Vegetative Powers
Vegetative Powers

Author: Fabrizio Baldassarri

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-05-25

Total Pages: 459

ISBN-13: 3030697096

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The volume analyzes the natural philosophical accounts and debates concerning the vegetative powers, namely nutrition, growth, and reproduction. While principally focusing on the early modern approaches to the lower functions of the soul, readers will discover the roots of these approaches back to the Ancient times, as the volume highlights the role of three strands that help shape the study of life in the Medieval and early modern natural philosophies. From late antiquity to the early modern period, the vegetative soul and its cognate concepts have played a substantial role in specifying life, living functions, and living bodies, sometimes blurring the line between living and non-living nature, and, at other moments, resulting in a strong restriction of life to a mechanical system of operations and powers. Unearthing the history of the vegetative soul as a shrub of interconnected concepts, the 24 contributions of the volume fill a crucial gap in scholarship, ultimately outlining the importance of vegetal processes of incessant proliferation, generation, and organic growth as the roots of life in natural philosophical interpretations.

Neo-Aristotelian Metaphysics and the Theology of Nature
Neo-Aristotelian Metaphysics and the Theology of Nature

Author: William M.R. Simpson

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2021-10-10

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 1000480674

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This book explores the relationship between a scientifically updated Aristotelian philosophy of nature and a scientifically engaged theology of nature. It features original contributions by some of the best scholars engaging with Aristotelianism in contemporary metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophical theology. Despite the growing interest in Aristotelian approaches to contemporary philosophy of science, few metaphysicians have engaged directly with the question of how a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics of nature might change the landscape for theological discussion concerning theology and naturalism, the place of human beings within nature, or the problem of divine causality. The chapters in this volume are collected into three thematic sections: Naturalism and Nature, Mind and Nature, and God and Nature. By pushing the current boundaries of neo-Aristotelian metaphysics to recover the traditional notion of substantial forms in physics, reframe the principle of proportionality in biology, and restore the hierarchy of being familiar to ancient philosophy, this book advances a metaphysically unified framework that accommodates both scientific and theological knowledge, enriching the interaction between science, philosophy and theology. Neo-Aristotelian Metaphysics and the Theology of Nature will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in metaphysics, philosophy of science, natural theology, philosophical theology, and analytic theology. Chapters 1, 2, and 7 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

A Summary of Philosophy
A Summary of Philosophy

Author: Saint Thomas Aquinas

Publisher: Hackett Publishing

Published: 2003-01-01

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9780872206571

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This compact collection of philosophical texts from the Summa Theologica -- on God, creation, the soul, human acts, moral good and evil, love, habits, virtue, and law -- is presented newly translated in abridged form and cast in a modified version of the medieval quaestio. Included are only the most important objections and Aquinas' replies; appeals to scriptural, theological, and philosophical authorities have been omitted. Unlike the ordering of the originals, questions and answers are here presented prior to objections and replies; the result is a sharp, rich, topically organised question-answer presentation of Aquinas' major philosophical arguments within a brief compass. A general Introduction, head notes, a glossary, an index, and a select bibliography offer expert guidance to the work of this major philosopher.

The Power of God
The Power of God

Author:

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-06-06

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 0199942897

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In the De potentia, Thomas Aquinas runs a series of disputations on the power of God. The treatise considers ten questions related to God's power to create external things, namely the universe, angels, and human beings. His explanation of creation here is the most developed treatment found in any of his writings, but the principal purpose of the work is to analyze the internal life of God--that is, the Trinity. According to Aquinas, we predicate the Persons of the Trinity as relations, not as absolute things, and he examines the processions of the Son and the Holy Spirit in the light of reason. The complete De potentia is a very long document. In this new translation, Fr. Richard Regan offers an abridged version that passes over some of the full text while retaining what is most important when it comes to following the flow of Aquinas's thought.

The Metaphysics of Good and Evil
The Metaphysics of Good and Evil

Author: David S. Oderberg

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-11-22

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 1000712508

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The Metaphysics of Good and Evil is the first, full-length contemporary defence, from the perspective of analytic philosophy, of the Scholastic theory of good and evil – the theory of Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and most medieval and Thomistic philosophers. Goodness is analysed as obedience to nature. Evil is analysed as the privation of goodness. Goodness, surprisingly, is found in the non-living world, but in the living world it takes on a special character. The book analyses various kinds of goodness, showing how they fit into the Scholastic theory. The privation theory of evil is given its most comprehensive contemporary defence, including an account of truthmakers for truths of privation and an analysis of how causation by privation should be understood. In the end, all evil is deviance – a departure from the goodness prescribed by a thing’s essential nature. Key Features: Offers a comprehensive defence of a venerable metaphysical theory, conducted using the concepts and methods of analytic philosophy. Revives a much neglected approach to the question of good and evil in their most general nature. Shows how Aristotelian-Thomistic theory has more than historical relevance to a fundamental philosophical issue, but can be applied in a way that is both defensible and yet accessible to the modern philosopher. Provides what, for the Scholastic philosopher, is arguably the only solid metaphysical foundation for a separate treatment of the origins of morality.

Commentary on Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Happiness and Ultimate Purpose
Commentary on Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Happiness and Ultimate Purpose

Author: J. Budziszewski

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-01-09

Total Pages: 705

ISBN-13: 1108804284

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This monumental, line-by-line commentary makes Thomas Aquinas's classic Treatise on Happiness and Ultimate Purpose accessible to all readers. Budziszewski illuminates arguments that even specialists find challenging: What is happiness? Is it something that we have, feel, or do? Does it lie in such things as wealth, power, fame, having friends, or knowing God? Can it actually be attained? This book's luminous prose makes Aquinas's treatise transparent, bringing to light profound underlying issues concerning knowledge, meaning, human psychology, and even the nature of reality.

Forms, Souls, and Embryos
Forms, Souls, and Embryos

Author: James Wilberding

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-07-15

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 1317355245

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Forms, Souls, and Embryos allows readers coming from different backgrounds to appreciate the depth and originality with which the Neoplatonists engaged with and responded to a number of philosophical questions central to human reproduction, including: What is the causal explanation of the embryo’s formation? How and to what extent are Platonic Forms involved? In what sense is a fetus ‘alive,’ and when does it become a human being? Where does the embryo’s soul come from, and how is it connected to its body? This is the first full-length study in English of this fascinating subject, and is a must-read for anyone interested in Neoplatonism or the history of medicine and embryology.

Aristotle and His Commentators
Aristotle and His Commentators

Author: Pantelis Golitsis

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-01-29

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 3110626691

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This volume includes twelve studies by international specialists on Aristotle and his commentators. Among the topics treated are Aristotle’s political philosophy and metaphysics, the ancient and Byzantine commentators’ scholia on Aristotle’s logic, philosophy of language and psychology as well as studies of broader scope on developmentalism in ancient philosophy and the importance of studying Late Antiquity.

Aquinas on Mind
Aquinas on Mind

Author: Sir Anthony Kenny

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-04-03

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 1134829752

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This book shows how the mature writings of Thomas Aquinas though written in the thirteenth century have much to offer the human mind and the relationship between intellect and will, body and soul.