Module 3

This course continues the introduction of the previous course (Introduction to the Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas) to Aquinas's philosophy in order to prepare students to read Aquinas’s theological texts by providing an introduction to the main philosophical notions employed by him in these texts. This course will begin with a brief recap of the previous course's material regarding Aristotle's responses to the problems of change and of the one and the many. It will then turn to Aristotle's elaboration of these responses, and Aquinas's adoption of them, by a study of the notions of form and matter, change, nature, essence, act and potency, cause, infinity, time, and other associated notions. Also considered will be Aristotle's description of the unmoved mover in the Physics and the Metaphysics. A focus of this course will be to prepare students for the following course, Thomas on the Oneness of God, which will consider the human understanding of God from a natural perspective.

Course Material