The classic trichotomy identifies the three parts of man or woman as body,
mind and soul. Some philosophers pursued other trichotomies with eager intent.
For instance, Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), trying to close the gap between
faith and reason, discussed the “causal principles (agent, patient, act), the
potencies for the intellect (imagination, cogitative power, and memory and
reminiscence), and the acts of the intellect (concept, judgment, reasoning),
with all of those rooted in Aristotle; also the transcendentals of being
(unity, truth, goodness) and the requisites of the beautiful (wholeness,
harmony, radiance).”
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), seeking an age of reason, adapted the trichotomy
of higher cognition—understanding, judgment, and reason—which he correlated
with the soul's capacities of cognitive faculties, feeling of pleasure or
displeasure and the faculty of desire. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
(1770-1831) described the process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis “across a
pattern of trichotomies (e.g. being-nothingness-becoming,
immediate-mediate-concrete, abstract-negative-concrete); such trichotomies are
not just three-way classificatory divisions; they involve trios of elements functionally
interrelated in a process. They are often called triads.”
From Threes,
Chapter Eleven “Threes Forever”
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