Philip H Wicksteed

Dante and Aquinas Philip H Wicksteed

Philip H. Wicksteed (1844-1927), son of a Unitarian clergyman, was educated at University College in London and Manchester New College from 1861 to 1867, when he received his master's degree, with a gold medal in classics. Besides his outstanding contributions on economics-where the most important are: An Essay of the Co-ordination of the Laws of Distribution (1894), The Common Sense of Political Economy (1910), "Scope and Method of Political Economy" (EJ, 1914), and "Review of W. S. Jevons, Essays on Economics", (1905, EJ)-Wicksteed made important works on literature, theology, and philosophy. He is specially remembered by many as a leading Dante scholar. His deep interest in Dante scholarship, an interest which produced a remarkable list of publications, built Wicksteed's reputation as one of the foremost medievalists of his time. In Dante and Aquinas, Wicksteed discusses Dante's work in the light of the accepted philosophy and theology of his time as expressed in the Thomistic philosophy of Aquinas. The author makes analytical digressions into Greek philosophy, Christian neoplatonism and later transformations of the philosophy of Aristotle.