Bobick has done it again. After reading Bobick's insightful translation and exposition of Aquinas' "De Ente et Esentia", I was pleased to find that his knack for explaining Aquinas' complex ideas in metaphysics and natural philospohy is repeated in this book. For those who wish to understand Aquinas in depth, this book is a must.

This book honors two great thinkers in one collection of essays. The title of the book, "Aquinas' Moral Theory", tells that the authors included concern themselves with the various subjects related to Thomas Aquinas' rich account of human moral action and the principles of morality which help to define the nature of such actions. The subtitle, "Essays in Honor of Norman Kretzmann", tell us that the late Dr. Kretzmann is rightfully recognized as one of the great medieval and Thomistic interpreters of the past few decades. Not only is his own work of great value to scholars and students today; but that of his successors, Eleonore Stump and Scott MacDonald (who succeeded Dr. Kretzmann in his chair at Cornell University), is equally recognized as some the best scholarship currently being done. Readers of this book will find, among all the authors included, a scholarly rigorous and informative collection of essays which help those already familiar with the basics of Thomistic action theory and moral philosophy to delve more deeply into the relevant issues which are the subject of current debate in the philosophical arena.

I am interested in Thomistic metaphysics and having read several books I must say that I found this book extremely helpful. Fr Clarke explains the principles of Thomas' thought in an easy to understand fashion and then convincingly applies them to modern thought. What is especially important in this work is Clarkes development of St Thomas' idea of being as a "substance in relation" which be defintion has a communicative value. This theme is stressed often in the book and is useful in having a response to skeptics of knowledge about the material world. Fr Clarke also gives compelling modern versions of Thomas' 5 Ways of arguing for the existence of God. Well done.

I have been greatly aided by this book in my understanding of the connection and "common ground" between the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholics via two sainted theologians of the east and west- Gregory Palamas and Thomas Aquinas.

I could go on about the book, but the sample pages speak for themsleves. Please see some of my other reviews for books of similar interest, esp my list of ecumenical books. If you are really interested in this sort of topic, then you should really consider buying "Energies of the Spirit" by Duncan Reid. It is also very detailed and insightful (it looks at trinitarian models in east and west). Enjoy!

For Aristotle, both desire and knowledge lead to action. Actions that spring from a desire must follow true discourse. If action do not follow a sound syllogism, then they are done in haste. Thus, a prudent action is guided by logos, the principle of intelligence. The perfect Aristotelian man possesses logos in all his actions. He desires true acts and knows good acts.

St. Thomas complements the virtue theory of Aristotle by saying that prudence involves true reason and the rightness of appetite. The prudent person is moved by his appetites for a good reason, and an imprudent person seeks the object of his appetites for poor reasons. A virtuous person seeks to have his appetites governed or harnessed by reason because actions stem from desire, and desire stems from love. But love is brought about by knowledge. Therefore, just as effects are inferior to their causes, human acts are subordinate to reason. For this reason, St. Thomas writes that a person who allows his appetites to guide his actions is carnally prudent (S.T., II-II, p. 55, a. 2, ad 2m).

For St. Thomas, there are six subjective parts in prudence. These parts are the steps the intellect and will go through on their way toward a good object. First, the intellect apprehends the good. Second, the will is inclined or moves toward the apprehended good and consents. Third, the intellect performs a deliberation process to consider the various means and options to obtain the good. Fourth, the will chooses one of the means which appear to the intellect to be the most reasonable. Fifth, the intellect commands the will to actualize the potential of the chosen means toward the good. And sixth, the will executes in order to contact and rest in the enjoyment found in the possession of the good that was first perceived by the intellect.

This is a long process that occurs within the human psyche within a matter of seconds. Mature human adults have gone through these steps so many times in their lives that only after careful reflection can the six steps be detected. They are best summarized by: apprehension, consent, deliberation, choice, command, and execution.

Knowing the parts of prudence is necessary for the understanding of imprudence and sin. Sin is an act that is in discord with reason or natural law. St. Thomas writes, "No sin can take place unless there be a failure in an act of the directing reason. And this belongs to imprudence" S.T. II-II, p. 53, a. 2). A sinful, imprudent act is one that skips over one of the parts of prudence. St. Thomas has named four actions that discard one of the prudent steps in action.

First, an action that abandons deliberation is precipitous, which is an action that does not look ahead, but moves in haste or with rashness. Second, an inconsiderate action is one that is unable to choose the most reasonable means toward its goal. Here the fourth part of prudence, choice, is handicapped and our of commission. Another name for this action is thoughtlessness. The third kind of action ignores the fifth step of prudence, command, and prevents a person from actualizing the means chosen to obtain a certain good. These types of action are called inconstant and erratic. The last kind of imprudent action is negligence, which abandons steps three, four and five in the acts of the will. One who is negligent does not deliberate about the various possibilities, fails to make a choice concerning a possibility, and does not command the will to take action. Hence, a person who neglects his or her homework does not find, pick and do a reasonable means to turn in the assignments.

What causes imprudence? For Aristotle, pleasure corrupts the prudential decision making process. But for St. Thomas, it is something much more specific than pleasure. Lust is the major enemy of prudence and sends its four bandits of precipitation, thoughtlessness, inconstancy and negligence to attack the various parts behind every human act. The imprudent person is a deficient lover: "imprudence is a failure of love (O'Neil, 1955, 96)."

If imprudence stems from the corrupt desire of lust, then prudence must spring forth from love. Love moves the reason to discern. Discerning is prudence which in turn builds the existential structure by which a person can be united with singular goods as well as the ultimate good - God. The saw of the carpenter is like the moral person's will, and the carpenter's straight edge is like his ruled reason. Hence, before each action, especially before major, life-shattering decisions, we can choose to love most completely by stopping in our tracks in order to bend down and pick up the ruler of reason, the logos of Aristotle and the sound syllogism of Aquinas.

The moral person is a craftsperson who is the master of his actions. He allows himself to go through the six steps of prudence, and wards off the impulse of impatience. Plus, he orders his love by choosing objects that are good and reasonably fit. In this way a disordered love, or lust, is incapable of sending out its troops to interfere with the motions of discourse. The prudent person takes time to be reasonable, and makes time to be loving.

This book is a lucid and painstaking study of the contribution of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to philosophy, on questions of human freedom, necessity and determinism. As a prerequisite to the understanding of this contribution, the thought, on these issues, of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) and of Louis Molina (1535-1600), both of whom influenced Leibniz, is brought forward and is discussed. The author also focuses on the following aspects of the philosophy of Leibniz: (i) the concept of freedom itself, (ii) the distinction of truths into necessary and contingent, (iii) the concept of freedom as pure indifference, and (iv) freedom and divine foreknowledge.

The author draws a sharp distinction between the concept of necessity, as understood by previous thinkers, e.g., by Thomas Hobbes, and as understood by Leibniz. Previous thinkers confused causation with necessity (a fallacy still in force to-day). The author presents a remarkably clear exposition of Leibniz's conception of necessity and contingency (see also the Amazon review on the book: "A selection of philosophical texts of Leibniz"). A distinction is made between absolute and hypothetical necessity, a distinction which, the author tells us, originates from the Scholastics and ultimately from Aristotle: a distinction identical with "necessity of the consequence and necessity of the consequent". The author mentions that "Leibniz's interest in the distinction between absolute and hypothetical necessity is due to the fact that he wanted to distinguish logical from causal or physical necessity". In this way the outstanding contribution of Leibniz to the question of free will vs determinism, is highlighted by the author in a remarkably clear and unambiguous manner. Leibniz is thus shown to be a pioneer thinker on this perennial question, to this present time.

This is an erudite work, lucidly presented. An outstanding work of scholarship.

Excellent book. I once had the opportunity to be a student of his and I must admit this book is carefully thought out and Dr. Carstens at his best. I highly recommend this to anyone with an interest in political philosophy.

Oesterle's translation of this collection of disputed questions answered by Aquinas is highly readable and makes this text usefully accessible to scholars and students.

This meticulously researched book brings to light for the modern reader the great Aquinas' little known work, Super Psalmos. In the shared Judeo-Christian tradition, the Psalms are prayers for all phases of life experiences. Ryan's scholarly work explains Aquinas' immersion in the spirituality of the Psalms and highlights their value for readers of Aquinas' age as well as today.

We are using this text in one of my classes this semester at Marquette University. The book is a very detailed commentary on Aquinas' view of the human nature from the Summa.

Pasnau takes ancient and modern thinkers and formulates arguments and/or proposals regarding the various areas of the human nature. For instance, Pasnau will take Gilbert Ryle's arguments on the human will and examine them in light of Aquinas. This is merely one brief and small example. The text is very detailed in every issue covered regarding not only what Aquinas thought but also what other various thinkers in the history of philosophy have had to say after Aquinas or perhaps before Aquinas.

The one advantage of this text, it seems, is that Pasnau has written in such a way that the nonspecialist and specialist alike will benefit. As Pasnau claims, "I have tried to write a book that would help the novice, stimulate the nonspecialist, and provoke the specialist." I think he has accomplished this in this work.

The contents of this text include:

I. Essential features
Body and Soul
-the immateriality of the soul
-the unity of body and soul
-when human life begins
II. Capacities
-the soul and its capacities
-sensations
-desire and freedom
-will and temptation
III. Functions
-mind and image
-mind and reality
-knowing the mind
-life after death

There is also an excellent appendix that outlines ST 1a 75-89, and a very nice epilogue titled "Why did God Make Me?"
Everything one would want from Aquinas view of the human nature is commented upon in this text. This is a great secondary text for those who want to gain a better understanding of not only the Thomistic arguments for human nature but also for those other thinkers in the history of philosophy who have written on this topic either in response to Aquinas or of their own accord (those perhaps prior to Aquinas). Thus, this makes for a good secondary reference tool.