Ramos, Alice. Dynamic Transcendentals: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty from a Thomistic Perspective. Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012.
Dynamic Transcendentals: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty from a Thomistic Perspective by Alice Ramos is a collection of essays that analyze the connection between Thomas Aquinas and truth, goodness, and beauty. The essays are quite wide-ranging showing the different directions this research takes. She became interested in the transcendentals when she was doing graduate studies in Philosophy in Spain. The past several years her work on the transcendentals have appeared in different journals and as book chapters. Some of the essays in this book has been previously published in various journals. The discussion of beauty and how it relates to the other transcendentals is insightful. Her analysis of The Picture of Dorian Gray is excellent. She did not mean this book to be a systematic presentation of the topic. It is more like she is exploring these topics with us. She emphasizes an anthropological perspective and a practical understanding of the topic. She discusses a wide-range of metaphysical, aesthetic, and anthropological topics.
The book includes three parts: part 1, "Truth, Measure, and Virtue;" part 2, "Beauty, Order, and Teleology;" PART 3, "Goodness and Beauty: human Reason and the True Good." Chapter one shows a link between the truth of creation and a desire for God. She connects Aquinas' desire for God with Aristotle's metaphysics. She believes that because of creation there is a natural desire for God. In chapter two she analyses Thomas' teaching on measure. She believes it is an important part of his metaphysics. This teaching of measure connects virtue with the intellect. Chapter three discusses "the affections and the life of the mind." She addresses challenges "posed by contemporary culture to an understanding of the life of the mind in terms of the pursuit and love of truth" (47). Chapter four begins part 2. It covers beauty and the perfections of being. She discusses the order of the creation, how the universe is directed to an end, and providence and human freedom. The next chapter covers providence and evil. Chapter six discusses shame and vulnerability in the Christian life. Chapter seven discusses the connection between beauty and the human good. The next chapter discusses signs and God in the world. She states that humans are signs of God in this world.
Chapter nine begins the last part. It connects beauty with the good and explains how nonvirtuous people can see "the beauty of a good act." She believes that the "moral and the aesthetic orders are closely related" whoch causes how the unvirtuous can see beauty.Chapter ten covers "moral beauty and affective knowledge." She disagrees with the modern disconnection of beauty from ethics or morality. The last chapter covers art, beauty, and the human life. She disagrees with the relativizing of truth, beauty, and goodness. She believes beauty can connect us to truth and goodness.
The author does a good job in allowing us to explore the connections between truth, beauty, and goodness in Thomistic thought.
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