Thomism
Thomism refers to the philosophical school that followed in the legacy Thomas Aquinas and lead to the canonization of the original dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. The word comes from the name of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose summary work Summa Theologica was arguably the Catholic church's most important book after the bible for a long time.
Saint Thomas was important in shifting the influence of Medieval Philosophy (also known as Scholasticism) away from Plato and towards Aristotle. In this he was influenced by contemporary Arabic philosophy, especially the work of Averroes. The ensuing school of thought popularized by the name of Thomism, which through its influence on Catholicism and the ethics of the Catholic school is by any standards one of the most influential philosophies of all time, counting by the number of people living by the teachings alone. Thomism also greatly influenced the birth of protestantism, which became greatly as a reaction to the authoritarian thomic dogma of the Catholic church.
Thomism prevailed and became the official dogma of the Catholic church, offering a coherent, logical and clear metaphysical picture of both the material and spiritual worlds. It prevailed until the discovery of Newtonian mechanics, which greatly disputed the aristotleian physics and thusly discredited much of the thomistic ontology. The ethical parts of thomism as well as a big part of its views on life, humans and theology transcended into the various schools of neothomism that are the official dogma of the Roman Catholic Church today.
