The freedom of the mind for God

Abstract

The study of Thomas Aquinas generally focuses on theological questions in his work, and ignores certain aspects of what might be called his "spiritual life." Though there are exceptions to this rule, there are numerous themes in the writings of Thomas Aquinas which have not been given their due. In light of this fact, this dissertation seeks to provide an extended treatment of two components of the work of Thomas Aquinas which receive little attention: the role of spiritual exercises in his writing, and the form of reflexivity--one's understanding of and relation to one's self--he recommends. As a way of approaching these issues, I draw from the work of two historical philosophers, Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault, using the methodological questions they employ in their writings on the classical world. Both Hadot and Foucault argued that there was something different about the way philosophy was accomplished in the antique world, something which was lost as philosophy shifted in the modern period. Hadot's work focuses, in particular, on the use of spiritual exercises in the formation of the person--that is, how a person becomes the ideal form they ought to be. Foucault, on the other hand, focused on the alternative form of reflexivity as found in the work of classical philosophers, and used it for fruitful comparison and critique of the contemporary forms of reflexivity found in the modern world. Both of these thinkers, however, never included in their study the medieval period, or at least not in an extended and meaningful way. Their questions, however, are particularly relevant to the work of Thomas Aquinas, as he offers both an extended treatment of spiritual exercises, as well as a form of reflexivity similar in many ways to classical forms. As a way of highlighting these two topics in Thomas Aquinas, I first provide an overview of the work of Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault as it relates to these topics. I then move onto a discussion of the current state of scholarship on "spirituality" in Thomas Aquinas, and suggest the ways in which this dissertation can improve on this current state. In the subsequent chapters, I begin a discussion of the concept of virtue as found in Thomas Aquinas, and its relation to both spiritual exercises and reflexivity, the description of which in Thomas forms the basis for the next two chapters. Finally, I turn to an in depth application of these methodological questions by turning to two different works of Thomas; first, I turn to his De perfectione spiritualis vitae, a short and rarely read work in which Thomas explains the practices which accompany the formation of a person in charity. Second, I turn to the Summa Theologiae and the cardinal virtues, drawing attention to the presence of spiritual exercises in a work typically treated as merely expositional.