Aquinas / Ralph McInerny.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McInerny, Ralph, 1929-2010.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?-1274.

Thomas.

Physical Description:

vii, 160 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK : Polity Press ; Malden, MA : Distributed in the USA by Blackwell Publishers, 2004.

Summary:

This book is a lively and highly accessible introduction to the thought of Thomas Aquinas. While primarily a theologian, Aquinas' conception of theology presupposed an autonomous philosophy. This book concentrates on his philosophy while making clear its openness to theology as reflection on Revelation. As a philosopher, Aquinas is fundamentally Aristotelian. Like Aristotle, he sees philosophy as emerging from the ordinary thinking of ordinary human beings (and philosophers when they are off duty). Philosophy does not initiate certain knowledge but prolongs it by perfecting the instrument of thinking and expanding its content. The quest for wisdom, like that for happiness, is an inescapable fact of human existence. This book uses key and crucial texts to describe the trajectory of Aquinas' philosophical thought from the analysis of changeable things through the reasoned awareness that to be and to be material are not identical to such knowledge as we can have of God. This brings Aquinas to the threshold of Christian faith.

Contents:

Part I A Short Life 1

1 Origins 3

2 Montecassino (1230-1239) 5

3 University of Naples (1239-1244) 7

4 Under House Arrest (1244-1245) 11

5 Cologne and Albert the Great (1245-1248) 12

6 Student at Paris (1252-1256) 13

7 First Paris Professorship (1256-1259) 16

8 Italian Interlude (1259-1268) 17

9 Second Paris Period (1269-1272) 20

10 Naples (1272-1274) 24

Part II In Pursuit of Wisdom 27

11 Theology Presupposes Philosophy 30

12 The Quest of Philosophy 31

13 Theoretical and Practical 34

14 The Order of Learning 37

15 The Two Theologies 38

16 The Four Orders 40

17 The Logical Order 42

18 Our Natural Way of Knowing 45

19 Matter and Form 49

20 Things that Come to Be as the Result of a Change 51

21 The Parmenidean Problem 54

22 The Sequel 56

23 The Prime Mover 58

24 The Soul 59

25 Sense Perception 63

26 The Immortality of the Human Soul 65

27 The Opening to Metaphysics 66

28 The Big Problem 70

29 The Two Theologies Revisited 71

30 Being as Being 76

31 Analogy 78

32 Being as Analogous 80

33 Substance 82

34 Presuppositions of Metaphysics 85

35 God and Metaphysics 86

36 Ipsum esse Subsistens 89

37 The Moral Order 92

38 Ultimate End in Aristotle 94

39 Ultimate End in Thomas 96

40 Virtuous Action 98

41 Natural Law 100

42 Natural Inclinations 104

43 Virtue and Law 106

44 Practical Syllogism 107

45 End/Means 109

46 The Common Good 110

47 Natural and Supernatural Ends 112

48 Preambles of Faith 114

49 Christian Philosophy 115

50 Beyond Philosophy 117

51 The Range of Theology 125

Part III Thomism 137

52 The First Phase 141

53 Second Scholasticism 144

54 The Leonine Revival (1879-1965) 145

55 Three Thomisms 148

56 Whither Thomism in the Third Millennium? 150.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0745626866

0745626874

OCLC:

51977921