Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета: Серия I. Богословие, философия (Dec 2012)
Thomas Aquinas on the Soul: Old problems, New Solutions. Guiding Premises for a Thomistic Synthesis
Abstract
This article examines two main approaches to the doctrine of the soul: that of Plato and that of Aristotle. Each of these approaches had its own development and its own interpretations. Plato and his school was more important during the Middle Ages. Through the neo-platonic philosophers it reached Saint Augustine and became a part of the western cultural and religious heritage until finally it was taken up by member of the Franciscan order - Roger Bacon and Bonaventure. But this paradigm could not solve a host of problems connected with the soul and many of them remained unresolved. The end of the twelfth century brought the growth of the universities and the teaching of Aristotle - a new paradigm - transmitted by the Arabic philosophers which was rediscovered by the West. Two commentators on Aristotle - Averroes and Avicenna -were the most important for the West, especially since Avicenna exerted a great influence on Albert the Great. But both Plato and Aristotle, when taken separately, proved to be quite useless in resolving certain problems. But Thomas Aquinas was able to splice the Gordian knot concealing a solution to the problem of the soul. By combining the psychology of Plato with the metaphysics of Aristotle, Thomas succeeded in creating a new concept of the human person. The author of this article has tried to explain the difficulties which faced Thomas and the way in which Thomas was able to resolve a problem which had troubled philosophy through the ages - the problem of reconciling Plato with Aristotle and finding a way to make their conflicting philosophies agree with each other
