Abstract

This edition of Ia IIae pp. 49-67 of the Summa is competent, inexpensive, and complete, and so marks a welcome first in editions of this part of the Summa. After a discussion of habits in general, or what in contemporary philosophy of mind would be more familiar under the rubric of dispositions, virtue is located as a specific sort of habit in the soul, i.e., man, considered according to his real, intrinsic principle of activity. Next St. Thomas moves to a general consideration of the "Intellectual Virtues", the "Moral Virtues", the "Cardinal Virtues", and the "Theological Virtues". Finally, St. Thomas runs back over this basic classification by considering "The Cause of Virtue", "The Mean of Virtue", "The Connection of the Virtues", "The Equality of the Virtues", and "The Duration of the Virtues after this Life". This book has obvious historical interest. But it is also important for contemporary discussions in the philosophy of mind. For example, even if we defer to the caveat that the theological points made by St. Thomas may be gratuitous, it is interesting to consider if those contemporary philosophers of mind who display a decided tendency to explain dispositions in terms of overt, occurrent episodes could come anywhere near adequately describing, let alone explaining, the mine of distinctions vis-à-vis just the moral, intellectual, and cardinal virtues, which Aquinas both describes in ordinary language and neatly explains by means of a theoretical framework containing a thoroughly metaphysical doctrine of potentiality.—E. A. R.