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Two Pedagogies for Happiness: Healing Goals and Healing Methods in the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas and The Śrī Bhāṣya of Rāmānuja

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 April 2010

Martin Ganeri
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Extract

The scholastic mode of intellectual enquiry has been looked down upon in Western philosophical circles over the last few centuries, not least because of the central role of authorities shaping the reasoning that takes place and because of the fine distinctions and disputational mode of discourse it employs. The scholastic approach is, however, a prime example of philosophy as therapeia, of intellectual inquiry and reflection concerned with the healing transformation of human life, with what kind of knowledge and behaviour brings about human happiness. The scholastic approach is motivated and determined by consideration of what the final human goal might be and what are the means to achieve it. Authorities are important because they tell us about the goal and means. Distinctions and disputation are important because they help us learn in a way that transforms our minds and actions.

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Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 66 , July 2010 , pp. 51 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2010

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References

1 Cabezón, José Ignacio, Scholasticism: Cross-cultural and Comparative Perspectives, (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

2 At the end of the book, he summarises these as follows: ‘(1) a strong sense of tradition, (2) a concern with language (with scripture, and with language generally as a medium of expression), (3) proliferativity, by which I mean the tendency to include rather than exclude (texts, categories, lists, etc.), (4) completeness (the tendency of the tradition to conceive of itself as overlooking nothing that is religiously essential), (5) the belief that the universe is epistemologically accessible, (6) a commitment to systematicity, which is the attempt at recapitulating in the written word the basic orderliness found in the world, (7) rationalism, a commitment to reasoned argument and the avoidance of contradiction, (8) self-reflexivity, the tendency to objectify and then subject to critical scrutiny first-order practices such as exegesis and argumentation, yielding second-order forms of discourse such as hermeneutics and logic, respectively’ (p. 237).

3 Cabezón, Scholasticism: Cross-cultural and Comparative Perspectives, p. 6.

4 Two recent studies, to which this chapter will make frequent reference, are: on Aquinas by Jordan, Mark, Rewritten Theology: Aquinas after His Readers (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007)Google Scholar, and on the Vedānta by Clooney, Francis, Theology After Vedānta (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

5 Mark Jordan, Rewritten Theology, p. 31.

6 Vivian Boland, O. P., ‘The Healing Work of Teaching: Thomas Aquinas and Education,’ in Gabrielle Kelly, O. P. and Kevin Saunders, O. P. eds Towards the Intelligent Use of Liberty: Dominican Approaches in Education (Adelaide: ATF Press, 2007), pp. 32–41Google Scholar.

7 Vivian Boland, O. P., St. Thomas Aquinas (London: Continuum, 2007), p. 48Google Scholar.

8 For instance Summa Theologiae 1.117, 1.

9 On Aquinas on Christ's teaching: ST 3.42, 1–4. For an extended discussion of Christ as the most excellent of teachers see Boland, St. Thomas Aquinas, pp. 97–103.

10 ST 1.1

11 ST 1.1.1

12 As Victor White O. P. puts it: ‘“Salus” is not just “salvation” in the sense of pie-in-the-sky: it must be given its full significance of “health,” “weal”, “well-being,” “total integration”;’ Holy Teaching: The Idea of Theology According to St Thomas Aquinas (London: Blackfriars Publications, 1958), p. 10.

13 ST 1.12,1

14 ST 1.117, 1 ad 1.

15 ST Prologue.

16 Cabezón, Scholasticism: Cross-cultural and Comparative Perspectives, p. 6.

17 Leonard Boyle, O. P., The Setting of the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas (Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies: Toronto: 1982)Google Scholar.

18 Mark Jordan, Rewritten Theology, especially Chapter 6, ‘The Summa of Theology as Moral Formation.’

19 Jordan, Rewritten Theology, p. 7.

20 Jordan, Rewritten Theology, p. 120.

21 Jordan, Rewritten Theology, p.139.

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23 Kerr, After Aquinas, p. 130.

24 Kerr, After Aquinas, p. 131.

25 An important example of this approach is to be found in the work of Clooney, Francis, such as Theology After Vedānta (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1993)Google Scholar; see also his ‘Binding the text: Vedānta as Philosophy and Commentary’ in Texts in Context: Traditional Hermeneutics in South Asia (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 47-68.

26 Ś.Bh.1.1.1, translated from Śrī Bhāṣyam Bhagavad-Rāmānuja-viracitam Śārīrakamīmāṃsābhāṣyam, the critical edition (The Academy of Sanskrit Research, Melkoṭe) Vol. 1 (1985), pp. 1-2.

27 Ś.Bh. 1.1.3.

28 Ś.Bh.1.1.1 (Melkoṭe) vol. 1, p. 17.

29 Srinivasa Chari, S. M., Vaiṣṇaivism: its Philosophy, Theology and Religious Discipline (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1994), pp. 99–120Google Scholar.

30 Ś. Bh. 1.1.1 (Melkoṭe) vol.1, pp. 20-24; for an account of this see Lester, Robert, Rāmānuja on the Yoga (Madras: Adyar Library, 1976)Google Scholar.

31 Theology After Vedānta, p. 55.

32 Theology After Vedānta, p. 37.

33 Clooney, Theology After Vedānta, ‘Binding the text’, ‘Scholasticisms in Encounter’; e.g. Theology After Vedānta, pp. 34-35.

34 Clooney Theology After Vedānta, p. 64.

35 Ś.Bh. 3.1.1, (Melkoṭe) vol. IV, p. 2.

36 Especially, Ś.Bh.1.4.23-29, 2.1.4-12.

37 Francis X. Clooney S. J., ‘Scholasticisms in Encounter: Working through a Hindu Example,’ in Cabezón, Scholasticism: Cross-cultural and Comparative Perspectives, pp. 177-200.

38 Clooney, ‘Scholasticisms in Encounter,’ p. 187.

39 Ś.Bh. 1.1.1 (Melkoṭe), vol. 1, p. 134.

40 Stephen Clark, this volume, touches on related themes in his discussion of the original meaning of ‘therapeia’ as loving and serving the lord.

41 Paul Griffiths, ‘Scholasticism: The Possible Recovery of an Intellectual Practice,’ in Cabezón, Scholasticism: Cross-cultural and Comparative Perspectives, pp. 201-235.