Dr. Redpath is one of the few very good contemporary Thomistic philosophers. This book (I have the paperback) is a very, very good introduction to the thought of St. Thomas. The introduction is apologetic in nature, making neither excuse, nor exception. The first part gives a very solid (yet concise) biography of Aquinas. (Did you know how many times Thomas' corpse was exhumed?)

In explaining Thomistic philosophy, the book begins where it ought to - with the division of sciences, which naturally turns into a discussion of epistemology. And so on from there.

I think this book is for more advanced students than McInerny's Intros to Aquinas. Every point being made is not confused, but explained very rigorously. As the title of this review states: this is a simplified introduction - not a simplistic one. Lastly, the bibliography at the end of the book is, admittedly, very sparse.

It's a very interessant study of st. Thomas and the Salamanca's School about their position vis-à-vis of a theology of right and the problem of a justification of the slavery in the situation of the XII century or of the XVI. Sometimes, it's a little literary study of the text without a distant of reflexion but a work necesary for this theme of slavery

This latest "Thomistic bibliography" is as complete as its two predecessors. However, unlike the 1920-1940 and 1940-1978 editions, this one is organized by language (English, Spanish, German, French, etc.) rather than by subject area (metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, anthropology, theology, etc.). This is not to disparage the work done in assembling this latest reference collection specifically devoted to Aquinas. Some researchers may find the organization by language to be most helpful to them. I, though, found it easier to manipulate the previous volumes in my own research.

Thomas Aquinas knows his stuff. If you find discussions on the essence of goodness or talk of why all things act as agents to a good to be of any use then Aquinas is an absorbing read. If you find this kind of cavilling to be invigorating you are a dullard and are in Good company with Aquinas.

Admitedly a difficult work to read, Thomas Aquinus' Treatise on Law is well worth the effort. Its difficulty stems from the strictures of its genre-- the scholastic method of dispution, important in the devolpement of modern critical thinking. The treatise is a rich work that seeks to probe the limits of human ethical knowledge. He asks us to consider the questions "what are my rights, how can I know and guarantee them, what are the limits of the state in relation to the individual." If you've ever pondered the meaning of the words "we hold these truths to be self-evident" in the Declaration of Independence, start with this book. Aquinus has few peers in his understanding of what it means to be a human-being. Agree or disagree with him, Aquinus' vision of a universe whose very fabric both constitutes and guarantees a moral order is deeply moving and ennobling. No less a person than the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King acknowledged in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail his debt to the Treatise on Law. If you love freedom, read this book!

The treatise on law provides a concise definition of law, a fabulous discussion of natural law, and a view into the inner working of our own human law. A must for lawyers and legislators.

John Finnis's latest book is not really about Aquinas. It is, rather, an attempt to supply a Thomistic pedigree for the 'New Natural Law Theory' developed by Finnis in his earlier books and articles. This is the upshot of recent reviews in THE THOMIST (April 2001 issue) and The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (Winter 2001 issue). If you are interested in the thought of John Finnis, this book may interest you. If you want to understand Aquinas, look elsewhere.

Finnis has created a major contribution to Thomistic scholarship with this work. The critical discussion of Aquinas's justification of the death penalty is especially enlightening. This work is a necessity for all philosophers and theologians who are serious about learning the theory of this great philosopher, Aquinas.

The cover states the book is for "students and nonspecialist", which I found to be not true. The best example was in the chapter Metaphysics, if you do not already understand the concepts and especially Aquinas` arguements before reading the book you will definitly not understand them after reading the book. I felt the book confuses much more than enlightens.

As always, Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump deliver another masterful work together. Each of these writers are experts in their philosophical field of Medieval Metaphysics and philosophy. For anyone interested in gaining a better grasp of one of the greatest philosophers in the history of philosophy, this volume will certainly help. Kretzmann and Stump have edited this volume and included some of the preeminent Thomistic philosophers of the last 40 years. Chapters cover Aquinas' thoughts on ethics, metaphysics, Aristotle and Aquinas, Aquinas' theory of knowledge, law and politics and theological issues. Thus, the essentials of Aquinas are here in one volume. Moreover,this is an excellent work for those who would like to dig deeper and gain a more throrough understanding of Aquinas, or for those who would like to simply be "peeping Thomists" and get a small glimpse of what Aquinas espoused.

This work is confused. McInerny tries to separate the logic of analogy from its real foundation in being. His criticisms of Cajetan just don't seem to hit the mark. The confusion can be summed up in his statement that "analogy" is itself used analogously. Well, if there is not some sense in which "analogy" is used univocally, then "analogy" loses any definite meaning. It becomes simply the night in which all cows are black. If you want to read something better by McInerny, read his translation and commentary on Aquinas' Disputed Question on Virtue. Ethics appears to be his forte.

This work is confused. He tries to separate the logic of analogy from its real foundation in being. If you want to read something better by McInerny, read his translation and commentary on Aquinas' Disputed Question on Virtue. Ethics appears to be his forte.

I found the book clear enough. To those with an honest desire to understand reality on a sounder basis than many contemporary philosophies allow,I highly recommend this book.To those who want live in a well paid soft focus world I commend the previous reviewers

This is an unfortunate example of the sort of thing which academics produce and then force undergraduates to wade through. The author has found all the similar passages in Aquinas' many works and has collected them together in snippets varying from a paragraph to two to three pages in length. This results in great repetition, and the beauty of the sweeping logical development which is presumably present in the original, is lost.

A word of warning to anyone who would approach Aquinas: read your Aristotle first.

This book suffered from three weaknesses, the first of which may be idiosyncratic. 1. A "reader," I presumed, would be an introduction to Acquinas, one I could read without attending a class. Not so. This book assumed a lot of familiarity with Acquinas's terminology and intellectual heritage. 2. The book is organized by topics, with brief excerpts from Thomas's works yanked out of context to fit the editor's topic selection. A sequential selection from Thomas's principal writings would have better preserved the integrity of the works and allowed the reader better to follow Thomas's reasoning. 3. Finally, the editor needed an editor. Her writing is cumbersome. She seems to have forgotten how to write a simple declarative sentence.

I find Moses Maimonides no more approachable than Thomas Acquinas, but Isadore Twersky's "A Maimonides Reader" is far more approachable than Mary Clark's Acquinas reader.

I have just finished this book. I just took five minutes to tell the customers of Amazon that it is very interesting. It is well presented by Mary Clark with very interesting introductions to the five chapters. This presentation really makes St Thomas Aquinas very readable today. What the Saint focuses on is so important and so relevant to our understanding of our modern world and yet he wrote in the 13th century. When I read the book I tried to always think about how it applies to my life today. Don't be put off by reviews that sound a little bit over the top and too harsh.

Caputo tries to persuade us that Heidegger misses the point when accuses St. Thomas (along with the rest of the Scholastic tradition) of onto-theo-logy. The true is that Caputo has an agenda (to which he sometimes sacrifices his scholarship) to exonerate Aquinas from any metaphysical accusations (hence the subtitle "overcoming metaphysics"), but whoever knows his Thomas would agree that that is not quite the case. He even goes as far as to claim that one can find in Thomas an ontological difference centuries before Heidegger! His comments on the Neoplatonic tradition betray his incompetence when it comes to major neo-Platonic thinkers (such as Proclus or Dionysius) and their texts. Overall, it leaves a lot to be desired...

Caputo's book is the first tolerable exposition of Heidegger that I have come across. That may in part be due to the fact that I am a Thomist, but a good part of it stems from Heidegger's obscurity and verbosity. It must be credited to Caputo that he has grasped Heidegger well enough to introduce his thought to someone with no previous knowledge of his philosophy. He also has an adequate understanding of Aquinas and the centrality of the act-of-being (esse) in the latter's philosophy. The historical information about Heidegger's early development and relation to scholasticism was enlightening and adequately sets the stage for the confrontation that Caputo wishes to stage.

The author has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that if Heidegger's critique is accepted, that Aquinas' philosophy does not answer to it. The oblivion of Being in Heidegger's sense is definitely not the oblivion of the act-of-being (esse) in Etienne Gilson's sense. Where the book is very weak, however is in refuting the counterclaim of Lotz that it is Heidegger who has fallen short of Aquinas and not vice-versa. Up to this point, Caputo faces the issues squarely, but here he turns away. Either he seems not to understand the counter-charge, which is difficult to believe after his fine exposition of thomistic metaphysics, or he simply has his heart set on the postmodern path. He cannot seem to muster much more than to fall back on stock terms, such as "radicality" of Heidegger's critique. Yes, radical it is, but true?

Caputo's final effort to discern a Heideggerian mysticism underneath Aquinas' metaphysics really is almost not worth commenting upon. To suggest that Aquinas' mystical experiences involved this kind of gnostic and historicist spirituality is absurd, bordering on the scandalous.

Finally, while the book is generally well balanced in tone, the author sometimes takes up a rather defensive and patronizing posture towards Aquinas when Heidegger's critique is on the rocks.

All in all, I got something out of this book, at least the first half. But it has the weaknesses I mentioned.

Caputo masterfully explains the fundamental perspectives of both Aquinas and Heidegger. As a follower of Aquinas, I found his exposition of Aquinas accurate and thorough. Before reading his book, I knew nothing about Heidegger, but I feel that now I have some sort of handle on his thought. Caputo is extraordinarily fair to both philosophers, granting both of them as much latitude as he deems viable. Only in one place does he take serious issue with Heidegger, when he wonders whether Heidegger's notion of being as "emergence into unconcealment" (or the event of appropriation and sending) finitizes or immanentizes God. This by itself, however, is a telling admission of the ultimate deficiency of Heidegger's notion of "Being". I would definitely recommend this book for a comparative study of both men. On the other hand, Sacchi's "Apocalypse of Being" offers a more polemical critique of Heidegger than Caputo's book, and may be more satisfying to someone (like myself) having a Thomistic view on reality.

One of the greatest Catholic thinkers of the twentieth century, Etiene Gilson, discusses, interprets, and expounds, in his work "The Elements of Christian Philosophy," the Philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas in terms that the educated laymen and student will find beneficial and fairly simple to soak in. This is a great summation of the "Summa," and should be placed next to Ralph McInerny's work and other accomplished commentators' treatment of St Thomas' oeuvre.