Aquinas on Human Self-Knowledge

by Therese Scarpelli Cory

Self-knowledge is commonly thought to have become a topic of serious philosophical inquiry during the early modern period. Already in the thirteenth century, however, the medieval thinker Thomas Aquinas developed a sophisticated theory of self-knowledge, which Therese Scarpelli Cory presents as a project of reconciling the conflicting phenomena of self-opacity and privileged self-access. Situating Aquinas's theory within the mid-thirteenth-century debate and his own maturing thought on human nature, Cory investigates the kinds of self-knowledge that Aquinas describes and the questions they raise. She shows that to a degree remarkable in a medieval thinker, self-knowledge turns out to be central to Aquinas's account of cognition and personhood, and that his theory provides tools for considering intentionality, reflexivity and selfhood. Her engaging account of this neglected aspect of medieval philosophy will interest readers studying Aquinas and the history of medieval philosophy more generally.

Genres: Philosophy

254 pages, Hardcover

First published November 7, 2013

About the author

Prof. Therese Cory is the John and Jean Oesterle Associate Professor of Thomistic Studies at the University of Notre Dame. She earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in Philosophy at the Catholic University of America, and a B.Phil. in Theology and Classics (summa cum laude, valedictorian) at Ave Maria College.

Dr. Cory works on medieval theories of mind, cognition, and personhood, with special focus on the thought of Thomas Aquinas and his thirteenth-century interlocutors, as well as a particular interest in uncovering different ways of "modeling" the mind and its activities.

She also researches how Islamic philosophers--such as al-Farabi, Averroes, Avicenna, and the author of the "Liber de causis"--shaped Scholastic thought in medieval Christian Europe, and she serves on the executive committee of the "Aquinas and the Arabs Project."

Dr. Cory is also a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Reviews

[Cristian Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Históricamente muy bien documentado, con un manejo del corpus thomisticum acucioso, como también de la literatura especializada, pero especialmente bueno en el análisis sistemático y profundo de los fenómenos de autoconocimiento que tiene en vistas Tomás de Aquino.

Las ideas aquí expuestas dejan al Aquinate en condiciones de dialogar con los autores modernos y contemporáneos que se han centrado en el problema del autoconocimiento y la conciencia de sí (Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger). La autora es consciente de esto, e insinúa algunos potenciales puntos de diálogo, pero se atiene a su trabajo de esclarecimiento del Doctor Angelico.

Obviamente recomendado para quienes les interese Tomás de Aquino o la filosofía medieval, pero también a aquellos interesados en los problemas filosóficos del autoconocimiento como tal.