Theology is the preeminent academic discipline during the Middle Ages and, as a result, most of great thinkers of this period are highly trained theologians. Although this is common knowledge, it is sometimes overlooked that the systematic nature of medieval theology led its practitioners to develop full treatments of virtually every area within philosophy. Indeed, theological reflection not only provides the main context in which the medievals theorize about what we would now recognize as distinctively philosophical issues, but it is (...) responsible for some of their most significant philosophical contributions. To give just a few examples: it is problems with the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation that prompt medievals to develop the notions of ‘substance’ and ‘person’ in striking and original ways; it is problems with the doctrine of the Eucharist that lead them to consider the possibility of ‘accidents that do not inhere’; and it is problems of.. (shrink)

Brian Leftow sets out to provide us with an account of Aquinas’s metaphysics of modality. Drawing on some important recent work, which is surely close to the spirit (if not quite the letter) of Aquinas’s thought, he frames his discussion in terms of “truthmakers”: what is it that makes true claims about possibility and necessity—that is to say, what serves as their ontological ground or ultimate metaphysical explanation? Leftow’s main thesis is that, for Aquinas, all true modal claims are made (...) true by one and the same thing—namely, God. Along the way, however, he also attempts to show that Aquinas’s endorsement of this thesis commits him to an objectionable form of Platonism about possible worlds. (shrink)