Aquinas on Beauty explores the nature and role of beauty in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Beginning with a standard definition of beauty provided by Aquinas, it explores each of the components of that definition. The result is a comprehensive account of Aquinas’s formal view on the subject, supplemented by an exploration into Aquinas’s commentary on Dionysius’s Divine Names, including a comparison of his views with those of both Dionysius and those of Aquinas’s mentor, Albert the Great. The book also highlights the tight connection in Aquinas’s thought between aesthetics and ethics, and illustrates how Aquinas preserves what is best about aesthetic traditions preceding him, and anticipates what is best about aesthetic traditions that would follow, marrying objective and subjective aesthetic intuitions and charting a kind of via media between the common extremes.
When in the sixth century Dionysius the Areopagite declared beauty to be a name for God, he gave birth to something that had long been gestating in the womb of philosophical and theological thought. In doing so, Dionysius makes one of his most pivotal contributions to Christian theological discourse. It is a contribution that is enthusiastically received by the schoolmen of the Middle Ages, and it comes to permeate the thought of scholasticism in a multitude of ways. But perhaps nowhere is the Dionysian influence more pronounced than in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. This book examines both the historical development of beauty's appropriation as a name for God in Dionysius and Thomas, and the various contours of what it means. The argument that emerges from this study is that given the impact that the divine name theological tradition has within the development of Christian theological discourse, beauty as a divine name indicates the way in which beauty is most fundamentally conceived in the Christian theological tradition as a theological theme. As a phenomenon of inquiry, beauty proves itself to be enigmatic and elusive to even the sharpest intellects in the Greek philosophical tradition. When it is absorbed within the Christian theological synthesis, however, its enigmatic content proves to be a powerful resource for theological reasoning.
Addressing contemporary interest in the relationship between metaphysics and ethics, as well as the significance of beauty for ethics, Alice Ramos presents an accessible study of the transcendentals and provides a dynamic rather than static view of truth, goodness, and beauty.
Until recently it has been commonplace to believe that Vatican II represents a permanent sidelining of the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas for theology. The documents of that council, it is said, moved away from the scholastic categories that had informed Catholic theological work since the Reformation, and most particularly since Vatican I. There is some truth to this, of course, since the council fathers preferred biblical formulations in a personalist and pastoral mode over the kinds of concepts one finds in Neo-Thomism. The effect of this shift on theological education is well known. Indeed, so swift was the change that one finds figures as different as Jacques Maritain, Karl Rahner, and Joseph Ratzinger worrying soon after the Council's conclusion that the Angelic Doctor had all but disappeared from Catholic theology. Each in his own way sought to call the Church's intellectuals back to a consideration of Aquinas to address not simply philosophical issues but those dealing with the central doctrinal mysteries of the faith. It is now clear that after decades of experimentation with various philosophical systems, a number of scholars have either found a new audience for their work or have recently discovered for themselves the ancient beauty of Aquinas' theological work. The present volume brings together a number of prominent scholars to explore the different ways in which the writings of Thomas Aquinas on Christ, grace, faith, and other properly theological themes retain their relevance, and indeed, constitute a firmer basis upon which to explore these mysteries than many recent streams of thought. Contributors include: Thomas Weinandy, OFM, Cap., David C. Schindler, Michael Torre, Jessica Murdoch, Francis Feingold, Thomas Rourke, Marie George, James Hanink, John F.X. Knasas, Heather Erb, Joshua Schultz, Anton Schaube, William Hamant, Joel Johnson, Philip Berns, Daniel Drain, Fred Boley, Justin Matchulat, and Michael Humphreys.
In a book that is itself beautifully written, renowned philosopher Roger Scruton explores this timeless concept, asking what makes an object--either in art, in nature, or the human form--beautiful.--From publisher description.
The ಜNew Atheistsಝ are pulling no punches. If the world of nature needs a designer, they ask, then why wouldn't the designer itself need a designer, too? Or if it can exist without any designer behind it, then why can't we just say the same for the universe and wash our hands of a designer altogether? Interweaving its pursuit of the First Cause with personal stories and humor, this ground-breaking book takes a fresh approach to ultimate questions. While attentive to empirical science, it builds its case not on authoritative pronouncements of experts that readers must take on faith, but instead on a nuanced understanding of universal principles implicit in everyone's experience. Here is essential reading for all people who care about contemplating God, not exclusively as a best-explanation for the findings of science, but also as the surprising-yet-inevitable implication of our commonsense contact with reality. Augros harnesses such intellects as Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, ushering into the light a wealth of powerful inferences that have hitherto received little or no public exposure. The result is an easygoing yet extraordinary journey, beginning from the world as we all encounter it and ending in the divine mind.
Students of Thomas Aquinas have so far lacked a comprehensive study of his doctrine of the transcendentals. This volume fills this lacuna, showing the fundamental character of the notions of being, one, true and good for his thought. The book inquires into the beginnings of the doctrine in the thirteenth century and explains the relation of the transcendental way of thought to Aquinas's conception of metaphysics. It analyzes "Being," "One," "True," "Good" and "Beautiful" individually and discusses their importance for the philosophical knowledge of God. Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendentals: The Case of Thomas Aquinas is intended as a contribution to the question "What is philosophy in the Middle Ages?". It argues that the doctrine of the transcendentals is essential for understanding medieval philosophy.
There has long been a need for a work on the philosophy of beauty treating fundamental problems against the background of the history of aesthetics--ancient and medieval as well as modern and contemporary. This book answers that need with the comprehensive presentations of an objectivist philosophy of beauty to balance the currently popular aesthetic subjectivism. It includes a synopsis of views and theories expressed on the various questions about beauty by philosophers down through the ages. Kovach's acquaintance with relevant literature from the ancient Greeks to twentieth-century authors is staggering. He draws on the observations of thinkers from ancient times--Plato, Aristotle. Philo of Alexandria, Cicero, Plotinus, Augustine, Dionysius the Areopagite, and others; from medieval times--Alexander of Hales, John of la Rochelle, Thomas of York, Bonaventure, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Dionysius the Carthusian, and others; from modern times--Descartes, J. Addison, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Tolstoi, Santayana, Croce, Maritain, Sartre, H. Read, Thomas Munro, and others. With delicate precision Kovach systematically discusses the philosophy of beauty and the problems it raises. Whether or not one agrees with Kovach's objectivist position, no one in the field can afford to be without this book.
