Thomas Aquinas and His Legacy

Abstract

The ten essays in this collection approach the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, not merely as an object of scholarly interest, but also as a framework for addressing perennial philosophical questions. The first five articles are expositions of important philosophical themes, as developed in Aquinas's own works. In the last five, Aquinas's thought is brought to bear on contemporary philosophical discussions of metaphysical, ethical and social issues. In the first essay, Kenneth L. Schmitz explores the centrality of esse in Aquinas's thought and chronicles the changing currents in its study over the course of this century. Next, Jorge J.E. Gracia describes Aquinas's distinctive solution to the old problem of the ontological status of universals. Turning to ethical themes, David M. Gallagher outlines the precise nature of moral goodness and how Aquinas relates it to his larger metaphysical understanding of the good. Gregory Martin Reichberg takes up the more specific issues of the possibility and nature of moral responsibility within the activity of theoretical or speculative thought. In the final essay of the first part, Edward P. Mahoney examines Aquinas's arguments against Averroes's doctrine of the unity of the intellect in order to show the consistency of Aquinas's teaching. In the second set of articles, Oliva Blanchette contrasts Aquinas's notion of perfection with that of Charles Hartshorne, demonstrating how Hartshorne arrives at his particular understanding of the divine perfection. Alejandro Llano argues that the understanding of possibility, employed by Jaako Hintikka and Simo Knuuttila, is much narrower than Aquinas's analogical understanding, and that consequently they do not distinguish between logical and ontological possibilities. Turning to political philosophy, John P. Hittinger examines Yves Simon's and Jacques Maritain's Thomistically-inspired arguments for the desirability of modern liberal democracies, while questioning their consistency with Thomas's own political thought. Arguments which would have a direct bearing on questions in medical ethics are examined in William A. Wallace's essay, in which he appeals to principles of Thomistic natural philosophy to argue that personal death may well precede the biological death of the human body. In the final article, Stephen Brown shows how Henry of Ghent rejected Thomas Aquinas's understanding of theology's relationship to all lower sciences.