Etiamsi topice et probabiliter illud sciamus. Tra scientificità e confessionalità dinanzi al De anima, le prime prove di Tommaso esegeta aristotelico

Abstract

My dissertation deals with Aquinas Aristotelian Commentaries problems, focusing especially on the epistemological value of these works and on the exegetical principles displayed by the author expounding Aristotle's texts. What is exactly the value of Aristotelian Commentaries? Are they genuinely philosophical or rather theological texts? And what about the procedure used by Thomas? Does it have an objective, scientific, or confessional value? In the first two chapters, I will suggest that scholar's issues could be easily re-evaluated both historically and historiographically, addressing the subject of Aquinas general purpose in his activity of Aristotelian Commentator and reconsidering the main representative views on his own exegetical method. Furthermore, in the course of chapter four, adopting an historical-comparative methodology, widely described in chapter three, I shall underline the substantial dualism of Thomas's exegetical method, analyzing the notanda of the Sententia libri De anima, namely some of the most significant and personal exegetical texts of his first Aristotelian Commentary. In fact, what emerges from the analysis of Aquinas exegetical method, compared for instance with that of Richard Rufus, Adam Buckfield and Albert the Great, is that it possesses both scientific and confessional components, thus reducing the fundamental dichotomy previously identified by some scholars. Finally, a pie chart located in chapter three shows the results of the survey, with the ultimate intent of more fully documenting the research carried out. [edited by Author]