Aquinas on Matter and Form and the Elements: A Translation and Interpretation of the DE PRINCIPIIS NATURAE and the DE MIXTIONE

In Aquinas on Matter and Form and the Elements, Joseph Bobik proceeds, not by taking into account the works of countless scholars, but rather by trying to do some genuine, straightforward, and unencumbered philosophy, using the words of Thomas Aquinas as a point of departure. In parts one and two of this volume, he presents, translates, and offers a readily comprehensible interpretation of Aquinas's De Principiis Naturae and his De Mixtione Elementorum.  Bobik then reflects on what Aquinas says about matter and form and the elements in various contexts and throughout his many works. In part three, Bobik clarifies how, according to Aquinas, composition out of matter and form, on the one hand, and composition out of elements, on the other, relate to one another and to the physical substances in which they are found. He considers the role of the elements in relation to the creative causality of God, and in relation to the generating and sustaining causality of the heavenly bodies. Part four investigates various sources in order to see what thinkers today have to say about the elements, the hope being that today's views and those of Aquinas might shed some helpful and welcome light on one another.