William E Murnion

Aquinas's Theory of Knowledge William E Murnion

A great luminary of modern Thomistic studies was Bernard J. Lonergan, S. J. (1904-1984). One of his brightest disciples was William Murnion. Murnion was powerfully drawn to Lonergan's interpretations of the thought of Thomas Aquinas and began to deeply immerse himself in the work and the evolution of the thought of both. After five years of research and writing, Murnion had to interrupt his studies due to professional and personal demands.

Several years later he successfully completed and defended a doctoral dissertation which was published only in part. This book is the complete, unrevised, original work. As Murnion observed in his preface, "only the title is modified...the betterto clarify the topic. I suppose I could have massaged the text to incorporate some of the things I have learned about Aquinas in the meantime. But just as it is, I believe it presents a clear and cogent argument for the claim I defended in it about Aquinas's explanation of the act of understanding."