A fresh explication of the Thomist justification of self-defense casts off the hobbles of the principle of double effects to find a more secure footing in the historicaldevelopment of subjective natural rights by medieval jurists, and a straight-forward application to the latent threat of death in childbirth posed by non-consensual pregnancy. By articulating the implicit Thomistic right to defensive abortion in terms of conditional rights bestowed in Creation as correlative to particular natural law duties, justly proportionate limits to defensive abortion (...) are identified, and balanced against the forfeited or reserved natural rights variously imputed to conceptus and embryo in non-consensual pregnancies. Subsequently, the varieties of involuntary consent are examined from a Thomist perspective with a view to their relevance in justifying recourse to a rehabilitated practice of defensive abortion when free and full consent to impregnation and childbirth is absent. (shrink)

Perfectionism is the view that what is intrinsically good is the fulfillment of human nature or the development and exercise of the characteristic human capacities. An important objection to the theory is what Gwen Bradford calls the “Deep Problem”: explaining why nature-fulfillment is good. We argue that situating perfectionism within a Thomistic metaethical framework and adopting Aquinas's account of the metaphysical “convertibility” of being and goodness gives us a solution to the Deep Problem. In short, the fulfillment of human nature (...) consists in the actualization of human potentialities or fullness of human being, and because being is ultimately the same thing as goodness, the fulfillment of human nature is good. We show that Thomistic perfectionism meets the requirements for an answer to the Deep Problem, provides the best explanation possible for the goodness of nature fulfillment, and is a natural foundation for perfectionist theories of value. (shrink)

AT FIRST SIGHT IT WOULD SEEM INCONGRUOUS, even an oxymoron, to juxtapose the names of Charles Darwin and Thomas Aquinas. Darwin was a biologist of the nineteenth century whose theory of evolution demanded the mutability of natural species. Thomas Aquinas, the father of Thomism, was a theologian and philosopher of the thirteenth century who held that forms in themselves and the species they constitute are immutable. Six centuries separated Darwin and Aquinas, centuries that witnessed the decline of Thomism (...) and scholasticism in general, with Descartes’s rejection of substantial forms and the advent of English empiricism and the positivism of Auguste Comte. Living in an antischolastic environment and convinced of the mutability of species, it would seem unlikely that Darwin would have any connection with Aquinas. (shrink)

Alongside a revival of interest in Thomism in philosophy, scholars have realised its relevance when addressing certain contemporary issues in bioethics. This book offers a rigorous interpretation of Aquinas's metaphysics and ethical thought, and highlights its significance to questions in bioethics. Jason T. Eberl applies Aquinas’s views on the seminal topics of human nature and morality to key questions in bioethics at the margins of human life – questions which are currently contested in the academia, politics and the media (...) such as: When does a human person’s life begin? How should we define and clinically determine a person’s death? Is abortion ever morally permissible? How should we resolve the conflict between the potential benefits of embryonic stem cell research and the lives of human embryos? Does cloning involve a misuse of human ingenuity and technology? What forms of treatment are appropriate for irreversibly comatose patients? How should we care for patients who experience unbearable suffering as they approach the end of life? _Thomistic Principles and Bioethics_ presents a significant philosophical viewpoint which will motivate further dialogue amongst religious and secular arenas of inquiry concerning such complex issues of both individual and public concern. (shrink)

In recent years, attempts to reconcile God's exhaustive providential control over the future and human freedom frequently appeal to Molinism. Through the theory of Middle Knowledge, it is claimed, God can exercise meticulous providence over free creatures while preserving the libertarian agency of those creatures. Historically, both Thomist and Reformed theologians have critiqued the theory of Middle Knowledge for effectively eliminating God's aseity, making God's knowledge in some sense dependent on some non-God reality. In this paper, I aim to push (...) the discussion forward by integrating Thomist, Molinist, and Reformed perspectives in the view I call Molinist Thomist Calvinism. By resourcing each of these views, I try to offer a coherent way to affirm God's meticulous providence, including God's unconditional election of some and not others, and morally significant human freedom. (shrink)

Animalism, according to its strongest proponents, is the view that human beings are ‘essentially or most fundamentally animals’. Specifically, ‘we are essentially animals if we couldn’t possibly exist without being animals’ (Olson 2008). Although contemporary animalism offers an account superior to its Lockean competitors, Olson’s ‘biological approach’ has certain limitations, particularly in its denial of any psychological continuity whatsoever as either necessary or sufficient for individual persistence through time. I propose a number of amendments towards a Thomistic variety of animalism (...) that avoids these difficulties. Although prone to misinterpretation, animalism understood properly is compatible with Aquinas’s theory of subsistent intellect. Against recent challenges, I defend the view that Thomistic animalism not only is intelligible, but is indeed crucial for understanding Aquinas’s view of human nature and rationality. (shrink)

The paper presents an argument for respecting conscientious refusals based on the Thomistic account of conscience; the argument does not employ the notion of right. The main idea is that acting against one’s conscience necessarily makes the action objectively wrong and performed in bad faith, and expecting someone to act against his or her conscience is incompatible with requiring him or her to act in good faith. In light of this idea I also examine the issue of obligations imposed on (...) objectors as well as the claims that conscientious objectors should change their profession. (shrink)

Thomism is a philosophical movement based on the writings of Thomas Aquinas. This chapter begins by explaining the historical context within which Thomism originated and some of the general issues arising in Thomistic discussions, and then considers the two main approaches to Thomistic ethics: eudaimonism and natural law. It concludes with an application of Thomistic ideas to a current discussion of justice and practical rationality, specifically Alasdair MacIntyre's treatment of Aquinas in his book, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?

This chapter contains sections titled: The Leonine Revival Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson Realism Philosophy and Science Vatican II Works cited.

Contemporary philosophers of mind tend to accept either some version of dualism or physicalism when considering the mind–body problem. Likewise, recent philosophers of religion typically assume that we must work within these two categories when considering problems related to the possibility of bodily resurrection. Recently, some philosophers have reintroduced the Thomistic version of hylomorphism. In this article, we will consider the distinctive doctrines of Thomistic hylomorphism and how they can be used to address concerns about both the mind–body problem and (...) the possibility of resurrection. We will see that hylomorphism allows for a novel version of emergent property dualism that is both metaphysically plausible and allows us to recognize the irreducibility of mental states and the possibility of resurrection without ignoring the fact of human embodiment. We will also discuss the currently lively debate among Thomistic hylomorphists who advocate opposed corruptionist and survivalist versions of the afterlife. (shrink)

This paper presents a Thomistic analysis of addiction that incorporates scientific, philosophical, and theological features of addiction. I will argue first, that a Thomistic hylomorphic anthropology provides a cogent explanation of the causal interactions between human action and neuroplasticity. I will employ Karol Wojtyła’s account of self-determination to further clarify the kind of neuroplasticity involved in addiction. Next, I will elucidate how a Thomistic anthropology can accommodate, without reductionism, both the neurophysiological and psychological elements of addiction, and finally, I will (...) make clear how Thomism can provide an ethics and a theology of grace that can be integrated with these ontological and scientific considerations into a holistic theory of addiction. (shrink)

In a posthumously published paper, Fr. W. Norris Clarke, S.J., declares that Thomistic personalism is the most creative and fruitful development in twenty-first century Thomism. I agree with Clarke, and I would also add that Thomistic personalism is the most creative and fruitful development in twenty-first centurymoral and political philosophy. Thus, in this paper—focusing on clarification and exhortation—I (i) identify the main commitments of personalism; (ii) identifyweak, moderate, and strong versions of Thomistic personalism; and (iii) suggest that Thomistic personalism (...) is a vocation for the twenty-first century that requirescollaboration between specialists from diverse backgrounds. (shrink)

This paper looks to make a small contribution to the critical engagement between philosophical Thomism and phenomenology, inspired by the recent work of the German phenomenologist and hermeneutic thinker Günter Figal. My suggestion is that Figal’s proposal for a broad-based hermeneutical philosophy rooted in a renewed realism concerning things in their externality and “objectivity” provides great potential for a renewed encounter with Thomist realism. The paper takes up this issue through a brief examination of some of the more problematic (...) idealistic features of Kantian and Husserlian thought, before turning to consider how these aspects of the tradition are reframed within Figal’s phenomenological realism. The Thomist position concerning the relation between things and their understanding (including the complex matter of the verbum mentis) is then raised, drawing both on Aquinas’s own texts and the interpretations of Jacques Maritain. Some striking emerging affinities between this tradition and Figal’s hermeneutic phenomenology are noted. (shrink)

The problem of divine hiddenness has in the recent literature joined the problem of evil as one of the principal positive arguments for atheism. My chief goal here is to mine Aquinas’s metaphysics and natural theology for a distinctively Thomistic response, making particular use of a neglected text in which he considers a similar issue. Towards the end of the paper I also consider some resources provided by Aquinas’s interpretation of revealed theology.

Creationism is an important feature of Christianity but seems very foreign to Chinese philosophy. This paper examines an early attempt at introducing a metaphysical account of creationism in Huanyou quan (1628) by the Portuguese Jesuit, Francisco Furtado, and the Chinese scholar, Li Zhizao. It investigates the sources drawn from the works of Thomas Aquinas and reconstructs the choices made by the two authors in their translation. Finally, it suggests that Thomistic creationism bears similarities with Chinese philosophy.

This article studies the Thomism of Alasdair MacIntyre. On the ethical level, it highlights the importance of the thesis of the unity of the virtues in the philosopher’s work. This thesis is linked to an underlying epistemology the article clarifies. The God of the Prima Pars constitutes the Archimedean point of that epistemology, which the distinctions made in the De Veritate and De Ente and Essentia explain philosophically. This epistemology is at the heart of MacIntyrean thought, which is opposed (...) in that to Hilary Putnam, an important foil in his work. The article shows how. It presents the way in which Alasdair MacIntyre moves beyond the internalist impasse while honoring the relativity of all rational investigation. It likens his thought to that of Charles Sanders Peirce while shedding light on the Thomistic specificity of the MacIntyrean theory of truth. It positions Alasdair MacIntyre’s work within the context of contemporary Thomism. (shrink)

In contemporary discussions of human well-being, well-being is typically understood in secular terms. Analogously, most contemporary discussions of eudaimonistic virtue ethics, influenced by Aristotle, take human flourishing to be a matter of living virtuously, where flourishing and virtue are both secular notions. For many religious believers, however, well-being and virtuous activity involve not just ethical dispositions and actions, but primarily relationship to God. In this paper, I present an alternative eudaimonistic account of well-being that is theological in nature. This view, (...) which I call Thomistic eudaimonism, makes a strong connection between flourishing, virtuous activity, and relationship with God. What is worth considering about this account is that it is able to avoid one of the worst problems for secular, Aristotelian eudaimonism, namely that flourishing and virtue seem to come apart. This is a major strength of Thomistic eudaimonism and a reason to consider it as a theory of well-being. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ressourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, & the Moral Life ed. by Reinhold Hütter and Matthew LeveringMatthew ShadleRessourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, & the Moral Life Edited by Reinhold Hütter and Matthew Levering Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2010. 409 pp. $64.95This edited volume is a festschrift in honor of Romanus Cessario, OP, but, as its title suggests, it also has the larger (...) goal of showing that “ressourcement does not dispense with, but in fact requires, Thomism” (3). The contributors’ efforts to bring to light the insights of Aquinas are organized into three sections: theological method, sacramental theology, and moral theology.Readers of this journal will be most interested in the latter section. Highlights include Craig Steven Titus’s response to Jean Porter’s criticism of Aquinas’s doctrine of the unity of the virtues, in which Titus claims that Aquinas has a more developed awareness of moral struggle and development, even among the virtuous, than Porter allows, and that therefore Aquinas is not averse to the idea of a “flawed saint” (331). Steven A. Long distinguishes between acts that are necessary for the completion of a given end and those that are not, arguing that for the former the end defines the species of the act whereas the latter possess their own end and species independent of further intentions. Long’s purpose is to refute Martin Rhonheimer’s contention that condoms can be used by married couples to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS by showing that the use of condoms is not necessary for this purpose (since abstinence is also available), and therefore that such use must be considered an act of contraception regardless of any other good intentions involved. Joseph W. Koterski provides an excellent overview of the classical roots of the natural law theory and its modern exponents that could be useful in undergraduate and graduate courses, although the essay seems mismatched for the volume since the likely reader will probably find little new in it.An evaluation of the overall project of the volume requires a reading of the essays in the first section on theological method. Thomas Joseph White points to the Dominican theologians Marie-Dominique Chenu and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange as two extremes in the debate over historicity in theology: “in one we find history without sufficient recourse to dogma, while in the other we have dogma without sufficient recourse to history” (96). White insists that [End Page 218] theologians must find the proper balance between the two. It is not entirely apparent that those loosely identified with ressourcement Thomism have found this balance, if “recourse to history” includes sensitivity to the questions and concerns of one’s own age. In many of the essays in this volume it is unclear whose questions the authors’ exegeses of Aquinas are meant to answer, although other essays are quite engaging. Of course historical exegesis is necessary, but those involved in the mid-twentieth-century patristic ressourcement understood that the recovery of the sources was necessary precisely as an answer to the burning questions of the contemporary world. This is not accommodation, since the Christian tradition proposes something new to the world, but it proposes it with the confidence that human questioning is rooted in the innate desire for the triune God. The advocates of the earlier ressourcement saw the Thomism of their day as an obstacle to this dialogue between the Christian tradition and the contemporary world. The project of ressourcement Thomism will succeed to the extent that it shows how the teachings of Thomas Aquinas can contribute to this dialogue. [End Page 219]Matthew ShadleLoras CollegeCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

What is the distinction between understanding and forming a concept? In my view, for Aquinas, intelligere (the act of understanding) and dicere (the forming of a verbum or mental word) are not two different acts, but simply two different aspects of the same act of understanding. In the following, I will explore more in depth what this distinction means for Aquinas. Firstly, I will give a mostly doctrinal or systematic overview of the issue and, secondly, I will support my claims (...) with relevant textual evidence, taken exclusively from Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae. This study, as an appendix, is part of “The Influence of Kant in Transcendental Thomism: Rahner, Lonergan and Von Balthasar” (forthcoming). In my view, Lonergan’s way of distinguishing intelligere and dicere is different from St. Thomas’ way. In the body of my book, I focus on Lonergan’s reasons to distinguish these notions in his own particular way, whereas this study focuses on St. Thomas’ doctrine. It is my hope that the following lines will foster an understanding of St. Thomas’ epistemology and of its application to Trinitarian theology. (shrink)

Response to Jan Deckers' critique of the author's earlier article on the beginning of personhood from a Thomistic perspective in which the author revises and further refines his view.

What is Augustine’s commentary on Alypius’ curiosity (curiositas) at the gladiatorial show in Confessiones 6, 8, 13 fundamentally about? Augustinian scholars have interpreted the story widely. Following recent scholarly developments, this work argues for a distinctively Thomistic reading of Alypius’ curiositas. In 1987, Joseph Torchia interpreted this passage as putting only a secondary focus on the story’s emphasis on, in his words, «conflict with God, its inner self, and others». However, this triadic conflict is found in Aquinas: in his Commentary (...) on the Gospel of John (14, 7), Aquinas argues that a conflict with God, self and others is what it means to lack peace (pax). Confessions 6, 8, 13 is read here through a Thomistic lens: the presentation of Alypius’ curiositas is fundamentally a statement about Alypius’ lack of peace. (shrink)

Debate concerning human enhancement often revolves around the question of whether there is a common “nature” that all human beings share and which is unwarrantedly violated by enhancing one’s capabilities beyond the “species-typical” norm. I explicate Thomas Aquinas’s influential theory of human nature, noting certain key traits commonly shared among human beings that define each as a “person” who possesses inviolable moral status. Understanding the specific qualities that define the nature of human persons, which includes self-conscious awareness, capacity for intellective (...) thought, and volitional autonomy, informs the ethical assessment of various forms of enhancement. Some forms of cognitive and physical enhancement may be desirable from the perspective of what constitutes the “flourishing” of human persons in our fundamental nature; while other forms of enhancement, such as emotive or so-called “moral” enhancement, run the risk of detracting from human flourishing when evaluated from the virtue-theoretic perspective Aquinas promotes. (shrink)

In this article I present St. Thomas Aquinas’s views on the possibility of multiple incarnations. First I disambiguate four things one might mean when saying that multiple incarnations are possible. Then I provide and justify what I take to be Aquinas’s answers to these questions, showing the intricacies of his argumentation and concluding that he holds an extremely robust view of the possibility of multiple incarnations. According to Aquinas, I argue, there could be three simultaneously existing concrete rational natures, each (...) of which is assumed by all three of the Divine Persons, all at the same time. (shrink)

The publication in 1975 of Edward O. Wilson's Sociobiology provoked a great controversy, for in that work Wilson claimed that ethics was rooted in human biology. On the first page of the book, he asserted that our deepest intuitions of right and wrong are guided by the emotional control centers of the brain, which evolved via natural selection to help the human animal exploit opportunities and avoid threats in the natural environment. In 1998, the publication of Wilson's Consilience renewed the (...) controversy, as he continued to argue for explaining ethics through the biology of the moral sentiments.Footnotes* I am grateful to the Earhart Foundation for a research grant that supported the writing of this essay. (shrink)

Applies a generally Thomistic framework to Earp and colleagues' (2013) discussion of anti-love biotechnology. Discusses some of the constraints that should be placed on the use of such a technology from a Thomistic perspective.

The Thomistic doctrine of the soul as the form of the body has many of the right intentions. It aims to promote a close integration of soul and body, and more broadly of the human person with the overall world of nature. Emergent dualism responds that all creatures possess souls if the biological organism has developed in a way that enables it to be the “emergence base” for a soul. This chapter explains a brief survey of Aquinas's view of the (...) soul, following the exposition of that view by Eleonore Stump. The human soul is different from other subsistent immaterial forms, in that the human soul, unlike an angel, does configure matter. The distinctive nature of the human soul, as contrasted with the souls of animals, makes it plain that humans are not merely animals; rather, they are “rational animals”, with all that implies. (shrink)

I investigate Thomas Aquinas's metaphysical account of human death, which is defined in terms of a rational soul separating from its material body. The question at hand concerns what criterion best determines when this separation occurs. Aquinas argues that a body has a rational soul only insofar as it is properly organised to support the soul's vegetative, sensitive, and rational capacities. According to the ‘higher‐brain’ concept of death, when a body can no longer provide the biological foundation necessary for the (...) operation of conscious rational thought and volition, a substantial change occurs in which the rational soul departs and the body left behind is a ‘humanoid animal’ or a mere ‘vegetable.’I argue that the separation of soul and body does not occur until the body ceases to function as a unified, integrated organism. A rational soul is not only the seat of a human being's rational capacities; it is also the principle of the body's sensitive and vegetative capacities. Since Aquinas defines a human being as a composite of soul and body, and not with merely the exercise of rational capacities, the determination of death requires incontrovertible evidence that the body has ceased all the operations that correspond to the soul's proper capacities. The evidence of this is the body's loss of its integrative organic unity and the criterion for determining when this loss occurs is the irreversible cessation of whole‐brain functioning. (shrink)

Thomism, conceived of as the set of broad doctrines and style of thought expressed in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and of those who follow him, first emerged in the thirteenth century. Aquinas himself was born in 1225 into a religious culture in which the dominant tradition of speculative thought was a version of Christian neoplatonism heavily influenced by St. Augustine. Early in his studies as a Dominican, however, Aquinas came under the direction of Albert the Great, who (...) was to exercise an important role in communicating his own enthusiasm for innovations in philosophical, theological and scientific thought. (shrink)

In Atonement, Eleonore Stump develops a novel and compelling Thomistic account of the atonement and argues that Anselmian interpretations must be rejected. In this review essay, after summarizing her account, we raise worries about some aspects of it. First, we respond to her primary objection to Anselmian interpretations by arguing that, contrary to Stump, love does not require unilateral and unconditional forgiveness. Second, we suggest that the heart of Anselmian interpretations—that reconciliation with God requires reparation/restitution/satisfaction—is plausible and well-supported by some (...) of her own arguments. Third, we raise doubts about her views of the role of surrender in justification and the nature of justification itself. Finally, we question whether Stump’s account can successfully explain how the atonement deals with pre-justification sin. A central theme of our comments is that Stump’s Thomistic interpretation can be entwined with Anselmian interpretations to make a stronger account of the atonement. (shrink)

The article treats the doctrine of transubstantiation or the Eucharistic change as formulated by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa theologiae, Question 75, against its double conceptual (Christian religious vs. Aristotelian philosophical), as well as double linguistic (Latin vs. translated Greek), background. The doctrine is presented and analyzed as a philosophical-theological theory that can be explicated and assessed using the concept of philosophical untranslatable(s), recently discovered and brought to the fore by the proponents of the “translational turn” in continental philosophy. It (...) is argued on the basis of careful study of Aquinas’ text that the notion of transubstantiation should be identified as a conceptual untranslatable. -/- Here the term “untranslatable” means a unique reinterpretation of Aristotelian language of being and change, which results in a conceptual innovation that has some inherent problems as well as creative and promising inventions. The usage of such a concept is justified by the fact that the reconceptualization that Aquinas did to a number of Peripatetic ideas creates a few untranslatable notions, which do not have much meaning outside the peculiarly Thomistic Latin vocabulary. Despite some criticisms they are not necessarily to be regarded as contradictions, but rather as thomistic untranslatables. (shrink)

Sexual realism has traditionally held that our categories of sex refer to something real about our biology. Sexual non-realism, on the other hand, either partially or wholly rejects this position. Sexual non-realists typically point to intersexuality as evidence that our categories of sex are not inherent to nature but are culturally constructed. This paper makes use of the work of Carrie Hull in her book The Ontology of Sex to explore the philosophical backgrounds of sexual non-realism and to make a (...) general case for sexual realism from a Thomistic framework. (shrink)

Stephen Law’s evil-god challenge is the argument that since an evil god is just as likely as the God of theism, there is no reason to believe that theism is true over believing there is a god who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnimalevolent. There have been several attempts to answer the challenge, but recently John Collins has defended the evil-god challenge and also extended the argument past Law’s original formulation. In this article, I defend the classical theism of Thomas Aquinas (...) against the evil-god challenge. In particular, I explain how Aquinas’s theodicy involving God’s goodness and Aquinas’s privation view of evil avoid the challenge. (shrink)

Catholic Philosophy has long acknowledged the primary place of Metaphysics, and a primary question of metaphysicians is “what is Metaphysics about?” This paper engages this primary metaphysical question through the lens of Scholastic dispute over the adequate subject matter of Metaphysics. Chrysostom Iavelli defended the position that the subject of Metaphysics is real being common to God and creatures against the position of his predecessor Dominic Flandrensis who had argued that it is categorical being to the exclusion of uncreated being. (...) I find Flandrensis’s position represented in the writings of notable contemporary Thomists, but not Iavelli’s. This paper, offers a sixteenth-century Thomist’s position on the subject matter of Metaphysics as a challenge to current Thomist consensus. It attempts to prompt a re-investigation of the reasons behind the current consensus both as a philosophical position and as an interpretation of St. Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

Martin Rhonheimer’s The Perspective of Morality: Philosophical Foundations of Thomistic Virtue Ethics offers a bold summary of Thomistic virtue ethics, laid upon some not-so-Thomistic foundations, culminating in questionable, perhaps even dangerous, conclusions concerning actions evil in themselves. As anintroduction to ethical thought, the book covers a wide range of topics, including happiness, freedom, the nature of human actions, the moral virtues, conscience, the principles of practical reason, consequentialism, Kantian ethics, and much more. For some of these topics Rhonheimer provides a (...) helpful summary of the ethics of Aquinas, sprinkled with thoughtful reflections for the modern age. For other topics Rhonheimer introduces questionable interpretations and developments of Aquinas, written with obscurity and lack of precision. This article provides some suggested alternatives to Rhonheimer’s account, especially with regard to the origin of the first practical principles. (shrink)

A healthy Thomism is one engaged with the discoveries and challenges of other traditions and disciplines. In this article I argue for one way of integrating Thomistic ethics and recent work in psychology. I assert that Thomists should think of virtue as a kind of expertise, something that psychologists have studied for decades. First, I provide context and motivation for my integration project. Next, I offer a definition of expertise and contrast it with recent discussions of skill and Aristotle's (...) account of techne. Third, I argue that virtue and expertise are deeply similar. Finally, I conclude by showing some benefits of considering virtue to be a kind of expertise for virtue formation. (shrink)

All those interested in the thought of St Thomas Aquinas, and more generally contemporary Catholic scholarship, problems in philosophy of religion, and ...

This chapter discusses author's view a Thomistic‐like dualism. Next, it lays out the details of his position and he argues that it has certain advantages over physicalist treatments of the human person, and, to a lesser degree, over alternate versions of substance dualism. Then, he responds to some objections against his position. He accepts constituent realism regarding properties (and relations), according to which properties (and relations) are universals that, when exemplified (and they need not be to exist), become constituents of (...) the ordinary particulars that have them. Furthermore, with the Thomistic framework in mind, the chapter offers his view of a human person. Finally, there is the argument that attempts to show that the unity of consciousness cannot be explained if one is a brain, because a brain is just an aggregate of different physical (separable) parts. (shrink)

In this article I present St. Thomas Aquinas’s views on the possibility of multiple incarnations. First I disambiguate four things one might mean when saying that multiple incarnations are possible. Then I provide and justify what I take to be Aquinas’s answers to these questions, showing the intricacies of his argumentation and concluding that he holds an extremely robust view of the possibility of multiple incarnations. According to Aquinas, I argue, there could be three simultaneously existing concrete rational natures, each (...) of which is assumed by all three of the Divine Persons, all at the same time. (shrink)

A cursory reading of Thomas Aquinas’s work can give the impression he condones a despotic or exploitative relationship between humans and the environment. Many philosophers and theologians have sought to dispel this impression and draw out a more robust Thomistic environmental ethic. In this paper, I support this endeavor by describing how, in Thomas’s work, the environment is God’s artistic property and how this notion qualifies our use of the environment. Next, I consider two concepts related to artistic property: vandalism (...) and showcasing. I explore these concepts as they relate to the environment and find they give us reasons not to deface or destroy creatures and to look to creation for guidance in problem-solving. (shrink)

In his long scholarly career, Paul Oskar Kristeller produced an extraordinary number of seminal books and articles, one of which was the 1967 monograph Le Thomisme et la pensée italienne de la Renaissance, which presented the evidence for the intellectual vitality of Thomism in the Italian Renaissance. In 2017, on the fiftieth anniversary of Kristeller's book, the collection of articles under review was presented originally as papers at the Chicago meeting of the Renaissance Society of America and brought together (...) for publication in record time by Alison Frazier. The articles pay tribute to Kristeller by offering fresh contributions on Renaissance Thomism. Paul Richard Blum, at the start, and Kent Emery... (shrink)

A Study of the Commentary by Thomas Aquinas on the Nicomachean Ethics. Reprint of the edition published by the University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Includes bibliography and index.

I argue that two components of Thomistic philosophy of nature (specifically, hylomorphism combined with a relational ontology of space) entail a core claim of big-bang cosmology. I then consider some implications of this fact for natural theology.

In Advice to Christian philosophers Alvin Plantinga suggested that Christians who propose to be philosophers should not limit themselves to being philosophers who happen, incidentally, to be Christians. Instead, they should develop a Christian philosophy. From this, however, a problem followed, which is still seen as a reason to deny that a Christian philosophy is possible. It seems implausible that the outcome of the interaction between faith and philosophy is, really, philosophy and not merely theology. Plantinga did not deal with (...) this problem. Unlike him, thinkers of various orientations, especially scholars of Thomas Aquinas, had discussed it during the French querelle in the 1930s. In this article, I argue that they did not solve this problem because they did not examine the relationship between faith and philosophy by considering what faith requires in order to relate to reason. Instead, this consideration was suggested by Plantinga’s Advice and, long before, it had been developed in detail by Thomas Aquinas. It is, therefore, time to propose Thomist Advice to Christian Philosophers. (shrink)

The article is a presentation of the Thomist response to Scotist criticism of analogy; namely, the defense of St. Thomas’ teaching in some leading renaissance and post-renaissance Thomists: Thomas de Vio, better known as Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara, John Versor and John of Saint Thomas. The author first explains the general core of the semantic doctrine of analogy and outlines the basic terminology. Then he exposes the way Cajetan and other Thomists knit Aquinas’ dispersed remarks on analogy into a systematic (...) doctrinal whole. (shrink)

The article is a presentation of the Thomist response to Scotist criticism of analogy; namely, the defense of St. Thomas’ teaching in some leading renaissance and post-renaissance Thomists: Thomas de Vio, better known as Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara, John Versor and John of Saint Thomas. The author first explains the general core of the semantic doctrine of analogy and outlines the basic terminology. Then he exposes the way Cajetan and other Thomists knit Aquinas’ dispersed remarks on analogy into a systematic (...) doctrinal whole. (shrink)

The article is a presentation of the Thomist response to Scotist criticism of analogy; namely, the defense of St. Thomas’ teaching in some leading renaissance and post-renaissance Thomists: Thomas de Vio, better known as Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara, John Versor and John of Saint Thomas. The author first explains the general core of the semantic doctrine of analogy and outlines the basic terminology. Then he exposes the way Cajetan and other Thomists knit Aquinas’ dispersed remarks on analogy into a systematic (...) doctrinal whole. (shrink)

ArgumentThe paper offers a reading of Aquinas' treatise On Faith as a source of inspiration for later developments in the Catholic world of learning. My main argument is that Aquinas' attempt to interpolate his discourse on faith into a clear epistemological context had long-term intellectual and institutional implications. On the intellectual level Aquinas' discourse had the effect of blurring the ancient dichotomy between episteme/knowledge-science, and doxa/opinion-belief, that had presupposed an ontological difference between their objects. On the institutional level Aquinas' discourse (...) on faith allowed for the superposition of intellectual and political authority. The Jesuit educators of the early modern age, who identified themselves as Thomist, elaborated on the potential of the special configuration of knowledge and authority they had found in Aquinas' theology and transformed its principles into social-intellectual mechanisms to organize a framework in which to produce and transmit knowledge in the first global educational system. (shrink)

ABSTRACTHistorians have portrayed the papal bull Coeli et terrae as a significant turning point in the history of the Catholic Church’s censorship of astrology. They argue that this bull was intended to prohibit the idea that the stars could naturally incline humans towards future actions, but also had the effect of preventing the discussion of other forms of natural astrology including those useful to medicine, agriculture, and navigation. The bull, therefore, threatened to overturn principles established by Thomas Aquinas, which not (...) only justified long-standing astrological practices, but also informed the Roman Inquisition’s attitude towards this art. The promulgation of the bull has been attributed to the ‘rigour’ of the incumbent pope, Sixtus V. In this article I revise our understanding of this bull in two ways. First, I reconsider the Inquisition’s attitude towards astrology in the mid-sixteenth century, arguing that its members promoted a limited form of Thomist astrology that did not permit the doctrine of inclination. Second, using Robert Bellarmine’s unpublished lectures discussing Aquinas’s views of astrology, I suggest that this attitude was common during the sixteenth century, and may have been caused by the crisis of Renaissance astrology precipitated by the work of Giovanni Pico. (shrink)