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Jeffrey E. Brower [28]Jeffrey Brower [3]Jeffrey Evan Brower [1]
  1. Aquinas’s Ontology of the Material World: Change, Hylomorphism, and Material Objects.Jeffrey E. Brower - 2014 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    Jeffrey E. Brower presents and explains the hylomorphic conception of the material world developed by Thomas Aquinas, according to which material objects are composed of both matter and form. In addition to presenting and explaining Aquinas's views, Brower seeks wherever possible to bring them into dialogue with the best recent literature on related topics. Along the way, he highlights the contribution that Aquinas's views make to a host of contemporary metaphysical debates, including the nature of change, composition, material constitution, the (...)
  2. Simplicity and aseity.Jeffrey E. Brower - 2008 - In Thomas P. Flint & Michael Rea (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophical theology. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 105-28.
    There is a traditional theistic doctrine, known as the doctrine of divine simplicity, according to which God is an absolutely simple being, completely devoid of any metaphysical complexity. On the standard understanding of this doctrine—as epitomized in the work of philosophers such as Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas—there are no distinctions to be drawn between God and his nature, goodness, power, or wisdom. On the contrary, God is identical with each of these things, along with anything else that can be predicated (...)
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  3. Making Sense of Divine Simplicity.Jeffrey E. Brower - 2008 - Faith and Philosophy 25 (1):3-30.
    According to the doctrine of divine simplicity, God is an absolutely simple being lacking any distinct metaphysical parts, properties, or constituents. Although this doctrine was once an essential part of traditional philosophical theology, it is now widely rejected as incoherent. In this paper, I develop an interpretation of the doctrine designed to resolve contemporary concerns about its coherence, as well as to show precisely what is required to make sense of divine simplicity.
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  4. Material Constitution and the Trinity.Jeffrey E. Brower & Michael C. Rea - 2005 - Faith and Philosophy 22 (1):57-76.
    The Christian doctrine of the Trinity poses a serious philosophical problem. On the one hand, it seems to imply that there is exactly one divine being; on the other hand, it seems to imply that there are three. There is another well-known philosophical problem that presents us with a similar sort of tension: the problem of material constitution. We argue in this paper that a relatively neglected solution to the problem of material constitution can be developed into a novel solution (...)
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  5. (1 other version)A Theistic Argument Against Platonism (and in Support of Truthmakers and Divine Simplicity).Michael Bergmann & Jeffrey E. Brower - 2006 - Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 2:357-386.
    Predication is an indisputable part of our linguistic behavior. By contrast, the metaphysics of predication has been a matter of dispute ever since antiquity. According to Plato—or at least Platonism, the view that goes by Plato’s name in contemporary philosophy—the truths expressed by predications such as “Socrates is wise” are true because there is a subject of predication (e.g., Socrates), there is an abstract property or universal (e.g., wisdom), and the subject exemplifies the property.1 This view is supposed to be (...)
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  6. Aquinas on Mental Representation: Concepts and Intentionality.Jeffrey E. Brower & Susan Brower-Toland - 2008 - Philosophical Review 117 (2):193-243.
    This essay explores some of the central aspects of Aquinas's account of mental representation, focusing in particular on his views about the intentionality of concepts (or intelligible species). It begins by demonstrating the need for a new interpretation of his account, showing in particular that the standard interpretations all face insurmountable textual difficulties. It then develops the needed alternative and explains how it avoids the sorts of problems plaguing the standard interpretations. Finally, it draws out the implications of this interpretation (...)
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  7. Matter, form, and individuation.Jeffrey E. Brower - 2011 - In Brian Davies & Eleonore Stump (eds.), The Oxford handbook of Aquinas. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 85-103.
    Few notions are more central to Aquinas’s thought than those of matter and form. Although he invokes these notions in a number of different contexts, and puts them to a number of different uses, he always assumes that in their primary or basic sense they are correlative both with each other and with the notion of a “hylomorphic compound”—that is, a compound of matter (hyle) and form (morphe). Thus, matter is an entity that can have form, form is an entity (...)
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  8. Medieval theories of relations.Jeffrey E. Brower - 2001 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    The purpose of this entry is to provide a systematic introduction to medieval views about the nature and ontological status of relations. Given the current state of our knowledge of medieval philosophy, especially with regard to relations, it is not possible to discuss all the nuances of even the best known medieval philosophers' views. In what follows, therefore, we shall restrict our aim to identifying and describing (a) the main types of position that were developed during the Middle Ages, and (...)
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  9. Aristotelian vs. Contemporary Perspectives on Relations.Jeffrey E. Brower - 2016 - In Anna Marmodoro & David Yates (eds.), The Metaphysics of Relations. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
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  10. (1 other version)The Problem with Social Trinitarianism: A Reply to Wierenga.Jeffrey E. Brower - 2004 - Faith and Philosophy 21 (3):295-303.
    In a recent article, Edward Wierenga defends a version of Social Trinitarianism according to which the Persons of the Trinity form a unique society of really distinct divine beings, each of whom has its own exemplification of divinity. In this paper, I call attention to several philosophical and theological difficulties with Wierenga’s account, as well as to a problem that such difficulties pose for Social Trinitarianism generally. I then briefly suggest what I take to be a more promising approach to (...)
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  11. Abelard's Theory of Relations: Reductionism and the Aristotelian Tradition.Jeffrey E. Brower - 1998 - Review of Metaphysics 51 (3):605-631.
  12. Aquinas on the Individuation of Substances.Jeffrey E. Brower - 2017 - Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 5 (1).
    Aquinas has much to say about individuation over the course of his career. Although certain aspects of his views appear to undergo development, there is one aspect that remains constant throughout—namely, his commitment to assigning both prime matter and quantity an essential role in the individuation of substances. This paper examines the vexed issue of how either prime matter or quantity, as Aquinas understands them, could have any role to play in this context. In the course of doing so, the (...)
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  13. Relations Without Polyadic Properties: Albert the Great On the Nature and Ontological Status of Relations.Jeffrey E. Brower - 2001 - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 83 (3):225-257.
    I think it would be fair to say that, until about 1900, philosophers were generally reluctant to admit the existence of what are nowadays called polyadic properties.1 It is important to recognize, however, that this reluctance on the part of pre-twentieth-century philosophers did not prevent them from theorizing about relations. On the contrary, philosophers from the ancient through the modern period have had much to say about both the nature and the ontological status of relations. In this paper I examine (...)
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  14.  98
    Understanding the Trinity.Jeffrey E. Brower & Michael C. Rea - 2005 - Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 8 (1):145-157.
    The doctrine of the Trinity poses a deep and difficult problem. On the one hand, it says that there are three distinct Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and that each of these Persons “is God”. On the other hand, it says that there is one and only one God. So it appears to involve a contradiction. It seems to say that there is exactly one divine being, and also that there is more than one. How are we to make sense of (...)
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  15. Anselm on Ethics.Jeffrey E. Brower - 2004 - In Brian Leftow (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Anselm. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 222-56.
    There is a real question about whether Anselm developed anything like a systematic ethical theory.1 Indeed, scholars have sometimes suggested that his treatment of ethical matters consists in little more than recapitulation of ethical principles implicit in Scripture or transmitted to him by Christian thinkers such as Augustine and Boethius.2 The truth of the matter, however, is quite the opposite. Although it is easy to overlook the systematic nature of Anselm’s ethical theorizing, as well as its genuine originality, his contribution (...)
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  16.  28
    (1 other version)Aquinas on the Problem of Universals.Jeffrey E. Brower - 2015 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 92 (3):715-735.
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  17. The Cambridge Companion to Abelard.Jeffrey E. Brower & Kevin Guilfoy (eds.) - 2004 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    Peter Abelard is one of the greatest philosophers of the medieval period. Although best known for his views about universals and his dramatic love affair with Heloise, he made a number of important contributions in metaphysics, logic, philosophy of language, mind and cognition, philosophical theology, ethics, and literature. The essays in this volume survey the entire range of Abelard's thought, and examine his overall achievement in its intellectual and historical context. They also trace Abelard's influence on later thought and his (...)
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  18. Aquinas’s Metaphysics of Modality: A Reply to Leftow.Jeffrey Brower - 2005 - Modern Schoolman 83 (3):201-212.
    Brian Leftow sets out to provide us with an account of Aquinas’s metaphysics of modality. Drawing on some important recent work, which is surely close to the spirit (if not quite the letter) of Aquinas’s thought, he frames his discussion in terms of “truthmakers”: what is it that makes true claims about possibility and necessity—that is to say, what serves as their ontological ground or ultimate metaphysical explanation? Leftow’s main thesis is that, for Aquinas, all true modal claims are made (...)
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  19. Matter.Jeffrey E. Brower - 2015 - In Robert Audi (ed.), Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 3rd Edition. Cambridge University Press.
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  20. (1 other version)Special Issue of ACPQ on Peter Abelard.Jeffrey E. Brower - 2007 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 81 (2).
  21. The God of Eth and the God of Earth.Michael Bergmann & Jeffrey E. Brower - 2007 - Think 5 (14):33-38.
    Stephen Law has recently argued (Think, Vol 5, Issue 9), using a dialogue set on the fictional planet Eth, that traditional belief in God is 'silly'. Bergmann and Brower argue that theists on Earth should not be convinced.
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  22. (1 other version)Trinity.Jeffrey Brower - 2004 - In Jeffrey E. Brower & Kevin Guilfoy (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Abelard. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 223-257.
    This article provides a sympathetic treatment of Abelard’s account of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. It argues that the key to Abelard’s account lies in his ingenious defense of a form of numerical sameness without identity--a relation whose application to the Trinity he justifies on the grounds that it must be invoked to explain familiar cases of material constitution. The conclusion is that, although Abelard’s discussion provides the resources to establish the coherence of the Trinity, his attempt to reconcile (...)
     
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  23.  79
    Reason and Faith: Themes From Swinburne.Michael Bergmann & Jeffrey E. Brower (eds.) - 2016 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    The past fifty years have been an enormously fruitful period in the field of philosophy of religion, and few have done more to advance its development during this time than Richard Swinburne. His pioneering work has systematically developed a comprehensive set of positions within this field, and made major contributions to fields such as metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of science. This volume presents a collection of ten new essays in philosophy of religion that develop and critically engage themes from Swinburne's (...)
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    (1 other version)Duns Scotus.Jeffrey E. Brower - 2001 - Philosophia Christi 3 (1):310-311.
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    Hud Hudson. A Grotesque in the Garden.Jeffrey E. Brower - 2018 - Journal of Analytic Theology 6:704-709.
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  26. Paul V. Spade (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ockham[REVIEW]Jeffrey E. Brower - 2000 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 38 (4):588-589.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Cambridge Companion to OckhamJeffrey E. BrowerPaul Vincent Spade, editor. The Cambridge Companion to Ockham. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xii + 400. Cloth, $54.95.Contemporary analytic philosophers have always been among the most enthusiastic audiences for the volumes in the Cambridge Companion series. And of all the great philosophers of the Middle Ages, perhaps none has appealed more to their sensibilities than William Ockham. It is fitting, (...)
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  27.  52
    John Haldane (ed.), Mind, Metaphysics, and Value in the Thomistic and Analytical Traditions[REVIEW]Jeffrey E. Brower - 2003 - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2003 (3).