If Saint Thomas Aquinas was a great theologian, it is in no small part because he was a great philosopher. And he was a great philosopher because he was a great metaphysician. In the twentieth century, metaphysics was not much in vogue, among eithertheologians or even philosophers; but now it is making a comeback, and once the contours of Thomas's metaphysical vision are glimpsed, it looks like anything but a museum piece. It only needs some dusting off. Many are studying Thomas now for the answers that he might be able to give to current questions, but he is perhaps even more interesting for the questions that he can raise regarding current answers: about the physical world, about human life and knowledge, and (needless to say) about God. This book is aimed at helping those who are not experts in medieval thought to begin to enter into Thomas's philosophical point of view. Along the way, it brings out some aspects of his thought that are not often emphasised in the current literature, and it offers a reading of his teaching on the divine nature that goes rather against the drift of some prominent recent interpretations.

Metaphysics now joins the series of translations of Father Gardeil's Initiation a la Philosophie de S. Thomas d'Aquin. After an Introduction which discusses the general notion of metaphysics as a science, the relation of metaphysics to the critical analysis of knowledge and metaphysics as developed by Aristotle and St. Thomas, the author turns to the questions of First Philosophy which have concerned philosophers from Parmenides to Sartre and Heidegger. In seven chapters he considers being in itself and as it is known, the transcendental, the categories of being, act and potency, essence and existence and causality. As in the other volumes of this series, the author includes a generous selection of texts from the works of St. Thomas carefully correlated with the various chapters of the work itself. These are not mere snippets, but substantial quotations drawn from the Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, De ente et existentia, the Disputed Questions and the two Summas. The reader has the words of Aquinas in the best modern English versions before him. Here is St. Thomas for the thinker--unfiltered. A most valuable addition in this fourth volume is the technical vocabulary of Thomistic and scholastic terms, covering all four volumes of the Initiation. The beginner in metaphysics will find this book most valuable, for it presents clearly the basic problematics and the Thomistic solution of them. For the more profound student here is a clear, concise (but not cursory) review of the science. Thomistic metaphysics, in Father Gardeil's presentation, is not an historical curiosity but a living and lively discipline. While the aim of the work is to give a synthetic view of St. Thomas' thought, the insights of modern or contemporary philosophers is not neglected. The translator's notes offer clarification and add bibliographical information on works published since the French edition. Valuable as a class manual, indispensable as supplementary reading, this book can serve the needs of a strictly philosophical course or one designed as a preparation for theology.

In this final edition of his classic study of St. Thomas Aquinas, Etienne Gilson presents the sweeping range and organic unity of Thomistic philosophical thought. Gilson demonstrates that Aquinas drew from a wide spectrum of sources in the development of his thought—from Aristotle, to the Arabic and Jewish philosophers of his time, as well as from Christian writers. What results is an insightful introduction to the thought of Aquinas and the Scholastic philosophy of the Middles Ages. Praise for The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas “As the only English version of any edition of Le Thomisme, and therefore for years a kind of manual for North American students approaching Aquinas, the book deserves recirculation. With it appears the masterful ‘Catalogue of St. Thomas’ works’ prepared by the Rev. I. T. Eschmann to accompany Shook's translation and available nowhere else. . . . Its overview of principles and conclusions in the history of the texts has not been surpassed.”—The Philosophical Quarterly “[This volume presents] L. K. Shook's English translation of the final version of the late Etienne Gilson's (1884-1978) classic overview of the Christian philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. . . . Gibson was one of the pioneers, in the early part of [the twentieth] century, of medieval philosophy in general and the work of Aquinas in particular. He sought to restore the study of Aquinas’ texts an historical sensitivity, thus rescuing them from the near canonical status accorded in the well-intentioned but inhabiting late nineteenth-century palpal revival of Thomistic studies and preserved in the so-called ‘manual theology’ of the seminar curriculum. . . . The endnotes are an invaluable resource, as is the still unsurpassed catalogue of Aquinas’ works compiled by Eschmann and included as an invaluable appendix here.”—Theological Book Review

"In the brief span of some 140 pages Pere Gardeil succeeds remarkably well in the simple presentation of the Aristotelian principles of mobile being, quantity, motion, causation, place, time, inanity, the first mover, and astronomical theory. A second section (of some forty-five pages) selects five capital texts from the classic commentary of St. Thomas upon Aristotle's Physics and the full text of his model synopsis of Aristotelian cosmology in the early Paris opuscule, De Principiis Naturae. The translation of the original French work of 1953 has been accomplished with sober clarity and served editorially with a useful index and notes. Its frank, working language should attract both philosophical novice and pragmatic scientist alike and effect their working contact with a classic vision of the universe."--Philosophical Studies

Thomism is solidly based on the assumption that we know the world first through our senses and then through concepts formed on the basis of our sense experience. In this informally discursive introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas, Ralph McInerny shows how this basic assumption contrasts with dominant modern alternative views and is developed by Thomas into a coherent view of ourselves, of knowledge, and of God. McInerny first places Thomism in context within philosophical inquiry, discussing the relationship between philosophy and theology, and between modern and classical views of philosophy. He then describes the challenges Thomas faced with the introduction of Aristotle’s works into the Christian West. The reader is subsequently guided through such key concepts as art, nature, causes, and motion and shown how Thomas used these concepts to resolve the problems presented by Aristotle. Each chapter is tied to a specific Thomistic text, providing a sample from a number of Thomas’s works. In addition to articles from both Summas, there are sections from the Disputed Questions and the Commentaries, among others. McInerny also provides an annotated list of the writings of Thomas available in English. Bibliographical notes provided by the author, grouped by subject and following his general chapter divisions, will be particularly helpful for further reading.