An exposition of the principal aspects and inherent difficulties in the interpretation of Thomism throughout history.

Thomists do not have a standard account of history as a discipline or of historical knowledge in general. Since Thomism is a tradition of thought derived in part from historical figures and their works, it is necessary for Thomists to be able to say how we know what we know about those figures and their works. In this paper, I analyze the notion of history both in its contemporary senses and in how it was used by (...) Aristotle and Aquinas. I show briefly how intellectual knowledge of the past is possible. Then, I argue that the Thomistic tradition implies a far wider notion of history than is generally recognized, history as study of the past in general, not a science in itself, but an aspect of other sciences. Finally, I indicate how this wider notion of history relates to the ordinary sense of history as an inquiry into the specifically human past and then how such an account fits within contemporary Thomism. (shrink)

Thomists do not have a standard account of history as a discipline or of historical knowledge in general. Since Thomism is a tradition of thought derived in part from historical figures and their works, it is necessary for Thomists to be able to say how we know what we know about those figures and their works. In this paper, I analyze the notion of history both in its key contemporary senses and in how it was used (...) by Aristotle and Aquinas. I show briefly how intellectual knowledge of the past is possible. Then, I argue that the Thomistic tradition implies a far wider notion of history than is generally recognized, history as study of the past in general, not a science in itself, but an aspect of other sciences. Finally, I indicate how this wider notion of history relates to the ordinary sense of history as an inquiry into the specifically human past and then how such an account fits within contemporary Thomism. (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)

The article shows the development of historical and philosophical problems in Neo-Scholasticism and Neo-Thomism. There are two key goals that authors of historical and philosophical models of the development of intellectual culture sought to solve: primarily, this is the legitimation of Scholasticism as a philosophical tradition, and secondly, its actualization in the context of the philosophical and theological discussions of their time. After the 1840s catholic intellectuals realized a gap to the medieval and post-medieval scholastic tradition, and their historical and (...) philosophical research ceased to be a tool for legitimizing of interpretation of Thomism, which claims to be authoritative. Intervention of scholasticism into the problems of philosophy in the 19th century led to a determination of their relationship to Kant and post-Kantian projects of transcendental philosophy. As a result, Joseph Maréchal SJ formed a project of Transcendental Thomism: he moved from the strategy of legitimizing scholasticism through historical and philosophical material to the strategy of transformation of Thomism to form the program of Scholasticism that would correspond to the “Epoch of Criticism”. (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)

The problem of divine hiddenness has in the recent literature joined the problem of evil as one of the principal positive arguments for atheism. My chief goal here is to mine Aquinas’s metaphysics and natural theology for a distinctively Thomistic response, making particular use of a neglected text in which he considers a similar issue. Towards the end of the paper I also consider some resources provided by Aquinas’s interpretation of revealed theology.

ABSTRACTHistorians have portrayed the papal bull Coeli et terrae as a significant turning point in the history of the Catholic Church’s censorship of astrology. They argue that this bull was intended to prohibit the idea that the stars could naturally incline humans towards future actions, but also had the effect of preventing the discussion of other forms of natural astrology including those useful to medicine, agriculture, and navigation. The bull, therefore, threatened to overturn principles established by Thomas Aquinas, which (...) not only justified long-standing astrological practices, but also informed the Roman Inquisition’s attitude towards this art. The promulgation of the bull has been attributed to the ‘rigour’ of the incumbent pope, Sixtus V. In this article I revise our understanding of this bull in two ways. First, I reconsider the Inquisition’s attitude towards astrology in the mid-sixteenth century, arguing that its members promoted a limited form of Thomist astrology that did not permit the doctrine of inclination. Second, using Robert Bellarmine’s unpublished lectures discussing Aquinas’s views of astrology, I suggest that this attitude was common during the sixteenth century, and may have been caused by the crisis of Renaissance astrology precipitated by the work of Giovanni Pico. (shrink)

In a posthumously published paper, Fr. W. Norris Clarke, S.J., declares that Thomistic personalism is the most creative and fruitful development in twenty-first century Thomism. I agree with Clarke, and I would also add that Thomistic personalism is the most creative and fruitful development in twenty-first centurymoral and political philosophy. Thus, in this paper—focusing on clarification and exhortation—I (i) identify the main commitments of personalism; (ii) identifyweak, moderate, and strong versions of Thomistic personalism; and (iii) suggest that Thomistic personalism is (...) a vocation for the twenty-first century that requirescollaboration between specialists from diverse backgrounds. (shrink)

The paper explores the possibility of philosophical cooperation between Thomism and American Pragmatism by resurrecting a largely forgotten debate between Wilmon Henry Sheldon and Jacques Maritain. The discussion focuses primarily on two topics: the compatibility between a substance ontology and a pragmatist-evolutionary ontology, and the compatibility between the scholastic and the pragmatist theories of truth. The paper claims that, if we bring Peirce’s version of pragmatism into the picture, cooperation is not only possible but likely to be fruitful.

What is Augustine’s commentary on Alypius’ curiosity (curiositas) at the gladiatorial show in Confessiones 6, 8, 13 fundamentally about? Augustinian scholars have interpreted the story widely. Following recent scholarly developments, this work argues for a distinctively Thomistic reading of Alypius’ curiositas. In 1987, Joseph Torchia interpreted this passage as putting only a secondary focus on the story’s emphasis on, in his words, «conflict with God, its inner self, and others». However, this triadic conflict is found in Aquinas: in his Commentary (...) on the Gospel of John (14, 7), Aquinas argues that a conflict with God, self and others is what it means to lack peace (pax). Confessions 6, 8, 13 is read here through a Thomistic lens: the presentation of Alypius’ curiositas is fundamentally a statement about Alypius’ lack of peace. (shrink)

How should contemporary Thomistic theologians speak of providence and predestination? This essay suggests that St. Catherine of Siena’s approach to the doctrine provides a model for Thomistic theology today. After examining biblical teaching and the guidelines proposed by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I explore in some detail the positions of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Jacques Maritain, both of whom sought to overcome what they perceived to be difficulties in the Thomistic account of predestination. I conclude by proposing (...) a retrieval of the perspective of St. Catherine of Siena. (shrink)

I argue that two components of Thomistic philosophy of nature (specifically, hylomorphism combined with a relational ontology of space) entail a core claim of big-bang cosmology. I then consider some implications of this fact for natural theology.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ressourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, & the Moral Life ed. by Reinhold Hütter and Matthew LeveringMatthew ShadleRessourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, & the Moral Life Edited by Reinhold Hütter and Matthew Levering Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2010. 409 pp. $64.95This edited volume is a festschrift in honor of Romanus Cessario, OP, but, as its title suggests, it also has the larger goal of (...) showing that “ressourcement does not dispense with, but in fact requires, Thomism” (3). The contributors’ efforts to bring to light the insights of Aquinas are organized into three sections: theological method, sacramental theology, and moral theology.Readers of this journal will be most interested in the latter section. Highlights include Craig Steven Titus’s response to Jean Porter’s criticism of Aquinas’s doctrine of the unity of the virtues, in which Titus claims that Aquinas has a more developed awareness of moral struggle and development, even among the virtuous, than Porter allows, and that therefore Aquinas is not averse to the idea of a “flawed saint” (331). Steven A. Long distinguishes between acts that are necessary for the completion of a given end and those that are not, arguing that for the former the end defines the species of the act whereas the latter possess their own end and species independent of further intentions. Long’s purpose is to refute Martin Rhonheimer’s contention that condoms can be used by married couples to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS by showing that the use of condoms is not necessary for this purpose (since abstinence is also available), and therefore that such use must be considered an act of contraception regardless of any other good intentions involved. Joseph W. Koterski provides an excellent overview of the classical roots of the natural law theory and its modern exponents that could be useful in undergraduate and graduate courses, although the essay seems mismatched for the volume since the likely reader will probably find little new in it.An evaluation of the overall project of the volume requires a reading of the essays in the first section on theological method. Thomas Joseph White points to the Dominican theologians Marie-Dominique Chenu and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange as two extremes in the debate over historicity in theology: “in one we find history without sufficient recourse to dogma, while in the other we have dogma without sufficient recourse to history” (96). White insists that [End Page 218] theologians must find the proper balance between the two. It is not entirely apparent that those loosely identified with ressourcement Thomism have found this balance, if “recourse to history” includes sensitivity to the questions and concerns of one’s own age. In many of the essays in this volume it is unclear whose questions the authors’ exegeses of Aquinas are meant to answer, although other essays are quite engaging. Of course historical exegesis is necessary, but those involved in the mid-twentieth-century patristic ressourcement understood that the recovery of the sources was necessary precisely as an answer to the burning questions of the contemporary world. This is not accommodation, since the Christian tradition proposes something new to the world, but it proposes it with the confidence that human questioning is rooted in the innate desire for the triune God. The advocates of the earlier ressourcement saw the Thomism of their day as an obstacle to this dialogue between the Christian tradition and the contemporary world. The project of ressourcement Thomism will succeed to the extent that it shows how the teachings of Thomas Aquinas can contribute to this dialogue. [End Page 219]Matthew ShadleLoras CollegeCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Leonine Revival Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson Realism Philosophy and Science Vatican II Works cited.

In this paper I present a study about the notion of Analytical Thomism. I therefore propose a brief summary on the history of Thomism. Then I point out the resumption of the thought of Thomas that occurred in England at the end of the twentieth century by many authors, the first among them being Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, Peter Geach and Anthony Kenny. These authors operated within the analytical horizon and began to take an interest in Thomas. In light (...) of this historical path, one can see how tradition and innovation are closely intertwined. I therefore propose an argument on the notion of Analytical Thomism, in light of the outlined historical process and the research now discussed. (shrink)

This paper contrasts the Thomistic and Cartesian interpretations of what the substantial unity of the body and mind can consist in. A detailed discussion of the Thomistic account of the substantial unity of body and soul identifies especially those principles of the presupposed hylomorphist metaphysical background of this account that Descartes abandoned. After arguing for the consistency of the Thomistic view, briefly outlines how certain developments in late-medieval scholasticism prepared the way for the abandonment of precisely these principles. Finally, the (...) paper shows why from the perspective of the Thomistic principles identified in the first part, Descartes has to appear as someone paying mere lip-service to the thesis of the substantial unity of body and mind. (shrink)

In this study, I outline a heuristic for Thomist philosophical anthropology. In the first part, I introduce the major heuristics employed by Aquinas to establish the objects, operations, powers, and nature of his anthropology. I then identity major lacunae in his anthropology. In the second part, I show how an integrated approach to commonsense, experiential, experimental, and metaphysical psychologies can fill these lacunae and contribute to the enquiries of a contemporary Thomist philosophical anthropology.

Sexual realism has traditionally held that our categories of sex refer to something real about our biology. Sexual non-realism, on the other hand, either partially or wholly rejects this position. Sexual non-realists typically point to intersexuality as evidence that our categories of sex are not inherent to nature but are culturally constructed. This paper makes use of the work of Carrie Hull in her book The Ontology of Sex to explore the philosophical backgrounds of sexual non-realism and to make a (...) general case for sexual realism from a Thomistic framework. (shrink)

The article is a presentation of the Thomist response to Scotist criticism of analogy; namely, the defense of St. Thomas’ teaching in some leading renaissance and post-renaissance Thomists: Thomas de Vio, better known as Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara, John Versor and John of Saint Thomas. The author first explains the general core of the semantic doctrine of analogy and outlines the basic terminology. Then he exposes the way Cajetan and other Thomists knit Aquinas’ dispersed remarks on analogy into (...) a systematic doctrinal whole. (shrink)

The article is a presentation of the Thomist response to Scotist criticism of analogy; namely, the defense of St. Thomas’ teaching in some leading renaissance and post-renaissance Thomists: Thomas de Vio, better known as Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara, John Versor and John of Saint Thomas. The author first explains the general core of the semantic doctrine of analogy and outlines the basic terminology. Then he exposes the way Cajetan and other Thomists knit Aquinas’ dispersed remarks on analogy into (...) a systematic doctrinal whole. (shrink)

The article is a presentation of the Thomist response to Scotist criticism of analogy; namely, the defense of St. Thomas’ teaching in some leading renaissance and post-renaissance Thomists: Thomas de Vio, better known as Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara, John Versor and John of Saint Thomas. The author first explains the general core of the semantic doctrine of analogy and outlines the basic terminology. Then he exposes the way Cajetan and other Thomists knit Aquinas’ dispersed remarks on analogy into (...) a systematic doctrinal whole. (shrink)

Structural realism has re-emerged as part of the debate between scientific realism and antirealism. Since then it has branched into several different versions, notably epistemic structural realism and ontic structural realism. The latter theory is still an important perspective in the realism/antirealism dialectic; however, its significance has expanded well beyond that debate. Today ontic structural realism is also an important player in the metaphysics of science literature, engaging with a variety of ontological questions. One of these pertains to the basic (...) categories of ontology, with the proponents of ontic structural realism typically advocating a radical rethinking of how to view substance and relation while calling into question the traditional privileging of the former over and against the latter. In this paper I assess ontic structural realism from the perspective of two major systems: Thomism and Scotism. I argue that the basic commitments of Thomism allow for some surprising convergences with ontic structural realism, while Scotism does not. (shrink)

I argue that two components of Thomistic philosophy of nature (specifically, hylomorphism combined with a relational ontology of space) entail a core claim of big-bang cosmology. I then consider some implications of this fact for natural theology.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Thomists at War:Pierre Mandonnet, Étienne Gilson, and the Contested Relationship between Aquinas's and Dante's Thought (1879-2021)*George CorbettAt the turn of 1921, the French Dominican Pierre Mandonnet (1858–1936) helped to launch a new historical institute for Thomistic Studies at the Dominican study house of Le Saulchoir in Belgium. One of the pressing purposes of the foundation of the Institut historique d'études thomistes was to provide a properly historical approach (...) to Aquinas's doctrine which would defend its integrity and authority, and refute the alarming assertations of those outside the Dominican order who were, on the view of its founders, abusing the historical method to undermine the true sense of Aquinas's thought.1 The founders singled out Étienne Gilson (1884–1978), whose Le Thomisme, introduction au système de saint Thomas [End Page 1053] was published a couple of years earlier (in 1919); according to Mandonnet, Gilson's volume distorted the very nature and pedagogy of Thomist philosophy.2 Mandonnet and Gilson would become principal antagonists in the famous debates about Aquinas's thought in the 1920s and 1930s. Less known, however, are their parallel skirmishes in the field of Dante studies. In this article, I suggest that we need to consider the battles in Thomism and Dante studies together, as part of a wider intellectual war that would question the very nature of Catholic theology and philosophy. I first survey the main battlefield—the debates about Aquinas's thought—with specific reference to the controversies in the 1920s and 1930s about Gilson's "Christian philosophy" and about Marie-Dominique Chenu (1895—1990)'s Une école de théologie. In the second part, I turn to the skirmishes in the field of Dante studies between scholars such as, on the one hand, the French Dominicans Mandonnet and Joachim Berthier (1848—1924), who presented Dante as an essentially Thomist and Catholic poet, and, on the other hand, the lay historians Gilson and Bruno Nardi (1884—1968), who deconstructed the "myth of the Thomist Dante" and saw a fundamental disharmony between Aquinas's and Dante's thought, a view which profoundly influenced post-war Dante scholarship to the present day. In light of this intellectual history, in the third part, I reappraise constructively eight alleged points of divergence between Aquinas's and Dante's thought. I demonstrate that these key points of apparent divergence—as on the natural desire for the beatific vision, on the doctrine of two final ends for man, or on the relationships between philosophy and theology and between nature and grace—have as much to do with these scholars' interpretations of Aquinas's works as with their interpretations of Dante.Mandonnet, Gilson, and a Civil War in ThomismThe Institut historique d'études thomistes: Maintaining the "Authority" and "Integrity" of Aquinas's DoctrineHaving entered the Dominican order in 1882, Mandonnet was professor of history at the University of Fribourg from 1891 to 1918; on retirement, he continued to research and teach at Le Saulchoir.3 Author of significant research on Siger of Brabant and St. Dominic, he collaborated on the critical edition of Aquinas's works commissioned by Pope Leo XIII as [End Page 1054] editor, for example, of Aquinas's commentary on the Sentences and was one of three founders of the Revue thomiste in 1893.4 At Le Saulchoir, Mandonnet was also instrumental in the founding and mission of the Institut historique d'études thomistes from its inception in 1921 to his death in early 1936.5 One of "the giants of medieval studies," and founder (also in 1921) and honorary president of the Société Thomiste (which published the Bulletin Thomiste beginning in 1924), Mandonnet's name became "synonymous with fundamental research into the thought and writings of Thomas Aquinas."6 For Mandonnet, the historical method facilitated a greater penetration into the thought of Aquinas and his contemporaries, and historical research, in this way, enriched and complemented the institutional teaching of Thomism as Scholastic theology and a perennial philosophy.7 But, like other founders of the institute, Mandonnet believed [End Page 1055] that some recent scholars were using the historical method to undermine Aquinas's doctrine, and... (shrink)

The following essay explores the way in which notions of truth are linked to those of secure identity and hence to certain mathematical issues, from Plato and Aristotle onward. It argues that this recognition underlies traditional resorts to notions of form or eidos as securing both particular and general identity—at once the integrity of things and the link among things. I contend that nominalism rightly saw that there were certain problems with this notion in terms of the strict application of (...) the logical law of identity and the recognition of the “artificial” character of human understanding. However, I also argue that the most extreme fulfillment of the nominalist program after Frege itself ran foul of the law of identity because of the paradoxes of set theory. In the face of this double impasse I press for a re-configured Thomistic realism, taking account of the insights of Nicholas of Cusa that would abandon the ultimacy of the law of identity as paradoxically the only way to save identity and so truth, and would admit that the passage to the recognition of universals lies through the human creative construction of universals. Realism can still be saved here because in the Divine Son or Logos, in whom human reason participates, divine ideas are at once made and seen. (shrink)

Thomas and the Thomists, a new volume in the Mapping the Tradition series, serves as an introduction to the life of Aquinas, the major contours of his teaching, and the lasting contribution he made to Christian thought. Romanus Cessario and Cajetan Cuddy also outline the history of the Thomist tradition from the medieval era through revival in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This volume affords its readers a working guide to understanding the history of Aquinas and his (...) expositors as well as to grasping their significance for us today. (shrink)