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Free Download Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II By John F. Wippel
2007 | 316 Pages | ISBN: 0813214661 | PDF | 1 MB
This volume contains eleven articles and book chapters written by John Wippel since the publication of his Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas in 1984. Many of them have also been published since the completion of his The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being. It is intended to serve as a complement to but not as a substitute for those volumes.The essays considered in this volume range widely over many different topics such as the possibility of a Christian philosophy from a Thomistic perspective, the Latin Avicenna as a source for Aquinas's metaphysics, truth in Thomas Aquinas (including truth in the intellect and truth of being), and Platonism and Aristotelianism in Aquinas's metaphysics. Several of them consider certain important axioms or adages used by Aquinas in developing his metaphysical thought, and still another investigates Aquinas's intention in writing his Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics. Others examine Aquinas's views on whether created agents can cause esse, whether divine omnipotence can be demonstrated philosophically, and whether Aquinas has successfully shown on philosophical grounds that God is free to create or whether because of his goodness he had to create. All of them are concerned in one way or another with important aspects of Aquinas's metaphysics. Wippel bases his interpretations on a close reading of Aquinas's texts, taking into account certain difficulties that arise from some of those texts, along with other current and sometimes quite divergent readings. While Wippel argues for a strong Platonic-Neoplatonic influence on Aquinas's metaphysics along with the widely recognized influence of Aristotle, he concludes that Aquinas's metaphysics cannot be reduced to any of these earlier sources but is a truly original production by Thomas himself.John F. Wippel, Theodore Basselin Professor of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America and recipient of the prestigious Aquinas Medal from the American Catholic Philosophical Association, has written several books including The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas and Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas (both published by CUA Press).PRAISE FOR THE BOOK: "[O]ne finds precise and detailed analyses of some of the most important notions and principles in Aquinas's metaphysics.... It presents a very careful and comprehensive explication of Aquinas's texts on truth.... With this fine collection of essays John Wippel has once again put scholars of medieval philosophy in his debt. Specialists will find much to profit from in these essays; students new to the field will find in them a reliable and trustworthy guide to Aquinas's metaphysical thought." -- Mark Gossiaux, Review of Metaphysics