Online research in philosophy

Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good claims that contemporary theory and practice have much to gain from engaging Aquinas's normative concept of the common good and his way of reconciling religion, philosophy, and politics. Examining the relationship between personal and common goods, and the relation of virtue and law to both, Mary M. Keys shows why Aquinas should be read in addition to Aristotle on these perennial questions. She focuses on Aquinas's Commentaries as mediating statements between Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics and Aquinas's own Summa Theologiae, showing how this serves as the missing link for grasping Aquinas's understanding of Aristotle's thought. Keys argues provocatively that Aquinas's Christian faith opens up new panoramas and possibilities for philosophical inquiry and insights into ethics and politics. Her book shows how religious faith can assist sound philosophical inquiry into the foundation and proper purposes of society and politics.

This illustrated edition of Sir Anthony Kenny’s acclaimed survey of Western philosophy offers the most concise and compelling story of the complete development of philosophy available. Spanning 2,500 years of thought, An Illustrated Brief History of Western Philosophy provides essential coverage of the most influential philosophers of the Western world, among them Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Jesus, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Mill, Nietzsche, Darwin, Freud, Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein. Replete with over 60 illustrations - ranging from Dufresnoy’s The Death of Socrates, through to the title page of Thomas More’s Utopia, portraits of Hobbes and Rousseau, photographs of Charles Darwin and Bertrand Russell, Freud’s own sketch of the Ego and the Id, and Wittgenstein’s Austrian military identity card - this lucid and masterful work is ideal for anyone with an interest in Western thought.

16 philosophers offer specially written essays on the themes of mind, method and morality in the work of Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, and Wittgenstein.

The essays in the book have two main emphases. Regarding the late Wittgenstein, they focus on the idea that skepticism about rule-following is undermined, indeed incoherent, in virtue of Wittgenstein's emphasis on context of utterance and "forms of life" (roughly the "community" view of his later work). In the early Wittgenstein they take a "resolute" position on nonsense, saying that he did not believe there was some ineffable or informative nonsense, but only pure and utter nonsense, including everything in the Tractatus. Although many of the essays are interesting and insightful, they do not amount to a demonstration that Wittgenstein held the positions attributed to him; moreover the positions are counterintuitive, and appear to be undermined by historical evidence regarding Wittgenstein's own view of his work.

Aquinas’ philosophy is revolutionary, especially his doctrine of essence within the context of natural philosophy has transcended that of Aristotle. The principal distinctions between the doctrines of Aquinas and Aristotle are demonstrated in four layers which are entity-nature, compositeness, particularity and potentiality of essence. Aquinas not only overturns and reforms the Western traditional view of essence, but also constructs a prominent “joint” connecting essentialism to existentialism in Western philosophy.

Knowles, D. The historical context of the philosophical work of St. Thomas Aquinas.--Logic and metaphysics: Geach, P. Form and existence. McCabe, H. Categories. Ross, J. F. Analogy as a rule of meaning for religious language. Geach, P. Nominalism.--Natural theology: Brown, P. St. Thomas' doctrine of necessary being. Salamucha, J. The proof ex motu for the existence of God. Brown, P. Infinite causal regression. Deck, J. N. St. Thomas Aquinas and the language of total dependence. Kenny, A. Divine foreknowledge and human freedom.--Philosophy of mind: Kenny, A. Intellect and imagination in Aquinas. McCabe, H. The immortality of the soul. Sheehan, P. Aquinas on intentionality.--Moral philosophy: Donagan, A. The scholastic theory of moral law in the modern world. Grisez, G. G. The first principle of practical reason.

Aristotle -- Aquinas -- Descartes -- Wittgenstein.

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