{"title":"Divine Esse Without Ontological Significance","authors":"Jameson Cockerell","doi":"10.5840/acpaproc2021423115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/acpaproc2021423115","url":null,"abstract":"In God Without Being, Jean-Luc Marion infamously argues that Thomas Aquinas is the progenitor of modern onto-theology and thus conceptual idolatry. Yet in 1995, Marion published an intensive study of Aquinas arguing he cannot be called an onto-theologian. Nevertheless, he reiterates a suspicion about the identification of God and Esse—in particular, how it has been understood by those following Aquinas. He ends with a challenge for Thomism as a living tradition: Divine Esse will not be onto-theological to the extent that it avoids ontological significance. We will argue that Aquinas would reject the exigency of speaking Divine Esse without ontological significance precisely because it is through it that he articulates God’s transcendence and incomprehensibility. Despite this opposition, there is a surprising and deeper complementarity to be seen: ontological significance for Aquinas carries its own veil of darkness which makes it more amenable to Marion’s demand than might be suspected.","PeriodicalId":82372,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71107685","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is Philosophy of Nature Irrelevant?","authors":"Daniel D. De Haan","doi":"10.5840/acpaproc2021423116","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/acpaproc2021423116","url":null,"abstract":"I contend that the classical approach of Thomists to internecine Thomist debates about the requirements for initiating the enquiries of natural philosophy and metaphysics generates an epistemological crisis which this classical approach cannot overcome on its own terms. Furthermore, the failure of this classical approach to resolve these intractable debates has all too often distracted and stymied Thomists from contributing to the real enquiries of philosophy of nature. This explains, in part, why the most cogent and influential defenders of a return to Aristotelian ideas concerning nature and their relevance to modern science, has come from analytic philosophers unconcerned with these classical Thomist debates. But Thomism need not render itself irrelevant to the philosophy of nature; or so I argue in this essay. I first present a surview of how a classical interpretation of Aristotle’s division of theoretical sciences generated these debates about the relationship between the subjects of metaphysics and natural philosophy. I then argue neither Wippel’s ingenious efforts to secure the autonomy of metaphysics from natural philosophy nor the arguments for the existence of an immaterial being of the natural philosophy first proponents succeed. Hence, the intractable stalemate between these Thomists. Drawing upon the insights of Alasdair MacIntyre I argue for an alternative approach that overcomes this epistemological crisis and helps to secure the relevance of Thomism to the enquiries of philosophy of nature.","PeriodicalId":82372,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71107699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rollen Edward Houser ACPA Aquinas Medal 2019","authors":"Daniel D. De Haan","doi":"10.5840/acpaproc201993125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/acpaproc201993125","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":82372,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association","volume":"196 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71107431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is Piety a Natural Virtue?","authors":"M. Lu","doi":"10.5840/ACPAPROC2021426118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ACPAPROC2021426118","url":null,"abstract":"Notwithstanding Aristotle’s own relative silence on the matter, in this paper I argue that piety is a natural (not supernatural) virtue of the Aristotelian kind. I begin with St. Thomas’s discussion of the virtues of religion and piety in which he shows how they both involve a recognition of human contingency and our radically dependent nature. Building off of this Thomistic analysis, I offer both an account of Aristotelian virtue in general and a phenomenological analysis of piety in particular, in which I situate piety with respect to the other Aristotelian virtues. Finally, I close with a discussion of a few natural objections, including questions about the limits of natural reason as well as considering why Aristotle himself did not explicitly treat piety as a moral virtue.","PeriodicalId":82372,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71107744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Defense of Natural Place in a Contemporary Scientific Context","authors":"T. McLaughlin","doi":"10.5840/ACPAPROC2021426119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ACPAPROC2021426119","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":82372,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71107754","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Aristotle on Activity as a Variety of Rest","authors":"Christopher Frey","doi":"10.5840/ACPAPROC202154128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ACPAPROC202154128","url":null,"abstract":"Aristotle employs three distinct but interrelated concepts of rest: kinetic rest, energic rest, and telic rest. The third variety, telic rest, is crucial to Aristotle’s natural philosophy. Anything that moves or acts by nature does so in part for the sake of realizing its form more completely. There is, in the fullest attainment of this good, a kind of rest without cessation or destruction. The peace that telic rest affords is not a kind of stasis; it consists in perfect and complete activity. By clarifying the varieties of rest Aristotle employs, I aim to provide a richer understanding of Aristotelian natures. By emphasizing the role of telic rest, I aim to illuminate a universal and perennial aspect of the human condition, an aspect that both drives us to gain knowledge of the natural world and unites us with that world’s divine cause.","PeriodicalId":82372,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71108066","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nature and Ethics","authors":"Joseph W. Koterski","doi":"10.5840/acpaproc2021421111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/acpaproc2021421111","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":82372,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71107673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What are persons made of?","authors":"Lisa Bellantoni","doi":"10.5840/ACPAPROC2002767","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ACPAPROC2002767","url":null,"abstract":"Many current debates between Catholic and secular bioethicists stalemate upon one central dispute: whether human dignity is a property persons bear at conception, or a product of social engagement, i.e., whether persons are born, or made. We need not resolve that dispute, however, to affirm two points that the prospect of human cloning should teach us. First, whether persons are born or made, whether we affirm a creationist, traducian, or even reincarnational view of the soul, the prospect of cloning highlights the inescapably communitarian dimensions of human dignity. Second, within a pluralist moral culture, we're best advised to conceive human dignity not only as a property ascribed to us through divine grace, but also as an ethical imperative to be inscribed, by us, in the dignifying social practices by which we bear and raise persons.","PeriodicalId":82372,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association","volume":"76 1","pages":"265-74"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2002-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71107719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What are persons made of?","authors":"Lisa Bellantoni","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Many current debates between Catholic and secular bioethicists stalemate upon one central dispute: whether human dignity is a property persons bear at conception, or a product of social engagement, i.e., whether persons are born, or made. We need not resolve that dispute, however, to affirm two points that the prospect of human cloning should teach us. First, whether persons are born or made, whether we affirm a creationist, traducian, or even reincarnational view of the soul, the prospect of cloning highlights the inescapably communitarian dimensions of human dignity. Second, within a pluralist moral culture, we're best advised to conceive human dignity not only as a property ascribed to us through divine grace, but also as an ethical imperative to be inscribed, by us, in the dignifying social practices by which we bear and raise persons.</p>","PeriodicalId":82372,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association","volume":"76 ","pages":"265-74"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2002-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25130169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Minutes of the 2020 Executive Council Meeting","authors":"Michael Baur","doi":"10.5840/ACPAPROC20047831","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ACPAPROC20047831","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":82372,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71107379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}