Thomistic Philosophy Research Articles

State Power over the Body in the Context of Thomistic Ethics — Capital Punishment, Police Killing and Waging War

When engaging in a philosophical analysis of body and corporeality in a political context, it is essential to ask to what extent, under what circumstances, and in accordance with what moral norms the state performs actions that have the bodies and lives of citizens as their object. This issue was already discussed in ancient philosophy, examples of which can be found in the writings of Plato and Aristotle, but also in ancient jurisprudence, especially in the law and the legal doctrine of ancient Rome. Aware of such a previous history of studies on this topic, this analysis will discuss the three main ways in which state power over the life and health of citizens is manifested. Namely: (i) capital punishment (ii) policing and (iii) warfare. In addition, it will be indicated, based on Thomistic philosophy, what moral norms govern these state actions. The fundamental differences between the three main state powers — judicial, police, and military — will also be shown in the context of lethal actions undertaken on their basis.

Von Hildebrand on the Roots of Moral Evil

In this article, I sketch, both in broad outlines and in selected details, the new, richer picture of von Hildebrand’s account of moral evil as it emerges from my discovery of extensive materials in von Hildebrand´s Nachlass at the Bavarian State Library in Munich dealing with the “roots of moral evil”. These manuscripts and typescripts, the critical edition of which will be published at the same time as this article or shortly thereafter, show that von Hildebrand´s account of moral evil is much richer, more nuanced, and complex than the one we can glean from the final section of Ethics, his magnum opus in moral philosophy. In this article, I also aim to situate von Hildebrand´s analysis of the roots of moral evil in the context of both Christian religious thought and the Western philosophical tradition. Von Hildebrand was, to be sure, an heir to both of these traditions, despite the thrust of his phenomenological method to “bracket” all extant theories and turn “back to the things themselves”. The mind-boggling feature of the tension between von Hildebrand´s existential rootedness in the Catholic tradition and his methodological distance to it, including the Aristotelian–Thomist philosophy, is the following: On one hand, he claims that the two ultimate roots of moral evil are pride and concupiscence, which sounds perfectly traditionally Christian. On the other hand, however, he strips these concepts of most of their traditional connotations and endows them with the meaning they acquire in the context of his phenomenological analyses. The intriguing result of this approach is the transformation of religious or moral theological concepts of pride and concupiscence into descriptive phenomenological categories which encompass an almost inexhaustible wealth of various subspecies and subordinate forms of moral evil.

God in the Face of Natural and Moral Evils: A Thomistic Approach

The existence of evil in a world created by God raises very difficult questions to answer. Under the inspiration of Thomistic philosophy, in this article we face this problem first of all “from below”, trying to understand the meaning of physical evils in living nature, especially in animals (pain, aggressive interactions). Secondly, in thinking of the enormous amount of moral evil in the human world, we consider the biblical faith in original sin as illuminating. We examine some points of Thomas Aquinas in this regard, especially his thesis that the physical cosmos is not affected by original sin and that the loss of man’s primitive happy situation involves a contradiction between his spiritual aspirations and his mortal nature subject to limits and suffering. This situation is remedied by the help God gives man through his ordinary Providence, which includes a personal struggle against evil, and above all through his salvific plan which we know thanks to the biblical faith.

The Possibility of a Thomist Philosophy of History: Guidance from Jacques Maritain

The Possibility of a Thomist Philosophy of History: Guidance from Jacques Maritain

St. Thomas Aquinas and the Natural Law

The object of the moral act is a subject of some controversy in modern discussions of Christian ethics. Pope St. John Paul II, in the encyclical Veritatis splendor, speaks to the nature of the moral act with reference to Thomistic philosophy. This article discusses the foundational elements of Thomas Aquinas’s account of natural law and provides some important clarification of the nature of the moral act as addressed in the encyclical.

An Insufficient Canon: The Popol Wuj, Book of Mormon, and Other Scriptures

An Insufficient Canon: The Popol Wuj, Book of Mormon, and Other Scriptures

The Fabrian Vision of the Comparison of Being and Nothingness in Aquinas and Heidegger

In this paper I follow Fabro’s analysis of “Dell’ente, dell’essere e del nulla” from the eighth chapter of his book Tomismo e Pensiero Moderno, and his explanation of essere and nulla in Heidegger and Aquinas. Remaining faithful to the author’s outline in said chapter, firstly, I highlight the essential topic of being and the openness to the Absolute in both, the Heideggerian and Thomistic metaphysical thought. Secondly, I consider the reduction of the object of metaphysics to the essence and the problem of being in Christian philosophy. Finally, I address Heidegger’s charge directed to Thomistic philosophy as interpreter of the faith. In the conclusion, by following some of the remarks of Fides et Ratio, I restate the importance of returning to Aquinas’ innovative notion of being, equally to do philosophy and theology in total openness to the Absolute, and I do so in the steps of Fabro, that is, recognizing the contributions of modern philosophy such as Heidegger’s.

After Relativism: Alasdair MacIntyre on Tradition and Rationality

After Relativism:Alasdair MacIntyre on Tradition and Rationality Olli-Pekka Vainio In debates, it is common to summon the concept of "reason" or "rationality" as neutral arbiters. However, there is something problematic in this proposal, as it erroneously suggests that rationality is something completely self-evident, transparent, and free from interpretation.1 Over the course of history, all the great words, including "reason" and its derivatives have been dressed in a wide variety of garments. Moreover, is it not often at the heart of the disagreement that we disagree over what is in fact rational? Providing rationality as a solution to the problem of rationality does not seem to help us much.2 One of the key themes of Alasdair MacIntyre's career has been to analyze this conundrum.3 His influential and much discussed works After Virtue [End Page 315] (1981), Whose Justice? Which Tradition? (1988), and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (1990) are reviews of the history of Western philosophy that attempt to uncover the connections of given ideals of rationality with particular traditions.4 In this way he provides a critique of the Enlightenment type of reason that presents itself as free from all traditions, and as thus being universal. However, the mere critique of the Enlightenment is often taken to be a concealed argument for relativism. If rationality is born within and bound by a tradition, is the truth also defined by the criteria adopted by each community? In this article, I will look at MacIntyre's views that are related to the problem of relativism. My focus is on the Thomistic philosophy of his late career, through which he seeks to complement the shortcomings of his previous thinking. Incipient Thomism is already part of Whose Justice? and Three Rival Versions, but only in his essays and other works written since the late 1990s does MacIntyre present his theory of knowledge more accurately. MacIntyre's thinking has evolved from the communitarian sociology of knowledge towards Thomistic realism. His Thomistic turn can be seen as an answer to the accusations of relativism, but does this mean that his system devolves into conservatism and authoritarianism, as some of his critics have argued? Or will relativism continue to bother MacIntyre's system?5 Reason and History For MacIntyre, rationality is not an abstract principle or an allegedly neutral method, but a complex and ever-evolving set of arguments. Rationality is holistic: it is not just about individual claims, for it is comprehensively linked to a whole group of beliefs through which the [End Page 316] individual perceives his place in reality and evaluates what a good life should be.6 MacIntyre sums up the idea of tradition-based rationality as follows: "There is no standing ground, no place for enquiry, no way to engage in the practices of advancing, evaluating, accepting, and rejecting reasoned argument apart from that which is provided by some particular tradition or other."7 In other words, arguments do not float in the air, for they are always related to the history of each community. Traditions are "socially embodied arguments."8 As a result, "to justify is to narrate how the argument has gone so far."9 According to the ideal of the Enlightenment, rationality is something that exists outside traditions, while MacIntyre argues that rationality is always internal to a tradition. If the Enlightenment view were true, we should have some universal means of dealing with differences between various traditions by relying on this general principle of rationality. However, according to MacIntyre, we have good reason to consider this notion to be wrong, because no philosopher who has followed the Enlightenment view has been able to tell us what these generally accepted principles are—or to provide us with a generally accepted interpretation of these principles.10 In other words, according to MacIntyre's critique, the Enlightenment is a failed project according to its own criteria. The Enlightenment not only failed to define commonly agreed principles; it also made it much more difficult to have a debate on the nature of such principles. The reason for this is that it offers a too simple and totalizing idea of what is rational, which is...

The Education of Children in Amoris Laetitia in Light of Thomist Philosophy

This article deals with the essentially human and personal meaning of education presented to us by Pope Francis' Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia. This work is carried out because of the "Family Year" established to be celebrated from March 2021 to June 2022.
 It is intended to show that the Exhortation is a true response to the "educational emergency" denounced by Pope Benedict XVI since 2008. A study of chapter VII of the above-mentioned letter, entitled "Towards a better education of children", analyzes and compares with the philosophical principles universally recognized in history about education, especially in St. Thomas Aquinas, with regard to the moral formation of children, recognizing the significant and fundamental responsibility of parents in this important matter.
 At the end of the analysis it is concluded that the magisterial text is rooted in the tradition of Christian philosophical thought and that, as such, it collaborates, as a light and guide, in the educational work of parents and, therefore, in providing solutions to the problems facing education today; but with regard to the philosophy of the Thomistic being, we cannot say that there is a basis in this metaphysics, although it is perfectly complementary.
 Este artículo se ocupa del significado esencialmente humano y personal de la educación que nos presenta la Exhortación Apostólica Amoris Laetitia del Papa Francisco. Se realiza este trabajo en razón del “Año de la Familia” establecido para celebrarse desde marzo de 2021 a junio de 2022.
 Verdadera respuesta a la “emergencia educativa” denunciada a partir de enero de 2008 en el Mensaje del Santo Padre Benedicto XVI a la Diócesis de Roma. Mediante un estudio del capítulo VII de la mencionada carta (Papa Juan Pablo II, 1998), denominado “Fortalecer la educación de los hijos”, se analiza y compara con los principios filosóficos universalmente reconocidos en la historia acerca de la educación, especialmente en Santo Tomás de Aquino, en lo que se refiere a la formación moral de los hijos, reconociendo la significativa y fundamental responsabilidad de los padres en esta importante materia.
 Al finalizar el análisis se concluye que el texto magisterial está enraizado en la tradición del pensamiento filosófico cristiano y que, como tal, colabora, como luz y guía, en la labor educativa de los padres y, por tanto, en dar solución a los problemas que enfrenta la educación hoy en día; pero respecto de la filosofía del ser tomista, no podemos decir que exista un fundamento en esta metafísica, aunque es perfectamente complementaria (Pontificia Academia Sancti Thomae Aquinatis, 2010).

Philosophical Enhancements of the Humanistic Phenomenology of Karol Wojtyla to the Thomistic Philosophy of the Human Person

Philosophical Enhancements of the Humanistic Phenomenology of Karol Wojtyla to the Thomistic Philosophy of the Human Person

A.G. Sertillanges: The Foundations of Thomistic Philosophy

A.G. Sertillanges: The Foundations of Thomistic Philosophy

God, Evolution, and the Body of Adam

Catholic evolutionists have proposed to reconcile evolutionary anthropogenesis with Catholic doctrine by suggesting that a created soul could be infused into a body produced (in part, if not wholly) by evolution from an animal body. Could such an infusion yield not just a Platonic composite but a being with the unity of substance required by a Thomistic philosophy of nature? How could such a soul be the form of the body into which it was infused?This paper suggests that animals seem to have sense-powers with a level of complexity, if not sufficient to underlie the abstraction of concepts in a being that also has a rational soul, then at least nearly so. The burden of proof lies rather on those who think that evolutionary development of such powers is not possible.In its final section, the paper argues that the existence of Eve as a second, and the only additional, initial rational being does not create special problems for the view here articulated.

NEOTOMISMO EM CURITIBA (1930-1950)

O objetivo deste artigo é analisar o neotomismo no Círculo de Estudos Bandeirantes entre 1930 e 1950. O CEB era um centro de estudos e de encontro da intelectualidade católica curitibana. Inconformados com a modernidade daqueles anos e seus efeitos no campo da cultura, do pensamento e da religião, os cebistas expressam sua crítica embasados na filosofia tomista. Eles estavam percebendo que a dinâmica liberal moderna não se coadunava com o ethos cristão católico. O liberalismo, apoiado na secularização e no laicismo, implantou uma nova ordem e um novo ethos, produziu uma modernidade medíocre, anárquica e sem sentido. É contra essa modernidade que solapou a religião e a tradição católica como referenciais e guias da sociedade que os cebistas levantam sua voz nas reuniões no CEB. É no tomismo que eles vão buscar elementos para dialogar com a modernidade e restaurar os valores cristãos. O texto está estruturado em quatro seções: 1. O Círculo de Estudos Bandeirantes e o Neotomismo; 2. Modernidade medíocre e anárquica; 3. Secularização, laicismo e laicidade; 4. Ordem, ethos, cultura moderna e perda de sentido.

‘Ireland is not going to take her orders from Rome’: Leo XIII, Thomism, and the Irish political imagination

ABSTRACT This article explores the extent to which the traditional Catholic philosophies of Thomas Aquinas influence the Irish political imagination in the nineteenth century. It looks first to Pope Leo XIII, one of the leading proponents of restoring Thomism into mainstream Catholic political thought, and the author of the influential encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891). The article examines how the Irish Land War during the 1880s influenced the development and audience of the encyclical. Finally, it analyses how the Thomistic principles which served as the foundations of Rerum Novarum were used by the lower-class Irish Catholic laity to legitimize incidences of protest and resistance which were considered morally illicit by the Catholic Church. In doing so, the article demonstrates how Catholicism and Thomistic philosophy influenced the way in which Irish Catholics perceived their relationship with the state and their rights as citizens.

The Theory of Analogy in Thomistic Philosophy and in the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea

Translation of “De leer der analogie in de thomistische wijsbegeerte en in de wijsbegeerte der wetsidee” by Herman Dooyeweerd (1942), Philosophia Reformata 7 (1–2), pp. 47–57.

Five Proofs of the Existence of God: Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Leibniz by Edward Feser

Reviewed by: Five Proofs of the Existence of God: Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Leibniz by Edward Feser Joshua Lim Five Proofs of the Existence of God: Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Leibniz by Edward Feser (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), 330 pp. Notwithstanding Karl Barth's famous "Nein!" against the possibility of natural theology in his debates with Emil Brunner, investigations into the possibility of arguments for the existence of God based on natural reason have not been absent in contemporary philosophy and theology. In fact, the traditional conviction that God's existence is demonstrable by unaided human reason (demonstration here understood according to the Scholastic sense, "that the conclusion that God exists follows with necessity or deductive validity from premises that [End Page 1301] are certain, where the certainty of the premises can in turn be shown via metaphysical analysis" [306]) is not difficult to come by. This is in large part thanks to contemporary philosophers such as Edward Feser, whose works in Thomistic philosophy have made the Angelic Doctor's philosophical views more accessible to a popular and non-Thomist audience. His most recent book, Five Proofs of the Existence of God, is no exception. For a lucid and intelligible explication of the oft-misunderstood quinque viae to God's existence, one need look no further than Feser's introductory work, Aquinas: A Begnniner's Guide (or, for those who are more polemically disposed, one can hardly do better than Feser's The Last Superstition). Five Proofs offers something new insofar as it does not focus strictly on the thought of Aquinas. According to Feser, the book answers to "a need for an exposition and defense of certain important arguments for God's existence that Aquinas himself does not discuss and which have also received insufficient attention in recent work in natural theology" (10). To be sure, Thomas's argument based on motion (taken from Aristotle) and his argument based on the essence–existence distinction make an appearance; nevertheless, it is clear that one need not restrict oneself to the high Scholasticism of the thirteenth century in order to find good and demonstrative arguments for God's existence. Indeed, one need not restrict oneself even to Christian thinkers or to the Christian era. The book has seven chapters. Each of the first five works through a distinct argument for the existence of God. The proofs are presented in chronological order. Beginning with the Aristotelian proof, Feser proceeds to treat the neo-Platonic proof, the Augustinian proof, the Thomistic proof, and finally the rationalist (or Leibnizian) proof. Chapter 6, the lengthiest chapter of the book, is a treatment of the divine nature and God's relationship to the world. Here, Feser discusses in detail the divine attributes as well as the question of God's acting in and with secondary causal agents. The last chapter closes with responses to "common objections" to natural theology. Each chapter on a given proof is divided into two stages. In the first stage, Feser begins with a description (first mover, incomposite being, necessary being, etc.) and argues for the existence of a thing that corresponds to that description. In the second stage, he shows how that a thing must also have various attributes that are typically ascribed to God (simplicity, unity, goodness, intelligence, omnipotence, etc.). He then concludes to the existence of God. These two stages are presented first informally, as he says, "as if in a more discursive and leisurely way" (11), and then in a more formal manner, where the argument is spelled out step by step according to numbered propositions. [End Page 1302] While each of Feser's arguments for God's existence are discrete, nevertheless, they converge as they rise toward their conclusion. Thus, the proofs should not be viewed as compartmentalized and unrelated. Each argument, in its second stage, borrows from previous proofs. For example, once Feser has argued for God as actus purus in his Aristotelian proof, all the attributes that follow from God being actus purus are alluded to in the subsequent proofs as a sort of shorthand. This integral approach is related to Feser's division of each proof into two stages. The...

Evil in Aristotle by Pavlos Kontos

Reviewed by: Evil in Aristotle by Pavlos Kontos Samuel Baker Pavlos Kontos, editor. Evil in Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. viii + 277. Cloth, £75.00. This is the first volume devoted to Aristotle's thoughts on evil or badness (to kakon). The work calls attention to several relatively neglected areas of scholarship, and the contributions [End Page 342] give any reader grounds for thinking that Aristotle has thoughts about to kakon that are sophisticated and worthy of deep philosophical engagement. The volume is divided into three parts: metaphysics and biology in the first, practical philosophy in the second, and the "presence of Aristotle in post-Aristotelian philosophy" in the third (189). The topics vary widely—deformed animal kinds, the worst constitutions, the subhuman vice of brutishness, the misfortunes of the virtuous etc.—but the volume presents no clear philosophical connections between these diverse evils. Some contributions do discuss the same topics and texts, even at length, but no contribution seems to be aware of any other. Thus, it falls to the reader to determine whether, for example, the three discussions of brutishness are compatible or not. Yet the volume's general heterogeneity is largely due to the subject matter itself: Aristotle maintains that there is no single science of the good because good "is said in many ways" (Nicomachean Ethics I.6), and he similarly would seem to think that there is no single science of evil because evil is said in many ways. In the first section, Jonathan Beere analyzes Metaphysics Θ.9, which is Aristotle's most important discussion of the metaphysics of evil. Aristotle believes that there can be no bad first principles, and his argument rests on two key claims: badness is posterior in nature to capacity, and first principles involve no capacity. Beere argues at length in support of the first claim, and in so doing he contends that human capacities exist "for the sake of virtue" (46)—and so vice is always a corruption of a capacity that exists for the sake of virtue. This is a bold claim, and I would have liked for other contributors in the volume to have addressed it. (Here I should note that Beere refers the reader to his Doing and Being [2008] for a "fuller treatment of Theta 9" [50n11].) The chapter by C. D. C. Reeve ranges over topics in metaphysics, ethics, politics, and psychology, concluding with an exploratory discussion of god, ethics, and the principle of non-contradiction. Stasinos Stravianeas relies on recent work by Charlotte Witt to argue that there are bad ends in nature, and he rightly suggests that in order to understand such ends we must recognize that Aristotle employs a scala naturae. The second section, which concerns practical philosophy, begins with three discussions of vice that focus on extreme cases. Pavlos Kontos differentiates the ways in which intemperance (akolasia) and brutishness (thēriotēs) are extreme vices, Howard Curzer discusses principles for ranking virtues and vices, and Giles Pearson contributes an exceptionally clear analysis of brutish behavior, plausibly arguing that Aristotle is a pioneer in psychopathology. Marta Jimenez argues that Aristotle's virtuous people can often remain happy despite misfortunes because they "grasp the hierarchy between the shameful, the harmful, and the painful" (169), and Richard Kraut follows with a discussion of the lowest constitutions in which he shockingly contends that Aristotle has a "dark conception of human nature" according to which many desire "to get away with any form of aggression (including violent sexuality) against anyone they choose" (188). The third section is described as dealing with "the presence of Aristotle in post-Aristotelian philosophy," but it seems a bit of a hodgepodge. Paul Kalligas discusses Plotinus's account of evil, but here Aristotle figures in a minor way. Kevin Flannery, S. J. reasonably detects "Aristotelian resonances" in Aquinas's account of evil as the "privation of good." However, neither here nor anywhere else in the volume is there an evaluation of whether Aquinas is right to think that Aristotle has a privation theory of evil; similarly, there is no discussion of whether the privation theory, which is of central importance to Thomistic philosophy, should be thought of as...

ТОМА АКВІНСЬКИЙ ПРО CREATIO EX NIHILO ТА ЗАРОДЖЕННЯ ЛЮДИНИ

Abstract. Introduction. The article is dedicated to the issue of generation in Thomistic philosophy as a result of a union between Christianity with its creeds of creation as it is described in the Holly Scripture, and ancient philosophy, specifically, on the basis of aristotelism, which appeals to the word formation involving different agents instead of only superior Creator. The main problem is connected with the fact that indifferent Prime Mover, as it is shown by Aristotle, highly contradict the very idea of caring God who is engaged into lives of created things. Purpose. The main purpose of the article is to show the link between processes of animate and inanimate creation ex nihilo, as well as, to demonstrate the co-dependence between the notion of creation with the act-potency ideas as the most significant conceptions of metaphysics. Methods. The method of original sources analysis (textological method) was useful for explaining the main concepts of Aquinas, whereas hermeneutical method was beneficial for discovering these notions in the corpus of texts as a whole. Results. Though exploring the texts, it was proved that in accordance with Aquinas the Creator is able to generate only ex nihilo, which means that nothing can precede this act: neither forms or matters, nor ideas or even natural laws. What God gives to the creatures though the process is the act of being which is distant from the essence in creatures but equal with essence in God himself. The matter becomes a reason of individuation, whereas the form refers to the species. Still, the God creates the souls as forms directly without any inbetweener involved, whereas the different agents are engaged in the process of creation forms. Originality. Thus, it is demonstrated in the article the ways Aquinas is able to solve the problem connected with different types of generation, which is useful in making ancient philosophy accompany Christianity. Moreover, the main metaphysical axioms are described in the article: the axiom of simplicity and axiom of perfection. Both become a basis of Thomistic philosophy, specifically from the perspective of generation.

Religious Presuppositions of Logic and Rationality

There is a crisis in philosophical rationality today—in which modern logicisimplicated—thatcanbetracedtotheabandonmentofacommonbackground of principles. The situation has no parallel within the pre-modern tradition, which not only admits of such principles (as an unproblematic presumption), but also refers them back to a set of assumptions grounded in a clearly religious frame of mind. Modern conceptions of rationality claim complete independence from religious sources, as from tradition more generally, and typically end up disposing of first principles altogether. The result is a fragmentation of reason, which can be seen to be dramatically exemplified in the realm of modern logic, populated by countless different systems and incompatible conceptions of what it is to be a logic. Many of the conceptual choices that became implicit in the philosophical discussions eventually leading to the rejection of the religious picture, and ultimately to the aforementioned crisis, were themselves originally linked to religious premises, so that all along, a kind of religious subconscious has subsisted throughout those disputations; however, the lack of any proper recognition of this background obstructs the possibility of making a reasonable assessment of the nature and causes of the crisis. Alasdair MacIntyre, whose thought inspires the argument developed here, reached similar conclusions regarding practical (or moral) rationality and the effects of abandoning the teleological framework of Aristotelian (and Thomistic) philosophy. MacIntyre’s arguments can be adapted, as he suggests, to deal with reason more generally, and his insistence upon the tradition-laden character of rational enquiry can help point toward the grounding of human reason in religion.

Paradise, Pleasure and Desire: Edenic Delight in Some Late-Medieval Dramatic Fragments

In this paper I explore the concepts of delight and pleasure, and consider their relationship with medieval descriptions of the biblical Paradise. After briefly introducing relevant historiography, I consider the changing descriptions and interpretations of Paradise, from the biblical text to later medieval works. I then explore the taxonomies of pleasure and delight in Augustinian and Thomist philosophy. Finally I turn to three late-medieval dramatic texts, all of which share an interest in Paradise, and explore the ways in which these texts utilise the contemporary understanding of delight in order to reinforce their didacticism.