António Rocha Martins
Doctor in Philosophy by the University of Lisbon in 2009, with the thesis on the philosophical thought of St. Bonaventure (“Analogy and Metaphor. A poetics of thought”). He is a full member of the Centre of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon.
He is also a member of the Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale (SIEPM). His research trajectory mainly is oriented in the areas of Ancient and Medieval philosophy and theology, deepening into the history of political thought, philosophy of mind and metaphysics.
Another of his lines of research is Portuguese thought and didactics of philosophy, contributing to it, with various publications and conferences on the themes.
Currently conducting a post-doctoral research focused on “tradition, reception and transformations” of the political philosophy of Aristotle in the Latin West. Some publications: "The 'Secretum secretorum' and the Idea of Political Happiness in the Latin Middle Ages". In Pseudo-Aristotelian Texts in Medieval Thought, 53-84. Brepols, 2023; "Medieval metamorphoses of Nicomachean ethics': singular case of Thomas Aquinas" (São Petersburgo, 2021); "Receção do Neoplatonismo em Pierre Hadot" (2021); "Neoplatonismo Político Medieval: Receção de Proclo" (2021); "Os nomes divinos — Boaventura e Dionísio Areopagita (a propósito de I Sent., d. 22, a. un., qs. 1-4; I 390a-399b» (2021)"; "Escatologia e Utopia ─ Mediação da justiça em Agostinho de Hipona e Thomas More" (2021); "Ius et Iustitia. The Idea of Justice in Augustine of Hippo’s De Civitate Dei (2019); “The zoon politikon (ζῷον πολιτικόν): Medieval Aristotelian interpretations” (2019); “Álvaro Gomes e o clássico problema da imortalidade da alma” (2017); “Filosofia e Ensino da Filosofia em Joaquim Cerqueira Gonçalves”, (2016); 'Societas' e 'Communitas'. Guilherme de Moerbeke na encruzilhada do macromodelo político moderno (2015).
Phone: +351964898312
Address: Center of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon
Alameda da Universidade
1600-214 Lisboa
Portugal
He is also a member of the Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale (SIEPM). His research trajectory mainly is oriented in the areas of Ancient and Medieval philosophy and theology, deepening into the history of political thought, philosophy of mind and metaphysics.
Another of his lines of research is Portuguese thought and didactics of philosophy, contributing to it, with various publications and conferences on the themes.
Currently conducting a post-doctoral research focused on “tradition, reception and transformations” of the political philosophy of Aristotle in the Latin West. Some publications: "The 'Secretum secretorum' and the Idea of Political Happiness in the Latin Middle Ages". In Pseudo-Aristotelian Texts in Medieval Thought, 53-84. Brepols, 2023; "Medieval metamorphoses of Nicomachean ethics': singular case of Thomas Aquinas" (São Petersburgo, 2021); "Receção do Neoplatonismo em Pierre Hadot" (2021); "Neoplatonismo Político Medieval: Receção de Proclo" (2021); "Os nomes divinos — Boaventura e Dionísio Areopagita (a propósito de I Sent., d. 22, a. un., qs. 1-4; I 390a-399b» (2021)"; "Escatologia e Utopia ─ Mediação da justiça em Agostinho de Hipona e Thomas More" (2021); "Ius et Iustitia. The Idea of Justice in Augustine of Hippo’s De Civitate Dei (2019); “The zoon politikon (ζῷον πολιτικόν): Medieval Aristotelian interpretations” (2019); “Álvaro Gomes e o clássico problema da imortalidade da alma” (2017); “Filosofia e Ensino da Filosofia em Joaquim Cerqueira Gonçalves”, (2016); 'Societas' e 'Communitas'. Guilherme de Moerbeke na encruzilhada do macromodelo político moderno (2015).
Phone: +351964898312
Address: Center of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon
Alameda da Universidade
1600-214 Lisboa
Portugal
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Papers by António Rocha Martins
In the present study, there are three moments of reflection:
1. the relationship of mutual determination between philosophy and philosophical discourse.
2. Neoplatonism as an articulation and proclamation of the “age of the text”, (exegesis), being formed according to a “textual” teaching method.
3. The fundamental concepts of Neoplatonism, which emphasizes and notes the Porphyry perspective between being as «infinitive» and being as «participle», becoming a historical moment that clearly operates the distinction between being and entity, it is, being as “subject first” and being “without subject”.
Keywords: Exegesis; philosophical discourse; philosophy; Hadot; Neoplatonism
Specifically, it examines the way in which Proclus is used by the ecclesiological-political discourse of the last third of the 13th century, seeking to find in him the foundation and legitimacy for a form of government (monarchical-absolutist).
Keywords: Hierocracy; Emperor; Neoplatonism, power; Proclus.
In the present article I shall begin by briefly outlining the fundamental points of Augustine’s political thought. This first section will be followed by a summary of the core aspects of the Augustinian idea of justice (section 2.1), whose grounding in normative reason will be identified in his magnum opus et arduum – as himself described the De Civitate Dei –, and clarified accordingly (section 2.2). My concluding remarks will focus on Augustine’s motives for his treatment of this subject and on its relevance to the philosophical and political discussions of our time.
Key words: Aristotle, Albert the Great, dominium, civilitas, Giles of Rome, political, power, societas, societas civilis, regnum, zoon politikon.
It aims at being a reconciliation of two extremes: the being is neither pure unity nor pure dispersion. The transcendental perspective, (analogia entis) represents the conciliation between uniqueness and ambiguity but it keeps maintains a precarious position of the “analogic unit” among multiple meanings of the being, diverting the speculative from the poetic discourse, which also feeds analogy.
The reason constantly requires radicality; what is at stake is the possibility of talking rationally about God.
This study has three reflective points:
1º The logic and symbolic of analogy and the analogy of the being.
2º The analogy as a figure of intersection between pluralities of discourse (metaphoric analogy)
3º Saint Bonaventure as a privileged interpreter of a universal perspective, to state the existence of a “similitude alterius” (expressionism).
And this paper is concluded with the positive implications of the Bonaventurian notion of analogy.
In the present study, there are three moments of reflection:
1. the relationship of mutual determination between philosophy and philosophical discourse.
2. Neoplatonism as an articulation and proclamation of the “age of the text”, (exegesis), being formed according to a “textual” teaching method.
3. The fundamental concepts of Neoplatonism, which emphasizes and notes the Porphyry perspective between being as «infinitive» and being as «participle», becoming a historical moment that clearly operates the distinction between being and entity, it is, being as “subject first” and being “without subject”.
Keywords: Exegesis; philosophical discourse; philosophy; Hadot; Neoplatonism
Specifically, it examines the way in which Proclus is used by the ecclesiological-political discourse of the last third of the 13th century, seeking to find in him the foundation and legitimacy for a form of government (monarchical-absolutist).
Keywords: Hierocracy; Emperor; Neoplatonism, power; Proclus.
In the present article I shall begin by briefly outlining the fundamental points of Augustine’s political thought. This first section will be followed by a summary of the core aspects of the Augustinian idea of justice (section 2.1), whose grounding in normative reason will be identified in his magnum opus et arduum – as himself described the De Civitate Dei –, and clarified accordingly (section 2.2). My concluding remarks will focus on Augustine’s motives for his treatment of this subject and on its relevance to the philosophical and political discussions of our time.
Key words: Aristotle, Albert the Great, dominium, civilitas, Giles of Rome, political, power, societas, societas civilis, regnum, zoon politikon.
It aims at being a reconciliation of two extremes: the being is neither pure unity nor pure dispersion. The transcendental perspective, (analogia entis) represents the conciliation between uniqueness and ambiguity but it keeps maintains a precarious position of the “analogic unit” among multiple meanings of the being, diverting the speculative from the poetic discourse, which also feeds analogy.
The reason constantly requires radicality; what is at stake is the possibility of talking rationally about God.
This study has three reflective points:
1º The logic and symbolic of analogy and the analogy of the being.
2º The analogy as a figure of intersection between pluralities of discourse (metaphoric analogy)
3º Saint Bonaventure as a privileged interpreter of a universal perspective, to state the existence of a “similitude alterius” (expressionism).
And this paper is concluded with the positive implications of the Bonaventurian notion of analogy.
This is not the case with the expression societas ciuilis, that was coined, precisely, in the reception work executed to Aristotle´s Politics. In this opus, the term that comes closer to it is politikê koinonia, often times translated as ‘comunidade política’ (‘political community’). This translation interprets the term in the sense of polis, if one is to understand it as a koinonia of politai (citizens).
In this paper, we begin by assuming the following: the term polis is used by Aristotle in two main meanings: 1) as comunidade política (political community) in the sense of community of citizens; 2) as comunidade dos residentes (community of residents) in the polis´ territory (including, therefore, the non-citizens, such as children, women, slaves and other free men). It is in this sense that we understand the aristotelic definition of man as a political animal (‘ὁ ἄνθρωπος φύσει πολιτικὸν ζῷον’), that is, reuniting (and not sundering) the biological and the political.
It means that the polis as peculiar form of society has its origin, naturaly, from the married couple through the family (‘oikos’) and through the village or any other communities. Aristotle sees the polis under the action of a multitude of purposes. The polis is telos in the most diverse forms of human association (1252b31-1253a).
The theleological determination of polis brings us to the issue of the differentiation of the politeiai and the respective constitutions. In Aristotle, such differentiation is done according to two basic criteria: the pre-political and the political.
Between the commentaries of Albertus Magnus and of Thomas Aquinas there are lines of continuity but also theoretic differences. If we take into account pars prooemialis do Commentarium in Octo Libros Politicorum Aristotelis, we notice that Albertus, referring to the IV and VI volumes of Ethics, explains the surfacing of the Politics in accordance with the divisiones of philosophia pratica (‘in seipso, in domo et in civitate’). The Politics delineates the ‘politics’, that is the most indispensable part of virtue (‘sufficientia moralis doctrina’), of moral and contemplative happiness (‘utraque felicitas, moralis scilicet et contemplativa’). Politics, therefore, coincide with the realisation of the civil community according to the order of the righteous and the just (‘communicatio civilis secundum ordinem recti e justi’). Hereafter, in the development of his commentary to the first book of Politics, Albertus Magnus stresses above all the idea of ‘community’ (communicatio). Not only is it ‘naturalissima’ (‘very natural’) but it is also the condition of the city itself (propter quod omnis civitas), one that is prior to the individual.
Our thesis is as follows: Albertus Magnus distinguishes and preserves, perhaps in a surreptitious fashion, the aristotelic political and pre-political , by stressing the value of the community as primordial element of the city, seeing that ominis communicatio instituta est ad sufficientiam viate et bonae vitae secundum justitiam ordinatae. Every community comes together and completes itself in all of the others, fulfilling itself successfully in the political or civil community, where every community belongs to (‘quaecumque communicatio quae colligit omnes alias et complecitur, illa sufficientissima et perfectissima est: politica communicatio, sive civilis, colligit omnes alias: ergo sufficientissima et perfectissima est’). Thomas Aquinas, in turn, seems to stress above all the ‘civile’ dimension of man; i.e., by considering man as animal naturaliter civile (‘Et cum civitas non sit nisi congregatio hominum, sequitur, quod homo sit animal naturaliter civile’ (Sententia libri Politicorum, I, 26), stating from there the ‘naturalitate civitatis’ (Ibid.).
In summary, we reason that Thomas Aquinas considers citizens as a primordial element of the city, guiding itself, to the social characterisation of man. On the other hand, Albertus Magnus benefits the community, whose diversity instills a specific identity to the city. We can affirm that his commentaries offer a complementary vision of the aristotelic Politics, taking the debate both to the sphere of the constitution and to the nature of the citizen.
The aim of my presentation, is to recall the originality and novelty of the moral philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. In fact, many scholars of moral philosophy of Aquinas, although consider that ex professo is only in recent writings (Summa Theologiae and his commentary on the X Libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum), that appears a “full body of morality”, do not call into relief enough, the novelty of these later writings, especially the Summa, compared to previous writings. It is true that since the beginning of his intellectual career (i.e., with little more than twenty years), he knew the background text, because he was chosen to collect in writing the course that in Cologne (1248-52) Albertus Magnus gave about the Latin translation of 1246-47 (lincolnensis versio), showing thus, his innovative character. But, together with the importance, attractiveness and novelty of moral text of the Stagirite, Aquinas should have also given account of the problems that such a text could give rise to use it in Theology, problems, openly face in the writting of II Pars of Summa (Paris, 1269-1272). Until then, even the three largest works, Scripturum super Sententiis (Paris, 1253-1255), Quaestiones disputatae De Veritate (Paris, 1256-1259) and Summa Contra Gentiles (Orvieto, 1261-1264), drawing here and there ethical issues do not represent profound novelty compared to traditional Augustinian ethics. In this, the view is of the divine law that guides the action of consciousness that apply the law to particular cases and virtues that facilitate the proper law enforcement − all in order to obtain the Augustinian vita beata. That is, the view is not yet as clearly as it will be later in II Pars, or an ethics in first person, i.e., an ethic of moral subject as author of his own acts, mastering, for the same reason, the perspective of divine wisdom lawmaker. Thomistic ethics, inspired by the Aristotelian ethics is a philosophical-theological analysis of the praxis rational and free human. We will see the specific beatitude or happiness case, fundamental notion of ethics according to Thomas’s understanding of the Ethics. Thomas Aquinas distinguish between imperfecta and perfecta beatitudo. While the first corresponds to the Aristotelian notion of “finis quo” (end by which, i.e., actio humana), the second corresponds to the “finis cuius” (end in itself/final end). The finis ultimus obiectivus is God, while the finis ultimus subiectivus is the happiness. And this fundamental question of all ethics clearly emerge as the contact points and distancing from the Nicomachean Ethics. The second part of the Summa Theologiae introduces, as part integral and articulated, an consideratio moralis, an operative scientia, whose subject (subiectum) are human acts. The object continues being God, but as the beginning and end of human acts. This research, however, takes place within an ethical (moral constitution of a science). Anthropology Ethics of Thomas Aquinas is thus a theology which never becomes an anthropology. Therefore, we can say that Aristotle’s Ethics, such as interpreted by Aquinas, depends on the belief in God, and also excludes any reference to Revelation.
In summary we want to highlight two points interrelated: 1. the novelty of Pars II compared to the first works; and 2. a change of course in the last Thomistic ethics against the traditional Augustinian framework − according to the Thomistic receipt of the Nicomachean Ethics.