A part of Aquinas’s argument against occasionalism is that creatures like human beings must be true causes in order to be able to grow and be perfected. Were humans not true causes, God’s promises and exhortations to humankind are for naught. Here, I explore the role of virtue in habit and the perfection of human beings in Aquinas, with the larger goal of using this discussion of virtue to address secondary causation. Virtue is relevant because a) creatures can act as (...) secondary causes because of the powers God has imbued in their nature and b) humans must be secondary causes or else they could not strive toward the good by attaining proper habits. To pursue a clearer understanding of Aquinas’s theory of secondary causes, then, it is necessary to further explore how virtue acquisition works. To that end, I will discuss the role of habit, which is the basis of virtue, the notion of virtue itself and how it is acquired by these secondary causes, the importance of the acquisition of virtues through proper habits, and the connection virtue has to secondary causes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas on Efficient Causation and Causal Powers by Gloria FrostJulie Loveland SwanstromFROST, Gloria. Aquinas on Efficient Causation and Causal Powers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022. xii + 239 pp. Cloth, $99.99; paper, $32.99; eBook, $32.99Reconstructing Aquinas’s premodern approach to causation in which causation is an ontological rather than logical relationship is Frost’s goal in Aquinas on Efficient Causation and Causal Powers. Uniting components of Aquinas’s discussions of (...) causation across his corpus, Frost focuses on the cause–effect relationship, the ontological elements involved in efficient causation, and complicated cases of efficient causation. [End Page 715]Throughout, Frost provides background information from Aristotle, Avicenna, and other thinkers used by Aquinas while delving deeply into Aquinas’s views. She addresses interpretive issues while remaining focused on Aquinas’s own ideas. Frost identifies topics that prefigure historical and contemporary philosophical debates and interjects Aquinas’s thought into those conversations.In part 1, Frost elucidates Aquinas’s standard efficient causation and the corresponding causal powers. Chapter 1 reviews Aquinas’s theories of efficient causation and briefly compares them with competing theories, identifying eight elements included in per se instances of efficient causation: the agent, the action, the active power, the natural inclination giving rise to the active power, the patient, the passive power of the patient, the motion caused by the agent, and the passion undergone by the patient. Chapter 2 further examines the paradigmatic per se efficient cause, the elemental qualities of hot, cold, wet, and dry adapted from Aristotle and used to explain change, and the ontological (rather than temporal) dependence of effects upon their causes. An agent acts by powers that stem from its nature. Frost addresses several medieval puzzles such as natural causes being considered generally unimpeded and no action being caused at a distance.Active and passive powers feature heavily in Aquinas’s account. In chapter 3, Frost teases out the distinction between potentiality and actuality. The relationship of matter and form in material substances relates to this distinction in various, complex ways. “Actuality” applies to form or to action that completes active potentiality. Frost addresses the communicability of forms, conceptually connecting active powers to nature and goodness. Active powers’ relations to elemental qualities, quantitative forms, and qualitative forms also appear in this chapter. Chapter 5 covers what agents operate on, passive powers in the patient. Frost addresses complexities regarding the relationship of qualities of matter to passive potentiality and adjudicates an interpretive difficulty about the relation of active potentiality and passive potentiality. She clarifies how passive potentialities do not correspond to only one active power and how different qualitative forms can give rise to the same passive potentiality. She also explains the uniqueness of creaturely passive potentiality to undergo divine action. Engaging in interpretive debate, she asserts that the passive potentiality for undergoing action and for existence differ in concept but are the same in reality.In chapter 4, Frost explains natural inclination: An agent’s actions are determined to particular ends by its form. Natural inclination explains causal regularity. Both rational and natural agents possess natural inclination. God, as creator, is the source of natural inclination. Frost notes difficulties with Aquinas’s views, including some later raised by Spinoza.Action and passion are discussed in chapter 6, wherein Frost connects action and passion to motion. Explaining how the patient’s passive potentiality is no longer passive upon actualization, she argues that this [End Page 716] change simply is motion: The mover causes, and the same motion immediately actualizes passive potentiality in the patient. Responding to challenges, Frost argues that “actuality” is an analogous term. Patients experience actuality as completing that in which thing it inheres while agents experience actuality as arising from them. Aquinas makes seemingly inconsistent statements about action and passion in terms of Aristotelian categories. Frost clarifies that if motion in the patient is passion and motion from the agent is action, then the categories explaining how motion belongs to the patient and the agent will be different.Frost turns to nonparadigmatic efficient causation in part 2. In chapter 7, she introduces additional causal scenarios. Preparing causes, advisory causes, and assisting causes highlight the interdependent... (shrink)

In this article, I explore Aquinas’s account of divine creative activities as a type of efficient causation. I propose that Aquinas’s works hold a framework for understanding God as an efficient cause and creating as an act of divine efficient causation that makes explicit what Aquinas views to be implicit in Aristotle’s account of efficient causation. I explore Aristotelian efficient causation in depth, offering a detailed analysis of the components of Aristotelian efficient causation. After this exploration, it is necessary to (...) address what reasons Aquinas has for viewing creation as efficient causation. I explore Aquinas’s understanding of creation and relate it to Aristotle’s analysis of efficient causation, analyzing how, precisely, Aquinas’s conception of efficient causation—which includes change, creation, and conservation—aligns with Aristotle’s. Because Aquinas’s account is derivable directly from elements in Aristotle’s account, Aquinas’s account can be understood to be implied by Aristotle’s account. (shrink)

I explore methods for the explicit instruction of critical thinking in a topics-based philosophy course. These methods make the classroom more experiential and less didactic and involve students in the philosophical process, allowing them to learn content while using the methods of philosophy to work through, explain, or produce similar content. Experiential learning—approaching learning as a “continuous process grounded in experience” involving the acquisition of practices, the specialization in those practices, and the integration of oneself into the learning process—enhances traditional (...) philosophy classrooms, and explicitly teaching critical thinking skills involves the methods of experiential learning. After an overview of relevant aspects of experiential learning and addressing how experiential learning methods can be used for the explicit teaching of critical thinking skills, I explain four methods I use to explicitly teach critical thinking in my introductory classes. (shrink)

Though al-Ghazalı is often superficially compared to Descartes, Ghazalı’s epistemological project echoes—in consonance or dissonance—Augustine’s, warranting a clear exploration of the depths of these echoes. For both Augustine and Ghazalı the epistemological and theological quest starts with an interior turn, and divine illumination provides the tools for and content of knowledge. Both recount skeptical leanings resolved by divine illumination; both employ philosophy as a tool in theological disputes; both see knowledge as dynamic and transformative; and both assert that God’s direct (...) illumination is a necessary precursor to and a final capstone upon knowledge. Ghazalı’s use of illumination is more circumscribed and specified than Augustine’s. I argue that Ghazalı and Augustine take similar approaches to the role of divine illumination and the importance of interiority or the subjective grasp on knowledge, but despite these differences, Ghazalı and Augustine deal distinctly with the question of authority and certitude of knowledge. (shrink)