Questions tagged [aquinas]
[St. Thomas Aquinas][1] (1225–1274), scholastic philosopher, Catholic theologian, and most famous commentator on Aristotle. [Thomism][2] is his school of thought. [1]: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas [2]: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14698b.htm
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Does hylomorphism have anything to do with the extremely broad use of "form" in scholasticism?
Introductions to the Aristotelian concept of form always begin with hylomorphism: everyday objects (like horses) are composed of matter and form. The form is the intelligibility of the thing (e.g., ...
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Act and Potency Prescinded From Causality in Thomism
Did the Thomistic Commentators, including but not limited to Cajetan, prescind potency and act from causal relations? In other words, did they consider the notion of potency and act as separate from ...
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How do Thomists understand the efficient and final causes in planetary motion under Newtonian physics?
Under the influence of Newtonian physics Thomists have come to perceive the force of inertia and the force of gravity as the efficient cause of the planetary motion confining the final cause to things ...
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Is it true that "What is supreme in a genus is cause of everything in the genus"?
Among the more popular scholastic axioms is the following:
What is supreme in a genus is cause of everything in the genus.
But what is the justification for this principle? Aquinas tends to justify ...
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How do Thomists respond to the medical condition of aphantasia?
In Thomistic epistemology having phantasms in the mind is central, out of which the mind extracts a universal, the activity of the active intellect characteristics of rational beings (like us). But ...
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Aquinas on the relation between essence, being, and existence
In Summa Contra Gentiles 2.9.4, Aquinas writes
Just as active power is something acting, so is its essence something
being [Sicut potentia activa est aliquid agens, ita essentia eius est aliquid ens]....
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Is Aquinas's "act is the principle of action" a tautology?
In Summa Contra Gentiles II.6.7, Aquinas suddenly claims that "act is the principle of action" (actus autem actionis principium est).
Is this phrase supposed to be a definition of act? Or a ...
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Where in Aristotle's Metaphysics is Aquinas citing his claim about "two sorts of operations"?
In the beginning of book II of Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles, Aquinas writes
Now the operation of a thing is twofold, as the Philosopher teaches in
9 Metaphysics ...
A footnote is provided which ...
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Where does Thomas Aquinas give this definition of beauty?
Everyone quotes Thomas Aquinas as defining beauty as "id quod visum placet." No one gives a citation. Can any of you folks supply such citation?
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Whether under Thomistic metaphysics the human embryo (which not a human being) and the later fetus (which is a human being) are one or two entities
In Summa Theologica a human being is a biologically human body with a rational soul. An early human embryo is not a human being. At some point when the fetus is sufficiently developed God creates a ...
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Why real distinction in God gives act and potency composition
So Thomists believe that there are no real distinction between perfections in God as He is pure act and He isn't composed in any manner. But Im not getting how real distinctions between perfections ...
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What passage in Aquinas's Summa does this refer to?
From Chapter 18 of R. A. Lafferty's historical novel Okla Hannali:
There is an interesting question in the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas and also in an old science fiction story, the name of which I ...
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How does the Scholastic concept of synderesis relate to rationalism?
In Summa Theologiae I q. 79 a. 12 "Whether synderesis is a special power of the soul distinct from the others?" co., Thomas Aquinas describes "synderesis" as a habit to acquire ...
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When the soul is with the body, does the soul change the body, or does it make the body as perfect as possible?
I would be grateful if you could answer the question above. When the soul is with the body, does the soul change the body or does it make the body perfect [or should I say that as perfect as the body ...
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Thomism: Has any Thomist created an ontology of nouns?
English philosopher John Wilkins wrote a book outlining a universal language, and included in it was an outline of a noun classification system for classifying all objects (both physical and abstract) ...
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