Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide (Beginner's Guides)
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'A useful and easy to read introduction. Students and scholars will find [this] highly beneficial.' --Fulvio di Blasi, President, Thomas International
'Lucid, cogent, and compelling. Required reading for anyone interested in Thomas Aquinas.' --Christopher Kaczor, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Loyola Marymount University
'At last. A concise, accessible and compelling introduction to Aquinas's thought. Feser shows that Aquinas's philosophy is still a live option for thinkers today.' --Kelly James Clark, Professor of Philosophy, Calvin College
'Lucid, cogent, and compelling. Required reading for anyone interested in Thomas Aquinas.' --Christopher Kaczor, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Loyola Marymount University
'At last. A concise, accessible and compelling introduction to Aquinas's thought. Feser shows that Aquinas's philosophy is still a live option for thinkers today.' --Kelly James Clark, Professor of Philosophy, Calvin College
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One of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the history of Western thought, St Thomas Aquinas established the foundations for much of modern philosophy of religion, and is famous for his arguments for the existence of God. In this cogent and multifaceted introduction to the great Saint's work, Edward Feser argues that you cannot fully understand Aquinas' philosophy without his theology and vice-versa. Covering his thoughts on the soul, natural law, metaphysics, and the interaction of faith and reason, this will prove a indispensable resource for students, experts or the general reader.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This review is for: Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide (Beginners Guide (Oneworld)) (Paperback). This is the first review on UK amazon, but there are already 16 reviews on USA amazon, which I invite the reader to consult. All of these USA reviews of this Aquinas book, by their ratings (14 at 5-star and 2 at 4-star) and the text of their reviews, clearly share my own high opinion of the book.
This is a powerfully satisfying book (as is Feser's The Last Superstition - A Refutation of the New Atheism - see my review of the latter). The present book on the thirteenth-century Roman Catholic philosopher/theologian St Thomas Aquinas (known generally in the literature just as Thomas, or just as Aquinas) reinforces and amplifies the foundation for the arguments in the anti-New-Atheism book. Aquinas, in turn, builds heavily on the philosophy of Aristotle, the fourth-century-BC Greek philosopher (who by the way was the tutor of Alexander the Great). Aristotle's Four Causes (material, formal, efficient and final - Feser, pp. 16-23, but passim) are fundamental to Aquinas's own thinking.
The aim of Feser's Aquinas is the rehabilitation of the value of the Aristotelian/Thomistic philosophy. This rehabilitation is now a real growth industry, from what I can see of the books referred to in, for example, the bibliographies in Feser's own book (excellently up-to-date, mostly post-1990, even mostly post-2000, but including also older traditional classics like Garrigou-Lagrange).
From what I have been reading generally in the religion/science debate, books like those of Feser, Peter S Williams (A Sceptic's Guide to Atheism), John Lennox (God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?), Robert J Spitzer (New Proofs for the Existence of God), Anthony Rizzi (The Science Before Science), David Bentley Hart (Atheist Delusions), Gerald O'Collins (Philip Pullman's Jesus), attacks on Hawking's 2010 book The Grand Design, Antony Flew's There is a God, etc. - from such reading I am convinced that the New Atheists and the radical agnostic/atheistic neo-Darwinians have been thoroughly routed. To repeat the constant thesis of Feser's book anti-the-New Atheism, and again surfacing everywhere in the Aquinas book, the three contentions of traditional and now once-again-trumpeted Thomism, namely, that God exists, that the human soul is rational and immortal, and that morality depends ultimately on the existence of God, are overwhelmingly more likely (to say the very least) than the crass materialism of neo-Darwinism which would reduce all human activity to the mere blind action of material cells, and would deny free will, and would claim that there is no ultimate authority for morality outside of man's own manufacture.
I believe that one of the reasons for the revival of Thomism is precisely the futility of the attempt to provide an understanding of 'the Grand Design' of the existence of the universe and of rational man without this being underpinned by the existence of Aquinas's God. I consider that Stephen Hawking's 2010 book The Grand Design (see my review dated 23 Sept 2010) marks a watershed in the 'science versus religion' debate. Nothing can be worse than Hawking's attempt to turn philosopher, to give 'new answers to the ultimate questions of life', as the subtitle of his book claims. The weakness of his attempts to dismiss the possibility of (or the need for) anything more than blind cosmological forces or blind neo-Darwinian evolution is shattering.
An ever-repeated argument of Feser in his Aquinas book is that the arguments of Aristotle and Aquinas, when examined in the light of their fundamental metaphysical axioms, do not depend for their validity on the weak examples from physics and botany with which our ancient authors illustrated their arguments. For example, on p. 65 Feser says: " Aristotle's metaphysics stands or falls independently of his physics, and ... while [Aquinas's] Five Ways definitely presuppose certain Aristotelian metaphysical claims, there is never a point in any of the arguments where appeal need be made to now falsified theories in physics or any of the other sciences. Indeed, we will see that the Five Ways remain as interesting and worthy of consideration today as any other philosophical argument".
I underline also that Anthony Kenny on Aquinas is much rebutted by Feser, and to my great delight Hume's (to me) absurd rejection of cause-and-effect comes in, in this book of Feser's, too, for continual rejection. Feser stands by formal and final cause, against Hume and the moderns. Material and efficient cause are not enough. The essential underpinning of the metaphysics of Aquinas is the need to take into account the four causes of all created reality, the material, formal, efficient and final causes. 'Modern' philosophers (from the 17th/18th centuries onwards) have, by and large, rejected formal and final causes. Such philosophers simply cannot explain reality. I comment on this in various ways in my reviews of Flew (There is a God), Fergus Kerr (Theology after Wittgenstein) and Simon Blackburn (Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed). Blackburn's book surely does not un-perplex the perplexed. See also Anthony Kenny's Philosophy in the Modern World (being Volume 4 of Kenny's A New History of Western Philosophy). My overwhelming impression from my first quick read of Kenny-4 six months ago is that the book is a mere catalogue of famous names who have failed almost without exception to say anything that enlightens the human condition or gives anything by which the rational human being can live. A damning indictment of 'modern' philosophy - though I am sure that that is not what Kenny intended his book to be!
Throughout his book, Feser stresses that Aquinas's Five Ways (proofs for the existence of God), outlined briefly at the start of the Summa Theologiae, are not Aquinas's most complete treatment of this topic, but rather that his ideas on this topic are expanded and developed throughout all his works. Feser repeatedly introduces fresh quotations from Aquinas in proof of this. Failure to realize, that Aquinas's brief account of the Five Ways at the start of the Summa is only a preliminary summary, destroys the point of most of the 'modern' attacks on the validity of these Five Ways. What they attack is usually a 'straw man' version of Aquinas's proofs as they are expanded throughout his works.
And of course God is uncaused. This emerges from Aquinas's analysis of causality in the Five Ways. So 'who caused God' is a nonsense question. He is pure Act. In him, there is no potency. In him, essence and existence are one and the same. And the divine attributes of the God of the Five Ways are, when fully understood, the attributes of the Christian God. All of this is in Aquinas/Feser.
Feser's book is one of a series of 'Beginner's Guides'. That does not make it an easy read. It deals with the absolute essentials and fundamentals of created and Uncreated being. A difficult but essential read.
This is a powerfully satisfying book (as is Feser's The Last Superstition - A Refutation of the New Atheism - see my review of the latter). The present book on the thirteenth-century Roman Catholic philosopher/theologian St Thomas Aquinas (known generally in the literature just as Thomas, or just as Aquinas) reinforces and amplifies the foundation for the arguments in the anti-New-Atheism book. Aquinas, in turn, builds heavily on the philosophy of Aristotle, the fourth-century-BC Greek philosopher (who by the way was the tutor of Alexander the Great). Aristotle's Four Causes (material, formal, efficient and final - Feser, pp. 16-23, but passim) are fundamental to Aquinas's own thinking.
The aim of Feser's Aquinas is the rehabilitation of the value of the Aristotelian/Thomistic philosophy. This rehabilitation is now a real growth industry, from what I can see of the books referred to in, for example, the bibliographies in Feser's own book (excellently up-to-date, mostly post-1990, even mostly post-2000, but including also older traditional classics like Garrigou-Lagrange).
From what I have been reading generally in the religion/science debate, books like those of Feser, Peter S Williams (A Sceptic's Guide to Atheism), John Lennox (God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?), Robert J Spitzer (New Proofs for the Existence of God), Anthony Rizzi (The Science Before Science), David Bentley Hart (Atheist Delusions), Gerald O'Collins (Philip Pullman's Jesus), attacks on Hawking's 2010 book The Grand Design, Antony Flew's There is a God, etc. - from such reading I am convinced that the New Atheists and the radical agnostic/atheistic neo-Darwinians have been thoroughly routed. To repeat the constant thesis of Feser's book anti-the-New Atheism, and again surfacing everywhere in the Aquinas book, the three contentions of traditional and now once-again-trumpeted Thomism, namely, that God exists, that the human soul is rational and immortal, and that morality depends ultimately on the existence of God, are overwhelmingly more likely (to say the very least) than the crass materialism of neo-Darwinism which would reduce all human activity to the mere blind action of material cells, and would deny free will, and would claim that there is no ultimate authority for morality outside of man's own manufacture.
I believe that one of the reasons for the revival of Thomism is precisely the futility of the attempt to provide an understanding of 'the Grand Design' of the existence of the universe and of rational man without this being underpinned by the existence of Aquinas's God. I consider that Stephen Hawking's 2010 book The Grand Design (see my review dated 23 Sept 2010) marks a watershed in the 'science versus religion' debate. Nothing can be worse than Hawking's attempt to turn philosopher, to give 'new answers to the ultimate questions of life', as the subtitle of his book claims. The weakness of his attempts to dismiss the possibility of (or the need for) anything more than blind cosmological forces or blind neo-Darwinian evolution is shattering.
An ever-repeated argument of Feser in his Aquinas book is that the arguments of Aristotle and Aquinas, when examined in the light of their fundamental metaphysical axioms, do not depend for their validity on the weak examples from physics and botany with which our ancient authors illustrated their arguments. For example, on p. 65 Feser says: " Aristotle's metaphysics stands or falls independently of his physics, and ... while [Aquinas's] Five Ways definitely presuppose certain Aristotelian metaphysical claims, there is never a point in any of the arguments where appeal need be made to now falsified theories in physics or any of the other sciences. Indeed, we will see that the Five Ways remain as interesting and worthy of consideration today as any other philosophical argument".
I underline also that Anthony Kenny on Aquinas is much rebutted by Feser, and to my great delight Hume's (to me) absurd rejection of cause-and-effect comes in, in this book of Feser's, too, for continual rejection. Feser stands by formal and final cause, against Hume and the moderns. Material and efficient cause are not enough. The essential underpinning of the metaphysics of Aquinas is the need to take into account the four causes of all created reality, the material, formal, efficient and final causes. 'Modern' philosophers (from the 17th/18th centuries onwards) have, by and large, rejected formal and final causes. Such philosophers simply cannot explain reality. I comment on this in various ways in my reviews of Flew (There is a God), Fergus Kerr (Theology after Wittgenstein) and Simon Blackburn (Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed). Blackburn's book surely does not un-perplex the perplexed. See also Anthony Kenny's Philosophy in the Modern World (being Volume 4 of Kenny's A New History of Western Philosophy). My overwhelming impression from my first quick read of Kenny-4 six months ago is that the book is a mere catalogue of famous names who have failed almost without exception to say anything that enlightens the human condition or gives anything by which the rational human being can live. A damning indictment of 'modern' philosophy - though I am sure that that is not what Kenny intended his book to be!
Throughout his book, Feser stresses that Aquinas's Five Ways (proofs for the existence of God), outlined briefly at the start of the Summa Theologiae, are not Aquinas's most complete treatment of this topic, but rather that his ideas on this topic are expanded and developed throughout all his works. Feser repeatedly introduces fresh quotations from Aquinas in proof of this. Failure to realize, that Aquinas's brief account of the Five Ways at the start of the Summa is only a preliminary summary, destroys the point of most of the 'modern' attacks on the validity of these Five Ways. What they attack is usually a 'straw man' version of Aquinas's proofs as they are expanded throughout his works.
And of course God is uncaused. This emerges from Aquinas's analysis of causality in the Five Ways. So 'who caused God' is a nonsense question. He is pure Act. In him, there is no potency. In him, essence and existence are one and the same. And the divine attributes of the God of the Five Ways are, when fully understood, the attributes of the Christian God. All of this is in Aquinas/Feser.
Feser's book is one of a series of 'Beginner's Guides'. That does not make it an easy read. It deals with the absolute essentials and fundamentals of created and Uncreated being. A difficult but essential read.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
16 reviews
69 of 71 people found the following review helpful
Clearest and Best Introduction to Thomism
5 Dec 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
E. Feser's introduction to Aquinas' thought was exactly what I was looking for: a clear, contemporary introduction (and defense!) of Aquinas' thought which interacts with modern objections. Having read introductions by Ralph McInerny, Henri Renard, F. Copleston, Jacques Maritain, and A. Sertillanges, I can say that Feser's book is better than all of them.
First of all, Feser is faithful to Aquinas' thought. In content, Feser's philosophy is aligned with something, say, Garrigou-Lagrange might write, the difference only being style. If you think Garrigou-Lagrange understood Aquinas, then you will think Feser has, too. Most of the authors I mentioned above more or less understand Aquinas adequately, so far as I can tell. Like them, Feser won't give you any surprises by departing from the tradition (like, say, E. Stump might).
Second, Feser's book is better because it is clearer. There are plenty of thinkers who understand Aquinas decently enough---one thinks of Maritain or Renard, for example. But anyone who has tried to read these thinkers is painfully aware that their prose is not always clear. Feser has given us a book which is in a class by itself for clarity. If you are puzzled by 'matter', 'form', 'act', 'potency', and so on, then this is the book for you.
Third, Feser's book is better because it understands modern thinkers and their objections to Aquinas. Feser admirably defends the existence of God, the classical attributes of God (including divine simplicity), the immortality of the soul, Aquinas' ethical theory, and so on. Not only this, but he shows why objectors to Aquinas usually have not understood him properly. He treats older objectors like Locke, but also newer ones like Dawkins (and many analytical philosophers, too). It is especially its mastery of analytical philosophy and the issues it brings up which makes this book relevant to modern concerns.
Fourth, Feser has a list of recommended reading which is very, very useful.
And to top it all off, this book has one of the best discussions of causality, especially final causality, which I have encountered.
So, if you're shopping for one book to start with in studying Aquinas, you've found it. Or if you've read many introductions but still feel lost, this is the book for you, too. Feser brings the clarity of analytical philosophy, the relevance of modern issues, and the content of classical Thomism all together in this volume.
First of all, Feser is faithful to Aquinas' thought. In content, Feser's philosophy is aligned with something, say, Garrigou-Lagrange might write, the difference only being style. If you think Garrigou-Lagrange understood Aquinas, then you will think Feser has, too. Most of the authors I mentioned above more or less understand Aquinas adequately, so far as I can tell. Like them, Feser won't give you any surprises by departing from the tradition (like, say, E. Stump might).
Second, Feser's book is better because it is clearer. There are plenty of thinkers who understand Aquinas decently enough---one thinks of Maritain or Renard, for example. But anyone who has tried to read these thinkers is painfully aware that their prose is not always clear. Feser has given us a book which is in a class by itself for clarity. If you are puzzled by 'matter', 'form', 'act', 'potency', and so on, then this is the book for you.
Third, Feser's book is better because it understands modern thinkers and their objections to Aquinas. Feser admirably defends the existence of God, the classical attributes of God (including divine simplicity), the immortality of the soul, Aquinas' ethical theory, and so on. Not only this, but he shows why objectors to Aquinas usually have not understood him properly. He treats older objectors like Locke, but also newer ones like Dawkins (and many analytical philosophers, too). It is especially its mastery of analytical philosophy and the issues it brings up which makes this book relevant to modern concerns.
Fourth, Feser has a list of recommended reading which is very, very useful.
And to top it all off, this book has one of the best discussions of causality, especially final causality, which I have encountered.
So, if you're shopping for one book to start with in studying Aquinas, you've found it. Or if you've read many introductions but still feel lost, this is the book for you, too. Feser brings the clarity of analytical philosophy, the relevance of modern issues, and the content of classical Thomism all together in this volume.
36 of 37 people found the following review helpful
Aquinas' Revenge
21 Oct 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book not only clearly elucidates Aquinas' central philosophical theses, it also demonstrates that Aquinas, and indeed Aristotle, are just as relevant to our modern world as they were in their own respective times.
Beginning with Aquinas' view of reality in general, Feser provides brief but highly detailed and carefully crafted chapters that explain Aquinas' arguments for God's Existence, His divine attributes, the immortality and immateriality of the soul, and classical natural law (not to be confused with any modern version of new natural law theory). Moreover, Feser concisely critiques some of the more historically popular objections to Aquinas' arguments showing how they not only fail to forcefully counter Aquinas' claims but also how most of them do not even object to Aquinas on his own terms. In other words, most modern critics do not even properly understand what Aquinas is actually saying, and a careful analysis of the arguments is usually enough to respond to many of the objections against him.
This is a short and excellent introduction to the thought of the Angelic Doctor. I highly recommend it to all readers who are interested in philosophy and to those who think that Aquinas' philosophy is outmoded or that his arguments have long been conclusively refuted. Finally, to those who thought that Feser's previous book, The Last Superstition, was too polemical in nature, this book contains much of what is in TLS but with a much more "academic" tone.
Beginning with Aquinas' view of reality in general, Feser provides brief but highly detailed and carefully crafted chapters that explain Aquinas' arguments for God's Existence, His divine attributes, the immortality and immateriality of the soul, and classical natural law (not to be confused with any modern version of new natural law theory). Moreover, Feser concisely critiques some of the more historically popular objections to Aquinas' arguments showing how they not only fail to forcefully counter Aquinas' claims but also how most of them do not even object to Aquinas on his own terms. In other words, most modern critics do not even properly understand what Aquinas is actually saying, and a careful analysis of the arguments is usually enough to respond to many of the objections against him.
This is a short and excellent introduction to the thought of the Angelic Doctor. I highly recommend it to all readers who are interested in philosophy and to those who think that Aquinas' philosophy is outmoded or that his arguments have long been conclusively refuted. Finally, to those who thought that Feser's previous book, The Last Superstition, was too polemical in nature, this book contains much of what is in TLS but with a much more "academic" tone.
27 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Required Reading in Philosophy
24 May 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Whenever I picked up The Last Superstition by Dr. Feser, I expected a standard critique of the poor reasoning of New Atheists. It excelled in that regard, but went further and opened my eyes to a whole realm of philosophy that I had never even properly considered. Whenever you take a standard introduction to philosophy you are told that Aristotle was largely influential, but that when his understanding of physics fell apart so did his metaphysics. Things like "final causes" had been disproved by modern science.
Thus, you are required to read a passage or two, and then quickly move to more "modern" things like Descartes, Hume, Kant and of course the plethora of readings in modern analytic philosophy. It is in these modern readings that you will learn of such things as the "mind-body problem" or the "problem of induction." When studying the philosophy of mind, you will learn of the troubles of accounting for qualia or intentionality on physicalist accounts, and the "interaction problem" for dualists.
After reading Feser's book against the New Atheism, my eyes were opened. Aristotle's metaphysics were in no way disproven by modern science, nor were they even adequately argued against by modern philosophy as much as they were simply ignored as the mechanistic view of the world became standard. I learned that these "classical problems" in philosophy were not classical at all, but that they were simply the result of accepting the mechanistic paradigm and were not problems in the Aristotelean-Thomistic tradition. Aquinas' "proofs" of God's existence that Dawkins dismisses (mainly due to his ignorance of the topic), are not even "proofs" but metaphysical demonstrations that must be true if his metaphysical principles are true.
Feser takes the basic outlines given concerning the A-T tradition in The Last Superstision and expands on them in this book. He takes the reader through a general introduction to Aquinas' Metaphysics, followed by a wonderful explanation and defense of his Natural Theology (and thus the famous Five Ways), followed by his Psychology ("philosophy of mind") and Ethics. I will not spoil the book by giving a chapter-by-chapter outline of the book, but would strongly encourage anyone interested in philosophy and particularly those who struggle with the modern "problems" in philosophy to think outside of the box and read this book.
Even if you think you are familiar with the A-T tradition, but have dismissed it for some reason, please read this book and see if you have rejected the tradition for valid reasons or simply due to a misunderstanding. When given the opportunity to teach or discuss introductions to philosophy, I will insist that this book is required reading.
Thus, you are required to read a passage or two, and then quickly move to more "modern" things like Descartes, Hume, Kant and of course the plethora of readings in modern analytic philosophy. It is in these modern readings that you will learn of such things as the "mind-body problem" or the "problem of induction." When studying the philosophy of mind, you will learn of the troubles of accounting for qualia or intentionality on physicalist accounts, and the "interaction problem" for dualists.
After reading Feser's book against the New Atheism, my eyes were opened. Aristotle's metaphysics were in no way disproven by modern science, nor were they even adequately argued against by modern philosophy as much as they were simply ignored as the mechanistic view of the world became standard. I learned that these "classical problems" in philosophy were not classical at all, but that they were simply the result of accepting the mechanistic paradigm and were not problems in the Aristotelean-Thomistic tradition. Aquinas' "proofs" of God's existence that Dawkins dismisses (mainly due to his ignorance of the topic), are not even "proofs" but metaphysical demonstrations that must be true if his metaphysical principles are true.
Feser takes the basic outlines given concerning the A-T tradition in The Last Superstision and expands on them in this book. He takes the reader through a general introduction to Aquinas' Metaphysics, followed by a wonderful explanation and defense of his Natural Theology (and thus the famous Five Ways), followed by his Psychology ("philosophy of mind") and Ethics. I will not spoil the book by giving a chapter-by-chapter outline of the book, but would strongly encourage anyone interested in philosophy and particularly those who struggle with the modern "problems" in philosophy to think outside of the box and read this book.
Even if you think you are familiar with the A-T tradition, but have dismissed it for some reason, please read this book and see if you have rejected the tradition for valid reasons or simply due to a misunderstanding. When given the opportunity to teach or discuss introductions to philosophy, I will insist that this book is required reading.
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