Aquinas: A New Introduction

261 Pages·2008·0.66 MB·English

by  John Peterson

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University Press of America®, Inc.
AQUINAS
publishing across academic disciplines since 1975
Aquinas provides an in-depth analysis of basic philosophical concepts
in the thought of Aquinas. These concepts include: being, essence, A
existence, form, matter, truth, goodness, freedom and necessity,
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knowledge, willing and choosing, and right action. These ideas
are approached from an analytical point of view but the analysis U
is not exceedingly technical, which allows beginners to follow the
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discussion. N
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Many other works consider only one aspect of Aquinas’s thought
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such as his treatment of persons, his arguments for God’s existence,

or his theory of truth, but Peterson’s Aquinas combines readability with
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both depth and close analysis to give a comprehensive overview
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of Aquinas’s work without sacrifi cing either accuracy or depth.
A New Introduction
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John Peterson (Ph.D.) is Professor of Philosophy in the University

of Rhode Island. He is the author of Realism and Logical Atomism I
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(1976), Introduction to Scholastic Realism (1999), and critical
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papers in a dozen philosophical journals. R
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Aquinas
A New Introduction
John Peterson
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To Gary, Mary Hope, Margaret, Sam and Sarah

Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
1 Change and Its Causes 1
2 Being 31
3 Truth 89
4 Universals 114
5 Persons 131
6 Ethics 207
Select Bibliography 239
Index 241
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Acknowledgments
I should like gratefully to acknowledge the support of the Center for the
Humanities in the University of Rhode Island and its director, Prof. Galen
Johnson, in the publication of this book. I wish also to thank the University
of Rhode Island Alumni Association and M. Beverly Swann, Vice-President
for Academic Affairs and Provost of the University of Rhode Island, for
their help in this project. Last but not least, my gratitude goes out to the Phi-
losophy Department of the University of Rhode Island and its Chair, Prof.
Donald Zeyl, for their support and encouragement.
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Introduction
Metaphysics is the core of philosophy in Aquinas. It is first philosophy. ‘First’
here does not mean temporally first. The science of metaphysics is not first in
the order of our knowledge. On the contrary it is the last, or nearly the last,
science in the order of learning. But while it is last or nearly last temporally
speaking, metaphysics is absolutely first logically speaking. Metaphysics is
first philosophy because, while all the other sciences include the principles of
metaphysics, metaphysics does not include the principles of any one of the
other sciences. It is thus the independent science, the science that studies be-
ing just as being. The causes or elements of being as being enter into mobile
beings, immobile beings, living beings and non-living beings. But the causes
or elements of mobile beings, immobile beings, living beings and non-living
beings do not enter into the principles of being as being. So all the other sci-
ences depend on metaphysics as the logically posterior depends on the logi-
cally prior. That just means that something can be a being without being a liv-
ing being. For it might be a non-living being. Or something can be a being
without being a non-living being. For it might be a living being. Or something
can be a being without being an immobile being. For it might be a mobile be-
ing. And so on. But something cannot be living or non-living being or mobile
or immobile being without being a being.
As for epistemology, Aquinas devotes no separate treatise to that subject. He
does not question whether it can be known that there is an external world,
whether it can be known for what it is, and whether, in fact, anything at all can
be known for certain. Aquinas is a direct realist in epistemology. He does not
ask whether there can be knowledge of basic principles or whether knowledge
has the independently real as its object. He focuses instead on the ontological
status and structure of knowledge. His concern in knowledge is always with
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