¿El ser humano es causa sui? Aristóteles y santo Tomás

Abstract

“Liber est causa sui”, Thomas Aquinas states, following Aristotle, to clarify the outreach and limitations of man’s free will. Aquinas usually resorts to this maxim, taken from Aristotle’s first book of Metaphysics, to show that something, or someone, is free. It serves as a key premise to argument that man has freedom of choice (liberum arbitrium). The purpose of this research is to inquire on how the proposition liber est causa sui should be understood when found in the writings of Aristotle or Aquinas. Going back to this concept allows us to separate it from the Cartesian and Spinozan conceptions of the term causa sui when applied to God –and understood as a contradiction– or applied to man –and understood as selfcreation.