In his interpretation of Avicebron’s doctrine of the divine will, Weisheipl claims that Avicebron is a voluntarist because he holds that God’s will is superior to God’s intelligence. Yet, by reexamining his Fons vitae, I argue that Avicebron is not a voluntarist. For, according to Avicebron, God’s will can be considered in two ways—(1) as inactive or (2) as active—and in neither case is God’s will superior to God’s intelligence. I conclude by noting that if, as Weisheipl contends, (...) Avicebron—and not Augustine—was the source of the voluntarism that characterized thirteenth-century Augustinianism, that was the case only because thirteenth-century Christian thinkers misunderstood—as Weisheipl has—Avicebron’s doctrine of the divine will. For, in fact, Avicebron is not a voluntarist. (shrink)

I argue for a novel reading of the mover principle used in Aquinas’s motion proofs for God’s existence. Many interpret Aquinas’s principle as holding that everything in motion is moved by something else currently in contact with it. Others, following James Weisheipl, understand the principle as claiming only that everything being moved is being moved by something else. I argue against both readings and hold that the principle means that everything in motion is moved by something else—whether that something (...) else simply set it in motion or is currently moving it by contact. By looking closely at Aquinas’s inductive argument for the mover principle, I show that simultaneity between mover and moved is not necessary on Aquinas’s view. My interpretation allows me to respond to objections to Aquinas’s act-potency argument for the mover principle more convincingly than others, and sets the groundwork for robust engagement between Thomism and modern science. (shrink)

Anthony Kenny criticized the Five Ways, by Thomas Aquinas, in a widespread and influential book. About the First Way, among other critiques, Kenny considers that Thomas Aquinas failed to prove that “whatever is in motion is put in motion by another”. As this principle is central for the argument developed by Aquinas on the “first mover, put in movement by no other”, the First Way is insufficient and grounded on a mistake. In this article, Aristotle’s and Aquinas’s works are analysed (...) to expose that their arguments about movement are sound and persuasive. On the contrary, Kenny’s criticism is not consistent and is misled by bad interpretation of texts and concepts. Oderberg and Weisheipl agree with Aquinas and Aristotle, and their papers reinforce the conclusions of this article, favourable to the Medieval philosopher and against Kenny. (shrink)

The goal of the present article is to give an answer on the question: Does the first quaestio of the Prima Pars of Aquinas Summa theologiae represents a key for the general insight into the fundamental doctrines, the structure and the method of the most famous work of St. Thomas? Thomists like James Weisheipl answered in the negative to this question. But this paper intents to show by an careful analysis of Sth Ia, q. 1, that this treatise about (...) the necessity, the nature and the method of sacra doctrina is strictly dovetailed with the complete Summa. In a figurative way its possible to speak about this quaestio as a portal of the «cathedral» of the Summa, from which one can survey the complete ensemble of architectonic motifs building this cathedral. (shrink)

In this project, I offer an extended treatment of Gabirol's metaphysical doctrine of universal hylomorphism . My thesis is that, for Gabirol , matter signifies the most sublime moment of the Neoplatonic Intellect, and, by extension, the pre-determinate, essential existence which each thing has in virtue of its subsistence in said Intellect. My reading thus identifies matter with a grade of pure Being. Drawing upon Latin, Hebrew and Arabic Fons Vitae materials, I develop and support this thesis in light of (...) three of Gabirol's most vexing remarks about matter, viz., that matter is 'per se existens,' descended directly from the First Essence, and like a Divine Throne. In the course of developing my thesis, I argue for strictly distinguishing between Gabirol's UH and other Augustinian forms of UH, for revising the accounts of Pines, Weisheipl, Brunner and Schlanger, for the relevance of Saadiah's Sefer Yez&dotbelow;irah commentary in a study of Gabirol, and for the conceptual identification of creation ex nihilo and emanation. I also provide the reader with a larger Neoplatonic context for considering the superiority of the material over the formal, as I additionally examine relevant notions of materiality in a variety of other textual traditions, including the writings of Plotinus, Proclus, and the Neopythagorean Nicomachus, as well as various Jewish and Islamic texts . ;I close with a 'meta' analysis of Gabirol's metaphysical project in which I suggest treating Gabirol's interest in universal hylomorphism---and any other bits of cosmo-ontology---in terms of said doctrine's ability to effect the reader's soul in certain ethically and epistemologically crucial ways. In this move, I suggest that the importance of Gabirol's philosophical metaphysics is not best gauged by considering what his metaphysical propositions denote, but instrumentally by considering the effect said propositions are intended to have on the reader. I develop this point by providing analyses of Neoplatonic dialectic, textual rhetoric, and the mechanics of imagination in Gabirol's Arabic Neoplatonic tradition. (shrink)

Zur Zeit des Hl. Thomas von Aquin war es nicht leicht andere Religionen zu verstehen. Besonders auch deswegen nicht, weil die Verbreitung der Religion mit Macht und Krieg verbunden war. Aber gerade Thomas hat die sogenannte „Heidnische Lehre“ des Aristoteles in das Christentum eingeführt. In den Augen vieler orthodoxen Christen war dies ein unverzeihlicher Fehler. Mit dieser Lehre ist auch das Naturrecht (moralisch natürliche Gesetz) in die katholische Theologie eingeführt worden. Aber die Aristotelische Wiedereinführung (wenn nicht Revolution) in die christliche (...) Philosophie ist bis heute nicht ohne Hindernisse geschehen. Chesterton meint, dass Thomas korrigiert Platon mit Aristoteles, der die Dinge so genommen hat, wie er sie vorgefunden hat. Thomas nimmt die Dinge so, wie sie Gott geschaff en hat. Trotz allem ist es sehr wertvoll zu denken, dass die Wahrheit und der Glaube nicht im Widerspruch stehen können, und alles was die Wissenschaft ans Licht der Welt bringt, kann nicht im Widerspruch gegenüber dem Glauben sein. In den Werken des Hl. Thomas ist immer die Welt der positiven Schöpfung gegenwärtig. In dieser Arbeit möchten wir die Bedingungen der Zeit des Dialogs mit dem Islam und dem Judentum als Hintergrund für die Zusammenfassung der Summa contra Gentiles analysieren nach den Gedanken von M.-D. Chenu, O. H. Pesch, J. Weisheipl, K. G. Chesterton und anderen, die uns ein Bild über die nicht einfache aber trotzdem erreichbare Begegnung mit anderen Religionen zeigen und auch die Gefahr aufzeigen, die sich in einer nicht konsequenten Philosophie birgt. (shrink)

Despite his seminal role in the history of philosophy, the thirteenth century thinker Albert the Great remains little known. Prior to World War II, his massive literary output was not fully analyzed by historians largely because, as Etienne Gilson put it, of the amazing "amount of philosophical and scientific information heaped up in his writings." After the war, Albert's work began to receive more attention. By 1955, the Louvain medievalist Fernand Van Steenberghen could confidently declare that Albert was the first (...) thinker to establish "the rightful place of learning in Christianity." A decade later, James A. Weisheipl uncovered evidence of Albert's distinctively naturalistic interpretation of Aristotle in .. (shrink)

This volume completes the critical edition of the theological and philosophical works of the Venerable Inceptor. The introduction and critical apparatus are in Latin. The editors reverse the judgment of the late Philotheus Boehner and E. M. Buytaert by considering the Tractatus Minor and Elementarium Logicae to be of dubious authenticity on the basis of doctrinal and stylistic criteria. The Tractatus de Praedicamentis is also judged dubious for doctrinal reasons. This particular Tractatus and a late fourteenth/early fifteenth-century manuscript which contains (...) it have been studied in the literature by G. Etzkorn, J. Weisheipl, and L. M. de Rijk. The Tractatus de Relatione deviates doctrinally from Ockham. The authenticity of the Centiloquium was apparently doubted already in the fifteenth century. Finally, the Tractatus de Principiis Theologiae, though long considered authentic, is judged to be the work of a compiler summarizing Ockham's doctrines: it always uses the third person, dicit. (shrink)

It is not without a certain emotion that one opens this book devoted to the memory of a great scholar of medieval thought who worked and lived in the certainty that there cannot be a conflict between the Christian faith and science. In a significant essay, Benedict M. Ashley defends the idea of the philosophy of nature as continuous or identical with natural science. Ashley does allow, however, for so many divergences between philosophy of nature and natural science due to (...) later developments in science that this identification must be qualified. Steven E. Baldner points out some of the contradictions of Hartshorne's atomism: Hartshorne denies change and real causality. Anthony J. Celano recalls that Robert Kilwardby was very much aware that happiness as described by Aristotle is quite different from the beatitude promised by the Christian faith. The order of the divine entitative attributes in the Summa theologiae I, qq. 3-11 has baffled many a commentator. Lawrence Dewan connects it with some texts of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Jeremiah Hackett studies Roger Bacon's Moralis philosophia. Dealing with Luther's attitude toward St. Thomas, Denis R. Tanz accepts Erasmus's verdict that the weight given to Thomas in theology was an important factor in propelling Luther out of the Roman Catholic orbit. This opinion, however, confounds appearances with the real reason for leaving, namely, estrangement from several central positions of Catholic doctrine. It is a tribute to the Catholicity of Thomas that after 1519 Luther came to identify the Pope, the Church and all scholastic doctors with the Thomists and said that the Church had become the synagogue of the papists and the Thomists: Thomas had been made the arbiter of heresy. Mark F. Johnson stresses the sapiential character of the sacra doctrina. Mark D. Jordan wrestles with the question why Thomas wrote his Aristotelian commentaries. Arguing in the line of Owens's interpretation he reduces their importance with regard to Thomas's own positions. Jordan seems to think that Thomas's philosophy cannot be formulated without his theology, an explanation which is hardly satisfactory. Armand Maurer submits some reflections on St. Thomas's notion of presence. The question to what extent Albert the Great contributed to Aquinas's treatises of the morality of human acts and of natural law is examined by Ernest J. McCullough. Walter H. Principe points out how, according to Aquinas, food is assimilated into the veritas humanae naturae. Eric A. Reitan retraces Weisheipl's analysis of Aristotle's Physics and of St. Thomas' Commentary: the axiom, "whatever is moved, is moved by another" can be understood only within the context of the general science of nature. In his Liber de causis et processu universitatis Albert came to hold the same position as Thomas on the demonstrability of creation and of its beginning in time. Two final articles concern the difficulties underlying Aristotle's arguments in Physics 7 and 8, and Aquinas and Newton on causality: William Wallace connects Newton's universal gravitation with the axiom that nothing acts on itself. (shrink)

It is not without a certain emotion that one opens this book devoted to the memory of a great scholar of medieval thought who worked and lived in the certainty that there cannot be a conflict between the Christian faith and science. In a significant essay, Benedict M. Ashley defends the idea of the philosophy of nature as continuous or identical with natural science. Ashley does allow, however, for so many divergences between philosophy of nature and natural science due to (...) later developments in science that this identification must be qualified. Steven E. Baldner points out some of the contradictions of Hartshorne's atomism: Hartshorne denies change and real causality. Anthony J. Celano recalls that Robert Kilwardby was very much aware that happiness as described by Aristotle is quite different from the beatitude promised by the Christian faith. The order of the divine entitative attributes in the Summa theologiae I, qq. 3-11 has baffled many a commentator. Lawrence Dewan connects it with some texts of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Jeremiah Hackett studies Roger Bacon's Moralis philosophia. Dealing with Luther's attitude toward St. Thomas, Denis R. Tanz accepts Erasmus's verdict that the weight given to Thomas in theology was an important factor in propelling Luther out of the Roman Catholic orbit. This opinion, however, confounds appearances with the real reason for leaving, namely, estrangement from several central positions of Catholic doctrine. It is a tribute to the Catholicity of Thomas that after 1519 Luther came to identify the Pope, the Church and all scholastic doctors with the Thomists and said that the Church had become the synagogue of the papists and the Thomists: Thomas had been made the arbiter of heresy. Mark F. Johnson stresses the sapiential character of the sacra doctrina. Mark D. Jordan wrestles with the question why Thomas wrote his Aristotelian commentaries. Arguing in the line of Owens's interpretation he reduces their importance with regard to Thomas's own positions. Jordan seems to think that Thomas's philosophy cannot be formulated without his theology, an explanation which is hardly satisfactory. Armand Maurer submits some reflections on St. Thomas's notion of presence. The question to what extent Albert the Great contributed to Aquinas's treatises of the morality of human acts and of natural law is examined by Ernest J. McCullough. Walter H. Principe points out how, according to Aquinas, food is assimilated into the veritas humanae naturae. Eric A. Reitan retraces Weisheipl's analysis of Aristotle's Physics and of St. Thomas' Commentary: the axiom, "whatever is moved, is moved by another" can be understood only within the context of the general science of nature. In his Liber de causis et processu universitatis Albert came to hold the same position as Thomas on the demonstrability of creation and of its beginning in time. Two final articles concern the difficulties underlying Aristotle's arguments in Physics 7 and 8, and Aquinas and Newton on causality: William Wallace connects Newton's universal gravitation with the axiom that nothing acts on itself. (shrink)

The title is somewhat misleading in the current situation, since these essays stem from a Neoscholastic rather than a Neopositivistic background, and are chiefly concerned with suggesting in a rough way some relations between Aristotelian or Scholastic and contemporary scientific methods. The volume includes "Questions Science Cannot Answer" by Mortimer Adler, "The Logic of Induction" by Roland Houde, "Physico-chemical Methods and the Philosophy of Nature" by Léon Lortie, and "The Evolution of Scientific Method" by James A. Weisheipl.—J. J.

THE SCHOLARLY LITERATURE on Aquinas' De aeternitate mundi is considerable; the controversy which has spawned it seems to have involved two major points of dispute. First there is the problem of dating the work; while some commentators believe it to have been written at an earlier stage in Aquinas' career--in the 1250s--the majority view is that it is a much later work, written in the early 1270s. Second, there is the problem of the continuity of doctrine between this work and (...) the other texts Aquinas has left us on the issue of the world's temporal duration. Does he propose the same position in all, or does De aeternitate mundi represent a departure? These two points of dispute come together when scholars discuss the historical context of this work. Thomas Bukowski sees it as an early defence of an unchanging position against the attacks of Bonaventure; Ignatius Brady sees it as a late defence of an unchanging position against the attacks of John Pecham. John Wippel, by contrast, takes it as a late departure from a previous view, and James Weisheipl, concurring with Wippel, attributes this change to Aquinas' study of Aristotle's Physics in the period before his second Paris regency. (shrink)

This elegant and painstakingly detailed portrait of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose distinctive theme is the unity of his life and work, is an elaboration of the first section of the author's substantial article on Aquinas in the Dictionnaire de spiritualité. The present work consists of the following parts: a foreword; sixteen chapters which narrate and reflect upon the relevant events, including the composition of Aquinas' writings, between his birth in 1224/25 and his canonization on July 18, 1323 and its aftermath; (...) a summary chronology; a catalogue of writings and a bibliography, both established by Gilles Emery; and indexes of Aquinas' writings and of proper names. As this bare enumeration of contents suggests, the work resembles and indeed depends upon James A. Weisheipl's monumental Friar Thomas d'Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Works, which was originally published in 1974 and then reprinted "with addenda and corrigenda" in 1983. However, it also goes beyond Weisheipl's work in two important respects. (shrink)