Aquinas maintains that human nature occupies a liminal space. He affirms that man is a horizon of creation that stands on the border between reality's immaterial and material domains. While this image is found in the Liber de Causis, it is central theme in Nemesius's On the Nature of Man. This paper will observe the latter work as a possible source for Aquinas's notion of man as a "border". In the first part, I will briefly introduce Nemesius and his sui generis synthesis of Christian and Platonic anthrolopogy. Second, I will juxtapose his language with that of certain passages of Aquinas, seeking to identify any connection between the too. In the final part, I will note how Aquinas modifies the "border" language. In particular, I will show that Aquinas leaves behind some of the original Platonic connotations of the image and grounds it in an Aristotelian scale of cognition. For Aquinas, the border between domains is not "Soul" in general nor even the human species in general. Rather, every individual human being, as his cognitive activity reveals, straddles the material and immaterial domains.
22 November 2024
Nemesius, Aquinas, and Man as the Border of Creation
With Raymund Syner, OP.
Aquinas maintains that human nature occupies a liminal space. He affirms that man is a horizon of creation that stands on the border between reality's immaterial and material domains. While this image is found in the Liber de Causis, it is central theme in Nemesius's On the Nature of Man. This paper will observe the latter work as a possible source for Aquinas's notion of man as a "border". In the first part, I will briefly introduce Nemesius and his sui generis synthesis of Christian and Platonic anthrolopogy. Second, I will juxtapose his language with that of certain passages of Aquinas, seeking to identify any connection between the too. In the final part, I will note how Aquinas modifies the "border" language. In particular, I will show that Aquinas leaves behind some of the original Platonic connotations of the image and grounds it in an Aristotelian scale of cognition. For Aquinas, the border between domains is not "Soul" in general nor even the human species in general. Rather, every individual human being, as his cognitive activity reveals, straddles the material and immaterial domains.
Aquinas maintains that human nature occupies a liminal space. He affirms that man is a horizon of creation that stands on the border between reality's immaterial and material domains. While this image is found in the Liber de Causis, it is central theme in Nemesius's On the Nature of Man. This paper will observe the latter work as a possible source for Aquinas's notion of man as a "border". In the first part, I will briefly introduce Nemesius and his sui generis synthesis of Christian and Platonic anthrolopogy. Second, I will juxtapose his language with that of certain passages of Aquinas, seeking to identify any connection between the too. In the final part, I will note how Aquinas modifies the "border" language. In particular, I will show that Aquinas leaves behind some of the original Platonic connotations of the image and grounds it in an Aristotelian scale of cognition. For Aquinas, the border between domains is not "Soul" in general nor even the human species in general. Rather, every individual human being, as his cognitive activity reveals, straddles the material and immaterial domains.
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