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In contrast, Aquinas whole-heartedly embraced the Aristotelian approach to the world. True, some philosophers have since stressed the "prominence in Thomas of such Platonic notions as participation, have argued that his thought is fundamentally Platonic, not Aristotelian. Still others argue that that there is a radically original Thomistic philosophy which cannot be characterized by anything it shares with earlier thinkers, particularly Aristotle. " However, by and large, because of Thomas' emphasis on natural philosophy and the need to proceed from the observable to what is less obvious to prove truths about the divine, he is called Aristotelian in his approach. Even though Aquinas is a Christian and Aristotle is a pagan, unlike Augustine and Plato, who stress the ability to know something in a pre-experiential fashion, Aquinas stresses the need for everything to logically proceed from principles in an inductive fashion. "He adopted Aristotle's analysis of physical objects, his view of place, time and motion, his proof of the prime mover, his cosmology. He made his own Aristotle's account of sense perception and intellectual knowledge." The strikingly distinct approaches of these two foundational Christian fathers to pagan philosophy, the importance of inductive vs. deductive reasoning and to the question of knowledge...
"Lectures: Philosophy from Aristotle to Augustine." POL167: Introduction to Political Theory. Macquarie University. 1996. http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y67s10.html[November 27, 2008].
McIrney, Ralph & John O'Callaghan. "Saint Thomas Aquinas." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2000. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas/#A4[November 27, 2008].
Mendelson, Michael. "Saint Augustine." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2000. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/[November 27, 2008].
R.K. Kilcullen, "Lectures: Philosophy from Aristotle to Augustine," POL167: Introduction to Political Theory, Macquarie University, 1996, http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y67s10.html,[November 27, 2008].
Michael Mendelson, "Saint Augustine," the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2000, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/,[November 27, 2008].
Mendelson, 2008.
Ralph McIrney and John O'Callaghan, "Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2000, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas/#A4[November 27, 2008].
McIrney & O'Callaghan, 2000.
Works Cited
Kilcullen, R.K. "Lectures: Philosophy from Aristotle to Augustine." POL167: Introduction to Political Theory. Macquarie University. 1996. http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y67s10.html[November 27, 2008].
McIrney, Ralph & John O'Callaghan. "Saint Thomas Aquinas." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2000. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas/#A4[November 27, 2008].
Mendelson, Michael. "Saint Augustine." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2000. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/[November 27, 2008].
R.K. Kilcullen, "Lectures: Philosophy from Aristotle to Augustine," POL167: Introduction to Political Theory, Macquarie University, 1996, http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y67s10.html,[November 27, 2008].
Michael Mendelson, "Saint Augustine," the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2000, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/,[November 27, 2008].
Ralph McIrney and John O'Callaghan, "Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2000, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas/#A4[November 27, 2008].
Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas The school of thought of Neoplatonism has had much influence in the philosophies of three major characters, all of which have studied heftily under the same overall pretense of the existence of God and his relation to nature. Plotinus, St. Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas all have certain reasoning regarding the nature of human existence and the hierarchies of creation. In their writings, the three men have indicated the
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Augustine is a Christian father of the late Roman Empire -- the traditional date of the "fall" of the Roman Empire is about a half-century after Augustine's death -- while Thomas Aquinas is a thinker of the medieval period. It is worth noting this substantially large time difference -- eight hundred years separates Augustine from Aquinas, just as another eight hundred years separate Aquinas from ourselves -- because we need
Asceticism and Its Influence in the Middle Ages on the Church Saint Jerome, known for his austerity in the spiritual life, wrote to Celantia in the fourth century that the extent of one's "abstinence and fasting" is not to be confused with his state of perfection. In other words, a life of asceticism or penance is merely a means to perfection and not an example of perfection in and of itself.
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