It is common to refer to an author's work by the name of the author.
"in Aristotle" is acceptable in place of "in Aristotle's work" in regular English. GMAT might be more particular and actually give you "in Aristotle's work" but we can't be sure.

You should get a clue from the fact that 4 of the 5 options use "in Aristotle" and hence it probably isn't a decision point. The 5th option is incorrect and hence, you should not worry about this.
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Hello guerrero25, mention source of this problem or tag this problem under available tags.
Thanks.

I solved this one incorrectly. I was under impression Aquinas was a female so pronoun he must refer back to Aristotle.

I agree with your OA-D. One thing I learned Aquinas was male .



For Aquinas, Aristotle posited a relation of the physical to the metaphysical that, Aquinas felt, had a deep resonance with Christian theology, and he made Aristotle's philosophy the basis of his Summa Theologica.

A)For Aquinas, Aristotle posited a relation of the physical to the metaphysical that, Aquinas felt, had a deep resonance with Christian theology -- Meaning wise wrong.

B)To Aquinas, the relation of the physical to the metaphysical in Aristotle had a deep resonance with Christian theology -- Meaning wise wrong.

C)To Aquinas, the relation of the physical to the metaphysical in Aristotle, deeply resonating with Christian theology -- completely wrong : fragment

D and E are both grammatically correct, but D is concise. Apply V-A-N rule, explained in mgmat guide.
D) Aquinas felt that the relation of the physical to the metaphysical in Aristotle deeply resonated with Christian theology
E) Aquinas felt that the relation of the physical to the metaphysical in Aristotle had a deep resonance with Christian theology

Hi Krishna, I didnot get why E is wrong. Could you please explain a bit. Can GMAT give SCs on such subtle differences? Thank you.

Just as a clarification, "resonated with" is active while E has a passive voice ("deep resonance"). GMAT prefers active voices whenever possible.

I am I the only one who thinks that If one option uses a verb form and other uses a noun form of a word. Then most of the times ( 90%) The Option using verb form is right.

Here its D.
I was struck between D and E . I chose D because of my instincts, as i could'nt find any errors in E daagh Sir, GMATNinja can you please help me out here.

Official Explanation Magoosh:

A question about the use of philosophy of Aristotle (384-322 BCE) in the writings of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Split #1: the subject of the first half. The second half of the sentence, after the underlined section, begins with the pronoun "he." What is the antecedent of this pronoun? The antecedent should be Aquinas, but in order to make that clear grammatically, Aquinas should be the subject of the sentence. Moreover, Aquinas is the subject, the star, of the second half, so if he were also the subject of the first half, that would give the entire sentence rhetorical unity. For a couple reasons, it's important to have Aquinas as the subject of the underlined half of the sentence. Only choices (D) & (E) do this.

Split #2: noun/verb/adjective. Choices (A) & (B) & (E)have "had a deep resonance with", a noun formulation. Choice(C) has the participle "resonating," that the first half, which should be a full [noun] + [verb] clause, is simply a noun + a noun modifier, so this is grammatically incorrect. Only choice (D) has the verb construction, "deeply resonates with," which is far more active, direct, and powerful. This is by no means a glaring error, but often the GMAT will include it in an answer choice that is almost right. In this case, that “almost correct answer” is (E), which also includes the unnecessary “that,” which does not have a clear antecedent. It would be odd to say, “had a deep resonance with the <relation> of Christian theology."

FAQ: The sentence is not referring to Aristotle's physical body, so how can the phrase "in Aristotle" be correct?

The phrase "in Aristotle" is an idiomatic expression that is often used in academic writing. We can say "in Aristotle" to mean "in Aristotle's works" or "in Aristotle's philosophy." It does not mean "inside Aristotle's body."

As another example, we could say something like "common themes in Shakespeare," which would refer to common themes in Shakespeare's works and not in his physical body. Similarly, if we talked about "the use of rhythm in Beethoven," we would mean in Beethoven's music, not in his physical person.
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