Aquinas' Doctrine of Form and Matter

The presumption here is that we can come to know the very basic structures of reality imperfectly but truly as they are in themselves, and this in turn allows us to speak rightly about the metaphysical nature of reality. If I understand why a given thing is the kind of thing it is, I achieve an adequate mental understanding regarding the thing in itself. Now this is not a Kantian order of reflection where we pass from a construction of the mind,. The construal of the transcendental subject to the outside world does not test the theory like a theorem of Newtonian physics that we try out through scientific experiment.