Sunday
Aug292010

Registration module added

To protect all wishing to participate in forum discussions, and to have some level of control over at least the tone of the postings, I’ve instituted a required registration feature to the site (= more cost. Oh, well). If you wish to make postings on the newly-added forum section, you’ll be required to register and thereafter to log-in in order to make postings. You know the deal.

These new features are visible on the menu-bar at the top of your browser window.

Sunday
Aug292010

Forum for discussion created

In order not to lose the great comments and helpful recommendations that readers send along, I’ve created a fledgling forum on the site, to allow users to make comments, etc.

The forum is visible on the top menu-bar, as well as at http://thomistica.net/forum.

Sunday
Aug292010

Thomistic Philosophical Terms (part 2)

Michael’s answer to a reader’s question about where to find a handy accounting of Thomistic philosophical terms mentioned Fr William Wallace’s The Elements of Philosophy, which contains pithy renderings of these polyvalent terms. I read Michael’s mention of the book, mentally checked-off on the issue, and went about my day.

But then I remembered that, given the reader’s original concern as a teacher, Fr Wallace’s The Elements of Philosophy is carefully indexed to the corresponding articles on philosophical and theological terms to be found in the New Catholic Encyclopedia! Indeed, if I remember correctly, Fr Wallace wrote the thing as a distillation of the corresponding NCE content. So, to the original question and for our other readers, don’t forget that the New Catholic Encyclopedia (together with its 2003 update) has articles on these essential philosophical terms (many of which were authored by Wallace, Weisheipl, and thomistic lights).

Saturday
Aug282010

Thomistic Philosophical Terms

A reader writes:

I will be teaching a Thomistic philosophy class (starting in four days!) and was thinking it would be helpful to give my students a short list of terms with definitions to start them off (e.g. potency, act, form, matter, etc.). Do you know of such a list, or would I be best off to just make my own?

Good question. These two books should help:

  • Bernard J. Wuellner, A Dictionary of Scholastic Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Milwaukee, WI: Bruce Publishing Company, 1966).
  • William A. Wallace, O.P., The Elements of Philosophy: A Compendium for Philosophers and Theologians (New York : Alba House, 1977).

Also, definitions are present throughout Joseph Owens’s An Elementary Christian Metaphysics (Houston, TX: Center for Thomistic Studies, 1985). If you are looking for a primary text for students, there is a brief discussion of key terms in Aquinas’s short On the Principles of Nature, available here.

Saturday
Aug282010

Henry's books, catalog 7: Philosophy, Theology, and Medieval

My guy, Henry Stachyra, keeps growing his bookselling business, Henry’s Books, and has released catalog 7 of his holdings. Swing on over to his website to forage through the catalog in a bid to be prepared this fall.