Thomas Aquinas: Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives

by Brian Davies (Editor)

The work of Thomas Aquinas has always enjoyed a privileged position as a pillar of Catholic theology, but for centuries his standing among western philosophers was less sure. Today, Aquinas's work is recognized as a cornerstone of the western philosophical tradition.
This book offers a full-scale introduction to Aquinas's philosophy. Brian Davies has collected in one volume the best recent essays on Aquinas by some of the world's foremost scholars of medieval philosophy. Taken together, they illuminate the entire spectrum of Aquinas's philosophy of nature, logic, metaphysics, natural theology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, and ethics. The essays are philosophically solid, readable, informative, critical, and evaluative of the texts of Aquinas. Davies frames the essays with a detailed introduction that provides an account of Aquinas's life and works, as well as of his major philosophical conclusions.

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Brian Davies is a Dominican friar and Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, New York. He has published extensively on the thought of St Thomas Aquinas.

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This anthology of articles on Aquinas' philosophy is of mixed quality. Though it contains pieces by such important scholars as Eleonore Stump, Gyula Klima, and Anthony Kenny, I found many of them to be (1) not well edited and (2) not necessarily well laid out. Moreover, since none of the articles were specially commissioned for this volume (except, for course, for the introduction) you can find them all elsewhere. For instance, John Wippel's piece on Aquinas' five ways was taken directed from his book The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas while Scott MacDonald's reconstruction of the proof for God's existence in Being and Essence was originally published in the Journal of the History of Philosophy (I thought this essay and Sandra Edwards' were the best in the collection). However, if you're interested in reading this volume through, be prepared to spend a considerable amount of time working through the different arguments.