The Philosophy of Nature of St. Thomas Aquinas.(Brief Article)

Leo Elders. Pp. 387. (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Peter Lang, 1997.)

This book by the well-known Dutch scholar Leo Elders purports to examine the philosophy of nature and anthropology of Aquinas. In part, the book is an attempt to relate Elder's own controversial reading of the teaching of Thomas on man's place in nature to contemporary issues in the natural sciences. By doing this, Elders aims to argue that the vision of the natural world advanced by Thomas is still relevant to modern philosophy and that a number of important questions which are prompted by the engagement of philosophy with the natural sciences can find a credible answer in Thomism. Elders prefaces …