Core profile
Treats intelligible forms, participation, and ordered ascent toward the good as central philosophical tasks.
Concepts to watch
Formsparticipationthe Good
Thinker profile
Plato
Treats intelligible forms, participation, and ordered ascent toward the good as central philosophical tasks.
Dates
427-347 BC
Tradition
Classical Greek
How to study this thinker
- 1Start with the basic problem this thinker is trying to solve.
- 2Name the concepts Aquinas receives, corrects, or resists.
- 3Return to Aquinas and ask how the borrowed insight is reordered.
Aquinas connection
Influence on Aquinas
Aquinas receives Platonist themes through Augustine, Dionysius, and Boethius, especially participation and exemplar causality.
Aquinas responds
He keeps participation but refuses to separate forms from things as if sensible substances were shadows of another world.