Aquinas

STUMP, Eleonore. Aquinas. Arguments of the Philosophers Series. New York: Routledge, 2003. xx + 611 pp. Cloth, $100.00-Eleonore Stump provides a clear and thorough treatment of some of the main philosophical themes that characterize Aquinas's vast corpus in a way that allows his thought to be situated among contemporary philosophers and their ideas. This approach allows Stump to address certain criticisms that have been raised against Aquinas's views as well as the medieval Christian approach to philosophy in general. The proper consideration owed to Aquinas as a key figure in the history of philosophy is given sound support by Stump's exhaustive illumination of his views, the details of which are not fully appreciated in some more traditional renderings of his philosophy.

Organizing the volume in a fashion similar to Aquinas's Summa theologiae, Stump treats, in order, the foundation of reality, human nature, morality, and philosophical theology. She begins with Aquinas's metaphysical understanding of the nature of things in the world and the parts that compose them before proceeding to consider the goodness inherent in things that makes them desirable to the degree that they have being. Stump next discusses the foundation for all being and goodness: God. In so doing, she addresses the reconciliation of God's...