Phil 450:  Aquinas on Angels

Freddoso

Malloy 304/631-7327

E-mail: afreddos@nd.edu

Home page: http://www.nd.edu/~afreddos

Purpose----Texts----Requirements---- Syllabus----The Presentation----Term Paper----Online Handouts----Presentation Assignments

Purpose of Course:  A close reading, in a new translation by the instructor, of the 24 questions of the first part of the Summa Theologiae that deal with purely spiritual substances.  Unlike those philosophers who glory in the 'species-ist' despair of a 'disenchanted' world (read:  no God, no soul, and especially no angels), St. Thomas believes in a more interesting and variegated world, one that includes as an irreplaceable part those purely spiritual substances known as angels, both the good ones and the bad ones in all their hierarchical splendor.  We will discuss angelic cognition and affection, how angels are related to places and bodies, how they move around, how they speak to one another, how they go bad, what their jobs are, how they take care of us or, as the case may be, try to corrupt us, etc.  Moreover, by studying angels and the ways in which St. Thomas takes them to differ from us, we can get a better grasp of his philosophical anthropology. As is normal for the first part of the Summa, the questions we will be studying provide a fairly comprehensive survey of St. Thomas's metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophical psychology, along with lots of enticing tidbits about space and time, motion, causality, communication, temptation, etc.
Texts: 
  • A course book that contains my translation (still subject to revision) of Summa Theologiae 1, qq. 50-64 and 106-114 and can be purchased for a modest fee at the Decio Copy Center (2nd floor, Decio Hall).

  • For those interested, the Latin text is available online at Index Corporis Thomistici, which is maintained by Prof. Enrique Alarcon of the University of Navarre, Spain.  An alternate (though, needless to say, inferior) translation is available at the New Advent Website.

  • In addition, I am providing some supplementary material, along with class notes as available, on the course handout page.
Requirements:
  • Presentations. During the course of the semester each student will be expected to prepare one (7-8 page) class presentation.  A copy should be provided electronically for each student by noon of the day before the presentation is to be given.  See below for more details.
    • (35% of course grade).

  • Class Participation (15% of course grade).
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  • Term Paper. You are required to write a 12-15 page paper, worth 50% of the course grade. A 2-3 page proposal, plus outline, is to be submitted for approval on or before April 6; the paper itself is to be handed in on or before the last class day, April 27. See below for more details.

  • Before the course begins, you are required to read parts 1.1, 1.2, and 2 (all) of my "Suarez on Metaphysical Inquiry, Efficient Causality, and Divine Action," as well as my classnotes on Aristotle, Faith and Reason, and St. Thomas's metaphysics from Phil 301.  This is a refresher for 301 and goes a bit beyond what I do in 301.

  • Final Exam.  If I determine that it is necessary, there will be a final exam on 5/3 at 10:30. If this dreadful possibility is realized, I will readjust the above percentages accordingly.
Syllabus:
  • 1/12 and 1/17:  Lectures on q. 1 (click here for .pdf copy of q. 1):  The nature and extent of sacred doctrine

  • 1/19:   Lecture and discussion on q. 50:  The substance of angels considered absolutely
  • 1/24:   Presentation # 1 on q. 51:  The relation of angels to bodies
  • 1/26:   Presentation # 2 on q. 52:  The relation of an angel to places
  • 1/31:   Presentation # 3 on q. 53:  An angel's local motion

  • 2/2:     Lecture and discussion on q. 54:  An angel's cognition
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  • 2/7:     Presentation # 4 on q. 55:  The medium of angelic cognition
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  • 2/9:     Presentation # 5 on q. 56:  An angel's cognition of immaterial things

  • 2/14:   Presentation # 6 on q. 57:  An angel's cognition of material things

  • 2/16:   Presentation # 7 on q. 58:  The mode of an angel's cognition
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  • 2/21:   Presentation # 8 on q. 59:  An angel's will
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  • 2/23:   Presentation # 9 on q. 60:  An angel's love or affection
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  • 2/28:   Presentation # 10 on q. 61:  The production of angels with their natural esse

  • 3/2:   Presentation # 11 on q. 62:  The perfection of angels in the esse of grace and glory
  • 3/14 and 3/16:  Lecture and discussion on q. 63 and De Malo, q. 16, a. 3:  The sinful wickedness of the angels
  • 3/21:   Presentation #12 on q. 64:  The punishment of the demons
  • 3/23:   Presentation # 13 on q. 106:  How one angel illuminates another
  • 3/30:  Presentation #14 on q. 107:  The speech of angels
  • 4/4:   Lecture and discussion on q. 108:  The arrangement of angels according to hierarchies and orders
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  • 4/6:  Presentation # 15 on q. 109:  The ordering of the bad angels

  • 4/11:  Presentation # 16 on q. 110:  How angels preside over corporeal creatures

  • 4/13:   Lecture and discussion on q. 111:  The action of angels on men

  • 4/18:  Lecture and discussion on q. 112:  The mission of the angels

  • 4/20 and 4/25:  Lecture and discussion on q. 113:  The guardianship of the angels

  • 4/27:  Lecture and discussion on q. 114:  The attacks of the bad angels
The Presentation
Each presentation will occupy a class period, i.e., 75 minutes.  The paper you write for the presentation should be 7-8 pages, double-spaced in a 12 pt. font with one-inch margins.  This paper must be distributed to the instructor and the class by at least 12:00 noon on the day before the presentation is scheduled.  During the class time devoted to your presentation, you may use no more than 30 minutes to present your paper.  Even though you have a right to assume that everyone has read both the material from St. Thomas and your paper, you may nonetheless simply read your paper.   Other options are just to point out the highlights or points you find interesting or problematic or obscure, etc. You are in charge of the class during your 75 minutes (give or take a few minutes for magisterial teaching).  How you do this is up to you, though you are obligated to take and answer (or try to answer) questions from others in the seminar.

As for the content of the paper, you are not obligated to discuss every point St. Thomas makes in the material you are presenting, though you must be prepared to answer all questions based on the text.  You are expected to cover the important points, and if you can make connections to other things you know from your study of philosophy and the history of philosophy, so much the better..  You do not have to present the material in the exact order in which St. Thomas presents it.  In fact, you should try to find ways of re-ordering the material so as to make the big picture more evident to others in the seminar -- who have, of course, already read the material (and your paper) with extreme care.  After all, this preparation is part of the class participation component of the grade.  (Yes, I can tell whether you've prepared well or not.  A few well-aimed questions are sufficient.)

To aid you in your task I have noted other Thomistic treatments (where applicable), available in English translations, of the questions we will be treating from the Summa.  (Click here to see the related texts).

The Term Paper
The main project for this course is a 12-15 page paper which is to be submitted on or before the last class day (April 27); a 2-3 page proposal is due on or before April 6. In what follows I will try to give you some clear indication of what I am looking for in both the paper and the proposal.
  • Comments about the paper:

    •  The topic of the paper should be connected in some fairly recognizable way with our readings and discussions.  You may try a deeper discussion of some point discussed in class.  You might pick out another work of St. Thomas's (e.g., a question or article from one of the disputed questions such as Summa Contra Gentiles or De Veritate or De Malo or De Potentia Dei) and zero in on some topic that is prominent in that work, as long as we have touched upon it in class.  There may be other possibilities as well. 

    • The paper is a fairly long one, and so you will have to plan it carefully. I expect the paper to move forward at well-marked junctures instead of merely talking around one or another point in order to fill space. I especially do not want a paper consisting primarily of loosely connected observations about some topic. Further, every paper must begin with an introduction that tells the reader exactly what you mean to do in the paper and how each section of the paper is related in general to your topic. 

    •  I expect the paper to be stylistically and grammatically beyond reproach. I will take off for sloppy sentence-structure, misspellings, dangling participles, etc. Proofreading is absolutely essential.

  • Comments about the proposal:
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    • The proposal should contain two parts, viz., a narrative and an outline. The narrative should be a two-page (or so) description of the thesis or interpretation you wish to defend and of the steps by which you will defend it. In order to write this sort of narrative you already have to have a fairly detailed idea of what you want to do and the series of steps by which you propose to do it. In general, your strategy must be to construct a logical sequence of steps which will correspond to the main divisions of the paper.

    • The outline that accompanies the narrative should make graphically clear the main divisions and subdivisions in the text. This outline should include more than just the three or four main headings; I want to see some subheadings within each of those main divisions, so that I will have a reasonably clear idea of how the paper is supposed to progress.

      I encourage you to try your ideas out on one another and I also encourage you to consult with me before the proposal deadline if you think it will be helpful--either after class or by making an appointment to see me at some other time.