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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- I Medieval philosophical literature
- II Aristotle in the middle ages
- III The old logic
- IV Logic in the high middle ages: semantic theory
- V Logic in the high middle ages: propositions and modalities
- VI Metaphysics and epistemology
- VII Natural philosophy
- VIII Philosophy of mind and action
- 29 The potential and the agent intellect
- 30 Sense, intellect, and imagination in Albert, Thomas, and Siger
- 31 Criticisms of Aristotelian psychology and the Augustinian–Aristotelian synthesis
- 32 Free will and free choice
- 33 Thomas Aquinas on human action
- IX Ethics
- X Politics
- XI The defeat, neglect, and revival of scholasticism
- Index nominum
- Index rerum
- References
33 - Thomas Aquinas on human action
from VIII - Philosophy of mind and action
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- I Medieval philosophical literature
- II Aristotle in the middle ages
- III The old logic
- IV Logic in the high middle ages: semantic theory
- V Logic in the high middle ages: propositions and modalities
- VI Metaphysics and epistemology
- VII Natural philosophy
- VIII Philosophy of mind and action
- 29 The potential and the agent intellect
- 30 Sense, intellect, and imagination in Albert, Thomas, and Siger
- 31 Criticisms of Aristotelian psychology and the Augustinian–Aristotelian synthesis
- 32 Free will and free choice
- 33 Thomas Aquinas on human action
- IX Ethics
- X Politics
- XI The defeat, neglect, and revival of scholasticism
- Index nominum
- Index rerum
- References
Summary
Philosophical and theological motivations for Aquinas' work
At least two distinct purposes may be discerned in Aquinas' various writings on human action. One is to complete and correct Aristotle's treatment of it in the Nicomachean Ethics, to which he of course pays close and respectful attention. A second springs from his primary commitment to theology. Reflecting on what is said in the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers about such topics as the fall of Adam, sin, conversion, and the operation of grace, theologians produced a body of doctrine about various aspects of human acts. To Aquinas' mind, this teaching settles certain questions authoritatively: as when it declares that voluntary human acts are commanded by their agents freely, and not by necessity. In addition it introduces certain concepts into the theory of action, for example, those of enjoyment and consent. Aquinas undertakes to incorporate these contributions of theology, where sound, into a revised Aristotelian theory.
Aristotelian causal theories
Aristotelian theories of action are causal, and causal in a distinctive way. To do something, to perform an act, is to cause something. And causing something is always to be investigated in terms of a pair of fundamental concepts, dynamis and energeia, which appear in Thomas' Latin as potentia (potency) and actus (act). The power or capacity of an object to cause something – whether a change of state, or a persistence in a state – largely determines what that object is. Brute animals are distinguished by their possession of powers of sensation and bodily movement.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Later Medieval PhilosophyFrom the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100–1600, pp. 642 - 654Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1982
References
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