, c. 1224–74. He came from Aquino, near Naples, and worked at the University of Paris and elsewhere. His work largely consisted in continuing the efforts of his teacher ALBERT THE GREAT to reconcile Greek philosophy with Christianity, and he was similarly influenced by the Arabs. He went beyond Albert in the extent to which he created a full-blooded philosophy, based on that of ARISTOTLE but developed so as to fit in with Christian dogma; this involved original treatments of notions like BEING and analogy. He wrote prolifically, but his philosophical work is largely contained in monographs on particular questions, e.g. De Ente et Essentia (c.1253), Quaestiones Disputatae de Potentia Dei (c.1265), and in more general works like Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate (1256–9), and in commentaries on Aristotle’s main philosophical writings. It is summed up in the Summa de Veritate Catholicae Fidei contra Gentiles (c. 1259–64) and the Summa Theologica (c.1265–73).
R.Goodwin (ed. and tr.), Selected Writings of St Thomas Aquinas, Macmillan, 1965. (Metaphysics etc. Includes De Ente et Essentia and three other short works.)
A.C.Pegis (ed.), Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas (2 vols), Random House, 1945. (Theology. Vol. 1: God and the Order of Creation, vol. 2: Man and the Conduct of Life.)
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