Thomas Aquinas on the Passions

FAIN: FT-53787-05

Robert Camp Miner
Baylor University (Waco, TX 76798-7284)

For much of the 20th century, it was fashionable to regard the passions as essentially physiological states that lacked any necessary connection to the ways in which humans think about the world. Recently the pendulum has swung toward “cognitivist” theories, according to which passions involve judgments. Although scholars have investigated the ancient sources of modern doctrines, they have largely neglected the influential account of the passions provided by Thomas Aquinas. My project seeks to fill this gap. I will show that Aquinas offers a framework in which to understand both the insights and limitations of recent “cognitivist” theories. Particular attention will be paid to Aquinas’s conviction that all the passions have their first root in love.

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