He was a rationalist and not an empiricist. Those are terms that don't strictly apply, because they were invented to describe philosophers from the modern era, but the general idea fits Aquinas. read more
When I began doctoral studies in Aquinas, what I was especially interested in was Aristotle’s theory of “physis” or “nature”, and how Aquinas might have made use of it. Physis, in Aristotle, is his solution to the ancient question of how something might “move” (read change) without ceasing to be what it is. read more