Thomas was emphatically Aristotelian, he adopted Aristotle's analysis of physical objects, his view of place, time and motion, his proof of the prime mover, his cosmology, his account of sense perception and intellectual knowledge, and even parts of his moral philosophy.
Aristotelizem je igral pomembno vlogo tudi v islamskem svetu: Aristotelova dela so bila prevedena v arabščino in zgodnja islamska filozofija ima močan aristotelistični pečat (pomembnejši predstavniki so bili Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes).