聖トマス・アクイナスの良心論
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概要
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The Japanese word "ryosliin", meaning conscience is not a very precise word for it has many meanings. There are two major reasons for this ambiguity. The first reason is that it is a translation of "conscience" which has various and ambiguous meanings in its Western European usage. A second reason is the fact that the Japanese word for conscience is derived from the thought of the Chinese sage Mencius, namely the belief in the innate goodness of man. The author of this essay does not aim at unifying the varied meanings of the word conscience, for that would be a senseless and impossible task. However, the author wishes to understand how the great Middle-Age philosopher and theologian St. Thomas chose to understand the rather ambiguous term "conscience". St. Thomas discusses his systematic theory of conscience in works such as the Summa Theologica (1. q. 79, a. 13), De Veritate (q. 17), and Commentum in Libros II Sententiarum (d. 24, q. 2, a. 4, d. 39, q. 3, a. 1, 2, 3.). While referring to all the pertinent Thomistic texts, the author focuses mainly on the Summa text with its clear and concise exposition in order to discuss the Thomistic theory of conscience. St. Thomas' understanding of conscience as an "act" is perhaps the most characteristic point of his doctrine concerning conscience. To explain why Thomas understands conscience as "act" the author considers the logical basis of this concept from both the perspective of a literal explanation of the word conscience and from the perspective of the things attributed to conscience, taking a hint from Thomas'own words, "This is evident both from the very name and from those things which in the common way of speaking are attributed to conscience."
- 長崎純心大学・長崎純心大学短期大学部の論文
- 1995-03-10