Volume 79, Issue 3, Summer 2005
Thomas Williams
Pages 483-491
Aquinas in Dialogue with Contemporary Philosophy
Eleonore Stump’s Aquinas
In her volume on Aquinas for Routledge’s “Arguments of the Philosophers” series, Eleonore Stumps aims at an interpretation of Aquinas that is historically faithful but also responsive to the concerns of contemporary philosophers. I assess her success in attaining this twofold aim by examining in detail Stump’s overview of Aquinas’s metaphysics, which engages with contemporary debates over constitution and identity, and her interpretation of Aquinas’s account of justice, which brings Aquinas into dialogue with Annette Baier and Thomas Nagel. I conclude with a brief evaluation of the merits of Stump’s twofold aim.