| Summary: | Aquinas is clear that human intellect can only know itself through knowing others. Yet he seems to treat this need for others as a mark of imperfection: both angels and God can know themselves through themselves, and their intellects seem therefore to be more perfect than ours. In this article, however, I focus first on Thomas's teaching on angels' morning and evening knowledge, where he suggests that angels only know themselves perfectly if they know themselves in Another. Second, I turn to his theology of the Word, where he suggests that the Father only ever knows Himself in knowing another Person. By exploring these areas of Thomas's thought, I argue that to know oneself perfectly is to know oneself in another.
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