Life and works
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| c. 1224/25 ≈ | Born at Roccasecca, a castle of a noble family near Aquino, between Rome and Naples (the SEP gives 'around 1225'; Britannica, '1224/25').[1] [3] |
| 1230s ≈ | Studies as a child at the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino, where his family expected him to make his career.[1] |
| c. 1244/45 ≈ | As an adolescent student at the University of Naples, decides to join the newly founded Order of Preachers (Dominicans) at about twenty; his family, opposed, keeps him detained at Roccasecca for about a year before relenting.[1] [3] |
| 1245–1248 ≈ | Studies philosophy in Paris as a Dominican friar; in 1248 he is sent to Cologne, under the direction of Albert the Great.[1] |
| 1252–1256 | Nominated by Albert, returns to Paris for the advanced degree in theology; composes the commentary on Peter Lombard's Sentences (Scriptum, 1252–56).[1] |
| 1256–1259 | Master of theology, holds the Dominican chair at the University of Paris.[1] |
| c. 1259–1265 ≈ | Back in Italy, teaches in Dominican houses; composes the Summa contra gentiles (c. 1258–64, per Britannica).[1] [3] |
| 1265/66 ≈ | Begins the Summa theologiae, his greatest work, left unfinished at his death (1265/66–73, per Britannica).[3] [1] |
| 1268–1272 | Second Paris regency, marked by the controversies over radical Aristotelianism ('Averroism'); writes commentaries on Aristotle's principal works.[1] |
| 1272 | Returns to Italy, to Naples, where he spends his last teaching years.[1] |
| 7 March 1274 | Dies at the Cistercian abbey of Fossanova, in Lazio.[1] [3] |
How he read him
Reception, not philosophy: each entry records how Olavo de Carvalho characterised this philosopher, attributed and dated to the 2002 course. The project does not adjudicate who is right. The recordings are machine-transcribed and unchecked against audio, so everything here is paraphrase and nothing is quoted.
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Named with Hugh of St Victor as the point where allegorical interpretation reaches full mastery: his biblical commentaries are edifices to take one's hat off to, and there the science of symbolic interpretation finally earns the name of science — systematic, organised and rational.
Curso História Essencial da Filosofia, session 08 — the advent of Christianity — 2002 ?
Reception in the COF
Present in 242 of the 589 transcription files of the Curso Online de Filosofia; 82 lectures engage him substantially (5 or more mentions). The most engaged lectures:
This section documents what Olavo said and when — never what the philosopher "really" meant. Characterizations are Olavo’s, tied to a lecture by number and date.
| Lecture (aula) | Date | Mentions |
|---|---|---|
| 115 | 2011-06-23 | 32 |
| 117 | 2011-08-06 | 29 |
| 89 | 2011-11-22 | 26 |
| 114 | 2011-07-16 | 24 |
| 15 | 2009-07-18 | 20 |
| 37 | 2009-12-19 | 20 |
| 12 | 2009-06-20 | 19 |
| 41 | 2010-01-16 | 19 |
| 116 | 2011-07-30 | 19 |
| 28 | 2009-10-17 | 18 |
| 66 | 2010-07-17 | 18 |
| 420 | — | 18 |
| 16 | 2009-07-25 | 16 |
| 59 | 2010-05-22 | 16 |
| 137 | 2012-01-14 | 16 |
A dash in the date column means the transcription file carries no verified date — an undated file, not an undated lecture. Counts are accent-insensitive, word-boundary matches over the public community transcription corpus.[4] [5]
References
- Thomas Aquinas — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Thomas Aquinas (1224/6—1274) — Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- St. Thomas Aquinas — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- COF — community transcriptions of the Curso Online de Filosofia (585 lectures) — Community transcription repository (upstream declares CC0 for the transcription work; the lectures remain the estate's)
- COF em Áudio — lecture audio collection — Internet Archive (community upload)