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1. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 96 > Issue: 1
David Svoboda Formal Abstraction and its Problems in Aquinas
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Formal abstraction is a key instrument Aquinas employs to secure the possibility of mathematics conceived as a theoretical Aristotelian science. In this concept, mathematics investigates quantitative beings, which are grasped by means of formal abstraction in their necessary, universal, and changeless properties. Based on this, the paper divides into two main parts. In the first part (section II) I explicate Aquinas’s conception of (formal) abstraction against the background of the Aristotelian theory of science and mathematics. In the second part (section III) I present and critically assess the problems associated with formal abstraction in mathematics. With all due respect to Aquinas’s genius, I find his conception of formal abstraction (as well as mathematics) unsatisfactory and list the main reasons for its failure in the conclusion.
2. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 96 > Issue: 1
Elliot Polsky Secondary Substance and Quod Quid Erat Esse: Aquinas on Reconciling the Divisions of “Substance” in the Categories and Metaphysics
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Modern commentators recognize the irony of Aristotle’s Categories becoming a central text for Platonic schools. For similar reasons, these commentators would perhaps be surprised to see Aquinas’s In VII Metaphysics, where he apparently identifies the secondary substance of Aristotle’s Categories with a false Platonic sense of “substance” as if, for Aristotle, only Platonists would say secondary substances are substances. This passage in Aquinas’s commentary has led Mgr. Wippel to claim that, for Aquinas, secondary substance and essence are not the same thing and that Aristotle’s notion of essence is absent from the Categories. This paper—by closely analyzing the apparently contradictory divisions of “substance” in Aquinas’s In V and VII Metaphysics—shows that essence and secondary substance are not altogether distinct for Aquinas. Moreover, when the Categories is viewed by Aquinas as a work of logic, it is found largely to cut across the disputes between Platonism and Aristotelianism.
3. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 96 > Issue: 1
William Matthew Diem Just Pain: Aquinas on the Necessity of Retribution and the Nature of Obligation
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Although it is common in the Catholic moral tradition to hear punishment spoken of as “just” and demanded by reason, it is remarkably difficult to say why reason demands that malefactors suffer or to articulate what is rendered to whom in punishment. The present essay seeks to fill this lacuna by examining Aquinas’s treatment of punishment. After examining several themes found in his work, the paper will conclude that the conceptual key to the reasonableness of punishment is to be found in the norm that demands contrapassum and that this norm is immediately derived from the same moral insight as the Golden Rule. Thus, the paper concludes, the notion of retribution is intimately and inextricably bound up in insights that are foundational to any coherent Christian ethics.
4. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 96 > Issue: 1
Alex Plato, Jonathan Reibsamen The Five Characters at Essay’s End: Re-examining Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy”
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Anscombe ends her seminal 1958 essay “Modern Moral Philosophy” with a presentation of five characters, each answering an ancient (and contemporary) question as to “whether one might ever need to commit injustice, or whether it won’t be the best thing to do?” Her fifth character is the execrated consequentialist who “shows a corrupt mind.” But who are the first four characters? Do they “show a mind”? And what precisely is the significance (if any) of her presenting those five just then? In this paper, we interpret Anscombe’s essay with an eye to making sense of her character presentation. We argue that the first four characters can be seen to embody the chief negative and positive doctrines of the essay and to thereby represent and charter a pluralistic school of anti-consequentialist ethics. The upshot is something exegetically interesting yet of broader philosophical importance.
5. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 96 > Issue: 1
Jacob J. Andrews Conformed by Praise: Xunzi and William of Auxerre on the Ethics of Liturgy
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The classical Confucian philosopher Xunzi proposed a naturalistic virtue ethics account of ritual: rituals are practices that channel human emotion and desire so that one develops virtues. In this paper I show that William of Auxerre’s Summa de Officiis Ecclesiasticis can be understood as presenting a similar account of ritual. William places great emphasis on the emotional power of the liturgy, which makes participants like the blessed in heaven by developing virtue. In other words, he has a virtue ethics of ritual closely aligned with that of Xunzi. Xunzi’s writings on ritual illuminate and enrich one’s reading of the Summa de Officiis. But unlike Xunzi, William is not a naturalist with regard to ritual: although much of William’s language about the causal power of liturgy can be explained in Xunzian terms, Christian liturgy has an irreducible supernatural element.
book review
6. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 96 > Issue: 1
Bonaventure Chapman Free Will And The Rebel Angels In Medieval Philosophy
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7. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 96 > Issue: 1
Philip J. Harold Phenomenology
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8. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 96 > Issue: 1
David Hershenov The Nature Of Human Persons: Metaphysics and Bioethics
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9. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 96 > Issue: 1
Glenn B. Siniscalchi Taking God Seriously: Two Different Voices
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10. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 96 > Issue: 1
Daniel John Sportiello Beyond The Self: Virtue Ethics And The Problem Of Culture: Essays In Honor Of W. David Solomon
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11. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 96 > Issue: 1
Joshua Taccolini Being Unfolded: Edith Stein On The Meaning Of Being
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