21ASCETICISMancient philosophers of European philo-
sophy and theology until the eighteenth
century and perhaps even to the twenti-
eth century. Aristotle was Plato’s student
for nearly 20 years. Aristotle had a deep
background in medicine and biology, and
he devoted much of his work to a philoso-
phy of the natural world. His affirmation
of God as pure thought and creator of a
world without beginning had a major
impact on subsequent cosmology. His
understanding of human nature may
prohibit individual life after death,
though commentators disagree. His
account of reason, passion, desire, logic,
art, and wisdom were of enormous
importance to late medieval thinkers
and to the twentieth-century revival of
Thomism and virtue theory. Bertrand
Russell, in History of Western Philosophy
(1945), provocatively described Aristo-
telianism as Platonism purified by com-
mon sense. The works attributed to
Aristotle include Categories, On Interpre-
tation, the Prior and Posterior Analytics,
Topics, On Sophistical Refutations, Physics,
On the Heavens, On Generation and Cor-
ruption, Meteorology, History of Animals,
On the Parts of Animals, On the Move-
ment of Animals, On the Soul, Parva
Naturalia, The Metaphysics, Nicomachean
Ethics, Magna Moralia, Eudemian Ethics,
Politics, Constitution of Athens, Rhetoric,
and Poetics. In modern philosophy of
religion Aristotle’s work on the virtues,
human nature, and his realism have had
a salient role. See also PHILOSOPHER,
THE.
ARNAULD, ANTOINE (1612–1694).
A French philosophical theologian who
(like Pascal) defended Jansenism. He was
also an important critic of Descartes.
He is the author of The Art of Thinking
(with Pierre Nicole), which is also known
as Port Royal Logic (1662), and Concern-
ing True and False Ideas (1683).ASCETICAL THEOLOGY. Reflection
on purgation (the via purgativa) through
a discipline of sensations, desire, and
appetites. The Desert Fathers such as
St. Anthony set an important example of
a holy ascetic life which greatly influ-
enced Augustine and was one of the
reasons for his inquiry into the possible
truth of Christian teaching. Ascetical
theology was of prime importance in
early Christian monasteries, especially for
the Desert Fathers.ASCETICISM. The practice of self-
discipline, often through self-denial or
the mastering of desires (fasting involves
control over the desire for food, a vigil
involves control over the urge to sleep)
for a religious end such as repentance,
worship, the cultivation of virtue, or union
or communion with God. Asceticism is
widespread among religious traditions,
theistic and non-theistic. Buddhist ascetic
practices are closely linked with the
purging of desire and seeing through the
illusory nature of ourselves as substantial
individual beings.