Is Aquinas a Foundationalist?

This essay surveys a range of claims that Aquinas is a foundationalist, along with the rarer position that he is not. It suggests the arguments for holding he is a foundationalist are fundamentally flawed, and that he cannot be considered to hold a foundationalist epistemology, although for reasons...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:  
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Williams, A. N. (Autor)
Tipo de documento: Electrónico Artículo
Lenguaje:Inglés
Verificar disponibilidad: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Gargar...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Publicado: Wiley-Blackwell 2010
En: New blackfriars
Año: 2010, Volumen: 91, Número: 1031, Páginas: 20-45
Otras palabras clave:B Scientia
B sacred doctrine
B Aquinas
B Metaphor
B Foundationalism
Acceso en línea: Volltext (JSTOR)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Parallel Edition:Electrónico
Descripción
Sumario:This essay surveys a range of claims that Aquinas is a foundationalist, along with the rarer position that he is not. It suggests the arguments for holding he is a foundationalist are fundamentally flawed, and that he cannot be considered to hold a foundationalist epistemology, although for reasons more radical than those hitherto suggested. It examines the account of scientia and sacred doctrine in Summa theologiae I.1, with particular attention to its account of metaphor. Sacred doctrine, often taken to be based on scripture, is in fact based on God's self-knowledge, which is mediated by scripture. Aquinas acknowledges that scripture is riddled with figurative language and that metaphor is necessary to sacred doctrine. He emphasises the propensity for human reasoning to go astray, and in virtue of its processes of inference, to be incapable to representing the simplicity of divine knowledge with complete accuracy. Both with respect to its structures of argumentation and the figurative base from which it argues, Aquinas’ account of sacred doctrine is remote from foundationalist accounts of knowledge. Aquinas’ account of sacred doctrine, the most sure of all scientiae, emphasises its fragility and provisionality; its purpose is not to provide certitude, but to provoke reflection.
ISSN:1741-2005
Obras secundarias:Enthalten in: New blackfriars
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-2005.2009.01313.x