Political Philosophy in the De Regno of Thomas Aquinas
My essay on the political ideas in Thomas Aquinas’s DR deals with the main topics of political Philosophy Aquinas has established according to Aristotle’s Politics as well as to some Platonian doctrines, for example the doctrine that plurality presupposes unity (Proklos: Elementatio theologica, 5 Pr...
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| Formato: | Artículo publishedVersion |
| Lenguaje: | Español |
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Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires
2003
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| Acceso en línea: | https://revistascientificas.filo.uba.ar/index.php/petm/article/view/7857 https://repositoriouba.sisbi.uba.ar/gsdl/cgi-bin/library.cgi?a=d&c=patris&d=7857_oai |
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| Sumario: | My essay on the political ideas in Thomas Aquinas’s DR deals with the main topics of political Philosophy Aquinas has established according to Aristotle’s Politics as well as to some Platonian doctrines, for example the doctrine that plurality presupposes unity (Proklos: Elementatio theologica, 5 Prop.) or the doctrine enunciated in the 16 Prop. of the Liber de causis: “A unified power is more effective in producing the bonum commune than a diffused or divided power”. Aquinas quotes this doctrine in DR I 3 and he contrasts it with his own opinions as being predicated on the Politics of Aristotle: (1) Bonum commune est melius quam bonum unius. (2) Human being is by nature an animal civile, nevertheless a state or city is due to a founder (Aristotle). (3) The polis or state are by their nature a plurality and diversity of human beings; a state becoming more and more a unity is, in the end, no longer a state, polis, or city (Aristotle). (4) Therefore, it is required for human beings to be governed and directed to the bonum commune or multitudinis as Thomas says, that is the task of the monarch, whereas the pope has to care for the final end of human life. (5) Aquinas’s doctrine of the duplex felicitas leads him to a strict disjunction between the two visible and perceptible powers of the world: the monarchical and papal. (6) Thus, there is no subjugation of the monarch under the pope. On the contrary, the monarch has to do deal with temporal things: the bonum commune, the welfare, and peace of a community; and the pope has to deal with the final and eternal good consisting in the visio Dei. Both, the secular and the spiritual powers are required to attain the happiness promised to us in the end of our life. (7) Finally, all human activities concerning the political organizations of human life are in the competence of free human creative power. |
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