Father Klubertanz has written a work of concrete and practical philosophy that is not without theoretical value. The philosophical background of the work is the Aristotelian-Thomistic conceptions of habit and virtue, i.e., the acquired internal principles of human activity, good and bad. The traditional doctrines are flexibly elaborated to interpret more modern studies in psychology in the context of moral theory. The book helps to fill an important but currently rather neglected part of ethics, namely the shaping of the (...) personality of the ethical agent in relation to the ethical good, which is one part of relating the "is" and the "ought." Klubertanz recognizes that different habits may be mutually exclusive, but not that virtues themselves may be at odds. What one misses in the book is a recognition of the elements of sacrifice, decision, and creativity in the formation of personality.—P. M. (shrink)

This textbook combines Father Klubertanz' Introduction to the Philosophy of Being and Father Holloway's Natural Theology in a new two-part abridgement, appropriate for single semester courses in general metaphysics and natural theology. The standpoint of both the authors is roughly that of existential Thomism, and the continuity between the work of each within the book is notable. The first part contains the revisions to be found in the second edition of Father Klubertanz' volume.—C. V.

Since its founding in 1950, the Metaphysical Society of America has remained a pluralistic community dedicated to rigorous philosophical inquiry into the most basic metaphysical questions. At each year’s conference, the presidential address offers original insights into metaphysical questions. Both the insights and the questions are as perennial as they are relevant to contemporary philosophers. This volume collects eighteen of the finest representatives from those presidential addresses, including contributions from George Allan, Richard Bernstein, Norris Clarke, Vincent Colapietro, Frederick Ferré, Jorge (...) J. E. Gracia, Joseph Grange, Marjorie Grene, George Klubertanz, Ivor Leclerc, Ralph McInerny, Ernan McMullin, Joseph Owens, John Herman Randall, Jr., Nicholas Rescher, Stanley Rosen, John E. Smith, and Robert Sokolowski. Also included are Paul Weiss’s inaugural address to the Society, an introduction chronicling the history of the Society, and an original Foreword by William Desmond and Epilogue by Robert Neville. (shrink)

The present work is substantially a dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Toronto. While aware of the numerous imperfections of the work I have decided, on the urging of many colleagues, to publish it at this time because of the current relevance of the subject-matter and especially of the collection of texts. I am happy to acknowledge my indebtedness to the faculty of the Pontifical Mediaeval Institute of Toronto and especially to the Reverend (...) Ignatius Eschmann, O.P., who first suggested the idea of this study and whose encouragement and assistance brought it to completion. My thanks are due also to the Reverend George Klubertanz, S.J., and Mr. Paul Mathews, both of the Department of Philosophy of Saint Louis University, and" for invaluable secretarial assistance, to Mrs. Savina Tonella and Miss Agnes Kutz. R. J. HENLE, S.j. Saint Louis December, 1954 TABLE OF CONTENTS GENERAL INTRODUCTION... (shrink)

The 1957 Presidential address of Fr. Klubertanz pleads for greater study of Thomist ethics, especially in view of its recent criticism by Leclerc and Niebuhr, which is expounded and tentatively evaluated. Père Eschmann portrays St. Thomas’s approach to moral philosophy as balancing human autonomy with objective order. Fr. Doyle analyses the current problem of subalternating ethics to theology. Miss Salmon investigates the relationship of moral truth to modern epistemology, while Dr. Riedl further analyses ethics as a practical science in (...) the historical light of Aristotle and St. Thomas. (shrink)

A collection of five articles together with reports of discussions. The presidential address of George P. Klubertanz, S. J. proposes that Thomistic ethics be elaborated with special stress upon its experiential contents.--C. L.

These essays concern what one of the writers calls "the philosophical problems raised by the existence of modern science," distinguishing and relating various ways of knowing, especially the scientific and philosophic. For R. J. Henle in the first and eighth essays, science and philosophy are set off from the humanities as alike in seeking pure intelligibility, but different in that science knows indirectly through a constructional concept while philosophy knows directly the ontological concept. J. Maritain discusses the shortcomings of the (...) Vienna school of philosophy of science and the kinds of knowing proper to theology, philosophy, and science. J. Fitzgerald considers Maritain's inclusion of modern science in the Aristotelian-Thomist concept of scientific knowledge. R. Blackwell sketches four approaches to a theory of discovery in science: logical, psychological, historical, and epistemological. G. P. Klubertanz, discussing modern science in the light of Thomist doctrine, finds it like the philosophy of nature in having as its object the sensible material thing but differing in definitions, principles, and modes of proof. J. Ladrière argues the importance of intentionality in one essay, and later that both science and philosophy are authentic knowing, but that science is a description of regional ontologies while philosophy is the foundation of those ontologies. E. McMullin discusses the change from Aristotelianism to modern scientific "qualified" realism. E. Caldin finds that theological and scientific knowledge have the same structure but answer different questions. The last five essays deal with more specialized topics. F. J. Crosson: Can a machine be conscious? R. J. Henle: How does anthropology contribute to an understanding of man? A. Fisher: Freud and Husserl, and the essential intentionality of psychical life. Two surveys of modern analytic philosophy conclude the volume, E. J. McKinnon: Reflections on a methodology for integrating philosophy and science; and G. P. Klubertanz: A proposal for integrating the schools of philosophy of science.--L. G. (shrink)

Though intended as an introductory textbook of Thomistic metaphysics, this work offers a fairly detailed treatment of a number of important problems, presented in systematic and well-ordered fashion. Father Klubertanz rejects the a priori procedure of some recent Thomists, and endeavors to reconstruct the Thomistic synthesis by beginning with immediate sense experience. This and other "departures from systematized Thomism" give the book a certain originality, and raise it somewhat above the usual textbook level.--V. C. C.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.3 (2001) 439-440 [Access article in PDF] John F. Wippel. The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being. Monographs of the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, No. 1. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 2000. Pp. xxvii + 630. Cloth, $59.95. Paper, $39.95. In this weighty volume, John Wippel brings together much of the important research that he has (...) carried out on the metaphysics of Aquinas over the last three decades in order to produce as he calls it, a "Summa metaphysicae" based on the original texts of Aquinas (xxvii). Throughout much of the twentieth century metaphysics has been thought to be Aquinas's greatest philosophical achievement. The historical research of Etienne Gilson and Joseph Owens together with the philosophical reflections of Jacques Maritain did much to place this topic at the heart of Aquinas scholarship. Therefore, this volume both represents Wippel's central research interest and brings to a head an entire school of Aquinas studies of the twentieth century. It is the clearest and most detailed account of the subject in the English language, bearing the hallmarks of Wippel's scholarship: clarity in reference to the arguments and attention to textual chronology.Metaphysics here does not mean so much a focus on Aquinas's treatment of Aristotle's four causes or his act and potency as much as a clear presentation of Aquinas's reflections on existence (esse) and the implications that this has for his thought. After an introductory discussion of the nature and subject of metaphysics for Aquinas, Wippel devotes the first part of the book to Aquinas's view of existence in order to unpack what it means to talk about individual things as beings, being in general, and the catagories of Aristotle (73-74). Masterfully, he explains Aquinas's analogical approach to being and guides the reader through the interpretive thicket of Cornelio Fabro, G. P. Klubertanz, and Ralph McInerny. An interesting parallel is presented between Parmenides' problem of the one and the many and Aquinas's philosophically interesting view of the composite manner in which concrete individuals exist (161-170). Since no individual creature is the author of its own existence, but does in fact exist, each finite being must receive existence from a single being that exists necessarily. Wippel highlights this and other approaches that Aquinas takes to clarify relations between the many individual beings and the single divine being that lies beyond the study of metaphysics.Part two is devoted to many of the ways in which Aquinas talks about concrete individuals. Here Wippel explains Aquinas's distinctions between substance and accident as well as between matter and form and how they relate to existence. Part three concludes the work with a treatment of what Aristotle and Aquinas call divine science. This consists of more than a hundred pages on Aquinas's famous arguments for the existence of God (379-500) and a discussion of what human beings can understand about God (501-575). Not only does Aquinas conclude that God exists, but he indicates the limited manner in which human beings can understand the divine. The problem is that if we acquire language in relation to concrete individuals, how can we use words to discuss a being who is not bound by space or time? The solution is to speak of words like "good" and "wise" in an analogical sense. Words like these when applied to creatures are used in a sense that is both similar to but different from the way they are used to [End Page 439] speak of the divine. Reiterating the theme of the one and the many, the name "good" has a single and most excellent meaning when applied to God and a limited sense when applied to creatures.This is an excellent and accessible book for the educated reader and specialist alike which can be supplemented by works such as Wayne Hankey's God in Himself: Aquinas' Doctrine of God as Expounded in theSumma Theologiae (Oxford: Oxford... (shrink)

This book notes that from the standpoints of "speculative vigor, originality and profoundness of thought" the Scripta on the Sentences "ranks first in the long list of Aquinas’ works". Yet, it claims, no commentator "has ever tried to extract from it the basic elements of his philosophy". The difficulty is that "Aquinas carefully avoids attributing to himself the discovery of any new doctrine". Mondin accordingly undertakes to disengage in some areas the philosophy contained in the Scripta. Logic is covered briefly, (...) reconstructed to fit into a framework already outlined by R. W. Schmidt. The epistemology, likewise briefly, adjusts the texts to the viewpoint of critical realism. In metaphysics, esse and essence "are to be seen as two really objectively distinct principles", though in the Scripta Aquinas presents "a varied and complex treatment" with regard to their real distinction. The use of the term existentia is vindicated, and "in the Scripta we encounter a proof of God’s existence, different from the Five Ways, based exclusively on Aquinas’ new understanding of being and on the real distinction between essence and esse in creatures". Man is examined as an imago Dei, and as having a "natural end". Finally, theological language and analogy are discussed in the framework of currently accepted categories, with the conclusion that no sign of a substantial revolution in the understanding of analogy and metaphysics is to be found in the career of Aquinas. Klubertanz’ list of analogy texts is copiously supplemented. (shrink)