A great luminary of modern Thomistic studies was Bernard J. Lonergan, S.J. (1904-1984). One of his brightest disciples was William Murnion. Murnion was powerfully drawn to Lonergan's interpretations of the thought of Thomas Aquinas and began to deeply immerse himself in the work and the evolution of the thought of both. After five years of research and writing, Murnion had to interrupt his studies due to professional and personal demands. Several years later he successfully completed and defended a doctoral dissertation which was published only in part. This book is the complete, unrevised, original work. As Murnion observed in his preface, "only the title is modified...the betterto clarify the topic. I suppose I could have massaged the text to incorporate some of the things I have learned about Aquinas in the meantime. But just as it is, I believe it presents a clear and cogent argument for the claim I defended in it about Aquinas's explanation of the act of understanding."

Anthony J. Lisska presents a new analysis of Thomas Aquinas's theory of perception. While much work has been undertaken on Aquinas's texts, little has been devoted principally to his theory of perception and less still on a discussion of inner sense. The thesis of intentionality serves as the philosophical backdrop of this analysis while incorporating insights from Brentano and from recent scholarship. The principal thrust is on the importance of inner sense, a much-overlooked area of Aquinas's philosophy of mind, with special reference to the vis cogitativa. Approaching the texts of Aquinas from contemporary analytic philosophy, Lisska suggests a modest 'innate' or 'structured' interpretation for the role of this inner sense faculty. Dorothea Frede suggests that this faculty is an 'embarrassment' for Aquinas; to the contrary, the analysis offered in this book argues that were it not for the vis cogitativa, Aquinas's philosophy of mind would be an embarrassment. By means of this faculty of inner sense, Aquinas offers an account of a direct awareness of individuals of natural kinds—referred to by Aquinas as incidental objects of sense—which comprise the principal ontological categories in Aquinas's metaphysics. By using this awareness of individuals of a natural kind, Aquinas can make better sense out of the process of abstraction using the active intellect (intellectus agens). Were it not for the vis cogitativa, Aquinas would be unable to account for an awareness of the principal ontological category in his metaphysics.

A study of Aquinas's theory of self-knowledge, situated within the mid-thirteenth-century debate and his own maturing thought on human nature.

This work places Thomas Aquinas's moral theory in its full philosophical and theological context in a way that makes Aquinas accessible to students and interested general readers.

Among the great philosophers of the Middle Ages Aquinas is unique in pursuing two apparently disparate projects. On the one hand he developed a philosophical understanding of Christian doctrine in a fully integrated system encompassing all natural and supernatural reality. On the other hand, he was convinced that Aristotle's philosophy afforded the best available philosophical component of such a system. In a relatively brief career Aquinas developed these projects in great detail and with an astonishing degree of success. In this volume ten leading scholars introduce all the important aspects of Aquinas' thought, ranging from its historical background and dependence on Greek, Islamic, and Jewish philosophy and theology, through the metaphysics, epistemology and ethics, to the philosophical approach to Biblical commentary.

This volume presents an introduction to Aquinas and a guide to his thinking on almost all the major topics on which he wrote. The book begins with an account of Aquinas's life and the historical context of his thought. The subsequent sections address topics that Aquinas himself discussed. The final sections of the volume address the development of Aquinas's thought and its historical influence.

This edition features reliable, accessible translations; useful editorial materials; and a straightforward presentation of the Objections and Replies, including the objections from Caterus, Arnauld, and Hobbes, accompanied by Descartes' replies, in their entirety. The letter serving as a reply to Gassendi--in which several of Descartes' associates present Gassendi's best arguments and Descartes' replies--conveys the highlights and important issues of their notoriously extended exchange. Roger Ariew's illuminating Introduction discusses the Meditations and the intellectual environment surrounding its reception.