EM 302 – ADVANCED PHILOSOPHICAL AND ETHICAL FOUNDATION OF EDUCATION SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS His life, Thoughts and Contributions I. A. BIBLIOGRAPHY - Thomas D’ Aquino was born in central Italy in 1224. - At the age of 5 he was placed by his parents in the Benedictine Monastery at Monte Cassino. - He enrolled at the University of Naples where he was expose to the Dominican Republic. - In 1244 he became a Dominican Friar. - In 1245 – 1252 he studied at the University of Paris and Colonge under the influence of St. Albert Magnus. I. A. BIBLIOGRAPHY - In 1256 he became a Master of Theology. - He wrote the Summa Contra Gentiles (1258 – 1260) and The Summa Theologica (1267 – 1273). - In 1274, Pope Gregory X called him to Lyons to participate in a council and while on his way there, he died in a monastery between Naples and Rome, at the age of forty-nine. I. B. WHO INFLUENCE HIM - He based much of his works on the Aristotelian philosophy. - He was deeply influence by St. Albertus Magnus about his thought. - Due to the transition of Boethius of the classical philosophy (Aristotle’s) from Greek to Latin, he became more interested with it. - He either argued or affirmed the philosophies of Plato and St. Augustine. II. HIS THOUGHTS - A. ABOUT GOD - According to him. “God is, simply speaking, the highest good, not only good of a kind or some respect. - For good is to be attributed to God, in that all desired perfections flow from Him as from a first cause. II. HIS THOUGHTS - B. THE NATURE OF MAN - Man is the unity of body and soul. The soul depends on the body for the intellectual purposes and the body depends on the soul for its and has its part in the rational nature of man. II. HIS THOUGHTS - C. PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY (REASON AND FAITH) - Philosophy and Theology played complementary role in man’s quest for truth. - Philosophy proceeds from principles discovered by human reason, whereas theology is the rational ordering of principles received from authoritative revelation and held as a matter of faith. - Philosophy begins with the immediate objects of sense of experience and reason upward to more general conceptions while Theology begins with a Faith in God and interprets all things as a creatures of God. - Philosophy draws its conclusions from the natural description of the essences of things whereas, Theology rests the demonstration of the conclusions upon the authority of revealed knowledge. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS III. HIS CONTRIBUTIONS - A. ON EDUCATION - The Scholastic Philosophy (Methods and Doctrine) – was an attempt to put together a coherent system of traditional thought rather than a pursuit of genuinely novel forms of insight. The Scholastic methods involves the “Lectio” and the “Disputatio”, it is a process relying chiefly upon “strict logical deduction” taking on a form in which Theology dominates Philosophy. III. HIS CONTRIBUTIONS - In His Treatise on Education “De Magistro” (The Teacher), he emphasized self activity in the process of education, but also stressed the great power of the teacher, the giver of knowledge which helps character. III. HIS CONTRIBUTIONS - In his “Concerning the Teacher” he said that there is a twofold manner of acquiring knowledge, the one when the natural reason of itself comes from a knowledge of the unknown, which is called “discovery”. The other when someone extrinsically gives aid to the natural reason, which is called “instruction”. III. HIS CONTRIBUTIONS - ON LITERATURES - Summa Theologica and Summa Contra Gentiles III. HIS CONTRIBUTIONS St Thomas Aquinas’ contribution to education is basically the provision of a basis for Catholic Philosophy of Education His scholastic methods are somehow related to the perennials and essentialist’s approaches on education
