Intellect, education and teacher education in the Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas

Abstract

This paper is about the relation between intellect and education in the Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas. The main objective is to analyze how the Dominican theologian links the discussion about the intellect and teacher education in the context of Western Christianity of the thirteenth century. The source chosen for this study is Question 79 of the First Part of Summa Theologica, written between 1260 and 1274, when intellectuals discussed the problem of intellect, especially the Averroists and Mendicants masters in the university context. It was found that this debate was linked to the different projects of civilization that circulated in the Western world in the second half of the thirteenth century. A careful analysis of the Thomasian works does not disregard the social, cultural and political environment in which they are inserted.