AMOR AMICITIAE E AMOR CONCUPISCENTIAE: UM ESTUDO SOBRE AS NOÇÕES DE AMOR, DESEJO E AMIZADE NA SUMA DE TEOLOGIA DE TOMÁS DE AQUINO

This paper deals with the distinction between love of friendship (or love of benevolence) and love of concupiscence in Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae. It shows the relation between similarity and difference which the notion of love has with notions that form the distinction, namely concupiscence, desire, friendship and benevolence. It demonstrates that the foundations of Aquinas' theory of love have their basis in Aristotle's thought: the theory of appetite based on physical conception of psychology, the analogy between the distinction of love and the metaphysical division of being, the ethical origins of this distinction in the triple division of the concept of friendship: useful, pleasant and virtuous. This article also studies the uses of the distinction of love as love of friendship and love of concupiscence and investigates if it is appropriate to ascribe a double conception for this distinction as some intended.