Several of Thomas Aquinas's proofs for the existence of God rely on the claim that causal series cannot proceed in infinitum. I argue that Aquinas has good reason to hold this claim given his conception of causation. Because he holds that effects are ontologically dependent on their causes he holds that the relevant causal series are wholly derivative: the later members of such series serve as causes only insofar as they have been caused by and are effects of earlier members. Because the intermediate causes in such series possess causal powers only by deriving them from all the preceding causes, they need a first and non-derivative cause to serve as the source of their causal powers.

Abstract:Many maintain that petitionary prayer is pointless. I argue that the theist can defend petitionary prayer by giving a general account of how divine and creaturely causation can be compatible and complementary, based on the claim that the goodness of something depends on its cause. I use Thomas Aquinas's metaphysical framework to give an account that explains why a world with creaturely causation better reflects God's goodness than a world in which God brought all things about immediately. In such a world, prayer could allow us to cause good things in a distinctive way: by asking God for them.

I offer a new interpretation of the passages where Aristotle maintains that intellectual activity employs φαντάσματα (images). In theoretical understanding of mathematical and natural beings, we usually need to consciously employ appropriate φαντάσματα in order to grasp explanatory connections. Aristotle does not, however, commit himself to thinking that images are required for exercising all theoretical understanding: understanding immaterial things, in particular, may not involve φαντάσματα. Thus the connection that Aristotle makes between images and understanding does not rule out the possibility that human intellectual activity could occur apart from the body.

I reconstruct Aristotle's reasons for thinking that the intellect cannot have a bodily organ. I present Aristotle's account of the 'aboutness' or intentionality of cognitive states, both perceptual and intellectual. On my interpretation, Aristotle's account is based around the notion of cognitive powers taking on forms in a special preservative way. Based on this account, Aristotle argues that no physical structure could enable a bodily part or combination of bodily parts to produce or determine the full range of forms that the human intellect can understand. For Aristotle, cognitive powers with bodily organs are always spatio-temporally limited, but the understanding is not. Aristotle claims that our understanding applies to all instances of the thing understood wherever and whenever they exist. On Aristotle's own account the intellect in its nature is only 'potential', it does not actually possess any form. Thus nothing prevents it from possessing all forms.

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