In Aquinas on Being and Essence: A Translation and Interpretation, Joseph Bobik interprets the doctrines put forth by St. Thomas Aquinas in his treatise On Being and Essence. He foregrounds the meaning of the important distinction between first and second intentions, the differing uses of the term “matter,” and the Thomistic conception of metaphysics.
Gaven Kerr provides the first book-length study of St. Thomas Aquinas's much neglected proof for the existence of God in De Ente et Essentia Chapter 4. He offers a contemporary presentation, interpretation, and defense of this proof, beginning with an account of the metaphysical principles used by Aquinas and then describing how they are employed within the proof to establish the existence of God. Along the way, Kerr engages contemporary authors who have addressed Aquinas's or similar reasoning. The proof developed in the De Ente is, on Kerr's reading, independent of many of the other proofs in Aquinas's corpus and resistant to the traditional classificatory schemes of proofs of God. By applying a historical and hermeneutical awareness of the philosophical issues presented by Aquinas's thought and evaluating such philosophical issues with analytical precision, Kerr is able to move through the proof and evaluate what Aquinas is saying, and whether what he is saying is true. By means of an analysis of one of Aquinas's earliest proofs, Kerr highlights a foundational argument that is present throughout the much more commonly studied Thomistic writings, and brings it to bear within the context of analytical philosophy, showing its relevance to the contemporary reader.
Anthony Kenny offers a critical examination of a central metaphysical doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the medieval philosophers. Aquinas's account of being is famous and influential: but Kenny argues that it in fact suffers from systematic confusion. Because of the centrality of the doctrine, this has implications for other parts of Aquinas's philosophical system: in particular, Kenny shows that the idea that God is pure being is a hindrance, not a help, to Aquinas's natural theology. Kenny's clear and incisive study, drawing on the scholastic as well as the analytic tradition, dispels the confusion and offers philosophers and theologians a guide through the labyrinth of Aquinas's ontology.
Because a small error in the beginning grows enormous at the end, as the Philosopher remarks in Book 1 of On the Heavens and the World, and being and essence are the first things to be conceived by our understanding, as Avicenna declares in Book 1 of his Metaphysics, in order to avoid falling into error about them, and to reveal their difficulties, we should see what are signified by the names of being and essence, how these are found in various things, and how they are related to the logical intentions of genus, species, and difference. And since we need to arrive at the cognition of simple components from the cognition of what they compose, and from those that are posterior to those that are prior, so that the discussion may suitably progress from the easier subjects, we should proceed from the signification of the name of being to the signification of the name of essence.
Thomas Aquinas is one of the most important figures in the history of philosophy and philosophical theology. Relying on a deep understanding of Aristotle, Aquinas developed a metaphysical framework that is comprehensive, detailed, and flexible. Within that framework, he formulated a range of strikingly original and carefully explicated views in areas including natural theology, philosophy of mind, philosophical psychology, and ethics. In this book, Christopher Hughes focuses on Aquinas’s thought from an analytic philosophical perspective. After an overview of Aquinas’s life and works, Hughes discusses Aquinas’s metaphysics, including his conception of substance, matter, and form, and his account of essence and existence; and his theory of the nature of human beings, including his critique of a substance dualism that Aquinas attributes to Plato, but is usually associated with Descartes. In the final chapters, Hughes discusses Aquinas’s account of the existence and nature of God, and his treatment of the problem of evil, as well as his ideas about the relation of goodness to being, choice, and happiness. Aquinas on Being, Goodness, and God is essential reading for students and scholars of Aquinas, and anyone interested in philosophy of religion or the history of medieval philosophy.
Joseph Bobik offers a translation of Aquinas’s De Principiis Naturae (circa 1252) and De Mixtione Elementorum (1273) accompanied by a continuous commentary, followed by two essays: “Elements in the Composition of Physical Substances” and “The Elements in Aquinas and the Elements Today.” The Principles of Nature introduces the reader to the basic Aristotelian principles such as matter and form, the four causes so fundamental to Aquinas’s philosophy. On Mixture of the Elements examines the question of how the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water) remain within the physical things composed from them.
The quest for unity and multiplicity is one of the most important concerns in the history of human thought. Since the origins of the history of philosophy up to the present, we can observe more or less unceasing interest in the issue. The same holds of the writings of Thomas Aquinas, to whose conception this work is devoted. Since the problem of unity and multitude is closely linked to many other key metaphysical issues, such as the doctrine of transcendental concepts, the mode of composition of being qua being, as well as substantial and accidental being, or the doctrine of whole and part, we believe that its proper interpretation not only can clarify some partial metaphysical problem, but will also contribute to understanding the metaphysical thought of the Angelic Doctor as a whole.
