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Abstract
What is the relationship between astrology and divination? In particular, is astrology a type of divination, as is often asserted or assumed? In both astrology and divination, knowledge and prediction of the future are primary goals, but does this warrant calling astrology a form of divination? I approach these questions by exploring the response of Thomas Aquinas, which was to be extremely influential for many centuries. First I analyze in some detail Thomas's answer in his Summa theologiae 2-2.92–95; then I discuss two significant sixteenth-century examples of its influence: the 1557, 1559, 1564, and later indexes of prohibited books; and Pope Sixtus V's anti-divinatory bull, Coeli et Terrae Creator (1586). In this way, we can explore some of the complex historical dynamics at play in the construction of a legitimate astrology in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

This study argues that Aquinas' account of tyranny grants citizens a surprisingly wide ambit for resistance to tyrants but that such actions demand a tall order for even the most virtuous citizens: knowledge of the hierarchy of ends in politics and the prudence to apply it under the pressure of a tyrannical government. We consider sections of the Summa Theologiae and De Regno, Aquinas' most sustained discussion of tyranny, to demonstrate the theoretical illumination that the former provides of the latter. De Regno, we argue, presents a negative teaching of the best regime and citizen, one in which citizens are shown the need for their own virtue in discerning the roots of tyranny and their remedy. With the Summa, we show how such prudential decisions fit within the orders of charity and piety: the citizen must come to see love of country as intrinsically ordered to love of family and God. Ultimately, Aquinas' resistance theory rests on a hierarchy of ends for civil government that orders both ruler and citizen to God. Adapted from the source document.

The article tries to answer the question of the status of theology by collating Thomas Aquinas' with John Duns Scotus' views. Whereas Thomas Aquinas' answer to the question: Utrum sacra doctrina sit scientia is unambiguously positive and recognizes "the holy knowledge" as the more honourable than other sciences, Scotus' answer is negative, at best giving it the status of science sui generis. In the light of Aristotle's definition, it becomes clear that the two medieval philosophers differed on the question of obviousness and necessity of the subject of theology. An analysis of the first Questio of Summa Theologiae and of the relevant excerpts of Scotus' writings show that Duns emphasized the "earthly theology", whereas Thomas by "our theology" understood a mere introduction to the theology of the saved people. Consequently, the differences between Thomas' and Scotus' views on theology, thus often accented, appearto be illusory.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is the text which had the single greatest influence on Aquinas's ethical writings, and the historical and philosophical value of Aquinas's appropriation of this text provokes lively debate. In this volume of new essays, thirteen distinguished scholars explore how Aquinas receives, expands on and transforms Aristotle's insights about the attainability of happiness, the scope of moral virtue, the foundation of morality and the nature of pleasure. They examine Aquinas's commentary on the Ethics and his theological writings, above all the Summa theologiae. Their essays show Aquinas to be a highly perceptive interpreter, but one who also brings certain presuppositions to the Ethics and alters key Aristotelian notions for his own purposes. The result is a rich and nuanced picture of Aquinas's relation to Aristotle that will be of interest to readers in moral philosophy, Aquinas studies, the history of theology and the history of philosophy

Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good, first published in 2006, claims that contemporary theory and practice have much to gain from engaging Aquinas's normative concept of the common good and his way of reconciling religion, philosophy, and politics. Examining the relationship between personal and common goods, and the relation of virtue and law to both, Mary M. Keys shows why Aquinas should be read in addition to Aristotle on these perennial questions. She focuses on Aquinas's Commentaries as mediating statements between Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics and Aquinas's own Summa Theologiae, showing how this serves as the missing link for grasping Aquinas's understanding of Aristotle's thought. Keys argues provocatively that Aquinas's Christian faith opens up new panoramas and possibilities for philosophical inquiry and insights into ethics and politics. Her book shows how religious faith can assist sound philosophical inquiry into the foundation and proper purposes of society and politics

Intro -- Thomas Aquinas -- Contents -- Preface -- Chronology -- Part 1 THE HISTORY -- 1 Who was Aquinas? -- Aquinas's life -- Aquinas's writings -- The Summa Contra Gentiles and the Summa Theologiae -- Aquinas as a thinker -- 2 Some basic words and concepts -- Substance -- Essence, form, nature and accidents -- Form and matter -- Act and potency -- 3 Why believe in God? -- Aquinas's approach to arguing that God exists -- Nominal definitions and real definitions -- These nominal definitions and the question 'Does God exist?' -- Why is there something rather than nothing? -- Change and direction -- 4 What is God? -- Divine simplicity -- Divine attributes -- 5 The Christian God -- Aquinas on Christian doctrine: the basic picture -- The Trinity -- The Incarnation -- Why did God become incarnate? -- Satisfaction -- 6 Human beings -- Aquinas's philosophy of human nature -- Aquinas on people in the light of revelation -- Part 2 THE LEGACY -- 7 From the time of Aquinas to the twenty-first century -- Aquinas condemned -- Aquinas canonized -- From 1323 to 1879 -- From 1879 to 2016 -- 8 Thinking about Aquinas today -- Aquinas and science -- Aquinas and Christian faith -- Aquinas as readable -- The God of the philosophers and the God of Christianity -- Glossary of key terms -- Notes -- Further reading -- Index.

La historiografía jurídico-política precedente ha tendido a presentar a la Escuela de Salamanca como un grupo de catedráticos salmantinos que comentan las distintas partes de la Summa theologiae de Tomás de Aquino, dando preferencia en particular a los comentarios De legibus y De iustitia et iure. Éstas son, a su vez, las partes del legado vitoriano mejor conocidas y estudiadas, junto a sus relecciones De indis y las dedicadas a la potestad civil y eclesiástica. En un intento de ampliar estas perspectivas clásicas, el presente artículo presenta un elenco de algunas de las obras de teología sacramental redactadas por diversos maestros salmantinos hasta comienzos del siglo XVII y reflexiona sobre la importancia epocal y contemporánea de este patrimonio un tanto olvidado de la escolástica salmantina, en el que se encuentran materiales muy interesantes para la reflexión filosófica, jurídica y política. En las secciones finales del artículo se estudian losescritos Summa sacramentorum ecclesiae (1560) de Francisco de Vitoria y Tomás de Chaves, un texto que conoció al menos 80 ediciones hasta comienzos del siglo XVII, y la Relectio de sacramentis in genere (1550) de Melchor Cano, mostrando la estrecha conexión existente entre teología sacramental y pensamiento jurídicopolítico.

Machine generated contents note:1.Metaphysical Foundations --Account of Human Nature --The Process of Human Action --Necessitation and Freedom --2.Evil as Privation --The Ontological Status of Evil --Objections to the Privation Theory --Moral Goodness and Moral Appraisal --Return to Privation --3.Aquinas's Account of Moral Wrongdoing: General Points and Defects in the Intellect --Some General Distinctions --The Roles of Will and Intellect in Wrong Actions --Account of Voluntariness --Wrongdoing That Originates in the Intellect --4.Aquinas's Account of Moral Wrongdoing: Defects in the Sensory Appetite --Wrongdoing That Originates in the Sensory Appetite --Practical Reasoning in Wrongdoing Originating in the Passions --Weakness of Will --5.Aquinas's Account of Moral Wrongdoing: Defects in the Will --Wrongdoing That Originates in the Will --The Underlying Mechanism of Deliberate Wrongdoing --Distinguishing between Evil and Ordinary Wrongdoing --Is Aquinas's Account of Deliberate Wrongdoing Too Broad? --Can Human Beings Perform Evil Simply for the Sake of Evil? --6.The Vices in Aquinas's Moral Psychology --The Nature and Acquisition of Habits --The Vices in Summa theologiae --The Tradition of the Capital Vices --The Capital Vices and Deliberate Wrongdoing.

Resumen: El propósito de nuestro artículo es describir la tesis de la "banalidad del mal" de Hannah Arendt, que ella planteara tras el juicio a Adolf Eichmann, y compararla con la doctrina de Santo Tomás de Aquino sobre la causalidad del mal moral, especialmente desde el punto de vista antropológicopsicológico, tal como este la trata en la Suma Teológica. Tras exponer las tesis centrales de ambos pensadores, se señalan algunos posibles puntos de contacto, sus diferencias y los aspectos en que pudieran ser dos planteos mutuamente enriquecedores, especialmente para la cultura contemporánea. ; Abstract: This article aims to describe the Hannah Arendt´s thesis of "banality of evil", that she proposed after Adolf Eichmann´s trial, and compare it with the doctrine of Saint Thomas Aquinas about the causality of moral evil –especially from an anthropologic-psychologic point of view–, as he develops it in Summa Theologiae. After exposing the main thesis of both authors, we seek to mark some common grounds, their differences and the possible mutual enrichment between them.

The applicability of traditional just war theory with contemporary states' struggles against terrorism is investigated. Overviews of traditional just war theory & of terrorism are provided, emphasizing the conditions under which the use of military force is permissible & the distinction between military force & terrorist actions; in addition, the extent to which just war theory has changed throughout the 20th century is discussed. Thomas Aquinas's criteria for rendering war morally permissible (eg, proper authority, just cause, & right intention) as articulated in his Summa Theologiae are then reviewed to illustrate how contemporary just war theory has incorporated or modified these conditions. Attention is then dedicated to determining whether states possess legitimate authority to respond to terrorism, whether responses to terrorist actions constitute just causes, & whether states are capable of employing right intent to answer terrorist activities. Even though states are morally obligated to protect the everyday lives of their citizens, it is concluded that struggles against terrorism also possess moral duties to achieve peace between warring parties. J. W. Parker

There is a consensus among historians that the School of Salamanca brought something new to the development of early modern European legal thinking and methodology. Francisco de Vitoria is considered, not only by modern researchers but also by his contemporaries (from Melchor Cano onward), the origin of the school and its founding figure. He is famously claimed to have introduced Thomas Aquinas's Summa theologiae as the fundamental text for theological lectures at the University of Salamanca and so prepared the ground for the upsurge of academic activity and intellectual brilliance of late or modern scholasticism at Spanish, Portuguese, and American universities. Regardless of the differences in the assessments of the late scholastics' political stance (whether viewed as trailblazers on the way to human rights and a modern law of nations or as conservative imperialists, whose sole intent was the perpetuation and legitimation of the Spanish rule in the Americas), Vitoria and his followers are seen as intellectual innovators, opening the restrictive traditions of medieval scholarship to the modern exigencies of a globalized world. This almost universal image has recently been called into question, with Jacob Schmutz showing that Vitoria was not quite the first to introduce Aquinas's Summa into the teaching of Salamanca's theological faculty, and Thomas Duve recently asking outright: Did everything actually start with Francisco de Vitoria? .

Interdisciplinary interest, learning and integration, as we would say it today in our contemporary language, was a central feature in Thomas Aquinas' s life as from his early studies in Naples, where he encountered and studied the recently rediscovered suspect writings of Aristotle. The undertaking of an open-minded interdisciplinary career was continued throughout his studies under Albert, already called "the Great", Albertus Magnus, Doctor universalis and Doctor expertus in his lifetime. Albert had the intention to "make Aristotle's works on natural science intelligible to the Latins" and discussed "all the branches of human knowledge, adding contributions from the Arabs, and even creating entirely 'new sciences'. These sciences ranged from logic, natural science, rhetoric, mathematics, astronomy, ethics, economics, politics, and metaphysics" (WeisheipI1983: 41). Thomas drew a lot of profit from this teacher. "The four years during which Thomas studied under Albert (1248-52) were the most propitious years both in Albert's life and in the life of young Thomas" (WeisheipI1983: 47). Albert surpassed Thomas as to the breadth of scholarship, knowledge and maybe typically Germanic thoroughness (cf. Weisheipl 1983: 39). Aquinas, however, managed to order and structure the sheer compilation of knowledge received from his major teacher into an open philosophical and theological system. 1 This open system is distinguished and impressing by the clarity, brevity and simplicity explicitly intended by Thomas in the start of his Summa Theologiae (I, prol.) without reducing the complexity of the subjects to be treated. I call it an "open" system for it is a system that is able to assimilate new knowledge and to accommodate itself to new developments without losing its identity of thought and conviction. ; N/A

This paper examines the role which the concept of natural law has to play in the political thought of Aquinas, as this is to be found in the Summa Theologiae. It focuses particularly on Aquinas's understanding of the relationship which exists between natural and positive law. It argues that Aquinas's views are inconsistent and that the Summa actually contains two quite different positions regarding this subject. One of these is inherited from the Stoic natural law tradition and the other from Aristotle. The former considers natural law to be a critical standard by means of which positive law can be evaluated by individuals, whereas the latter does not. On the contrary, it maintains that according to Aquinas the principles of natural law require interpretation, and that this interpretation is to be provided, not by the conscience of the individual moral agent, but by positive law. Focus on either one or the other of these two documents leads to quite different interpretations of Aquinas's political thought as a whole. One such interpretation sees Aquinas as being a distant forerunner of the liberal political tradition. The other associates Aquinas much more closely with the notion of authority and hence with conservatism in politics. The article concludes by commenting on the relevance of these different interpretations of Aquinas for the contemporary debate between liberals and communitarians.