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The purpose of this book is to highlight the dynamic structure of the anthropology of Thomas Aquinas by reconstructing his ethics and ontology systematically from the aspect of the ontology of human persons.

One of the most outstanding aspects of the anthropology of Aquinas is that the close relationship between ethics and ontology is established there.
 
According to Aquinas, each being has two causes to act and two types of actions. One of these is the action resulting from defect and the other is the action resulting from affluence. The former is the action to supplement its own imperfection and to approach a more perfect state as far as possible and the latter is the action to communicate its own perfection and affluence to other beings. Every being can act in so far as it has form and actuality and it needs to act in so far as it lacks form and actuality.
 
We can apply this principle to human beings in the following manner. Man is a finite created substance and has much defect and imperfection. So, at first man enters into the relationships with others so as to be supplemented by them and by communities in what he cannot achieve by himself. This is clear when we observe infants and children. But this is only one aspect. Man can also enter into relationships with others to communicate the affluence of his existence to others.
 
Human beings are not self-contained. They can reconstruct themselves by transcending their existing state and forming new relationships with other persons and other beings. By forming such relationships, men do not lose their independence. Rather, they can maintain and develop it in a new manner in the midst of such relationships. The independent aspect of human persons not only makes it possible that they form multilayered relationships with other beings, but is also nurtured by such affluent relationships with them. Thus, the independent aspect of human persons and the relational aspect of them are intertwined in an exquisite manner of interdependence.
 
In contrast to God the Creator, who has the entire plenitude of its being eternally in a simple manner, other beings have the fullness of being (plenitudo essendi) appropriate to them in some complex manner. Thus, it happens that human beings have being in some respect, and yet lack in the fullness of being proper to them in other respects. Hence, they strive to become happy by acquiring the fullness of being appropriate to them as far as possible. This is the fundamental inclination which every human person has from the very beginning of its existence.
 
The process of achieving the fullness of being by human persons has a cosmological expanse which spreads from the individual dimension, via the social dimension, to the theological dimension. Aquinas apprehends such dynamic structure of human nature neither in an anthropocentric manner nor theocentric manner. He develops it in an original manner which 1 can be called as “being-centric”.
 
Based on such fundamental ontological insight, the basic constituents of Thomistic anthropology (actions, cognition, love, virtues, law etc.) are analyzed from the aspect of the movement of the realization of the fullness of being. Thus, the focus of this book is the intersection between the practical and theoretical problems, namely, the interrelation between ethics and ontology. This book clarifies how the ontological consideration develops into ethical insights and how the ethical consideration acquires its foundation by appealing to ontological insights. Such a circular structure of the interrelationship between ethics and ontology is philosophically elucidated in this book.
 

(Written by YAMAMOTO Yoshihisa, Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences / 2024)