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What the Problem with Aquinas Isn't

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Mark T. Nelson
Mark T. Nelson*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Westmont College
*
Santa Barbara, CA 93108, USA, Email: M.T.Nelson@leeds.ac.uk
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Type
Original Articles
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 87 , Issue 1012 , November 2006 , pp. 605 - 616
Copyright
© The Author 2006. Journal compilation © The Dominican Council/Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2006, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

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References

1 Russell, Bertrand, A History of Western Philosophy (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1946), pp. 484-485Google Scholar.

2 Nelson, Mark T., ‘On the “Lack of True Philosophic Spirit” in Aquinas’, Philosophy, 76 (2001), pp. 283-296CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 For example, in his discussion of the eternity of the world, Aquinas concludes that it is impossible to demonstrate that the world is not eternal, even though, from a Christian point of view, it would be very nice if we could demonstrate that.

4 See Kenny, Anthony, Aquinas on Mind (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 11-12Google Scholar.

5 I shall ignore the possibility that one might value philosophical arguments because their conclusions were poetic, audacious, outrageous, etc. Russell would clearly have no time for such arguments.

6 Nelson, Mark T., ‘On the “Lack of True Philosophic Spirit” in Aquinas’, Philosophy, 76 (2001), pp. 283-296CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Oppy, Graham, ‘On the Lack of True Philosophic Spirit in Aquinas’, Philosophy, 76 (2001), pp. 615-624CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 615, 623.

8 Oppy, op. cit., p. 617.

9 Russell, op. cit., p. 453.

10 It may, e.g., be one aspect of W.K. Clifford's famous argument in ‘The Ethics of Belief’, insofar as this is held to apply to religious believers. See ‘The Ethics of Belief’, in Lectures and Essays (London: Macmillan, 1879), reprinted in Louis Pojman, P., ed., Philosophy of Religion: an Anthology, 3rd ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1998)Google Scholar.

11 Oppy, op. cit., p. 620.

12 Anthony Kenny, e.g., thinks that Aquinas made powerful, original contributions in philosophy, though not necessarily on the topics for which he is best known. See his discussion in Aquinas (New York: Hill and Wang, 1980), e.g., pp. 30-31Google Scholar.

13 Oppy expresses his objection in terms of the ‘real grounds’ instead of ‘real reasons for belief’, but nothing hangs on this difference so far as I can see, and I prefer ‘reasons’ for stylistic smoothness.

14 See Robert Audi's helpful discussion of related issues in ‘Belief, Justification and Inference’, in The Structure of Justification (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 233-273Google Scholar, and esp. pp. 262-266.

15 See Summa Theologiae, II-II, 154, 9, where Aquinas argues, ‘The second reason is because blood relations must needs live in close touch with one another. Wherefore if they were not debarred from venereal union, opportunities of venereal intercourse would be very frequent and thus men's minds would be enervated by lust. Hence in the Old Law [Lev. 18] the prohibition was apparently directed specially to those persons who must needs live together.’

16 Russell, op. cit., pp. 445 (emphasis mine).

17 Ibid, pp. 445-6 (emphasis mine).

18 Ibid, pp. 451.

19 Nelson, op. cit., p. 283; see also Oppy, op. cit., p. 616.

20 See Nelson, op. cit., p. 294.

21 Nelson, op. cit., p. 283; see also Oppy, op. cit., p. 616.

22 Ibid., p. 623.

23 See Kenny, Anthony, Aquinas on Mind (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 11-12Google Scholar. Nelson, op. cit., p. 283; see also Oppy, op. cit., p. 616.

24 Ibid., p. 623.

25 Russell, Bertrand, My Philosophical Development (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959), p. 11Google Scholar.

26 Russell, Bertrand, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1919), p. 5Google Scholar.

27 Frege, Gottlob, ‘Über die Begriffsschrift des Herrn Peano und meine eigene’, Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig Mathematisch-Physische Klasse, 48, pp. 361-78Google Scholar. Reprinted in Angelelli, I., ed., Kleine Schriften (Hildesheim: Olms., 1967), p. 221Google Scholar, quoted in Curry, Gregory, Frege: an Introduction to his Philosophy (Sussex: Harvester Press, 1982), p. 12Google Scholar. See also pp. 2-13, 28-9.

28 Whitehead, A.N. and Russell, B., Principia Mathematica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910), p. vGoogle Scholar.

29 The research and writing of this essay was supported by the Institute of Faith and Learning at Baylor University. I thank the Institute and the Baylor Philosophy Department for their support, and Steve Evans, Bruce Gordon, John Haldane, David Oderberg and Scott Shalkowski for helpful comments.