Published : 2025-09-30

Stefan Swieżawski’s Interpretation of Thomas Aquinas’s Conception of the Individuation of the Human Soul in the Light of Selected Thomistic Positions

Abstract

In this article I present the main theses of Stefan Swieżawski’s treatise The Central Issue of the Thomistic Conception of the Soul (Commensuratio animae ad hoc corpus). I emphasize the differences between Swieżawski’s interpretation and the ways of reading Aquinas’s conception in contemporary Thomism, focusing on the following issues: the problem of individuation in general, the problem of individuation of the human soul, the problems related to the concept of the body and the theory of animation. I point out that the concept of commensuratio provided a good justification for the main theses of Christian anthropology such as the individual immortality of the soul, the perspective of bodily resurrection or the vision of man as a psychophysical unity (anti-Platonism). I show that the concept of embryogenesis in Aquinas’ version, which Swieżawski endorsed, is untenable today due to the current state of biological knowledge, as well as metaphysical difficulties. In the discussion of the principle of individuation, I propose to treat commensuratio animae ad hoc corpus as the principle of the completeness of the individual, and not of individuality itself.

Keywords:

Aquinas, Thomism, individuation, human soul, hylomorphism



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Roczniki Filozoficzne · ISSN 0035-7685 | eISSN 2450-002X
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