St. Thomas Aquinas the Philosophy

St. Thomas Aquinas

The philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas is already considered a classic. For us to better understand his works, it is best to look into the very context that shaped his works. By contextualizing, this article shall look into the social, economic, and political environment of St. Thomas' times.

Social Environment: The Church in the Society

The social environment in which Aquinas lived is described as a "critical juncture of western culture when the arrival of the Aristotelian corpus in Latin translation reopened the question of the relation between faith and reason, calling into question the modus vivendi that had obtained for centuries" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2009, par. 1). It was identified at the time when radical Aristotelianism or "Latin Averroism" became popular in universities and St. Thomas Aquinas worked on scholastically proving its incompatibility with the Christian doctrine (ibid). To any casual observer the works of St. Thomas Aquinas have a very scholastic nature. This demonstrates the marriage of philosophy and religion.

During the middle ages, it was also common for the youngest siblings to trace the path of ecclesiastical service resulting to family loyalties towards the Church and the hierarchy of the Church is reflected in the patriarchal society (University of Calgary Applied History Research Group, 1997).

The Economy: Feudalism

During the middle ages, feudalism was the very structure of French economy and governance. The economy was controlled by the nobles while merchants controlled trade. The serfs served as labor force for economic production (Mount Holyoke College, n.d.). Agricultural production was primary during these ages hence everything that was related to agricultural production came to a boom. Machineries and tools such as watermills also resulted to economic expansion (van der Beek, n.d.).

However, during the middle of the thirteenth century -- the time when Aquinas was assigned in France to hold university positions, the economy began to weaken because climate began to cool which halted agricultural innovations. This resulted to a decrease in agricultural output that could not sustain the level of economic activity that already developed (University of Calgary Applied History Research Group, 1997).

On Politics: The Divided Government

The government during Aquinas' time was described in terms of the division between the royalties and Church, the nobles and the cities -- they all divided power among themselves. The nobility worked together with the urban citizens in order to limit the powers of the royalty. The Crown, on the other hand, joined the municipal/city governments to weaken the forces of the feudal (Minlan, 2007).

The principles of the feudal society also maintained that the King depends on himself for a living but if the King is in need of what can be called as some sort of non-feudal revenue, he makes an agreement with the taxpayers (ibid).