Gyula Klima (Fordham) – Peter Simpson (CUNY)
Phil 76200 [92210] CUNY
PHGA 7040 Fordham
AQUINAS ON MIND
CUNY Graduate Center
T, 4:15 - 6:15
This course will provide a survey of some major issues in Aquinas’ philosophy of mind and metaphysics, exploring the intriguing theoretical alternative Aquinas’ position seems to offer “between” dualism and materialism, based on his hylomorphist metaphysics.
Some of the main topics covered will be

• understanding the soul as the substantial form of the body
• the composition of a human being from body and soul
• the unity of substantial forms
• vital operations and the powers of the soul
• the difference between sensory and intellectual cognition
• cognition and mental representation
• the immateriality of the intellect (against the Averroists)
• the immortality of the soul
• the cognition of the separate soul

The texts used will be (selections from) “On the Principles of Nature”, “On Being and Essence”, “On the Mixture of Elements”, “Questions on the Soul”, “Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima”, “Summa Theologiae”, “On the Unity of the Intellect against the Averroists”, along with selections from the contemporary literature comparing Aquinas’ conception with modern ideas (such as Kenny’s “Aquinas on Mind” and several selected papers).

READINGS

Texts required for the course:
Thomas Aquinas: On the Principles of Nature (online)
Thomas Aquinas: On Being and Essence (online)
Thomas Aquinas, Questions on the soul = Quaestiones de anima; translated from the Latin with an introduction by James H. Robb. Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, c1984.
Thomas Aquinas, Treatise on Human Nature (Summa theologiae 1a 75-89) (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002).
McInerny, R. Aquinas against the Averroists: on there being only one intellect.  West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, c1993.
Kenny, A. Aquinas on Mind, New York: Routledge, 1995.
J. Haldane, (ed.), Mind, Metaphysics, and Value in the Thomistic and Analytic Traditions, Notre Dame, 2002.
Brian Davies (ed.): Thomas Aquinas: Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives, Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 2002.

Recommended for the “uninitiated”:
Brian Davies: The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992).
Robert Pasnau-Christopher Shields: The Philosophy of Aquinas (Boulder: Westview Press, 2003).
Robert Pasnau: Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature. A Philosophical Study of Summa theologiae 1a 75-89 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Further Readings:
Opera Omnia online: Corpus Thomisticum (all texts in Latin)
Aquinas in English on- and off-line: http://www.home.duq.edu/~bonin/thomasbibliography.html

A list of suggested readings promptly available in CUNY’s or Fordham’s libraries can be downloaded here: http://www.fordham.edu/gsas/phil/klima/Aquinas/Aquinas-Biblio.pdf