed together and abstract.
That’s why.
