The principle, omne agens agit sibi simile, "every agent causes something similar to itself", is fundamental to Scholastic metaphysics, and especially natural theology. In fact, it is only upon its vasis that inferences can be made from creaturely characteristics to the nature of the Creator. However, omne agens agit sibi simile, is taken for granted even by an author such as Saint Thomas Aquinas, who never feels any need to justify its validity, in spite of the fact that "there is hardly a phrase which occurs more often in Saint Thomas", as Etienne Gilson remarked. Tracing the historical roots of omne agens agit sibi simile is an indispensable first step in trying to explain the import of this principle in Scholastic Thought. The first part of the book is devoted to this task. it argues that the mediaeval metaphysics of causal similarity is rooted in a conception of the cosmos which goes back to the Presocratics, and according to which being is essentially circular, or self-reflexive. This conception was further elaborated by Plato, Aristotle, the Neoplatonists, and their mediaeval successors. The second part examines omne agens agit sibi simile in Thomistic metaphysics. Without neglecting Aquinas's sources, it attempts to elucidate the structure of his thought in the light of contemporary philosophical questions. It is stressed, for instance, that in Aquinas's thought, causality involves a process of 'concealing revelation" of the cause in and through its effect -an idea which was later to become a central element in Heidegger's philosophy.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
"Il faut etudier les philosophes en philosophe, se servir de l'histoire et de la lexicographie, non point s'y asservir." This conviction, voiced by one of the foremost students of Thomistic philosophy of our century, echoes a famous dictum from Aquinas's commentary on Aristotle's On the Heavens (Book I, cap. 10, lect. 22): "Studium philosophiae non est ad hoc quod sciatur quid homines senserint, sed qualiter se habeat veritas rerum" - the study of philosophy is not about getting to know what some people might have deemed to be the case, but what the truth of things is... Aquinas's dictum epitomizes one of the most important methodological presuppositions of my own project. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Peter Lombard, Book of Sentences, Unmoved Mover, New York, Saint Augustine, Clarendon Press, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas von Aquin, Holy Spirit, Jean Scot, Persons of the Trinity, Corpus Dion, Van Steenberghen, First Intellect, First Mover, Elements of Theology, Harvard University Press, Metaphysicorum Aristotelis, Ein Mensch, First Source, Greater Commentary, Pierre Lombard, Denken des Einen, Ernst Cassirer, Law of Undiminished Giving New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
"Il faut etudier les philosophes en philosophe, se servir de l'histoire et de la lexicographie, non point s'y asservir." This conviction, voiced by one of the foremost students of Thomistic philosophy of our century, echoes a famous dictum from Aquinas's commentary on Aristotle's On the Heavens (Book I, cap. 10, lect. 22): "Studium philosophiae non est ad hoc quod sciatur quid homines senserint, sed qualiter se habeat veritas rerum" - the study of philosophy is not about getting to know what some people might have deemed to be the case, but what the truth of things is... Aquinas's dictum epitomizes one of the most important methodological presuppositions of my own project. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Peter Lombard, Book of Sentences, Unmoved Mover, New York, Saint Augustine, Clarendon Press, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas von Aquin, Holy Spirit, Jean Scot, Persons of the Trinity, Corpus Dion, Van Steenberghen, First Intellect, First Mover, Elements of Theology, Harvard University Press, Metaphysicorum Aristotelis, Ein Mensch, First Source, Greater Commentary, Pierre Lombard, Denken des Einen, Ernst Cassirer, Law of Undiminished Giving New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 47
books:
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books
cite this book:
- Peter Lombard (Brill's Studies in Intellectual History) by Marcia L. Colish on 7 pages
- Silence Of St Thomas by Josef Pieper on 6 pages
- The Elements of Theology: A Revised Text with Translation, Introduction, and Commentary (Clarendon Paperbacks) by Proclus on 5 pages
- The Anthropology of Johannes Scottus Eriugena (Brill's Studies in Intellectual History) (Brill's Studies in Itellectual History) by Willemien Otten on 4 pages
- Heidegger and Aquinas: An Essay on Overcoming Metaphysics by John D. Caputo on 4 pages
See all 47 books this book cites
- Genealogy of Nihilism (Routledge Radical Orthodoxy) by Conor Cunningham in Back Matter
- Genealogy of Nihilism (Routledge Radical Orthodoxy) by Conor Cunningham in Back Matter
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