Thomas Aquinas: Introduction

hello and welcome this is the history of medieval philosophy and my name's mark Doris B in this video we're gonna be talking about Thomas Aquinas who is one of the most important frequently regarded as the most influential medieval philosopher within the Christian and the European world so and there's so much to talk about with Thomas Aquinas that the next couple of videos I've sort of broken them down into a number of different videos to make it a little bit more manageable for you as you review and as you're learning Thomas Aquinas has work so in this video all we're gonna really do is this is a shorter video we're just gonna begin by introducing who Thomas Aquinas was what he argued in and some of his influence so let's sort of begin here with just a basic introduction to the philosophy of st. Thomas Aquinas a quite as live from 12 25 to 12 74 today his philosophy is frequently referred to as Thomism and of course that's an ism on his last name Thomas and Thomas but Thomas of today is really considered to be the official church doctrine the official church philosophy and theology of the Catholic Church which means that today Thomas Aquinas philosophy is extraordinarily influential and still to this day very much read and discussed and critiqued and is still very prominent in central and discussion so medieval philosophy of course we're living in the modern era if you will that the medieval philosophy of Thomas Aquinas is as much a part of today's philosophical discussion as anything else so it's a really really powerful philosophy it's very varied there's lots and lots to talk about there now we should say that Thomas Aquinas in his own day was actually more controversial than you might think in fact after his death a number of his theses and his claims and arguments were actually condemned by the church it wasn't really until about a hundred years later after his canonization that his influence was really cemented within church history he while live he was actually he held some prominent positions within the church he was actually the official preacher general in the Dominican Order which meant that he actually served in the Vatican it would actually give sermons there at the Vatican he was also became their regent master of theology at the University of Paris probably his most important philosophical position was while he was at the University of Paris and in the early 1200s it was actually forbidden to teach Aristotle's physical and metaphysical works but what we see is what Aquinas really does is bring Aristotle back into the fold of the equation as we've seen so far in our series we know that Aristotle was a very prominent philosopher within the the works of the medieval Muslim philosophers or the Islamic philosophers and of course in there was in the early 1200s and in the late in late 1200 in the late 11th cent 12th century and in the early 13th century eleven and twelve hundred one of the things we see is there's a sort of cross-pollination between the European world and the Islamic world in terms of really reading and going through the works of avarice and I'm a Senna and all Farabi and these other important thinkers and really in many ways the European philosophers discover Aristotle in a much more sophisticated way Albert the Great or Albert Magnus is an important thinker he was actually the teacher of Thomas Aquinas and he wrote quote Aristotle is me Aquinas is making era saw intelligible to the Latins so one of the things we're gonna see here philosophically is in many ways eros Aquinas frequently frequently refers to Aristotle as the philosopher which isn't surprising because we thought we've already seen other thinkers do that but will we see what the Quietus is not so much a combination it's not so much I think a Christianisation of Aristotle but it's also a combination of Aristotle and Augustus philosophy it's important to remember that when a class was writing agustín's work is actually quite central as well and remember we sort of saw the Augustan as it were sort of takes Plato and and consistent it makes it consistent with church teaching we're gonna see basically Quine is playing that same role so you might say that in the ancient world you've got Plato and Aristotle and in the medieval Christian world you have Agustin and you have Aquinas both occupying sort of similar positions so so it's hard to so you're gonna see that as we go through here there's much discussion about Aristotle but it's also important to realize that Aquinas also has a unique contributions to philosophy so he's not just translating in sort of reforming aerosol to fit the church teachings really quite as truly is a brilliant philosopher in his own right one of the things that's important to remember though is they did the medieval world the entire system of education is scholastic so in so his work is comes in the form of a scholastic teaching where he is relating Aristotle gustan and church teaching and so forth I think of a quite as a live in a different age we may have seen many of the same insights but but maybe less than the mould of Aristotle potentially so one of the things though is why was he able to do this well Aquinas has had access to new translations of Aristotle's work from Willian of the more affected and I hope I'm pronouncing that correct in fact one of the quotes we get here is that whenever he Aquinas found in his teaching anything that was consistent with the faith he adopted it and those things which he found contrary to the faith he amended so if we're going to organize the relationship between faith and reason for Aquinas certainly reasons high on the list but it's his faith ultimate which is guiding Aquinas I think beyond anything else so but again Aquinas is more than just Christianizing Aristotle we know that a quite as point out errors in reasoning the EC's in Aristotle's work he also analyzes anger teks the assumptions of Aristotle and showing how those assumptions can't be proven or proven valid even though they may be reasonable an important example of this is era saw the ancient teaching that the world was eternal but for Aquinas he sees this as resting upon an assumption that can't actually be proven to be valid because you can see here is that one of the tensions between Aristotle's notion of the eternality of the world is it's inconsistent with agustín's teaching of creation ex Nilo the idea that God can create the world out of nothingness so if God creates the world out of nothingness then the world can't be eternal so there's an inconsistency there ultimately Aquinas is going to aside with Agustin but recognize there's a there's a rationality in Aristotle's claim but ultimately it can't be proven as an assumption that's invalid so that way he sort of gets out of a little bit but we also see that one of the one things that quest does is it derives conclusions the Aristotle certainly would not have derived for example one of the distinctions here we're going to talk about in the next series of videos is the distance between potentiality and actuality for aerosol actual I just refers to something existing having being but this is somewhat problematic for Aquinas and it goes back to a famous passage in the exit in Exodus in the book of the Bible or the Torah in which God says I am that I am it's a very very famous passage and but you can see here I am that I am this seems to imply that God is B right but if God has been then what exactly is the relationship between being in actuality here obviously if God is being that God has actuality but that means that I'm not God so therefore but I do have actuality and so you can see here there's a bit of mental gymnastics that's occurring even we have to figure out how to make sense of this and what if these errors Aquinas that Aristotle will do is articulate again the distinction between essence and existence for instance the editors of our volume right in God essence in this act are identical but creatures are ontological II complex so in natural creatures the essence includes both form and matter so that there is not only the actual in form of the potentialities of manner but also the realization of existence of the entire essence and that's sort of a mouthful there's a lot to break down in that claim but basically we're going to see here is a by using the distinction of essence in existence a quest is able to differentiate the being of God from the being of being human as natural creatures and ultimately to sort of square the circle and make things consistent philosophically now we'll talk about this when we get into it but I just wanted to highlight that it's a good example of the way in which appliance is really a unique thinker and one of those key concepts really is the concept of being and in fact MIT in contemporary 20th century thinkers existentialist actually found acquaintances worked quite interesting because they saw an acquaintance the the him really recognizing some of the important our discoveries that would only come later in modern philosophy now let's talk a little bit about his biography this is actually the place where he was born or a picture of his place he was born at 12:45 at @ro Paseka which is near Monte Cassino now Aquinas was the seventh son of a noble family so he actually grew up in an old AOE his and he attended the University of Naples when he was 15 years old and while he was there he became interested in joining the Dominican Order he was adamant he eventually would join the Dominicans his father did not want him to do that in fact he was his family didn't want him to do this they wanted him to follow in the footsteps of the noble house but after his father's death aquinas joins the order his his brothers actually kidnapped in held aquinas i believe in a tower against his will for over a year in order to force him to recant and give up the order and you know follow through with the family's noble business aquinas didn't do that and eventually the brothers were in 1220 in 1245 quays attends the University of Paris and where he actually studied studies under Albert the greater Albert the Magnus Albert Magnus in 1248 Aquinas actually obtained his bachelor's degree and then in 1252 Aquinas began studying theology in earnest and in 1256 a quest attained his master's degree and then in 1268 aquinas and after he attains his bachelor d begins teaching in 1260 he's actually he left paris but then he was actually asked to come back to paris and in order to confront Averroes 'm avarice of course as the Islamic philosopher that's his Latin name or but this was understood as a sort of secular Aristotelian ISM and here we can see that a relationship you're the seeker of revolt now Aquinas has many interlocutors and important thinkers probably the most important of which we're going to talk about is bone adventure but also John Peckham who is actually one of bone adventures students in fact after we finished the next couple of videos are gonna be on Aquinas but then we're gonna go to bone adventure we're gonna see what bone adventure has to say as well and 1272 Aquinas is sent to Naples to actually found a new center but only about a year or less later on December 6 Aquinas stops writing and famously we're told he had some sort of mystical experience in which he said when referring to the Summa Theologica or referring to his own philosophy he said quote it is as it is all a straw and this is basically a famous reference to a passage in the Bible in which we're told that the works of men are like straw and in the end they burn and then it's it's just temporary and contingent and so we get this sense all its ability today at the end of Aquinas his life he turns I there's a sort of if you will a mystical turning in which it appears that Aquinas has a sort of existential no that it gives up philosophy and then another year later on March 7 2017 foreign clients dies now just a couple years later is when we see the number of his theses were condemned because of their so-called a virile ISM and they but we see that not just about 50 years later roughly at 1323 Thomas Aquinas is canonized as a saint and then eventually his work would continue to become form an increasingly integrated and important role within Catholic and church teaching so he's by agra that's sort of real whirlwind of his biography there's so much written on aquinas that encourage you to go learn more there's basically there's so many sources on it principally they come from the church but take a look at those so there's lots more you can learn about his biography as well as his writing this now what were some of this key works right here's a very prolific writer one of the places you can look to actually get a sort of laundry list of all this works is the brief catalog of the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas by G Emery I don't know how brief it really is but there's a long list there now I have listed here some of the more important works that get related this is by the way a picture of the second part of the Summa Theologica was sort of just a little picture of it which is considered his most important work but some of the works that were quite important this is sort of going in order generally speaking of what what you wrote there's the sentences and when I first started this I started giving the Latin names but they're all written in Latin so becomes very difficult so I've actually gave up one ready to Latin doubt for everything but he writes he writes a book on the sentences this is a direct reference to Peter Peter Abelard sentences I'm sorry no dialogue Peter loved parts of sentences and his work on logic he writes a book is one of his early focus on being in essence which is gonna where we're gonna talk about the distinction between being in essence existence and all that stuff and I'll be the first next video after this one we also see he wrote disputed questions on truth the quality of betel questions he writes Asuma against the Gentiles he writes Asuma theology or the Summa Theologica theology and this was actually started in 1265 but he actually never completed it the SU the Summa and when we when people refer to the Summa they're really generally refer you to the Summa theology here which is right here right you can see Summa Theologica seperti Thomas Aquinas the Summa is probably his most important work it's very very very long it's huge and in fact originally it was envisioned as a manual to help missionaries of answer theological questions instead it became multi-volume series of discussions on every every conceivable question you can imagine in theology so it's a huge huge work but this is the work you never finished and this seems to be the work he was referring to what he says it is all it's straw so it's too bad he never finished it it's a pretty monumental work one of the things we're gonna see is that he the way in which it's organized it is organized in terms of the disputation method where what Aquinas does is he'll make a claim and then he'll go over what the objections to those claims are to that claims that the objections that might counter that his claim and then he'll respond to each of those objections and then it just proceeds question by question by question so you can literally look up a question on topic and see what the theological argument is see why he argues that he does see what all the potential charges are let's see why he has to be right so it's a very very complex and masterful thesis he also wrote many commentaries on Aristotle's works including the dancer petition named anima the nikuman Nicomachean ethics the metaphysics the physics the politics as well as the post ear so logic he also wrote a book called the disputed questions on the soul as well as a book on the disputed questions regarding evil you wrote a book on the Eternity of the world on the unity of the intellect on separate substances these are just some of the worst he's written he wrote many many others so it's pretty amazing amount of work that Thomas Aquinas was able to fulfill even if he stopped writing at the end of his life and sees it as strides remarkable thing one of the things too to mention does just because you may be familiar with Aristotle's work that at this point you've seen into all these philosophers particularly Islamic philosophers are referred quite heavily to to Aristotle's and we if you've read Aristotle than you you know about Aristotle it's important not to think that just because you understand Aristotle you'll fully understand what Aquinas his arguments are there are points where he did he goes away from Aristotle he diverges from the Aristotelian view there's other parts where he seems to actually improve upon Aristotle so in in order to overcome various complications that Aristotle himself either didn't write about or did not foresee so it's important to recognize that even though there's a strong sense in which the class is an Aristotelian thinker ultimately he's more than that and so there's a lot to learn what the quite is here and I'm looking forward to doing this with you so what we're gonna look at oh I'll just give you this quick quote here this comes from the editor of the volume we're using where the letter says Aquinas his position as a major philosopher both in the medieval and the modern worlds needs little amplification there may be room for doubt as to whether he's the most characteristic medieval Christian philosopher but there is no doubt that he has made the greatest mark in the world so he's profoundly significant philosopher particularly within the Middle Ages so so I think we're gonna really enjoy the next couple videos on Aristotle you're gonna see that the next thing we're going to be talking about in this series is aught is his on being in essence we're gonna lay out some of the important elements of his philosophy and really distinguishing this prominent actuality and potentiality essence in existence so thank you very much for watching I'll see you guys in our next video on Aquinas on being in essence thank you very much and I'll see you guys online

Channel: Mark Thorsby

Views: 5,381

Rating: 4.9629631 out of 5

Keywords: philosophy, Thomas Aquinas, Biography, medieval philosophy

Id: DFuQucccKUg

Length: 19min 55sec (1195 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 09 2018