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St. Thomas and Philosophy
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 23, 2020
The important Thomist professor asks the question about the relationship between St. Thomas Aquinas' thought ad philosophy. There are two errors that risk disrupting the understanding of the relationship.
The first is that of the French historian Pierre Duhem, who, after disentangling Aquinas' theology from his philosophy, found that there is no such thing as Thomas' philosophy as separate from Aristotle (and to a lesser extend Avicenna and Averroes). The other error is to simply assume that Aquinas' philosophy is there present alongside his theological works.
Pegis attempts to balance the two, but does come down on the side that ato pull Aquinas' philosophy out of his theology is to kill the philosophy, like pulling the skeleton out of a person and expecting the skeleton to remain alive. Pegis concludes the lecture by saying that future Thomists will have a special work to do (1964) but I think that the work was already well under way.
I am not overly convinced by the argument because I think that not only Thomas, but all philosophy is bracketed by other non-philosophical systems of thought and it is unfair to demand pure philosophy from a theologian when all philosophy reflects the scientific, psychological, historical, religious and political views of the philosopher. These other systems are used as brackets, or better yet, scaffolding, to construct of philosophy. But, importantly, the scaffolding can be removed and the philosophy can stand or fall (and be judged) on its own merits.
Despite including much information on the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the focus of the book is the relationship between the two and not necessarily the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (if such a thing exists).
The first is that of the French historian Pierre Duhem, who, after disentangling Aquinas' theology from his philosophy, found that there is no such thing as Thomas' philosophy as separate from Aristotle (and to a lesser extend Avicenna and Averroes). The other error is to simply assume that Aquinas' philosophy is there present alongside his theological works.
Pegis attempts to balance the two, but does come down on the side that ato pull Aquinas' philosophy out of his theology is to kill the philosophy, like pulling the skeleton out of a person and expecting the skeleton to remain alive. Pegis concludes the lecture by saying that future Thomists will have a special work to do (1964) but I think that the work was already well under way.
I am not overly convinced by the argument because I think that not only Thomas, but all philosophy is bracketed by other non-philosophical systems of thought and it is unfair to demand pure philosophy from a theologian when all philosophy reflects the scientific, psychological, historical, religious and political views of the philosopher. These other systems are used as brackets, or better yet, scaffolding, to construct of philosophy. But, importantly, the scaffolding can be removed and the philosophy can stand or fall (and be judged) on its own merits.
Despite including much information on the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the focus of the book is the relationship between the two and not necessarily the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (if such a thing exists).
July 22, 2019
It’s a short introduction to understand the main points and differences between Aquinas and Aristotle, the common judgment is that Saint Thomas is an Aristotle commentator, and that is not true, Saint Thomas introduces the love of god in his philosophy and acknowledges the limitation la the intellect regarding the knowledge of god, nice lecture.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews