Thomistic Philosophy Research Articles

Contexts of Faith: The Religious Foundation of Walter Ong's Literacy and Orality

As priest and teacher, Walter Ong never separated his religious sensibility from his scholarship. Writing often about religious topics, he tells how he came to the fundamental insight (first articulated in Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue; Ong, 1958b) through his theological studies of the biblical Hebrew culture. Other aspects of his communication studies bear the mark of his religious vision, one sharing common elements with the theology of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose writings he introduced to an American readership in the 1950s. Other religious influences on Ong's work range from his study of Thomistic philosophy and theology in the seminary to his literary studies of the religious poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

RAFAEL FERNÁNDEZ CONCHA Y EL IUSNATURALISMO TOMISTA EN CHILE

The author presents us the life and works of Chilean lawyer Rafael Fernandez Concha, who was both a philosopher and a theologist from the nineteenth century, and a man of outstanding erudition and speculative talent. His contribution to the law, as enclosed in his four most important books, is well-known in Church Law, Law Education, Natural Law and Thomist Philosophy of Law.

The Soul is Alive and Well: Non-reductive Physicalism and Emergent Mental Properties

Non-reductive physicalism denies the soul's existence, arguing that cognitive functions emerge from evolutionary processes. Focusing on Nancey Murphy, this paper argues that non-reductive physicalism has an inadequate conception of causality. Murphy defends downward causation, but like many modern and postmodern philosophers, she pays insufficient attention to the metaphysics of causality. Drawing on Thomistic philosophy, this article maintains that lower-level entities like neurotransmitters lack the causal power necessary to produce higher-level cognitive operations. In defending emergence, Murphy performs a metaphysical sleight-of-hand through which cognitive powers inexplicably appear. The paper ends by urging contemporary thinkers to develop richer metaphysical understandings of causality, and to use them to enhance the dialogue between religion and science.

The Ideal of a Catholic Education in a Secularized Society

This paper argues that the progressive, revisionist reaction within Catholic education and schooling, as well as within Catholicism at large, to the challenge of modernity is a mistake. In view of modernity’s malaises, it advocates instead the affirmation or reaffirmation of the ideal of traditional Catholicism as the only authentic response for Catholics to modern progress. In order to justify the distinctiveness of a traditional Catholic identity and educational project, the paper offers an outline of a distinctively Thomistic educational philosophy. Its defense of the (re)affirmation of the ideal of traditional Catholic education and schooling in secularized society is neither ultra-conservative nor romantic.

The Crime of Onan and the Laws of Nature. Religious and medical discourses on masturbation in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries

This article takes a closer look at the arguments and intellectual context of theological and medical discourse on masturbation in the early stages of the anti‐masturbation campaign, from about 1680 to 1730. It identifies a first stage, during which moralist and religious writing dominated the campaign. The authors used medical arguments on the fatal health hazards of masturbation in support of their message. But the crucial shift in religious discourse on masturbation compared to previous times was the emphatic association of masturbation with the sin of Onan. This shift is linked, in particular, to the rise of traducianist accounts of human conception among Protestant theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. While traditional Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy claimed that the rational human soul was created and infused by God only weeks after conception, traducianists saw the parental semen itself as the decisive vehicle for the transmission of the immortal human soul. Within this framework, the ontological and theological status of semen changed markedly. Traducianism remained far from being universally accepted, but it created a growing readiness to accept that the immortal soul was at least potentialiter in the semen. Masturbation came much closer to murder, or was even explicitly condemned as such. The deadly punishment which God had inflicted on Onan for having spilled his semen was fully justified. During a second stage, from about 1710, medical arguments increasingly took the forefront. A group of London venereal specialists elaborated on occasional earlier claims that masturbation damaged the genital vessels and fibres, bringing forth impotence, seminal efflux and gleets with devastating long‐term effects on the whole body. John Marten, the anonymous author of “Onania” and various members of the venereal trade published extensively on the topic and popularised the issue of masturbation and its health effects on an unprecedented scale. At the same time, they further strengthened the link between masturbation and the sin of Onan. Like Onan (and his brother Er), every “onanian” would bring death upon himself. In parallel development, some academic physicians began to question the validity of traditional fears of “seminal retention” and with it the traditional idea that according to the laws of nature seminal emissions sometimes might also have a beneficial effect on physical health. Rather than putrefying in the body, the semen was said to recirculate into the body after its preparation in the seminal vessels and served an indispensable re‐invigorating function. It was responsible for the typical masculine traits of the male body. Divine law and natural law now fully coincided.

Analogy, Semantics, and Hermeneutics: The “Concept versus Judgment” Critique of Cajetan's De Nominum Analogia

Cajetan's treatment of analogy in De Nominum Analogia is well known as the most influential and sophisticated theory of a central issue in Thomistic philosophy. The late twentieth century saw that theory subject to a family of criticisms. If the critics are correct, Cajetan's analogy theory is also significant historically for exposing weaknesses latent in medieval semantic assumptions. According to the critics, the Aristotelian assumptions that words signify by means of discrete “concepts,” and that the meaning of propositions depends on the significations of its component terms, cannot do justice to the complexity, variety, and flexibility of actual human discourse; in De Nominum Analogia they see the elegant structure of classical semantics collapsing under the pressure of analogical language. In this article, I examine these criticisms of Cajetan's analogy theory, and argue that, in light of both Cajetan's semantic principles and his hermeneutic practice, they fall short. The conclusion not only implies a defense of Cajetan's project, but clarifies the general philosophical alternatives available within the traditional Aristotelian semantic framework.

Body Parts and the Market Place: Insights from Thomistic Philosophy

With rare exceptions, Roman Catholic moral theologians condemn the sale of human organs for transplantation. Yet, such criticism, while rhetorically powerful, often oversimplifies complex issues. Arguments for the prohibition of a market in human organs may, therefore, depend on a single premise, or a cluster of dubious and allied premises, which when examined cannot hold. In what follows, I will examine the ways in which such arguments are configured. For example, Thomas Aquinas' (1224-1274) understandings of embodiment and moral uses of the body are usually interpreted as, and cited in support of, foreclosing a market in human organs. Aquinas' principle of totality requires that one preserve the wholeness of the human body. In approaching Aquinas' texts, I will assume the role of a revisionist who takes seriously his core commitments, while at the same time indicating that one can further develop his understanding of the body in ways which are supportive of the sale of human organs while remaining in conformity with the author's core concerns. Such considerations will provide significant grounds for concluding that a market in human organs for transplantation appreciates the embodied nature of the human person, respects the body and its parts as personal, rather than as mere things, is consistent with acknowledging God's dominion over our lives and bodies, and constitutes an appropriate utilization of God's gifts to us. Moreover, such a market would likely create significant opportunities charitably to help others, to enhance human dignity and to protect against the serious dehumanization of current national bureaucratic procedures for organ donation.

Body parts and the market place: insights from Thomistic philosophy.

With rare exceptions, Roman Catholic moral theologians condemn the sale of human organs for transplantation. Yet, such criticism, while rhetorically powerful, often oversimplifies complex issues. Arguments for the prohibition of a market in human organs may, therefore, depend on a single premise, or a cluster of dubious and allied premises, which when examined cannot hold. In what follows, I will examine the ways in which such arguments are configured. For example, Thomas Aquinas' (1224-1274) understandings of embodiment and moral uses of the body are usually interpreted as, and cited in support of, foreclosing a market in human organs. Aquinas' principle of totality requires that one preserve the wholeness of the human body. In approaching Aquinas' texts, I will assume the role of a revisionist who takes seriously his core commitments, while at the same time indicating that one can further develop his understanding of the body in ways which are supportive of the sale of human organs while remaining in conformity with the author's core concerns. Such considerations will provide significant grounds for concluding that a market in human organs for transplantation appreciates the embodied nature of the human person, respects the body and its parts as personal, rather than as mere things, is consistent with acknowledging God's dominion over our lives and bodies, and constitutes an appropriate utilization of God's gifts to us. Moreover, such a market would likely create significant opportunities charitably to help others, to enhance human dignity and to protect against the serious dehumanization of current national bureaucratic procedures for organ donation.

Singing and Thinking: Gregorian Chant and Thomistic Philosophy

Singing and Thinking: Gregorian Chant and Thomistic Philosophy

Nicholas Lobkowicz and the Historicist Inversion of Thomistic Philosophy

Critique de l'inversion historiciste de la philosophie thomiste entreprise par N. Lobkowicz dans son essai intitule «What happened to thomism? From «Aeterni patris» to «Vaticanum secundum»» (in «American catholic philosophical quarterly», 69, 1995, 397-423). Denoncant la substitution des lectures historique et systematique du thomisme a travers la figure emblematique de l'imperialisme de la methode historique, E. Gilson, l'A. montre que l'erreur methodologique de Lobkowicz se double d'une erreur speculative concernant la notion de verite immuable, le theme de la creativite et la nature du progres philosophique dans la recherche thomiste, d'une part, et la negation de la nouvelle theologie responsable de l'eclipse du thomisme, d'autre part

Saint Pie V (review)

Reviews 153 is described by Le Goff as 'exhaustive', yet it does not contain reference to interesting work that he himself cites on p. xiv, and it includes Chaucer despite the author's assertion (p. xviii) that Chaucer had to be excluded from the coverage of the volume! John O. Ward Department of History University of Sydney Lemaitre, Nicole, Saint Pie V, Paris, Librahe Artheme Fayard, 1994; paper; pp. 432; 3 maps, 8 plates; R.R.P. FF150.00. Pius V was one of only two grand inquisitors to become pope and one of only five popes to become a saint in the last 1000 years. These two accomplishments illustrate the contrasting impressions of him. One side condemns him for his persecution of heresy, his harsh treatment of Jews, including then enclosure in the Roman ghetto, his support for religious war in France, and his excommunication of Queen Elizabeth of England. The other praises him for his efforts to reform the Church according to the decrees of the Council of Trent, to eliminate abuses, immorality, and ignorance, to promote devotion to Mary, to support educational institutions and seminaries, and to establish the tridentine liturgy. Yet most contemporaries would have remembered him primarily for his role in the Holy League that led to the great naval victory of the combined Christian forces at the battle of Lepanto in 1571. Michele Ghislieri was a Dominican friar with a peasant background. He became a cardinal in 1557 as a result of his uncompromising work in the papal inquisition, work that earned him the patronage of the Carafa pope, Paul IV. His election as pope in 1565 was something of a surprise but nonetheless a clear indication that the papacy would not revert to the situation that existed earlier in the century, when Alexander VI, Julius II, and Leo X demonstrated in different ways the worst features of the Renaissance papacy. H e was a Counter Reformation pope rather than a Renaissance one. In one respect he was a medieval pope, for Nicole Lemaitre argues that spme of his aspirations, such as the conversion of the Jews and the recovery of Jerusalem, were linked to his millenarian views that Christ would return and join the faithful in Jerusalem to establish his kingdom on earth. W h e n he died in 1572, the Jews had not converted, 154 Reviews Jerusalem was still in the hands of the infidel, and Christ had not yet returned. Nonetheless, the universal church canonized him in 1712. Lemaitre begins her biography with a justification, almost an apology, for undertaking such a task. But no apologies are necessary, for she produces a tour de force that demonstrates a mature understanding of the sixteenth-century context, and she succeeds in placing Pius V in that context. However, perhaps she devotes too much attention to some issues and not enough to others; for example, describing the battle of Lepanto in great detail but devoting far too little attention to the diplomatic activities of Pius V in France during the Wars of Religion. Her prose is lively, her erudition is commendable, and her biography of this unsympathetic and unappealing pope, while not making him sympathetic and appealing, makes him understandable. A. Lynn Martin Department of History The University of Adelaide Long, James R., ed., Philosophy and the God of Abraham: essays in memory of James A. Weisheipl, Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1991; paper; pp. x, 296; R.R.P. CAN$31.00. In the words of Edward A. Synan ('Aquinas and the children of Abraham', p. 203): 'The career of James A. Weisheipl, OP, was marked by passionate devotion to the problematic of medieval scientific conceptions as well as to the theological traditions of his Church and Order, and the Thomistic tradition pre-eminent in both'. This provides a fair guide in fact to the general character of the collection itself, except that one must note that the emphasis falls quite definitely on Thomistic philosophy within the theological traditions of the Church. To this extent, the essays fail to do full justice to Weisheipl's philosophical concerns, especially his contribution to natural philosophy. Weisheipl is perhaps best known for his biography...

Necessary Propositions and the Square of Opposition

NECESSARY PROPOSITIONS AND THE SQUARE OF OPPOSITION MARK ROBERTS University of Rhode Island Kingston, Rhode Island IT IS COMMONPLACE to define contradictory, contrary, and subcontrary propositions in the following way: contradictory propositions cannot both be true and cannot both be false; contrary propositions cannot both be true but can both be false; and subcontrary propositions can both be true but cannot both be false. In his Introduction to Logic 1 Irving Copi raises a problem with two of these definitions which he believes forces him to limit the range of propositions which can be used in the square of opposition. Since contrary propositions can both be false, but the falsity of a necessarily true proposition is not possible , a necessarily true proposition has no contrary. Therefore, only contingent propositions can be contraries. Subcontrary propositions can both be true, but the truth of a necessarily false proposition is not possible.2 This problem is rarely raised in other logic texts, but, it is interesting to note, it is mentioned by a number of neoscholastic philosophers, for example, P. Nicholas Russo,3 Rev. H. Grenier,4 1 Irving M. Copi, Introduction to Logic (New York: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 178-179. Copi first introduced this problem in the fifth edition of his work on the basis of an article by David H. Sanford entitled " Contraries and Subcontraries ,'' Nous 2 (1968) : 95-96. Sanford argues that the most reasonable way to resolve the problem of necessary propositions is to assume that contingent propositions comprise the square of opposition. 2 Copi, pp. 178-179. 8 Nicholas Russo, Summa Philosophica (Boston: Apud Marlier et Socios, 1[;85), p. 23. 4 Henri Grenier, Thomistic Philosophy, Vol. I (Charlottetown, Canada: St. Dunstan's University, 1950), p. 69. 427 428 MARK ROBERTS G. Sanseverino,5 Jacques Maritain,6 F.-X. Maquart,7 P. Coffey,8 and others.9 (It is also mentioned by Bishop Whately.10 ) Each of these philosophers makes necessarily true or false propositions an exception to the definition of contrary and subcontrary propositions . The reason is they and Copi interpret the definitions of contrary and subcontrary propositions to mean that the falsity of each contrary proposition is possible and the truth of each subcontrary proposition is possible. It should be mentioned, however, that the position of the philosophers cited above is not entirely the same as Copi's. Copi reasons that these definitions imply that necessary propositions have no contrary or subcontrary. The other philosophers believe that necessary propositions can be contraries and subcontraries. Thus, in the case of necessary propositions contrary and subcontrary propositions are, instead, defined merely in terms of their quantity and quality, not by whether or not they can both be false or can both be true. In fact, Coffey and some of the other philosophers cited above assert that, when the propositions composing the square are necessary , one can infer the truth of the universal from the truth of 5 Gaietano Sanseverino, Philosophia Christiana, Vol. II (Neapoli: Vincentii Manfredi, 1862), pp. DCCXXXVIII ff. 6 J. Maritain, An Introduction to Logic (London: Sheed & Ward, 1937), p. 135, notes 1 & 2. 7 F.-X. Maquart, Elementa Philosophiae, Vol. I (Parisiis: Andreas Blot, 1937)' p. 126 ff. 8 P. Coffey, The Science of Logic, Vol. 1 (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1918), p. 225, 226. 9 Joseph Gredt, Elementa Philosophiae, Vol. I (Friburgi: Herder, 1929), p. 46, notes 1 & 2; Sylvester J. Hartman, A Textbook of Logic (New York: American Book Co., 1936), p. 162 ff; Roland Houde and Jerome J. Fischer, Handbook of Logic (Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Co., 1954), p. 61; Eduard Hugon, Cursus Philosophiae Thomisticae, Vol. I (Parisiis: P. Lethielleux n.d), p. 155; Dennis C. Kane, Logic: The Art of Predication and Inference (Providence: Providence College Press, 1978), p. 98 ff; Francis P. Siegfried, Essentialia Philosophiae (Philadelphia: Dolphin Press, 1927), p. 25; Francis Varvello, Minor Logic, trans. and supplemented Arthur D. Fearon (San Francisco: Univ. of San Francisco Press, 1933), p. 73 ff. 10 Richard Whately, Elements of Logic (Boston: James Munroe & Co., 1854), p. 77 ff. PROPOSITIONS AND THE SQUARE OF OPPOSITION 429 the particular and the falsity of the particular from the falsity of the universal.11 Maritain maintains that in the case...

A Century of ‘Pontifical’ Thomism

Theological attention to St Thomas Aquinas, from over one hundred years ago to the present day, has featured in the work of a great number of theologians, many of them outstanding in the formation of twentieth-century theology. There is, however, another important aspect to the revival of interest in Aquinas: the very effective official ecclesiastical promotion of Thomistic philosophy and theology led by the succession of popes from Leo XIII to John Paul II.A point of entry for these observations is provided by the occasion of the inauguration of the Chair of St Thomas Aquinas at the Lateran University, Rome on 10 March 1963. Archbishop Dino Staffa, as Secretary of the Congregation for Seminaries and Universities, delivered a paper on the ‘Revival of Thomism’. His comments, as indeed much in the early years of the revival of Thomistic studies, had been largely inspired by another inauguration, that of the officially stated fundamental place of St Thomas in Catholic philosophy and theology by the encyclical Aterni Patris of Pope Leo XIII, dated August 4, 1879. The specific interest of the encyclical was the restoration of scholastic philosophy in general and that of St Thomas Aquinas in particular. It emphasized the Church’s concern for teaching ‘true philosophy’ because of its relation to theology. Declaring false philosophy to be the root of ‘many modern evils’ and mentioning the esteem in which St Thomas had been held, the encyclical urged the revival of St Thomas’ philosophy and of the spirit of investigation.

Immateriality and the Domain of Thomistic Natural Philosophy

Immateriality and the Domain of Thomistic Natural Philosophy

Transient Natures at the Edges of Human Life: A Thomistic Exploration

TRANSIENT NATURES AT THE EDGES OF HUMAN LIFE: A THOMISTIC EXPLORATION PHILIP SMITH, O.P. Providence College Providence, R.I. T:HE CONCEPT OF human nature as the intrinsic and wdical source of characteristic human a;ctivity has great mportanoe for natural law ethics. But olosely allied to the concept of human nature is the possibility of there being tmnsient natures in humans, and this rpossirbility has implications for human life at its outer edges. What transient natures are wiill he discussed 1in detail below. Let us ,say for now that they are the life principles of entities transition from one state of being to another. These forms enjoy only a temporary existence before they disappear and are replaced by other emerging forms.1 When applied to the outer limits of human existence, such transient natures offer useful insights for addressing the difficult problems of when personhood begins and when death occurs. Thomistic philosophy defines a human person a;s a combination of mrutte1· and ,form, more oommorrly referred to as a unity of hody and soul.2 Relativie to the beginning of Jife and the 1 Such natures are discussed in William A. Wallace, 0.P., "Nature and Human Nature as the Norm in Medical Ethics,'' in Catholic Perspectives on Medical Morals, ed. E.D. Pellegrino et al., Philosophy and Medicine Series, Vol. 24 (Dordrecht-Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1989). This essay was originally presented at an international conference held at the Joseph and Rose Kenned,y Institute of Ethies of Georgetown UniYersity, October 13-16, 1986. For further background against which Wallace's discussion should be situated, see his "Nature as Animating: The Soul in the Human Sciences,'' The Thornist 49 (l985) : 612-6'18, and "The Intelligibility of Nature: A Neo-Aristotelian View," Rev,iew of Metaphysics 38 (1984): 33-56. 2 Thomas Aquinas, St., Surnrna Theologiae, I, q.29, a.4. 191 19Q PHILIP SMITH, O.P. onset of death, this philosophy of person raises the question of w:hen tihe soul is infused into the body and when :it is 1separated from it. Is the newly-fortiilized zygote capable of :receiving and sustaining the rational soul as its ,substantirul form? Or must the genetic materials be informed by one or more transient natures before they achieve ithe internal unity and stability necessary :for personhood? At the end of life, the person dies when the soul leaves the body. Does personail death coincide with the death of the human organism as a whole? Or can the destruction of only an essential part of the body, e.g. tihe cerebral cortex , cause personal death by damaging the body so severely that it is simply incapable of supporting a :rational soul, even though the rest of the body remains intact and spontaneously alive? If so, is the remaining organism informed by a succession of transient substantiail forms that maintain its existence but at ever lower levels of life as it gradually declines toward total death? In examining these questions posed by the possibility of transient natures, my point of departure will be an analysis of transient natures themselves. Recently, William A. Wallace, O.P., has 'begun to eX!plore the philosophical meaning and implications of transient natures for issues such as these.a His findings will he summarized here. The insights gathered from the exploration of transient natures will next he applied to the questions of when personhood begins and when death occurs. This will necessarily employ a fraiilework embracing both tihe empirical and the philosophical, with the empirical looking to the available biological data and the philosophical inquiring about the impact o.f these data for determining the status of human life at its outer edges. Since Aquinas's natural philoss Wallace, "Nature and Human Nature .. .," pp. 23-51. Additional background for his researches, apart from the essays cited in note l above, will be found in his "The Reality of Elementary Particles," Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 38 (1964): pp. 154-166, and "Elementarity and Reality in Particle Physics," Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 2nd ed. (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1983), pp. 171-183 and pp. 185-212. TRANSIENT...

Maurice Denis : des métamorphoses d’Éros à Clio

Maurice Denis : the Metamorphoses of Eros to Clio. Maurice Denis (1870-1943) became famous through his theory of « synthesis » which, from 1890 on, led to the threshold of abstraction. On the other hand, a deeper study of his work’s themes has been neglected. Profoundly attached to the sensuality, which was initially repressed and later found transcendence in the symbolic register, these themes originate in the desire for the loved woman. Meanwhile, Denis evolved towards an iconography where the profane and the sacred are combined. Around 1910-1920 his theory itself came closer to Thomist philosophy and he adhered to the renewal of scholasticism encouraged by Pope Leo XIII. Denis’ Christian iconography is inscribed in a historical, philosophical and literary context which privileges comforting themes. In this way, the artist’s passage from sensual icons to devotional paintings might be explained.

Toward a Thomistic Philosophy of Religion

Toward a Thomistic Philosophy of Religion

The annals of humanities computing: The index Thomisticus

I entered the Jesuit order in 1933. I was then 20. Later my superior asked me: "Would you like t o become a professor?" "In no way!" My wish was t o be a missionary to take care of the poor. "Good. You'll do it, all the same." By 1941, when Italy entered the Second World War, I had been assigned t o work towards a Ph.D. in Thomistic philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. My research was aimed at exploring the concept of presence according to Thomas Aquinas. At that time the Italian Navy was interested in drafting me as a chaplain, an assignment which would have greatly appealed to me. My superior, however, managed to have someone else take the post. Thus, up until the end of 1945, my principal interest was focused on philosophy and philosophical texts whlle I was surrounded by bombings, Germans, partisans, poor food and disasters of all sorts. According to the scholarly practices, I first searched through tables and subject indexes for the words of praesens and praesentia. I soon learned that such words in Thomas Aquinas are peripheral: his doctrine of presence is linked with the preposition in. My next step was to write out by hand 10 000 3" X 5" cards, each containing a sentence with the word in or a word connected with in. Grand games of solitaire foilowed. On January 28, 1946, I defended my doctoral thesis, which was published in 1949: La Terrninologia Tomistica dell'lnteriorita: Saggi d i metodo per una interpretazione della rnetaftsica della presenza (Milano: Bocca). While I was involved with this research, two major considerations became evident. I realized first that a

The Grammar of Esse: Re-Reading Thomas on the Transcendentals

THE GRAMMAR OF ESSE: RE-READING THOMAS ON THE TRANSCENDENTALS SIGLA. For ease in argument, Thomas's works will be cited according to the following sigla: DV, De Veritate; Sent, Smiptum on the Sentmices; SCG, Contra Gentiles; ST, Summa Theologiae; InMet, commentary on the 1Vfetaphysics; Quod, Quaestiones Quodlibetales; lnDivNom, commentary on the Divine Names. The number appearing before the siglum indicates a Book or Part number; thus, ' 1 Sent' means the commentary on the first book of the Sentences and '4 SCG' means the fourth Book of the Contra Gentiles. 0 NE OF THE ADVANTAGES of the desuetude into which Thomism has lately fallen is that interpreters of Thomas Aquinas must address fundamentals. The effect of the last decade's convulsions was to break up a discourse within which Thomism figured as something immediate . For such discourse, Thomas was a thinker rather than an artifact; he was an interlocutor, not an instance. But in the immediacy of discourse, peripheral issues often acquired disproportionate force. Familiarity with the basic formulae passed for intelligibility. Today, when scholasticism seems to have the bad odor of an ancien reginie, the interpreter of Thomas must work to secure the first things, the central insights, since it is these that are controverted and misunderstood.1 There is no time for the peripheral and no ground for assuming familiarity. If this is the only advantage of the change of fortune, it is still an important one. The first thing in Thomism is the doctrine of esse. It is first in two ways, as a distinguishing characteristic and as a structuring principle. Its being first as a characteristic needs little demonstration. Even if Giles of Rome is seen as a vulgarizer of 1 Michel Corbin has described the present state of Thomist exegesis with great acuity in Le chemin de la theologie chez Thomas d'Aquin (Paris: Beauchesne, 1974), pp. 26-35. His own solution to the current dilemma-the project of the "lecture speculative "-resembles the present reading in result, but not in justification . 1 MARK D. JORDAN authentic Thomism, he is evidence that the doctrine of esse has characterized Thomism-even constituted it in its uniquenessfrom the earliest days.2 The doctrine of esse serves as centerpiece in the encyclopedic commentary of Capreolus, in the Thomistic fundamentalism of certain Renaissance masters/ and even in the unfortunate " Approved Theses of Thomistic Philosophy ." 4 But if the doctrine about esse has characterized historical Thomism, it is not the case that the doctrine has informed the reflection of Thomists. The twenty-four "Theses" illustrate the inverse relation between doctrinal peremptoriness and reflective appropriation. The more one insists on esse as the shibboleth of some ' true Thomism,' the less room there is for showing how full of questions are Thomas's texts about esse. The force of these questions became apparent in the half dozen works published in the years around 1940 by Fabro, Rahner, Gilson, de Finance and others.5 The questions remain. To insist that the doctrine of esse is characteristic of Thomas's thought can only underscore that its work as a principle has yet to be grasped. As a step towards clarifying this first thing in Thomism, I 2 See the introduction to the edition of his Theoremata de ente et essentia by Edgar Hocedez (Louvain: Museum Lessianum, 1930). The authenticity of Giles's reading of Thomas was challenged as early as Robert Orford's Reprobationes dictorum a Fratre Egidio in primum Senfontiarum (1288-1292). 3 See the essay on Dominic of Flanders by Armando F. Verde, "Domenico di Fiandra, intransigente tomista non gradito nello studio Fiorentino," in Tomismo e antitornismo, Memorie Domenicane, N.S. 7 (1976), 304-21, but particularly pp. 310-311. •The list was published in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 6 (1914), 384 ff., and reprinted in the Enchiridion Symbolorum, 32nd ed., ##36fll-!i!4. Its native defects were exacerbated in the exposition of Guido Mattiussi, p;-':1led in the Osservatore and published as Le XXIV tesi della filosofia di S. Tornrnaso d'Aquino (R-0me: Gregorian Univ., 1925); esp. pp. 28-34 and 45-51, where the doctrine of esse becomes almost mechanical. 5 The concurrence of the following books marks something like...

Elements of a Thomistic Philosophy of Death

Elements of a Thomistic Philosophy of Death