Justus Azzopardi was a minor Maltese philosopher. His area of specialisation in philosophy was chiefly metaphysics

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...

. No portrait of him is known to exist as yet.

Life

Little is known of Azzopardi’s personal life. He was surely a diocesan priest, a professor of philosophy, and an adherent to Aristotelico-Thomistic Scholasticism

Scholasticism

Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...

.

Work

Just one work is known to have originated from the hand of Azzopardi: Neo-Veteris Philosophiæ Summa (A Compilation of Old and New Philosophy). It is work composed in 1762, when its author was still in his youth. Unfortunately, no other works of Azzopardi are known to exist so far.

The Neo-Veteris was published in Malta at the printing press of the Grand Masters of the Knights Hospitallers. It is made up of 48 pages, and divided into eight main parts. Azzopardi states that he understood the study under the guidance of Saviour Lawrence Bonnici, who was presumably his philosophy teacher.

The eight main parts of the work successively deal with (1) philosophy in general, (2) logic, (3), physics, (4) Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

’s On the Heavens and the Earth, (5) Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

’s On Birth and Death, (6) Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

’s On the Soul, (7) ontology

Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...

, and (8) pneumatology

Pneumatology

Pneumatology is the study of spiritual beings and phenomena, especially the interactions between humans and God.Pneuma is Greek for "breath", which metaphorically describes a non-material being or influence....

. The last two parts are metaphysical studies. The work concludes with an addendum concerning ethics

Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

.

Sources

• Mark Montebello, Il-Ktieb tal-Filosofija f’Malta (A Source Book of Philosophy in Malta), PIN Publications, Malta, 2001.