The far reaching changes in man's social and personal life taking place in our lifetime underline the need for a sound ethical evaluation of our rights and duties and of human behaviour both on the individual level and in the political society. On many issues judgments of value vary widely and a consultation of the thought of Thomas Aquinas on the basic questions will be helpful, the more since he is not only one of the greatest philosophers but also succeeded (...) in integrating in his moral philosophy the wisdom of the ancients, in particular of Aristotle and the Stoa. This book presents Aquinas's thought on such central questions as man's happiness, how to determine the morality of our actions, the natural law and the main virtues, as well as on the common good, war, human labour, love and friendship. Throughout the book the intellectual character of this moral philosophy is pointed out and problems are set in a historical perspective. (shrink)

Metaphysics, formerly the queen of science, fell into oblivion under the onslaught of empiricism and positivism and its very possibllity came to be denied. Professor Elders traces the history of this process and shows how St. Thomas innovated in determining both the subject of metaphysics and the manner in which one enters this science, particularly in the framework of his Aristotle commentaries. The work then considers being and its properties, its divisions into being in act and being in potency, into (...) the act of being essence, and into substance and the accidents. Finally the causes of being are considered. The work also introduces and surveys the extensive literature of Thomas interpretation of the past 50 years. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Philosophical theology is the systematic inquiry about God's existence and being. We find it in Aristotle's Metaphysics, in Cicero's De natura ...

Finally the causes of being are considered. The work also introduces and surveys the extensive literature of Thomas interpretation of the past 50 years.

The Physics is a most remarkable work, and profoundly influenced Medieval Philosophers. Thomas Aquinas wrote a detailed, impressive commentary. This essay studies in particular the composition of the Physics as Thomas saw it, his thorough study of Aristotle’s way of arguing and the important distinction he made between disputative arguments, which are only partially true, and arguments which determine the truth. Aristotle frequently uses proofs which are wrong when one considers the proper nature of bodies, but possible considering their common (...) nature. Thomas accepts proofs in the field of physics but discards those related to a certain mathematization of nature. Aristotle holds the unlimited possibility of movements becoming faster or slower, but according to Aquinas he is considering things in general : when we consider specific bodies there is a fastest movement. Thomas speaks of a way of reading a text which is according the intention of Aristotle, and proposes an understanding of particular texts based on the general doctrine of the Stagirite. Sometimes he goes beyond the text, as when defending the unity of time as dependent on the unity of the First Mover. The essay shows that in the commentary a coherent philosophy of nature shaping up. In some places Aquinas brings in God’s causality: nature is nothing else but the plan of divine art, placed within things. The study of nature shows that there is a first principle of the whole nature which is above everything, sc. God who gives being to things. (shrink)

Les écoles qui, dans un passé récent, avaient la haute main dans le domaine philosophique, ont désormais perdu du terrain et, face aux nombreux problèmes auxquels nous sommes confrontés, la pensée de saint Thomas jouit d'une grande actualité. Partout dans le monde, on peut voir un intérêt croissant pour l'étude de sa pensée. Toutefois, sur plusieurs points importants, les présentations qu'on fait de sa philosophie sont divergentes. En suivant au plus près les textes eux-mêmes, l'auteur de cet ouvrage se penche (...) sur plusieurs de ces questions en débat : les rapports avec le platonisme, l'entrée en métaphysique et l'organisation de celle-ci, la doctrine de l'être, l'importance des premiers principes, l'analogie, le fondement de la morale, vérité et liberté, l'unité de l'homme... Ecrites sur une trentaine d'années, ces études pourront aider à faire connaître les enseignements fondamentaux de celui qu'on appelle le Docteur commun. (shrink)

Reading Aristotle with Thomas Aquinas: His Commentaries on Aristotle's Major Works offers an original and decisive work for the understanding of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. For decades his commentaries on the major works of Aristotle have been the subject of lively discussions. Are his commentaries faithful and reliable expositions of the Stagirite's thought or do they contain Thomas's own philosophy and are they read through the lens of Thomas's own Christian faith and in doing so possibly distorting Aristotle? In (...) order to be able to provide clarity and offer a nuanced response to this question, a careful study of all the relevant texts is needed. This is precisely what the author sets out do to in this work. Each chapter is devoted to one of the twelve commentaries Thomas wrote on major works of Aristotle including both his massive and influential commentaries on the Metaphysics, Physics and Nicomachean Ethics as well as lesser known commentaries. Elders places Thomas's commentary in its historical context, reviews the Greek, Arabic and Latin translation and reception of Aristotle's text as well as contemporary interpretations thereof and presents the reader with a thorough presentation and analysis of the content of the commentary, drawing attention to all the places where Thomas intervenes and makes special observations. In this way the reader can study Aristotle's treatises with Thomas as guide. The conclusion reached is that Thomas's commentaries are a masterful and faithful presentation of Aristotle's thought and of that of Thomas himself. Thomas's Christian faith does not falsify Aristotle's text, but gives occasionally an outlook at what lies behind philosophical thought. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas and His Predecessors takes us on a voyage through the history of philosophical thought as present in the works of Thomas Aquinas. It is a synthetic presentation of the works and thought of the great predecessors of Aquinas, as he kne.

Apologetisch overzicht van de wijsgerige en theologisch inzichten van de middeleeuwse filosoof (1224-1274).

With commendable zeal Horst Seidl has made a German translation of the integral text of the Posterior Analytics, a treatise which has exercised a considerable influence, not only in classical antiquity and the Middle Ages, but also in the modern period. As William Wallace has shown even Galileo, a scientist, owes a great deal to Aristotle's theory of science.

David Bostock revisits Aristotle’s theory of matter which was already discussed in some papers of volume 1. He warns the reader that Aristotle would have been surprised by the explanations some propose of his doctrine. Prime matter is, in the first place, the stuff the four elements are made of ; the elements function in their turn as matter for still higher things. Bostock believes that there are several ultimate kinds of matter which cannot change into one another. The atoms (...) would be the basic elements of the bodies, a function fulfilled by matter according to Aristotle. Obviously Bostock does not distinguish between substantial and accidental reality. In a fine paper Gottfried Heinemann explains the sense of such terms as “nature,” “matter,” and “craft” in Aristotle. He attempts to approach matter not from the ontological point of view as a potential component of being, but as that which is used in artifacts. From there it comes to mean what underlies the coming-to-being of natural things. (shrink)

In 1997 an international conference on Aristotle and modern science took place in Thessaloniki. Aristotle’s view of nature—his criticism of the atomists, on the one hand, and modern science, on the other—seem to be widely opposed, but in recent years science has changed so much that scientists resort to certain basic notions of Aristotle’s natural philosophy to underpin their theories and make material nature more intelligible. In a first paper Hilary Putnam argues against Victor Gaston that Aristotle’s theory of cognition (...) is a “ direct realism” and not as many say a theory based on representation. Perception and thinking are in direct contact with things and their properties. In a charming comparison Bas C. van Fraassen argues that both tragedy and science are subspecies of representation. As in poetry, in science the inexplicable is kept off stage. John P. Anton is confident that the revival of Aristotle’s model of science can provide a solution to the question of the unity of the various sciences. He levels a stinging attack at Putnam’s interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of cognition. Lambros Couloubaritsis voices amazement that in Physics IV Aristotle says nothing about the creative capacity of time, but believes that the notion of “appropriate time” will bring this out. James R. Brown argues that the main stream of science stemming from the seventeenth century is a fusion of the Platonic and mechanic traditions, but that in recent years Aristotle has made an impressive comeback. He examines to what extent the notion of potentiality may be in agreement with and help explain certain physical facts perceived by common sense observation, although it does no justice to quantum “ bizarreness”. He sees better help in the Platonic account of formal causality. Speaking about levels of reality Basarab Nicolescu believes that the universe is self-creating, showing an open structure. A flow of information traverses the various levels of reality. The notion of potency, we are told by Ephtichios Bitsakis, exercises quite some attraction on scientists. Indeed, Aristotle is a precursor of scientific realism, but his theories are marred by many inconsistencies: the Prime Mover, final causality, and entelechy contradict his dynamic view of nature and should be abandoned. In the transformation of massive particles into nonmassive ones the actual mass becomes potential. Thomas M. Olshewsky points out that Aristotle has a differentiated notion of prime matter and rejects absolute prime matter. Jagdish Hattiangadi suggests giving up the idea of substance. Demetra Sfendoni-Mentzou also tackles “the always actual question” of what matter is for Aristotle. Nowadays the idea of stable particles has disappeared and we have to deal with what is potentially real. (shrink)

In his detailed and well-argued study of the De interpretatione, Whitaker shows that the treatise is a coherent whole and is closely linked to the Topics and the Sophistici Elenchi, rather than to the Categories and the Prior Analytics as tradition has it. Convinced of the dialectical character of the book he rejects the title as spurious. It should be περὶ ἀντιφάσεως. In the first chapter Whitaker defends the reading πρώτων in 16a8 and explains that falsehood is stating as one (...) things which are in reality separated from each other, or as separate things which are one. Next he deals with the analysis of nouns and verbs. Departing from Alexander, he is right in holding that only man has speech. Animals can show something but do not signify it. The difficult sentence “being by itself is nothing” is understood as follows: being represents the combination of subject and predicate in an assertion. By itself it is nothing, but when used as a copula it gets an additional signification. However, I do not think that this understanding of προσημαίνειν is correct. In the interpretation of Whitaker, the text should simply say “it gets a meaning” without the “additional.” On this point one may usefully compare the commentary by St. Thomas Aquinas, In I Perihermeneias, lesson 5, which reviews the various options. The verb “to be” alone does not signify that something is, but it denotes pure actuality. (shrink)

This is a delightful book which tries to solve the puzzle of Nicomachean Ethics 5.5: did Aristotle make a contribution to economic theory or are his statements without significance? Meikle argues that what Aristotle does in this chapter is analyze a property of things, namely their exchange value. Such things as houses, horses, beds are not really commensurable, but the degree to which people need them is. Their value in money is the conventional representation of this need. However, Aristotle has (...) no theory of economic value. He regards the development of exchange as part of the emergence of the polis from the family and the village. The breeding of money from money is unnatural. Aristotle is concerned about the invasion of the whole political and ethical life by the pursuit of money. Those who condemn this position overlook that the criticism is aimed at the effect money has on the arts when they are pursued for the sake of it. While Marx endorses most of Aristotle’s conclusions, Schumpeter rejected the view that exchange values cannot be expressed in terms of use values. For Aristotle, exchange value is intrinsic; for positivists it is extrinsic. Meikle sides with Aristotle. He also defends Politics 1.5, a chapter which has often been dismissed as a muddle. Aristotle’s analysis of exchange value is a great achievement. The Stagirite investigated the conceptual problems that arise when one tries to define exchange value. How do things which are incommensurable become commensurable in exchange? (shrink)

In the introductory first chapter the author states his conviction that Aristotle’s theory of learning, at the center of which stands the apodeictic syllogism, is inadequate because partial. Chapter 2 is a balanced survey of Aristotle’s syllogistic, which does not serve the purpose of discovery, but is intended to turn into science knowledge already acquired. All learning proceeds from preexisting knowledge which is structured by demonstration. Next Bauman turns to Plato’s theory of learning as present in the Meno: learning is (...) remembering. His account of the Socratic method of making a disciple see the truth by pertinent questions is excellent. He warns us to avoid extreme interpretations of ἀνάμνησις. According to Aristotle, Plato confounded the process of remembering with induction. The process of learning consists in the passing from opinion to knowledge. Aristotle’s theory as explained in the Posterior Analytics widely differs from Plato’s. In chapter 5, Bauman examines whether the syllogism based on a universal major is a petitio principii, a charge laid against it ever since antiquity and repeated by John Stuart Mill. For Mill, induction is the only form of real inference, but Bauman shows that Mill’s position is not correct. Aristotle sets up a method which allows us to understand why things are the way they are and to pass on knowledge. In chapter 6, Bauman compares Aristotle’s method with what teachers usually do and with how textbook authors conceive the passing on of knowledge. Some previous knowledge is necessary for all teaching. Aristotle focused on how the sciences should be taught, showing how conclusions are implicitly contained in principles or can be deduced from them. Bauman thinks that this is restricting learning far too much and remains unsatisfactory. He disagrees with Aristotle’s statement that all scientific knowledge is expressible in propositions in the indicative mood. The syllogism cannot be the only mode for all teaching. This difficulty, however, can be solved when one keeps in mind what strictly scientific knowledge in the Aristotelian sense is, and that there are other forms of knowledge such as opinion, factual knowledge, and dialectic. Furthermore one should also consider that the syllogism is basic to all forms of reasoning, even if there are syllogisms of different types. A printing mistake on page 191, line 13 should be corrected.—Leo J. Elders, Institute for Philosophy, “Rolduc,” Kerkrade, The Netherlands. (shrink)

Quite a number of contemporary students of logic tend to consider Aristotle's logic mainly from a formal point of view. Richard Patterson, on the other hand, attempts to show that Aristotle's system of logic as well as his modal logic must be studied in the light of his fundamental theory of syntax and his metaphysics. Even if all of Aristotle's modal logic has not been accepted in the West, the ideas underpinning it are those of his syllogistic logic. Patterson observes (...) that, in his modal logic, Aristotle uses modal copulae rather than modal predicates. (shrink)

A study of Aristotle's use of the "prior" and the "posterior" is most welcome, since it is likely to shed some light on his position with regard to Platonism. Nicomachean Ethics 1096a17-19 intimates that in Plato's view the pair "prior and posterior" belongs to the world of becoming and mutually dependent things. Cleary believes that its use by Aristotle is closely related to the latter's philosophical development. He hopes to discover, in the course of his study, the original set of (...) circumstances which made Aristotle embark upon his theory of these terms. To this effect Cleary examines the main texts of the Aristotelian corpus in which they occur. (shrink)

In academic circles, Aristotle’s Politics languished in the shadow cast by Plato’s Republic, book 8 was even believed by some to be uncharacteristic of Aristotle’s thought. Professor Curren makes it the central theme of his study, as he hopes to find in it arguments in defense of public education. It is not difficult to argue that according to Aristotle good public life is not possible without the right kind of public education. However it is an entirely different story to transpose (...) educational principles, which Aristotle wanted to apply to the model, as he saw it, of an ideal Greek city-state of the fourth century B.C., to the situation in the present day United States of America or other Western countries. Undaunted by this formidable difficulty, Curren sets out on a journey through Greek educational policies dealing with Socrates’ and Plato’s views in this regard to discuss next what Aristotle says about forms of government. He understands book 5 as an attempt to provide statesmen with arguments for a reform of their respective constitutions laying special stress on education. In fact living under good laws contributes to human flourishing. The state is a multitude to be made into a unity by education. (shrink)

The editor explains that special studies in philosophy honoring Étienne Gilson are long overdue. Gilson was not only one of the greatest historians of philosophy of the twentieth century but also a leading philosopher. Gilson exposed the myth that Descartes developed an altogether new way of thinking, refuted the belief that philosophy came to an end with the last of the ancient pagan thinkers, and made a strong stand against skepticism. Professor Redpath plans to publish a series in order to (...) recall the importance of Gilson and to keep alive a greater appreciation of Thomistic realism. This first volume is dedicated to Armand Maurer of the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto, who has captured in a remarkable way Gilson’s thought and his humanism. (shrink)

Horst Seidl of the University of Nijmegen has written an unusual book. It consists of a series of critical reviews of publications by other scholars concerning Aristotle's logic, epistemology and metaphysics. The author's approach is not merely historical and critical: a philosopher must reach definite, objective truth. He reminds the reader that this is a difficult enterprise: too often Aristotle's works have been interpreted from the viewpoint of particular theories. Seidl's study is a defense of Aristotle's doctrines and methods such (...) as the use of syllogisms, the theory of the possible, etc. Somewhat surprisingly Seidl asserts that deductive arguments cannot be used in metaphysics. (shrink)

In the introduction to this important study Bowlin draws attention to the fact that contemporary students of ethics often resort to Aristotle, but overlook Aquinas, one of the more able interpreters of the Aristotelian moral tradition. He intends to correct this situation by concentrating on a particular point of Thomas’s moral theory: the contingencies of various kinds which we must confront. Bowlin argues that Thomas’s treatment of the moral virtues is largely functional: they help to cope with contingencies, although he (...) leaves the connection between the virtues and these contingencies largely undeveloped. Chapter 1 deals with the difficulties caused by the different passions such as concupiscence, fear, and others. The next chapter takes us into the heart of the problem, the contingency of the human good. In Bowlin’s view this contingency results from the fact that circumstances can modify the morality of our actions. Given this variability, prudence and justice must help us to decide what is right to do. Bowlin’s treatment of justice is surprising: this virtue is viewed in the light of contingency, whereas for Aquinas it proceeds basically in an objective way. (shrink)

Dr. Barraza submits a detailed study of utilitarianism and its offspring, consequentialism, and purports to show why it is not an acceptable moral system. As G. Anscombe pointed out, it arose when ethics was no longer based on the virtues and people looked for a way to evaluate moral actions in conformity with the predominant technological outlook. Consequentialism holds that the criterion of morality is that of the best overall result possible, whereas for utilitarianists it is the greatest amount of (...) pleasure, satisfaction, or happiness. John Stewart Mill’s utilitarianism is examined in great detail. Mill felt that the criterion of morality cannot be something intuitively known, but has to be easily recognizable, as, for instance, the consequences of our acts, namely the greatest happiness proper to man as a human being. Mill experienced some difficulties when trying to integrate duties with regard to others. His answers to eight objections raised against his theory are seen as insufficient by Barraza, as is Mill’s justification of the principle of “the greatest happiness.” Mill’s ethics is profoundly marked by the spirit of the Enlightenment, that is, by a type of rationalism related to the empirical sciences; everything was to be explained by one simple principle, without any reference to religion. Important points in the system are the stress on freedom and equality, freedom being the primary value. Mill seeks to secure the greatest possible space for personal freedom, which, however, is limited by the interests of others. Equality results from impartiality which demands that the happiness of the agent is not placed above that of others. Furthermore, Mill’s ethics is characterized by its optimism and its social orientation, aiming as it does at the well-being of the greatest number. However, despite a semblance of coherence Mill’s work is full of ambiguities. A glaring difficulty is that the intention of the agent has nothing to do with the results and their evaluation. (shrink)