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by death all human interior principles are corrupted. Therefore also the intellect itself is corrupted.
Obj. 2: Further, the human soul is hindered from understanding when the senses are tied, and by a distracted imagination, as explained above (Q. 84, AA. 7,8). But death destroys the senses and imagination, as we have shown above (Q. 77, A. 8). Therefore after death the soul understands nothing.
Obj. 3: Further, if the separated soul can understand, this must be by means of some species. But it does not understand by means of innate species, because it has none such; being at first "like a tablet on which nothing is written": nor does it understand by species abstracted from things, for it does not then possess organs of sense and imagination which are necessary for the abstraction of species: nor does it understand by means of species, formerly abstracted and retained in the soul; for if that were so, a child's soul would have no means of understanding at all: nor does it understand by means of intelligible species divinely infused, for such knowledge would not be natural, such as we treat of now, but the effect of grace. Therefore the soul apart from the body understands nothing.
_On the contrary,_ The Philosopher says (De Anima i, 1), "If the soul had no proper operation, it could not be separated from the body." But the soul is separated from the body; therefore it has a proper operation and above all, that which consists in intelligence. Therefore the soul can understand when it is apart from the body.
_I answer that,_ The difficulty in solving this question arises from the fact that the soul united to the body can understand only by turning to the phantasms, as experience shows. Did this not proceed from the soul's very nature, but accidentally through its being bound up with the body, as