Analytical Thomism

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Analytical Thomism is a philosophical direction that promotes the exchange of ideas between the thinking of Thomas Aquinas (including the philosophy that refers to him called ' Thomism ') and modern analytical philosophy .

The Scottish philosopher John Haldane first coined the term in the early 1990s and has been the leading exponent of this trend ever since. According to Haldane, "analytical Thomism involves the bringing into mutual relationship of the styles and preoccupations of recent English-speaking philosophy and the ideas and concerns shared by St Thomas and his followers" (includes analytical Thomism, the styles and occupations of contemporary English-speaking philosophy and to bring the ideas and concerns of St. Thomas and his successors into a mutual relationship, Haldane 2004, xii).

history

The modern revival of Thomas's thoughts can be traced back to the work of Thomists such as Tommaso Maria Zigliara , Josef Kleutgen , Gaetano Sanseverino and Giovanni Maria Cornoldi in the mid-19th century. This movement received an enormous boost from the encyclical Aeterni Patris Pope Leo XIII. of 1879. In the first half of the twentieth century, Edouard Hugon , Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange , Étienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain carried on Pope Leo's call for a Thomistic revival (Paterson & Pugh, xiii-xxiii). Gilson and Maritain in particular researched and taught across Europe and North America, influencing an entire generation of English-speaking Catholic philosophers . Some of these then began to harmonize Thomism with more general philosophical trends.

At the same time in Poland the Cracow Circle used mathematical logic to express aspects of Thomism, which, as this circle judged, [have] "a structured body of propositions connected in meaning and subject matter, and linked by logical relations of compatibility and incompatibility, entailment, etc. " (a structured body of propositions linked in meaning and subjective content, which are linked with logical relationships, compatibility and incompatibility etc. [got] Simons 2011, pp. 61–79). The Kraków Circle has been said to have been "the most significant expression of Catholic thought between the two World Wars". Kraków Philosophy, n. D.).

On the current philosophical reception of Aquinas

In the middle of the 20th century, through the work of GEM Anscombe , Peter Geach and Anthony Kenny, Thai ideas came into dialogue with the analytic tradition. Anscombe had been Ludwig Wittgenstein's student and succeeded him at Cambridge University and was married to Geach, himself a trained logician and religious philosopher . Geach had converted to Catholicism while studying at Oxford, and Anscombe during her youth. Both were introduced to the faith in Oxford by the Dominican Richard Kehoe and accepted into the Church before they met each other. Kenny, a former priest and former Catholic, became a famous philosopher at Oxford University and is still portrayed by some as a sponsor of Aquinas. (Paterson & Pugh, xiii-xxiii), although the rejection of some of Thomas' fundamental teachings (e.g. divine eternity) casts doubt on it.

Anscombe and others such as Alasdair MacIntyre , Philippa Foot and John Finnis can be credited to a large extent for the revival of " virtue ethics " in metaethics and " natural law " in jurisprudence . Both movements rely significantly on Thomas.

See also

literature

  • For a first overview of Analytical Thomism see: Introduction , in: Craig Paterson & Matthew S. Pugh (eds.) Analytical Thomism: Traditions in Dialogue (Aldershot and Burlington, Vt .: Ashgate, 2006). Introduction .
  • Copleston FC , Aquinas (Penguin, 1955).
  • John Haldane (ed.), "Analytical Thomism" volume of Monist 80 (4) October, 1997.
  • John Haldane, "Thomism and the Future of Catholic Philosophy," New Blackfriars 80 (938), 1999.
  • John Haldane, Faithful Reason: essays Catholic and Philosophical (London and New York: Routledge, 2004).
  • Peter Simons, "Bocheński and Balance: System and History in Analytic Philosophy", Studies in East European Thought , 55 (2003) pp. 281–297, reprinted in Edgar Morscher, Otto Neumaier, and Peter Simons (2011), A philosopher who is "down to earth": On the life and work of Joseph M. Bocheński , Sankt Augustin: Academia, pp. 61-79.
  • Kraków Philosophy, n. D. http://segr-did2.fmag.unic.it/~polphil/polphil/Cracow/Cracow.htmlTemplate: dead link /! ... nourl  ( page no longer available )
  • Fergus Kerr, OP, "Aquinas and Analytic Philosophy: Natural Allies?", Modern Theology 20 (1), 2004.
  • John Finnis, Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory (Oxford, 1998).
  • Roger Pouivet, Après Wittgenstein, saint Thomas (PUF, 1997).
  • Anthony J Lisska, Aquinas's Theory of Natural Law: An Analytic Reconstruction (Oxford: New York, 1996).
  • Pérez de Laborda, Miguel, "El tomismo analítico", Philosophica: Enciclopedia filosófica on line 2007
  • Tomismo analitico (Spanish) Article .
  • John C. Cahalan, Causal Realism: An Essay on Philosophical Method and the Foundations of Knowledge (Routledge, 1985)
  • Giovanni Ventimiglia, To be o esse? La questione dell'essere nel tomismo analitico, Carocci, Roma 2012

Slightly different assessments:

  • Alfred Freddoso, Two Roles for Catholic Philosophers
  • Brian J Shanley, OP, The Thomist Tradition (Dordrecht / Boston / London: Kluwer, 2002).
  • Entries by Stephen Theron in Haldane (ed.) (1997) and Paterson & Pugh (eds.) (2006).
  • Entries by Shanley and John Knasas in Paterson & Pugh (eds.) (2006).