Metaphysics now joins the series of translations of Father Gardeil's Initiation a la Philosophie de S. Thomas d'Aquin. After an Introduction which discusses the general notion of metaphysics as a science, the relation of metaphysics to the critical analysis of knowledge and metaphysics as developed by Aristotle and St. Thomas, the author turns to the questions of First Philosophy which have concerned philosophers from Parmenides to Sartre and Heidegger. In seven chapters he considers being in itself and as it is known, the transcendental, the categories of being, act and potency, essence and existence and causality. As in the other volumes of this series, the author includes a generous selection of texts from the works of St. Thomas carefully correlated with the various chapters of the work itself. These are not mere snippets, but substantial quotations drawn from the Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, De ente et existentia, the Disputed Questions and the two Summas. The reader has the words of Aquinas in the best modern English versions before him. Here is St. Thomas for the thinker--unfiltered. A most valuable addition in this fourth volume is the technical vocabulary of Thomistic and scholastic terms, covering all four volumes of the Initiation. The beginner in metaphysics will find this book most valuable, for it presents clearly the basic problematics and the Thomistic solution of them. For the more profound student here is a clear, concise (but not cursory) review of the science. Thomistic metaphysics, in Father Gardeil's presentation, is not an historical curiosity but a living and lively discipline. While the aim of the work is to give a synthetic view of St. Thomas' thought, the insights of modern or contemporary philosophers is not neglected. The translator's notes offer clarification and add bibliographical information on works published since the French edition. Valuable as a class manual, indispensable as supplementary reading, this book can serve the needs of a strictly philosophical course or one designed as a preparation for theology.

"In the brief span of some 140 pages Pere Gardeil succeeds remarkably well in the simple presentation of the Aristotelian principles of mobile being, quantity, motion, causation, place, time, inanity, the first mover, and astronomical theory. A second section (of some forty-five pages) selects five capital texts from the classic commentary of St. Thomas upon Aristotle's Physics and the full text of his model synopsis of Aristotelian cosmology in the early Paris opuscule, De Principiis Naturae. The translation of the original French work of 1953 has been accomplished with sober clarity and served editorially with a useful index and notes. Its frank, working language should attract both philosophical novice and pragmatic scientist alike and effect their working contact with a classic vision of the universe."--Philosophical Studies

If Saint Thomas Aquinas was a great theologian, it is in no small part because he was a great philosopher. And he was a great philosopher because he was a great metaphysician. In the twentieth century, metaphysics was not much in vogue, among eithertheologians or even philosophers; but now it is making a comeback, and once the contours of Thomas's metaphysical vision are glimpsed, it looks like anything but a museum piece. It only needs some dusting off. Many are studying Thomas now for the answers that he might be able to give to current questions, but he is perhaps even more interesting for the questions that he can raise regarding current answers: about the physical world, about human life and knowledge, and (needless to say) about God. This book is aimed at helping those who are not experts in medieval thought to begin to enter into Thomas's philosophical point of view. Along the way, it brings out some aspects of his thought that are not often emphasised in the current literature, and it offers a reading of his teaching on the divine nature that goes rather against the drift of some prominent recent interpretations.

Father O'Donnell invites readers to the often daunting, but highly rewarding search for truth by introducing them to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas with the promise that such an effort will produce a kind of "addicting euphoria.

Using carefully selected resources, Romanus Cessario has composed a short account of the history of the Thomist tradition as it manifests itself through the more than seven hundred years that have elapsed since the death of Saint Thomas

Thomas Aquinas, an Italian Catholic priest in the early thirteeth century, is considered to be one of the great Christian thinkers who had, and who still has, a profound influence on Western thought. He was a controversial figure who was exposed and engaged in conflict. This Very Short Introduction looks at Aquinas in a historical context, and explores the Church and culture into which Aquinas was born. It considers Aquinas as philosopher, and looks at the relationship between philosophy and religion in the thirteenth century. Fergus Kerr, in this engaging and informative introduction, will make The Summa Theologiae, Aquinas's greatest single work, accessible to new readers. It will also reflect on the importance of Thomas Aquinas in modern debates and asks why Aquinas matters now. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

A major new study of Aquinas and his central project: the understanding of human nature.

One of the great philosophers of the 20th Century, Josef Pieper, gives a penetrating introduction and guide to the life and works of perhaps the greatest philosopher ever, St. Thomas Aquinas. Pieper provides a biography of Aquinas, an overview of the 13th century he lived in, and a wonderful synthesis of his vast writings. Pieper shows how Aquinas reconciled the pragmatic thought of Aristotle with the Church, proving that realistic knowledge need not preclude belief in the spiritual realities of religion. According to Pieper, the marriage of faith and reason proposed by Aquinas in his great synthesis of a "theologically founded worldliness" was not merely one solution among many, but the great principle expressing the essence of the Christian West. Pieper reveals his extraordinary command of original sources and excellent secondary materials as he illuminates the thought of the great intellectual Doctor of the Church. "The purpose of these lectures is to sketch, against the background of his times and his life, a portrait of Thomas Aquinas as he truly concerns philosophical-minded persons today, not merely as a historical personage but as a thinker who has something to say to our own era. I earnestly hope that the speculative attitude which was Thomas' most salient trait as Christianity's "universal teacher" will emerge clearly and sharply from my exposition." - Josef Pieper