22 October: The Subject of Metaphysics 2 of 2
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Required reading for all students assigned for 22 & 29 October: J. Wippel 2006, “Metaphysics,” Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, pp.85-127.
Part 1 : Aquinas on the subject of metaphysics 1 of 2
MU-5 Colman Okechukwu Nwokoro & Christian Boyd. Handout of absolutely not more than 6 pp. + 2 pp bibliography due Tuesday 5 pm US Central Time/ midnight Leuven. Thursday at class: 8-10 min. oral presentation followed by discussion.
Assigned readings : Aquinas, Super Boethium De Trinitate, Questions 5-6; J. Wippel 1978, “Metaphysics and Separatio According to Thomas Aquinas,” Review of Metaphysics 31: 431-470.
Recommended: (i) Oliva 2012, “Philosophy in the Teaching of Theology by Thomas Aquinas,” The Thomist 76; (ii) Bertolacci 2007, “Avicenna & Averroes on the Proof of God’s Existence & the Subject-Matter of Metaphysics,” Medioevo 32
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Part 2 : Aquinas on the subject of metaphysics 2 of 2
KUL-1 : Sarah Thomas and Ryan Foster: handout of absolutely not more than 6 pp. + 2 pp bibliography due Tuesday 5 pm US Central Time/ midnight Leuven. Thursday at class: 8-10 min. oral presentation followed by discussion.
Required: (i) Aquinas, De Principiis Naturae, “On the Principles of Nature”, in J. Bobik, Aquinas on Matter and Form in the Elements. A Translation and Interpretation of the De Principiis Naturae and the De Mixtione Elementorum of St. Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: UND Press 1998, rpt 2006. Alternate translation: De Principiis Naturae (ii) Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the ‘De Hebdomadibus’, tr. P. King 2004
Recommended: (i) Wippel 2005 “Thomas Aquinas and Siger of Brabant on Being and the Science of Being as Being,” The Modern Schoolman 82, 143-167; (ii) Joseph Owens, The “Analytics” and Thomistic Metaphysical Procedure, Medieval Studies 26 (1964) p. 83-108; (iii) Andrea A. Robiglio “Breaking the Great Chain of Being. A note on the Paris condemnations of 1277, Thomas Aquinas and the proper subject of metaphysics”, Verbum: Analecta Neolatina, 6 (2004), p. 51 – 59.
Another article. In 2012 R. E. Houser demonstrated that Aquinas’s De Principiis Naturae relies heavily on the work of Avicenna. This is particularly interesting since the editors of the critical edition of the text said the opposite explicitly! R. E. Houser, “Avicenna and Aquiinas’s De Principiis Naturae, CC. 1-3,” The Thomist 76 (2012) 577-610.