De anima
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~19,600 words · 93 passages
Cite this work
- APAThomas Aquinas. (n.d.). De anima. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/thomas-aquinas/de-anima
- MLAThomas Aquinas. De anima. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/thomas-aquinas/de-anima.
- ChicagoThomas Aquinas. De anima. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/thomas-aquinas/de-anima.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The disputed questions on the soul: what it is, how it relates to the body, and whether it can subsist without it.
Context and history
The problem Aquinas had to solve was hard: the soul is the form of the body, as Aristotle said, and also immortal, as faith requires. His solution — that it is a subsistent form — is among his most genuinely original philosophical inventions. Text in LATIN: the original. Aquinas wrote in Latin and that is what should be cited.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
semper rotatione vertuntur nec ullis temporibus conquiescunt. Haec, ut mundani doctores exquirere temptaverunt, harmoniacis delectationibus inaestimabili modulatione volvuntur, quorum tinnitus atque concentus adunatum efficit dulcisonum melos. Desideramus etiam comprehendere altitudinem aetheris, mensuram telluris, nubigeras pluvias, saevae grandinis procellas, tremorem stabilium terrarum, naturam vagantium ventorum, profunditatem inconstantis maris, potestates virentium herbarum, quattuor elementorum per omne corpus dissociatas complexiones; et ferendum est ipsam sese scire non posse cui superne datum est tanta discutere? non enim aliquid contentione quaerimus, sed res profundissimas modestissime nosse desideramus. Discamus ergo primum quare anima dicatur, deinde qualis sit eius definitio; tertio, quae sit eius qualitas substantialis; quarto, si formam aliquam habere credenda est; quinto, quas virtutes habeat morales, quas graeci aretas vocant, ad decus eius et gloriam contributas; sexto, quae illi sint virtutes naturales ad substantiam scilicet corporis continendam; septimo, de origine animae disseratur; octavo, cum sit per omnia membra diffusa, ubi potius insidere credenda est; nono, de corporis ipsius forma et compositione noscamus; decimo, quas proprietates habeat anima peccatorum per competentia nobis signa declarentur; undecimo, qua noscantur discretione iustorum, quatenus quos oculis istis videre non possumus per indicia probabilia colligamus; duodecimo, in resurrectione, quam vere sapiens credit, quid de singulis fieri sentiatur maxime desideramus agnoscere, quatenus fragilia corda mortalium ad divinitus promissa desideria concitentur. Haec nobis, praestante Deo, ordine custodito responde, ut et nos facile possimus imbui et tu gloriam debeas invenire doctoris.