Abstract

The notion of recognition, as far as the oeuvre of Thomas Aquinas is concerned, is still waiting for a detailed survey. This is the aim of the present contribution, which proposes a twofold approach. On the one hand, it tries to provide a comprehensive overview of the different ways and contexts in which Aquinas uses the vocabulary of recognition. In such a line of inquiry, some attention must be paid to Aquinas’s commentaries on the Scripture as an underrated source for genuine philosophical analysis. On the other hand, however, the study vindicates an original conception of recognition, coalescent with cognate notions like ‘reverence’, ‘testimony’, and ‘divine honor’. The crucial texts, in this case, are taken from the Summa theologiae, arguably Aquinas’s more personal work, and especially from its Second Part. On the notion of ‘reverence’, one can find some recent significant scholarly contributions. The implications for the question of recognition have nonetheless remained unexplored. At the junction of these two lines of inquiry, Aquinas’s conception should finally manifest its structure and peculiar characteristics. Capitalizing upon that, in the conclusion of the article, it will also be possible to suggest some traits of the Renaissance fortunes of the Thomistic ‘recognition’ as referred to by some Dominican theologians of the sixteenth century.