In this paper we try: (1) A synthesis of the problem of post-kantian liberty according to diferent interpretations of the transcendental subject. (Between absolute idealism, vitalism, and hermeneutic ontology). (2) And its thomistic “understanding” according to the synthesis of “duplex cognitio de anima” and the notion of “ens sumitur ab actu essendi”
The Decree on the Reform of Ecclesiastical Studies of Philosophy, lends a special importance to the training of intellectual habits among students and candidates of the ecclesiastical faculties. This paper focuses on the need of a valid metaphysics to make it possible to understand the origin of the intellectual act. It describes the nature of habits and it also considers the formation of intellectual virtue, as necessary as contents, for a suitable philosophical formation. At this point, it pays attention to the relationship between the formation of habits and free will, by virtue of which habits may increase or decrease. Finally, it reflects on the virtue of studiositas which should have a moral and supernatural goal
The moral agent’s acts are the last expression of an internal temporary process rushed off a long time ago. The Thomist explanation for the knowledge of the singular as from the affect-cognitive structures of the moral agent is full of keen appreciations in order to give account for how two heterogeneous forms –the reality itself and the human intellectual ability– jell in the so-called moral act. The aim of this text is to highlight the structural framework that certifies the intersection reality-knowledge-operation in Saint Thomas’ proposal
This paper addresses the evaluation and critique of the so-called “ontological argument” in Scholasticism and in the philosophy of the modern period. There is offered a survey of texts of various Dominican Masters of theology who, prevalently in the University of Salamanca, have commented on the reply furnished by St Thomas Aquinas to the argument of id quo maius cogitari nequit, stated in a. 1 of q. 2 of the I Pars of the Summa.
We dedicate our attention also –but only in the particular case of Godoy– to the question (treated instead in a. 2 of q. 2) of the possibility or otherwise of demonstrating the existence of God with an a priori proof. In this way it will be possible to lay out the evidence that just as the two problems are distinct, to which Aquinas dedicates two different articles in q. 2 of the I Pars of the Summa Theologiae, so too there effectively result diverse debates which will have their origin in the Scholasticism of the modern period
The theme of Jesus Christ’s Me and of his self-consciousness is one of the most difficult and exciting topics of the whole Christology. After having been laid out in the theological debates of the xx century, it caused a strong controversy among theologians, who suggested diverse solutions, some of which repeated old mistakes in the understanding of the mystery of Christ, the only Son of God the Father, who became man for our salvation. The Carmelite theologian Bartomeu M. Xiberta intervened in this controversy with an unusual clarity. First, in order to defend in a decisive way the dogmatic foundations required by the right understanding of Christ’s being mystery, he destroyed some theological and philosophical perspective mistakes that impeded a clear approach to Christ’s being; and then, also in order to offer a solution to the mystery of his Self-consciousness that would be consistent with the biblical and traditional teachings of the Church, whose chief representatives he would recognize in Saint Cyril and Saint Thomas. The purpose of this paper is to present this christological contribution of Fr. Xiberta and to show how this teaching is still currently relevant
Cornelio Fabro’s research helps us to rediscover the significance of truth of the human knowledge in the light of St Thomas Aquinas’ realism –as adhesion and fidelity to the reality– in a critical comparison with modern and contemporary philosophy. It is possible especially in virtue of St. Thomas’ speculative genius.
This article presents Fabro´s research on Aristotle´s and Thomas Aquinas´ most relevant thesis, which allow to assert the possibility of a genuine knowledge of reality and to overcome cartesian separation of perception and thought
The Thomistic doctrine of sensation is characterized, among other things, by the frequent recourse to the distinction between two types of immutation: a spiritual and a natural one. In developing this distinction converge perennially valids philosophical principles and outmoded aspects of classical Physics. The same seems to occur in a strange text, where is attributed to the corruptible bodies, by virtue of their dependence on the heavenly bodies, the ability to achieve an effect that transcends the possibilities due to them as corruptible bodies: to diffuse their form in a way of spiritualis intentio. By attempting to interpretate and to give a definitive assessment of this doctrine, several Thomists have expressed discordant positions
According to Aquinas prudence is an extremely necessary virtue for human life. Due to its subject, it is one of the intellectual virtues and makes its possessor good in a moral sense. Aquinas also includes it among cardinal virtues and thoroughly considers supernatural infused prudence. Furthermore, prudence requires a right appetite, the perception of the singular, a higher wisdom, is different from moral science, synderesis, and from the act of conscience. The overall consideration of these matters allows to state that -clearly unlike relativist and essentialist approaches-, as far as Aquinas is concerned, prudence reaches its full extent precisely in the ascertainment of its limits
The booklet De unione corporis et spiritus by Hugo de San Víctor is a short work but of a surprising philosophical and theological richness. This is one of the reasons that led us to translate the work we present, which was still unpublished in our language.
Throughout the history of philosophy a series of conceptual dichotomies are formulated around which different aspects of philosophical thought are structured. Let us remember some of them: the one and the multiple, act and power, substance and accidents, spirit and matter, the singular and the universal, nominal and real, and in the field of moral philosophy: individual and society, theory and praxis, praxis and poiesis and many others. It is clear that the relationship or opposition between the different terms of each of the pairs has a different meaning, however, we can say that they are not exclusive terms, but on the contrary, to understand the reality we have to resort to the use of both . On the other hand, certain philosophical positions can be defined by the dialectic opposing exclusion between the two terms or by the reversal of the ontological primacy that corresponds to one of them. To affirm the primacy of the multiple over the one, of the power over the act, or the negation of the substance, reducing reality to a set of accidents, constitute the starting point of certain philosophical currents, especially of modernity.
In Saint-Simon’s philosophy of history one can find some ideas that date back to two old heresies: gnosis and ebionism. Through a strange dialectical synthesis, these doctrines secularized Christian hope about the messianic kingdom, up to becoming immanent ideas of history where the promise is an earthly redemption without any relation with natural order through the idea of progress .In Saint Simon’s works, we appreciate in an eminent way the dissolving and secularizing process of the gnostic-ebionite dialectic in the perspective of an upcoming industrial society.
Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas understand animal intelligence in reference to the activity of vis aestimativa, through which they explain animal behaviour as being consequent to an apprehensive appraisal of its environment. This apraisal must be distinguished from the representative knowledge of the phantasma, because it is not of per se sensed qualities, but per accidens, that Avicenna calls intentiones. Explaining animal behaviour from the vis aestimativa allows to understand it without attributing it to intelligence, which has been classically considered to be exclusive of rational beings’ conceptual knowledge of reality.
In this paper we study the Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine about teacher, with special emphasis on the two ways in which he communicates science to his disciple. For which, we distinguish between the action by which the student’s intellect can be led step by step to the cognition of an unknown truth (manuducere), and the other action by which the teacher strengthens the learner’s intellect so that it can deduce by itself conclusions from its universal principles (confortare).
Recent scientific claims by evolutionists have led many people to deny that a literal Adam and Eve ever existed. This essay demonstrates: (1) that their real existence remains authentic Catholic doctrine, (2) that this doctrine is essential to the credibility of the Catholic Faith, (3) that the sudden appearance of Adam and Eve is philosophically necessary and scientifically credible, (4) that recent findings in molecular biology need not rule out their literal reality, and (5) that rare interbreeding events may explain present genetic diversity, but might not prove necessary.
There are two predominant traditions whitin the thomistic school that have been developed around the interpretation of Thomas Aquinas’s thesis of the intelectual knowledge of the material individuals: the one that has Cajetan as its prominent representative and the one whose leading exponent is John of Saint Thomas. Although both lines of interpretation assert that the intellection of the material singulars is indirect, the first one says that it is an inappropriate, confusing and discursive knowledge while the second holds that it is proper, distinct and immediate. In the first group we may place Thomas de Sutton, Capreolo and Cajetan while Ferrara, Báñez and John of Saint Thomas followed the second way. The continuation and modifications of these traditions in ongoing thomism, particularly in Jacques Maritain, Cornelio Fabro, Joseph Gredt, Joseph Maréchal and Francisco Canals Vidal are also expounded.
Although Rahner presents himself as a thomist, his metaphysics of knowledge, of a transcendental background, is inspired above all in Heidegger and Maréchal, rather than Thomas Aquinas. This infidelity to the Angelic Doctor is especially demonstrated in the question of being: in fact the being is understood as an indefinable, indefinite and empty concept. He conceives man as spirit, inasmuch as he is opened in advance to the being in general; he identifies being, knowing and the known; and finally he makes an unjustified saltus of the transcendental to the transcendent, falling into pantheism.
Every act of understanding is ordered in a stream of interpretation (a tradition) that makes us able to interpret leading us in a certain way. In the light of this attempt, which will lay the foundation of the Catholic interpretation of the Scripture, we will pause at Book XII of De Genesi ad Litteram, of which it is, in the same movement, a hermeneutical foundation and an exegesis of the Second Letter to the Corinthians, 12, 2-4. Indeed, the careful study of this passage of the Apostle, that St Augustine considers autobiographical, is a deepening of all that he wrote in the previous books about the existence of Paradise.
Continuing the repertoire started three years ago, in this issue of Espiritu we collect the Hispanic Thomistic bibliography of 2014 and in the next we will publish the one that appeared in 2015.
At noon on Saturday, April 16, Professor Dr. Ángel Luis González García, Professor of Metaphysics at the University of Navarra (Madrid, 1948), unexpectedly passed away. His high personality, his indefatigable work capacity and respectful and selfless service to other colleagues and students of the university are patent with the only enumeration of the following data.
The Heart of Jesus is the main symbol of the triple love with which the Redeemer loves God and men: the divine love that unites the Father and the Holy Spirit, spiritual human love and sensitive human love. When Pius XII explains this doctrine in the Encyclical Haurietis Aquas (1956) uses some teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas. The objective of this study is to present the teaching of Aquinas cited by Pius XII, show how that teaching illuminates the triple love’s doctrine of the Heart of Jesus and to suggest some perspectives for contemporary Christology
