6 - THOMAS AQUINAS: THE ‘AUFHEBUNG’ OF RADICAL ARISTOTELIAN ONTOLOGY INTO A PSEUDODIONYSIAN-PROCLEAN ONTOLOGY OF ‘ESSE’

Summary

Outlived by his master, Albert, Thomas Aquinas (1224/5–1274) – the ‘doctor angelicus’ – confronted the same potential anarchy of thought, and produced a philosophical figure which had the same eirenic intention as Albert's. Thomas's thought developed from the basis of Albert's; though it is more refined, more articulate, greater in volume and range, and more calm. Its apparent simplicity is that of problems resolved; his own aporetic of objection and response does not, like Aristotle's metaphysics, display the process of intense groping for a final solution, which obstinately refuses to come forward, but is the exposition of something already explained, or the exploration of the virtualities of a position already taken up. To use on him the model of ‘influence of earlier writers’ simply because he quotes or uses their ideas is quite inappropriate. Far nearer the facts is a series of paintings of his ‘triumph’, which show a calm but deeply alert Thomas, surrounded by philosophers as well as ecclesiastical writers, who, whilst they may be ministering their works to him, are themselves illumined by the radiance which is diffused from him. Even more appropriate for his work is the categorisation already applied to Albert's: creative response; and not least is it appropriate because whilst he had before him the generously conceived, though somewhat aggressively carried out, comprehensive figure of Albert, his own figure significantly differs from it.