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Aquinas and the Academic Life
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
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In a book on Aquinas and beauty, Fr Armand Maurer starts with an apology. For, so he notes, ‘we look in vain in the immense body of Aquinas’s writings for a detailed and comprehensive treatment of beauty’. In general, says Maurer, ‘Thomas seems to have given short shrift to beauty or to have avoided it altogether’. And I might say something similar when it comes to Aquinas and the academic life. In his writings, the word ‘academic’ occurs in two allusions to St Augustine’s Contra Academicos. Otherwise, it is not to be found at all whether as a noun or as an adjective. There is a common 16th and 17th century English use of ‘academic’ according to which someone academic is a disciple of Plato. But Aquinas is heavily critical of Plato. And he has no treatise on the nature and purpose of centers of higher learning and the like. No work of his remotely corresponds to studies such as Cardinal Newman’s The Idea of a University.
I might add that some famous academics have been throughly skeptical of Aquinas’s own academic value. He is often presented as an important philosopher. But was he? Not, for example, according to Bertrand Russell. As Russell himself put it: ‘There is little of the true philosophical spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead ...
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- Copyright © 2002 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Maurer, Armand, About Beauty: A Thomistic Interpretation (Toronto, 1983), p. 1Google Scholar.
2 Ibid.
3 Russell, Bertrand, A History of Western Philosophy (New York, 1945), p. 463Google Scholar.
4 In the last twenty years or so Aquinas is someone to whom analytical philosophers have turned with some admiration. For a now relatively common evaluation (not implying total agreement), see Kenny, Anthony, Aquinas on Mind (London and New York, 1993)Google Scholar. Also see Kretzmann, Norman, The Metaphysics of Theism (Oxford, 1997)Google Scholar.
5 Cf. Question V of Aquinas's Commentary on Boethius's De Trinitate.
6 For an account of Aquinas and disputations see The De Malo of Thomas Aquinas, translated by Richard Regan, edited with an Introduction and Notes by Brian Davies (New York and Oxford, 2001), pp.8–12.
7 In a text known as De Modo Studendi (‘How to Study’) the reader is urged not to pay attention to what is said rather than who is saying it. De Modo Studendi, though often attributed to Aquinas, is almost certainly not by him. But the sentiment just mentioned has an authentically Thomistic ring to it.
8 Hence it is that Aquinas's De Principiis Naturae is quite a good introduction to Aristotle on topics such as causation and identity.
9 Cf. Mark Jordan, The Alleged Aristotelianism of Thomas Aquinas (The Etienne Gilson Series 15, Toronto, 1992).
10 Aquinas, of course, has no time for what, as a Christian, he takes to be doctrinal heresy. He says that convicted heretics should ‘not only be excommunicated but also justly put to death’ (Summa theologiae 2a2ae, 11,3). In his writings, however, heresy is typically replied to in an argumentative fashion and with reference to what might be said in favour of different heresies.
11 Commentary on the Divine Names I, iii,77.
12 Cf. Summa theologiae la, 85.
13 Cf. especially Summa theologiae la, 117, 1. For Aquinas, teaching (by God and by people) is especially crucial when it comes to the truths of Christianity, which he sometimes refers to as ‘sacra doctrina’ (‘holy teaching’). Cf. Victor White O.R, Holy Teaching: The Idea of Theology according to St Thomas Aquinas (The Aquinas Society of London Aquinas Paper 33, London, 1958).
14 Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, book 5 lectio 5 [on chapter 3 202a22‐202b29]. Also cf. De Unitate Intellectus contra Averoistas, 71–74.
15 De Veritate XI, 1. The words occur in an objection, but Aquinas does not dispute what they say,
16 De Regno, Book II, Ch, 3.
17 Summa contra Gentes 11,75.
18 Cf. Pieper, Josef, Leisure: The Basis of Culture (New York, 1963), Ch.2Google Scholar.
19 Newman, J.H., The Idea of a University (London, 1889), p. 104Google Scholar.
20 Cf. John Paul II, ‘On the Catholic Universities’ (Address to the Third International Meeting of Catholic Universities and Institutions of Higher Learning, Vatican City, 1989. Text in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 81 [1989]). Cf. also John Paul II, ‘Excellence, Truth, and Freedom in Catholic Universities’ (Address at the Catholic University, Washington, D.C., 1979. Origins 9 [1979]).
21 Cf. Summa contra Gentes III, 37.
22 Ibid.
23 Summa theologiae 1a2ae, 101,2. The quotation occurs in an objection and refers the reader to St Augustine's De Doctrina Christiana IV,8 and 10. But Aquinas is clearly not concerned to contest what it states.
24 Summa theologiae, Prologus.
25 Summa contra Gentes IV,13.
26 The text comes from Aquinas's inaugural lecture as Master of Theology at Paris. I quote from Tugwell, Simon (ed.), Albert and Thomas (New York and Mahwah, 1998), p.355Google Scholar.
27 Tugwell, op. cit., pp.359–360.
28 Summa theologiae 2a2ae, 180,1. Cf. Also 2a2ae, 180,2 where Aquinas explains how what he calls ‘moral virtues’ have a place in contemplation even though contemplation itself is not essentially concerned with behaviour.
29 This article is a modified version of a lecture given at Denison University, Granville, Ohio, U.S.A. For the invitation to deliver the lecture I am grateful to the Goodspeed Lecture Series, the religion and philosophy departments at Denison, the Denison Honors Program, and Professor Anthony J. Lisska.
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