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.

Winter 2018 Course at LMU Munich

This course will introduce students to Thomas Aquinas’s views on the nature and attainment of human happiness. After a general introduction to key philosophical issues in Thomas Aquinas, the course will focus on Aquinas’s views on happiness in his earliest writings on happiness in his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. It will then look at Thomas’s developments in his later works, such as the Summa contra gentiles, the Summa theologiae, and others.

Issues on happiness to be explored will include: the Neoplatonic notion of the return, the end of the human being, and the development of the Latin Averroist conception of the possibility of the attainment of happiness through purely philosophical means without religion which was attacked by Thomas Aquinas and other 13th century theologians.

Fall 2020 Course at Bard College Berlin: Happiness is often defined as a chief goal of human life, or as a state that can be achieved when striving for external affirmation is relinquished. A look at past traditions of thought on the subject reveals a diversity that goes far beyond contemporary conceptions, while also giving us an insight into their origin and development. This course explores Medieval conceptions of happiness as found in Islamic, Jewish, and Christian thinkers, such as al- Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Tufayl, Maimonides, and Thomas Aquinas. We examine the sources used by these authors, especially the influence of Ancient Greek philosophy, as well as the other concepts and values that played a role in their conclusions. Our aim will be to determine the degrees of continuity and difference between contemporary ideas of happiness and their medieval antecedents.

This course provides a background and introduction to the history of debates within Latin American philosophy. We will think through the debates pertaining to the identity of the Native Americans. The course begins with pre-Columbian philosophical thought by reading ancient Aztec/Nahua poems. We will then turn to the colonial period and examine sixteenth century thinkers Friar Juan de Zumarraga and Vasco de Quiroga who were confronted with the moral and ethical issues of enslavement and education of the Native Americans, seventeenth century writer Sister Juana Inez de la Cruz who raised the question of the status of women in Latin American society, and eighteenth century philosopher Francisco Javier Clavigero who wrote that God’s hand could be seen in the culture of the Nahual people. We will then turn to the independentist and positivist periods in which key thinkers, such as Simón Bolívar, addressed the theme of breaking free from the Spanish Empire. We will conclude the course by looking at the contemporary period and discuss debates on poverty, education, and the challenges of reconfiguring society in a way which considers indigenous comovisions.

Although Albert the Great (1200-1280) wrote two commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Super Ethica (ca. 1250-52) and Ethica (ca. 1262), his later ethical commentary is often neglected in studies of the secondary literature. Yet this second ethical commentary, which Albert himself called Ethica, importantly presents Albert’s mature and original view on the science of ethics as an ethics of perfection. Connecting the science of ethics to his Aristotelian commentary project, Albert here sees the science of ethics as the science that perfects the human being as the intellectus solus. The goal of ethics is the actualized human nature in the intellectus adeptus or acquired intellect, achieved through a process of self-realization. This thesis investigates Albert’s understanding of perfection as the end goal of the science of ethics and the process of formation of the human being needed to achieve that goal.
I examine Albert’s mature view of the science of ethics in Ethica within a three fold framework: Albert’s Neoplatonic cosmology, his anthropology of the human being as the intellect alone, and his ordered scientific program of study of the Aristotelian natural sciences of living beings. In the context of these three areas of Albert’s thought, the end goal of perfection is seen within a narrative of what I call epistemological teleology, in which the end of the human being is the acquired intellect. Albert’s treatment of the final end of the human being is complicated, however, by the question of a natural potency for reaching perfection. Upholding a morally neutral position in society, Albert transforms his epistemological teleology into a narrow understanding of excellence that also has ontological implications. This narrow understanding of excellence is also seen in the moral and character formation required to reach perfection. I further show that experience plays a significant role in the path to perfection even though the end goal is the acquired intellect. I argue for a distinction between perfection and happiness in Albert’s mature view of ethics, and show that the defining moment of his mature account is the moment of self-reflexivity in the acquired intellect, by which one knows one’s self in relation to one’s scientific knowledge. The science of ethics is thus an ethics of perfection, which is why Albert holds that it should be studied at the end of the philosophical curriculum after metaphysics. Although my dissertation offers a micro historical viewpoint that will advance our understanding and appreciation of Albert’s mature view of ethics for the fields of medieval philosophy and history of philosophy, it also contributes more broadly to a consideration of how we understand and write our histories of philosophy.


Obwohl Albert der Große (1200-1280) zwei Kommentare zu Aristoteles’ Nikomachischer Ethik schrieb, die Super Ethica (ca. 1250-1252) und die Ethica (ca. 1262), wird sein späterer ethischer Kommentar in Studien der Sekundärliteratur häufig vernachlässigt. Dieser zweite ethische Kommentar, den Albert selbst Ethica nannte, präsentiert Alberts reife und originelle Sicht auf die Wissenschaft der Ethik als Ethik der Perfektion. Albert verbindet die Wissenschaft der Ethik mit seinem aristotelischen Kommentarprojekt und sieht die Wissenschaft der Ethik als die Wissenschaft, die den Menschen perfektioniert, als den intellectus solus. Das Ziel der Ethik ist die aktualisierte menschliche Natur im intellectus adeptus oder erworbenen Intellekt. Diese Dissertation untersucht Alberts Verständnis von Perfektion als Endziel der Wissenschaft der Ethik und sein Verständnis der Bildung des Menschen, um das Ziel der Perfektion zu erreichen.
Ich untersuche Alberts reife Sicht auf die Wissenschaft der Ethik in drei Bereichen: Alberts neoplatonische Kosmologie, Alberts Anthropologie des Menschen als intellectus solus und sein geordnetes wissenschaftliches Studienprogramm der aristotelischen Naturwissenschaften der Lebewesen. Im Kontext dieser drei Bereiche von Alberts Denken wird das Endziel der Perfektion in einem Narrativ dessen gesehen, was ich als epistemologische Teleologie bezeichne, in der das Endziel des Menschen der erworbene Intellekt ist. Alberts Behandlung des endgültigen Endes des Menschen wird jedoch durch die Frage nach einer natürlichen Potenz zur Erreichung der Perfektion erschwert. Albert hält an einer moralisch neutralen Position in der Gesellschaft fest und verwandelt seine epistemologische Teleologie in ein enges Verständnis von Exzellenz, das auch ontologische Auswirkungen hat. Dieses enge Verständnis von Exzellenz zeigt sich auch in der Moral- und Charakterbildung, die erforderlich ist, um Perfektion zu erreichen. Ich zeige weiter, wie Erfahrung eine wichtige Rolle auf dem Weg zur Perfektion spielt, obwohl das Endziel der erworbene Intellekt ist. Ich plädiere auch für eine Unterscheidung zwischen Perfektion und Glückseligkeit in Alberts reifer Sicht der Ethik. Ich behaupte, dass das entscheidende Moment seines reifen Kommentars das Moment der Selbstreflexivität im erworbenen Intellekt ist, durch das man sein Selbst in Bezug auf sein wissenschaftliches Wissen kennt. Die Wissenschaft der Ethik ist somit eine Ethik der Perfektion, weshalb Albert der Ansicht ist, dass sie am Ende des philosophischen Lehrplans nach der Metaphysik studiert werden sollte. Nicht nur leistet meine Dissertation aus mikro-historischer Sicht den Beitrag, unser Verständnis und unsere Wertschätzung von Alberts reifer Sicht der Ethik für die Bereiche der mittelalterlichen Philosophie und der Geschichte der Philosophie zu vertiefen; meine Dissertation weitet zudem unseren Blick hin zu einem besseren Verständnis der Frage, wie wir unsere Geschichte der Philosophie verstehen und schreiben.

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.

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.