by Revista Espíritu | 167-2024
In this paper I shall examine the most representative authors of two important trends that dominated the classical-metaphysical debate in Italy during the second half of the XX century. On a hand, the conception of being qua perfection of all perfections, transcendental and analogical, which is closer to Aquinas’ written doctrine. On the other, the univocity of a notion of being that it is basically equalized to that of existence. Which stance appears more suitable to cope with modern and contemporary critiques today? What I am aiming to do in this paper is to show that metaphysical knowledge can be rephrased in a way that it is able to overcome a number of rigidnesses that are present in both the aforementioned settings.
by Revista Espíritu | 167-2024
The collection of papers that we have the honour to introduce here includes some of the contributions presented at the conference Thinking with St Thomas today, held at the Pontifical University of St Thomas in Urbe (Angelicum, Rome) from 17 to 18 February 2023. This event, promoted by the Thomistic Institute of the Roman Athenaeum, directed by Prof. Fr. Simon Gaine o.p., in collaboration with the Thomas Aquinas International Society (SITA), chaired by Prof. Lorella Congiunti, was intended as the third moment1 of an ongoing interlocution between two academic worlds that tend to run on two parallel tracks: that of the Pontifical Universities and that of Italian civil universities.
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by Revista Espíritu | 166-2023
“This is Addicts to Philosophy, your reference channel on philosophical issues, carrying out on YouTube the ancestral mission of this beautiful discipline: corrupting people by teaching them to think.” With this subtle irony, Enric F. Gel, doctor in philosophy from the University of Barcelona, began some of his philosophical dissemination videos on the internet.
by Revista Espíritu | 166-2023
The 2022-2023 academic year was the eighty-fourth in the history of Fundación Balmesiana, and the twentieth of Instituto Santo Tomás.
by Revista Espíritu | 166-2023
Repertoire of publications appeared in 2022 regarding Aquinas, or his historic influence, in any of the languages of the Iberian Peninsula.
by Revista Espíritu | 166-2023
The purpose of this article is to expose some recents attempts pertaining to the formalization of saint Thomas of Aquinas’s metaphysics of participation. Firstly, certain frequent objections related to the use of logic formalization in Philosophy are refuted, as if this supposed a collapse in the univocity of being or in a rationalist type approach. Next, the use of certain modal logic systems in the formalization of the metaphysics of participation of the Aquinian will be briefly explained. Finally, the present author applies the same tools in the formalization of certain transcendentals of the being.
by Revista Espíritu | 166-2023
In this article we want to show the rigorous and enlightening contribution that saint Thomas Aquinas makes to the relationship between the two definitions of soul presented by the Stagirite in De anima. At the beginning of Book II of that work, Aristotle gives two definitions of the soul that stand with each other in a demonstrative relationship. Aquinas’ commentary on said passage explains this demonstration keeping in mind Aristotelian epistemology and physics, allowing a scientific understanding of that key piece that is the definition of soul, since the definition and essence of the subject is the principle of science.
by Revista Espíritu | 166-2023
The paper deals with Aquinas’ critique of the Averroist and Avicennist interpretations of Aristotle, who stated (i) that the human intellect has a passive aspect in which the intelligible species are received, and an active aspect that abstracts the species from matter; and (ii) that those two aspects of the intellect are separate from matter and therefore are not corruptible as the body is. The position of St. Thomas is examined, which solidly concludes that the intellect is a power of the soul separated from matter, and that man is gifted with all the powers necessary to perform his natural operation, even if man has his intellect by participation from separated substances.
by Revista Espíritu | 166-2023
30 years after Veritatis splendor, the understanding of christian moral life continues to challenge moral theology. Since the hermeneutics of moral truth is anthropological and theological, it is necessary to think about the relationship between the dynamism of practical reason and the christian faith in a way that respects both the novelty of revelation and grace, as well as this dynamism itself. From the perspective of virtue ethics, it is possible to assume this challenge to theorize the unity of christian practical reason, pointing out the link between practical reason and the principles of christian life. In this study we present a proposal of understanding the dynamism of christian practical reason from the theological perspective of the ultimate end.
by Revista Espíritu | 166-2023
During an inhospitable and difficult moral atmosphere, the article raises the question of sociability and friendship in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition. The core of the text raises the relations between sociability and friendship; friendship and love; friendship and justice and friendship and charity as adequate moral frameworks, in societies that need to overcome the liberal justice established in the limits of contemporary ethics.
by Revista Espíritu | 166-2023
Banal evil is a central notion in Arendt’s thought, not without contradictory interpretations. Bernstein states in an early article that Arendt took such a notion from Jaspers and, in doing so, leads her readers to fall into the misunderstanding of making banal evil and radical evil interchangeable. Banal evil is usually understood as evil derived from the inability to think. However, it also designates a deformed conscience. The incapacity to think influences the deformation of conscience, which is caused by passion and vice, as saint Thomas points out.
by Revista Espíritu | 165-2023, Uncategorized
Antonio Russo is one of the scholars who have contributed the most to
the knowledge of Franz Brentano in recent decades. His investigations have given priority to the formation of the young Brentano, showing various aspects of his scholastic formation and, in particular, his relations with Heinrich Denifle.
by Revista Espíritu | 165-2023, Uncategorized
“Why is there something and not nothing?” Leibniz formulated this question a few centuries ago and there have been not a few philosophers who, taking up the challenge, have tried to give an answer. But, regardless of how the question has been resolved, it is interesting to note that the same question can include several lines of answer.
by Revista Espíritu | 165-2023, Uncategorized
Many theologians who support the theistic evolutionary position willingly accept Aquinas’s distinction between first and second causes, to describe theologically “the mechanics” of evolutionary impersonation. However, his description of the character of second causes in relation to the action of God often lacks precision.
by Revista Espíritu | 165-2023, Uncategorized
We seek to combine relevant reflections on Philosophy and History to think about the theory of historical knowledge according to Thomas Aquinas. The first question of the Summa Theologiae is used here as a central axis for the development of the theologian’s arguments on this subject, precisely because it deals with the scientific nature of the biblical historical accounts that are later used as a foundation by the sacred doctrine. Also, as a central argumentative line, the reflection of Francisco Canals Vidal will be placed on this subject because it seems to us one of the most faithful interpretations of Aquinas. In the present article it is tried, therefore, to analyze the foundation of said tomasian arguments and elucidate the epistemological status of historical knowledge from the philosophical-theological argumentation and therefore recognize, from the thought of Aquinas, if history is a science or not.
by Revista Espíritu | 165-2023, Uncategorized
The concept of infinity and the Aristotelian conception is compared with the Platonic one. The discussion between Saint Bonaventure and Saint Thomas on the question of the demonstrability of the temporal finiteness of the world is reviewed. The position of Georg Cantor is critically presented, analyzing its diagonal process, as well as the Alan Turing variant, and the opposition that his ideas had at the time is commented. The paradox of the lord of the abscissa is introduced, which shows the inconsistency of actual infinity theory, and its logically disgusting character. The impact of the elimination of actual infinity in physics, mathematics and theology is indicated, in response to G. Boffi.
by Revista Espíritu | 165-2023, Uncategorized
In this paper, the fifth way is analysed in the texts of Thomas Aquinas, highlighting the argumentative and conceptual structure. It is argued that today the fifth way is misunderstood with the argument from design and their conceptual difference is shown. The peculiar rational actuality of the Thomistic fifth way is argued.
by Revista Espíritu | 165-2023, Uncategorized
In this article, the author intends to carry out an analysis of the Aristotelian concepts of “wisdom” and “wise man” as they emerge from the consideration of some texts written by St. Thomas Aquinas and Boethius of Dacia. The question on the relationship between philosophy and theology, as well as that on the use of reason in theology, appear likewise fundamental in the confrontation between the two thinkers, both interested, each in his own way, in integrating the Aristotelian ideal of wisdom in a Christian context.
by Revista Espíritu | 165-2023, Uncategorized
This work presents a facet of the religious-philosophical prose of Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645) in which the presence of Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy, assimilated by the poet both in the Jesuit Colleges at the University of Alcalá and through numerous Thomistic readings, is evident. Quevedo lived in a Baroque environment of great theological interest and wrote his religious treatise Providencia de Dios from prison in the Convent of San Marcos de León. There he wrote an admonition to atheists and those who denied the immortality of the soul, relying on different authorities, especially the scholasticism of Francisco Suárez and Saint Thomas Aquinas.
by Revista Espíritu | 165-2023, Uncategorized
Since its rediscovery in the first half of the 20th century, the ‘separatio’ as an intellectual operation typical of metaphysics in the thought of Thomas Aquinas has been the subject of very different interpretations. In fact, it is probably one of the most debated issues in the field of contemporary Thomism. Our work, which provides elements for an update of the status quaestionis, identifies three directions that the investigations on the Thomistic separatio have followed in recent years. We try to make known the main characteristics of these studies and leave some challenges for future analysis.
