John
Haldane, gen. ed.
Modern Writings on Thomism.
Bristol: Thoemmes
Press, due November 2003 (USA January 2004).
6 vols., 2035 pp.
Hardback
ISBN 1843710846.
Publisher's
recommended price £450.00
/ $675.00
Deriving
from the
name of its originator, Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), Thomism is a body of
philosophical and theological ideas that seeks to articulate the
intellectual
content of Catholic Christianity. St Thomas was one of the main figures
in the medieval Scholastic movement and wrote some of the greatest ever
commentaries on Aristotle (also available from Thoemmes Press). Aquinas
and his followers believed that faith and reason are both routes to
truth
- a conflict between them being impossible because they both originate
in God - and Aquinas's celebrated 'Five Ways' of proving the existence
of God have remained central objects of study in the philosophy of
religion
ever since. The
historical
influence of Thomism has been enormous, and Thomist theologians and
philosophers
continue to work in what may be the longest continuous intellectual
tradition
in the Western world. Twentieth-century Thomists had important things
to
say in all of the key areas of philosophy: Logic, Metaphysics, Theory
of
Knowledge, Ethics, Natural Science and Philosophical Anthropology. John
Haldane has made a considered selection of half a dozen works which
represent
the best expositions of Thomistic approaches from the period between
the
first translation of Aquinas's Summa Theologiae into English
(1912)
and the start of the Second Vatican Council (1962) which transformed
the
intellectual world of Catholicism. In his substantial introduction to
the
set, Haldane gives an overview of the history of Thomism and locates
these
six books within it. He also looks ahead to the prospects for Thomism
in
the twenty-first century and beyond.
- Thomism is perhaps the oldest continuous intellectual
tradition in
the
Western world
- six texts covering mid twentieth-century work in key areas
within
Thomism
- valuable for the growing number of scholars interested in
Thomistic
philosophy
- selected and introduced by John Haldane
Contents:
Volume
1 R.P. Phillips, Modern Thomistic Philosophy (1935); Volume 2
R.P.
Phillips, Modern Thomistic Philosophy (1935); Volume 3 John
Frederick
Peifer, The Concept in Thomism (1952); Volume 4 George P.
Klubertanz, The
Philosophy of Human Nature (1953); Volume 5 J. A. Oesterle, Ethics:
The Introduction to Moral Science (1958); Volume 6 E. Simmons, Scientific
Art of Logic: An Introduction to the Principles of Formal and Material
Logic (1961).
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