De Bono Communi: Thomistic Mereology and the Role of Government (original) (raw)
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Chapter 10 from the City of Reason vol 3 Universitas by Dr Peter Critchley This paper examines the work of Thomas Aquinas in assimilating naturalistic Aristotelian thought within a supernaturalist Christian framework. His two Summae are considered to be the high water mark of medieval humanism, Aquinas exhibiting a mastery of the intricate Aristotelian corpus to create an intellectually satisfying edifice affirming the unity of reason and nature. Aquinas is shown to be more optimistic than Augustine and is credited with restoring the idea of the state as a positive instrument. Through his assimilation of Aristotle, Aquinas recovers the notion of the political community as a natural institution based upon human reason and as an integral part of the good life. Thomism is shown to develop a Christian Aristotelianism, building a Christian superstructure upon an Aristotelian substructure.
On the Transcendence of the Political Common Good
The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, 2013
The article aims to articulate and defend St. Thomas Aquinas's understanding of the transcendence of the political common good and argues against the new natural law theory's view of the common good as limited, instrumental, and ordered toward the private good of families and individuals. After a summary of John Finnis's explanation of the common good in Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory, the article presents an analysis of the political common good in Aquinas's Summa theologiae and De regno. This analysis shows, contrary to Finnis, that for Aquinas the political common good transcends the private good of individuals and families, that it consists in the virtuous life of the political multitude, and that the family is insufficient to lead men to virtue apart from the civitas.
2016
In this article I will analyze the central categories of Thomas Aquinas's social thought, such as a people (populus), multitude (multitudo), and Commonwealth (respublica). The next article (Part 2) will contain an investigation of the categories of a community (communitas), communication , and society (societas). I stress the immediate readiness of the question in existing Thomistic literature. Despite the active investigations of Aquinas's political theory, the social theory remains almost forgotten. The works of Ignatius Th. Eschmann, Yves Congar, and Jeremy Catto represent some exclusions from this assertion, but not one of them has paid enough attention to the terminological peculiarities of Thomistic thought. Between the main results of this work, it is worth to focus on the next aspects of the dissipation of the people's concept, its equalization with the multitude, and the break of the connection between the notions of a people and a Commonwealth. The populus in Thomas's theory loses its political nature ascribed to it by Cicero and Augustin. Having lost its subjectivity, the People convert into an organized multitude united by common territory and the same mode of everyday life. Aquinas ignores the creation of the Commonwealth by the People and establishes a connection of another type between these concepts. According to him, the People is a kind of Aristotelian " materia, " while the Commonwealth is the " form. " In compliance with the precedential assertion, the Respublica becomes eternal and unchangeable, where only the content—i.e., the People or the multitude—can change. In effect, Aquinas formulates the concept of the proto-State here.
3rd Symposium Thomisticum, Athens, Greece, June 6-9, 2108., 2018
In this paper I have presented the political thoughts of three prominent thinkers, St. Augus- tine, al-Farabi and St. Thomas Aquinas, who span a period from late Antiquity to the High Middle Ages. A close reading of their statements concerning the origin, the nature and the administration of the state reveals that all three authors regard human sociality and the ne- cessity of its organization in political entities not as a direct outflow of human nature or as the result of a direct divine command, but as a result of human rationality, including the human ability to recognize that man as a material and finite being has needs that are met only by cooperation. In contrast, however, to the rationalist political theories of classical Antiquity, laid down in the work of Plato, Aristotle and Cicero, all three authors presented here consider human sociality and political organization not only as the best way to achieve a good mundane life, but also as a constitutive part of the virtue of the faithful man. All three agree that the state is not only an instrument for the protection of the citizen from external and internal foes and a framework in which individuals can attain their personal happiness, but that the state is the natural environment for establishing the divine justice and the right form of worshipping the true God.
Expanded Notes on Aquinas & Politics
These teaching notes consist of a much-expanded summary and analysis of Thomas Aquinas' comments on justice, law, and politics. They aim to facilitate a discussion of how the various pieces of the Thomist theory of politics fit together. The occasion for preparing this package of notes was a directed reading course on medieval political theory. The rationale for the course is that we should attempt to grasp the foundations of political theory in the Middle Ages if we want to properly understand the reconfiguration of political theory in the early modern period.
“ Person and the Tradition of Common Good in Theory of Justice of Thomas Aquinas ”
2015
Thomistic philosophy constituted an extensive reformation that succeeded in the unification and bringing together all aspects of previous intellectual traditions1 being, as a product of a synthesis of Hellenism and Christianity, the supreme expression of Greco–Roman Christian tradition2. The principal position of both thomistic philosophy and theology lies in its affirmation of the ability of human reason to comprehend earthly realities through observation. However, as MacIntyre has correctly noted, having assimilated the whole of past history of research, thomistic philosophy cannot be apprehended simply on the basis of “neutral criteria of rationality”, independently of the tradition to which it belongs3. Thomistic philosophy constitutes a new appreciation of man and the world, re–examining the issue of relations between man and the world and the issue of the nature of justice by focusing on the thomistic idea of a person. This paper will demonstrate that the notion of a person in...
THE SERVIENT CHARACTER OF POLITICAL POWER ACCORDING TO ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Studia Gilsoniana, 2014
● Source: Pawel Tarasiewicz, “The Servient Character of Political Power According to St. Thomas Aquinas,” Studia Gilsoniana 3 (2014): 399-413 [ISSN 2300-0066] ● Summary: The author attempts to justify the thesis of the servient character of political power. By his analyses, he arrives at two conclusions. First, the ultimate goal of service fulfilled by political power should be identical with the natural goal of every human being, meaning a life of virtue. Hence, service to the cause of the citizens’ virtue requires that the fundamental duties of power include the protection of public peace, the promotion of actions towards the common good, and striving for a common abundance of worldly possessions. Second, to elect those in political power it is necessary to make sure that aspirants to such are characterized by the appropriate level of virtuous development. Each candidate should be first and foremost a person possessing a high moral quality (virtus boni viri), where prudence and magnanimity appear to be virtues especially fitting power (virtutes boni principis). ● Keywords: Political Philosophy; Political Parties; Government; Leadership; Virtue Ethics; Politics; Elections; Common Good; Human nature; Civic Virtue; Virtue; Morality; Prudence; Political Power; Body politics; Magnanimity; Public Peace and Unity; National government; Life of virtue.
Liberty, wisdom, and grace : Thomism and democratic political theory
Lexington Books, 2002
Liberty, Wisdom, and Grace draws together essays on political theory published over a span of two decades. Covering a wide range of topics, the papers reflect the philosophical (Thomistic), theological (Catholic), and political (American) traditions that have informed the author's life and work. The volume is divided into three parts. The first section is devoted to a study of the political writings of Jacques Maritain and Yves Simon. Unlike other Catholic intellectuals of their day, the two neo-Thomists embraced modernity while drawing upon the intellectual resources of the Church. In such works as Man and the State and Christianity and Democracy, Maritain applied Thomistic principles toward an appreciation, and defense, of liberal democracy. Hittinger's assessment of his achievement is balanced and perceptive; he is especially adept at describing the many political attacks (from right and left) that Maritain encountered throughout his career. In his study of Simon, Hittinger examines the French philosopher's understanding of technology. Technology may be an "engine for democratic reform," but its effects upon society can be disastrous: it promotes social alienation, weakens our connection to the natural world, and replaces "humanistic education" with training in mere technique. Most of all, Simon feared the emergence of a technological-political elite armed with the "dream of social engineering." Hittinger's admiration for the neo-Thomists does not prevent him from casting a critical eye upon their work. He notes that Maritain often exaggerated the Christian "inspiration" for democracy. Moreover, he questions whether Maritain and Simon were always faithful to the "spirit and letter" of St.Thomas. In a lengthy study, remarkable for its attention to textual detail, Hittinger suggests that they did not provide sufficient evidence for their Thomistic defense of liberal democracy. Certainly, there are grounds in the Summa Theologiae for justifying the idea of equality of rights, but Thomas never endorses democracy as the "best" regime. Hittinger concludes that, despite the summons to the "primacy of the spiritual" in his work, Maritain remained mesmerized by the "democratic spirit" and the promise of unending "historical progress." The problematic status of Maritain's egalitarianism becomes more striking when measured against the traditional approach of Aurel HA GGERTY 2 8 9