Thomism is a tradition of thought that has attracted adherents through the centuries. It goes without saying that Thomists recognize the decisive genius of St. Thomas Aquinas. But a commitment to Thomism is not just a commitment to the man, despite whatever admiration we may have for his personal character. Thomism is adopted because it is recognized that the way of thinking involved therein conveys something important, indeed true, about a significant aspect of reality. It is precisely because Aquinas’s way of thought conveys something of the truth that people have been prepared to adopt and defend it through the centuries; hence we have a tradition of thought that is Thomism.

With the upheavals in modern philosophy and the move out of the universities, the scholastic schools were generally seen to be relics of the past engaged in hair-splitting matters that did not advance beyond making distinctions. Descartes himself, who had been educated in such schools, poured disdain on them and announced his desire to branch out independently. This was the general attitude of modern thinkers – not to be chained to a school but to be independent and to think independently. With the latter there emerged a focus on one’s personal thought, and it became an urgent task to establish the veracity of the very act of thinking. No thinking could be done unless the act of thinking itself could be established as veridical; hence any adoption of a system of thought or adherence to a school was suspect. Nevertheless, Thomism survived in the universities and in the religious orders, and indeed managed to foster several significant thinkers in their own right. Again, it is because Thomism seems to get at the truth of things that it has always attracted adherents.

The importance of Thomistic philosophy for Catholic theology is undeniable, and this was formally recognized by Pope Leo XIII in his publication of Aeterni Patris (1879), calling for Catholic universities to prioritize the teaching of Thomism as against the systems of modern philosophy prevalent at the time. This brought about a renaissance within Thomism and in the early twentieth century a definite movement came to be identified as “Neo-Thomism.” The Neo-Thomist movement fostered important philosophers and theologians of the twentieth century, much of whose work is considered by Thomists today and discussed in the pages of this volume. Contemporary Thomists cannot engage with the thought of Aquinas and advance the tradition of Thomism without considering the work of Gilson, Maritain, and Garrigou-Lagrange, to name just a few.

The Neo-Thomists were not just devotees of a historical school of thought; rather, they took that thought to be capable of addressing issues brought to the fore in modern philosophy. Naturally, these issues focused on the mind–world relation, and within Neo-Thomism itself there were to be found differing attitudes concerning how to articulate and defend Aquinas’s realism as against modern challenges to the very notion that mentality can have a grasp on reality. Thus there developed traditions within a tradition. Not only that, but the predominance of Aquinas as a theologian and his theological thought came to be challenged with the emergence of the new theology and the embrace of non-Thomistic ways of philosophizing for theology. In effect, the new theologians moved away from the strict intellectualism of St. Thomas and embraced a philosophy less abstract and more rooted in lived experience. This led to a flourishing in theological dialogue, particularly between members of the Dominican and Jesuit religious orders. What occured was an appropriation of the thought of Aquinas in order to meet the concerns of the day. The latter in turn led to a flourishing in Thomism, for it challenged the followers of Aquinas to consider ways of thinking unknown to Thomas himself and in turn how one influenced by Aquinas would respond.

Despite the flourishing of Thomism and the very public careers of Neo-Thomists such as Gilson and Maritain, the wider philosophical world was somewhat unconscious of Thomism. Outside of the Catholic and Thomistic world, philosophy proceeded apace in the newly born analytical and continental traditions. Although historians disagree as to the birth of each of these traditions, a definite turning point occurred in the divergence between Frege and Husserl over the account of meaning, with Frege’s focus on language and Husserl’s on consciousness. The analytical tradition initially set deep roots into the philosophy of language, and, coupled with the logical positivists’ insistence on the verification principle in analytical philosophy, became very anti-metaphysical. On the other hand, while not explicitly anti-metaphysical, the continental tradition was not typically disposed to the kind of metaphysics that we find within the thought of Aquinas or the scholastics. Even with the appearance of Heidegger’s Being and Time and his focus on the question of being, it was difficult to see the affinities between the kind of metaphysics practiced by Aquinas and the scholastics and Heidegger. Accordingly, these traditions of philosophy developed independently in the twentieth century.

Étienne Gilson once stated that philosophy buries its undertakers. We can perhaps modify that in the case of the analytical tradition to say that metaphysics buries its undertakers. This is because students of those early analytical philosophers who confidently announced the death of metaphysics in turn developed ways of philosophizing that brought about a return of metaphysical ways of thinking. Willard Van Orman Quine was a devotee of Rudolf Carnap, the latter of whom announced the demise of metaphysics through the logical analysis of language. While devoted to Carnap, Quine published several important papers that shattered the positivistic grip on analytic philosophy and enabled later thinkers to engage in metaphysics. “On What There Is” was first published in 1948 and therein Quine argued that the philosopher armed with logic can legitimately consider ontological questions as to what there is. Later Quine published “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” in 1951. This was by far Quine’s most important contribution to the theory of meaning in analytical philosophy. Herein he argued that the analytic/synthetic distinction is not well established and that propositions do not face the tribunal of experience individually but as a whole. By this point, the positivistic project for analytical philosophy was shattered and the way was opened for different ways of philosophizing.

With the focus on modal logic and semantics, the work of Alvin Plantinga, Hilary Putnam, and Saul Kripke enabled analytical philosophers to think about reality in terms of possible worlds. This in turn led to the acceptance by certain analytical philosophers of necessary or essential properties possessed by a thing in all possible worlds in which it exists (and with Kripke it led to the surprising reemergence of dualism in philosophy of mind). Effectively, within a generation analytical philosophers had gone from a confident rejection of metaphysics to embracing possible worlds and some form of essentialism. At the same time, analytical philosophers were looking at influences outside of their tradition and discovered in Aristotle and some of the scholastics affinities with their own thought. Furthermore, developments in epistemology, ethics, and action theory led analytical philosophers to discover other thinkers in the history of philosophy either directly influenced by Aquinas and the scholastics or not hostile thereto. All of this provided very fertile ground for engagement for Thomists.

In analytical metaphysics, Thomists have engaged on the questions of essence and existence, matter and form, change, causality, and so on. In epistemology, Thomists have addressed issues pertaining to mind and world and intentionality, and have found surprising allies in the post-Hegelian-inspired Pittsburgh school. In ethics and action theory, Thomists have helped to rehabilitate virtue ethics, and indeed the work of Elizabeth Anscombe (an anomaly in mid-twentieth-century analytic philosophy in many ways) has received high praise, with Donald Davidson describing her work on intention as the greatest work in philosophy of action since Aristotle. The engagement with analytic philosophy by Thomists continues to this day and bears witness in the chapters that follow. But contemporary engagement is not restricted to the analytic tradition.

Within the continental tradition, Thomists have noted that the most fundamental metaphysical principle is the act of existence or esse, and such focus on this has led to fruitful dialogue between Thomists and continental philosophers. The work of Cornelio Fabro in the mid-twentieth century was pioneering in this regard, and that project has continued to include Thomists currently alive today.

All of this is a mere sketch of the place of Thomism within the history of thought and how, since the publication of Aeterni Patris, Thomism has been able to embrace and morph around contemporaneous philosophical and theological concerns. What the last 150 years establish is that Thomism is not some rigid system that dutifully cashes out predesignated answers to whatever philosophical or theological question is asked of it. Rather, as a system of thought it is governed by principles that enable that thinking to address questions and challenges not contained within that system itself. As with those throughout the centuries, Thomists working and thriving in the twenty-first century are dealing with issues with which St. Thomas himself did not have to deal. In order to do so, they do not just have to be experts in Thomistic metaphysics, epistemology, theology, and so on; they have to be specialists in metaphysics in general, epistemology in general, theology in general, and so on. In other words, they have to embrace all that philosophical and theological thought has to offer and proceed to get to the truth of the matter; they have to do for the twenty-first century what Thomas did for the thirteenth.

I am pleased to open this volume on Thomism revisited by noting that the contributors involved are not mere Thomists; rather, in their own individual ways, they strive to emulate Thomas. Each of their contributions adopts a Thomistic position, yet it does not do so in isolation but in dialogue with other thinkers. Not only that, but the breadth of contributions, from metaphysics to epistemology to action theory and ethics, even to philosophizing for theology, shows that Thomism is capable of addressing issues of contemporary concern in a fruitful manner. In this respect, the authors are both revisiting and developing Thomism.

Everyone who engages with Thomism is struck (for good or ill) by the importance and value placed upon metaphysics. Aquinas’s metaphysical thought seeps into all aspects of his philosophy and theology. Herein that metaphysical thought is well represented. Gloria Frost outlines Aquinas’s metaphysics of causation, James Dominic Rooney presents us with a contemporary reading of form, and William M. R. Simpson presents a scientifically respectable account of prime matter. Epistemology quite naturally follows metaphysics, and Jonathan Fuqua offers a chapter on Aquinas’s realist epistemology, taking us through the twists and turns of the Neo-Thomistic engagement therewith.

Moving to philosophical anthropology and ethics, Caitlin Smith Gilson offers us a Thomistic account of personhood, one that engages with thinkers of the continental and postmodern traditions. Following the latter, we are met with two issues of significant contemporary importance: (i) disability and (ii) feminism. Catherine Peters presents a Thomistic account of disability and Jordan McFadden outlines the somewhat thorny relationship between Thomism and feminism. Patrick Lee’s chapter is a treatment of life and death issues within Thomistic thought, and Heidi Giebel and Janice Tzuling Chik consider issues pertaining to living the good life and free expression.

St. Thomas is well known for his consideration of issues pertaining to theology and religious belief. Indeed, one of the strengths of Thomism is that it can navigate these issues from a purely philosophical and thus rational perspective. In this regard, Edward Feser offers a chapter defending Aquinas’s classical theism, whereas W. Matthews Grant defends Aquinas’s doctrine of divine simplicity against contemporary objections. Remaining with the issue of religious belief, Matthew K. Minerd’s chapter addresses the kind of philosophy needed for theology in the twenty-first century, and in doing so charts the border between faith and reason. Finally, Joshua Furnal shows how Aquinas’s metaphysics of esse leads to fruitful dialogue between Thomism and contemporary existentialism.

I shall not endeavor to summarize the chapters as they speak for themselves. What these contributions show is that Thomism is a tradition of thought that is well represented across the academic world. The current series from Cambridge University Press aims to bring together substantial, multiauthored volumes on important philosophical movements and schools. The chapters in this volume establish that Thomism addresses issues across the philosophical and theological spectrum, and it can do so not by mere adherence to a historical figure but through the assimilation and development of that figure’s thought to contemporary areas of concern. Hence Thomism indeed merits having a volume of committed scholars contribute to it, and I hereby present to you Thomism Revisited.