The Discovery of Being and Thomas Aquinas

edited by Christopher M. Cullen, SJ and Franklin T. Harkins
Catholic University of America Press, 2019
eISBN: 978-0-8132-3188-4, Cloth: 978-0-8132-3187-7

ABOUT THIS BOOK
While there has been agreement among followers of Aquinas that being insofar as it is being (being qua being) is the subject of metaphysics, there is not agreement on how this being qua being is to be understood, nor on how we come to know the being that is the object of metaphysical investigation. The topic of what being is, as the object of the science of metaphysics, and how to account for the “discovery” of the being of metaphysics have emerged as central problems for the contemporary retrieval of Aquinas and for the larger project of post-Leonine Thomism in general. This lack of agreement has hampered the retrieval of Aquinas’s metaphysics.

The collection of essays within The Discovery of Being and Thomas Aquinas is divided into three major parts: the first set of essays concerns the foundation of metaphysics within Thomism; the second set exemplifies the use of metaphysics in fundamental philosophical issues within Thomism; and the third set employs metaphysics in central theological issues.

The Discovery of Being and Thomas Aquinas allows major scholars of the different types of Thomism to engage in a full-scale defense of their position, as well as expanding Thomistic metaphysics to the discipline of theology in important ways.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page
Copyright page
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
Part One. The Foundation of Metaphysics
1. Aquinas on separatio and Our Discovery of Being as Being
2. The Knowledge of Being
3. The Role of Sense Realism in the Initiation of Thomistic Metaphysics
4. Contraries in One
5. Knowledge of ens as primum cognitum and the Discovery of ens qua ens according to Cornelio Fabro and Jan A. Aertsen
Part Two. Philosophical Perspectives
6. Aquinas and the Categories as Parts of Being
7. The Ontological Status of Artifacts
8. The Transcendentals, the Human Person, and the Perfection of the Universe
9. Thomas Aquinas, the Analogy of Being, and the Analogy of Transferred Proportion
Part Three. Theological Perspectives
10. A Metaphysics of Human Nature in the Christology of Aquinas
11. Angelic Corporeality
12. Aquinas and the Grace of auxilium
13. Aquinas and Scotus on God as Object of Beatific Enjoyment
Selected Bibliography
Contributors
Index

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