Forget Aquinas

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Regarding my recent comment here on the blog about the mistake of assuming that Aquinas was the most important medieval philosopher, here is a paper by friend of the podcast John Marenbon with the provocative title "Why We Shouldn't Study Aquinas." Like me he readily admits that Aquinas is important and fascinating; it is a lament for the way that other important and fascinating medieval thinkers have been overshadowed, and a plea that research be directed in other directions for a while. My impression is that this is the way the field is trending anyway.

S Collett on 12 May 2017

The link to the paper is

The link to the paper is broken.

So, without having read it, I want to register my distaste for misleading hyperbolic ledes where the author immediately backtracks. "Why Shakespeare Is Complete Garbage" "First, let me get this out of the way: the works of William Shakespeare aren't complete garbage. What I mean to suggest is simply that for most people he's a difficult author to enjoy reading."

Peter Adamson on 12 May 2017

Actually I think the link isn

Actually I think the link isn't broken but it is on academia.edu, so perhaps you need to be signed up to that to see it.

I generally agree with your distaste but in the current instance Marenbon means the title pretty seriously, he proposes a moratorium on studying (= research on) Aquinas for the next while, so we can get a more balanced scholarly literature on medieval philosophy.

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