How much of Thomism (or scholasticism in general) is just wordplay?
I can't help but notice that scholastic approach to philosophy splits incredibly fine hairs with a massive array of tools but in the end most of it seems to focus on the grammar. For example,
>a=b
>a+1=b+1
both of these statements carry the same information. There is nothing I can find out from the first claim that isn't also dicoverable from the second. It's just a difference in formulation. Thomas calls this termini relationis with aequipollentes being the principium commune.
>it's tilted to the right when I face it
>it's tilted to the left when I face away from it
Again, there is not a single thing can be extracted from the first line that cannot be inferred from the second line (given euclidian space). Thomas calls this oppositio secundum adaliquid per respectum to the perspective.


I'm not one to freak out over terminology, but I tried to discuss it with a LLM and it seems Aquinas sees a world of difference in mere rhetorical changes? How am I supposed to trust this man's nuanced and heaven-reaching extrapolations if even mere re-phrasing is buried in dozens of loaded terms that basically just translate everything to latin and to his paradigm? Am I just being filtered?

>>17866156 (OP)
thomism and really metaphysics in general is obnoxiously complex to the point Aristotle straight up says most people shouldn’t waste their time studying it.
the latin terms are just used to identify known principles, so you have something distinct to refer back to, William Lane Craig does a simpler version IE; Premise 1: Point B, etc