This study concerns the position of Saint Thomas Aquinas on human self knowledge (“the soul’s knowledge of itself,” in medieval idiom). Its main goal is to present a comprehensive account of Aquinas’s philosophy of self knowledge, by clarifying his texts on this topic and explaining why he made the claims he did. A second objective is to situate Thomas’s position on self awareness within general world, and specific thirteenth century, traditions concerning this theme. And a third is to apply Aquinas’s approach and insights to selected and contemporary issues that involve self knowledge, such as the alleged paradoxes of self reflection and of “unconscious awareness.” The primary approach is that of “critical narrative,” which attempts to understand St. Thomas’s texts by posing critical questions for them. While this questioning may expose certain texts as equivocal or unsupported, usually Thomas emerges as coherent, reasonable, and better understood. This work is serious scholarship that presumes reader interest in philosophical reflection and some background in medieval type thinking. On the other hand, the book is not narrowly specialized in Aquinas or a single methodology, but includes broad reference to worldwide traditions and attempts to integrate St. Thomas’s approach into topics of contemporary interest.
This book is a collection of studies on topics related to subjectivity and selfhood in medieval and early modern philosophy. The individual contributions approach the theme from a number of angles varying from cognitive and moral psychology to metaphysics and epistemology. Instead of a complete overview on the historical period, the book provides detailed glimpses into some of the most important figures of the period, such as Augustine, Avicenna, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz and Hume. The questions addressed include the ethical problems of the location of one's true self and the proper distribution of labour between desire, passion and reason, and the psychological tasks of accounting for subjective experience and self-knowledge and determining different types of self-awareness.
Self-knowledge is often taken to constitute both the beginning and the end of humans' search for wisdom. Not surprisingly, the Delphic injunction 'Know thyself' has fascinated philosophers of different times, backgrounds, and tempers. This book explores how the search for wisdom is reflected in conceptions of self-knowledge throughout the history of philosophy and human culture.
Contemporary introductions to the theme of self-knowledge too often trace its emergence in the history of philosophy to thinkers such as René Descartes and David Hume. Whereas Descartes conceives of self-knowledge as intimate and first-personal, Hume contends that it is limited to our awareness of our impressions and ideas. In point of fact, self-knowledge is a perennial theme. We may, for instance, trace the lineage of Hume and Descartes on these matters to Aristotle and Plato, respectively. This volume studies philosophical treatments of self-knowledge in the Medieval Latin West. It comprises two sets of papers; the first is taken from an author-meets-critics session on Therese Scarpelli-Cory’s Aquinas on Human Self Knowledge, which advances the thesis that Aquinas’s theory of self-knowledge wherein the intellect grasps itself in its activity bridges the divide between mediated and first-personal self-knowledge. The second set of papers discuss self-knowledge in terms of self-fulfilment. Authors look to Aquinas’s account of how we can know when we have acquired the virtues necessary for human happiness, as well as the medieval traditions of mysticism and theology, which offer accounts of transformative self-knowledge, the fulfilment that this brings to our emotional and physical selves, and the authority to teach and counsel about what this awareness confers.
It’s frequently said that we live in a “post-truth” age. That obviously can’t be true, but it does name a real problem on our hands. Getting things right is hard, especially if they’re complicated. It takes preparation, diligence, and honesty. Wisdom, according to Thomas Aquinas, is the quality of right judgment. This book is about the problem of becoming wise, the problem “before truth.” It is about that problem particularly as it comes up for religious, philosophical, and theological truth claims. Before Truth: Lonergan, Aquinas, and the Problem of Wisdom proposes that Bernard Lonergan’s approach to these problems can help us become wise. One of the special problems facing Christian believers today is our awareness of how much our tradition has developed. This development has occurred along a path shot through with contingencies. Theologians have to be able to articulate how and why doctrines, institutions, and practices that have developed—and are still developing—should nevertheless be worthy of our assent and devotion.
The philosophical theology of St. Thomas Aquinas is the crowning piece of his metaphysics. Leo J. Elders studies it against the background of the attempts of the great philoso- phers of the past to penetrate deeper into the knowledge of God. While the Introduction treats the nature of philosophical theology according to Aquinas, Chapter One presents a concise history of the idea of God in Western philosophical thinking. Chapters Two and Three deal with the question of the cognoscibility of God and the Five Ways of St. Thomas. New solutions are proposed of some difficulties in the Third and Fourth Ways. The attributes of God are studied in the order of the Summa theologiae I. Chapter Seven considers the grammar of God-language. The following chapters examine divine knowledge, foreknowledge of future events, divine will and providence as well as creation. The last chapter deals with the problem of the co-existence of God and finite creatures. This study shows that the philosophical theology of St. Thomas Aquinas is a coherent whole of impressive depth and beauty. It has its basis in our daily experience of the world and the general principles of being, but its conclusions reach the summits of negative theology.
We are haunted, Samuel Kimbriel suggests, by a habit of isolation buried, often imperceptibly, within our practices of understanding and relating to the world. In this volume he works through the complexities of this disposition to contest its place within contemporary philosophical thought and practice. He focuses on the human activity of friendship. Chapters one and two examine friendship to unearth the contours of this habit towards isolation and to reveal certain ills that have long attended it. Chapters three through seven place these isolated ways of relating to the world into critical dialogue with the tradition of late-antique and early-medieval Johannine Christianity, in which intimacy and understanding go hand in hand. This tradition drew the human activities of friendship and enquiry into such unity that understanding itself became a kind of communion. Kimbriel endorses a return to an antique and particularly Christian philosophical habit - "the befriending of wisdom."