PHIL 5314: Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature

This investigation of Aquinas’s philosophy of the human person will have as its primary focus Aquinas’s solution to the question of how the human soul can be identified both as the form in the human form-matter composite and as a subsistent entity capable of surviving the corruption of the body. Among other key issues to be discussed are the nature of the passions and the relationship between the intellect and will. Readings from the Prima pars of the Summa theologiae will play a central role in the discussion, with other readings from the Thomistic corpus chosen at the instructor’s discretion.