Despite the enormous influence of Michel Foucault in gender studies, social theory, and cultural studies, his work has been relatively neglected in the study of politics. Although he never published a book on the state, in the late 1970s Foucault examined the technologies of power used to regulate society and the ingenious recasting of power and agency that he saw as both consequence and condition of their operation. These twelve essays provide a critical introduction to Foucault's work on politics, exploring (...) its relevance to past and current thinking about liberal and neo-liberal forms of government. Moving away from the great texts of liberal political philosophy, this book looks closely at the technical means with which the ideals of liberal political rationalities have been put into practice in such areas as schools, welfare, and the insurance industry. This fresh approach to one of the seminal thinkers of the twentieth century is essential reading for anyone interested in social and cultural theory, sociology, and politics. (shrink)

I argue that Diego Alvarez and Thomas de Lemos through their participation in the De auxiliis controversy developed and defended Cajetan’s view of the causation of sin in such a way that they were able to defend the predetermination of the material aspect of sin while at the same time assimilating important aspects from his critics. It is important to recognize that Lemos and his associates hold both that the premotion of sin’s material aspect is not necessarily connected with (...) the Catholic faith and that it is knowable by natural reason. Even though they argued that other Molinist theses should be condemned as heretical, they held that this rejection of the Dominican thesis concerning sin is simply wrong but not heretical. First, I consider Cajetan’s position. Second, I consider the reception of this position by Medina, Zumel, and Báñez. Third, I show that Alvarez and Lemos make distinctions that allow them to incorporate the insights of both Cajetan and his critics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 119-121 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Ethics and Political Philosophy The Common Good in Late Medieval Political Thought Arthur Stephen McGrade, John Kilcullen, and Matthew Kempshall, editors. Ethics and Political Philosophy. Vol. 2 of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xii + 664. Cloth, $85.00. Paper, $29.95. M. S. Kempshall. The Common (...) Good in Late Medieval Political Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. x + 401. Cloth, $95.00. With the exception of the thought of Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus, late medieval political and ethical philosophy has been neglected. Two recent books attempt to rectify this neglect. One is the second volume of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts. A translator of this volume, Matthew Kempshall, has also recently written a thorough analysis of the common good as it is discussed in late thirteenth-century scholasticism. Many of the texts discussed in this second book are translated by Kempshall in the first book.The new volume of translations now makes it possible for the reader unfamiliar with Latin to have some exposure to the medieval reception of Aristotle's ethical and political thought. The selections are deliberately taken from lesser-known figures who are not often translated, such as Albert the Great, Godfrey of Fontaines, and Augustine of Ancona. The selections are carefully chosen to represent a wide variety of literary genres. For example, the selection from Albert is part of his commentary of Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics, [End Page 119] whereas the selection from Godfrey is a Quodlibetal Question, and that from Augustine of Ancona is part of a treatise. Moreover, there are some selections that show developments within a particular genre. For example, a translation from Buridan's commentary on Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics contrasts nicely with that of Albert. The selection from Albert focuses mostly on pleasure, the relationship between the active and the contemplative lives, and the connection between ethics and politics. His discussion of pleasure is philosophically important in light of twentieth-century discussions about reasons for actions. Moreover, these issues are all discussed in at least one of the other selections. Interestingly, Buridan's commentary on the same Book focuses instead on human freedom. Buridan makes fine distinctions that are relevant to contemporary debates about free will. Selections from Henry of Ghent, Godfrey of Fontaines, and James of Viterbo all address the topic of the relationship between self-love and the virtuous life. These passages are relevant to the question of whether there is egoism in ancient and medieval ethical thought.The volume is a companion to The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy and suffers from one of its weaknesses, which is that the selections can seem arbitrary. For example, the passage from Albert takes up nearly one quarter of the volume. Furthermore, sometimes the representation of an author by only one genre is misleading. For example, although Giles of Rome wrote a Quodlibetal Question (Quod 2, q. 20) that is directly attacked in a translation from James of Viterbo, Giles is represented only by a passage from his treatise De regimine principum. Moreover, the moral psychology of the late thirteenth century is not well-covered, which is odd considering the importance of Bonnie Kent's work in this area.One additional problem is that there are few notes to aid the reader. Sometimes the translations can be confusing. For example, in one passage "the Commentator" should be identified, since the name can apply to at least three individuals (262-3). More seriously, readers with little background in medieval thought might confuse the medieval referents signified in the translation by the words "state" or "love" with contemporary referents. The translations themselves are clear and the different translators follow a consistent set of guidelines. Anyone who tries to translate some of these passages for herself will understand that some... (shrink)

Foucault is often thought to have a great deal to say about the history of madness and sexuality, but little in terms of a general analysis of government and the state.; This volume draws on Foucault's own research to challenge this view, demonstrating the central importance of his work for the study of contemporary politics.; It focuses on liberalism and neo- liberalism, questioning the conceptual opposition of freedom/constraint, state/market and public/private that inform liberal thought.

Foucault is often thought to have a great deal to say about the history of madness and sexuality, but little in terms of a general analysis of government and the state.; This volume draws on Foucault's own research to challenge this view, demonstrating the central importance of his work for the study of contemporary politics.; It focuses on liberalism and neo- liberalism, questioning the conceptual opposition of freedom/constraint, state/market and public/private that inform liberal thought.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.1 (2002) 63-82 [Access article in PDF] Faith, Philosophy, and the Nominalist Background to Luther's Defense of the Real Presence Thomas Osborne Recent scholarship has brought into question the traditional interpretation of Luther as being hostile towards philosophy. 1 Graham White claims that Luther holds a place in the history of logic as a member of the Nominalist tradition. 2 Bruce (...) D. Marshall argues that Luther and Thomas Aquinas fundamentally agree on the relationship between faith and reason. 3 Both scholars recognize that Luther himself stressed the importance of logic and used late medieval philosophical techniques. Although I agree with this scholarship that Luther's thought must not be understood in isolation from late medieval thought, I will argue that Luther uses philosophical ideas in a way which conflicts with that of the scholastic tradition. The focus here is on Luther's understanding of the relationship between faith and reason in the context of Luther's controversy over the Eucharist with the Swiss sacramentarians, among whom Zwingli and Oecolampadius were the most prominent. 4 Although Luther uses philosophical [End Page 63] distinctions to argue against what he thinks are misinterpretations of the Bible, he does not in any explicit and systematic way use philosophy to arrive at a theological understanding of the Eucharist. Luther differs from his scholastic predecessors in that he uses philosophy not to develop theological conclusions but only to attack errors about the Bible, and so the concern here is with Luther's use of Nominalist doctrines about presence in his attack on the sacra-mentarians' belief that Christ cannot be present both at the right hand of God and in the Eucharist at the same time.In his discussion of the Eucharistic doctrine which is presented in The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520), Luther not only argues against the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharistic sacrifice but also against transubstantiation. 5 Luther explicitly states that he was influenced on this issue by Peter D'Ailly, a Nominalist follower of William of Ockham. D'Ailly and other Nominalists thought that transubstantiation was not the only possible way that Christ could be present in the Eucharist, since if God wished he could also make Christ present along with the substance of the bread and wine. 6 From a Nominalist [End Page 64] perspective transubstantiation requires two actions of God, namely, the annihilation of the substance of the bread and the placement of Christ's body under the species. Therefore, consubstantiation would be a simpler account of Christ's Eucharistic presence. If Christ's body were present along with the substance of the bread annihilation would not have to occur. But D'Ailly and the Nominalists argue that we know from Church authority that the real presence occurs through transubstantiation. On this issue the Nominalists differ from Thomas Aquinas, who gives philosophically-based arguments against consubstantiation. 7 When Luther attacks Thomas, he attacks not so much the use of philosophy in theology as Thomas's philosophy: "But this opinion of Thomas hangs so completely in the air without support of Scripture or reason that it seems to me he knows neither his philosophy nor his dialectic." 8Since the Nominalist belief in transubstantiation rather than consubstantiation rests on an acceptance of Church authority, the rejection of such authority would seem to lead to a rejection of transubstantiation. If Luther had assented to traditional Nominalist theology with the sole exception of its reliance on Church authority, one would expect him to argue for the necessity of consubstantiation. However, Luther sees himself as rejecting an unnecessarily philosophical theology in a return to a more biblical faith. 9 Luther claims that he argues for a particular understanding of the Eucharistic presence but rather "that every one may feel at liberty to ponder, hold, and believe either one view or the other without endangering his salvation." 10 Although Luther's training in Nominalist theology leads him to think that consubstantiation is possible, he at no point argues that a belief... (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas produced a voluminous body of work on moral theory, and much of that work is on virtue, particularly the status and value of the virtues as principles of virtuous acts, and the way in which a moral life can be organized around them schematically. Thomas Osborne presents Aquinas's account of virtue in its historical, philosophical and theological contexts, to show the reader what Aquinas himself wished to teach about virtue. His discussion makes the complexities of (...) Aquinas's moral thought accessible to readers despite the differences between Thomas's texts themselves, and the distance between our background assumptions and his. The book will be valuable for scholars and students in ethics, medieval philosophy, and theology. (shrink)

Introduction Of enlightenmentality Blackmail - Negative enlightenment - Critique of enlightenment - Postmodernism - Realism and enlightenment - Aspects of ...

This paper addresses the remarkable longevity of the idea of vitalism in the biological sciences and beyond. If there is to be a renewed vitalism today, however, we need to ask – on what kind of original conception of life should it be based? This paper argues that recent invocations of a generalized, processual variety of vitalism in the social sciences and humanities above all, however exciting in their scope, miss much of the basic originality – and interest – of (...) the vitalist perspective itself. The paper argues that any renewed spirit of vitalism in the contemporary era would have to base itself on the normativity of the living organism rather than on any generalized conceptions of process or becoming. In the terms of the paper, such a vitalism would have to be concrete and ‘disciplinary’ rather than processual or generalized. Such a vitalism would also need to accommodate, crucially, the pathic aspects of life – pathology, sickness, error; in short everything that makes us, as living beings, potentially weak, without power, at a loss. Sources for such a pathic vitalism might be found above all in the work of Georges Canguilhem – and Friedrich Nietzsche – rather than primarily in Bergson, Whitehead or Deleuze. (shrink)

(2003). Contemporary ‘vehicularity’ and ‘romanticism’: debating the status of ideas and intellectuals. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 6, The Public Role of Intellectuals, pp. 51-66. doi: 10.1080/1369823042000241267.

Although this thesis is denied by much recent scholarship, Ockham holds that the ultimate ground of a moral judgement's truth is a divine command, rather than natural or non-natural properties. God could assign a different moral value not only to every exterior act, but also to loving God. Ockham does allow that someone who has not had access to revelation can make correct moral judgements. Although her right reason dictates what God in fact commands, she need not know that God (...) so commands. Ockham's divine-command theory plays an important role in the shift away from a nature-based ethics, and it anticipates contemporary problems concerning truth in meta-ethics. (shrink)

The principle of moderation can be regarded as an ethical principle of virtue or as a principle of government. On the basis of the former, moderation has a personal, ethical sense—not to go towards extremes. The latter model is more generalized and impersonal: moderation as the limitation of power by power. Both conceptions actually meet, though with the latter model more salient, in the work of Montesquieu. This article outlines Montesquieu’s view of moderation emphasizing the extent to which this view (...) cannot be understood apart from his concept of despotism. It shows that Montesquieu’s understanding of moderation entails the balancing and interaction of different powers in a State. As such, his view is more “dynamic” and relational than “substantive.” By exploring the interaction between the models of moderation as virtue and moderation as government in Montesquieu’s work, I then develop the notion of “ruling fear” in considering the continuing relevance of Montesquieu’s perspective for current understandings of moderation and political power. (shrink)

Although Thomas, Scotus, and Ockham are all broadly Aristotelian, their different Aristotelian accounts reflect underlying disagreements in these three areas. These trends may represent a shift from an earlier to a later medieval intellectual culture, but they also reflect views that continued to exist in different schools. Thomists continued to exist alongside Scotists through the end of the eighteenth century, and Ockham’s views had a more varied but continued influence through the modern period. The different views of Thomas, (...) Scotus, and Ockham are not only in themselves plausible attempts at understanding human action, but they formed the background to late medieval and early modern descriptions of human action. (shrink)

This article revisits the long-standing question of the relations between ethics and politics in Machiavelli’s work, assessing its relevance to the ‘liberalism of fear’ in particular in the work of Judith Shklar, Bernard Williams and also John Dunn. The article considers ways in which Machiavelli has been a ‘negative’ resource for liberalism – for instance, as a presumed proponent of tyranny; but also ways in which even for the liberalism of fear he might be considered a ‘positive’ resource, above all (...) around the issues of political necessity and prudential judgement. (shrink)

Professor Thomas Osborne and The Structure of Modern Cultural Theory visited Prague in mid-2018 and presented a paper On Montesquieu, Markets and the Liberalism of Fear. The interview was conducted online by Dr. Filip Vostal in autumn 2020.

Who is speaking in the history of social thought? The question of the authentic voice of social thought is typically posed in terms that tend to be either ambitiously theoretical or carefully methodological. Thus histories of social thought frequently offer either a résumé of general ideas about society (say from Montesquieu to Parsons) or a survey which gets bogged down in a rather tedious, nit-picking debate about empirical methodology. This paper is something of a preview of a pro jected attempt (...) on the part of the authors to capture the voice of social thought in rather different terms. Our three theses are: (1) that those who speak 'in the name of society' have just as frequently been doctors and bureaucrats as opposed to 'social philosophers' or professional sociologists; correlatively, (2) that the creative voice of social thought has more often been technical, problem-centred and tied up with par ticular rationalities of government as opposed to being either exclu sively theoretical or merely responsive to 'objective problems' in society; and, (3) that if sociology today struggles for a voice in which to speak this may be in some part due to the ways in which the past history of social thought has typically been conceived. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham disagree over how and whether virtues are specified by their objects. For Thomas, habits and acts are specified by their formal objects. For instance, the object of theft is something that belongs to someone else, and more particularly theft is distinct from robbery because theft is the open taking of another’s good, whereas robbery is open and violent. A habit such as a virtue or a vice shares or takes (...) the act’s object. For Scotus, although the same virtue or act cannot have objects which differ formally, different virtues and acts can have an object which is identical according to its formal ratio, in the way that the different theological virtues might even formally have God as their object. Ockham accepts Scotus’s view that charity and hope are two kinds of love, we will see how, unlike Scotus, he argues that these theological virtues differ on account of their immediate complex objects. The disagreement between these three figures raises important difficulties concerning what it even means to be a formal object. (shrink)

I argue that the essence that is actualized by existence is the essence that is a determinate nature in an individual and not the essence absolutely considered. This essence in individuals has a potential being that is actualized by existence. This thesis has important consequences for the essence/existence distinction in Thomas Aquinas.

This article addresses the question of utopia through some reflections on the work of the Russian writer Andrei Platonov (1899-1951). Platonov's work represents an inspirational series of investigations into the circumstances of utopia: not so much utopia as fantasy, nor utopia as actualized in failure, nor even dystopia, but what is here termed `actually existing utopia'. As such his work captures aspects of utopianism that may have been largely opaque to the investigations of either literary versions of the utopian imagination (...) or utopian versions of social science. Platonov shows us an `anthropological' dimension inherent within the utopian impulse: that we are, so to speak, `utopological' beings. And to this dimension of ourselves he applies a critical style that is not straightforwardly anti-utopian or dystopian but what is called here `counter-utopian'. (shrink)

During the last fifteen years some theologians during have supported their understanding of how unbelievers might be saved by appealing to Thomas Aquinas and the development of his thought in by sixteenth-century Dominicans at Salamanca. These Salamancan Dominicans applied Thomas’ thought in the context of the New World’s discovery. These recent theologians attribute two claims to this tradition: first, that not every unbeliever is guilty of unbelief, and second, that unbelievers can perform good acts which in some strong (...) manner enable them to receive grace. I shall argue that although the first claim about the culpability of unbelief is held by the Thomist tradition, it has no historical or logical connection to the salvation of unbelievers. I shall argue that the second claim was not held by the tradition and that the contemporary misinterpretation results from a confusion over the relationship between moral goodness and merit. Whereas the first claim is historically accurate but irrelevant to the contemporary views for which it is invoked, the second claim is historically false if attributed to Thomas Aquinas or the Dominican tradition at Salamanca. (shrink)

Are we humans destined to become ‘posthuman’? In this paper, we question the claims of posthumanism, accepting some of its broader insights whilst proposing a more empirically and ethically appropriate ‘vitalist’ response. We argue that despite recent changes in styles of thought that question the uniqueness of ‘the human’, and despite novel technological developments for augmenting human bodies, we remain – fundamentally – persons. Humans, as persons, are constitutively embedded in and scaffolded by the material, social, semantic and cultural niches (...) they have constructed for themselves. An ‘ethopolitical’ response to our present that recognizes this fact not only requires us to engage with the consequences of making lives in the unequal niches that restrict and stunt the personhood of so many human beings at present, but also requires us to broaden the bandwidth of those who are recognized fully as persons. In our conclusion we briefly develop the theme that this emphasis on personhood can be seen as a vitalist – rather than a humanist – stance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas and the Infused Moral Virtues by Angela McKay KnobelThomas M. Osborne Jr.KNOBEL, Angela McKay. Aquinas and the Infused Moral Virtues. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2021. 214 pp. Cloth, $65.00This book is the first substantial English monograph on Aquinas's account of the infused virtues in many years, and the most significant treatment of the issue since Gabriel Bullet, Vertus morales infuses et vertus (...) morales acquises selon Saint Thomas d'Aquin (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 1958). The infused virtues are about, or they are intrinsically ordered to, the supernatural end of human beings. Aquinas was among the first to argue that the infused virtues include not only the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, but also supernatural counterparts to the acquired virtues, which are proportionate to the natural end of humans. These infused moral virtues are infused with charity and lost with mortal sin. Aquinas never addressed at length the relationship between acquired [End Page 144] and infused moral virtues, and many theologians rejected Aquinas's position that there are infused moral virtues.Knobel's book has two parts. The first part of the book consists of three chapters about Aquinas's own views. Chapter 1 is on natural virtue, which can be acquired through the agent's own efforts. Knobel emphasizes the way in which this virtue is proportionate to the natural end and abilities of humans. She correctly notes that Aquinas thinks that humans can perform such virtuous acts without grace. However, since she does not distinguish between morally good acts and morally good agents, she does not adequately address Aquinas's view of how sinners without grace might possess acquired virtue. Additionally, although she correctly notes the way in which moral virtue orders the agent to the end, it is often unclear whether she is discussing the proximate end of the will (which is an object), a further end (as when someone steals to commit adultery), or the ultimate end (which is God as the object of charity or the self as an object of disordered love). For example, she writes, "[I]f an act is not sinful, it cannot be ordered to an evil end." She might be making the uncontroversial claim that good acts are made evil when directed to a bad end, but in her argument she seems to be making the stronger claim that someone with a disordered ultimate end cannot habitually order good acts to such an end.Chapter 2 is on the infused virtues. Knobel notes that for Aquinas synderesis, which is a habit of grasping first practical principles, is a seed of the natural virtues, and that faith, which grasps revealed principles, plays this role in infused virtue. She shows how infused moral virtues, which share the same matter as the acquired moral virtues, have different ends and rules than the acquired virtues. Chapter 3 concerns Aquinas's account of the relationship between the acquired and infused virtues, and in particular the infused moral virtues. Knobel draws attention to texts in which Aquinas argues that the two coexist in someone who has grace, but she states that this coexistence is contradicted in the discussion of Macrobius's fourfold division of virtue in the Summa Theologiae (I-II, q. 61, a. 5). In this article, she thinks, acquired virtue is political virtue, and a stage toward infused virtue. She does not address how Aquinas uses the term "political virtue" differently in different texts, and how the schema of four virtues in this text might be read as describing both four stages of acquired virtue and four stages of infused virtue. Knobel supports her view—that those with grace lack acquired virtue—by claiming that Aquinas consistently states that there is no acquired virtue in heaven. This view only tenuously (at best) supports her point that acquired virtue does not exist in this life among those in a state of grace. Moreover, Aquinas seems to suggest that acquired virtue persists in the next life in ST I-II, q. 67, a. 1-2.The second part of the book is a criticism of contemporary interpretations of Aquinas, and an exposition of... (shrink)

The proliferation of new accounts of infused and acquired virtue in Thomas has brought much welcome attention to his understanding of the relationship between nature and grace. But the very originality of these interpretations has raised a multitude of unanswered questions and difficulties. For any of these accounts to be plausible, they must be accompanied by an account of the way in which Thomas thinks that the specifically one virtue of prudence considers the matter of all virtues, and (...) his statement that such prudence depends on a correct order to the ultimate end. The current disagreement over acquired moral virtue cannot be resolved until these related disagreements are adequately addressed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Unibilitas: The Key to Bonaventure’s Understanding of Human NatureThomas M. Osborne Jr.Historians of medieval philosophy have sometimes described St. Bonaventure’s anthropology as dualist or Augustinian. The conventional story runs that the conservative Bonaventure was afraid of contemporary attempts to describe the rational soul as the substantial form of the corporeal body.1 Bonaventure’s relationship to two intellectual trends lends some support to this theory. First, Bonaventure, following Avicebron and (...) Alexander of Hales, believed in universal hylomorphism, holding that all substances, even the angels and human souls separated from the body, are comprised of matter and form.2 If the human soul apart from the body has its own matter, then in what [End Page 227] sense can the soul be the substantial form of corporeal matter? Second, followers of Bonaventure pointed to this difficulty when they held that the body has its own forma corporeitatis.3 It is not surprising that some historians have regarded Bonaventure as a strong dualist. If the soul is a substance apart from the body, then how can it be one substance with the body? Unibilitasis Bonaventure’s answer to this problem.Bonaventure himself is thoroughly aware that he might seem to regard the soul as a complete substance by itself when he describes it as a composition of form with spiritual matter. If the soul is a composition of form and matter, then it is a hoc aliquid and complete in itself. The soul united with the body could not combine into a third substance.4 I will argue that for Bonaventure unibility is this ability of the soul and body to be united as one substance.In the thirteenth century, unibility describes the ability of two different substances or dispositions to become one supposit.5 For example, Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas use unibility to describe how Christ’s human nature and his divine nature can be one person. Moreover, John of Rupella, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventure use unibility to describe how the soul and the body form one substance. Most historians, like E. Gilson and E. Weber, have generally described unibility as the attempt to show how one human person can have both a substance which is spiritual and a different substance which is corporeal.6 Unibility is for them a concept which precedes the Thomistic discovery of the soul as the substantial form of the body. If this interpretation [End Page 228] were correct, then it would be difficult to see how Thomas Aquinas could retain the term. In fact, unibility has a variety of uses which depend upon the context of its appearance and the thought of the one who uses it.The unibility of the soul plays a far greater role in the thought of Bonaventure than it does in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Bonaventure describes unibility as the specific difference between the angels and humans. Unlike Thomas, Bonaventure thinks that humans, like angels, have both a substantial form and spiritual matter. A human being differs from an angel in that a human’s form can also be the substantial form of a body. Since unibility lies at the heart of Bonaventure’s anthropology, it seems strange that it has not been more thoroughly examined and discussed.The four main sections of this paper roughly correspond to the different contexts in which Bonaventure uses unibility to describe a property of the human soul. The first section shows that unibility is the specific difference that distinguishes humans from angels in the genus of intellectual substances. Second, this difference between humans and angels will be elaborated to show how human souls, unlike angels, are not only movers of bodies, but also perfections of their own particular body. The third section argues that since the soul is the perfection of the body, it is also the one substantial form of the body. The fourth section touches on Bonaventure’s discussion of personhood to show that the human soul when separated from the body is not a person because it is not a fully individual substance. Since an angel is not unitable to a human body, it is unlike a human soul in that it does not need... (shrink)

James of Viterbo’s ethical writings focus mostly upon happiness and virtue. His basic approach is Aristotelian. Although he is not a Thomist in the sense that some of his contemporary Dominicans were, he frequently quotes or paraphrases Thomas while arguing for his own positions, especially in response to views defended by such figures as Giles of Rome, Godfrey of Fontaines, and Henry of Ghent. James departs from Thomas by arguing that all acquired virtue is based on an ordered (...) self-love. James’s emphasis on self-love is in turn supported by his own understanding of willing and happiness, which involves a Neoplatonic account of the ratio boni as consisting in unity. Consequently, many aspects of James’s Aristotelian moral thought are ultimately based upon an understanding of the good that has roots in Neoplatonic authors. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) held two theses that might seem incompatible to contemporary readers, namely 1) that an act of faith is reasonable even by the standards of human reason without grace, and 2) that this act surpasses the power of such unaided human reason. In the later Middle Ages, many theologians who were not Thomists held that someone who performs acts of infused faith must also perform such acts through an acquired faith that is based on natural reason. (...) I argue that debates with Protestants and Jesuits caused Dominican Thomists to clarify and develop Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of the traditional position that acts of faith surpass natural human abilities in such a way as to reject the older non-Thomistic understanding of acquired faith. This enquiry will show that major early modern disputes over the authority of Scripture and the source of faith are at least partially rooted in differences among medieval scholastic theologians. Although the Protestants and the Jesuits adhere to distinct confessions, their theological views on faith are based in part on an acceptance of or reaction to Scotistic and nominalist medieval views. Thomists drew on the same resources to respond to non-Thomistic medieval theologians, Protestants, and Jesuits. (shrink)

In two recent books Bernard Mulcahy and Steven Long defend the classical Thomistic understanding of pure nature. They contribute to the longstanding debate over Henri de Lubac’s understanding of the relationship between nature and grace in Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic tradition. Although Mulcahy and Long criticize de Lubac, they respect his intentions and do not use ad hominem arguments. In order to correctly situate these recent works, it is important to review some elements in the history of the (...) twentieth-century debate over natura pura. (shrink)

This dissertation uses the context of the thirteenth-century debate about the natural love of God over self to clarify the difference between the ethical system of Thomas Aquinas and that of John Duns Scotus. Although Thomas and Scotus both believe that such love is possible, they disagree about the reasons for this position. ;Early thirteenth-century thinkers, such as William of Auxerre and Philip the Chancellor, were the first to distinguish between a natural love of God and charity, which (...) is a love assisted by grace. Thomas Aquinas' approach to the issue is original. According to Thomas, since human beings are part of a political whole and also part of a whole whose good is God, it follows that they have a natural inclination to love the common good and God more than themselves. Although Thomas' position and his corresponding interpretation of Aristotle were upheld by Godfrey of Fontaines and Giles of Rome, it was severely criticized by James of Viterbo, who argued that the part always seeks its own good. ;John Duns Scotus makes the same criticism of the part/whole argument, although Scotus emphasizes that the human will is free to act against the natural inclination for self-perfection. Scotus clearly distinguishes between the will and nature. ;The conclusion of the dissertation argues that the debate prefigures the modern shift sway from an ethics based upon natural inclination along with the modern tendency to understand morality as a limitation of self-interest. Moreover, it is argued that modern Thomists need to take into account Thomas' original emphasis on natural inclination and the priority of the common good. (shrink)

The essay on thirteenth-century ethics will trace the history of three major themes in moral philosophy and theology, namely the morality of individual acts, virtue, and happiness. Both Peter Lombard’s rejection of Abelard’s focus on intention and the Fourth Lateran Council’s remarks on confession caused thinkers such as William of Auvergne and Philip the Chancellor to develop a way of classifying acts and determining responsibility for such acts. Thomas Aquinas and clarified and changed the technical vocabulary but adopted much (...) from their views on knowledge and moral responsibility. A similar development took place in the understanding of virtue. Philip and others discussed the nature and unity of the virtues in the context of a patristic inheritance that was largely influence by Stoicism. Thomas Aquinas was among the first to discuss the connection between specifically distinct virtues, bringing to bear Aristotle’s description of prudence in Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics. Moreover, whereas previous thinkers had primarily distinguished between political and theological virtues, Thomas distinguished more carefully between both infused and acquired moral virtues, and theological virtues that are only infused. He explained that the intellectual virtues, although better in themselves, are inferior to the moral virtues when it comes to making a good human being. Debates over the role of happiness in ethics were related to such distinctions. Early generations had focused primarily on the role that moral and theological virtue plays in its role as leading to happiness in heaven. In contrast, some Aristotelians seem to emphasize the priority of intellectual virtue over moral virtue, and consequently the life of the philosopher over the life of the citizen. Thomas Aquinas distinguished between the different perfections of intellectual and moral virtue, and distinguished carefully between the imperfect happiness of this life and the perfect happiness of the next. Although Thomas brought these issues together in an admirable synthesis, few of his contemporaries thought that he had successfully addressed these issues. (shrink)

Some philosophers seem to argue that faith is or should be produced by arguments, whereas others describe faith as non-rational or even irrational. In the Summa Theologiae, Thomas states that arguments and miracles can show that faith is reasonable, even though unaided reason on its own cannot produce an act of faith. The insufficiency of reason for faith is a necessary condition of faith’s freedom and merit. The explanation of this insufficiency lies in the formal object of faith, which (...) makes the virtue and its acts essentially supernatural. Faith’s principles, namely the articles of faith, are seen to be true only by God and the blessed in heaven. Those who have faith assent to these revealed principles not though their natural ability, but through the “light of faith,” which is somehow similar to the “light of reason” by which humans assent to principles that are known through their terms. Faith’s supernatural character explains why reason is properly applied to faith only after one already possesses faith. It also explains how faith can be more certain than other intellectual habits, even though great uncertainty might arise on account of the believer’s imperfection. (shrink)

Readers have found at least two distinct and perhaps contradictory accounts of civil authority in the works of Francisco de Vitoria, and some hold that Vitoria himself holds contradictory positions. This article argues that Vitoria holds one consistent position, namely that civil power is based on a necessity that is rooted in human nature, and in particular on the final cause of human life, and not on a necessity that is a result of any historical decision or process on its (...) own. Rulers receive from the community their authority, which is a power to act on behalf of the community. In general, scholars have failed to consider how Vitoria’s understanding of civil power is Aristotelian and Thomistic to the extent that it is based on the thesis that the political community is natural in a way similar to how families and individuals are natural. (shrink)

Parmi les multiples énigmes de la généalogie de Jésus en Mt 1,1-17, la présence de quatre, voire de cinq femmes dans un texte où prédominent les hommes a suscité de nombreuses tentatives d’explication. Cet article part de l’observation que les quatre premières femmes sont en amont ou complices du roi David, tandis que la cinquième femme est la mère de celui qui est présenté comme Messie. Il constate par ailleurs que si l’on avait appliqué strictement les dispositions de la Torah (...) à leur égard, ni le grand roi, ni a fortiori la dynastie davidique n’auraient vu le jour. Le récit du dilemme de Joseph en 1,18-25 témoigne de son effort pour se frayer un chemin entre une certaine conformité avec la Loi et les exigences de la miséricorde en rapport avec le cas de sa femme enceinte. Ainsi, dès le début de l’évangile de Matthieu est posée la question de l’observance de la Torah face aux exigences des Prophètes et ultérieurement face à l’enseignement de Jésus. (shrink)

Alasdair MacIntyre’s criticism of contemporary politics rests in large part on the way in which the political communities of advanced modernity do not recognize common goals and practices. I shall argue that although MacIntyre explicitly recognizes the influence of Jacques Maritain on his own thought, MacIntyre’s own views are incompatible not only with Maritain’s attempt to develop a Thomistic theory which is compatible with liberal democracy, but also relies on a view of the individual as a part which is related (...) to the whole in a way that is incompatible with Maritain’s understanding of the spiritual individual or person. (shrink)

the contrast and similarity between Rist and Macintyre can be better understood if we take into account their different interpretations of the Republic, especially their 1) descriptions of the primary problem faced by Plato, 2) their interpretation of Plato’s response to the problem, and 3) their evaluation of the contemporary relevance of the problem and his response. The differences and similarities between the views of MacIntyre and Rist on the Republic reflect much larger difference and similarities on the fundamental nature (...) of moral philosophy, the problem of relativism, and the importance of God for ethics. I have illustrated these similarities and differences in the context of their understanding of the problems faced by Plato, the nature and adequacy of his response, and the relevance of the response of later philosophical ethics. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. ;This thesis traces endeavours in the twentieth century to provide the 'intellectual' foundations for general medical practice as an independent, autonomous clinical discipline. The empirical focus of the study is upon the application of psychological and 'person-centred' approaches to general practice; above all, in the work of Michael Balint, and the Royal College of General Practitioners in the post-war period. The thesis is guided by two predominant theoretical concerns. First, to highlight (...) the complex strategies and the wide range of means and resources that have been required to give substance to the claim that general practice is 'by nature' a person-centred endeavour. Second, to consider--and to question--certain influential approaches to medical power in general, and to the social consequences of 'emancipatory'--person-centred--forms of medicine in particular. Specifically, the 'power/knowledge' approach to medical sociology is contested both with regard to its empirical findings and in relation to its basis in the work of Michel Foucault . ;The study which follows is intended neither as a narrative history of general practice nor as a history of ideas about general practice. Its empirical concern is more specific than either of these. Focusing upon the twentieth century and above all the post-war period, it seeks to analyse some of the ways in which general practitioners have sought to autonomise their discipline by giving it an 'intellectual' basis. If the 'general practitioner' has long existed as a professional label then nevertheless notions of what unifies the general practitioner's activities have undergone a degree of mutation. It is these 'models' of general practice--physiological, epidemiological, psychological--which will be investigated here. As such, the purpose behind the study is partly of a 'methodological' order. The study seeks to show that what counts in evolving a coherent model of general practice is not just the provision of a 'representation' of the general practitioner's activities but a construction on several levels. (shrink)