With a few exceptions, Thomists have by and large failed to engage with the historical and hermeneutical turns in philosophy and theology. This article offers an account of what the beginnings of a Thomistic engagement with recent hermeneutical philosophy might look like. In order to develop such an account, the author turns to arguably the most important contemporary hermeneutical philosopher, namely Hans-Georg Gadamer, as a dialogue partner. Despite claims to the contrary, this article argues that Gadamer does not successfully deal (...) with the specter of relativism. It goes on to show how that the thought of Thomas Aquinas can ably deal with this specter. There are two central elements in the argument put forward. Firstly, the author argues that the human being exists in between God as First Efficient Cause of all that exists and God as Final Cause of all that exists. This existence between God as First Efficient Cause of all that exists and God as Final Cause of all that exists furnishes the connatural context in which human knowing and willing unfolds. Secondly, he considers the dynamics of “interinvolvement” between intellect and will. The upshot of these arguments is a construal of reason that is at once capable of universal truth and hermeneutical in nature. Indeed, the universal range of reason and its hermeneutical dimension are in no way opposed to each other: they are rather dual aspects of one and the same reality. (shrink)

With a few exceptions, Thomists have by and large failed to engage with the historical and hermeneutical turns in philosophy and theology. This article offers an account of what the beginnings of a Thomistic engagement with recent hermeneutical philosophy might look like. In order to develop such an account, the author turns to arguably the most important contemporary hermeneutical philosopher, namely Hans-Georg Gadamer, as a dialogue partner. Despite claims to the contrary, this article argues that Gadamer does not successfully deal (...) with the specter of relativism. It goes on to show how that the thought of Thomas Aquinas can ably deal with this specter. There are two central elements in the argument put forward. Firstly, the author argues that the human being exists in between God as First Efficient Cause of all that exists and God as Final Cause of all that exists. This existence between God as First Efficient Cause of all that exists and God as Final Cause of all that exists furnishes the connatural context in which human knowing and willing unfolds. Secondly, he considers the dynamics of “interinvolvement” between intellect and will. The upshot of these arguments is a construal of reason that is at once capable of universal truth and hermeneutical in nature. Indeed, the universal range of reason and its hermeneutical dimension are in no way opposed to each other: they are rather dual aspects of one and the same reality. (shrink)

This study elicits a concern to show forth those elements in the theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas that can menaingfully engage with those trends in contemporary hermeneutical philosophy and theology that highlight the conditioned nature of human understanding. The main point of reference in this regard os the hermeneutical philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer. At the heart of this hermeneutical enterprise is Thomas's construal of the relationship between intellect and will, a relationship that can be described as one of dynamic reciprocity. (...) A dynamic interaction between intellect and will obtains in both their natural and graced operations. Hence, the title of this book, The Hermeneutics of Knowing and Willing in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Some might be concerned that the notion of hermeneutics will import the spectre of relativism into Thomas's thought. By guiding the reader through Thomas's doctrine of man as made to the image of the Trinity, his Trinitarian theology, his Christology, and his treatment of grace, the theological virtues of faith and charity, and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, the author shows how Thomas in fact offers us resources for a theological hermeneutics of objectivity. The criteria for this objectivity, so the author argues, are Trinitarian, Christological, Pneumatological, ecclesial, and Scriptural. It is to be hoped that this book will be read not only by those who have a particular interest in Thomas's theology but also by theologians outside of the Thomistic tradition, particularly those interested in hermeneutics. (shrink)

According to Heidegger’s interpretation, while Aristotle’s treatment of practical wisdom cannot be divorced from his account of theoretical wisdom, there has nevertheless been a tendency in Western thought to separate what he terms the theoretical and practical modes of concern and to afford a certain priority to the theoretical mode. This article argues that one thinker in the tradition with which Heidegger engaged, namely Thomas Aquinas, constitutes an exception to this analysis. Thomas’s treatment of prudence (prudentia), rooted in Aristotle’s discussion (...) of phronēsis, furnishes an initial point of contact with Heidegger. Turning to Thomas’s account of the precepts of the natural law, I show that implicit therein is an understanding of care that corresponds to Heidegger’s notion of Sorge, albeit an understanding that is imbued with a strikingly different character—namely, a theistic one. Central to this argument is the claim that Thomas escapes Heidegger’s dismissal of ontotheology thanks to his analogical construal of being. (shrink)

According to Heidegger’s interpretation, while Aristotle’s treatment of practical wisdom cannot be divorced from his account of theoretical wisdom, there has nevertheless been a tendency in Western thought to separate what he terms the theoretical and practical modes of concern and to afford a certain priority to the theoretical mode. This article argues that one thinker in the tradition with which Heidegger engaged, namely Thomas Aquinas, constitutes an exception to this analysis. Thomas’s treatment of prudence (prudentia), rooted in Aristotle’s discussion (...) of phronēsis, furnishes an initial point of contact with Heidegger. Turning to Thomas’s account of the precepts of the natural law, I show that implicit therein is an understanding of care that corresponds to Heidegger’s notion of Sorge, albeit an understanding that is imbued with a strikingly different character—namely, a theistic one. Central to this argument is the claim that Thomas escapes Heidegger’s dismissal of ontotheology thanks to his analogical construal of being. (shrink)

Since the appearance of his earliest works on the subject of the emotions, namely, his article “Emotions and Choice” in 1973 and his book The Passions in 1976, Robert C. Solomon has never ceased to develop the idea that we are in some significant sense and to some significant degree responsible for our emotions. His presentation of this thesis in these two works was, on his own admission, somewhat polemical and stood in need of considerable revision. This present volume, which (...) brings together twelve different articles, beginning with “Emotions and Choice” and concluding with two papers from the year 2001, allows those interested in emotion theory to follow in great detail the contours of the development of the thought of one of the most important figures working in this field. (shrink)

This article appeals to Thomas Aquinas in order to offer a construal of the nature of reason arguably preferable to that prominent in the Enlightenment. Thomas’s account neither espouses the notion that reason is devoid of any appetitive influence nor so conflates reason and will as to suggest that thinking becomes essentially a form of willing. His view does respect that the activity of willing is of fundamental import for the life of reason. Since the ultimate object of the will (...) is union with God, it follows that the virtue that specifically promotes the attainment of this end—the virtue of religion—has particular import because it aims at rectifying the will and is the most excellent among the moral virtues. In brief, this virtue promotes the optimal intellectual and moral flourishing of individuals as well as the realization of justice in society. (shrink)

This paper reviews the fate of the central ideas behind the complementary learning systems (CLS) framework as originally articulated in McClelland, McNaughton, and O’Reilly (1995). This framework explains why the brain requires two differentially specialized learning and memory systems, and it nicely specifies their central properties (i.e., the hippocampus as a sparse, pattern-separated system for rapidly learning episodic memories, and the neocortex as a distributed, overlapping system for gradually integrating across episodes to extract latent semantic structure). We review the application (...) of the CLS framework to a range of important topics, including the following: the basic neural processes of hippocampal memory encoding and recall, conjunctive encoding, human recognition memory, consolidation of initial hippocampal learning in cortex, dynamic modulation of encoding versus recall, and the synergistic interactions between hippocampus and neocortex. Overall, the CLS framework remains a vital theoretical force in the field, with the empirical data over the past 15 years generally confirming its key principles. (shrink)

Research consent processes must provide potential participants with the necessary information to help them decide if they wish to join a study. On the Oxford ‘A’ Research Ethics Committee we’ve found that current research proposals mostly provide adequate detail (even if not in an easily comprehensible format), but often fail to support decision making, a view supported by published evidence. In a previous paper, we described how consent might be structured, and here we develop the concept of an Information and (...) Decision Aid (IDA) that can support decision making and be used to guide the dialogue between researcher and potential participant. Our proposal requires limited changes to current processes or paperwork and would provide an easily accessible document for others that the potential participant might approach for advice. It could later be integrated with the Informed Consent Form to ensure all matters of concern to the individual participant have been addressed before consent is formally signed off. (shrink)

Scholars have characterised the trial of the life of pleasure in Philebus 20b-21d as digressive or pejorative. I argue that it is neither: it is a thought experiment containing an important argument, in the form of a reductio, of the hypothesis that a life could be most pleasant without cognition. It proceeds in a series of steps, culminating in the precisely chosen image of the jellyfish. Understanding the intended resonance of this creature, and the sense in which it is deprived, (...) is critical for reconstructing the argument, and yields new insight into Plato’s views on the minimal conditions for pleasure. (shrink)

The prefrontal cortex is widely believed to play an important role in facilitating people's ability to switch performance between different tasks. We present a biologically‐based computational model of prefrontal cortex (PFC) that explains its role in task switching in terms of the greater flexibility conferred by activation‐based working memory representations in PFC, as compared with more slowly adapting weight‐based memory mechanisms. Specifically we show that PFC representations can be rapidly updated when a task switches via a dynamic gating mechanism based (...) on a temporal‐differences reward‐prediction learning mechanism. Unlike prior models of this type, the present model develops all of its internal representations via learning mechanisms as shaped by the demands of continuous periodic task switching. This advance opens up a new domain of research into the interactions between working memory task demands and the representations that develop to meet them. Results on a version of the Wisconsin card sorting task are presented for the full model and a number of comparison networks that test the importance of various model features. Furthermore, we show that a lesioned model produces perseverative errors like those seen in frontal patients. (shrink)