Using grep and uniq to determine the influence of Aristotle on Aquinas
In preparing for my future goal of reading Aquinas's 3020-page Summa Theologiae, I wanted to know which works of Aristotle to tackle as background reading. Aristotle was a major influence on Aquinas's work – but which books of Aristotle's?
I did some rudimentary parsing of the Summa, basically looking for the following pattern: "Philosopher...([name of book]...)" (Aquinas refers to Aristotle as the Philosopher), and came up with the following data:
*Number of index references in The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas
**Number of index references in Summa Theologiae: A Concise Translation (McDermott), which also lists one reference for each of the following works of Plato: Alcibiades, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Timaeus
So it would seem that for someone interested in reading the Summa, it would be beneficial to first read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, and perhaps also On The Soul, Metaphysics, Rhetoric, Physics, and Politics. Note that some of these also have recommended prerequisites, as detailed in this helpful Amazon review.
I did some rudimentary parsing of the Summa, basically looking for the following pattern: "Philosopher...([name of book]...)" (Aquinas refers to Aristotle as the Philosopher), and came up with the following data:
Nicomachean Ethics | 916 | 53% | 10* | 18** |
On the Soul | 159 | 9% | 7* | 10** |
Metaphysics | 142 | 8% | 19* | 9** |
Rhetoric | 127 | 7% | 6** | |
Physics | 118 | 7% | 8* | 12** |
Politics | 83 | 5% | 9* | 7** |
Generation of Animals | 40 | 2% | 1** | |
Topics | 32 | 2% | 1** | |
On the Heavens | 21 | 1% | 1* | 10** |
Categories | 16 | 1% | 1* | 1** |
On Memory | 14 | 1% | ||
On Interpretation | 13 | 1% | 2* | 3** |
Posterior Analytics | 13 | 1% | 7* | 1** |
On Sleep | 11 | 1% | 2** | |
Problems | 8 | 0% | 1** | |
History of Animals | 6 | 0% | ||
Meteorology | 4 | 0% | 2** | |
Parts of Animals | 4 | 0% | ||
Poetics | 3 | 0% | ||
Sophistical Refutations | 2 | 0% | 1** | |
Movement of Animals | 2 | 0% | 1** | |
De Causis | 2 | 0% | ||
Great Ethics | 1 | 0% | ||
On Virtues and Vices | 1 | 0% | ||
On Breath | 1 | 0% | ||
On Generation and Corruption | 1 | 0% | 3** | |
Prior Analytics | 1 | 0% | 1* | |
Eudemian Ethics | 3 | 0% | 1* | 1** |
**Number of index references in Summa Theologiae: A Concise Translation (McDermott), which also lists one reference for each of the following works of Plato: Alcibiades, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Timaeus
So it would seem that for someone interested in reading the Summa, it would be beneficial to first read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, and perhaps also On The Soul, Metaphysics, Rhetoric, Physics, and Politics. Note that some of these also have recommended prerequisites, as detailed in this helpful Amazon review.
1 Comments:
The Summa Theologiae has only a handful of references to titles of Plato's works: Parmenides, Timaeus, Meno, Phaedo, Philebus.
By Jonathan, at 4/08/2009 7:09 p.m.
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