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Aquinas (A Beginner's Guide), by Edward Feser
Download PDF Aquinas (A Beginner's Guide), by Edward Feser
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Review
"A useful and easy to read introduction. Students and scholars will find [this] highly beneficial." — Fulvio di Blasi, President, Thomas International"Lucid, cogent, and compelling. Required reading for anyone interested in Thomas Aquinas." — Christopher Kaczor, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Loyola Marymount University"At last. A concise, accessible and compelling introduction to Aquinas's thought. Feser shows that Aquinas's philosophy is still a live option for thinkers today." — Kelly James Clark, Professor of Philosophy, Calvin College
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About the Author
Edward Feser is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Pasadena City College, California. He is the author of Philosophy of Mind: A Beginner's and The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism.
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Product details
Paperback: 216 pages
Publisher: Oneworld Publications; 44791st edition (September 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1851686908
ISBN-13: 978-1851686902
Product Dimensions:
5.3 x 0.6 x 7.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.7 out of 5 stars
101 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#42,568 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
An excellent introduction to Thomism. Feser's familiarity with modern analytical philosophy allows him to respond to the most common, and probably the best objections, raised against Thomistic metaphysics and Thomism in general.An important caution: this is not a "beginner's guide" in the sense that it is for those who have absolutely no prior exposure to philosophy or rigorous argument. I can say this because, prior to this book, I myself had no prior exposure to philosophy or rigorous argument. I had many questions and had to get answers elsewhere. This is no fault of Feser; my questions did not have to do with the validity of his reasoning or the clarity of his terms – I simply was not well acquainted with philosophy, having never even taking philosophy 101 in college. For anyone else who is in my position, you are in luck! Feser runs an excellent blog at edwardfeser.blogspot.com. I picked up a habit of googling "Edward Feser [insert topic of confusion]" and it's allowed to me better grasp the content of this book.The chapter on metaphysics is difficult but critical and it sets up the rest of the book. If you're not getting it, moving on is, in my humble opinion, futile. Once you do get it, however, the rest of the book will not be as difficult.For atheists, the chapter on Natural Theology will be of most interest. Again, if you are unfamiliar with Aristotletian or Thomistic metaphysics, you won't do yourself any favors by jumping into the chapter on Natural Theology. This isn't pop philosophy a la Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, or Dennett; you have to actually do intellectual work to meet Aquinas and Thomism halfway. If you do do this work, this chapter just may change your life (who needs self-help books when you have a disciplined pursuit of Truth?). Feser goes through Aquinas' 5 Ways to proving the existence of God and defends them rather exhaustively against various objections.The remaining two chapters, on Psychology and on Ethics, are also excellent. The section on natural law, while short, is deep.My only criticism of the book is that I wish Feser dwelt more on the objections of many naturalist philosophers to the claim that biological inquiry rests on a teleological foundation. I did not come away convinced by Feser's argument from this book, but after reading Feser's other work on teleology, I was convinced of Feser's argument. In the book, however, the section is too short.My last comment is on the quality of writing. When I was an atheist, I thought nobody could write better than Christopher Hitchens (you can tell I am very well read). I was wrong. Edward Feser writes better than Christopher Hitchens. Far better. Not only that, unlike Hitchens, Feser isn't mostly flash; his arguments have bite and depth to them.
There are two questions which any Christian who has struggled with doubt and who cares about having an intellectually rigorous worldview will have asked:1. What is the scope of fundamental Christian convictions?2. How confident can we be in the truth of those convictions?It seems that in our time the answers most commonly given to those questions are 'very small' and 'not very'. To elaborate, many Christians seem to accept that modern science has unique, nearly exclusive authority to describe the world we live in and that scientific reasoning is the gold standard of rationality. It follows that theology is more a matter of hope than knowledge and that the best we can do is show that at least some, often greatly truncated, Christian truth claims are compatible with modern science. Modern Christian theology is an asthmatic, 90 pound weakling with heart trouble in the boxing ring of truth.Enter the doctor: Edward Feser's Aquinas (and by extension Aquinas himself) is a blast of fresh air in those wheezing lungs, a jolt of current through that palpitating heart, and an injection of growth hormone into those wimpy muscles. Starting in Chapter 2 with an exposition of basic Aristotelian and Thomistic metaphysical concepts, including act and potency, form and matter, the four causes, essence and existence, and the nature of the transcendentals (like being, truth and goodness), Feser painstakingly demonstrates how these concepts explain the world we inhabit remarkably well, and remain plausible and defensible despite their development alongside erroneous scientific views. Not only that, but since science in any age rests upon (sometimes unexamined) metaphysical foundations (see the classic The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science), Aquinas' metaphysics presents itself as a particularly attractive set of foundations for the contemporary study of nature.Up to this point, the book would be of interest not just to readers interested in the history of ideas but also readers interested in formulating a comprehensive philosophy of nature. But the implications of this philosophy of nature for theology are astounding: as Dr. Feser shows in chapter 3, the observed reality of change, the distinction between essence and existence in contingent objects and the reality of final causation all inescapably imply the existence of God as understood by the great philosophical minds of all the major theistic religious traditions: the absolutely unique, simple, unconditioned, omnipotent Reality that grounds the existence and intelligibility of the world of our experience, and is itself perfect goodness, beauty and truth. Contrary to popular perception, Aquinas' Five Ways of demonstrating God's existence are sound and compelling once placed in their proper context of Aristotelian metaphysics, and once their conclusions are thoroughly analyzed they are seen to imply the attributes classically attributed to God. Since the reality of change, final causation and the distinction between essence and existence are readily observable, even to unbelievers, the existence and nature of God (at least to a certain extent) can be inferred on non-religious grounds, making Aquinas' project a particularly compelling example of natural theology.In the remaining two chapters Dr. Feser explicates Thomistic views of human nature and ethics, which again are fairly straightforward applications of the Aristotelian metaphysical principles laid out in chapter 2. The Thomistic understanding of the soul is an alternative to both Cartesian dualism, which posits the existence of two distinct substances to explain mind-body interactions, and materialism, which reduces all mental activity to brain physiology. Thomistic ethics is premised upon human beings have a real nature, which identifies the good for humans as those actions which fulfil the ends intrinsic to that nature.When I reviewed Dr. Feser's The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism, I remarked that his exposition had almost persuaded me to become a Thomist, but that I still had some reservations. Aquinas has now pushed me all the way into that camp. I am now convinced that Thomism is the most promising metaphysical system for articulating the rationality of the Christian worldview, and that it gets the furniture of the world more nearly right than any other system. I look forward to digging deeper into Aquinas' thought, to fill in the details of my newfound worldview.
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