Thesis advisor: Peter Kreeft / Thomas Aquinas is generally viewed as the chief proponent of the theory of delayed animation, the view that the human embryo does not at first have the rational soul proper to human beings. Thomas follows Aristotle's embryology, in which an embryo is animated by a succession of souls. The first is a nutritive soul, having the powers of growth, nutrition, and generation. The second is a sensitive soul, having the additional powers of locomotion and sensing. The third and final soul is the human, or rational soul, which virtually includes the nutritive and sensitive souls. Because Thomas holds that there is only one substantial form of a composite, none of these forms overlap to provide continuity. It is therefore exceedingly difficult to speak of the embryo as one enduring subject through the succession of souls. Moreover, because of the way that the nutritive soul is associated with plants, and the sensitive soul is associated with animals, interpreters generally hold that for Thomas the embryo is first a plant, then an animal, and with the advent of the rational soul, finally a human being. Those who write about the ontological status of the embryo assume that delayed animation necessarily entails delayed hominization, that is, that the embryo only becomes human at a later stage of its development, when it receives the rational soul. Those who hold a delayed animation view of the embryo often invoke Thomas' schedule of successive souls in the embryo as a model for viewing it as not yet human in early stages of development, linking hominization to the ability to perform intellectual operations. That Thomas specifies that a body must be sufficiently organized before the advent of the rational soul seems to them to solidify their view of the embryo as not sufficiently organized to be truly human. Additionally, even outside of an explicitly Thomist framework, Thomist metaphysical principles are often invoked in arguments that center on twinning and totipotency of blastomeres in the early embryo, and whether that early embryo is one individual if it is potentially many. Those who hold immediate animation views (i.e., the embryo receives the rational soul at once, with no mediate states) often adopt the strategy of importing modern data on the internal organization and self-directed development of the embryo, and argue that if only Thomas had known that the zygote was not unformed and undifferentiated, that it has within itself all it needs to become a mature adult human, he would have held that the embryo is immediately suited to receive the rational soul, and thus is human from conception. In this way they attempt to employ a change in scientific data to negate the need for a succession of forms in the embryo. The author identifies the being of the human embryo as a prior metaphysical problem within Thomas' work, and advances a different interpretation of his views: that the embryo, even before the advent of the rational soul, is human. To establish this claim, she traces the problems which emerge in the current debate about when the embryo becomes human, and argues that contrary to expectation, it is not necessary to equate immediate rational animation with immediate hominization, demonstrating that all other approaches yield results entirely untenable for Thomas. A survey of texts reveals that Thomas did in fact view the embryo as human before the rational soul, though he does not methodically work out the implications of that view in a number of areas. Moreover, a distinction based on a passage in Aristotle's Generation of Animals with regard to an additional meaning of generation may resolve the ambivalence in Thomas' account of the embryo as passive under the formative power of the father's semen. Finally, a third meaning of generation is offered to show that Thomas recognized and wished to resolve the difficulty of explaining the continuity and identify of the embryo in the succession of souls. What results is an immediate hominization view of the embryo that, because it accommodates Thomas' succession of souls and does not depend upon importing modern biological data on the embryo, is consistent with Thomas' account, and is thoroughly cognizant of the way Thomas viewed human nature and the final end of human being. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T19:20:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mauricio Goncalves Righi.pdf: 3781929 bytes, checksum: 451afe27e9d05afa5fa3a38104b62e48 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-02-06 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The great expansion of knowledge in Archaeology of Pre-History has challenged, in the past decades, well established theories about cultural formation. Recent archaeological discoveries are demanding new theoretical approaches for a better understanding of the archaic. Therefore, this work, in religious studies and in philosophy of history, integrates an overarching discussion on cultural and religious formation in archaic contexts. In the light of recent discoveries, the so-called religious symbolisms have been placed in a prominent position. It has now become impossible to ignore the central role of the religious symbolisms in the making of the archaic institutions. A deep understanding of the religious mindset which generated the most significant mechanisms and structures of the pre-historic past is key to enlighten the generative processes of culture and hominization. The theory of mimetic desire meets the new archaeological data in order to suggest more accurate formulations on the institutional developments which went through the pre-historical times, creating the structures and practices responsible for the emergence of urban life in highly developed civilizational environments. These processes highlight the sacred as a fundamental historical and anthropological matrix. Therefore, the movements and transformations of the sacred in the interior of the archaic institutions was a key factor for the creation of life modalities and institutions increasingly complex / O avanço da arqueologia e dos conhecimentos em pré-história nas últimas décadas colocou em xeque teorias e formulações que se propunham a elucidar a chamadas estruturas formadoras. Recentes descobertas arqueológicas passaram a exigir novos investimentos teóricos na formulação de modelos explicativos. Portanto, este é um estudo em ciência da religião e em filosofia da história inserido no debate sobre formação cultural e religiosa em contextos arcaicos. No quadro das mais recentes investigações, as denominadas simbologias religiosas assumem uma posição de destaque. Não há mais como ignorar o papel central dos simbolismos e das dinâmicas religiosas na formação das instituições arcaicas. Um profundo entendimento sobre o psiquismo religioso que gerou, no seio de suas dinâmicas, os mecanismos e as estruturas mais significativos dos universos arcaicos é fundamental para uma precisa caracterização dos processos formadores da cultura e do próprio processo de hominização. A teoria do desejo mimético vem ao encontro dos novos dados para formulações mais adequadas sobre os processos de desenvolvimento institucional que atravessaram a pré-história e criaram as estruturas responsáveis pelo aparecimento da vida urbana em contextos civilizacionais. Esses processos apontam para o sagrado como matriz histórica e antropológica. A atuação do sagrado no seio das instituições arcaicas foi, portanto, largamente responsável pela geração de modos de vida crescentemente complexos