Thomism, conceived of as the set of broad doctrines and style of thought expressed in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and of those who follow him, first emerged in the thirteenth century. Aquinas himself was born in 1225 into a religious culture in which the dominant tradition of speculative thought was a version of Christian neoplatonism heavily influenced by St. Augustine. Early in his studies as a Dominican, however, Aquinas came under the direction of Albert the Great, who (...) was to exercise an important role in communicating his own enthusiasm for innovations in philosophical, theological and scientific thought. (shrink)

A Thomistic ontology of spacetime seems impossible, given Thomas Aquinas’s (1224–1275) outdated science and mathematics. By extension, it would seem that his modern followers are foolhardy to attempt to defend such a view. Indeed, a critique of Jacques Maritain by Adolf Grünbaum proceeds apace, dismantling his attempts to save Thomistic philosophical realism from Einstein. However, Grünbaum’s attack was given in better form thirty years prior by the Belgian Thomist Charles De Koninck. The two critiques are analyzed here. De Koninck’s arguments (...) are superior to Grünbaum’s due to their greater precision as refutations as well as their more adequate ontology of spacetime, made possible but not explicit in Thomistic philosophy. (shrink)

This book, written by well-known students of Étienne Gilson and especially dedicated to Armand A. Maurer, helps inaugurate a long-overdue special series in philosophy honoring Gilson’s legendary scholarship. It presents wide-ranging expositions of Thomist realism in the tradition of Gilsonian humanism covering themes related to philosophy in general, historical method, aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, and politics.

This guide to the most interesting work that has recently appeared on Aquinas reflects the revival of interest in his work.

Martin Heidegger devotes extensive discussion to medieval philosophers, particularly to their treatment of Truth and Being. On both these topics, Heidegger accuses them of forgetting the question of Being and of being responsible for subjugating truth to the modern crusade for certainty: ‘truth is denied its own mode of being’ and is subordinated ‘to an intellect that judges correctly’. Though there are some studies that discuss Heidegger’s debt to and criticism of medieval thought, particularly that of Thomas Aquinas, there is (...) no constructive reply to his assertions. As a result, Heidegger’s critique had an unprecedented effect on the credibility of medieval philosophy, whereby great portions of the philosophical community dismiss it altogether as an illegitimate Onto‐Theology. It is the aim of this study to offer a constructive reply that will fundamentally grapple with these allegations. By constructive reply we mean not only a reply that avoids the problems Heidegger raises regarding existence, essence and truth, but more importantly, one that uses Heidegger’s criticism in order to present a more insightful account of these notions. The present study is composed of two parts where the second serves as a sort of addendum. The first part, the core of this study, is an attempt to develop an understanding of the distinction between essence and existence that, on the one hand, accords with Heidegger’s criticism while on the other hand advances our understanding of how we think and understand reality. After presenting Heidegger’s depiction of Aquinas’s distinction between essence and existence (esse) as a real distinction, the study will present several views propounded by scholars of Aquinas regarding the status of this distinction. It will be argued that it is not clear whether the distinction is real, formal or conceptual, and that different types of distinction are applied in different places, particularly in regard to the phantasm that Aquinas considers essential to the human act of thinking. The second part diverges from the first part and focuses on Heidegger’s criticism of Aquinas’s conception of truth as adequation, i.e., what it is that grounds the possibility of truth as adequation. This divergence is necessary in order to present a full metaphysical response to Heidegger’s criticism. Since the aim of the present study is to argue that Aquinas’s philosophical system can contend with Heidegger’s criticism, a partial reply would greatly diminish its effectiveness. (shrink)

The publication in 1975 of Edward O. Wilson's Sociobiology provoked a great controversy, for in that work Wilson claimed that ethics was rooted in human biology. On the first page of the book, he asserted that our deepest intuitions of right and wrong are guided by the emotional control centers of the brain, which evolved via natural selection to help the human animal exploit opportunities and avoid threats in the natural environment. In 1998, the publication of Wilson's Consilience renewed the (...) controversy, as he continued to argue for explaining ethics through the biology of the moral sentiments.Footnotes* I am grateful to the Earhart Foundation for a research grant that supported the writing of this essay. (shrink)

This paper presents a Thomistic analysis of addiction that incorporates scientific, philosophical, and theological features of addiction. I will argue first, that a Thomistic hylomorphic anthropology provides a cogent explanation of the causal interactions between human action and neuroplasticity. I will employ Karol Wojtyła’s account of self-determination to further clarify the kind of neuroplasticity involved in addiction. Next, I will elucidate how a Thomistic anthropology can accommodate, without reductionism, both the neurophysiological and psychological elements of addiction, and finally, I will (...) make clear how Thomism can provide an ethics and a theology of grace that can be integrated with these ontological and scientific considerations into a holistic theory of addiction. (shrink)

The important work, exquisitely translated by Mark Wauck, brings the essential elements of philosophy into view as a cohesive, readily understandable, and erudite structure, and does so rigorously in the best tradition of St. Thomas.

Animalism, according to its strongest proponents, is the view that human beings are ‘essentially or most fundamentally animals’. Specifically, ‘we are essentially animals if we couldn’t possibly exist without being animals’ (Olson 2008). Although contemporary animalism offers an account superior to its Lockean competitors, Olson’s ‘biological approach’ has certain limitations, particularly in its denial of any psychological continuity whatsoever as either necessary or sufficient for individual persistence through time. I propose a number of amendments towards a Thomistic variety of animalism (...) that avoids these difficulties. Although prone to misinterpretation, animalism understood properly is compatible with Aquinas’s theory of subsistent intellect. Against recent challenges, I defend the view that Thomistic animalism not only is intelligible, but is indeed crucial for understanding Aquinas’s view of human nature and rationality. (shrink)

According to the Conscience Principle, it is never morally permissible to act contrary to conscience. The plausibility of this being a genuine moral principle depends on what conscience is, whether it can be mistaken, and what its role is in general moral psychology. Thomas Aquinas endorses and defends a unique version of the Conscience Principle. What’s especially interesting about his unorthodox (for his time) view on conscience is that it seems to split the difference between the views we might expect (...) to support the Conscience Principle: On the one hand, thoroughgoing subjectivism on which all moral facts and obligations are a function of agents’ mental states, and on the other hand, objectivist intuitionism on which there is an external moral law but a faculty of conscience gives us inerrant access to it. Aquinas claims that there are objective moral truths, that conscience fallibly represents those truths, and yet, conscience always generates moral obligations, whether it is correct or incorrect. Aquinas’s view will strike many initially as puzzling, perhaps even incoherent. To make sense of it, we must understand that for Aquinas the Conscience Principle is not just one moral principle among many; instead, it falls out of a novel and philosophically powerful metaethical view of moral obligations (or what we might call requiring moral reasons). (shrink)

This paper looks to make a small contribution to the critical engagement between philosophical Thomism and phenomenology, inspired by the recent work of the German phenomenologist and hermeneutic thinker Günter Figal. My suggestion is that Figal’s proposal for a broad-based hermeneutical philosophy rooted in a renewed realism concerning things in their externality and “objectivity” provides great potential for a renewed encounter with Thomist realism. The paper takes up this issue through a brief examination of some of the more problematic (...) idealistic features of Kantian and Husserlian thought, before turning to consider how these aspects of the tradition are reframed within Figal’s phenomenological realism. The Thomist position concerning the relation between things and their understanding (including the complex matter of the verbum mentis) is then raised, drawing both on Aquinas’s own texts and the interpretations of Jacques Maritain. Some striking emerging affinities between this tradition and Figal’s hermeneutic phenomenology are noted. (shrink)

What is the distinction between understanding and forming a concept? In my view, for Aquinas, intelligere (the act of understanding) and dicere (the forming of a verbum or mental word) are not two different acts, but simply two different aspects of the same act of understanding. In the following, I will explore more in depth what this distinction means for Aquinas. Firstly, I will give a mostly doctrinal or systematic overview of the issue and, secondly, I will support my claims (...) with relevant textual evidence, taken exclusively from Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae. This study, as an appendix, is part of “The Influence of Kant in Transcendental Thomism: Rahner, Lonergan and Von Balthasar” (forthcoming). In my view, Lonergan’s way of distinguishing intelligere and dicere is different from St. Thomas’ way. In the body of my book, I focus on Lonergan’s reasons to distinguish these notions in his own particular way, whereas this study focuses on St. Thomas’ doctrine. It is my hope that the following lines will foster an understanding of St. Thomas’ epistemology and of its application to Trinitarian theology. (shrink)

Applies a generally Thomistic framework to Earp and colleagues' (2013) discussion of anti-love biotechnology. Discusses some of the constraints that should be placed on the use of such a technology from a Thomistic perspective.

A healthy Thomism is one engaged with the discoveries and challenges of other traditions and disciplines. In this article I argue for one way of integrating Thomistic ethics and recent work in psychology. I assert that Thomists should think of virtue as a kind of expertise, something that psychologists have studied for decades. First, I provide context and motivation for my integration project. Next, I offer a definition of expertise and contrast it with recent discussions of skill and Aristotle's (...) account of techne. Third, I argue that virtue and expertise are deeply similar. Finally, I conclude by showing some benefits of considering virtue to be a kind of expertise for virtue formation. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers of mathematics are deadlocked between two alternative ontologies for numbers: Platonism and nominalism. According to contemporary mathematical Platonism, numbers are real abstract objects, i.e. particulars which are nonetheless “wholly nonphysical, nonmental, nonspatial, nontemporal, and noncausal.” While this view does justice to intuitions about numbers and mathematical semantics, it leaves unclear how we could ever learn anything by mathematical inquiry. Mathematical nominalism, by contrast, holds that numbers do not exist extra-mentally, which raises difficulties about how mathematical statements could be (...) true or false. Both theories, moreover, leave inexplicable how mathematics could have such a close relationship with natural science, since neither abstract nor mental objects can influence concrete physical objects. The Thomist understanding of quantity as an accident inhering in concrete substances breaks this deadlock by granting numbers a foundation in extra-mental reality which explains why numeric expressions are relevant in natural science and how we come to know the truth or falsity of mathematical statements. Further, this kind of moderate realism captures the semantic advantages of the Platonists and the ontological parsimony of the nominalists (since for Thomists quantity is not a separate, free-standing ontological addition). Despite these advantages, the Thomistic understanding of number has been out of favor since the work of Cantor, who argued that actual infinities (regarded by Aristotelians as impossible) are required for modern developments in mathematics. This paper frees philosophers of mathematics to embrace the advantages of Thomistic realism by showing that Cantor’s understanding of actual and potential infinity is not the same as Aquinas’s, and that potential infinities (in Aquinas and Aristotle’s sense) can do all the work Cantor claims for actual infinities in modern mathematics. (shrink)

William Norris Clarke, S.J., one of the leading Thomist scholars in the United States, came to the Philippines recently and delivered a series of lectures in the Ateneo de Manila University and the University of Santo Tomas on various philosophical topics inspired by the thought of St. Thomas. Fr. Clarke is now a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy in Fordham University. He was co-founder and editor (l961-85) of the International Philosophical Quarterly and is the author of some 60 articles, plus the (...) following books: The Philosophical Approach to God, The Universe as Journey, Person and Being, Explorations in Metaphysics: Being—God—Person, and The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics (Fall, 2000).He continues to fulfill his mission of propagating the thoughts of St. Thomas—-the “creative retrieval of St. Thomas,” as he puts it—-in and out of the U.S.An brief excerpt from this interview was originally published in Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture1/3, 1997. (shrink)

A fresh explication of the Thomist justification of self-defense casts off the hobbles of the principle of double effects to find a more secure footing in the historicaldevelopment of subjective natural rights by medieval jurists, and a straight-forward application to the latent threat of death in childbirth posed by non-consensual pregnancy. By articulating the implicit Thomistic right to defensive abortion in terms of conditional rights bestowed in Creation as correlative to particular natural law duties, justly proportionate limits to defensive abortion (...) are identified, and balanced against the forfeited or reserved natural rights variously imputed to conceptus and embryo in non-consensual pregnancies. Subsequently, the varieties of involuntary consent are examined from a Thomist perspective with a view to their relevance in justifying recourse to a rehabilitated practice of defensive abortion when free and full consent to impregnation and childbirth is absent. (shrink)

In Advice to Christian philosophers Alvin Plantinga suggested that Christians who propose to be philosophers should not limit themselves to being philosophers who happen, incidentally, to be Christians. Instead, they should develop a Christian philosophy. From this, however, a problem followed, which is still seen as a reason to deny that a Christian philosophy is possible. It seems implausible that the outcome of the interaction between faith and philosophy is, really, philosophy and not merely theology. Plantinga did not deal with (...) this problem. Unlike him, thinkers of various orientations, especially scholars of Thomas Aquinas, had discussed it during the French querelle in the 1930s. In this article, I argue that they did not solve this problem because they did not examine the relationship between faith and philosophy by considering what faith requires in order to relate to reason. Instead, this consideration was suggested by Plantinga’s Advice and, long before, it had been developed in detail by Thomas Aquinas. It is, therefore, time to propose Thomist Advice to Christian Philosophers. (shrink)

Through an in-depth study of four key figures - Pierre Rousselot, Joseph Marechal, Jacques Maritain, and Etienne Gilson - From Unity to Pluralism traces the evolution of Thomism in the first half of the twentieth century. Through their work, Thomisism encountered contemporary thought and rediscovered its authentic roots, and the ideal of a univocal, unitary doctrine of Scholastic truth embodied in the unambiguous teachings of Thomas Aquinas, which had inspired the Thomist revival at the end of the nineteenth century, (...) gradually gave way. The result is the emergence of pluralism within the system itself and the independent development of the theologies of Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan. (shrink)

Cognitive therapies are among the most popular forms of psychotherapy in the United States (e.g., Robins, Gosling & Craik 1999). It goes without saying that those seeking psychotherapeutic treatment are best served by a profession whose representatives thoughtfully examine their methods of choice. Giuseppe Butera’s article on cognitive therapy and Thomistic psychology is truly thoughtful, as he gives careful philosophical consideration to the basic premises of Aaron Beck’s cognitive approach to therapy. Accordingly, Butera’s work is a valuable contribution to the (...) fields of psychology and psychiatry. Butera carries out his analyses in a manner that is at once conscientious, circumspect, and quite generous. The .. (shrink)

In her influential essay ‘Virtues and Vices,’ Philippa Foot argues that virtues are essentially corrective, moderating between two vicious extremes. She also contends that Aquinas champions this view, too. In contrast, I argue that Foot misreads Aquinas; that Aquinas's actual theory of virtue is incompatible with the corrective theory Foot defends; and that those who endorse Aquinas's Augustinian theology should side with his perfective theory of virtue rather than Foot's corrective one.

Every academic endeavour rests ultimately on a particular assumption of human nature. Two views of human nature are compared and contrasted: (1) a utilitarian naturalistic humanism which holds essentially the view that human nature is materialistic, and (2) an Aristotelian-Thomistic natural law/virtue ethics humanism which holds the view that human nature is both materialistic and spiritualistic. This paper argues that the latter view better captures and explains the metaphysical realities of human nature. In addition, the role of virtues and its (...) applications in management practice are presented. Organisational policy mechanisms and managerial implications will depend on which view of human nature one adopts. The failure to integrate the virtues and natural law ethical principles into management practice threatens the stability and survival of the firm since they are required to correct the dysfunctional aspects and ethical deficits of the current business philosophy. (shrink)

Alexandra Pârvan's appropriation of Augustine's metaphysical distinction between self and action is both creative and laudable. It surely has the potential to add an important element to the treatment of both victims and perpetrators of violence by helping them to change negative self-models that puts them at risk "for both receipt and perpetration of relationship violence". What I would like to do is suggest ways that this potential might be increased i) through a more refined understanding of Augustine's distinction between (...) self and action, and ii) through the appropriation of later medieval developments in philosophical psychology, developments that find their classic formulation in the... (shrink)

It is nearly impossible to make an adequate historical balance of the various contemporary interpretations of the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas. The article pays special attention to the numerous studies recently published concerning the Thomistic doctrines of being, personal being, participation, and the metaphysical concept of creation.

In this article, ideas from St. Thomas Aquinas's neo-Aristotelian philosophy pertaining to the nature of human existence are used to arrive at a metapsychological orientation to child psychology. Four primary characteristics were identified as being fundamental to a Thomistic perspective on child development: anthropological holism, vitalistic integrative development, inherent sociality, and tactile interpersonal relatedness. These characteristics served as guiding themes for the articulation of a succinct, coherent narrative describing the nature of a Thomistic child psychology. Developmental insights from the works (...) of several psychologists were used to assist in the creation of this narrative. Associated characteristics of a Thomistic perspective on child psychology and some remarks concerning the future development of such an approach are provided at the conclusion of this analysis. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Alongside a revival of interest in Thomism in philosophy, scholars have realised its relevance when addressing certain contemporary issues in bioethics. This book offers a rigorous interpretation of Aquinas's metaphysics and ethical thought, and highlights its significance to questions in bioethics. Jason T. Eberl applies Aquinas’s views on the seminal topics of human nature and morality to key questions in bioethics at the margins of human life – questions which are currently contested in the academia, politics and the media (...) such as: When does a human person’s life begin? How should we define and clinically determine a person’s death? Is abortion ever morally permissible? How should we resolve the conflict between the potential benefits of embryonic stem cell research and the lives of human embryos? Does cloning involve a misuse of human ingenuity and technology? What forms of treatment are appropriate for irreversibly comatose patients? How should we care for patients who experience unbearable suffering as they approach the end of life? _Thomistic Principles and Bioethics_ presents a significant philosophical viewpoint which will motivate further dialogue amongst religious and secular arenas of inquiry concerning such complex issues of both individual and public concern. (shrink)

Aquinas’s conception of faith has been taken to involve believing in a way that is expressly out of keeping with the evidence. Rather than being produced by evidence, the confidence involved in faith is a product of the will’s decision. This causes Aquinas’s conception of faith to look flagrantly irrational. Herein, I offer an interpretation of Aquinas’s position on faith that has not been previously proposed. I point out that Aquinas responds to the threat of faith’s irrationality by explicitly maintaining (...) that one may reasonably believe by faith because of an instinct to believe. I go on to point out other instances in which instincts amount to legitimate epistemic grounds for Aquinas. Given that this dimension of Aquinas’s thought is not well developed, I close by introducing some extensions of it in the work of John Henry Newman as well as points of contrast. (shrink)

Analytical Thomism is a recent label for a newer kind of approach to the philosophical and natural theology of St Thomas Aquinas. It illuminates the meaning of Aquinas's work for contemporary problems by drawing on the resources of contemporary Anglo-Saxon analytical philosophy, the work of Frege, Wittgenstein, and Kripke proving particularly significant. This book expands the discourse in contemporary debate, exploring crucial philosophical, theological and ethical issues such as: metaphysics and epistemology, the nature of God, personhood, action and meta-ethics. (...) All those interested in the thought of St Thomas Aquinas, and more generally contemporary Catholic scholarship, problems in philosophy of religion, and contemporary metaphysics, will find this collection an invaluable resource. (shrink)

In this paper I seek to consider the project of analytical Thomism with particular regard to Aquinas’s metaphysics of esse. My overall conclusion is that Thomas’s thought on esse is part and parcel of a way of philosophizing that is alien to analytical philosophy and is such that analytical philosophy is constitutionally unable to come to terms with it. In order to argue for such a conclusion, I begin with a presentation of Aquinas’s metaphysics of esse. I then respond (...) to the objection that arguably some analytical philosophers have already arrived at the same thought at which Aquinas arrived, thereby blocking the way to my denial of the possibility of an encounter between analytical philosophy and Thomist esse. Having removed that obstacle, I argue that analytical philosophy is constitutionally unable to come to terms with Thomist esse. (shrink)

Perfectionism is the view that what is intrinsically good is the fulfillment of human nature or the development and exercise of the characteristic human capacities. An important objection to the theory is what Gwen Bradford calls the “Deep Problem”: explaining why nature-fulfillment is good. We argue that situating perfectionism within a Thomistic metaethical framework and adopting Aquinas's account of the metaphysical “convertibility” of being and goodness gives us a solution to the Deep Problem. In short, the fulfillment of human nature (...) consists in the actualization of human potentialities or fullness of human being, and because being is ultimately the same thing as goodness, the fulfillment of human nature is good. We show that Thomistic perfectionism meets the requirements for an answer to the Deep Problem, provides the best explanation possible for the goodness of nature fulfillment, and is a natural foundation for perfectionist theories of value. (shrink)

All those interested in the thought of St Thomas Aquinas, and more generally contemporary Catholic scholarship, problems in philosophy of religion, and ...

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Aquinas, Aristotle, and Descriptive Metaphysics Substance and Accident Form, Matter, and Identity Individuation Substance, Causality, and Science Individuals, Universals, and Abstraction Mind and Soul Essence, Existence, and God.

In recent years, attempts to reconcile God's exhaustive providential control over the future and human freedom frequently appeal to Molinism. Through the theory of Middle Knowledge, it is claimed, God can exercise meticulous providence over free creatures while preserving the libertarian agency of those creatures. Historically, both Thomist and Reformed theologians have critiqued the theory of Middle Knowledge for effectively eliminating God's aseity, making God's knowledge in some sense dependent on some non-God reality. In this paper, I aim to push (...) the discussion forward by integrating Thomist, Molinist, and Reformed perspectives in the view I call Molinist Thomist Calvinism. By resourcing each of these views, I try to offer a coherent way to affirm God's meticulous providence, including God's unconditional election of some and not others, and morally significant human freedom. (shrink)