A great luminary of modern Thomistic studies was Bernard J. Lonergan, S.J. (1904-1984). One of his brightest disciples was William Murnion. Murnion was powerfully drawn to Lonergan's interpretations of the thought of Thomas Aquinas and began to deeply immerse himself in the work and the evolution of the thought of both. After five years of research and writing, Murnion had to interrupt his studies due to professional and personal demands. Several years later he successfully completed and defended a doctoral dissertation which was published only in part. This book is the complete, unrevised, original work. As Murnion observed in his preface, "only the title is modified...the betterto clarify the topic. I suppose I could have massaged the text to incorporate some of the things I have learned about Aquinas in the meantime. But just as it is, I believe it presents a clear and cogent argument for the claim I defended in it about Aquinas's explanation of the act of understanding."

A study of Aquinas's theory of self-knowledge, situated within the mid-thirteenth-century debate and his own maturing thought on human nature.

Anthony J. Lisska presents a new analysis of Thomas Aquinas's theory of perception. While much work has been undertaken on Aquinas's texts, little has been devoted principally to his theory of perception and less still on a discussion of inner sense. The thesis of intentionality serves as the philosophical backdrop of this analysis while incorporating insights from Brentano and from recent scholarship. The principal thrust is on the importance of inner sense, a much-overlooked area of Aquinas's philosophy of mind, with special reference to the vis cogitativa. Approaching the texts of Aquinas from contemporary analytic philosophy, Lisska suggests a modest 'innate' or 'structured' interpretation for the role of this inner sense faculty. Dorothea Frede suggests that this faculty is an 'embarrassment' for Aquinas; to the contrary, the analysis offered in this book argues that were it not for the vis cogitativa, Aquinas's philosophy of mind would be an embarrassment. By means of this faculty of inner sense, Aquinas offers an account of a direct awareness of individuals of natural kinds—referred to by Aquinas as incidental objects of sense—which comprise the principal ontological categories in Aquinas's metaphysics. By using this awareness of individuals of a natural kind, Aquinas can make better sense out of the process of abstraction using the active intellect (intellectus agens). Were it not for the vis cogitativa, Aquinas would be unable to account for an awareness of the principal ontological category in his metaphysics.

This book offers a revisionary account of key epistemological concepts and doctrines of St Thomas Aquinas, particularly his concept of scientia (science), and proposes an interpretation of the purpose and composition of Aquinas's most mature and influential work, the Summa theologiae, which presents the scientia of sacred doctrine, i.e. Christian theology. Contrary to the standard interpretation of it as a work for neophytes in theology, Jenkins argues that it is in fact a pedagogical work intended as the culmination of philosophical and theological studies of very gifted students. Jenkins considers our knowledge of the principles of a science. He argues that rational assent to the principles of sacred doctrine, the articles of faith, is due to the influence of grace on one's cognitive powers, because of which one is able immediately to apprehend these propositions as divinely revealed. His study will be of interest to readers in philosophy, theology and medieval studies.

This work places Thomas Aquinas's moral theory in its full philosophical and theological context in a way that makes Aquinas accessible to students and interested general readers.

This new critique of Aquinas's theory of natural law discusses the background of the theory in Aristotle and advances new interpretations of contemporary legal issues which hark back to Aquinas.