Research Group Experience in the Premodern Sciences of Soul and Body

In this paper I explore methodological approaches to Aquinas’ argument for a real distinction between essence and existence in creatures in De ente et essentia.  Joseph Owens and John Wippel examine the text through three stages which, they conclude, result in a demonstration for the real distinction.  I contrast this approach with R.E. Houser, who argues that Aquinas’ text, which proceeds dialectically, must be understood within the context of its sources, namely Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing and The Intentions of the Philosophers by al-Ghazali.  I will come to two adjudications: first I will offer an evaluative judgment on Owen’s and Wippel’s disagreement on which stage Aquinas demonstrates a real distinction; second I will offer an evaluative judgment on the nature of the treatise as a whole, suggesting that the methodology of source based contextualism offers another way to read the De ente.

In this paper I explore methodological approaches to Aquinas’ argument for a real distinction between essence and existence in creatures in De ente et essentia.  Joseph Owens and John Wippel examine the text through three stages which, they conclude, result in a demonstration for the real distinction.  I contrast this approach with R.E. Houser, who argues that Aquinas’ text, which proceeds dialectically, must be understood within the context of its sources, namely Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing and The Intentions of the Philosophers by al-Ghazali.  I will come to two adjudications: first I will offer an evaluative judgment on Owen’s and Wippel’s disagreement on which stage Aquinas demonstrates a real distinction; second I will offer an evaluative judgment on the nature of the treatise as a whole, suggesting that the methodology of source based contextualism offers another way to read the De ente.

Unlike any other Dominican theologian, Albert the Great wrote two commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.  He composed his first commentary, Super Ethica, during the years 1250-1252 at the new Dominican House of Studies (studium generale) in Cologne shortly after the first complete translation of Aristotle’s ethics, the so-called translatio lincolniensis, found its way into his hands.  This commentary bears the distinct mark of the classroom: it was written in the form of lectures and disputed questions when Albert taught at the Dominican studium in Cologne and when he introduced new readings into the established Dominican curriculum.  Under markedly different circumstances, Albert wrote his second ethical commentary, the Ethica, ten years later during a leisurely stay in Italy.  This work has often been described as a paraphrase or summarized version of Albert’s earlier work, Super Ethica.  Yet, what influenced Albert’s resolution to write a second work on the Stagirite’s ethical text seems to be that he had access to important sources which changed his views on a number of philosophical matters.  One key difference between the Universal Doctor’s two ethical commentaries is his use in the Ethica of al-Farabi’s work De Intellectu, from which Albert draws out a concept of the intellect not found in Aristotle and thus transforms his explanation of contemplative happiness.  Curiously, this source was not used by Thomas Aquinas in his own commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, which he composed around 1271-1272; yet, Albert clearly had access to it in Italy through the Dominican Order. The purpose of this paper is to address the ways in which the Dominican Order fostered philosophical discourse via the exchange and availability of texts through a comparative study of the sources available to Albert the Great while he was composing the Super Ethica and Ethica.

For Albertus Magnus, the attainment of civic happiness purifies and prepares a human being for the rigorous study of the sciences which is required to attain the ultimate happiness in this life, contemplative happiness.  The acquisition of virtue and the attainment of civic happiness are thus necessary prerequisites in order for a human being to achieve complete fulfillment of his/her natural end.  In his account, Albert takes over Averroes’s remark that “peasants” cannot attain a fully happy life, as they are incapable of perfecting their capacity for philosophical reflection. Somewhat disturbingly, the Universal Doctor adopts a version of Averroes’s elitist position, which raises questions not only about the political implications of his account but also the compatibility of his ethical teaching for Christianity.  This paper explores Albert’s account of the capabilities (or lack thereof) of peasants and the implications of this view for a theory of human potential for virtue.

My project focuses on the prevalent knowledge networks between the institutions of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil and members of the Leopoldina in the seventeenth century. It investigates how members of the Leopoldina made, understood, and received reports of observations of new diseases and medicines from their own travels and other travelers in the New World.

In his Commentary on the Sentences (bk. 4 d. 49 q. 2 a. 1) and De Veritate (q. 8 a. 1), Aquinas declares that the right model for conceiving of the beatific vision is found in Averroes’ conjunction theory as presented in his Long Commentary on Aristotle’s ‘De Anima’, bk. 3. Yet commencing with his Summa Contra Gentiles (III.51) Aquinas retracts  from his reference to Averroes. Recent studies by Brenet and Taylor have traced Aquinas’ adoption of and retraction from Averroes as a source. Yet they have not investigated Aquinas' reasons for his retraction. In my paper, I aim to fill this gap and explore such reasons that are traceable through a systematic textual study. I show that in his fully developed philosophical account of the beatific vision in his Summa Contra Gentiles, the elements that Aquinas initially adopts from Averroes’ conjunction theory turn out to be dispensable.

In his Summa Contra Gentiles (1261-63), Aquinas provides “probable and demonstrative arguments” on the light of glory’s ontological status and its attainment by the human intellect. Unlike his Latin predecessors Alexander of Hales and Albert the Great, who largely favored theological explanations, Aquinas presents the light of glory as a new receptive disposition in the intellect, obtained in virtue of a unique passive potency in intellectual creatures. Yet this philosophical conception—which maintained decisive psychological and epistemological principles—was only possible due to Aquinas’ maturing comprehension and innovative use of Averroes’ Long Commentary on Aristotle’s ‘De Anima’. In my paper, I thus provide the first synthesis of Aquinas’ evolving conception of the light of glory in the three early major works of his Commentary on the Sentences, De Veritate, and Summa Contra Gentiles unearthing his indebtedness to his native Latin tradition, but particularly to Averroes.

Aquinas presents his earliest conception of human happiness in his commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, bk. IV d. 49 q. 1. In holding that happiness can only be had vis-à-vis God in the afterlife, he decidedly follows Latin tradition including Peter Lombard. But he radically remodels the structure and content of heavenly happiness. Not only does he commence his treatment with the philosophical question of “wherein happiness is to be sought” (a. 1). But he also grounds it in the perfective operation of the soul alone and links it to God as its external obtainable good. His reasons for this fundamental deviation from the Latin tradition do, however, not lie in his adherence to Aristotle as contemporary scholarship suggests. Rather, as I show, Aquinas develops his theory of happiness against the backdrop of a complex range of sources, including Aristotle, the Greek Christian Commentators on Aristotle’s Ethics, Avicenna, Averroes, the Parisian Masters of Arts, and Albert the Great. The main purpose of his “intellectualist” account of heavenly happiness—a superior reconciliation of the truth of reason with the truth of revelation—can only be appreciated if this range of sources is taken into consideration.

Albert and Aquinas present beatitude in their Commentaries on the Sentences in strikingly different ways. While Albert’s theory of beatitude is an account purely based on theological conceptions and sources, Aquinas makes extensive use of philosophers such as Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Avicenna, and Averroes. Recent scholarship has shown that Aquinas derived his philosophical argumentation for the beatific vision from Averroes’ conjunction theory. Yet the reasons for Albert’s and Aquinas’ disparate theories of beatitude have not yet been investigated. In this paper, I shall show that Albert’s and Aquinas’ divergent conceptions of the relationship between the two sciences of philosophy and theology explain their disparate theories of beatitude.

De Wulf-Mansion Centre for Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Organized by: Andrea A. ROBIGLIO (Leuven) and Richard C. TAYLOR (Milwaukee-Leuven), in collaboration with the Aquinas and ‘the Arabs’ International Working Group.

Among historians of philosophy and science, Albert the Great (ca. 1200-1280) is well-known for his scientific outlook on animals. His mature commentary on the De animalibus (after 1258) has been praised for its revival of a scientia de animalibus, covering animal diversity in its psycho-physiological nature, generation and habitat, and the causes that lead to this diversity. Far less attention has been paid to the genesis of this scientific outlook, found in his early theological works. This lack of attention, however, has resulted in two gaps in the literature. On the one hand, we have not fully appreciated Albert’s motivations and reasons for his mature scientific decisions. On the other hand, we have not fully grasped the systematic impact that his appropriation of the scientia de animalibus had on the developments of related systematic fields, such as his eschatology and theological anthropology. The purpose of this paper is to begin to address this second gap in the literature. I show how and why Albert’s systematic integration of the Aristotelian model of animal epigenesis into his eschatology and theological anthropology resulted in a thorough modification of his Christian conception of the human soul’s creatio ex nihilo in his mature works.

Most ancient Greek and Arabic Peripatetic works following the footsteps of Aristotle’s De anima and Ethica Nicomachea stood at odds with key aspects of the traditional Christian doctrines of the human soul, intellect, and ultimate happiness. Alexander of Aphrodisias presents no exception to this picture. The young Thomas Aquinas thus heavily criticises his thought on the human soul and intellect in his Commentary on the Sentences II.17.2.1. Yet at the same time, he explicitly approves of some aspects of Alexander’s thought on ultimate human happiness for his doctrine of the beatific vision in his Commentary on the Sentences IV.49.2.1. The purpose of this paper is to dissolve these seemingly paradoxical treatments of Alexander’s thought in Aquinas’ earliest work. By showing that Aquinas performs two distinctive transformations of Alexander’s Aristotelian philosophy—an anchored transformation and a dissociated transformation—I uncover how he systematically consolidates his own earliest theological anthropology and eschatology.