Thomas Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Human Act

This book argues that, for Aquinas, a human act exhibits a structure analogous to that of a material object.

Can Laurens Löwe (Author)

9781108833646, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 July 2021

280 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.47 kg

'… a powerful and plausible interpretation of Aquinas's writing on human acts.' Jeffrey Hause, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies

This book offers a novel account of Aquinas's theory of the human act. It argues that Aquinas takes a human act to be a composite of two power-exercises, where one relates to the other as form to matter. The formal component is an act of the will, and the material component is a power-exercise caused by the will, which Aquinas refers to as the 'commanded act.' The book also argues that Aquinas conceptualizes the act of free choice as a hylomorphic composite: it is, materially, an act of the will, but it inherits a form from reason. As the book aims to show, the core idea of Aquinas's hylomorphic action theory is that the exercise of one power can structure the exercise of another power, and this provides a helpful way to think of the presence of cognition in conation and of intention in bodily movement.

Introduction
Part I. The General Framework: 1. What is a Human Act?
Part II. Choice Hylomorphism: 2. Practical Judgment
3. The Judgment of Choice
4. Volition and its Dependence on Judgment
5. Choice: Its Intrinsic and its Extrinsic Form
Part III. Act Hylomorphism: 6. The Hylomorphic Structure of the Human Act
7. The Ontology of Bodily Human Acts
8. The Ontology of Mental Human Acts
9. Aquinas's Act Hylomorphism Today
Appendix. Judgment and Composition and Division.

Subject Areas: Theology [HRLB], Philosophy of religion [HRAB], Western philosophy: Medieval & Renaissance, c 500 to c 1600 [HPCB]