Thomas Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Human Act

This book offers a novel account of Aquinas's theory of the human act. It argues that Aquinas takes a human act to be a composite of two power-exercises, where one relates to the other as form to matter. The formal component is an act of the will, and the material component is a power-exercise caused by the will, which Aquinas refers to as the 'commanded act.' The book also argues that Aquinas conceptualizes the act of free choice as a hylomorphic composite: it is, materially, an act of the will, but it inherits a form from reason. As the book aims to show, the core idea of Aquinas's hylomorphic action theory is that the exercise of one power can structure the exercise of another power, and this provides a helpful way to think of the presence of cognition in conation and of intention in bodily movement.

Introduction; Part I. The General Framework: 1. What is a Human Act?; Part II. Choice Hylomorphism: 2. Practical Judgment; 3. The Judgment of Choice; 4. Volition and its Dependence on Judgment; 5. Choice: Its Intrinsic and its Extrinsic Form; Part III. Act Hylomorphism: 6. The Hylomorphic Structure of the Human Act; 7. The Ontology of Bodily Human Acts; 8. The Ontology of Mental Human Acts; 9. Aquinas's Act Hylomorphism Today; Appendix. Judgment and Composition and Division.

Can Laurens Löwe is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, and a Member of the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities 'Human Abilities.' He has published numerous articles on medieval philosophy and metaphysics in journals including the British Journal for the History of Philosophy and Vivarium.