AU 122 Scruton’s praise of Aquinas for his allegedly unparalleled understanding of human emotion.
285 Aquinas commenting on Aristotle’s Physics II §243, supposed anticipation of Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
AN 170 T S Eliot He overrates the perfection of Aquinas’ system as found in Dante, as if it were complete and contained no tension. This peculiar form of romanticism. His lack of sympathy for Milton, even for much of Shakespeare. Aquinas’ synthesis is objectionable because it is coercive. It works for a brief moment.
AO 7 Eliot ignores the heretical principle, the protestant spirit that was probably always there
AM 222 An impulse towards the construction of a civilisation, rooted in an idea of freedom based upon revolt, revolt against the totalitarian impulse represented by the Roman Catholic church as reaching its summa in Thomas Aquinas.
AK 220 Scotus trying to remove the Augustinian elements from Aquinas. To restore a pure Aristotle, free from neoplatonic or Augustinian elements. I would say that Neoplatonism there is that which is properly understandable. Its nature philosophy, as found in Augustine, however, was deeply misguided.
The Aristotelian project was never really carried out in his own day. So even is Scotus was trying to restore a pure Aristotle this was not a reactionary thing to do, but highly progressive. Bruno had respect for Scotus and Ockham.
AI 220 With Aquinas it is hard to tell which is Aristotle and which is Aquinas. Aquinas proofs of God seem quote admirable and he has done a good job of harmonising Aristotelian doctrine and reconciling it with Christianity.
But consider this type of philosophy generally, scholasticism. One thing wrong is simply its vast complexity, it cannot demand complete conviction as there are so many interesting alternatives at every point.
There are hint of a modern return to Aristotle and Aquinas which could actualise quite reprehensible. An evasion of intellectual conscience.
226 Points made about Aquinas. That Greek science was limited by its interpretation of polarities and consequent refusal to think terms of pure deprivation. another concerning Aquinas concept of hell, that the damned are punished not through sensations but through frustration of desire.
AX
64& Erdmann on Scotus superiority to Aquinas, comparing to Fichte’s to Kant.
The dishonesty of orthodoxy. Modern equivalents of orthodoxy. Aristotle treated as the summation of Greek wisdom.
71 How neatly he shows that Christianity is concerned with this-worldly happiness as well as next-worldly. In fact that is not altogether logical, even we might say it is smug. It curs across philosophical criticism by asserting what is convenient. Philosophy that has destroyed philosophical objection,
AH 191 His rationalism. The transparency of his rationalism. An unmystical type of philosophy.
201 He is clearly a very Christian thinker. There is the dishonesty concerning the descriptions applied to God:- wisdom, justice etc. reconciliation of reason and revelation. Sometimes I sense a definite dishonesty, not with the proofs of God’s existence, but when it comes to justifying the terms used to describe the attributes of God.
204 The assumption that Aquinas is so much greater than Duns Scotus or Ockham is not one I find all that easy to grasp. It is tempting to see him as a very competent commentator on Aristotle. The orthodoxy both of his Aristotelianism and his Christianity seem to make for a lack of the originality one seeks in a great philosopher.
