Help with Aquinas??

Dancingjebus3

currently doing an essay on Aquinas's concept of the intellectus as a pontentia animae i.e. intellect as a power or potentiality of the soul.. Iv done a fair bit of reading on it at this stage but still cant get my head around how i should lay out a critque in an essay?? any suggestions?

Joycey

Ive never read any Aquinas so probably cant be much help to you. Is your problem that you cant figure out how to structure your essay in the best way with the material you have or is it that you simply cant figure out if and where Aquinas can be critiqued?

If its the former then id suggest sitting down and writing out what you think are the 3 or 4 main areas that you need to explicate from Aquinas' text itself in order for the reader to understand the theory. Then work out a primary area where you disagree with him (preferably you would have some way to modify his thinking on each of these 3/4 topics), write why and whether it means we have to entirely disregard his theory or if not how it can be slightly modified to account for your critique. Or something like that. Then go back and write the introduction outlining what youve already done in the essay.

If its the latter then you probably just need to go back over notes from class, especially in undergrad, teachers will usually tend to actually give you in written form areas of contention in the text you do so that it provokes argument in class. Just pick whichever one of these your most interested in and your done :pac:

Dancingjebus3

thanks for that.. Hopefully that should be get me on the right track.
thanks again

Joe1919

http://books.google.ie/books?id=5vjJfL4BTjQC&pg=PA51&dq=aquinas+kenny+intellect#v=onepage&q=aquinas%20kenny%20intellect&f=false

http://books.google.ie/books?id=tgObhW4-hQcC&pg=PA128&dq=cambridge+aquinas+philosophy+mind#v=onepage&q=cambridge%20aquinas%20philosophy%20mind&f=false