Blackwell Reference Online

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P hilosophy of religion, metaphysics, philosophy of science Also called neo-Thomism, a Roman Catholic philosophical and theological movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is a revival of Thomism and seeks to demonstrate that medieval scholasticism, especially the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas , is consistent with the development of modern science. The movement assumes that Aquinas' doctrines can be re-appropriated to solve modern philosophical problems such as those arising from Cartesian dualism. Neo-scholasticism attempts to bring Aristotelian and Thomistic metaphysics into a modern intellectual setting in order to deal with contemporary issues. In 1879 Pope Leo XIII sent his letter Aeterni Patris to all bishops of the Church, making Thomas Aquinas the leading Doctor of the Church, and thus sanctioning Thomism as the authoritative and orthodox Catholic theology. It proposed to consider Thomism as the exclusive response in Catholic philosophy and theology to modern philosophical systems. This greatly stimulated the development of neo-scholasticism, first in Catholic educated circles and then for a wider public. Scholars produced intensive examinations and interpretations of Aquinas' works and established a variety of Thomistic systems. There is not a unified set of doctrines in neo-Thomism, because different philosophers have adopted different versions of ... log in or subscribe to read full text