American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

Volume 78, Issue 3, Summer 2004

Thomas as Commentator in Some Programs of Neo-Thomism
A Reply to Kaczor

Arguments that Aquinas’s literal commentaries on Aristotle present his own philosophy are often proxies for larger claims about the relation of philosophy to theology. While trying to secure a place for Thomas in philosophic conversation, such arguments impose modern notions of an autonomous and apodictic philosophy, with fixed genres of declarative speech. The result is neither a plausible reading of the Thomistic corpus nor a helpful exemplar for contemporary Catholic philosophy.