Suárez’s solution to the problem of the conceptual Addition of the One to being follows firstly the Aristotelian-Averroistic tradition mediated by Aquinas. According to this tradition, the One adds to being only a negative determination. Suárez claims that the One does not signify any positive perfection either really or conceptually distinct from being as such. Suárez’s own solution to the problem is presented in a critical discussion with many different conceptions, but Suárez pays most attention to the theory of certain, mainly Franciscan, authors who hold that the One adds to being a positive perfection which is only conceptually distinct from being as such. The main argument for this thesis is based on the assumption that indivision is to be taken as a double negation, by which an affirmation is expressed. This concept of indivision was, according to Suárez, also defended by Aquinas, who holds that the negation which is expressed by the One negates the division of one being from another. Suárez rejects this solution and proposes his own conception, according to which the One does not negate the negative moment of the division of one being from another, but the positive moment of an essential division of a being in itself. The One thus negates a real positive division of being in itself. On the basis of this theory, Suárez further rejected Aquinas’s (and the Thomistic) conception of a conceptual priority of the One over the Many, which was put forth as an answer to the old Aristotelian problem of a privative opposition between the One and the Many. Suárez defends the real priority of an indivision over a division as well as a real and conceptual priority of the One over the Many. Suárez’s conception seems to us to be compatible with his concept of a negative Addition of the One to being.

The paper deals with Aristotle’s argument against determinism and in favor of contingency in nature as interpreted by Thomas Aquinas. The case against determinism is based on the idea that there are properly uncaused accidental events in reality. This means that in case there is some coincidental future event e, one cannot trace an unbroken causal chain leading to e back to the present or the past. For a Christian Aristotelian, such as Aquinas, there arises a difficulty concerning divine foreknowledge and volitional determination of events of this sort. Thomas’s solution is based on the claim that the latter divine acts are not within the scope of modal determination (necessity/contingency).

The paper deals with the conception of transcendental and categorial concepts in the work of Thomas Aquinas. As a starting point of the exposition the discussion of this matter in De veritate 1, 1 has been chosen, where Aquinas, drawing on Aristotle and Avicenna, determines which are the first concepts of intellect. The absolutly first concept, the terminus of conceptual analysis, is the concept of being (ens). All other concepts, both categorial and transcendental, result from conceptual addition to being. Aquinas’s conception of conceptual addition is explained in detail and used to illustrate Aquinas’s explication of individual transcendentals and categories. Finally it is shown, how Aquinas derives transcendental and categorial concepts as general and special modes of being (modi essendi) of being as such. Translation: Lukáš Novák

Starting from Aquinas’s natural law theory, the article discusses in which way one can ground an ethical theory relying on the concept of personal autonomy. This is possible because natural law, as a law of reason, determines the ends for which every individual human being reasonably may strive. In this context, it is also possible to justify the role of morality in human life. This is due to the nature of man as a social animal whose natural ends include a life in a human community. From this one can infer the two principles, not to harm others and to attribute his right to everybody. The application of those rules, as of any other rule of natural law, depends upon the person of the agent and his historical and social situation.

The article deals with the analysis of one medieval solution of semantic paradoxes, namely with the position of the so-called “cassantes” (i.e. “those who nullify”). The solution is based upon designating problematical sentences to be agrammatical and thus “saying nothing”: paradoxes are solved by means of deyning apparent truth-apts. Theoretically fundamental supposition of this step is drawing the distinction between grammatical and logical structure of a sentence, or (from a speech-act theoretical point of view) the distinction between a sentence and a statement. Remarkable analogies can also be shown between this distinction and the distinction between two conceptions of congruence in the twelfth-century grammar. Nowadays the cassationist approach is the solution of paradoxes proposed in the theoretical framework of the illocutionary logic.

This paper deals with the simple paradoxes of validity and with the possibility of solving them in terms of Bradwardinian-Buridanian semantics. The paradoxes of validity as conceived here are cases of semantic pathology, which result due to the use of terms signifying the validity of inference. Semantic paradoxes are a semantico-epistemological phenomenon which is a symptom of the need to revise several apparently acceptable semantic assumptions. The analysis of possible solutions to the paradoxes focuses on Bradwardinian-Buridanian semantics and as a result on the closed, token-based semantic theories that assume the existence of an implicit meaning of propositions. The key theses, as far as the solution to the paradoxes is concerned, are the principle of truth-implication which claims that every proposition expresses or implies its own truth and the closure principle which claims that every proposition asserts or expresses everything that follows from it logically. The present paper advances on recent research in claiming that (with certain reservations) the application of these principles can effectively solve inconsistency-paradoxes but not indeterminacy-paradoxes of validity.

The paper deals with Aquinas’s concept of participation. Its goal is to introduce the reader to the problem, since no significant attention has been paid to it in Czech literature so far. The article is divided into three main parts: first a general description and division of participation is given, second the mutually opposite properties “to be through essence” and “to be through participation” are explained and finally the other general characteristics of participation are put forth.

The notion of physical premotion (praemotio physica) is usually associated with the theological topic of divine concurrence (concursus divinus). In the present paper I argue that the Thomist Domingo Báñez (1528–1604) applied the concept of premotion (though not the expression “praemotio”) also in his psychology. According to Báñez, the active intellect (intellectus agens) communicates a kind of “actual motion” to the phantasma (i.e. the mental sensory image perceived by the imagination) in order to render it a collaborator of intellectual cognition. Such an actual motion is, in other words, a premotion to the effect, as the phantasma is, in Báñez’s view, “elevated” to the production of an effect that transcends its proper powers. This Báñez’s theory was largely accepted in the subsequent development of Thomism.

Huius recensione subiectum liber est, qui ab Ulrico G. Leinsle sub titulo Einführung in die scholastische Theologie Germanice conscriptus, a M. J. Miller magna cum sollertia Anglice redditus est. In hoc libro Leinsle materiae historicae copiam diligentissime collegit ac ordine disposuit, contributionem faciens singularem et novam ad philosophiae historiam cognoscendam. Scholaribus et viris scientificis, qui hisce legatis intellectualiis studeant, liber dictus conspectum offerit latum et valde comprehensivum principaliorum problematum ac methodorum theologiae scholasticae, rebus tamen minutis non neglectis. Leinsle demonstravit, locupletem ac multiformem traditionem scholasticam partem principalem habuisse in civilizatione occidentali constituenda.The subject of this review is the book Introduction to Scholastic Theology by Ulrich G. Leinsle which was originally published in Germany as Einführung in die scholastische Theologie (the English translation of the book was very well rendered by M. J. Miller). Leinsle gathered rich historical material which he organized into an original, impressive contribution to our knowledge of the history of philosophy. It offers students and scholars interested in this intellectual legacy a comprehensive, panoramic overview of the main problems and methods of Scholastic theology and provides a quick glimpse of many sub-topicsas well. Leinsle has shown that the rich and varied Scholastic tradition played a key role in constituting our Western civilization.